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The Logic of The Little Vampire part 5: Sense, Sensibility, and Method

Sensibility is defined as "the capacity for physical sensation; power of responding to stimuli; ability to feel" (pg. 1296, New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, 1980). Stimulus, plural: stimuli, is defined as "something that rouses or intices action or increased action" (pg 1400). Physical sensation literally refers to anything the five senses pick up, though the sense most people think of when they hear this phrase is touch. Therefore, two things are needed to be able to call a person "sensible": that person must be able to respond to anything their senses pick up, and they must have the functioning senses of taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight in the first place.

The vampires in this movie are shown several times to have enhanced senses. One case is this memorable exchange between Rudolph and Tony on their first night of actually knowing each other:

Tony: Do you see what color that car is?
Rudolph: Green, man and woman inside, man talking very loudly and...waving his hands.
Tony: Oh, no! My parents! I'm in big trouble. My dad's gonna kill me!

If Tony notices the enhanced sight and hearing just demonstrated by Rudolph, who was at the time a good hundred or so feet above the car in question and flying Tony home in the middle of the night, he doesn't show it. He instead places top priority to getting home as fast as possible to mitigate whatever situation he might have with his father (to be fair, this is a good priority to have). But Rudolph isn't the only one in his family to demonstrate superpowerful senses.

Take Gregory for example. In a scene near the middle of the movie, Rookery uses a hapless old groundskeeper for the cemetery as bait for the vampire which he believes is hiding in a subterranean chamber which he discovered (I would assume) the night before. The entire Sackville-Bagg nuclear family is asleep somewhere in the recesses of the cavern, until the man has made his way into it and started exploring. The scent of the man's blood (which a normal human cannot smell unless they got creepily close to the guy, anyway, by which point he'll be sure to have noticed) awakes Gregory from slumber. As the teenage vampire does not need much prompting, within seconds he has his sights set on the man and is on the hunt. Though at this point, one has to wonder why the scent of human blood does not wake the others. Frederick demonstrated in his first interaction with Tony that he does not have perfect control over his bloodlust. Rudolph, when very weak, will attack a human as soon as he recognizes one. We don't see enough of Anna or Freda to make a definitive call on either on the score of bloodlust, or super senses, for that matter, but it's a relatively safe assumption that if Rudolph and Gregory have enhanced sight, hearing, and smell, then so do the other members of their family.

Nearly every sense plays a key role in the hunt for food. Sight and hearing are used to track in the dark and at great distances. Smell is actually more key to the taste of something than taste itself, but both combine to create the experience of actually feeding. And I should note here that smell can be used to track, as well. However, not every hunt calls for actively pursuing prey like a wild animal. Frederick and Freda, when in a tight spot, are willing to hypnotize humans to do their bidding by enchanting them so that it's nearly impossible for them to think for themselves (or form coherent sentences in Bob's case, as all he can do is stare at the beautiful, mysterious woman on his doorstep). For less humanitarian vampires, it isn't too much of a leap from manipulating humans to hitch a ride to manipulating humans to get them to consent to being bitten and ultimately killed and/or turned into vampires themselves. For vampires looking to create an army, this can become child's play, though luckily this has yet to happen.... So far as we know.

Regardless of approach, goal, preference, or situation, super senses come in handy, and they are (or can be) one of the many privileges of membership, to paraphrase our dear little fanged friend.

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