Y’know, I don’t think it was ever explained in canon! We’ve had a few Mael RPers over the years who might have have a good answer for you… @thevampiremael, @maelgallia come to mind. Other RPers, or anyone else, are welcome to comment/reblog w/ ideas on this.
Mael had been turned (pretty soon after Marius was turned) by Avicus, another God of the Wood who had survived the Great Fire. Even if Avicus had done a bad job turning him or had recently turned other fledglings, that shouldn’t have been a factor in Mael’s vulnerability to sunlight so many years later, since Mael was old enough to have earned some durability on his own. The only answer I can think of rn is that Mael’s combusted remains were further destroyed by frightened mortals who saw it happen? Idk! It’s an answer I’d like to have.
I love your blog by the way and you seem to be a lovely person ❤
Awww thank u for the blargh love and comment about me, that’s very sweet of you! ^_____^
A little breakdown of this scene, re: why I loved Tom’s Lestat so much in this scene, since we’re talking about it.
^Claudia leads him in, and he’s so trusting. When he sees the boys there, he is not immediately very pleased. He actually looks a little disappointed. The house rule is not to bring victims into the house, and she brought them in, is he going to have to lay down the law again? Bad timing for it, since he’s trying to make peace with her.
She glances up at him to gauge his reaction but looks away before he can meet her gaze. She’s thrilled with what she’s about to do and doesn’t want him derailing her from her mission.
^I use this gif a lot for “such feels,” but there’s really more going on here, and not necessarily happiness. She’s told him that the boys are the gift to him. He starts w/ a facepalm, bc, hey, Lestat would actually rather not kill children.* He tries to go for adult evildoers. It’s clearer in TVL than in movie!IWTV, but he does tell Louis in an earlier scene, “Evildoers are easier, and they taste better.”**
Lestat is also very guarded in his body language here, all closed off w/ his arms across his chest (we don’t usually see him this closed off in the movie). When he shows his face, he’s not smiling at first, bc, this wasn’t really the kind of truce he would have wanted. But then he rallies, shakes his head a little bit, and tries to smile, probably tells himself inwardly, “She did this for me, she has good intentions…”
^”Well, you certainly have… outdone yourself,” he says. He’s struggling to compliment her, that hesitation could have led to a criticism. Trying to convince himself that this is a peace offering and to reign in his usual edgy sense of humor. The main rule in their home was always “Never [kill] in the house” and she wants him to share this kill. In. The. House. A rule she’s broken countless times. He’s still guarded, still has his arms up protectively.
The smile fails as he looks over the boys like he’s looking at something unappetizing at a buffet. For me, that would be the wilted salad area.
^There’s a full second pause as he looks at her bc he’s still struggling to believe it was all this easy. Then he asks: “We forgive each other, then?” This is Lestat without any of his bravado, no games, not asking as her maker, just as someone who loves her and wants her love, too. This is the Lestat who spent most of his childhood unloved or beaten down for trying to find a place where ppl would love him ;A;
^There’s almost a full second pause as she looks at him – bc she doesn’t really forgive him – and then says: “Yes” She’s lying right to his face, so evil! If you cover her mouth, her eyebrows don’t change at all with that smile. But there is still a chance to abandon her plan if she wants to.
^Having secured the peace, putting his trust in her about this gift being OK to consume, he has this little sigh of relief; his usual confidence comes back in, you can see a hint of a smile as he turns away.
(This victim is one of the moments in the film that really pushed the envelope for its time, when Lestat bites into the child. It’s actually a lot less homoerotic/pedophilic than in the book, where he gets his hands wrapped up in the kid’s shirt. Unlike when he bites adults and we see his face, here, we see him from behind. It makes it less sexual, he didn’t choose this victim, it’s seems like it’s more about the consumption.)
^Anyway… he thinks she spiked their blood with absinthe bc he immediately feels drugged/drunk from it.
She tells him it’s laudanum, and he repeats that word, has he heard of it before? Probably not, bc she tells him what it does.
So right up until the moment she explicitly lays it out for him, he still believes they’ve reconciled, and even that she flavored the blood for him as an extra consideration! It’s a very painful betrayal, specifically bc he wanted to believe her SO BADLY that he ignored all the red flags ;A;
You could say he deserved this betrayal, but I think this scene is part of what makes Tom’s Lestat so very good. Even as he’s led into getting his punishment, you still feel sorry for him, it’s hard to hate a monster when he’s being this trusting and gentle and really wanting to well… not be a monster.
I recognize that this is a social media site so you are welcome to reblog and comment and engage on this, but please do so respectfully, and keep in mind that #your headcanon may vary, and we are all entitled to our own interpretations/opinions about canon, and about movie!IWTV.
