That is a point of vampire physiological debate actually, whether they DO breathe or not. Lestat Says Yes, Therefore it is Truth! … except maybe not. Maybe he thinks he’s breathing because he has to, but he may be doing it out of habit.
I feel like they would need to breathe for the air to go through properly for speech. Otherwise, wouldn’t they sound more like the breathless screeching vampires in 30 Days of Night?
there was a fic in which the vampires considered what would happen if they were in a coffin on a ship and the ship sunk. Would they still be conscious, trapped in their coffin? Presumably they wouldn’t die by drowning… hmmm…?
However that’s just RICEAN vampires. If you wanna know in a more general way, go to askavampirologist ;]
Since I never receaved this ask I will just answer it anyway in short, just in case the anon got shy or something.
I see no reason a vampire would need to breathe in the sense that we do, which is to intake and convert air into oxygen. That seems negligibly important to an undead physiology. (not to mention oxygen deteriorates our insides veeeeery slowly, aka oxidization, which is one of the possible reasons our bodies age, it would make sense for a non-aging body to not intake and distribute such a harmful gas.)
Anyway, I do think they would however, need to breathe for other reasons. You can’t talk without breathing, as our vocal chords require air to pass through them to cause vibrations.
This leads to other issues, like heartbeats and blood movement to keep the lungs lubricated to allow expansion. But that’s getting really complicated so I’ll leave it there.
I imagine yes, it’s mostly out of habit, and to allow them to speak.
The best thing about being a vampire, in my humble opinion, is the fearlessness. There’s a sense of freedom as an immortal that I never felt even in passing as a living man. I can see why so many young vampires behave recklessly when given this new lease upon their existence; consequences are marginal if one can manage to relinquish all traces of their morality as a fresh born killer. I lived in and with many fears towards the end of my life. The reality of becoming a man constructed of fragile bones and weakened organs made it immensely difficult for me to fully enjoy myself without being preoccupied by these concerns. Now I experience no fear — with certain exceptions.
The worst thing about being a vampire, which is also specific to perhaps only myself, is not just the need to seek blood. That remains an issue for me that I need to work through. What bothers me more is the inconvenience of daytime sleep. It’s forced narcolepsy. I cannot wait for the passage of time where I am finally able to remain awake without the sun dragging me into slumber. Thus far I’ve managed to pass out over my desk, inside the foyer, and halfway upon my bed. It’s not graceful or with any kind of dignity. And since someone (Lestat) thinks it’s entertaining to leave me in such awkward positions, I tend to dread the time leading up to dawn for just that reason.
Oh, my dear David. It’s your reaction waking up the next night that is utterly entertaining to behold. Start sensing when it’s time to sleep, quit reading or entertaining your company, here or at home,fast enough and you might save some dignity by falling into slumber on a bed rather a desk chair, floor, or other various ways I’ve found you..
Should I list them completely?
I’m sure your visitors would love to imagine the awkwardness of it all.
Don’t you dare or I shall never speak a word to you again.
I’ve always been kind of bugged by the bit in BaG where Marius stays at the bottom of a canal for an hour, because it suggests they don’t need to breathe. I remember seeing something in PL that seemed to refute that, so then I was irritated at having to mentally explain away the BaG reference. I’ll have to go back and see what the PL thing was now…
Yeah same! I remember that part in BaG.
But… if we don’t count PL as canon, then there’s no discrepancy. Well. There MIGHT be. I just can’t remember breathing being specifically mentioned elsewhere.
This is one of those situations where I wish I had vampiric super-fast reading so I could skim the whole damn VC and gather up all the vampire physiology facts. *siiiigh*
//The fact that they don’t need to breathe is early canon stuff. They can bury themselves alive, for goodness’ sake. And wasn’t Mekare in a box underwater? That didn’t exactly have oxygen.
I think they can inhale and exhale, and may need to breathe when they’ve drunk blood in order to oxygenate it, but they can definitely go without breathing for long periods of time.
This is part of why I’m so opposed to attempting to bring “science” into it. There’s nothing scientific about vampire magic. (I do not count PL as canon, but I don’t count most of the later books either.)
//My only suggestion in response to this (which may be a load of crap) is that they can breathe, and may do it reflexively or in order to drink or speak, but they don’t need it in order to continue functioning. As a result, they remain unaffected and do not suffocate or black out from lack of oxygen the way that a human would. Alternatively, you could say that if they breathe to oxygenate the blood they’ve consumed, the contents of the blood is what sustains them. This would render the physical act of inhale/exhale unnecessary because they already have the oxygen content that they require, having already taken it in; their bodies just process it differently because they no longer use the majority of the human body’s major functions in the same way. It could also contribute to how a vampire’s body responds to deprivation of blood; it’s possibly reacting to the lack of oxygen ordinarily used to maintain the body’s stability?
I’ve always been kind of bugged by the bit in BaG where Marius stays at the bottom of a canal for an hour, because it suggests they don’t need to breathe. I remember seeing something in PL that seemed to refute that, so then I was irritated at having to mentally explain away the BaG reference. I’ll have to go back and see what the PL thing was now…
Yeah same! I remember that part in BaG.
But… if we don’t count PL as canon, then there’s no discrepancy. Well. There MIGHT be. I just can’t remember breathing being specifically mentioned elsewhere.
This is one of those situations where I wish I had vampiric super-fast reading so I could skim the whole damn VC and gather up all the vampire physiology facts. *siiiigh*
That is a point of vampire physiological debate actually, whether they DO breathe or not. Lestat Says Yes, Therefore it is Truth! … except maybe not. Maybe he thinks he’s breathing because he has to, but he may be doing it out of habit.
I feel like they would need to breathe for the air to go through properly for speech. Otherwise, wouldn’t they sound more like the breathless screeching vampires in 30 Days of Night?
there was a fic in which the vampires considered what would happen if they were in a coffin on a ship and the ship sunk. Would they still be conscious, trapped in their coffin? Presumably they wouldn’t die by drowning… hmmm…?
However that’s just RICEAN vampires. If you wanna know in a more general way, go to askavampirologist ;]
And we do breathe. We breathe and we taste and we smell and we feel and we thirst.
I-want-my-IWTV 