I had to think about this one for awhile, bc my immediate reaction was to defend Louis and say: “Oh no, our sweet bb Louis wouldn’t kill a child! Nor a preteen or teens! He may not choose guilty from innocent but surely a teen and under would be safe from him??!”
But he’s NOT a sweet bb. He’s a vampire.
Louis killed Claudia, or attempted to do so. More on that in a bit. The only further explicit reference we have re: his killing methods in canon is in QOTD, when Akasha states that he kills “without regard for age or sex or will to live.“ and since she can read his mind and Louis does not correct her on that statement, I would assume that she’s pinned him accurately.**
(**Note 1: in the scene at the end of book!IWTV (which we still don’t know if it actually happened or not, bc unreliable narrators), Louis takes a baby that a young vampire brings to feed to Lestat, and returns it to its home: “I returned to the small house from which the vampire had taken the child, and left it there in its crib.” So maybe BABIES are safe from Louis!)
(**Note 2: Louis accepts the offer of taking a bite of Denis, Armand’s mortal preteen/teen pet at the Theatre des Vampires, not knowing if Armand intended him to kill this offering or not, but in the book, Louis takes it without any resistance and Armand takes Denis back before Louis can finish him BC HE MIGHT HAVE.)
TL;DR #1: Yes, I do think Louis would kill a lost child/preteen/teen, and I think that the circumstances of such a choice could be worth exploring in fiction.
TL;DR #2: I think it would be unlikely for Louis, on his own, to kill one member of a group of ppl of any age, for the practical difficulty of killing one of them w/o the others noticing and causing a scene. I think this would make his kill more difficult than necessary, as Louis kills perfunctorily, only exerting the amount of time and effort required to satisfy the need:
“I would let the first hours of the evening accumulate in quiet, as hunger accumulated in me, till the drive grew almost too strong, so that I might give myself to it all the more completely, blindly.
“…I lingered only a short while, long enough to take what I must have, soothed in my great melancholy that the town gave me an endless train of magnificent strangers.
“For that was it. I fed on strangers. I drew only close enough to see the pulsing beauty, the unique expression, the new and passionate voice, then killed before those feelings of revulsion could be aroused in me, that fear, that sorrow.” (IWTV)
^If his killing style had changed since then, I think he would have mentioned it to Daniel during the interview.
It also begs the question whether he would kill the elderly, people with disabilities (mental, physical, etc.), and other types of people whose defenses are lowered to some degree, and I think “indiscriminate” applies to all of those categories. Yes to all, Louis kills indiscriminately.
TL;DR #3: Claudia is a child Louis kills (well, attempts to kill) in canon, and her similarity to Anne Rice’s daughter (who died at the age Claudia was turned) was very likely the reason for Anne writing IWTV in the first place. Through the characters in IWTV, I think Anne asked the questions to get the answers to exorcise her demons regarding that loss. Fiction is a safe ground from which we can examine and lance the pain we have experienced in real life and release it, and in sharing the story, we might give others a catharsis, too. I think this novel’s rich exploration of these difficult issues is part of what has made it so beloved by her readers, we can relate deeply with her story in our own ways and feel a catharsis from her explorations.
There are parents who outlive their children bc of these early-childhood diseases (and other reasons) and they have to find a way to go on living, and even trying to be happy again. I’m sure Anne will always experience pain from this loss, but through fiction, she may have been able to achieve enough closure to go on living her life.
I think Anne’s answer for herself at the end of writing IWTV was, “Neither you nor your daughter, nor anyone else, were being punished. Michele was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
1. “So if a lost child happens to cross his path would he kill them?”
A) I think that Louis feels like he, personally, shouldn’t judge who should die, and that therefore ppl who cross his path of any age are fair game. Louis was very Savage Garden about it before he was aware of the concept. In the Savage Garden, tigers can’t really be held responsible for killing the young, infirm, or elderly of their prey. Vampires are not human, even though they were once human, and some seem very human still… some of them hold themselves to human laws and morality about killing, but some of them do not.
