Check your weapons at the door and welcome today’s urban fantasy heroes.
Horror books and films used to portray vampires, werewolves and the like as bloodthirsty and violent monsters. In the good ol’ days, mythical beasts were truly scary.
How times have changed. Across the Urban Fantasy genre, the mystery of their existence has been romanticised. Century-old lore is being gutted for wisps of a truth that serves to present to you, the reader, civilized monsters and misunderstood bad boys with a heart of gold. A heart of gold, provided they meet the right girl. How wonderful that in literature, at least, the search for redemption is still alive. Men want to change for their chosen gal, and the worthy woman will turn the disaffected monster into a dreamboat through the medium of love.
Aww.
These “monsters” must of course retain the traits that characterize them as a member of their species, and it helps to throw in a few acts of shocking violence to reinforce their dastardly nature and to provide sufficient reason to let them wallow in that oh-so-sexy misery. Urban fantasy writers know, the worse his reputation, the greater the love that transforms him.
Let’s dissect the Twilight Saga.
Or let’s not. Filled with typical teenage angst, Edward & Co are too soppy for my taste. I simply can’t take Stephenie Meyer’s vampires and werewolves seriously. That’s fine, since I’m not her intended readership. However, if I’d come across her in my youth, I’d probably covered my notebooks with ‘Jacob’ and my name, enclosed by pink hearts, like a thousand other girls.
Oh yes. Despite my scathing tone, I love my heroes to be rugged, tough, and just a little bad. My heroines sassy, kick-butt, and…just a little bad. And why not? If my fantasy world were populated by humdrum dweebs, it would hardly qualify as “fantasy.” Certainly not my fantasy. And while the teen heart throbs of Young Adult fiction don’t do it for me, Urban Fantasy has plenty to offer for a variety of tastes.
I adore the hard edge of Kim Harrison’s The Hollows series, whose resident vampire Ivy constantly struggles with her inner monster, never allows the reader to completely relax around her, and yet makes the best friend a girl could have. Ivy isn’t the only house-trained monster I enjoy reading about or watching on TV. To think back, who didn’t crush on Buffy’s Spike? Urban fantasy at its best.
Basically, turning monsters into heroes is one of the hallmarks of Urban Fantasy. Witches are hip and sexy, vamps are tortured hotties, and werewolves become a woman’s best friend. It’s what UF does so well. We take elements from genres like fantasy and horror and transport them into a world we know. Magical amulets are available side by side with knock-off Prada bags from street vendors, and a flick of the digital-watch-wearing wrist may change weather patterns.
“Soft vampires are not believable,” I’ve been told. Seriously? Their gentleness tips the scales from everyday normalcy to Nah, I don’t buy it? Not the existence of vampires in the first place? Once you suspend disbelief, everything becomes a measure of subjective likes and dislikes. So stop being down on toothless vamps and puppy-eyed werewolves and enjoy the madness.
Even if you don’t love the genre yet, the right evil-to-seduction ratio for you may still be waiting to be discovered.
