The Vamp: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"Oh such grace, oh such beauty-- so precious, suspicious, and charming, and vicious,''

 

A classic character type, the beauty who uses her feminine wiles to undermine a moral and upright man, for ''evil'' purposes. She's [[Evil Is Sexy|evil and sexy]], a liar and a sneak, and [[Flaw Exploitation|uses the good guy's sympathy against him]], often with a sob story about her mother and some hospital bills or a [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]].

 

{{examples}}

* Mitsuko Souma in ''[[Battle Royale]]''.

* Slan from ''[[Berserk]]''.

* This played a vital role in ''[[Voltron]]'''s backstory. Initially, the eponymous robot was your typical [[Humungous Mecha]] (''not'' a [[Combining Mecha|combining one]]) who had no need of a pilot. However, the [[Wicked Witch]] Haggar schemed to slay him, and assumed the form of a beautiful cosmic being, beckoning him to come close. He was fooled, let his guard down, and left himself open for her attack. ''But'' he survived, the assault breaking him into the five Lion components, each still a functional warrior, but each only a fifth as powerful as Voltron himself. Only when the Voltron Force found them could he regain his true power.

 

* Ava Lord from the ''[[Sin City]]'' story "A Dame to Kill For" was an evil ([[Card-Carrying Villain|by her own admission]]) and greedy seductress who manipulated her old lover, Dwight McCarthy, through a [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]] into murdering her husband so she could get her hands on all his money, and then tried to kill him once he had [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|outlived his usefulness to her]]. As Manute, her [[The Dragon|Dragon]] (who would later show up in "The Big Fat Kill"), explains, Dwight is not the first man she has destroyed with her deadly wiles. Lampshaded-slash-deconstructed in her admission, as she points out that "evil ruthless seductress" is so cliche nobody believes she can be one...until it's too late.

* Poison Ivy in the [[Batman]] comic books, especially before she became an eco-terrorist.

* Bridget Keating from ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'', although Bridget is more selfish than evil.

* Lulu Romanov in ''[[Nikolai Dante]]''

 

* ''[[Black Widow]]'' (1987), played by Theresa Russell, a serial killer of rich men she married, ostensibly for their money. Has strong [[Les Yay|bisexual theme]] as well.

* Pick a version of ''[[The Parent Trap (1961 film)|The Parent Trap]]''. In this case, it takes the twin girls wreaking havoc on The Vamp to make Dad realize that he's about to marry a gold-digging bitch, which was completely obvious to everyone else from the moment the woman appeared on the screen. She'll likely overlap with the [[Rich Bitch]] in this case.

* ''[[Rugrats in Paris]]'': Unlike Kira, who treats people around her with genuine compassion, Coco Labouche is only pretending to be in love with Chaz to get what she wants (she figures if she marries a man who has a child, it’ll be easier for her to become President of her boss’s company, as her boss feels the president should have a heart of a child). And she has every intention of abusing Chuckie, going as far as to plan to destroy his teddy bear. Luckily, Kira decides not to go through with that, because she actually cares about Chuckie after hearing the misfortune that had befallen him. And yes, you can probably guess who Chaz decides to marry in the end.

 

* [[Rudyard Kipling]] wrote a poem called [http://www.online-literature.com/donne/921/ "The Vampire".] [[Trope Namer]]?

* Milady de Winter in ''[[The Three Musketeers (novel)|The Three Musketeers]]''.

* Matilda fills this role in ''[[The Monk]]'', particularly if you read her character as deliberately leading Ambrosio astray rather than merely being tempting.

 

* Victoria Metcalf, the psychotic, poetry-loving bank robber who was the love of Benton Fraser's life in ''[[Due South]]''.

* Lila in ''[[Dexter]]''. Granted, Dexter is most certainly [[Serial Killer|not]] your typical "moral and upright man", but Lila's willing to go places that [[Even Evil Has Standards|even he won't]]. The nihilistic temptress comes complete with black hair, in contrast to Dexter's blonde good-girl girlfriend Rita.

* Regina in ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'' clearly ''wants'' to be this, invoking [[Evil Is Sexy]] and trying to seduce men to do what she wants. It never works (probably because the men are [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know sleeping with an evil witch-queen ''never'' ends well), so she falls back to her magic and/or loyal army.

 

* Bree Sharp's ''Cheap and Evil Girl'' describes one.

* Hall & Oates' "Maneater", as seen in the former page quote.

''You know she's a little bit dangerous...''}}

 

* The classic Vamp, of course, is Delilah, from the [[The Bible|biblical]] story of Samson. The Biblical story clearly treats her as a villainess who tempts Samson away from his godly ways, and thus brings about his downfall, emasculation, and captivity. She betrayed him very effectively, although her life was threatened. People weak in faith turning their backs on their powerful protector when threatened by the vast but easily avoidable powers of the wicked is a bit of a theme in the ''Bible'', yes.

