(Omg, if you’d written to me back in Feb. of this year, there was a blogger @somniferousdelusion, now deactivated ;A; who said Magnus was their fave character, this blogger could have been someone you might have had good convos with… Does anyone know if they just changed urls?)
No, I don’t think AR has ever been asked about writing a full novel about Magnus, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did! What are you drawn to about Magnus? There’s plenty of room for fanfic/headcanons about him, so if you are so inclined… write it for us!
I feel like if you want a book about Magnus you must be fascinated with him in some way, so I don’t mean to trample you if you do, but from all my time in fandom, I can say that Magnus is probably considered among the Absolute Worst if not THE MOST Problematic character in the whole series.*
>>>Quick interlude, on the subject of Problematic characters: I found this great essay by Warren Ellis. Here’s a taste, with my emphasis added in bold:
“… Fiction is how we both study and de-fang our monsters. To lock violent fiction away, or to close our eyes to it, is to give our monsters and our fears undeserved power and richer hunting grounds.”
*….Which could be good for him bc AR has been taking the Absolute Worsts and putting them on pedestals lately. I don’t know what you’ve read so far, but as you may be aware, Magnus tells his story, albeit briefly, in Prince Lestat.
Magnus is also in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis in a snazzy new… erm… “form”?, so we’ll probably see more of him, but my money is on AR focusing on how cool he is now, and not really digging any further into his past or forcing Lestat to have any difficult conversations with him, which they sort of briefly had in PLROA.
There was a Magnus RPer, @theycallmemagnus, gone inactive now, but you might find good stuff in their archive, might reach out to any active RPers you find there, who may be into talking about the character.
// Hey, just adding my 2 cents here, after 10 yrs in this fandom I don’t think there’s any kind of general consensus on who’s the “worst” character in the VC series, and I don’t think it’s really a relevant question either. We see Magnus as an antagonist because he’s mortal!Lestat’s personal bogeyman and Lestat is the narrator, but the same could be said of many beloved characters in the series if their stories were told from a different perspective.
As someone who read the series, spotted the former cult leaders and torturers and went “THIS ONE. THIS ONE IS MY BABY”, don’t feel bad about liking Magnus’ character just because he’s a villain.
He’s a brilliant medieval alchemist who successfully attained eternal life (how many alchemists can say that they actually ACHIEVED the Ultimate Goal??) by figuring out how vampires turned each other and then replicating the process by capturing a vampire and “stealing” the Blood! And then he lived for centuries and eventually went mad! It could be taken straight from an early 20th century horror story à la H. P. Lovecraft or M. R. James, and I for one think it’s awesome.
(ETA: original post edited after reblog, so consider reblogging from OP)
Great addition, @bloodyvampchrons! (The part I removed when I edited the post is under the cut.)
I will 1,000% defend anyone’s interest in any fictional characters, for any reason. @awareofwhatsaforementioned did not express anything other than an interest in learning more about this character, specifically: whether the author would write more about him. That’s all.
Not all fiction is written as propaganda. Not all fiction is written for wish-fulfillment. Fiction may not exist in a vacuum, but it also is, in the end, just a story. It can be shelved, burned, critiqued, enjoyed, by any reader who encounters it.
Problematic characters are there to antagonize, to provide friction, obstacles, whatever the author intends for them to do. Maybe even to be a Hate Sink:
“A Hate Sink is a character whose intended role in the story (the role the authors made for him/her) is to be so despicable that the audience wants him or her to fail just as much as they want the heroes to succeed. However, this individual doesn’t have to be the main villain of the story, or even a villain at all.
…A Hate Sink [provides] an easy target for the reader/audience/player’s contempt where there may not be one, and can serve as a foil to more likable Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain characters.
Essays and books have been written about it, so I’m not going into it in depth, but the issue I see again and again on tunglr dot com is Black and White Morality. From TVTropes.org:
“Good versus Evil. White hat versus black hat. The shining knight of destiny with flowing cape versus the mustache-twirling, card-carrying force of pure malevolence. The most basic form of fictional morality, Black And White Morality deals with the battle between pure good and absolute evil.
…- Motivation: The villains never have a sympathetic motivation for their actions. There aren’t any Well-Intentioned Extremists,… Rather, their intentions are entirely for the sake of Evil (and may involve taking over or destroying the world).”
^Even the most horrific fictional crimes might be done by a character thinking he is doing the right thing, in his own mind.
“In Real Life, seeing the world in absolute Black and White Morality is considered normal for small children, but seen as a far less healthy trait in adults. A person who regards the people around him as entirely good or entirely evil has this.” – Black and White Insanity – TVTropes.org
Every reader can interpret the text differently, and very little is known of Magnus’ intentions. Before you cry MURDER/RAPE APOLOGIST, any reader exploring the reasons for a character’s crime =/= making excuses for it.
Creating/Consuming/Exploring dark fiction and problematic characters =/= endorsement of these things in real life.
People are accountable for actual crimes, not thought crimes.
Give me 100,000 fans like @awareofwhatsaforementioned. In my opinion, the greatest fandom crime is to chase other fans away from fandom by shaming them for having an interest in dark fiction or problematic characters.
I won’t engage in pointless unwinnable debate over what a fan is allowed to be interested in, but to make someone feel ashamed enough about what they’re interested in to the point of making them leave a fandom is a loss to us all. Think of all the friends and discussions they miss out on, all the fanworks they never get to see, or MAKE.
I want the longfic of Magnus’ backstory. I want the fanart of him as a kid, as a monster, all of it! If I’m the only one, so be it. But I don’t think I’m the only one. As I said in my original reply:
There’s plenty of room for fanfic/headcanons about Magnus, so if you are so inclined… write it for us!
