The vampire arc was not what I expected, even if the set up was predictable at parts. It is… resoundingly uncomfortable, particularly with the sexual manipulation and other undertones. Which I suppose it is meant to be. Still, I’m impressed by how uncomfortable I was.
Dala, the to-be-revealed vampire, is a creep off the jump. The way Dick starts pining for her and the intensity of it begins strange and becomes repulsive on reflection, given that it was entirely driven by supernatural compulsion.
Like yeah, no shit no one has affected you this way before. (Don’t worry though, it won’t be the last :D)
We’re told about her kind much later on, but they’re not vampires, I think. They’re vampiri, with the distinction being that it was a curse wrought upon the patient zero, and later his sister, a few hundred years ago via a snake. This is done on account of them being The Worst. And they really try, in every way possible, to cram the very notion of taboo into these folk.
But like, okay, jumping ahead, we get to the part where Dick is eventually lured out and attacked. And it just… really really rubs me the wrong way.
The fact that it’s partially a hallucination, meaning Dick’s perspective is not reliable, the sexual undertones of turning someone, even the “come to my waiting arms… don’t you love me, Dick?”
Maybe I’m reaching here, and I don’t like to reach in this manner, but… come on. This was assault.
Then we cut to black and Dick wakes up elsewhere. The rest of it maintains the gross edge despite becoming more of a standard vampire romp. Dick finds himself aided by a priest and realizes he’s messed up six ways to Sunday
but very soon after falls so deeply under control that it doesn’t really matter.
And, Jesus, the vibes. I hate her I hate her I hate her ughhhh
Bruce gets lured out, he gets bitten too, it’s a whole bit of shenanigans trying to get the cure for them, whatever. Again, while the vibes are maintained and there are probably more subtle elements you could glean from these later events, they’re much more your standard supernatural affair.
I just can’t get over how in pain Dick looks. Like he has been so damn miserable and it sucks.
I just came away from this feeling really really bad for him, lol. This entire experience from start to finish was stark. And, of course, as all Dick-related losses of autonomy demand, we get back to our regularly scheduled programming with little fanfare after. They’re just fine and that’s that. No comment on Dala.
What I’m interested in is how this might’ve impacted Dick’s experience with being romantically and sexually manipulated by Raven later in NTT, because reading this drew a lot of parallels to that in my humble opinion. The inexplicable and often uncomfortable romantic urges he felt, the hallucination (or, in Raven’s case, dream) sequences with implicit or explicit sexual involvement, what have you. I dunno.
Anyways: ughfghghghghgghgh. The depravity that vampires are typically meant to represent in media was very well captured here. I hate it. Great job unironically.
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