Is Peacock’s Vampire Academy Based on a Book? – A month before its Peacock release, the 2014 fantasy comedy picture Vampire Academy, which is likewise based on Richelle Mead’s original YA novel, premieres on Netflix. Notably, Julie Plec, who also brought The Vampire Diaries to the CW, was the series’ primary creator. However, despite Zoey Deutch doing her damnedest to liven up the proceedings, this film adaptation is clumsy, packed with awkward supernatural lingo, and just not very fascinating.
It centers on the friendship between Rose and Lissa, two best friends. Lissa is a member of the vampire royal family, but Rose is a half-vampire who is learning how to take care of Lissa. They belong to diverse social classes and face various issues on both a personal and professional level. Despite this, they have a strong link that enables them to rely on one another in any circumstance. The Vampire Diaries creators Julie Plec and Marguerite MacIntyre created the television series, which centers on their friendship against the backdrop of political unrest emerging in the vampire community and the growing threat of the Strigoi.
The show features a lot of action and adventure, but it also looks at a tangled relationships and strong friendships. It is an intriguing tale that captures your interest right away.
Must Read: Is Vampire Academy Related to The Vampire Diaries?
Is Peacock’s Vampire Academy Based on a Novel?
Yes, “Vampire Academy” is based on Richelle Mead’s book series of the same name. The series’ first book was released in 2007, and the sixth book was released in 2010. A spin-off series called “Bloodlines,” which also has six books, further developed the plot. Mead had previously completed the first in a six-part series of The Georgina Kincaid novels, “Succubus Blues,” before beginning “Vampire Academy.” She decided to write a YA supernatural fiction novel about vampires since she was interested in writing one. The first novel in Stephanie Meyer’s “The Twilight Saga” had already been published at that point, but Meyer wasn’t yet well-known.
Mead began developing “Vampire Academy” because she felt that there weren’t enough vampires in the YA genre. She had taken several different mythologies and ethnic folklore classes in college. She had a particular interest in Eastern European mythology and Slavic folklore. She intended to write a novel that was distinct from the vampire genre’s previous works, which at the time included Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” trilogy and the timeless novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Mead learned about the numerous forms of vampires from Romanian mythology. There were Dhampir, Moroi, Strigoi, and half-vampires. This inspired Mead to develop a class divide among the vampires and include more political struggle in the narrative rather than restrict it to a romance-centric premise, which ultimately convinced Plec and MacIntyre to adapt it into a television series.
Plec first discovered the “Vampire Academy” books when they were young, describing them as “Bridgerton with vampires in a Hunger Games-esque scenario.” She shared her love of Mead’s books with MacIntyre, and they went on to work together on “The Vampire Diaries,” “The Originals,” and “Legacies,” with MacIntyre contributing as a writer to the last two. Due to its themes of an old-fashioned social and political structure, as well as young people questioning the things of the past and acting to change them, “Vampire Academy” struck MacIntyre as a story to be told in modern times.
Plec and MacIntyre had a lot of material to choose from because the series included six novels. They chose to play with the chronology instead of delivering the story precisely as it is in the novels, emphasizing on some plot events in the first season that occurred much later in the books. However, they largely adhered to Mead’s original intentions for the characters and the broad course of their development. “Vampire Academy” discusses a wide range of topics.
Still, at its core, according to Plec, “it’s a story about a friendship that nobody thinks can survive because society isn’t built that way — and yet, through thick and thin, they have each other’s backs, there’s plenty of romance, but this is a story about these two women and how they, together, as a team, are going to end up doing some really meaningful things in the world.”
Even though it is evident that “Vampire Academy” is fiction, the show’s makers and the author of the novels have made an effort to keep the plot anchored in reality by keeping the connections between the characters as natural as possible.
The first four episodes of Vampire Academy arrive today i.e 15 sept, exclusively on Peacock.