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L.I. Underhill is a media critic and historian specializing in pop culture, with a focus on science fiction (especially Star Trek) and video games. Their projects include a critical history of Star Trek told through the narrative of a war in time, a “heretical” history of The Legend of Zelda series and a literary postmodern reading of Jim Davis' Garfield.

2 Comments

  1. Gilly
    September 20, 2017 @ 8:57 pm

    Hey Bloodmoon’s back. I’m rather liking this series: its like homework, but fun.

    Anyway, starting with your observation on the city of the dead being flooded, well I think this links to water being viewed as portals to other realms, in particular a land of the dead (the river styx comes to mind here).

    I’d also like to point out that I noticed that Rayne was hurt by the water. I recall reading some where that the idea of vampires being hurt by water comes from the link between vampires and disease, with water associated with cleaning and therefore healing. However, I haven’t seem any evidence of vampires being metaphors for disease so far. Instead, it makes more sense if they are hurt due to water’s link to the lands of the dead. Vampires straddle the boundary between the living and the dead, and the lands of the dead attempt to pull them back even as they feed on the living to maintain their state.

    Now moving onto your questions on vampires and sexuality, there’s the obvious aspect of blood drinking and power dynamics, which does rather fit into Rayne’s dominatrix theme and indeed into the power fantasy aspect of playing Rayne. However, now I’ve looked up Rayne’s father a little, I think there’s a little more going on. Rayne’s father is a patriarchal figure, enjoying power over and stealing the life of those he prey’s on in a way that is at the very least coded as sexual. Rayne is his own power turned against him, the vengeful masses and the consequences of his actions coming back to (excuse the pun) bite him.

    Reply

    • Josh Marsfelder
      September 28, 2017 @ 7:07 pm

      Great ideas 🙂 I’m really glad someone’s enjoying this series: It’s feeling pretty compromised considering what I originally wanted it to be, but I hope people still like it!

      The water thing in particular interests me, as I did a lot of research into that before I started work on this and honestly, I haven’t been able to find out where that bit of folklore supposedly comes from. As far as I know Hammer could’ve invented it, and that’s as good a reading as I’ve been able to see!

      Reply

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