I succumbed to the Twilight series last fall in the midst of a haze of graduate school applications. My younger sister, who falls smack dab in the middle of the target audience age group, brought them to Thanksgiving and I was never one to resist the allure of readily available literature. While there’s nothing like a poorly written junk food novel full of sappy romance and plot holes to alleviate the strain of finishing assorted Ph.D. applications, I was a little disconcerted by the strong undertones of anti-feminist sentiment. Especially for a book geared towards girls aged 12 to 15. Actually, it’s not so much anti-feminist as simply two steps back in terms of thinking as an independent person, and not some satellite for a man who wields the relationship power.

For the uninitiated (and where have you been, under a rock on the island from Lost?) the Twilight  quartet chronicles the story of pseudo-heroine Bella, who falls in love with a tortured, slightly misogynistic, yet oh-so-gorgeous vampire named Edward Cullen after she moves to a small, wet town on the Olympic peninsula. The poor town of Forks, which really exists and whose residents are now plagued by teenyboppers who can’t fully separate literature from reality, plays host not only to the rest of Edward’s vampiric “family” but to a pack of shape-shifting American Indians who turn in to wolfs. The bones of the story contain everything you need for a solid vampire novel, but sadly, the story really isn’t so much about vampires as it is about the gushy love affair between Bella and Edward, which might be interesting if they had more to offer as people. Bella alternates between being a tragic little hero who puts everyone else first, especially when it’s to her own detriment, and a wilting flower who faints every other chapter, and who repeatedly tries to maim herself when Edward temporarily leaves her, ostensibly to “protect her from him”. Her lone saving grace is her sense of humor, which only goes so far. Edward spends the first three books trying to save Bella from herself/him/whoever else, lamenting the potential loss of his (and possibly her) soul, and generally being all dark and twisty. He spends the third and some of the fourth book coercing convincing 18 year old Bella to marry him, beats her up during sex, and then gets her knocked up on the first try. Add a few books worth of plot twists, non-essential characters, and plenty of drama, and you’ve got a worldwide sensation.

Despite my (many, many, many oh so many) problems with the novels’ content - canned dialogue, spotty writing, the overuse of tiered romantic platitudes, and an agenda that reeks of religious overtones and anti-feminist sentiment - while reading these books I cannot help but think of the “nice” vampires as akin to vegans. Meyer actually compares her vampires’ “ethical lifestyle” to that of a vegetarian. While she clearly has never spoken to an actual vegetarian - she makes the claim that her vampires live like vegetarians in that their nutritional requirements are satisfied by tofu, but they still crave meat -  she manages to capture the essential argument proffered by the vegan and vegetarian communities and applies them to the exploitation of human beings.

After I read the Twilight books, I started watching the HBO tv series True Blood (based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries books and obviously ripped off by Stephanie Meyer) and there it was again - vampires trying to go “vegan”. Once again, the vampires attempting to give up feeding on (non-consenting) humans are portrayed as the “good” or “ethical” vampires - and the most human. Seeing a theme here? I sure did.

Let us examine the similarities: even though both sets of good vampires are clearly “superior” to humans in both physical and intellectual terms, they abstain from killing and eating human animals on the grounds that humans have a right to their lives. One familiar with the traditional arguments for veganism could easily imagine a corollary to the arguments offered by vegans - perhaps animals are not on the same “cognitive level” as human animals, but they are capable of suffering; they are sentient and self-aware, and thus are entitled to live out their lives free from the whims of another species which happens to be capable of dominating them.

The one quality that the vampires may or may not lack is a soul, an idea which is proffered by both, although much more heavily emphasized in Twilight, but never fully explained. It’s rejected by several of the main characters, as it is when used as a common argument offered as a defense for us killing and eating non-human animals.

We readily and easily identify with the “vegetarian” vampires in these two works because they put us (humans) on a pedestal. They decline to hunt and kill us; to subjugate us to their biological urges. Thus, they are the “good guys” of the story, while those vampires who continue to eat humans are cast in the role of the evil other - even their physical features differ from the so-called “vegetarians”. In the Twilight series, their eyes glow red, they are slightly wild looking (and interestingly, more animalistic than their counterparts). True Blood’s “bad” vampires are a little more subtle and more complex, but they too are portrayed as less human, while the vampiristic protagonist (Bill) is somehow closer to his human roots.

Interestingly, the “vegetarian” vampires do not take drastic steps to halt the execution and consumption of humans by other members of their own species in either case. Much as most vegans and vegetarians do, they attempt to sway them to changing their dietary habits using a combination of logical arguments and compassion. They give up something most of their species would never consider giving up, despite the fact that they are capable, for reasons that most of their species consider ridiculous. For most vampires, humans are nothing more than “cattle”; stupid, slow moving, weak, useless and certainly no match for the vampire, thus deserving of being killed and eaten. Those who do abstain are often ridiculed.

Unlike Meyer’s vampires, we experience no real detrimental side effects from removing animal products from our diets. We do not experience the intense, overwhelming desire for our “blood” (meat, cheese, etc.). While we may desire such substances, they are easily replaced once we have committed to removing them. We certainly do not generally loose control of our bodies and give in to the bloodlust apparently common among vampires. And while the blood substitute in True Blood apparently tastes like shit, we have a bounty of nutritious and tasty-as-hell vegan food items at our disposal. So why not give in to the vampire craze of the hour, and go vegan.