“They know about us. They see us drink from empty glasses and eat from empty plates.”
Louis means it sort of metaphorically in the movie, although why they bothered to pretend to have dinner night after night is a question in itself. Maybe Louis clung to it as a human activity. But what’s so extra funny about that quote is that in the book they actually did have to simulate “dining” sounds for Lestat’s BLIND dad, who was there w/ them!
“Meantime, Lestat and I sat down to dinner each night with the old man and made nice noises with our knives and forks, while he told us to eat everything on our plates and not to drink our wine too fast.” – Louis de Pointe du Lac, Interview with the Vampire
(At this point, Lestat is over 30 mortal yrs old, and Louis is over 24, they’re grown men, but Lestat’s dad is not known for treating anyone with the respect they deserve at their age.)
Omg I know, wouldn’t it be lovely for them to just flop into eachothers’ arms and smile and laugh and everything is all sparkles and rainbows again? *u*
Relationships – platonic or romantic – are not guaranteed, they change and evolve over time. Even marriages fail! When Nicki asks for the Dark Gift, it’s not to be with Lestat, it’s what he thinks he deserves, one of the last gifts Lestat can give him to apologize. They were good for each other at one time, and grew apart. I think they both loved the idea of each other more than the ppl they really were, as often happens in relationships.
As a side note: I really didn’t realize there was so much love for Nicolas until I got on tumblr! I think he represents this generation’s disillusionment with society at large better than Lestat does, Nicolas’ rebellion is a modern-era grunge rebellion, bc he HAS TALENT, and is angry with the way it’s recognized, angry with so much about the way the world runs on autopilot, angry with societal ideals of success. He probably does have some mental issues, too, and I think this generation is more comfortable “coming out” with BPD, or manic-depression, etc. than in 18th century France or at the time TVL was written… with some counseling and/or medication, he might have had a better life.
So if Nicki came back:
If Nicki came back, they might get a little closure as long as they had a mediator present in the room to prevent carnage from breaking out. But they broke up on such bad terms that really, nothing can heal that breakage ;A; At this point, civil is probably the best they could manage, even though Lestat would probably bend over backwards if he thought he could get better than civil from Nicki.
Ask a Lestat or Nicolas RPer and they might have a more detailed answer on this, but anytime I see those muses interact with eachother, it’s pretty strained, and only slightly better if the thread takes place when they’re both still mortal.
BC let’s face it, by the time Lestat’s star was rising at the theatre, Nicolas was withdrawing deeper into himself and had had just about enough of Lestat’s bouncy optimism.
After Nicolas is turned he admits as much:
“It was to hurt others, don’t you see, the violin
playing, to anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule. They
would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it.” I didn’t answer. I
wanted him to go on.
“And
when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that we
would go down and down and down. It was what I wanted, rather than what they
wanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them. I thought we would go
down! We were supposed to go down.” – Nicolas, The Vampire Lestat
Hit the jump for a little more, cut for length.
I think Nicki and Lestat needed eachother in the beginning and were very well-matched, they seem to be the first to really love eachother in the cruel environment they came from. They encouraged eachother to be better ppl, they were mutually supportive.
It all fell apart in Paris, and even if Lestat hadn’t been kidnapped by Magnus, it’s doubtful their relationship could have lasted.
The betrayal Nicolas felt when Lestat just disappeared that night was too great. Lestat leaves in the middle of the night, screaming, and reports that he’s fallen in love with some wealthy lady? No amount of gifts and money he sent to Nicolas could really substitute Lestat physically being with Nicolas the way that they were.
YES. Also: ”The function of fiction is being lost in the conversation on violence. My book editor, Sean McDonald, thinks of it as “radical empathy.” Fiction, like any other form of art, is there to consider aspects of the real world in the ways that simple objective views can’t — from the inside. We cannot Other characters when we are seeing the world from the inside of their skulls. This is the great success of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter, both in print and as so richly embodied by Mads Mikkelsen in the Hannibal television series: For every three scary, strange things we discover about him, there is one thing that we can relate to. The Other is revealed as a damaged or alienated human, and we learn something about the roots of violence and the traps of horror.”
Sure! Why not? What a cool idea to have someone as stunning as she is, and also as muscular and kick-ass, for this person to want to devote all their strength and love, more like a force of nature than a mere person, into giving to others in the missions? POWER NUN.
Her lids were heavy and smooth over her downcast eyes. Like a Grecian woman painted by Picasso, so simple she seemed, large-boned and fine and strong. Had anybody ever kissed her nun’s mouth?
– Lestat, Tale of the Body Thief
^[fandom fave for mortal!Lestat, Sendhil Ramamurthy; and Gwendoline Christie for Gretchen.][I ship it]
“Help me and you help the devil,” I whispered.
“So you told me,” she said.
…”What a lovely face you have. What is your name?“
“Gretchen.”
“You’re a nun, aren’t you, Gretchen?”
“How did you know that?”
“I could tell. Your hands, for one thing, the little silver wedding band, and something about your face, a radiance- the radiance of those who believe. And the fact that you stayed with me, Gretchen, when the others told you to go on. I know nuns when I see them. I’m the devil and when I behold goodness I know it… The devil needs you. The devil’s crying. He wants you to hold his hand. You’re not afraid of the devil, are you?”
“Not if he requires an act of mercy. Sleep now. They’re coming to give you another shot. I’m not leaving. Here, I’ll bring the chair to the side of the bed so you can hold my hand.”
So yes, Daniel’s evil dark twink bf Armand can open locked doors, since there would be electrical locks at that point, but I think it was more that Armand always had a way of sneaking in (being wee, he could probably climb up and enter a small window!), or could get someone to open the door for him, bc I don’t recall that Armand has telekinesis in canon.
