Silly Childhood Misconceptions on Fantasy Elements?

[Vrock_Summoner]

Kids think up the craziest things sometimes, for no real reason other than that they're kids. That's part of why we love them so much.

So what're some of the wackiest theories and silliest misconceptions about elements common to fantasy and fantasy gaming that your young self, your own children, or other kids you've known pulled out of seemingly nowhere?

I'll start with myself. I really have no idea what inspired my brain to assume this and miss the most obvious choice, but for some reason, it took me watching my first R-rated vampire movie (at the tender age of... Actually, I don't remember, but I had to have been at least 9) to realize that vampires just use their teeth to make incisions and then drink the flowing blood in the normal swallowing methods. It blew my mind when I finally realized that, because I'd spent my whole experience with vampires working off the much weirder assumption that they drank more like four-pronged mosquitos, with their teeth having little tubes in them that sucked the blood directly out of your bloodstream. To this day, I'm both confused by what I was thinking, and cautiously optimistic about the idea of someday implementing insectoid vampires into a game.

Alright, you guys' turn!

[The Glyphstone]

Doesn't that depend on the vampire? Some of them (say, those portrayed in World of Darkness) have to be exhibiting some form of suction, due to the rate at which they can drain blood from a body. So your 9-year old self might deserve more credit than you're giving them.

[MrStabby]

It isn't that silly.

If we think about vampires as having a bite that not only feeds but also causes sickness then we draw an analogy with pretty much everything with a venomous bite - which do tend to channel fluid through/by their teeth.

I am not saying that insectoid vampires wouldn't be awesome though. Personally I would like to run a vampire squid as a fantasy (rather than real life) creature.

[Berenger]

It blew my mind when I finally realized that, because I'd spent my whole experience with vampires working off the much weirder assumption that they drank more like four-pronged mosquitos, with their teeth having little tubes in them that sucked the blood directly out of your bloodstream.

That's weird, I had exactly the same misconception when I was in that age. When I realized that syringe-teeth are not actually part of any vampire myth, I instantly stopped having nightmares about vampires. This and the original assumption might be related to my paralyzing fear of blood samplings, though...

[CharonsHelper]

Not really a fantasy thing (though it happened to be a fantasy movie) and I was much younger (3-5ish) - so what I remember may only be a memory of a memory.

I happened to catch a scene of a movie that my dad was watching where someone died (a pirate killed by a swamp monster? I don't remember details) Anyway, my dad told me something along the lines of "Don't worry, they're actors. They get paid to do that." I then went weeks if not months thinking what idiots those actors were. I mean, after they were dead, no one would have to pay them anyway! I was young enough that I wasn't even horrified by the prospect, just intrigued.

[Strigon]

That's weird, I had exactly the same misconception when I was in that age. When I realized that syringe-teeth are not actually part of any vampire myth, I instantly stopped having nightmares about vampires. This and the original assumption might be related to my paralyzing fear of blood samplings, though...

I had the same thought.
To this day, I personally think the idea of syringe-teeth is infinitely superiour to the way it's actually portrayed.

[Cealocanth]

I had the same thought.
To this day, I personally think the idea of syringe-teeth is infinitely superiour to the way it's actually portrayed.

I could see it working quite well with teeth with microscopic indentations in them to facilitate blood flow, combined with the injection of an adrenaline-like drug and an anti-coagulant. Why suck when you can have the victim's heart do the work for you? Even better if the 'drug' vector isn't just a straight injection, but actually a symbiotic parasite that lives in the vampire's mouth and can swim upstream.

I'm done derailing the thread now.

As a kid I assumed that giants were just tall moving statues, not living creatures. Such creatures do exist in fantasy, but they're rarely called 'giants'. Titans or golems or something, usually.

[Grim Portent]

I also thought Vampires had needle teeth when I was a little kid. I think I made the association of fangs and venomous snakes and assumed vampire fangs would have the same design.

Strangely though I can't think of any other fantasy stuff I misunderstood as a child. I think a lot of the elements of fantasy are quite easy to understand, generally deliberately because so much of it is based on folklore which was partially intended to keep kids away from dangerous places.

[quinron]

Not knowing what "symbology" meant, I used to think that ghosts carried chains around to imprison the living and turn them into ghosts.

[legomaster00156]

Not knowing what "symbology" meant, I used to think that ghosts carried chains around to imprison the living and turn them into ghosts.

This is a D&D monster waiting to be created.

[Winter_Wolf]

The vampire teeth thing must be pretty common, I thought that too when I was young. Don't know where it came from but it seemed so obvious, didn't it?