(Asterisked notes under the cut.)
* It’s implied that Lestat and Claudia finished off whole families together in an earlier scene in the film, including children, but we’ve only seen him kill adults on screen up to this point. In the book, it’s Claudia who insists on killing families (her own, IIRC), and she kills a mother and daughter who worked domestically in the flat for Louis and Lestat. Lestat rarely kills children in the books, typically it’s only in moments of extreme emotional weakness.Tom would have known this, bc he read books 1-4.
**
“Evildoers are easier, and they taste better.” – This is what Lestat tells Louis to try to get him to acclimate to the idea that killing is okay, and in fact, some ppl need to be killed anyway, to protect the general population (like Lestat killing the wolves to save the villagers back in the Auvergne). But in the books it’s implied that innocent blood tastes better, which makes it harder to resist. “…these victims had been taken in the perfect semblance of love. The very blood seemed warmer with their innocence, richer with their goodness.” (TVL)
I might do more of these if you’re interested, but they do take a long time to put together. We’ll see…
B-but… I mean… Didn’t nicki and Gabrielle love him? At least when they were mortals???
Lestat wanted the kind of love he had gotten from Nicki and Gabrielle, yes! He was starved for affection from those he loved, and I think that led to a lot of the frustration he had in the IWTV-era in the book and the movie.
Amy Nicholson is referring to movie!IWTV only. No one who Lestat loved had really done anything nice for him before that point in the film ;A;
^Even here, you can see that Lestat is really apologetic for taunting Claudia just moments before; he really wants peace in their home, he really wants her love. This is one of the few times in the film we see anyone he loves touch or embrace him.
Hide and Seek sounds like a fabulous #Coven Game Night activity. Not as violent as paintball, less strategy than Poker… Louis, being a very strategic kind of player, is also excellent at Hiding altho sometimes if he hides somewhere too comfortable, he ends up just taking a nap bc Louis likes taking cat naps.
I don’t think AR has said anything about casting Claudia specifically.* It’s another tough role to cast age-wise, bc she’s supposed to be just barely 5 years old, and 5 year olds definitely age.
^X@claudia-lilvampire found this pic of Christopher Mason and his daughter Basie (she looks closer to 4 here?), very Lestat and Claudia ❤
Casting Claudia will probably not be an issue if they start with TVL, bc Claudia’s only in IWTV, and just mentioned in later books. But… let’s cast an actress as Lestat’s little sister for TVL, the 8th de Lioncourt child, and then have her play Claudia, too! The resemblance would be so heartbreaking! ;A; Mireille de Lioncourt, so named by@viaticumforthemarquise.
For funsies tho, I must inform you… awhile back, @hyperbeeb suggested Mia Talerico [X], who just turned 9 on 9/17/16, and I have to agree!
Mia’s had a long career already (IMDB says she was eleven months old when she started filming Good Luck Charlie, so that’s 7 yrs of acting, being directed, being comfortable in front of the cameras, etc.). I did a whole post about her here. She’s pretty much my headcanon when I write Claudia.
^Perfect disingenuous apology, very Claudia.
Hit the jump for more thoughts, cut for length.
IIRC, there was alot of difficulty finding a 5 yo talented enough to play Claudia in movie!IWTV. Kirsten Dunst was the first they auditioned of one hundred actresses, varying in amount of experience, from around ages 5-12. The 5 yr olds struggled with the intensity that the part required… so I wouldn’t mind if they aged her up to 10 or 11. If they cast a 5 yo who looks perfect but can’t act like the frustrated adult inside, it won’t really work. Having a slightly older Claudia also makes it more upsetting for her as a character bc she’s so close to getting that older body she so desperately wanted ;A;
If Claudia’s in the new adaptations at all, I think it will be as a ghost (in later books, she sort of haunts the Rue Royale, Louis, and Lestat), which could also be animated and voice acted by an adult.
*tbh I don’t follow AR’s FB or her Official VC FB feed religiously. I wait for ppl to send me specific things. It’s just too much for me to follow her myself.
Ah, okay. Nicolas had a rough time in canon, sadly ;A;
[^X Nicolas by @unionthesalmon – plz reblog from X or the source]
“Armand was a little bitch just because of the whole Nicki thing.” – Armand may have been trying to help Nicki in the ways he knew how. Armand had been a coven master for hundreds of years, dealt with madness from many ages of vampires, maybe this was something that helped in other cases. It could be seen as cruel from our mortal standards, but maybe that was considered a reasonable form of treatment for vampires.
