What would you say the climax of (book) IWTV is?

I hope you’re not the anon with the project for class, asking me to do your homework for you! But I do want to answer this, so you get my opinion, which may not be the actual answer.

I think there’s more than one climax, depending on what your reading of IWTV focuses on. I’m not as religious as some ppl, so I don’t give that theme as much weight as other readers might. And that is a huge aspect of Louis’ struggle with vampiring and giving into his vampire nature, being in direct conflict with the most important of commandments, Thou Shalt Not Kill (in conjunction with Thou Shalt Not Steal, bc this kind of killing is doing both). 

Here’s one definition I found for climax, the noun: “the most intense, exciting, or important point of something; a culmination or apex.” For me, that moment could be a catalyst, too, changing a character to some extent, could be a drastic re-calibration of their inner dialogue with themselves, reconfiguration of their moral values, etc. 

I’m not quite sure which scene in IWTV (book or movie) that would be for you, but for me, one of the most intense moments was when Louis found Madeleine and Claudia’s ashes:

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First is denial. 

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It’s in this moment that Louis has lost the most precious person, the one who’s told him what to do, someone he could worship and follow, someone who metered out his doses of happiness with her approval. 

He’s also lost his own

(and very first!)

fledgling, and even though in both the book and the movie there doesn’t appear to be much attachment to between them, @vampchronfic/@gairid‘s headcanons about that have convinced me that there IS a bond, deep and invisible, created in the act of turning. Maker and fledgling are drawn together. Something like the attachment between a mother and her child, perhaps more powerful bc (hopefully) the giving of the Dark Gift was a consensual act between adults. It’s even more cruel in the movie bc she dies the same night she was turned, talk about bad life choices.

ANYWAY.

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He holds off on the anger for now, goes straight to bargaining. He reaches out to touch them, maybe he thinks there’s some way to save them still? Or maybe the ashes are just on the surface, maybe Claudia and Madeleine are still intact under there? It feels like a nightmare and he wants to prove it’s not real.

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But it is real, and they crumble, and everything that they were is gone.

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This, his lightest touch, it’s heartbreaking, their final destruction at his own hand ;A;

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Depression and acceptance. It’s real, they’re beyond saving, he’s failed them both in so many ways. The only thing left is (anger stage) revenge against this injustice, against the Theatre troupe, and once that’s accomplished, against himself. 

So I’d say this was a climax bc it acted as a catalyst for Louis, he finally burst into action because of this, and any remaining illusions he had about vampiring and immortality were shattered. He’s 1,000% done and he’s gonna go out in a blaze of fiery glory punishment.

Hey Lestat I really need some advice… I accidentally didn’t give my dad a Christmas gift idk what happened I just ran out of time I didn’t know what to do and he called me out on it. Omg I feel like the worlds worst daughter. A total piece of shit. He wasn’t mad, just made me feel worse and now it’s just too late and I feel so horrible. We are really close, he got us concert tickets and I did nothing and rn I just want to dig a hole in the earth like Gabrielle so I can go to sleep for 10 years

♛My dear anonyme, this is not such a terrible crime. 

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You yourself are a gift to your father, and if he fails to see that, well, that’s his loss. Especially with how contrite you sound and how close you claim you are with him; the fact that he doesn’t take all that into account and allows you to feel like “the

worlds worst daughter” and “a total piece of shit” for such a minor transgression… not very fatherly behavior. Does such a person deserve a reward for that?

All of my fledglings, each in their own way, were gifts to me just by being themselves and my time with them was always far more valuable than any physical gift they could give. Seeing them blossom… being proud of them… knowing that they were made of the same material as myself, existing in this mystery with me, all that and more, those are the gifts that mean the most. …Even when they hate me, fight with me, and even try to kill me, seeing that ferocity in them still stirs in me a kind of thrill!

Don’t get this man a physical gift just because he’s thrown a tantrum over your not doing so. The concert should have been a gift from him of spending time together, not just his financial burden, which is how it seems he’s treating it.

Show him that you are the gift by doing something with him. Share a meal with him, play a card game with him, do some activity you both enjoy. If I was your father, that’s what I would have preferred anyway. 