B) If a child is lost at night without a parent or guardian, if the child was as abandoned as Claudia was, I think Louis would probably still kill them. It could be considered a case of the child being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
After all, it would fall under the Savage Garden concept, they’re at risk of more than just being Louis’ dinner. Louis is just another risk out there, maybe scarier because you might be able to reason with him where you can’t with, for example, a virus or a tiger.
C) is for CLAUDIA: While it’s true that Claudia didn’t exactly “cross his path,”
Louis was drawn to her cries and she was a lost child, abandoned by her parents. Her father had left, her mother was dead, and she was defenseless. Claudia might have already been sick with the plague, or might have died from starvation.
One could argue that Louis killing her was more merciful than the slow death she might have suffered if no one had found her ;A; There are situations where death is more preferable to suffering. We don’t know whether she could have been saved from death if brought to the hospital in time; even a hospital and the best medical care is not a guarantee that a life will be saved.
Louis was filled with guilt and shame when Lestat found him with Claudia, and I do think that Lestat turned Claudia to take that guilt from Louis. At that time, this was Louis’ first human kill in years, and Louis might have committed suicide for the guilt of having killed an innocent child if Lestat hadn’t “given her another life.”
2) So if a bunch of punk preteens or teens
happen to cross his path
would he kill them?
As far as “a bunch of punk preteens or teens,” Louis still would not judge them, even though society tends to think less of “punks” for disrupting the peace, vandalizing property, or otherwise purposely causing trouble. So I don’t think they would be targets for Louis specifically because of their “punk” label.
Louis would
probably not be interested in a group of any type or age (even a group of violent middle-aged bikers would be safe!); as it would be difficult to kill one of them in the presence of the others without creating trouble. He goes for people who are out on their own. I don’t think he’d want to go to the effort of coercing one away from the pack.
It’s not canon but I would think Louis can share kills with other vampires now, and he would be able to do so more stealthily with another vampire or two with him, if they wanted to take down more than one victim together, any age.
3) Re: Claudia being Michele Rice: I think that Louis’ attempted killing of Claudia is the major impetus behind IWTV being written in the first place.Anne Rice lost her own daughter at the age Claudia is turned, and Anne was going through the pain of that loss, asking why it happened to her daughter. Had Anne been an irresponsible mother? Was it God’s punishment for Anne (and/or her family) failing to be a devout enough Christian? Was her daughter being punished for some crime?
Was it Satan?? Was it a case of a bad thing happening to a good person?
To my mind, IWTV’s real cornerstone, on which the rest of the story was built around, Anne Rice created muses through which she could ask these questions and try to get the answers.
Anne said she modeled Louis after herself, but he also represented Death. Anne wanted these answers:
Why did Claudia die?! Bc Louis killed her.
Who’s this Louis monster and why did he have to kill her?! Well, he’s a vampire, that’s what they do.
Ok… But why did Louis have to kill an innocent childspecifically?Bc he was a vampire who had been sustaining himself on animal blood for years. and he was in a state of malnutrition and extreme desperation, and this child was nearby and defenseless. She had done nothing wrong.
Also, Louis felt terrible for this, even though he admits to Daniel that the act itself (as all blood drinking is to vampires) was pleasurable. Louis does not bring it up to Claudia herself until she began to rebel and demand answers.
So I think Louis battling with his religious upbringing, whether he was from the Devil, and having so much guilt about killing all victims (especially Claudia!) was a release for Anne, bc she could empathize with the entity she created who killed her child.
If the murderer himself felt guilt over it, that may have helped Anne achieve some measure of peace.
so like i was curious and sketched louis with long hair. same hair type and face i usually draw him with, just longer strands—but he ended up looking more like a nicki?? and that already goes against everything i believe in bc nicki and louis are two very separate ppl stfu lestat
so then i decided to try the brad pitt hair, but with my already-very-feminine-art-style he just became somebody’s bitchy sister?? ?
how do y’all do it lol
Louis can be like a bitchy sister sometimes, so you’re not wrong… he’s Claudia’s (and others…) bitchy older brother, technically!
