The Tadpole

[ked101]

it kind of distracted me from the story a little I must say. However it also showed me that Vampires (in this story) are more complex. However if being a vampire is about having some form of parasite inside you then perhaps the blood spilling out of Eli was the blood feeling in danger and trying to escape the host?

This is a very nice take on it. I like it. In my undergrad days, bacteriophage lambda was so well understood, it is textbook example.

For all who don't know, bacteria do have viruses infecting them and they are called bacteriophages. Lambda was special. It was the zombie phage. When it infects a bacteria it sort of incorporates itself into the bacteria's DNA. As long as the bacteria is healthy and having lots of good food and stuff, nothing much happens. The bacteria divides AND the phage is replicated along with it. It is in the lysogeny cycle.

Now if the bacteria is stressed, something triggers the phage in the bacteria's genome and it starts the lytic cycle. It hijacks the bacteria's entire cellular mechanism, makes copies of itself and then blows the whole bacteria to pieces releasing its copies to infect other bacteria who are healthy.

So Eli's infectious parasite senses danger from the host and attempts to escape its demise.

I like how you explained this in scientific detail - I never gave the tadpole subplot any thought until now but thanks to Genie who brought this to Team Eli's attn

[TΛPETRVE]

So we're right back at John Carpenter's The Thing.

[lombano]

Different fluids don't usually mix instantly - the 'tadpole' struck me as a very natural description of the blood being washed away by the water. Wriggling and so on seems like a description of non-laminar flow, I personally didn't see anything strange about this description.

It was described as a lump so it is not fluid. Plus it got stuck and kept its form even when Oskar splashed water on it to wash it down.

The hemorrhaging scene as it was described, Eli's blood coagulated. To Oskar's surprise, it did not dissolve or revert back to its fluid state. So Eli's blood was actually clotting like how normal natural blood was clotting.

The tadpole could be a clot residue. However from Oskar's description of it being alive wriggling its tail doesn't make it look like one.

The clots must've been soluble in hot water and soap for Eli to wash them off - the lump could have been a semi-dissolved clot (or partially re-solidified as the water cooled). Enough of the clot could've dissolved in the water Oskar splashed to leave a trail in its wake - the 'tail.'

[stormbringer951]

I like the explanation that it was just a over-imagining on Oskar's part. That keeps it from being *shudder shudder* highly disturbing.

[a_contemplative_life]

I think it is somewhat amusing how the idea of a vampire, with its origins from folklore, has become so scientific that analogies can be drawn to viruses that prey on bacteria. It seems that nothing in the 21st Century escapes the realm of science.

Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedience to their laws. - Tomb of the Spartans at Thermopylae, 480 B.C.

[ked101]

I think it is somewhat amusing how the idea of a vampire, with its origins from folklore, has become so scientific that analogies can be drawn to viruses that prey on bacteria. It seems that nothing in the 21st Century escapes the realm of science.

Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedience to their laws. - Tomb of the Spartans at Thermopylae, 480 B.C.

however grasshopper! science was always there = what was lacking was the technology to find what questions to ask

[genie47]

I think it is somewhat amusing how the idea of a vampire, with its origins from folklore, has become so scientific that analogies can be drawn to viruses that prey on bacteria. It seems that nothing in the 21st Century escapes the realm of science.

Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedience to their laws. - Tomb of the Spartans at Thermopylae, 480 B.C.

however grasshopper! science was always there = what was lacking was the technology to find what questions to ask

Yes but still it does not explains why Eli needs that invitation scientifically. Why the parasite senses danger from entering without invitation.

Still, very much rooted into our vampire folklore with the science mixed in.

[stormbringer951]

however grasshopper! science was always there = what was lacking was the technology to find what questions to ask

Yes but still it does not explains why Eli needs that invitation scientifically. Why the parasite senses danger from entering without invitation.

Still, very much rooted into our vampire folklore with the pseudoscience mixed in.[/quote]

Fixed that for ya . It doesn't explain why the parasite fears entering homes without invitation, or the aversion to sunlight, or Eli's preternatural strength.

[ked101]

however grasshopper! science was always there = what was lacking was the technology to find what questions to ask

Yes but still it does not explains why Eli needs that invitation scientifically. Why the parasite senses danger from entering without invitation.

Still, very much rooted into our vampire folklore with the pseudoscience mixed in.

Fixed that for ya . It doesn't explain why the parasite fears entering homes without invitation, or the aversion to sunlight, or Eli's preternatural strength.[/quote]


a baby is a parasite by definition - the mother is the host. The baby draws nutrition from the mother and has its own blood supply. The mother still has the power and free will to do what ever she wants. Folklore is not immune to science, but this idea makes sense. If the bathroom scene never happened with the tadpole then this would not be an issue; it did. We could explain it was Oska's imagination but the book did not say that it would be conjecture.

[stormbringer951]

"an animal or plant that lives on or in another animal or plant of a different type and feeds from it."

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define. ... &dict=CALD