Can we talk about True Blood for a moment?

Look, I like the show. I just really don't know what it's about. I must enjoy it to a certain extent because when it's on the DVR I think "Yay! True Blood! it's entertaining! Let's watch True Blood!" Yet every time I have the same basic questions I had from the beginning:

"Why does Sookie love Bill and vice versa?"

"Why are there vampires? Are they hell spawn?"

"Do they have a conscience, guilt and/or a care of consequences?"

These are the things that should've been covered in the first episode. I'm still wondering why I'm rooting for these damn vampires at all. They are straight up killers. Bill is a killer. Why has the world embraced them instead of banding together to rid the world of them? No explanation. We just get the constant parody of Jesus freaks, hicks and political bullshit. Sure, it's cute, it's funny, but it's getting a little empty. Maybe the accusations are true. That I'm tainting by the goodness of Whedon's vamp stories and can't see past them. Excuse me if I like substance.

Bottom line is this. These vamps are flippin' evil. In Buffy's world she'd have little choice but to band together with Pastor Steve and Sarah Newlin of the Friendship of the Sun church and combine her slayer army with the little vamp-killing army they're building. Sometimes I even find myself slightly rooting for them! Now that can't be right. Wonder if the Buffster would like FOS's wooden bullets, thoguh? Seems more like Faith's type of thing. zing!

Bitsy's take:

True Blood and Buffy Season 8 are very similar in that, in both cases, vampires have recently "outed" themselves. The difference, of course, lies in the perspective from which we see the story unfold. In the case of Buffy, it's primarily from the Slayers' perspective while in True Blood it's from the vampires'. What's so confusing is that yes, even though we are meant to see the True Blood vampires as being good guys, they never quite seem so innocent. In fact, it remains completely in their nature to use humans for their own amusement at best and as dinner at worst. Even Bill Compton who is meant to be reformed (Tara's note - for some unknown reason) has a tendency towards some rather violent and murderous behavior.

What's meant to be painted as a cultural difference still seems an awful lot like watching hunters and prey do their wild, one eats the other, sort of dance to me. Obviously the mythos of Buffy extends much further given far less wiggle room on the nature of vampires. They're evil and soulless monsters (except those two hot guys). I wonder what the Buffy story would look like if they spent an arc doing all the telling from the perspective of the vampires. I bet it'd look an awful lot like True Blood. That's my two cents on it anyway.