Vampires: a rant
So I've been thinking about vampires lately. I'm writing a story that involves them, so I'm doing research to see what exactly I want for the lore of this world and how vampires function in it. I may post a thing chronicling everything when I think I have things down. But as I'm examining different portrayals of vampires in folklore and media, there is one thing that is really bothering me: vampires should be able to excrete waste.
I know this sounds absurd and crude, but seriously think about it. Really think about it. They should, and yet they really don't in most depictions or they just don't mention it at all. And I can understand why you would when writing a story. It's not really an important detail and is pretty gross to include, unless you want to go all in on worldbuilding your story. But regardless, vampire should have to use the bathroom. And a big reason why I believe this is because of the creature that shares their name: the vampire bat.
Vampire bats consume blood just like everyone knows. But these bats do poop like other bats that eat insects and fruit. And other hematophagous creature excrete waste as well. And humans who consume blood as food will obviously have to use the bathroom after it's digested, although I will admit that foods with blood are often only partially composed of blood and have other foodstuff in it. But still. It is in the laws of nature that when an organism consumed something, it uses whatever nutrients are in there to the best of its ability and then gets rid of the waste. For as powerful vampires are and having all those cool abilities, I doubt that they have the ability to completely use up consumed blood and everything in the blood.
I even found this nifty video on what the biology of a vampire would entail and how the transformation would occur and the narrator did say that vampires would have the need to excrete waste from the blood the consumed. I won't go into full detail as what was said, but the narrator said that when consuming blood, the vampire would need to dispose of the excess nitrogen gotten through the consumption of blood through urination.
Now I'm not saying that this is something to be hyper focused on, but it is definitely something that I think should be thought about more. Vampires have this glamourous image of being so perfect and powerful and beyond humanity that I think it's interesting to think that they still would have to deal with one of the most mundane but necessary parts of being alive.
And while I would ordinarily end a rant here, there is still one more thing I'd like to talk about but this time it applies to a very specific vampire media. I had never heard of this anywhere else so I assume it is something that the creators made up for their work but it really bothers me.
So I've never seen anything What We Do in the Shadows. Neither the movie or the tv show. But I've been reading this fic on AO3 called Superb Owls & Other Oddities by wrongpedaldamnit. For context, it's a The Owl House fic that takes place in the world of What We Do in the Shadows. I recommend it if you like The Owl House and What We Do in the Shadows. But I'm not here to talk about the fic and the things that happen in it (that's for another rant), I'm here to talk about the transformation process into a vampire.
Basically, what wrongpedaldamnit's fics say is that when a human is turning into a vampire, they will vomit up their entire digestive system. There isn't much detail put into what organs exactly exit the body, but for this thought experiment, let's just stick with just the gastrointestinal tract (esophagus, stomach, and intestines) and ignore the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder (we will come back to these organs).
I will say that this is an interesting aspect of the vampiric transformation that I haven't seen before. My problem with it is that it seriously confuses me on so many levels. So these vampires are drinking blood right? Where the heck is the blood supposed to go if you are missing the majority of the organs in your abdomen? When food is consumed by humans, it travels down the esophagus and into the stomach to be digested. It then travels through the intestines to be broken down further and extract all the nutrients the body possibly can. Eventually, the waste exits the body. Simple.
But how are vampires supposed to process the blood they've consumed if the have no GI tract? Some lines in the fic imply that while a vampire could swallow normal food, it would just sit there inside of them and not be processed due to not having a digestive system and that makes sense. But how does that work with the blood they are constantly consuming? Does the blood go down their throat and and just spill into the empty void in their torso where all the organs used to be? Does it slowly get absorbed into the body and if it did, how would it do that? Would the other organs I mentioned (liver, pancreas, gallbladder) just be swimming in a soup of blood? Would a vampire be able to feel the blood sloshing around inside them with an even greater degree of motion than a human? I feel like that would cause nausea. Ugh.
And then there's the whole deal with vampires being able to get drunk and high. In order to do so, they have to drink the blood of a drunk or high person, which raises its own series of questions like: How do vampires get a hold of such blood in their clubs and bars? Do they just capture and give humans the substances that would make them drunk or high? Do they drain them of all their blood once they are in an intoxicated state? How do they drain them, like do they use an IV or string them up and let the blood drip out? There's so much that I want answered. But back to the subject at hand.
In humans, alcohol and drugs are metabolized mostly in the liver and then absorbed into the bloodstream. So does the same happen for vampires? If we assume that this world's vampires don't vomit up the liver (side note: this seems incredibly unlikely considering the liver is connected to the GI tract), would the blood infused with the chemical substances be processed in the liver and then spread to the rest of the body? This seems so, but the liver isn't the only place that alcohol and drugs are metabolized. If consumed, they can also be processed in parts of the GI tract, which we know that these vampires don't have. So it would only have to be done in the liver.
But what if they had absolutely none of the organs that do anything for digestion? So no liver? Then how are the vampires processing drunk and/or high people blood? Wouldn't it just sit and slosh around in them the same way the sober blood does? And if the vampires are able to absorb the blood into their bodies through some mystical means, I doubt it would be as potent as the actual substance and a vampire would have to drink a lot of drunk person blood to get hammered.
First because I doubt that the absorption means would be nearly as efficient as a plan old digestive system and second, the blood would be diluting it. Remember, they are drinking a person's blood with a high blood alcohol content or high drug content, not consuming the alcohol or the drug itself. It would be like drinking a watered down alcoholic, like a wine cooler. You can get drunk off it but it'll take a lot more than just straight wine.
I really don't know. I need to ask someone who knows more about What We Do in the Shadows to get their opinion and ask them if the show or the movie has ever addressed any of the issues that I have pondered here. Anyway, this is getting long so I think I'll cap it here.
TLDR: Vampires should have to need to use the bathroom and What We Do in the Shadows vampires having no digestive system makes no sense.
If you have any opinions, let me know. I'd love to discuss with you. Thanks for reading!
Wait what about the kidneys and bladder? Are those still in the bod-
