Week 2- Interview with the Vampire

Due to a lot of the more recent vampire stories consisting of teenage romance with brooding mysterious handsome vampires being in love with a mortal girl, I thought the Interview with the Vampire was refreshing new, despite it seeming to be that this is what vampires were originally meant to be like: scary, bloody, violent, and vicious. What I found particularly intriguing was the pattern of killing and turning mortals into vampires, not just out of thirst for blood, but for more strategic purposes, like forcing mortal into the situation where they have no choice but to help the vampires because they are one of them now. Also, unlike the contemporary vampire stories where the immortal vampire just happens to meet a girl at school (why is an immortal being even still attending high school??? do they just go to school for hundreds of years for the funsies?) the vampires in this story have purpose. Although I can understand the appeal of the romantic view for the vampires due to the "forbidden love" aspect, I really do appreciate and enjoy vampire stories like this one much more. The thrill of killing out of necessity and turning a mortal into another being like yourself, turning on your own kind for your own survival or need, killing the vampire that turned you into a monster, etc, are much more interesting and enjoyable for me to read about than a girl who fell in love with a guy, whose only traits that sets him apart for humans are the facts he drinks blood, unnaturally pale, and doesn't sleep at night. It also has a more complex mentality as you read it, due to it asking questions of morality and the value of life.