So I was the anon that lost her shit finishing TVL, lol and now I’m on QOTD. I appreciated all Rice’s lofty writing in IWTV/TVL but it got a little tiring sometimes. Now I have a new respect for Rice on how she is able to drastically adapt her writing depending on the characters’ POV (if that makes sense). And going from 40 BC to the 80s. I liked that chapter about baby jenks and the diction, humor and language. Maybe cause it was a hell of a lot easier to read +Do you have a fav book out of VC?

Hello again, anon that lost her shit finishing TVL! Keep us posted, I love these fresh impressions of VC bc I can never quite get mine back, that first experience of each of the books I’ve already read. And re-read. Although, I do bring smtg different to them on each re-read, as I’ve gotten older and had more of my own experiences and philosophical revisions to compare to our fave dysfunctional vampires’.

*nods* Yes, AR has shown us many voices in her writing,

I think you put it very well. She has given us POVs from the lofty to the much less lofty. The lofty POVs appeal to ppl who enjoy that and the more modern stuff appeals to ppl who enjoy that… @annabellioncourt helped me out on a post about the voice of Louis, his POV seems to draw on older literature, and he loves to read those books, so of course he would absorb that somewhat anachronistic flavor. Louis may be deliberately making his story a little difficult to read, as he is revealing a lot but also keeping some things secret, keeping Daniel at arm’s length. 

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^Footage of characters from their own POV chapters in one book vying for attention ❤

QOTD was a good collection of this bc she’s jumping characters a lot in that book, which she didn’t do in TVL and IWTV, except to have her main characters sit and listen to others tell their own stories. In those instances, we did get some variation in the POV, but again, it was through the filter of the person who later told/recorded the story for us, the readers (i.e. Lestat telling us about > Marius telling Lestat about > the Elder telling Marius about > the origin of the vampires! Check out @comixqueen‘s VC storyception!)


My fave VC changes over time, but consistently, it’s been TVL. Longer answer here. I did my own VC ranking awhile back, which I skimmed just now and still agree with.

TVL is my fave bc Lestat. LESTAT! He does have flaws, for sure. Flaws that could spiral anyone into depression. But his lust for life overrides everything ❤ 

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^And I think part of why we all love him (those of us that do love him) against our own better judgment is that even when he royally fracks up, he gets back up, dusts himself off, and careens into the next car.

who is your favorite short term character? I personally adore baby jenks for reasons I can’t quite explain

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Mojo. Lestat’s real son, protective of his dad and loyal, a heart of gold, and basically a living security blanket. Lestat re: Mojo, TOBT:

And before this story moves any further, let me say something about this dog. He isn’t going to do anything in this book. 

He won’t save a drowning baby, or rush into a burning building to rouse the inhabitants from near-fatal sleep. He isn’t possessed by an evil spirit; he isn’t a vampire dog. He’s in this narrative simply because I found him in the snow behind that town house in Georgetown, and I loved him, and from that first moment, he seemed somehow to love me. It was all too true to the blind and merciless laws I believe in – the laws of nature, as men say; or the laws of the Savage Garden, as I call them myself. Mojo loved my strength; I loved his beauty. And nothing else ever really mattered at all. 

^He’s at least a little wrong, Mojo did alot in this book. He was quietly supportive when Lestat needed it most. He saw through to Lestat’s soul, bc he recognized Lestat even though the physical appearance changed drastically ❤ So many feels for Mojo!

Runners up, or, If I Had to Choose A People: (in no special order)

  • Yvette from movie!IWTV – I headcanon her as having been raised with Louis, close to his age, and treated like a sister to him. That he was more fond of her than of his own biological sister.
  • Celeste and Estelle – Stunning vampiresses at the Theatre des Vampires who seemed to think they could paw at Claudia w/o consequences.
  • Santiago – I headcanon that he had a thing for/with Armand, maybe an unrequited crush on Armand, and then lashed out horribly when Louis came into the picture and stole Armand’s heart. Santiago has a wicked little serenade for Claudia in one of my fave fics of all time, @wicked-felina​‘s First Light. #Headcanon Accepted.
  • Gretchen the nun – I just felt very inspired by the way she handled things and was saddened by the way she had to leave the story. It made sense, though.
  • Khayman – Most of his action is in QOTD so I’d consider him a short term character for that. He was a BAMF, and then later, had a real presence, and his awkwardness was so charming.
  • Tough Cookie – I mean c’mon. She’s in Lestat’s band. Or is he in her band? More about her would have been awesome.
  • Baby Jenks – Yeah I liked her alot, too! The way her narrative was written was refreshing, unlike any canon before it. Concisely stated but rich and believable backstory. She deserved to have more screentime.
  • Morgan – from IWTV, the dude who lost his wife on their honeymoon to the European vampire and ended up not lasting much longer. I really loved Louis and Claudia’s interactions with him.
  • Nicolas de Lenfent – bc of reasons, and yet, with all the love for him of late, he doesn’t feel like as much of a short term character. He can’t be described in one or two sentences so easily as the others on this list. Suffice it to say that just his name brings up my headcanons about him, and I struggle to choose one over any others, it feels like it would cheapen him to do that.

