Tag Archives: the dark gift

Hi! I have a question and you seem so knowledgeable about the series! In “Pandora,” Pandora is drained to the point of death by Akbar, then given blood by Marius. At that point she is described as still human. Then she drinks from Akasha, and Marius tells her she is immortal. Why is Marius and not Akasha called Pandora’s maker? Is it possible that they both are? If someone is turned by drinking from multiple vampires, would they not be able to share thoughts with any of them? Thanks!

Leave a comment

Hey! Thanks for reaching out to me, I like to think I know something about this series… but I have big areas of inexpertise, in which I call forth those who who would be able to answer better, and you’ve hit one such case.

…which is bizarre, to have this kind of gray area, that I had ALWAYS considered completely resolved, that Marius was Pandora’s maker, and didn’t question it in the least, and then here YOU are, questioning it! I’m more amused that anything else, but still!

image

Imma take a little stab at it, anyway, and post publicly so as to open this up to anyone to reblog/comment to correct me, offer their own ideas on it.

So! Since there are newer fans these days: Spoilers ahead for Pandora.

Why is Marius and not Akasha called Pandora’s maker?

TL;DR: After rereading the scene, I think Marius is in fact Pandora’s maker, and Akasha’s infusion was post-turning (minutes later) as evidenced by Pandora’s “renewed vigor” and the fact that she’s already perceiving more before she drinks from Akasha.

Longer answer: From what I gather, yes, Akbar drained Pandora. Which in itself does not need to be done by the maker during the Dark Gift procedure. It typically IS done by the maker, but Louis, for example, was already pretty drained by the time he was going to be turned (mortals had bled him more than once to try to cure his madness, um, wasteful!). IIRC, Jesse had suffered a lot of blood loss from her injuries. So the removal of blood is not as crucial as the blood being given. Although, a vampire’s strength may partly lie in how the procedure is done. It’s not an exact science (this post goes into more about that).

HOWEVER, it made it necessary to save her life. Marius has Akbar bring her to the shrine, at which point Akbar sets her down to go beg at Akasha’s feet, as well he should. At this point! Pandora describes drinking blood, and Marius is with her, so it’s his. Then she goes into a lot of description about passing through a veil, changed perception of things, etc. So I think that there is where she was turned officially. 

And then:

“The crown, she would have her crown,” I said. With astonishing vigor I walked forward towards her.

^Pandora seems pretty well revived from being on the verge of death.

Now, within the same few minutes, she does drink from Akasha, but I think this infusion is already too late to be the definitive blood to turn her. It is a powerful infusion, though. As Akasha is drawing her near, the narration says:

I felt myself, a human, held together by the intricate threads of blood which Marius had given me. I felt the design of its support. It had no weight, my body. 

^So I can see where one might be confused bc Pandora is calling herself human here, but she’s also held together by Marius’ blood, and combined with the other points above, I see her as a fresh fledgling already here.

Is it possible that they both are [Pandora’s makers]? 

Sure, it’s possible! It’s fiction, so you can headcanon it however you want, you can justify it in any number of ways 🙂 

@roselioncourt​ would be a very good resource for you in terms of a multi-Maker Dark Gift exchange, bc Rose got this treatment in Prince Lestat. She would have a better answer for you about the mind-sharing situation in that case. 

The act of the Dark Gift, IMO, is the vampire maker sharing their vampiric parasite with the mortal they seek to turn. Since that parasite is the same one, just spread out among all the vampires, there’s no reason why 2 or more makers couldn’t give it over in whatever quantity and produce a single fledgling together.

In Pandora’s case, I feel like the change was already taking root by the time she got the infusion from Akasha, but if you read it as being more nebulous, then sure! Marius and Akasha can both be considered Pandora’s makers!

If someone is turned by drinking from multiple vampires, would they not be able to share thoughts with any of them? 

Yes, I think that’s right.

We’ve seen in canon that typically, a maker chooses their fledgling as someone they want as a companion into eternity. But sometimes fledglings are chosen just to fill up a coven, though, so the maker is not expected to have that intimate of a relationship with just another congregant in the group.

The point to having a mental block with someone who may be your companion into eternity, to my mind, is that if you could also share that aspect of the other person, you might get bored of them pretty fast, or it could be the cause of arguments, or any number of bad outcomes. Putting up this barrier creates some mystery about the other person, and makes it so you have to keep pursuing them, over the course of hundreds of years.

If there’s a multi-maker situation, I would think you’d get the barrier between them and the fledgling only, which would piss off that fledgling immensely. Can you imagine:

Vampires A, B, and C turn Vampire Y. So (assuming none of them are makers of each other) A, B, and C can all share thoughts with each other and Y is constantly left out and bitter about it. Bc they may all be sitting around some nights, and A and B will start laughing randomly and C will chastise them lightly, “Can you guys not? Y can’t hear you.” Poor Y!

