(Palgrave Gothic) Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska - Girls in Contemporary Vampire Fiction-Palgrave Macmillan (2021)

PALGRAVE GOTHIC
Girls in
Contemporary
Vampire Fiction
Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska
Palgrave Gothic
Series Editor
Clive Bloom, Middlesex University, London, UK
This series of Gothic books is the first to treat the genre in its many inter-
related, global and ‘extended’ cultural aspects to show how the taste for
the medieval and the sublime gave rise to a perverse taste for terror and
horror and how that taste became not only international (with a huge fan
base in places such as South Korea and Japan) but also the sensibility of
the modern age, changing our attitudes to such diverse areas as the nature
of the artist, the meaning of drug abuse and the concept of the self. The
series is accessible but scholarly, with referencing kept to a minimum and
theory contextualised where possible. All the books are readable by an
intelligent student or a knowledgeable general reader interested in the
subject.
Editorial Advisory Board

Dr. Ian Conrich, University of Vienna, Austria
Barry Forshaw, author/journalist, UK
Professor Gregg Kucich, University of Notre Dame, USA
Professor Gina Wisker, University of Brighton, UK
Dr. Catherine Wynne, University of Hull, UK
Dr. Alison Peirse, University of Yorkshire, UK
Dr. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Professor William Hughes, University of Macau, China
Dr. Antonio Alcala Gonzalez, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Dr. Marius Cris, an, West University of Timişoara, Romania
Dr. Manuel Aguirre, independent scholar, Spain
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14698
Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska
Girls in Contemporary
Vampire Fiction
Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska
Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora
Jagiellonian University
Kraków, Poland
ISSN 2634-6214 ISSN 2634-6222 (electronic)

Palgrave Gothic
ISBN 978-3-030-71743-8 ISBN 978-3-030-71744-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71744-5
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For Andrzej, Alicja and Maja
—who make it all worthwhile
Acknowledgements
I am extremely fortunate to be surrounded by many people and insti-

tutions that have offered their support and encouragement, contributing
in various ways to making this book a reality. My sincere thanks go to
the whole Palgrave team, particularly editors Clive Bloom, Allie Troy-
anos and Rachel Jacobe, for seeing the potential in this project, and
for providing me with invaluable editorial assistance. I also thank the
anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback and helpful advice.
My home institution, the Institute of American Studies and Polish
Diaspora at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, generously granted me
a sabbatical leave to complete this project and provided funding for its
development, for which I am most grateful. I extend my warm appre-
ciation to my friends, colleagues and students from the Institute, who
continue to provide me with a vibrant and friendly academic community
that enables me to pursue my intellectual passions. Thank you for cheering
me on! My special thanks go to Professors Adam Walaszek, Radek
Rybkowski and Łukasz Kamieński for their continuing support, and to
Professor Garry Robson who proofread my manuscript with meticulous
care, asking the right questions and offering words of encouragement.
I gratefully acknowledge Griffith University, in particular the Grif-
fith Centre for Social and Cultural Research and the Griffith School of
Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences in Brisbane and Gold Coast,
for inviting me twice to Australia to present my research on vampires and
girlhood. My participation in the seminars and workshops Vampires and
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Popular Culture (2014) and Vampiric Transformations (2018) would not

have been possible without GU’s generous financial and organisational
support. The illuminating presentations and lively discussions held during
these academic events have resulted in inspiring joint academic projects
and continue to generate new ones. I feel indebted to the organisers and
the participants for welcoming me into this rewarding academic adven-
ture. I owe special thanks to the contributors to the volume Hospitality,
Rape and Consent in Vampire Popular Culture: Letting the Wrong One In
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and the special issue of Continuum: Journal
of Media & Cultural Studies, “Vampiric Transformations: The Popular
Politics of the (Post)Romantic Vampire” (forthcoming), and particularly
to Dr. Stephanie Green and Dr. David Baker from Griffith University,
outstanding scholars and great friends, who have co-edited these projects
with me. I am doubly indebted to Stephanie, who generously made time
to read sections of this manuscript at its early stages, sharing her exper-
tise and providing insightful suggestions along with the kindest words of
support. My heartfelt thanks to David Baker and Linda Middleton, for
having me in your home in Australia—I have many fond memories of
your warm hospitality and our time together. I also thank Professor Joli
Jensen, the author of Write No Matter What (The University of Chicago
Press, 2017). Although we have never met, her savvy advice on academic
writing has helped me through many a writing crisis.
Last, but certainly not least, I express my deepest gratitude to my
amazing family and friends for their love, encouragement and their
unshakeable faith in my ability to complete this project. I am forever
grateful to my wonderful parents, my brother Grzegorz, my family-in-
law, Basia, Anna, Iwona, Paula and Maciek who are always there for me—
quick to believe that things will turn out just fine. A very special thanks
to my grandmother Maria who wields a truly magical power to make me
carry on. My grandfather would have been proud to see this book come
into being.
Finally, my love and deepest appreciation go to Andrzej, my soul mate,
husband and best friend, and to Alicja and Maja, daughters extraordi-
naire. This book would never have happened without your loving support,
encouraging drawings, great sense of humour and infinite patience. Every
day with you is filled with love, joy, discoveries and adventures. You make
it all worthwhile.
Contents
1 Vampire Fiction, Girls and Shame: Introduction 1

References 16
2 Writing (on) Girls’ Bodies: Vampires and Embodied
Girlhood 23
2.1 The Markings of the Vampiric Body 26
2.2 Such Hot Fangs! Vampirism and Beauty 32
2.3 You Don’t See Fat Vamps: The Meanings of Body Size 39
2.4 No One Mourns the Ugly: Beauty, Style and Belonging 46
2.5 Velvet! Platinum! Pearls! Vampire Girls as Consumers 53
2.6 The Magic of Makeover: Style as Oppression
and Resistance 58
2.7 Conclusion 64
References 67
3 A Love So Strong that It Aches: (Re-)Writing Vampire
Romance 75
3.1 Mates, Consorts, Oath-Bound Warriors: House
of Night and Polyandry 80
3.2 The Truest of True Loves: Soul Mates and Enchanted
Bonds 86
3.3 Tying the Knot: Love, Marriage and Power 92
3.4 The Lovely Bliss of Her Bite: Vampires and Same-Sex
Romance 97
ix
x CONTENTS
3.5 Conclusion 111

References 114
4 Pangs of Pleasure, Pangs of Guilt: Girls, Sexuality
and Desire 123
4.1 It Tasted like Liquid Desire: Virginity, Blood
Consumption and Sexual Awakening 127
4.2 Didn’t the Earth Move or the Planets Align? The Tales
of the “First Time” 138
4.3 A Bloodlust-Filled, Hornie Freak: Slut Shaming
and “Excessive” Desire 147
4.4 Blood Whoring, Female Virtue and Defensive Othering 152
4.5 Conclusion 158
References 162
5 Save Your Butt from Getting Raped: Girls, Vampires,
Violence 169
5.1 No Anger and No Condemnation: Vampires
and Romanticised Abuse 173
5.2 A Questioning Touch of Teeth: Violence and Consent
in House of Night and Vampire Academy 182
5.3 A Monster Abused Me: Narrating Rape
and Rape-Revenge 190
5.4 Black. Angry. Merciless: Girls’ Violence
and (Self-)Defence 196
5.5 Conclusion 202
References 207
6 Biting into Books: Supernatural Schoolgirls
and Academic Performance 215
6.1 Heaps of Awesome Classes: The Unique Education
of the House of Night 219
6.2 Slamming the Math Book Shut: Supernatural Girls
and STEM Education 224
6.3 Miss (Im)Perfect Schoolgirl: Girls and Academic
(Dis)Engagement 230
6.4 Too Smart? Academic Excellence and Popular
Femininity 238
6.5 Conclusion 246
References 249
CONTENTS xi
7 Conclusion 257
References 266
Index 269
CHAPTER 1
Vampire Fiction, Girls and Shame:

Introduction
A lot has gone amiss with Zoey Redbird’s seventeenth birthday. Yet, when
she unwraps a gift from her grandmother, she is delighted to see a signed
copy of the first American edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Reverently
turning its leather-bound pages, the heroine confirms that “that spooky
old story” has long been her favourite novel (Chosen 30; Betrayed 170).
Intrigued, Zoey’s boyfriend Erik begins to read Dracula, but he soon
finds the plotline “a little old school, what with the vamps being monsters
and all” (Hunted 85), indicating that the contemporary vampire has little
in common with the Dracula archetype. This remark is not intended as a
commentary on the evolution of the vampire’s cultural image, although it
certainly could be read as such. Rather, it is of a personal nature, as both
Erik and Zoey, the protagonists of the House of Night series by P.C. and
Kristin Cast, are themselves young vampires.
In her study on teen vampire fiction, Mia Franck suggests that the
vampire phenomenon of today is no longer primarily about horror and
abjection. Instead, it is about “the reading girls” (2013, 211). The
figure of the vampire has long been recognised as holding a particular
fascination for young adult consumers. Scholars, librarians and readers
alike have pointed to the vampire genre’s ability to respond to young
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
A. Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, Girls in Contemporary Vampire Fiction,
Palgrave Gothic, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71744-5_1
2 A. STASIEWICZ-BIEŃKOWSKA
people’s anxieties and hopes about growing up.1 Searching for power,
autonomy, control and belonging, struggling with unfamiliar yearnings
and bodily transformations, breaking rules and rebelling against social
conventions, the vampire can be read, as Byron and Deans propose, as
“[t]he adolescent in a nutshell” (2014, 89; cf. Smith and Moruzi 2020,
612).
The growing popularity of young adult (YA) vampire fiction in the
late twentieth century marked the beginning of the rise of teen Gothic
as a distinct and rich cultural category, with the spectacular success of
Joss Whedon’s TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB, 1997–2001)
trailblazing the way for the teen vampire boom of the post-2000 era
(Byron and Deans 2014, 87; Ramos-García 2020).2 Popular vampire
novels for young readers were published throughout 1990s, granting
vampires a strong position on the young adult literary market; Annette
Curtis Klause’s The Silver Kiss (1990) or the first four instalments of
L. J. Smith’s prominent The Vampire Diaries series (1991–1992) are
notable examples of this trend. However, it is the new millennium that has
witnessed the unprecedented proliferation of the vampire figure in youth
popular culture; according to Michelle J. Smith and Kristine Moruzi, the
vampire has become the central supernatural character of Western young
1 See e.g. Dresser (1989), De Marco (1997, 26), Priester (2008, 68, 72), LeMaster
(2011, 104), Byron and Deans (2014, 89), Piatti-Farnell (2014, 6), and Wilhelm and
Smith (2014, 123–131). The term “genre” in this context, while useful, is more popular
than strictly academic, and should not be read as presenting diverse vampire fiction “as a
univocal form of writing” (Piatti-Farnell 2014, 11). Vampire stories often cross the bound-
aries between horror, romance, fantasy, detective fiction, comedy and more; a combination
that, as Piatti-Farnell proposes, contributes to their appeal (2014, 10–11; cf. George and
Hughes 2015, 5).
2 Many scholars have discussed young adult (YA) fiction as a genre that resists clear-cut
categorisations, appealing to various age cohorts and often crossing over to the adult
market (see e.g. Cart 2010; Cadden 2011; James 2009). As a socially constructed cate-
gory, the notion of “young adult” itself is open to various interpretations, ever-adapting
to the changing cultural, historical and political contexts. In this volume, YA fiction is
understood as cultural texts typically featuring protagonists in their late teens (16–19) and
marketed to high-school-age readers (while often appealing also to older consumers). For
the purpose of this study, I use the terms “young adult” (YA), “adolescent”, “youth”
and “teenage” interchangeably. I recognise that in other contexts the conflation of these
terms may be problematic or misleading (see e.g. Kokkola 2013, 10).
1 VAMPIRE FICTION, GIRLS … 3
adult Gothic fiction, effectively gaining the upper hand over all the other
Gothic monsters and ab-humans (2020, 611–612).3
The tremendous commercial success of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire
saga Twilight (2005–2008), dramatised for the big screen in a series of
five blockbuster movies (2008–2012), has brought the narratives of girls
and vampires into the cultural spotlight.4 The Twilight books have sold
nearly 160 million copies worldwide, with the latest addition to the saga,
Midnight Sun, reaching one million copies within the first week after
its release (Milliot 2020). Inspiring frenzy among adolescent and adult
fans and anti-fans alike, and riveting both media and scholarly attention,
the cultural and commercial phenomenon of Twilight has kindled a new
interest in teen Gothic and paranormal romance, resulting in a rapid rise
in the numbers of vampire fiction marketed to young readers, especially to
girls (Byron and Deans 2014, 88; Franck 2013, 211; Smith and Moruzi
2018, 9; Ames 2010).
Yet, despite their mass-market appeal—or possibly for that very reason
for, as Sady Doyle observes, such popularity “rarely coincides with literary
acclaim” (2009, 31)—vampire stories marketed to adolescent women are
often marginalised, derided and condemned, provoking a sense of disdain,
unease and suspicion among critics and educators. Alarmed by their super-
natural and sexual content, individuals and organisations have called for
the removal of vampire books from public and school libraries.5 Although
rarely backed by scholarly evidence, voices of concern have been raised
about the dangers of vampire fiction and its presumed, if unspecified,
3 According to Smith and Moruzi, vampires feature in at least half of the YA Gothic
novels listed on Goodreads and the sites of major booksellers (2020, 611–612).
4 Except for the four original novels, the series encompasses three companion volumes:
The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (2011); Life and Death (2015)—the
reimagining of the original story grounded in the gender-swap of the central protagonists,
and the recently released Midnight Sun (2020)—the retelling of the first volume from
Edward’s point of view.
5 For instance, the entire House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast and the Vampire
Academy series by Richelle Mead, including volumes to be yet written at the time, were
banned in 2009 from a school in Texas “for sexual content and nudity” (Doyle 2010, 4,
6). The House of Night series and other YA vampire books were further challenged at the
Austin Memorial Library in Cleveland, Texas (2014), where a local minister asked for the
“occultic and demonic room be shut down, and these books be purged from the shelves,
and that public funds would no longer be used to purchase such material” (Doyle 2015,
4). See also Doyle (2011).
power to encourage unsuspecting adolescent girls to delve “deeper and

deeper into the black hole” of vampire obsession (Basu 2018, 964).6
In “Skamlig flickläsning” (“Shameful Girl-reading”), Franck observes
that girl vampire fiction is inextricably connected to shame (2013, 208–
210). An interfusion of urban fantasy, the Gothic, horror, paranormal
romance, chick lit and serialised school story, these narratives have been
both dismissed as a quintessence of “low-status literature” (Franck 2013,
208), and condemned as a “threat to the definition of horror genres”
(Bode 2010, 711). These objections are often at least partly rooted in
age- and gender-related bias; as Doyle observes in relation to Twilight, the
condescending evaluation of girl vampire fiction “is just as much about
the fans as it is about the books” (2009, 31; cf. Franck 2013, 208–210;
Bode 2010, 716). In their respective journalistic and scholarly analyses of
the critical reception of Meyer’s saga, Doyle (2009) and Lisa Bode (2010)
point to the popular understanding of teen girl culture texts as holding
little aesthetic or educative value—a trend that mirrors the persistent
perception of fiction written specifically for women as substandard and
inferior (Franck 2013, 210; D’Amico 2016, viii). In “Transitional Tastes”,
Bode documents the interlacing discourses of the denigration and senti-
mentalisation of teen girls and girl culture (2010), while Doyle identifies
“the very girliness that has made [Twilight ] such a success” as one of the
reasons behind the harsh criticism of the saga—a backlash that “should
matter to feminists, even if the series makes them shudder” (2009, 31–
32). In this light, it is hardly unanticipated that some adolescent women
report a sense of shame over their investment in vampire fiction, aware
that their reading preferences may be ridiculed or stigmatised (Franck
2013, 208; Wilhelm and Smith 2014, 138).
This widespread disapproval of “the vampire for girls” and the percep-
tion of its mass teen female fandom as displaying questionable cultural
tastes indicate, as Bode contends, the reviewers’ failure to imagine “the
adolescent girl mode of engagement [with the text] as rational, mindful or
critical” (2010, 713; cf. Doyle 2009, 31). It further ignores the cultural
power of popular vampire fiction which—with all its fantastic premises—
remains relatable to the experiences of the contemporary girl, engaging
with her hopes and concerns and participating in the larger discourses
on girlhood. Allie, an adolescent informant in Wilhelm and Smith’s study
6 Basu’s text on the alleged negative impact of vampire fiction on girl fans in India and
Western countries can serve as an example of such a trend.
on the allure of teen vampire books, concludes: “Most of what I read

in school I cannot relate to. … But I am so interested in entering into
Twilight because it is about me right now” (2014, 123). She further
comments on the critique of vampire fiction for girls:
“What makes good literature? Who gets to decide? Twilight has a female
fan base. Is that why it is not regarded highly by critics? It is meant to be
something for women to enjoy. And I enjoy it. Isn’t that good enough? I
just want to stand up and say that it is good enough! (Wilhelm and Smith
2014, 139)
This volume offers a critical analysis of the representations of girls and girl-
hood in the twenty-first-century vampire fiction marketed to adolescent
female readership. With the powerful allure of the vampire in contem-
porary popular and youth cultures and the figure of the girl continuing
to rivet both public and scholarly attention, these representations offer
intriguing possibilities to explore the complexities of growing up a girl
in the Western culture of today.7 In Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power
in Young Adult Horror Fiction, June Pulliam identifies YA horror as
“uniquely able to examine the challenges facing young women” and to
interrogate the gender positions and roles that girls are encouraged to
adopt (2014, 11). A mirror held up to the complex and often contradic-
tory cultural beliefs about women, vampire stories have been recognised
as particularly revealing of social and cultural gendered hierarchies, rules
and regulations (Anyiwo 2016, 173; Hobson 2016, 3; Wisker 2016).
Women in vampire texts have long been narrated as either helpless
prey and a “motivating force for the vampire hunters”, or sexualised
monstresses that abjure traditional gender roles and embody the trans-
gression of socially sanctioned notions of femininity (Hobson 2016, 3;
Anyiwo 2016, 173). Today, vampire fiction for teen female readership
is often seen as aligning with conservative and patriarchal discourses.
However, it can also offer radical imageries of young female power, a
celebration of girl agency and sexuality, depictions of girls as agents of
social and political change and as a force to undermine the cultural
7 Although the scope of this project does not allow for a systematic study of fans’
interactions with vampire fiction, on several occasions I do look at fans’ reviews and
discussion fora in order to shed light on the meanings produced by their engagement
with the text, particularly in relation to more controversial topics (all readers’ comments
are quoted as they originally appear online).
prohibitions inflicted on women; and even the texts that are deemed
conservative are not void of moments of resistance and emancipatory
possibilities. Engaging with the scholarship from a number of critical
frameworks and utilising a variety of perspectives originating in cultural
and literary studies, sociology, feminism, gender and queer studies, and
the interdisciplinary research on girlhood and on the vampire, this volume
considers the figure of the girl in YA vampire fiction as a terrain for nego-
tiating a myriad of competing ideologies of girlhood, and as reflecting the
changing expectations surrounding girls in the Western world.
∗ ∗ ∗
A horrifying revenant skulking through the folktales across the

centuries, continents and cultures, rising from the dead to brutalise, kill
and infect, the vampire has since spread onto the pages of countless books
and graphic novels, colonised big and small screen productions, haunted
theatre stages, lurked in commercials, infiltrated classrooms, entered the
toy industry and frequented fancy-dress parties. These bloodsucking crea-
tures have come to populate texts for adults, adolescents and children
alike, straying away from their folkloric forbearers and, as numerous
scholars have observed, endlessly morphing and reincarnating into fresh
forms and personas, in order to guarantee ever anew their relevance to the
dynamics of socio-cultural, political and economic realities.8 A creature
of unprecedented “polymorphic resilience” (LeMaster 2011, 103), an
inexhaustible reservoir of metaphors and allegories, a vehicle for cultural
angsts and desires and a lens through which to unravel social preoccupa-
tions and change, the vampire has been read, among other examples, as a
vector of non-normative sexual and gender expressions, horrors of conta-
gion and foreign invasion, dread of environmental apocalypse, digital
surveillance and science gone awry; but also as a celebration of differ-
ence and non-normative identity, freedom, emancipation and a radical
critique of socio-economic and political inequities. In short, as Piatti-
Farnell concludes, the vampire is “a highly interpretative metaphor for
human existence” (2014, 64).
As a cultural phenomenon of undying appeal, vampire fiction has long
been a vibrant, dynamic and profitable area of cultural production, an
8 See e.g. Auerbach (1995), Williamson (2005), Ní Fhlainn (2019), George and Hughes
(2015, 7, 15) and Butler (2016, 193).
object of fascination to millions of fans worldwide, and a terrain of

systematic academic critique. Grounded in a variety of disciplines and
fields, a vast body of scholarly literature has been developed around
the cultural texts featuring bloodsucking creatures—examining vampire
lore in historical perspective; looking at the vampire figure through the
discourses of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, postcolonialism, postmod-
ernism, transnationalism, posthumanism, globalisation or environmental
studies; focusing on thematic threads such as blood, memory, hospitality,
rape and power; analysing in depth a particular vampire production; or
studying the real-life communities of vampire fans or even self-identified
vampires.9
Until fairly recently, however, young adult fiction has been largely
excluded from “the vampire canon” (Dudek 2018, 17). Debra Dudek
points to the edited collection Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations
of Vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the Present Day
(2013) as one of the first to have explicitly recognised the lasting value of
YA vampire texts in the transformation of the genre and the development
of the figure of the sympathetic vampire (2018, 17). In the introduction
to the volume, Sam George and Bill Hughes point to “a stylistic compe-
tence and ingenuity and a certain daring” in some of the vampire stories,
emphasising that these qualities can be often found in the texts for young
readers (2015, 6).10 Several years earlier, Deborah Wilson Overstreet
published Not Your Mother’s Vampire: Vampires in Young Adult Fiction
(2006)—a study of over twenty YA vampire novels released mostly in
the 1990s, which considers the representations of both the bloodsucking
characters and the humans who are linked to them.11 Vampires in the
9 A systematic review of vampire scholarship lies beyond the scope of this volume;
however, some recent examples of the trends specified above include Dunn and Housel
(2010), Khair and Höglund (2013), Bacon and Bronk (2013), Stephanou (2014),
Browning (2015), Baker et al. (2017), and Ní Fhlainn (2019).
10 It is noteworthy that, in addition to the chapters on Meyer’s Twilight , L.J. Smith’s
The Vampire Diaries , and Whedon’s Buffy, Open Graves, Open Minds includes other YA
vampire texts, like Daniel Waters’s Generation Dead and Marcus Sedgwick’s My Swordhand
Is Singing.
11 For instance, Wilson Overstreet looks into the ways in which vampires in YA novels
relate to folkloric conventions and adult vampire texts, or studies the depictions of human
vampire hunters. However, as only two of the volume’s chapters are devoted to these
representations (with others encompassing introductory information on vampire fiction,
a detailed examination of a non-literary vampire text—Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or a
cultural productions addressed primarily to children and pre-adolescents

are the focus of Simon Bacon and Katarzyna Bronk’s original edited
collection Growing Up with Vampires: Essays on the Undead in Chil-
dren’s Media (2018), with several chapters foregrounding the interplays
between vampirism and femininity.12 Vampires have been welcomed into
lesson plans, with such volumes as Buffy in the Classroom (Kreider and
Winchell 2014) or The Vampire Goes to College (Nevárez 2014), which
discuss vampire stories as vehicles for teaching feminism, film production,
Shakespeare and more; and invited onto the psychotherapist’s couch, with
scholars contemplating the usefulness of vampire fiction in the counselling
procedures for female teenagers.13
Girls and girlhood have been central to a rapidly increasing number
of studies of popular culture and YA narratives, with recent scholarship
including such diverse examples as books considering young female trans-
formations and rebellion in YA dystopian fiction (see e.g. Day et al. 2016;
Hentges 2018), the replications and revisions of the fairy-tale and mytho-
logical archetypes in teen series and fantasy texts (Bellas 2017; Blackford
2012, both works including Twilight ), and the presence of various femi-
nist currents in the narratives for teens and tweens (Seelinger Trites
2018). However, with the exception of such international cross-market
hits as Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, to a lesser extent, Kevin
Williamson and Julie Plec’s The Vampire Diaries (The CW 2009–2017;
based on the books by L. J. Smith), little research has to date addressed
the portrayals of young femininity in vampire texts marketed to adolescent
girls, in particular vampire literature.14 June Pulliam’s compelling analysis
summary of the chosen novels and annotated bibliography), many aspects of the analysed
fiction are necessarily dealt with in a cursory manner or left out of the study.
12 In the first chapter of the volume, Andrew M. Boylan traces the presence of the
vampire in Western European and North American children’s media throughout history
(2018). See also Palmer (2013), chapter 14, for an overview of the American literary,
cinematic and televised vampire narratives for children.
13 Considering Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, Paul E. Priester elucidates the
ways in which the vampire figure can be read by a teenage girl as a metaphor and a
warning against drug abuse; or how the contemporary vampires’ agony over their moral
choices can reflect an adolescent’s decision to become a vegetarian (2008, 71). See also
Schlozman (2000), for the use of Buffy in adolescent therapy.
14 The sheer amount of scholarly works considering these three texts, particularly Buffy
and Twilight, renders a comprehensive survey both difficult and superfluous for the
purposes of this volume; some of these works are referred to in the relevant chapters.
of femininity and power in YA horror focuses on the figure of the super-

natural girl in ghost, werewolf and witch fiction, excluding vampire stories
as largely featuring human heroines (2014, 19). Lorna Piatti-Farnell’s
(2014) seminal study examines the figure of the vampire in contemporary
literature, and Gina Wisker includes vampire texts in her astute analysis
of contemporary Gothic fiction authored by women (2016). Neither,
however, investigate specifically the figure of the girl and, with the excep-
tion of the cross-market Twilight, both tap into the texts marketed to an
adult readership.
This volume explores the narratives of girlhood in vampire fiction
addressed to adolescent women, with the primary focus on four best-
selling twenty-first-century vampire series—House of Night (2007–2014)
and House of Night: Other World (2017–2020) by P. C. and Kristin
Cast, and Vampire Academy (2007–2010) and Bloodlines (2011–2015)
by Richelle Mead. The sheer abundance of the contemporary vampire
books for girls has made the selection a challenging endeavour, rendering
numerous exclusions inescapable. My focus on literary works is grounded
in Piatti-Farnell’s identification of literature as the “original venue for
vampiric representations” and the primary vehicle for the popularisation
of the bloodsucking character within Western culture (2014, 2). While
The scholarship on Buffy and Twilight encompasses a myriad of diverse approaches

and thematic focuses, including the representations of gender, race, religion, sexuality,
and power, the series’ interplays with various philosophical and mythological currents,
musical trends and historical narratives, or their critical reception and fan engage-
ment (see e.g. Iatropoulos and Woodall III 2017; South 2003; Housel and Wisnewski
2009; Reagin 2011; Preston Leonard 2011; Stuller 2013). A significant number of
academic books, journals and conferences are entirely devoted to Meyer’s or Whedon’s
universes (see e.g. Anatol 2011; Click et al. 2010; Wilson 2011; Morey 2016); Slayage:
The Journal of Whedon Studies (previously: Slayage: The Online International Journal
of Buffy Studies ), https://www.whedonstudies.tv/slayage-the-journal-of-whedon-studies.
html; Levine and Parks (2007); Wilcox (2005); see also Macnaughtan (2011), for a
detailed bibliography of both primary sources and scholarship related to Buffy and its
spin-off Angel. The Vampire Diaries have been analysed, among others, by Rikke Schubart
in Mastering Fear (2018, chap. 5) and in the edited collection Gender in the Vampire
Narrative (2016), which includes DuRocher’s study on vampiric masculinity and Nicol’s
analysis of the show’s depictions of girlhood; the focus of this unique book, however, is
on broader gender issues examined through the lens of vampirism, without any particular
emphasis placed on girls or girl fiction. See also Dudek (2018), a volume that focuses on
all three of these highly popular texts, and studies their representations of vampire–human
romantic relationships; and Łuksza (2015), which compares Twilight, The Vampire Diaries
and Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries in relation to their gender politics
and female empowerment.
vampire tales have long been radiating into the world of diverse trans-
media, enhancing the impact of vampiric books far beyond their pages,
literature remains a rich reservoir of universes and plots for other vampire
productions, leaving an indelible imprint on past and present imageries
of vampirism. In this sense, the vampire “truly is a literary monster”
(Piatti-Farnell 2014, 2).
As serialised stories increasingly dominate Gothic and vampire reading
markets for young adults (Smith and Moruzi 2020, 610) and have long
been a prominent feature in popular culture for girls, this volume focuses
on literary series rather than self-contained novels.15 LuElla D’Amico
points to the lasting—and often underestimated—value of serialised
fiction as a reservoir of instructions on social decorum for generations of
girl readers; one offering both socially sanctioned role models and space
for rebellion (2016, vii). Popularly perceived as facile and catering to an
unsophisticated readership—a perspective that disregards their diversity
and complex character—serialised stories have long played a significant
role in shaping girls’ experiences and understandings of girlhood (2016,
viii–ix; cf. Reimer et al. 2014, 1; Younger 2009, 105–106, 110). The
serialised form, as Jennifer Hayward observes, allows for the exploration
of “shifting identities in ways not possible in more traditional narra-
tive spaces”, opening the door to change and diversity (1997, 191; cf.
Younger 2009, 106). Ultimately, serialisation invites young readers to
immerse themselves in fictional universes for extended periods of time
and often inspires years-long commitment, creating an intimate connec-
tion between readers and the text, and a sense of community with other
fans.16
15 Following the definition of LuElla D’Amico (2016, x), I understand a book series as
presenting the adventures of the same character(s) for more than three volumes.
16 The existing scholarship on serialised fiction for girls focuses primarily on historical
novels; see e.g. Inness (1997), Hamilton-Honey (2013), Hamilton-Honey and Ingalls
Lewis (2020) and D’Amico (2016), although the latter also encompasses chapters consid-
ering contemporary texts (including Vampire Academy). See also Pattee (2011), for a
comprehensive analysis of Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High (1983–2003); Younger
(2009, ch. 5), for a study of bodily image and sexuality in diverse series for girls, from
Nancy Drew to Gossip Girl; Saxton 1998, which looks into the spaces of girlhood in
diverse literary works authored by women; or the collection of essays Seriality and Texts
for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat, ed. Reimer et al. (2014), which examines
not only particular texts, but the functions of seriality and repetition in the stories for
young consumers (with a chapter by Debra Dudek focused on Buffy).
The key fictional works discussed in this volume have all reached large
readership circles, selling millions of copies worldwide, and have repeat-
edly ranked high on various best-selling and recommendation lists.17
Their unique take on vampire lore, original universes, complex plotlines
and intriguing characters continue to compel the attention of millions of
readers and inspire vibrant fan cultures. A large number of reviews, high
ratings, and a considerable body of fan fiction and discussions in diverse
social media testify, as emphasised by Gaïane Hanser in relation to House
of Night, that these books engage the readers “deeply enough that they
choose to interact, or at least to become manifestly active in their reading”
(2018, 12).
While the majority of vampire characters in YA stories are male, typi-
cally romancing mortal heroines (Byron and Deans 2014, 89; Pulliam
2014, 19), my interest in the synergies of vampirism and girlhood has
prompted me to focus on the stories featuring adolescent heroines who
are vampire or part-vampire themselves (or reveal another supernatural
streak), and/or who overthrow the popular paradigm of a vulnerable
human girl paired with a powerful vampire lover/protector. Removed
into the realms of the fantastic and bestowed with special powers, these
heroines come with the promise (though not always fulfilled) of exper-
imenting with alternative girl identities and expanding the possibilities
of girlhood into previously untrodden terrains. As such, they provide
a fresh territory for exploring the complex interplays between the girl
and the vampire. With an impressive array of powerful female protago-
nists populating the uncanny universes of vampire high schools, the key
texts discussed in this volume offer a potential for redrawing conventional
boundaries of girlhood, at times declaring openly a feminist agenda and
17 These lists include, among others, YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult
Readers 2008 and 2009 for the two first volumes of Vampire Academy; YALSA Teens’
Top Ten 2008 (Vampire Academy) and 2009 (House of Night: Untamed); Best Teen
Vampire Fiction on Goodreads (with Mead’s Vampire Academy as no. 1; Bloodlines as no.
6, and House of Night as no. 4 among over 360 other books and series); a long-lasting
presence on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, as well as Barnes &
Noble and Amazon’s best-selling teen vampire, fantasy and paranormal romance fiction.
According to P. C. Cast’s website, the House of Night series has over 20 million books
in print, with the rights sold in nearly forty countries (House of Night: Praise, https://
www.pccastauthor.com/house-of-night; House of Night Novellas, Macmillan Publishers,
https://us.macmillan.com/series/houseofnightnovellas/). Vampire Academy had sold 8
million copies in 35 countries as of 2013 (McClintock 2013). Its Facebook page is liked
by over one million fans.
the intention of “turning patriarchy and misogyny upside down” (Cast

2011, loc. 66; cf. Found loc. 5730). First and foremost, they are stories
for and about girls, addressing themes and raising questions that are
immediately relevant to the contemporary girl reader, and demonstrating
a deep investment in larger social, political and cultural conversations on
young femininity.
Authored by P. C. Cast and her young adult daughter Kristin Cast, the
House of Night and House of Night: Other World series are set in contem-
porary North America where vampires live openly in matriarchal societies,
largely separate but peacefully coexisting with humans.18 Throughout the
twelve original and four sequel novels, the series follow adolescent Zoey
Redbird and her circle of friends who—marked as vampire fledglings—
transfer from their human high schools into the Tulsa House of Night in
Oklahoma, a boarding school for future vampires.19 As the Chosen One
of the vampire goddess Nyx, Zoey is destined to fight against Darkness all
the while grappling with the everyday dilemmas of a high school life.20
Richelle Mead’s fictional universe of Vampire Academy and its sequel
Bloodlines is populated with two vampire species—the fanged and blood-
consuming but generally peaceful Moroi, and the violent Strigoi, who
thrive on Moroi blood and come into being through death and dark
magic. Garrisoned in safeguarded vampire boarding schools, Moroi
teenagers study along with their dhampir (half-human, half-vampire)
peers—young warriors and warrioresses who, once graduated, will be
18 According to P. C. Cast, neither of the series has actually been co-written; she
identifies herself as the author and her daughter as the “frontline editor”, tasked with
ensuring the authenticity of teenage expression and experience (see e.g. Found loc. 5772).
However, the novels’ covers and copyright pages, as well as the publishers’ websites and
other promotional materials, all acknowledge Kristin Cast as the co-author; I follow their
lead throughout this volume.
19 The series use the spelling “vampyre”. However, for the sake of consistency and to
avoid confusion, the common spelling “vampire” is employed throughout this volume,
except for in quotations.
20 The House of Night universe further encompasses four novellas developing some
of the series’ side plotlines, graphic novels (Dark Horse Books) and the multi-authored
companion volume Nyx in the House of Night: Mythology, Folklore, and Religion in the P.
C. and Kristin Cast Vampyre Series (BenBella Books 2011), which illuminates the mytho-
logical, scientific, folkloric and Gothic inspirations behind the series. The fans’ experience
is further enhanced with The Fledgling Handbook 101 (2010)—a volume that is said to
be presented to every new student of the fictional House of Night. The series is to be
dramatised for the small screen by David Films and DCTV (see e.g. Forgotten 253).
tasked with shielding the Moroi from the vampiric undead. The Vampire
Academy series chronicles the adventures of dhampir Rose Hathaway and
her best friend, the Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir. The Bloodlines series,
in turn, centres on Sydney Sage—a magic-wielding human and a member
of the powerful society of the Alchemists whose sole purpose is to keep
vampires hidden from the human eye. The series encompass six novels
each; additional instalments include graphic novels, short stories (Mead
2010, 2012, 2016) and the companion volume Vampire Academy: The
Ultimate Guide (Rowen and Mead 2011).21
Alongside the vampire series that constitute the core of my study and
are discussed in detail, other popular vampire narratives are occasionally
introduced and explored with the aim of broadening the understanding
of the genre’s participation in the Western discourses of girlhood. This
includes, among others, Bella Forrest’s A Shade of Vampire (2012–
2020),22 Michelle Madow’s Dark World: The Vampire Wish (2017),
Bianca Scardoni’s The Marked (2015–2020) and L. J. Smith’s The
Vampire Diaries (1991–2014). Furthermore, Twilight, Buffy and the
televised version of The Vampire Diaries will be referred to throughout
the volume. However, as these three texts have been studied so compre-
hensively in other scholarly works, I include them primarily for the
purposes of contextualisation and comparison, except for a limited
number of selected threads, which are analysed in depth. While my
list is inevitably far from exhaustive of all the popular contemporary
vampire series for young women, I hope that this book will contribute
to the existing scholarship on girls, vampires and YA culture, shedding
light on the ways in which vampire fiction envisions and addresses the
contemporary complexities of girlhood.
This volume is organised into seven chapters, accommodating the
central thematic areas that inform the representations of girlhood and
21 The first volume of Vampire Academy was adapted as a film in 2014 (dir. Mark
Waters); while the production of the following instalments was eventually cancelled, a
fresh adaptation of the series for the big or small screen is being discussed (https://www.
facebook.com/OfficialVampireAcademyMovie/). Mead’s fictional universe can be further
experienced through a spin-off merchandise line of clothing and accessories (https://
shop.spreadshirt.com/vampireacademy/).
22 This series is currently running at 92 books; for the purpose of this analysis, I have
read the first twenty.
vampires in the series analysed.23 Following the introductory Chapter 1,

Chapter 2: “Writing (on) Girls’ Bodies”, maps the complex interactions
between girl and vampire corporealities. Examining tattooed vampiric
skin and its Gothic and feminist significations, the vampiric silhouette
and the thin-thinking culture, and the anguish of ageing and vampiric
“ugliness”, it illuminates the ways in which the vampire body negotiates
and invokes resistance to various social fears and expectations formulated
around young female bodies and identities. Through analysing questions
of style, consumerism and the subversive possibilities embedded in the
narratives of the female makeover, the chapter further delves into the
questions of female agency, exclusion and belonging, and the power to
perform nonconforming girl identities.
As narratives of romance lie at the heart of vampire fiction for girls,
Chapter 3, “A Love So Strong That It Aches”, focuses on represen-
tations of romantic relationships. Complicating popular readings of YA
vampire stories as valorising heteronormativity , the chapter opens with a
discussion of polyandry in the House of Night universe. The narratives of
polyandry suggest YA vampire’s dalliance with the traditional queerness of
the genre and speak about the enhancement of female romantic possibil-
ities. These radical ideas become entangled with the romantic discourses
of supernatural love bonds and eternal soul mates, analysed further in the
chapter. The last section returns to the notion of queerness, evoking the
traditional association between the vampire and homosexuality. Focusing
on the representations of gay and lesbian characters and relationships, it
explores the ways in which the series speak of same-sex love and desire,
compulsory heterosexuality, homophobia and queer identities.
Chapter 4, “Pangs of Pleasure, Pangs of Guilt: Girls, Sexuality and
Desire”, can be partly seen as a continuation of the themes explored
in the previous chapter, as the narratives of sex often interlace with the
stories of romantic love. I turn to the tropes of female virginity, sexual
awakening, blood consumption and the question of power transpiring
through sexual relations in order to explore vampire fiction’s multifaceted
and often conflicted messages on girl sexual agency and autonomy. The
larger discourses on social regulations of female sexual expressions and the
complex dynamics between the respectable and the sexual girl are further
articulated through the series’ juxtaposition of human, dhampir and
23 The titles of chapters 3, 4 and 5, as well as a number of subtitles, are in part taken
from the series analysed, and are referenced throughout the volume.
vampire sexual mores, and explored through the power plays embedded
in slut shaming.
Violence permeates the vampire genre, and experiences of abuse are
often inseparable from growing up a girl in vampiric worlds. There-
fore, the next chapter, “Save Your Butt From Getting Raped”, centres
on the narratives of girls as survivors and perpetrators of violent acts.
Interrogating the stories of intimate partner abuse, rape and rape-
revenge, and violent (self-)defence, the chapter explores the ways in which
vampire fiction responds to the popular beliefs of gendered and sexu-
alised violence. While many storylines testify to the persistence of rape
mythology and can be read as the vampiric retellings of Beauty and
the Beast, presenting violence as forgivable, others deliberately refuse
to reshape abuse into romance or to obscure the oppressive discourses
of power as tales of love. Discussing the meanings of consent, denying
the popular equation between consent and desire, and featuring complex
narratives of rape-revenge and healing, their storylines deglamorise abuse
on individual level and operate to expose the structural mechanisms that
normalise gendered violence.
Chapter 6, “Biting into Books”, ventures into the classrooms of
vampire schools, exploring school-structured learning and academic
performance in the construction of girlhood. Casting their supernatural
heroines as high school students, and placing them within the uncanny
educational systems of vampire societies, the Casts’ and Mead’s series
offer a powerful commentary on the interplays between gendered and
academic subjectivities, and address feminist concerns about the design
of contemporary classroom practices and programmes. Examining the
protagonists’ academic struggles and achievements, this chapter illumi-
nates the ways in which vampire fiction engages with Western discourses
on girls and formal education, and negotiates popular gendered expecta-
tions about academic excellence. Particular attention is paid to the young
heroines’ relations to the areas of competence traditionally coded as male
(STEM subjects) and to the position of academic investment in visions of
desirable girlhood. “Biting into Books” is followed by concluding remarks
in Chapter 7.
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Priester, Paul E. 2008. The Metaphorical Use of Vampire Films in Counseling.
Journal of Creativity in Mental Health 3 (1): 68–77. https://doi.org/10.
1080/15401380802023621.
Pulliam, June. 2014. Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror
Fiction. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Ramos-García, María T. 2020. Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. In The
Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction, eds. Jayashree
Kamblé, Eric Murphy Selinger, and Hsu-Ming Teo. London and New York:
Routledge.
Reagin, Nancy R., ed. 2011. Twilight and History. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Reimer, Mavis, Nyala Ali, Deanna England, and Melanie Dennis Unrau, eds.
2014. Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Rowen, Michelle, and Richelle Mead. 2011. Vampire Academy: The Ultimate
Guide. RazorBill.
Saxton, Ruth O., ed. 1998. The Girl: Constructions of the Girl in Contemporary
Fiction by Women. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schlozman, S.C. 2000. Vampires and Those Who Slay Them: Using the
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Schubart, Rikke. 2018. Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions and Contemporary
Horror. New York, London, Oxford, New Delhi, Sydney: Bloomsbury.
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and Adolescent Literature. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
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School: Contemporary Young Adult Fiction, Gender, and the Gothic. Chil-
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018-9343-0.
Smith, Michelle J., and Kristine Moruzi. 2020. Gender and Sexuality in Young
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Palgrave Macmillan
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CHAPTER 2
Writing (on) Girls’ Bodies: Vampires

and Embodied Girlhood
In Phantasmagoria, Marina Warner demarcates the late eighteenth

century as the beginning of Western society’s shift away from a focus
on the spiritual to the external—an evolution that has relocated indi-
vidual’s “uniqueness … to the surface” and increasingly rendered the
body a central agent in the definition of the self (2006, 35). Contempo-
rary consumer culture, as Agnieszka Gromkowska-Melosik and Zbyszko
Melosik observe, is immersed in questions of the body, with human
identity “‘scoured away’ from the mind and the soul”, and with indi-
viduals primarily perceived through their bodily appearance (2008, xxi).
As Melosik concludes, in the Western societies of today “[t]he iden-
tity of the body becomes the body of identity” (1996, 72; quoted after
Gromkowska-Melosik and Melosik 2008, xxi).
This conflation of identity and appearance is particularly strong for
women. Their relation to their bodies—the ways they are seen, presented,
used and worked on—is regularly narrated as central to their sense of self,
and women continue to be valued for their appearance much more often
than men.1 Scholarly works highlight the social positioning of women’s
1 See e.g. Engeln (2018), DeMello (2014, 176, 183), Nyman (2017), Moran (2016),
and Tazzyman (2017). Similar trends have been identified in literature. As Wright notes
in relation to American fiction, physical attractiveness is less important for male characters;
“what makes a male succeed or fail is what he does ” rather than what he looks like (2013,
x).

Switzerland AG 2021
bodies in the Western popular imagination as objects of scrutiny and

trenchant critique, routinely constructed as wanting, problematic and in
need of change; “an incurable illness” that can be alleviated—though
never fully healed—through means of consumerism (Harjunen 2017, 95;
DeMello 2014, 188; Tazzyman 2017).2 This sense of shame related to
the body and the resulting imperative for body modification have been
identified as “a cultural inheritance of women” (Bouson 2009, 1–2) and
a fundamental aspect of female socialisation (Murray 2008, 5).
The notion of the body—and the ways it relates to the questions of self,
agency, empowerment and a sense of belonging—have long held a partic-
ular fascination for both youth cultures and vampire fiction. Multiple
scholars recognise body image, style and fashion as important signifiers
of young people’s identity, framing the teenage self as “virtually indis-
tinguishable from the bodily dimension of being” (Piatti-Farnell 2014,
17; cf. Pomerantz 2008; Tazzyman 2017; Fisher et al. 2008, 173). This
phenomenon is particularly widespread within girl cultures. Girls are often
expected, and expect themselves, to pursue culturally defined standards
of beauty, and physical appearance is repeatedly presented as an avenue
towards the achievement of successful femininity (Tazzyman 2017; Bellas
2017; Pomerantz and Raby 2017, 68). As articulated by Maria Nilson,
bodily image has come to be essential in the process of “becoming a girl
in a right way” (att flicka sig på rätt sätt ) (2013, 202).3 Similarly, Beth
Younger observes that looks remain “an important, culturally determined
measurement of femininity”, and that unrealistic standards of physical
appearance continue to exert a negative impact on girls’ (self-)perception
and opportunities (2009, 20). Other girlhood scholars, however, fore-
ground the value of girls’ “culture of prettiness” and point out that
girls’ investment in fashion and appearance does not need to adversely
affect their ideas of self. Style can become a site of resistance against
cultural restraints placed on girlhood, and body modification can be read
as a valid practice of self-expression, pleasure and female bonding—one
2 These pressures are also increasingly faced by men, albeit to a lesser degree (Tazzyman
2017, 95, 112; cf. Engeln 2018, 36–37; Gromkowska-Melosik and Melosik 2008, xxi,
xxii).
3 In her study on girls and body modification, Tazzyman (2017) observes that a girl’s
awakened interest in beautifying practices is commonly construed as a harbinger of her
transition from the identity of a child into that of a young woman—an interpretation
shared both by girls themselves and the significant adults in their lives.
2 WRITING (ON) GIRLS’ BODIES … 25
that embraces the notion of female empowerment (see e.g. Bellas 2017;
Pomerantz 2008).
As troubling terrains of conflicting social and cultural regulations,
fears and desires, the young female body and the vampire body bear an
uncanny connection. Vampiric transitions have been repeatedly read as a
metaphor for adolescent transformations, as both are seen as suspended in
a liminal state, and defined through profound physical, psychological and
emotional changes (see e.g. Howell 2017; Piatti-Farnell 2014, 17). As a
creature of unparalleled beauty, everlasting youth and acute fashion aware-
ness, the vampire figure further satiates and fuels the popular culture’s
desire for the perfect (and perfectible) body, and feeds into its obses-
sion with youthful appearance. Speaking to young people’s concerns and
aspirations formulated around physical image, the powerful appeal of the
vampiric body has been identified as one of the prime reasons for the
unwavering popularity of YA vampire fiction (Dresser 1989, quoted after
De Marco 1997, 26–27; Wilhelm and Smith 2014, 124).
This chapter brings into the spotlight the complex social expectations,
anxieties and desires surrounding the young female body, articulated
through the supernatural heroine of the serialised vampire fiction for
adolescent girls. Taking as its primary focus P. C. Cast and Kristin
Cast’s The House of Night (2007–2014) and The House of Night:
Other World series (2017–2020), and Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy
(2007–2010) and Bloodlines (2011–2015)—it interrogates the interplays
between vampire stories and contemporary discourses on girls’ bodies,
identities, forms of agency, belonging and exclusion. Contemplating the
body as one of the central themes of the genre and a prime construction
site of girlhood within Western culture, the chapter studies the rela-
tions between young heroines and the hegemonic narratives on socially
acceptable and desirable body image. The introductory section considers
the constitution of the vampire body, focusing on the significations of
the tattooed skin. The following sections examine the relations between
the cultural narrations of vampirism and feminine beauty, placing the
emphasis on the discourses of ageing and bodily size, as well as represen-
tations of “ugliness”. The interplays between vampirism, girlhood, style,
young female consumerismand girl agency and belonging are the focus of
the next part of the chapter. The final section analyses the vampire genre’s
take on the trope of the feminine makeover and its potential as a site of
resistance and the performance of subversive girl identities.4
2.1 The Markings of the Vampiric Body

In The Vampire in Contemporary Popular Literature, Lorna Piatti-Farnell
recognises the vampire body as “a representational projection of the
human body”, one that is transformative and susceptible to the social and
political mores of its times (2014, 55–56; cf. Auerbach 1995). Undead,
living or in a state in-between; unchangeable or shape-shifting; experi-
encing minor discomfort or flaring up in the sun; with sharp, pointy fangs
or with a human-like dentition; born from a female of the species, bred
through scientific means or created by another vampire’s bite; reversible
or permanently vampiric—the vampire body can vary considerably both
among different narratives and within the same fictitious worlds.5 Even
the consumption of blood—while possibly remaining one of the last
shared characteristics for contemporary vampires—can be substituted with
psychic draining, and is highly diverse in its rituals, intentions, sources and
emotions linked to the act of feeding.
The fictional universes of P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast, and of Richelle
Mead, feature several varying types of vampire bodies that differ in their
origin, physiology, abilities and physical constitution. Vampire fledglings
in House of Night come into being through a biological reaction that
triggers a recessive vampire gene in certain human teenagers. Within
several years, the majority of these young people will mature into fully
developed vampires. Some, however, will suffer a violent death as their
bodies reject the vampiric Change. In Vampire Academy and Bloodlines,
4 Needless to say, it is an impossible task to consider all the important aspects of girl
bodily existence within the scope of one chapter. Most conspicuous by its absence is
possibly the discussion of girl bodies as sexual, as well as queer bodies; both are examined
in the following chapters of this volume. Another aspect that I develop elsewhere are
vulnerable, diseased and disordered bodies in YA vampire fiction (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska,
forthcoming).
5 For instance, the YA literary series The Vampire Diaries , authored by L. J. Smith,
Aubrey Clark and unknown ghostwriter (1991–2014), introduce several types of vampire
bodies: “ordinary”—created through consuming vampire blood and dying; Original—
humans transformed into vampires through magic; and those who came into being
through scientific means. For a comprehensive analysis of different vampire bodies in
literary fiction marketed to adults, see Piatti-Farnell (2014, chap. 2).
the living vampires, the Moroi, and their half-vampire, half-human body-
guards dhampirs are born and die in a way similar to humans.6 None of
these vampire bodies burst into flames when exposed to the sun although
some are weakened by direct sunlight.7 Both the Moroi and vampires of
House of Night are sustained by blood; “good” vampires, however, drink
only from willing donors, and victimising humans is a strict taboo in both
communities.
Although fangs are often considered an essential attribute of the
vampire body (see e.g. Piatti-Farnell 2014, 69), the defanged vampire
is not uncommon in popular stories marketed to girls. In Stephenie
Meyer’s Twilight (2005–2008) and the Casts’ House of Night, vampires
have extraordinarily strong yet human-looking dentition. Neither vora-
cious monsters nor self-denying heroes, “good” vampire characters in
the latter series consume blood in a civilised manner mixed with wine
in elegant wine glasses. In Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, vampires
prefer to drink from the vein, and have non-retractable fangs. However,
as they are trained from childhood to conceal them while speaking or
smiling, they can pass for human with little difficulty. Similarly, the bodies
of Mead’s dhampirs and the Casts’ vampires are nearly indistinguish-
able from human. However, in House of Night both fledglings and full
vampires are visually set apart by their conspicuous facial tattoos.8
The importance of permanent body alterations, like tattoos or scarifi-
cation, as a mode of self-expression and negotiating identity have been
recognised in scholarly works. A biological canvas of the modified skin
6 While vampirism is usually associated with dying and “turning”, the biologically condi-
tioned vampire body is not an uncommon phenomenon; see e.g. Poppy Z. Brite (currently
identifying as male, Billy Collins; Wisker 2016, 158), Lost Souls (1992), where vampires
can be created through sexual intercourse; Peter Watts, Blindsight (2006), where they
are the result of the processes of evolution, extinct and then brought back to life by
human science; or the 2019 Netflix TV series V-Wars, where vampirism is presented as a
disease/genetic mutation.
7 Both universes additionally feature vampire bodies that resemble the traditional folk-
loric vampire template. Mead’s evil Strigoi and Casts’ red vampire fledglings are, at least
initially, positioned as villains—vicious undead creatures, animated through dark magic,
burning in the sun, bleeding their victims dry and extremely hard to kill.
8 Although in Betrayed vampires are described as “different than humans (not bad
different—just different)” (25), the series reveals little about these visual differences except
for the bloodsuckers’ extraordinary beauty and their unusual tattoos. All fledglings are
required to cover the crescent on their foreheads with make-up when outside of the
school walls, a practice that easily allows them to pass for humans.
can perform a myriad of functions beyond its aesthetic qualities. Drawing

on the scholarship of Elizabeth Grosz, Piatti-Farnell describes skin as “a
communicative surface on which messages and meaning can be inscribed”
(2014, 83). Carrying stories of life experience, remembering special
moments, reflecting worldviews, and indicating social status, belonging
and exclusion, the modified skin changes self-perception and affects
the way the individual is seen by others (Conrich and Sedgwick 2017,
192–195; Piatti-Farnell 2014, 81–85; Nyman 2017; Oliver 2011).
The visually intriguing trope of the altered body surface—covered
with signs, scars or inscriptions—often emerges in the stories of fantasy
and horror. In Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature, Ian Conrich
and Laura Sedgwick discuss horror representations of the tattooed skin
as a “Gothic commodity”, produced, flayed, stolen or sold as a grue-
some work of art (2017, 192–195). The tattoo has also been employed
as a metaphorical Other, with the inscribed body construed as infected,
polluted or even possessed (Conrich and Sedgwick 2017, 193–195). In
fantasy fiction, skin modifications often serve as a visual designation of an
extraordinary character, or a signal of belonging to a particular group—
with the self-inflicted scarification of the demon slayers in Cassandra
Clare’s The Mortal Instruments (2007–2014) or the famous lightening-
shaped scar on the forehead of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter as only two
among many examples of the trend. The inscribed skin holds a fascination
also for the vampire genre; extensive tattoos adorn the bodies of vampire
hunters in the televised version of The Vampire Diaries (The CW 2009–
2017) and the vampires of Lara Adrian’s Midnight Breed (2007–2019)
are covered with tattoo-like patterns called “dermaglyphs”.9
Referring to feminist scholarship on tattoos, Nina Nyman acknowl-
edges the tattooed female skin as a point of intersection of women’s
rights to self-expression and control over their bodies (2017, 75). While
relatively widespread in contemporary culture, tattoos are simultaneously
surrounded by social taboos. These strictures are gendered, as tattooing,
particularly in exposed locations, is often viewed as subverting the notions
of conventional femininity (Nyman 2017, 81). Within this context, the
centrality of the tattooed skin in narrating the vampire and the girl body
in House of Night, Vampire Academy and Bloodlines is telling.
9 The meanings of dermaglyphs in the Midnight Breed series have been meticulously
analysed by Piatti-Farnell (2014, 81–85).
The tattoos in these series display diverse origins, aesthetic qualities

and significations. Nearly all, however, serve as a sign of belonging to a
particular community or species. The facial tattoos of the House of Night
vampires are a compelling signifier of their vampiric status. As vampire
and human bodies are nearly identical, it is the tattoos that visually distin-
guish one from the other, and place vampires outside the boundaries of
human society. In Mead’s fictional universe, vampires as a species do not
attach any special importance to tattooing. However, the tattooed skin
is central to the narratives of all the other main groups—both human
and supernatural, with large sections of the storyline formulated around
its meanings and powers. Vampire hunters are marked with sun-shaped
patterns on their backs, and a golden lily inscribed on the cheek signifies
belonging to the clandestine society of the Alchemists. Dhampirs ink in
lightning-shaped marks called molnija on their necks, and even regular
high school students purchase illegal enchanted tattoos to enhance their
mood or physical performance.10
In many cases, tattooing functions as a rite of passage. A vivid example
of this can be found in the House of Night trope of the sapphire cres-
cent that appears on the forehead of teenagers upon being Marked,
that is changed into vampire fledglings. A striking illustration of their
budding Otherness, this tattoo signals their entry into the transitional
state between humanity and vampirism; one that clearly represents human
adolescence, with its anxieties, hopes and uncontrollable bodily trans-
formations.11 The moment of the fledgling’s metamorphosis into a full
vampire, the Change, is marked by the magical expansion of their modest
crescent into elaborate patterns covering a large part of the face—a
powerful finale of the transition from adolescence into adulthood. In
Mead’s Vampire Academy, similar meanings are communicated through
a special symbol called the Promise Mark, ceremoniously tattooed on
dhampirs’ necks upon their graduation. The Promise Mark represents the
completion of the journey from adolescent novice to mature guardian,
and signals full membership of dhampir adult society. In both series, the
10 It is interesting to note that a number of fans of both House of Night and Vampire
Academy have (been) reported to have tattooed their skin as a tribute to their favourite
series (Oliver 2011, 43; Mead 2016, v; see also e.g. Martin 2020 and Be 2020).
11 As the leading heroine describes it, “I would spend the next four years going through
bizarre and unnameable physical changes, as well as a total and permanent life shake-up”
(Marked 8)—an account that can be easily applied to the time of human puberty.
tattooed skin can also carry information on the character’s status in the
community. As the House of Night markings are ordinarily confined to a
vampire’s face, the lavishly oed body of the leading heroine Zoey Redbird
designates her immediately as the Chosen One (cf. Oliver 2011, 38). In
Vampire Academy, the number of molnija symbols speaks of the dham-
pir’s value as a fighter as every mark equals one Strigoi-kill. In this way, as
Jana Oliver observes in regard to warrior tattooing, “the warrior skin can
act as a walking résumé for anyone able to decipher the symbols” (2011,
36). The celebrity status of the central dhampir heroine Rose Hathaway
is additionally confirmed through a unique star-shaped tattoo that indi-
cates her valour in battle and the uncountable number of kills she has
performed.
For both Zoey and Rose, their tattoos are a source of prestige as
they testify to their victories and achievements. However, while Rose
actively chooses to inscribe her “résumé” on her skin, Zoey has no say
in the matter. Triggered by hormonal reactions (the initial crescent) and
completed by Nyx, the vampire Goddess of Night (the ultimate expanded
version), the tattoos in House of Night are beyond the vampires’ control.
Their pattern, location, time of appearance and their very existence are
determined by inner biological forces and an external divine being.12
Throughout her discussion of the empowering aspects of the practice
of female tattooing, Nyman emphasises the essentiality of a conscious
choice. Drawing on her interviews with tattooed women, she infers that
“[t]attoos could be used as a feminist strategy to take charge of one’s
own body through actively taking the decision to change it” (2017, 92).
This “active agency of tattooing” (Nyman 2017, 75–76) is absent from
the Casts’ series. In contrast, in Mead’s novels tattooing typically requires
some sort of consent and is usually performed by choice of the bearer,
even if this choice may ultimately be regretted. As she takes pride in her
society’s work, Sydney Sage, the leading heroine of Bloodlines, agrees to
have her cheek tattooed with a golden lily that marks her as an Alchemist.
It is not until later that she discovers that the enchanted golden ink is used
to subdue and control rebellious or doubting members, eerily echoing
the Gothic narrative of the tattoo’s possession of the inscribed body.
12 A similar narration of the vampiric tattoos can be found in Adrian’s Midnight Breed
series, where an individual’s markings stem from their genetic makeup (Piatti-Farnell 2014,
81–85). For a detailed analysis of the interplay between the biological and the divine in
the origins of the House of Night ’s vampire tattoos, see Oliver (2011).
The golden lily’s power can, however, be neutralised through another

enchanted inscription tattooed over the first. An accomplished witch
and a superb chemist, Sydney spends most of the series’ fourth volume
searching for the deactivating formula, and finally succeeds. Thus, while
in House of Night the tattoos appear, reappear, change or are taken away
regardless of their bearer’s volition (though, as Oliver remarks, “always
for compelling reasons”; 2011, 35), in Mead’s series, both tattooing
and tattoo removal can serve as instruments of empowerment and the
enacting of agency over one’s own body and life choices.
The tattoos in both series differ considerably also in their aesthetic
dimension. The marks in House of Night are highly individualised, with
each design visually expressing their bearer’s personality, passions and
skills, and often serving to enhance their appearance.13 In contrast,
dhampir marks are spartan in their design. Rather than beautifying or
facilitating self-articulation, molnija symbols testify to the bearer’s combat
skills, visually enhancing the commanding power of the dhampir body.
Moreover, in House of Night some designs are gendered—with women’s
marks carrying characteristics connoted as “feminine” (intricate lace-like
patterns, elegant flowers or motifs related to the Goddess) and the male
ones signifying masculine power (fire-breathing dragons, griffin’s claws,
arrows and lightning bolts).14 The dhampir molnija tattoos, however,
never rely on gender differentiation, and both female and male warriors
wear identical marks that differ only in number.15
Regardless of their aesthetic qualities, origins or meanings, both in the
Casts’ and Mead’s series, most tattoos need to be earned, whether by
completing training, killing an evil being, defeating inner dark instincts
or arriving at a life-changing decision. Whether chosen or inscribed by
the forces beyond one’s control, more often than not they are worn with
pride. Embracing their difference, vampires of House of Night consider
13 For instance, the face of the vampire horse mistress Lenobia is adorned with two
rearing horses (Hunted 279); vampire Erik Night’s drama mask tattoo indicates his talent
in acting (Chosen 235); and the forehead and cheeks of the poetess Kramisha are orna-
mented with ever-changing words related to creativity (Loved 23; cf. also 93). The tattoos
are described in detail and the narrating Zoey often marvels at their attractiveness.
14 The warrior vampire queen, Sgiach, is an exception as her face is tattooed with
swords and blades (Burned 188; Found loc. 423).
15 Similarly, among the Alchemists, tattoos are identical for all the members, regardless
of their gender.
covering their tattoos a dishonour and view them as a sign of “being

grown” (Untamed 90). Similarly, dhampirs take pride in their molnija
marks. For instance, it is customary that female guardians cut their hair
short in order to expose their tattooed necks, readily giving their warrior
reputation priority over their looks.
2.2 Such Hot Fangs! Vampirism and Beauty

Within present-day mainstream popular culture, the vampire as an abject
figure of aesthetic horror has been largely substituted by a figure of
glamour and enthralling beauty.16 While not entirely absent from the
narratives of the past, this idealised conceptualisation of the vampire
body has taken root in the popular imagination since the worldwide
success of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles (Piatti-Farnell 2014, 74–76,
78, 85), and become cemented by Twilight ’s sparkling imagery. Having
shed their folkloric persona of a rotting walking corpse or a terrifying
spectre, vampires evolved into the apex of the Western physical ideal—the
embodied “dream of strength, of perfection, of virtually eternal youth”
that banishes any lingering sense of terror or abhorrence (Piatti-Farnell
2014, 51, 96; Franck 2013, 214, 217). The erotically alluring vampires
of Twilight, True Blood (HBO 2008–2014) and The Vampire Diaries
can serve as radiant examples of this imagery. Today, the trope of the
perfect vampiric body has become ingrained in the popular mind, to the
point where “unattractive vampire” is regarded as a humorous oxymoron,
pushed out of the genre of horror into the realms of comedy:
An Unattractive vampire? You may cry “Inconceivable” to that idea, my

dear post-twilight audience. How can a vampire be unattractive in this
16 That said, it must be noted that numerous examples of physically repulsive, terrifying
or simply ordinary-looking vampires continue to be present in popular culture texts. For
instance, in the short-lived series V-Wars (Netflix 2019), vampires turn into figures of
horror with disfigured faces and enormous jagged fangs when about to attack. See also
Ní Fhlainn’s analysis of the vampire body in John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One
In (2004) (2019, 223–224, 227). Ní Fhlainn juxtaposes Lindqvist’s vampiric corporeality
with that of Rice and Meyer’s creations, emphasising its divergence from the popular
contemporary models. Lindqvist’s text, as Ní Fhlainn asserts, “deliberately lingers on
the physical perversity of vampirism”, discernible in Eli’s abject, permeable body and
Virginia’s horrific transformation (223–224). Furthermore, the vampire continues to exist
as a symbol for disease and contamination, their representations intertwined with the
traditional zombie formula (Ní Fhlainn 2019, 220).
century? With their perfect cheekbones and irresistible sex-appeal, their

swaying hips, half-open shirts, and such hot fangs!
This ironic comment comes from Sr3yas (2018), a fan of Jim McDoniel’s
debut comic novel An Unattractive Vampire (Inkshares 2016).17
Adhering to the genre’s conventions, the protagonists of the vampire
series marketed to girls are almost universally characterised by phys-
ical attractiveness.18 In Twilight, the process of vampiric transformation
famously changes even ordinary-looking humans into otherworldly beau-
ties—“akin to demigods” and “without a trace of corporeal abjection”
(Ní Fhlainn 2019, 231). In Michelle Madow’s Dark World: The Vampire
Wish series (2017), only the prettiest women are turned into vampires—
with their permission or against their will. In Mead’s universe vampirism
does not come with a guarantee of eternal beauty and unattractive
vampires are not unheard of.19 Nonetheless, all the central heroines (and
heroes) are exceptionally good-looking, resembling exotic flowers (BL
loc. 718) or angels rather than vampires (VA 3–4).20 In House of Night,
physical perfection is an essential characteristic of all vampire women
and the novels are replete with detailed descriptions of their bodies.21
The vampress’ spectacle of feminine excess is signified by immaculate
skin, luminous eyes of unique shades (“deep, mossy green” or “like a
17 Another reader admits that the novel’s title alone made them laugh (Dana 2016).
McDoniel’s vampiric protagonist is ancient Yulric Bile, who returns to the world after
several centuries only to discover that he is “too ugly” to be considered a vampire at all.
18 As such, they are inscribed into the wider trends of American fiction; see e.g. Wright
(2013, x).
19 Some are described as vulture-looking (VA 17); others struggle with “terrible acne”
(RC 7).
20 They are also predominantly White—a construction that could be read as a consid-
erable limitation to the series’ vision of female empowerment. However, racial diversity
finds its reflection in the narration of Moroi, Strigoi, dhampirs and humans as racial
categories—with taboos and socially imposed limitations indicating racial (and classed)
tensions.
21 Noteworthy, the series’ ideal of feminine beauty encompasses women of various ethnic
and racial backgrounds, with the Cherokee heritage of the central heroine Zoey (and
later, her brother Kevin) repeatedly brought to the forefront. In “There’s No Place Like
Home”, Christi Cook examines Zoey’s hybrid identity as a human/vampire and Anglo-
American/Cherokee, construing her escape from the human world with leaving her Anglo-
American self behind and tracing her ever-growing identification with Cherokee culture
(2015, 49–52).
stormy sky”; Marked 51; Betrayed 44), and long, lush waves of silky hair
(Marked 51, 149; Betrayed 8; Hunted 279; Untamed 77, 78).22 Above
all, their supernatural condition provides vampresses with magical insur-
ance against the ultimate “threats” of the Western bodily ideal: ageing,
disability and “fatness”.
In her analysis of the unattractive woman figure in American fiction,
Charlotte Wright points to words such as “fat”, “old”, “ill, scarred, or
deformed” as “conjur[ing] up the image of [female] ugliness” (2013,
18–19). Tracing the development of the youth-centred culture in the
twentieth-century economy and market, Rob Latham observes that youth
has become “an ideal to be realized through the practices of mass
consumption” (2002, 15). Angela Tenga and Elizabeth Zimmerman
further reflect on Western body culture as haunted by the “obsessive fear
of aging”. Rather than being seen as a natural stage of life, growing old
has become construed as a source of distress and mounting anxiety; as
undesirable and inevitably linked to the loss of erotic appeal (2013, 79).
These negative associations are noticeably gendered, with women dispro-
portionately affected by the cultural stigmatisation of the physical signs of
ageing (Kapurch 2016; Engeln 2018, 50–51). These apprehensions over
growing old are fuelled by the market, aggressively advertising goods,
procedures and fantasies of the restored youth (DeMello 2014; Engeln
2018), and produced by popular culture that continuously feeds women
with the imagery of youthfulness as a gendered prerequisite for high social
standing and feminine happiness.
As a cultural narration, vampirism has long tapped into human angst
surrounding the question of ageing. The twentieth-century vampire
stories, in particular the novels of Anne Rice, were prominent in their
focus on the never-ending youthfulness of the vampire body (Piatti-
Farnell 2014, 57)—an imagery that continues to flourish in the genre.
Immortal by nature or returned from human death, vampires have
become the embodiment of human fantasies of eternal life, “a symbol of
departure from that which is final, decaying, and impermanent” (Piatti-
Farnell, 2014, 60–61, 94), and an archetype reflecting the Western
22 Although this falls outside the scope of this chapter, it is worth noting that in House
of Night the representations of desirable heterosexual male bodies also closely adhere to
the popular stereotypes of the ideal masculine physicality, with the majority of heroes
being tall, strong, muscular and powerful-looking warriors.
economics of the “fetishization of youth” (Latham 2002, 5). A momen-

tary escape from the psychological and social horrors of the senile body,
the youthful vampire satiates—if only for as long as we consume the
story—the cultural desire to remain ever-young.
Within the contemporary YA vampire genre, the themes of ageing
and the fantasy of eternal youth are epitomised by Twilight (see e.g.
Driscoll 2016, 105, 109–110). Throughout the story, the terror of ageing
experienced by the leading heroine Bella is repeatedly brought to the
fore—until, as Catherine Coker remarks, “the future is reduced to a fear
of growing old” (2010, 73). Bella’s anxiety manifests most clearly in
the memorable dream sequence that opens the saga’s second volume,
New Moon. There, the terrified heroine finds herself in the body of
her own grandmother—“ancient, creased, and withered” (NM 5)—while
still remaining in a relationship with the eternally adolescent vampire
Edward.23 Similar, if less aching anxieties are expressed by Elena of The
Vampire Diaries novels (1991–2014), worried that she will grow old
while her vampire boyfriend Stefan “would go on, unaging and beau-
tiful, always eighteen” (DR 26). Neither heroine lacks confidence in her
lover’s devotion; yet they still worry about the growing age disparity in
their relationships.
A complicated love between an ever-youthful male vampire and a
human girl unable to escape the passage of time occupies a key place
of the romance storyline in a number of vampire tales. This narra-
tive tension is often resolved by the vampire turning his lover into an
undead or sustaining her with his rejuvenating blood—assuming the posi-
tion, as Tenga and Zimmerman frame it, of the “consummate plastic
surgeons whose work guarantees eternal youth” (2013, 79).24 Many
23 It is interesting to note that in her description of her grandmother’s body, Bella

focuses almost entirely on various signs of bodily changes connected to age—e.g. white
hair, “wasted cheek”, or withered skin “bent into a thousand tiny creases” (New Moon
3–6). This scene has been examined by, among others, Kapurch (2016, 140), Kokkola
(2011, 177), and Crossen (2015).
24 This is, for instance, the case in Twilight and Bella Forrest’s A Shade of Vampire
series (2012–present), where the heroine is turned into a vampire. In Adrian’s Midnight
Breed, women do not age or die as long as they drink from their vampire mates (see
Piatti-Farnell 2014, 67). The “plastic surgeon’s” role can also be fulfilled by magical
substances, like the water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life, drunk by Elena
in Destiny Rising (390). Vampirisation can also be narrated as parental decision, as it is
in the case of Ben, a vampire couple’s son, in A Shade of Vampire (CoP).
stories, however, narrate the promise of immortal youthfulness as deeply

problematic, with Rice’s child-vampire Claudia cited as one of the most
prominent examples (see e.g. Piatti-Farnell 2014, 57; Auerbach 1995,
154–155; Smith and Moruzi 2020, 613). Within the YA vampire genre,
the risks and anxieties linked to the unchangeable body emerge famously
in the story of Rosalie Hale of Twilight —vampirised without her consent
and endlessly lamenting the loss of her humanity. A character much
dissimilar to Rosalie, The Vampire Diaries Elena would still rather die
than become a vampire (see e.g. S2E20). While in the novels, Elena finds
another way to obtain immortality in order not to part with her lover, the
prospect of never-ending life becomes a nightmare after Stefan has been
murdered (SU, 10–12). In both the books and the TV series, Elena’s
restoration to her mortal, ageing human body is narrated as the desired
happy end—one that she is determined to pursue regardless of whether
her new vampire paramour chooses to turn back with her.
In both the House of Night series and Richelle Mead’s novels, the
vampiric life span is prolonged by, respectively, several centuries or
decades compared to that of humans. However, as a primarily biolog-
ical concept, the vampiric condition does not come with a promise of
immunity against natural death.25 Nonetheless, in the case of House of
Night, it delivers the vampires from the anguishes of ageing. None of
the vampresses in the series display signs of age-related bodily deterio-
ration. Even those over a hundred years old “look roughly twenty and
definitely hot” (Chosen 5). With her “smooth and flawless” skin, queenly
posture and “exotic beauty”, ancient High Priestess Shekinah appears to
be in her forties. Rather than through any outer characteristics, Shekinah’s
age manifests through the power of her gaze, wisdom and “dignity that
she wore like a fine piece of expensive jewelry” (Untamed 77–78; 139).
Bodies showing signs of ageing are conspicuous by their absence. The
only female character narrated as elderly is Zoey’s human grandmother
Sylvia. However, although Zoey describes her as “a zillion years old”,
Sylvia is in fact only in her fifties, looking strong, beautiful and, most
importantly, ageless (Chosen 24).
25 Mead’s Strigoi are an exception that I discuss later in the chapter. It is unclear
whether the new vampiric “race” of red vampires in House of Night is immune to dying
of old age.
In Victorian Melodrama in the Twenty-First Century, Katie Kapurch

notes the “crippling effects of postfeminism emphasis on feminine youth-
fulness”, warning against the hazards of granting youth and youthful
appearance an over-privileged position within Western constructions of
femininity (Kapurch 2016, 122).26 In House of Night, this postfeminist
perspective emerges through the exclusion of visibly aged bodies, obliter-
ated from the story and implicitly Othered through their juxtaposition
with the excessively youthful look of nearly all female characters. The
normative status of the youthful female body is further confirmed when
the leading heroine Zoey expresses her preference for ulcers over wrin-
kles (Untamed 102) and jokingly complains about her miserable future
as a woman “old as dirt—like thirty”; a figure that she would conceal by
lying was she not protected from showing signs of age by her vampiric
condition (Chosen 4). Interestingly, within the series, the human male–
vampire female relationships are narrated as unproblematic in terms of
age(ing); and Zoey’s age-related concerns about loving human Heath
Luck are quickly dispelled by the boy himself:
“Will you … be cool with me outliving you by several hundred years?”

