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I'm looking for the earliest example in fiction of a vampire-human hybrid or dhampir protagonist who is a vampire hunter or slayer. I've noticed this recurring theme or trope in several works:

  1. The Castlevania franchise (Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, 1989): Alucard, the son of Dracula and a human mother, is a half-vampire. He is a playable character in some Castlevania games and serves as a protagonist in the anime adaptation. He fights alongside vampire hunters against his father, benefiting from vampiric strengths while lacking many of their weaknesses.

  2. The Vampire Hunter D franchise (1983): The titular character "D" is a dhampir born to a vampire father and human mother. He possesses most vampiric strengths with only mild weaknesses.

  3. Marvel Comics' Blade (Tomb of Dracula #10, 1973): Blade was born a human-vampire hybrid, as his mother was bitten by a vampire during childbirth. In the films, he's portrayed as having vampiric strengths without most weaknesses, except for bloodlust. The comics depict him gaining enhanced abilities after being bitten by Morbius the Living Vampire. Blade is known as a "daywalker," unaffected by sunlight and most traditional vampire vulnerabilities.

This trope seems to combine the concept of a vampire-human hybrid (or dhampir) with the role of a vampire hunter or killer as the protagonist. These characters typically possess the enhanced abilities of vampires but experience none or only mild versions of their weaknesses. I'm curious about the origin of this trope in fiction. Is Blade the first example, or was there an earlier work that featured such a character?

To clarify, I am specifically looking for a nameable work of fiction where a protagonist is both a vampire-human hybrid (or dhampir) and a vampire hunter or slayer, rather than examples where such a character appears but is not a protagonist. And while traditional folklore or mythology may touch on this concept, I'm more interested in specific, nameable works of fiction.

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    Certainly not the earliest example, but the movie Grave of the Vampire predates Blade by one year, so at least you have an answer to the question if Blade is the first occurrence. The movie features a dhampir hunting his father, who is a vampire. The term "dhampir" is never used, however the protagonist is the son of a human and a vampire, and this has supernatural implications, in particular at the end of the story.
    – J-J-J
    Commented Sep 7 at 15:33
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    @J-J-J Interesting find! I'm surprised it's a movie that came before Blade—I was thinking it might be a book. It makes me wonder if there's an even earlier book out there exploring the human-vampire hybrid vampire hunter concept.
    – galacticninja
    Commented Sep 8 at 1:47
  • The movie is said to be an adaptation of a novel by the same screenwriter ("The Still Life"), but if this novel really exists, it looks like it has never been published.
    – J-J-J
    Commented Sep 8 at 6:23

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Unfortunately dating oral tradition is basically impossible. Many of the old legends of vampires, especially from the Balkans, include dhampirs and agree that their greatest asset is their ability to find and kill vampires. There are no clear dates for the origins of these tales, all we can say for sure is that Eastern Europeans were telling these tales long before Bram Stoker codified the modern vampire with Dracula in 1897 and they still are.

To quote from The Vampire Book The Encyclopedia of the Undead by Melton, J. Gordon. PhD "Several cultures, especially those in the southern Balkans, assigned specific people the task of hunting and destroying vampires. Most famous of the vampire hunters was the dhampir, who was believed to be the physical son of a vampire and who lived and worked among the Gypsies and the southern Slavs."

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    Interesting point about the origins in oral tradition. I wonder, has anyone collected or adapted these oral traditions into a named work of fiction that we could consider as an early example of this character type?
    – galacticninja
    Commented Sep 7 at 15:10
  • The book you mention can be borrowed on the internet archive but I can’t find the quote you’re referencing; are you paraphrasing perhaps?
    – fez
    Commented Sep 7 at 18:37
  • @fez Pages 758-759 under the title of Vampire Hunters.
    – Ash
    Commented Sep 8 at 0:05
  • @galacticninja Not that I could find, and if it does exist it's likely not in English, even the encyclopedia pegs Blade as the standout, though not necessarily first, English language example of a dhampir protagonist.
    – Ash
    Commented Sep 8 at 0:11
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    Ah, found it! I don't think I was using the search function properly the first time round
    – fez
    Commented Sep 8 at 8:47

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