“…when I was twelve, and the old parish priest, who had taught me some poetry by rote and to read an anthem or two in Latin, wanted to send me to school at the nearby monastery.
My father said no, that I could learn all I needed in my own house…
My father was angry and reminded [my mother] that if this had happened before he went blind, his will would have prevailed surely. My brothers assured him that his youngest son wouldn’t be gone long. I’d come running home as soon as I was made to do something I didn’t want to do.
Well, I didn’t come running home. I loved the monastery school.
…Within a month I declared my vocation. I wanted to enter the order… frankly I thought my father would be glad to be rid of me.
But three days later my brothers arrived to take me home with them. I cried and begged to stay, but there was nothing the Father Superior could do.” – The Vampire Lestat
A memorable scene of Lestat finding piles of blond haired corpses in Magnus’ tower. Bodies were collected from various 19th century French paintings and arranged into an almost ornamental composition. The main source of inspiration being of course Gericault (The Raft of Medusa and studies). As in his works, the drawing explores the fragility of human body and the limits of human desperation when it comes to surviving.
“In a deep prison cell lay a heap of corpses in all states of decay, the bones and rotted flesh crawling with worms and insects. Rats ran from the light of the torch, brushing past my legs as they made for the stairs. And my nausea became a knot in my throat. The stench suffocated me.
But I couldn’t stop staring at these bodies. There was something important here, something terribly important, to be realized. And it came to me suddenly that all these dead victims had been men – their boots and ragged clothing gave evidence of that – and every single one of them had yellow hair, very much like my own hair. The few who had features left appeared to be young men, tall, slight of build. And the most recent occupant here – the wet and reeking corpse that lay with its arms outstretched through the bars – so resembled me that he might have been a brother.”– The Vampire Lestat
#one of my fave scenes of course #bc i am gross apparently #is when Lestat sees this horror and tosses his cookies and then
#well #eats the tossed cookies again bc 5 second rule right?
Did that scene ever happen? Was that another one of Armand’s lies? It doesn’t matter. I wanted to explore the classical motive of David with Goliath’s head, here inevitably twisted, losing its victorious aspect, leaving only the figure of a young boy, holding a severed head.
I hope to God that this story was just something that Armand made up; somehow trying to intimidate the others, displaying the cruelty he could be capable of. This whole section though had me enthralled, the middle section of TVA was some of Rice’s best writing in my opinion, and the image of this–the Botticelli cherub, dressed in dusty and outdated but once opulent 18th century clothing, beneath the Paris streets, the stench of rot, old graves, and the filth of the city permeating through the earth, in a dark room lit by greasy tapers of tallow candles, hacking apart the body of this thing, this abomination as he sees her, this obstacle to his newest fascination, that of Louis, and he will demolish her, just as the hands were removed from the violinist in a mad attempt to reach Lestat again, this devil with an angel’s face capable of Lucifer’s cruelty–its a world of obscenity for its beauty, sublime in its composition of a clash of ideals, and shows like two unlikely titans of evil within the series as the most innocent in the face.
As always, perfectly captured by the wonderful @sheepskeleton
“I tried to grant her fondest wish, that she should have the body of a woman, a fit shape for the tragic dimension of her soul.
I’ve been working my ass off in school, pulling 19 hour days and I’m exhausted and in need of a pick-me-up. This may sound selfish but I’d love for you to post your favorite vampire chronicles headcanons here, cute things in the books that delighted you and made you happy, quotes, facts, love between characters.
Fill this post full of why VC is important to you. Your ideas, stories, ideas, headcanons, facts about the characters we all love.
Doing this would give me something to look forward to at the end of a very long day.
@i-want-my-iwtv
Would you mind passing this along?
A pick me up for a fellow queen of the night.
Aw noes, sounds like you’ve gotta fever, and the only prescription is: a fresh infusion of VC Feels. Not selfish at all ;]
Passing this along, as per request. My headcanons, fave quotes, stories, etc. would fill BOOKS so I’ll leave these tags here for now, I’ll try to reblog this with some more specific things later.
I’m rereading TOBT now, tho, and one thing that pops immediately to mind is this line from Lestat’s narration, upon realizing his victim, that he’s been salivating over for a long time, is not really a cunning evildoer mastermind (i.e. a fancy cut of steak for him) but a blubbering barely-functioning mental case (i.e. an old fast-food cheeseburger w/ wilted lettuce):
“Yeah, look at him, this dirty, stinking, lumbering killer. Men in prison get better chow than this.”
