I know why the vampire sparkles!
I finally read Twilight, and after hours of internet research, I’ve found a solution to a major problem I had with the story. I know why the vampire sparkles!
Of course, innate body glitter is just the latest thing wrong with vampires at large, so I’ll start with the broader picture and work my way to the answer to that new riddle.
First, I assert that vampires must be giant, highly evolved insects. That makes sense because most of the hematophages in the natural world are bugs.
Second, like many real bloodsuckers, vampires must feed before they reproduce. However, unlike anything in the natural world, vampires seem to reproduce entirely through horizontal gene transfer. If they don’t kill their victim outright, then vampire genes invade the host and trigger…
Metamorphosis. According to Twilight, the process takes days and is excruciatingly painful, which is logical given that the victim undergoes complete hystolysis and histogenesis without the benefit of a pupal stage, let alone general anesthesia.
But wait! How do vampires retain the memories of their human lives? Well, butterflies are apparently able to remember things they learned as caterpillars. While it’s doubtful that the same processes would apply identically to higher-order animals, anything is apparently possible with enough suspension of disbelief.
Furthermore, vampires appear to be ectothermic, or never warmer than their environment. ‘Cold-blooded’, in other words. Their stone-like ‘skin’ also seems more like an exoskeleton than warm, soft, human tissue.
What about vampires’ superhuman abilities? The Tiger Beetle is technically ‘the fastest running land animal’. The strongest animal is the world is the horned dung beetle. Insects also have incredible vision; most see colors invisible to humans and bees see in color at five times the speed we’re able. Vampires and other insects don’t breathe like we do, nor do they possess a human heartbeat. As an added bonus, invertebrates are notoriously hard to kill.
By now, I’m sure you’re all with me; vampires are bugs. But what kind? It took me a while to figure it out, but now I’m convinced that vampires are nothing more than overgrown, parasitic…
There you have it. Vampires are gorgeous, metamorphosis is a key part of their development, and they are natural experts at camouflage and mimicry. Some butterflies have even been observed feeding on blood.
Why do they sparkle? That’s easy: Vampires, like butterflies, are covered in tiny iridescent scales.
i do not care what the actual history of legit vampires are i just want the explanation for the pathetic ones in twilight. And for that you are my hero. thanks.
You’re welcome! Speculating about this was the best part of reading the book, ha.
[...] boys and girls, they might sparkle … if they were insects! Butterflies, to be more [...]
Ahahahah… you know what’s really funny? There’s a tradition in Chinese mythology of a kind of vampire called an ‘ubo’ which transforms into a white butterfly. Your logic is sound!
Sounds like convergent evolution of an idea, to me.
…that makes so much sense!
FINALLY IT ALL MAKES SENSE!
It…it all makes sense now…
If only there was this much thought put into the actual books. I think that a book based on the idea that vampires evolved from butterflies would be a fantastic and entirely original take on the lore.
I agree that this is most entertaining; however, I dont think you needed to punish yourself by reading the series to come up with this. Ive heard bleaching your eyes afterwords helps with the pain.
If this was Facebook, I would “like” this
[...] Kay Holt offers the Internet a comprehensive theory on the vampires from The Twilight series. Her conclusion: Vampires are [...]
I’m with Jason, abandon your derivative works and do an original vampires-as-insects, story. Like what Mimic could have been if it wasn’t awful.
Come on… youll beleive anything just so your idiotic story might make sense. first of all vampires are bats and second of all if you want this insect thing to even make sense dont choose a f-ing butterfly! I wish there was a way to block twilight posts from stumble upon… you guys are making me loose my faith in humanit all over again.
thanx ced… this shit is out of hand… read your history of the mythology of vampires… vampire bats… your boy-friend meterial would rather rip you limb from limb just for a drink… even steven king said she was stupid. go read Ann Rice
I have to say to all the haters out there for this “fictional interpretation of a fictional interpretation of a myth” that its… um… Fantasy! I think it perfectly justified that the author of this description came up with something outside the accepted “norm” of vampire mythology to explain something from the movie that went outside the accepted “norm” of vampire mythology. Relax guys. Or I’ll sick my dragon on you. Oh wait, he’s chillin with the Unicorn. They just met their friend the Vampire in Atlantis for lunch. LOL. Its amazing how some people can get so fired up over something that is mostly romanticism anyway.
