Darren Shan (character)

Darren Shan is the main character in the Saga of Darren Shan, a series of books about vampires by Irish author Darren Shan.

Fictional Biography

Childhood

Darren was always fascinated by spiders. When he was young, he used to bring spiders from the garden and let them loose in his house, and at the age of 9, he received the greatest gift of his life: a small tarantula. However, the joy of that gift was crushed when he, after watching a cartoon, killed the spider with a vacuum cleaner. For this reason, Darren makes the statement that life, unlike a cartoon, is naturally evil, doesn't care about happy endings, and is always out to kill you. You just have to be careful.

Before the Freak Show, Darren was a normal kid who enjoyed soccer and hanging out with his three best friends: Steve Leonard, Tommy Jones, and Alan Morris. The four were soccer fans, and had a lot of fun together. Darren Shan lived a happy life with his Mom, Dad, and younger sister, Annie.

Becoming a vampire and meeting Mr. Crepsley

When Alan brings a paper advertising a Freak Show, they face off for the tickets, and Steve and Darren are the lucky ones. They go to the freak show, but Steve finds out that one of the performers, the spider-wielding Mr. Crepsley, is a vampire. Shocked to know that Steve wants to be a vampire (and that Steve has evil blood), Darren flees home. That conflict is put aside, as Darren then realizes that he can in fact own Madam Octa, Mr. Crepsley's performing spider.

Darren steals Madam Octa the spider from the Cirque du Freak and develops a telepathic connection with her. However, when he is demonstrating his control over her to his best friend Steve Leopard, his sister Annie startles him, and his control over her is lost, giving Madam Octa the chance to bite Steve. He goes to hospital but none of the doctors can figure out what type of poison it is. Darren goes to Mr. Crepsley for the cure and the vampire gives Darren an offer: Darren must become Mr. Larten Crepsley's assistant and he will help Steve to survive. Darren agrees and is blooded by Mr. Crepsley. He fakes his own death and leaves his hometown to follow his life as a vampire.

Later on in the series, it is revealed that Darren was blooded at age twelve; In Hunters of the Dusk, Darren mentions when returning to the Cirque, "For twenty-five years I have thought and lived as a boy", (page 163) and in the prologue of the same book, it is said that "The tragedy started for me fourteen years ago when I stole Madam Octa from a vampire", So, 25-14= 11. However this evidence is inconclusive since so much time obviously passes between the prologue of the book up until the 25 year statement. Enough time in fact that nearly a year could have past. The most conclusive statements made in the books which give us Darren's age occur in Lord of Shadows page 128 when Darren is talking with Debbie about his most recent bout of the purge he says, "I've been a child or teenager for the better part of thirty years." Earlier in the same book he mentions 18 years having past since being blooded. 30-18=12 This is further given evidence when in Allies of the night on page 67, Darren says to Debbie as he's lying to her at school, "The disease didn't set in until after I was tweleve. I wasn't very different from other children until then." Obviously that statement refers to his blooding by Mr. Crepsley even though he's lying about what is truly his issue regarding not ageing.

As A Vampire

Darren initially hates Mr. Crepsley for making him flee his home and loathes the fact that he must drink blood to survive. Eventually so, he learns to like Vampires and begins to think of Mr. Crepsley as a friend. After The Vampire Assistant, Darren also becomes used to drinking small quantities of blood from others. Together, he and Crepsley travel to Vampire Mountain, where he attempts to go through several dangerous trials. After "failing" one (a Little Person named Harakat Mulds who was his friend accidentally assisted him), he is forced to flee the Mountain as the punishment for failing any of the trials is death by impalement. As he escapes, he learns that one of the Vampire Princes is plotting to betray the Vampires to a group of rival bloodsuckers called the Vampaneze, in the hopes that he can organize a peace between the species. Darren returns to the Mountain and warns the Vampires of the Vampaneze attack. The attack is successfully halted and the treacherous Prince is impaled. To save him from having his previous sentence carried out, the Vampires decide to make Darren a Prince, which is a position that is above the Vampire law. Later, Darren becomes one of the Vampaneze Lord Hunters. In the end he FACES Steve in battle and they both mortally wound each other, both dying shortly after. Darren is brought back by Mr. Tiny as a Little Person. He is sent back in time and sees his younger self at the Cirque with Steve. He scares himself off so that he doesn't see Steve and Crepsley, [...] off the original chain of events that made Darren a Vampire. He then gives his diary entries to Mr. Tall, unravels, and dies peacefully.

Blooding

This term refers to when Darren was first given vampire blood by Mr. Crepsley. The vampire suggested that they exchange blood via their finger tips, because it was the simplest and least painful. This suggests that there are other ways to exchange blood from a vampire to a human, and the only other mentioned way is by injection (mentioned in the final book). During Vampire Prince, Darren becomes three-quarters Vampire after Arrow and Mika re-blood him and offer his blood to the Stone of Blood.

Darren himself has only given vampire blood to one person, Darius, who is his nephew.

Half Vampire

When Darren became a Vampire, he started out like every other person who had been blooded, as a Half-Vampire. Being a Half-Vampire meant that Darren had the powers of a Vampire but much weaker. Also this meant that Darren was able to be in the sun without fear of harm. One thing that troubled Darren at first with being a Half-Vampire is that he needed blood, but he still lived with his family and the urge to feed on his first blood was far too strong. Darren is also the first ever Vampire Prince to be only a Half-Vampire, along with being the youngest.