We only have the account of Nicolas and Armand’s interactions in Eleni’s letters and very little is said. No one ever brings it up again (unless they do in PLROA, which I still haven’t finished), and since we only have the one account, I can’t jump to the conclusion that Armand was definitely torturing Nicki. He can be cruel, but Lestat asked him to take good care of Nicki, and I feel like Armand tried to do the right thing.
“And I agree with you that Nicki was mentally ill” – Some ppl headcanon that he was, and I don’t know what I think about that, but again, maybe Armand was trying to treat the illness and save Nicki!
“And I freaking loved Nicki, I cried when he died. If Armand hadn’t have done that, would Nicki had lived on? Maybe not, but still.” – If we go by my theory that Armand was trying to help him, maybe Armand’s treatment prolonged Nicki’s life. We just don’t know.
If Armand was really torturing Nicki, I think we would have found out more about it in TVA, or some other book, or Lestat would have confronted Armand about it.
But whether Armand really antagonized Nicolas to his death or not, Nicolas had enough reason on his own to end badly even before Armand got involved… as Nicolas tells Lestat, it was his intention all along to fail:
“All a misunderstanding, my love, ” he said. Acid on the tongue.
The blood sweat had broken out again, and his eyes glistened as if they
were wet. “It was to hurt others, don’t you see, the violin playing, to
anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule. They would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it.” I didn’t
answer. I wanted him to go on.
“And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in
Paris, that we would go down and down and down. It was what I
wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should
rise for them. I thought we would go down! We were supposed to go
down.”
Perhaps becoming a vampire was not the cure for that intention/feeling/illness, and it just magnified the self-destruction he already felt ;A;
Awww, @wicked-felina and I are happy to have done that to you! Thank you for the compliments ❤ yes, Nicki/Lestat were SO cute and lovely (Anon refers to the Poor and the Dead)
(Armand wasn’t in that fic, so I’m not sure in what context you’re referring to him. I did have him being quite a little bitch in my other recent fic that I did w/ @vampchronfic, Hunting in a Walmart, and yes, I think his beauty helps him get away w/ a lot of questionable behavior!)
Idk what would have happened if Nicki hadn’t “gone insane,” but also if Lestat hadn’t been kidnapped that night ;A; Nicki always seemed to have that darkness in him. Would Lestat have been medication enough to keep Nicki… I hesitate to use the word “sane” here, or “happy,” but would Lestat have been enough to make life seem worth living for Nicki?
There is some fanon that Nicki suffered from mental illness, and idk if Lestat was really equipped to handle the role of being a support and caregiver to someone who might have needed alot more than that *cries forever for Nicki*
//tbh if armand had been born in the 20th century instead of the 15th he’d probably be talamasca
^These tags tho!: #ooc, #way too much creepy psychic shit going on, #i mean shall we make a list, #out of body experience, #near death vision, #religious visions, #channeling god/trancelike state, #crazy telepathy skills, #projection of visions, #seeing ppl’s auras, #seeing and talking to ghosts, #(like srsly no other vampires besides david can do that???), #spellbinding/dazzling/confusing/calming ppl, #aka the mindwhammy,
Yeah, Armand seemed to exhibit quite a lot of abilities (these are a mix of pre- and post-turning), so maybe the vampiring just enhanced what he already had.
Working at the Talamasca could have been perfect for him.
As always, #Your Headcanon May Vary, these are just my own opinions, and I am SURE other ppl have other excellent answers for this.
I’m focusing on Louis’s strength at turning and the first few years after, since he does grow more powerful over time on his own (and he also gets *~upgraded~* later in canon, idk whether you accept later canon but it happens!).
TL;DR: I don’t think Lestat purposely made Louis weak, it was a combination of factors, but mostly that the procedure isn’t an exact science*, Lestat was a young maker and turned Louis too soon after making two fledglings before, and the fact that Louis was malnourished** (refusal to kill ppl) for those first few years might have been a contributing factor.
**So Lestat does talk about Louis being weak in IWTV, but not that he purposely made him that way, just that he allowed it to go uncorrected; he didn’t force Louis to kill ppl, or force Louis to embrace his vampiric gifts and learn how to use them:
“Lestat looked at me. ‘I expected you to feel these things
instinctually, as I did,’ he said. When I gave you that first kill, I
thought you would hunger for the next and the next, that you would
go to each human life as if to a full cup, the way I had. But you didn’t. And all this time I suppose I kept from straightening you out because
you were best weaker. I’d watch you playing shadow in the night,
staring at the falling rain, and I’d think, He’s easy to manage, he’s
simple. But you’re weak, Louis. You’re a mark. For vampires and
now for humans alike. This thing with Babette has exposed us both.