There’s similarities between Nicolas and Louis, and when Lestat says they’re like twins, he emphasizes the similarity in their personalities:
I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter, graceful of speech and fastidious of manner, who seemed in his cynicism and self destructiveness the very twin of Nicolas. (TVL)
The hair Brad!Louis had will always have a place in my heart, long and Barbie-like, almost chestnut color (I think Brad himself called it “Lion King” hair”)! I don’t remember why it was that long, there’s some story out there about how Brad insisted on keeping it long bc it had to be long in another movie he would be filming close to that time and wouldn’t have time to regrow it, or that it was a decision made by Neil Jordan or someone else in charge *shrugs*
BUT ANYWAY I wouldn’t trample on anyone’s depictions of Louis, #Your Headcanon May Vary, and all that! Give us more, we are insatiable ❤
[It’s a great reminder of canon characterization as too often fanon has casted him as a beautiful, frail flower destined and carried by Lestat’s will.] *nods* Yep.
I think we can blame movie!IWTV for some of that fanon, bc he’s shown at his weakest in that movie, when he was struggling emotionally about vampiring, and the film also emphasized his appeal to other characters (like the scenes where Santiago is stroking his hair while deciding his punishment, and when Lestat literally sweeps him off his feet with the first bite), and the film took a number of important BAMF-moments/lines from him (like the one I mentioned in that post). Consequently, there are fans who base their headcanon of him mainly on the movie interpretation, even after they’ve read the book(s), since it left such a strong impression for them.
[I love that he knows he’s beautiful and he lowkey manipulates the fuck out of people and that he isn’t a delicate pretty face, like you said, he can still cut a bitch! He’s equally if not alot more dangerous than the rest.]
^YEP. In his speech to Madeleine about her wanting to be a vampire, he acknowledges “Do you find us beautiful? Magical?” He knows how he appears to mortals and other vampires. He’s calling her out on her request as being flimsy and uneducated, that she is completely out of her depth and has no idea what she’s really asking for, it’s not just a makeover!
We use the word “manipulative” on tumblr as having a negative connotation, and I wouldn’t say that Louis manipulates for nefarious purposes. I think he’s tactical. He wants to keep the peace in this scene:
“I wish you would play the music,’ I said softly, unobtrusively, but as persuasively as possible. Sometimes this worked with Lestat. If I said something just right he found himself doing what I’d said. And now he did just that: with a little snarl, as if to say, `You fool,’ he began playing the music.” (IWTV)
I don’t think Louis finds himself particularly attractive, I think when he calls himself handsome in IWTV, it’s his acknowledgement that others find him attractive; it still baffles him that they do. He absolutely recognizes it as a tactical advantage, he just doesn’t explicitly preen about it like Lestat does. No need 😉
Hit the jump for a little more re: the “frail flower” trope, under a cut for respect to the anon bc I this anon isn’t fond of it.
As you mentioned, you may not be fond of it, and that is absolutely fine! It’s not for everyone. I know I can’t read those trashy romance novels at the supermarket. They’re unappealing to me. But I get that they have an audience, bc they’re still there, still selling!
With Louis, other than all those loving descriptions of him from other characters, I think it’s worth noting that there are truly very few canon moments wherein he’s a *~a beautiful, frail flower destined and carried by Lestat’s (or whoever else’s) will,~* yes, it’s that damsel-in-distress, bodice-ripper kind of trope. Is it as effective if he’s always pursued and never caught? I think some readers, like myself, need a bite of carrot now and then. It’s a subjective thing. We should be glad AR hasn’t turned him into the smut vehicle so many other characters became *sigh*
It’s a fantasy to be carried off by some angelic stranger, it’s been around since ppl have told stories. We can identify with Louis, or we can identify with Lestat, both sides of the fantasy is appealing in its own way. In shipping them, you get to have both. So I understand the appeal, but again, it’s not necessarily for everyone. Not everyone likes shipping, period, and that’s absolutely fine, too!
Since childhood I’ve been faithful to monsters. I’ve been saved and absolved by them because monsters are the patron saints of our blissful imperfections.
Guillermo del Toro in his Golden Globe acceptance speech. (via shapeofh2o)
[EDIT: Tumblr ate half my post! I took out all the indented “quote” formatting to fix it]
IKR?? He tolerates it, rolls his eyes at it when he reads it, but when it gets to a certain amount…
Louis says of himself in IWTV:
“You wonder if I was a handsome man when I was alive,” said the vampire. The boy nodded. “I was. Nothing structurally is changed in me. Only I never knew that I was handsome. Life whirled about me a wind of petty concerns, as I’ve said. I gazed at nothing, not even a mirror… especially not a mirror… with a free eye.”