Dorklike, he wagged his eyebrows at me. “I can think of worse things
than having a hot, young vampyre chic when I’m, like, fifty.” (Betrayed
118)
Heath’s playful response echoes popular understandings of a relation-

ship with a young or young-looking woman as a source of satisfaction
and prestige for a mature man. No male vampire in the series becomes
involved with a fully human female; therefore, the culturally complicated
position of the ageing female body in a romantic relationship remains
undiscussed.27
In an interesting shift from the genre’s popular imagery of the ever-
youthful vampire, the Moroi and dhampirs of Mead’s Vampire Academy
26 In recent years a number of scholarly works have challenged accounts of the postfem-
inist focus on youthfulness. See Gill (2016, 620), for examples of studies that highlight
postfeminist culture’s preoccupation with middle-aged and older women.
27 In a mockumentary horror comedy What We Do in the Shadows (Waititi and Clement
2013), a relationship between senile-looking Katherine (who became a vampire at the age
of 96) and the ever-youthful vampire Viago (who is still, as he points out, four times
older in the number of years) is used as a vehicle for comic relief—a construction that is
telling of the social anxieties related to the ageing female body and romance.
and Bloodlines are narrated as ageing and ultimately dying in a way

comparable to humans. Both series feature elderly characters whose
bodies show unmistakable signs of ageing. In Last Sacrifice, young Lissa
meets Ekaterina Zeklos, a retired Moroi queen who is over one hundred
years old. With a missing fang, yellowed teeth, skin covered with “a maze
of wrinkles, and her gray hair … wispy and thin”, Ekaterina looks frail
and ancient. However, while clearly describing the signs of her advanced
age, the narrative focuses on the old queen’s life experience and devotion
to her people. Her power is rooted in neither beauty nor youthfulness;
instead, she inspires awe and admiration with her wisdom, dedication and
charismatic leadership (loc. 4287, 4291, 6179, 6187, 6188, 6205, 7384).
In Mead’s series immortality and unending youthfulness can be
achieved only through atrocious means, typically at the cost of the lives
of others. This could happen through illicit witchcraft (SS 84; IS 82) or a
transformation into a soulless undead. Pursuing eternal youth is therefore
narrated as pathological, sinful and intrinsically vampiric—the primary
purpose of the Alchemists society is to protect humans from that very
temptation. Also Moroi and dhampirs are taught early on that trading
one’s soul in exchange for escaping old age and death is the ultimate
taboo, and those who are turned by force are mourned as lost forever. The
characters who refuse to accept the natural progress of life often suffer
severe punishment, their fates serving as harsh cautionary tales. Having
turned Strigoi out of a desire to keep their youth and beauty, Lucas and
Moira Ozera are exterminated shortly after the Change, abandoning their
only son to a life of disgrace. Similarly, when refusing to accept his fatal
illness, Moroi Victor Dashkov coerces a young healer to rejuvenate him
at the cost of her health, he is sentenced to life in prison and eventually
killed by the healer’s friend.
As Victor’s example demonstrates, the vampire body in Mead’s series
is not only mortal and ageing, but also vulnerable to illness. In “Recent
Trends in Children’s Literature Research”, Maria Nikolajeva evokes exam-
ples of children’s stories representing bodies with sickness or disability
“as an abnormality … [that] must either be eliminated or repaired”. As
Nikolajeva emphasises, “[c]onventional solutions of alterity issues were
either to eliminate the Other or incorporate it into Own” (2016, 140).
In vampire fiction, the latter demand is often satisfied by the process
of vampirisation. Physically inept to the extent that she perceives herself
as having a disability (cf. Kokkola 2011, 33), Twilight ’s Bella becomes
supernaturally fit, strong and agile as soon as she turns. This shift from
a vulnerable, sick or disabled body into the narrative of extreme able-

bodiedness is particularly visible in the House of Night story of Shaylin
Ruede, a teenager with visual impairment who becomes healed upon
being Marked as a vampire fledgling. As though to compensate for her
experience of disability, along with her restored sight Shaylin receives a
gift of supernatural vision called True Sight. This enables her to see into
a person’s heart and mind—with the vampiric body offering her forms of
agency and power unavailable to her previous human self.
In Mead’s universe of hyper-able dhampir warriors and vampires
bestowed with supernatural health, themes of physical illness are rare.
However, vampirism, and particularly vampire spirit magic which heals
the sick and wounded and raises the dead, is narrated as causing a
variety of mental disorders. A considerable number of young protago-
nists—vampires, dhampirs and humans—grapple with mental challenges,
including depression, suicidal thoughts, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic
stress disorder, drug and alcohol addiction, self-harming behaviour or
neurosis. While it is not uncommon that vampire narratives trivialise
mental disorders and valorise self-harming as a legitimate response to
depression, resistance to tyranny, evidence of true love or necessary
self-sacrifice (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, forthcoming; Kokkola 2011; Fong
2016), Mead’s series position these problems at the centre of the plot,
introducing various coping strategies and working against the discourses
that associate mental problems with a sense of shame and personal
inadequacy.28
2.3 You Don’t See Fat Vamps:

The Meanings of Body Size
When Sydney Sage, the eighteen-year-old human-witch heroine of Blood-
lines, begins her senior year at a private high school in Palm Springs,
California, she is well prepared to meet the multiple challenges of her new
situation. Assigned with protection of a vampire princess Jill, Sydney helps
her adjust to her new life as a high school student, dutifully attends to
28 Albeit to a lesser extent, the authors of the Other World series also raise problems
of substance abuse and adolescent depression. For a detailed analysis of representa-
tions of mental and mood disorders, self-harming and suicide in twenty-first century
vampire narratives, with a primary focus on Mead’s Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, see
Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, forthcoming. Cf. also Darragh (2016).
the needs of her entourage, and responds effectively to various vampire-

related crises. In the meantime, she smashes a dangerous drug-dealing
group, works diligently on developing her magical abilities, and even
manages dating, all the while exceeding expectations in every single class.
What Sydney is not prepared for is to receive her high school uniform
in a size four (small) at the fittings instead of size two (extra small). Morti-
fied, she immediately begins to perceive her body as “huge”, “frumpy”
and “awkward”—particularly when compared with the skinny frame of
her vampire roommate Jill (BL loc. 1094–1104; GL 28). Although
painfully aware that the emaciated vampiric silhouette is unattainable
to humans, Sydney follows a starvation diet in order to near what she
considers the ideal feminine body type.
The centrality of the “cult of thinness” in contemporary Western
discourses of beauty has now long been the subject of academic inves-
tigation and fierce public debates.29 The popularity of weight-loss reality
shows, soaring profits of diet industries, constant demand for slimming
products and the bodily images promoted through popular culture all
testify to Western societies’ growing preoccupation with body size and
the fear of “fatness”.30 Research shows that a slender body has come to
represent—or indeed, to equate to—well-being, achievement and physical
attractiveness, as well as the high social standing and economic status that
enable the consumption of slimming products and services. In contrast,
a body marked as overweight frequently implicates limitations of social
and professional opportunities, prejudiced representations in media and
pejorative social perceptions. Within this context, an individual’s bodily
constitution becomes transposed onto their emotional and psycholog-
ical constitution, and condemned (“the fat”) or idealised (“the thin”)
through the discursive link to traits such as self-control, discipline, compe-
tence, modernity, and even morality and intelligence.31 Lindsey Averill
29 For a review of research on the meanings associated with slim- and large-size bodies
in non-Western cultures, see e.g. Grogan (2017, 29–30).
30 Following the example of Murray (2008), I put terms such as “fatness” and “fat” in
inverted commas to acknowledge the ambiguities surrounding these problematic notions
in the contemporary cultural, political and medical discourses, and to recognise their
relative, arbitrary and politicised character.
31 See e.g. DeMello (2014, 201–203), Averill (2016), Bosc (2018), Bordo (2003),
Engeln (2018, 113–116), Grogan (2017, 11–14), Murray (2008), Younger (2009,
chap. 1). See further Grogan (2017, 13–14), for a concise review of research on weight
encapsulates such discourses on the body within the concept of “thin-

thinking”—a perspective that privileges slim bodies and feeds into the
understanding of “fatness” “as a catastrophic failure or weakness, which
must be addressed and corrected” (2016, 15–16). As Margo DeMello
concludes, “fat shaming and sizeism seem to be the last remaining
acceptable forms of discrimination in the West” (2014, 192).
This unrelenting social pressure to be(come) thin affects primarily
women (see e.g. Harjunen 2017; Engeln 2018; Murray 2008). In The
“Fat” Female Body, Samantha Murray points to the early practices of
gendering “fatness” and linking large size in women to moral and
aesthetic failure. As Murray concludes, this perspective continues to
inform the discourses of “fatness” even today, narrating “fat” bodies “as
aesthetic and ethical affront” to the social values of health and feminine
desirability (2008, 1–3, 7). The culturally produced desire to be thin
forms a strong connection between women’s (self-)image and weight. As
Helen Malson (2003) asserts, the experiences of “fatness” and “thinness”
have become essential for the process of defining womanhood, and issues
surrounding body weight remain a source of anxiety for many women.
Girl cultures in particular are preoccupied with slenderness, and
continue to embrace a slim silhouette as a standard of feminine beauty.
According to the data gathered by Renee Engeln in Beauty Sick: How the
Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women, girls experi-
ence dissatisfaction with their body shape and size much more often than
boys, and many express concerns about their appearance before they even
reach their tween years (2018, 17–18, 40–46).32 The idea of slender-
ness as vital to successful girlhood emerges early in the texts marketed to
pre-teen girls, and continues to be presented as a matter of great impor-
tance in fiction for adolescents.33 In her analysis of female body image in
stigmatisation and Averill (2016, 16–17), for further readings on the historical devel-
opment on the discursive link between body size and moral virtue within Western
culture.
32 Quoted after the Polish translation by Marta Bazylewska, Obsesja pi˛ekna. Jak kultura
popularna krzywdzi dziewczynki i kobiety (2018).
33 A frequently evoked example is the internationally popular Barbie doll, repeatedly crit-
icised for embodying the impossibly skinny female body ideal and for socialising children
into the “cult of thinness”. According to Lauren Bosc, a similar function is performed
by fairy tales, which tend to privilege slim bodies and to position the larger ones “as
antithetical to the fairy-tale dream, as a threatening figure to be fought and overthrown,
and/or as the butt of a joke” (2018, 255). Bosc further states that “[i]n the fairy tale
novels for young readers, Beth Younger sheds light on the girl culture’s
continuing celebration of thinness, noting that young female power and
self-esteem often depend on bodily size and shape. The slim body is
linked with responsibility, agency and socially accepted sexual conduct,
while large bodies are narrated as signifying lack of control and the loss
of feminine value (2009, 8 and chap. 1). In YA literature, as Michele
Byers reminds us, large-sized characters have been traditionally cast in the
roles of “‘befores,’ cautionary tales, or lonelies” (2018, 159). Although
within the recent years the number of books that attempt to challenge the
privileging of thin bodies has been on the rise (Averill 2016; Byers 2018),
the majority of the best-selling YA literature remains embedded in thin-
thinking, pathologising “fat” bodies and narrating their girl protagonists
as slim—either from the beginning or following a successful makeover
(Averill 2016, 17–18). Furthermore, as pointed out by both Byers (2018)
and Averill (2016), even the novels that feature corpulent heroines who
(come to) accept and like their bodies, fail to envision a world free of
thin-thinking, and therefore do not explore the possibility of putting an
end to the structural discrimination of the “fat” body.
Within the vampire genre marketed to girls, thinness constitutes an
established norm. As the pinnacle of the Western ideal of physical beauty,
vampires rarely struggle with the issue of weight.34 The few corpu-
lent bloodsucking characters are marginalised, ridiculed or killed off
(like overweight Eddie, played by Stephen Root in True Blood’s first
season), or used for comic effect, produced by the clash between the
cultural imageries of “fatness” and “vampire”.35 It is, therefore, hardly
unexpected that the heroines of the series analysed in this volume are
all gracefully slim, “totally skinny”, resembling ballerinas and runway
models, or have strong, well-toned bodies with feminine curves (see e.g.
imaginary … [desirable] princesses are helpless and thin” (2018, 252). While in the stories
of today, the first prerequisite is often no longer valid, the second is rarely challenged,
and a lean figure remains essential in portraying heroines.
34 Admittedly, in some stories even vampresses need to be careful about their diet in
order to maintain or reach the desirable thin silhouette; see e.g. Claudia Gray’s Evernight
(2008, 185), where vampire girls reduce their typical intake of blood to improve their
figures before a school dance (Smith and Moruzi 2018, 13).
35 An interesting take on the vampire body can be found in Johnny B. Truant’s six-
volume Fat Vampire literary series (Sterling & Stone 2012–2013) or Fat Vampire. A
Never Coming of Age Story by Adam Rex (Balzer + Bray 2010); both feature overweight
vampires as central protagonists and mix the elements of comedy and horror.
see e.g. Marked 51, 84, 93; Betrayed 44; VA 51; GL 410–411). Slen-
derness appears to be particularly valued in House of Night, with the
protagonists repeatedly taking notice of, contemplating and commenting
upon their own and others’ sizes and shapes. Packing for her new life in
the vampire school, the main heroine Zoey takes care to choose clothes
that are “slimming” (Marked 23), and judges the fashion choices of her
newly met roommate as “making her butt look wide” (Marked 84). Even
on the verge of death, with her chest slashed open by a demon’s claw,
Zoey feels self-conscious about her weight as she notices the fatigue of
the boy who carries her to safety (Hunted 117).
Reflecting the cultural stigmatisation of “fat”, large-bodied figures
are mostly absent from the storyline. The few who make a fleeting
appearance are often linked with negative characteristics, like narrow-
mindedness, poor hygiene, laziness or even cruelty. For instance, a briefly
mentioned babysitter who behaved violently towards a small child is
described as “horrid and, may I say, fat, poorly dressed” (Untamed 238,
emphasis original)—a depiction that conflates her body size, class status
and lack of fashion awareness with her despicable character. Other obese
women—mentioned only in passing—are described as lacking dental
hygiene (Untamed 175) or as members of a hateful religious move-
ment, accompanied by “their beady-eyed pedophile husbands” (Marked
31). Designating large-sized bodies as undesirable in terms of romance
and/or vampiric consumption, vampire fledgling Damien exercises to
“stay properly svelte and attractive for [his boyfriend] Jack” (Awakened
57), emphasising that “a chubby gay is not a happy gay” (Awakened 56);
his friend Aphrodite, in turn, ridicules the concerns of humans stuck in
her vampire school: “Why would anyone want to eat any of them? Most
of them are fat anyway! Eesh!” (Redeemed 177; cf. also 147). The only
“chubby” person described in more detail is a vampire fledgling called
Elliott, a negligible character with no positive traits.36
In House of Night, maintaining the “right” body size is both a ques-
tion of social acceptance and the subject of the school’s policy. While
fully developed vampires are narrated as highly unlikely to become over-
weight regardless of their lifestyle (“You don’t see fat vamps but you also
don’t see them chewing on celery and carrots and picking at salads”),
36 Zoey criticises also the bodies of girls “who puked and starved themselves into what
they thought was Paris Hilton chic”, further complicating the navigation of the terrain of
the “right” bodily size for girls (Marked 51).
young fledglings are required to eat healthily and exercise every day in
order not to become “weak or fat or sick” (Marked 108–111, 221).
Gaining weight is presented as one of the symptoms of the fatal rejection
of the Change (the transformation of the fledgling into a full vampire),
and usually precedes the gruesome death of the affected teenager (see
e.g. Marked 111). Thus, bodily size is not only a question of aesthetics
or social success; it is literally a matter of life and death—with a slender
physique implicating survival, and “fat”, deviant bodies eradicated from
the vampire world.37
Similarly, to some extent, Mead’s Vampire Academy and Bloodlines
present slenderness as intrinsic to being a living vampire. The Moroi are
described as genetically slim, with Moroi girls in particular sporting the
thin, tall and somewhat androgynous physique of a super-model, that
requires neither fitness nor diet regimes to maintain. However, in these
series, the inhumanely slim vampiric figure is employed as a metaphor for
the unreachable body ideal fed to girls and women by popular culture.
This imagery is clearly present in the story of Sydney in Bloodlines. In
an eerie echo of the obsession over the “ideal” silhouette stimulated by
unrealistic beauty standards, the human/witch heroine strives to attain
the vampiric figure. She denies herself food (“I selected a yogurt, which
looked sad and lonely in the middle of my otherwise empty tray”; BL loc.
3756), neurotically avoids sugar and longs for a “normal”—that is extra
small—clothing size (BL loc. 1107).
The cultural pressure to be thin is epitomised by Sydney’s dysfunctional
father Jared Sage. Jared requires his daughter to accomplish the impos-
sible by moulding her own body into a size and shape that is no longer
human. Mirroring the sociological findings regarding the attributes asso-
ciated with slim and “fat” bodies, he perceives his daughter’s size as a
physical manifestation of her self-discipline, orderliness and moral virtue.
Scolding Sydney for what he considers an insufficiently slender figure,
Jared taunts her by evoking the slimness of vampires, wondering why his
daughter cannot achieve what “those monsters” could (BL loc. 3769). In
her father’s eyes, Sydney’s not-thin-enough body equals moral failure—a
sign that she has been bested by the creatures of the night. Using her
37 Furthermore, in Redeemed, the series’ arch-villainess Neferet chooses to first murder

all her hostages who are categorised as “[f]at, ugly, and unimpressively dressed”, once
again linking larger size with laziness (“I wager their blood tastes like sloth”; 199) and
death.
physical image as a tool with which to instil feelings of guilt and inade-
quacy, and to shame her into subordination, Jared exerts his patriarchal
power over what he perceives as the malleable female body. This imagery
is further reinforced by his failing to discuss any criteria concerning
male bodies—an oversight that divorces male physique from notions of
competence, morality and success.
With Jared’s gaze constantly monitoring and evaluating her body (“My
father eyed me from head to toe and showed his approval at my appear-
ance … by simply withholding criticism.”; BL loc. 83; see also FH
287), Sydney begins to display a range of symptoms resembling anorexia
nervosa (see e.g. DeMello 2014, 197–198). She becomes an obsessive
perfectionist and a strict self-disciplinarian, suffering from a distorted
body image and eating disorder (IS 45). Scholarly studies point to the
connection between body dissatisfaction and exposure to idealised, digi-
tally altered body images, particularly for young women. Following Susan
Bordo (2003), Sarah Grogan notes that these images work to transform
the viewer’s perception of female bodies and to depict them as inadequate
if they fail—as most of them do—to adhere to “an unrealistic, polished,
slimmed and smoothed ideal” (2017, 24). In her analysis of dress codes
and clothing consumption in Twilight, Sarah Heaton shows how this
unreachable model materialises in the cultural figure of the glamorous
vampress, whom she compares to the inhumanely beautiful fashion icons
in women’s magazines. Describing Alice and Rosalie Cullen as walking
“images of perfect femininity”, she draws attention to the feelings of body
shame that they inspire in other female characters (2013, 86, 88; cf. Ní
Fhlainn 2019, 231). Similarly, for Sydney in Bloodlines it is vampires that
take up the role of the photoshopped models of glossy magazines, and the
heroine looks at their figures with envy and wistfulness: “[T]hey could all
eat whatever they wanted and still keep those amazing bodies. Meanwhile,
I labored over every calorie and still couldn’t reach that level of perfec-
tion. … I felt enormous by comparison” (GL 44; see also BL loc. 1103,
1104).
As Sydney gradually distances herself from her toxic father and engages
in a supportive relationship with vampire Adrian Ivashkov, her atti-
tude towards her body evolves (see e.g. FH 287). Refusing to trivialise
her eating disorder, Adrian confronts her about the absurdity of her
struggle for vampiric thinness (while introducing her, step by step, to
the previously self-forbidden pleasure of desserts):
He fixed me with a disconcertingly hard look. “Maybe everyone else thinks

your aversion to food is cute—but not me. I’ve watched you watch Jill.
Here’s some tough love: you will never, ever have her body. Ever. It’s
impossible. She’s Moroi. You’re human. That’s biology. You have a great
[body] … and you’d look even better if you put on a little weight.” (GL
410–411)
In the fifth volume of Bloodlines, Silver Shadows, Sydney is accused of

betraying the Alchemists and locked up in a prison, called a re-education
centre. Here, food is used as a punishment and a weapon to break her
morale. During the procedure tellingly called “purging”, the heroine
is repeatedly subjected to a debilitating, chemically induced nausea and
violent vomiting, an experience that renders her unable to digest even
her favourite food, typically served immediately after as additional torture.
While demonstrating the ruthlessness of the Alchemists, this imagery
can also be construed as a metaphor for Sydney’s struggles against her
eating disorder—one that she ultimately overcomes with the help of her
boyfriend and friends (see e.g. IS 213).
Remarkably, the teenage vampress Jill, who in the eyes of Sydney
possesses an ideal body, is also narrated as struggling with her self-
perception and size-related insecurities. Her thinness (and other vampiric
features) makes her feel conspicuous, and she has difficulties fitting in
with her human peers, who at times tease her about her unusual appear-
ance. While Sydney resolves her problem with the help of her loved
ones and through practicing magic (an energy-consuming activity that
requires an increased calorie intake), Jill finds new confidence through
modelling, in which her body type is appreciated and sought after (BL loc.
3774). However, Jill’s troubles make it clear that the extra small size so
desired by Sydney does not guarantee a girl’s positive relationship to her
body. Contemplating different body types and standards of beauty among
various “species”, their dhampir friend Rose concludes that “[e]veryone
wanted what she couldn’t have” (VA 51).
2.4 No One Mourns the Ugly:

Beauty, Style and Belonging
In Plain and Ugly Janes, Charlotte Wright observes that within Amer-
ican fiction heroines that are considered “less-than-lovely” “are hopelessly
outnumbered by the pretty ones” (2013, x). As Roy Fisher, Ann Harris
and Christine Jarvis argue in Education and Popular Culture, “apparently,

as a society, we are unable to accept the overweight, geeky and unattrac-
tive as our heroes and heroines … Beautiful people receive preferential
treatment; the less attractive are disregarded or ridiculed” (2008, 125).38
Inscribing into that wider trend, “ugliness” is rarely featured in the series
under analysis. Furthermore, in House of Night, the “ugly” body often
translates into non-physical negative characteristics, and is fashioned as a
marker of insignificance, moral corruption or monstrosity. “Ugly” char-
acters are typically cast as villains and fools to be disregarded, changed or
killed off.
Among the beautiful vampire fledglings, the few “uglies” stand out,
eliciting distaste and contempt. When Zoey notices for the first time
her unattractive classmate Elliott, she uses her narrative power to reduce
him to “something red and bushy on the other side of the room”—an
unkempt, nose-picking “slug” (Marked 137–139, 188–189). Later on,
she finds his presence at a meeting of the elite school society Dark Daugh-
ters astonishing and out of place because of his looks: “[T]here wasn’t
one ugly, dorky-looking kid present. Everyone, and I do mean everyone,
except Elliott was attractive. He definitely didn’t belong” (Marked 188–
189). As it soon transpires, Elliott has been invited to the ceremony only
to donate his blood—a disgraceful role reserved for the students with the
lowest status in the school’s hierarchy. When other participants demean
Elliott as “a loser”, “nothing” and “a snack bar”, Zoey seconds their
invectives, nicknaming the boy “Elliott the Refrigerator” (the ultimate
insult among fledglings) and deeming him “a gross choice” for a drink
(Marked 204, 217). Early in the narrative, it becomes clear that Elliott’s
exterior matches his personality. Arrogant and lazy, he sleeps through his
classes, disregards his teachers and offends other students (Marked 139–
140). When in Marked Elliott bleeds to death in front of his classmates,
no one truly mourns him (296–298).39
38 Cf. DeMello where she refers to various studies uncovering the same trends within the
wider society. According to these analyses, individuals who fail to adhere to the culturally
defined standards of beauty are at a disadvantage in terms of romantic relationships or
professional opportunities; attractive people, in turn, tend to be viewed favourably and
associated with high social status and happiness (2014, 181).
39 Later on, Elliott returns from death only to meet his ultimate end as an outcast of
the vampire community, sentenced to perish in the desert, as he associates himself with
an expelled evil vampire in order to avoid schoolwork (Revealed 213–216).
While villainous characters can initially be presented as attractive, in

some cases their beauty deteriorates along with their morality. As the
series progresses, the stunning vampire priestess Neferet gradually turns
monstrous, her alliance with Darkness rendering her body a site of horror
and abjection. Stepping away from the path of the Goddess, the fallen
vampress enters the terrain of the uncivilised and undomesticated. She
leaves her former home at the school to inhabit dark and eerie spaces—
a hidden grotto and then an atrocious mock-temple created through
terror and death. Neferet’s body becomes depicted as “wild”—unclad
and/or barefoot, manifesting insectile and reptilian qualities, floating on
the snake-like tendrils of Darkness and able to dissolve into swarms of
spiders (Hunted 269; Found loc. 3607, 5360). At the end of the Other
World series, no trace is left of her spellbinding beauty: her limbs become
unnaturally elongated, her body skeletal and her movements animalistic
until she resembles a “super, super gross … mixture between a spider
and a praying mantis and a human” (Found loc. 2979, 2349). A dramatic
transformation is also located in her face, particularly her mouth and eyes.
In their respective studies of Twilight, Kathryn Kane and Clare Reed
point to the saga’s narrative shift from the traditional focus on the
vampiric mouth onto the vampiric eyes. Juxtaposing the Cullens with the
Dracula archetype—portrayed “by the life of his mouth and the dead-
ness of his eyes”—Reed observes that the eye-focused images of Twilight
humanise the vampire, neutralising the danger traditionally signalled by
the monster’s devouring lips and teeth (2013, 135). As their eyes change
colour depending on the character’s moral choice (to drink or to abstain
from human blood), they truly become, in the words of Piatti-Farnell, “a
window into the vampire’s ethical sense” (2014, 22, 23; cf. Kane 2010,
107). This trope recurs in other mainstream stories for young adults.
The mutable eyes of the bloodsucking characters in the televised version
of The Vampire Diaries are transformed whenever they feed, darkening,
sometimes bloodshot, with alarming black veins appearing on the skin
underneath. In Mead’s series, a frightening if subtle eye metamorphosis
is, along with the whitened skin, the only immediately visible sign of a
character’s transformation into a Strigoi. Those who have joined the ranks
of the undead develop a “sickening red ring around [their] pupils”, along
with a somewhat less detectable “soulless, malicious gleam” (BP 282).
Similarly, manifesting the “deadness” of the Dracula archetype, the eyes of
the evil red fledglings of House of Night are devoid of emotion and gleam
“dirty red” (Betrayed 241, 281)—their colour communicating Otherness

and bloodlust (cf. Piatti-Farnell 2014, 23).
While the eyes of priestess Neferet do not acquire scarlet undertones,
they do regress from “deep, mossy green” (Marked 51) into smooth
emerald “creepy marbles” with no pupils at all—a transformation that
Zoey narrates as a sign of Neferet’s madness (Redeemed 94). Further-
more, her aura begins to mirror the milky colour and lifeless expression
of the eyes of a dead fish, testifying to the “deadness” of her soul and
earning her the moniker of “Dead Fish Eye Lady” among the students
(Destined 133). At the same time, Neferet’s mouth becomes an outlet of
her monstrous inner self—an abject instrument of horror and murder:
“[S]he began to smile, and her wide, beautiful mouth stretched and
stretched and stretched until, with a horrible gagging sound, spiders
exploded from that gaping maw” (Hunted 269).
The strong interdependence between inner and outer metamorphoses
is further evidenced through the story of Zoey’s best friend Stevie
Rae. After rejecting the Change, Stevie Rae returns as one of the red
fledglings—creatures that are cast in the mould of the folkloric vampires
and zombies, preying on blood and flesh. With long yellow fingernails
and a stench of decay, red fledglings resemble corpses—“the walking
undead … with no humanity left within them at all” (Chosen 39).40 As in
the case of Neferet, the “ugliness” of their bodies (and souls) is further
signified by the animal imagery evoked by the narrating Zoey.41 As the
ultimate Others—“something else. Something wrong” (Betrayed 268)—
red fledglings are grotesque and animal-like: they snarl, hiss and bare their
pointed teeth in hunger or rage (Hunted 51; Betrayed 241, 281).
The horrifying transformation of Stevie Rae into a bloodthirsty
monstress is narrated primarily through the lens of her body. With her
unwashed hair and baggy, mismatched clothes, the fledgling heroine
hardly resembles her pretty and well-groomed former iteration, and
explicitly links her loss of self with her repulsive appearance: “I’m not
who I was. I’m dirty and disgusting” (Chosen 47). When Zoey first meets
her friend after her resurrection, Stevie Rae is about to bleed a home-
less woman. Rather than feeling horror at the prospective murder, in her
40 Like classical zombies, most are also deprived of individuality; they move in a horde,
indistinguishable from one another (cf. Tenga and Zimmerman 2013, 76, 80).
41 For the animal imagery as a signifier of female “ugliness” in American fiction, see
Wright (2013, 19).
narration of the scene Zoey focuses on the bodies of both the assailant
and the victim. Filled with revulsion at their dishevelled, unhygienic state,
she explains that she is “too disgusted to be scared or even freaked out”
(Chosen 42).42 It is, thus, hardly surprising that Zoey immediately thinks
of “a long, soapy shower, and … some real clothes” as a logical solution
to her friend’s predicament (Chosen 46). “I know when I look like crap
I usually feel like crap, too. Maybe that’s part of why you feel so bad”—
she wonders (Chosen 123). Zoey’s theory proves to be correct, and Stevie
Rae begins to re-establish her humanity through restoring her unkempt
body to its former neat state. Brimming with anger and sorrow, the red
fledgling becomes much more approachable as soon as she takes a shower
and changes into a clean set of clothes. Once she resolves to choose good
over evil, her body is transformed along with her soul; her eyes lose their
feral red gleam and her repellent smell is never mentioned again. She
regains her former physical attractiveness and becomes magically embel-
lished with an exquisite tattoo, signifying the grace of the Goddess and
the fledgling’s maturation into a fully developed vampire.43
In the heroine’s journey from a monstrous zombie to a “good” red
vampire, clothing seems to be of particular importance. It is not until
Zoey mentions Stevie Rae’s favourite Roper jeans and cowboy boots
that she succeeds in reaching her lost friend: “I saw the flicker in her
eyes and knew I’d managed to touch the old Stevie Rae” (Chosen 47–
48). Ravenous and forlorn, Stevie Rae gives in to her newly awakened
monstrosity, preying on the homeless and claiming to find pleasure in
murder (Chosen 47); she weeps, however, at the sight of her old cherished
clothes (Chosen 129).
42 Rather alarmingly, the victim is described by Zoey as resembling “a big trash bag
full of garbage”. As the heroine urges Stevie Rae to let go, she emphasises the danger of
contracting lice rather than of causing another person’s death (Chosen 42–43). Similarly,
when remembering the forceful feedings (and possibly killings) that she committed in
her evil days, Stevie Rae emphasises her feelings of disgust at consuming a “wino”.
Ignoring the atrocity of the violent act, she reminisces about the resulting hangover and
her “burp[ing] cheap wine for days” (Hunted 154)—a troubling narration that deserves
separate analysis.
43 A similar transformation is experienced by Other Kevin, Zoey’s brother living in an
alternative world, who is stripped of his death-and-decay smell as soon as he chooses good
in Loved. Along with Stevie Rae, other red fledglings who renounce Darkness are restored
to their previous well-groomed and attractive bodies—a transformation that testifies to
their inner change.
In Girls, Style, and School Identities, Shauna Pomerantz articulates the

centrality of style in the complex processes of performing and negotiating
various iterations of girlhood. Countering the popular, narrowly defined
discourses of girls’ style as inconsequential (“just fashion”), Pomerantz
points to its significance as “a touchstone for social sensibilities … a litmus
test for shifting cultural values and norms” (2008, 3). A capacious cate-
gory comprising clothing, accessories and bodily ornamentation, style is
an avenue in which to express, negotiate and enact one’s identity and
agency, distance and belonging; an instrument of social in/exclusion; a
possibility of resistance against normative femininity and gendered social
hierarchies (Pomerantz 2008). Style can also be a powerful instrument
of social pressure, considered essential for a shared group identity, as
girls who fall short of peer expectations related to appearance have been
reported to experience ostracism and social stigma (Tazzyman 2017, 103–
104, 108, 110). Thus, contrary to postfeminist discourse that positions
style as a matter of free choice and self-expression, sociological studies
point to gendered norms, peer behaviour and the desire to “fit in” as
determining factors in young women’s decisions about their appearance.
In House of Night, mastering and performing “the right sort of style”
is narrated as crucial to successfully navigating the complex terrain of a
vampire high school (Franck 2013, 217).44 Echoing the significance of
“matching appearances” for group belonging, discussed in Tazzyman’s
study (2017, 103–104), the newly Marked Zoey wonders about vampire
dress codes, considering a change of her look in order to fit in (Marked
6, 23). The heroine shudders with dismay at the traditional vampire
aesthetics—“all kinda creepy and pale with bad hair and those long, nasty
fingernails”, gloomy black clothing and Goth makeup (Untamed 29–30;
Marked 6; Chosen 46)—and is relieved to discover that this look is no
longer in vogue. It soon transpires, however, that other stringent rules of
style continue to hedge about the boundaries of vampire girlhood.
44 This conclusion applies not only to girls, but also to boys, albeit to a lesser extent.
When Zoey meets Jack Twist, she immediately links his bodily image to his social prospects
at the school: “He was cute, in a studious kind of a way … Clearly he was one of those
geeky kids who is a dork, but a likable dork with potential (translation: he bathes and
brushes his teeth, plus has good skin and hair and doesn’t dress like a total loser)”.
(Betrayed 139).
In her analysis of shame as an inherent experience of girls in vampire

genre, Mia Franck (2013) employs the notion of “the controlling girl-
gaze” (den kontrollerande flickblicken) in order to discuss how girl
bodies are constituted in House of Night. Self-directed and/or exercised
by others, den kontrollerande flickblicken wields a disciplinary power,
subjecting girl bodies to rigorous surveillance and propelling girls to
perform “the right sort of style” in order to avoid shame (Franck 2013,
217). From female characters criticised for “dress[ing] like a hick” or
“freak” (Chosen 107; Marked 6), to dubbing those with the “wrong”
kind of makeup “those loser girls … [who] look like scary raccoons”
(Marked 114), the controlling girl-gaze is repeatedly employed by the
series’ protagonists, as they routinely scrutinise both their own and other
students’ bodies. A striking example of this can be found in Betrayed
when Zoey’s friends spur one another to “check out” a new fledgling.
“[F]rom shoes to earrings—in one fast glance”, they inspect her body
with a “sharp, fashion-wise gaze” and dismiss her style as “just tragic”
(Betrayed 1). Along with “bad taste”, an unstylish look is sometimes
narrated as signalling limited intelligence. In Burned, Stevie Rae judges
an unfashionably dressed security guard as having a “little pea brain”, as
“[n]o one under the age of eighty with a big brain wears grandpa pants
pulled all the way to their underarms” (59). The fleeting appearance of
these and other marginal characters fulfils a cautionary function, high-
lighting the social costs of failing to abide by the established standards of
style.
The centrality of bodily image to the constitution of school’s hier-
archy—a dynamics of power that has been observed in sociological
research (Tazzyman 2017)—is evident both in the House of Night friend-
ship relations and in some of the school’s policies. For instance, one
of the main female characters, Aphrodite, is described (if somewhat
ironically) as a girl who “didn’t believe in ugly friends”, with another
girl student approved as “definitely attractive enough to hang with
Aphrodite” (Hunted 11, 29). Even the question of the membership in the
Dark Daughters is at least partly reliant on the candidate’s look—when
Zoey hesitates on whether to join this prestigious school society, she is
reassured that she will fit right in as she is “beautiful enough to be one of
them” (Marked 231).45 Even years later, as high priestesses and teachers,
45 Aware of the injustice of that rule, Zoey declares that membership cannot be based
on appearance after she has assumed the leadership of the Dark Daughters (Betrayed 37).
young vampire heroines remain preoccupied with questions of appear-

ance and style. Upon meeting new fledgling Kacie in Forgotten, they
discuss her look appreciatively and in detail. Three out of four reasons
for Aphrodite’s fondness for Kacie are linked to the fledgling’s style and
beauty (142). They also nickname Kacie “Ice Cream Shoes” after the
designer wedges she is wearing—a constant reminder of appearance and
style as determinants of the self (143).
As the “right” appearance and self-presentation is narrated as essential
to performing successful young femininity, it is hardly surprising that look
ranks high on the girls’ list of interests and priorities.46 Girl fledglings take
time to fix their makeup before going to the school canteen (Marked 87)
and rush to purchase haircare products as soon as they are delivered from
an evil hex (Hunted 53). Conforming to the cultural ideals that stimulate
increasing attention to one’s physical image, the themes of look and style
routinely emerge in the characters’ conversations and thoughts, projecting
the message that “[y]ou can’t be too careful about those kinds of things”
(Marked 105).47
2.5 Velvet! Platinum! Pearls!

Vampire Girls as Consumers
In the universe of House of Night, the notion of “right style” carries
classed connotations, and is closely linked with consumerism and
economic power. Vampires have long been associated with the accu-
mulation of wealth, and read as a metaphor for capitalist greed and
consumerist excess.48 In Consuming Youth, Rob Latham identifies the
46 It is worth noting that male homosexual characters appear as invested in the question
of style as their female friends—a construction that will be commented upon in the next
chapter.
47 At times, this produces a comic effect, like when sassy fledgling Erin is shocked into
silence when her friend jokes about her hair (Marked 2015). Even the issue of substance
abuse is discussed in terms of physical appeal, as smoking marijuana apparently makes
attractive boys “less hottie” (Betrayed 56). This emphasis on the glamorous and stylish
feminine body partially abates in the House of Night sequel, the Other World series.
Already on the first pages of Loved, the narrating Zoey recalls that she introduced a more
relaxed dress codes as soon as she became the new High Priestess—a piece of information
followed by Zoey going to breakfast in slippers and sweat pants (16).
48 See e.g. Reed (2013, 142–143), Piatti-Farnell (2014, 110, 181–191), Wilson Over-
street (2006), and Latham (2002). An interesting take on vampirism and capitalism can
figures of vampire and cyborg as the very embodiment of the consumerist

ethos pervading contemporary youth culture, revealing its “ensnarement
in the norms and ideologies of consumption” (2002, 1). In the famous
vampire stories, such as Twilight, Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire
Mysteries (2001–2013) and True Blood, the literary and televised versions
of The Vampire Diaries, The Originals series (the CW 2013–2018) or J.
R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood novels (2005–present), to name but
a few, luxurious cars, deluxe housing and the ability to purchase expen-
sive gifts are taken for granted both by the protagonists and the genre’s
fans (see e.g. Piatti-Farnell 2014, 189).49 As Tenga and Zimmerman
conclude, the contemporary undead are living the ultimate Western “con-
sumer dream” and invite their aficionados to pursue that dream with them
(2013, 81).50
Adhering to the genre’s convention, the House of Night vampires are a
society of considerable affluence (see e.g. Marked 71; Loved 18). The
importance of economic wealth—and its association with prestige and
power—is recurrently highlighted. As one of the fledgling girls resent-
fully responds when accused of drinking cheap wine—“I don’t do cheap
anything” (Hunted 26).51 The vampires’ socio-economic privilege and
exceptional status is particularly evident in their lavish attire (cf. Heaton
2013, 86–87). Clad in opulent evening gowns, silk suits and immacu-
late white shirts, vampire priestesses look “like something that should
be in a chic Calvin Klein ad”—regardless of whether they lead a high-
level meeting or groom their horse (Hunted 279; see also Hunted 165;
Betrayed 9). Girl protagonists pay close attention to the latest fashion
be found in Daybreakers (Spierig and Spierig 2009), a film that, as Ní Fhlainn elucidates,
“articulates the growing horror of the neoliberal agenda by using its vampires as precar-
ious subjects at the mercy of hyper-capitalism” (2019, 245) On the anti-Semitic tropes
in the Gothic genre, and the associations between the image of the wealth-accumulating
vampire and Jewishness, see Reed (2013).
49 Note Driscoll, about the ways in which Twilight ’s Bella resists and critiques the
commodification of girlhood and girl consumer culture, both as a human and a vampire
(2016, 101–102).
50 See the authors’ brief analysis of the items for sale promoted through and sold thanks
to the audience’s engagement with the Twilight films and books; Tenga and Zimmerman
(2013, 81).
51 Another student intends to pursue a career that comes with an “unlimited golden
card” and a celebrity position rather than becoming a poet despite her exceptional talent,
as “poets, they don’t make no money” (Hunted 67).
trends, and clothes and clothing accessories are presented as exception-

ally desirable and of primary significance in various social situations (see
e.g. Untamed 136, 242; Hunted 141). For instance, while preparing for
the school’s cleansing ritual, Zoey and her friends take time to admire
one another’s new apparel, “curtseying, bowing, and making cute little
spins”, delighting in their “killer”, “cute” and “majorly cool” looks
(Untamed 303–304). Their celebration of a spiritual event with fashion
consumption and beauty rituals—one that equates new beginnings with
new attire—highlights the series’ postfeminist perspective on embodied
girlhood.
Although by no means a new phenomenon, commercial culture
targeted at young women has become, as argued by Angela McRobbie,
an essential part of the Western constructions of girlhood, with “com-
mercial values now occupy[ing] a critical place in the formation of the
categories of youthful femininity” (2008, 3, 5; see also Harris 2004, 87).
The neoliberal and postfeminist discourses of girlhood position the girl as
strongly invested in the consumerist culture of feminine glamour, linking
consumption with the narratives of choice, empowerment, success, girl
power and political activism (see e.g. Bellas 2017, 8–10; Harris 2004,
85–90; McRobbie 2008; Toffoletti 2008). As observed by Kim Toffo-
letti, the postfeminist girl is narrated as enacting her agency through
material and sexual consumption in a neoliberal context of economic
freedom, “which appear as central features of post-feminist orthodoxy”
(2008, 72). Evoking the discursive associations that link femininity and
vampirism with rampant consumption, the vampire girl of House of Night
embodies the ultimate high-end consumer. Girl heroines regularly engage
in purchasing designer products, and carefully take note of the labels,
emphasising their importance (see e.g. Marked 81; Betrayed 106, 111;
Hunted 141, 297). The leading heroine describes herself as “[s]peechless
with happiness” and hearing “the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ crescendo” when
gifted with a necklace from “the fabulously exclusive and amazingly
expensive Moody’s Fine Jewelry” (Chosen 10–15). It is noteworthy that
Zoey’s first reaction is to enthusiastically state the brand of the present
(“It’s from Moody’s!”) and to marvel at the luxurious materials (“Velvet!
Platinum! Pearls!”), while her girlfriends appreciate the necklace’s high
price (Chosen 10–15). Zoey feels disappointed with her other birthday
gifts, though she grows to enjoy them after discovering their cost (Chosen
68–70).
As Piatti-Farnell suggests, contemporary vampires are strongly asso-

ciated with luxurious brands. While several decades ago vampiric
consumerism was being read as a critique of “the insatiable hunger of
capitalist economies”, today it has come to be represented as a mode
of self-expression (2014, 189). In “Learning Womanhood: Body Modi-
fication, Girls and Identity”, Tazzyman sheds light on adolescent girls’
understanding of luxurious brands as adding to the product’s social value,
and thus, as enhancing the social perception of its owner (2017, 105).
As she asserts, “[t]he perceived and embodied identity of an individual
is altered by the consumption of certain products because the prod-
ucts themselves are associated with certain identities” (2017, 105). The
House of Night storyline reflects this perspective when the leading heroine
accentuates her preference for “the chic midtown stores” over “the
loud, boring, food court-smelling mall” frequented by her former human
friends (Betrayed 113). Zoey further applauds her roommate’s choice of
an elegant and expensive-looking black blouse “versus the cheaper see-
through shirts that overpriced Abercrombie tries to make us believe aren’t
slutty” (Marked 84). A display of economic privilege, the heroines’ sarto-
rial choices, consumption practices and “out-of-the-ordinary tastes” are
employed as signs of status that set them apart from those who lack the
knowledge or spending power to perform the “right” style.52
The tropes of fashion, body modification, consumerism and concerns
related to appearance, while present, receive much less attention in
Mead’s Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, with the questions of style
emphasised at least just as often in narrating the bodies of boys and
men.53 In these series, the focus of the storyline markedly shifts from
the glamorised female vampire body to girls’ bodies in action. As a
dhampir guardian, Rose Hathaway demonstrates both extraordinary phys-
ical prowess and superb fighting skills; however, her biologically enhanced
fitness still requires constant training. The heroine is often depicted exer-
cising and fighting, constantly pushing against the physical limits of her
body. As Janine J. Darragh points out, both Rose and Lissa enjoy chic
52 Similar conclusions have been drawn by Heaton (2013, 83) with reference to
Twilight ’s Cullens, whose fashion choices, as Heaton comments, serve to set them apart
from the “ordinary” residents of the town. Cf. DeMello (2014, 178, 187), for the
accounts of the “right” appearance as a prerogative of elite classes.
53 See e.g. multiple descriptions of the flamboyant clothing of Rose’s vampire father
Abe Mazur or of the carefully styled hair and designer attire of the vampire Adrian.
clothes, shopping and other traditionally feminine products and rituals of

beautification. Darragh evokes the example of the girls’ visit to a spa in
Shadow Kiss —and the delight of the tough fighter Rose in having her
nails painted glittery gold—in order to demonstrate the series’ engage-
ment in the Third Wave feminist embracement of diverse and seemingly
contradictory visions of girlhood (2016, 258–259). Having little room for
beauty practices in her everyday life, Rose enjoys the spa and describes it
in detail. Her participation in the guardian warrior culture precludes any
extensive engagement with the feminine culture of beauty, which differ-
entiates her from other girls and occasionally evokes a sense of wistful
longing (SK 217–220). She chooses to get a manicure in the spa because
she finds it
the most exotic, completely useless thing I could imagine. Well, it wasn’t
useless for ordinary women. But for me? With the way I used my hands
and subjected them to blisters, bruises, dirt and wind? Yes. Useless … And
that was why I so, so desperately wanted one. Seeing Lissa wear makeup
had awakened that longing in me for some beautification of my own. (SK
218–219)
As she looks at her weathered senior female colleagues, whose lives are
devoted to training and body-guarding, Rose feels momentarily disheart-
ened by the prospect of sacrificing her appearance and the pleasures of
beauty practices for her guardian calling.54 In particular, she is anxious
about cutting her long, lavish hair—a custom observed by all adult she-
guardians in order to expose their molnija marks. However, whereas her
senior female colleagues clearly see themselves primarily as warriors, Rose
chooses to tread the middle path. Instead of cutting her hair, she simply
wears it up, embracing with this simple gesture both warrior guardian
culture and the girl culture of “prettiness”.55 While her everyday sartorial
choices include mostly workout clothes, she occasionally delights in an
elegant dress and high heels. The heroine takes pleasure in consumerist
and beauty practices, and enjoys her own good looks; still, she does not
54 It is worth emphasising that the portrayals of mature female guardians focus primarily
on their competence, strength and courage rather than their looks.
55 These seemingly contradictory identities are acknowledged by Rose’s combat
instructor and future fiancé Dimitri, who pushes her hard in her training but also takes
time to learn about and purchase her favourite shade of lip gloss in order to please her.
depend on them for her self-esteem or a sense of happiness and belonging.