…There are more but those are the main ones that come to mind, and it’s a long enough list, so I’ll end it there.

To Lestat: Guess what? I’ve worked for an entire year on a story about a lovely vampiress who falls for a beautiful young woman, and I was heavily inspired by you and Louis. Thanks for the inspiration!

♛I am so pleased, ma chère. True love knows no gender limitations. And we can always use more characters inspired by my relationship with Louis. I’m not revealing anything new when I say it’s no walk in the park but it’s absolutely worth fighting for. Constantly. For centuries! *tosses laptop aside and pounces on Louis for kisses*

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[X]

^//ooc: Yes, Lestat recycled this answer, and you may be the same anon who said smtg similar before, but in the time since then, he has gotten a ton of fresh followers who haven’t seen this lovely response and even lovelier picture! So he is somewhat sorry to recycle, but it’s like a fancy jacket, why can’t he wear it again? *u*

If you had to choose: armand x daniel or armand x marius, and why?

Omg I’m not touching this debate, with all the Armand/Daniel and Armand/Marius shippers out there ready to fight me one way or the other, and the fact that Marius is very problematic. Not taking a side on this one. 

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[^Armand by @garama]

I’ve never been wildly passionate about any of the three of those characters, personally, so you might ask RPers for those characters what they might say. Might be some active Armands on this post.

I can understand both ships, and I can appreciate variations of them in canon and fanworks. Best for me to leave it at that.

Hi, I’m doing this project thing for class on IWTV and basically I have to analyze and write essays about themes, characterization, symbols, etc. on a bunch of different passages from our chosen book. I’ve done a lot but I still have some left to do and kinda have run out of ideas for the last of them. Do you have any favorite scenes/lines/moments/passages/excerpts from the book or any that stand out/you find particularly deep and meaningful? Thanks for the help (:

Hmmm, this is a tough one! There are so many. I’m curious to know which you chose already!

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It changes over time, but just skimming IWTV, these are some consistently favorite moments of mine. I think some of them are deep and meaningful, but what’s deep and meaningful to me may not be to you. We all sort of have a conversation with books, you bring your own experiences and tastes and see what matches up with the story you’re reading. Sometimes the story can expand your intellectual palette! It’s done that for me.

What makes a moment (scenes/lines/moments/passages/excerpts/etc.) a fave for me is the mixture of comedy and tragedy, so I’m drawn to parts where Lestat is insulting Louis, or they’re fighting with exquisite tension and clever dialogue, or bits of vampire physiology, or heartwrenching stuff. 

While I’m less interested in things like artful descriptions or didactic lessons from the author, each VC book is a mixture of many things, and I obviously love the series as a whole and in parts. Fave moments, for me, are like amazing desserts in which you can’t always figure out what the ingredients were, it’s just DELICIOUS and you gotta have MORE.

I was going through IWTV and selecting passages but I’m doing too many! Here’s the first few that come to mind, in no particular order, which is a very small fraction of all my fave moments:

  • Lestat telling Louis that he needs to grow up and quit pining for his mortal life: “’You do not know your vampire nature. You are like an adult who, looking back on his childhood, realizes that he never appreciated it. You cannot, as a man, go back to the nursery and play with your toys, asking for the love and care to be showered on you again simply because now you know their worth.’”
  • Louis grappling with Lestat over Lestat wanting to kill Freneire. Wrestling in the mud and the cold!
  • Louis appreciating Daniel’s tape recorder (“Marvelous contraption, really”) and doing/saying other little things that make him seem

    anachronistic

    (” “That is, how would you say today … bullshit?” “)

