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pr1scil4 · 4 months ago

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Vampire Knight Analysis: Classism

Long Post !

10,000 years ago, climate change caused the apocalypse. Because of lack of food and resources, vampires are at the top of the food chain, preying on humans. Kaname is a pureblood and the progenitor, we first see him as the Lord of a village, in which he gives the villagers his blood to sustain them and keep them healthy, but in secret he takes their blood to sustain himself. Eventually, he run-out the village when they suspect he is a vampire.

He is in a position of power over his people and while it is framed as benevolent that he is healing them and helping them live, he is also stealing from them in secret. I think it is a fair comparison to equate this to money or goods. Serfs work the land for their lord and in return he offers them protection. While the lord may be a good one, he is still partaking in a power structure that ultimately benefits him. A lord still takes their livelihood as payment and in the way of secrets, may be oppressing them in ways they are not aware of, taking things they did not agree to give away.

Kaname along with The Hooded Woman observe how their kind, pureblood vampires, have taken to turning many humans into vampires. But the hooded woman says this is not for equality, the purebloods are turning humans to make slaves of them. So purebloods are explicitly abusing the power structure as the upper class and abusing the lower class (humans) turning them into slaves (Level D).

As the story continues The Hooded Woman and Kaname oppose the purebloods, rebel against them, and also search for a cure to vampirism. They recognize that the system that they are both a part of, needs to be dismantled.

Through their research, Kaname becomes disheartened but wishes to make the necessary sacrifice to liberate humans from vampire tyranny. The Hooded Woman however is the one who has been working with a group of humans, having them ingest her blood to gain her power. In doing this she creates Hunters. Hunters who are human yet possess the strength of vampires given to them by a pureblood. She then casts her heart into a fire that will produce the Parent Metal which they can then make weapons to defend themselves against the vampires.

Which I find to be such an interesting dynamic as we can view this as a royal who despises the royal class, donating all of her funds to lower class people for a rebellion. The upper class woman willingly sacrificed herself “Viva La Revolution!” style for the lower class. However for me, this feels a little weird subtextually. The Hunters having their genetics changed by her pureblood makes them have similarities to vampires, like Kaien living an unusually long life, or the Hunter Twins curse. I will return to this thought later.

Kaname fights the revolution with Artemis for a period of time, but eventually loses hope that vampires will ever be stopped or cured. He abandons the cause, abandons the humans, abandons the Level D/E vampires to their doom.

Let’s now focus on the time period that Vampire Knight takes place:

In VK we now have a very literal class system of vampires as illustrated by the pyramid in the manga:

Level A: pure bloods that are the reigning class (born vampires, beautiful, precious, powerful, manipulative)

Level B: the noble/aristocrat class (not as powerful as purebloods but still beautiful and have specialized powers)

Level C: common vampires (that we see very little of … I can’t think of a single named character that is one)

Level D: vampires that used to be human (can only be turned by the pure bloods, seen as lesser and generally not accepted as part of vampire society)

Level E: vampires that used to be human who have lost their humanity and sanity (ugly, bestial, outcast, thought of as murderers, violent, often dressed like they are poverty level).

And finally humans (viewed as a food source, but strangely are treated socially above Level D and Level E vampires, almost a Level C/F combo???).

Let’s break down this pyramid:

Purebloods are reflective of royalty. At one point Kaname was formally titled The Vampire King, and even though they are not per se a legally recognized monarchy, the role of the Kuran family is the same. They are a hierarchy based on ancestry and bloodlines exactly like a monarchy. “Pureblood” is very obviously a classist ideal. Blood unmixed, blood not dirtied by “lower classes” or also in this case, human blood. Royals were thought to have “blue blood”; that they were called by divine right as sovereign, and that they were special and above everyone else. It is very much the reason why incest in royal families was practiced to “keep the bloodline pure”.

Incest is a reoccurring theme in Vampire Knight that is controversial and something I have always been confused by and wildly uncomfortable with. We have themes of incest with Kaname and Yuuki, Haruka and Juri, as well as Rido, and later with Ai and Ren.

Incest between Rido and Juri is framed as assault and not right, but the incest between Juri and Haruka is framed as loving and pure. When Yuuki finds out Kaname is her brother she remarks that it’s strange that she was in love with her brother this whole time, to which Kaname says: ‘Vampires are just beasts in human form. We are already betrothed. Our parents before us were siblings.’ He justifies the incest as bestial and a system that she was born into as a pureblood. (Which is an interesting contradiction as animals do not often practice incest as it is not good for genetic diversity. However, selective breeding can be something that humans force animals to do which does have parallels with royalty practicing incest. There is a different theme in VK that is “Humanity VS Beasts (in human form)“ that I will hopefully write about separately but right now we are going to focus on Classism)

I think having this correlation between royalty and incest makes the presence of it in this particular series make more sense and as a part of the horror genre (and generally) incest is supposed to be uncomfortable and grotesque. Vampires often manifest our social anxieties with class and sexuality.

I also want to touch on the term “pureblood” and how it is a clear link to eugenics.