In the fourth volume of Vampire Academy, however, style becomes of
utmost importance for Rose, as she discovers its role in establishing
control over her own body and identity. In Blood Promise, the trope of
style and the female makeover emerges as terrain of intense power shifts
and an assertion of the emancipated self.
2.6 The Magic of Makeover:

Style as Oppression and Resistance
From traditional folk tales of housemaids and shepherdesses swapping
their humble clothes for royal gowns, to the twenty-first century teenage
movies with the unpopular nerd-heroine re-fashioned into the prom
queen and Prince Charming’s girlfriend, the trope of female makeover
continues to enjoy unwavering popularity within Western cultural narra-
tives. Literary, cinematic and televised productions formulated around the
sweeping transformation of a woman’s appearance abound, and TV reality
shows that transform the “ugly duckling” into a “beautiful swan” are in
constant demand (DeMello 2014, 177–178).56 Girl cultures in particular
persist in relying on the visually appealing trope of the Cinderella-
makeover that typically serves to secure a familiar “happy-ever-after” of
heterosexual romance (see e.g. Bellas 2017, chap. 5).57 These scripts, as
Maria Nilson observes in her analysis of girlhood in chick lit and teen
noir, are often granted a miraculous power to transform the girl’s inner
self through altering her appearance, allowing her to learn and perform—
without missing a beat—formerly unexplored types of femininity (2013,
202).
While tales of female makeover often carry a promise of the heroine’s
transformation “from mousey or geeky outsider to confident attractive
success”, capable of winning the desired boy’s affection (Averill 2016, 17–
18), this familiar trope can also deviate from its clichéd path. Rather than
emphasising beauty as a foundation of female success, the girls’ metamor-
phoses become a compelling exploration of the interplays between young
56 According to DeMello, makeover reality shows that transform “plain” women into
“beauties” are one of the most popular TV programmes (2014, 177). For an analysis of
the transformation trope in cinema, see Jeffers McDonald (2010).
57 For a different interpretation of the classic Cinderella tale through its use of fashion
as a site of resistance and empowerment, see e.g. Montz 2016 [2014], 114–115.
feminine styles, identities, forms of agency and strategies of resistance

against patriarchal oppression and rigid cultural constructions of girlhood.
Shauna Pomerantz points to the value of girls’ style as transgressing the
common perceptions that frame it as frivolity unworthy of attention or as
a moral problem to be judged and remedied. Style, Pomerantz empha-
sises, can become an important vehicle of transformation, allowing young
women to enact agency, alter their self-perception and influence the ways
in which they are seen by others (2008). Within girl cultures, internation-
ally acclaimed series such as Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games position
the tropes of style and makeover at the centre of their narratives of female
subversion and rebellion. For instance, Amy L. Montz points to the clear
political undertones in the makeover scenes of Collins’ heroine Katniss,
who turns her body into an instrument of protest through the rituals of
“girlification” (2016 [2014], 111–112; cf. Montz 2012).58
Within the YA vampire genre, the intimate intertwining between the
transformations of identity and style has been studied, for instance, by
Rhonda Nicol (2016). In her essay on gender and subversion in The
Vampire Diaries, Nicol observes how the show relies on visual cues to
mark the leading heroine Elena’s mental and emotional changes, as she
alternates between human, humanised vampire and inhumane monster.59
Hannah Priest further looks into Rachel Caine’s Morganville series
(2006–2014) and its heroine Eve’s use of style as a tool for subverting the
Gothic tropes of the child-woman. As Priest asserts, Eve succeeds in “redi-
rect[ing] this imagining of femininity into confrontation, intimidation and
self-preservation” (2013, 73). This section of the chapter focuses on the
makeover tales of three heroines of YA vampire fiction: Emily Wheiler
(Neferet’s Curse), Rose Hathaway (Vampire Academy) and Sydney Sage
(Bloodlines ), highlighting the use of style as an instrument of change,
empowerment and protest rather than merely an aesthetic category or a
static reflection of the inner self.
58 Montz further designates the character of Cinna, the androgynous stylist that works
on Katniss’s appearance, as “the most rebellious figure” in the first volume of the series
(2016 [2014], 111). For a different interpretation of Katniss’s transformation with a focus
on the female makeover as a visual spectacle aimed at attracting acceptance as a condition
for female success, see Nilson (2013) and Averill (2016, 18).
59 For instance, Elena swaps her sleek hairdo for a shorter, tousled haircut with red-died
streaks as she explores her newly discovered wild vampiric self (Nicol 2016).
Born in two different centuries—and in three different vampire series—

teenage dhampir Rose, human girl Emily and Alchemist-witch Sydney
all share the experience of living under the control of an extreme patri-
arch figure. These patriarchs strictly monitor their bodies, policing not
only their sexuality and movements, but also their looks. Sydney’s style
is dictated by the standards instilled in her by her authoritarian father;
Rose’s outfits are provided by her lover-turned-vampire Dimitri, who
holds her captive in an apartment in Siberia; and Emily’s attire is picked
by her father, who keeps her under house arrest. Denied the freedom
to make their own sartorial choices, Rose and Emily compare themselves
to dolls or puppets—inanimate, non-agential objects that are dressed and
embellished to their owners’ tastes (BP 307, NC 30, 66). Both hero-
ines detest the clothing that is imposed on them, seeing it as connoting
female submission and vulnerability. Ultimately, it is their objection to
these unwelcome styles that signals and propels their inner change—one
that leads to the restoration of their lost autonomy.
In Neferet’s Curse, sixteen-year-old Emily Wheiler living in nineteenth-
century Chicago, grows increasingly terrified of her father, who intrudes
on her privacy and disregards the rules of modest conduct: “Father had
burst into my third-floor parlor without introduction or warning … I had
to raise my hands to cover my half-bared breasts” (NC 86). In a discon-
certing literalisation of the archetypal objectifying male gaze, Mr. Wheiler
circles his daughter’s body and scrutinises her skin and attire, reducing
her, in her own words, to “a soulless manikin” (86). To Emily’s acute
distress, her father insists that she wears the gowns of his late wife, tailored
for the figure of a mature woman rather than a girl. The opulent dresses
and tight corsets that restrict Emily’s mobility and breathing correspond
with the constraints that her father places on her freedom of movement
and access to public spaces. These constraints are narrated through the
means of style; for instance, Mr. Wheiler orders Emily not to wear her
cycling bloomers again, effectively prohibiting her from participating in a
youth cycling club. A seemingly inconsequential discomfort put against all
the other limitations through which she is forced to suffer, this moment
turns out to be a turning point in their interactions. In a small but signif-
icant gesture of defiance, Emily hides her cycling bloomers safely in the
ground rather than throwing them away (25–32).
As her confidence increases, the young heroine begins to employ her
outfits as acts of subtle resistance against her father’s tyranny. Required to
wear one of her mother’s “velvet greens” to a dinner party, she chooses to
feign misunderstanding and has her own dress embellished with the late
Mrs. Wheiler’s velvet ribbons rather than wearing her gown (66–67). This
subversive decision allows her to defy her “manikin” status and assume a
position of agency: “I will follow Father’s request, but it will be on my
own terms. I am the Lady of Wheiler House and not a child’s doll to
be dressed up”, she explains (67). Later on, when preparing to accom-
pany her father to a social gathering, the heroine juxtaposes a sexualised
gown of his choosing with an innocent childlike hairstyle. This spectacle
of irreconcilable femininities is carefully designed to subvert the authority
of the patriarch. Through the performative use of her attire, Emily actively
constructs herself as a fragile damsel in need of rescue in order to spur her
fiancé’s family into curbing her father’s excesses (112, 123–126). At the
dramatic climax of the story, the newly vampirised heroine restrings her
mother’s pearls into a strangling noose that ends Mr. Wheiler’s life (114).
The necklace that her father has forced upon her as yet another symbolic
yoke has been transformed into the ultimate weapon against his abuse and
tyranny.
Style as a site of control and resistance has been further employed in
the storyline of dhampir Rose and Strigoi-Dimitri in Mead’s Blood Promise
(Vampire Academy). While at first Rose tosses in disgust the clothing
picked by her captor, her determination wanes as she grows dependent
on their toxic relationship. Confused and addicted to Dimitri’s drug-
infused bites, the heroine surrenders to lacy underwear, silk nightgowns
and chiffon dresses—a style that she initially deems as preclusive of any
efficient physical action (307–308, 343–343). Yet, as soon as Rose shakes
off the effects of the vampire poison, she awakens to see her clothing
as a sign of oppression and a metaphor for her own helpless state (386–
387). Swapping her delicate silk attire for a sweater-dress and a hoodie,
the heroine offers the readers a clear visual cue that marks her departure
from the vulnerable femininity that she has briefly courted. This physical
transformation, as Rose notes herself, brings about an immediate posi-
tive effect on her confidence and morale: “It hardly made me feel like
a badass warrior, but I did feel more competent. Sufficiently dressed for
action” (387). Whereas the style chosen by Dimitri emphasised female
fragility and sexual submissiveness, the heroine’s new appearance signals
her return to the performance of an active and agential girlhood.
While Rose’s escape from vampiric patriarchal oppression is envi-
sioned through her shedding of sexualised, restrictive clothes that speak
of emphasised femininity, the emancipation of her friend Sydney Sage
is narrated, in contrast, through her increasing investment in a more

feminine style. Raised to join the ranks of the Alchemists by her stern
father, Sydney adheres rigorously to their sartorial codes. Ignoring fashion
trends popular among her peers and avoiding clothing that could be
seen as informal or frivolous, the heroine chooses high-quality, modest,
elegant outfits of subdued shades, complemented with discreet makeup
and smoothly styled hair. Neatly dressed in business grey slacks and white
shirts that communicate the Alchemists’ values of professionalism, order-
liness, discretion and deference to authority, Sydney grooms and styles
her body to fit into the rigid categories of appropriateness imposed on
her by her father.
Dispatched on a mission at a boarding high school and guised as a
student, Sydney enters the unfamiliar territory of the adolescent social
world. One of the things that confuse her is teenage fashion protocol,
with her own style deemed “nice” but ungirly by her new school friends
(GL 60). While Sydney is well qualified to offer advice on the proper
look for a job interview (GL 60), she finds herself at a loss when picking,
for instance, an outfit for a date. Her plan to wear a demure, buttoned-
up blouse is dismissed by her girlfriends, who quickly step into the role
of a collective fairy godmother—an archetypal agent of makeover in girl
culture narratives—and produce a date-appropriate ensemble (GL 78–
79). Sydney’s major makeover scene, however, does not come until later
in the volume when she designs her costume for a Halloween dance. Her
choice of a simple, white dress fashioned in the style of the Athenian
era appears to correspond with her reserved disposition and intellectual
interests. On the night of the dance, however, the heroine discovers that
the costume sent to her by a local designer is, in fact, an extravagant,
“brilliant, flaming scarlet” dress of a Greek courtesan hetaera (GL 218).
Sydney’s unexpected performance of glamorous girlhood—coded with
sensual red and conspicuous golden jewellery—compels much admira-
tion both from her friends and her future vampire boyfriend Adrian. The
latter directly invokes the fairy-tale narrative of female metamorphosis,
dubbing Sydney “a Greek Cinderella” (GL 220–226, 237, 253). That
night Sydney experiences a new connection with passionate Adrian—a
man who sees her as “the most beautiful creature … walking this earth”
(GL 247), and distances herself from her unemotional boyfriend Brayden,
who evaluates her dress as “historically inaccurate” (GL 237). This devel-
opment ostensibly complies with the traditional Cinderella resolution in
heterosexual romance, facilitated by the metamorphosis of an unimposing
heroine into “the belle of the ball” (as one of the teachers describes
Sydney; GL 253). In Mead’s story, however, the heroine’s sensational
sartorial transformation serves primarily to resist and subvert the message
of female submissiveness, with the heroine winning Prince Charming’s
affections as an unintended and initially unwelcome side effect. The femi-
nist agenda emerging in her extravagant costume is clearly articulated
through Sydney’s earlier explanation of the differences between house-
bound, uneducated Athenian matrons and well-read, emancipated and
adventurous hetaerae (GL 140–141). In this context, the hetaera dress
becomes a dramatic visual harbinger of Sydney’s gradual transforma-
tion from her (over-)disciplined self, who mostly defers to her father
and the Alchemists, into a girl that courageously explores the previously
untrodden terrains of magic, passion and rebellion. At the end of this
journey, the sensual hetaera dress—with its “fire and gold” (GL 247)—
turns out to have expressed Sydney’s inner self much more accurately than
a plain Athenian gown.
While early in the series Sydney’s makeovers are effected by fairy
godmother figures played by her girlfriends and a local designer, later
in the story she comes to make her own transformative sartorial choices.
In Silver Shadows, on the verge of a hasty Las Vegas marriage, the heroine
surprises both her vampire fiancé Adrian and the readers by revealing her
dream of “the full deal” wedding (SS 331). With ruthless enemies hot on
their heels, Sydney still chooses to spend two hours at a wedding parlour,
working on her look. Rather than opting for the simple elegance that has
been her sartorial trademark throughout the series, she dazzles her fiancé
with a dress of “old Hollywood glamor”, wrapped in tulle, organza and
crystal embellishments (337–339). The Silver Shadows appreciative take
on a glamorous female body intertwines with the narrative of a girl’s
body in action, as shortly after the wedding Sydney is forced to climb
Las Vegas roofs in a daring escape from her enemies. In a clever reimag-
ining of the Cinderella motif, the fleeing heroine sheds her fancy wedding
slippers. However, rather than losing them so as to leave a trail, she trades
them with a stranger for a pair of running shoes (350), choosing footwear
that stands for action and mobility over that representing passive beauty
and restricted movement. Sydney’s visual transformation is marked as
complete when in the series “Epilogue” she appears returning home from
work in an attractive red dress (RC 341).
In Fairy Tales on the Teen Screen: Rituals of Girlhood, Athena Bellas

discusses feminist scholarship that has construed the culture of femi-
nine glamour, fashion and beautification as hampering and objectifying
women, and placing them in a position of subservience (2017, 198).
However, Bellas herself cautions against an indiscriminate critique of femi-
nine “pretty aesthetics” as oppressive and antifeminist, shedding light
on its subversive potential. Within this context, the affirmative way of
presenting the contrasting makeover stories of Sydney and Rose is particu-
larly interesting. Whether expressed through sparkling glamour, or coded
with running shoes and a hoodie, the idea of girl empowerment through
style is grounded in (re-)gaining the freedom of choice and exploration,
and achieved through diverse ways of experiencing and understanding
girls’ bodies and looks. While at times dazzling an occasional prince, the
heroines’ metamorphoses are not primarily focused on romance, but are
meant instead as an assertion of power that facilitate the performance
of girlhood outside of the passive Cinderella frame. The makeover trope
serves as a narrative tool that emphasises the girls’ move from restrictive
femininity into an agential self, with style as a means of resistance against
forces that try to prevent them from enacting an empowered version of
girlhood.
2.7 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have examined some of the ways in which girl bodies and
identities are constituted in serialised vampire fiction for young adults. As
a site of convergence for various discourses surrounding the cultural ideas
of vampirism and girlhood, the body of the genre’s adolescent heroine
offers multiple possibilities for shedding light on contemporary under-
standings of feminine beauty, style, consumerism and the culture of body
modification, illuminating their interplays with girl empowerment, agency
and belonging.
Immersed in a high school culture fixated on body image and strongly
resonating with hegemonic discourses of embodied girlhood, the House of
Night series positions physical attractiveness and performing the “right”
sort of style as key markers of successful young femininity. Whereas on
many levels vampirism operates to enhance the series’ girl protagonists,
it appears to be failing, against Nina Auerbach’s hopes, to protect them
“against a destiny of girdles, spike heels, and approval” (Auerbach 1995,
4). Girls’ control over their appearance is hedged about by the exclu-
sive standards of appropriate style and the controlling girl-gaze enforcing
the rules. Following the scripts of vampire bodily perfection, the series
is replete with conventional signifiers of idealised femininity, typically
applauding youthful, slender, immaculately groomed and stylishly dressed
bodies, marked by an ethos of high-end consumerism.
The “ugly”, “fat”, old, unkempt and unstylish are designated as Other
and expelled to the margins of the story. The final moments of the arch-
villainess Neferet are emblematic of this message. Having become “a dark
goddess”, Neferet rejoices in her new appearance and is content to no
longer feel “the need to conform to any world’s standard of beauty”
(Found loc. 3609–3610). Other characters, however, dub her as The
Monstress, feel the urge to vomit at the sight of her and eventually
consign her to the void and darkness. In Extraordinary Bodies, Rose-
marie Garland-Thomson talks about philosophical narratives that reinvent
“a somatic difference into a hierarchy of value that assigns completeness
to some bodies and deficiency to others” (2017 [1997], 20). While her
comment refers to Aristotelian conceptions of male and female bodies,
it can also be applied to the House of Night ’s strong demarcating line
between “the attractive” and “the ugly”—one that translates into social
hierarchies based on bodily image.
While the leading heroines of Mead’s Vampire Academy and Blood-
lines remain conventionally—and somewhat unrealistically—beautiful, the
series appear to offer more in terms of challenging the popular construc-
tions of girlhood as organised around look, shifting the focus from girls’
physical appearance to their abilities and competence. Resisting and/or
renegotiating the dominant narratives of the idealised, upper-class and
invincible vampire body—one that is immune to the terrors of ageing
and bodily deterioration—the series allow more space for bodies that
are vulnerable, troubled, scarred, diseased and divergent from conven-
tional templates of beauty. Whether vampire, dhampir or human, mature
female characters do display the signs of ageing but—ruling nations,
fighting evil or practicing witchcraft for the greater good—they spend
little time contemplating the process. The controlling girl-gaze emerges
less often and rarely comes across as something that truly matters. When
the novels discuss girls’ anxieties related to looks, they tend to do so in a
compassionate and inclusive way. For instance, rather than trivialising and
ridiculing the problem of a distorted body image and body size obses-
sion, the series recognise it as a disorder that needs to be addressed, and
frames it sympathetically in terms of external pressures internalised by the

heroine. In the same time, in House of Night, girls who use unhealthy
methods to reach excessive thinness are derogatorily narrated as “freaks”,
foolishly aspiring to “wrong” ideals of beauty (Marked 51).
The messages surrounding the young female body in the Casts’ series
are, however, far from unambiguous. The heroines’ preoccupation with
questions of appearance reaffirms popular notions of feminine success as
based on beauty and presents girls’ interests in a reductive way. In the
same time, however, it may also be read as reflecting the complicated
reality of adolescent women and their high school experience related to
looks. Further, it is used as a strategy of coping with fear, hopelessness
and other overwhelming emotions. Deeming the rejection of Change as
“a much too unattractive way to die” to ever happen to them (Betrayed
38; cf. Hunted 214), or pointing to the detrimental effect of bloodshed
on manicures and hair as their incentive to sabotage war plans (Untamed
56), these heroines channel their anxieties into the well-familiar “girly”
territory of look in order to tame their fears (see also Redeemed 69).
Furthermore, in the novels of both the Casts and Mead, girls’ engagement
in the practices of consumerism and body modification is narrated as a
source of pleasure and a way of tending to friendships. Appearance and
style transformations can also be used to articulate resistance against the
policing and constriction of female bodies, and as a vehicle of escape or
subversion in the face of patriarchal authority. Unsettling the gendered
hierarchies of power, young heroines shed their lives of constraint along
with the restrictive, sexualised or repressively unfeminine clothing that
limits their mobility and horizons, ditching high heels, chic hairstyles or
mundane business suits in their quests for emancipation.
For some, this quest entails fighting their body-related insecurities and
overcoming the cultural pressure to meet idealised beauty standards. In
House of Night, the bodily ideal is epitomised by the figure of the glamor-
ised vampress who could be easily read as yet another potential source of
body-related anxiety for girl readers. However, the series offers a number
of moments that open possibilities for different interpretations. As the
narrating heroine portrays the overdrawn perfection of vampiric bodies as
belonging in the world of fiction—comparing them to movie stars, Barbie
dolls (Marked 51), Disney princesses (Loved 33) and fashion photographs
in shiny magazines (Hunted 279)—their exaggerated beauty, extravagant
consumerism and idealised style reveal the structures of gendered culture
and the expectations it places upon female bodies and interests. The figure
of the vampress provides a fantasy space on which to map the bodily

desires, fears and cultural pressures experienced by girls. In Bloodlines, this
pressure is embodied through the vampress’s inhumanely slender silhou-
ette that demonstrates the power of culturally defined and highly limited
body ideals over girls’ lives and perceptions of self. Ultimately, however,
these ideals become debunked as an elusive fantasy that works to disem-
power women, encouraging body dissatisfaction and excluding multiple
possibilities of defining beauty.
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CHAPTER 3
A Love So Strong that It Aches: (Re-)Writing

Vampire Romance
From the realms of horror, gore and deadly seduction, contemporary

vampire fiction has largely tilted into the sphere of paranormal romance.
The vampire, once fashioned as a figure of fear and abjection, has grad-
ually evolved into the ultimate romantic character—a tender lover, a
fierce protector, an affectionate boyfriend and a devoted husband. As
Lorna Piatti-Farnell notes, the “impact of love-centred dynamics on
the overall conception of vampire literature in the twenty-first-century
context” cannot be denied (2014, 97). Love and romantic unions have
become the lifeblood of the genre, particularly in the stories written by
and marketed to women. The romantic vampire of today more often
inspires erotic fantasies than fears, and if fear is present, it is swiftly over-
come through romantic connection (Piatti-Farnell 2014, 96). While the
traditional stories typically served as cautionary tales against accepting the
attentions of the invasive vampiric figure, the new vampire–human rela-
tionships are more likely to speak of happiness, emotional connection and
enhanced opportunities (Bacon and Bronk 2018, 6). In The Beloved Does
Not Bite, Debra Dudek denotes this new phase of the vampire’s cultural
existence as “the Beloved Cycle”, tracing its origins to the sympathetic
bloodsucker of the 1970s and 1980s (2018, 2, 5, 14–21).1 A beloved
1 According to Gina Wisker, the vampire romance subgenre was introduced in 1978,
with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s novel Hotel Transylvania (2015, 234).

Switzerland AG 2021
vampire no longer bites to kill, and holds a promise of a stable romantic

relationship, having evolved into “the now unquestioned—although not
always readily accepted—heartthrob” (Dudek 2018, 15; cf. George and
Hughes 2015, 3–4, 16).
In “Gender and Sexuality in Young Adult Fiction”, Michelle J. Smith
and Kristine Moruzi point to romance as one of the most consistent
tropes across the Gothic stories marketed to young people. They further
identify the establishing of heterosexual relationships “in the right way”
as “the genre’s greatest fixation” (2020, 619, 611). With their plots
frequently driven by riveting themes of “what is was like to be filled with
a love so strong that it made your chest ache” (SK 5), romantic feelings,
obstacles and unions are firmly positioned in the limelight of vampire
stories addressed to young women.2 This thematic focus adheres to the
general social and cultural conventions of constructing girlhood and girl
fiction around romance in Western culture.3 Valerie Walkerdine stated in
1990 that girlhood is often represented as a time of “preparation for the
prince” (97). This claim holds true for many girl stories even today, as
developing a sustained romantic relationship is often narrated as essential
in a girl’s/girl heroine’s process of becoming a woman.
Contemporary vampire fiction, as Gina Wisker points out, holds a
“marvelous potential” for both radical revisions and the reinforcement
of the conventional romantic relationships and gendered roles (2015,
224). The figure of the vampire has long been associated with queer
romance and desire, “its homoerotic possibility” often indicated as a part
of the vampiric allure (Kane 2010, 109). From the early vampire fiction
such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) or Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella
Carmilla (1872), through the genre-changing vampire novels of Anne
Rice (which Richard Dyer identifies as “cult gay reading”; 2002, 70),
to the famous contemporary productions such as Joss Whedon’s Buffy
the Vampire Slayer (The WB 1997–2003), Allan Ball’s True Blood (HBO
2008–2014), John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In (2004) or
Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), vampire
2 In Not Your Mother’s Vampire, Wilson Overstreet observes that a considerable amount
of YA vampire fiction can be categorised as “Romance” (2006).
3 Kokkola points out that “the romance element” often marks a book as directed
primarily at women (2013, 12).
3 A LOVE SO STRONG THAT IT ACHES … 77
texts have been repeatedly read through the lens of the queer.4 The
figure of the vampire has been deployed to articulate “queer fear”—
shame, boundary-breaking, death and contamination; or credited with
“unabashed presentation of homosexuality”, narratives of coming out (of
the coffin) and the fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ communities (Elliot-
Smith 2012, 146).5 Today, as Wisker contends, the gay or lesbian vampire
often is “the ideal icon of a celebratory otherness” (2016, 180).
The queerness of the vampire, needless to say, encompasses much
more than same-sex desire.6 In “Sexuality and the Twentieth-Century
American Vampire”, William Hughes (2014) critiques the practice of
limiting the queer to homosexuality as likely to neglect other queer(er)
vampiric representations. As Angela Jones cautions in “Queer Hetero-
topias”, queerness cannot be confined to stable and fixed identities; it
is a fluid state that signifies a wide range of social practices and expres-
sions, seeking to confront the dominant narratives of romance, sexuality
and gender. Jones advocates for the spaces with “no boundaries, and
no hierarchies … no ordered categories that qualify and rank bodies”
(Jones 2009, 2–5, 11, 13, 15; cf. e.g. Hughes 2014, 343). As such, queer
seeks to confront and destabilise the matrix of heteronormativity (Kokkola
2013, 99; Dhaenens 2013b, 103).
While the figure of the vampire is traditionally linked with transgres-
sion, resistance and subversion, a considerable number of contemporary
mass-marketed vampire texts have been read as perpetuating conven-
tional models of romance and compulsory heterosexuality. Plots spun
4 See e.g. Abdi and Calafell (2017), Azzarello (2016), Dhaenens (2013b), Dyer (2002),
Elliot-Smith (2012), Gelder ([1994] 2001, e.g. 58–64), LeMaster (2011) and Ní Fhlainn
(2019) among many other examples.
5 True Blood, in particular, has been repeatedly credited with featuring a wide array
of queer characters, both supernatural and human. Its vampire community has often
been interpreted as a metaphor for LGBTQ+ communities—a reading corroborated by
Charlaine Harris, the author of the literary series on which the show has been based
(Elliot-Smith 2012, 141–143; Ní Fhlainn 2019, 234; Dhaenens 2014, 525). This inter-
pretation, however, is not without controversy. For instance, the show’s creator Allan Ball
has been wary of equating vampire and LGBTQ+ communities as potentially homophobic
(Ní Fhlainn 2019, 234).
6 For instance, Robert Azzarello (2016) considers the dissolution of the boundaries
between the natural and the unnatural in terms of sexuality and queer desire in Dracula,
setting his analysis within the frames of both queer and environmental studies. In the same
volume, Phillip A. Bernhardt-House offers an examination of the figure of the werewolf
as a “signifier for queerness” (2016, 159).
around the all-consuming passion between a young and vulnerable human

heroine and a worldly and powerful vampire hero have been subjected to
scholarly and public critique as “a preconfigured metaphor for the domi-
nance of men within society” (Brown 2009). Scholars have pointed out
the romanticised depictions of female disempowerment and the superior
position of the vampire male—in terms of age, life experience, phys-
ical capacities and education, as well as economic, social and political
power. In “Men That Suck”, Kristina DuRocher recognises the true
menace of the patriarchal vampire “in the disintegration of female auton-
omy” and self-reliance: “When introduced to the audience, each woman
professes to have an independent streak, yet their identities are quickly
subsumed in their relationships with vampire men” (2016, 55). This
patriarchal paradigm often relies on the heroines defining themselves
through their male love interests, with the storylines glamorising female
youthful ignorance, passivity and uncritical love-sickness, and reiterating
the romanticised notion of one and only true love.7
Vampire fiction addressed to young readers has been particularly
often construed as conservative, perpetuating and rewarding the struc-
tures of heteronormativity. This trend has been observed by, among
others, William Hughes (2014, 351), Hannah Priest (2013), Melissa
Ames (2010) and Mia Franck (2013, 216), who all point to the genre’s
valorisation of heteronormative structures and the eschewing of tradi-
tional vampire queerness. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight has been repeatedly
deployed as an example of this trend, interpreted as the celebration of
patriarchal norms and relationships, emphatic on its disassociation from
the queer. In “A Very Queer Refusal”, Kathryn Kane reads Twilight as
championing a “world order that is profoundly anti-queer” and identi-
fies the Cullen family as “the antidote to the queer time” (2010, 113,
116). Kane evokes Carlisle’s fatherly vampirisation of Edward as one
of the examples of Twilight ’s “rigid heteronormativity” (2010, 111).
This point is driven home by Marion Rana, who contrasts the cinematic
scenes of Edward’s and Esme’s transformations, with the former signalling
7 See e.g. Brown (2009), Crossen (2010), Priest (2013), Torkelson (2011), Stasiewicz-
Bieńkowska (2017), (2019) and Smith and Moruzi (2020). In “Paranormal Romance and
Urban Fantasy”, María T. Ramos-García (2020) observes that the conventional pairing of
a human heroine and a vampire hero has become less common within the last decade.
pain, and the latter sensual pleasure (2014, 126–127).8 Other scholars,
however, have studied the Cullens as a queer performance of heteronor-
mative family that disrupts traditional familial structures and kinship (for
instance that of siblinghood) (Hunt 2014); have considered Edward as a
“queer vampire” (not least for all his restraint towards Bella) (Sommers
and Hume 2011); and interrogated Twilight fan fiction that queers the
saga’s portrayals of love and desire (Isaksson and Lindgren Leavenworth
2011).
Focusing on P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast’s House of Night (2007–
2014) and House of Night: Other World series (2017–2020), and Richelle
Mead’s Vampire Academy (2007–2010) and Bloodlines (2011–2015),
this chapter explores the representations of romance and romantic love,
and seeks to discover what it means to establish a romantic relationship
“in the right way” in contemporary vampire fiction for girls. The first
section examines the strategies of queering the conventional notions of
heteronormative romance through the vampire custom of polyandry as
it is represented in House of Night . As I trace the stories of the main
heroine’s multiple romantic engagements, I aim to unpack the under-
lying messages about female romantic empowerment and freedom, and
their intertwining with the principles of heteronormativity. The narra-
tives of polyandry interplay with the motif of “the truest of true love”
(New Moon 350), and the next part of the chapter looks into the ways
in which vampire fiction relates to, reinforces and/or subverts the tradi-
tional romantic ideas of magical love bonds and predestined soul mates.
This thread further leads to the themes of power dynamics in romantic
relationships and the ways in which the analysed vampire stories respond
to the patriarchal paradigm of inequitable love between a human girl and
a male vampire. In the last section, I return to the traditional correlation
between the vampire and queer romance. Acknowledging the flexible and
shifting meanings of queerness, in this part of the chapter I focus primarily
on what Lydia Kokkola calls “traditionally queer subjects” (2013, 18),
that is gay and lesbian characters. Examining the ways in which the
series articulate homosexual identities, same-sex love and desire, I hope
to shed light on the possibilities that are opened—or sometimes, shut
down—through the presence of the queer tropes in vampire fiction for
girls.
8 See also Crossen (2010), Kokkola (2011a), (2011b), Donnelly (2011), Platt (2010),
Priest (2013, 60) and Wisker (2014).
3.1 Mates, Consorts, Oath-Bound

Warriors: House of Night and Polyandry9
When newly transformed vampire fledgling Zoey Redbird of House of
Night reminisces about her human life, she contemplates the now lost
future that she might have had with her human boyfriend Heath Luck.
Briefly envisioning herself and Heath as a married couple living a happy,
mundane family life in a house in the suburbs, Zoey quickly dismisses
this image as now belonging in the realms of fantasy—a conventional
and heteronormative romantic resolution that is neither longer available
nor truly desirable for her new vampire self (Chosen 193–194). Settling
into her new life in the House of Night, a boarding high school for
vampire fledglings in Tulsa, the heroine quickly begins to discover a world
of new romantic decorum and possibilities. Growing ever further apart
from the human girl who daydreamed about marrying her school sweet-
heart, throughout the series young vampress Zoey negotiates multiple,
and often simultaneous, attractions and relationships with males of various
ages, positions and species—a teenage human boy, a vampire fledgling, a
vampire teacher, an undead warrior, a centuries-old immortal and a magi-
cally conjured shapeshifter. The heroine feels torn by her many romantic
interests; therefore, she is both intrigued and momentarily relieved when
she realises that she might not have to choose among them at all.
In the Fan Q&A section in the first Other World volume, Loved, P.C.
Cast describes her literary vampire world as one that empowers women to
make independent romantic choices, including forming and maintaining
polyandric relationships:
I created a matriarchal society for our vampyres in the HoN, and one of
the beauties of a society run by women is that women aren’t judged for
choosing their own way—and that often means they date more than one
guy at a time, especially if they are barely eighteen years old. (Loved 327)
9 An early version of this part of the chapter was initially presented at the Midwest
Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference, held
in St. Louis, MO, in October 2017. I would like to thank the participants
and the members of the audience for their interesting questions and insightful
comments.
The trope of the love triangle, traced back to the story of Tristan and
Iseult, is widespread in the genre of romance (Kokkola 2011b, 169–170).
Agata Łuksza observes that the love triangle scenario
puts the heroine in charge, openly appeals to female fantasies and ques-
tions the so-called natural female monogamy. Male characters provide the
heroine with alternative, though not contradictory, models of masculinity,
and she is reluctant to resign from the affection and companionship of any
of them. (2015, 436)10
Łuksza suggests that the trope of the love triangle speaks against male
“demands of exclusivity” (2015, 436). However, the romantic tension
inherent in this formula is traditionally resolved with the heroine choosing
one of her suitors and maturing into the safe space of a monogamous and
often eternal union.11 Against this background, the House of Night poli-
tics of polyandry, declared both in the novels and through the authors’
statements, certainly stands out as a queer challenge to the heteronor-
mative set of values expressed through the institutions of marriage and
(female) monogamy (see e.g. Dhaenens 2013b, 103).
Throughout the series, readers discover that a vampire High Priestess is
customarily permitted to maintain relationships with a vampire mate and
one or more human consorts (Hunted 143), and often shares a typically
romantic bond with her Oath-Bound Warrior. As Kristin Cast explains,
in the “heavily matriarchal” world of the House of Night “the practice of
having multiple partners [for women] has been going on for hundreds of
years, so it’s completely normal!” (2011, 146) The author criticises the
discourses that invite social acceptance for polygyny and points to popular
culture as desensitising consumers to its formal and informal forms. At the
same time, Cast argues, polyandric unions are demonised or passed over in
silence (2011, 149–150).12 Contrasted with the human culture depicted
10 Łuksza draws attention to the appeal of this trope, as evidenced through promotional
posters which often feature the heroine flanked by her two love interests (2015, 437).
11 A number of examples involve Bella, Edward and Jacob (Twilight ), Sophia, Derek
and Ben (A Shade of Vampire), or Elena, Stefan and Damon (The Vampire Diaries ). If a
girl claims both of her suitors, she might lose them both, as the vampress Katherine loses
Stefan and Damon (The Vampire Diaries ). However, even in this case, Katherine is clear
that it is Stefan whom she truly loves (“As I Lay Dying” S2E22).
12 For a brief discussion of the practices of polygyny and polyandry in The Southern
Vampire Mysteries and True Blood, see Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska (2019, 235–236).
as underpinned with beliefs oppressive to women, the vampire society

is portrayed as refuting the double standard, and allowing vampresses
to step outside of the boundaries of conventionally sanctioned monog-
amous relationships (see e.g. Loved 326–327). Celebrating the presence
of polyandric traditions in the cultures of the past and ancient mytholo-
gies, Kristin Cast presents the trope of polyandry in House of Night as
“a tool to empower women of all ages” (2011, 152).13 Consequently, at
one point of the story, Zoey, as the vampire priestess in training, main-
tains simultaneous relationships with human Heath and vampire Erik,
accepting in the meantime a Warrior Oath from another vampire, Stark
(Hunted 143). Albeit most reluctantly, both Heath and Stark seem to
respect their girlfriend’s polyandric desires. As Stark explains to one of
Zoey’s suitors, “Zoey isn’t mine. She isn’t yours, either. … Z is her own
person … So, if she decides she wants to be with you… that is completely
her decision to make” (Found loc. 2654). In contrast, Erik loses Zoey as
he is unable to tolerate her multiple love interests.
In “Articulations of Queer Resistance”, Frederik Dhaenens discusses
strategies of queer reconstruction as ones that not only expose the
hegemonic power of idealised heteronormative values and rituals (like
marriage, reproduction and monogamy), but most of all that propose
“queer and viable [or even preferable] alternatives to the heteronorma-
tive way of living and thinking” (2014, 526, 521–523, 527). In this
light, the House of Night ’s tradition of polyandry can be read as an
attempt at a “queer reconstruction of institutions and practices that
are pivotal within heteronormative discourse” (Dhaenens 2014, 527).
However, this re-writing of romantic conventions has proved to be unin-
telligible to many fans of the series, who vigorously contested polyandry as
a valid romantic choice, expressing their disapproval through social media,
discussion fora and direct communication with the authors. According
to Kristin Cast, social media users repeatedly used “negative nouns” to
describe Zoey’s romantic conduct (2011, 145); and both authors report
having been asked to make their heroine choose “just one guy to be with
13 At the same time, polygynous practices are rare and penalised. Having seduced Zoey
on the orders of his lover, priestess Neferet, the vampire Loren is still punished with
death, as he offends Neferet with finding pleasure in his new affair. The priestess further
uses Loren’s murder as an ominous warning to her next lover, in order to force him to
keep his distance from Zoey (“[Y]ou should remember I killed the last male who tried
to claim me and her”; Tempted 313).
forever and ever and ever and ever” (Cast 2011, 145). P.C. Cast further
recounts “a lot of very disturbing e-mails” from readers who demanded
that Zoey should “behave herself”, “settle down” and “choose her ‘one
and only’” (Interview 2009, 84). Although the authors (for reasons
unknown) identify this particular complaint with middle-aged females,
a similar approach could also be noticed among younger readers. This
can be exemplified through the conversation thread “what do you think
about zoey’s double-relationship?” on the international House of Night
Forums.14 In this discussion, the majority of participants expressed their
disapproval of the heroine’s multiple romantic engagements, and most
appeared to have missed, ignored or rejected the authors’ intended vision
of polyandry as “completely normal” in the vampire universe. Those who
expressed understanding towards Zoey’s romantic behaviour still deemed
the idea inauthentic and irrational, or attempted to excuse the heroine’s
actions with arguments about her immaturity, raging hormones, magic
or the confusion brought about by the dramatic changes in her life (e.g.
LectricErin 2009; Emily 2009). The majority of the discussants judged
Zoey’s multithreaded love life as dishonest, foolish, selfish and/or arro-
gant, accusing her of vanity, indecency and inability to control herself
(e.g. Erin 2010a; Calico 2009a). Some participants juxtaposed their own
behaviour against the young heroine, highlighting the inexcusability of
her choices (“I am the same age as Zoey is and I like more than one
guy as well but there is a point in time when we have to tell ourselves
no on some things”; Calico 2009b); others called her directly “a little
sl…” or “a total whore” (Guest 2009; Kayliex 2009). Most urged Zoey
to mend her ways and either commit to one partner or “leave all boys
alone” (Guest 2009; Calico 2009a). Holding the heroine guilty for the
emotional drama in the series, some posts resonated with the heterosexist
notion that places the responsibility for any sexual action with the female
partner, judging Zoey for what she has done and what she has failed to
do (e.g. for allowing herself to be alone with Heath, remaining in the car
14 House of Night Forums. Accessed August 25, 2020. https://houseofnight.

4umer.com/t189-what-do-you-think-about-zoey-s-double-relationship. This conversation
on Zoey’s multiple romantic involvements has been one of the most popular and longest
discussed topics raised by the forum participants.
when she “should have” left, and finally for surrendering to the temp-
tation of drinking his blood; see e.g. Erin 2010b; Lilith of the Night
2010).15
In response to readers’ disapproval, Kristin Cast has claimed that,
rather than encouraging anyone to engage in polyandry, she meant to
inspire acceptance and solidarity among women: “I just want women
to stop judging each other and stand together” (2011, 152). The
positive representations of polyandry, P.C. Cast argues, aim to desta-
bilise the double standards and question conventional gendered morality
(2011; Interview 2009). A close analysis of the House of Night novels,
however, reveals that—contrary to the authors’ intentions—the notion of
polyandry is repeatedly refuted rather than celebrated, as both the plot
and the characters’ development eventually speak against the queerness
of polyandric romance.
Although presented as sanctioned vampire tradition, polyandrous
unions hardly ever occur within the plotline. Even the vampire goddess
Nyx, seemingly involved with two immortal brothers Kalona and Erebus
(a situation that brings about Kalona’s fit of jealousy and causes his fall
from Nyx’s realm), ultimately proves to have always been committed
only to one man. Also, the two most powerful bonds of the Casts’
vampire universe—the Imprint resulting from blood-drinking and the link
created by the Warrior Oath—are strictly exclusive and no vampress can
be Imprinted or oath-bound with more than one person (see e.g. Chosen
247).
Any attempt at polyandrous relationships ultimately becomes a source
of pain, discord and chaos. All the boys in Zoey’s life feel hurt and humil-
iated, and are at times reduced to tears as a result of her multiple romantic
engagements (see e.g. Hunted 86, 140–144, 153). When Erik attempts
to persuade Zoey to break up with Heath, he explains that regardless
of ancient traditions, a union of vampress and human will always be
“something other vampyres will whisper about, and humans will hate
you for” (Betrayed 262). Zoey’s grandmother—a powerful and emanci-
pated Cherokee Wise Woman—urges her to “straighten out this boyfriend
issue” as none of the boys is likely to tolerate it for long (Chosen 38). Zoey
herself feels unhappy and torn, and eventually comes to see that, while
15 A number of fans, however, perceived Zoey’s male love interests as manipulative and
taking advantage of the heroine in order to satisfy their own desires (see e.g. kayrose
2009; WazzuMan 2011).
liberating in theory, the practice of polyandry is emotionally draining,

dishonest and just “seriously weird” (Hunted 122).16
Monogamy remains the key to a successful and fulfilling romantic life,
and is narrated as a sign of maturity.17 Adolescent Zoey and her girl-
friends typically explore several romantic options, and the series’ authors
state explicitly that “it’s unhealthy for a teen to be focused on one guy
and one guy only” (Cast 2011, 145; cf. Interview 2009, 84). As P.C.
Cast explains, “[t]he truth is teenagers are confused about who they
should date, and that’s great! Thinking that a young person who isn’t
even old enough to vote is old enough, mature enough, to choose a
life partner is ridiculous”, harmful and unrealistic (Loved 327, emphasis
mine; see also Interview 2009, 84). As the heroines grow, however, they
all decide to commit exclusively. For a short time Zoey maintains platonic
relationships with both Stark and Heath; yet the sense of a heteronorma-
tive monogamous order is swiftly restored with Heath’s untimely death,
which prevents the consummation of their union. Only then does Stark
declare that he will always be with Zoey, even if she chooses to take
another consort (Awakened 33). This declaration proves moot when Zoey
develops feelings for Heath’s reincarnation Aurox. However, Stark does
not need to worry long as his girlfriend’s attraction is terminated, yet
again, by Aurox’s self-sacrificial death in Redeemed. The queer possibility
of polyandry is ultimately (un)settled when Zoey’s grandmother Sylvia
decides in Forgotten that none of the boys are “strong enough, mature
enough to share”, and urges them to give up on the girls who already have
a partner (119–120). Sylvia is confident that Zoey or her friend Aphrodite
could love more than one person at once; however, she cautions their
respective new suitors, Stark and Kevin from the Other World, against the
feelings of jealousy that such an arrangement would inevitably provoke in
them (120). As Stark mourns what he sees as the lost chance to be with
his soul mate, Sylvia encourages him to look for love elsewhere.
16 She further feels that her multi-threaded love life endangers her status as a respectable
woman, a theme that is examined in the next chapter of this volume.
17 Cf. K. Cast, where the author announces that Zoey may enter a monogamous rela-
tionship when she becomes “mature and experienced and truly knows herself” (2011,
145).
3.2 The Truest of True Loves:

Soul Mates and Enchanted Bonds
I would like to begin this part of the chapter with a personal memory.
When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me a story that she
had heard from her own grandmother when she was little. It was about
an elderly woman sitting in a meadow, tying colourful ribbons in pairs.
The woman was a magical creature, an enchanted match-maker, busying
herself with connecting soul mates all around the world. Her verdicts were
irrevocable and impossible to escape, as evidenced by the failure of poor
fellows who tried.
The romanticised notion of soul mates—two persons predestined to
meet and fall in love—has long held a powerful presence in social and
cultural constructions of romantic relationships. Thriving in folklore,
popular culture, religious narratives, and our own minds, it has been
especially vibrant in fantasy stories and paranormal romance, particularly
those marketed to women and girls. While many works of contempo-
rary Gothic operate to disrupt such tales of all-conquering passion, others
reiterate the familiar formula of love that “happens at first sight, rescues
you from yourself, answers every question, solves every problem, and
lasts for eternity” (Wisker 2015, 442, on Twilight; cf. 2016, 158). This
bond—“the truest of true loves” as Bella declares in New Moon, Twilight
(350)—is often predetermined, narrated as magical and/or biological
compulsion, and can lead to grave consequences if left unfulfilled. Within
the vampire genre, this concept is, for example, the basis for the romantic
plotline of the Dark (Carpathian) Series by Christine Feehan, where the
link between a male vampire and his soul mate is “biologically recog-
nized and impossible to resist”; those who fail to find their preordained
partner are fated to become blood-crazed monsters (Ndalianis 2012,
86; cf. Piatti-Farnell 2014, 200). Romantic love predicated on destiny
and articulated through the generations of doppelgängers ever-searching
for the same person throughout centuries is also explored in the tele-
vised version of The Vampire Diaries (The CW 2009–2017), as noted by
Debra Dudek (2018, 4). Furthermore, according to Smith and Moruzi,
“the long standing and conservatively motivated myth of the one true
love”, epitomised by the relationship of Bella and Edward, is one of the
fundamental reasons for Twilight ’s success (2020, 615). The famous saga
further foregrounds the trope of love compulsion through the culture of
werewolves, where males can experience a sudden, overpowering affec-

tion, called imprinting, upon meeting their female soul mate (Eclipse
109–112). Even if at first reluctant, the latter always comes to understand
that the imprinted werewolf is “her perfect match. Like he was designed
for her alone” (Eclipse 157). As Ashley Donnelly notes, “[t]here is no
room for question and no way out for the … wolf”, and the woman
herself is “passive, chosen and bound by his destiny”; a romance narra-
tive that glamorises “patriarchal control through the institution of pair
bonding” (2011, 188, 189).18
These and other examples suggest that the glamorised trope of the
magical love bond often sits in tension with the notion of consent.
Kristina Deffenbacher argues that the paranormal romance formulated
around the existence of a “preordained bond” between a supernatural
hero and his female love interest often presents consent as irrelevant.
Deffenbacher refers to the blogger Alpha Lyra, who traces the trope
of “forced seduction” to the romanticised idea “that certain supernat-
ural beings (vampires, werewolves, etc.) have a destined life-mate”—a
“soul bond” that is to be eventually recognised by the heroine even if
she initially declines the hero’s advances (Deffenbacher 2014, 923). As
Deffenbacher notes, such imagery often serves as a romanticised guise for
restricting women’s agency in romantic contexts and absolving the hero
of any blame for forcing his attentions on the unwilling heroine (2014,
925).19
While enchanted bonds play an important role in Mead’s series, they
are typically bonds of friendship, emerging when a spirit-wielding vampire
resurrects a newly departed person who from that moment on will have
a psychic link to their saviour. Such connection is shared by dhampir
Rose and her vampire best friend Lissa, enabling Rose to sense Lissa’s
emotions and whereabouts, and rescue her from trouble. In House of
Night, magical love bonds are of a romantic character; however, they
rarely form automatically upon laying eyes on one’s soul mate. Instead,
they need to be actively chosen and created, and are typically characterised
by a pre-existing affection. In Betrayed, Zoey attempts to explain to her
human sweetheart Heath that his feelings for her are conjured through an
18 In “Virtuous Vampires and Voluptuous Vamps”, Kokkola further points out the
alarming lack of agency in choosing a life partner in the stories of girl children imprinted
upon by a werewolf (2011, 172).
19 This theme is developed in Chapter 5 in this volume.
Imprint, an enchanted link established when she was drinking his blood.
Heath cannot help but laugh in response, reminding the heroine that he
has loved her since childhood and that the Imprint between them was
formed with his full consent (Betrayed 118).20
While destiny plays a key role in the series—after all, Zoey is the
Goddess’s chosen one, divinely equipped to battle evil and transform
the world—within the romantic context, fate often loses to choice and
free will. Recognising his long-lost love in Zoey, the dangerous immortal
Kalona sees their reunion as inevitable and utterly beyond the hero-
ine’s control: “Not even the power of your elements can keep me
from claiming what will eventually be mine again” (Hunted 179). As
Zoey discovers that a part of her soul belongs to A-ya, a magical
maiden conjured up with the sole purpose of loving Kalona, she cannot
but acknowledge their powerful connection and be drawn to his dark
charm (Hunted 185). Ultimately, however, Zoey articulates her romantic
autonomy, conveying a strong message that love is neither preordained
nor inevitable but instead needs to be freely given and earned: “I am not
her [A-ya]! I am Zoey Redbird, and if I love someone, it’s because he’s
worth loving” (Hunted 227). The incomprehensible forces of destiny and
magic, while certainly at work, are defeated by the heroine’s conscious
choice and her rejection of a man who neither lives up to her standards
nor satisfies her emotional needs. Kalona’s declaration of his “owner-
ship” of Zoey—“You were made for me; you belong to me”—serves
as a wake-up call and alerts the heroine to the perils of their poten-
tial romantic involvement (Hunted 224–225; 317).21 This message of
romantic agency, however, is not consistent throughout the House of
Night series. After Zoey breaks up with him, Heath shows up drunk
and uninvited, disrupts a school ritual and aggressively confronts Erik,
accusing Zoey of cheating and denying her the right to not be his girl-
friend (“Aw, Zo, you’re just sayin’ that”; Marked 329–330). When Zoey
20 Later on, when the Imprint between them becomes broken, Heath urges Zoey to
re-establish the bond that is only to reinforce, rather than to create, their love connection
(Hunted 109).
21 Similarly, the doppelgänger prophecy of The Vampire Diaries is first contested by
Elena and Damon (who allegedly are not meant to be together), and then proved to be
false (“Resident Evil” S5E18). This plot development has been appreciated by the show’s
fans, as exemplified by Verygloomy (2017): “Never wanted that prophecy crap to be real.
I can’t stand that corny ‘destiny’ stuff lol I’m glad ‘magic’ doesn’t control love. There is
no rulebook. There are no guidelines. There is no limit.”
still attempts to terminate their relationship, Heath resorts to cutting

himself with a razor and exploits her newly awakened bloodlust to
maintain their connection, claiming them to be soul mates (Betrayed
123).
Zoey herself is not certain at all whether soul mates exist, even when
she feels “an immediate and deep connection” with her future warrior
Stark (Hunted 200). Her own wise grandmother Sylvia finds the sheer
idea of “one person and only one person for each of us” absurd and depre-
ciating of both the human and vampire capacity to love. Sylvia claims that
the existence of soul mates would be an evidence of the Goddess’s cruelty,
condemning those who lost their single chance for love to life-long deso-
lation (Forgotten 120–121). Sydney Sage in Richelle Mead’s Bloodlines
does not believe in soul mates either, deeming it “statistically unreason-
able that there’s only one ideal person for everyone in the world” (GL
33). Her thoughts are seconded by vampire Sonja, who finds the idea of
soul mates “ridiculous”. “What if your ‘soul mate’ lives in Zimbabwe?
What if he dies young?”, she wonders (LS loc. 5258). Sylvia, Sydney
and Sonja deny destiny its romanticised role in forming love connections,
emphasising instead the importance of agency and the effort necessary to
make a relationship work.
Yet, although overtly refuted, the narrative of one true love resurfaces
throughout the series. While Sonja does not believe in soul mates, she
believes that souls can be “in sync … mirror[ing] each other”, and tells
the young dhampir Rose that both her and her beloved Dimitri’s auras
shine “like the sun” when they are together (LS loc. 5228, 5257–5260).
Similarly, while her scholarly mind does not allow for the existence of soul
mates, Sydney harbours a tentative longing for such a possibility (GL 33).
Her romantic husband, the vampire Adrian, firmly believes that “there
was something in my soul that spoke to Sydney’s, that this connection
between our bodies called to something greater than us, something preor-
dained” (FH 37). Although in their supernatural world human–vampire
relationships are strictly forbidden and considered a shame and abomina-
tion, Adrian has little doubt that their love will prevail: “You and I just
have to overcome hundreds of years’ worth of deeply ingrained prejudice
and taboo between our two races. Easy” (IS 28).
The concept of soul mates is brought into the spotlight in both the
House of Night and Other World series, which—contrary to their hero-
ines’ words—abound in couples destined to be together. Even those
meant to “move from lover to lover gracefully”, like immortal Erebus,
eventually feel the longing for a stable, monogamous relationship, and

can hope to have a soul mate designed and created especially for them
(Forgotten 39, 43; cf. Lost loc. 5421). The narrative of one true love in
a lifetime, while verbally rejected (see e.g. Forgotten 120–121), returns
through the back door when long lost and longed for lovers come back
reincarnated or from parallel worlds, and are reunited with their faithful
soul mates, some of whom have been waiting for centuries. When her
beloved Martin dies in a fire, the vampress Lenobia vows not to become
involved with another human until Martin is returned to her (albeit in
another man’s body) (Hidden 1–4, 17). The goddess Nyx promises that
Heath and Zoey will meet again when he reincarnates, and Nyx herself
waits alone for hundreds of years for the awakening of “her truest love—
her only Consort” (Forgotten 47). Finally, the vampire Dragon (Bryan)
Lankford is shattered by the demise of his mate Anastasia and cannot find
peace. His death in battle is narrated as a happy ending as it allows him
to join his beloved in the afterlife (Destined 317).
In the original House of Night series, the trauma of the loss of a
soul mate is presented as insufferable and often impossible to survive.
As I have stated elsewhere, “the vampire fiction often toys with the
Romantic notion of self-inflicted death as ultimate passion”, and suicide
linked with love emerges as a trope in a number of vampire stories for
youth (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, forthcoming). The romantic storyline of
Twilight provides a dramatic example of this trend as it taps into the
script of Romeo and Juliet to introduce the two young lovers unable to
live without each other (Kokkola 2011a). Believing that their love is lost,
in New Moon Bella jumps of a cliff and Edward attempts to provoke other
vampires to kill him.22 This self-destructive behaviour, Lydia Kokkola
claims, is valorised and romanticised in the series—a sign of true devo-
tion and an “appropriate response” to the anguish of the loss of a soul
mate (2011a, 41, 45; cf. Ashcraft 2013).
While acknowledging young readers’ ability to separate reality from
fiction, Kokkola recognises the risks of presenting self-harming as a
response to “the very common teenage problem of the end of a rela-
tionship” (2011a, 41). This observation is further confirmed by Donna
22 While Bella herself motivates this action by pursuing an adrenaline rush that allows
her to hallucinate her vampire boyfriend, her jump has been understood as a suicide
attempt both by scholars (see e.g. Kokkola 2011a; Ashcraft 2013) and other characters in
the saga.
M. Ashcraft, who identifies romanticised suicide as particularly alarming

when present in the novels marketed to young people (2013, 188). These
concerns seem to be shared by the House of Night ’s author. In what
appears to be a response to Bella’s cliff jump, P.C. Cast firmly refutes the
romanticised interplay between love and death, and reassures the series’
fans that her heroine “will NEVER be on the verge of suicide over a boy”
(Interview 2009, 84; emphasis in the original).
In the third volume of House of Night, under dramatic circumstances
and within a span of hours, Zoey loses all three of her boyfriends (and
nearly all her friends). Shunned and broken-hearted, the heroine mourns
her murdered lover Loren and despairs over the hurt she has caused
Heath and Erik; yet she is also determined to recover and move on. This
narrative of resilience, survival and healing is, however, subjected to a
dramatic revision later in the series. When Heath is murdered, Zoey’s soul
shatters and she wanders the realms of the afterlife, ever-restless and disin-
tegrating. Her warrior Stark subjects himself to extreme physical torture
to separate his spirit from his body in order to follow and rescue the
heroine. In a close resemblance to the Shakespearean script of Romeo
and Juliet—or, closer to home, that of Edward and Bella—in the last
volume of the original series both Zoey and Stark declare that they do
not wish to live without each other. About to perform a potentially lethal
magical ritual to protect her town, Zoey accepts Stark’s oath to follow
after her in case she dies. In an eerie echo of Edward and Bella’s “suicide
pact” (Kokkola 2011a, 41), the House of Night ’s heroine makes a similar
pledge, promising to join her warrior in Nyx’s realm should he fall in
battle (Redeemed 285, 291). Zoey’s response is validated as correct and
expected of someone whose love is true by other characters in the series,
who confirm their devotion by their willingness to follow their beloved to
the afterlife. When Other Dragon/Bryan and Other Anastasia hear about
the deaths of their alter-egos in the original House of Night world, they
are consoled by the fact that they died together. As Anastasia declares, “‘If
my Bryan perished, I would not wish to live without him.’ ‘And I would
not draw breath in a world without you, my love’”, Dragon responds
(Lost loc. 971).
The narrative of the loss of the loved one resurfaces in Other World; it
is, however, largely re-written as the sequel series foregrounds stories of
overcoming trauma. Several characters are shown to suffer from grief and
hopelessness after having lost their romantic partner. Ultimately, however,
they manage to recover and often form new romantic connections. The
vampire Kevin feels that he would welcome death as it would allow him
to be again with his departed lover Other Aphrodite (Found loc. 1760).
His grandmother, however, encourages him to heal—to cry, pray, medi-
tate, drink blood and talk to his lost love—in order to prevent grief from
overtaking his life (Forgotten 122–125). When in Found Kevin is briefly
allowed to see Aphrodite in Nyx’s realm, she urges him to carry on:
Hey, I want you to listen to me closely—I do not want you to die young.
I want you to live a full, long, happy life. I want you to love passionately
… to experience the world and to fulfil your destiny … Promise me you’ll
try. (loc. 1762, 1771)
The trope of the loss of the soul mate and the resulting trauma emerges
also in Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy. The leading heroine, Rose,
briefly contemplates suicide in the hope that she might become reunited
with her soul mate Dimitri. In the climactic scene on a bridge, which I
analyse in detail elsewhere (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska, forthcoming), Rose
watches Dimitri fall into the stormy river, and momentarily thinks of
jumping to her death as a remedy for her heartache and their separation—
a scene that brings to mind Meyer’s Bella, about to fall off a cliff. Numb
with grief, at first Rose is incapable of imagining a future without Dimitri;
yet she soon refuses to surrender to the glamorised script of Romeo
and Juliet/Edward and Bella (BP 427). “Unlike Bella who constantly
hears Edward’s voice in her head, Rose listens to her own” (Stasiewicz-
Bieńkowska, forthcoming)—one that urges her to find strength, live on
and not to give up on love.23
3.3 Tying the Knot: Love, Marriage and Power

Ultimately, in both the Casts’ and Mead’s series, the central protago-
nists are granted a normative happy ending of finding love and entering
a monogamous romantic union—a resolution typical for the genre of
paranormal romance (see e.g. Ramos-García 2020). These relationships,
however, largely withstand the patriarchal romantic model of a domi-
nant male supernatural and a disempowered human girl. In fact, the
very foundation of this asymmetrical script is challenged right at the
23 At the end of the volume, Rose discovers that Dimitri has actually survived.
beginning, as nearly all of the heroines are themselves vampires or half-

vampires, paired with the men of their own species. Consequently, a
significant age gap between lovers is rare and occurs mostly in the House
of Night ’s interspecies unions between vampresses and mortal men, that
not only undermine but thoroughly reverse the vampire–human relation-
ship paradigm.24 Moreover, while some girls are liberated into vampirism
from the patriarchal oppression of their homes and societies (cf. Auerbach
1995, 148), they owe it to their genes and the choice of the Goddess
rather than to the venom of a vampire lover. While other heroines of
vampire fiction, such as Meyer’s Bella or Forrest’s Sofia, wait for their
male partners to impart their vampiric powers to them, in the Casts’ and
Mead’s fictional universes becoming a vampress is independent of a male
vampire’s bite.
Girls and women in these series rarely rely on their partners for
economic security or social position, countering the archetypal formula
of a class-disadvantaged heroine courted by a wealthy hero, widespread
both in mainstream romance and vampire tales. This social and economic
power imbalance is clearly discernible in the vampire–human relationships
of Meyer’s Twilight or Bianca Scardoni’s The Marked series (2015–2020),
and is drawn to the extreme in Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire
Mysteries (2001–2013), Bella Forrest’s A Shade of Vampire (2012–
present) or Michelle Madow’s Dark World: The Vampire Wish series
(2017). In Harris’s novels, the leading human heroine is often struggling
with financial hardships as she tries to earn her living as a small-town
barmaid, while dating her influential and prosperous vampire boyfriends.
Forrest’s male lead Derek and Madow’s Jacen are both vampire princes
with nearly unlimited economic resources and political power. Their
romantic partners, the humans Sofia and Annika, are, respectively, a high
school girl abandoned by her parents and reluctantly brought up by a
foster family, and a blood slave abducted to a vampire kingdom, forced
to steal food from market stalls.
This recurring scenario becomes dismantled in both the Casts’ and
Mead’s series. In House of Night, the privileged material status is
directly attached to belonging to the vampire species rather than being
24 The problem of the male partner’s short life span in comparison to the female is
resolved through the idea of reincarnation. As the conventional vampire male-human
female romance is absent from the series, it is unclear whether vampire men hold the
right to take human consorts.
conditioned by gender. Nonetheless, the matriarchal constitution of the

vampiric society, the extravagant way of living and the political and reli-
gious leadership exercised by female vampires, along with some evidence
of the spartan lifestyles of male vampire warriors, suggest the transfer of
economic and social power to women. In contrast, Vampire Academy and
Bloodlines avoid altogether the gendering of economic privilege. Extreme
inequities within its supernatural society are narrated through the lens
of (royal or non-royal) ancestry, the dividing line between dhampirs and
vampires and, sometimes, occupation and entrepreneurship rather than
gender. Even in the relationship of Adrian and Sydney—a male vampire
and a female human—there is no significant socio-economic imbalance.
Both lovers receive their income from external sources—Adrian from his
father, and Sydney from the society of Alchemists that employs her, and
both are cut off from their funding, having displeased their benefactors.
Once they are married, it is Sydney who singlehandedly manages the
family budget. Her vampire husband has little understanding of her intri-
cate financial plans, and follows them without question and with much
admiration (RC 342).
The story of Adrian and Sydney in Bloodlines is the only one among
the central romantic narratives of both Mead’s and the Casts’ series that
harkens back to the trope of the star-crossed love between a mortal
girl and a male vampire. Theirs is also the only one that encompasses
formal marriage and teenage/young adult parenthood. Such a narrative
construction might ostensibly resemble the unequal paranormal romance
scenario, and come across as an imprint of Twilight with its conservative
family ideals and romanticisation of teen marriage and motherhood. The
story of Sydney and Adrian, however, proposes a thorough and refreshing
revision of that script, offering at once a grand narrative of love and
a relationship model grounded in genuine equality. Having overcome
initial obstacles caused primarily by Sydney’s Alchemist-instilled preju-
dice against vampires and interspecies relationships, Sydney and Adrian
become good friends and then fall in love. Filled with fiery passion and
romantic gestures, their clandestine union is first and foremost based on
mutual respect, appreciation, trust and understanding, with the vampire
man being loyal and caring rather than dominant and controlling (GL
137). As Sydney explains, “we bring out the best in each other and are
better people because of our love” (SS 206–207; cf. SS 29; FH 148; IS
274, 285). Eventually, in Silver Shadows, Sydney and Adrian get married
and in The Ruby Circle they adopt a child.
While in a number of YA vampire narratives matrimony and tradi-

tional family “is given a tremendous moral authority” (Kane 2010, 113),
a trend exemplified by such series as A Shade of Vampire or Twilight,
neither the Casts’ nor Mead’s novels position the institutions of marriage
and parenthood as central to their love stories. Although at the end of
Bloodlines Rose accepts her boyfriend Dimitri’s proposal, she is in no
haste to tie the knot as she is deeply invested in her guardian career:
“All in good time, comrade. Maybe when I’m thirty. There’s no hurry”
(RC 345). Similarly, the Moroi queen Tatiana remains unmarried, while
openly maintaining erotic relationships with at least two younger men;
and no vampire is troubled by the fact that on formal occasions, her
young successor, Lissa Dragomir, is accompanied by a boyfriend rather
than a husband. Both queens are strongly committed to their duties,
working to ensure the safety of their people and navigating the mean-
ders of royal politics. Once Lissa succeeds to the throne, she focuses on
enhancing social justice and furthering her education just as much—or
possibly more—as on her relationship with Christian. The queens’ private
lives rarely come to the spotlight as the narrative foregrounds their polit-
ical actions, and even Tatiana’s assassination, although initially believed to
be a crime of passion, is eventually revealed as politically motivated.
While Sydney and Adrian do get married young, the wedding is neither
the pinnacle nor the grand finale of their love story. Although adventurous
and romantic, their hasty nuptials are primarily meant to obtain a “vam-
pire citizenship” for Sydney, necessary to protect her from the Alchemists’
persecution. In contrast to Twilight which depicts teenage marriage as
“romantic and pleasurable” (Kokkola 2013, 84), Bloodlines offers a more
realistic account of marital life, emphasising both romance and the effort
required to maintain a successful long-term relationship. Readers become
privy to the tensions brought about by Adrian’s mental health issues,
inadequate accommodation and unemployment, and the friction between
Sydney and her vampiric mother-in-law, who moves in with them and
taunts the young bride by feeding on humans in their living room. The
couple, however, works through all these issues and at the end of Blood-
lines they are shown to be living a quiet and fulfilling family life with their
foster son Declan in Northern Maine, surrounded by family and friends.
In her article on the themes of “race” and social change in Mead’s
series, Amy Cummins argues that the marital resolution typically serves
“to contain transgressive heroines like Sydney into patriarchal ideals of
femininity” and to disrupt the imagery of female independence estab-

lished earlier in the series (2015, 73, 80). At the end of Bloodlines
Sydney is shown occupying the conventional feminine positions of wife
and (foster) mother, ostensibly copying the script of Twilight ’s Bella. Her
relationship with Adrian, however, hardly complies with the patriarchal
model, nor does it truly trouble the heroine’s portrayal as an empow-
ered, successful and independent young woman. The closing story of
the familial bliss is narrated from Adrian’s point of view (RC 336–345)
and the hero uses this opportunity to express his deep contentment with
his role as a father and a husband, and his newly launched career as a
preschool art teacher. The Epilogue opens with the vampire taking off his
oven mittens and apron to welcome the guests who have just arrived for
dinner. It is then that his foster son awakens and Adrian rushes upstairs to
take him out of the crib.25 When Sydney comes home from her work and
college, he serves her and the guests a freshly prepared meal while empha-
sising his own cooking expertise—an ultimate image of a domesticated
vampire, but first and foremost, of a fulfilled and happy man.
In House of Night, none of the vampire protagonists—male or female—
are narrated as married; nor do any of them express a desire to enter such
a union. In fact, it can be presumed that the institution of marriage does
not exist at all in the vampire society—a possible allusion to the tradi-
tional imagery of the female vampire as rejecting the marital lifestyle (see
e.g. Fong 2016, 111). Human marital relationships are largely depicted
as unhappy, toxic, abusive and governed by hypocritical societal conven-
tions—a representation that could be read as contesting the institution of
marriage. However, the latter appears to be re-valorised as the ultimate
happy ending, as the magical love bonds emerging among the protago-
nists are revealed to uncannily resemble or even surpass the marital pledge.
In the eighth volume of the series, Awakened, the central romantic plot
of Zoey and Stark reaches its apex in a marriage-like ceremony, disguised
as the ancient love ritual of “tying the knot” (nomen omen) in the Sacred
Grove of the Goddess. Having proved his love for Zoey by risking his
25 In fact, from the very moment when Declan’s dying mother hands him over to
Adrian, readers are provided with a detailed account of him learning to take care of the
boy (RC 185–186). While his female friend Rose “looked more terrified of the baby than
a Strigoi” (RC 176), Adrian is revealed as a “baby whisperer” and increasingly thriving
in his parental role (RC 176).
own life to save hers and bonded to her through an unbreakable Warrior
Oath, Stark proposes to his ladylove on the enchanted Island of Skye:
Zoey Redbird, would you tie your wishes and your dreams for the future
with me in a knot on the hanging tree?
Yes, Stark, I’ll tie my wishes and dreams for the future with you.
(Awakened 28)
After Zoey accepts, they literally tie the knot of the pieces of Zoey’s
scarf and Stark’s kilt on a branch of a magical tree and seal their oath with
an expected kiss. Reiterating the traditional plot of heterosexual marriage,
the ceremony is followed by the wedding night, when the couple consum-
mate their relationship in the legitimate context of an eternal, oath-bound
union. The sanctity of the latter is further emphasised when, in a moment
of post-coital bliss, Zoey prays to her vampire goddess to thank her for
Stark and the gift of true love, sending a message about the value of
romantic affection, eternal commitment and exclusivity.
3.4 The Lovely Bliss of Her Bite:

Vampires and Same-Sex Romance
In “It’s in His Kiss!”, Richard Dyer draws on a wide array of vampire
texts in order to reveal diverse correlations between cultural imageries
of vampirism and same-sex desire—with vampirism articulating social
evaluations of homosexuality as horror, revulsion, “curse”, thrill of the
forbidden and/or valorisation of queer identities (see e.g. 2002, 72–73,
83–86). Gina Wisker (2015, 438) and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (2017)
further point to the deployment of the female vampire mythos as a vehicle
for the investigation of lesbianism. Rooted in the enduring legacy of Le
Fanu’s Carmilla (1872) and the tales of the sixteenth-century Hungarian
aristocrat and serial murderess Erzsébet Báthory (Zimmerman 2004,
72–73), the female vampire has engaged with the tropes of gendered
power and romantic/sexual emancipation, her subversive potential read
as the celebration and/or the penalisation of female homosexual identi-
ties (Heller-Nicholas 2017; cf. Wisker 2016, 179–182; 2015, 229–230;
2014, 437–439; Hobson 2016).
In “The Fantastic Queer”, Frederik Dhaenens (2013b) brings up the
ambiguous and complicated nature of gay representations in the fantastic.
Drawing on the scholarship on film and television, he points to the
scarcity of overtly homosexual characters in the genre. While the popular

imagination and scholarly criticism often link the figure of the vampire
with homoeroticism and queerness, vampire fiction for young readers is
often wary of exploring nonconforming romantic identities and can be
even construed, as Kane asserts in relation to Twilight, as deliberately
“drained of homoerotic elements” (2010, 104). Mia Franck suggests
that girls in vampire stories often “exert themselves to the maximum”
(anstränger sig till max) to emphasise their heterosexuality (2013, 216).
However, as Dhaenens stipulates, “the lack of gay characters does not
imply a lack of homosexuality” as homosexual undertones are often intro-
duced by means of a metaphor and left to be uncovered by audiences and
readers (2013b, 103).
In the fictional supernatural universe of Mead’s Vampire Academy, all
of the central characters are ostensibly heterosexual. However, particu-
larly early in the story, the intense relationship between the adolescent
vampress Lissa Dragomir and her best friend the dhampir Rose Hath-
away borders on homoerotic (cf. Smith and Moruzi 2020, 615). In the
opening pages of the series, and in one of the first frames of the novel’s
screen adaptation (Waters 2014), Lissa drinks from Rose’s neck. A fugi-
tive from her supernatural community, the young vampress has no access
to willing human feeders so Rose sustains her with her own blood. This
act both confirms her affection for Lissa and is a source of intense sensual
pleasure. Rose’s erotic delight is communicated through her closed eyes,
tilted head and lips parting in a soundless moan (Waters 2014). The
heroine revels in the “wonderful, golden joy that spread through my body
… a blanket of pure, refined pleasure … and I lost track of the world, lost
track of who I was” (VA 3).
Fiercely possessive of her friend, Rose attempts to take control over
her romantic life. She deliberately lies to Lissa’s love interest Christian
in order to separate them, and encourages her to romance a boy who
is “boring, yes, but safe”, and for whom Lissa does not truly care (VA
69, 154). The dhampir heroine longs for physical contact with Lissa in
the form of her highly pleasurable vampiric bite, and experiences jealousy
when the vampress drinks from others (VA 45; cf. Smith and Moruzi
2020, 615). However, as in the supernatural code of conduct offering
blood to vampires is considered a strict sexual taboo, “the lovely bliss of
Lissa’s bite” (VA 5) is a cause for much anxiety for Rose. The dhampir
heroine experiences her own desire as “a weakness”—something that
she “hated feeling” (VA 3, 173)—and both girls carefully conceal their
feeding relationship when they return to their vampire school. Once their
secret has been exposed, they become the target of malicious gossip,
including accusations of ritual animal slaughter as a part of lesbian erotic
foreplay (VA 106). The girls’ secrecy, anxiety and the adverse social conse-
quences they bear for their relationship mirror John E. Petrovic and
Rebecca M. Ballard’s assertion about the concept of “the ideal girl” as
inscribed “into the social construction of a straight identity” (2012, 196,
204).
Rose herself explains away her desire for Lissa’s bite with chemical reac-
tions caused by the endorphin rush triggered by vampire feeding. As the
effects of Lissa’s drug-infused saliva gradually wear off and the young
dhampir finds herself increasingly invested in heterosexual relationships—
first with the dhampir Dimitri, and then the vampire Adrian—her longing
for Lissa’s bite wanes. The homoerotic undertones of their friendship
disappear, falling back on what Kokkola identifies as a familiar literary
convention of representing homoeroticism as a temporary stage in a girl’s
development; a sign of immaturity of which she will grow out with
time (2013, 102, 110). It is not until the first volume of the Vampire
Academy’s sequel, Bloodlines, that an overtly lesbian couple becomes
introduced in Mead’s series. Rowena is an art student and a college friend
of the main romantic hero Adrian, and is a positive and vibrant—if periph-
eral—character who emerges in the fourth volume, The Fiery Heart. Her
relationship with her girlfriend Cassie appears to be supportive and loving,
and the two young women demonstrate no anxiety or uncertainty about
their sexual orientation.
In the Casts’ House of Night and House of Night: Other World, a
number of diverse characters—male and female, human and vampire,
adult and adolescent—are narrated as overtly homosexual; a feature that
makes the series stand out within the genre.26 On several occasions,
the authors have declared their intention to create fictional societies and
cultures in which “ALL are accepted” (Loved 325, emphasis original; cf.
also Loved 317; Found loc. 5732; P.C. Cast 2011, loc. 66). The eighth
volume in the original series, Awakened, is explicitly dedicated to LGBT
26 Responding to the inquiry of Emily Friesen in the Fan Q&A at the end of Loved,
the authors declare that the universe of House of Night also includes transgender vampires
(325); these characters, however, never emerge in the plot. A transgender figure is featured
in another fantasy series by the Casts, The Dysasters (2019–present).
teenagers and conveys a message of support and encouragement that

resonates with the It Gets Better movement:27
It gets better.
We heart you.
No matter what “they” say, life is really about love, always love.
(Awakened loc. 7)
The inclusion of various openly homosexual protagonists—and the posi-

tioning of some of them close to the heart of the plot rather than
on its peripheries—has been appreciated within and beyond academia.
Researchers have recommended House of Night both to fellow scholars
and vampire aficionados searching for their next read, as a series that
comprises positive depictions of gay and lesbian relationships (Anyiwo
2016, 183). Fans have cheered the presence of homosexual characters
and romance as advocating acceptance and understanding, and even as
helpful in their own experience of coming out.28 However, the House
of Night representations of homosexual teens have also drawn critique,
particularly in terms of gay-stereotyping and the absence of any “spectre
of queerness” from the main heroine’s vampirism (Priest 2013, 61–62).
The most important homosexual character, who has a continuing
presence within the storyline throughout all the volumes, is adolescent
vampire fledgling Damien Maslin, a devoted friend of the leading heroine
Zoey and a loving boyfriend of Jack Twist. Other male homosexual
27 The It Gets Better project (www.itgetsbetter.org) is a non-profit organisation that

began as a social media campaign to empower LGBTQ+ youth, based on the message of
hope embedded in its slogan “It gets better”. Initially focused on sharing encouraging
videos from various people (e.g. actors, politicians), since 2010 it has grown into an
international network of support for LGBTQ+ teens. For the critique of the movement
as reproducing the trope of gay victim and “omit(ting) the possibility of happiness for
gay teens”, see Dhaenens (2013a, 307, 315).
28 In the discussions on the House of Night related fora, the participants emphasised
that featuring both heterosexual and gay couples better reflected social reality (Nightchild
2012, “Damien Maslin”), and hoped this would work towards greater acceptance of
diversity: “Really cool that the authors put up a gay couple. There is so much misunder-
standing and freaky reactions on gays that I really apreciate (sic) they put Damien and
Jack on it” (RakshasaTigers 2010, “Damien Maslin & Jack Twist”). One of the forum
participants claimed that her experience with the novels had facilitated her coming out as
gay: “Damien is hands down my favourite character. I had a little trouble with coming
out to my parents and thinking of Damien helped a lot spitting it out” (Erinacchi 2012,
“Damien Maslin”).
couples are briefly introduced in the Other World series, and despite
their ephemeral character they are interesting for their potential for queer
resistance. When in Forgotten the immortal Kalona discovers that his
brother Erebus feels lonely, he asks their Mother Earth to create a perfect
companion for him. During the ritual, both Kalona and his Mother
repeatedly refer to Erebus’s future consort as a woman: “I will … breathe
life into her … she must be filled with spirit”, Earth says (44; emphasis
mine); and Kalona cannot wait to “see her! Erebus’s mate!” (49; italics in
the original). This scene speaks of the widespread assumption of hetero-
sexuality—a way of thinking that imposes invisibility on non-heterosexual
people and compels them to repeatedly “come out”, as it is presumed
that a person is heterosexual unless declared otherwise. The power of
heteronormative discourse implicit in Kalona and Earth’s words is likely
to escape the readers’ attention. Therefore, when a beautiful man named
Eros rises from the ground and the emphasis is placed on the pronoun he
(49–50), it is plausible to read it as the authors’ deliberate intervention
into the system of compulsory heterosexuality and an attempt to expose
the mechanisms of heteronormativity that render the hegemonic perspec-
tive invisible and “natural”. While initially surprised, neither Earth nor
Kalona appears to see the gender of Erebus’s mate as a matter of impor-
tance, and Kalona looks forward to welcoming Eros into their family
(50).
While the birth of Eros takes place in the fantastic realm of immor-
tals and personified elements, the story of Damien and Jack is situated
in the much more familiar milieu of a (vampire) high school. Both boys
are openly gay and confident in their sexual identities. Theirs is not a
typical teenage story of coming to terms with one’s sexuality or coming
out to oneself and one’s parents and friends (Mountney 2015, 53); their
“outing” experience is located in the past and in the unknown. Neither
is their vampirism employed as a metaphor for homosexuality—an other-
wise popular interpretation of the vampire trope (Dyer 2002). Instead,
their Marking as vampire fledglings is narrated as a liberty pass, signalling
their move from the human society that fears difference into the super-
natural one that promises a safe space for diversity. Throughout the series
readers learn little about Jack’s background and history. He enters the
story to fulfil the role of Damien’s sweetheart, the group’s mascot and,
ultimately, the evil vampress’s offering to Darkness, never given a chance
to develop into a more nuanced character. Damien, however, is a more
complicated figure, whose story opens up possibilities to discuss gay teen
experience, including same-sex romance, discrimination and resistance

against heteronormativity.
In their qualitative study of the high school experiences of lesbian and
queer girls, Petrovic and Ballard define school as a territory shaped by
the oppressive discourses of heterosexism, which constructs heterosexu-
ality as superior, and denigrates same-sex attraction as aberrant (2012,
195). Words signifying homosexual identity are used as slurs both within
and outside the context of sexual orientation (Petrovic and Ballard 2012,
195).29 As an assumed norm, heterosexuality is often implicitly or explic-
itly considered essential to a high social status at school (Mountney 2015,
57). In this context, school is established as a place that is often hostile
to the exploration of non-heterosexual identities, “where LGBTQ youth
are forced to adopt a ‘stick it out’ attitude and hope that there is indeed
‘a better world’ [beyond the school years]” (Petrovic and Ballard 2012,
195).
In the Casts’ vampire series, compulsory heterosexuality and homo-
phobic practices reverberate both in Damien’s school and family. While in
the original House of Night Damien’s story is primarily related through
the accounts of others, in Other World he is presented with his own voice.
This opportunity is used to discuss the far-reaching and severe conse-
quences of anti-gay discrimination. Able to tell his own tale, the young
fledgling reveals his long-term struggle against depression, and empathises
with his alter ego in the parallel Other World who has chosen to commit
suicide (Loved xi, 116, 176–177).
Damien’s parents are narrated as fearful and unaccepting of their son’s
homosexuality, and they punish him with the withdrawal of parental
affection (“Damien has a mama who doesn’t like him anymore because
he’s gay”; Betrayed 135, 93). They also restrict his social contacts, and
Damien feels they might want to lock him (back) “in a closet” (nomen
omen) (Betrayed 93). His parents’ negative attitude is further manifested
through their desperate emphasis on stereotypical signifiers of hegemonic
masculinity in their interactions with Damien. Drawing on Thomas Crisp,
Lydia Kokkola refers to the obsolete if still oft-believed understanding of
homosexuality as “remediable” through encouraging a young person to
follow gender-specific rules of conduct (2013, 115). An excessively robust
29 As Katie, one of the participants of Petrovic and Ballard’s study, declares, “basically
anyone who was disliked was a faggot and anything that was stupid was gay.” (2012,
200–201; see also 205).
handshake or masculine-coded birthday gifts—like camping supplies or

a subscription to Sports Illustrated—that substitute for Damien’s “femi-
nine” birthday wish list of art supplies, are clearly aimed at correcting and
“curing” what his parents consider deviant (Betrayed 3; Loved ch. 17).
Ultimately, as Damien makes his Change into a full vampire, his family
cuts all contact with him (Loved ch. 17).
In Loved, Damien describes his transfer into a vampire society as a
moment of liberation, both from human school bullies and his alienated
parents (160–161, 177). However, even in the House of Night the young
fledgling occasionally experiences acts of verbal and physical aggression.
In Marked, he is pushed and offended by another student, and his desig-
nated roommate refuses “to room with a fag” (139–140; 107). Damien
learns to expect “the disdainful looks and the sarcasm” from “the jock-
like guys” and is shocked not by their insults but by the lack thereof
(Betrayed 141). It is not until he befriends Erik Night, the most popular
(and, needless to say, heterosexual) vampire boy in the school, that the
bullying entirely stops (Loved 177).
Damien appears resigned and possibly even passive in the face of
abuse—a trend that mirrors the popular representations of gay teens as
“vulnerable individuals” in need of assistance (Dhaenens 2013a, 307).
In the case of the young fledgling, help comes primarily from his
friends, who offer a certain level of resistance to homophobic practices.
Throughout the series, the narrating Zoey assures the reader that Jack
and Damien’s circle—“along with anyone who’s not narrow-minded and
utterly judgmental”—are “cool” with their sexual orientation (Untamed
8). This recurring statement has been construed by Hannah Priest as “an
awkward protest rather than an acceptance of young men’s sexuality and
relationship” (2013, 61). I would like to argue, however, that it is possible
to offer another interpretation.
Zoey’s position as the narrator, held throughout most of the story,
invites the reader to share her views and perception when she repeat-
edly denotes homophobic behaviour as narrow-minded, self-righteous
and evidence of having “poopie for brains” (Marked 107, 140; Untamed
8; see also e.g. Betrayed 186; Hunted 9). Both Zoey and her circle of
friends stand by Damien and root for his romantic relationships, first with
the fledgling Jack and then human Adam. At times, they also attempt to
work against homophobic attitudes; for instance, in Betrayed Zoey uses
her authority as high priestess in training to engage several boy bullies in a
project led by Damien in order to challenge their prejudice against homo-

sexuals (Betrayed 141–142).30 The positive heterosexual male characters
are narrated as attaching little importance to their friends’ orientation.
Moreover, both Erik and Dragon, two hyper-masculine heterosexual
vampires, are flattered rather than anxious when discovering that they
have male admirers; and Zoey’s heterosexual brother Kevin, while slightly
surprised, focuses on the power of love when he sees for the first time two
young men kissing (Loved 272).
The House of Night ’s portrayal of the homosexual protagonists,
however, is not unproblematic, and encompasses a number of ambiguous
imageries. Throughout the story, Damien’s homosexuality is repeatedly
accentuated, even within a context that bears little relation to romance
or sexuality, rendering his identity fixed. This could be exemplified by
his heterosexual friends linking his orientation with his penchant for
academics, unfailing courteousness and even his fear of horses—an ever-
recurring motif that at times reduces the smart and likeable young
fledgling to his homosexuality.31 While other protagonists disassociate
Damien from “fluttery-acting” or “too weird and girly” queer boys
(Chosen 7; Marked 91, 108)—a statement that is problematic in itself as
it reinforces the hierarchy of masculinities and discriminates against non-
hegemonic masculine bodies—both Damien and Jack bear a number of
characteristics that correspond with the common connection of gay males
with effeminacy (see e.g. Dhaenens 2012, 61).32 The narrating heroine
speaks of Damien’s “girlish tendencies”, the “cuteness” of his lecturing
on shoes or his “soothing babbling” (Chosen 7), both infantilising her
friend and reiterating gay stereotypes. Damien’s other friends question
his masculinity, repeatedly calling him “Queen Damien” (Chosen 67, 84)
or wondering whether he “counts as a guy” (Marked 91). Damien and
Jack’s feminine-typed reactions (like turning “adorably pink”; Betrayed
161), interests (like fashion, cross-stitching or decorating; see e.g. Marked
30 In the sequel series, as the High Priestess of the Tulsa House of Night, Zoey hires
only those contractors who are “proequality”, consulting her choice with the Equality
Center (Lost loc. 583).
31 Damien is described as trying to “stifle a very gay squeal” in the stables (Hunted
304), or as “gay, and therefore more sensitive and polite” (Untamed 6).
32 This point has been raised by Priest, who reads the depiction of Damien early in the
series “as effeminate and almost asexual ‘gay best friend’” (2013, 61).
271; Betrayed 137; Chosen 6–7, 9), reading choices (e.g. “Brides of Okla-
homa” magazine; Redeemed 178), as well as their investment in bodily
care rituals (like plucking eyebrows and visiting nail beauty salons; see
e.g. Loved 52), position them in a stark contrast to the heterosexual male
characters.33 Although Damien is a capable fencer—and thus, possesses
a warrior trait that in House of Night is often narrated as demarcating
masculinity—he never uses his talents in battle, his combat skills safely
enclosed within the frames of an elegant hobby and a fulfilment of school
requirements. As a further symbolic inclusion into the community of
women, Damien is Goddess-gifted with an affinity for air which, as the
fledglings learn in Vampyre Sociology, is “definitely a female affinity”
(Betrayed 196). In fact, Damien is the only male student in the original
House of Night series to wield the power of an element. When hetero-
sexual Erik attempts to represent earth in the elemental circle, he becomes
attacked by the earth candle, which flies away from him and presents itself
to a girl student—adhering to the convention of nature and magic as
feminine territory (Chosen 90–92).34
Frederik Dhaenens seeks the origins of “[t]he revalorization of the
masculine gay man” in the desire to counter the common stereotype
of the effeminate homosexual (2013a, 311). However, as Dhaenens
contends, an identity performance that adheres to conventional gender
codes offers less resistance to the rules of heteronormativity, producing
homonormative subjects (2013a, 311). Within this context, it is worth
noting that neither Jack nor Damien make any effort to conceal or modify
their gender-queer identities. Both boys good-naturedly make fun of
stereotypes and the fact that they abide by them (“Yeah, Damien and
33 The clear-cut line between gay and straight boys is further emphasised through
distancing the latter from feminine-coded reactions, e.g. emotional outbursts. Thus, while
gay Jack is repeatedly shown sniffling or bawling, Zoey’s brother Kevin bursts into “big,
snotting man-tears” (Loved 255; emphasis mine). On another occasion, Kevin’s embrace
of another man is carefully narrated as “a manly, back-slapping hug” (Loved 290), a
description that sanitises the act of any trace of what could be construed as homoerotic.
In later volumes, however, boy protagonists are encouraged to refute “toxic young male
bullshit” (Found loc. 1866) and express their emotions, and even the toughest warriors are
occasionally portrayed weeping (see e.g. Found loc. 4146, 5520). As Aphrodite explains to
Stark, “it is not good for men to deny their feelings. Crying isn’t weakness—it’s healing.”
(Found loc. 1867).
34 This trope is re-worked in House of Night: Other World, where Zoey’s brother Other
Kevin manifests an affinity for all five elements, and Other Dragon Lankford is able to
evoke fire during a ritual (Lost loc. 5028, 5030).
I are gay. That means that we are guaranteed to be good cooks”; Hunted
13), and play up their queerness by attributing themselves with unique
“gay” characteristics (such as extraordinary intuition; Chosen 5). On the
one hand, this perspective serves to reinforce the stereotypical imageries
of the male homosexual; on the other, it signals the boys’ lack of interest
in conforming to the hegemonic, hetero-standards of masculinity, and—in
the case of Damien—creates a space for negotiations between masculine
and feminine conventions.35
While throughout the series heterosex is depicted on several occasions
(although rarely in detail), homosexual couples appear to less often act
on their desire, and most physical contact happens behind the scenes.
This adheres to the general conventions of literature for adolescents; as
Kokkola notes, “[e]ven in today’s more liberal society, it takes a great deal
of confidence and conviction in one’s beliefs to write a novel depicting
desiring gay and lesbian teens” (2013, 93). Throughout most of their
story, Jack and Damien’s romance resembles brotherly affection. Damien
takes care of Jack, reads him to sleep and smiles indulgently upon his
mistakes, while Jack routinely looks up to Damien for emotional support,
solace and guidance (see e.g. Hunted 9, 51, 121, 141; Loved 180). Jack’s
asexuality is further signalled through his childlikeness—his trusting atti-
tude, delight in toys (Chosen 12), choice of vocabulary (“Where do we
go potty?”; Hunted 51), and overly emotional reactions (Chosen 20;
Untamed 226, 309; Hunted 145). In comparison to their heterosexual
peers, the boys demonstrate little sexual curiosity for most of the original
series, and their physical involvement appears to be limited to brief kisses,
brotherly embraces (“‘Honey, it’s okay,’ Damien put an arm around
him”; Untamed 303), affectionate stares and romantic hand-holding—an
asexual portrayal of gay persons that can be seen as reproducing the matrix
of heteronormativity (Dhaenens 2012, 67). Later in the series, however,
the erotic dimension of Jack and Damien’s relationship is played up, and
their kisses change from “sweet” and “innocent” into “deep and long
and hot” (Loved 177–178, 222). Their playful banter loses its brotherly
undertones and the two boys speak about their physical intimacy (Awak-
ened 56, 57; cf. Loved 237)—a trope that, as Dhaenens notes, “becomes
35 In the last volume of the Other World series, Found, the authors briefly introduce
another male homosexual couple, Stephan and Odin, who are both warriors, and thus
strongly adhere to hegemonic masculinity.
significant as a counter-narrative to the gay teen as innocent, vulnerable,

or desexualized” (2013a, 314).
In contrast to the attention given to homosexual male fledglings,
female homosexuality is conspicuously absent through the majority of the
Casts’ series. According to Priest, House of Night “repeatedly and explic-
itly seeks to distance the [leading female] protagonist from the potential
queerness of the vampire” (2013, 61). Priest illustrates this point through
a scene in Betrayed (25) in which Zoey anxiously considers her admira-
tion for another woman’s beauty as “bordering on weird” or “queer”
(2013, 62). Throughout the first eight volumes of the original series,
all female protagonists are determinedly straight, their sexual identities
firmly confirmed both through their romantic interests and explicit decla-
rations.36 Openly homosexual female fledglings do attend the school, as
Zoey finds out shortly after enrolling. However, they are initially assigned
to the category of Other—a distinct and separated group deeply invested
in the religious cult of the Goddess, or “the moronic party girls” who
kiss to attract the attention of boys. Lesbian girls who are “cool” and
socialising with straight girls (“us”) are narrated as exceptions and never
re-surface within the story (Marked 107–108).
On occasion, girls’ experiencing and/or pursuing same-sex attrac-
tions are narrated as magic gone awry (Loved 80–81) or, as in Mead’s
Vampire Academy, an inescapable effect of the chemical reactions trig-
gered by the vampiric bite. While in the heterosexual context the act
of feeding from another person is narrated as powerfully erotic, the
only scene in the original series with the potential to depict female-
on-female desire through blood-drinking is meticulously sanitised of
any lesbian implications. In Hunted, fledgling-turned-human Aphrodite
allows her injured friend Stevie Rae to drink her blood, without which the
vampress would die. While Aphrodite experiences intense erotic arousal
brought about by Stevie Rae’s bite, she re-directs it entirely at her hyper-
masculine boyfriend, vampire warrior Darius, whom she passionately
kisses throughout the feeding (Hunted 21). Their heterosexual attraction
is further articulated by the narrating Zoey, whose description effectively
counteracts the scene’s homosexual undertones: “The kiss between the
36 For instance, when Zoey feels self-conscious about using open showers alongside her
girlfriends, she reassures herself that they “are all girls, hetero girls at that, so we really
weren’t interested in each other’s boobies and such … so the awkward part didn’t last
long.” (Hunted 76).
warrior and Aphrodite had so much sizzle to it I swear I could almost see
sparks flying” (Hunted 21–22). When the act of blood-drinking results
in creating an Imprint—a powerful magical connection that earlier in
the narrative has been reserved exclusively for lovers—Darius reassures
his humiliated girlfriend that her bond with Stevie Rae is of a non-
sexual nature, and that it will not affect their heterosexual union (Hunted
53–54).37
Successful—if briefly described—lesbian romantic relationships are not
introduced into the original series until the two final volumes (Revealed
2013; Redeemed 2014), with further female unions emerging in the
House of Night novella “Dragon’s Oath” (2011) and the sequel series
Other World (2017–2020).38 These stories are marginal to the main plot;
however, they do offer moments of resistance against heteronormative
constructions of womanhood and the cultural marginalisation of queer
identities. In “Dragon’s Oath”, the openly lesbian vampress Pandeia
occupies the powerful position of St. Louis High Priestess and main-
tains a happy relationship with another vampress, Diana. At the school
level, in Revealed, Shaylin Ruede, teenage Prophetess of Nyx and future
High Priestess of San Francisco, becomes romantically involved with the
fledgling Nicole.
In his study of gay representations in the high school TV series
Glee, Dhaenens observes that academic and cultural portrayals of gay
adolescence revolve predominantly around victimisation, and are likely to
underline the gay teenager’s social isolation and psychological problems
(2013a, 307, 310). In a similar vein, Kokkola observes that the literary
representations of young gay protagonists tend to accentuate the pain and
rejection that result from a character revealing their same-sex attractions.
While such representations mirror the experiences of many gay teenagers,
they also “seem to imply that suffering and internalised hatred are central
to a queer identity”, portraying homosexuality in terms of problem or
crisis (2013, 109). In House of Night, discrimination, prejudice and finally
depression are undoubtedly a part of Damien’s story; Shaylin and Nicole,
however, do not seem to go through this negative experience.
37 Cf. also Hunted 127, where Zoey refers to various types of Imprints even though
none of the non-sexual ones have been mentioned before. Aphrodite herself explicitly
denies any homoerotic desires on her part (Hunted 25, 53).
38 Most of these texts could not have been included in Hannah Priest’s essay, published
in 2013.
Initially, both vampire girls represent ambivalent sexualities in the

process of self-definition. They appear to be attracted to boys—Nicole has
a boyfriend and Shaylin is courted by a young vampire—and it is unclear
whether they had experienced same-sex desire before they met. However,
once they realise their mutual affection, they do not need to struggle
to come to terms with it; instead, the girls seem to be perfectly happy
with their budding relationship. Their coming-out moment is narrated as
neither scandalous or sensational, nor as dreaded or painful. The only
“consequence” is a brief exchange of gossip among the protagonists
as they witness Nicole ostentatiously embracing her new girlfriend in
front of Shaylin’s male admirer.39 In “Daughters of Darkness”, Bonnie
Zimmerman observes that the lesbian vampire has often been deployed to
express the patriarchal fears of “woman-bonding” that was to undermine
heteronormative masculine power through the exclusion and marginalisa-
tion of men (2004, 74). Dyer identifies similar correlations between the
late nineteenth/early twentieth-century tales of lesbian vampirism and the
cultural shift towards the pathologisation of women’s “romantic friend-
ships” and independence (2002, 74). In House of Night, however, no one
expresses such angst. Even the vampire rejected by Shaylin swiftly over-
comes his bewilderment, and the two remain good friends. As reported by
Petrovic and Ballard, lesbian high school students often feel compelled to
conceal their non-heterosexual attractions and to negotiate the compli-
cated terrain of social life at school through passing as straight (2012,
204–205). The vampire high school in Tulsa, however, is a safe and
comfortable terrain for Nicole and Shaylin to develop their relationship
in, articulating adolescent gay romance in a positive way and offering a
vision of the world in which same-sex attraction is detached from inner
conflicts, threats of homophobia or victimisation, and may be expressed
without fear.
While few and underdeveloped, the lesbian relationships in House of
Night speak of emotional fulfilment, commitment and love, and are
granted happy endings. Their stories contradict the clichéd depiction
of homosexual romance as linked with grief, madness, violence and/or
death, which often emerge even in the otherwise liberal narratives for
39 Only once does Zoey ask Aphrodite not to be “mean” about their friends’ lesbian
relationship, emphasising that they are entitled to love whomever they want; to which
Aphrodite responds that their sexual orientation does not matter to her (Redeemed 118).
young readers (Gray 2015; Kokkola 2013, 90–93; James 2009, e.g. 89–
96).40 As Andrew M. Butler summarises, “[h]omosexual narratives often
end with funerals rather than weddings” (2016, 55), prohibiting the gay
couple’s happily-ever-after. Within the vampire texts marketed to young
people, this trope has been exemplified and criticised through the rela-
tionship of Willow and Tara in Buffy, with their story resolved, as Emily
Gray notes, in a “lesbian cliché” (2015, 137; cf. Shepherd 2013, 39).
Initially celebrated by fans and queer communities, and called an iconic
model of positive lesbian relationship on TV (Bernhardt-House 2016,
176), Tara and Willow’s union stereotypically ends in tragedy and grief.
Tara is murdered and Willow descends into violence and madness—a
resolution that has been read as ringing with homophobic undertones.41
Another example from the vampire genre is the only lesbian relationship
in Madow’s The Vampire Wish series, one that ends with the vampress
Laila with a stake in her heart. Her beloved, the witch Geneva, is left
grieving and vengeful, and ultimately chooses to die. In contrast to
Willow and Tara, who prior to Tara’s passing enjoy a loving relationship
on the screen, Laila and Geneva’s love is not revealed to the reader until
after the vampress’s demise. At this point, the couple have been sepa-
rated for centuries with the only possibility of a reunion relegated to the
afterlife.42
Also in the original House of Night series, the romantic relationship of
Jack and Damien stereotypically ends in the violent death of one partner
40 Kokkola identifies the roots of this narrative in John Donovan’s novel I’ll Get There.
It Better Be Worth the Trip (1969), recognised as the first English language novel featuring
gay protagonists written for and marketed to adolescents (2013, 91).
41 The “lesbian cliché” resolution of Tara and Willow’s union has been rejected by
the show’s fans, who re-imagined their romance through fan fiction (Gray 2015). Other
scholars have emphasised the positive aspects of representing lesbian love in the show.
For instance, Shepherd observes that homosexual desire in Buffy has been “validated
and legitimised in a way that heterosexual relationships are not” (2013, 25–26). She
further argues that same-sex relations are divorced from the violence and hurt surrounding
heterosexual unions, “entirely defus[ing] any reading of female homosexuality as deviant
or dark” (2013, 36–37, 39–40).
42 This longstanding cliché is also present in popular culture representations of male
homosexual couples. See e.g. Elliot-Smith, who discusses the relationship of the vampires
Russell and Talbot of True Blood, and Russell’s descent into madness upon Talbot’s violent
death (2012, 149–150).
and the other’s severe depression.43 However, their love is given a second
chance in the series’ sequel, published three years after the original. As
Hughes observes, “[c]riticism and the contemporary fictional vampire
… enjoy a reciprocal existence. Authors are acutely aware of the critical
debate, and are thus inclined to embody it, consciously or unconsciously,
within their creative productions” (2014, 341). Perhaps for that reason,
the “horrid, gaping hole” that is left in Damien’s life by Jack’s absence
is filled with the latter’s alter ego—one that shares the “original” Jack’s
spirit—coming from the parallel Other World.
The conventional script of the gay couple’s tragic ending comes
undone. Instead, the reader is offered yet again a narrative of one true
love and eternal soul mating, as Damien proves incapable of finding
happiness with anyone but Jack. Asked whether he would feel the same if
his beloved had come back as a woman, the young vampire confesses:
“I would love Jack no matter what body he returned to me in—male,
female—it just wouldn’t matter. He would still be my true love. … I
would want to be with him. Or her” (Loved 167; italics in the orig-
inal). Damien’s formerly fixed homosexual identity becomes re-written as
fluid and capable of destabilising the dichotomy of hetero- and homosex-
uality.44 In “The Fantastic Queer”, Dhaenens points to the moments of
queer resistance in the TV series Torchwood. While his arguments consider
the relationship between Ianto and Jack, the two male characters of the
show, they can be equally applied to the two male vampires of House
of Night. Just like Ianto, Damien “argues that his feelings for Jack are
beyond gender … [He] describes his desire and love as feelings that tran-
scend binary categories of sexual orientation” (Dhaenens 2013b, 106)—a
potentially queer challenge to the hegemonic discourse of romantic love.
3.5 Conclusion
Vampire fiction offers a myriad of portrayals and understandings of love
and romantic relationships, with contradictory threads and representa-
tions often evident not only among different works, but within the same
43 In the fourth volume of Other World, however, another homosexual couple meets
the stereotypical end: Odin is murdered and Stephan is left in deep mourning (Found
loc. 4075).
44 Also, in Found, the warrior Odin is narrated as Neferet’s ex-lover (loc. 3678) and
current mate of another warrior, Stephan, with his sexual orientation remaining unlabelled.
stories. Conservative texts include moments of resistance and subversion,

and those intended as radical, liberal and progressive at times fall back on
conservative formulas. The stories of love and romance are narrated in a
variety of ways, creating spaces for empowered, agential and adventurous
girlhood (and boyhood), or—in other stories or narrative moments—
validating and perpetuating conventional and heteronormative romantic
gender roles and unions. These ongoing tensions are certainly at play
in the contemporary vampire fiction marketed to girls. This chapter has
investigated some of the romantic tropes and storylines of the genre, with
a primary focus on the narratives of soul mates and the one and only love,
the possibilities of queer romance, same-sex relationships and the question
of power balance and romantic equality in the vampire series by P.C. and
Kristin Cast, and Richelle Mead.
In an interview with the House of Night authors in 2009, Arizona,
James Blasingame and Kerri Mathew characterised the series as a contri-
bution to the larger cultural discourse of “Boy Lessons”, that is advisory
narratives for girls about love and romance (84). Asked what kind of
message about romantic relationships she would hope to convey to fans,
Kristin Cast declared:
One important message is that you have to be OK on your own before you
can be OK in a relationship. You have to be able to stand alone, healthy
and happy, before you can be with anybody else. Happiness doesn’t come
from someone else. (84)
Yet, in contrast to that declaration the majority of vampire series addressed

to young women, including House of Night, foreground a mandatory
investment in romantic love. Following the larger trend in girl popular
cultures, their protagonists devote a considerable amount of time and
energy to discussing, contemplating and negotiating relationships, and the
plot is often moved forward through the actions motivated by romantic
feelings. None of the heroines of the series analysed ultimately surrender
romance in order to pursue other forms of emotional fulfilment, although
such moments of resistance do exist, particularly in Vampire Academy and
Bloodlines. While developing a love relationship is undoubtedly narrated
as an important part of growing up as a human, dhampir or vampire
girl, other aspects of girls’ lives and girlhood are often brought to the
forefront, the thematic shift away from the paranormal romance noticed
and appreciated by the series’ fans (see e.g. Wilhelm and Smith 2014,
124–125). This shift could be illustrated through the final scene of the
cinematic version of Vampire Academy (Waters 2014). At that point, both
Rose and her former instructor Dimitri are resigned to the fact that they
cannot have a relationship together. Rose asks Dimitri for one final kiss
and, unable to resist, the warrior leans into reach her lips. However,
instead of the expected romantic conclusion, the audience is treated to
Rose knocking her instructor to the ground as she takes advantage of his
momentary inattention—finally managing to achieve the ultimate combat
goal of their training. The heroine walks away laughing merrily, and
so does Dimitri, the final act of the movie speaking about the impor-
tance of success, friendly competition and fun over romance.45 Eventually,
however, all the central heroines (and heroes) in Mead’s series are granted
their expected happy-ever-after in a monogamous and typically hetero-
sexual romantic relationship. Same-sex attractions are allowed only limited
space and are mostly concealed under the metaphor of vampiric feed-
ings. The Casts’ series, in turn, distinguish themselves among YA vampire
stories (and YA fiction in general) by introducing a variety of strategies
meant to resist the hegemonic heteronormative models of romantic love.
As Kimberley Reynolds observes, fiction addressed to young readers
“is participating in changes taking place in social attitudes to sexuality by
moving beyond heteronormative stereotypes”, with an increasing number
of books exploring a wider range of romantic identities and expressions
(2007, 115, 127; see also e.g. Mountney 2015, 53; Kokkola 2013).
Featuring several diverse homosexual characters and presenting them as
romantically fulfilled and (tentatively) desiring, signalling the possibility
of love that transcends gender and sexual orientation, and finally, leaving
ajar the door to polyandric romance, the Casts’ series use the alternative
romantic mores of the vampire society in order to expose and unsettle
the heteronormative structures of the human ones. The very same struc-
tures, however, become at least partly restored through gay-stereotyping,
deep (if at times ambiguous) investment in the narratives of soul mates,
and the eventual rejection of polyandry. The latter turns out to be but
a temporary disruption—perhaps intriguing but ultimately unintelligible
45 An analogous scene in the books involves Rose punching Dimitri while the couple
kiss in order to free herself from his unwelcome bodyguarding services. Although Rose
loves him and desires the kiss that gives her a chance to re-establish their relationship, she
prioritises her plan to help with a dangerous murder investigation and uses their intimate
moment to prevent the dhampir man from stopping her (LS loc. 1105–1110).
for both the protagonists and the series’ fans. Potentially polyandric
vampire girls and women become circumscribed into more traditional
romantic fantasies, and return to the familiar imagery of monogamous
and unbreakable romantic unions as the key to happiness. Thus, the
unorthodox vision of romantic fulfilment is eventually used to reinstall
and reconfirm conventional conceptualisations of romantic love, as the
positive female characters sooner or later discard polyandric practices.
However, albeit wary of embracing some of the more radical ideas of
romance, love relationships in both the Casts’ and Mead’s series offer
much in terms of girl empowerment. Although the novels’ romantic
storylines follow different narrative trajectories, they are consistent in
detaching themselves from the popular narrative structure of a young and
passive human heroine and her superior supernatural partner. The reader
is offered the anticipated stories of passionate and undying love that is
capable of crossing the boundaries of worlds, times, species, social taboos
and possibly, gender; these stories, however, rarely entail the disem-
powerment of the heroine. Whether vampire, dhampir or human, girls
(and boys) in the series position themselves most of the time as agen-
tial romantic subjects and emphasise the value of choice, even when it is
intertwined with the narratives of magical bonds and soul mate connec-
tion. Girl heroines seek to establish more balanced romantic relationships,
based on the principles of equality. These notions will be further explored
in the following chapters, as the narratives of girl sexual awakening and
erotic expressions, as well as the accounts of violence perpetrated against
and/or by women, provide further insights into the representations of
girlhood and gendered power dynamics in contemporary vampire fiction
for young readers.
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CHAPTER 4
Pangs of Pleasure, Pangs of Guilt: Girls,

Sexuality and Desire
In Radical Children’s Literature, Kimberley Reynolds identifies sexuality

and carnal desire as the most rapidly and radically changing thematic areas
in contemporary fiction for young adults (2007, 114–115). As Reynolds
notes, “what was once one of the most vigorously patrolled boundaries
separating fiction for adults from that for juveniles has been [largely]
redrawn” (2007, 115). This shift manifests itself through the growing
presence of adolescent sexual activities within stories for young people.
First and foremost, however, it is communicated through more inclusive
representations, comprising explorations of previously ignored, sensitive
topics and/or a positive portrayal of the outcomes of sex (Kokkola 2013,
9, 40; Reynolds 2007, 122). However, as Lydia Kokkola elucidates,
adolescence and sexuality remain a combustible mixture in which the
carnal desires of young people clash with the Romantic vision of child-
hood innocence—“defined so exclusively as a bodily function, and so
rigidly placed in opposition to sexuality” (2013, 27).1 Consequently, a
large body of literature for young readers continues to adhere to conser-
vative values when representing sexually active teenagers, with scholars
observing a strong impact of abstinence movements on the contemporary
depictions of adolescent sexuality (Kelly 2016; Kokkola 2013).
1 See Kokkola (2013, 21–41), for a comprehensive explanation of the controversies

produced by the intertwining of the discourses of adolescence and sexuality.

Switzerland AG 2021
Located at the heart of both cultural imaginings of girlhood and the

narratives of the Gothic, the themes of sex and sexuality are central
in most contemporary vampire stories for adolescent women.2 Vampire
fiction has often been identified as the most sensual among the classic
Gothic tales, with the figure of the bloodsucking monster as the incar-
nation of human erotic fantasies and illicit appetites, able to provide
illuminating insights into the politics of desire and sexual power (Piatti-
Farnell 2014, 1, 8; Ames 2010; DuRocher 2016, 45; Ndalianis 2012,
91).3 Conditioned by the sexual ethics, taboos and fears of their eras,
vampires have come to represent a broad spectrum of sexual behaviours—
from “restraint and chastity as a significant moral code in Twilight,
to soft-core porn aesthetics and graphic straight and queered sex and
desire onscreen in Allan Ball’s HBO series True Blood (2008–2014)” (Ní
Fhlainn 2019, 231).
From early vampire stories such as Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla
(1872) and manifold iterations of Dracula’s wives and lovers, through
the lesbian/bisexual vampresses of the 1970s, to the female protagonists
of such contemporary hits as Twilight or The Vampire Diaries , vampire
stories have long been seen as a fruitful terrain for interrogating cultural
understandings, desires and anxieties surrounding female sexualities.
Long linked with feelings of shame, and disapproved of as “dirty” (Frank
2013, 211), these stories have conventionally served as cautionary tales
against transgressive sexual activities, risqué identities, fatal seduction,
pollution and infection—validating and perpetuating culturally accepted
ways of performing sexuality. Simultaneously, the figure of the vampire,
and particularly the female of the species, has functioned as a metaphor
for sexual emancipation and awakening, providing young heroines with
moments of resistance against the politics of sexual repression and female
disempowerment (Kord 2009, 211; Heller-Nicholas 2017; Wisker 2016,
166). In “Love Bites”, Gina Wisker recalls the conventional connota-
tions of the vampress with “unlicensed sexuality and excess”; an embodied
2 Acknowledging the pervasiveness of the idea of sex and sexuality as the organising
principle of vampire fiction, William Hughes (2014) warns against the potentially reductive
effect of this perspective on the scholarly interrogations of the vampire figure.
3 Both Bernhardt-House (2016, 164) and Wilson Overstreet (2006, loc. 39) exclude
the figure of the werewolf from the body of “sexy” Gothic figures, particularly in compar-
ison to the vampire (cf. Dyer 2002, 75). However, many contemporary narratives cast
lycanthropic characters as erotically desirable and highly sexualised.
4 PANGS OF PLEASURE, PANGS OF GUILT: GIRLS, SEXUALITY AND DESIRE 125
warning against the threat of falling prey to the demonised female sexu-
ality that was to be defeated through a stake in the heart (2015, 224,
226; cf. Łuksza 2015, 439). However, in many contemporary vampire
stories, vampirism—and female vampirism in particular—translates the
erotic from “a site for control and prohibition” into “a site for libera-
tion”, foregrounding female sexual energies (Wisker 2015, 233, 2016,
166).
The vampire’s allure and freedom, bold immersion in the forbidden
and the perceived ability to respond to adolescent sexual angst and desires
have been identified as one among the key reasons of the genre’s popu-
larity among teenage and young adult consumers (De Marco 1997, 26,
28; Byron and Deans 2014, 90; Smith and Moruzi 2020, 612). In
Reading Unbound, adolescent informants who commented on sexual
content in their favourite vampire books construe their reading expe-
rience as “a way to safely contain and reflect upon something that
may be dangerous to experiment with or consider in real-life contexts”
(Wilhelm and Smith 2014, 129). Contemporary vampire fiction marketed
to adolescent women is rife with erotic tension. However, as scholars
observe, many mainstream texts are infused with negative depictions of
sex, with a particular emphasis on the policing of female erotic expres-
sions (see e.g. Priest 2013, 72). For instance, Carys Crossen observes
that YA “American vampires … appear to have inherited a streak of
Puritanism, where sex—if it takes place at all—regularly leads to chastise-
ment of the parties involved, like naughty schoolchildren” (2010, 114).
Crossen discusses the storylines that demonise adolescent sex as “a disrup-
tive, corrupting force” in contemporary vampire tales such as Meyer’s
Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2010, 115).4 Laura Shepherd
further observes that heterosex in Buffy is frequently linked with physical
and psychological violence, and often poses a dire threat to the charac-
ters’ self-esteem, souls or even lives (2013, 31–36).5 Scholars have also
repeatedly brought to the fore the rigorous regulation of female sexuality
4 Importantly, Crossen emphasises that Buffy is far from consistent in depicting sexual
activities as problematic, as the show contains examples of positive teenage sexual
experience (2010, 115–116).
5 See Shepherd 2013, 31, for other examples of scholarly analyses of the interconnection
between sex and violence in Buffy. Shepherd further underlines the difference between
the representations of hetero- and lesbian sex in the series, and emphasises that the latter
as depicted in positive and unthreatening terms (2013, 36–40).
in Twilight and the conservative idea of sexual fulfilment as possible and

legitimate exclusively in the marital context (see e.g. Platt 2010; Allan and
Santos 2016).6
Other YA vampire stories, however, appear to offer more liberated
visions of girl sexual agency and desire, a strain that can be exemplified
through The CW show The Vampire Diaries (Williamson and Plec, 2009–
2017), dramatised for the small screen after L.J. Smith’s literary series
under the same title (1991–2014). In Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions
and Contemporary Horror, Rikke Schubart points to the critics’ posi-
tioning of the show as “the middle ground between teen abstinence and
crazy kinkiness” of the vampire genre (2018, 139), and Rhonda Nicol
commends The Vampire Diaries for its liberalised perspective on the ques-
tions of female virtue and sexuality. As Nicol emphasises, young heroines
“must still negotiate a complex set of social codes in order to be ‘appro-
priately’ sexual, and behaviours perceived as transgressive are likely to
result in social censure” (2016 147). However, teenage sex is commonly
presented as “value-neutral” or even a positive force, and being sexually
active does not automatically position a girl as “bad” (Nicol 2016, 146).7
This chapter explores the representations of sex and carnal desire in
the contemporary YA vampire series, focusing on House of Night (2007–
2014) and House of Night: Other World (2017–2020) by P.C. and Kristin
Cast, and Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy (2007–2010) and Blood-
lines (2011–2015). While thus far not studied in detail, these series
have been commended for offering a positive depiction of adolescent
sex and sexualities. In her chapter on Vampire Academy as a Third Wave
feminist text, Janine J. Darragh emphasises the novels’ non-didactic and
non-judgmental portrayal of sexually active girls as capable of making
informed and responsible sexual choices (2016, 261). In turn, in “The
Female Vampire in Popular Culture: Or What to Read or Watch Next”,
U. Melissa Anyiwo recommends House of Night as worthy of attention for
its “frank and open exploration” of young adult sexuality (2016, 183).
6 Other, competing readings of Twilight ’s representations of female sexuality that iden-

tify the moments of women’s agency and empowerment include Rana (2014) and Bellas
(2017, ch. 3).
7 Referring to the figure of the vampire Caroline, Nicol further points to the heroine’s
awareness of the injustice of double sexual standards, and praises Caroline’s agency over
her sexuality (2016, 15). For a detailed analysis of the character of Caroline, see Schubart
(2018, ch. 5).
On a closer look, the messages conveyed in these series prove to be

ambivalent, conflicted and, at times, problematic, with both patriarchal
and feminist powers operating in their visions of girl desires and sexual
expressions. In this chapter, I consider the representations of female
sexual agency and pleasure in order to interrogate the power struggles
and cultural notions of sexual (dis)empowerment underlying the depic-
tions of girls’ sexual choices and activities. I look into the narratives of
female virginity and sexual awakening as the question of gendered power
dynamics transpire through the accounts of the young heroines’ sexual
debuts. Focusing on the figure of the vampiric sexualised predatoress and
the practices of slut shaming, I further hope to shed light on some of
the meanings and social hierarchies produced by the conflation of female
respectability and sexuality, and the gendered scripts of sexual morality
and decorum.
4.1 It Tasted like Liquid Desire: Virginity,

Blood Consumption and Sexual Awakening
When in The Vampire Trick, part of Michelle Madow’s The Vampire Wish
series, the witch Camelia asks a powerful faerie prince to help her in her
quest to become a vampire, the man demands in return “[s]omething that
belongs to you and you alone, that you’ve never given to anyone before”
(203). Although Camelia fears that the price might be her powers, memo-
ries, or even her soul, she accepts the bargain. Only then does she discover
that the devious faerie intends to claim something “far more precious”
than all the things above—her virginity (204–208).
The figure of the virgin and the notion of virginity—with their biolog-
ical, medical, emotional, legal, religious and moral dimensions—have long
been a “hot, and hotly contested topic” in the narratives of the West
(Jeffers McDonald 2010, 1; Driscoll 2002, 140–144; Farrimond 2013,
2016; Zehentbauer and Santos 2016). Reverberating with the echoes
of diverse and often contradictory discourses on femininity and female
desire, and commonly contained in the sphere of anatomy or a single
sexual act, virginity is a complex concept that can be defined and expe-
rienced in multiple ways, as evidenced by a growing field of scholarly
inquiry (Farrimond 2016).8 Within popular culture, the tropes of sexual

awakening and initiation have long been believed to hold a shared fasci-
nation for coming of age narratives and the genres of horror and Gothic
(Farrimond 2016; Zehentbauer and Santos 2016).9 In “Supernatural
Hymens and Bodies from Hell”, Katherine Farrimond argues that “the
gothic body offers a crucial site in which the centrality of virginity to
popular understandings of sexual life becomes apparent” (2016, 150). In
her discussion of the meanings of virginity in two popular TV series, True
Blood (Ball, HBO 2008–2014) and Supernatural (Kripke, The WB, The
CW 2005–2020), Farrimond traces the moments “where the cracks begin
to show in conventional narratives of what virginity is, and when it is lost”
(2016, 150).
As a locus of intense social fears and desires, cultural constructions
of virginity and sexual initiation are particularly revealing of the broader
social perceptions and imaginings of sexual identities (Driscoll 2002, 140;
Farrimond 2016). While it may be applied to persons of any age or
gender, virginity is often essential in the cultural, political, social and
educational discourses of young female bodies and (hetero)sexualities,
and is intimately connected with the notions of power, morality, agency
and control (Jeffers McDonald 2010; Driscoll 2002, 140–141, 144).10
An explicit depiction of female virginity as “far more precious than your
memories, your soul, or even your power” (VT 208) is as dramatic as
it is antiquated. Referring to the works of Laura Harvey and Rosalind
Gill, Farrimond discusses the postfeminist shift in constructions of girl
sexuality from the celebration of innocence and restraint to the expec-
tation of sexual confidence and “the performance of a particular level of
sexual awareness and expertise” (2013, 50–51; emphasis in the original).
However, along with the celebratory tales of the sexually empowered
8 See Farrimond 2013 and 2016 for a concise overview of the feminist scholarship on
virginity.
9 For the trope of virginity in the horror movies, see e.g. Falconer 2010. Virginity within
contemporary vampire narratives has been analysed in relation to True Blood (Zehentbauer
and Santos 2016; Farrimond 2016), Twilight (Allan and Santos 2016; Crossen 2010) and
The Vampire Diaries (Nicol 2016).
10 The concept of virginity is also important in the discourses of young masculinities;
however, these narratives are markedly different from the ones concerning girls. For an
interesting examination of the male virgin in fantasy/Gothic tales, see Farrimond (2016),
Crossen (2010), Zehentbauer and Santos (2016) and Allan and Santos (2016).
and knowing postfeminist girl, narratives fetishising chastity and absti-

nence, and demonising the consequences of sex, continue to hold a
powerful position in the contemporary popular constructions of girlhood
(Kelly 2016; Kokkola 2013; Seelinger Trites 2000; Allan et al. 2016, 7).
Consequently, as Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos and Adriana Spahr
succinctly observe, virginity “often appears at once as enviable and unde-
sirable, as valuable and detrimental, as normative and deviant” (2016,
1, 3). Within the Gothic genre, these contradictions are epitomised
and satirised through Jessica Hamby of True Blood. A sexually adven-
turous vampress and an eternal virgin whose hymen ever-regrows, the
figure of the adolescent undead Jessica “mirrors a society that simultane-
ously hypersexualizes young women and demands their sexual abstinence”
(Allan et al. 2016, 8; see also Zehentbauer and Santos 2016; Farrimond
2016, 156–157).
When the readers first meet Zoey Redbird, the leading heroine of
House of Night, she is a sixteen-year-old virgin, and defends her choice
to remain one (for the moment) as preferable to “being a skank” (Chosen
119).11 In her essay on sex and sexuality in YA vampire tales, Hannah
Priest construes Zoey’s polarised vision of female sexuality as formulated
in terms of the Madonna/whore dichotomy (2013, 74); a perspective that
plays into “a division of women into ‘the pure’ and ‘the impure’”, long
reiterated by vampire tales (Łuksza 2015, 439). However, Zoey’s conver-
sation with her friend Aphrodite may also point to the series’ awareness
of the contradictory social expectations placed on girls’ sexual perfor-
mance. Aphrodite’s amused reaction to Zoey’s “innocence”, which earns
her the nickname “Miss Goody-Goody”, and her patronising comment
“You have a lot to learn, Z” (Chosen 117, 119), suggest the shift of a
girl’s virginal status from desirable to amusing and possibly even embar-
rassing. Aphrodite herself would rather lie than admit that she is not
having sex, and she does precisely that when her boyfriend Darius delays
the consummation of their relationship.12 Zoey’s defensive response to
11 A common understanding of the term “virgin” as a woman who has yet to have her
first vaginal intercourse with a man is both gendered and heteronormative, and presents
limitations in analysing the highly complex notion of virginity. While prevalent in the
series under analysis, this understanding is sometimes challenged and subverted, which I
hope to point out in this chapter.
12 The motif of a girl concealing her virginal/sexually inactive status is a recurrent one
in the stories for young people (see e.g. Farrimond 2013; Kokkola 2013, 50). In YA
Aphrodite’s teasing, however, challenges this discourse, explaining as it

does that “there is nothing wrong with being a virgin” (Chosen 119).
These complex and conflicted discourses permeate vampire series
marketed to girls, an increasing number of which, as P.C. Cast declares,
aspire to destabilise the conventional gendered constructions of sexual
decorum (Cast 2011; Interview 2009). Neither overly graphic nor cryp-
tically described, in House of Night adolescent sexual activities are often
included in the plot and, particularly in the later volumes, narrated in
positive terms. The vampire culture of the Casts’ universe is repeatedly
presented as one that valorises sexual pleasure—a philosophy that is meant
to puncture human conservative views about sex and to set vampires apart
from sexually repressed human cultures. As Zoey learns from one of her
schoolbooks, it is the human pathological anxieties surrounding erotic
gratification that have given birth to the tales of the voracious vampiric
bite. She reads that “the ecstasy of blood drinking is the key reason
humans have vilified our race. Humans feel threatened by our ability to
bring them such intense pleasure … so they have labeled us as predators”
(Betrayed 169). This imagery of the devouring vampire is immediately
dismissed as nonsensical and unfounded. As Zoey explains in Hunted,
[e]ven being bit by a fledgling will cause the bitee (a human) and the biter
(a fledgling) both to experience a very real jolt of intense sexual pleasure.
It’s how we survive. The old myths about vamps ripping open throats and
taking victims by force is pretty much bullpoop. (21)13
The erotic delight linked with blood-drinking is described as a divine gift

from the vampire goddess Nyx “so that both could feel pleasure in an
act that could otherwise be brutal and deadly” (Chosen 63). In House of
Night, blood consumption is thus largely sanitised from its conventional
associations with abuse and dark seduction, and drinking from the vein is
vampire fiction, it emerges for instance in the literary version of The Vampire Diaries,
as well as in Vampire Academy, where the respective central heroines Elena and Rose
are virgins. Yet, being as they are popular, desirable and confident, they are regarded as
sexually active or even promiscuous; and they appear to be mostly content with such a
persona.
13 Earlier in the series, a vampire high priestess openly criticises fundamental Christianity
as a religion that vilifies pleasure and connects it to guilt and fear (Betrayed 13).
typically narrated as the privilege of lovers (or sometimes that of wounded

friends in need of blood’s healing properties).14
In vampire fiction, the vampiric feeding has been routinely read as
a metaphor for sexual activities.15 Piatti-Farnell notes that “in previous
centuries sex occupied the latent position when the vampire’s sucking was
concerned” (2014, 199). Bloodlust and blood exchange were the way to
express and resolve erotic tension in YA vampire fiction of the past; in the
words of Joseph De Marco, they were “sex without sex” (1997, 28). In
contemporary texts, blood-drinking and fang penetration are often inter-
laced with other sexual activities—narrated as a foreplay or an experience
that enhances sexual arousal. In House of Night, fledglings are taught early
on by both their teachers and textbooks that blood sharing, just like sex,
must always be consensual. In fact, it is narrated as a ritual of teenage
vampire courtship; at different points of the story, all Zoey’s boyfriends—
human, fledgling and vampire—offer their blood to her, and her two
vampire lovers drink from her in exchange. The heroine’s craving for the
blood of her human love Heath serves as a powerful image of her erotic
awakening:
It tasted like liquid desire, hot and thick and electric. It made my body
burst alive in places that had only begun to rouse before. And those places
were starving. I wanted to drink Heath’s sweet blood while he satisfied my
yearning for his touch, his body, his taste …. (Betrayed 266)
Zoey’s sexual awakening and development are placed in the spotlight of

the early volumes of the series. Along with her transformation into a
vampire fledgling (a thinly cloaked metaphor for human puberty), the
heroine begins to experience powerful erotic desires and to contemplate
the prospect of losing her virginity—“[t]he thought [that] scared me as
much as it fascinated me” (Betrayed 126). Zoey’s autodiegetic narra-
tion offers an intimate insight into the heroine’s sexual longings—and
14 Except for the case of feral red vampires and fledglings who drink blood and eat flesh,
and whose feedings are narrated as repulsive acts of violation with no erotic undertones.
15 See e.g. Dyer (2002, 75–76), Nakagawa (2011), Hughes (2014) Piatti-Farnell (2014,
70–73), Byron and Deans (2014, 90), Rana (2014, 124), Smith and Moruzi (2020, 612).
In the vampire narratives advocating conservative sexual values, abstinence from blood and
sex often go hand in hand. As observed by Ní Fhlainn in relation to Twilight, blood and
semen are subjected to similar regulations, with both blood and sexual cravings narrated
as dangerous and in need of containment (2019, 231).
the mixture of doubt, delight, disgust and excitement that they inspire
throughout her increasingly erotic encounters with vampire fledgling Erik
Night, human Heath Luck and the vampire teacher Loren Blake. Simulta-
neously intrigued by and terrified of her budding sexuality—feelings that
manifest through “equal pangs of pleasure and of guilt” (Betrayed 171)—
Zoey remains a virgin until the third volume, when on the spur of the
moment she has passionate sex with Loren on the floor of the school’s rec
hall. As the policy of the House of Night explicitly prohibits teachers from
romancing students (Betrayed 73), the torrid affair of Loren and Zoey
initially offers a familiar thrill of a grand, forbidden passion.16 However,
alongside Zoey’s emotional and erotic delight, the narrative increasingly
foregrounds the alarming imbalance of power in their relationship.
Discussing the ideas of Catharine MacKinnon, Clare Chambers points
to the hierarchical structure of sexual relationships as an essential foun-
dation of oppressive gender relations (2008, 49–51). Within vampire
romance fiction, the asymmetrical power in sexual unions often mani-
fests through the figure of a young and virginal heroine whose sexual
awakening occurs upon meeting a centenarian, paternalistic and sexually
dominant male vampire. The latter is frequently narrated as introducing
his female partner into the world of the erotic, and guiding her sexual
development, imposing abstinence and/or determining the “correct”
moment for her sexual initiation. The reliance on these old-fashioned
patriarchal romantic conventions has evoked critical concerns about the
gendered imbalance of power that eroticises male supremacy and female
submissiveness in sexual relationships.17
While at the beginning of both House of Night and Richelle Mead’s
series, all but one of the central heroines are virginal, they all distance
themselves, to varying degrees, from the popular paradigm of a human
girl–vampire man sexual union. The imbalance of power, however, does
occur, even though it stems from the differences in social positions and
experience rather than that of species. Such stories serve as cautionary
16 Zoey’s best friend Stevie Rae compares them to Romeo and Juliet (Betrayed 73).
17 For the ways in which the relations of power embedded in the account of female
sexual awakening in the literary series The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Harris 2001–2013)
have become re-scripted in its televised adaptation True Blood, see Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska
(2019).
tales, emphasising the abuse of power and the risks of relying on patri-
archal narratives of romance. In House of Night, this is foregrounded
through the affair between a fledgling student and a vampire teacher.
The problem of the power relations explicit in teacher–student unions
has long been subjected to public debates and recognised in both legal
regulations and school policies that often ban or restrict them. Such rela-
tionships have been recurrently depicted in popular culture, varying from
true love thwarted by social limitations, through the demonic affair that
disrupts and destroys, to a meaningful but ultimately doomed romance,
as evidenced, among others, by Fisher et al. (2008, ch. 5) and Reynolds
(2007, 123–127). In House of Night, Zoey initially narrates her affair with
Loren as exciting and empowering. While she is strongly attracted to both
Heath and Erik, it is the gaze of the mature and seductive vampire teacher
that she sees as the force that truly awakens her as a woman:
[S]omething happened within me. I stopped feeling like a goofy, jittery,

dorky teenage girl. The look in his eyes touched the woman inside me …
and as this new me stirred I found a calm confidence in myself that I had
rarely known before. (Betrayed 51; cf. 149)
In Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory,

Catherine Driscoll points to the patriarchal narratives of virginity and
sexual awakening as “designat[ing] girls’ maturity as something gifted by
men” (2002, 141). Zoey reflects that notion when she further explains
the effect of Loren’s advances on her budding sexual self: “I was a woman,
mature and powerful, and I knew what I wanted and how to get it,
too” (Chosen 78). Soon, however, the heroine begins to realise that this
is merely an illusion as she feels increasingly frightened and ever less in
control of her developing connection to Loren. The narrative foregrounds
the tensions inherent to their illicit relationship and the resulting isolation
of the young heroine. Zoey understands that she ought not to deal with
this situation alone (“I really needed someone to talk to”; Betrayed 150);
yet she feels like there is nobody to whom she can turn. One by one,
she discards her grandmother, school mentor, best friend and other adult
vampires as potential confidants, fearful of their reaction—a decision that
is to become her undoing (Betrayed 150).
In Education in Popular Culture, Fisher et al. observe that relation-
ships between male teachers and female students are often depicted in
terms of mutual threat, abuse and corruption: “In such tales adolescent
female sexuality often acquires an almost terrifying power, threatening any

male teacher who steps out of the strictly desexualised role he must main-
tain” (2008, 104). The story of Zoey and Loren, however, resists such
imagery. Disassociating the teenage heroine from the stereotyped figure
of the alluring schoolgirl, the narrative over-emphasises Zoey’s naïveté,
youthful abashment and self-consciousness in her interactions with the
vampire:
He nodded at the empty seat beside me. “… do you mind if I sit with you
a little while?”
“Yeah, sure. I need a break. I think my butt’s asleep.” Oh God, just
kill me know.
He laughed. “Well then, would you like to stand while I sit?”
“No, I’ll—uh—just shift my weight.” And then I’ll hurl myself out the
window. (Betrayed, 31)
Loren’s skilful seduction—seemingly accidental encounters, feigned irres-

olution between his feelings and responsibilities as a teacher, poems
recited under the moonlight and planted in Zoey’s locker (see e.g.
Betrayed 49–53, 69–70)—allows him to assume control over their rela-
tionship. It is him who decides where and when they may meet (see e.g.
Chosen 82) and who seeks Zoey out, intruding on her time and inter-
fering with her obligations. Zoey often feels that she is “playing with
something so far beyond what I’d ever experienced that it could easily
spiral out of control” (Chosen 77). Ultimately, Loren explicitly commu-
nicates the superior position that allows him to take advantage of Zoey,
dismissing her as “easy to lead around. A shiny present here, a pretty
compliment there, and you have true love and a popped cherry sacri-
ficed to the god of deception and hormones” (Chosen 262). It is clear
that although Zoey agrees to have sex with Loren, her agency is, in
fact, taken away from her, their unequal relationship rendering consen-
sual intercourse impossible.18 It soon transpires that Loren acts at the
orders of Zoey’s nemesis vampire priestess Neferet, alienating the young
heroine from her loved ones, manipulating her into drinking his blood
and having sex, and eventually exposing their secret romance to ruin her
18 In “Mary Sues, Sluts and Rapists”, Gaïane Hanser construes this scene explicitly as
rape, and criticises the series for failing to reflect upon the abusive dimension of Zoey
and Loren’s union (2018, 10–11). I, however, argue to the contrary and claim that in
this particular storyline, the novels clearly emphasise the wrongness of Loren’s actions.
friendships and relationships. Responding to fans’ queries and occasional

frustration over Loren’s violent end, P.C Cast dispels any doubts about
the message underpinning this particular thread of the plot:
Adults who abuse their positions of power (teachers, the clergy, politicians,
public servants) instead of serving and protecting those in their care should
be held responsible. Loren is not a romantic character—no matter how
handsome and charming he appears. He’s an abuser and a predator. (Loved
328; cf. also Interview 2009, 84)
In House of Night, female teachers are also capable of exploitative

behaviour. Hannah Priest draws attention to the presence of the
paedophilic undertones in YA vampire texts, pointing to the “prob-
lematic grey areas of human/vampire relationships, which are brought
about by the generational and experiential gap between the human [most
often teenage] girl and her undead lover” (2013, 67).19 In the Casts’
series, these undertones are reversed and highlighted in an intimate
encounter between the century-old, sexually well-versed vampire head-
mistress Neferet and the adolescent fledgling Elliot. It is with horror
and disgust that the narrating Zoey witnesses Elliott drinking Neferet’s
blood. The scene carries strong implications of paedophilia and a sense of
breaking a powerful taboo. This transpires not only through the age, and
experiential and social gap between Neferet and Elliott, but also, quite
literally, through the difference in height, as the vampress has to bend
down to kiss the fledgling’s lips (Betrayed 158). The seductive head-
mistress clearly revels in the boy’s youthful, blind infatuation and finds
pleasure in forcing him to beg for further intimacies:
“Please, Goddess!” Elliott whimpered.

