• Courtney (she/her/they) @lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    11 days ago

    I’ve always held that the occupant of a building must be the one to invite, not the owner.

    Reasoning: vampyric stories have been around since monarchies and nobility were the standard for landowners. The people in houses all over the kingdom didn’t own the houses or land, that belonged to some lord somewhere.

    So since the people still had to be wary of inviting in strangers. The vampire could enter if they, the occupant (but not owner) invited them in.

    Your best bet is to just stab everyone who asks to enter with a silver crucifix-stake dipped in garlic and holy water.

    • trashman@feddit.org
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      10 days ago

      Your best bet is to just stab everyone who asks to enter with a silver crucifix-stake dipped in garlic and holy water.

      Thank you! Finally some good and clear leagle advice on the internet!

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        11 days ago

        Depends on the myth. Silver “worked” because it was considered mystically pure.

        You know, despite tarnishing when you look at it funny.

        • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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          11 days ago

          tarnishing when you look at it funny.

          Didn’t use to before mass coal burning etc. released shittons of hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere, so appropriate to the era.

      • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip
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        10 days ago

        Mirrors were made out of silver and that’s the reason vampires are said to have no reflection. Silver was considered pure and holy.

    • Godric@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Counterpoint: people who had their folktales recorded weren’t mud-hut peasants, and probably owned their own homes.

      Your best bet is to strip nekkid, and double dog dare visitors to come in “against your will” while you have a potato cannon filled with wooden stakes handy.

      They come in? BAM, bye, trespasser!

      They run in fear? BAM, bye, bloodsucker!

    • Drewfro66@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 days ago

      I think your third paragraph here is the most important.

      The lesson of Vampire stories is to be wary of who you invite into your home. Technicalities over ownership are, I think, perversions of the point - anyone who could reasonably have the authority to invite a stranger into a place can invite a vampire.

      This is a bit of a non-sequitor, but I wonder how vampires would interact with those wires Jewish communities hang around their neighborhoods to mark them as religiously private spaces, since the idea is that they symbolize the threshold of an open door.