** Which makes it interesting that the book of Judges also features a '''heroic''' vamp in the character of Jael. After Deborah has just lead the Israelites to victory against their current oppressor, Sisera, the general from that army, escapes. He finds his way to Jael's tent where she tires him out with sex, puts him to sleep, then brutally assassinates him. Whoever says the Bible is unfair to women, read that and weep.

* [[Older Than Dirt]]: [[Mesopotamian Mythology]] has the goddess Ishtar/Innana, who tends to cause her lovers' deaths, and the seductive [[Child Eater]] Lilitu.

 

* The female, and literal, vampires of the [[Vampires Are Sex Gods|Daeva]] [[The Beautiful Elite|clan]] from ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' are the EMBODIMENTS of this trope. Although it depends on the player, the [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire|nicest]] Daeva vampiresses would be considered [[Femme Fatale|Femmes Fatales]], but the book encourages you to play it straight; in other words, [[Complete Monster|be downright evil]].

* Mina Devlin from ''[[Deadlands]]''.

* [[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]

** Vampire Vamp's name and effect actually invokes the trope. Konami even supports it in their [https://yugiohblog.konami.com/articles/?p=6208 TCG blog article on her.]

** The Trapix archetype are seductive, beautiful wood elves who lure men into their traps; said men are devoured by giant spider-like creatures, although it isn't clear whether these beasts are the Trapix's pets or [[One-Winged Angel]] forms of the Trapix themselves.

 

* [[Anvilicious|Lucy The Slut]] in ''[[Avenue Q]]''. The extent of her character is, well, [[Self Explanatory]].

* Lola from ''[[Damn Yankees]]'' is a subversion. She presents herself in her [["I Am" Song|establishing song]] "A Little Brains, A Little Talent" to be The Vamp to end all Vamps, but her seduction of Joe is unsuccessful, in part because she [[Minion with an F In Evil|fails to be evil enough]].

* Sally Bowles from ''Cabaret'' is another more irresponsible and immature than evil version.

 

 

* The ''SiN'' series features Vamp/[[The Baroness|Baroness]] combo Elexis Sinclaire.

* ''[[Metal Gear]]:''

* [[Ms. Fanservice|I]][[Evil Is Sexy|-No]] from ''[[Guilty Gear]]''.

 

 

* Amelia Sturtz in ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' used her looks to get men close enough to her to hypnotize them through eye contact.

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209165257/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2342 Seymour accuses Monique of being this.]

 

* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', several female players, such as Katherine Marks, Clemence, and Chi Masumi, have used their looks to try to seduce male opponents and catch them off guard or get protection/help from them. Usually, they try to kill the male once they're vulnerable. {{spoiler|This has just about never worked, James Coombs, Naoji Hideyoshi, and Aaron Redfield being the only actual victims of this tactic so far.}} Non-player females sometimes try to do something similar to charm males into helping them, but this has become rare by v3.

 

* The Martian Queen Tyrahnee from ''[[Duck Dodgers]]''. Or she ''tries'', anyway - Dodgers is [[Chaste Hero|too stupid to fall for it]]. In some episodes, she's a [[Defrosting Ice Queen]] who's genuinely in love with Dodgers, but he's ''still'' too stupid to notice.

* Subverted in one "Ambiguously Gay Duo" cartoon short on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''. An alien queen plans to use her feminine wiles to distract Ace and Gary, but Dr. Bighead replies, "I, uh, don't think that'll work on those two". Which it didn't. They have very strong moral constitutions, obviously.

* Subverted with Azula in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', who is simply domineering enough that she sounds this way talking to... well, ''everyone''. When she actually tries to seduce someone, it fails dismally.

* Blackarachnia of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' wavered between this and [[Femme Fatale]]. Even if she was redeemed, it would be very hard for anyone (besides Optimus, the sap) to trust her. Which is odd, because while she's fairly sexy by human body shape standards, she's also techno-organic—and most Transformers are repulsed by anything organic. However, many of the Autobots find her very attractive. and only Blitzwing and {{spoiler|Sentinel Prime}} react with anything approaching disgust. {{spoiler|The latter even tries to ''kill her'', despite the fact that she was once his best friend.}}

** Blackarachnia of ''[[Beast Wars]]'' qualifies, at least in season 1 and early-mid season 2. She is basically the closest thing the series ever has to a ninja, is pretty good-looking by any bot's standards, and, to varying degrees, has used her looks to manipulate Tarantulus, Quickstrike, and Silverbolt, although she got in a little over her head with that last one, resulting in her eventual [[Heel Face Turn]] by the beginning of season 3.

* Lolita and Tanqueray from ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]''.

* [[Those Wacky Nazis|Hatta Mari]] from the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short ''Plane Daffy''.

 

{{reflist}}