Theory on the origins of the vampire courts. What makes a vampire a vampire?
Spoilers up to Twelve Months main book, Out Law novella, and some graphic novels. Apologies as well for the disgraceful punctuation/grammar to follow. This is long so if you’re going to comment please read fully before commenting.
A thought occurred to me while mulling over some details from Twelve Months and Out Law and I’m wondering how plausible this is. Can anyone disprove this for me if I missed something? There might not be enough evidence to prove this right or wrong, I’m not sure yet.
Spoilers starting here.
I’m wondering if all of the vampire courts could be outsiders in one form or another.
Confirmed information:
In Twelve Months we learn that the White Court vampires were made after ancient Etruscan sorcerers bound a powerful outsider inside one of their bodies. Once bound the outsider then forced itself on one of the other sorcerers present resulting in the eventual birth of the first White Court vampire. This first White Court vampire was born in a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with a “Hunger” which turned out to be a “larva” from that original, more powerful, outsider.
My admittedly weak/circumstantial “evidence”:
Vampires should all be linked somehow since they are all in the category of “Vampires”. My first thought was that the only link had to be that they have to feed on human life forces in some way, but if that was the only link that makes all Vampires vampires it’s a bit weak. There are plenty of supernatural creatures that feed on humans and human life forces. If that was the only metric then Ghouls would also be a form of vampire; they feed on humans the same way Black Court Vampires do. It can’t be a regional point of origin for the species because the Red Court and Jade Court originate on different continents than the White and Black courts. It can’t be that they’re all undead because the White Court are clearly living creatures (I believe this also applies to the Red Court when they existed). It also can’t be that their only possible food source is humans because we know Black Court can feed on White Court (biting Lara) and White Court has been shown to feed on scions (Irwin) and einherjaren. So aside from folklore naming conventions what links all vampires together enough for them to be their own supernatural category?
The Lurker (the Red Thirst’s brother/servant) in Out Law resembles two outsiders we’ve seen already. Nemesis and the Shoggoth. As far as I recall we haven’t encountered a hive mind entity like the Lurker that wasn’t an outsider like Nemesis. The appearance of the Lurker’s true form is reminiscent of the Shoggoth from War Cry but much smaller/weaker. Both are described as “lovecraftian” and we know the outsiders are heavily based on Lovecraft’s Old Ones (vice versa in canon). “The Lurker in the Shadows” is a rather similar naming convention to “He Who Walks Beside/Before/Behind”, “The Sleeper”, “The Lord of Slowest Terror”, and “The Adversary” which are all outsiders. The Lurker being referred to as a “demon” doesn’t bar it being an outsider as the White Court Hungers are also often called “demons”. By relation the Red Thirst (the entity behind the Red Court Vampires’ existence) who is called the Lurker’s brother, another “demon”, has similar motifs as the White Court Hungers (Thirst and Hunger). I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out the Black Court urges are called the Famished (joke not evidence).
The Black Court vampires were originally created by Drakul who is a Starborn. Starborn are largely special because of their higher influence over outsiders. If random ancient Etruscan sorcerers could bind a powerful outsider, resulting in the White Court, it’s entirely plausible that a Starborn as powerful as Drakul could do the same to create the Black Court. Maybe this could also explain why Drakul’s eyes are described as pitch black like the Red Court vampires’ eyes.
The Red Court works with outsiders. Throughout the White Council/Red Court war the Red court are seen working with outsiders in multiple attacks and they tried to release the Shoggoth outsider. They could have learned of the Shoggoth by spying on the Venatori but it also could have been through the general outsider hive mind if the Red Thirst is an outsider. Granted it is also possible that their coordination with outsiders during the war was entirely based on Black Council/The Circle forces like Cowl or Peabody similar to the attack in the Raith Deeps.
So what are the chances that the one thing that links the vampire courts into a single category is that they are all possessed by outsiders?
Possible Counterpoints or irrelevant:
Canon is a bit dodgy on whether or not Black Court can retain their original personalities. The named vampire from the “It’s my Birthday too” short story, Constance Bushnell (Drulinda), clearly retained her original personality after being turned into a Black Court vampire. On the other hand Harry and Ramirez repeatedly say that Wild Bill and Yoshimo are dead and gone with nothing left of who they were. They repeatedly refer to putting their “corpses” to rest. The implication for these statements being now that Wild Bill and Yoshimo are Black Court their original personalities are completely gone. If the vampire courts are actually outsiders/outsider possessed it could be similar to Nemesis for how much of their personality they retain. We’ve seen Nfected characters who were crazy but still themselves (Aurora, Maeve, the Red King, Victor Sells, FBI agents, etc), and those that were fully suppressed (Justine and Leanansidhe). Leanansidhe was fighting Nemesis in Proven Guilty but we saw her get fully possessed a few times during her conversation with Dresden. So even when possessed by an outsider there’s a spectrum of how much personality the character retains- full personality (Lara Raith), no personality (Justine).
We also have the question of whether outsiders are weak to faith symbols or not. I don’t remember if it was Ebenezar or Listens to Wind but one of them said that during their retreat from the outsiders in Proven Guilty they might not have made it if it wasn’t for Michael. This establishes that outsiders can be harmed by the Swords which are directly empowered by The White God/angels. I don’t recall any scenes where outsiders were held off by general symbols of faith like a cross, Harry’s necklace, etc the way that Red and Black Court vampires are. The White Court as of the end of Twelve Months do seem to possibly be weak to symbols of faith, to a very small extent, as the rabbi’s shofar caused them minor pain. There is the chance that the rabbi’s shofar had a particular Holy power, like the Swords, aside from faith alone. Without more details on the rabbi’s shofar it seems to be a 50/50 chance between the shofar being a faith symbol or a genuine Holy Relic like the Swords.
Unrelated musing: the faith point makes me wonder if the vampire weaknesses are meant to mirror the virtues of the Swords on purpose. Red and Black Court are weak to Faith (Fidelacchius the Sword of Faith) and the White Court are weak to Love (Amoracchius the Sword of Love). It would be interesting to find a vampire court weak to Hope (Esperacchius the Sword of Hope), then that would just complete the trio.
Stronger Counter evidence:
The Red King was Nfected by Nemesis so with the Red King first being possessed by the Red Thirst this theory would make the Red King be possessed by two outsiders at once. As far as I remember we’ve never seen multiple outsiders possess a single body so that might not be possible, therefore disproving my theory. Also there’s the simple fact that there are no concrete connections, just the aforementioned weak links and similar motifs between the vampire courts and outsiders.
TLDR: I have a theory that all of the vampire courts are actually possessed by outsiders and that is what makes them “vampires”. Feel free to prove me wrong if there are any details I forgot or misunderstood that shatter this idea entirely. Since Mirror Mirror is meant to divulge the details on Starborn and Outsiders this theory might be disproven entirely in the first chapter of the next book.