I'm kind of a vampire enthusiast (okay, not really, but I have spent a ridiculous amount of time studying different vampire mythologies and reading the vampire encyclopedia, heh), so now you can have my two (or fourteen, hah, sorry) cents :D
When canon has both vampires and werewolves, vampires tend to be more popular/accepted than the 'wolves. (In my experience. I don't claim to have read every vampire/werewolf book out there...) I think it's because vampires look human at all times, they have really long lives (which helps them get better at PR and surviving), and getting bitten by a vampire is generally thought to be more glamorous than getting eaten by a 'wolf. I mean, look at Anita Blake. The vampires are very successful, rich, and well-liked by humans, but the lycanthropes all have to hide their true identities for fear of being shunned.
Of course, there is also usually a rivalry between the two. In most of the stories I've read, in a fight between a 'wolf and a vampire at about the same level of power, the 'wolf will almost always win when in animal form, but the vampire will almost always win otherwise. In several 'verses, werewolves are treated as second-class citizens or are scorned by all of the other preternatural beings, which I think goes back to their lack of control. They are animals in human skins, and they are generally treated as such. But they're also still technically humans, so they hate vampires (who aren't, even though they can pass).
Also, sort of in response to a_t_rain's comment about whether vampires are a race or if it's passed by biting- it may be both. In some mythologies, vampires can have children. In some, there are two types of vampires- the kind that can grow older and have kids, and the kind that can't. I tend to assume that JKR has only the vaguest notion of which kind she's writing, so I just use the broadest definitions and then bend them to fit my mood *g*
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-11-01 03:13 am (UTC)I'm kind of a vampire enthusiast (okay, not really, but I have spent a ridiculous amount of time studying different vampire mythologies and reading the vampire encyclopedia, heh), so now you can have my two (or fourteen, hah, sorry) cents :D
When canon has both vampires and werewolves, vampires tend to be more popular/accepted than the 'wolves. (In my experience. I don't claim to have read every vampire/werewolf book out there...) I think it's because vampires look human at all times, they have really long lives (which helps them get better at PR and surviving), and getting bitten by a vampire is generally thought to be more glamorous than getting eaten by a 'wolf. I mean, look at Anita Blake. The vampires are very successful, rich, and well-liked by humans, but the lycanthropes all have to hide their true identities for fear of being shunned.
Of course, there is also usually a rivalry between the two. In most of the stories I've read, in a fight between a 'wolf and a vampire at about the same level of power, the 'wolf will almost always win when in animal form, but the vampire will almost always win otherwise. In several 'verses, werewolves are treated as second-class citizens or are scorned by all of the other preternatural beings, which I think goes back to their lack of control. They are animals in human skins, and they are generally treated as such. But they're also still technically humans, so they hate vampires (who aren't, even though they can pass).
Also, sort of in response to