My wife asked me this a few months ago, and I thought the answer was pretty obvious: because the vampires in the North were all hunted and killed by Abraham Lincoln.

I think Logan from the X-men series is the only immortal fictional character I’ve seen who fought for the Union in the Civil War.

Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has a surprisingly thoughtful take on this idea. The Confederate leadership were vampires and they wanted to keep the slave trade going so they could have an everlasting supply of people to eat. It's not a perfect parallel, but slavery and the vampire myth are both based on stripping people of their agency and identities to become commodities and fuel for the powerful's gain.

I never got very far into the Vampire Diaries but the whole time I just felt so so bad for Bonnie, the one black girl in a town with like 75 confederate re-enactment based holidays. Like even without the vampires, RUN GIRL.

It’s kind of funny how the most prominent defenses for the Confederacy can essentially be boiled down to “they’re not evil, they’re just stupid.”

Part of why Anne Rice hits so different is because she's literally writing gothic horror. Her vampires are monsters. Complex characters but still monsters. The 2000s pop vampire era is def bringing the Anne Rice angst but seem to drop the strict horror element and lay right into teen romance. They are usually edgy enough for the angst factor, but the Edward style vamp is still supposed to be read as a hero, not a monster. Really loses the thread of what a character like Louis is supposed to be imo. Vampirism is inherently exploitative - and I'm glad that the new show didn't want to touch the slave owner stuff for obvious reasons, but still had him wrestle with the morality of his exploitative career as a human.

What's most sad about this to me is that slave owners are a fairly good analogy for vampires if you wanted to actually dig into it. They use the lifeblood of others to survive. But it's hard to examine that when you want to make your vampires good guys instead of the vicios and morally depraved creatures that were in the early stories.

It’s also really weird to me that Jasper served in the confederacy because he has the power of physical empathy. Like, would not the suffering of slaves immobilize him or drive him to fight for the union? ESPECIALLY after reading Midnight Sun where we see not only can he effect the emotions of others, but other peoples emotions physically effect him

“My black friend keeps asking my vampire boyfriend if he owned slaves God she’s so embarrassing!!” Is such an absolutely buck wild tone to take about something so serious. I feel like if there was a possibility my sexy boyfriend was like….a slaveowner, I’d want to know ASAP!! ????

Tara: Did you owned any slaves?

Tara was truly the voice of reason in True Blood. The way the show sidelined her (and Lafayette) was criminal!