I can’t remember which VC it was that AR tried to do some triangulated mind-reading, but it was complicated. Two vampires who were locked from each other could access each other through a conduit vampire who was not locked from them. Might have been Blood Canticle. 

GOOD MORNING! I’m re-reading the original trilogy (IWTV, TVL, QoTD), and I was wondering if any of the later books ever talk about the revenant Louis meets in Transylvania with Claudia? Is it ever explained? What do you think caused it? My personal theory is that when a vampire makes someone with their mind closed (the way we know some can do), it results in a revenant, as all the making-scenes in the series describe sharing memories and emotions; it seems pretty vital!

Leave a comment

[GOOD MORNING!]
HELLO TO YOU TOO! 

I was digging around in my archive bc I was SURE I had ONE fanart of Louis and Claudia fighting with the European zombpire, but I can’t find it :[ Maybe someone else knows of it? 

Have this, anyway, at least this creature doesn’t have to waste money on lipstick, no lips!: [X]

image

[I’m re-reading the original trilogy (IWTV, TVL, QoTD), and I was wondering if any of the later books ever talk about the revenant Louis meets in Transylvania with Claudia? Is it ever explained? What do you think caused it?]

I don’t think those European zombpires

are ever explicitly explained in the first 3 books or mentioned in later canon (except in a vague way in TVL by Armand and Marius, quotes further down this post). I might be wrong. If they are mentioned in canon again, I don’t think it was explained what they are :-

TL;DR: The Dark Gift is not an exact science. Your theory could be right! Personally, I don’t think the zombpires share the same origin story as the conscious vampires in VC. Some fans think AR included the

zombpires

as a way to sort of low-key slam the older vampire mythos, since her vampires are SOOO much better… with no issues with crucifixes, having reflections, etc.! 

I don’t think we know enough about the zombpires to say definitively how they’re made, so it’s kind of up for grabs in that sense. However each reader sees it! Your theory about the mortals closing their minds during the Dark Trick could be the answer!

image

If a mortal was deliberately closing their mind to a vampire intent on turning them, thus locking the vampiric parasite out of their head/memories… that could be a reason for the mortal MIND not accepting the vampiric parasite, resulting in THE BODY turning, but NOT the mind, the mortal LOSING their mind to madness, having lost control of their body, thus, zombpire. Quite possible! Would random mortals know how to do this? Could be an unconscious defense mechanism? Maybe!

Hit the jump for more on this, cut for length and/or spoilers.

[My personal theory is that when a vampire makes someone with their mind closed (the way we know some can do), it results in a revenant, as all the making-scenes in the series describe sharing memories and emotions; it seems pretty vital!]

That’s possible, in VC context, closing one’s mind is smtg you do to protect your mind from being read by others, and it takes practice and skill. Talamasca members seem trained to do it. 

Refusing the Dark Gift or accepting it, a strong will to live does seem to be a necessary element. Even the vampires who were turned against their will (Lestat, Marius, etc.) actively refused it right up until their last breaths, but that shows a strong will to live, not a closed-off mind. Just in IWTV:

  • Lestat tells Louis to be still and listen for their blood flow, keep his consciousness during the process: “It is your consciousness, your will, which must keep you alive.‘”
  • Learning from this, Louis tells Madeleine to keep her will to live, “" `Hold fast to me when I take you,’ I said to her, seeing her eyes grow wide, her mouth open. `And when the swoon is strongest, listen all the harder for the beating of my heart. Hold and say over and over,“ I will live. ” ‘”

  • And other Dark Gift scenes have some variations on that, I think. 

In IWTV, Claudia is fascinated by the European zombpires, tries to puzzle them out, she’s considering how much blood needs to be exchanged and how strong the heart of the mortal is:

“But Claudia’s waking thoughts were of a far more practical nature. Over and over, she had me recount that night in the hotel in New Orleans when she’d become a vampire, and over and over she searched the process for some clue to why these things we met in the country graveyards had no mind.

…  ” `After all, what does it take to make those creatures?’ she went on. `Those vagabond monsters? How many drops of your blood intermingled with a man’s blood … and what kind of heart to survive that first attack?’

But how would his blood get into them? He’d have to have an open wound, idk, it seems kind of awkward to imagine Louis accidentally turning any of his victims, and it makes him super uncomfortable to talk about it with her.

Later in canon we see vampires giving drops of their blood to mortals to heal them or as a sensual gesture, and those mortals aren’t given enough to turn them, so that little isn’t enough to make a zombpire.

