“In fairy tales, monsters exist to be a manifestation of something that we need to understand, not only a problem we need to overcome, but also they need to represent, much like angels represent the beautiful, pure, eternal side of the human spirit, monsters need to represent a more tangible, more mortal side of being human: aging, decay, darkness and so forth. And I believe that monsters originally, when we were cavemen and you know, sitting around a fire, we needed to explain the birth of the sun and the death of the moon and the phases of the moon and rain and thunder. And we invented creatures that made sense of the world: a serpent that ate the sun, a creature that ate the moon, a man in the moon living there, things like that. And as we became more and more sophisticated and created sort of a social structure, the real enigmas started not to be outside. The rain and the thunder were logical now. But the real enigmas became social. All those impulses that we were repressing: cannibalism, murder, these things needed an explanation. The sex drive, the need to hunt, the need to kill, these things then became personified in monsters. Werewolves, vampires, ogres, this and that. I feel that monsters are here in our world to help us understand it. They are an essential part of a fable.”
I think that’s definitely possible, in the context of the movie version of the story.* “[Lestat] knew me, he knew I would love her more than the waking world.” Very poetic *u*
Expecting a child doesn’t necessarily mean you love kids, BUT, Lestat could read minds, and perhaps he knew just how much being a father meant to Louis. Louis doesn’t speak much of his own father, when he died, Louis had to take over the family business at a relatively young age, so maybe Louis was really looking forward to being a better and more loving a father than the one he had grown up with ;A;
PLUS, it seems like it would have been Louis’s first child, making him a father for the first time. I can’t imagine what that must feel like, expecting to have your wife back in your arms, and a new baby to love and raise, and then get neither back, knowing your wife died in pain?? ;A;
Even if Louis wasn’t a kid person, I mean, how can you not love a super cute 5 yr old angel like Claudia was originally? Scooped out of abject poverty and sickness, someone you could lavish with gifts and who would be grateful for it, having known only the barest no-frills of a life before? Lestat knew Louis would feel protective of her, she could be something to inspire him to learn to live again. You can experience the world anew with them as they learn about it ❤
*In the book version, it’s a younger brother that Louis had lost recently, Paul, a brother Louis was very close to. The death sends Louis spiraling into guilt and depression bc he feels responsible for it (and others, including his own family, blame him for it directly).
When Paul died, Louis says: “my mother told everyone in the parish that something horrible had happened in my room which I would not reveal; and even the police questioned me, on the word of my own mother.”
That feeling of blame in the situation is part of what made that loss so devastating to him, the death was preventable, if only he had had more patience with his brother ;A;
But with the loss of a child and wife in childbirth, I can imagine the husband feeling responsible for that, too. After all, if not for him, well, she wouldn’t have been pregnant (we’re assuming it was definitely his baby!) 😛
@discoblight said: (( On the topic of vampire babies- Baby Jenks was pregnant (well, miscarrying) while she was made into a vampire, and it seems only she became vampiric! So I think your headcanon is correct. The body would either expel or absorb.
^Thank you, I forgot about this! Right, that was why Baby Jenks was dying:
[…and just started wondering if Anne Rice has ever addressed what would happen if a pregnant human was made into a vampire?]
Lestat does have a dream about going back to the Auvergne and turning his whole family into vampires, infants included D-: Other than that, no other mention in canon and not in any interview or book signing I’ve heard of. Maybe my followers know? Interesting question!
My thoughts on it under the cut in case of too gorey for some ppl. But in short, I don’t think that the baby would become a vampire, bc it REALLY couldn’t fend for itself. Claudia was a child but at least she could had mental capacity, could talk, was ambulatory, and had teeth that could be transformed into fangs.
(I don’t think I’ve seen any vampire babies in any other media EXCEPT for the one in Twilight, she had rapid growth or smtg? It was confusing.)
Hit the jump for more, possibly squicky thoughts, but no graphics.
“She’d been bleeding to death, the doctor had done it to her all right, the baby was gone and all, but she was going to die too, he’d cut something in there, and she was so high on heroin she didn’t give a damn.” – QOTD
@superhiki said: But it would be kinda cool for a due mother and child to be turned and for the both of them to more or less be a super powerful unit of some fashion…. mom super physical and baby a mind gift
That could be awesome and terrifying… I don’t think it’s been done before! it reminds me of Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…
I’m “kind of an awesome vc expert”? Awww, that’s very generous of you
❤️ I’m not special I’ve just read all these books and talked about them for like 20 yrs ;,D
I don’t think that AR has ever canonically stated what happens if a vampire eats/tries to eat food… I’m not even sure if it’s canon of fanon at this point but I headcanon that they can swallow little sips of liquids other than blood. But not much.
^This is from What We Do in the Shadows, and it’s probably not projectile vomiting like this for Ricean vampires… but it’s hilarious (but GROSS) so WATCH IT (if you can handle the gross). For these and the Ricean vampires, eating people food is bad, but not lethal.
Ricean vampires lose alot of digestive anatomy when they’re turned. So their bodies just can’t metabolize food. Cooking smells are repulsive to them, as Louis describes it in IWTV:
“The slightly nauseating smell of cooking meat… I caught the sweet smell of the spices and the fresh green of marjoram and bay; and then in a wave came the horrid smell of the cooking meat, the blood and flesh decaying in the boiling fluids.“
So if they were to try a bite of a plate of food, it might be like trying to force yourself to eat something inedible, like an old soapy sponge. Unless you’re really determined to eat a thing, you’ll want to spit it out.
I would guess that eating a whole plateful of food would just make them throw it back up, no enjoyment in or out 😛
Not sure about other vampires, like The Vampire Diaries, Tru Blood, 30 Days of Night, Daybreakers, etc.
I seem to recall the Lost Boys vampires were able to eat Chinese food? I don’t remember.
Queen Akasha mood board, strong and powerful women
“The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can’t live without her.” ― Anne Rice, The Queen of the Damned
As an actor, I endeavor to find the reason in the unreasonable. Because no one thinks they are being unreasonable or unrealistic or demanding or behaving madly. We all see ourselves as being justified.
I-want-my-IWTV 