(^italics added for emphasis bc that’s how I read it in my mind)
That’s the old Lestat brand of sass!
LOOK AT THIS is this not Lestat and Nicolas? (okay well that dude doesn’t really look like how I imagine Nicolas, but Cary Elwes as Lestat YES PLZ) From the movie Another Country. [gif sauce]
Aaaaand of course baby!Lestat loved animals bc of course he did and still does:
I have never seen a post or heard smne mention anything like this… that would damn or save my soul, and as far as I know, after 20+ yrs in our fandom, I am one of the – oldest – living – members of it on tumblr! <— d’ya see what I did there? bwah so damaged…
So I’ll answer by opening it up to the group, has anyone heard of this? Could be legit.
[meme by @vampchronfic, this was the most appropriate pic I could think to add]
Oh and thanks for the lovely wishes from the future! If the end of ‘15 is any indication, Sweet ‘16 is looking like it’s gonna start out a fine year indeeeed.
When I read this it kind of ringed a bell, but I guess the bell must have been underwater because I found quite the opposite in The Vampire Companion
For the “meant to be an unlikable villain” I only found that he was supposed to be evil enough for Akasha’s dreams but really wasn’t lol
And from the way she is “disappointed that people liked him”, I actually found quite the contrary…
Went back to the facebook archives to find out if maybe Anne had said something more akin to what you mentioned, but I couldn’t find anything there, or in the several written interviews I found in the bowels of the internet.
Hope this helps…? And yes, I kinda am defending my stale cinnamon roll. Oh, and Happy New Year, Anon & @i-want-my-iwtv 😀
Thanks again @luthi69 for digging up this info! omg I get to use this ancient thing…
I am a bad fangirl, I own a copy of the Vampire Companion and have not memorized it with the detail I have absorbed canon… another item I’d like to do this year. Can you guys imagine what AR had in mind for Armand in QotD (does anyone else here not like AR’s abbreviations for the books?) if she wanted him to play a central factor in the plot?
I think it also says something about the power of Daniel. What AR was doing with Armand/Daniel overrode whatever her initial plans for Armand were, his feelings for Daniel basically outshone whatever evil AR was gonna have him do! And that makes their ship that much more powerful and precious in that story, don’t you think?
It’s Armand and it’s actually canonand one of my favorite parts to visualize in QotD(although it’s honky-tonk not ragtime, but their styles are related) I mean, just imagine Daniel waking up to that, looking completely DONE.
Queen of the Damned, page 88
It’s update time! You were right
@i-want-my-iwtv in your assumption that Lestat would love it.
Now go ahead and imagine them dancing to these tunes.
#IT GOT BETTER
Thanks for the update, @luthi69! If anyone is in a bad mood, just TRY and keep that mood with this bouncy happy music on, JUST TRY.
And now I AM imagining Lestat, Daniel, and Armand paying a jazz band to play this all night at a club in NOLA, dancing to it w/ people and having such a good time ❤
So Louis’ emotional connection to Lestat, and the fact that it wasn’t really visible in IWTV.
The really short answer is that I believe in Louis’ love for Lestat so much that I can’t quite pinpoint the evidence for it! I think it’s from reading further books and seeing Louis from other ppls’ POV, who can describe his love better than he might be able to admit.
“Louis, the watcher, the patient one, was there on account of love pure and simple. The two had found each other only last night, and theirs had been an extraordinary reunion. Louis would go where Lestat led him. Louis would perish if Lestat perished.” – Khayman, Queen of the Damned.
TL;DR: You gonna have to read The Vampire Lestat to get that connection.
These are actually pretty appropriate here:
So, yes, I think you’re somewhat right when you say that in book!IWTV and movie!IWTV, it seems like the only feelings Louis has for Lestat are:
a “range from hatred
to disinterest,
to pity,
with no real love besides the initial wonder.”
Louis is baffled by a lot of the things Lestat does in IWTV, he disagrees with Lestat’s philosophy (which is unclear in IWTV in both versions), and until Claudia rebels against their maker, Louis stays with Lestat because YES, he is still fascinated with him, he doesn’t know of any other vampires, and he’s sure he can pull more of the mysteries of life out of Lestat about vampiring, and his place in the scheme of things (whether vampires work for God or Satan is a big question).
