(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.
Thank you for appreciating that [post is here]! It always feels like I’m going out in front of a firing squad when I say that “creating/consuming dark fiction is not endorsement of it in real life” because people who do conflate those will insist that I’m an x,y,z-apologist. No. That’s incorrect.
ANOTHER WALL OF TEXT™ what is happening to me? I just miss you guys a lot, that’s what 😉
“Why did this person say/do this thing?”
I support the creation and consumption of dark content in media, in fic/art/music/etc. as a means of exploring it, as a means of unpacking it, as a means of trying to figure out where it comes from and how to recognize it. Sometimes it’s not so easy to pick out the “bad guy.” Sometimes the “abuser” seems to be a “good” person. Sometimes the “abuser” is reenacting their own trauma. Finding reasons for a behavior are not excuses for that behavior, but it can help provide answers for those of us who want them.
~Story time~
My grandmother was a tough old lady, what we call a “battle-axe.” She was blunt and tactless, and downright MEAN most of the time. She raised her children through terror and bullying, held grudges for decades, was short-tempered with her in-laws and grandchildren.
She was also very smart in her role as a professor in a college, and had a sweetness to her that very few people in my family experienced bc they were so deterred by her tough exterior. I was one of the few who got close to her, and I wanted to know why she behaved the way she did to others.
Seeing movies like Mommie Dearest, in which Joan Crawford was portrayed as somewhat of battle-axe to everyone in her life, too, I could see similarities between her and my grandmother.
Could my grandmother have had the kind of pressure in her life that Joan did, competing with the misogyny in her career? I thought so.
Both of these women set incredibly high expectations for themselves and others, and then reacted badly if reality didn’t meet their expectations. They were not good at handling disappointment and would take it out on others.
In other media, I would see “only” children worshiped by their parents and then these women were dissatisfied, bitter adults, who would never get that kind of attention again. (Not sure about Joan Crawford, but that was my grandmother’s childhood.)
^What I’m saying is that media (fic/movies/books/music/etc.) gave me insights as to why my grandmother behaved the way she did. It provided reasons for the behavior. I didn’t take these as excuses, but it increased my empathy for her and others I met who were like her. Rather than do as the rest of my family did, by writing her off as “a mean old lady,” I could understand her and navigate my way into a better relationship with her. They missed out on her good parts because of her bruises.
^The first time I saw this graphic, I felt that expression in my soul. These are fictional characters. They are not real.
Writers write them. What is “writing” anyway, but speculative reality? We used to call fanfiction “specs,” short for “speculative fiction.” It’s thoughts. Not all writing is for idealized versions of life and/or wish-fulfillment.
I’ve heard from VC fans who are survivors of child abuse, sexual abuse, etc. who said that VC helped them in some way,
whether it was recognizing that the abuse they suffered really was abuse (and not normal!),
or whether they have since made fanworks with VC characters that helped them explore their own past and examine it from a place of safety,
or in consuming other fanworks, they got some closure on their own experiences in some way and were able to heal or begin to do so,
or just in making friends here that have helped them through difficult times,
I could go on and on… there is enormous value in creating/consuming dark fiction.
Whatever Anne Rice’s agenda is/was in writing the Vampire Chronicles, it doesn’t matter to me, because of how much good I have witnessed that has come from it. If some of her inspiration for certain aspects seems relevant to me, I consider it, but it doesn’t really matter as far as I’m concerned.
It all really boils down to the old adage “Live and Let Live.”
You can ship characters for happily ever afters, sure, you can ship them for tragically-then-happily, you can ship two or three or four or more, you can ship endless combinations of personality types and relationship dynamics
but you can also ship characters under very specific circumstances, or for a certain period of their life but not for all of it, or only in a certain universe. You might say “I ship these characters” and what you mean is you think they are fascinating together and could have a story together. That story could be any kind of story.
Sometimes it means you want them together for the rest of their lives. Sometimes it means something different than that.
I don’t know about you, but for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
Also for those of us who write or consume fanfiction, shipping can mean “I need to fix this thing that bothered me in canon, let me tell you my version of it where it’s not so gross and where I criticize it in a way that the creator did not.” I don’t understand people who can’t grasp this. Black & white thinking is not a good look.
Or I mean. Maybe it’s still gross lol. We wouldn’t have a horror genre if dark and awful shit didn’t intrigue people on a base level. Just because it’s not for you doesn’t mean there’s no value in it for people who like to look hard at things that frighten them.
(I have a backlog of asks, Real Life has been taking my life, and this is the one I decide to answer, bc I am apparently a glutton for punishment) (My senpais re: the topic of allowing writers to write dark fiction (and readers to read it) are @restoringsanity and @freedom-of-fanfic, among others, check them out).
Welcome to our little corner of Tumblrland!
This became a Wall of Text™, but I felt like articulating these thoughts again, as I do periodically. Sorry, no cut, couldn’t find a good place to do it.
Anon, I hope you come into the light and join us, share with us what you like about VC and make our fandom better for being part of it. You might make some of the best friends of your life with us 🙂 I definitely have, and that’s what fandom is about for me.
I think this question was answered very well by @interview-withthevampirehere, with supporting links. I was honored to be tagged as a Certified Old in the fandom, yes, I was around in the Dark Ages of the Internet, for the Spec Massacre, but am I a Respected Old? That’s debatable, lol. I have my opinions about VC, and everyone’s headcanon may vary on all of it.
