Monstrous Appetites and Positive Emotions in True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, and The Walking Dead

Abstract

Looking at television series True Blood (2008-), The Vampire Diaries (2009-), and The Walking Dead (2010-), this article analyzes positive emotions in horror: the sexual emotions, trust, and hope. The article starts by substitut- ing the positive-negative dichotomy of emotions with seeing emotions as coming in a package (Solomon) and having a story (Frijda), thus working together and not in opposition. It goes on to discuss the interaction of preda- tion and sex in True Blood, torture and trust in The Vampire Diaries, and dis- gust, despair, and hope in The Walking Dead. The article then considers horror emotions, positive and negative, from a functional and evolutionary perspec- tive. Comparing horror to play fighting and fiction to the pretend of play, the article suggests four reasons why horror is attractive: we learn to feel emo- tions (sensation), to react to emotions (evaluation), control our emotions (ac- tion tendency in the here-and-now), and to experiment (action tendency and planning for what comes next).