Japanese vampires have distinct differences in interpretations from western vampires, there is a wonderful video about Vampire Hunter D that explored some of those differences (UNFORTUNATELY, It was by @thegamingmuse on YouTube and IT HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN but have this one ‘History of Vampires in Japan’ instead). Like how Japan’s view of classism is very affected by the country’s long history with feudalism and subsequently their past with fascism. I want to stress that these may not have been the author’s clear intentions but rather things that affected her writing subconsciously.

Eugenics began to gain popularity in Japan around the 1880s when scientists introduced a theory that through selective breeding they could make the people of Japan (the Yamato race) stronger and smarter to dominate over other cultures including the west. They valued “junketsu”--pureblood and looked down on “konketsu”-- mixed blood. Social Darwinism, forcible sterilizations and abortions began occurring more and more in the early 19th century and specifically in the 1930s at the height of imperialism. They deemed certain traits to be undesirable such as disability, genetic disease, criminal inclinations, and even race (look up the indigenous people of Japan like the Ainu), etc. Ableism and xenophobia are still very much ingrained in Japan’s culture today because of this.

It is hard to talk about purebloods and not talk about Level E’s at the same time. Only Purebloods have the power to turn humans into vampires so they are therefore responsible for all Level D and Level E vampires that come into existence.

Level D vampires in Vampire Knight are treated with disdain, they are usually servants or scandalous lovers to their higher class pureblood masters. As we see with Shizuka, she took a human lover that ended up being a target because society did not approve of her relationship to him. As well as Shizuka’s master bond over Zero. He physically has to fight to harm her because the power of the bond, Master vs Servant, Creator vs Creation, is so strong. They are meant to be slaves with no will of their own.

Vampires that used to be human need the blood of a pureblood to remain stable and sane and when that blood isn’t given they lose their humanity. They roam the streets with insatiable thirst, killing to barely survive a cursed life. Food that did not die, only to be used and discarded. Level E vampires are those that are discarded, plaguing the humans with violence and fear.

So purebloods, like royalty, are framed as desirable, beautiful, fashionable, the peak of society versus Level E’s that are portrayed as starving, ugly, bestial vermin that need to be slayed. They both prey on humans but one is deemed more villainous because of their lowly state. The Level E’s are the lower class created by the upper class. The upper class took their resources and left them in the streets to die. They are othered and thought of as a plague to both human and vampire society. Does that remind you of the eugenics that I was just talking about?

The Level E’s are also portrayed as mentally unstable, mirroring Japanese disdain for mental illness. Hikikomori is a phenomenon in Japan of severe social withdrawal. One of the reasons this could be happening is because it is not socially acceptable to have a disability, visible or not. It is more acceptable to remain inside your home. Much like ‘The Ugly Laws’ in the United States: “These laws targeted poor people and disabled people. For instance, in San Francisco a law of 1867 deemed it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view.”

I’ve always thought it was interesting and really sad that in VK they search for a cure for vampirism, but they never specifically say that it’s to help Level E’s restore their humanity or their sanity. It’s almost as if the cure is more geared toward curing purebloods and the acceptable parts of vampire society. But that view was most certainly influenced by a group.

Aristocrats are exactly like they sound, they are privileged in high society. In VK they hold a lot of power though they are not as powerful as the Purebloods they are subservient to. Still they pull the strings and abuse their station. In many ways they control what is socially acceptable and what is not. Vampiric Aristocrats are as their nature is, greedy and hungry for blood. Pureblood is coveted by them and held as a rare and precious commodity. They are the ones encouraging incest to keep their blood stores full. In Shizuka’s case it was her family and the aristocrats that kept her caged after deeming she was unstable (there’s that disdain for mental illness and disability again, even though inbreeding can cause such things even in royalty) The Aristocracy is also responsible for supplying humans for Purebloods to feed on, such is the case with Kaname meeting Seiren.

The Aristocracy benefits most from how society has been set up, even with their dealings with humans. The secret of vampire society is best kept, and that is why they sneer at vampire/human coexistence. Humans are just food and tools. Like the Hunter Society.

The Hunter Society as it is in VK’s time is corrupt, we find out the President has been in league with the leader of the Aristocracy, Ichio. In exchange for protection they get pure blood for their drinking pleasure. Though it is not explicitly said, the Hunter Society is basically an extermination system for the victims of purebloods. Hunters only kill targets on the list curated by the corrupt President who with their ties to the Aristocracy would know what humans were turned into Level Ds and Es. The real world equivalent for hunters is the police. The police are funded by the government, are easily corrupted, and often unfairly discriminate against the lower class, arresting them for stealing food when the upper class hoards it all to themselves.

So like I said before we have this really interesting view of the Hunters as being like vampires: being a part of the leech, upper class, and feeding into a system of oppression.

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I might do more parts to this as a series, such as analyzing the class system and how it pertains to certain characters, but those were all the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for the last two months. Let me know what ya'll think or feel free to request a take!

#i'm anime trash #vampire analysis #vampire knight

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