YES thank u so much! I am the infamous Fanfiction Writer Burnadette (on AO3, shameless self-promotion). What a lovely compliment all the way from Germany! *flails*
more fic to come, if I can kick myself into doing it, and messages like these are definitely encouraging!
I have to turn this into a little appreciation post to Lady Diana Elisabeth Raum, because I’ve been meaning to do so: I LOOOOOOVE your fanart. LOVE.
We are going to need to see all of your VC fanart. ALL ♥u♥
Start a tumblr or let @sam-biteback post it. Because your Lestat/Louis piece is one of my absolute favorites of them (and we need this in better scan quality so we can see the details better):
Louis: “What have you done this time, Lestat?”
Lestat: “Shhhh, Louis, let’s enjoy the silence of your not knowing… for a few more minutes.”
This is a gr9 question! NOT an easy answer. And I think you got your question across just fine 😉
AR deserves more credit* than you might think, for the way she jumps around through the series, shedding light on the previously established timeline via different POVs, or just having a character revisit the same scene. Sometimes she also does “Retroactive continuity,” or “retcon” for short: “the alteration of previously established facts in the continuity of a fictional work.”
*Actually, some might argue that when she does this it offers frustratingly conflicting views on previous events, hence, the Unreliable Narrator issues we have throughout the VC.
Anon: “…as much as I love these vamps I feel like
gradual character development isn’t really present, it seems to come suddenly and all at once instead.”
So here’s the thing, in the VC, the publication dates of the books ARE NOT NECESSARILY aligned with the chronological timeline of the set of stories described in the books. (This Timeline I found seems pretty accurate.)
IWTV (published 1976) lays out Louis’ story (between approx. 1791 – 1975).
TVL (published 1985) is Lestat’s story (between
approx.
1766 – 1985) plus the origin story of the vampires (Ancient Egyptian times,
approx.
4000 BC).
QOTD (published 1998) is Lestat’s story in 1985, it was a whirlwind Bad Romance.
TOBT
(published 1992) is Lestat’s Body Dysmorphic Disorder episode, takes place in 1991.
And so on…
TL;DR, I see clear character development when I take in the larger view of all the stories. Some of the later canon books I might have preferred not to have happened, but OH WELL.
But character development in fictional characters (as with actual real people) =/= a clean line of improvement or deterioration. Lestat and Armand have both improved over time in many ways, but they’ve also lost good qualities. Lestat’s definitely lost a few marbles along the way.
Hit the jump for a little more, & spoilers.
For brevity, just gonna answer your question re:
“how the vamps change overtime, character wise? For example, say Lestat in TVL vs Lestat in body thief? Or even Armand in IWTV vs Armand in the later books.”
Lestat:
TVL!Lestat is feisty, freshly resurrected, appetite for destruction, wants to “correct the record” of IWTV by sharing the secrets that he couldn’t in IWTV, and establish himself as the actual protagonist of the series.
Approx. 10 years later in the timeline of the books, TOBT!Lestat is suffering emotionally from the blowback of what happened after sharing that information and trying to be a big shot, and he’s got ghost!Claudia on his back prodding him to consider whether he even deserves to continue vampiring ;A; when he’s so weak against his own impulses. He tries to suicide, and when that doesn’t work, has a renewed sense of belonging in the world. Then in TOBT, he fucks up pretty royally, relies on one best friend to help him get things back to normal, and then almost destroys that friendship by selfishly Forced-Dark-Gift-paying-it-forward. So I’d say that’s a lot of character development.
Armand:
IWTV!Armand was supposed to be intimidating and shrouded in mystery, the teacher/mentor for Louis that Lestat refused to be. Later, when we get Armand’s backstory in TVL, TVA, and B&G, we see his origins and how he got to be the manager of the Theatre Des Vampires, and however intimidating he might have been to Louis, that wasn’t remotely close to what he was like as the leader of the Children of Darkness, Parisian Chapter. So he’s had to adapt to alot of harsh situations, and find some sense of inner peace along the way.
Lestat and Armand are almost 2 sides of the same coin; Lestat was forced into the Dark Gift, Armand begged for it. Lestat had to learn how to vampire alone as an orphan, Armand had an overbearing teacher and was then kidnapped by a cult.
They’ve both had to deal with finding peace and a place for themselves in a world that doesn’t really need or want them, a struggle many of us readers can identify with as being part of our own character development over time.
Oh definitely! This isn’t exactly what you meant but I remembered this dialogue from Hook, and my hand slipped, you can tell Lestat would be using a very annoying voice here to imitate Claudia:
You probably wanted a REAL answer, but I don’t want to spoil ya. Hit the jump for spoilation.
(For headcanons and to talk to a Viktor RPer, go to @viktor-de-lioncourt (who uses Jordan Sörbom as a FC) or @roselioncourt, both of whom care quite a lot more than I do about this character.)
Viktor is Lestat’s biological son, created during the course of Prince Lestat. In the mid-90s (I think?) Lestat had encountered some vampire doctor/scientists (they are vampires trained in and interested in the study of vampirism, running a lab just for that) and they *ahem* collect a biological sample from Lestat, with his full compliance.
HOWEVER, without his consent or knowledge, they use his sample to make baby Viktor! Baby Viktor has a mortal mother, so presumably, the DNA needed a little tinkering to make it work; Viktor is considered partially a clone, and in appearance he seems to be a carbon copy of Lestat (slightly taller, IIRC).
Lestat doesn’t know he fathered him until Viktor is no longer a baby (he’s at least 20?) and is used as a pawn in the shaking up of the vampiric matriarchy, so to speak. Father and son get reunited, everybody’s happy.
It’s unclear whether Lestat is also Viktor’s vampiric maker, he had asked Marius to be involved, and we might get more specifics in the next VC, Blood Paradise.
Louis is always Lestat’s fave, tho! We all know that.
I never thought I’d agree with that one time I saw someone say Hiddleston could make a decent Lestat and I disagreed because I couldn’t ‘see’ it,, but now that I’ve seen this, I might have to change my gods damned mind.
Well he already played the vampire Adam, “a post-millennial version of that glory-hog Lestat.” (an appropriate description by Amy Nicholson) I bet he could do our Brat Prince justice!
I-want-my-IWTV 