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Tag Archives: sunlight
Lestat Asks
Introducing an old habit of mine! I’m putting you all to the test, dear readers….thought provoking questions that burn for your answers!
First Up (Multi-part Question! Possible Bonus Round):
If you could no longer see the sun, can you tell me what you recall as your very last experience in the sun?
Example: I went swimming at noon and was horribly burned by the time I came home!
Or you can make it much more poetically baroque if you like on any of these.
Second Part….what would you have wanted to be your very last day in the sun?
Example: Hiking up a mountain, reaching the summit, setting up my tent and then watching as the sun set across the valley.
Third and Last….How would you figure out a way to experience the sun again, indirectly?
Example: I’d go watch movies just for sunrises.
Bonus Question! What would you miss least or be glad of without the sun?
Example: I don’t miss having to wear sunglasses!
Prize for Best Answer: An intimate moment with yours truly!
Hello! I read your answer to the sunscreen question which was very good and had a thought: Isn’t it really just the UV rays from sunlight that is harmful? Since candlelight and electric lights don’t hurt them. So theoretically if they fell asleep for the day in a room with UV filtering windows wouldn’t they be fine? A majority of windows are made to filter UV rays which is why we don’t get sunburn in a house. I haven’t read all the books yet so I’m not sure if Anne Rice ever addresses this.
It’s never said explicitly in the books what the harmful aspect of the sun’s rays really are. Here have a gif of Claudia tiptoeing around the light bc of reasons.
Clearly, movie!Claudia can handle the bounced light from the floor.
As you do correctly point out, Ricean vampires can handle light sources at night, so it would appear that the UV rays are what differentiate sunlight from candle/electric/etc., so the UV rays could be the issue. I think there are other elements in sunlight that may be different, but I’m not a scientist, so I wouldn’t know specifics.
Whatever the elements in sunlight that are harmful to them, I think it’s because their vampiric parasite is always at work “perfecting” them, converting their organic cells to inorganic (well, preternatural) cells, all the time. Fresh infusions of blood fuel this process. The issue with direct sunlight is that it intensifies this process to the point that their host bodies can’t handle it, it’s painful, they have to get out of the light.
It’s an intriguing thought, whether a room treated with UV windows would be enough to protect the vampires! If I were a vampire, I probably wouldn’t feel wholly safe with the windows open, as the sun crept in… and Ricean vampires will naturally find shelter if any light touches them during the Death Sleep. So I think they would find themselves cocooned in blankets, or completely concealed under the bed, when they awoke in such a room.
[Previously, re: sunscreen for vampires.]
Slight spoiler under the cut.
The vampiric spirit of Amel, invisible to the human eye, was present more at night, possibly because his very substance couldn’t handle direct sunlight for similar reasons.
I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m honestly curious about your opinion: do you think sunblock would work for vampires? (Silly question, I know, but I love reading your responses on things like this. Also, sorry if you’ve already answered a question similar to this one. ^^”)
Not a bother at all I LOVE being asked things and I do make an effort to answer bc honestly who wants to read a boring “Yes” or “No” like, no that’s boring bye. And, no, I don’t think I’ve answered this before so here we go…
Some vampires probably could do it with just sunscreen. Part of the difference is whether they can even be conscious during daylight hours. Mostly it’s due to their unique physiology. I could write an essay on this so I’m gonna keep it to 4 vampire types.
1. Meet Joe Black Deacon Frost, vampire from Blade, slathered up in sunscreen:
Well, Blade calls it sunblock, but same thing. It’s working for Frost in this scene (and I think he’s put it in his hair to cover his scalp, too, hence the greasiness), but as he says to Blade, “It’s a start, right? The goal, of course, is to be like you. Daywalker.” (Blade himself is a hybrid vampire so he can go out in the sunlight.) The rest of Frost’s skin is covered up with clothing which may also be treated in some way to protect him but his eyes aren’t protected, they should be affected but maybe it’s only light-sensitivity of the skin in that type of vampire.