  • When Louis discovers mortal Claudia, he mentions that he hears a dog that he could take instead (”But there were alternatives: rats abounded in the streets, and somewhere very near a dog was howling hopelessly. I might have fled the room had I chosen and fed and gotten back easily.”), but he’s drawn to her. He’s been malnourished for some 4 yrs, the inner demon pulling him to a human victim is sick and tired of junk food, it wants AN ENTRÉE ffs!
  • Louis finding Lestat post-trial under TDV clutching Claudia’s yellow dress! ;A; Heartwrenching!
  • Armand showing Louis he really can climb a tower, just try it! So motivational.
  • Lestat’s blind dad in general, how they had to pretend to eat dinner to humor him, how Louis was so nice and gentle with him and put him out of his misery when the time came ;A;
  • Louis telling Lestat he had to leave the plantation bc there was going to be an uprising, and Lestat responds with such a perfect slew of insults that are actually surprisingly accurate: “ `You want me gone! You,’ he sneered. He was building a card palace on the dining room table with a pack of very fine French cards. `You whining coward of a vampire who prowls the night killing alley cats and rats and staring for hours at candles as if they were people and standing in the rain like a zombie until your clothes are drenched and you smell like old wardrobe trunks in attics and have the look of a baffled idiot at the zoo.‘” 

A few more under the cut* 

Anyone is welcome to reblog/comment with their own fave moments ;]


*From when I was starting at the beginning of the book and pulling faves but only got to p. 13 and had 4 already, so I had to stop doing that or I’d have more many than too many.

After Paul dies, Louis talking about his sister, how she felt like she had to act a certain way bc society expected it. This was one of the first things cluing me into the whole idea of disregarding societal expectations, bc what good did it do her to pretend?

“People in society asked my sister offensive questions about the whole incident, and she became an hysteric. She wasn’t really an hysteric. She simply thought she ought to react that way, so she did.”  

The first time Louis really describes Lestat:

He came in from the courtyard, opening the French doors without a sound,
a tall fair-skinned man with a mass of blond hair and a graceful, almost feline quality to his movements. And gently, he draped a shawl over my sister’s eyes and lowered the wick of the lamp… His gray eyes burned with an incandescence, and the long white hands which hung by his sides were not those of a human being… the moment I saw him, saw his extraordinary aura and knew him to be no creature I’d ever known, I was reduced to nothing. 

When Lestat is about to turn Louis, it’s so endearing, and there’s comedy in here, as well as some dubious consent, it’s just excellent.

But there was no time for courage. Or shall I say, there was no time in Lestat’s plan for anything but his plan. `Now listen to me, Louis,’ he said, and he lay down beside me now on the steps, his movement so graceful and so personal that at once it made me think of a lover. I recoiled… 

…I wanted to struggle, but he pressed so hard with his fingers that he held
my entire prone body in check; and as soon as I stopped my abortive attempt at rebellion, he sank his teeth into my neck.”

Omg, Lestat telling his dad to get off his back about his lifestyle is priceless:

“[Lestat] was in his father’s bedroom meantime, telling the old man good-bye, that he would return in the morning. ‘But where do you go, why must you live by such a schedule!’ the old man demanded, and Lestat became impatient.

… `I take care of you, don’t I? I’ve put a better roof over your head
than you ever put over mine! If I want to sleep all day and drink all night, I’ll do it, damn you!’ The old man started to whine.”

Lol I was rewatching iwtv and laughing so hard at the scene where they first go out to a tavern after Louis gets turned into a vampire and Lestat is seducing this girl and Brad Pitt is rolling his eyes sitting next to him like omfg kill me with this LOOK on his face and it’s so funny.

IKR? Louis rolling his eyes in that scene is so gr9 (like is it ic or is that Brad re: Tom? lol). He’s eyerolling partly bc of the sheer cheesiness of the dialogue. It’s sort of a metaphor for dating, dudes that just want to say whatever it takes to get what they want. And Louis is having none of this farce.

Barwench: “Once you taste this, you’ll never go to another tavern again*

Lestat: “But what if I’d rather taste your lips?”

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*She was an Evildoer and she was going to poison them both, hence, why he’d “never go to another tavern again.”

do you know if any online version of the new disaster is there for free?? as a psd doc u know there was one for pl so…

I’m sorry, can’t help you there.

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Also, please be respectful of my blog, I would prefer if ppl do not reblog/comment on this with links to it or offers to share it. I’m sure it will be free online eventually… I just don’t want to get looped into legal trouble for sharing that kind of information, so I’ll delete the post if I see anything like that happening 😛