I don’t think the deciding factor here is literal ownership - what does a vampire care if you’re owning, renting, paying a mortgage, or living with your parents? Rather, it makes most sense that the deciding factor to whether you can validly invite a vampire into a given location, is if that location is where you live. So the 4-year-old can invite the vampire in because the 4-year-old lives there. I might also accept that a vampire can be invited in by anyone who is already inside. There are plenty of more consistent options than just those you described.
In your hypothetical scenario, if vampires were to somehow gain control of the government, could they simply pass a law stating all vampires are invited in all domiciles? Legal systems change and can vary wildly depending on location - it’s silly to think they’d have an effect on something based in magic, not law.
I think it’s easy to get sidetracked on “magic” vs. “law”. It seems clear to me that both of these ideas are tied up in human interpretation, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to have a disagreement about them, we’d simply look up the correct meaning for “magical rules that govern vampires”.
I suspect that we have a fundamental disagreement that we’re not going to resolve with debate, but I’ll take one more shot anyway.
I appreciate that you’ve given a pretty succinct definition of your position: to summarize, you can only invite someone to a place where you live, although you can also invite someone into a place when you are already inside that place, regardless of whether you live there.
Can a person who lives on the street invite a vampire? If so, then a vampire is circumscribed from any outdoor location where a person lives (sans invitation); and if not, we see that “where a person lives” is not actually the deciding concept.
If you own multiple homes, which of them do you “live” in? Can a vampire enter all the others? Do you have to be in the home at the time of the invitation, or could you invite a vampire to use your summer house for a month while you’re in your winter home?
All of these things cloud the idea that “living in” a place is not actually all that straightforward, and still requires the interpretation of mankind to be meaningful to the vampire. Indeed, I think the magic relies on the consent of a human, not the literal words of an invitation, and consent is innately tied to interpretation by the person consenting.
However, if anyone in the home can make the invitation, then I think the way this plays out is: the vampire cop gets a warrant, one of the other cops goes inside, and then shouts at the vampire to come inside, and then you’re boned anyway.
What happens if the vampire is knocked unconscious and then the resident tells another person to bring them inside?
The another person can freely drag the vampire into the house. The vampire is not entering the house, he is being entered into it which is a different act.
In your hypothetical scenario, if vampires were to somehow gain control of the government, could they simply pass a law stating all vampires are invited in all domiciles?
Yes, but it wouldn’t have the effect you expected because the people still living on those homes have not invited them in.
Invitations are not associative and not transitive. If I invite John to my enter house, that doesn’t allow James to “infer” that he’s also invited, nor does it allow John to invite James into my house.
I don’t agree with that at all.
I don’t think the deciding factor here is literal ownership - what does a vampire care if you’re owning, renting, paying a mortgage, or living with your parents? Rather, it makes most sense that the deciding factor to whether you can validly invite a vampire into a given location, is if that location is where you live. So the 4-year-old can invite the vampire in because the 4-year-old lives there. I might also accept that a vampire can be invited in by anyone who is already inside. There are plenty of more consistent options than just those you described.
In your hypothetical scenario, if vampires were to somehow gain control of the government, could they simply pass a law stating all vampires are invited in all domiciles? Legal systems change and can vary wildly depending on location - it’s silly to think they’d have an effect on something based in magic, not law.
I think it’s easy to get sidetracked on “magic” vs. “law”. It seems clear to me that both of these ideas are tied up in human interpretation, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to have a disagreement about them, we’d simply look up the correct meaning for “magical rules that govern vampires”.
I suspect that we have a fundamental disagreement that we’re not going to resolve with debate, but I’ll take one more shot anyway.
I appreciate that you’ve given a pretty succinct definition of your position: to summarize, you can only invite someone to a place where you live, although you can also invite someone into a place when you are already inside that place, regardless of whether you live there.
Can a person who lives on the street invite a vampire? If so, then a vampire is circumscribed from any outdoor location where a person lives (sans invitation); and if not, we see that “where a person lives” is not actually the deciding concept.
If you own multiple homes, which of them do you “live” in? Can a vampire enter all the others? Do you have to be in the home at the time of the invitation, or could you invite a vampire to use your summer house for a month while you’re in your winter home?
All of these things cloud the idea that “living in” a place is not actually all that straightforward, and still requires the interpretation of mankind to be meaningful to the vampire. Indeed, I think the magic relies on the consent of a human, not the literal words of an invitation, and consent is innately tied to interpretation by the person consenting.
However, if anyone in the home can make the invitation, then I think the way this plays out is: the vampire cop gets a warrant, one of the other cops goes inside, and then shouts at the vampire to come inside, and then you’re boned anyway.
Some other possible loopholes:
What is a “home”? Does it need to have a roof or a door or walls?
What happens if the vampire is knocked unconscious and then the resident tells another person to bring them inside?
This is definitely more complex than I originally thought.
The another person can freely drag the vampire into the house. The vampire is not entering the house, he is being entered into it which is a different act.
Yes, but it wouldn’t have the effect you expected because the people still living on those homes have not invited them in.
Invitations are not associative and not transitive. If I invite John to my enter house, that doesn’t allow James to “infer” that he’s also invited, nor does it allow John to invite James into my house.