I feel like if you want a book about Magnus you must be fascinated with him in some way, so I don’t mean to trample you if you do, but from all my time in fandom, I can say that Magnus is probably considered among the Absolute Worst if not THE MOST Problematic character in the whole series.*
>>>Quick interlude, on the subject of Problematic characters: I found this great essay by Warren Ellis. Here’s a taste, with my emphasis added in bold:
“… Fiction is how we both study and de-fang our monsters. To lock violent fiction away, or to close our eyes to it, is to give our monsters and our fears undeserved power and richer hunting grounds.”
*….Which could be good for him bc AR has been taking the Absolute Worsts and putting them on pedestals lately. I don’t know what you’ve read so far, but as you may be aware, Magnus tells his story, albeit briefly, in Prince Lestat.
(Omg, if you’d written to me back in Feb. of this year, there was a blogger @somniferousdelusion, now deactivated ;A; who said Magnus was their fave character, this blogger could have been someone you might have had good convos with… Does anyone know if they just changed urls?)
No, I don’t think AR has ever been asked about writing a full novel about Magnus, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did! What are you drawn to about Magnus? There’s plenty of room for fanfic/headcanons about him, so if you are so inclined… write it for us!
I don’t know what you’ve read so far, but as you may be aware, Magnus tells his story, albeit briefly, in Prince Lestat.
Magnus is also in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis in a snazzy new… erm… “form”?, so we’ll probably see more of him, but my money is on AR focusing on how cool he is now, and not really digging any further into his past or forcing Lestat to have any difficult conversations with him, which they sort of briefly had in PLROA.
There was a Magnus RPer, @theycallmemagnus, gone inactive now, but you might find good stuff in their archive, might reach out to any active RPers you find there, who may be into talking about the character.
Wow, bold of you to consider him as a favorite! I’m rarely asked about Magnus. If I might ask, why is he one of your faves? He is like the ultimate Your Fave is Problematic bc of the way he was first introduced in canon, forcing Lestat into vampirism and all that. Lestat pretty much forgives him at this point, having tried going back to mortality and been very unhappy with it, you could say Lestat finally got to make the choice he didn’t have originally well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Magnus tells his story in Prince Lestat! That he was a great Parisian alchemist. It’s glossed over fairly quickly, there could be more to Magnus. He was in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, we’ll probably see more of him.
There was a Magnus RPer, gone inactive now, but you might find good stuff in their archive, might reach out to any active RPers you find there: @theycallmemagnus.
well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Fortunately, someone HAS in fact written those essays! @anton-mordrid wrote an excellent piece on the themes of consent in Lestat’s character arc from IWTV through TotBT
Taking Bodies: Themes of Consent in Lestat’s Development
Wow, bold of you to consider him as a favorite! I’m rarely asked about Magnus. If I might ask, why is he one of your faves? He is like the ultimate Your Fave is Problematic bc of the way he was first introduced in canon, forcing Lestat into vampirism and all that. Lestat pretty much forgives him at this point, having tried going back to mortality and been very unhappy with it, you could say Lestat finally got to make the choice he didn’t have originally well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Magnus tells his story in Prince Lestat! That he was a great Parisian alchemist. It’s glossed over fairly quickly, there could be more to Magnus. He was in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, we’ll probably see more of him.
There was a Magnus RPer, gone inactive now, but you might find good stuff in their archive, might reach out to any active RPers you find there: @theycallmemagnus.
I’m not sure if this is as debatable of a topic as she claims it is, but I thought this was interesting for those who have read, or are reading, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis. @i-want-my-iwtv
I don’t really need to cut this or do a spoiler alert, since AR is now telling us this isn’t the definitive answer for what Memnoch is, but I’ll do a cut just in case.
From PLROA, Lestat’s POV:
^I didn’t know this was even a debate, but Magnus says this pretty definitively, he even claims to have escaped Memnoch’s realm. So… should be interesting to see what AR does with Memnoch. I almost feel like she’s hanging onto him to spite everyone who gave Memnoch the Devil bad reviews way back when, but for whatever reason, I think she may be setting him up as a major player in the next book: (Is this Kapetria narrating? I think so…)
Your question… is it a question? I’m so confused. You say Marius is Lestat’s maker and maybe that’s a typo, or maybe you accept movie!QOTD as canon, either way, it’s not my headcanon.
Lestat gave Louis the choice to be a vampire, because when Lestat was forced by Magnus into being a vampire, that was essentially a form of rape. Lestat tells Nicolas (TVL):
“When it was offered me I said no. I tell you I said no. With my last breath, I said no.”
The ramifications of rape are many and I won’t go into detail here, but it had an enormous impact on Lestat’s well-being, and in his relationships with everyone in his afterlife.
Lestat wanted Louis to choose it, to WANT to be a vampire, he wanted it to be consensual, to spare Louis the damage of what Lestat had to deal with.
When Lestat teases Louis about his “whining,” it’s partly out of frustration; he saw in Louis a kindred spirit, and in book!IWTV he explained that killing was part of the deal, and Louis accepted the Dark Gift but then, fledgling!Louis was aghast at taking human life! In later canon, Louis’ “whining” is actually just putting up any rational resistance at Lestat’s ideas for adventure.
VC itself was born from Lestat not having a choice when Magnus forced him into vampirism, in the sense that none of the books would have been written if Lestat had chosen NOT to become a vampire. If Lestat had died the night that Magnus kidnapped him, or been released and died later, as a mortal, he wouldn’t have turned any fledglings, Louis wouldn’t have been a vampire in the 1970s to be interviewed, Louis probably would have succeeded in killing himself over his remorse about the death of his brother… there would be no IWTV, no TVL,…
But Armand would still have existed, as would Marius, and others who existed long before Lestat’s mortal birth. Maybe VC would have been about them.
I-want-my-IWTV 