Are the changelings vampires?

[StarHeart333 1,763]

A simple but thought provoking question are the changelings in MLP vampires or at least some kind of vampiric nature?

I wish to clarify that there are vampire types who Do feed off astral and spiritual energy  .instead of blood and they are known as psychic vampires. 

 

The question is does the "love" energy the changelings eat the same energy that these psychic vampires eat or no?

[Metemponychosis 1,259]

There are changelings in european folklore, and they are creatures that change the babies for one of their own, which is a hideous creature, but the parents of the stolen child don't see that their child was stolen and see the baby changeling as their own. So, they love the changeling's spawn and that feeds it. This may have originated on some cruel folklore about children that were born deformed, but parents would love them anyway and that may also be the origin of 'a face only a mother could love'.

The reason I brought this up is because season 2 did something similar. Chrysalis replaced Cadance with herself and became the subject of Shining Armor's love. Interesting, because one of the ideas behind this tale is that love can't be stolen. Which is exactlçy what changelings started doing when they showed up again.

So, what is love as far as the cartoon is concerned? Some random magical energy that the changelings can just suck out of a creature. Since energy is an undefinable term in this context, yeah. It is.

[StarHeart333 1,763]

I myself have wondered if indeed the changelings are implied to actually be draining.the life force off of who they are feeding from but given that the show is clearly meant for a younger audience they can't say that due to censorship.

 

In other words if you remember watching the censored show versions like DBZ, YUGIOH etc where they replace death scenes with cleverly reworded phrases: dragon ball z had characters say they were being sent to "another dimension" and yugioh had them sent to the "shadow realm."

So, I wonder if this could be the case here where in reality they first eat the magic then eat the subjects life force once the magic is gone..

 

I'm guessing in the show Shinning's magic was almost completely.drained by the time the canterlot wedding episode started.and that maybe a day or two later when he died on his "honeymoon" the spell would have simply vanished and changelings would have invaded immediately. 

[EpicEnergy 23,176]

This depends on what type of consumption qualifies as vampirism. For it to qualify as vampirism, it must be a substance or essence that exists within a living being. In the changeling's situation, I would say that it is vampirism since love can be considered an essence.