Do the Dead Walk?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 88927

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Campbell, 
Anne-TMC-Rcvg" <silverthorne.dragon at v...> wrote:
> {Pippin}
> You know, I've been mulling over Kneasy's vampire challenge, 
> and I'm not sure there are *any* undead in the Potterverse. 
> 
> {Anne}
> Aw, Pip...don't give up. I Don't think Kneasy (or any of us really) 
is challenging the existence of undead Vampires in the HP 
world, simply WHO happens to be one. <<

*I* am challenging the existence of undead Vampires. In fact, I 
challenge the existence of undead in the Potterverse, period.  I 
hereby state the theory that all the things that look like undead or 
have a reputation in real life folklore  as undead, *including 
vampires* are something else. They are manifestations like 
poltergeists, ghosts and Dementors that have no ties to a mortal 
body. Or they are illusions. Or they are living magical creatures 
and can eat, breathe and reproduce --like the Thestrals, the 
Veela and the Ghouls--I can't believe I forgot them.

Anne:
>>All any person in the Anti Vampire!Snape lobby wants is actual 
proof pointing directly to Snape--and not just 
indications--"batlike" attributes, flowing cloak, etc. Like in a
court 
of law, what we're asking for is irrefutable evidence in which to 
convict Snape with.<<

And all it will take to make me give up is irrefutable evidence that 
Snape is not kin to vampires *as Rowling has defined them.* 
The second he asks for a second helping of aioli sauce or 
produces a family tree showing pureblood wizards all  the way 
back to Merlin (wait! wasn't he a devil's son?) I'll give in. 

So far, no such evidence has been presented. Maybe his grudge 
against Sirius is so deep that he won't eat with him, (in which 
case it's odd that he's willing to sit down with Lupin) but that too 
is just an implication.  There's  things that *imply* he's a 
pureblood wizard, such as being in Slytherin and calling Lily a 
Mudblood (ever hear of the pot and the kettle?), but they don't 
prove it. 

> {Pippin}
> Point is, there are a lot of things in the Potterverse that can
look 
> like re-animated corpses, and several ways in which wizards 
> might produce such an illusion, the better to befuddle hapless 
> Muggles or even superstitious wizarding folk. 
> 
> Is there anything we know about vampires *from the canon* 
> which suggests they are dead, apart from their appearance? 
> We've been told in several places that Muggle ideas about 
> fantastic creatures are wildly inaccurate. Could it be that one of 
> these inaccurate notions is the whole idea of a re-animated 
corpse?
> 
> {Anne}
> Possible, but as with the other observations made about 
Rowling's use of Myths, not likely. The universally accepted idea 
of the vampire is a walking, reanimated corpse, who feeds on 
the blood of the living (Which, if taken literally, even disqualifies 
the blood flavored lollis in Honeydukes as an indication of Vamp 
activity--the blood within is anything BUT fresh). <<

Right. And the universally accepted idea of a Ghoul is a creature 
who lives in graveyards and feeds on corpse flesh. But in the 
Potterverse it's a harmless if rather ugly beastie that lives in 
attics and eats spiders and moths. 

And what about the wizards and witches themselves?  How 
close are they to their folkloric counterparts? It seems to me that 
Dumbledore owes a lot more to Gandalf, Obi-wan and T.H. 
White's Merlin than he does to anything on the folklore shelf.

Pippin