Many works of vampire fiction involve the idea of a vampire lifting his curse and becoming human again. In the television series Forever Knight, for example, the title character, homicide detective Nick Knight, works with coroner Natalie Lambert to find a cure for his vampirism. In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff Angel, the title character (and later Spike as well) tries to find a cure for vampirism through the Shanshu prophecy, which states that a vampire with a soul might become human again.

If vampires are super-strong and immortal, as they are in most incarnations of the vampire myth, why would they want to be cured? And why would humans want to cure vampires instead of just destroying them?

One possible reason is that the vampiric condition has its drawbacks. Depending on the version of the myth being used, this may be an aversion to sunlight, an insatiable desire to feed and potentially harm others when doing so, and an inability to form lasting relationships, both with humans (because the people around you are mortal and die) and with vampires (because of conflicts and political struggles within the vampire hierarchy, or simply because they disapprove of the “good vampire” lifestyle). Humans may see curing the vampire as a more humane way to remove the vampire’s violent, monstrous nature than staking them.

The method of curing a vampire varies depending on a fictional work’s explanation for vampirism. In a series such as Angel, where vampirism is a condition brought about by magic, the vampire must be cured through magical means. Because the vampire is usually a human whose soul has been removed and replaced with a demon, it makes sense that the first step to curing a vampire is returning the soul to its body. This has happened to both Angel and Spike. The soul returns some of the vampire’s humanity, causing them to feel regret for the pain and destruction they have caused and to attempt to make amends by helping people.

In other fictional works, the vampire’s condition is seen through more scientific eyes. In Forever Knight, for example, Natalie attempts to study Nick’s condition and find a medical cure. She constantly feeds him herbal teas and other strange remedies, and at one point is able to find a way to treat Nick’s cells so that he can eat and go out in the sunlight. When Nick abstains from drinking blood over a period of several days, he begins to develop more human characteristics, such as the ability to eat, but his vampire body’s cravings for blood soon become too strong to ignore.

In a fictional work where vampirism is seen as a virus, something like zombiism, there might be another scientific cure: an anti-viral treatment for the virus (as well as a vaccine for human patients). If vampires are still reanimated dead bodies, however, this cure might cause them to die once they become human.