“You know you don’t deserve it.”
“Please, Goddess!” he repeated. His body was shivering violently.
“Very well, but remember. What a goddess gives, she can also take
away.” (Betrayed 158)
Both Neferet and Elliott derive erotic gratification from their encounter;
but the bond they form is one of fear and dependence, abuse of power and
19 Discussing Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampires (2006–2014), Priest identifies this

series as exceptional among other YA vampire texts as it “demonstrate[s] awareness of the
uneasiness generated by placing teenage girls alongside older, adult vampires” (2013, 67).
child exploitation, as it is clear that Elliott is addicted to the vampress’s

intoxicating blood. The transgressive nature of their liaison is amplified by
the setting of the scene—they meet in the middle of a cold night, at the
“spooky east wall” of the school where evil powers dwell (Betrayed 157–
163). Both Neferet and Loren freely offer their own blood to Elliott and
Zoey; however, their blood is poison meant to control and addict rather
than please and nourish, rendering their relationship with the fledgling
students predatory and vampiric.20
The only positive romantic union between a teacher and a student
occurs in the House of Night novella Dragon’s Oath, revealing the begin-
ning of the love story between fledgling Dragon Lankford and vampress
Anastasia. Their romance, however, is carefully purged of any traces of
power abuse. The narrative over-emphasises Anastasia’s youthfulness and
innocence, as well as Dragon’s erotic experience and the minimal age gap
between the lovers (as she is only two years his senior). More impor-
tantly, Dragon swears his Warrior Oath to Anastasia and matures into
a full vampire—automatically relinquishing his student status—the very
same night the couple share their first chaste kiss.
In the human high school world of Richelle Mead’s Bloodlines , where
witches, vampires and dhampirs attend undercover, the school rules forbid
teachers to touch students unless necessitated by a medical condition or a
need to break up a fight, and even grabbing a student’s hand could result
in a law suit (GL 169). In Vampire Academy, however, the forbidden
love between a schoolgirl and her instructor is positioned as the central
romantic storyline. Already in the first volume, the adolescent dhampir
heroine Rose Hathaway falls in love with her combat instructor, the
dhampir Dimitri Belikov. Their first intimate encounter is triggered by an
evil spell that spurs them to act on their mutual desire, and is immediately
terminated by Dimitri once he comes to his senses. The teacher is further
exonerated from any potential blame when he urges Rose to report him
(a request that she firmly denies).21 Dimitri acknowledges the wrongness
of his actions, refusing to accept the spell as an extenuating circumstance
20 An interesting case of a literalisation of a predatory female pedagogue can be found

in the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. In the episode “Teacher’s Pet”, a female
teacher seduces and then imprisons male students to have sex with them and then devour
them as she turns into a monstrous giant praying mantis (S1E4).
21 In their interpretation of the scene, Smith and Moruzi point out that Dimitri burdens
Rose with the decision whether to keep or reveal their secret (2018, 14).
(VA 313–314). He also attempts to cut any romantic connection with

Rose, explaining his decision with the differences brought about by the
age gap between them:
Rose, I’m seven years older than you. In ten years, that won’t mean so
much, but for now, it’s huge. I’m an adult. You’re a child … We’re in two
very different places. I’ve been out in the world. … And you … You’re
still growing up and figuring out who you are and what’s important. You
need to keep doing that. You need to be with boys your own age. … you
need to understand that it was a mistake. And it isn’t ever going to happen
again … (VA 313–314)
In “Consent is Sexy”, Evie Kendal and Zachary Kendal call into ques-
tion Rose’s ability to give a legitimate consent to Dimitri based on the
power imbalance in their relationship—after all, she is an underaged
virgin propositioned by a man of superior experience and in a position
of authority. In the light of these arguments, it is not unexpected that
Kendal and Kendal frame the couple’s intimacy in terms of a statutory
rape (2015, 30). However, this interpretation comes across as problem-
atic when Rose reacts with anger to Dimitri’s attempts to infantalise and
patronise her. The heroine is deeply upset with the hero calling her a
child whose “life is about homework and clothes and dances”, and feels
insulted by his suggestion that their erotic encounter has been volitional
on his but not on her part (VA 313). When Dimitri exclaims: “I took
advantage of you!”, Rose answers curtly: “No … You didn’t” (VA 313).
In “Scandalous Stories and Dangerous Liaisons”, Pat Sikes observes
that within public and media discourses, sexual intimacy between a
student and a teacher, even if consensual, is predominantly narrated as
“illegitimate, abusive and exploitative on the part of the teacher” (2006,
266). However, as Sikes points out, other narratives should also be given
voice, as they can propose “an alternative view of gendered sexual agency
and the exercise of power that does not cast women as the passive recip-
ients of active male desires and the inevitably weaker and harassed party
in any relationship” (2006, 267). While in House of Night the emphasis
is placed on the differential of power and agency between teacher and
student, as well as the potential for abuse and the breach of trust, the
romantic connection between Rose and Dimitri embraces an alternative
option. Rose refuses to accept the position of an unknowing, innocent
child or a non-agential female victim, and firmly rejects the view of her
erotic relationship with Dimitri as non-consensual or predatory.
4.2 Didn’t the Earth Move or the Planets

Align? The Tales of the “First Time”
Rose and Dimitri do not consummate their passion until Rose is nearly
eighteen, when they give into their long contained desire in a secluded
cottage at the edge of the school in the series’ third volume (SK
344–351). While their romance begins with Dimitri in the position of
authority—negotiating against Rose’s expulsion from school and taking
upon himself the role of her mentor—their teacher–student relationship
ultimately proves unproblematic, with the narrative strongly emphasising
the equality of power relations between the lovers and highlighting the
humorous aspects of their situation (like the fierce warrior Dimitri fearing
Rose’s mother). Their early erotic encounters are, however, narrated as
either preceded or followed by dangerous events and/or consequences.
In Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Liter-
ature, Roberta Seelinger Trites delineates fiction marketed to adolescents
as generally aiming to police and control young people’s sexual activities.
This results, she observes, in common representations of the conse-
quences of sex as disastrous and traumatising. Adolescent sex is closely
followed by regret, betrayal, unplanned pregnancy or/and the breakdown
of the relationship, conveying the message that “sex is more to be feared
than celebrated” (2000, 85). As Seelinger Trites crisply states, “all hell
breaks loose” as soon as the characters choose to give into their carnal
desires. Over a decade later, Seelinger Trites’ arguments were confirmed
by Kokkola, who underscores the persistence of English-language YA
fiction in representing the outcomes of sex as catastrophic. As Kokkola
argues, “[a]ssociating the loss of virginity, even when mutually desired,
with violence and pain underscores the view that teenagers should curb
and control their sexual desires or expect to suffer” (2013, 49; see also
51–94).22
In her analysis of sexual abstinence in contemporary vampire stories,
Carys Crossen cites the relationships of Buffy and Angel in Buffy, and
22 Kokkola notes that Nordic literary works for young readers generally offer more
liberal perspectives on adolescent sex (2013, 6–7).
Edward and Bella of Twilight, in order to demonstrate how the consum-

mation of carnal desires can be turned into a cautionary tale (2010, 115,
117–119). Both couples become penalised for engaging in sex; Angel
suffers the loss of his soul, Buffy suffers humiliation and the loss of Angel;
Edward is punished with guilt and fear of losing Bella, and Bella with
bruises and life-threatening pregnancy.23 As his intercourse with Buffy
activates a curse and turns Angel evil, the narrative of her sexual initia-
tion further comes to manifest key cultural fears about the loss of female
virginity—“that the boy will cease to value the girl after sex and that the
act itself is much less important to him than to her” (Fisher et al. 2008,
72; cf. Shepherd 2013, 32).
Although experienced under radically different circumstances, both in
the case of Mead’s Rose and House of Night ’s Zoey, a brief delight in sex is
followed by emotional pain, the end of the relationship and the brutal (if
at times reversible) death of the loved one—a course of events that stems
directly from sex or simply occurs soon after. While mutually longed-for
and deeply satisfying, Rose and Dimitri’s early erotic encounters occur in
the context of violence and threat, linking sexual maturation with danger
(cf. Smith and Moruzi 2018, 14). Spellbound, they are distracted by their
desire while Rose’s best friend Lissa is kidnapped and tortured in the
first volume. In Shadow Kiss, in turn, Dimitri drags Rose into a cabin in
the woods to restrain her from attacking and possibly killing an adoles-
cent vampire bully. As her rage subsides, their desire awakens and leads
to intercourse. Their post-coital bliss, however, becomes swiftly obliter-
ated by a sense of mortal danger as the lovers find themselves surrounded
by the murderous Strigoi invading the school. Rose is forced to leave
Dimitri behind as she flees to alarm other guardians; Dimitri falls in battle
and becomes forcibly turned undead. In a similar, if more gruesome way,
Loren and Zoey’s sexual liaison is shortly followed by Loren’s betrayal and
his disembowelment, decapitation and crucifixion performed by his other
lover—a course of events that understandably results in Zoey’s heartbreak
and loss of self-esteem. Seduced by a mature vampire, the heroine still
partly blames her sixteen-year-old self for having fallen for his lies, and
feels undeserving of friendship and respect (see e.g. Chosen 268, 283).
Her disappointment over what she sees as “the biggest mistake of my life”
23 As noted by Shepherd, Buffy is further compelled to “atone” for acting on her desires
when she must deliver a fatal blow that sends her beloved straight into hell (2013, 32).
For an insightful analysis of Bella’s monstrous pregnancy, see e.g. Kokkola (2011).
(Hunted 61)—that is losing her virginity to an unworthy man—results in

her decision to abstain from sex altogether and leaves her with a sense
of mistrust towards other men’s intentions (Untamed 164; Hunted 61).
The heroine’s declaration—“I’ve totally learned my lesson” (Untamed
164)—turns the story of her affair with Loren into a warning against a
rash and imprudent sexual debut, and communicates the need to carefully
consider decisions regarding sex.
Importantly, while initially devastated, Zoey overcomes her distress and
draws on her experience with Loren to emphasise the value of agency and
choice. As Fisher et al. observe in regard to Buffy, “[t]he girl’s fears about
sex might come true in that men will prove cruel and predatory but she is
able to fight back” (2008, 72). Consequently, the message becomes one
of empowerment rather than of damage and lingering trauma. When in
the later volumes Zoey resumes her relationship with the vampire Erik,
she does not hesitate to reject his sexual advances when she feels that he
has moved too far (Hunted 57–61). As her narration of their encounter
shifts from passion and desire to the sense of entrapment and “being
groped in the dark”, the heroine begins to suspect that Erik might feel
entitled to intimacy with her as she has already slept with another man:
“Did Erik think because I’d had sex (once!) that now it was open season on
nailing Zoey? Ah, crap!” (Hunted, 61; italics original). Zoey’s angry and
determined reaction stands as a challenge to the cultural narration of the
value of female “sexual exclusiveness”. The latter, as Martha Burt eluci-
dates, valorises virginity as the source of female bodily autonomy and a
guarantee of safety, construing the non-virginal, non-marital female body
as “a fair game” ([1998] 2003, 132–133; cf. Farrimond 2016, 153). As
jubilant Erik fails to register Zoey’s change of heart despite her verbal and
bodily attempts to withdraw, the girl pushes him away and categorically
orders him to stop (Hunted 61–62), recognising herself as an agential
sexual subject and firmly asserting her right to her body.
One of the most interesting and celebratory accounts of female sexual
initiation is offered in Richelle Mead’s Bloodlines . As the romance plot
in the series seemingly resembles the familiar scenario of a youthful,
virginal heroine sexually awakened by an erotically well-versed supernat-
ural male, the story of human Sydney and vampire Adrian may at first
glance appear unlikely to offer an empowering vision of female sexu-
ality. Sydney’s erotic experience is limited to several unexciting kisses
with her human boyfriend. Not until she develops a romantic connection
with Adrian does she truly begin to explore her carnal desires. However,
regardless of his gender, supernatural status and vast sexual expertise,

Adrian is never granted an exclusive position of agency and authority in
sexual matters. While he incites Sydney’s passion, she does not ask for
his guidance nor does she question her own ability to gain or give sexual
satisfaction, and is open to pursue her erotic desires.
Sydney’s decision to become sexually active is preceded by careful
consideration and methodical preparation, as she emphasises the impor-
tance of “doing it responsibly” (FH 75). The heroine visits a doctor,
researches contraceptive options (preparing, to somewhat comic effect, a
colour-coded chart entitled “Oral-Contraceptive Comparison”), discusses
the matter with her boyfriend and begins to take birth control pills
well before their first intercourse (FH 62–63, 74–76). In her analysis of
English-language youth literature published within the span of the last
several decades, Kokkola observes “a noteworthy decline in the frequency
with which the characters negotiate birth control, and so teenage readers
are not offered insights into when and how the subject could be raised”
(2013, 55). Given the common construction of the figure of the vampire
as biologically incapable of conceiving or producing a child, this topic is
routinely passed over in silence within youth vampire fiction.24 In House
of Night, all vampires are rendered infertile upon their metamorphosis—a
condition that, as the authors claim, is highly unlikely to change (Loved
329). Vampires also appear to be immune to sexually transmitted diseases,
and consequently Zoey and her girlfriends never need to contemplate or
discuss contraception. In A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest, producing
children requires a deliberate metamorphosis from vampire to human—
an excruciatingly painful and typically temporary process that the married
couples typically undergo with the sole purpose of enabling pregnancy.
In Mead’s series, however, vampires are capable of procreation through
penetrative sex, and can have offspring with other vampires, dhampirs
and humans. Resultantly, the question of contraception is presented as
important and relevant to the protagonists’ lives. While not denying the
young women the right to act on their desires, the series conveys a clear
24 Playing upon the trope of the vampire’s alleged infertility, some vampire stories
are built around an unplanned and “miraculous” pregnancy. Notably, it is typically a
vampire male who turns out to be capable of biological procreation, usually with a woman
of another species. The two well-known examples involve the vampire Edward, who
impregnates his human wife Bella in Twilight, and the vampire Niklaus Mikaelson of the
TV show The Originals (The CW 2013–2018), who becomes a father after a one-night-
stand with werewolf Hayley Marshall.
message about the serious consequences of reckless sexual behaviour.

Health posters on the walls of St. Vladimir’s warn students to “prac-
tice [only] safe sex” (LS 4412) and all the central heroines demonstrate
knowledge about contraception and are careful to apply it in practice.
Occasionally, this is signalled through a brief mentioning of a condom
being taken out before intercourse (FB 104); at other times the matter
is discussed in detail. In Spirit Bound (439–444), Rose and her then-
boyfriend Adrian refrain from consummating their passion at the very
last moment, as Rose realises that they do not have protection. Adrian
is willing to take the risk, persuading his girlfriend that “[t]he odds
of anything bad happening are pretty low” (441). Overwhelmed with
desire, Rose is about to agree, nearly yielding to Adrian’s reasoning.
Yet, when she recalls her friend Karolina, a dhampir single mother, the
heroine begins to consider the potential ramifications of her decision.
Implying that the costs of unplanned pregnancy are higher for girls than
for boys, contemplating the amount of effort necessary to raise a child,
and worrying about her professional career, as well as the possibility of
contracting a disease, Rose concludes that “[h]uge life changes [are] made
from small, careless actions” and refuses to “just risk it” (440–441).
In “Making a Choice: Virginity in the Romance”, Brittany Young
discusses the idea of “the gift of virginity” and the empowerment intrinsic
to the heroine’s choice to present this “gift” to the hero (1992, 122–
123). As Young emphasises, it is the heroine who decides “what will and
will not happen” in the relationship (1992, 122–123), occupying a posi-
tion that Chiho Nakagawa interprets as “an ideal of female autonomy
and self-possession” (2011, unpaginated). In contrast to such best-selling
vampire stories as Twilight or The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Harris
2001–2013; the latter marketed to adults rather than to adolescents), in
both the Casts’ and Mead’s series most heroines demonstrate consider-
able power and agency in determining the moment that is right for their
sexual initiation. In Vampire Academy, it is Rose who first knocks at the
door of Dimitri’s room and starts touching him (even if spellbound) (VA
281–282). Similarly, House of Night ’s Zoey initiates her first intercourse
with her warrior Stark, stripping off her clothes and saying: “I’ll show you
what I want” (Awakened 35). “Whenever I’m ready”, responds Sydney in
The Fiery Heart when Adrian asks her tentatively when they might start
having sex (77).
The first intercourse of Sydney and Adrian offers an empowering vision
of girl sexuality, focusing on the agential expression of female desire and
constructing the heroine as a vocal romantic subject. Stranded in a cosy

inn in the middle of a snow blizzard, Adrian is rendered speechless when
he finds Sydney awaiting him naked in bed. The heroine clearly holds
the initiative in their encounter, telling her boyfriend to approach her “in
a voice that offered no arguments”, physically guiding his hands onto
her hips, and taking off his shirt (FH 299–300). The scene is narrated
through the eyes of the vampire, for whom, despite his previous extensive
experience, sex with Sydney is just as much the “first time” as it is for her.
While Sydney feels nervous, she is also clearly secure about her decision.
It is Adrian who trembles, has trouble speaking and—like many human
heroines before him—worries about being an adequate lover for Sydney
(cf. Fisher et al. 2008 on Buffy; Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2019 on Sookie).
As Adrian relates,
[t]hose long-lashed eyes, brown and amber and every shade of gold, met
mine with a certainty that made me feel like the novice here … it was like
everything that had ever happened to me had simply been a warm-up for
this moment, that this was where my life truly began. (FH 299–300)25
Both Sydney and her friend Rose “lose” their virginity in their late teens
to the men of their dreams, experiencing their first intercourse as phys-
ically exhilarating and emotionally fulfilling. However, less romanticised
and more ordinary narratives of female sexual initiation are also available
in Mead’s series. Vampress Lissa Dragomir is only sixteen when she has sex
for the first time with her vampire boyfriend Aaron. As their relationship
is already over when the series begins, the account of Lissa’s sexual debut
is mediated through Rose’s memory of a brief, post-factum conversation
between the girls:
“So what was it like?”

She shrugged and took another drink. “I don’t know. It wasn’t
anything.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t anything? Didn’t the earth move or the
planets align or something?”
“No,” she said, smothering a laugh. “Of course not.” (VA 130)
25 However, even in the case of Adrian and Sydney sex is followed by disastrous events.
In a post-coital moment they lose a phone that becomes a proof of their relationship and
results in Sydney’s imprisonment by the Alchemists.
Rose, who at that time is still a virgin, confronts Lissa’s experience with
her own expectations, which clearly resonate with the glamorous accounts
of sex ubiquitous in popular culture. Lissa’s response, however, punctures
the myth of the breath-taking, heart-stopping “first time”, dismissing the
experience as nothing extraordinary.
As Kokkola contends, the public and cultural discourses on sex often
employ the imagery of sexual initiation as a life-altering experience. Such
an understanding, Kokkola observes, is conspicuous already on the level
of language.26 Designating the first sexual intercourse as a “loss” (of
virginity), the “end” (of innocence) or as “making a man/woman” out of
somebody, signals irreversibility, and invokes—if rather preposterously—
the power of sexual initiation to transform a child into an adult (2013,
7–8; cf. Crossen 2010, 112). As Athena Bellas notes in her analysis of
Twilight, in the cultural narratives marketed to teens, female sexual initi-
ation is typically represented as one of the “ritual milestone events that
mark out maturation and the postliminal conclusion of the rite of passage”
(2017, 80). As Kokkola observes, these imageries continue to thrive in
literature for adolescents, with the first experience of sexual intercourse
persistently construed as “the end of childhood, and with it the end of
idyll, innocence and happiness”, often followed by suffering and regret
(2013, 47). In contrast, Lissa’s sex with Aaron is neither life-altering nor
represented as a loss of innocence; nor does it affect—adversely or other-
wise—her life or identity in any apparent way. Contrary to the traditional
romantic narratives that paint the vision of sex outside the boundaries of
eternal love as “sinful, or at least unfortunate” (Nakagawa 2011, unpag-
inated), the young vampress expresses neither regret nor shame over
having had sex out of curiosity rather than all-consuming passion. As
Darragh observes in relation to Vampire Academy, “[t]he series suggests
that young women should … respect their bodies, not be ashamed of
their desires, and make the choice that is best for them” (2016, 261; cf.
Reynolds 2007, 122).
Both Lissa and Zoey of House of Night experience sex with their
respective soul mates, Christian and Stark, as their “first time”, even
though “technically” they are no longer virgins at the time. Discussing
various theorisations of virginity, Farrimond critiques the dominant narra-
tives that locate virginity in the body/hymen as failing to reflect the
26 Kokkola is careful to note that her remarks regard English; other languages can reveal
different understandings of sexual initiation.
complicated nature of the concept. Drawing on the research of Hanne

Blank, Kate Monro, and Laura M. Carpenter, among others, Farrimond
turns to the feminist conceptualisation of the loss of virginity as a moment
that is identified subjectively “by feeling and instinct” rather than rooted
in biology or dependent on the single act of penetration (2016, 153–
154). In a similar vein, Jonathan A. Allan and Cristina Santos draw
attention to various understandings of what constitutes sexual inter-
course—a fluidity of meanings that results in divergent definitions of
“virginity loss” (2016, 69). These complex articulations clearly resonate
in Zoey’s post-coital musings in Awakened (nomen omen), where she
dismisses her previous sexual experience as one that does not count:
So, Stark and I had done it.

“I don’t feel any different,” I told the nearest tree. “I mean, except
for feeling closer to Stark and kinda sore in unmentionable places, that
is.” … I studied myself. I looked like, well, me. “Okay, so technically I’d
done it once before, but that had been a whole different thing.” I sighed.
Loren Blake had been a giant mistake. James Stark was totally different …
“So, shouldn’t I look different now that I am in a Real Relationship?” I
squinted at my reflection. Didn’t I look older? More experienced? Wiser?
Actually, no. The squint just made me look nearsighted. (Awakened 85)
In her account, Zoey clearly evokes—and then repudiates—the domi-

nant cultural imageries surrounding sexual initiation (such as “the magical
belief” that sex will change a young person into an adult; Kokkola 2013,
35, 41). She acknowledges her intercourse with Stark as meaningful
and gratifying, yet certainly not life-altering. For both Zoey and Lissa,
the loss of virginity (even to one’s soul mate) is stripped of its cultur-
ally constructed position of “a ritual milestone event”. Both heroines
seek and find the turning points of their maturation stories elsewhere—
Zoey in her victory over her nemesis Neferet and Lissa in managing her
mental disorder and self-harming tendencies—challenging the conserva-
tive constructions of girlhood that centre girls’ coming of age on their
sexualities and that neglect other important aspects of girls’ development.
It is noteworthy that neither Christian nor Stark ever bring up or
appear to be bothered by their girlfriends’ “non-virginal” status, clearly
signalling that this is a matter of little importance. The narrative of young
female sexuality becomes disassociated from the patriarchal discourse that
translates the “loss” of virginity into the loss of a woman’s value and
power within “the patriarchal marketplace” (Zehentbauer and Santos

2016, 102; cf. also Burt ([1998] 2003, 132–133).27 This disassocia-
tion is further reinforced through the humorous banter of girl fledglings
Shaunee and Erin with their male friend Damien. When the latter turns
up in the girls’ dorm after curfew, Shaunee feigns shock and jokingly
accuses him of an insidious plan “to defile us virgins”; this supposition
is followed by the girls bursting into laughter (Betrayed 237). Along
with revealing their non-virginal status, the scene operates to ridicule
and dismiss the sexist implications of this obsolete expression that links
female respectability with sexual restraint, and the sexually active female
with disgrace and pollution.
However, even if at times narrated as desired, the identity of a sexually
knowing girl can easily become precarious. The line between a “skank”
and a reputable woman—while critical—is often wavering and murky,
and developing sexuality can at once signify maturation and danger.
Drawing on Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, Farrimond points to the contradic-
tions inherent within the postfeminist rhetoric, where the celebration of
girls’ sexual agency as linked to female empowerment fails to recognise
the often exploitative and antagonistic contexts in which young women
negotiate and explore their sexualities; nor does it consider “the systems
of oppression and power imbalance circulating around young women’s
sexuality” (2013, 52; cf. also Charles 2014, ch. 5). Pushing against the
boundaries between the “respectable” and “risqué” young femininities
can prove both dangerous and highly problematic, and “excessive” female
sexuality continues to hold its age-old terrors even in the stories meant
to reflect the feminist agenda.
27 Cf. Nicol’s (2016) remarks on The Vampire Diaries, where she contrasts the show’s
imageries of female sexual initiation with those conjured in Twilight and Buffy. Nicol
draws attention to the “uncertain” status of the central heroine Elena who might or
might not be a virgin upon meeting her first—although not her last—true vampire love,
emphasising that female chastity is depicted as a matter of relatively little importance in
the show.
4.3 A Bloodlust-Filled, Hornie Freak:

Slut Shaming and “Excessive” Desire
In “Bad Blood: The Cost of Sexual Curiosity in Archetypal Tales”,
Susanne Kord locates female power and sexuality “amongst the most
forceful [cultural] taboos for women”—a fusion of two spheres that can
easily become “a spectre of horror”, transforming female sexual desire
into a corruptive, demonic force (2009, 205, 215). In particular, the
figure of the alluring and lethal female vampire—the pinnacle of the
cultural archetype of the hyper-sexualised “dark seductress”—has long
thrived in popular culture, its roots traced back to Carmilla and Dracula’s
brides (Hobson 2016, 25, 9). Ever since, as Amanda Hobson reminds
us, the sexualised vampress has been the locus of fears and fascination
surrounding female sexuality, typically focusing on “women who embrace
their sexual hungers and who act as agents of their own desire” (2016,
10). In the figure of the voluptuous vampress, the threat of monstrous
violence becomes enhanced by the imagery of the voracious, uncontrol-
lable and uncontrolled female erotic allure that is used to destroy and gain
power over men (Hobson 2016).28
While the House of Night series is set in an openly matriarchal vampire
society that ostensibly celebrates female freedom and desire, the sexu-
ality of “bad” women is inevitably presented as dangerous and monstrous
(cf. Hanser 2018, 7–8). A tool of deception and a powerful weapon, it
is consciously used by the fallen vampire priestess Neferet in order to
manipulate, trap and punish men.29 Employing a wide range of seduction
strategies and assuming a myriad of personas ranging from a sexually vora-
cious dominatrix to a vulnerable girl in distress, Neferet is portrayed as a
violent predatoress whose desires are nearly impossible to satiate. With her
28 For an interesting discussion of the sexualised predatory female figure in Twilight

see Kokkola (2011, 173–175). See also Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska (2019), for the study of
“extreme” female sexuality in True Blood.
29 Female sexuality can also be used by the forces of good as it is the case in the story
of A-ya, a perfect maiden created by the magic of Cherokee Wise Women in order to
defeat an immortal serial rapist Kalona. A-ya lures Kalona underground with the promise
of intimacy and imprisons him there in a centuries-long embrace (Untamed 220). Another
example can be found in Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress (2007–present), a series that
caters to an adult readership, in which the vampire huntress Cat lures the monsters in with
her highly sexualised performance. In both cases, female erotic allure is still a threatening
power, used as a trap and a weapon.
sexual transgressions ranging from age-inappropriate blood-consuming

relationships, through sadism, murder and a penchant for men covered in
battle gore, to intercourse with Evil Incarnate in the form of a bull—the
fallen priestess epitomises the physical and moral dangers posed by unfet-
tered female sexuality. The narrative of her sexual expressions, described
as “nasty”, “disgusting”, “R-rated” and vomit-inducing (Hunted 174), is
clearly meant to invoke a sense of repulsion. Her uncontained hunger for
(hetero)sexual pleasure fused with an “obsessive” need for independence
evokes a conventional image of monstrous female sexuality that speaks to
social and cultural “concerns about the strong … woman that can survive
unconnected to men” (Hobson 2016, 24).
Neferet herself appears to be aware of the monstrosised connec-
tion between female sexuality and abjectified power, and taps into this
cultural imagery when she attempts to discredit the leading heroine Zoey.
Having accused her of an alliance with Darkness and multiple murders,
the vampress reinforces her claims with a fabricated account of Zoey’s
debauchery (Untamed 252–253). The young heroine is understandably
outraged; what she challenges, however, is the report’s inaccuracy and its
unmerited attack on her reputation, rather than the underlying premise
that aligns insidious evil with what is framed as sexual “excess”.
Throughout the House of Night series, the discourse of respectability—
frequently conflated with a girl’s sexual reputation—occupies a central
position in narrating female desire. Anxious that her virtue might
be brought into question, Zoey withdraws from her boyfriend Erik’s
embrace as soon as she realises that they could have been seen kissing
(Marked 291). Reassuring the reader that her involvement with Erik
has not “gone very far”, Zoey articulates her refusal to “act like a slut”
(Betrayed 148)—a statement that appears to suggest that girls must delay
intimacies in a relationship to maintain respectability. While the heroine
finds pleasure in exploring her desires, she clearly places a high value on
her reputation and is tormented with a deep sense of shame over her
erotic appetites: “Hell! Was I becoming a vampyre slut? What was next?
Would no male of any species … be safe around me? Maybe I should
avoid all guys until I … knew I could control myself” (Marked 212).
Throughout the early volumes of the series, Zoey is often anxious
about being unable to contain her sexuality; at one point she actually
wonders whether the death of her new love interest might be a punish-
ment for her previous erotic adventures (Untamed 130). As Hannah
Priest notes, the heroine attempts to establish a self-regulatory “internal
regime of prohibition” in order to police her passions (one that Priest

compares to the strictures imposed on Bella by her controlling boyfriend
Edward in Twilight; 2013, 69). This regime involves self-directed sexu-
alised name-calling as a penalty for acting on her desires. When she
encourages her boyfriend to touch her breasts; when she kisses and
caresses her human love Heath; even when she entertains an erotic
fantasy—she refers to her behaviour as “skanky”, “slutty” and “ho-ish”,
and dubs herself a “ho-bag” and “a bloodlust-filled, hornie freak” (Chosen
59, 82, 188, 201; Betrayed 168, 174; Untamed 131).
Adverse sexual labelling is also routinely applied to other female char-
acters. This script unfolds in stark contradiction to the authors’ recurrent
critique of slut shaming and the ensuing discrimination of women (see
e.g. Loved 327). Both Zoey and her friends often describe other human
and vampire girls in sexually derogatory terms that cast doubt on their
respectability, stigmatising them as “the biggest ho in school”, a “sneaky,
spoiled slut who’s screwed half of the football team” or reckless, promis-
cuous girls who are bound to end up pregnant or develop “a really nasty
STD that eats your brains and stuff” (Marked 9, 22, 42, 77; Chosen 188).
In “The Laugh of the Medusa”, Hélène Cixous identifies the cultural
position of women in society as “the place reserved for the guilty” (1980,
250). This sense of guilt, Cixous argues, is attached primarily to various
aspects of female bodily existence that serve to keep “immense bodily
territories [of women] … under seal” (1980, 250). Several decades later,
in a study on the trope of shame in contemporary women’s writings,
J. Brooks Bouson discusses the process of female socialisation “as a
prolonged immersion in shame”. The latter, Bouson argues, often finds
its locus in female carnality and its persistent cultural depictions as “dirty
and defiling”, driven by uncontainable passions that need to be corralled
(2009, 2–3). In “Slut-shaming, Girl Power and ‘Sexualisation’”, Jessica
Ringrose and Emma Renold point to slut shaming practices and experi-
ence as a prevalent form of sexual regulation among teenage girls (2012,
335–336; cf. also Attwood 2007, 235).30 Slut shaming forms a powerful
discourse, intended to police female sexual expression through branding
“transgressing” women as deviant, and can constitute a severe form of
gender-based bullying (Attwood 2007, 235; cf. also Ringrose and Renold
2012; Sweeney 2017; Liston and Moore-Rahimi 2012).
30 For more examples of scholarly works on slut shaming as a regulating practice in girl
teen and tween cultures, see Ringrose and Renold 2012, 335–336.
However, as scholars observe, “[t]here is no general consensus about

what qualifies a girl as a ‘slut’” (Tanenbaum 2000, 88). In their qualitative
study of girls’ high school experience of being slut shamed, Delores D.
Liston and Regina E. Moore-Rahimi point to the arbitrariness of mean-
ings associated with such terms as “slut”, “ho”, “whore” or “skank”.
While these adverse sexual labels are commonly understood as referring to
women who are considered promiscuous, they can also become attributed
to girls with no sexual experience or even to rape survivors (Liston and
Moore-Rahimi 2012; cf. Tanenbaum 2000, xv). In fact, sexualised name-
calling is often divorced altogether from an individual’s actual or supposed
sexual activities. Instead, it is associated with other spheres of girl exis-
tence and experience—style, bodily development, “excessive” confidence,
flirting or socialising within the “wrong” circles, belonging to an ethnic,
sexual or class minority, having a larger size or simply, as Tanenbaum
defines it, being seen as “‘weird’ for whatever reason” (Tanenbaum 2000,
xv; Liston and Moore-Rahimi 2012; cf. also White 2002; Sweeney 2017).
While “slut” is a common signifier of shame, the controlling power of the
term is grounded in its fluidity, which allows its imposition on women
regardless of their actual sexual conduct.31
Within the universe of House of Night, the pervasiveness and arbitrari-
ness of slut shaming vividly transpires in the story of Aphrodite LaFont.
In the first several volumes of the series, the beautiful and arrogant
fledgling Aphrodite is Zoey’s main adversary. As such, she is repeatedly
labelled a “slut” and a “ho” (see e.g. Marked 77; Betrayed 133–135,
149; Chosen 58, 274), even though at this point little has been revealed
about her actual sex life. Yet other girl protagonists persistently judge
various aspects of Aphrodite’s style, tastes and behaviour within the frames
of her promiscuous reputation. They discredit her dance performance
as a “crotch-flailing display”, giving it a mock-headline of “Some Ho
Grinds Her Bootie” (Marked 182–183); they criticise her outfits as likely
purchased from a “Goth ho store” and deem her laugh “way too sexual to
be appropriate” (Marked 316, 318). Even her choice of music is deplored
on the grounds of “excessive” sexuality and identified as a combination
of “one of those nasty bootie-humping songs with a tribal mating dance”
(Marked 182).
31 See Attwood (2007), and Ringrose and Renold (2012), for reflections upon the
possibilities of re-signification and re-appropriation of the word “slut” for the feminist
agenda.
As Aphrodite shifts her loyalties to Zoey and her circle, she is largely
absolved of the slut stigma. The transfer of her allegiance prompts a
change in the narrative of her sexuality (cf. Franck 2013, 219). Initially
described as shameless and obscene, Aphrodite’s confident expression of
her sexual self evolves into a source of power and a reflection of her
unique personality.32 In “Skamlig flickläsning”, Mia Franck notes that
Aphrodite embraces her peer-imposed “bitch-identity” as it opens the
possibilities for verbal and bodily conduct inaccessible for those “limited
by [appropriate] girlhood” (2013, 219). Instead of feeling embarrassed
over her real or perceived erotic adventures, the heroine appropriates and
strengthens her image as a sexually active girl and refuses to be shamed for
her “sexy” style (Franck 2013, 219). As she enters a monogamous, loving
relationship with the vampire Darius, Aphrodite further confirms—for her
peers and the reader—her new position as a respectable girl.
The status of respectability, however, is not to be taken for granted,
and can easily be lost for a variety of reasons. Sporting attractive clothing,
dating male fledglings and advising her friend Damien to “loosen up
some or … [you’re] never gonna get any” in response to his plan to
wait for “true love” (Betrayed 136), Zoey’s friend Erin Bates effectively
navigates the meanders of acceptable young female sexuality. Confidently
expressing her erotic desires and not afraid to present herself as “sexy”—
yet never narrated as promiscuous—Erin appears to successfully reconcile
the conflicting Western postfeminist cultural imageries of an ideal girl as
both innocent and sexually emancipated (see e.g. Renold and Ringrose
2011). However, as she becomes increasingly alienated from her former
circle of friends and begins a relationship with the evil vampire Dallas,
Erin crosses into the territory of a “traitorous, skanky ho” (Hidden
205)—“a disdained and abject identity … an archetype of failed woman-
hood” (Sweeney 2017, 1579). Emphasising her sexual availability (“I
won’t be saying yes-no, yes-no. I’ll just be saying yes-yes!”; Hidden 213),
reacting with delight to Dallas touching her intimately in public and
performing a strip-tease act in a secluded school fountain (Hidden 213–
215), Erin confirms her new “slut” status both in the eyes of her fictional
peers and readers. Even her alter-ego in the parallel Other World cannot
escape adverse sexual labelling; her description as “[b]lond, real hot, and
32 Even after they have become friends, Zoey and her circle occasionally refer to
Aphrodite as “skanky” (see e.g. Untamed 154). Hanser suggests that this development
presents “the stigma of a bad reputation” as impossible to shake (2018, 7).
kinda slutty” makes her immediately identifiable for Zoey, even though
she has never met Other Erin (Loved 284). It is noteworthy that Erin’s
status as a sexually active girl has been implied in the early volumes. Yet
no adverse sexual labels are applied to her until she becomes involved
with Dallas. Contrary to the common understanding of such terms as
“ho” and “skank”, Erin does not engage in sex with multiple partners.
Rather, the stigma is attached to her as a result of her romance with a
“wrong” boy and her (self-)exclusion from her former social group. As in
the case of Aphrodite, the shame imposed on Erin has little to do with her
actual sexual conduct; rather, it is a tool of Othering and a punishment
for misplaced loyalty.
4.4 Blood Whoring, Female

Virtue and Defensive Othering
In “Sluts and Riot Grrrls”, Feona Attwood points to the distinct class
dimension present in the early understandings of the word “slut”, histor-
ically connoting female domestic service, low social status, dishonour,
pollution and dirt (2007, 234–235). Many of these beliefs continue to
inform the discourses of female (un)respectability even today (Charles
2014, 94; Tannenbaum 2000, xvi). The classed and possibly racialised
imagery of the “slut” clearly resonates in Mead’s fictional universes,
where they find their locus in the figure of the female dhampir.
In Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, the glaring disparities in socio-
economic status between the two “races”—half-human, half-vampire
dhampirs and vampire Moroi—manifest through the dhampirs’ limited
economic power and educational opportunities, as well as their subordi-
nation to the Moroi political leadership. While dhampirs are valued for
their combat expertise and faithful service to the Moroi, their agency in
their romantic and professional lives is often severely restricted.33
For the large part of the story, only two life paths appear to be available
for dhampir women: the honourable if often lethal career of guardian or
the despicable fate of a “blood whore”—a prostitute addicted to being
bitten by a vampire who offers her blood during sex. While dhampir
girls are narrated as objects of conquest and the ultimate erotic fantasy
33 It is against these restrictions that the two leading heroines rebel. Nonetheless, ulti-
mately the lower status of dhampirs and their subjugation to the Moroi remain largely
unchallenged.
for Moroi men, they are also considered unmarriageable and often end
up as single mothers. The tales of the “blood whore towns” where they
supposedly live carry out a powerful cautionary function, warning young
dhampirs not to become involved with Moroi men, who are bound to
leave them for a girl of their own class and species /“race”. In the cine-
matic version of the story, these tales are further used to keep dhampir
female students in check, as school authorities present “blood whoring” as
the only alternative for those expelled from guardianship training (Waters
2014).34
It is, thus, hardly surprising that the dhampir Dimitri is “raging as a
storm” when he catches his teenage protégé Rose in a deserted lounge
with a Moroi boy, Jesse (VA 120). While Rose remains a virgin until the
third volume of the series, her fun-loving, carefree and rebellious nature
often inspires her to seek mild erotic adventures, and she seems relatively
unconcerned about her reputation as a sexually active girl (see e.g. VA
169). Neither seeking nor expecting romance, Rose looks for casual fun,
and explores her erotic desires with vampire boys from her school.35 It is
not until Dimitri lectures her sternly on the value of female virtue (“So
don’t you have any respect?”; VA 122) that she begins to feel regretful
over acting on her desires.36 Their confrontation reaches its turning point
when he alludes to the rumours about her reputation in a way that Rose
reads as a form of slut shaming:
“Now get back to your room—if you can manage it without throwing
yourself at someone else.”
“Is that your subtle way of calling me a slut?”
“I hear the stories you guys tell. I’ve heard stories about you.” (VA
122–123)37
34 Paradoxically, while tarnishing the involved dhampir’s reputation, intercourse with

a Moroi is believed to be the only way for dhampirs to reproduce—a highly desirable
outcome as the numbers of guardians need to be constantly replenished.
35 In one of the early scenes in the Vampire Academy movie (Waters 2014), Lissa
admonishes Rose for flirting with vampire Jesse, who apparently has a “terrible personal-
ity”. “Jesse has a personality? I didn’t know”, Rose replies jokingly, clearly signalling that
she is only interested in Jesse’s physical charms.
36 Admittedly, as Dimitri and Rose are falling in love Dimitri might have an
underlying—if yet not entirely realised—motive in preventing her erotic exploits.
37 The question of female reputation surfaces again when Rose’s guardian mother drags
her out of a party, scolding her for wearing an attractive dress and talking to a Moroi
Momentarily defiant and hurt by his remarks, Rose comes to surrender

to Dimitri’s point of view, feeling “as cheap as he’d implied I was” and
eager to redeem herself (VA 123). As Dimitri explains, her reputation
is not her private affair as it reflects on both himself as her mentor and
her Moroi friend Lissa whom she is to guard (VA 122). Rose’s virtue
is presented as a matter of trust between her and Dimitri, who wonders
whether he can rely on her to cast “things like this” aside (VA 125). Most
importantly, Dimitri believes that Rose’s erotic flings divert her from her
combat training, which is to ensure Lissa’s future survival. Consequently,
Rose’s ability to moderate her desires comes to represent much more than
a means of establishing her position as a respectable dhampir girl. It is
narrated as a part of her calling as a guardian and possibly a question of life
and death for her best friend. Notably, such restrictions do not apply to
Moroi girls, and the question of their virtue rarely comes across as impor-
tant. Dimitri explicitly explains to Rose that were she a vampire, she would
be able to “have fun” with boys (VA 125). As a dhampir, however, she
is required to carefully manage her carnality to avoid distraction, humilia-
tion and disgrace. Rose experiences the power of female reputation—and
the trauma of its loss—when she becomes untruthfully accused of having
had sex with two Moroi boys while letting them drink her blood. As this
practice constitutes a violation of the ultimate sexual taboo for dhampir
women—“[t]he dirtiest of the dirty. Sleazy. Beyond being easy or a slut.
A gazillion times worse than Lissa drinking from me for survival” (VA
170)—she becomes branded by her peers with the most abusive of adverse
sexual labels: a “blood whore”.
Many researchers point to the long-lasting, traumatic consequences of
sexualised name-calling on girls’ well-being and mental health, including
low self-esteem, depression and social isolation. The difficulties of disas-
sociating oneself from the arbitrary status of the “slut” testify to the
persistence of the sexual label that has come to represent a “soiled femi-
ninity” (Tanenbaum 2000, xv; Liston and Moore-Rahimi 2012; White
2002; Sweeney 2017). The story of Rose reflects both the harsh reali-
ties of slut-shamed female students and the effort required to erase the
stigma. As the heroine bitterly explains, “You couldn’t come back from
man. The matter emerges also in Rose’s conversation with Lissa when the latter denies
having had sex with her new love interest Christian, at the same time implying Rose’s
promiscuity: “No! … I told you that already. God … Not everyone thinks—and acts—like
you.” (VA 108).
something like this. Not among the Moroi. Once a blood whore, always a
blood whore” (VA 173).38 Popular and beautiful, a fearless warrioress and
a sassy rule-breaker, Rose feels defenceless and utterly defeated, suffering
through the aftermath of the gossip of her alleged sexual transgression.
Her distress manifests itself through crying, sleep problems, social with-
drawal and loss of appetite (VA 171–176). Diminishing her respectability
in the eyes of her peers and marking her as undeserving of respect, the
blood whore shaming of Rose opens the way to further sexual harass-
ment, explicit sexual propositions and unwanted touching (VA 193–194;
cf. Attwood 2007, 234; Sweeney 2017; Tanenbaum 2000, xv). It takes
the help of Rose’s friends, Lissa and Mason, and the use of magic, black-
mail and their high social status at school, to rescue her from the blood
whore stigma. Most of all, however, it takes the shifting of the “slut” label
onto another girl, Mia, who is revealed to have paid the boys with sex for
spreading rumours about Rose.
Research on slut shaming reveals its function as defensive othering
(Sweeney 2017, 1579), where stigmatisation of the “slut” serves to
confirm other girls’ respectability, and often signifies rivalry between
women (White 2002; Tanenbaum 2000; Liston and Moore-Rahimi 2012;
Ringrose and Renold 2012). As Attwood notes in her discussion of
Bonnie Blackwell’s work, slut shaming has been used “in an exorcism
of the unclean”, allowing reputable women to articulate their own moral
and sexual integrity (2007, 234; cf. Charles 2014, 94). In this context
respectability becomes, as Beverley Skeggs contends, “a discourse of
normativity … in which sexual practice is evaluated” in a way that validates
divisions and (re)produces inequalities (2002 [1997], 118).
In “Gender and Sexuality in Young Adult Fiction”, Michelle J. Smith
and Kristine Moruzi identify the storyline of Mia as one that works to
oppose, and partly—to undo, the series’ progressive message about girl
empowerment and female camaraderie. Mia’s actions, they argue, “speak
to the limited powers of girls who can only borrow patriarchal ways of
oppressing women to improve their own position” (2020, 616). This
statement may hold true in regard to the first volume of the series to
which Smith and Moruzi confine their analysis. However, Mia’s radical
38 Interestingly, in a later volume of the series, Spirit Bound, Rose invites her vampire
boyfriend Adrian to feed off her in an erotically charged scene in her bedroom. Formerly
terrified of being branded a “blood whore”, in this encounter Rose rejects social labels
and restrictions, and is willing to act on her long suppressed desire.
transformation in the later books offers an active and deliberate resis-

tance against the denigrating imagery of young women as preoccupied
with petty revenge and female rivalry, with sexuality as “one of the most
readily available forms of power for girls” (Smith and Moruzi 2020, 616).
A scheming mean girl obsessed with looks and social status and desper-
ately aspiring to the royal circles, in the course of the series Mia becomes
Rose and Lissa’s friend, a fierce fighter and an agent of social and political
change. Stricken with grief and burning for revenge after her mother has
been murdered by Strigoi in Frostbite, the adolescent vampress devotes
her time and energy to a regular, if unsanctioned, training in physical
and magical combat, and saves Rose’s life in a fight (FB 303–305). In
time, Mia begins to seek a systemic rather than merely personal change.
With the support of her former high school adversaries, Rose and Lissa,
she organises a trial combat programme for vampires with the ultimate
objective of introducing it into the Moroi schools—an idea with a revo-
lutionary potential both for vampire education and the Moroi way of life
(RC 69–73). The initial tale of female competition over social status and
attention of boys defers to the narrative of empowerment through girl
solidarity and genuine friendship, collective action, personal growth and
forming alliances for justice and political change.
In the House of Night series, defensive othering is a common prac-
tice among the vampire girl fledglings, discernible already on the level of
language.39 Positive female protagonists enjoy sexually fulfilling, loving
relationships; those narrated as “bad” ensnare boys in their “spiderweb
(and by web I mean crotch)” (Betrayed 178) or inappropriately “hang all
over” their men (Revealed loc. 100). In each of the first three volumes of
the series, the narrating heroine Zoey accentuates her own virtue through
juxtaposing herself against “those ho-ish girls”, particularly Aphrodite.
Zoey is especially careful to make sure that her current love interest and
Aphrodite’s former boyfriend Erik understands the difference between
the two girls (Hunted 122; Betrayed 149; Marked 291; Chosen 57; cf.
Hanser 2018, 7). In response, Erik reassures the heroine that were she
sharing Aphrodite’s promiscuous ways, he would not be attracted to her
at all (Marked 291; Chosen 57).
In Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut, Emily White
observes that a tarnished reputation, which is to adversely affect a girl’s
39 Cf. Hanser (2018, 6) who notes that in House of Night, slut shaming occurs primarily
among female protagonists.
romantic prospects, is often placed at the core of slut shaming practices

(2002, 49). Dismissing his former girlfriend as someone who was only
able to please him physically but failed to touch his heart, Erik confirms
the allure and value of female sexual virtue as an important asset on the
romance market (Marked 291; Chosen 57). This concept emerges in a less
than subtle way in The Vampire Wish series (2017), in which the vampire
princess Eve competes for the hand of the vampire prince Jacen. Eve’s
night with the prince, while pleasurable, becomes an argument for Jacen
to disqualify the princess as a suitable bride. While Eve intends for sex to
increase her chances in the competition, her sexual availability degrades
her in the eyes of the prince to “a fun distraction” that could never
become his fiancée (VP 103, 193–194; VT 11). Reflecting the double
sexual standard permeating both human and supernatural societies, Eve is
narrated as a worthless “slut”. At the same time, no such label is imposed
on Jacen even when he intends to have sex with other candidates (VP
200).
Within normative gender discourses, the stigma of the “slut” is rarely
attached to men, reflecting the divergent social levels of acceptance for
male and female sexual activities (Sweeney 2017; Liston and Moore-
Rahimi 2012; Charles 2014, 101). The same behaviours are valorised in
men and penalised in women, and the antiquated formula that renders
a woman responsible for sexual occurrences in a relationship persists.
In the supernatural community of Mead’s series, dhampir women and
their bodies are specifically designated as the bearers of morality. Caught
with Jesse, Rose is severely chastised for tarnishing her reputation; her
vampire companion, however, gets away with a warning for transgressing
the unspecified “rules about male and female interactions” (VA 120).
Male respectability seldom suffers from a perception of promiscuity, and
sexual relations stereotypically remain a source of prestige for boys. The
young Moroi who have allegedly drunk from Rose are quick to advertise
their adventure, using the tale of taboo sex to raise their position within
the school social hierarchy. Ultimately, they are exposed as liars; neither,
however, is marked as a “slut”.
In a similar vein, in the first volume female “blood whores” are
narrated as despicable and/or tragic addicts with no self-respect. Many of
these initial prejudices attached to non-guardian dhampir women are chal-
lenged later in the series as both Rose and Sydney visit the semi-legendary
infamous dhampir towns. There they meet admirable dhampir mothers
and grandmothers, high school students, pharmacists, warrioresses and
political leaders who have chosen not to fight Strigoi or do it indepen-

dently of Moroi rules and politics. Yet women who sell their blood and
sexual services to vampires continue to appear at the margins of the plot,
scandalous and pitiable, their stories functioning as a warning but typi-
cally left undeveloped (see e.g. RC 141).40 At the same time, the only
male dhampir who offers female vampires both blood and sex, Ambrose,
is narrated as a positive figure, content with his high-class life at the Moroi
royal court. Unlike female “blood whores”, Ambrose is not anonymous;
he is allowed to voice his reasons for not becoming a guardian and even-
tually becomes Rose and Lissa’s friend (see e.g. SK 222–230). Both Rose
and her mentor Dimitri, as well as her friend Mason, explicitly recog-
nise these gendered inequalities (VA 122, 169, 274); yet they do little
to challenge or negotiate them. Their unquestioning acknowledgement
of gender-unbalanced social perceptions of sexual conduct testifies to the
persistence of the inequitable cultural scripts of sexuality.
4.5 Conclusion
In Education and Popular Culture, Fisher et al. refer to young people’s
experience of high school “as an arena of sexual competition, tension
and opportunity” (2008, 87). With their complex messages about sexu-
ality and sex, conjured within and through the fantastic milieu of vampire
high schools and cultures, the vampire series analysed here raise impor-
tant questions that are linked with the larger social and cultural debates
on girls’ carnal desires. Within the contemporary Western societies, the
discourses of young female sexualities are highly conflicted, encompassing
a number of contradictory messages and systems of values. These tensions
are ever-present in the vampire series marketed to adolescent women, as
evidenced through the ambiguities embedded within their representations
of girl sexuality and sex.
In this chapter I have addressed accounts of female virginity, sexual
awakening, initiation and development, and power relations in sexual
unions, as well as the trope of “excessive” female sexuality and the ensuing
40 Interestingly, in Bloodlines the presence of “blood whores” is used as a way to

engage with the debates on prostitution, women’s rights and safety. The dhampir leader
Lana explains her decision to allow prostitution in her community: “[T]here are some
girls who would do it anyway. They’d sneak off, live somewhere unsafe. I’d rather keep
everything under my control” (RC 142).
processes of othering. From the ecstasy of bloodlust and recreational

“fun” to sexual initiation within the context of eternal love, the tropes of
girl carnal desire and sexual expression recurrently emerge across both the
Casts’ and Mead’s novels, with House of Night being particularly invested
in exploring various aspects of young female sexualities. The alternative
vampire society and its sexual mores in the series are narrated as a coun-
terpoint to the angst-filled approach of the human culture—an idea that
holds a potential to overthrow unequal gendered constructions of sexual
morality and decorum. The series underscores on multiple occasions the
physical and emotional value of erotic pleasure and the sexual emanci-
pation of women (a notion explicitly voiced both in the novels and by
the series’ authors), signalling the return to the imagery of the vampress
as a signifier of female sexual freedom and exploration. As the House of
Night vampires are narrated as both supernaturally healthy and infertile,
the potentially negative consequences of sex are primarily articulated in
relation to the emotional trauma following the imbalance of power, with
a particular emphasis on the dangers of an unequal union with a sexual
predator(ess).
While not neglecting the emotional aspects of becoming sexually
active, Mead’s fiction further considers its physical/biological ramifica-
tions, breaking with the genre’s fantastic premise of a non-reproductive
vampiric body (cf. Darragh 2016, 261). As Reynolds asserts in Radical
Children’s Literature, “[f]iction offers a unique way to learn about
and prepare for experiences to come, including sexual and romantic
relationships” (2007, 120). In this context, Mead’s frank and informa-
tive, yet non-didactic and often intentionally comic discussions on safe
sex—contraception, sexual health, the risks of unplanned pregnancy and
negotiating sexual decisions in a relationship—come across as particularly
valuable. The question of power imbalance in a sexual union is addressed
through the tabooed intimacy between a student and her teacher and a
pairing of a virginal human girl with an erotically experienced vampire. In
both cases, however, these conventional scripts become re-written in ways
that empower the girl heroine and move even further away from the ideal
of submissive female sexuality. In several cases, Mead’s series further ques-
tion the traditional connection between desirable masculinity and sexual
prowess, present in many romantic (and) vampire narratives.41 Adhering
41 See e.g. Piatti-Farnell (2014, 87), Allan and Santos (2016, 72), Wilson Overstreet
(2006, loc. 466, 470) and Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska (2019).
to the latter convention, Rose’s lover Dimitri is described as “wise, skilled

and infinitely patient” in bed although little is revealed as to his previous
experience (SK 350). However, we can safely assume that Lissa is the first
sexual partner of both her vampire boyfriends, considering Aaron’s young
age and Christian’s previous social isolation. More interestingly, a former
womaniser vampire Adrian narrates himself as a “novice” in his sexual
encounters with Sydney, as never before has he had sex with a woman he
loved.
Both the Casts’ and Mead’s series foreground the urgency of female
carnal cravings and present the vision of the girl as a desiring subject. In
most cases, the young heroines are capable of exercising agency over their
sexual life and of carving out “a resistant space, where the construction
of girlhood as desirability without desire is thoroughly refused and under-
mined” (Bellas 2017, 81). The series assert girls’ rights to erotic intimacy
and pleasure, providing an alternative to the more conservative strains
in YA vampire fiction. Their plots offer various scenarios of girls’ sexual
awakening and debut, most of them emphasising girl empowerment and
emancipation. In some cases, the stories offer a progressive vision of
virginity loss as situated in subjective perception and emotion rather than
in the hymen. Typically, virginity loss is narrated as important but not
necessarily transformational experience, and in most cases the reader needs
to look elsewhere for the turning points in the heroines’ development.
Notably, these narratives are restricted to heterosexual experience; while
sexually active gay and bisexual characters are relatively common in House
of Night , homosexual virginity and sexual debuts remain largely unex-
plored. This mirrors the wider trends in academia; as Allan, Santos and
Spahr observe, “virginity studies remains, in many ways, an untouched
field of study, especially when it tries to move beyond the traditionally
defined subject of the [heterosexual] female” (2016, 11).42
Although adolescent sex is sometimes followed by trauma and tied
to violence and death, all the central heroines (come to) enjoy fulfilling
sexual relationships at some point of their stories. Most find sex satisfying
and “invigorating” (“I was wired afterward. I felt like I could take on
a hundred projects. I wanted to eat”; Sydney in FH 306), and perceive
42 In a similar vein, the question of the male sexual debut remains largely undiscussed,
confirming, yet again, the understanding of virginity studies as “a field dominated by
the idea that virginity is female” (Allan et al. 2016, 11; see also Allan and Santos 2016,
68–69).
physical intimacy as an emotional haven that reassures them in difficult

times:
In the chaos of the future, the memory of being wrapped in Stark’s

arms, sharing touches and dreams, and for that moment in time being
completely, utterly content, would be something I cherished, like the warm
glow of candlelight on the darkest of nights. (Zoey in Awakened 36)
While neither guilt nor shame is attached to non-marital sexual rela-

tions, positive depictions of sexual activities are predominantly articulated
within the frames of a committed relationship. Narrating her sexual debut
with Dimitri, Rose foregrounds their emotional connection (SK 350),
and Zoey does not consider herself sexually initiated until she has her
first intercourse with Stark. Contemplating her intimate moments with
Adrian, Sydney deems “emotionless sex” to be “such a waste” (FH 306).
While explicitly dismissing the idea of marriage as the only appropriate
context for legitimate sexual expression, the heroine brings to the fore
the importance of love and commitment. As she explains, “If there is any
sin involved, it’s doing it in a … [c]heap way. With people you don’t
care about. When it’s meaningless” (FH 75). Thus, positive narrations
of sex are framed within the context of deep emotional attachment, and
sexual pleasure without regret or shame is rarely divorced from romantic
love. Women who live out their desires outside of these boundaries expose
themselves to the threats of social ostracism and condemnation, signalling
the presence of other, less celebratory narratives of female sexuality.
Within contemporary Western discourses of girlhood, girls are often
envisioned as sexually empowered and agential subjects, reflecting post-
feminist understandings of young femininity; yet at the same time they
are always in danger of being positioned as “sluts”. These tensions clearly
transpire in the House of Night ’s conflicting portrayals of female sexuality
as a site of pleasure, autonomy, controversy, social regulation, shame and
monstrosity. While the vampire society in the series is narrated as cham-
pioning guilt-free conceptualisations of sexuality and consensual desire,
in the vampire high school of Tulsa girls’ erotic expressions are policed
through peer-controlled sanctions. The House of Night ’s declared feminist
agenda contrasts sharply with the sexualised name-calling that permeates
the storyline. In the Q&A section in Loved, P.C. Cast declares her inten-
tion as an author to challenge the sexual double standard shaping the
social perceptions of women and men. Emphasising the contrasting ideas
of female sexuality that are to underpin the vampire and human societies,
she explicitly speaks against the discriminatory and gendered practices of
slut shaming girls who are considered promiscuous (326–327). Yet the
very same practices become legitimised and validated when employed by
the heroine who wields the narrative power. Female virtue and sexual
reputation remain central to the narratives of girlhood—a construction
that functions to re-inscribe the empowered girl vampress into the patri-
archal discourses of girl sexuality. In the Mead’s series, similar tensions
materialise in the figure of the dhampir “blood whore”. Particularly in
the first volume, reputation—and the risk of its loss—is narrated as a
powerful regulatory force in the lives of dhampir girls; those who aspire
to respectability are warned to monitor their desires. However, while
in House of Night, slut shaming remains unproblematised and osten-
sibly consequence-free, Vampire Academy focuses on its damaging effects:
emotional suffering, anxiety and depression, social retribution and sexu-
alised violence—to which the reader is privy through Rose’s autodiegetic
narration. These representations mirror the real-life experiences of slut-
shamed schoolgirls, and acknowledge the unequal gendered contexts and
prejudices that frame girls’ sexual development even if, at the same time,
some of these premises are still left unchallenged.
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CHAPTER 5
Save Your Butt from Getting Raped: Girls,

Vampires, Violence
A night walk on a beach can rapidly turn into a nightmare when you are
a girl, seventeen, alone and wearing a bikini. Sofia Claremont, the leading
female protagonist of Bella Forrest’s literary series A Shade of Vampire
(2012–present), will never make it back to her hotel room. A dark, hand-
some stranger approaches her and, finding her unwilling, drugs her into
oblivion, brutally injecting a soporific substance into her neck (SoV loc.
288–299). Sofia awakes chained to a dungeon wall in the mysterious
vampire kingdom The Shade, where she is forced to join the harem of
its ruler, Derek Novak. Led “like a dog on a leash” (SoV loc. 394) or
carried upside down, she is delivered to a spa where her body is beautified
and clad for the pleasure of the prince. Having laid his eyes on Sofia, the
blood-crazed Derek loses all control. During an eroticised act of assault
in which pain and imminent death threat coalesce with swirling emotions
and hips pressed together, the vampire decides to honour Sofia with the
position of his “personal slave” (SoV loc. 604–654).
Narratives of violence against girls and women abound in popular
culture. As Kelly Oliver notes, in the contemporary cultural landscapes
even the most extreme imageries no longer remain confined to the
realms of horror and/or pornography. Instead, they are increasingly
adapted, normalised, aestheticised and glamourised within the main-
stream culture. Scantily clad female models are depicted as unconscious,
restrained, murdered or as hunting trophies mounted on the wall among

Switzerland AG 2021
animal heads, as popular reality shows, fashion photography and adver-

tising campaigns exploit the “corpse chic” trope to attract attention
(2016, 1–4).1 From blockbuster movies with bruised yet happy adoles-
cent brides to archetypical fairy tales with the non-consensual kissing of a
comatose princess, the themes of violence against women are particularly
widespread in texts addressed to teenage and college-age girls. As Debra
Jackson (2017) emphasises in her review of Hunting Girls (Oliver 2016),
popular culture often depicts “the transition from girlhood to woman-
hood as dangerous, rife with the threat of sexual abuse and rape”, with
girl coming-of-age stories repeatedly interrogating questions of violence,
coercion and consent.2
These tropes demonstrate a particularly powerful presence in the
intersecting genres of urban fantasy, paranormal romance and Gothic
marketed to female consumers (Ferguson Ellis 2012, 457–460; Deffen-
bacher 2014, 2016; Kendal and Kendal 2015). In the scholarly tradition,
these stories have been alternately lauded as featuring adventurous and
agential heroines—capable of protecting themselves and their loved ones,
and subjected to severe criticism as romanticising male-on-female abuse
and formulating romance in terms of rape myths.3 Evie Kendal and
Zachary Kendal identify Gothic characters, particularly vampires and
lycanthropes, as vehicles of narrative tension between the promise of love
and the threat of abuse (2015, 27). As Kristina Deffenbacher explains,
[t]he otherworldly, animalistic “natures” of the genre’s vampires, were-

wolves, and other supernatural creatures make possible the reanimation
and transformation of a host of rape myths, from “he just couldn’t help
himself” to “deep down, she wanted it.” An infusion of the paranormal
1 Oliver analyses in detail the 2012 America’s Next Top Model photograph session, where
young women were asked to insert their heads into wooden frames on the wall to pose as
hunting trophies. During the evaluation process, the judges criticised contestants who had
failed to look “dead” (2016, 1–3). The advertising industry is particularly notorious for its
highly controversial representations of violence against women, including female models
stuck in coffins and car trunks, choked, gagged, in bondage, or about to be (gang-)raped
(see e.g. Oliver 2016, 4; Jhally and Kilbourne 2000, 2010).
2 For a detailed discussion of the Sleeping Beauty tale as “the quintessential rape
fantasy”, see Oliver (2016, ch. 1). For further insightful analysis of the Sleeping Beauty
figure in girl popular culture, including instances of feminist retellings and gender reversals
of the tale (exemplified by Twilight ), see Bellas (2017, ch. 3).
3 See e.g. Torkelson (2011), Rana (2013), Ferguson Ellis (2012), Deffenbacher (2014,
2016), and Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska (2017).
5 SAVE YOUR BUTT FROM GETTING RAPED … 171
thus allows otherwise unviable narratives—stalking and rape as courtship

and seduction, jealous ownership and control as love—to appear in a sort of
twilight, at once receding and returning, disavowed and embraced. (2014,
923)
Violence against women has long been a central theme in vampire lore
and popular fiction. From the folkloric revenants preying on innocent
maidens, through the abject, racialised vampiric Other whose evil powers
and raw sexuality were to corrupt vulnerable White girls, to the present-
day stories starring bloodsucking lovers, abuse is narrated as an inherent
part of growing up a girl and being a woman in the supernatural vampire
worlds.4 The heroines of vampire stories are repeatedly subjected to
sexual harassment, childhood abuse, rape, involuntary blood-drinking,
beating, biting, forcibly administered drugs, kidnapping, confinement,
death threats and sometimes death itself.5
The representations of these violent acts and the responses they
elicit are telling of the cultural ambiguities and stereotypes surrounding
young womanhood and gendered relations of power. “And let’s make no
mistake; this is about power”, as Wanda Teays emphasises in her introduc-
tory remarks to Analyzing Violence Against Women (2019, 2). Therefore,
while many threads in this chapter touch upon the questions of romantic
relationships and sexual desire, I choose to examine the narratives of
violence against girls and women, including intimate partner violence,
separately, as I aim to expose and accentuate the element of abuse rather
than that of romance. Through examining the ways in which young hero-
ines and their communities construe, experience and respond to sexual
and non-sexual coercion, I tease out some of the tensions built around the
notions of gendered violence and rape mythology as they intertwine with
4 For a comprehensive analysis of representations of vampire men and their relationships

with women, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to the contemporary texts, see DuRocher
(2016).
5 It is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide an exhaustive account of research on
vampires and violence. Some contemporary examples include critical studies of the repre-
sentations of abuse in True Blood (HBO 2008–2014); e.g. the analyses of the brutalisation
of “promiscuous” and “vulnerable” female, gay and non-White bodies (Waters 2012), the
“mixture of predatory sex and violence” in the series (Tyree 2009, 34; see also Brick 2012)
or the justification and romanticisation of abuse against women in True Blood’s literary
prototype The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska
2017, 2019). Other examples of scholarly works on the topic are provided throughout
the chapter.
the various iterations of girlhood in the vampire story. The first section
of this chapter focuses on male-on-female abuse in vampire–human rela-
tionships, illuminating the persistence of the narratives that downplay,
normalise and romanticise violence in intimate contexts. Drawing on a
range of popular vampire texts for girls, it looks into the implications of
portraying violence as a prelude to romance and depicting abuse as incon-
sequential and forgivable; these are motifs that intertwine with the figure
of the heroine as a monster-tamer and with the power plays between male
characters. The next section focuses on the vampire series House of Night
(2007–2014) and House of Night: Other World (2017–2020) by P. C.
Cast and Kristin Cast, and Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy (2007–
2010) and Bloodlines (2011–2015). Searching for points of resistance
against the formulas that justify male-on-female abuse and identifying the
series’ potential for unravelling and subverting the common myths about
violence and rape, this part aims to engage with the scholarly works that
dismiss House of Night and Vampire Academy as disregarding consent and
trivialising coercion. The two following sections of the chapter consider
the representations of girls as perpetrators and/or instigators of violence.
Interrogating the narratives of rape and rape-revenge and the figure of the
girl as a warrioress, protectress and avengeress, they shed light on some
of the ways in which YA vampire series engage with the themes of post-
rape trauma, the boundaries of (self-)defence and the figure of the rape
survivor.
These questions are inscribed into larger social and political discourses
as alarming reports by human rights’ organisations, social movements
like #MeToo and mass civil actions protesting the violations of women’s
rights in many countries around the world signal yet again the urgency
of the need to interrogate popular beliefs on violence against girls and
women.6 According to the World Health Organization, over one third
of women globally have experienced domestic violence and non-partner
sexual abuse, and 38% of femicides are committed by a male intimate
partner (WHO 2017). As Laura J. Shepherd observes, “[i]nstances of
violence are one of the sites at which gender identities are reproduced.
Thus, gendered violence is the violent reproduction of gender” (2013,
6 As I am writing these words, mass protests opposing the violation of women’s rights
erupt all over Poland, triggered by (albeit not limited to) the Constitutional Tribunal’s
ruling that introduces a near-total ban on abortion.
17). A critical examination of these questions has an illuminating poten-

tial for understanding the gendered hierarchies and addressing inequalities
that are at play in contemporary societies and cultures (Jowett 2010;
Ackley 1990; Gunne and Brigley Thompson 2010).
5.1 No Anger and No Condemnation:

Vampires and Romanticised Abuse
Violence, particularly in a sexualised context, has come to be seen as
a signature characteristic of Gothic and vampire texts for adults. These
tropes, however, are also ever-present—and often just as graphic—within
the stories marketed to young people. Michelle J. Smith and Kristine
Moruzi point to the YA Gothic genre’s deep investment in the explo-
ration of “the frightening nature of the sexual threats that young women
continue to face” (2020, 619–620); and Kendal and Kendal identify the
inescapability of abuse as one of the central messages of YA paranormal
romance (2015, 27). In vampire series for girls, extreme physical and
psychological violence often marks the beginning of a successful love
story and becomes a tool for the consolidation of the couple’s relation-
ship. Such narratives typically feature an aggressive supernatural man who
confines his ladylove-to-be and often feels the urge to kill her, and an
initially resistant human heroine who in time develops a loving bond with
her captor. As Kendal and Kendal observe, “[t]his radically unbalanced
power relation requires a tremendous amount of trust on the part of the
weaker party and a heroic level of self-control for the monster”, with the
story itself often rendering women responsible for avoiding abuse and
presenting violence as inherent to masculinity (2015, 27).
Foregrounding a cultural shift in representing male vampires in “Men
That Suck”, Kristina DuRocher observes that despite his appeal, the
contemporary vampire lover often fails to display the qualities sought
after in a long-term partner (2016, 56–57). Monster stories “at their
core”, “[t]hese vampire narratives offer viewers a safe way to face the
fears of, and reject, a patriarchal, aggressive, and possessive version of
masculinity”, as the vampire’s advances are eventually declined by the
heroine (DuRocher 2016, 57). Yet, in many YA vampire romance texts,
girls end up in long-lasting or even marital relationships with abusive
supernatural men. These issues have been primarily studied in relation to
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005–2008) and its cinematic adaptations
(2008–2012), drawing a considerable scholarly and public criticism for
guising violence against women as passion and care. Extensive research

carried out on the saga has revealed multiple similarities between the
conduct of the two male romantic leads, particularly the vampire hero,
and real-life abusers, including sadism, threatening or belittling behaviour
and controlling the heroine’s mobility, sexuality and social interactions, as
well as stalking, kidnapping and destroying her property.7
These scripts have been reiterated and amplified in other vampire series
for girls, many of which rely heavily on the oft-repeated story of Beauty
and the Beast. The human heroine is often physically or magically trapped
in a relationship with a vampire man and forcibly inducted into his world,
where she is (stereo)typically tasked with taming the Beast within him.
Sofia of A Shade of Vampire (Forrest 2012–present), who is abducted to
join Derek’s harem; Eleira of The Vampire Gift (E. M. Knight 2016–
2020), forced into a strategical marriage with Raul; or Jemma of The
Marked (Scardoni 2015–2020), compelled to establish a magical blood
connection with Dominic, are just a few of many such examples.
The stories of Sofia and Derek, and Raul and Eleira commence with
the heroines awakening in chains—injured, terrified and ripped away
from their human lives into the alternative worlds of vampire kingdoms.8
Neither girl remembers their arrival as they were both unconscious—
drugged or knocked out cold by a vampire bite (SoV, ch. 4; VG loc.
274, 1540). Eleira wakes up isolated in a see-through atrium, with her
every move recorded and analysed by vampire Raul and his brothers.
In Hunting Girls, Oliver discusses the alarming practice of “creepshot”
photography (taking and sharing pictures and videos of unsuspecting
girls in compromising positions) as a new form of “spectator sport”
among some young men—one that operates to proliferate and normalise
abuse against women (2016, ch. 2). Strongly redolent of the “creepshot”
phenomenon, the three male vampires exchange laughing remarks in a
surveillance room about Eleira’s visible fear and contemplate her lack of
7 See e.g. Ashcraft (2013, ch. 6), Kokkola (2011), McMillan (2009), Pugh (2011, ch.
7), Housel (2009), and Torkelson (2011). While most studies focus on the relationship
between the leading heroine and her two supernatural love interests, Torkelson considers a
wide array of the series’ female characters, including those previously neglected in research.
8 Later in the series, a nearly identical scenario is recreated in the romance between Sofia
and Derek’s daughter Rose and the vampire Caleb. Like Sofia, Rose is brutally kidnapped
and held captive on an island until she gradually becomes emotionally involved with her
captor. Just like her mother before her, Rose grows to understand Caleb’s inner torment,
rescues him from his emotional plight and ultimately marries him (SoN).
resilience when they think she is crying (VG, ch. 5; loc. 334, 489). The
first encounter of both Eleira and Sofia with their future vampire love
interests is painful and ripe with threat; the men barely manage to refrain
from killing them (SoV, loc. 310–654; VG ch. 1–3, 5). While Jemma
meets Dominic under less dramatic circumstances (in a pub rather than a
dungeon), their date ends with the heroine being forcibly fang-penetrated
(Inception 139–146)—a long-established metaphor for rape.
The blame for the abuse is often placed with the girl or shifted to the
instincts beyond the man’s control. When in rage or pain, Derek experi-
ences “black-outs” and injures those around him. Raul explains his assault
on Eleira with her “giving him reason to”; after all, she has flipped her
hair, torturing him with her scent (VG loc. 910). Their justification of
these violent acts relies on both she deserved it and he could not help it,
two long-standing rape myths that blame the occurrence of the abuse
on female “provocation” and the male’s inability to control himself (Burt
1998, 134–136; Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2017, 187–191). In The Marked,
Dominic at once declares his heartfelt devotion for Jemma and continues
to exhibit abusive behaviour, threatening her with no less than bleeding
her dry or cutting her tongue out (Infernal 57, 73). A pivotal scene that
marks the breakthrough in their relationship occurs when the vampire
forces the heroine into his room and compels her not to move or scream
after she has refused to let him drink her blood. Openly revelling in her
panic and helplessness, Dominic enchants the incapacitated heroine into
confessing her most intimate thoughts for him, leaving her feeling “naked
and completely exposed”; he then feeds upon her against her pleas and
bewitches her into forgetting the whole incident (Iniquitous 251, 254–
255). When in the following volume, Infernal, Jemma discovers a gap
in her memory and suspects that she might have been raped, Dominic
reluctantly reverses the compulsion in order to put her at ease (sic!). What
the vampire truly fears is that Jemma will remember his passionate decla-
ration of love uttered at the end of their violent encounter—one that
leaves him vulnerable. Sure enough, having regained her memories, the
heroine becomes preoccupied with Dominic’s confession, utterly over-
looking the psychological and fang rape that he committed against her
(Infernal 62–73)—as though no harm was actually done.9
9 A brief scan through the Kindle readers’ reviews reveals that the romantic devel-
opment in Infernal has been appreciated by the majority of fans, with 359 reviewers
granting the volume a five-star evaluation and only nineteen a one star (as of October
The script of no harm was done—a rape myth defined by Martha Burt
as acknowledging the occurrence of a violent act, but denying or belittling
its harmful consequences, and de-problematising the abused woman’s
trauma as minor or unimportant (1998, 132–133)—has a powerful pres-
ence in vampire fiction addressed to adolescent girls. A severe violation of
human rights, violence against women has far-reaching personal, social,
political and economic consequences, including increased fatality rates,
injuries, mental health problems, mood and eating disorders, or inability
to work, to name but a few (WHO 2017). Yet these negative outcomes
are often glossed over in popular culture. “Controlling, aggressive, and
possessive men are put forth as ideal lovers” in adult, YA and children’s
texts alike, as evidenced by the popularity of such stories as Beauty and the
Beast, Twilight (Caputi 2019, 211) or the recent success of the movie 365
days (Białow˛as 2020; see e.g. Spencer 2020). In her illuminating essay
on agency and gendered violence in the vampire genre, Anne Torkelson
(2011) dissects the narratives of no harm in Twilight, highlighting the
saga’s disregard of the victims’ mental and bodily distress, and its silencing
of the aftermaths of abusive acts.10 Both Torkelson and Marion Rana
evoke the storylines of Bella and Jacob, in order to criticise the series’
portrayal of Jacob’s unwelcome sexual advances (forcing kisses upon Bella
16, 2019). Most reviewers have welcomed Dominic and Jemma’s conflicted passion. As
Vanessa rodriguez states in her appreciative comment (enthusiastically entitled “HOLY
FREKING COW!!”; August 3, 2018), “I’m absolutely drooling over Dominic and hoping
he gets his HEA [Happy Ever After] with Jemma” (2018; cf. Nick vega, “Love this
author!”, August 3, 2018). Some reviews further criticise Jemma for her initial “darn
restraint aginst Dominic!” (Stacy, “Must Reades” May 25, 2019; spelling original), and
express understanding towards the vampire’s possessive attitude, falling back on the for
her own good myth and legitimising his actions with a desire to protect his loved one (see
e.g. Thomisha Matthews, “SPOILERS!!”, August 4, 2018). A few readers, however, have
taken up the problem of the series’ depictions of violence against women, articulating their
disappointment over the heroine’s easy forgiveness of Dominic’s crimes, describing their
relationship as manipulative and outright “gross” (see e.g. Adrienne R., “Meh”, February
15, 2019; Amazon Customer, “Disappointed”, August 17, 2019), and shedding light on
the distinction between “forbidden love” and “just abuse” (Amazon Customer 2019; cf.
MomofTwoBoysi, “This book needs to have a trigger warning”, August 24, 2018).
10 One of the examples is the story of Emily Young’s mutilation by her werewolf fiancé
Sam. Emily’s trauma is passed over in silence, signalled only by the musings over her
lost beauty. The girl is refused the agency to tell her own story which is controlled and
told by men (Torkelson 2011, 215). As Donnelly remarks, “[t]hrough the relationship of
Emily and Sam, readers are offered a lesson in the tolerance of domestic abuse” (2011,
189).
despite her verbal and bodily resistance) as “endowed with humorous

undertones”, easily forgivable and condoned by Bella’s father, who roots
for their romance (Rana 2013, 237–238; Torkelson 2011, 211–212).11
In Disruptive Desire, Rana further points to a similar trivialising approach
to violence in another successful vampire series for young readers, J. L.
Smith’s The Vampire Diaries . Focusing on the grim scene in a graveyard
between the leading heroine Elena and her classmate Tyler in the first
volume, The Awakening (1991), Rana notes that Elena never identifies
Tyler’s actions as attempted rape, nor does she exhibit any symptoms of
trauma. Instead, she delights in winning the heart of her rescuer Stefan
and deems suspension from school an adequate punishment for the rapist
(2013, 232–233, 239–240).12
The televised version of The Vampire Diaries (The CW 2009–2017)
picks up the narrative of no harm was done in the story of Caroline Forbes
and Damon Salvatore. Caroline, a naïve, attention-seeking teenager, is
seduced by the centuries-old vampire Damon, who exploits her for blood
and sex, and forces her to pose as his girlfriend. The heroine is magically
compelled into obedience and a beguiling sense of contentment with their
toxic relationship—to the point where she quietly accepts that she will
be murdered once she has outlived her usefulness (“Friday Night Bites”
S1E03).13 When Caroline is turned into a vampire, she becomes physi-
cally and psychologically empowered to confront her assailant. In a scene
strongly resembling a rape attempt, Damon pins her down, mockingly
11 See also Kokkola (2011, 44), Ashcraft (2013, 155–156), and Kendal and Kendal
(2015, 27–28). Meyer herself exonerates Jacob’s actions with reference to his youth and
justifies them with the heroine’s love for the young werewolf (quoted in Ashcraft 2013,
161)—blurring the distinction between desire and consent that will be discussed further
in this chapter. In her detailed analysis of violence within Twilight ’s central love triangle,
Ashcraft emphasises that the message of abuse as acceptable and romantic is additionally
reinforced by the complicity of Edward’s family in enforcing his rules upon Bella (2013,
ch. 6; cf. Kokkola 2011, 43).
12 This incident is analysed in detail in Rana’s doctoral dissertation (2013, 232–233,
239–240). See Rana (2013, ch. 7), for her interesting examination of other incidents of
sexual violence in YA literature.
13 In “Sleeping with a Vampire”, Łuksza refers to the show’s recurrent portrayal of
Damon “behind the bars, on his knees, in chains, with open wounds, unconscious from
pain etc.”, the representations that are to deem the vampire “at least equally victimized
as the female character” and to challenge the potential construction of the violence as
gender-specific (2015, 435–436); however, she does not address the question whether
these instances of abuse are based in Damon’s gender.
addressing her as “little girl” and claiming to be stronger. The heroine,

however, replies feistily: “Well, I’m angrier!”, and pushes him violently
off herself and into the wall (“Disturbing Behaviour” S3E04).
In the first season of the series Damon is cast as the villain of the story.
His ruthless exploitation of Caroline is narrated as evil and deserving
punishment, and ultimately compels his (temporary) downfall. Yet, while
morally wrong, Damon’s violation of Caroline is also narrated as forgiv-
able.14 Having her memories restored, the heroine confronts Damon
verbally, thrusts him to the floor and then turns her back on him and
walks away in a self-assured manner (“Brave New World” S2E02). In her
analysis of the scene, Rikke Schubart recognises Caroline’s response as “a
spectacle of postfeminist independence”, with the heroine transformed
both visually and mentally from “soft and vulnerable and … a sexual
target” into a confident and assertive young woman (2018, 138). Yet
Caroline’s response to Damon’s abuse cannot but come across as a slap
on the wrist rather than a retaliation proportionate to death threats and
repeated sexual assault. A rape-revenge narrative is absent from the plot.
In fact, the vampire’s crimes are never explicitly named as rape, despite
the clear implications.15 Over the following seasons, Damon and Caroline
become friends, with no evidence of any lasting damage to the violated
girl—a scenario that reiterates the message of no harm was done.
In her analysis of rape representations in crime series Lorna Jowett
suggests that violence against women is frequently used as a tool to artic-
ulate power games between men, with women’s bodies exploited and
objectified in order to assert the supremacy of one male over another
(2010, 220–221). In Twilight, Bella’s body becomes a terrain of conflict
between Edward and his vampire enemy James, with the villain torturing
the heroine to enrage the hero (Rana 2014, 127). In this context, Bella
becomes cast in the role of the token woman or damsel in distress—“a
passive object that connects active male subjects”, existing to “escalate
the conflict between enemy males” and to offer the hero a chance to
14 My analysis here is indebted to a discussion with Rikke Schubart, which I gratefully

acknowledge. See also Schubart (2012).
15 See Schubart (2018, 137), for a detailed description of the incident. Caroline herself
uses the less specific term “abuse” (“Brave New World” S2E02). For a comprehensive
analysis of Caroline’s self-development and transformation, see Schubart (2018, ch. 5).
prove himself (Łuksza 2015, 434, 436).16 In a far more drastic way,
violence against women becomes “a conversation between men” (Gunne
and Brigley Thompson 2010, 8) when A Shade of Vampire villain Lucas
attempts to intimidate his brother, prince Derek, with threats against
his ladylove Sofia. When Lucas murders one of Derek’s harem girls and
leaves her brutalised corpse on display in Sofia’s bathtub, the infuriated
prince considers it “a deliberate affront” to himself and demands that his
guards discover “who has insulted me in this way” (SoV loc. 1571–1579;
emphasis mine). For Damon in The Vampire Diaries, one of the incen-
tives for abusing Caroline is his desire to taunt his vampire brother Stefan,
whom he holds accountable for his gloomy undead existence. Although
Stefan condemns him for treating Caroline like “a puppet” (“Friday Night
Bites” E1S03), he himself uses her without her consent to defeat Damon.
Caroline’s body is turned into a trap when Stefan stealthily spikes her
drink with vervain—a substance that incapacitates his malicious brother
as soon as he feeds on the girl’s blood (“Family Ties” E1S04). In these
narratives, women and their suffering or death become an argument in the
quarrel between men and “an act of triumph” of one male over another
(Gunne and Brigley Thompson 2010, 8).17
Alarmingly, violence against women is often construed as acceptable
as long as it is performed in good faith and with noble intentions. Such
representations strongly resonate with the myth of it was for her own good
where the abuse is motivated with the victim’s well-being: “[H]armed,
forced into unwanted states or manipulated for their own good”, the
heroines in vampire fiction often end up hurt as a result of men’s “benev-
olent” actions (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2017, 191; cf. Crossen 2010). The
woman’s initial sense of rage or betrayal typically gives way to accep-
tance and gratitude for the perpetrator’s devotion, good judgement and
true understanding of her needs—a deeply infantilising and oppressive
script widespread throughout the genre (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2017,
16 Athena Bellas offers an alternative reading of Twilight, emphasising Bella’s trans-

formation into the powerful warrioress and protectress of her loved ones—a role that
facilitates the power shift in her relationship with Edward (2017, 88). Similarly, Łuksza
notes Bella’s departure from her initial damsel persona (2015).
17 Violence against women can also become a “conversation” between men and other
women, as exemplified by the vampress Katherine’s murder of Caroline in order to chal-
lenge Damon and Stefan Salvatore in “The Return” (S201). Having become a vampire,
Caroline is forced to convey a message from Katherine to the Salvatore brothers: “Game
on” (“Brave New World” E2S02).
191–193; cf. Ashcraft 2013; Crossen 2010).18 Whenever Dominic uses

magical compulsion to bend Jemma to his will—whether to force her into
sleep or drinking his blood—he states that he acts “for your own good,
angel” (Iniquitous 78–80, 97). As he further explains, “I know you better
than you know yourself … I know what you need. I know what you want
even before you beg me for it … You don’t know what you want” (Iniq-
uitous 88, 96). While a critical reader might doubt Dominic’s intentions,
it is more difficult to question Stefan’s treatment of Caroline. When he
drugs her with vervain and exposes her to further suffering at Damon’s
hands and fangs, it is convincingly narrated as necessary to save both
herself and other would-be victims. Thus, violating a girl’s body paradox-
ically becomes the means to stop violence against girls. As Damon would
eventually have killed Caroline, Stefan’s abuse becomes re-conceptualised
as beneficial for the victim, and validated through its moral purpose and
positive outcome. Caroline herself never holds the incident against “the
good brother”, and eventually falls in love with him.19
In “Sex, Blood, and Death”, Benita Blessing highlights the oft-
rehearsed transition of the vampire figure from initially repulsive to desir-
able, and the vampire fiction’s portrayal of the female victim as “longing
for the return of her seducer”. It is in these tropes that Blessing traces
the traditional Gothic sensibility within the modern vampire tale (2016,
86). The contemporary male vampire is often written as a Heathcliff-like
hero, “a dark and brooding sexual fantasy” (Wilson Overstreet 2006, loc.
101), wild, cruel and tormented by his dark past. In the texts marketed
to adolescent women, the Heathcliff character has been resurrected in
Twilight ’s Edward (see e.g. Priest 2013, 58; Sandhu 2008), but his
spectre looms in like manner over other vampire men.20 Their darkness
needs to be tamed by an affectionate heroine who alone is capable of
turning the monster into a proper dating and marital candidate. In this,
18 In “The Lower Dog in the Room” (2017), I have analysed the presence of this myth
in The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.
19 Schubart further invokes the example of Caroline’s father who, in season 3, episode
3, tortures his beloved daughter in order to cure her vampirism (2018, 147–148). While
it falls beyond the scope of this volume, it is worth emphasising that violence inflicted on
men in The Vampire Diaries is portrayed in a similar way—with male characters physically
tortured “for their own good”; a trope inviting further analysis.
20 Damon and Stefan of The Vampire Diaries, Derek and Caleb of A Shade of Vampire
or Dominic of The Marked, are just a few of the numerous examples.
they continue the tradition of coming-of-age stories grounded in Beauty

and the Beast; as Oliver observes, “[i]n a sense, our young heroines must
save their boyfriends from their own violent impulses, brainwashed into
them by a violent culture. These violent lads are redeemed through the
love of our good-hearted heroines” (2016, 21, 56).
In all of the series analysed in this section, the heroines fall for
violent vampire men, allowing them to forgive and forget their crim-
inal pasts.21 When the vampires admit to multiple murders (a confession
likely to alarm even the most infatuated girlfriend), the primary concern
of the heroines is how to console their remorseful men. Ultimately, these
vampire (anti-)heroes are presented (and present themselves) as protec-
tors and defenders of the endangered heroines—the “only one[s] who
can offer sanctuary” (VG loc. 2234). Their status as positive romantic
characters is further reinforced through contrasting them with the figure
of the “real rapist”, embodied through an evil brother or a malicious rival
for the heroine’s love.22 This strategy is particularly visible in A Shade
of Vampire, which pushes the level of violence against women to the
extreme. The dangerously volatile vampire hero Derek repeatedly assaults
his slave/girlfriend Sofia, who avoids death at his fangs by soothing him
with love songs or reassuring whispers. Derek brutalises other women in
the series on a regular basis, pinning them to walls, grabbing their hair,
fang raping, threatening to kill, choking and bleeding them dry (see e.g.
SoB loc. 2219–2227, 2242). Even his gentle sister Vivienne is not safe
from his rampages; when she disobeys him, he hits her hard enough to
knock her to the ground (SoB loc. 1235). Derek is a rapist, a murderer
and a brute; therefore, another character must be introduced, one even
more cruel and misogynistic, in order to restore the prince to the posi-
tion of the hero. As the narrative painstakingly emphasises, the “real”
threat is posed not by Derek but by another vampire, Boris—a despi-
cable paedophile and sadist, whom no woman would touch volitionally.
It is Boris who is pointed to as “the real rapist”—and a much-needed
antithesis to the figure of the hero, whose violent transgressions are, in
contrast, easily forgiven. Lying on the ground with her face bruised by
21 Admittedly, Eleira occasionally considers that she might be suffering from Stockholm
Syndrome (see e.g. VG loc. 3381, 1622).
22 See Deffenbacher 2014 for an analysis of the “real rapist” category in paranormal
romance (2014, 926–927). Cf. Łuksza (2015, 434), on women as providing the space
for contrasting the hero and the antagonist.
her brother’s hand, Vivienne looks up at Derek with “no anger, no accu-
sation, no condemnation” (SoB loc. 1238); and Sofia throws herself into
his arms just after having seen her beloved nearly raping and murdering
her dear friend Ashley (SoB loc. 2228–2231). Their devotion is presented
as a force for change and redemption—clearly portrayed as enviable and
deserving admiration—a dangerous reiteration of the myth that true love
alone can change an abusive man.
5.2 A Questioning Touch of Teeth:

Violence and Consent in House
of Night and Vampire Academy
This popular narrative takes an interesting turn in the love story of
dhampir Rose Hathaway and undead Dimitri Belikov in the fourth
volume of Vampire Academy, Blood Promise. When Dimitri, Rose’s former
instructor and lover, becomes involuntarily transformed into an evil
vampire Strigoi, the warrior heroine embarks on a heart-breaking quest to
find and execute him. In the decisive moment, however, Rose hesitates to
plunge a stake into her beloved’s heart, and ends up beaten and confined
in a luxurious prison-apartment.
With a powerful monster hero—at once cruel and affectionate, and a
caring heroine who grows capable of seeing beyond his monstrous nature,
the story of Rose and Dimitri reads initially like yet another version of
Beauty and the Beast.23 The tension between the hero and the heroine is
rife with brutality and eroticism; the closeness of their struggling bodies
reminds Rose of their first night together and she is distracted from the
imminent threat of the monster’s bite by the nearness of his sensual
lips, experiencing “love mingled with terror” (BP 287–290). As time
passes, the heroine grows accustomed to her beloved’s monstrous nature
and starts feeling at home in her gilded cage (295). However, rather
than comfortably falling into the conventional fairy-tale pattern, Vampire
Academy shifts to tell a disturbing tale of abuse and patriarchal terrorism.
Redolent of the schema of domestic violence (see e.g. Caputi 1993,
9), the Beast-Dimitri alternates between tenderness and aggression (297,
299, 335), while the Beauty-Rose becomes physically and emotionally
23 Rose’s transformation into Beauty is manifested, among other things, through her
bodily metamorphosis, and analysed in more detail in Chapter 2 of this volume.
dependent on her captor: “My time was divided into Dimitri or not-
Dimitri. He was my world … I only needed Dimitri” (318; cf. 326, 331).
The heroine rationalises his acts of violence, avoids actions that might
anger him, and—upon failing—tries to placate the Beast with tender
words and kisses. She cherishes every moment of his affection, while
fearing his vicious temper and mercurial behaviour (321–323, 326):
The desire and fondness that I’d just seen now fractured into a million
pieces and blew away. The hands that had just stroked me suddenly
grabbed my wrists and held me in place as he leaned down … His grip
hurt, and I often wondered if that was his intent or if he just couldn’t help
his violence. (323)
Dimitri’s control of Rose’s body and mind is nearly absolute: he

isolates her, dresses her to his liking, threatens to tie her up if she is
disobedient and intends to make “the right choice” on her behalf if she
refuses to become Strigoi (332, 335). He is also the one who lays down
the rules of their erotic life, withholding or forcing sexual activities as he
sees fit.24
In their respective articles on violence and consent in Vampire Academy
and House of Night, Kendal and Kendal (2015, 30–31), and Gaïane
Hanser (2018) criticise the series for their representations of instances of
violence against women, and denounce them as failing to critically address
the issues of rape and lack of female agency. Focusing on the relationship
between Rose and Dimitri and contrasting Mead’s novels with another
paranormal narrative for young adults, the TV show Teen Wolf (MTV
2011–2017), Kendal and Kendal argue that Vampire Academy follows in
the footsteps of Twilight, romanticising abuse, supporting rape culture
and disregarding female consent (2015, 30–31, 38). In turn, Hanser
contends that men in the House of Night novels are portrayed as preda-
tory—a construction designed to cast women as stereotypical prey—and
criticises the series for providing “little to no commentary” on such repre-
sentations (2018, 8–9, 12). Both articles offer some persuasive arguments.
24 As Kendal and Kendal observe, the couple’s erotic encounters are closely reminiscent
of rape scenes, as Strigoi-Dimitri often physically restrains Rose and forces her into inti-
mate situations (2015, 30–31). The vampire treats penetrative sex as a “bargaining chip”
to push Rose into the ranks of the evil undead (BP 334–335). For the use of forced
abstinence as an instrument of subjugation, see Crossen (2010, 120), Ashcraft (2013,
154–155), and Allan and Santos (2016, 74).
However, in this part of the chapter I hope to contribute to the discus-

sion by complicating these interpretations, identifying and exploring the
emancipatory potential and moments of resistance present in these series’
storylines on violence against women.
In both the Casts’ and Mead’s novels, the themes of abuse, rape and
consent are explored through multiple storylines and discussed both by
individual characters and on a structural level in terms of the rules of
their respective supernatural communities. While both series (albeit to a
different extent) validate warrior masculinity, male aggressiveness outside
of the context of battle is often vigorously contested. Depicting the
male possessiveness of a woman as a sign of care is unusual, and male
attempts to restrict a woman’s freedom are deprived of romantic associa-
tions. When in a fit of jealousy the vampire Erik physically restrains Zoey
from approaching another boy, the heroine calls him “a possessive Nean-
derthal” and frees herself immediately, naming his behaviour “bullying”
and “insane” (Hunted 104, 134, 238; cf. LS loc. 2389). Zoey refuses to
read Erik’s jealousy as a sign of devotion; instead, at that moment she
sees him as “mad and mean, and … more a stranger than a boyfriend”
(Hunted 104).25
Asking for consent is firmly inscribed into the rules of courtship.
Kisses resembling “a sweet question mark” are much more likely to
be favourably answered than those “groping, intrusive [and] filled with
possessiveness” (Hunted 272; see also Marked 290); and boys narrated
as desirable romantic partners are prepared to gracefully accept refusal
at any stage of an intimate encounter (see e.g. Betrayed 126; Hunted
87). When in Hidden Erik erroneously believes that the young fledgling
Shaylin desires a kiss (“It seemed she was tilting her lips to his”; 212)
but is shoved away, he immediately withdraws and apologises (“What you
saw was me trying something stupid. … I was being a dick”; 213). Erik’s
attempt to kiss a girl without her explicit consent is mentioned by Hanser
25 Heath mockingly encourages Erik to “try to boss her around a bunch” in order
to dispose of his vampire rival (Hunted 139). Eventually, even Erik admits that he has
behaved like a “jerk” and “a possessive asshole” (Hunted 142). It is noteworthy that
Zoey herself feels possessive of her various boyfriends. When she learns that the monstrous
red fledglings have tasted Heath’s blood, she reacts with a furious—and conventionally
vampiric—declaration of “ownership”: “Heath was mine and no one else was ever, ever
going to feed from what was mine” (Betrayed 280). Similarly, she feels inclined to strangle,
“squash … like a bug” and “burn all the hair” of a girl interested in her former boyfriend
(Hunted, 11, 30–31, 34, 51, 91).
in her critique of the series’ representations of violence. However, the

development of this scene serves, in fact, to valorise consent as it is clear
that the latter cannot be assumed or even implied but needs to be actively
sought. Therefore, when Zoey and Rose decide to have sex with, respec-
tively, Stark and Adrian, both boys are careful to ask whether they are
certain. Zoey and Stark in House of Night begin to drink blood from each
other with “a brief, questioning touch of … teeth”, and do not proceed
until the other person verbally confirms their willingness (Awakened 285).
In many intimate scenes, anything short of enthusiastic consent is read
as refusal. Therefore, when Rose shifts away seconds before penetration,
Adrian immediately asks whether she has changed her mind. He does
not try to seduce the heroine with his vampiric psychic powers, nor does
he attempt to persuade her; instead, he explicitly states that once she
has said “no”, there is nothing else to add (SB 439–441).26 Earlier in
the series, when another boy becomes angry with Rose for interrupting
their sexual encounter, her friend Lissa quells any doubts that may linger,
stating firmly: “That was your right” (FB 217).
In the House of Night series, the questions of consent and abuse are
discussed at length in the tenth volume Hunted, when Stark, prior to his
transformation into a force of good, sexually abuses girls at his vampire
school and drinks their blood without consent (193–196). He is about to
violate a vampire student named Becca when he is discovered and stopped
by the central heroine Zoey and her warrior friend Darius. Like Jemma
and Rose before her, Becca explicitly rejects the vampire’s advances; yet,
like Dominic and Strigoi-Dimitri, Stark is confident that the girl whom
he has chosen lusts after him. All three vampire men assume that the
unwilling women simply hide their true feelings and that their (presumed)
desire overrides their verbal dissent. As Dominic says to Jemma, “We
both know what you want. Why are you denying it?” (Iniquitous 245)
Utterly disregarding the heroines’ protests, the men operate within the
script of deep down, she wanted it/liked it —a rape myth based on “a
belief that ‘women never mean no’”, even if they say it, and that they
can enjoy sexual coercion (Burt 1998, 133–134; Deffenbacher 2014,
923). Equalling the heroines’ desire and erotic gratification with their
consent, the three male characters adopt the popular (if highly erroneous)
26 In The Fiery Heart, despite being certain that she desires it, Adrian refrains from
drinking his girlfriend’s blood as he has not received her explicit permission (364).
perspective that wanted sex cannot be non-consensual (see Peterson and

Muehlenhard 2007).
Paradoxically, the heroines themselves appear to participate in this
narrative as the vampires’ assumptions prove to be correct. Jemma does
desire Dominic, and eventually finds their forced encounter highly plea-
surable: “My body wanted him the way the desert wanted rain, the way a
lonely heart ached for love. Every inch of me hungered for him to devour
me” (Iniquitous 253). Likewise, the initial terror that Rose experiences
when Dimitri bites her neck quickly melts into a “rush of bliss and joy”
(BP 316). In her study on romantic and urban fantasy fiction, Deffen-
bacher points out that the willing response of the heroine’s body typically
functions to disguise the act of rape, aiming to invalidate the woman’s
verbal and physical resistance. As soon as she acknowledges her “true”
needs and emotions, the heroine is to offer her “retroactive consent”—
an act that serves to differentiate the abusive hero from the “real” rapist
(2014, 926–927). In the light of these arguments, it is not unanticipated
that the non-consensual encounter between Dominic and Jemma focuses
on their growing affection, keeping its brutality firmly in the background.
Dominic does not consider himself a rapist (“I may be a monster, angel,
but I’m not that kind of monster”; Infernal 64); nor is he narrated as
such—a representation strengthened by Jemma’s lack of concern about
the abuse.27 Her conflicted delight over Dominic’s confession of love
serves to romanticise the rape scenario and contributes to what Oliver
recognises as the cultural valorisation of lack of consent and sexual assault
(2016, 6–7, 14, 18).
Despite the apparent similarities, the story of Rose and Strigoi-Dimitri
ultimately conveys an entirely different message. In their analysis of
YA paranormal romance, Kendal and Kendal criticise this storyline for
denying the heroine the agency of consent (2015, 30). Contrary to these
claims, however, Rose’s relationship with Strigoi-Dimitri in Blood Promise
is neither romanticised nor unproblematised.28 While Rose temporarily
27 Similarly, as Oliver (2016) states, many perpetrators of party rape do not consider
themselves rapists.
28 In Vampire Academy: The Ultimate Guide, Mead elaborates on the difficulties of
rewriting a good character as evil: “I needed to make Dimitri terrifying and consumed
by his monstrous side—while still giving readers a reason to be hopeful for him. If you
make a character too evil and too unlikeable, readers will lose faith and stop caring. … It
was a very tricky balance to manage” (loc. 3550).
confuses their (re-)union for a happy if somewhat twisted fairy tale, the
reader is hardly invited to do the same. From the very first moment, it is
clear that the heroine’s judgement is clouded by a powerful drug admin-
istered into her system through the Strigoi’s bites—and that her physical
pleasure must not be confused with consent. An unexpected intermission
in the vampire’s visits allows Rose to shake off the narcotic haze and to see
Dimitri’s suffocating pseudo-affection exactly for what it is—an abuse and
a threat (BP 369). She recognises the damage that their relationship has
caused her and is determined to set herself free: “His words were poison,
seeping into my skin. If I focused on them, my fear would win, and I’d
give up” (BP 413). Breaking out of a vicious cycle of violence, Rose resists
relishing in yet another phase of affection, using instead a moment of a
passionate kiss to attack and escape Dimitri (BP 375–376, 394). A terri-
fied, hurt and seemingly defenceless prey, during the flight the heroine
reassumes her position as a huntress. She ambushes her pursuer and finally
stakes him in the heart—bringing their toxic relationship to a dramatic (if
eventually temporary) end.
In the story of Stark and Becca in Hunted, the myths of she wanted
it/liked it are directly confronted by Zoey and Darius. Challenging the
idea of “real” men as sexually aggressive, Darius positions the abusive
Stark as an immature fool when he lectures him on the proper masculine
behaviour, addressing him as “boy”: “Perhaps no one has explained to
you that vampyre males do not abuse females, be they human, vampyre,
or fledgling. … We … do not abuse females. Ever” (Hunted 195). When
Stark drinks Becca’s blood, she begins to experience pleasure. Hanser
finds this trope highly problematic, as the endorphin rush following a
vampiric bite can serve to “override a vampyre’s partner unwillingness
to engage in a sexual encounter, whatever their original state of mind”
(2018, 10). However, the narrating Zoey deems the whole discourse of
the victim’s alleged erotic gratification entirely void as a justification of
rape. Renouncing the very premise of rape mythology, she firmly states
that “it didn’t matter that the girl was now moaning with sexual pleasure”
(Hunted 194). What does matter, however, is Becca’s “wide, terrified
eyes, and the rigidity of her body [that] made it obvious she would
fight him if she could”, her frightened pleading and Stark’s contemptible
refusal to stop until he is “done” (Hunted 194). Thus, the scenes between
Becca and Stark, and Rose and Dimitri, are construed through the lens
of Zoë D. Peterson and Charlene Muehlenhard’s conceptual distinc-

tion between “wanting and consenting” which, while often concomitant,
ought not to be equated (2007). As Peterson and Muehlenhard observe,
to want something is to desire it, to wish for it, to feel inclined toward it,
or to regard it or aspects of it as positively valenced; in contrast, to consent
is to be willing or to agree to do something. Wanting may influence indi-
viduals’ decisions about whether to consent, but wanting and consenting
need not correspond. (2007, 73)
Peterson and Muehlenhard are careful to articulate the risks associ-

ated with acknowledging that the raped person might have desired to
have sex. However, they assert that a clear distinction between desiring
and consenting can actually serve to defuse the guilt-absolving, victim-
blaming narrative of she liked it /wanted it (2007, 84). Therefore, the
essential factor in the definition of rape is, in fact, “the absence of consent,
not the absence of desire” (Peterson and Muehlenhard 2007, 85). Thus,
even Becca’s retroactive consent and the subsequent attempt to present
the abuse as mutually wanted do not absolve Stark. Rather, her denial can
be interpreted as revealing of a deep sense of shame instilled in a female
victim, and of a culturally rooted demand for the assaulted woman to hide
the male’s abuse against her.
A battered girl struggling to conceal her injuries, bite marks and
welts is a well-rehearsed trope in popular vampire fiction addressed to
young women and girls. Mirroring the real-life models of intimate partner
violence, the victimised heroines often reject or refuse to ask for help, are
depicted as undeserving of such, or seek consolation in their abusers’ arms
(see e.g. Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2017, 190,195–196; Kokkola 2011). In
Twilight, young Emily convinces her family and friends that the scars
disfiguring her face come from a bear attack rather than her fiancé’s
outburst of rage. Other werewolves warn Bella not to stare at Emily’s
marks as it would hurt Sam’s feelings (while the feelings of the injured
girl remain undiscussed) (New Moon 290, 299; cf. Torkelson 2011,
214–215).29 The desire to shield an abusive male from the agony of
remorse further inspires the leading heroine Bella to conceal and under-
play her injuries as she inspects her battered body in the morning after
29 Bella herself admits that she “shuddered at the thought of how Sam must have felt
every time he looked at Emily’s face” (NM 299; emphasis mine).
her wedding night with Edward (Breaking Dawn 80–88) “[D]ecorated

with blotches of blue and purple”, Bella launches into an explanation as
to why her newly wed husband is not to be blamed (87). She does not
seem to experience any bodily or emotional pain; her primary concern
is how to hide her bruises in order to avoid upsetting the guilt-ridden
Edward—a disconcerting response that has been critically considered by
scholars, critics and fans.30 The heroines of other vampire paranormal
romances and urban fantasies also channel their efforts into beautifying
and covering bodily parts that bear the marks of violation. In Char-
laine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries , for example, uncomfortable
clothing (e.g. long sleeves in the summer) or wounds in easily coverable
places (a vampire bite in the groin rather than the neck) are presented as
preferable to the truth about abuse coming into light. Consumed with
shame and often blamed for their suffering, the female characters some-
times go as far as to refuse essential medical treatment for fear of exposure,
conveying “the message … of a female victim’s disgrace and her respon-
sibility to cover up male violence against her” (Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska
2017, 195).
Research on violence has elucidated the traumatic consequences of
“the processes of silence” on women who have experienced abuse—
including low self-esteem, self-blaming and feelings of disempowerment
and shame (Zavella 2003, 247; quoted after Field 2010, 61). As Sorcha
Gunne and Zoë Brigley Thompson contend, “[t]o be in a position to
‘tell the truth’ is to occupy a position of agency and subjectivity” (2010,
10). Thus, in House of Night, the central heroine and her girlfriends vehe-
mently oppose the abused Becca’s attempt to sugarcoat Stark’s assault as
“messing around” (Hunted 204). Zoey blatantly narrates the whole inci-
dent as an attempted rape and her friends Shaunee and Erin explicitly
call Stark a rapist (Hunted 204, 241, 263), refusing to verbally trivialise
his actions. Similarly, when in The Vampire Diaries Caroline hides the
bite marks on her neck under a scarf, the audience is well aware that
Damon magically prevents her from revealing them. Consequently, this
act of concealment is narrated as further abuse rather than condoned
or presented as a viable response. Caroline’s angry dismissal of Elena’s
concerns and her attempts to convince her that everything is fine prove
30 See e.g. Ames (2010), Rana (2013), Kokkola (2011, 42), Ashcraft (2013, 166–167),
Kendal and Kendal (2015, 29), Donnelly 2011, 190–191, and Pugh (2011, ch. 7).
futile—Elena has seen her friend’s injuries and is determined to take

action (“Family Ties” E1S04).
For Rose Hathaway, the sight of bruises and wounds on her neck is the
first step in her breaking out of the cycle of abuse. When her friend Adrian
visits her in her prison through a magic-induced dream, the heroine is
worried that he might have noticed her injuries and indignantly rejects
his help. Yet the shock displayed on his face compels her to look at her
relationship with Strigoi-Dimitri in a new light (BP 341–343). Her feeble
attempts to convince herself (yet again) of Dimitri’s affections crumble
under the sight of her mangled neck reflected in the mirror: “I tried to
reassure myself over and over, but those bruises kept staring back at me”
(BP 343). Once she has realised and acknowledged the occurrence of the
abuse, Rose is ready to take action. Demonstrating the typical behaviour
of an abusive intimate partner, Dimitri continues to try to isolate the
girl and to make her believe that he is the only one to whom she can
turn: “‘Even if you get out, where will you go?’ he called. ‘We’re in the
middle of nowhere’” (BP 413). At this point, however, Rose refuses to
be manipulated and chooses to escape to the city, where she seeks safety
and help.
5.3 A Monster Abused Me:

Narrating Rape and Rape-Revenge
While both Rose and Becca display symptoms of physical and psycholog-
ical distress when experiencing violence, neither of them appear to suffer
any long-lasting consequences; nor do they feel the need to seek justice
and/or pursue vengeance. In other storylines, however, abuse and rape
are construed as life-altering experiences with dramatic repercussions. In
this section, I analyse the stories of three raped heroines—Rosalie Hale of
Twilight, Emily/Neferet of the House of Night novella “Neferet’s Curse”
and Carly Sage of Bloodlines —interrogating their various responses to
rape, and the messages they convey about the processes of healing, the
restoration of justice and the morality of revenge.
Both Emily and Rosalie are granted the voice to tell their own story,
and Carly’s is recounted by her sister Sydney. In contrast, their abusers
are denied narrative power and are incapable of muting the girls’ voices.
As Robin E. Field observes, this technique privileges the survivor’s point
of view and foregrounds her suffering, stripping the act of rape of any
erotic connotations (2010, 56). This narrative strategy is particularly
powerful in Emily’s story (“Neferet’s Curse”), which is chronicled by the

heroine through the entries in her journal in nineteenth-century Chicago.
Initially touched by the attentions of her newly widowed father Barrett
Wheiler, adolescent Emily soon becomes frightened by his incomprehen-
sible behaviour. His increasing possessiveness (“like a bloated old dog
with a bone”; 71), offers of alcohol that she is not allowed to refuse,
her growing isolation bordering on imprisonment, his bruising touch and
him watching her in her sleep (46, 77–79) create a mounting sense of
foreboding that forces her metamorphosis. From a quiet and compliant
daughter, Emily develops into an agential young woman, determined
to escape her father’s “unhealthy obsession” (80). Having secured a
betrothal with a son of an influential family, the heroine finally feels safe
from Barrett’s tyranny. However, she is punished for her independence
when—in a monstrous attempt to reassert his masculine control—her
father rapes her the night of her engagement.
While the dramatic stories of Rosalie and Carly unfold outside of the
central plot, Emily is offered a separate 149-page novella to recount
the course of her violation at length and in detail. Close to the end of
the story, the young heroine will be Marked as a vampire fledgling; it
is, however, her human father that evokes the vampiric figure. Early in
the novella, his predatory nature manifests through his feral consump-
tion habits—his ravenous devouring of “bloody red meat”, gulping down
excessive amounts of wine “as red and dark as the liquid that ran from
his meat”, or spilling it over the table where it “ran like blood into the
fine linen tablecloth” (8, 32, 88).31 The vampiric imagery of menace
in the dark returns with the rapist’s shadow looming over Emily’s bed
and then his merciless assault that involves biting and brutal penetra-
tion. While Gunne and Brigley Thompson invoke the feminist scholars’
concerns about the cultural representations of rape that serve to eroti-
cise the violence, turning it into a voyeuristic spectacle (2010, 2–3; cf.
Projansky 2001; Heller-Nicholas 2011), the incestuous rape scene in
“Neferet’s Curse” is unambiguously depicted as monstrous, ensuring the
readers’ emotional engagement in the act of Emily’s revenge. With his
reeking, spitting body, “his great, sweating weight” crushing the heroine,
31 Furthermore, in a conversation with his adolescent daughter, Emily’s father expresses

his taste for rare lamb meat. In Swedish, lammkött (lamb meat) is a derogatory slang
term for young girls seen as sexual objects, one that continues to raise controversies and
protests (see e.g. social campaign “Jag är inget Lammkött!”; Vingren 2012).
his growls and his “great snorting breaths” when he falls asleep immedi-
ately after the deed—the rapist’s grotesque, nauseating figure evokes only
horror and revulsion (131–132). Looking through the violated girl’s eyes,
the reader is urged to empathise with her trauma and pain: “I’d thought
I would die, bleeding and broken beneath him, and smothered by pain
and loss and despair” (131).
After the feral attack Emily’s body is covered with wounds and bruises.
Significantly, the rapist leaves her face untouched—an act of self-control
prerequisite to covering up the abuse (130). Emily, however, makes no
attempt to conceal her violation or deny its occurrence, and actively seeks
help. Screaming her throat raw during the rape, the heroine physically
and symbolically loses her voice (131); yet she soon regains the power
of speech as she entrusts her tragic story to both her journal and her
vampire mentors. Brutalised in a gang rape initiated by her sadistic fiancé
and left to die in the street, Emily’s fictional peer Rosalie of Twilight
never explicitly speaks about rape, choosing not to reveal what occurred
after her hat had been ripped from her hair (Eclipse 143). Emily, however,
directly names the crime—an experience that she finds empowering: “‘My
father has beaten and raped me.’ As I spoke the words, clearly and plainly,
I felt the last of the sickness leave my body” (NC 134).32
Similarly, although at first adamant about keeping the rape secret from
everyone but her sister Sydney, and too frightened to seek justice, with
time Carly of Bloodlines speaks without hesitation and declares that she
has been date-raped by Keith Darnell, a seemingly upstanding “golden
boy” much loved by her father (BL loc. 5516). When her future vampire
brother-in-law tentatively explains to their friend Marcus that Carly and
Keith have had “a, uh, falling out”, Carly looks Marcus “squarely in
the eye” and directly states what Keith has done to her (SS 195). As
the perpetrator initially persuades Carly that she has “led him on”, and
that her beauty and desirability “left him no choice” (BL loc. 5520), it
takes years for the violated girl to overcome her fear and shame, and
a paralysing sense of responsibility for the abuse suffered (see e.g. RC
121; SS 195). Young Emily, however, has no doubts whatsoever about
where to place the guilt. Her father attempts to shift the blame upon
32 Before the rape, Emily tries to confide in her friend Camille; Camille, however,
responds with shock and disbelief. Emily feels that her confession was “a dire mistake”
(NC 38–40, 85) and changes her story from one of the threat of sexual abuse to her
father’s aggressiveness and alcoholism.
her, first claiming that she suffers from “women’s hysteria”, and then
accusing her of provoking him and being a whore (NC 46, 78, 130–
131). Her fiancé, to whom she runs for safety and comfort, renounces
her, with the clear implication that he cannot marry a violated—and thus
disgraced—woman (134). Emily, however, denies both men the power
to shame or blame her. She confronts—beyond doubt or hesitation—the
myths of nothing happened 33 and she deserved it (“it was her own fault”),
firmly placing the culpability not only on the perpetrator but also on the
societal conventions that disempower young women:
The horrible events that befell me … did not happen because of hysteria
or paranoia.
The horrible events that befell me happened because, as a young human

girl, I had no control over my own life. Envious women condemned me.
A weak man rejected me. A monster abused me. All because I lacked the
power to affect my own fate. (NC 137; cf. 17)
This assertion is further reinforced by Emily’s vampire mentor Cordelia,

who stresses that the heroine bears no responsibility for her father’s
wrongdoings. When Emily indicates that people are still likely to blame
the victim, Cordelia reassures her that the laws of the matriarchal vampire
society will protect her from any further abuse (137). Even the vampires,
however, admit that there is little they can do to bring a human rapist to
justice, and Emily vows to exact revenge herself.
In Watching Rape, Sarah Projansky identifies two distinct types of cine-
matic rape-revenge narratives, categorised by the character who exacts
the vengeance. Projansky recognises films that valorise and legitimise
violent masculinity through the figure of a male avenger as “relegating
women to minor ‘props’ in the narrative”. Those which feature a female
avengeress, however, are categorised as feminist narratives, foregrounding
female agency and strength (2001, 60). In the gruesome stories of Emily,
Rosalie and Carly, the trope of rape-revenge performed by the abused
girl or, in the case of Carly, by another female avengeress, has a powerful
presence. Turned into vampires the very night of the crime, Emily and
Rosalie see vengeance as a way of restoring justice, overcoming their
33 This category, as theorised by Burt (1998, 131), is based on the assumption that the
occurrence of a violent incident is either a lie or a figment of a woman’s imagination.
trauma and finding closure on their human existence. Both girls carefully
stage their acts of revenge, executing them mercilessly with the objects
emblematic of their pain and betrayal. Rosalie murders her fiancé dressed
in the bridal gown that she had hoped to wear at their wedding. As Sarah
Heaton observes, as a vampire Rosalie “is able to take all the [disem-
powering] cultural significations of the wedding dress and invert them
into a weapon” (2013, 87).34 Emily, in turn, strangles her father with
her late mother’s string of pearls, which he has forced upon his daughter
in a deranged endeavour to turn her into his “wife”. In a deliberate (if
ultimately ill-fated) attempt to undo the story of her trauma, Emily re-
strings the necklace that her father ripped from her neck during the attack
and places the pearls on a thin wire. Then she traces back the path of her
flight, enters his bedroom and looms over his sleeping figure just as he did
on the night of the assault. Relishing in her power over the violator, the
girl utters the exact same words that he spoke to her prior to the rape—
“Awake, are you? Good. You need to be. We have things to settle between
us”—before she forces the string around his neck (NC 143–144).
In Bloodlines, Carly does not actively seek revenge on Keith; neither
does she intend, however, to grant him absolution. Confined and tortured
by the secret society of the Alchemists, Keith is plagued with a sense
of powerlessness and despair, and only then does he become capable of
empathising with Carly’s suffering. He begs of her to report him, partly
to atone for his crime, and partly because he regards human prison as
a safe haven from the Alchemists. The girl, however, refuses to forgive
the rapist or to play any part in his redemption, deliberately condemning
him to “live in constant fear, just like I [Carly] used to” (SS 195). After
the rape, she enrols in a college and engages in anti-rape activism. From
a “sweet and gentle” girl (BL loc. 5523), the heroine turns into a fierce
young woman whose “life’s purpose” is to protect others from the trauma
of abuse and the post-rape self-doubt (SS 193–195).
Among the analysed series, Carly’s is the sole non-violent and more
structural response to rape, one that aims to empower rape survivors and
render perpetrators powerless. In “Is Seeing Believing? Rapist Culture
on the Screen”, Jane Caputi argues that such a response is “far more
consonant with the goal of ending rape” than an individualistic resolu-
tion of violent rape-revenge, often presented as the only viable option:
34 For an insightful discussion of the connotations of wedding dresses and their

subversive and conservative representations in Twilight, see Heaton (2013, 87–89).
“Ending rape requires disbelief in the first tenet of the rapist faith—
that violence is the answer to all questions, the solution to all problems”
(2019, 219). However, while Carly does not pursue violent vengeance,
her sister Sydney is determined to make Keith pay for Carly’s fear and
pain. As the rapist “explained” his crime with his inability to resist Carly’s
beauty—“Keith had kept telling her … that it was impossible for him to
take his eyes off of her” (BL loc. 5520)—Sydney hires a vampire hitman,
Abe Mazur, who has one of Keith’s eyes cut out in a staged Strigoi attack.
Although Sydney defines her agreement with Abe as “my deal with the
devil”, and her own revenge as “barbaric” (BL loc. 5525), she displays
no signs of regret (see e.g. BL loc. 5649). Instead, she bitterly suggests
that perhaps “[w]ith only one eye left … he wouldn’t find it so ‘impos-
sible’ to keep it off uninterested young women in the future” (BL loc.
5528, 5529). Here, rape is narrated as inexpiable; as Sydney tells Keith
remorselessly, “you will never suffer enough for it” (BL loc. 4498; cf. GL
7).35
Like Sydney, neither Emily nor Rosalie experience doubts or troubled
conscience over their acts of retaliation. Their tormentors are narrated as
monstrous, and the crimes committed against the heroines as deserving
severe punishment. The otherwise compassionate and law-abiding moral
authorities of their respective stories—Rosalie’s vampire sire Carlisle and
the priestesses in Emily’s new vampire school—are willing to “look the
other way” when the girls exact their vengeance (MS 82; NC 142–144).36
Their tacit (if reluctant and partly post-factum) consent strengthens
the representations of rape as unforgivable and legitimises the heroines’
actions. The reading of rape-revenge as just is further reinforced by
the response of Twilight fans, many of whom, as noted by Torkelson,
applauded Rosalie’s retaliation (2011, 218–219).
The rape-revenge provides Rosalie with closure and opens the path to
healing. Ultimately, the heroine finds fulfilment in family life as a wife and
35 Sydney’s vampire boyfriend seconds that opinion emphasising that regardless of

Keith’s remorse, Carly “would be well within her rights if she let him suffer for the
rest of his life” (SS 223).
36 Emily’s vampire mentor Cordelia advises her to let go of her desire for vengeance.
However, upon Emily’s request, she provides—if reluctantly—the tools to remake her
mother’s string of pearls into a strangling noose. Having explained the murder as self-
defence, Emily is transferred to a school in another city, and the local police are bribed into
silence (NC 142, 144). In Midnight Sun, in turn, Carlisle calls Rosalie’s vengeance justice,
validating her murder of the men who “had wronged you monstrously” (2008b, 82).
an aunt. Emily’s story, however, unfolds in a different direction. While she

propels a narrative of abuse that is a reversal of her own, she is incapable
of undoing or counterbalancing her trauma. The young vampress sees
Bart Wheiler’s death as the beginning of her new life and her liberation
from patriarchal oppression—as he draws his last breath, she announces
her new vampiric name Neferet in an act of symbolic rebirth.37 Neferet’s
existence, however, is overshadowed by Emily’s trauma, and she continues
to be haunted by her “broken girl” self throughout the whole series. A
century after the rape, the powerful and revered priestess Neferet still
shudders at the sight of male hands resembling those of her father’s and
weeps tears of blood when she catches a glimpse of Emily’s reflection
in an enchanted mirror (Hidden 69, 296). Young Emily’s promise to
herself—“I will never allow anyone to gain control over me again. No
matter the cost … No one will ever harm me without suffering equal or
more in return” (NC 137)—pushes Neferet onto a path without return
or redemption. She becomes a ruthless murderess and a chief villainess
of the series, and as such—is eventually defeated and obliterated into a
mysterious dark nothingness.
5.4 Black. Angry. Merciless:

Girls’ Violence and (Self-)Defence
In an afterword to “Neferet’s Curse”, P. C. Cast directly addresses
her readers with a personal commentary on the novella’s content. The
author identifies the eponymous heroine’s choice of lonely revenge as
misguided and, eventually, disempowering, and emphasises the impor-
tance of seeking the help of “experienced professionals and trusted adults”
(149). While Neferet’s rape-revenge ultimately serves as a cautionary tale
and is far from celebratory, the theme of girls and women who decisively
respond to violence recurs throughout House of Night. In Other World, as
the new High Priestess of North America the leading heroine Zoey imme-
diately relieves another priestess of her duties in order for her to handle
tensions caused by a group of incels. Incels (involuntary celibates)—
defined by Wanda Teays as “a fringe group of men who congregate online
to vent frustration that women deny them sex” and who are associated
37 Emily associates the name Neferet with female power and freedom from patriarchal
oppression (NC 118, 143).
with acts of gendered violence (2019, 2)—are described as “hat[ing] all

women, especially vamps because we’re matriarchal” (Found 703–706).
Containing their harmful activities is narrated as equally important as
participating in a world-saving mission and a necessary response to the
structural problem related to violence against women.
Already as a human, Zoey resolutely opposes a number of coercive
acts; for instance, she effectively resists her step-father’s efforts to subdue
and control her (see e.g. Marked 59), and does not step back from
confronting abusive boys at school. When a fellow student tells her
to “suck his cock”, the heroine slaps him hard across the face. While
she acknowledges that crying, giggling or pouting would be regarded
as “more feminine” reactions, she deliberately excludes them from her
performance of girlhood, refusing to be victimised by a “turd boy”. She
also emphasises the injustice of the punishment that she is forced to
endure (detention), whereas her opponent’s offence remains unnoticed
(Marked 124)—a situation that highlights both the widespread social
acceptance for abuse against girls and the urgent need to resist it.38
In “Sleeping with a Vampire”, Łuksza points to the cultural persistence
of the damsel-in-distress trope, deployed to propel the plot and enhance
the charms of the rescuing hero (2015, 434–435). DuRocher further
discusses the desire of the contemporary male vampire to defend and
protect his human ladylove, reading it as the vampire’s participation in the
“old-world” patriarchal version of masculinity (2016, 52–53). Invoking
the examples of The Vampire Diaries, True Blood and Twilight, she points
to the vampire’s mobilisation of “the historical notion of protective patri-
archy” and to the escalating costs that the heroines are compelled to bear
in exchange for the promise of safety (2016, 52–54).39
These scripts, Łuksza argues, are increasingly revised as more and more
heroines in new vampire fiction rebel against the status of “the damsel”
(2015, 435)—in Vampire Academy dhampir Rose nearly hits her friend
Mason for calling her that. The central heroines of both Mead’s and the
Casts’ series are neither physically disempowered nor in constant need of
saving; they often engage in combat alongside their male partners and
38 This scene has been negatively evaluated by Hanser, who construes the heroine’s
language as reiterating the misogynistic connotations of the term “bitch” (2018, 8),
leaving other implications of the incident unexamined.
39 Cf. Crossen (2010, 120), Smith and Moruzi (2020), and Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska
(2017).
friends, and come to their rescue just as often as they are rescued by
them. Rose is a trained warrioress, recognised as an equal by the most
seasoned guardians despite her young age (see e.g. LS loc. 807); but
even vampress Lissa, a gentle princess and healer, can throw a knockout
punch when compelled by the circumstances—an act much admired by
her belligerent friend (“That was poetry in motion, Liss”; BP 474). In
turn, human Sydney becomes resolved to never feel helpless again after
she has been assaulted in the street. Sydney detests the role of “a story-
book damsel in distress” (GL 186), and begins to study both defensive
and offensive magic. First and foremost, however, she joins a human self-
defence course, an experience which makes her feel empowered (see e.g.
GL 217). Although she never reaches the combat competence of her
dhampir friends, the heroine effectively puts to use the newly learnt self-
defence tactics on several occasions (see e.g. GL 385; IS 103). When in
The Fiery Heart she finds herself surrounded by malicious vampires who
intend to fang rape her, she follows an inner “strong voice” which tells
her: “You are not vulnerable. You are not out of options ”, and attempts
to run, scream and kick (285). In one of the last scenes in the Bloodlines
series, Sydney and her dhampir friend Rose fight side by side to set free
an abducted vampire princess, making “a striking combo, one dark and
one golden, both utterly fearless … beautiful in their deadliness” (RC
317). Although fiercely protective of his girlfriend, the vampire Adrian
trusts Sydney’s judgement and resourcefulness, and rarely attempts to
prevent her from venturing on yet another dangerous mission. Whether
she engages in high-risk espionage, infiltrates a fanatical vampire hunting
organisation or fights evil witches, Adrian never questions her right to
make independent choices. Instead, he believes that his girlfriend is “brave
and clever and competent” (RC 266; cf. e.g. IS 235; SS 316), and fights
at her side wherever he can, but never forces his “protection” upon her.
In House of Night, male vampire warriors are honour-bound to safe-
guard priestesses and fledglings; and even the vampire goddess Nyx needs
an immortal champion to shield her realm from darkness. Yet, when in
Betrayed Zoey’s human love Heath is captured by bloodthirsty monsters,
it is Zoey who comes to his rescue. The heroine both draws on and mocks
the fairy-tale imagery of a hero on a white horse: as she is galloping
through the harsh winter landscape to liberate Heath, she conjures a
vision of “the cavalry or at the very least Storm from X-Men” (Chosen
169). Bleeding, helpless and in bondage, in this scene Heath truly is “the
knight in distress” (see Łuksza 2015, 435); yet, in compliance with the
warrior script, he still attempts to shield Zoey. The heroine, however, asks
him only to “[j]ust stay behind” (Betrayed 280), and finds his protec-
tive instincts endearing—she grins and reassuringly pats his hands, gives
him “a mental eye roll” and characterises “his heroics” as “cute and all”
but likely to get him eaten (Hunted 119; Betrayed 280).40 Although
occasionally Heath protests against their reversed roles (“Zo, I’m not
a damn pussy!”; Tempted 2), he has full confidence in his girlfriend’s
capacity to protect him to the point when he recklessly exposes himself
to danger, counting on Zoey becoming “a superhero again if things got
bad” (Hunted 132).
The pages of the same series, however, are also host to stories of a less
celebratory undertone, with girls’ responses to abuse narrated as contro-
versial or wrong, particularly if involving violence. Twice throughout
House of Night, Zoey is harassed in a park by two male strangers. On the
first occasion, she is with Heath when the men approach—they call her
a “bitch” and “a fucking bloodsucker”, and threaten to rape her while
making her boyfriend watch (Chosen 196). The second time, Zoey is
alone and the strangers attempt to scare her into giving them money. In
both instances, the heroine’s reaction is that of a blazing fury. Thinking
about their past and would-be victims and enraged with their suggestion
that girls who want to avoid harassment should not be in parks alone
(one that reflects a rape myth of she deserved it ), Zoey calls upon her
magic, blasting her first attackers into a street and smashing the other
ones unconscious against a rock (Chosen 166–198; Revealed 276–277).
A comparable incident takes place in the first volume of Mead’s
Vampire Academy, when a group of vampire boys, led by Wade Voda,
bring a young female feeder to a party and publicly drink her blood. With
a strongly established connection between vampiric feeding and sexual
arousal, and the boys taking turns biting the nearly unconscious girl while
passing sexually offensive remarks, the scene is strongly evocative of a
gang party rape executed on a drugged victim. Among all the onlookers,
Lissa is the only one to question the boys’ actions. Asked for help, Rose
40 In another scene in Hunted, Zoey effectively shields Heath with her own body
against a monstrous Raven Mocker, nearly dying in the process. In turn, Heath’s attempt
to protect his girlfriend results in him slipping and falling down (Hunted 112–113). Along
with her human boyfriend, Zoey defends also the valiant warrior Darius, threatened by a
bloodthirsty red fledgling. Weak from her wounds, she still warns the attacker that she is
prepared to “zap the crap outta you with fire” and “burn your butt up” should he dare
to hurt her friend (Hunted 181–182).
attempts to shame Wade into stopping. When he drags the victim into
his room instead, the heroine goes back to the party, “feeling a little
bad about what happened” (208). Despite being a trained fighter against
whom Wade would not stand a chance, she feels powerless in that situa-
tion (“it’s not like I can go chase him down or anything”; 208). Rose’s
initial reluctance and indifferent remarks, paired with her former presen-
tation of feeders as “junkies” and “humans from the fringes of society”
(VA 43–44), eerily echo the cultural narratives that explain the occur-
rence of violence in terms of the victim’s “bad” character or inappropriate
conduct (Burt 1998, 132–133; Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2017, 187–188).
Lissa, however, refuses to let the abuse continue; she goes after Wade and
hypnotises him into demolishing his room with a baseball bat.
Throughout the scene, the narrating Rose focuses on Lissa and her
emotions. It is not for the victim that she fears, but for her vampire friend,
whose “Black. Angry. Merciless” (209) feelings have made her a fright-
ening stranger. Rose is also afraid for Wade and hopes that he will not
be harmed. She cannot recognise her “sweet and steady Lissa” (209) in
the cold, infuriated avengeress who impassively orders the vampire boy to
turn the baseball bat on his own head. A similar reaction is displayed by
Zoey’s boyfriend Heath in the scene in the park. The boy is more shaken
by his girlfriend’s violent reaction than by the imminent threat posed
by the aggressive strangers. Heath’s first response to Zoey’s outburst
of anger is to recoil from her in fear, and to caution her against using
her Goddess-given powers “in the wrong way”, regardless of the situa-
tion. “You shouldn’t be mean, Zo. No matter what”, he states (Chosen
198), framing her violent defence as an act of malice rather than a neces-
sity. Similarly, in the second scene in the park, Zoey’s reaction to the
threat of violence is narrated as unjustified and excessive. The emphasis
is placed on the defencelessness of the two men, their inability to truly
harm the powerful fledgling and their clear intention to retreat once they
have discovered her true nature. The narrative further foregrounds Zoey’s
uncontrollable rage and then her deep remorse, rather than the fact that
the two men have been abusing girls (see e.g. Redeemed 64–65). In all
three cases, the heroines are depicted as having exceeded the boundaries
of necessary (self-)defence. Kristina Deffenbacher discusses the difficulties
of accommodating the capacity for aggression into popular representa-
tions of femininity. Drawing on the work of Hilary Neroni (2012), she
notes that popular culture tends to represent “a woman’s violence as a
supplement, as something fundamentally not her” (2016, 35; italics orig-

