Sexy Curses: Part 3

True Blood’s lead vampire, Bill, grudgingly works to accept his vampire existence. His main source of suffering, one that often comes up in modern stories of vampires, is the complete solitude he faces. Seeing his family and friends age and die while he remains undead. And this solitude exists for the original vampire as well – having to live eternally, not only without the love of one’s family but as a source of terror for them. Yet the cultural view of solitude, the tortured individual, has changed.

As the great Greek philosophers found in Dante’s first circle of hell, Limbo, explain, their sole punishment in Hell is separation from God. To some modern readers, Limbo doesn’t sound like hell. But Dante’s culture valued God’s presence as the singular reason for existence. A vampire must live eternally not only without God’s presence, but without one of God’s greatest gifts: free will. The punishment fits the crime: by misusing God’s gift of free will in life – choosing to sin – the vampire is without it in eternal undeath. That is why feeds on its family and friends, in complete solitude, separated from God…