[Vrock_Summoner]

Wow, all of you guys had that too!? Shoot, it's the "the floor is made of lava" game all over again. Where are the common threads in child psychology that make us all independently come to the same conclusions on this stuff?

We haven't gotten many yet, but the misconceptions we've gotten so far have been pretty good! Keep it up guys

[cobaltstarfire]

The vampire teeth thing must be pretty common, I thought that too when I was young. Don't know where it came from but it seemed so obvious, didn't it?

Yeah, ditto here, it still intuitively makes more sense in a way too.


Can't think of another one from me off hand, but I learned of an interesting one from the guy about a family member.

She (being a small child) had been walking with the family, and they came across a dead deer on the tracks that had been hit by a train or something. She said that she didn't know that being hit by a train would kill someone, she thought it'd just "squish" them.

Kind of an intersection of cartoon logic with the real world.

[Slipperychicken]

Vampire needle teeth make sense because of the way vampire biting is portrayed. Typically only a small amount of blood leaks out, and it's localized near a pair of tiny clearly-visible tooth-marks. Also, the teeth are generally visible for the audiences' sake, when the normal way would make more sense if the vampire's lips covered the wound to keep blood from draining away.

If a vampire were actually drinking the blood the "normal" way, the wound would look a lot messier and more blood would come out.


Also, I think needle-teeth are cooler. I'm making that canon in the game I'm DMing now.

[digiman619]

About syringe vampires: The closest thing I can think of with this are the vampires of Mirrodin, but they have syringe-hands; like Batman: Arkham Asylum's Scarecrow.

As for silly childhood misconceptions: When I was 7 or so, I saw Star Wars for the first time. When I saw the scene of Vader chocking the rebel ("If this is a consular ship, where's the ambassador?"), my young mind thought the sound of him asphyxiating was actually Vader snapping his neck. I was also disappointed that I couldn't get anything else to make that noise.

[Vrock_Summoner]

If a vampire were actually drinking the blood the "normal" way, the wound would look a lot messier and more blood would come out.

This is pretty much why it took an R-rated movie for me to realize what the intention was, I think. Can't remember what movie it was exactly, but I remember it being the first time I saw a vampire biting process shown in detail. Which is not to say it was necessarily medically accurate; it was an R-rated and probably mediocre vampire movie, so I'm willing to assume that my memories of the blood spraying out would realistically demand blood pressure levels far higher than a human body's.

Most of the time, in more "polite" vampire fiction, you just see the teeth sink in and maybe a single trickle of blood go down the neck, and it's all mostly clean and occasionally even portrayed as sensual (which, make no mistake dear readers, whether it's needle teeth or incision slurping, vampire bites are never a romantic or enjoyable gesture).

[GorinichSerpant]

I distinctly remember me and my sister being upset that gnomes were messing up the save files on a game we had, when I'm pretty sure it was us messing up each other's game files. Good times.

[Slipperychicken]

Most of the time, in more "polite" vampire fiction, you just see the teeth sink in and maybe a single trickle of blood go down the neck, and it's all mostly clean and occasionally even portrayed as sensual (which, make no mistake dear readers, whether it's needle teeth or incision slurping, vampire bites are never a romantic or enjoyable gesture).

I think it's just people not really understanding what that would feel like, to have teeth break skin and enter your veins, or even just to lose so much blood by any means. They want to believe that a vampire bite is just a pale, edgy, unique equivalent to a neck-kiss.

Also, losing blood sucks. I want to keep my blood in my veins, supplying my body with nutriment, as it's supposed to be.

[LooseCannoneer]

I thought the same thing about the vampire's teeth as well. I agree that it makes more sense, except in the most important case:

DM: As you enter the throne room of the vampire lord, he stares at you dispassionately while holding a glass of a red liquid. He takes another sip from the straw.

Player: Wait, the 1000-year-old vampire uses a straw? Did he need to wash the sippy cup?

[runeghost]

When I first read Lord of the Rings (long before the movies - I'm old) I got the idea in my head that Boromir was a fat elf. That made his presence in the text sort of incoherent, because I kept making assumptions about Gondor, Faramir, etc based on their connection to Boromir... who I knew was a tubby elf-guy.

[hamishspence]

When I was 7 or so, I saw Star Wars for the first time. When I saw the scene of Vader chocking the rebel ("If this is a consular ship, where's the ambassador?"), my young mind thought the sound of him asphyxiating was actually Vader snapping his neck. I was also disappointed that I couldn't get anything else to make that noise.

