The Vamp / Literature

• Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called "The Vampire". Trope Namer.
• Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers.
• Played for laughs in The Science of Discworld II: The Globe; the queen of The Fair Folk tries to seduce Rincewind, but all he desires is potatoes.
• Berelain in the Wheel of Time started out as one, who seduced people for political advantage and spent multiple books chasing after Perrin to the detriment of Perrin's marriage, but is starting to look a bit more sympathetic. Her current infatuation with Galad, putting an end to the horrific Poor Communication Kills arc of the last five books, certainly helps.^note What also helps is that, when she's not bothering Perrin or catfighting with his wife, she's one of the sharpest political minds in the series, and remains firmly on the side of the good guys.
• The title character of "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen.
• The White Witch of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, even more so in the films. In the film adaption of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Edmund even imagines her promising to make him "a king...and more", making it obvious that this was a large factor in his decision to become her mole. But even in The Magician's Nephew, she strikes Diggory as stunning (while Polly doesn't see the attraction), and Uncle Andrew loses his head over her, even imagining she might find him attractive. And, of course, the Lady of the Green Kirtle from The Silver Chair seduces and enslaves the prince. Jill does see the attraction.
• Zenia in Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride.
• In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim, Bequa Kenska. When her attempt to seduce Ostian Delafour fails, she is enraged both to lose the chance to corrupt his youth and innocence and because she had never failed before.
• The title character in Andrew Vachss' Strega (the second Burke novel) is explicitly The Vamp to the extent that she even Lampshades the fact that she can bend men to her will. The protagonist, Burke, does succumb to her sexual wiles, but subverts the trope in that he's perfectly aware of what she represents, and manages to pull away once her goals are no longer parallel with his. The girlfriend in Vachss' The Getaway Man plays the trope straight, however.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Lara Raith. She's also a psychic vampire who feeds on people's souls during sex.
  • Mab, the Unseelie Queen of Air and Darkness, has elements of this archetype. While it normally doesn't come up (since she's more powerful than most gods), she has proven capable of using seduction when the situation calls for it. Harry also describes her as "too terrifying to be beautiful."
    Mab: Are you frightened of me, Harry?
    Harry: I'm sane.
  • Maeve, the Unseelie Lady and Mab's daughter, uses this trick quite a bit more than her mother and is far more blunt about it. She's about as subtle as a prostitute sticking her hand down the front of your pants. A very, very, very beautiful prostitute, with friends, but still.
• Nefer of The Egyptian, although she is considerate enough to actually warn him first. Doesn't help, though.
• Vorkosigan Saga: Cavilo (who had already thus secured control of a mercenary warfleet) attempts this with Emperor Gregor Vorbarra in The Vor Game. As you might guess from the "attempts", it doesn't work out the way she planned.
• This trope is so old that even parodying it is Older Than Steam. At the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain claims he has learned never to trust women, that they only lead you to sin, etc., etc. The Green Knight tells him this is ridiculous and that he has to take responsibility for his own failure.
• Male example: Spyros Stavaronas, the attractive young shrimp fisherman in Alexandra by Scott O'Dell. At first, he uses his charms to distract Alexandra so his henchmen can smuggle cocaine on her boat. When Alexandra finds out, he further tries to charm her into keeping his secret and not turning them in to the cops.
• Marquise Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing variety.
• Mr. Wickham from Pride and Prejudice is another male example. Unlike the passive if Hedonistic Casanova Willoughby of Sense and Sensibility, who doesn't care if he breaks hearts, Wickham actively tries to win the heroine over and turn her against Mr. Darcy via Malicious Slander. This is years after he tried to get revenge on Mr. Darcy by seducing his sister. Later, he tries to get back at her by seducing her little sister Lydia and very nearly succeeds. Elizabeth later feels terrible over how easily she believed his lies.
• The woman in Robert E. Howard's "The Gods Of The North", who lures Conan the Barbarian to her brothers to be killed. When this does not work, things get rather uglier for her.
  • Thalis tries this in "The Slithering Shadows". Conan is embarrassed because Natala, his slave girl, is watching.
• Parodied with Muriel Kane in The Beautiful and Damned. She wants to be seen as a vamp (and happens to look like Theda Bara, mentioned above) but tries far too hard.
• Roberta "Bobbie" Wickham from the Jeeves and Wooster series is a light comedic variant. A troublemaker with Evil Redhead tendencies, she makes a habit of luring Bertie into trouble and then working against him to benefit herself. Of course, Bertie is an Extreme Doormat who can get talked into anything, but in Bobbie's case, the fact that she's gorgeous and flirtatious doesn't hurt her cause.
  Bobbie Wickham ... went about the place letting the pure in heart in for the sort of thing I was doing now.
• Matilda fills this role in The Monk, particularly if you read her character as deliberately leading Ambrosio astray rather than merely being tempting.
• Extremely common in The Sword of Truth, especially among the Sisters of the Dark. Nicci is perhaps the best example prior to her High-Heel–Face Turn, and has a long history of using her beauty and sex to get what she wants. The generally antagonistic (though not evil) and neutral at best witch woman Shota tends to play this at times as well. Calling her default wardrobe "revealing" doesn't even cover it.
• Lilith Eve Mabus in Steve Alten's Resurrection is an extreme example of the trope.
