The vampire friend is cool again

• The last time vampire friends were cool was in the Edward Cullen era of Twilight.

• Video game companies seem to have collectively decided to bring back the vampire friend in 2024.

• Matthew Mercer and Neil Newbon, the men behind video game's hottest vampire edge lords, are here to tell us about the beautiful boys who portray them.

Who among us hasn't seen the pallor of a distinguished, red-eyed gentleman and felt that getting bitten wouldn't be a bad idea? Just me? Sure, I think – and so do thousands of people on the internet.

If you've spent any time on TikTok or X in the last few months, you may have noticed a variety of videos and posts about two video game characters. There's Astarion from “Baldur's Gate 3” and more recently Vincent Valentine, a fan-favorite character from Square Enix's “Final Fantasy VII” remake.

Which brings me to the conclusion: It looks like the goth vampire boyfriend is cool again.

The last time the vampire friend was this cool was in the halcyon days of Twilight, when Edward Cullen sparkled in the sun and stole many a millennium's heart.

And while Edward may be the unofficial face of the trend, he's not alone: ​​There's also the wildly popular TV shows “Vampire Diaries” and “True Blood,” to name just two. In animation, there was also “Castlevania's” Alucard, a blonde Dracula-style thirst trap – and with him a stacked legacy of anime bloodsuckers from “Trinity Blood” and “Vampire Knight.”

Perhaps it's no surprise that video game developers are now leaning on this saying: Vampire friends have been shown in the past to be good for the bottom line, too. After all, the “Twilight” saga has grossed more than $5.28 billion worldwide.

And the thirst (pun intended) is real. Hundreds of thousands of people tried to romance Astarion during the game's opening weekend, and Almost 100,000 of them failed. Players can't romance Valentine in the game, but they can definitely create thirsty TikToks about him.

The story goes on

I've been trying to untangle the re-emerging attraction of the forever-living lover. And what better way to do that than by speaking to the men who bring these characters to life: voice actor Matthew Mercer, who voices Valentine, and BAFTA-nominated Neil Newbon, the voice of Astarion.

“Who dares to disturb my sleep?”

Mercer's opening line in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is now a fandom legend.

With the low growl of “Who dares to disturb my sleep?” From the depths of his velvet-lined coffin, longtime “Final Fantasy” fans were introduced to the super-cool, uber-Gothic gunslinger. (Spoiler alert: Valentine looks like a vampire. But he's not Really one in the strictest definition of the term – it simply has several monstrous forms and rests for a long time in a coffin.)

“Vincent is like the dark edge lord of emo sadness on the outside, and then on the inside he has this burning fire of passion that starts to ignite as his story takes off,” Mercer said. “I had always thought about in my head what it would sound like. And now I just have the chance to let it out.”

I ask him about the fandom's love for vampire-like characters and he agrees So back in the spotlight. Mercer also voices a vampire in The Legend of Vox Machina, an Amazon-backed animated series he created with his friends at Critical Role.

“Vincent definitely embodies a lot of the classic fantasy and media-informed antihero-protagonist-vampire kind of thing,” Mercer said.

He also said that, in his opinion, the essence of a vampire's appeal – and its tragedy – is that it is “steeped in its own mythology.”

“This is a person who is taken out of the circle of life, and to survive and exist is to enjoy others,” Mercer said. “The atmosphere itself is tragic and romantic.”

“Vincent leans heavily into the 'monster within' aesthetic,” he added. “The idea: 'I'm trying to be the best I can be, but there's something dark inside me that I always have to keep at bay.'”

It's also “wild,” says Mercer, to be immortalized in a game like “Final Fantasy VII.” He told me that he grew up with the series, playing early versions of the game and cosplaying characters from it, so it was a “white whale” for him to take on the role.

“Vincent kind of comes out of his cave, shakes the dust off a little bit, learns to be social and comes out of his shell of self-loathing,” Mercer said. “Playing that subtle arc and slow opening of that cold exterior was a fun journey to explore.”

The vampire friends in video games are also a lesson in vulnerability – and dealing with trauma

I also caught up with Newbon, who has won several awards for his role as Astarion – a beautiful, over 200-year-old vampire who has captured the hearts of many Baldur's Gate 3 fans.

“It was hard to deal with the pain of Astarion's harrowing vampire story,” Newbon told me. Because there are multiple ways in which Astarion's character arc can develop depending on the player's choices, Newbon says those who befriend the vampire in the game will be able to experience him “shedding the cloak of caution” and being vulnerable and honest.

He said he's heard that people identify with Astarion because the character survives the trauma of his past – and the player can help him through it all and live out his tragic story to the end.

“For many people it has meant that they have been seen and that they do not feel alone in their personal experiences, some of which can be horrific and difficult and leave scars,” he said.

But an important aspect of the character that likely appeals to people, according to Newbon, is his quest for freedom.

“The main goal of Astarion is to be free,” he said. “I like the idea that people are free to choose who they love and how they want to live their lives.”

And he, like many fans, loves Astarion very much now – and would play him again in a heartbeat.

“I hope that viewers of the work also recognize that there is more beneath the surface of a person than the image of this decadent, hedonistic, histrionic vampire,” Newbon said. “There’s a soul in there worth saving, so don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Read the original article on Business Insider