That's certainly how the novelization portrays his death:

An Imperial officer, his armored helmet shoved back to reveal a recent scar where an energy beam had penetrated his shielding, scrambled down out of the fighter's control room, shaking his head briskly.
"Nothing, sir. Information retrieval system's been wiped clean."
Darth Vader acknowledged this news with a barely perceptible nod. The impenetrable mask turned to regard the officer he was torturing. Metal-clad fingers contracted. Reaching up, the prisoner desperately tried to pry them loose, but to no avail.
"Where is the data you intercepted?" Vader rumbled dangerously. "What have you done with the information tapes?"
"We — intercepted — no information," the dangling officer gurgled, barely able to breathe. From somewhere deep within, he dredged up a squeal of outrage. "This is a … councilor vessel … Did you not see our ... exterior markings? We're on a ... diplomatic ... mission."
"Chaos take your mission!" Vader growled. "Where are those tapes!" He squeezed harder, the threat in his grip implicit.
When he finally replied, the officer's voice was a bare, choked whisper. "Only … the Commander knows."
"This ship carries the system crest of Alderaan," Vader growled, the gargoyle-like breath mask leaning close. "Is any of the royal family on board? Who are you carrying?" Thick fingers tightened further, and the officer's struggles became more and more frantic. His last words were muffled and choked past intelligibility.
Vader was not pleased. Even though the figure went limp with an awful, unquestionable finality, that hand continued to tighten, producing a chilling snapping and popping of bone, like a dog padding on plastic. Then with a disgusted wheeze Vader finally threw the doll-form of the dead man against a far wall. Several Imperial troops ducked out of the way just in time to avoid the grisly missile.
The massive form whirled unexpectedly, and Imperial officers shrank under that baleful sculptured stare. "Start tearing this ship apart component by component, until you find those tapes. As for the passengers, if any, I want them alive." He paused a moment, then added, "Quickly!"
Officers and men nearly fell over themselves in their haste to leave — not necessarily to carry out Vader's orders, but simply to retreat from that malevolent presence.

[hymer]

When I first played, the monsters we fought were pretty much kobolds. And though we usually managed to take them out even when outnumbered, they were fairly scary. And then I heard about orcs being considerably higher up on the monster totem pole, and for some reason orcs in my mind became dangerous super monsters for a while.
Then I re-read LotR and got things back into perspective.

[TeChameleon]

Huh. The syringe vampires thing is pretty widespread- to the point that I'm fairly certain it actually is canon in at least a few instances- Discworld vampires, for instance.

[hamishspence]

D&D vampire's Blood Drain ability is consistently described as "suck blood, with fangs":

Blood Drain (Ex)
A vampire can suck blood from a living victim with its fangs by making a successful grapple check. If it pins the foe, it drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained.

And it's common (though not universal) for the vamp bite to be depicted as two neat holes - syringe-effect makes more sense than just "sucking through the mouth after the holes have been made" - the latter would leave one heck of a hickey.

[Sith_Happens]

Uh... This actually is the first I've heard of vampires not having syringe-fangs...

[Berenger]

Oh, I have another one.

When I was a young child (5-7 years?) I was a fan of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds.



They cut down on the puns in the german localization, so Dogtanian was actually D'Artagnan. It was kind of disturbing to realize that there were human versions of D'Artagnan and the three Musketeers and they killed people.

[hewhosaysfish]

I thought the same thing about the vampire's teeth as well. I agree that it makes more sense, except in the most important case:

DM: As you enter the throne room of the vampire lord, he stares at you dispassionately while holding a glass of a red liquid. He takes another sip from the straw.

Player: Wait, the 1000-year-old vampire uses a straw? Did he need to wash the sippy cup?

Woudl it help save the image if the glass had little coloured paper umberellas in it and bat-shaped ice cubes?

[Winter_Wolf]

I distinctly remember me and my sister being upset that gnomes were messing up the save files on a game we had, when I'm pretty sure it was us messing up each other's game files. Good times.

I still blame gnomes when things go missing in my home.* The alternative is that these things just grew legs and walked off by themselves. I change and wash my clothing often enough that it shouldn't be able to self ambulate.

*I have two small children approximately the height and weight of D&D gnomes, so it's not really that far-fetched. Eventually they're going to confess by accident: "no daddy, gnomes aren't real! It was me!"

[Knaight]

I'm also pretty used to syringe vampires.

On a different note, when I was about 8 I read a military sci-fi series set in the far future which at one point described humans shooting shells with guns at some aliens. I wasn't familiar with artillery, so "gun" meant something like "rifle". The shell bit seemed a bit weird, but it was sci-fi so I pictured some sort of futuristic rifle that shot sea-shell shaped explosive projectiles. I can still call on that mental image, even though having reread the book I know that it's completely wrong.

[Hopeless]

Anyone considered that vampires aren't using their teeth to bite but rather their tongue is what pierces the neck and like a mosquito sucks out blood that way?!