• Cersei Lannister in A Song of Ice and Fire. Men desire her and she's willing to use that. Littlefinger actually pities her because her beauty is the only true advantage she possesses — everything else is due to the men in her life — in the game of thrones, and that will fade with time. Eventually Deconstructed, as the consequences of being exposed as the Vamp become apparent. The High Septon finds out and forces her to walk through the city naked and shaved. This destroys all the power she has gained; no one will respect her now that everyone has seen her in such a vulnerable state. Even Jaime is unsympathetic and abandons her in her time of need. He thought she was cheating on her husband with him because he was her true love, and the discovery that she's sleeping with other people to win their allegiance makes him question their entire relationship.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Luke Castellan is a semi-censored Rare Male Example. Because this is a middle-grade series, they can't exactly say he used sex to gain information, but Silena's confession that she spied for him because he seemed so "handsome and trustworthy" makes it pretty clear that something happened (especially considering that her love interest had just died recently). He wasn't above using Annabeth's Precocious Crush to manipulate her either.
• Annabella Wilmot in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, as Lord Lowborough discovers too late. Gilbert warns Frederick Lawrence that Jane Wilson is not to be trusted before he can choose a similar fate.
• La Belle Dame sans Merci, from the John Keats poem of the same name. She also has shades of The Fair Folk.
• Delia of Eldorne in Song of the Lioness deliberately pits men against each other and seduces Prince Jon, toying with his moods by giving or withholding her attention (and sex) in order to keep him off-balance. All of this is in aid of Duke Roger's plan to usurp the throne because she wants to be the queen.
• In The General Series Suzette Whitehall's modus operandi (seduction, manipulation, provoking duels over herself, having Obstructive Bureaucrats dumped in the river with 40-kilo roundshot chained to their ankles, etc.) fits with this... but she does so not For the Evulz but for the sake of the husband she actually does love (an honest soldier whom the Decadent Court of the Gubierno Civil would probably destroy otherwise).
• Melisande Shahrizai from the Kushiel's Legacy series is an almost perfect example of this trope, especially early on.
• Wyre from Dark Heart. She's not averse to using sex to manipulate men, though she's also good at mind-warping magic.
• In the Archie Sheridan series, Gretchen Lowell is the extreme of this trope, as a beautiful female serial killer who claims to have over two hundred kills. Not just any kills, either—she likes to torture using blades and chemicals to extend the torture session for as long as possible. She uses sex to collect "apprentices," weak-minded selfish men who she can mold into serial killers themselves.
• In Agatha Christie's stories featuring professional problem-solver Mr. Parker Pyne, one of his employees is the impossibly glamorous Madeleine de Sara, who plays this role as needed for a False Crucible or Operation: Jealousy.
• In Terra Ignota, Danaë is so seductively feminine that she is able to make anyone do what she wants basically just by being in the same room as them. It is eventually revealed that she was raised in a brothel and educated to undermine others by using her sex appeal, giving her a dark streak despite her innocent demeanor. Justified in that it's quite clear that any modern person would easily be able to resist her charms, but in the genderless world of the 25th century, the only experience anyone has with sexuality and sexual appeal outside the bedroom are historical videos and pornography. Mycroft describes this as giving people "the weakness but no resistance."
• Lee Gen, the darkly anti-heroic Chinese spy in Caliphate, is one of the very few male examples known to exist, thanks to science-fiction technologies which allow him to present a really convincing Attractive Bent-Gender.
• Loyal Enemies has Tairinn. The only reason she approached Veres, slept with him, and generally played his girlfriend was to get her hands on his writings about werewolves and their origins and magical capabilities, secretly laughing about Veres' moral integrity. It worked because of her innocent, alluring dark-haired looks. After having latched onto another man and faked her own death, she tries that shtick on Veres again in the finale because she still hasn't figured out everything insinuated by his thesis, using her sex appeal to lure him to her side. This time, though, Veres sees through it.
• Mercy Thompson features the Widow Queen otherwise known as Neuth, the Black Queen who serves as the Big Bad of the novel Fire Touched. The Widow Queen is a member of the ruling class of the fae who are known as the Gray lords. Her MO is the seducing good men until they are obsessed with her, luring them into temptation before destroying them and all they loved before ruining their lands.
• Sophonisba in Santiago Posteguillo's Africanus Trilogy is a good example, managing to turn Syphax (and almost Masinissa) to the Carthaginian cause only through her feminine charms. This was Truth in Television, apparently.
• Psycho Psychologist Lilith Ritter in Nightmare Alley is a particularly vicious and manipulative example. Pretty much immediately after the main character Stan comes to her as a client, she seduces and begins controlling him through sexual and emotional coercion. Within weeks Stan is so infatuated with her that he is willing to do literally anything she wants to ensure that she continues their secret relationship. It's later revealed at the end of the book that Lilith was conning Stan all along. She steals a majority of the money they have swindled together and when Stan discovers her betrayal and confronts her, she tells him he is deluded and attempts to have him committed to an institution, a fate he very narrowly escapes.
• Anno Dracula: Christina Light expertly uses her beauty and sexuality to seduce men into joining her anarchist cause while caring nothing for their lives.
• The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: The Enchantress. The Guide outright says "Enchantress" is "another word for seductress, only with more punch". They use magic to make themselves look more beautiful and thus be appealing for seducing a captured male hero.
• Bazil Broketail: Zettila uses her beauty and charm to wrap Emperor Banwi around her finger, making him blindly follow her every advice and trust her word even when she's obviously using him.
• Phoedria from The Faerie Queene throws herself at any man who comes near her island in hopes of leading them astray and leaving them forever stranded in the middle of the deadly sea.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Ophelia Salvadori is a Tragic Villain example: a sexually predatory upperclassman who Smells Sexy due to her succubus ancestry and specializes in using male essence to breed chimeras within her own womb. It's apparently a family tradition, one which her Unlucky Childhood Friends tried unsuccessfully to turn her away from (she wanted to, but bullying at school over her abilities drove her to a Face–Heel Turn).