The compilation of descriptions of Louis that @i-see-light-blog put together are mostly from Lestat, I think, and at least one or two are from Armand, both were lovers of Louis at one point. The others who describe him are Daniel, David, and Marius.*
And I think the deal with describing Louis is partly that, hey, it’s fun to do, like having a favorite flower, and AR takes the opportunity to remind us of it, and put the camera on him in a scene, so we know he’s present. It also serves a purpose, we usually get at least a scrap of context about him and/or the scene:
“I glared at him, at the sharp graceful angles of his imperturbable face, […] his wide-set eyes, with their fine rich black lashes. How perfect the tender indentation of his upper lip.” -Lestat, The Tale of the Body Thief
Lestat glares at Louis. –> Lestat is clearly pissed.
Louis’ imperturbable face –>
Louis is not scared of Lestat being pissed.
And then Lestat lavishes this extra description on him, appreciatively. Attention on the lip area, now we’re picturing him pointedly staring there, which might precede a kiss, so we can infer that Lestat desperately wants to kiss him, probably. What I get from all that is the exquisite tension of Lestat wanting someone he can’t have, someone he treasures and wants even MORE bc of the difficulty. And Louis knows this when he reads those flowery descriptions. I think Louis secretly enjoys the power that he holds over all these hopeless admirers, when he reads these descriptions.
It’s the tension of the other characters pining for Louis that AR wrings every drop out for us, she’s showing us how helpless these other characters are that they can only try to capture Louis with descriptions since he defies being owned by anyone. Unrequited love is a powerful thing.
In my reading of IWTV, Louis was not just some dishrag Lestat could toss around at will. Even before Claudia appears, Louis is setting boundaries with Lestat:
“And to Babette I came now with Lestat. He would have killed the Frenieres long ago if I hadn’t stopped him,…
…`You call me the idiot, and you’ve been the idiot all along. Do you think I don’t know why you made me a vampire? You couldn’t live by yourself, you couldn’t manage even the simplest things. For years now, I’ve managed everything while you sat about making a pretense of superiority. There’s nothing left for you to tell me about life. I have no need of you and no use for you. It’s you who need me, and if you touch but one of the Freniere slaves, I’ll get rid of you. It will be a battle between us, and I needn’t point out to you I have more wit to fare better in my little finger than you in your entire frame. Do as I say.” – Louis, Interview with the Vampire
^And this is part of Louis’s hawtness, as well. He absolutely will cut a b*tch, if necessary.
Hit the jump for a little more, cut for it’s-slightly-off-topic-but-oh-well
*I’m pretty sure the other quotes are from Daniel, David, and Marius, I’m not checking bc I’m like 90% sure.
Daniel’s drawn to him in IWTV bc his story is so compelling, and that Louis is a vampire in the presence of a mortal who knows what he is, so he has that preternatural thing going on, mortal!Daniel is enthralled. Plus, Louis may have spellbound him inadvertently, as according to Armand:
“Louis… unable to read minds, or to levitate, or to spellbind others except inadvertently, which can be hilarious, an immortal with whom mortals fall in love…” – the Vampire Armand
David probably has some mixed feelings about Louis, especially in Merrick, bc Lestat’s out of the picture for most of that book, and I think David is stepping into Lestat’s role in his absence, to some extent, so I think he’s trying see Louis as Lestat sees him.
There was an artist in IWTV who painted Louis’ portrait, it makes sense that Marius, another artist who has done portraits, would also be drawn to Louis for this reason. Marius also thinks about what would happen if Louis were upgraded, and hey, I would think he’s had those thoughts about other vampires who are significantly younger than himself, for whom an upgrade really might change them. Now that I’m thinking about it, this was info that Marius confessed to Lestat when Lestat was drafting QOTD, and I bet this comment stuck in his mind, he very much wanted to upgrade Louis for awhile, but for different reasons.
I-want-my-IWTV 