The Vampire Lestat was God; or the nearest thing he had ever known to it. The giant on the video screen gave his benediction to all that Daniel had ever desired. How could the others resist? Surely the fierceness of their intended victim made him all the more inviting. The final message behind all Lestat’s lyrics was simple: Lestat had the gift that had been promised to each of them; Lestat was unkillable. He devoured the suffering forced upon him and emerged all the stronger. To join with him was to live forever: This is my Body. This is my Blood.
//Sooo on my very stressful and not fun at all vacation I re-read Interview and TVL. I started QotD as well, but only got as far as Jesse’s introduction. Out of the series so far QotD remains my favorite. It’s masterfully put together, with each chapter/section the perfect length, all the while building proper suspense. It does perfectly what PL failed at, which is what disappoints me more about PL than any plot point.
As I read I highlighted passages [*pets my Kindle*] I found interesting/enlightening, especially since I’ve read all the VC books now and have 20/20 hindsight. Putting this under a read-more to save your dash.
I tend to blame Anne for the internalised misogyny (and she has copped to it herself), but I also find it canonically explicable (because I always have this urge to explain annoying canon things rather than disregard them) – I can see Marius (coming from the culture that he does, and having had only brothers, and being very insightful in some ways but really fucking stupid in others) being the kind of clueless misogynist who tells the women he loves that they’re “not like the other girls” and doesn’t grasp how insulting that is.
And god, I would kill for first-person POV books or even fucking sections for Gabrielle and Bianca. She’s at least shown she can still write Gabrielle, and Bianca was one of many characters brought back in PL, but with very little done with her. I’m not holding my breath for it to happen (’least expectations, least disappointment’ seems a good rule of thumb), but it’s a massive hole in the series, to my mind.
I’ve always found Marius’ complete ideological 180 at the end of TVA (and presumably carrying over into his foul mood in BaG) really confusing. But rereading bits of QotD it occurred to me that Marius’ speech to Armand explaining his loss of faith has a lot of similarities with Akasha’s speech when explaining why humanity is inherently evil and overdue for a cull.
I’ve already talked about this with a few of you guys but i-want-my-iwtv thought I should still make a proper post with quotes and things, so here goes.
Our emissary in Venice retrieved it from a burnt-out villa on the Grand Canal. These vampires are endlessly associated with fires, by the way. It is the one weapon they can use effectively against one another. There are always fires.
Yes we were just talking about that, I have a new tag for that kinda topic: To ship or not to ship. This is a huge topic but I will try to be concise.
Apparently in a alternate draft version of IWTV, Claudia finds a few young boy vampires in Paris and ends up leaving Louis for them. Would that have been better? Would she have had a sexual relationship with them, bc they alone shared her problem and could overcome it? I like to think so ❤
So in the actual book, with that scene… She gets Louis to share that sex “‘…was something hurried…And… it was seldom savored… something acute that was quickly lost. I think that it was the pale shadow of killing.’” It’s not clear whether he tells her that bc:
it’s physically accurate (bc Ricean vampires cannot has penetrative sex with their equipment, therefore they’re all asexual)(that’s canon),
he’s saying it so as not to hurt her feelings and make her feel like she’s really missing out, or
he actually feels that way? Is killing so much better? Or did he really not enjoy mortal sex that much? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS.
…of course in fanon, they do all have sexytimes, constant degenerate frackin, and Claudia knows damn well What They Do in the Shadows, and why they sign her up for all this tutoring, and she’s jealous as HELL but I digress…
Then, she says: (I’m paraphrasing) “Hurting you like I’m doing now, that is also a pale shadow of killing?”Louis admits that YES it is, and he pretty much bolts out the door at that point…which I think is especially powerful bc it implies he has admitted to her that she is fucking him with her words alone. And he does not like it. As much as he wants to please her, it is a clear rejection of her in that regard, yet again unu
Hit the jump for unpopular opinions about Claudia, but basically, I think she could have experienced all the intimacy that the adult Ricean vampires experience, because they are asexual in canon, and instead share blood as their *~HIGHER~* form of intimacy. Unfortunately for her, Claudia never really had a relationship with anyone that wanted to do that with her ;A;
It’s worth mentioning that they auditioned about 100 little girls for the role in IWTV, and no 5-7 yr old could handle the part. With Kirsten Dunst (auditioned first), who I think was 11 at the time, it made Claudia’s frustration that of a tween, someone who is just about to hit puberty, very different physical and emotional stage than that of a 5 yr old. At 11, she is clearly too old to be treated like a doll, and it makes it that much harder for her to accept that she was just a few years away from having a passable adult body ;A;
Claudia really is an adult in a small body, just like any Little Person is. In Queen of the Damned, she has a diary entry, 9/21/1836, she’s at least 30 yrs old:
“This is my birthday present from Louis… I do not understand entirely what is meant by birthday. Was I born into this world on the list of September or was it on that day that I departed all things human to become this?”
Anyway, Little People do have active sex lives, otherwise why would we still have them around? Some even have relationships with non-Little People.
Specifically with Claudia, the issue remains that she looks like a child, so only another mortal child or an adult pedophile would even attempt to be sexual with her, both of which EW GROSS. I headcanon that Claudia enjoyed luring and killing pedophiles. She’s also capable of experiencing all the sensuality that comes with *~blood sharing~*, and her voracious appetite was partly because it was her only means of sexual gratification.
I think Claudia IS curious about sexuality, I think she’s passionate in many ways and wants a deeper connection (actual LOVE) w/ another soul, and alot of her frustration about her body is that she is denied that sexual intimacy. Sexual intimacy alone does not guarantee love and/or a deeper connection with another person, but don’t we all search for someone to understand us, someone we can share our innermost feels with? Or more than just one? In that sense the coven structure was really good for the Children of Darkness.
Claudia really had noone that she trusted that much. She only showed Louis her pain in glimpses and that was nearly too much for him. I think that Claudia felt that her body was the only obstacle in the pursuit of finding a kindred spirit, someone to truly love her more than as a daughter, but it was also her mind.
That’s fair. Hey iam-yourqueen, maybe you can field this one!
What is coolness? Having Lestat as your hopelessly devoted personal boytoy would denote some level of cool, for sure, aside from the reason(s) WHY that is. Being able to fly, having pyrokineses, telekinesis, looking hot in vintage dresses, these are all pretty cool things!
Y’know, cool or not cool, I actually think Akasha is a really dynamic character. She was convinced in her own rightness all the way to the end. She couldn’t have any doubt in herself or her plan, one crack and the dam would burst. To admit she might be wrong would mean she was not a goddess.
There are actual people like her (past/present/future) who try to take over the world “for the good of everyone.” But at what cost?
I-want-my-IWTV 