Lestat and Marius both have telekinesis in canon, but I don’t think there’s a lot of detail about their manipulating electricals…
“I was sitting in the darkened cathedral. Hours ago it had been locked, and I had entered surreptitiously through one of the front doors, quieting the protective alarms. And left it open for him.” – Lestat, Tale of the Body Thief.
^Lestat doesn’t say how he quieted the alarms. I’m guessing that Marius and Lestat’s telekinesis does extend to electrical locks, more in their physical attributes, though. If you can manually force open the parts that keep a door locked, the electricals don’t matter.
And of course, they’re both strong enough to just knock your door down physically ;]
Two more alarm-related quotes, that didn’t really add to my point but I found them anyway, under the cut, for length.
The lock gave easily when I commanded it to do so. And the door opened as if I had touched it, when I had not.“- Lestat, Tale of the Body Thief.
^This is probly a normal physical lock w/o the alarm system.
“And I locked up the shop door tight with a few little telepathic twists, and off I went again.”– Lestat, Tale of the Body Thief.
^One of Lestat’s regular mini-shopping sprees in a closed store. I would think this shop had an alarm system but he doesn’t mention needing to disable it.
“…no amount of explanations to her which passed through
and through my mind now, even forming on my lips in desperate whispers as I
left the Rue St. Michel and went deeper and deeper into the older, darker
streets of the Latin Quarter, no amount of explanations seemed to soothe what I
imagined to be her grave dissatisfaction, or my own pain.
Finally I left off words except for a strange chant. I
was in the black silence of a medieval street, and blindly I followed its sharp
turns,… `I cannot make her happy, I do
not make her happy; and her unhappiness increases every day.’ This was my chant,
which I repeated like a rosary, a charm to change the facts, her inevitable
disillusionment with our quest, which left us in this limbo where I felt her
drawing away from me, dwarfing me with her enormous need.” – Louis de Pointe du Lac, Interview with the Vampire
Yes, I did read it! No real spoilers under the cut, bc the short answer, about Nicolas, is No :-
Characters refer to Nicolas a few times but he’s not around. There is the theory out there that he faked his death and may yet reappear in the next book, though!
Lestat still has the letters Eleni wrote to him about the Theatre, and he writes about them: “the letters that told me of its prosperity with the Paris audiences, of Armand’s governance, and of the death of my Nicolas, my second fledgling, my only mortal friend, and my greatest failure.”
This is a great challenge for you to come up with your own ideas, and start to build confidence as a writer by crafting your report in which you express your ideas. It would be robbing you of the experience to just do it for you. But I will help a little ;]
What even is symbolism? Colors and objects, certain actions, can be associated with a deeper meaning, which can be intentional or not on the author’s part.
Red is a color that’s used in TVL. So if I were to pick that as a symbol to investigate, I would look at things that are mentioned with this color. This is a short list.
Blood, obviously, and Lestat’s vision of the red stream when he is turned.
Lestat’s lip makeup he wears when he performed with the little actor troupe.
Nicolas has a red velvet frock coat.
Lestat’s red velvet cloak, given to him after killing the wolves.
Lestat getting kidnapped in that red cloak.
The murdered stable boy wearing a fancy red velvet coat.
What kinds of connections can you make? You could say that:
Red is associated w/ positive feelings like being rewarded, for Lestat’s service to his village. Velvet is expensive, and the villagers are showing that they appreciate him and respect him as their Marquis’ son.
Red lips make him look more attractive on stage, red lips usually imply that there is blood in them from kissing or the anticipation of kissing, so there’s that flirtatious excitement there.
When the Children of Darkness kill the stable boy, Lestat finds the body dressed in a red velvet coat:
“I kept thinking over and over of the stable boy, mangled and thrown there in that fancy red velvet frock coat. I had seen that coat before and I couldn’t remember where I had seen it. Had it been one of my own? Had they gotten into the tower? No, that was not possible, they couldn’t have gotten in. Had they had a coat made up identical to one of my own? Gone to such lengths to mock me? No. How could such creatures do a thing like that? But still… that particular coat. Something about it…”
Did they mean, “This is YOU Lestat, all dressed up like you’re the prince of France! We made this kid into a piñata and we’re going to destroy you as badly as this next BWAHAHAHAAAA!” ?
Skim TVL and find recurring colors, objects, actions, and list them. Then, you might start to see associations you can make.
♛*laughs* That is pretty random, as far as random questions go! It’s a subject that I enjoy very much. I go through these phases of intense interest on certain subjects for nights to months at a time, and dinosaurs is a recurring focus.
I assume you mean the animals, and not a specific movie or book series (Armand gave me my first Dinotopia book as a gag gift for my birthday some time ago – surprising me that he remembered or cared at all – saying, “It’s a children’s book, because you’re a child,” and I actually loved it; the illustration is very imaginative and highly detailed). Or the live-action TV show Dinosaurs from the early ‘90s which, honestly, I still can’t decide if it’s my cup of blood or not.
Dinosaurs the animals, they’re fascinating. Omnivores, carnivores, “veggiesaurs.“ The study of other predators means a lot to me. We still have more to learn about them, some still exist today in some form. The tooth size of the T. Rex is nearly unbelievable, even when I held one in my hand. I admit I was a little envious bc my own fangs are quite small in comparison, but mine are much sharper and more elegant than a T. Rex’s, being that they’re for a similar, but different, physical use *grins*
Jurassic Park is a film Louis and I can watch over and over, even though it’s given him a few choice quotes to use against me *grumbles*
I-want-my-IWTV 