Lara Parker talks about how part of Dark Shadow's appeal was the paradox that great love stories always end in death. She illustrates her story with the example of Jonathan Frid creating a vampire who is more than just a monster, but the tragic hero surviving the death of his beloved, and determined to not see her die again as their paths cross in time. She further theorizes about how our fear of death gave rise to not only vampire legends, but religion and how people appeased their fear of death in the days before modern medicine with the search for monsters.