Speculative Question re Vampires

[deird_lj]

So. If you invite a vampire into your house, they can come in.

If you then move house, and someone else buys it, the vampire can't come in anymore.

But... If you have two people living in the house (person A and person B), and A invites the vampire in - so the vampire can come in - and then A moves house (and B is still living there), and then person C moves in, and after B and C have shared the house for a while, B moves out, so that C is living there alone...

...at that point, can the vampire still come in?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

Hmm, not sure how it affects the answer, but remember that it's your home more than your house that counts.

Remember, vampires can barge in on college freshmen as long as it doesn't yet feel like home to them... (I would expect house-warmings would therefore be important, but that's only my theory.)

η

[deird1]

True.

Never thought about the house-warmings thing - that's kinda cool!

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

I thought that was just because they'd already killed them when they stole their stuff...

(Sorry for butting in, I just find this sort of stuff interesting.)

[deird1]

Actually, when they stole Buffy's stuff, she was still alive...

[ikona-rakasha.livejournal.com]

depends on the universe i think.
though the general theme is that pretty much, if there are 2 diff people in the same house, then they cannot come in because the people's souls bar them.

yep thats right, people have souls, souls act as a wall.

[deird1]

In this particular case, we're mostly talking Buffyverse (purely because it's the one I'm most familiar with - plus I'm obsessed), in which case any resident can invite them in - and they can still come in after that resident has died, if they want to eat everyone else...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I really don't know the answer - but my gut feeling is that if it is no longer the home of anyone who has welcomed the vampire in, they would find the way barred again. So if B had been happy for the vampire to be in the house when A lived there, chatted, gave him/her tea and biscuits, then the welcome would be assumed to be from B too.

If C was never friendly, left the room when the vampire arrived etc. then when B left too I think the vampire might find the way barred.

Fascinating question with a whole lot of possible answers - I reckon that you can more or less take it as you like.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

My interpretation is, it's all a symbolic representation of the fact that evil can't claim you unless you willingly invite it into your heart home.

So the invitation to a vampire has to be given by a person living in the house, and expires when that person no longer lives there, or is dead. B is safe as soon as A moves out, in other words. There may be a grey area if A leaves some of their stuff in the house, because have they really moved out then? Or if B is A's parent, and tells them "This will always be your home too"?

Interestingly, note that in the 'Dracula' novel, the vampire also has to invite people into his own house. ("Enter freely and of your own will") - again, reinforcing the idea that people have on some subconscious level to choose to become victims of a vampire.

[carlos-v-b.livejournal.com]

My personal theory is that it'll take everybody in one household generation moving out before the invitation resets. Think of it in terms of Korner household naming conventions; 8 or 10 years on, the Barn is still called the Barn, and so in a way it's still the same household.

But if everybody currently there moves out, then another group of people will move in, probably call it something like "Joel and Mattie's place", and Joel and Mattie won't be prey to the vampires that most of Korner has had issues with for the last 10 years.

In other words, C still has the problem, but if C moves out, and then D moves in, then that will reset it. I'm not sure though how disconnected C & D have to be though. If C & D are friends, and D inherits a lot of old furniture from C, and C & D go to all the same parties, then there might be an issue, but I think D should be fine.

It's not really a logical or scientific thing; perhaps it's best to think of it in terms of "If A gave V (oooh, subtle Chris...) a permanent standing invitation to come in whenever V likes, when does that invitation end?". These days those sort of invites may be considered to end when A moves, but for big, borderline communal households, then maybe they last a bit longer. It gets more interesting if A is the head of a household, and after A dies E inherits the land and house. Then V can probably turn up whenever V feels like it and E has to live with it ("of course I couldn't throw him out! Grandfather gave him a permanent invitation, and that has to mean something!")

Of course, the real answer is "Whatever the damned scriptwriters wish to use to move their plot along. You think we came up with all the hard and fast rules before we started writing the series? HA!"

random commenter

[rowanda380.livejournal.com]

I would guess no, that they would not be able to enter since person C had nothing to do with letting them in and bothr A and B are gone...it is just like the first example...someone new moves in and the vamp can't enter.

[lyr]

I would say no, on the grounds that the original permission came from the AB household, of which C was never a part, but I agree that you can argue it the other way if you decide that it's like martial community property.

[carlos-v-b.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling, though I'm not entirely sure about this, that the "invite only" system partly stems from the aspect of vampire lore that portrays them as OCDers of the most insane sort. Therefore, Vampire's need to be invited in because they're absolute sticklers for manners, and the entire rule of whether they're allowed in comes down to "Is it polite for me to enter?"