inal). As it soon transpires, neither Lissa nor Zoey are truly themselves in
their vehement reactions, which have been triggered by the magical forces
that impaired their judgement.41
To save Lissa from trouble, Rose takes the blame for destroying Wade’s
room and is punished with suspension. As Zoey falsely believes that she
has killed her attackers, she reports to the police and contemplates suicide.
At the same time, the men do not seem to bear any further consequences
for harassing girls in the park. Similarly, Wade walks away unpunished for
abusing the human girl (VA 211). Neither the teachers nor the students
question the presence of an underage feeder at a students’ party or the
onlookers’ failure to alarm the authorities and help.
Paradoxically, while both Zoey and Lissa are chastised for responding
to the abuse with “excessive” force, female characters who do not defend
themselves against violence are also criticised and attributed with nega-
tive characteristics (see e.g. Chosen 2008, 35, 37; VA 2007, 206–210).
The House of Night heroines describe Becca as foolish, infantile, shallow
and deserving contempt as soon as she presents her encounter with Stark
as volitional. In their study of young women’s perception of consensual
and non-consensual sex, Peterson and Muehlenhard observe that, para-
doxically, in some cases, “rejecting the label rape might be a constructive
and empowering choice” (2007, 84). They find that while for some rape
survivors acknowledging the incident as rape may fulfil a therapeutic func-
tion, for others it can increase the trauma, alienation and the feeling of
vulnerability (2007, 84).42 In House of Night, however, Becca is denied
that choice. Although Zoey is aware that the young fledgling has been
bewitched into defending her abuser, she still responds with contempt
to Becca’s attempts to defend Stark: “But didn’t Darius and I recently
save your butt from getting raped and bit by oooh! the hottest guy at
the House of Night ? Then you were snotting and whimpering” (Hunted
263). The heroine and her friends dismiss Becca as an empty-headed
“bimbo”, and compare her derisively to a terrier “panting” after an indif-
ferent, violent man (Hunted 209, 241). This characterisation, as Hanser
41 A similar scene takes place in Shadow Kiss, when Lissa is tortured by another student,
Jesse. She responds with a brutal mental attack only to be stopped by Rose who fears
Lissa’s “black and slimy” magic (335–341).
42 As well as exert an often undesired pressure to undertake legal actions (Peterson and
Muehlenhard 2007, 84).
observes, “make[s] it more difficult for the reader to identify [Becca] as

a victim” (2018, 12).
The negative representation of women who do not confront their
oppressors emerges also, albeit to a lesser degree, in the portrayal
of the young feeder-victim in Vampire Academy. Throughout the
disturbing scene, she remains anonymous and is simply referred to as
the feeder/human girl (207). The only details revealed about her are
her youth, prettiness, oblivious compliance, addiction to vampire feeding,
and the “soft whimpering noises” that she emits (208–209). The narra-
tion is entirely focused on Rose, Lissa and their emotions, and at the end
of the scene the reader finds the abused girl cowering in the corner—
her marginalised tale granted no resolution. She is the victim here, and
nothing else, a token woman presented one-dimensionally and reduced to
little more than the background of her own story.43 This time, however,
she serves to underscore not the strength of a hero, but the powers of a
heroine.
5.5 Conclusion
Tales of violence and sexual abuse against girls and women often lie at
the heart of vampire fiction. Typically populated with predatory super-
natural heroes hungering for a human heroine, featuring non-consensual
blood-drinking and vampiric mind control, and including the Gothic
tropes of confinement and invasion, vampire stories overflow with female
characters at risk of violence. Despite shedding their former skin of
repulsive revenants, many vampire men remain abusive and ultimately
monstrous patriarchs, hidden under the cloak of romantic heroes (see e.g.
DuRocher 2016; McMillan 2009; Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2017). Alarm-
ingly, the violent acts they perform are frequently absolved, glamourised
or masqueraded as all-consuming passion, and depicted as rightful punish-
ment, lesser evil, mishap, beneficial or inconsequential incident, teenage
foolery or love (Torkelson 2011; Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska 2017; Rana
2013). These narratives—implicitly or explicitly—often condone violence
against women. Joanna Bourke argues that rape and sexual violence are
not “an ahistorical phenomenon” arising from the biological makeup
43 Cf. the argument between Zoey and Stark, when the heroine forces him to
acknowledge Becca’s name instead of calling her “that girl” (Hunted 230). Cf. also
Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska (2017, 194).
of men, but rather are “deeply rooted in specific political, economic

and cultural environments” (2007, 7). Research has evidenced popular
culture’s impact on the consumers’ perceptions of violence and accep-
tance of rape myths and abuse.44 Thus, the problematic nature of such
narratives lies in their participation in the culture of female exploitation
and gender inequality (see e.g. Ackley 1990, xi).
In recent years, however, an increasing number of paranormal and
vampire stories have come to represent a shift in the portrayal of gendered
violence. There, abuse is often devoid of romanticised associations. The
fairy tale of Beauty and the (vampiric) Beast is stripped of its glittery
coating to reveal the exploitative realities hidden behind the scenes.
Refusing to downplay abuse against women and unmasking its individual
and social costs, these narratives offer resistance against the myths of
nothing happened, she wanted it/liked it /deserved it and it was for her
own good. Like in Blood Promise, intimate partner violence is depicted
through the metaphors of the “golden cage”, drugs coursing through
the heroine’s veins and an ominous labyrinth on her path of escape—the
images of isolation, emotional addiction and the difficulties of leaving a
toxic relationship.
Violence, sexual or otherwise, is presented as a despicable crime that
requires severe punishment or painful redemption. Violent men are
narrated as “disgusting”, chauvinistic and “plain wrong” (Chosen 35,
168); as “[c]reatures of hell” (FH 285), misogynists and beasts who use
coercion to articulate their power and punish female independence; and
whose downfall is often brought about by the very women they harmed.
Importantly, many stories challenge the notion of the rapist as an evil
stranger or a corrupt Other, lurking in a dark alley, long embodied in the
figure of the vampire. Men who rape are often known to their victims and
represent diverse “species”—vampire, dhampir, human and immortal; and
no women are truly exempt from the dangers of rape culture.
In her study of rape-revenge films centred on male-on-female abuse,
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas refers to the understandings of rape—or the
threat thereof—as a transformative moment for the heroine. Referencing
such scholars as Sarah Projansky, Rikke Schubart and Jacinda Read,
Heller-Nicholas points to the recurrent script of the abused woman’s
transition from being mellow and submissive into a powerful agent. In
44 See e.g. Hust et al. (2015), on the influence of exposure to the popular crime drama
franchises on YA audience’s acceptance of rape myths and negotiation of sexual consent.
vampire series, this change is sometimes marked not only through mental
but also bodily transformation—typically from human to vampire. It is
this very moment that signals the heroine’s emancipation from patriar-
chal restraints—one that allows her to (re-)assert control over her life and
body, and enables her to perform violence in order to protect herself and
her loved ones, or to exact revenge.45
Some of the abused characters are defined by their rage and pain—
violated as human girls, they continue to suffer from severe psychological
distress through the centuries of their vampiric womanhood. Others are
capable of overcoming their trauma. In her analysis of the representa-
tions of rape in Elizabeth Ruth’s novels, Susan Billingham praises the
author’s refusal to formulate the figure of the heroine exclusively through
her victimhood, and “insist[ing] on life after trauma”. Such narratives,
Billingham claims, foreground the heroines’ resilience and agency rather
than the vulnerability of the victim (2010, 106–107). Within this context,
it is important to bring to the fore the potency and strength of such hero-
ines as Rose of Vampire Academy or Caroline of The Vampire Diaries,
neither of whom succumb to their suffering, or doubt their will and ability
to heal from the experience of abuse. First and foremost, however, it is the
story of Carly of Bloodlines which offers both a hopeful and more realistic
portrayal of violence against girls. The abused heroine suffers from guilt,
fear and shame; an experience shared by many real-life survivors of rape.
Yet she manages to recover from her trauma and strives for structural
change through engaging in anti-rape activism.
However, even within the texts that clearly intend to advocate the
empowered and empowering idea of girlhood, the representations of
gendered abuse are not unproblematic. The vampiric transformation of
the human heroine that in some narratives marks her first step on the
path to liberation can also lead her astray, re-positioning rape survivor
as a madwoman, villainess or sexual predatoress. Sometimes, powerful
female characters are narrated as unhinged and/or overtly violent in
protecting themselves or others, their destructive supernatural talents
triggered by uncontrollable emotional outbursts, conventionally associ-
ated with womanhood. Such representations problematise the boundaries
of legitimate self-defence and introduce a troubling notion of “exces-
sive” female power. Furthermore, many girls who effectively respond to
45 See Auerbach (1995, 140, 147–148) for vampirism as symbolic liberation from
patriarchal oppression.
abuse or manage to avenge themselves are supernatural beings—vampires

or half-vampires. In her analysis of paranormal romance, Deffenbacher
emphasises the significance of the presence of human characters capable
of defending themselves, which prevents the narrative from placing “the
capacity to fight and to survive beyond human women’s reach” (2016,
42). As Torkelson observes with regard to Twilight ’s Rosalie (2011, 218),
in vampire fiction for young readership girls often demonstrate agency
only after they have transformed into supernaturals, whereas as humans
they are disempowered. The fact that becoming a vampire is seldom the
heroines’ autonomous choice additionally complicates this message (see
e.g. Deffenbacher 2014; Torkelson 2011). Within Mead’s series, however,
this imagery of a helpless human girl is effectively imploded through
the character of Sydney who first learns how to fight and defend herself
without magic.
The violent incidents are almost never reported.46 This tendency
adheres to the conventions of the horror/Gothic genre that demands for
the violence to be resolved by individuals rather than by the authorities
(Schubart 2018, 137). In the texts addressed to young women, however,
such resolutions may work to reinforce the stigma associated with rape
and abuse (cf. Jowett 2010, 222), and to present seeking justice through
legal means as futile, while simultaneously reflecting the real-life diffi-
culties of obtaining a conviction in the case of rape. When in The Fiery
Heart, a group of vampire men engage in “dabbling”, that is drugging
non-feeder women in order to drink their blood, the vampire law fails
to bring them to justice. Even when they are caught red-handed (and
nearly red-fanged) attacking Sydney, they use their royal families’ wealth
and connections to avoid the consequences, and are charged with “dis-
orderly conduct” rather than rape attempt. Their only penalty is a night
46 In the televised version of The Vampire Diaries, Elena intends to alert the sheriff
about Caroline’s abuse but is stopped by Stefan, who promises to “deal” with it. No one
except for the characters involved in the incident will ever learn about the violation of
the feeder girl, Becca or Stark’s other victims. Neither Neferet and her vampire mentor
Cordelia, nor Rosalie and her sire Carlisle consider reporting the rapists. As Rana observes,
in the literary Vampire Diaries Elena chooses not to press charges against Tyler as he has
already been punished with suspension (2013, 232–233, 239–240). An exception can be
found in Meyer’s Midnight Sun, an Internet-published Twilight draft-novel, which finds
Bella’s near-rapists incapacitated and anonymously delivered to human authorities (2008b,
218). Midnight Sun was published as a book in 2020 by Little, Brown and Company.
in jail, fines and later on—humiliation and social ostracism, when their
crimes are brought to light at a party (FH 287; SS 88–92).
Similarly, Dimitri’s punishment for abusing Rose is limited to a short
time in a prison cell, and to feelings of grief and mortification once he is
turned back into his dhampir self. His trauma appears to be more severe
than that suffered by his violated girlfriend and he partly relies on her help
to recover from it.47 Stark of House of Night, in turn, is given no time
to show remorse at all; right after witnessing his attempted rape on Becca
and delivering her to safety, Zoey comes back to talk to the rapist. Not
only does she offer him consolation, but ends up kissing him and then
allows him to share her bed as he volunteers to guard her in her sleep—an
act of trust and forgiveness that is both undeserved and incomprehensible.
This highly problematic resolution has been noted by Hanser, who crit-
icises the heroine’s behaviour as trivialising and condoning abuse (2018,
11–12). In the cases of both Stark and Kalona, another supernatural serial
rapist of House of Night, the stories are formulated around the abuser
and his transformation, leaving the survivors of their crimes marginalised,
nameless or even vilified. Moreover, extenuating circumstances exist, as
many of the violent men are driven by either a broken heart or dark
magic. Deffenbacher claims that the presence of magical force could be
read as a positive shift from the traditional rape romances, as it deflects
the responsibility for abusing the heroine from the hero onto the super-
natural element (2014, 925). This could be illustrated through the stories
of Stark and Dimitri, who would have never abused a woman had they
not been bewitched by evil. Their kindness, integrity and—in the case
of Dimitri—a haunting remorse, along with their involuntary subjection
to dark enchantment, signal absolution from the committed violence.
However, as Deffenbacher further observes, this re-positioning of blame
from the hero onto external factors “at once reinforces and re-conceals
fundamental rape myths”, in this case the one of he could not help it, and
serves to sell masqueraded rape romance to the audience that would no
longer accept it undisguised (2014, 925, cf. 926).
Sometimes, the extreme violence committed against women becomes
recategorised as promiscuity: Zoey interrupts her moment of passion
with Stark as she recalls his “slut nature” and the fact that he has been
47 A similar principle underlies the narrative of Emily and Sam in Twilight; as Kendal
and Kendal observe, it is Sam’s and not Emily’s trauma that we are expected to sympathise
with (2015, 29).
“with a crapload of the girls on campus” (Hunted 273, 274); Aphrodite

points to Kalona being “a man ho” as disqualifying him as a romantic
partner (Untamed 215); and Adrian calls one of the “dabblers”, Wesley,
“a womanizer” instead of a rapist (SS 92). Eventually, many of the abusive
(anti-)heroes become rehabilitated and assume the position of the ulti-
mate male romantic figure of their respective stories: Damon achieves
his happy-ever-after with Elena (the series’ leading heroine and Caro-
line’s best friend), Dimitri ends up engaged to Rose, and both Stark and
Kalona become revealed as the respective soul mates of two most powerful
female characters in the series—the leading heroine Zoey and the vampire
goddess Nyx (cf. Hanser 2018, 11–12). These plot developments further
exonerate their transgressions, and while they are far from romanticising
or condoning coercion, they do present it as forgivable, serving to erase
from our memory the acts of extreme abuse committed by the heroes.
In all the analysed series, the fear, threat or experience of violence—
particularly sexual abuse—are narrated as inseparable from growing up a
girl in the contemporary society. The representations of the violent acts,
and the responses they evoke both from the characters and the commu-
nities to which they belong, are diverse and brimming with unresolved
ambiguities—not only within the genre but often on the pages of the
very same book. The girl heroine of YA vampire fiction balances on a fine
line between empowerment and subjugation, agency and constraint. She
is ever-shifting between being a strong and conscious woman, capable
of recognising and fighting rape culture and post-rape trauma, and a
vulnerable victim who relies on harmful, yet well-established myths about
violence and rape.
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CHAPTER 6
Biting into Books: Supernatural Schoolgirls

and Academic Performance
“A society in miniature”, school constitutes a powerful context in which

young people mature, prepare for their futures, negotiate their relations
with peers and figures of authority, rebel against and are socialised into
culturally approved roles and behaviours (Franck 2013, 209; Shary 2014,
29–30).1 With its educational policies, teaching cultures, various curricula
and vibrant social life, school is not merely a physical site but operates as a
symbolic terrain of constructing teenage identities and various discourses
on adolescence (Harris 2004, 95, 98–99). As Nancy W. Brickhouse points
out, “learning is not merely a matter of acquiring knowledge, it is a matter
of deciding what kind of person you are and want to be and engaging in
those activities that make one a part of the relevant communities” (2001,
286).
A pivotal space in teenagers’ lives, school has long been a common
setting for adolescent fiction. Many a story begins with a young character
anxiously pushing open the creaking door of the new school—a literal
and metaphorical threshold that marks the onset of their adventures.
Historically a realist genre, as Smith and Moruzi remind us, school stories
1 An early version of this chapter was initially presented as a keynote speech at the
conference “Vampiric Transformations”, held at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, in
November 2018. I am deeply grateful to the organisers for their generous invitation and
to the participants and members of the audience for their astute comments and inspiring
questions which helped me develop this chapter.

Switzerland AG 2021
have gained new popularity among adolescent readers through inviting

supernatural elements and creatures into their classrooms (2018, 6–7). In
YA Gothic and vampire tales, dilapidating castles, isolated mansions and
mysterious moors are often supplanted by vampiric educational institu-
tions, whose iron gates, labyrinthine corridors, desolate school grounds
and shadowy rooms produce a delusive sense of safety intertwined with
a sense of foreboding. “Seductively ancient, enchanting, and unreal, yet
prison-like, isolated, and claustrophobic” (Truffin 2014, 165), school
provides a dramatic setting for the magical, the fearsome and the uncanny.
As Sherry Truffin asserts, “[t]he pervasiveness of the Schoolhouse Gothic
suggests, at the very least, that our educational institutions are sites of
significant psychological, cultural, and political anxiety” (2014, 165).
A large number of contemporary vampire stories for young readers
unfold within the walls of a high school or college—with a vampire
enrolling in a human institution (e.g. Twilight, Vampire Diaries , Blood-
lines ), a human enrolling in a vampire one (e.g. Vampire High, Ethics
of the Undead), warrior students pursuing bloodsucking monsters (e.g.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, A Shade of Vampire) or vamp teens attending a
supernatural academy (e.g. House of Night, Vampire Academy, Evernight ).
Education, both as formal schooling and independent quests for knowl-
edge, constitutes a common trope within the genre. Already in 1989,
Brian J. Frost observed that vampires had largely discarded their unam-
biguously evil selves to assume a persona of “highly intellectual beings …
with the pursuance of knowledge (rather than nubile maidens) as their
main recreation” (1989, 24; cf. Crossen 2015). With protagonists eager
to spend eternity at school and devote their sleepless nights to studying,
the genre abounds in erudite bloodsuckers whose academic expertise is
unrivalled among their contemporaries.2
Despite the proliferation of the figure of the learned vampire, little
research exists thus far on the representations of education in vampire
2 One of the most prominent examples of this trend can be found in Only Lovers Left
Alive (Jim Jarmush 2013). As Sorcha Ní Fhlainn notes, the vampire protagonists of this
movie passionately seek knowledge and artistic creativity—“which feels like an entirely
logical and deeply romantic manner to while away eternity”—and remain uninterested
in “typical” vampire activities such as preying on unsuspecting victims or engaging in
taboo-breaking sex (2019, 236).
6 BITING INTO BOOKS: SUPERNATURAL … 217
fiction.3 This mirrors wider trends in the studies of popular youth culture
where the trope of young people’s experience with school-structured
learning is often overlooked by scholars.4 Academic works across the
disciplines have investigated cultural portrayals of school in terms of race,
gender, class, ethnicity and imaginings of the nation (May 2013; Clark
2015; Alley-Young 2008; Fisher et al. 2008), and explored the ways these
representations interplay with political discourses on schooling (Witte and
Goodson 2010; Dahlgren 2017). Researchers have interrogated cultural
imageries of a specific subject (Dahlgren 2015; Sklar and Sklar 2012),
educational level (Reynolds 2014; Edgerton et al. 2005) or special school
event (Best 2000; Anderson 2012), and looked into the portrayals of
school romance, violence and bullying (Fisher et al. 2008). An extensive
body of literature has been produced on the representations of teachers
(see e.g. Dahlgren 2015, 2017; Joseph and Burnaford 2001; Dalton
2010; Weber and Mitchell 1995; Newman 2001; Shoffner 2016; Young
2005), while fewer works consider the portrayals of students (see e.g.
Shary 2014, ch. 2; Sacks and McCloskey 1994; Perlstein and Faw 2015).
Only a limited number of studies, however, focus on narratives of
academic achievement and classroom-centred learning. Admittedly, these
tropes are rarely located at the heart of young adult fiction, and typi-
cally emerge at the peripheries of the plot. The classroom setting serves
primarily to accentuate social relations, romance, power plays and char-
acter transformations rather than the curricula and academic performance
(Fisher et al. 2008, 172–173; Franck 2013; Daspit 2003, 128). However,
as researchers increasingly acknowledge the impact of popular culture on
adolescents’ perception of school-structured learning (see e.g. Reynolds
2014; Fisher et al. 2008; Archer et al. 2012, 2013; Driscoll 2002,
150), a critical look at the cultural portrayals of academic performance
becomes crucial for a more comprehensive understanding of young
people’s educational experience.
3 Even texts which position the institution of school in the centre of their analysis often
ignore the question of curriculum and classroom learning (see e.g. Smith and Moruzi
2018).
4 An interesting exception is Megan Birch’s (2009) critique of the representation of
education in the Harry Potter series, including the analysis of Hogwarts’ curriculum and
the protagonists’ attitudes towards book learning. Another example is the work of Gordon
Alley-Young (2008), which touches upon racialised curricula in popular school movies.
This chapter explores the representations of academic life and formal

schooling in YA vampire fiction, with a primary focus on four best-selling
literary series marketed to adolescent girls—House of Night (2007–2014)
and its spin-off House of Night: Other World (2017–2020) by P. C. Cast
and Kristin Cast, and Vampire Academy (2007–2010) and its sequel
Bloodlines (2011–2015) by Richelle Mead. In the supernatural universes
of these series, school-structured education literally becomes a matter
of life and death. Young vampire heroines and heroes face dramatic
choices between enrolling in their boarding school or a gruesome demise
brought on by a paranormal sickness (House of Night ), the threat of
monster–vampires (Vampire Academy) or political assassins (Bloodlines ).
In adherence to the familiar formula of Schoolhouse Gothic, the series
open with the protagonists arriving at the gates of their new schools
“‘cursed’ by nature and nurture” (Truffin 2014, 165)—alienated from
their families and marked with extraordinary powers that differentiate
them from other students. Their educational institutions are narrated
as a terrain of battles against evil, a scene of courtship and establishing
friendships and a space for constructing adolescent identities and bodies,
reflecting the general tendency of youth narratives to consign academic
life to the background. Still, both the Casts’ and the Mead’s series succeed
in raising a number of compelling questions about girlhood and educa-
tion. Through situating the figure of the supernatural schoolgirl in the
unconventional educational systems of the matriarchal vampire society,
uncanny vampire academies or human high schools attended by vampires
and witches, they offer captivating, ambivalent and at times disturbing
visions of the classroom as a symbolic terrain of shaping girl identities
and discourses on girlhood.
Looking critically at the portrayals of school-structured learning,
students’ academic performance and the gendered expectations of high
school peer culture, this chapter examines the ways in which vampire
fiction for adolescent women reflects, negotiates or resists cultural notions
surrounding the intertwining categories of girlhood, “smartness” and
formal education. The first part of the chapter focuses on the curriculum
of the House of Night and the ways it addresses feminist concerns
about the design of contemporary classroom practices and programmes.
Exploring the intersections between gendered and academic identities,
the following parts examine the depictions of female students’ intellec-
tual skills, ambitions and attitudes towards schoolwork, with a particular
emphasis on their relations with STEM (science, technology, engineering,
mathematics) subjects. Placing these findings within the context of

current Western discourses on gender and education, and juxtaposing
them with young masculine academic identities, this chapter aims to shed
light on the role of academic investment in popular concepts of successful
girlhood, as well as to discuss how the vampire series respond to social
anxieties about young femininity and schooling.
6.1 Heaps of Awesome Classes: The

Unique Education of the House of Night
When in the opening volume of the House of Night series sixteen-year-
old human Zoey Redbird becomes Marked as a vampire fledgling, she has
no other choice but to transfer from an ordinary public high school to a
private boarding school for future vampires. Destined to transmute and
become a species of which she is ignorant and fearful (Marked 6, 32),
the heroine reluctantly enrols in the nearest House of Night in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, leaving behind her human school life and embarking on a
journey of unexpected social and academic challenges. Zoey’s response
to this transition is, understandably, that of anxiety and confusion; yet
she quickly recovers from the initial shock and rapidly adjusts to her
new environment. The heroine takes in her stride the reversed day and
night routines, the school’s unfamiliar etiquette and the rituals worship-
ping Night Goddess Nyx, a vampire divinity whom she swiftly comes to
recognise as her own. Zoey appreciates the absence of “weird ineffec-
tive [human] high school punishment systems” (Destined 229), and the
House of Night’s policy of granting students much autonomy, favourably
comparing it to her previous educational experience.5 Most importantly,
she takes an immediate liking to her new curriculum and classes.
In her study on popular culture and higher education, Pauline J.
Reynolds (2014) observes that cultural portrayals of students in the class-
room tend to revolve around boredom, passivity and rebellion. Within
the vampire genre, the themes of schooling and formal class instruc-
tion have been analysed primarily in relation to Joss Whedon’s celebrated
5 For instance, the Media Center is left open round the clock and—in contrast to Zoey’s
former human school—there are no passwords or Internet filtering programmes. As the
heroine explains, in the House of Night “students were expected to show some sense and
act right” without being supervised or restricted by the school authorities (Betrayed 29).
TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB/UPN 1997–2003). Schol-

arship on Buffy has recognised the series as an astute commentary on
the adolescent experience of school as a hellish terrain of anxiety, exclu-
sion and fight for survival, where institutional learning is depicted as
oppressively hierarchical, restrictive, depersonalised, pointless and “vam-
piric”, and where truly valuable knowledge needs to be acquired outside
of classroom (Daspit 2003, 127–128; Fisher et al. 2008, 168; Jarvis
2001, 2005; Fudge 2009, 207–209; Little 2003). Authored by former
high school teacher P. C. Cast and her young adult daughter Kristin,
the House of Night and the Other World series offer similar criticism of
the “human” system of education. In Forgotten, vampire fledgling Kacie
describes American high school as “usually not much more than the insti-
tutionalization of a mind-numbing, racist, misogynistic shitshow”; and
none of the present vampire protagonists contradict her opinion (142).
Instead, they proceed to compare their own human high school expe-
rience with that of a House of Night, to the definite advantage of the
supernatural educational system (see e.g. Forgotten 142).
The vampire schooling, as emphasised in The Fledgling Handbook (a
companion volume to the series), promises young fledglings “education
that is thorough, dynamic and challenging”. Said to be rooted in the
European Renaissance movement, this system aims to ensure the harmo-
nious development of students’ bodies, spirits and minds (2010, 16). As
noticed by the narrating Zoey in the very first volume, most fledglings in
the Tulsa House of Night appear to be interested in their classes; the only
disengaged student is portrayed in highly negative terms and earns disap-
proval from both his teachers and classmates (Marked 137–139). As for
herself, the young heroine finds her vampire courses intriguing and illu-
minating, “the first sixty seconds of the first day” sufficient to captivate
her attention (Hunted 246). Displaying extensive knowledge and remark-
able didactic skills, the centuries-old teachers deliver fascinating lectures,
offer personal accounts of historical events, inspire interesting debates and
encourage hands-on experience.6
6 For instance, Professor Penthasilea remembers “tons of amazing details” about life in
the early 1900s (Hunted 246). Also, rather than only reading about bloodlust, fledglings
are allowed to experiment with blood-drinking from one another (Marked 130, 217,
240).
While independent, self-directed research often proves crucial to the

protagonists’ survival, the school-structured courses are neither point-
less nor unrelatable, but hold a significant practical value. Students are
encouraged to discuss the topics relevant to their everyday lives—love,
loss, identity transformations or unfamiliar cravings that are awakened
throughout the process of vampire maturation (see e.g. Destined 155).
The teachers firmly enforce the rule of mutual respect during discus-
sions, grant everyone an equal voice and immediately correct offensive
behaviour (see e.g. Destined 26). The school responds flexibly to the
fledglings’ needs, arranging individual tutorials and tailor-made courses
for those with special requirements and extraordinary powers (Fledgling
Handbook 17; Marked 241). As one of the teachers declares, “I’m here
to hone and guide you on a journey that is as rare and unique as are
each of you” (Destined 201). When in the fifth volume, Hunted, the
classes turn dreary all of a sudden and students are required to perform
tasks characteristic of the human rather than the vampire system of educa-
tion (such as filling in “totally boring” grammar worksheets), the change
is swiftly explained by an evil enchantment that is soon to be broken
(Hunted 245). It is hardly unanticipated, then, that the narrating heroine
enjoys her new academic life at the House of Night and favours it over the
tedious and tiresome schoolwork she had to endure as a human: “Was it
possible that this vamp school would actually be more than a boring place
I went to every day because I had to…?” (Marked 137).7 This sentiment
is apparently shared by other vampire students, as The Fledgling Hand-
book informs us; for instance, while all fledglings have unrestricted access
to movies and video-games in their dorms, they are said to have little
7 The House of Night curriculum and learning culture have been noticed and appre-
ciated by the series’ fans, who have favourably compared Zoey’s vampire school to their
own experiences with school-structured learning. The readers’ approval could be exem-
plified through the posts on both English- and Polish-language House of Night-related
fora. For instance, Ravenna in lubimyczytać.pl emphasises that “[t]he fledglings have
heaps of awesome classes at school, much better than ours” (2011, March 27. Accessed
April 22, 2020. http://lubimyczytac.pl/ksiazka/10572/naznaczona/opinia/1680269#
opinia1680269). kayrose (sic) further expresses a wish to attend the courses at the House
of Night, as “they sound way more interesting than my current school requirements”
(2009, October 23. Accessed April 23, 2018. http://houseofnight.niceboard.org/t1607-
if-you-could-go-to-the-hon-what-teacher-would-you-want); a desire shared by Gość, who
declares: “I wish I could have the same classes as Zoey” (2009. “Naznaczona: Pierwsze
Wrażenia”, December 31. Accessed April 22, 2020. http://www.domnocy.fora.pl/naznac
zona,8/pierwsze-wrazenia,4-15.html).
interest in such entertainment, enthusiastically engaging instead in the

school’s curricular and extra-curricular activities (17).
The House of Night programme is primarily formulated around the
humanities and artistic fields: languages, history, literature, theatre, music
and art, along with vampire sociology and various sports (Marked 71,
116). As emphasised by Roy Fisher, Ann Harris and Christine Jarvis,
popular culture frequently constructs “the creative and imaginative”
classes as able to inspire and change the lives of even the most disengaged
students. Such constructions can be read as an expression of social anxi-
eties about “the failure of the technical-rational curriculum to engage our
hearts and souls and develop fully rounded human beings” (2008, 175–
176). In the third volume of the Other World series, Forgotten, school-
structured learning, and creative subjects in particular, are discussed as
holding a therapeutic value. The red vampires and fledglings—a special
“race” of supernaturals newly turned from flesh-eating zombies into a
“regular” (and thus, humanised) vampire species—are ordered to return
to school, where no less than five classes are being tailored to their special
needs. Having regained their conscience, the new vampires despair over
the evil deeds which they committed in the past; classes in art, writing
and vampire rituals are to help them exorcise their sense of guilt and heal
depression and suicidal tendencies (118–119).
Remarkably, the programme of the House of Night offers a distinctly
feminist perspective. Set in a vampire world that is narrated as strongly
matriarchal, vampire schools clearly aim to reappropriate and subvert
historical and mythological narratives which denigrate or monstrosise
women. The very first lesson that Zoey attends begins with a debate on
the society of female “ancient vampyre warriors” Amazons. The emphasis
of the lecture is placed on the Amazons’ matriarchal constitution and
undeserved “mythical image” as being hostile to men (Marked 123–
125). In the following volume, Betrayed, Zoey relates an essay assignment
on the figure of Gorgon. As the heroine learns in class, Gorgon was
a powerful vampire High Priestess, recast as a man-hurting monster
in a human-produced myth. The students’ homework is to discover
the reasons behind Gorgon’s “fictionalization” (25–26)—a task clearly
designed to reveal the misogynist undertones of popular narratives that
vilify powerful female figures. Similarly, when Zoey’s friend Damien
compares a mean girl to a viper, he is reminded that they have learnt in
class that snakes were traditionally considered a symbol of female power.
As such, they have been monstrosised by “men [who] wanted to take
that power away … and make it something disgusting and scary instead”
(Betrayed 38).
In the House of Night, even sports classes can serve as a space of
education in feminism and gender equality; for instance, Zoey’s first
fencing training begins with the instructor describing it as a discipline in
which “women and men can compete on entirely equal terms” (Marked
143). Furthermore, as an institution established within the frames of a
culture that prides itself on its equality-based approach towards sexuality,
the programme of the House of Night includes thorough sex education.
Although unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases are ruled
out by vampiric biological constitution, young fledglings are instructed on
other aspects of sex, like the value of consent or the risks and pleasures of
drinking another person’s blood. The feminist-oriented curriculum and
matriarchal structure of the school are reflected also in the decoration
of school buildings, with the walls of the female dorms adorned with
portraits of “ancient women … exotic and powerful” (Marked 74). Above
all, however, these are both illustrated and reinforced by the vampiric cult
of a female divinity, the Goddess of Night Nyx, that unites students and
teachers in worship rituals8 —the whole school milieu designed to project
a seemingly unambiguous message of women’s power.
There is, however, a rather conspicuous deficiency in the House of
Night’s otherwise carefully composed curriculum; those interested in
mathematics, science or technology have little to do at the school.
While various introductory and advanced STEM courses are listed in The
Fledgling Handbook, including Anatomy, Quantum Physics, Computer
Sciences or Botany (16), STEM-related classes are noticeably absent from
the fledglings’ schedules, unavailable even as electives (see e.g. Marked
116) and hardly ever surfacing in the storyline.9 The education system of
8 The cult of the Goddess and obligatory participation in her worship are certainly a
topic ripe for future research. While the series recurrently criticises fundamental Christian
movements as oppressive and discriminative against women, little explanation is offered
regarding the experiences of previously religious students who, upon entering the House
of Night, choose or are forced to abandon their former faith.
9 Two exceptions include brief references to economics (Marked 117) and to a business
class in the schedule of one of the protagonists (Destined 236). However, while other
classes are often described in detail, these two are mentioned in passing and never come
up again.
the matriarchal vampiric society clearly celebrates the subjects tradition-

ally aligned with femininity (see e.g. Archer et al. 2012, 976; 2013, 182),
placing little value on the fields socially coded as male.
6.2 Slamming the Math Book Shut:

Supernatural Girls and STEM Education
In “Programs for Undergraduate Women in Science and Engineering”,
Mary Frank Fox, Gerhard Sonnert and Irina Nikiforova identify science
as “a revealing case for the study of gender in society” (2011, 591).
As scientific fields tend to be associated with authority, prestige and the
power to define the future directions of social development, the gendering
of scientific careers and skills operates to reinforce hierarchical struc-
tures in the society (Fox et al. 2011, 591). Despite the rising numbers
of women pursuing jobs in science, technology, engineering and math-
ematics (STEM), the identification of STEM as a masculine territory
remains strong, and women continue to be underrepresented in STEM
career programmes (Francis 2000a; Archer et al. 2012; Jowett 2007;
Boaler and Sengupta-Irving 2006).
The highly controversial—and indeed, obsolete—notion of inherent
differences between men and women which are to result in men’s “nat-
ural” superiority at scientific subjects persistently reappears in public
discourses, as exemplified by the infamous speech delivered by the pres-
ident of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers.10 Despite the growing
trend towards encouraging girls to enter STEM fields, these ideas often
become internalised in early adolescence, resulting in diminished confi-
dence among female students and the steering of girls away from investing
in science education (Kuriloff et al. 2017, 140; Harris 2004, 99).
As Louise Archer et al. (2012, 2013) observe, girls are typically less
expected than boys to demonstrate intellectual ability and interest in
science by both peers and significant adults. Science-aspirant identity is
largely perceived as “unfeminine”, and consequently likely to present
social risks for female students (Archer and DeWitt 2016, ch. 6; Steinke
et al. 2007, 37; Archer et al. 2012, 978). These factors engender and
10 In 2005, at the NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science and Engineering

Workforce, Lawrence Summers publicly suggested that “innate differences” rather than
structural discrimination may be responsible for fewer women than men being in STEM-
related careers (Bombardieri 2005; Inness 2007, 3).
reinforce the discrepancies between boys’ and girls’ attitudes towards

science, producing gender inequalities and feeding into one of the key
impediments to women’s success in STEM—differences in exposure to
stimulating activities and training (Archer et al. 2012; Archer and DeWitt
2016, ch. 6; Jowett 2007, 33; Boaler and Sengupta-Irving 2006).
As one of the major factors that impact young people’s perceptions of
science and academics (Steinke et al. 2007), popular culture often partic-
ipates in creating structural limitations for girls to excel in fields socially
delineated as masculine.11 As Rachel Dean-Ruzicka asserts in her study on
girl geniuses in young adult dystopian fiction, encouraging role models—
sought both in life and symbolic spaces—are essential for young women’s
successful participation in STEM-related fields (2016 [2014], 51). In
this context, the persistent scarcity of positive, multidimensional female
scientist characters in popular culture, and in particular in texts marketed
to young consumers, limits the exposure of adolescent girls to symbolic
STEM professional role models. This may, in turn, exert an adverse effect
on their perceptions of their future career opportunities (Steinke et al.
2012; Long et al. 2010; Haynes 2017; Dean-Ruzicka 2016 [2014], 51).
In recent years, a discernible shift has occurred in the cultural portrayals
of women scientists who increasingly refuse to accept stereotypical gender
scripts. Popular culture, however, still abounds in representations that are
likely to discourage girls’ interest in STEM, including the depictions of
female scientists as lacking social skills and unable to form successful rela-
tionships and families (Long et al. 2010; Steinke et al. 2012; Steinke
2005; Flicker 2003; Jowett 2007; Haynes 2017, ch. 17).
The imagery of STEM as an “unfeminine” territory has a strong pres-
ence in the House of Night and House of Night: Other World novels, with
many girl characters demonstrating limited interest and competence in
STEM-related areas. Indeed, one of the first things that readers discover
about the central heroine Zoey Redbird is that she is “crappy at math”
(Marked 2). In the opening pages of the first volume, Zoey expresses
anxiety about the impending “geometry test from hell” and with a grim
sense of humour hopes to die before having to take it (Marked 2, 5).
Marked as a vampire fledgling, the heroine considers escaping the dreaded
11 The 1992 Teen Talk Barbie, programmed to say “Math class is tough”, is often
cited as a blatant example. The heated debate that followed forced Mattel to remove the
disputed phrase from the doll’s repertoire and strive to reduce the harmful stereotyping
in subsequent Barbie models (Company News 1992; Hill 2013).
exam as an unexpected benefit of the otherwise traumatic transition into

the vampire world (Marked 7; cf. Tempted 296). Zoey’s difficulties with
scientific subjects are further revealed when she struggles to recollect
several basic facts about adolescent development discussed in her biology
class, and is excessively pleased with herself for half-succeeding in this
endeavour (Marked 26–27).
Although at the beginning of the story Zoey aspires to become a veteri-
narian (Marked 8, 118; Betrayed, 116–117), she is clearly relieved that
her new supernatural school does not require credits in science (Marked
116–117). Other girl characters in the series are similarly presented as
“math-impaired” and incompetent at technology (Marked 2; cf. Untamed
238). Neither Zoey nor her best friend Stevie Rae are aware of the
existence of disposable cell phones and do not understand that regular
phone calls can be tracked. Zoey herself readily admits that she knows
“nothing about electronics” (Untamed 238), and finds it easier to cast
an enchanted circle than to synchronise her iPhone with a new computer
(Destined 29). As a result, girls are often led through the arcana of tech-
nology by their male friends and partners, who in contrast are blessed with
nearly magical technological expertise (see e.g. Betrayed 93; Tempted 246;
Burned 212).12 Reinforcing the imagery of STEM-related fields as unin-
teresting for women, none of the adult vampresses in the series hold a
position connected to science. STEM teachers never appear in the books
and even those who work in infirmaries are healers with Goddess-sent
powers rather than medically trained professionals, leaving girls with no
female role models engaged in scientific careers.
Unlike the students of the House of Night, the vampires and dhampirs
of Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy are required to enrol in a number
of STEM courses, including biology, calculus and “Animal Behavior and
Physiology” (VA 26, 46, 99). The latter is, in fact, the favourite subject
of the leading dhampir heroine Rose Hathaway—one that inspires her to
carry out independent studies and additional reading (VA 166; FB 59,
120). Nevertheless, in the cinematic version of the story, Rose assigns
12 Similar gendered representations of attitudes towards technology have been noticed

by Dean-Ruzicka in her analysis of Hunger Games, a YA dystopian literary series authored
by Suzanne Collins. Dean-Ruzicka observes that the central heroine Katniss avoids techno-
logical solutions, relying on her feelings and instincts (typically coded as feminine traits),
while her friend Gale demonstrates a “natural” penchant for technology (2016 [2014],
55).
science and math to the category of “boring stuff” (Waters 2014). In

her literary persona, she is enrolled into Precalculus, which she defines
as “Stupid Math”, referring to its participants’ low level of competence
(VA 26, 46). She also spends her math study time psychically spying on
her vampire best friend, princess Lissa Dragomir, only to use the math
textbook as an outlet for her frustration over Lissa’s secrets: “I sat on the
floor staring at my math book. Then … I slammed it shut and threw it
against the wall” (VA 108–114).
Rose is not the only girl in Mead’s fictional universe who appears
disinterested in mathematics; however, a number of other young female
characters of various backgrounds and species are narrated as invested in
STEM. The adolescent vampress Lissa attends Advanced Calculus (VA
46); a human student, Kristin, is sufficiently competent to serve as a math
tutor (IS 128); Wendy Stone, a marginal human character, studies engi-
neering (IS 147); and vampire Sonya Karp has an education in biology
(SS 128). The narrative of girls’ STEM skills and aspirations becomes
most engaging—and fascinatingly ambiguous—in the story of Sydney
Sage in Mead’s Bloodlines . Designated from an early age to join the ranks
of the Alchemists, a clandestine society devoted to concealing vampires’
existence from humans, Sydney has received a superb education in all
subjects required to perform this work, particularly chemistry (see e.g.
BL loc. 1251). When in the course of a secret mission, the previously
home-schooled eighteen-year-old heroine enrols in an elite boarding high
school under the guise of a student, her knowledge clearly surpasses any
curriculum requirements. With her lavishly equipped private chemistry set
and superior scientific competence, Sydney proves to be equally capable
of disintegrating vampire corpses, dissolving locks, treating her fellow
students’ acne and winning a mini-golf tournament with no previous
experience:
My first few attempts were pretty bad, but I soon understood the weight
of the club and how the angles on each course could be maneuvered. From
there, it was pretty simple to calculate distance and force to make accurate
shots. (BL loc. 2381–2383; see also loc. 1258, 1262, 2977–3009, 3011,
3015, 3169, 3174)13
13 She also figures out how to dance through realising that following rhythm is “just
kind of mathematical” (GL 227).
In light of the scarcity of young female characters truly fascinated with

STEM subjects (Dean-Ruzicka 2016 [2014], 55), Sydney is an extraor-
dinary figure. As Dean-Ruzicka observes, in popular culture female
scientists’ skills are often portrayed as inborn, inherited or bestowed
by supernatural forces—a construction that presents their STEM-related
competence as independent of individual efforts and learning (2016
[2014], 56, 64). Taking as an example Philip Reeve’s novel Fever Crumb
and Phil and Kaja Foglio’s web comic Girl Genius, Dean-Ruzicka notes
that their heroines “exhibit an almost entire lack of agency in their early
engineering experiences”, their genius inventions created in an uncon-
scious, somnambulant state (2016 [2014], 68, 71). A similar construction
of knowledge as something that is given rather than actively acquired
emerges in the House of Night series. For instance, when a young
vampress with a magical connection to earth is tending to the injuries
of her fallen enemy,
… she really didn’t know how she knew the moss was good for his
wounds—it was just one of the snatches of information she’d get from
time to time—out of nowhere. One second she wouldn’t have a clue about
something. The next she’d be sure of how to, well, plug up a wound for
instance. She wanted to believe it was Nyx whispering to her … but the
truth was, Stevie Rae didn’t know for sure. (Tempted 53, 58)
Rather than in the hours spent at the library, Stevie Rae’s botanical and
medical expertise is rooted in divine grace and her affiliation for the
element of earth. In Mead’s Bloodlines , however, Sydney achieves her
knowledge thanks to her passion for science and diligent study. Raised
to consider herself a scientist, the heroine is fascinated with “human
ingenuity” in technology and engineering (“Who needed magic when
we could create these kinds of wonders?”; GL 121). She also demon-
strates an impressive competence in computer science and motorisation,
and employs logic, mathematics and chemical formulas to manage crises
and the everyday alike. This scientific approach to the surrounding reality
is the primary source of her self-confidence and her sense of safety. There-
fore, it is hardly unanticipated when her rational mind reacts with shock
and panic to witnessing an act of vampire magic: “Stark, cold fear ran
through me, fear of the unknown. The unnatural. The laws of my world
had just been broken. This was … something foreign and … forbidden,
something no mortal was meant to delve into” (BL loc. 2467).
Sydney fears and despises magic. Therefore, she feels betrayed when
her history teacher and practising witch tricks her into learning spells
and producing an enchanted amulet (BL loc. 5261–5295). As the story
progresses, however, magic becomes a source of joy and empowerment
for the young heroine as she gradually embraces her supernatural witch-
identity. Along this inner journey, Sydney’s relation with science becomes
increasingly ambiguous. Although at times she substitutes scientific solu-
tions with spells and enchanted objects, her “conventional” education still
proves crucial at times of dire need. In fact, her competence in STEM
enhances and complements Sydney’s magical abilities as her analytical
mind and comprehensive knowledge enable her to prepare impeccable
charms and perfect concoctions. For instance, searching for a magical
formula that would deactivate the spell of her Alchemist tattoo, the
heroine taps into her expertise in chemistry and geology. She explains the
process to her vampire boyfriend Adrian, bringing up “[b]oleite’s cubic
crystals and isometric system” and its “specific gravity and perfect cleav-
age” as “an excellent medium to suspend the four elements in a way that
could be held in the skin and negate any added … magic”; a statement
to which stunned Adrian mentally replies: “The only part of that I under-
stood was ‘perfect cleavage,’ but I had a feeling we weren’t thinking of
the same thing” (FH 71–72).
Sydney is fascinated with science; yet STEM education is also revealed
to have been an instrument of oppression in her life. Early in the story the
reader discovers that the young heroine has been prevented from pursuing
her passionate interests in art, architecture and ancient history, as they
were deemed of little value to the Alchemists’ mission (BL loc. 317–331,
498, 4057–4071; GL 54–55, 303). Instead, she has been urged to study
science under the harsh guidance of her cold-hearted father, their lessons
epitomising their strained relationship and her difficult childhood. As
the heroine reminisces, “[w]hen other kids were practicing alphabet, my
father was grilling me with acid and base flash cards” (BL, loc. 2025)—a
memory that leads her to the conclusion that her early years were “more
focused on chemical equations than on fun” (BL loc. 2380–2381; cf. BL
loc.1245–1253).
Only after freeing herself from her father’s tyranny and overcoming
the paralysing fear of the non-scientific instilled in her by the Alchemists
does Sydney become capable of discovering her innermost self. Coun-
terbalancing her intellectual identity with magic, Sydney manages to
release her long-suppressed feminine side. Consequently, she deflects
from her socially lacking scientist persona—one that finds “numbers and
formulas … comforting, far more concrete and orderly than the mysteries
of social interaction” (GL 73), and achieves happiness in witchcraft,
friendship, romance and art studies. The supernatural becomes ultimately
valorised over science when Sydney rebels against the Alchemists and
resorts to magic to escape and defeat them. When in Silver Shadows
the heroine eventually becomes confined in their high-tech prison
called “re-education centre”, she is subjected to a meticulously devel-
oped programme of torture in which scientific methods and chemical
substances are employed to brainwash and torment disobedient members.
Grace Sheridan, Sydney’s bane and antithesis who is in charge of the
programme, finds delight in the suffering of others, clearly impersonating
the “mad scientist” stereotype and hardly inviting wishful identification.14
Furthermore, STEM expertise of other female characters in Vampire
Academy and Bloodlines , like Sonya, Lissa or Kristin, often comes across
as secondary to such skills and talents as the ability to wield magical spirit,
athleticism or social competences and, as such, is often only mentioned
in passing.
Lacking positive role models, feeling inadequate at scientific subjects
or forced into studying them at the expense of their true interests, none
of the central heroines in the series resolve to pursue a STEM-related
career. Sydney chooses to renounce the Alchemists and follows her heart’s
desire to study ancient art and work at a museum. Rose fulfils her lifelong
ambition to become a guardian, and Lissa successfully competes for the
vampire royal throne. Early in the House of Night series, Zoey Redbird
abandons her aspirations for a career in veterinary medicine and readily
accepts her new professional path as a vampire High Priestess—one that
involves spiritual rather than academic quests and where science education
would be of no use.
6.3 Miss (Im)Perfect Schoolgirl:

Girls and Academic (Dis)Engagement
Although Zoey is described as “the most gifted fledgling in history”
(Untamed 252), it soon becomes evident that it is the grace of the
14 Wishful identification involves the audience’s desire to become similar to a fictional

character (Steinke et al. 2012, 166).
Goddess rather than the heroine’s intellectual efforts that ensures her
success at school. Despite her initial fascination with the House of Night
curriculum, the young vampress is far from being a diligent student.
While on several occasions she emphasises the importance of grades and
attending classes regularly (Marked 8, 148, Betrayed 68, Tempted 223),
she invests little time in studying, and soon finds herself struggling with
more than just mathematics. The heroine refers to her schoolwork as
“awful”, confusing, “so far over my head that it could roost” or “insanely
too hard” (Hunted 245–246), fails to recognise allusions to famous
literary works (Untamed 165) and often feels astonished with the infor-
mation readily available in her textbooks: “I blinked in surprise … I mean,
was this … stuff even covered in The Fledgling Handbook? Guess I’d
have to read the darn thing more carefully” (Hunted 143; cf. Tempted
26). Although Zoey emphasises that she is careful not to fall behind
in her classes and to hand in her homework on time (Betrayed 69), on
more than one occasion she refers to missed readings and undone assign-
ments, and finds it difficult to complete even the essays which clearly
stir her interest.15 While the heroine is asked to transfer into the upper
level of Vampyre Sociology already in the first volume, this change is
due to her accelerated development as a vampire fledgling—particularly
her prematurely emerging appetite for blood—rather than her academic
performance (Marked 241).16 Thus, what may be considered an academic
success becomes divorced from her individual agency. Zoey often invokes
her academic deficiencies when characterising herself, marking them as an
important part of her identity: “I’m a kid. Seventeen. Barely. I’m crappy at
geometry. My Spanish sucks” (Awakened 18–19; cf. Destined 10). Even-
tually, even Zoey’s best friend expresses frustration over her academic
incompetence: “Z, not to be mean or anything, but don’t you ever do
any homework?” (Tempted, 213).
Following the pattern set by the leading heroine, a number of other
girl vampire fledglings are portrayed as disengaged from school-structured
15 For instance, in spite of being interested in the character of Gorgon, the heroine
finds herself too agitated to write the essay, and procrastinates on the work for which she
has “all weekend” (Betrayed 26; cf. Tempted 214).
16 Similarly, the heroine is transferred to an upper level of literature, Spanish and drama
class due to the changes in her schedule rather than her academic success (Untamed 190;
Hunted 245).
learning and underperforming academically.17 With the exception of

Zoey and Equestrian Studies, a horse-riding course that requires phys-
ical dexterity and emotional engagement rather than academic effort,
none of the girl protagonists excel in any subjects. On frequent occa-
sions and with little concern, they skip school, and when they attend, they
are often distracted by gossip and flirting (see e.g. Untamed 199, 208,
224; Revealed 210; Marked 94, 105, 117). Even their choice of elective
subjects is not always grounded in interest, as illustrated by Zoey’s friends
Shaunee and Erin, who enrol in a poetry class in order to spend time with
a handsome teacher (Betrayed 498, 501).18
In the Q&A section in House of Night: Other World, the series’ author
Kristin Cast confesses to her “deep loathing for school” (Lost loc. 6150,
6164), declaring that was she able to go back in time, she would advise
her younger self to drop out of college (Found loc. 5788). Aware that her
statement might raise controversies, she still deems the pursuit of a college
degree not worth the effort and money, and describes herself as “saved”
from “a soul-sucking higher learning institution” by her career as a writer
(loc. 6150, 6164). Although in House of Night women who neglect their
education are on one occasion called “silly” (Chosen 75), none of the
main female characters enrol in college after graduation. Girl fledglings
spend time contemplating their professional futures and are prepared to
invest a certain effort into realising their goals (see e.g. Burned 156).
Their careers, however, are founded on the powers and talents given
by the Goddess, and require kindness, strength and religious devotion
rather than intellectual growth or a college degree (see e.g. Awakened 18–
19). Consequently, many girl protagonists readily admit that they despise
studying and perceive school as “stupid” or “an excellent fashion parade”
17 One of the few female protagonists to exhibit some academic application is Zoey’s
friend Stevie Rae. Stevie Rae appears to have interest in vampire history, politics and
literature (Tempted, 212, 214; Burned 23, 24, 68; Awakened 174), although she still
confuses Scotland with Ireland (“Aren’t they kinda the same thing?”; Burned 92). Partic-
ularly in the later volumes, Stevie Rae seems unabashed about her academic engagement,
encourages her female friends to read more and declares that she likes school (Destined 7;
Tempted 169). She also occasionally serves, along with her friend Jack, as an interpreter
of advanced words which her female friends do not understand.
18 Other examples involve a student named Becca, who is portrayed as distracted during
a lecture “by her need to stare” at a good-looking drama teacher (Untamed 190). Zoey
herself spends a class admiring a handsome male student rather than learning (Marked
129).
rather than as a space of acquiring knowledge (Burned 89; Destined 10,

134).19 This narrative recurs throughout both the original and the sequel
series; when in Forgotten the body of the young fledgling Kacie rejects
vampiric transformation, her High Priestess comforts the dying girl with
the vision of the afterlife in which there is no school (155). Revived
in the later volume as a fully developed vampire, Kacie is pleased that
her unexpected demise and vampirisation delivered her from most of her
educational commitments (“Oh, I … don’t like school. Thankfully that
was cut short by my dying”; Found loc. 3329).
These sentiments are to a certain extent shared by dhampir Rose
in Vampire Academy. Already as a five-year old, Rose proves to be
a recalcitrant student, who disregards teachers and has little interest
in academic work. Her negative attitude towards classroom learning
is vividly illustrated by her violent reaction to an unwelcome spelling
assignment:
Forcing five-year-olds to spell Vasilisa Dragomir and Rose Hathaway was

beyond cruel, and … [I’d] responded appropriately. I’d chucked my book
at our teacher and called her a fascist bastard. I hadn’t known what those
words meant, but I’d known how to hit a moving target. (VA 7–8)
As a teenager, Rose continues to frequently get in trouble with

school authorities and teachers, many of whom she holds in withering
contempt.20 She drops out of school twice, cuts classes to drink alcohol
in the woods (VA 130) and picks fights or “spaces out” during lectures
19 Paradoxically, nearly all the girl protagonists featured in the original House of Night
series become teachers straight after high school in House of Night: Other World. Even
those who have underperformed academically and openly expressed their aversion to book
learning eventually decide to join the faculty at various Houses of Night. In this light, a
teaching career comes across as disconnected from formal education or specialist knowl-
edge as it is narrated as being based on inborn or magically gifted talents and a person’s
readiness to work with young people.
20 While a detailed analysis of the portrayals of teachers in YA vampire texts falls beyond
the scope of this chapter, it is worth mentioning that in the first volumes of Vampire
Academy, teachers are often depicted as harsh, negligent and unfair, with their didactic
skills and personal conduct leaving much to be desired. A few examples include Mr. Nagy,
an alcoholic who enjoys embarrassing his students by reading their private notes in front
of their classmates (VA 126–128; 202); the rude and obnoxious Stan Alto, who sprays
spit while yelling at the students (VA 30–34); or the mentally unstable Ms. Karp, who
chooses to turn into an undead murderess (VA 236).
(VA 71, 176). Much like her vampire peers in the House of Night, the
heroine feels an intense dislike towards books and studying, and generally
attempts to avoid libraries (VA 197; LS loc. 2223). In fact, her best friend
Lissa jokingly claims that the idea of Rose reading is just as astounding
as the discovery of the fifth magical element, spirit, a revelation that is
to revolutionise the vampire world: “I don’t know what’s crazier: what
you’re actually telling me [about spirit] or the fact that you actually read
something to find all this out” (VA 218–219). Rose’s lacklustre academic
performance is noted by both her teachers and friends, as illustrated by
her conversation with young dhampir Mason:
Mason: “You probably need some primary sources …”

Rose: “Primary what?”
He scoffed, a smile breaking over his face. “Do you do
anything [in class] but pass notes? We just talked about them
the other day …”
“Huh. Okay. What are you, like, a boy genius now?”
… “I pay attention, that’s all” (VA 136).
Throughout the story, Rose’s aversion to school-structured learning

is, however, balanced by the academic engagement of her best friend,
vampire Lissa, another central (if somewhat less vibrant) girl character of
the series. Lissa truly enjoys studying, “[a]cing every test” (SK 318) and
spending much time in the library, for which Rose calls her affection-
ately “Miss All-Study-and-No-Play” or “nerd” (SS 57; SK 203). Even
during their nearly two-year-long escape from St. Vladimir’s Academy,
the vampire princess passes her time sneaking into college classes and
summer courses in drama, history and political science (FJVD 404, 407,
415)—the subjects that will prepare her for her future role in the vampire
society.
Stunningly beautiful and popular with her peers, princess Dragomir is,
however, as far as can be from a stereotypical nerd-figure. She pursues
her educational plans with courage and determination while maintaining
a successful social and romantic life and managing her mental illness. In
exchange for a chance to attend a prestigious university, she even chooses
to surrender to the wishes of the vampire queen Tatiana and assumes
unwelcome duties at her court (SK 202–204). Having succeeded Tatiana
on the vampire throne in the final volume of the series, Last Sacrifice, Lissa
strives to divide her time between obligations of state and her studies,
refusing to abandon her intellectual pursuits and emphasising the value of
a comprehensive education in her new leadership role (SS 57).
Remarkably, while resistant to book learning Rose is as fiercely
committed to preparing for her career of choice as her royal best friend.
As she herself declares, she “burns” to become an accomplished guardian
(VA 138), and willingly gives up her personal time and other interests in
order to train and hone her skills. She leaves the school twice; on both
occasions, however, she has a crucial (if unauthorised) guardian mission to
fulfil. Even when on a break from school, however, the heroine continues
to develop her interests in human colleges, for example joining classes
on weapons and warfare in ancient Greece and China (FJVD 411, 415).
Eventually, despite her inconsistent school record, Rose graduates at the
top of her dhampir class, leaving her teachers, friends and family dazzled
with her performance in the final tests (SB 30–31). While her vampire
peers at the House of Night are both destined and magically equipped by
the Goddess to obtain their prestigious positions in the vampire society,
Rose relentlessly pursues her professional goals and is prepared for consid-
erable personal sacrifices to meet and exceed her school’s requirements for
dhampir students.
The dynamics between young femininity and academic excellence
are most thoroughly discussed in the Vampire Academy’s sequel Blood-
lines. A large part of the plot is located at the academically competitive
Amberwood Preparatory School, which unaware humans attend along-
side vampires, dhampirs, vampire hunters and witches (BL loc. 1230).
The importance of education is repeatedly emphasised in the series, and
most protagonists (come to) appreciate their educational opportunities.
The reckless and blasé alcoholic vampire Adrian finds joy and purpose in
studying art and at the end of Bloodlines he fully intends to complete
his bachelor’s degree (RC, Epilogue). Despite having severe difficulties
with learning and adjusting to classroom routines, the wild and unruly
dhampir Angeline chooses to stay at school throughout the summer in
order to enhance her chances to graduate. Angeline comes to believe that
a thorough education will make her a better guardian, and the vampire
queen herself agrees to pay for her school in appreciation of her services
(RC 193). Burning for more knowledge and with her college aspirations
effectively sabotaged by her father, Sydney Sage (nomen omen) enthusi-
astically embraces the chance to go back to high school and be “around
those who knew more and had something to teach me” (BL loc. 499).
Sydney considers it “both startling and luxurious” that instead of studying

secretly and/or in her leisure time, she can officially attend classes (BL
loc. 1230). The heroine’s very identity is defined through her passion for
learning (see e.g. FH 14), and it is this passion that finally convinces her to
join a witch coven. As her magic teacher reassures her, “[y]ou’re swearing
yourself to the magic … To the pursuit of its knowledge and using it for
good in the world. It’s a scholar’s vow, really. Seems like something you
should be on board with” (FH 25).
The construction of the heroine as deeply invested in academic
studies undermines and reverses the oft-repeated formula of a well-versed,
knowledge-hungry male vampire and his less educated or intellectually
inferior girlfriend. This unequal script has been pointed out in relation
to the best-selling Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, with the focus on
the lack of academic aspirations displayed by the central female protag-
onist Bella Swan (see e.g. Crossen 2015; Buttsworth 2010). An avid
reader, Bella appears to be doing well at school and initially intends to
go to college; yet she is never shown to consider any specific programme.
Moreover, the heroine abandons her academic dreams with little regret
in order to become the undead bride of her vampire boyfriend Edward
and the mother to their child.21 Following a similar scenario, Sofia Clare-
mont, in Bella Forrest’s A Shade of the Vampire series, chooses to leave the
human world behind and return to a secret vampire island. Sofia rejoins
the vampire prince Derek whom she loves and becomes a vampire queen,
dropping out of high school and quitting her plan to apply to Harvard
and pursue a degree in law (SoB, loc. 879, 900, 993). Thus, rather
than realising their academic and professional aspirations, the heroines
of both Meyer’s and Forrest’s series choose to assume traditional female
familial roles, prioritising romance and marriage over education. Other
human heroines in vampire fiction also experience (constant or occa-
sional) troubles with school-structured learning. Sookie Stackhouse of the
horror-paranormal romance series The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Harris
2001–2013) is incapable of furthering her education, distracted by her
telepathic (dis)ability to hear other people’s thoughts (DUD 28, 58–59).
The televised version of The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017), in turn, opens
with the female lead Elena Gilbert being scolded in her history class
21 In turn, Edward is narrated as a highly educated man, proficient, among other

things, in science, literature, languages and music, and deeply devoted to the pursuit of
knowledge.
for failing to provide a correct answer (“Pilot” S1E1). In contrast, the

knowledge of vampire Stefan Salvatore, Elena’s boyfriend-to-be, clearly
surpasses that of their history teacher’s (“Pilot” S1E1).22
In Mead’s Bloodlines , however, it is Sydney’s vampire boyfriend Adrian
who constantly struggles at school and repeatedly drops out of college,
and who would not have been able to complete his first year without
the assistance of Sydney and their friends. At the same time, Sydney feels
prepared to “handle Amberwood’s academics in [her] sleep”, effortlessly
passing school tests in five foreign languages and demonstrating an aston-
ishing competence in the most advanced courses, to the extent that her
classmates erroneously believe that her knowledge has been enhanced
with magic (BL loc. 1054, 1589).
The character of Sydney is a welcome (if at times extreme) depar-
ture from popular images of academically inadequate girl protagonists.
However, while Sydney does not exhibit a traditional gender-stereotyped
academic identity, in the early volumes of the series she does display some
of the traits of the “nerd” archetype. For instance, she considers Latin
“fun”, which, in the eyes of her dhampir friend Eddie, marks her as more
peculiar than if she were a vampire (BL loc. 1590). Brilliant at schoolwork
and research, the heroine appears oblivious to the nuances of high school
social life, particularly romance (see e.g. GL 31–32). Her social incompe-
tence occasionally produces a comic effect; for instance, she is convinced
that her classmate wishes to discuss the merits of various cinema genres
with her while in reality he attempts to ask her out to the movies (BL
loc. 3011–3035). The heroine compares her state of being “a tangle of
nerves and fear” before her first date to the dread of going into an exam
unprepared—a feeling which she has known only from the accounts of
others (GL 77–78).
Sydney’s first experiences with high school academic etiquette are
equally confusing. Volunteering the correct answers in each and every
class, she finds herself wondering whether her behaviour is “normal”, and
worries that she might alienate and/or antagonise other students as a
show-off and a “freak” (BL loc. 1229–1236; 1589). Consequently, the
heroine considers “holding back” and “rationing herself” in revealing the
extent of her knowledge (BL loc. 1232, 1259). When teasingly asked by a
22 Sometimes, vampire fiction features well-educated vampire women; see e.g. the central
heroine of The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995), vampire Kathleen, who is a doctoral
student. For an analysis of The Addiction see McDermott and Daspit (2013, 231–246).
classmate whether she passes her leisure time splitting atoms, she deliber-
ately refrains from calling herself “smart” for fear of sounding egotistical.
“There’s nothing wrong with knowing things”, she retorts instead (BL
loc. 1593, 1595). Sydney further identifies the realisation “that people
don’t like to know how much you know” as the most important of her
high school lessons, and confesses that she deliberately “dumbs herself
down” in social interactions (GL 139–140).
6.4 Too Smart? Academic

Excellence and Popular Femininity
A girl character concealing her intellectual skills in order to gain social
acceptance is a well-rehearsed trope in popular culture.23 Fisher et al.
observe that “female nerds” are often portrayed as lacking social and
romantic skills, which position them outside the teen flick concepts of
successful girlhood (2008, 169). In Smart Girls: Success, School, and the
Myth of Post-Feminism, Shauna Pomerantz and Rebecca Raby trace the
cultural evolution of the “smart girl” figure in popular texts. From the
“nerdy loser” who futilely longs to be popular, through the makeover
stereotype of the 1990s with the girl’s identity shifting from the academic
into the hyper-feminine, the character of the smart young woman is
said to have reached the “post-nerd” stage of being both academically
accomplished and socially successful (2017, 61). The latter portrayal,
as Pomerantz and Raby assert, reflects the recent discursive shift in the
representations of girlhood, “suggesting that girls can, and perhaps even
should, be both conventionally beautiful and super smart” (2017, 61).
Many sociological studies, however, uncover the continuing tension
between popular feminine and academic identities. In her research on
negotiating young femininity and school achievement, Emma Renold
(2001) observed that participating schoolgirls “did not seem to desire
or position themselves as knowledgeable, academically interested and
motivated pupils, but instead feared and shied away from academic super-
success”, apprehensive of their peers’ negative reaction (580; cf. Francis
2000b, 118). Analogous tensions have been revealed over a decade later
23 See e.g. May (2008) on Debbie from Puberty Blues, or Fisher et al. (2008, 110), on
Cady from Mean Girls.
in research focused on STEM-aspirant girls. As Louise Archer et al. fore-

ground, young women participating in their study often felt compelled
“to balance their science aspirations with performances of popular hetero-
femininity”, engaging in complex identity negotiations in order to avoid
ostracism (Archer et al. 2012, 967; cf. Archer et al. 2013; Archer and
DeWitt 2016).24 Drawing on the interviews conducted with students
who self-identified as “smart”, Pomerantz and Raby further point to
the persistence of the binary opposition between popular girlhood and
academic investment experienced by high school students. For many
female participants in their project, “finding a place in peer culture meant
downplaying or hiding academic success” in order to avoid the label of
“too smart”, and thus “antisocial and undatable” (2017, 58, 59). An
alarming example corroborating these findings is offered in the study of
Delores D. Liston and Regina E. Moore-Rahimi. One of their intervie-
wees recalled that as a high school student she had experienced sexual
labels (such as “whore” or “slut”) as preferable to the ones branding
her as boringly studious (such as “nerd” or “geek”). This participant
was highly accomplished academically; yet she took pains to conceal this
fact from her friends (2012 [2005], 221–222). These and other studies
expose the uneasy dynamics between academic excellence and popular
girlhood, and the continuing opposition between “girly” and “clever”
identity performances in Western discourses (Renold and Allan 2006,
459, 461–463; Renold 2001, Archer et al. 2012, 2013).
The construction of popular girlhood as divorced from school-
structured learning finds a vivid reflection in House of Night. While
unapologetic about being “crap at school” (Hidden 89), young heroines
in the series occasionally express embarrassment over actually knowing
something. When her literature teacher asks a question about the history
of the Titanic, Zoey does not put her hand up until she is positive that
nobody else will. Having answered correctly, the heroine displays no sense
of satisfaction. Instead, she fears that she might be (mis)taken for “a
hopeless history nerd”, and is quick to explain that her knowledge stems
from her youthful infatuation with the male lead of the movie Titanic,
Leonardo DiCaprio, rather than from studying (Marked 135–136).25 In
24 Cf. Brickhouse et al. (2000), on girls’ positive identifications with science.

