It’s with great pleasure that I welcome E.H. Drake to the blog. I met her when I reviewed the first book in her vampire trilogy, Blood Herring, and subsequently reviewed the sequels, Blood Renegade and Blood Renegade. But as well as an author, Drake is the host of a podcast and did me the honour of inviting me on, where I took part in a panel discussion. Without further ado, here’s Drake’s blog:
Why is it that Edward Cullen, a man pushing a hundred years old, goes absolutely coocoo bananas for a seventeen-year-old girl? Why doesn’t he simplify things by pretending to be in college, living with roommates, and investing in some index funds?
Meanwhile, in Interview with the Vampire, Claudia is stuck in the body of a child, yearning for the adult life she’s been robbed of. Yet, she still behaves with the emotional volatility of a toddler.
What gives?
Let’s eliminate the obvious first. No writer (that we know of) is immortal. Therefore, writing immortality is just a mental exercise in virtual reality. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about why these "ancient" beings are so immature. As a vampire author, I have a couple of theories.
Limits of the Human Mind
We tend to overestimate our minds. We believe we remember things as sharply as a 4K clarity, despite the fact that I can’t even remember why I walked into the kitchen five minutes ago.
Think about it. Nobody reading this remembers their own birth or the specific struggle of learning to walk. Every day, I take my ability to talk or write for granted, while my toddler takes forever to form a single sentence.
Even you, reading this blog right now, will likely only remember the gist of it when you’re done. You’ll remember how it made you feel or think, but the specific words will fade.
When you compound this limited mental space with hormones, personal bias, and trauma, we humans basically forget more than we remember.
We also know that the older we get, the more selective our memories become. Even putting aside conditions like Alzheimer's or dementia, if we make it to a hundred, we’re liable to hear stories about our own lives and have zero recollection. We'll have lived experiences we simply cannot access.
Now, crank up the dial. What if you were a thousand years old? Five thousand? As old as the pyramids of Egypt?
In this context, it makes sense that Claudia forgets the nuances of her human life. Is it any wonder she only starts rebelling against her "forever child" role in her sixties, while simultaneously throwing massive tantrums? She’s old enough to be a grandmother, but she’s working with a brain that has been deleting files for decades.
The "Frozen Brain" Theory
To really understand the lack of maturity, we have to look at the medical reality implied by becoming a vampire.
Take Edward. He was a young man on the edge of death, forced into an excruciating change and turned into a monster without so much as a “How do you do?”
Research on arrested psychological development suggests that severe trauma, especially in youth, can "freeze" a person's emotional maturity at the age the trauma occurred. It impairs emotional regulation and leads to poor impulse control.
The Peter Pan Problem
We've discussed the emotional side, but let's go a step further.
In most vampire lore, when you turn, your physical development stops. You are a snapshot in time. If your whole body stops aging, what does that mean for the brain?
Neuroscience tells us that the Prefrontal Cortex, the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and rational decision-making, doesn't fully mature until your mid-20s. If you are turned at 17, your brain never reaches the finish line. Your hormones stay the same. The logic center of your brain will forever be under-construction.
We often conflate age with wisdom, but medical history (like the famous case of Phineas Gage) shows that if the frontal lobe is damaged or stunted, personality and emotional regulation shift dramatically. Seriously, just look into head injuries with American Football. I'll wait.
This could be why Edward runs off to other countries at the drop of a hat or tries to flounce in sun. He isn't some old soul; he's just a teenager with a very long memory.
Even Claudia, yearning for an adult life, makes such irrational, impulsive choices. Her betrayal of Lestat is understandable, but it's executed with the short-sightedness of a child.
So, is it any wonder the mighty creatures of the night never really grow up? Every vampire story is a cocktail of physical and medical trauma, which is the perfect recipe for developmental stagnation. By the time we meet them, they have more in common with Peter Pan than they do with us, sad, aging mortals. I mean, think about it. Dracula doesn’t even cast a shadow.
But hey, I’m just a silly human woman exploring the trope.
Bio: E.H. Drake is an indie author living in the United States with her family. She loves dogs, almost anything with vampires, and reading three books at a time.
Her debut trilogy is a vampire-buddy cop mystery series, The Blood Herring Chronicles. She is currently working on young adult superhero and zombie western. You can find her books, podcast, and events at EHDrake.com.
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