WEBVTT

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Good evening!

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What's the matter?

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Are you afraid of vampires?

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He he, no need to worry,

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I'm not staying for dinner.

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(Laughter)

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I'm here to guide you
through a brief history of vampires,

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illustrating how our image has changed

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from a shambling corpse

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to the dapper gentleman
you see before you.

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Vampires are nearly as old as you humans.

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Stories about us, revenants,

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appear in cultures extending
as far back as prehistoric times.

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But we weren't called vampires back then

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and most of us did not look the way
we imagine vampires today.

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Ha, far from it!

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For example, the Mesopotamian Lamashtu

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was a creature with the head of a lion
and the body of the donkey,

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and the ancient Greek striges

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were simply described
as bloodthirsty birds.

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Others were even stranger.

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The Philippine manananggal
would sever her upper torso

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and sprout huge, bat-like wings to fly.

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The Malaysian penanggalan
was a flying female head

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with dangling entrails.

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(Laughter)

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And the Australian Yara-ma-yha-who

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was a little red guy with a big head,

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a large mouth,

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and bloodsuckers on his hands and feet.

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Oh, and let's not forget
the Caribbean's soucouyant,

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the West African obayifo,

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and the Mexican Tlahuelpuchi.

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(Laughter)

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Charming, aren't they?

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Though they may look vastly different,

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all of these beings have
one common characteristic:

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They sustain themselves by consuming
the life force of a living creature.

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This shared trait
is what defines a vampire --

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all the other attributes
change with the tides.

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So, how do we arrive

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at the reanimated fellow
you see before you?

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Our modern ideal emerges
in 18th-century Eastern Europe.

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With the dramatic increase
of vampire superstitions,

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stories of bloodsucking, shadowy creatures

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become nightly bedside terrors.

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And popular folklore,

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like the moroi among the Romani people

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and the lugat in Albania,

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provide the most common
vampire traits known today,

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such as vampires being undead

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and nocturnal and shape-shifting.

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You see, Eastern Europe
in the 18th century

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was a pretty grim place

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with many deaths occurring
from unknown diseases and plagues.

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Without medical explanations,
people searched for supernatural causes

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and found what looked like evidence
in the corpses of the victims.

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When villagers dug up bodies

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to discern the cause
of the mysterious deaths,

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they would often find the cadavers

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looking very much alive --

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longer hair and fingernails,

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bloated bellies,

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and blood at the corners of mouths.

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(Laughter)

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Clearly, these people
were not really dead.

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Heh, they were vampires!

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And they had been leaving their graves

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to feast on the living.

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(Grunt)

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The terrified villagers
would quickly enact

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a ritual to kill the undead.

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The practices varied across the region,

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but usually included beheadings,

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burnings, and staking
the body to the coffin

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to prevent it from getting up.

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(Laughter)

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Grizzly stuff!

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But what the villagers interpreted
as unholy reanimation

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were actually normal symptoms of death.

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When a body decomposes,
the skin dehydrates,

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causing the hair
and fingernails to extend.

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Bacteria in the stomach creates gases

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that fill the belly,

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which force out blood
and matter through the mouth.

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Unfortunately, this science
was not yet known,

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so the villagers kept digging.

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In fact, so many bodies were dug up

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that the Empress of Austria

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sent her physician around
to disprove the vampire stories,

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and she even established a law
prohibiting grave tampering.

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Still, even after the vampire
hunts had died down,

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the stories of legends survived
in local superstition.

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This led to works of literature,
such as Polidori's "The Vampyre,"

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the Gothic novel "Carmilla,"

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and, most famously,
Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

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Although Stoker incorporated
historical material,

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like Elizabeth Báthory's
virgin blood baths

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and the brutal executions of Vlad Dracul,

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it was these local myths

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that inspired the main
elements of his story:

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the Transylvanian setting,

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using garlic to defend oneself,

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and the staking of the heart.

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While these attributes
are certainly familiar to us,

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elements he invented himself
have also lasted over the years:

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fear of crucifixes,

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weakness in sunlight,

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and the vampire's inability
to see their reflection.

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By inventing new traits,

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Stoker perfectly enacted
the age-old tradition

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of elaborating upon and expanding
the myth of vampires.

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As we saw, maybe you met my relatives,

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a huge of variety of creatures
stalked the night before Dracula,

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and many more will continue
to creep through our nightmares.

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Yet, so long as they subsist
off a living being's life force,

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they are part of my tribe.

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Even sparkling vampires can be included.

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After all, it's the continued storytelling
and reimagining of the vampire legend

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that allows us to truly live

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forever.

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(Ominous laughter)