No sense reinventing the wheel in answering the same way as they did, but I have thoughts to add. @interview-withthevampire started their answer as follows, and I want to start mine the same way:
“the reason why Anne Rice is a bit quarrelsome (I don’t want to use “cr*zy”) is because, well, the kindest way to put it is that she’s a bit of an ego-maniac.”
^YES. She’s probably a bit of an ego-maniac, but not “cr*zy.” “Crazy” is what we use to “other” someone, to dehumanize them by calling their mental faculties into question. It’s a gentle teasing at best and a bullying tactic at worst.
One thing you’ll find in VC fandom is that every so often, like a cycle, we’ll get another round of bashing Anne Rice. Whether or not she is a “good” or “bad” person with “good” or “bad” thoughts/intentions, that’s not the purpose of my blog and not what I base my love for VC on. My blog is primarily for entertainment and fandom positivity.
As fandom has begun a shift into examining authors and content creators who create problematic content (also known as ”dark fiction,” which I prefer as a term bc the word “problematic” has become kind of a joke in its overuse), there is a tendency to conflate that content with their beliefs, that they write what they would like to see happen in reality. I strongly feel that creation/consumption of dark fiction is not endorsement of it.
In brief, people might think Anne Rice is “cr*zy” bc of (1) her Real Life actions against her fans and other people, and (2) the problematic content in her books.
Again, I think @interview-withthevampire covered point (1). In the end, Anne Rice is just a human being who wrote a set of books that have gathered a wide spectrum of fans. I think it took her years (decades?) to understand the nature of her fanbase, and as the internet grew around her, it became easier for fanworks and reviews/feedback to publish into the real world. There were no longer the filters in place of people like magazine editors; any blogger could write a review of her works in full view of millions of fans, and they were not required to pull any punches.
AR had to acclimate to that and after fighting the ficwriters for long enough, she chose to stop suing, and learn to coexist with it all. I don’t know of many other authors treating their own fanbases the way AR treated us, so I would guess that authors who have published works since the internet really got in gear have probably all embraced their fanbases from the beginning. Therefore, VC fandom’s bad blood (pun intended) with Anne Rice stands out as being downright BIZARRE now 😛
As far as (2) the problematic content.
What we’re really talking about is whether dark fiction (pedophilia, incest, etc.) should be written about at all if they are not condemned in the narrative. Personally, I believe that creation/consumption of dark fiction is not endorsement of it.
*Bruised banana analogy*
VC, like any media, be it books/movies/music/video games/etc., is like a banana. It might have gross bruises, those parts that you find squicky or otherwise distasteful. It’s fine to point them out, so that others can be aware, but you are not required to do so. Some areas on a given banana are less bruised than others, and you can eat them. Maybe you eat around all the bruises, even the smaller ones. Maybe you don’t mind bruises and you can eat the whole banana.
I admit, on a subjective level, that VC books have gotten much bruisier for me over the years, and there are several that I find so bruised that there is much less to enjoy, but that’s how it is. I STILL LIKE THE PARTS I LIKE.
[X Banana from fromthedriversseat.co.uk] ^Red would be those bruises that I can’t accept, so I don’t eat them.
Maybe the whole banana is ruined for you and you can’t stomach it. Maybe you can bake it into banana bread, turn it into something else entirely! That’s a fanworks’ purpose. Like a fanfic where you remove/revise the bruises from canon and write the story the way you would prefer it to be. Fluff would probably be a banana with very few
bruises, if any at all.
I’ve made my own headcanons that have “fixed” canon in a way that greatly improved the stories for me. I’ve read fanfic that was basically providing missing pieces from canon. I’ve seen fanart and cosplay that pretty much illustrated my headcanon of the characters. For me, fandom is about taking inspiration from the canon source material to make your own works, sharing that with other fans, and being supportive of those content creators in whatever way you feel comfortable!
It’s every reader’s prerogative, how much of the “banana” they want to eat, if any at all. No one is forcing you to eat it, and other people enjoying the banana does not trample your choice. Your choice not to eat some/all of the bruises does not supersede other’s choice of eating them.
I’ve said that creating/consuming problematic content is not in itself endorsement of
problematic things in REAL LIFE. As far as I know, Anne Rice has committed no REAL crimes, so while I would love it if she had a trusted editor/beta reader,I don’t condemn her for exploring dark topics in fiction. More thoughts on that in my #dark fiction tag.
As fans in the fandom, we can like what we like, critique her work, choose what canon we accept, toss the rest. She put it out there and in that sense, it doesn’t matter if Anne Rice is “cr*zy” or not, or if she is a “good” or “bad” person with “good” or “bad” thoughts. Personally, I believe that AR was interested in sex before she was the age of consent and was frustrated that she was being prevented from pursuing sexual relationships. Those explorations led to bruises in her bananas. Those are her bones to pick, so to speak.
I’ve made some of my best friends in VC fandom, and if they or I had left because of the bruises in our bananas, I might never have met them at all. I consider VC to be a gift to us from AR, no more, no less.
(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.
*parts a bead curtain as i enter the room, carrying a glass of lemonade*
hey….
nothing you ever read, watch, or participate in will be ideologically pure and without its problems. your quest to consume the most unproblematic material will be, in the end, fruitless. your enjoyment of anything will be sapped away, leaving you a husk starved for media.
it is okay to enjoy things that have problems to them, so long as you do it critically and with an open mind, and take care to consider others.
*leaves the way i came*
This is possibly the healthiest post I’ve seen on this site
tumblr: that thing you like is Problematic and you should feel bad for liking it
me, an adult capable of critical thinking and criticizing things while still wholeheartedly enjoying them: please get out of my living room
I-want-my-IWTV 