^So Claudia has a bed, and it is covered with dolls, but why even have a bed if you don’t plan to sleep in it at all? Oh wait bc sexytiems… not for Claudia tho, she has a bed to hold her doll collection and dead figure drawing models ffs… In the books they sleep in beds, now that there are really good blackout curtains available.
^In movie!IWTV, Claudia was able to be awake during the daylight, she just couldn’t let it touch her. I don’t think she (or the other Ricean vampires) would have wanted to try to adopt a day/night sleep schedule like a person… even if they physically could, vampires seem to be nocturnal animals and prefer it that way.
Choice is really irrelevant with Book!VC (Ricean) vampires bc they succumb to the Deathsleep; they are physically unable to stay awake during daylight hours. Even in a place like Alaska in which nighttime extends during the winter months, Ricean vampires are still susceptible to a reasonable deathsleep rhythm.
Vampires in other media, like Only Lovers Left Alive for example, do stay awake during the daylight hours if they feel like it, and they do sleep in beds. Are they trying to imitate mortals? Maybe!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
I-want-my-IWTV 