For more, hit the jump.
2. This is Adam from Only Lovers Left Alive, getting a burn from sunlight:
Adam and Deacon share the ability to be awake during daylight hours. So it’s possible that Adam could wear sunscreen for protection, but given such a harsh physical reaction to such a small amount of exposure, I wouldn’t think any strength or amount of sunscreen would be strong enough for him, even if he was able to cover every last bit of skin, which would be a real challenge.
3. Louis de Pointe du Lac from movie!IWTV can’t handle the sunlight, but he’s fully conscious, reaching up to try protect himself.
Sunscreen might work for movie!Louis, too, but he would have the same issue as Adam, could he cover enough skin to make it work? I doubt it.
4. Louis and Claudia from book!IWTV fall into the Death Sleep during the day. They cannot be conscious during daylight hours, their physiology prevents it. So sunscreen, or other protective gear, would not work for them.
[fanart by Mangademon333]
The Death Sleep is basically the unconscious state that the Ricean vampires succumb to when their bodies sense the sun rising, and they only break out of it when the sun sets again or they’re under attack. There’s also fanon that they can wake from the Death Sleep during the day when under extreme emotional distress. Even defending themselves in their sleep, they’re not really conscious and only realize what happened when they wake normally. Lestat says in TVL:
And those mortals who did find us during the daylight hours, unless they exposed us to the sun at once, were doomed. For example, outside Palermo [Gabrielle] had slept in a cellar far below an abandoned house, and when she had awakened, her eyes and face were burning as if they had been scalded, and she had in her right hand a mortal, quite dead, who had apparently attempted to disturb her rest.
“He was strangled,” she said, “and my hand was still locked on his throat. And my face had been burned by the little light that leaked down from the opened door.”
Those sound like a lot of really positive changes. I can start sending you questions when I think of them–my main topic of contemplation is what would be the science behind burning in the sun? Prince Lestat missed a huge opportunity to answer a lot of questions and if you want me to, I can send you all of my questions regarding Anne Rice’s vampires and the traits of vampires in general. Sorry for not being more active!
Well, I can not answer questions in the book about Anne Rice’s vampires, as that is copyrighted stuff right there, but you are more than welcome to ask me anything you want. Though I am not an expert in Anne Rice’s vampires. If you want to talk to an expert, I would turn you towards i-want-my-iwtv.
And as for the science behind burning in the sun, well, the first vampire to actually be effected by the sunlight to the point of death was Count Orlok in Nosferatu. The reason he disappears in the sun was to avoid copyright infringement on the ending of Dracula. So historically speaking, there is no lore to suggest that vampires would actually burn in the sun. In Dracula his powers were weakened but he did not burn. I think the main idea that vampires hunted at night is because humans slept at night, which left hours of mystery around what happened in the dark. If someone died in the night, or got sick in the night, they had no clue what caused it. It was much easier to think a creature from beyond the grave did it because the darkness is scary and science was lacking.
But if we want to say sure, vampires burn in the sun, we have to think “why?” The first reason might be the same reason I burn in the sun. They are pale. Pale people burn in the sun. Another reason could be because they are damned, and as such are not allowed to live in the illumination of God. God created light, after all. And if you think about it, Lucifer is known as the Morning Star, so it makes sense that vampires would have to live under the light of the stars.
Hope that answers your question for now! I will go into further detail in the book.
My idea was the vampires in AR’s books.
They say (or seriously imply) that vampire blood is flammable. Also in one of the books the vampires can absorb blood through the skin if they really really need it. That made me question the permeability of their skin—our skin is selectively permeable. Our body can more or less decide what to let in and out. What if their skin was less selective? Still hard to the touch of course but more open to diffusion by osmosis?
What if it had a susceptibility to certain radiation from the sun, which when it went through their skin, ignited their very-flammable blood?
