Would Vampires Be Able to Drink The Blood of Christ?
Listen, if we, in this thought experiment, take transubstantiation (key Catholic doctrine that says the Eucharist ((communion wafers)) and wine are miraculously transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ) literally, the wine turns into *real* blood right? And not just any blood, the most nourishing and sating blood of like, all time. Life-giving blood.
[John 6:54, "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day."]
And what do vampires famously gain nourishment from? You guessed it! Blood. Usually from other people! Or animals and/or blood bags if you're trying to be an ethical vampire, but in almost every single vampire related media I've seen, it's not usually as satisfying as blood from a human and usually drives vampires to get some sort of all-consuming hunger that leads to the goring of a human, or something similar.
The only issue with this is that in most media, religious symbols and blessed items tend to hurt vampires and the occult. But I'd like to say that to service my theory, more often than not, most religious symbols such as holy water or crucifixes sharpened into wooden stakes don't harm them because they're religious, but because any sharpened wood could be a stake if you're pedantic enough, and in some lore any running or moving water is harmful to vampires because I think running water is its purest form, or at least that's what I've read. So it's more semantics than anything, and we're having to make huge generalizations anyway because there isn't one totally unifying lore for vampires because all media handles them differently, like some vampires being able to eat human food but not gain any nutrients from it, and other vampires being repulsed by human food. But I digress. Essentially, we're thinking in the most generic and literal terms.
So with all of this in mind, and if we go with the theory that blessed items are not particularly harmful to vampires, or if they are they aren't instant killing, one could assume that a vampire could, in fact, live off of transubstatiated wine, or Jesus's blood.
The best part about this deal is that, theoretically, any vampire that was baptized as Catholic could literally just abide by regular doctrine and be the most ethical vampire if they just went to mass every day (or however frequently they must to sate their hunger). They could live off of free, certifiably uncontaminated (because it doesn't start out as blood until after transubstantiation, so it's the freshest on the market!) and essentially magic holy blood for their entire life and not have to worry about a blood resource again, because technically! This blood specifically is blood from a human, God Himself, and an unfathomable otherworldly entity, which is probably the most alive blood can get.
And, what's even better, is that vampires who aren't Catholic could do a couple of classes, get confirmed, and then cash in on the infinite money glitch that is the Blood of Christ. The rules for who's allowed to drink from the communion line is also super loosey goosey in most cases, so they could literally just convert on paper and become an Easter Catholic and STILL technically be the most ethical vampire.
AND! If they have any mishaps (though this most likely only applies to events that take place off church grounds, it's safe to say if you go full vampire mode in the middle of mass you WILL be banned or something) and drink someone or do something particularly vampirey and don't have anyone to talk to about it, they can go to confession and talk to a priest about it because priests are bound by The Seal of Confession, or the Sacramental Seal, and are forbidden from sharing any information you confess to them in confession.
I've been thinking about this a lot specifically because not everyone that gets turned into a vampire starts off as prime evil. Hell, more often than not most vampires are innocent victims of far older vampires that went too far and turned them for whatever reason. So, for the grand majority of people that really don't want to kill other people, I feel like this would be the best solution, and the most ethical way to be a vampire.
Now we get into the fun stuff because,
I wonder if aside from being more ethically sound, there are more benefits from holy blood than we think?
Holy blood could be considered a type of super food at this point! We could even say that, for the benefit of those who do like the idea of holy/blessed items harming vampires, it's something that takes time to build a taste for? Like a really spicy food? But eventually you build up a tolerance and start seeing real benefits. Or on the opposite side of the spectrum, it could be super potent compared to regular human blood?
Hell, maybe it could reverse a large majority of vampiric side effects!
What if good behavior and blessings lead to tons of different metaphorical biblical blessings or traditions being taken literally, like basking in God's light meaning you can be in the sun again, stay full for longer because "God's love nourishes us", be able to partake in human food (but as a recreational food; not a secondary source of nourishment, like junk food) again because feasting and merriment is a big staple of Catholic Culture, or even be in running water because baptism is, oh I don't know, one of the first Sacraments that almost every Catholic participates in?
The possibilities are truly endless and it almost makes me want to write a book about it or something lol
But that's just my theory.
Thank you for going on this journey with me.
The funniest part about all of this is that, the only reason this occurred to me was because I've got a Jesus mii on my Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream island, and he's good friends with both Astarion (Baldurs Gate 3) and Aiden (Being Human, US) and I was trying to figure out how they existed comfortably in the same space. Obviously everyone is a child of god whether or not they're particularly religious and/or if they're sinners, (again, just a generalization but it's biblical canon), but Jesus also tends to be cheeky when it comes to ridding people of all their problems/illnesses/"crosses to bare"/etc, so in my brain I assumed the two stayed as vampires, but since their isn't a mii-on-mii blood drinking mechanic, I figured, maybe they aren't drinking live? So then why are they both so sane? Blood of Christ. BINGO!
So there you go, thank you for coming to my ted talk.