…Way to miss the humor, Ced.
Perhaps It’s me who’s being completely and utterly retarded but I’m pretty sure she’s just joking and not trying to justify the confused beings Meyer calls “Vampires”…perhaps.
I do hope you tighten that loose faith in humanit[y}. Really.
hahahaha!!! Love it
Too bad Stephanie Meyer is too much of a twit to have used any of this to back up her series of “books”.
i know what my summer reports on thanks lots but ill write it my own way (;
thats stupid….
Thank you, that actually helps a lot! It never made sense to me that vampires, predators, would have any sort of advantage if their prey saw them sparkling from far away…
I just figured pretty vampires with no teeth or lost souls made nicer imaginary-boyfriend material.
[...] Did you know that vampires are very close relatives of butterflies? [...]
This was greatness! It also explains why they are all so pretty, yet strangely asexual and reluctant to copulate with primates …
[...] the science behind why vampires sparkle! (Via Smart [...]
I love you.
[...] Science in my Fiction puts forth a theory explaining sparkly vampires. Meanwhile, I think I’ve found a new blog to [...]
[...] me a link to an interesting article on vampires (that would be sparklepires actually). Vampires as insects. If you write anything paranormal, doing research can be very [...]
[...] I Know Why the Vampire Sparkles! … now I’m convinced that vampires are nothing more than overgrown, parasitic… Butterflies! Vampires are gorgeous, metamorphosis is a key part of their development, and they are natural experts at camouflage and mimicry. Some butterflies have even been observed feeding on blood. Why do they sparkle? That’s easy: Vampires, like butterflies, are covered in tiny iridescent scales. [...]
I love your logic!
…although somehow I doubt Meyer’s decision for shiny vamps came from any deeper than “sparkly things are pretty!”.
[...] The possible science behind how Twilight vampires sparkle… [...]
One kills vampires with a stake through the heart. One displays butterflies with a pin through the abdomen. More proof, perhaps?
I have to say to all the haters out there for this “fictional interpretation of a fictional interpretation of a myth” that its… um… Fantasy! I think it perfectly justified that the author of this description came up with something outside the accepted “norm” of vampire mythology to explain something from the movie that went outside the accepted “norm” of vampire mythology. Relax guys. Or I’ll sick my dragon on you. Oh wait, he’s chillin with the Unicorn. They just met their friend the Vampire in Atlantis for lunch. LOL. Its amazing how some people can get so fired up over something that is mostly romanticism anyway.
you just single-handedly redeemed all of stephanie meyer’s work.
Wow, simply amazing!..i’m to stunned for words!!!
[...] guessing most of you have heard by now, but vampires have finally been explained by science. (They’re bugs.) Even the sparkliness of the Twilight vampires has been [...]
[...] Holt @ Science in My Fiction: I know why the vampire sparkles! By now, I’m sure you’re all with me; vampires are bugs. But what kind? It took me a while to [...]
I’d write a book about vampires and make them pee out there eyes every time they were in the sun if it made me millions of dollars. Besides sparkling makes just as much sense as burning in the sun.
no no no! lol, they’re Hard like a rock, cold and sparkle in the sun light, which is exactly what a SNOWMAN does after it rains a little, or just gets a chance to freeze over night really.
[...] Pues bien, gracias a Kay Holt, del blog I Like a Little Science in my Fiction, ya tenemos la explicación. Mira que si en lugar de una estaca a Buffy le hubiera bastado con un bote de Raid… GD Star [...]
So now all the little Twitards who dream of Edward and his “pale, marble-like skin that shimmers like morning fog in the rising sunlight, and has the color of milk-and by the way just so happens to ALSO be damn pale” (among many other oh so varying descriptions) actually wanna do butterflies XD So either way, whether they chose Edward or Jacob, it’s still beastiality!
Thank you, brilliant one <3
You spent how much time figuring out how something make believe works? Dear Lord.
Not much, actually. Before I started reading Twilight, I was already researching biomimicry based on butterfly scales for a different article I’m working on. When I got to the end of the book, it was so awful I wanted to do something to recoup the loss of my time. So I wrote a humor post from the materials I had at hand. *shrug* I spent hours on the research, just not necessarily for this post.
[...] INSECTS, didja [...]
Will you marry me?