While I appreciate your historical attention to detail, I’m afraid this doesn’t really apply to me, my dear.
What a strange question to ask our dear Lestat. My great city existed well before even his ancestors were conceived, and thus I doubt he would be a very knowledgeable fount on this subject.
The people of Rome knew that lead must be dangerous, as we were not blind to the ailments that seemed to follow those who worked in casting lead. They breathed in the caustic fumes and were left pallid and sickly, and from this we gathered that lead must be rather unwholesome.
Although lead was widely accepted as a dangerous metal, many still believed it to be necessary in some aspects. It was used to line aqueducts and fashioned into pipes–nevermind that clay pipes were entirely more sought after, even by those such as myself who were rich enough to afford otherwise. Medicines and cosmetics as well were made of great quantities of lead, despite the wide belief that it should not be ingested directly if at all possible. Some greats such as Pliny and Columella argued that in leaden vessels was the only way to prepare Defrutum, a sweet syrup used to make products such as wine more desirable.
Many attest that a rise in lead poisoning stemming from the Roman’s love for wine was perhaps a cause of the empire’s decline, though there is little evidence to support this. It is true that lead poisoning would have greatly impacted the sperm count of adult males, or the ability to carry a child in females, and even would have been fatal to the children themselves–as wine was the predominant drink for all citizens, regardless of age–but this means very little when you realize the people of Rome had no interest in rearing children, or even marriage. In fact, it came to a point where the people were so focused on a childless state, that Agustus himself attempted to intervene, much to no avail.
As for the sexual arousal, I can only speak from personal experience. My sex drive was what I assume to be average for a man my age. I sought a wife early on, I sought to make love, and I sought to be loved. I never happened upon any urges that were out of the ordinary, or struggled with a drive for physical contact more mighty than I could handle–though, some of those who read Armand’s poor account of Venice may greatly disagree. Of course, by then my need for mortal sexual intercourse had long been dead, and I base my words solely on the desire for something greater: the sharing of immortal blood.
Yes, Louis is living with Armand & Co. in a brownstone in NYC, in PL. We don’t know if he’s visiting, or that’s his main residence, but everybody knows his real home is the flat in NOLA on Rue Freakin’ Royale and nobody can tell me otherwise.
In other books, Louis is described as living in various little shacks, with hardly anything but a desk and stacks of books. An ascetic life indeed, because he prefers to live through the books he reads, or go out and experience the world itself. He doesn’t seem to need souvenirs of places he’s been, or have the same nesting instincts that Lestat has always had; Louis doesn’t need velvet drapes and Italian silk couches. Lestat needs these things bc deep down he’s still that borderline-poverty-stricken young actor who had to sleep on lumpy pallets in a drafty little apartment in Paris ;A; With his wealth, he tries to create a sanctuary where he lives. He wants what he never had in mortal life.
Louis is rich bc he was a plantation owner and owned property in NOLA. He was careful with banking and originally thought Lestat chose him for his money. AS IF! Although Pointe du Lac plantation burned down ;A; Louis had probably been investing profits from the plantation for years, he was running it for awhile before Lestat showed up and it all went to shit real fast.
Louis is also a talented gambler, nobody can match his poker face, he has a knack for cards, and can win huge sums to invest.
Louis also loves books, and probably is in the vintage book business.
Louis also probably gets money from Lestat, if he needs it.
Movie!IWTV sorta gives the impression that Louis was born in New Orleans and only briefly has Lestat admitting to coming from France. They are actually both from France! (and BTW, New Orleans is a city in Louisiana, which is a state in the USA).
The Pointe du Lacs came to the US from France at some unspecified point in his life, but most people headcanon it was when Louis was a young child, too young to remember.
“We’d received a land grant and settled two indigo plantations on the Mississippi very near New Orleans… You see, we lived far better there than we could have ever lived in France.” – Louis de Pointe du Lac, IWTV
The de Lioncourts* lived in a poor provincial town in the middle of nowhere, aka the Auvergne region, in France:
“…my father’s land in the Auvergne in France, and these were the last decades before the French Revolution.” – Lestat de Lioncourt, TVL
*Note that Lestat’s mother was Italian (she grew up in Naples) so he and his brothers are all technically half-French, half-Italian.
Ah, my friend, what an alluring question! And not an easy one, I must admit.
Forget the material possessions, such a fleeting matters are not worth mentioning. Let’s ponder of the qualities of “the best gif” for a bit, shall we?
It would have to be something priceless, something not easily given, something one would treasure, something one truly needs.
It is not easy to pick one gift and not offend those whose gifts will be omitted. But what I believe was the greatest gift I ever received was Bianca’s sacrifice. Her willful devotion to me, in my darkest hour, her selfless love and care. That, my friend, shall be the gift I name as the best.
I don’t know. I still think about it, perhaps more frequently than you imagine. The things I saw in the blood, the things I felt… the awe and the terror. At the time, I believed it may have been real. That having tried to enter the holy of holies and see for myself, I’d been found wanting, and cast aside.