25 Cf. Pomerantz and Raby’s study, in which some of the female adolescent interviewees
admitted that they had refused to actively participate in class (e.g. asking questions or
volunteering answers) even though they had the competence to do so (2017, 65).
similar context, Zoey’s friend Aphrodite rushes to assure her friends that
she is “not Miss Perfect Schoolgirl” (Burned 82) and that she “tr[ies]
not to read too much” (Hidden 170). Other girl protagonists are just
as careful to avoid the label of “nerd” or “Perfect Student”, and do not
reveal their knowledge unless compelled to do so. “Okay, I’ll admit—
under duress—that I actually learned something last semester in Poetry
class. So sue me”, Zoey’s friend Erin states defensively after having deci-
phered a part of a prophetic poem (Untamed 233). Girls deemed “perfect
students”, such as fledgling Elizabeth, remain outside of the circle of main
protagonists and are considered as potential friends primarily for academic
help (“It never hurts to sit next to a smart kid”; Marked 128).26 Thus,
throughout the series an academically invested girlhood often comes
across as incongruent with the desired self of a glamorous, seductive,
fashion-loving and popular hyper-femininity. This conflict is symbolically
reflected in the opening volume when Zoey packs for her new life in
a vampire school. The heroine chooses to empty her backpack of all
“the school crap”—symbolically renouncing “the clever” and leaving her
academic aspirations behind—and fills it with clothes and beauty prod-
ucts, surrounding herself with accessories (stereo)typically associated with
femininity (Marked 23).
As Sherrie A. Inness notes, representing women “as sex symbols,
not rocket scientists” has a long history in popular culture. Despite the
growing number of compelling smart female characters, the figure of the
attractive “dumb blonde” continues to thrive. In contrast, “[desirable]
men are supposed to be smart, and it makes them more alluring, not less”
(2007, 2). Although in the House of Night series popular masculinity is
predominantly grounded in warriorship and physical stamina rather than
academic performance, male protagonists exhibit significantly broader
intellectual interests than girls, and comfortably occupy what Emma
Renold and Alexandra Allan have defined as a traditionally masculine
subject position of “clever” (2006, 467). Zoey’s vampire boyfriend Erik
Night is an avid reader, thoroughly educated in the field of drama
26 Although impressed with her performance in class and planning to benefit from
her knowledge, Zoey mocks Elizabeth, calling her “Ms Perfect Student” (Marked 131).
Elizabeth herself proves to be a figure of no consequence to the plot, an impression
reinforced by her non-existing surname (Marked 131). She enters the storyline only to
become the first victim of the rejection of Change (a fatal illness leading to a fledgling’s
death) and to be later resurrected into a zombie-like state and killed by the main heroine
(Betrayed 287).
and considered an acting genius (Untamed 192; Hunted 84). Zoey’s

human consort Heath Luck focuses on playing football and keeping his
grades up in order to win a college scholarship—and when he unexpect-
edly dies, his alter-ego from the Other World successfully continues to
pursue these dreams, following a clearly defined education and career path
(Found loc. 5623). Zoey’s friend, fledgling Damien Maslin is an academic
mastermind, “smart and a fast reader” and “seriously good at research”
(Chosen 74). Damien spends a considerable amount of time studying and
“remember[s] everything he read” (Betrayed 161). He finds in no time
the necessary information in school handbooks (“He paged through it
for, like, two seconds … and then handed me the open book”; Tempted
213) and excels, among other things, in English, literature, film studies,
vampire history and politics (see e.g. Hunted 51, Tempted 26).27 In the
House of Night series, even men who have chosen the career of warriors
prove to be well-versed in literature, history, politics, psychology and
vampiric traditions, and—while more often depicted with a weapon than
a book—in their leisure time they frequently occupy themselves with
reading.28
The stark contrast between girls’ and boys’ intellectual aspirations and
activities is often accentuated in the series. While Zoey’s friend Aphrodite
associates an old library with a smelly dungeon with “institutional décor
… suitable for either a prison or a hospital psych ward”, the same place
is considered “heaven” by the scholarly Damien (Burned 139). Similarly,
Zoey’s contribution to her literary discussion with Stark is neither very
27 Damien’s knowledge and academic competence surpass not only those of his peers
but sometimes those of his elders. For instance, in Burned he successfully disputes
the decisions of the Vampyre High Council referring to the vampire law system (75)
and displays an extraordinary ability to solve riddles and draw conclusions (Hunted
215; Burned 145). Remarkably, while his friends often benefit from Damien’s academic
diligence, they just as frequently mock it, calling him “Mr. Studious”, “Miss Perfect
Schoolgirl” or “Vocab Boy” (see e.g. Untamed 79, 92, 227; Burned 83; Marked 92),
comparing him to a teacher and “shut[ing] out” his “lectures” (Betrayed 163). This
appears to change in the sequel series, where Zoey declares her admiration for Damien’s
studiousness and his insatiable passion for “learning and growing” (Found loc. 794).
Damien’s academic excellence is combined with another marker of potential vulnerability
in the school milieu—a homosexual orientation; an intersection of precarious identities
that invites further research.
28 See e.g. Burned 88; Redeemed 184; Hunted 188–189; Tempted 158–159, 261. Also,
Dimitri of Vampire Academy recalls being an accomplished student and maintains his
passion for reading even after becoming an evil undead (VA 123; BP 308–309).
bright nor “book-smartish”, as the heroine admits herself (Tempted 261).

When Stark talks about The Chronicles of Narnia, Zoey is astonished that
he refers to the novels rather than the screen, and is unaware that there is
“way more than one Narnia book” until Stark explains this to her. Admit-
tedly, she becomes irritated when her boyfriend states that his favourite
author does not produce “chick books”, implying, somewhat dismissively,
that other kinds of literature are uninteresting for women (Tempted 261).
This scene presents a convenient occasion for the narrating heroine to
denounce the gendered division of literature into “manly books… for
guys and frilly, pointless, fluffy books… for girls” (Tempted 262) as misog-
ynistic and stereotypical. This critique, however, becomes undermined
by the representation of the central female characters as not particularly
interested in reading at all.
The disparate portrayal of men’s and women’s intellectual endeav-
ours is further accentuated in the antithetical construction of the two
Vampyre Poet Laureates—adult vampire Loren Blake and girl fledgling
Kramisha. The depiction of their creative processes reflects the traditional
opposition between the intellect and emotions, historically assigned to,
respectively, manhood and womanhood. While both Kramisha and Loren
write excellent poetry and are much admired by their readers, Loren care-
fully composes his writing, aware of different forms and formats, and
demonstrating competence in the history of literature (see e.g. Chosen
50). In contrast, Kramisha writes in a semi-conscious state or receives
her poems in a dream as they are typically Goddess-sent warnings. The
heroine does not need to invest intellectual effort into her work, nor does
she require any particular writing skills; she simply writes the text down
without even understanding all the words she uses. As she confesses in
Burned: “I had to look up the gird-your-loins part ‘cause it sounded nasty
and sexual, but it ended up just being’ a way to say you need to get real
ready for a fight” (96).
In this light, it is hardly surprising that young female fledglings
routinely turn to their male partners and friends when they are in need of
scholarly assistance (see e.g. Betrayed 163). As Zoey declares in Hunted
when she is about to ask for Damien’s help in unravelling a prophesy,
“[t]hat’s gonna take someone with more brains than me” (71). While
girls save the day with vampire magic, devotion to the Goddess, compas-
sion and love, boys solve problems with their warrior skills and/or book
knowledge. When soul-shattered Zoey wanders the realms between life
and death, it is her soul mate vampire Stark who explains her ominous
condition. Then, the “reading Warrior” Darius, who as a fledgling shared

his time between “study[ing] the blade” and exploring old scrolls in the
archives, provides information on the possible cure (Tempted 317; Burned
85, 88–89). In the last volume of the original series, the arch-villainess
immortal Neferet becomes defeated thanks to Damien and Stark’s knowl-
edge about the sorcerer Merlin, with whom their female friends are only
vaguely familiar (Redeemed 271).
As a result, female characters often find themselves performing the
identities of students while boys assume the role of teachers, resolving
girls’ educational shortcomings with “an indulgent smile” or rebuking
them for their lack of academic diligence (Burned 86; Hunted 9, 253;
Tempted 69, 73, 109). Having spontaneously accepted Stark’s eternal
Warrior Oath, Zoey has another warrior, Darius, explaining to her post-
factum the Oath’s implications.29 Somewhat exasperated, Darius instructs
her to finally read her Fledgling Handbook. The heroine, however, finds
it difficult to focus on education; after all, she is surrounded by demons
and evil priestesses, and has more urgent problems at hand (Tempted 69,
73). The student–teacher positioning of girl and boy characters is further
illustrated in Untamed, when the protagonists gather to decipher an
encrypted poem-like prophecy. While Damien begins with examining the
poem’s structure and rhyme scheme, and leads his female friends through
the first stages of the interpretation process, the girls limit themselves
to asking questions, nodding along and defining the poem as “[g]loom
and doom to come put in confusing what-the-fuck language” (227–
233). Time and again, the girl characters fail to understand Damien’s
vocabulary, easily resigning themselves to their incompetence (“seriously,
I could have thought about that [word] forever and not figured out what
it meant”; Hunted 253–254) and experiencing his language as just as
foreign as the one used in Star Trek (Hunted 253). Resultantly, they are
scolded for their “abysmal” vocabulary, mocked for needing a dictionary
to “keep up” (Betrayed 2), looked upon with disgust and called “cretins”
and “simpletons” for not understanding more advanced words (Hunted
9; 253). Even as a fully developed vampire and a teacher of the advanced
spells and rituals course, Zoey continues to rely on Damien’s knowledge
29 While Stark remembers both the readings and in-class discussions on this particular
subject, and offers his Oath knowingly, Zoey is largely unaware of the ramifications of
their bond.
and earns his (gentle) scolding for forgetting the most basic ingredients in
an important enchantment (“Z, that’s Spellwork 101”; Found loc. 1106).
In “‘Square-girls’, Femininity and the Negotiation of Academic
Success”, Emma Renold notes that aspiring to academic achievement
can prove socially problematic for both boys and girls as it may involve
“being positioned outside conventional modes of ‘masculinity’ and ‘fem-
ininity’” (2001, 586; cf. Pomerantz and Raby 2017, 84) In House of
Night, however, most young men occupy the “clever” identity with little
fear of social ostracism or diminished romantic appeal. As Pomerantz
and Raby remind us, popular masculinity and a boy’s social standing
at high school are typically associated with heterosexuality and physical
prowess, particularly success in sports. Thus, athletic accomplishments—
often “seen as antithetical to being too nerdy”—can “bridge the gap
between being smart and being popular” (2017, 85, 78; cf. Fisher et al.
2008, 110). Integrating academic application into their hyper-masculine,
athletic warrior personas, heterosexual male characters in the Casts’ series
are much admired by their girlfriends for their knowledge and appetite
for books. Both Zoey and her friend Aphrodite find it “cool” and erot-
ically appealing when their respective boyfriends reveal themselves to be
passionate readers (Hunted 84; Burned 88). As Zoey declares, “I loved
it when cute guys showed they had brains” (Tempted 158). In fact, Stark
uses his interest in literature as a romantic asset, giving Zoey “a check-
me-out-I’ve-always-read-books hottie grin” (Tempted 169) after correctly
recognising a literary reference. Thus, although the models of desirable
masculinity in the series are predominantly grounded in being a “big,
bad, macho Warrior” (Tempted 158) rather than a scholar, ultimately
the two interconnect to reinforce the heterosexual male’s attractiveness.
Such constructions correspond with Inness’s reflections upon the double
standards for men and women in romantic relationships:
According to the common cultural stereotype, women are not supposed

to be too smart and, in particular, are not supposed to be as intelligent
as their husbands or boyfriends … Our society does not have the same
expectation that a man should worry that he might appear smarter than
his date … (2007, 2)
Therefore, it is Sydney, and not her boyfriend Brayden, who in the

second volume of Bloodlines, The Golden Lily, considers “dumbing herself
down” in their early courtship.30 While on one of their first dates

Brayden confidently presents his views on alternative energy sources,
Sydney worries that offering her own contradictory perspective might be
perceived as a breach of dating protocol. In Smart Girls, Pomerantz and
Raby point to heterosexual romantic desirability as one of the primary
reasons for girls to conceal their knowledge and academic success. As
revealed by the interviewees in their study, smart girls “were seen as
being too focused on school and also intimidating, which meant that
they might upset the gender hierarchy of a dating relationship” (2017,
67; cf. also 63, 92). Therefore, in The Golden Lily Sydney briefly contem-
plates “batting her eyelashes” and tossing her hair instead of competently
objecting to her boyfriend’s opinions, as per the instruction of her more
romantically experienced girlfriends. The heroine’s hesitation, however,
is short-lived, and she soon launches into a thorough explanation of
her stand, dismissing the idea that girls should “make men feel impor-
tant on dates” as silly and “male-centric” (GL 122). Utterly defeated
by Sydney’s brilliant reasoning, Brayden is stunned into silence and
then kisses her. “‘You,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Are amazing. Absolutely,
positively, exquisitely amazing’” (GL 121–125). Sydney herself is rather
astonished by her boyfriend’s enthusiastic reaction, as none of the dating
advice that she has heard and read have identified academic debates as
“a way to a man’s heart” (GL 311). Later in the series, the heroine’s
smartness continues to be narrated as a romantic asset as her vampire
husband Adrian finds her academic excellence enhancing rather than
diminishing her romantic allure: “You can’t help knowing everything and
being constantly brilliant—and I wouldn’t have it any other way” (RC
347). Throughout the series, Adrian repeatedly expresses his admiration
for Sydney’s intelligence and knowledge, and openly admits that he has
fallen for her first and foremost “because of her mind” (FH 34).
Remarkably, in Bloodlines there is no particular difference between
boys’ and girls’ attitudes towards book knowledge and school accom-
plishments. Whether mediocre or exceeding expectations, in history or
mathematics, the students’ academic performance depends primarily on
their individual talents, efforts and cultural capital rather than their
30 Interestingly, Sydney’s male friend Trey, a football star and an aspiring vampire
hunter, also attempts to hide how “brainy” he really is, placing emphasis on his athletic
prowess to mask his academic excellence (see e.g. GL 31).
gender. Female and male alike, vampire, dhampir, witch and human char-
acters are often depicted in the library, participating in study groups or
working on assignments, struggling, failing and succeeding in their school
endeavours, seeking conventional knowledge just as often as the magical
one in order to save the day, satisfy their curiosity or simply to keep their
grades up (see e.g. BL loc. 2936; GL 65, 3847, 3953; IS 18, 129, 248).
6.5 Conclusion
As a site of intense cultural, psychological and political fears and desires,
school provides a powerful setting for the expression of social and
adolescent angst about educational practices and growing up (Truffin
2014). According to Andrew L. Grunzke (2015) and Christine Jarvis
(2001), these anxieties are reflected in a particularly clear and thought-
provoking way in horror and vampire stories set in educational institutions
(2002, 150). In the series analysed in this chapter, school constitutes an
ambiguous terrain, simultaneously signifying menace and safety, oppres-
sion and liberation. For the young vampires of House of Night, school
offers a chance to overcome a potentially fatal disease that marks the onset
of a fledgling’s life and a possibility to understand their bodily and psycho-
logical transformations. St. Vladimir’s of Vampire Academy protects
its students from evil undead vampires—the Strigoi—with dhampir
guardians and enchanted barriers surrounding the campus. The Amber-
wood high school of Bloodlines, in turn, provides a shelter for a vampire
princess hunted by assassins, and offers a way out of oppressive familial
or professional environment for the dhampir and human characters. Yet
it is often within the school walls that young protagonists must confront
deception, danger and their worst enemies. Beloved teachers reveal them-
selves as murderesses and cold-hearted seducers, magical barriers can be
broken, guardians turned or killed and evil witches can invade the school
to abduct the sleeping students. As Rose Hathaway concludes, “Hey, no
one said high school was easy” (FB 7).
In the midst of this turmoil, academic life is rarely brought to the fore-
front of the story. In these fictional vampire worlds the spaces intended for
learning, such as classrooms and libraries, are often employed as settings
for non-academic activities—romance and seduction, negotiating friend-
ships and social hierarchies or battling evil—with school portrayed as
largely disarticulated from its educational purpose. As Pauline J. Reynolds
points out, popular culture seldom prioritises knowledge over “the pursuit
of pleasure”, and tends to “sabotage academic engagement” (2014, 103,

106). The Casts’ and Mead’s series, however, often exceed this formula,
adopting more complex perspectives on girls and learning, and reflecting
diverse discourses on female academic abilities and investment in educa-
tion. Their heroines engage in careful negotiations of their academic
identities as they intersect with gendered peer cultures, popular percep-
tions of male and female areas of academic competence and socially valued
models of young femininities.
With its alternative vision of supernatural schooling that effectively
responds to students’ interests and dilemmas, the House of Night series
offers a critique of contemporary institutional learning that is presented
as inflexible, unimaginative, overly hierarchical and ignorant of young
people’s needs (cf. Fudge 2009, 208–210). Most importantly, the
vampire curriculum reflects feminist concerns about the male-centred
programmes of study that, eschewing herstory, ignore the experiences
and agendas of female students at school. Bringing into focus women-
centred and empowering perspectives on history, sociology and literature,
the matriarchal vampire educational system unmasks a long-standing pres-
ence of misogynist patriarchal narratives within the classroom practice,
and attempts to disrupt or reappropriate them for the feminist agenda.
Yet even the stories with clear feminist undertones can unwittingly
conform to diverse stereotypes in relation to girls and academic achieve-
ment. In the pages of House of Night, academic knowledge and active
investment in school-structured learning are to a large degree excluded
from the repertoires of young femininity, reflecting the popular discur-
sive disassociation between desirable girlhood and academic excellence.31
In the matriarchal world of the series, the positions of authority, influ-
ence and prestige are primarily reserved for women. Yet, their career
routes as priestesses and prophetesses of the vampire goddess compel
little book knowledge or formal education. Female power and popu-
larity do not stem from intellectual work but depend on beauty, good
character, belonging to the right social networks and possessing divinely
imparted powers. Book learning appears inconsequential, or sometimes
even harmful, to young women’s success.
31 See e.g. Archer (2012, 980). Cf. Francis (2000b, ch. 5, 121–122, 128), for a shift
in the construction of young femininities that are inclusive of academic excellence and
ambitious careers.
The potential (mis)education effect of representing academic excel-

lence as colliding with popular girlhood has been discussed in research.
As Jocelyn Steinke et al. (2007) observe, fictional characters can often
serve as occupational role models for young audiences. Negative imagery
can interfere with female students’ performance at school and limit the
range of professional ambitions that girls recognise as desirable and appro-
priate (Steinke et al. 2007; Long et al. 2010; Boaler and Sengupta-Irving
2006). The depictions of academic excellence as the domain of boys who
use their knowledge to impress less educated girls further feeds into the
cultural stereotype of women’s intellectual inferiority as a prerequisite
for successful romance. These representations are particularly problem-
atic where gendering the ability to master STEM subjects is concerned,
as they perpetuate the long-standing discourse of women as inadequate
in traditionally male-coded fields and reinforce the popular imagery of
science as “unfeminine”. Such narratives may be damaging to young
women’s perceptions of their intellectual skills and strengthen the stereo-
typical binary of feminine and masculine areas of competence (Steinke
et al. 2012).
Confirming the historical construction of “the mind” as a masculine
ground, girls’ talents in the House of Night series rarely go beyond the
stereotypically feminine terrains of nature, the irrational and the divine.
Other young female characters, however, are more successful in chal-
lenging this gendered division and represent more diverse perspectives
on girls and academics. Disrupting the notion of desirable girlhood as
incompatible with academic excellence, Lissa and Sydney of the super-
natural universe created by Richelle Mead are both popular among their
peers and academically successful. Moreover, the series unsettle the notion
of STEM as “unfeminine” or, more precisely, as gendered territory. The
central heroine of Vampire Academy, Rose, uses her math textbook as
a projectile rather than to study and the adolescent Angeline in Blood-
lines is forced to enrol in remedial math classes. Lissa, however, attends
an advanced course in calculus and Sydney is a scientific genius. Admit-
tedly, Sydney’s relation with science is not free of tensions; as she delves
ever deeper into the world of elemental witchcraft and vampire spells,
her identity increasingly encompasses the traditionally feminine terrains
of nature and magic alongside her previous rational, scientific self. Most
importantly, however, her competence in STEM has nothing to do with
the supernatural but has been achieved through active learning, curiosity
and determination.
Remarkably, even those heroines who have little interest in books

and classroom instruction (come to) acknowledge the significance of
school in structuring young people’s lives. When forced to leave the
House of Night by an evil headmistress, young vampire fledglings fight
to come back, somewhat reluctantly admitting that going to school is
what should be “normal” for every teenager (Destined 7, 10, 14–15, 32,
104). Distancing themselves from the popular image of school-structured
learning as inconsequential or useless (one that is otherwise widespread
in the cultural texts for young people; see e.g. Birch 2009, 116–117;
Daspit 2003, 127–128; Jarvis 2005), the Casts’ and Mead’s novels often
present school instruction as valuable, relevant and sometimes life-saving.
In contrast to the infinite, repetitive and “pointless” vampire education in
such texts as Twilight (Crossen 2015, 71–73), schooling has clear time-
boundaries and paves the way to vampire, dhampir and human adulthood,
which in most cases entails a professional career. Furthermore, classroom
learning constitutes merely one part of the young protagonists’ educa-
tion, and to a greater or lesser extent knowledge must be pursued also
outside of the classroom walls. At times, the characters who demonstrate
a nonchalant stance towards school prove to greatly appreciate the value
of self-directed studies and show persistence in seeking alternative sources
of information. Their mistrust towards classroom instruction and desire
for greater learning autonomy are often construed as an act of maturation,
progress and/or resistance against questionable adult authority.
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CHAPTER 7
Conclusion
In The Modern Vampire and Human Identity, Deborah Mutch contends

that “[t]o have control over narrative is to have control over mean-
ing” (2013, 5). Serving manifold ideologies and conveying an indefinite
number of perspectives, the power of persuasion entrenched in cultural
narratives cannot be disregarded (Mutch 2013, 5). Popular culture can
be a fruitful avenue for the identification and exploration of “the impor-
tant questions that, although arising from the sphere of fiction, impact …
on the terrain of lived experience” (Fisher et al. 2008, 182). A powerful
instrument that can resist, question or reproduce hegemonic paradigms,
it can unhinge oppressive and discriminatory narratives or advocate them
as “normalized reality” (Anyiwo 2016, 94). Cultural representations, as
Alison Waller proposes, are particularly important for young audiences
and readers, and can wield more power in shaping and defining socially
intelligible notions of adolescence than the “official voices” such as the
law, science or academia (2009, 7).
In Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism, Michael Cart
notes the massive increase in both the number and sales of the titles
marketed to young adult readers in the new millennium, recognising YA
fiction as “the tail that wags the dog of publishing” (2016, ix). Contem-
porary popular culture produces, in particular, an ever-increasing body of
highly diverse texts for and about adolescent women, constantly forging,

Switzerland AG 2021
negotiating and reconfiguring various iterations of acceptable and desir-

able girlhood. Echoing to various degrees the pre-existing concepts and
discourses on the figure of the girl, these narratives can also contribute
to social and cultural change, reshaping the values and norms formu-
lated around young femininities. Popular fiction for adolescent women
can serve as an important source of cultural instruction and a repos-
itory of diverse role models, beliefs and information on the self and
society, affecting social attitudes towards various expressions of girlhood
and informing readers’ life strategies and choices. Exposure to restric-
tive gender models which reward young women for passivity and the
repression of their dreams and desires may result in the (self-)limitation
of girls’ interests and activities, and encourage them to invest in gender-
stereotyped behaviours (see e.g. Trotman Reid et al. 2008). In contrast,
narratives that push against the boundaries of conventional femininities
and promote diversity can offer young women a fresh and innovative
space for reimagining themselves and their futures, expanding their hori-
zons into alternative, experimental terrains and curving out the space for
the articulation of new girl identities.
Needless to say, it would be naïve to presume that the messages articu-
lated through even the most successful fictional stories are passively inter-
nalised by girl readers in the ways intended by authors, or predicted by
parents, educators or scholars. Girlhood, as Athena Bellas contends, “can
be thought of as a field of contestations in which the limits of ‘acceptable’
feminine adolescence are constantly … challenged, redrawn, affirmed
and destabilized by girls” (2017, 11). Negotiated in various historical,
political and personal contexts, cultural texts rarely produce unequivocal
meanings, stimulating divergent critical interpretations. Foregrounding
the unknown in the processes of both producing and consuming literary
texts—and the uncertainties of their outcome—Anita Lundberg employs
the image of a tree invoked by an author character from Vikram Seth’s
novel A Suitable Boy (1993):
[Writing] feels like a banyan tree. … it sprouts, and grows, and spreads,
and drops down branches that become trunks or intertwine with other
branches. Sometimes branches die. Sometimes the main trunk dies, and
the structure is held up by the supporting trunks. It has its own life …
(Seth 1993, 483; Lundberg 2008, 9–10).
7 CONCLUSION 259
In an article on female agency and empowerment in popular vampire

fiction, Agata Łuksza points out that vampire tales permit readers “to
take up positions unavailable in real life”. Consequently, their heroines,
as Łuksza emphasises, should not be construed as role models but rather
“as potential feminine subject positions, which might not in fact be prefer-
able outside the fantasy realm” (2015, 439). Young women can engage in
either or both “enjoyment- and resistance-reading” (Franck 2013, 212),
and offer understandings of their own that can “mistake the ‘unmistak-
able’” (Rose 1992, 49) and subvert the author’s agenda. With reference
to resistance-readings of Twilight, Allie in Reading Unbound reports that
some girls engage with the story in order “to make fun of Bella … [and]
tell her what she could do differently” (Wilhelm and Smith 2014, 135).
Thus, the cultural messages about girlhood conveyed through vampire
fiction may be accepted, emulated, ignored, reinterpreted, resisted or
rewritten by the reading girl.
A detailed analysis of these messages can, nonetheless, vitally contribute
to a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary girls’ expe-
riences and discourses on girlhood. Evoking passionate devotion and
sparking off heated debates, selling in their millions and provoking harsh
criticism and censorship attempts—vampire fiction offers a myriad of
stories centred on girl heroines and engages on many levels with the
conversations on adolescent femininity. With their plotlines formulated
around bodily image and transformations, romance, friendship, sexuality
and gendered violence, schoolwork and career, these stories delve into
the territories central to Western female youth cultures, foregrounding,
validating, penalising or excluding various performances of adolescent
femininity. In this volume, I have sought to unlock some of these complex
narratives, focusing on the twenty-first-century vampire serialised fiction
and seeking to explore its understandings of the figure of the girl in
relation to vampire tradition, broader trends in YA culture and larger
social and cultural discourses on femininity. As noted by Lorna Jowett,
non-realist fiction is often perceived as a form of escapism—one that
comes with a promise of distance or even detachment from real-life issues
(2010). Yet, unbound as they are by the rules of verisimilitude, fantastic
narratives frequently engage in a powerful commentary on various social
practices and cultural regimes through the means of “indirections, paral-
lels, symbols, and allegory” (James 2009, 116). Consequently, horror,
Gothic, urban fantasy or paranormal romance can provide an exceptional
space for exploring the complex dynamics of gender, age and power in
a way which, as Jowett concludes, is unavailable for stories “anchored in

realism” (2010, 217; cf. James 2009, 115). Proposing alternative visions
of reality and gender performance, fantastic narratives can participate in
furthering cultural shifts, offering “a space within which to imagine the
impossible, the yet-unreal” (Green, forthcoming).
Combining the elements of the Gothic, horror, fantasy, paranormal
romance, girls’ school story and more, vampire series for adolescent
women are uniquely positioned to interrogate the possibilities and limi-
tations of young femininity in the Western culture. Nina Auerbach once
famously stated that vampires respond to the fears and desires of societies
that produce them, endlessly reincarnating to adapt anew to the changing
socio-cultural, political and economic contexts. Taking this argument one
step further, Glennis Byron and Sharon Deans suggest that Auerbach’s
words—“every age embraces the vampire it needs” (1995, 145)—could
be understood as referring not only to historical moment but also to
the concept of generation, with the vampiric creature holding the most
powerful appeal for an adolescent readership (2014, 89). In fact, as
Gina Wisker contends, vampire fiction for young adults, and particu-
larly vampire romance, can be credited with the revival of the vampire
in the new millennium (2016, 191). With the growing visibility of the
figure of the girl in social, cultural and political discourses and media,
today’s vampires have a particularly strong resonance with adolescent
women, increasingly colonising stories for girl readership and audience.
Reminiscing on her early encounters with vampire fiction, Nina Auerbach
foregrounds the synergies between the figures of the vampire and the girl,
recognising the tales of vampirism as an escape route from the restraints
of conventional femininity:
These shadowy monsters were a revelation to my best friend and me … we

did feel we had found a talisman against a nice girl’s life. Vampires were
supposed to menace women, but to me at least, they promised protection
against a destiny of girdles, spike heels, and approval. (1995, 4)
Over a decade later, P.C. Cast sought an explanation for the unprece-
dented popularity of the genre in the ongoing transformations of
social gender roles and hierarchies—“with women standing up and
demanding respect” (Schou 2009). The twenty-first-century vampire
fiction, however, invites multiple interpretations and offers the visions
of the girl that are rife with frictions and ambivalences, resisting any
7 CONCLUSION 261
attempt at a singular reading. The genre’s depiction of women has been

construed as “a cultural index of desire and disgust, a thermometer of
response to women’s power and sexuality, either seen as demonic or
liberating” (Wisker 2016, 161). The representations of girls in an ever-
increasing body of vampire fiction range anywhere from the narratives
of feminist resistance, featuring empowered and resourceful feminine
subjects, to oppressive and patriarchal tales, foregrounding infantilised
female characters in constant need of male guidance and protection.
As Wisker observes, in contrast to their predecessors, much vampire
fiction written by women authors in the twenty-first century has lost
“its radical energies” and become harnessed to inculcate conformity and
replicate conservative modes of being (2016, 187–188, 195; cf. Ramos-
García 2020). As I have noted throughout this volume, many of these
texts fall back on the conventional romantic formulas which advocate for
female submissiveness and male dominance and validate hegemonic ideas
about gender and sexuality. This strategy has most often been exempli-
fied through various critical analyses of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight , but
is equally relevant for many other vampire books for girls. The vampire
series that are the focus of this volume, however, stand out among other
works of the genre for their subversive potential, daring to voice some of
the concepts, concerns and desires that have been silenced in other texts.
Offering nuanced and original explorations of adolescent femininity, and
featuring complex characters and multi-layered stories, the internation-
ally acclaimed House of Night (2007–2014) and House of Night: Other
World (2017–2020) series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, and Vampire
Academy (2007–2010) and Bloodlines (2011–2015) series by Richelle
Mead are significant for the ways in which they mobilise the metaphor of
the vampire and supernatural worlds in order to interrogate and confront
a number of ideas about girlhood in the contemporary Western context.
Adolescent women in the twenty-first century experience multiple
pressures to adhere to the often conflicted rules and expectations of
young femininity promoted through media, education, science, law and
other social and political structures. In the current Western postfeminist
debates, girls are often represented as empowered to make agential deci-
sions about their bodies, sexualities, relationships and futures; yet these
choices are, in fact, corralled and constricted by the evergreen patriar-
chal narratives and gendered double standards. Demonstrating awareness
of these contradictory social expectations, the vampire texts analysed in
this volume purport to produce empowering and celebratory visions of
adolescent girlhood and evince the influence of feminist concerns and

agendas. In various interviews and within her novels, P.C. Cast has repeat-
edly identified the intervention in oppressive gendered power regimes
and the critique of misogyny as the primary objectives of her work as
an author: “I want my readers, especially young women, to do better
without carrying around the baggage of judgment and hypocrisy under
which the patriarchy likes to smother us. Double standards should be
called out, barriers should be smashed” (Found loc. 5730). In a similar
vein, Janine Darragh denotes the feminist lens as central to the under-
standing of Richelle Mead’s books. As Darragh argues, Vampire Academy
foregrounds the Third Wave feminism notions of diversity, inclusion and
freedom of choice, “send[ing] the message that today’s young woman
can be whomever she chooses to be” and making a compelling political
statement about the possibilities of girls in the new millennium (2016,
251, 259, 261).
Each of these series features adventurous, resilient and powerful girl
protagonists whose stories unfold, through all or several volumes, in the
uncanny milieu of the vampire or human-vampire high school. Complying
with the dominant trends of the contemporary Gothic that marginalise
the human to humanise and centre-stage the “monstrous” (Smith and
Moruzi 2018, 12–13), these heroines, most of whom are vampires and
half-vampires, are all granted the power of telling their own story. Unlike
many other contemporary bloodsucking characters (in most cases boys
and men), turned against their will and lamenting their vampiric condi-
tion, the protagonists of the Casts’ and Mead’s series are either born
vampires or grow into their supernatural status at the time of puberty,
and (come to) accept their state as natural and/or gratifying. Sometimes,
once commenced or revealed, the vampiric transformation is narrated
as grace and salvation as it delivers the protagonists from unfeeling
parental authority and the patriarchal strictures of their human societies.
Vampirism does not exempt them, however, from the typical coming-of-
age challenges related to body, relationships, sexuality, safety or education.
Zoey, Rose, Lissa, Sydney and their girlfriends all grapple with insecurities,
desires and dilemmas considered typical for Western adolescent femi-
ninities, inviting readers’ empathy and enabling identification. Featuring
heroines who practise elemental magic, enjoy blood for dinner, wield
the power of healing or display preternatural combat skills, the Casts’
and Mead’s vampire series nonetheless speak in a compelling way to the
7 CONCLUSION 263
concerns and interests of their girl readers, as evidenced through their

continuing popularity and the fans’ discussions on various social media.1
While much of contemporary vampire fiction for girls is infused with
conservative ideas, these novels feature narratives of young female bodies
that offer an opportunity for rupturing and undermining the rigid stric-
tures surrounding popular embodied girlhood. Unmasking the impossible
gendered standards of beauty, and reconciling the concepts of female
strength and independence with the investment in girl beauty cultures,
their young heroines resist patriarchy and expand their autonomy through
body modification and the subversive employment of style. Whereas the
love stories of paranormal romance largely rely on preordained affection
and inescapable magical love bonds, House of Night, Vampire Academy
and Bloodlines to some extent speak back to these conventions, criti-
cally contemplating the idea of soul mates and the power of destiny,
and troubling the formula of gendered power imbalance in romantic rela-
tionships. Furthermore, the Casts’ series formulate strategies that seek to
disrupt hegemonic heteronormative paradigms and turn (if at times only
temporarily) to the traditional queerness of the vampiric figure, featuring
homosexual characters and introducing polyandry as a socially sanctioned
vampiric tradition. Even these romantic plotlines which ostensibly rely
on the clichéd schema of the love story between a male vampire and
a human girl and which are resolved in teenage marriage and parent-
hood, are designed to increase the transformative potential of the heroine
(cf. Smith and Moruzi 2018, 6). As repeatedly illustrated through the
relationship of the human/witch Sydney and the vampire Adrian in Blood-
lines, the traditional conventions can be cleverly rescripted to resist rather
than reinforce taken-for-granted, restrictive gender roles and to provide
an empowering reading experience to adolescent girls.
All the texts under analysis foreground, albeit to varying degrees, the
stories of girls’ sexual curiosity and awakening—a narrative interest shared
by both the vampire and girl coming-of-age stories. These include a
number of celebratory accounts of female pleasure, erotic agency and
confident exploration of girls’ desires, as well as raising, mostly in Mead’s
series, the question of responsible sex. Equality in sexual relationships and
the matter of consent are often brought to the forefront. In contrast
to many other vampire and paranormal romance tales which normalise,
1 In fact, P.C. and Kristin Cast have pointed to the relatability of their characters as one
of the key objectives of their writing projects (Forgotten 255; Baker 2015).
romanticise and legitimise male-on-female abuse and reiterate the narra-

tives of rape mythology, both the Casts’ and Mead’s series attempt to
unmask the individual and the structural mechanisms of violence against
girls and women. Their storylines seek to implode the tales of rape
culture, clearly differentiating between consent and desire, and featuring
narratives of rape and female rape-revenge that depict sexual abuse as
deserving severe punishment. Furthermore, the House of Night series,
Vampire Academy and Bloodlines all raise important questions about
young women and schooling. With their relevant and student-oriented
educational programmes, curricula that admit feminist perspectives (House
of Night ), a compelling portrayal of an empowered girl STEM genius,
and an array of young characters who display varying levels of academic
engagement (Bloodlines and Vampire Academy), these series certainly
stand out among other vampire texts for young women.
These original, radical streaks, however, are interlaced with conven-
tional and/or regressive threads and resolutions that emphasise stereo-
typical and oppressive visions of adolescent girlhood. Reproducing hege-
monic discourses and dominant power structures, such storylines leave
some of the series’ transformative potential untapped and discarded. Envi-
sioning and exploring alternative iterations of girlhood, the Casts’ and
Mead’s supernatural heroines remain—in some aspects and to various
degrees—limited by patriarchal discourses and ideals. In all the series,
the heroines’ bodies rigidly conform to conventional standards of beauty,
restricting the range of desirable body images to a narrowly defined
model. Furthermore, in the pages of House of Night, “ugly” bodies
are often excluded, abjectified or vilified, and the trope of fat shaming
recurs throughout the novels. The heavy emphasis on the “right” style
and appearance obtained through the practices of high-end consumerism
reinforces the series’ message of bodily image as essential to girls’ social
and romantic success, and aligns “girl power” with the classed culture of
bodily perfection.
A number of the radical narratives centred on sexuality and romance
prove to be temporary when, as the story progresses, they become
rewritten along more traditional lines. The disruptive trope of polyandry,
one promising to shake the hegemonic ideals of romance and to return
the vampire into the realm of queerness, comes into the story only to
be eventually tossed aside as harmful and unrealistic. In adherence to
the culturally sanctioned model of feminine fulfilment, each and every
central girl heroine is granted the reassuringly familiar romantic happy
7 CONCLUSION 265
ending, and the romanticised promise of eternal love remains largely

intact. Highlighting the fragility of the contemporary postfeminist narra-
tives of the sexually emancipated and empowered girlhood, in many cases
girls’ sexual activities continue to be located within the frames of danger
and emotional pain. Sexual reputation is frequently equated with morality
and respectability, and in House of Night, the tales of extreme slut shaming
and the demonisation of “excessive” female sexual energies sit right along-
side the promises of affirmative depictions of female desire. Although
the novels speak against rape mythology and repeatedly highlight the
essentiality of consent, some rapists not only remain unpunished but
become redeemed and elevated to the position of romantic heroes. At the
same time, a number of rape survivors are portrayed as de-individualised
victims, foolish girls or broken women that evolve into sexualised villai-
nesses. Within the context of school and academic performance, the House
of Night ’s promise of a progressive and inclusive classroom experience is
to a large extent rendered hollow as it becomes stifled by the gendered
narratives of academic identities and skills. Studiousness and academic
excellence is presented as colliding with the vision of desirable girlhood,
and girls are shown as ostentatiously disengaged from classroom learning.
This negative message is further reinforced through the series’ stereo-
typical representations of women as incompetent in STEM subjects and,
therefore, bound by social conventions that deny them entry into spaces
traditionally reserved for men.
These polarised representations are suggestive of the powerful tensions
emerging from various competing ideologies of adolescent femininity that
this volume has aimed to reveal. Throughout the book, I have sought
to shed light on the many ways in which the fantastic narratives of girls
and vampires pull to the surface, mediate and negotiate the complexities
of contemporary girlhood. Historically figured as a dangerous disrup-
tion to the established social order, the quintessence of female sexual
voraciousness and lack of restraint, or an innocent or collusive victim
of the vampire’s bite (Wisker 2016, 159)—the new vampire girl, or the
vampire’s girlfriend, is rarely configured as the Other onto whom to
project the cultural fears of the nonconforming woman. Instead, she has
come to articulate the joys and struggles of growing up a girl in the
twenty-first century, and can tell us much about the dynamic transfor-
mations of contemporary girlhood, offering new insights into the figure
of the vampire as a cultural metaphor for human experience.
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Index
A Averill, Lindsay, 40–42, 58, 59

Abuse.. See Rape; Violence against
women
Academic achievement/engagement B
and gender, 15, 217, 224, 235, Beauty
238, 240, 247, 265 and female success, 24, 34, 38, 40,
and popularity, 230, 234, 238, 239, 42, 44, 52, 58, 247, 264
247 culture, 24, 32, 34, 40, 41, 44, 57,
and romantic desirability, 234, 170, 263
237–239, 245 lack of, 32–33, 46–50
see also Schooling/vampire schools; vampire as ideal of, 25, 32, 33, 40,
STEM (science, technology, 42, 45
engineering, mathematics) Beauty and the Beast, 15, 173, 174,
competence 176, 181, 182, 203
Ageing/aged bodies Bellas, Athena, 8, 24, 25, 55, 58, 64,
exclusion of, 36, 37 126, 144, 160, 170, 179, 258
fear of, 34, 35, 37 Blood consumption, 220
immortality, 34, 36, 38 and consent, 185, 223
inclusion of, 38, 65 and friendship, 98, 107, 131, 135,
Anyiwo, U. Melissa, 5, 100, 126, 257 154
Archer, Louise, 217, 224, 225, 239, and sexual arousal, 98, 107, 130,
247 131, 135, 199
Auerbach, Nina, 6, 26, 36, 64, 93, blood whore/blood-whoring, 152,
204, 260 154
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 269
license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Palgrave Gothic, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71744-5
270 INDEX
Bloodlines, Richelle Mead, 9, 12, and desire, 15, 177, 185, 187, 188,
25, 38, 39, 44, 56, 65, 79, 89, 264
94–96, 99, 126, 136, 140, 152, explicit/verbal, 184, 185
158, 172, 190, 192, 194, 198, refusal of, 184, 185
204, 216, 218, 227, 228, 230, validity/age of, 135, 137
235, 237, 244–246, 248, 261, value of, 88, 170, 184, 185, 223,
263 263
Body, female, 128, 140 Consumerism, 14, 25, 56, 264
as space of conflict between men, and vampirism/vampire, 53, 56, 65,
178–179 66
dis/satisfaction with, 24, 40, 41, in girl cultures, 24, 25, 54, 55, 66
44–46 Crossen, Carys, 35, 78, 79, 125, 128,
girl cultures, centrality of, 23–25, 138, 144, 179, 180, 183, 197,
42, 45 216, 236, 249
in action, 56, 63, 187, 198
scrutiny of, 24, 34, 43–45, 52, 53
Body, vampiric, 159
constitution of, 25–27, 44 D
eyes, 33, 48, 49 Damsel in distress, 61, 178, 197, 198
fangs, 26, 27, 32 Darragh, Janine J., 39, 56, 57, 126,
mouth, 48, 49 144, 159, 262
see also Ageing/aged bodies; Beauty; Deans, Sharon, 2, 3, 11, 125, 131,
Fat/ness, fat vampire; Thinness, 260
thin vampire; Youthfulness Deffenbacher, Kristina, 87, 170, 181,
skin, 14, 33, 36, 38, 48 185, 186, 200, 205, 206
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss DeMello, Margo, 23, 24, 34, 40, 41,
Whedon, 2, 7, 76, 110, 125, 45, 47, 56, 58
136, 138, 146, 216, 220 Desire
Byron, Glennis, 2, 3, 11, 125, 131, adolescent, 106, 125, 138, 141
260 forbidden, 89, 97, 125, 132, 136
same-sex, 14, 77, 79, 97, 106–110
C Dhaenens, Frederik, 77, 81, 82, 97,
Cast, Kristin, 1, 3, 9, 12, 25, 26, 79, 98, 100, 103–106, 108, 111
81, 82, 84, 85, 112, 126, 172, Dis/ability/Illness, 38, 39, 234, 236,
218, 232, 261, 263 240
Cast, Phyllis Christine, 1, 3, 9, 11, 12, Dracula, Bram Stoker, 48, 77, 124,
25, 26, 79, 80, 83–85, 91, 99, 147
112, 126, 130, 135, 161, 172, Dracula, Bram Stoker, 1, 76, 171
196, 218, 220, 260–263 Driscoll, Catherine, 35, 54, 127, 128,
Consent, 15 133, 217
and blood sharing, 27, 88, 131, Dyer, Richard, 76, 77, 97, 101, 109,
134, 185 124, 131
INDEX 271
F compulsory heterosexuality, 77,

Farrimond, Katherine, 127–129, 140, 101, 102
144–146 in YA vampire fiction, 78
Fat/ness resistance against., 101, 102,
and death, 44 105, 108. See also Polyandry;
fat shaming, 40–43, 264 Queer/ness
fat vampire, 42–44 Twilight , 78
in girl culture, 40–42 Hobson, Amanda, 5, 97, 147, 148
Fisher, Roy, 24, 46, 133, 139, 140, Homophobia/ic, 14, 77, 102, 103,
143, 158, 217, 220, 222, 238, 109, 110
244, 257 Homosexual/ity, 14, 53, 160, 241
Franck, Mia, 1, 3, 4, 32, 51, 52, 78, in House of Night , 99–102, 104,
98, 151, 215, 217, 259 105, 107, 109, 113, 160
Friendship, 49, 52, 63, 66, 87, 94, lesbian vampress, 77, 97, 108, 109,
99, 103, 109, 135, 139, 155, 124
156, 218, 230, 246 vampirism as expression of, 77, 97,
109
Homosexual relationships
G and vampire society, 101, 113
George, Sam, 2, 6, 7, 76 death in, 109–111
Gothic gay relationships, 100, 111, 160
body, 128 lesbian relationships, 99, 100,
romance, 3, 4, 35, 86 108–110
see also Schoolhouse Gothic; House of Night: Other World, P.C. and
Schooling/vampire schools; Kristin Cast, 9, 12, 25, 39, 53,
Virginity, in Gothic/horror 79, 89, 91, 99, 101, 102, 105,
fiction; Violence against 106, 108, 111, 126, 172, 196,
women, in Gothic/paranormal 218, 220, 222, 232
romance House of Night, P.C. and Kristin Cast,
sexuality, 124, 128 1, 3, 9, 12, 25, 30, 36, 43, 79,
skin, 14, 28 87, 89, 91, 93, 96, 99, 105, 109,
teen/YA fiction, 2, 3, 10, 76, 173, 126, 129–132, 135, 137, 141,
216 144, 147, 150, 156, 159–161,
172, 183, 185, 201, 230, 240,
241, 261
H Hughes, William, 2, 6, 7, 76–78, 111,
Harris, Anita, 55, 215, 224 124, 131
Harris, Ann, 46, 222
Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra, 97, 124,
191, 203 J
Heteronormativity, 80, 129 Jarvis, Christine, 47, 140, 220, 222,
assumption of heterosexuality, 101 246, 249
272 INDEX
Jowett, Lorna, 173, 178, 205, 224, girl agency, 59–61, 63, 64
225, 259, 260 girl mobility, 60, 61, 63
Marked, The, Bianca Scardoni, 13, 93,
174, 175
K McRobbie, Angela, 55
Kane, Kathryn, 48, 76, 78, 95, 98 Mead, Richelle, 3, 9, 11–13, 25–27,
Knight in distress, 198 29–31, 33, 36–39, 44, 48, 56,
Knowledge, 142 61, 63, 65, 66, 79, 87, 89,
desire for, 234, 235 92–95, 98, 99, 107, 112–114,
pursuance of, 216, 234, 241 126, 132, 136, 139–143, 152,
vampire as intellectual being, 216 157, 159, 160, 162, 172,
Kokkola, Lydia, 2, 35, 38, 39, 76, 77, 183, 184, 186, 197, 199, 205,
79, 81, 87, 90, 91, 95, 99, 102, 218, 226–228, 237, 247–249,
106, 108, 110, 113, 123, 129, 261–263
138, 139, 141, 144, 145, 147, Moruzi, Kristine, 2, 3, 10, 36, 42, 76,
174, 177, 188, 189 78, 86, 98, 136, 139, 155, 156,
173, 197, 215, 217, 262, 263
Muehlenhard, Charlene L., 186, 188,
L 201
Łuksza, Agata, 9, 81, 125, 129, 177, Mutch, Deborah, 257
179, 181, 197, 198, 259
N
M Ní Fhlainn, Sorcha, 6, 7, 32, 45, 54,
Magic 77, 124, 131, 216
and girl empowerment, 46, 63, Night Huntress, Jeaniene Frost, 147
155, 156, 198, 199, 229
elemental, 105, 198, 228, 248, 262
gendered, 105, 147, 248 O
vampiric, 27, 29, 39, 50, 107, 177, Oliver, Kelly, 169, 170, 174, 181,
189, 190, 228 186
Magical bond, 79, 81, 84, 88, 96, Originals, The, Julie Plec, 141
108
consent, irrelevance of, 15, 86, 87,
174 P
female agency, 87, 88 Peterson, Zoë D., 186, 188, 201
friendship, 87, 227, 230 Piatti-Farnell, Lorna, 2, 6, 9, 10,
see also Romantic relationships; Soul 24–28, 30, 32, 34–36, 48, 49,
mate 53, 54, 56, 75, 86, 124, 131,
Makeover, female 159
as subversion and resistance, 14, 26, Polyandry, 79, 81, 85
59, 61, 63 and female empowerment, 79, 80,
Cinderella, 58, 62–64 82, 84
INDEX 273
and vampire matriarchal society, resistance against, 172, 187, 193,

80–82 203. See also Beauty and the
House of Night , 14, 79–82, 84, 264 Beast
rejection of, 81–85, 113. See also Rape-revenge, 172, 178, 193, 195
Queer/ness as destructive, 196, 204
Pomerantz, Shauna, 24, 25, 51, 59, as feminist narrative, 193
238, 239, 244, 245 as restoration of justice, 190, 193,
Postfeminism, postfeminist, 37, 51, 195
55, 128, 151, 161, 178, 261, female avengeress, 172, 193, 195,
265 200
Priest, Hannah, 59, 78, 79, 100, 103, Rape survivor, 194
104, 107, 108, 125, 129, 135, anti-rape activism, 194, 204
149, 180 as madwoman/villainess, 196, 204
overcoming trauma, 192, 194, 195,
204
Q see also Shame/shaming
Queer/ness Rapist
identity, 97, 106, 108, 111 as romantic hero, 181, 207, 265
as vampiric figure/monster, 181,
of the vampire, 14, 76–79, 98, 107,
191–193, 195, 203
263
Renold, Emma, 149–151, 155,
resistance, 81, 82, 101, 111
238–240, 244
Twilight , 78, 79
Reynolds, Kimberley, 113, 123, 133,
144, 159
Ringrose, Jessica, 149–151, 155
R Romantic relationships, 111
Raby, Rebecca, 24, 238, 239, 244, as mandatory resolution, 58, 76,
245 81, 92, 112, 264
Rape, 7, 134, 170, 185, 202 heterosexual, 62, 76, 108, 113
as un/forgivable, 178, 181, 194, marriage/marital-like bonds, 63,
195, 207 94–96, 141, 236
blood/fang rape, 171, 175, 177, power dynamics in, 78, 79, 114,
181, 185, 198 197, 198, 244, 245, 263
incestuous, 191 Romeo and Juliet, 90–92, 132
speaking of, 178, 189, 190, 192, see also Beauty and the Beast,
201, 205 Homosexual relationships;
Rape Mythology/Myths, 140, 170, Magical bond; Polyandry;
171, 185, 195, 200, 207 Sexual relationships; Soul
Burt, Martha, 140, 146, 175, 176, mate; Violence against women,
185, 193, 200 romanticisation of
reiteration of, 170, 175, 176, 178, vampire patriarchal paradigm,
179, 189, 202 subversion of, 11, 63, 66, 93,
274 INDEX
94, 96, 114, 132, 137, 140, sexual awakening, 14, 124, 128,
143, 184, 199, 236, 237, 263 131–133, 158, 160
Sexual relationships
adolescent sex, 123, 125, 126, 130,
S
138, 160
Santos, Cristina, 126–129, 145, 146,
initiation, 128, 132, 139, 140,
159, 160, 183
142–146, 159
Schoolhouse Gothic, 216, 218
Schooling/vampire schools, 12, 15, pleasure, 82, 98, 130, 148, 159,
101, 105, 130, 142 161
as critique of human education, power dynamics in, 79, 124, 132,
220, 221, 247 133, 138, 159, 183
curriculum, 218, 219, 221, 223, safe sex/birth control, 141, 142,
247, 264 159, 263
education, value of, 221, 222, 235, same-sex, 106, 112
249 teacher-student unions, 132, 133,
House of Night, 43, 47, 80, 104, 136–138, 159
109, 218–220, 222 trauma, 138, 139, 159, 160
see also Academic achieve- vampiric seduction, 75, 82, 133–
ment/engagement; Knowledge; 135, 139, 147, 171, 177,
Schoolhouse Gothic; STEM 180
(science, technology, engi- Shade of Vampire,A, Bella Forrest, 13,
neering, mathematics) 35, 81, 93, 95, 141, 169, 174,
competence 179, 181, 216, 236
St. Vladimir’s Academy, 99, 142, Shame/shaming, 77, 89
234, 246 female body, 24, 45
Schubart, Rikke, 9, 126, 178, 180, girl cultures, 3–5
203, 205 of rape survivors, 150, 188, 189,
Seelinger Trites, Roberta, 8, 129, 138 192, 200, 204, 265
Sexuality, female
vampire reading, 3, 4
celebration of, 97, 128, 130, 140,
Slut shaming, 127, 149
142, 146, 147
belonging, 151, 152, 156
demonisation of, 125, 147, 148,
265 blood whore/blood-whoring,
excess of, 124, 146, 148, 150, 158 153–155, 157, 158, 162
postfeminist context, 129, 146, class, 150, 152, 153
151, 161 consequences of, 154, 162
see also Blood consumption, defensive othering, 155, 156
and sexual arousal; Desire, gender, 157, 158, 162
same-sex; Sexual relationships; respectability/reputation, 149, 151,
Slut shaming 153, 155, 156, 162, 200, 265
sexual agency, 126, 134, 137, Smith, Michelle J., 2, 3, 10, 36, 42,
140–142, 146, 160 76, 78, 86, 98, 136, 139, 155,
INDEX 275
156, 173, 197, 215, 217, 262, in Gothic/horror fiction, 28, 30

263 supernatural, 29, 30, 50
Soul mate, 86, 89, 144 vampire tattoo, 14, 27–30, 50
existence of/belief in., 86, 89, 90. Thinness
See also Romantic relationships as patriarchal oppression, 41, 45
loss/death of, 90, 92, 110, 111. See cult of, 40, 41, 44
also Homosexual relationships dieting/eating disorder, 40, 42, 45,
one true love paradigm, 78, 79, 86, 46
89, 90, 111 thin-thinking, 14, 41, 42
romanticised suicide, 90–92 thin vampire, 40, 42–44
see also Romantic relationships Torkelson, Anne, 78, 170, 174, 176,
Southern Vampire Mysteries,The, 177, 188, 195, 202, 205
Charlaine Harris, 9, 54, 77, 81, True Blood, Allan Ball, 32, 42, 54,
93, 132, 142, 171, 180, 189, 77, 81, 110, 128, 129, 132, 147,
236 171, 197
Steinke, Jocelyn, 224, 225, 230, 248 True Blood, Allan Ball, 76, 124
STEM (science, technology, Twilight, Stephenie Meyer, 3, 7, 27,
engineering, mathematics) 32, 33, 35, 78, 93, 81, 86, 90,
competence 93–95, 124, 125, 139, 141, 142,
and gender, 15, 224, 225, 248 144, 146, 147, 173, 176, 178,
and magic, 226, 229, 230 180, 183, 190, 195, 197, 205,
as incongruent with desirable 216, 249, 259, 236, 261
femininity, 240
as instrument of repression, 229
girl genius scientist, 31, 40, 225, U
228, 248, 264 Ugliness/ugly bodies
Style as sign of moral corruption, 47, 49,
and belonging, 24, 25, 51, 52 65
as oppression, 60–62 exclusion of, 33, 37, 46, 47
as resistance, 24, 51, 59–61, 64, 66, see also Ageing/aged bodies;
194 Fat/ness
controlling girl-gaze, 52, 65, 150
V
T Vampire Academy, Mark Waters, 113,
Tanenbaum, Leora, 150, 154, 155 153
Tattoo/ing, 25 Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead
and belonging, 28, 29 Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead, 3,
and consent, 30, 31 9, 11, 12, 25, 29, 37, 39, 44,
and gender, 28, 31, 32 56, 65, 79, 92, 94, 98, 107, 126,
as rite of passage, 29, 50 130, 136, 142, 152, 162, 172,
dhampir/warrior tattoos, 29–32 182, 183, 197, 199, 204, 218,
feminist understandings of, 28, 30 226, 230, 233, 241, 248
276 INDEX
Vampire Diaries, The, Kevin domestic/intimate partner abuse,

Williamson, Julie Plec, 8, 28, 32, 15, 171, 172, 181, 182, 187,
54, 81, 86, 88, 124, 126, 128, 188, 190, 203
146, 177, 179, 180, 189, 197, drugging, 169, 171, 174, 180, 187,
204, 205, 216, 236 199, 203, 205
Vampire Diaries,The, L.J. Smith, 2, in Gothic/paranormal romance, 87,
7, 13, 26, 35, 54, 81, 126, 130, 170, 171, 173, 188, 202, 205
177, 205 in popular/girl cultures, 169–171,
Vampire fiction, YA, 7, 125, 130, 131, 173, 176, 188
141, 160 punishment for, 177, 201, 205
condemnation of, 3, 4, 259 resistance against., 190, 197. See
popularity of, 1–3, 5, 6, 11, 25, also Beauty and the Beast; Rape
259, 260, 263 Mythology/Myths
reception of, 4, 33, 82, 88, 110, romanticisation of, 169, 170, 172,
112, 125, 195, 221, 259 173, 181, 186, 202
Vampire Gift, The, E.M. Knight, 174 sexual, 162, 170, 183. See also Rape
Vampire society/community, 12, 27, trivialisation of, 169, 172,
47, 54, 80, 82, 96, 103, 113, 176, 177. See also Rape
147, 157, 159, 161, 184, 193, Mythology/Myths
218, 234, 235
Violence, female, 194
Vampirism
girl empowerment, 178, 198, 204
and conservatism, 5, 78, 112, 126,
monstress/vampiric predatoress, 5,
131, 160, 261
48–50, 127, 147, 196
as adolescence, 2, 25, 29, 35, 131
see also Rape-revenge
as metaphor for human existence, 6,
26, 261, 265 self-defence, 170, 178, 187,
197–200, 204
as radical narrative, 5, 76, 112, 264
uncontrollable, 147, 200, 204
as salvation, 93, 103, 177, 204,
260, 262 warrioress, 12, 30, 32, 172, 182,
transformation, 26, 32, 33, 35, 44, 187, 197
49, 78, 93, 131, 177, 182, Virginity, 14
193, 204, 262 and female agency, 137–138,
Violence against women 140–146
abduction, 93, 169, 171, 174, 182, feminist understandings of, 128,
198 145
and dark magic, 174, 175, 177, in Gothic/horror fiction, 128
180, 201, 206 loss of, 128, 132, 138–140, 144,
as structural problem, 184, 193, 145, 160
197, 202 value of, 127, 128, 139, 140, 145,
bruises and wounds, 170, 174, 181, 146
188–192 virginal vampress, 129
INDEX 277
W Y
What We Do in the Shadows , 37 Youthfulness, 37, 136
Wisker, Gina, 5, 9, 27, 75–77, 79, 86, desire for, 25, 35, 38
97, 124, 125, 260, 261, 265 vampiric, 34–36, 38
Witch/Witchcraft, 9, 31, 38, 39, 65,
110, 127, 136, 198, 218, 229,
230, 235, 236, 246, 248

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PALGRAVE GOTHIC

Editorial Advisory Board

More information about this series at

ISSN 2634-6214 ISSN 2634-6222 (electronic)

Cover credit: Vizerskaya/Getty Images

I am extremely fortunate to be surrounded by many people and insti-

Popular Culture (2014) and Vampiric Transformations (2018) would not

1 Vampire Fiction, Girls and Shame: Introduction 1

3.5 Conclusion 111

Vampire Fiction, Girls and Shame:

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

power to encourage unsuspecting adolescent girls to delve “deeper and

on the allure of teen vampire books, concludes: “Most of what I read

A horrifying revenant skulking through the folktales across the

object of fascination to millions of fans worldwide, and a terrain of

cultural productions addressed primarily to children and pre-adolescents

of femininity and power in YA horror focuses on the figure of the super-

The scholarship on Buffy and Twilight encompasses a myriad of diverse approaches

the intention of “turning patriarchy and misogyny upside down” (Cast

vampires in the series analysed.23 Following the introductory Chapter 1,

Kokkola, Lydia. 2013. Fictions of Adolescent Carnality: Sexy Sinners and

Stephanou, Aspasia. 2014. Reading Vampire Gothic Through Blood: Bloodlines.

Writing (on) Girls’ Bodies: Vampires

In Phantasmagoria, Marina Warner demarcates the late eighteenth

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 23

bodies in the Western popular imagination as objects of scrutiny and

2.1 The Markings of the Vampiric Body

can perform a myriad of functions beyond its aesthetic qualities. Drawing

The tattoos in these series display diverse origins, aesthetic qualities

The golden lily’s power can, however, be neutralised through another

covering their tattoos a dishonour and view them as a sign of “being

2.2 Such Hot Fangs! Vampirism and Beauty

An Unattractive vampire? You may cry “Inconceivable” to that idea, my

century? With their perfect cheekbones and irresistible sex-appeal, their

economics of the “fetishization of youth” (Latham 2002, 5). A momen-

23 It is interesting to note that in her description of her grandmother’s body, Bella

stories, however, narrate the promise of immortal youthfulness as deeply

In Victorian Melodrama in the Twenty-First Century, Katie Kapurch

“Will you … be cool with me outliving you by several hundred years?”

Heath’s playful response echoes popular understandings of a relation-

and Bloodlines are narrated as ageing and ultimately dying in a way

a vulnerable, sick or disabled body into the narrative of extreme able-

2.3 You Don’t See Fat Vamps:

the needs of her entourage, and responds effectively to various vampire-

encapsulates such discourses on the body within the concept of “thin-

37 Furthermore, in Redeemed, the series’ arch-villainess Neferet chooses to first murder

He fixed me with a disconcertingly hard look. “Maybe everyone else thinks

In the fifth volume of Bloodlines, Silver Shadows, Sydney is accused of

2.4 No One Mourns the Ugly:

and Christine Jarvis argue in Education and Popular Culture, “apparently,

While villainous characters can initially be presented as attractive, in

“dirty red” (Betrayed 241, 281)—their colour communicating Otherness

In Girls, Style, and School Identities, Shauna Pomerantz articulates the

In her analysis of shame as an inherent experience of girls in vampire

young vampire heroines remain preoccupied with questions of appear-

2.5 Velvet! Platinum! Pearls!

figures of vampire and cyborg as the very embodiment of the consumerist

trends, and clothes and clothing accessories are presented as exception-

As Piatti-Farnell suggests, contemporary vampires are strongly asso-