^At the end of IWTV, Louis does meet up with a very incapacitated Lestat. Lestat says in the next book that this scene never happened.
Whether they met like this or not, Louis clearly is “empty” at the end of IWTV, and he wants to find Lestat, but how’s he going to do that? Check the Yellow Pages? It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
IWTV is like a Batsignal from Louis to Lestat to call him out of wherever he’s hiding. Some of the story is embellished (or maybe even invented) to paint Lestat as a bizarre antagonist. This is all to get him ANGRY ENOUGH to rise up out of hiding and FIND LOUIS. Whether to retaliate physically, and finally end Louis’ misery, or correct the record by putting out HIS side of the story, and everything he couldn’t tell Louis during IWTV.
Which is exactly what The Vampire Lestat is, and that’s why you need to read it ❤
I forgot to mention that there is some fanon that Louis had never been with a man romantically (or only with one) before Lestat, and being religious, that would have been a huge sin, too. As bad as killing? Idk, but high up there on the scale of being bad. So he may not want to admit to the gay feelings he has for Lestat, and has had, for the 70-some years they were together.
^I feel like, even though this is Claudia’s line, we’re watching Louis’ reaction bc he’s about to lose her, and he’s also thinking about how he’s lost Lestat ;A;
Louis does mention in IWTV missing Lestat when he and Claudia are free of him:
“I wanted to forget -him, and yet it seemed I thought of him always. It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there. And somehow there was a disturbing comfort in that… I wanted him alive!”
Lestat also tells us in TVL to read between Louis’ lines in IWTV:
“And why should I bother to tell of the times [Louis] came to me in wretched anxiety, begging me never to leave him, of the times we walked together and talked together, acted Shakespeare together for Claudia’s amusement, or went arm in arm to hunt the riverfront taverns or to waltz with the dark-skinned beauties of the celebrated quadroon balls?
Read between the lines.
… he told the truth about the eerie contentment he and Claudia and I shared…”
So Louis’ emotional connection to Lestat, and the fact that it wasn’t really visible in IWTV.
The really short answer is that I believe in Louis’ love for Lestat so much that I can’t quite pinpoint the evidence for it! I think it’s from reading further books and seeing Louis from other ppls’ POV, who can describe his love better than he might be able to admit.
“Louis, the watcher, the patient one, was there on account of love pure and simple. The two had found each other only last night, and theirs had been an extraordinary reunion. Louis would go where Lestat led him. Louis would perish if Lestat perished.” – Khayman, Queen of the Damned.
TL;DR: You gonna have to read The Vampire Lestat to get that connection.
These are actually pretty appropriate here:
So, yes, I think you’re somewhat right when you say that in book!IWTV and movie!IWTV, it seems like the only feelings Louis has for Lestat are:
a “range from hatred
to disinterest,
to pity,
with no real love besides the initial wonder.”
Louis is baffled by a lot of the things Lestat does in IWTV, he disagrees with Lestat’s philosophy (which is unclear in IWTV in both versions), and until Claudia rebels against their maker, Louis stays with Lestat because YES, he is still fascinated with him, he doesn’t know of any other vampires, and he’s sure he can pull more of the mysteries of life out of Lestat about vampiring, and his place in the scheme of things (whether vampires work for God or Satan is a big question).
^At the end of IWTV, Louis does meet up with a very incapacitated Lestat. Lestat says in the next book that this scene never happened.
Whether they met like this or not, Louis clearly is “empty” at the end of IWTV, and he wants to find Lestat, but how’s he going to do that? Check the Yellow Pages? It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
IWTV is like a Batsignal from Louis to Lestat to call him out of wherever he’s hiding. Some of the story is embellished (or maybe even invented) to paint Lestat as a bizarre antagonist. This is all to get him ANGRY ENOUGH to rise up out of hiding and FIND LOUIS. Whether to retaliate physically, and finally end Louis’ misery, or correct the record by putting out HIS side of the story, and everything he couldn’t tell Louis during IWTV.
Which is exactly what The Vampire Lestat is, and that’s why you need to read it ❤
I-want-my-IWTV 