Now… I’m not so sure. It seems hubristic, doesn’t it? To think that such powers would interfere with us? I think that whatever it was that could create such spectacles, could remove you entirely from our ability to sense your presence in the world, it had power, immense power. And perhaps, after all, the being that sought you out was the Devil – I mean to say perhaps it was the entity which through its dealings with man had inspired the idea of the Devil, thousands of years ago. But God? Heaven? Christ?
Call me the puritan fool if you will, but if such divinity exists, I distrust the idea that beings such as ourselves would merit its attention.
“My eyes are gray, but they absorb the colors blue or violet easily from surfaces around them.” – TVL
His first study of his own reflection after being turned: “and my eyes had been transformed from their usual blue to a mingling of violet and cobalt that was softly iridescent.” – TVL
Magnus, in TVL: “…and the blue sky fixed forever in your eyes.” Magnus, TVL
So Lestat’s eyes:
had this effect as a mortal and looked blue to Magnus; or
were actually blue as a mortal and not gray-blue-violet-magical until he was turned; or
really were always closer to gray-blue than just gray.
This is if we trust Magnus, do we really? IIRC, it’s the only description we have of mortal!Lestat’s eye color. IDK! Lestat supposedly shares his mother’s features
and coloring
(”In fact I resemble her at least superficially.” –TVL) and she is described as having blue eyes:
Lestat, in TVL about mortal!Gabrielle: “And she had very clear cobalt blue eyes fringed with thick ashen lashes.”
Khayman, in QOTD: “There wasn’t a particle of fear in her cold blue eyes…”
Lestat, in TVL about vampire!Gabrielle: “Her eyes opened. Violet blue and glittering,”
Okay so I can’t dig up every single quote about Lestat’s eyes from other’s POVs bc c’mon I am human, so here’s a few:
Marius, in QOTD: “The ice-blue eyes, darkening with laughter…”
Khayman, in QOTD: “… [Lestat’s] violet blue eyes.”
Jesse, in QOTD: “[Lestat’s] pale crystalline blue eyes…”
Akasha, in QOTD:“to see the light in your blue eyes,”
Are you kidding? Of course he has. I was out of my mind with terror the first time I saw Armand. I knew exactly who he was and what he was capable of. Well, I thought I knew. Turns out I vastly underestimated his capacity for cruelty, but I knew enough to fear for my life. Only an idiot with a death wish wouldn’t have found Armand absolutely horrifying. (Yeah, yeah, I know, many people are convinced I was an idiot with a death wish. Maybe they’re not wrong. But I wasn’t that stupid.)
Seeing him in the crowd, or sitting on the bus, or walking down the street filled me with so much terror that my blood turned to icy slush and I couldn’t breathe. He scared me to death. And I was very, very sure he was going to kill me. Every time I caught even a snatch of red hair or a glimpse of ivory skin, I thought I might die.
So yeah, he scared me beyond words.
Of course, that didn’t last. Things changed pretty quickly. He started to plop down beside me and ask questions, to demand conversation no matter the hour: “Why did man go to the moon again?” “Explain the rules of baseball, Daniel.” “What is a hippy?” And gradually, I stopped being scared. I got lost in the conversations, got sucked in, found myself captivated by this creature whose curiosity and intelligence were unlike anything I’d ever encountered before. God help me, I started to look forward to his appearances, and the fear abated.
Now he has the capacity to frighten me in different ways. I don’t fear him. I do fearing losing him to ash and dust. I fear breaking things so completely between us that there can be no reconciliation, no good terms to be reestablished. I fear making him loathe me down the marrow of his bones so that that hatred can never be eradicated. I fear living in a world without him.
But I am not afraid of him anymore, and never will be again. I know his black heart too well.
It’s never said explicitly in the books what the harmful aspect of the sun’s rays really are. Here have a gif of Claudia tiptoeing around the light bc of reasons.
Clearly, movie!Claudia can handle the bounced light from the floor.
As you do correctly point out, Ricean vampires can handle light sources at night, so it would appear that the UV rays are what differentiate sunlight from candle/electric/etc., so the UV rays could be the issue. I think there are other elements in sunlight that may be different, but I’m not a scientist, so I wouldn’t know specifics.
Whatever the elements in sunlight that are harmful to them, I think it’s because their vampiric parasite is always at work “perfecting” them, converting their organic cells to inorganic (well, preternatural) cells, all the time. Fresh infusions of blood fuel this process. The issue with direct sunlight is that it intensifies this process to the point that their host bodies can’t handle it, it’s painful, they have to get out of the light.
It’s an intriguing thought, whether a room treated with UV windows would be enough to protect the vampires! If I were a vampire, I probably wouldn’t feel wholly safe with the windows open, as the sun crept in… and Ricean vampires will naturally find shelter if any light touches them during the Death Sleep. So I think they would find themselves cocooned in blankets, or completely concealed under the bed, when they awoke in such a room.
The vampiric spirit of Amel, invisible to the human eye, was present more at night, possibly because his very substance couldn’t handle direct sunlight for similar reasons.
I-want-my-IWTV 