I mean... the first appearance of the idea that vampires have no reflection is Bram Stoker's Dracula, which doesn't connect it to silver at all, it just says it's a rule
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
I just looked this up and when they dug up Stoker's notes it seems like his original intention really was that it's some kind of cosmic censorship because he's evil He has no reflection *and* no shadow *and* can't be photographed *and* you can't even draw his picture
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
A human being who tries to draw a portrait of him by sight or by memory will draw something distorted so if you compare the drawing to him it looks nothing like him (I admit that while the reflection thing has always bugged me taking it further is cooler than taking it less far)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
The silver thing is a logical way to explain/nerf this but I don't think it has much backing (so to speak) Like I can't think of an actual famous vampire work that uses that as the reason
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Silver as a sovereign against evil is a lot older than Stoker, but it may be that the vampire-specific thing is newer.
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Replying to @iridienne
I'm not saying the silver weakness is new, I'm saying the "no reflection rule" originates with Stoker and never had a clear tie to the silver weakness
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
Mirrors being bad luck when combined with death/the undead is a vaguely common folklore thing that he may have taken this from but the idea that vampires have no reflection is not
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
There is a tradition that's kind of the exact opposite - you turn mirrors around or remove them from a room with a corpse, because seeing its own reflection might *cause* a corpse to rise and attack you
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
I think what it came down to in Stoker's novel is that the scene where Dracula grabs Jonathan Harker's shaving mirror and shatters it in a panic *feels* very authentic - that an evil creature would hate and fear mirrors, fear the idea of seeing the truth about themselves
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
It's just that Stoker tried to give this a "logical" explanation that was appropriately creepy that tied to the surreal "dark conspiracy" plot - he has no reflection at all, which is tied to him being this secret the ancient world has kept from the modern all this time
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Of course this concept does raise all kinds of fridge logic and it's very hard to depict in a visual medium in a way that doesn't look silly
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne
I think I prefer the variant that vampires really look like rotting corpses and the glamor that makes them beautiful only works on direct human senses - mirrors and photographs reveal what they really are
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