King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things With You



authors: William Irwin (Series Editor), George Dunn (Editor), Rebecca Housel (Editor)


genre: entertainment


published: 2010


pages: 246


first line: Sookie Stackhouse loves Bill Compton.



rated: 3 1/2 out of 5

Vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, fairies, telepaths—True Blood has it all. In a world where supernatural creatures coexist with human beings, Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton wrestle with powerful desires while facing complex issues concerning sex, romance, bigotry, violence, death, and immortality. Now, True Blood and Philosophy calls on the minds of some of history’s great thinkers to perform some philosophical bloodletting on this thought-provoking series. From the metaphysics of mind reading to Maryann Forrester’s cult of Dionysus, from vampire politics to the nature of personal identity, and from contemporary feminism to the rights of nonhuman species, True Blood and Philosophy mines the thinking of philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Rawls to enlighten us on the intriguing themes that surround this supernatural world. You’ll find no shortage of juicy metaphysical morsels to sink your teeth into!

True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things With You is an interesting book that discusses and analyzes True Blood the television series and The Sookie Stackhouse books. This book is food for thought. It takes different themes in True Blood and discusses them in detail. I think this book is a great conversation piece for fans of the show and books.



I haven't watched the show True Blood, but I have read the first in the series of books, Dead Until Dark, and enjoyed it.



Some of the discussions in this book are 'The Ethics of Making Vampires', 'Coming Out of the Coffin and Coming Out of the Closet' and 'Sookie, Sigmund, and the Edible Complex'.

The writers do plenty of 'what if' situations. Like what if vampires were real and living among us, would they have to pay taxes, since they don't need health care? Would they be served with life sentences in prison if they committed crimes, or would that be considered cruel and unusual punishment since they are immortal?
The book also discusses homosexuality and the comparisons between coming out of the coffin and coming out of the closet. Are the prejudices gay people face similiar to the ones vampires face?

Another topic for discussion is whether vampires are evil or not. Some vampires such as Bill are turned without choice, are they considered evil?


My one issue with this book was the repetitiveness of certain excerpts from the books and show. I'd read one chapter that quoted a certain conversation and discussed it, then I'd read the next chapter, only to find the same quote being brought up again. It didn't happen that often in this book, and it didn't deter me from enjoying this read, but I did notice it. I think it may have happened because there were different people writing the chapters, the topics overlapped a bit.



After reading this book you realize there are plenty of philosophical questions that can be raised by the Sookie Stackhouse books and True Blood. This is an interesting read, I enjoyed it. It is definitely a very detailed book, you can see that the writers are true fans of the series. I like how they would discuss great minds like Freud and Socrates and apply their theories and ideas to True Blood.










Visit The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series website for more. There are other Philosophy books for fans such as House and Philosophy, LOST and Philosophy and Mad Men and Philosophy.







Special thanks to Julie over @ FSB Associates for sending me a copy of this book.