This radiation can be IR, visible, or UV in nature, I haven’t been able to decide yet. UV light vibrates at the highest frequency of the three so it /seems/ more conducive but then UV light is blocked by glass and they could not be burned through a window. IR radiation is felt by humans as heat so that’s another likely candidate.
As you can tell, I like to steer away from religious reasoning. The science behind vampires and other creatures is my favorite thing. 🙂
Thanks though!
^This explanation is interesting.
- Re: Ricean vampire skin being more/less permeable than ours, well, it is described as having a different texture and sheen so that would make sense.
- Skin being permeable to absorb blood: blood is absorbed through the skin in movie!IWTV, during Louis’ transformation, and blood is absorbed through the skin in Merrick, during Louis’ other transformation (I think there was a line of dialogue, smtg like, “his whole body is drinking it!”)
- BUT vampire skin is not permeable to dirt, they’re often described as not able to get all that dirty? Like the filth doesn’t really cling to them. The hardness probably contributes to that.
- I don’t think window glass would be sufficient to block the destruction of sunlight on vampire flesh; Ricean vampires are always going on about the heavy curtains they use on the windows. It’s a combination of the UV rays and something else in sunlight that’s dangerous to them. Obviously they can be in a lighted room or stage just fine, so it’s not the visible light. Something else in the sunlight acts as a catalyst to burn the flammable flesh and blood.
- The susceptibility to the radiation from the sun seems lessened by the strength/age of the vampire, Lestat has his little tanning sessions where he can handle a level of burn that others just can’t.
It seems, since Louis is described as tan in Prince Lestat, that Louis has been coerced into joining Lestat on these tanning excursions. So OOC.
I don’t know – maybe his darkened skin is a still-remaining sign of the burning he went through in Merrick? Considering that he was charred to a crisp in that book (he seemed as nearly dead as a vampire can be without actually being dead, and Lestat had to save him by pouring blood into the coffin with him in the first instance, then feeding him), it seems possible that even after being brought back to health and strength by Lestat’s strong blood, he would still show some effects. After Marius was burnt in 1499, his skin was still tanned when Pandora met him in Dresden in the 1600s.
I love the theory of their skin being selectively permeable; it explains a lot in the books…
ooc; See, and I’m inclined to believe shroudsinvenice in regards to Louis. The only issue is, when Lestat revived him with his blood, David described Louis as having super pale skin (which made zero sense).
Yeah, it seems like we have a conflict between two rules of vampirism:
1. When they get strong blood it powers them up, which makes them go paler.
2. The tan from being burnt takes aaaaages to die away even for old/strong ones.
And I think Anne Rice probably never sat down and established a chart of effects that shows what trumps what. Which is understandable in a way – it’s not D&D with point values and stuff. But it does sometimes leave us with these weird inconsistencies…
merciful-death, that was what I remembered, too! Without checking the book bc really, canon is not always canon anyway.
shroudsinvenice: a chart or some consistency with your points would have been favorable. In the absence of such… we can either ignore that Louis was incorrectly described as pale in Merrick (which is just fine by me!), or we can go with your theory that Louis was still dark from burning.
I prefer your explanation to mine, with Louis happily going arm-in-arm with Lestat to the desert for such superficial reasons!
Those sound like a lot of really positive changes. I can start sending you questions when I think of them–my main topic of contemplation is what would be the science behind burning in the sun? Prince Lestat missed a huge opportunity to answer a lot of questions and if you want me to, I can send you all of my questions regarding Anne Rice’s vampires and the traits of vampires in general. Sorry for not being more active!
Well, I can not answer questions in the book about Anne Rice’s vampires, as that is copyrighted stuff right there, but you are more than welcome to ask me anything you want. Though I am not an expert in Anne Rice’s vampires. If you want to talk to an expert, I would turn you towards i-want-my-iwtv.