It’s as if you want us both to be destroyed.‘”
^Lestat is saying Louis is weak by choice, and he’s describing weakness of character more than physical strength, so I believe he was physically weak bc of the Dark Gift. The Dark Gift is not an exact science*, despite all good/bad intentions, it’s the vampiric form of pregnancy. But there are things about the procedure that can affect the strength of the fledgling:
Whether the blood is transferred once (for Louis) or multiple times (for Marius) between maker and fledgling – Multiple times seems to make a stronger fledgling. Why didn’t Lestat do it multiple times for Louis? I think Louis was already in such bad physical shape that Lestat didn’t want to risk it. Plus, he had already turned 2 fledglings using the single transfer procedure, he probably felt like that was good enough.
Age, power, and timing of making previous fledglings of the maker – it seems like power is outweighed by the other two factors.
The fledgling’s diet after turning – Louis was feeding on animals for the first 4-ish years of vampiring, which is like bad junk food, and probably not drinking
the volume of blood he needed, either.
Yes, post-QOTD (and pre-Merrick), Louis refused to drink Lestat’s blood. I headcanon that that felt like a rejection of Lestat bc blood-sharing is a major expression of intimacy for vampires. He might have refused it bc he saw how it had changed Lestat and he didn’t want that to happen to himself, but I think he also wanted to preserve his own vulnerability, in case he wanted to suicide ;A;
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
“So I’m confused, was Louis weak because Lestat made him that way on purpose?”
I don’t think it was on purpose. It’s not an exact science* and Lestat had only done it 2x, had only heard about the procedure from Armand and Marius. There is some speculation that the blood transfer needs to be exchanged more than once to ensure a stronger fledgling. Marius, for example, exchanged blood with his maker multiple times when he was turned, but with Louis, Lestat only did it once. I think that’s because Louis was so weakened by the bloodletting he’d been forced to undergo (”When
I was subdued finally, and exhausted then almost to the point of death,
they bled me. The fools.”) that Lestat didn’t want to risk exchanging more than once? Idk.
Also, Louis was feeding on animals for the first 4-ish years of vampiring, and that’s like bad junk food. He was probably not even drinking the volume of blood he needed, either. That might have had an impact on his strength. It probably contributed to his attitude at the time, being underfed and undernourished for so long ;A;
“Or was he weak because he was Lestat’s third fledgling in a decade?”
This is probably more of the reason. As Marius tells Lestat in TVL:
“Well, for one thing, ” he said, “your powers are extraordinary, but
you can’t expect those you make in the next fifty years to equal you or
Gabrielle. Your second child didn’t have half Gabrielle’s strength and
later children will have even less. The blood I gave you will make some difference. If you drink… if you drink from Akasha and Enkil,
which you may choose not to do… that will make some difference
too. But no matter, only so many children can be made by one in a
century.And new offspring will be weak. However, this is not
necessarily a bad thing. The rule of the old covens had wisdom in it
that strength should come with time.And then again, there is the old
truth: you might make titans or imbeciles, no one knows why or how.
In Ricean vampire physiology, a maker needs to wait a good long while between making fledglings; too much frequency will make subsequent fledglings weaker than they could have been. Plus, even though Lestat had the blood of a much older and stronger vampire when he was turned (Magnus), Lestat himself was only a decade into vampiring himself. It seems the vampiric spirit discourages the transfer of powers from young vampires to their fledglings. If anyone got the bulk of that power, it was Gabrielle, Lestat’s first.
“Wouldn’t he be stronger because Lestat had Akasha’s blood in him?”
Marius said that that would make “some difference” but I think the fact that Lestat had already turned 2 vampires, and was young still himself, prevented that power from being transferred.
“I know Louis refused to drink from Lestat, was he ultimately weak because he chose to be?”
He was weak by vampire standards at first, and yes, I think he chose to remain that way. But he’s still stronger and faster than a mortal. He’s also able to defend himself and kick a lot of ass. What he lacks physically he makes up for mentally, he’s strategic in the way he attacks when he does attack, and he can hold his own against much stronger and older vampires (he took out most of the Theatre des Vampires on his own in IWTV!).
*Re: the Dark Trick is not an exact science:
Armand mentions in TVL:
But let Armand understand here also that the effect of the Dark Trick is unpredictable, even when passed on by the very young vampire and with all due care. For reasons no one knows, some mortals when Born to Darkness become as powerful as Titans, others may be no more than corpses that move. That is why mortals must be chosen with skill. Those with great passion and indomitable will should be avoided as well as those who have none.
I-want-my-IWTV 