May 12, 2012

It's All About Attraction

Day Two It's All About Attraction

I mentioned in my previous blog about what attracts me to the Southern Vampire Mysteries and True Blood. How can Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball create such an appetising place to stay even though there is a town near by that produces drugs and everyone is related, loads of people get killed, possessed and can't remember a thing on nearly a daily basis?

Realistically we should consider Bon Temp to be something close to hell. It could be the huge, massive and incredibly vast amount of eye candy on offer for us to lust after. Yes I know that I'm starting with a really shallow thing, but come on you aren't going to be interested in even finding out more unless the packaging convinces you that you really NEED to open it.

And open it up you do..... Oh yeah! The fact that there are copious scenes featuring sex and nudity does make me feel a shade uncomfortable, however, that is purely cause I'm still emotionally scarred from my grandma talking in public about sex with my grandad so I avoid sex scenes when ANYONE else is present.

Which brings me, in a rather disturbing way to an article I read in 'Psychology Today' written by Susan L Smalley PhD called 'True Blood and True Life'.

It was suggested that all the characters are 'a metaphor for the diversity of life itself and our meandering through it'. At this point I felt really shallow and uneducated for merely stating that the whole Sookie Stackhouse thing grabbed my attention because the main characters were aesthetically pleasing and I liked the story lines.

So, I read on. Apparently, Sookie is a role model because she has no hidden agenda, she does the right thing all the time. Ok, yeah that is true, but it's the same with Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz' and even though there is nothing more annoying than someone who is a squeaky clean, do-gooder, I don't actually hate Sookie (or Dorothy for that matter).

Bon Temp and world where True Blood is set shows us that things can be an illusion, the 'monsters' aren't always 'monsters' sometimes it's the humans. I wholeheartedly agree, there are many case when humans do things that are much more awful than than the witches, werewolves, shapeshifters or vampires. There are even cases where Bill Compton is so sweet and lovely it makes me want to barf my load.

The article goes on to suggest that hatred is fuelled by ignorance. People tend to do harm when they are greedy, angry, too proud etc or they use religion to judge others. Wow, that's a bit of an understatement. Judging others is a very crappy thing that happens everyday, making sweeping generalisations and not finding out the truth leads to a whole big box of trouble, plus it makes you feel like a total arse when it goes wrong.

True Blood shows us we tend to question who we are, we try to work out fact from fiction, illusion from truth. It's only by challenging our belief systems that we can progress in life.

Sometimes in life the abnormal and strange becomes the norm in your life. It tends to creep in subtly so that we don't notice. Then it's the normal everyday things that are most precious.

Anyway, after I read the full article, I had a coffee and pondered over what I had read. Could there really be all that in a tv program about a telepathic waitress who prefers to shag dead people rather than alive ones?

Apparently so, I actually found that I agreed with the article. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that this lady does have a point. Maybe we can learn from True Blood.

 So, yeah, True Blood does have all of that and really hot actors and actresses too.

Vampires, Werewolves, Witches and Faes...oh my!!

For the next 30 days, along with my regular blogs, I shall be blogging about one of the great loves of my life.

This is the series of books known as ‘The Southern Vampire Mysteries’ written by Charlaine Harris these are also known as the Sookie Stackhouse books or the True Blood books. I know that you will probably have heard of at least one of these, but in case you haven’t been lucky enough to fall in love with Bon Temp yet, Ill give you a little introduction about Sookie’s world on paper and on TV, because they are actually different in some ways.



11th May 2012 Vampires, Werewolves, Witches and Faes…oh my!

Now that we have that bit out of the way, Ill start with a quick introduction to Bon Temp.
True Blood and The Sookie Stackhouse books are set in an alternate reality where vampires have come out the proverbial coffin and proclaimed their existence to the world. They don’t have to drink blood anymore as it is now synthesised and bottled under the name True Blood and even comes in different blood types. Very convenient for the discerning vamp about town who wishes to stay within the law.

How would the world react if we woke up to the news on BBC News, CNN, MSNBC, Sky News etc? That all the stories that we thought were based on a novel by Bram Stoker were actually real?


There really were creatures out there in the world who wanted to drink your blood? What about vampire blood? If humans consumed it could they gain special powers like vampires? Would it become the drug of choice over Cocaine, Ecstasy, Heroin and the like?

An interesting concept that many urban fantasy fiction writers cover, but there is something really special about Bon Temp that keeps me coming back for more.

Maybe it is because Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball have managed to create such fabulous characters and bind them together in a wonderful small town in Louisiana. I’ve added Alan Ball into that as some characters that have lesser roles in the books have bigger parts in the TV series and indeed Jessica Hamby didn’t exist in the books at all.

Merlotte’s Bar and Grill is where many of the characters work and where Sookie meets her first vampire, Bill Compton her next door neighbour. It seems like a really good place to work, with Sam being a superb boss.

Hopefully I’ve given you a bit of a taster for what’s to come in my next 29 blogs about Bon Temp, Sookie Stackhouse and the rest of the True Blood gang.

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