And as for the science behind burning in the sun, well, the first vampire to actually be effected by the sunlight to the point of death was Count Orlok in Nosferatu. The reason he disappears in the sun was to avoid copyright infringement on the ending of Dracula. So historically speaking, there is no lore to suggest that vampires would actually burn in the sun. In Dracula his powers were weakened but he did not burn. I think the main idea that vampires hunted at night is because humans slept at night, which left hours of mystery around what happened in the dark. If someone died in the night, or got sick in the night, they had no clue what caused it. It was much easier to think a creature from beyond the grave did it because the darkness is scary and science was lacking.
But if we want to say sure, vampires burn in the sun, we have to think “why?” The first reason might be the same reason I burn in the sun. They are pale. Pale people burn in the sun. Another reason could be because they are damned, and as such are not allowed to live in the illumination of God. God created light, after all. And if you think about it, Lucifer is known as the Morning Star, so it makes sense that vampires would have to live under the light of the stars.
Hope that answers your question for now! I will go into further detail in the book.
^Excellent explanation askavampirologist.
I have a tag for that (#vampire physiology), which includes Ricean and non-Ricean vampire phys. discussion bc it intrigues me, too! Always feel free to send me these questions 😀
I think that above explanation works for the Ricean vampires. Something to do with the amount of melatonin in the skin that protects humans (well even pale humans prefer to wear sunscreen!) that is lacking in even dark-skinned vampires. Plus:
- Vampire blood is also more flammable than human blood… when they describe drinking it, it has a notably different (fiery?) taste/texture “Like light itself,” I think is how Lestat described it.
- Their bodies are described as physically less heavy than human bodies, and that could be because 75% of the human body is made up of water. Vampires do not need water (outside of its use in blood transport, I guess?) so I’m thinking they lost much of the water-weight when they were turned, and are now relatively dry creatures. Making for excellent firewood!
The religious aspect works, too, in that they should not be allowed to enjoy the sunlit world anymore, but not all Ricean vampires believe in the same god or even in any god at all.
So i finally got around to seeing IWTV, and I understand a lot of the changes (turning Paul into dead wife and kid) were kinda necessary, but one scene threw me for a loop. Louis is talking about how Claudia had her own coffin, and the movie shows her getting out of said coffin *during the day* tiptoeing around the light thrown from the sun in the windows and getting into Louis Coffin. WTF?
Okay yisss, good 😀 Embrace my Wall of Text™©®:
I think the Paul deal would have been difficult to convey without adding alot of extra scenes, it’s quicker convey Louis’ feeling of being bereft when it’s a wife dying in childbirth.
THE CLAUDIA tip-toeing around the SUNLIGHT THING. Yes. I had this problem, too, when I first saw the movie. According to movie!Louis, “She slept in my coffin at first… ‘till the day came when she wanted one of her own. But still, whenever she awoke, she would crawl into mine.“
The scene shows sunlight spilling in, it could be sunrise, afternoon, some other time… dunno!
In the book, it seemed pretty clear that Louis and Claudia would go to their own coffins before sunrise, and that Claudia would come back out right before dawn and climb into Louis’ coffin. Remember that their sleep is not mortal sleep, it’s the Death Sleep, and they begin to slip into it before sunrise, and it slowly immobilizes them. Unless they’re being attacked, there’s nothing that can wake them during the day (and even then, they’re only fighting back unconsciously/involuntarily).
In the movie, it seems to imply that they have normal mortal sleep and that she might wake up at ANY TIME during the day, the way human kids wake up at any hour of the night to crawl into their parents’ beds. Certainly, tip-toeing around the pools of sunlight is kind of endearing in this scenario, might have been Anne Rice’s idea even (she wrote the script, remember) for something cute to make us like Claudia more.
However, in VC CANON, tip-toeing around that sunlight wouldn’t have worked, just a teensy sliver of light when she started to open the coffin lid would have been painful enough to shut it, and not open it any further. Again though, in VC CANON, her Death Sleep would have kept her from even trying, she’d have been asleep already.
So I hope that answers that! Movie!Claudia can handle more sunlight than Canon!Claudia.
I-want-my-IWTV 