Claudia seems to think it’s really about the strength of the heart of the victim:

“ `That pale-faced Emily, that miserable Englishman …’ she said, oblivious to the flicker of pain in my face. `Their hearts were nothing, and it was the fear of death as much as the drawing of blood that killed them. The idea killed them. But what of the hearts that survive? Are you sure you haven’t fathered a league of monsters who, from time to time, struggled vainly and instinctively to follow in your footsteps? What was their life span; these orphans you left behind you-a day there, a week here, before the sun burnt them to ashes or some mortal victim cut them down?’

^This seems to fit in line with the needing a strong will to live. 

The Children of Darkness chose their fledglings with care, and even then it’s unpredictable. Armand in TVL:

But let Armand understand here also that the effect of the Dark Trick is unpredictable, even when passed on by the very young vampire and with all due care. For reasons no one knows, some mortals when Born to Darkness become as powerful as Titans, others may be no more than corpses that move. That is why mortals must be chosen with skill. Those with great passion and indomitable will should be avoided as well as those who have none.

Marius confirms this, still in TVL:

But no matter, only so many children can be made by one in a century. And new offspring will be weak. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The rule of the old covens had wisdom in it that strength should come with time. And then again, there is the old truth: you might make titans or imbeciles, no one knows why or how.

Nicolas might have become such a zombpire, the way he was barely functional as a fledgling at first. 

By midnight it was clear that [Nicolas] would not speak or answer to any voice, or move of his own volition. He remained still and expressionless in the places to which he was taken. If the death pained him he gave no sign. If the new vision delighted him, he kept it to himself. Not even the thirst moved him. And it was Gabrielle who, after studying him quietly for hours, took him in hand, cleaning him and putting new clothes on him. – TVL

^But he does move when prodded and Lestat thinks Gabrielle can telepathically communicate with him, which makes him more functional than the European zombpires. Lestat is finally able to rouse him with the violin, so was Nicolas just refusing to talk, etc, or was he really unable? We don’t know.

Gallery

Leave a comment

mistflarden:

“That’s how it happened?”

“No. The Gift of Darkness requires more than that, as you’ll see.”

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Gallery

Leave a comment

[X] Someone’s been in Louis’ closet, oui?

Leave a comment

yourtinseltinkerbell:

veronicaesque:

“Listen, keep your eyes wide,” Lestat whispered to me, his lips moving against my neck. I remember that the movement of his lips […] sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion.

A dull roar at first and then a pounding like the pounding of a drum, growing louder and louder […] until it seemed to fill not just my hearing but all my senses, to be throbbing my lips and fingers, in the flesh of my temples, in my veins. Above all, in my veins […].

Source: fromlittlececily

Lovely Lestat, as you know Daniel’s transition into vampirism hasn’t been graceful. Do you have advice to any young naive mortals before they agree to take their last mortal breath and join you and others in death?

Leave a comment

♛Advice to “young naive mortals” before they agree to become one of us… 

*laughs* Well, Louis would simply say, “Don’t.” 

image

[^X @phantom-evil]

I can’t speak for Daniel’s transition, but from what he told me, what made it into the record that I compiled as the novel Queen of the Damned… he originally wanted the Dark Gift because he fell in love with Louis’ story, and wanted a seat at our table, so to speak. When he met Armand, it became about wanting to be with Armand, made so much more frustrating because of Armand’s struggle to accept Daniel, whether to bring him over.

Then, when that had been overcome, there was Daniel as a fledgling; there are so many physical and emotional changes that happen to a vampire during that time that few of us really experience it as a very “graceful” time. I famously vomited up my own blood and then, in a state of delirium, licked it off the stone floor of a filthy cell full of rotten corpses! Among many other grotesque things that happened in those first nights.* Two exceptions to the awkward fledgling phase: Gabrielle and Claudia, who both bloomed in their own ways, very gracefully, as fledgling vampiresses.

Advice…

One thing is for sure, satisfaction is not guaranteed, ma petite. In every sense of the phrase. 

The process itself is dangerous. It’s called the Dark “Trick” for a reason. Your maker has to kill you first. It’s extremely erotic, but extremely painful. They have to actually forcibly pull your life away entirely – and you’ll fight them through it if you want to survive – and then feed a demon, a kind of cancer, into your body and soul. We still don’t know if it’s contamination or evolution. And it doesn’t always work. 

There are worse things than death.

//ooc: *@gairid​/@vampchronfic​ has such a beautiful and tragic story about another thing Lestat did in those first nights, that you really should read it, We Are Our Own Saviors (Chapters 15-16). #Damn you and your perfect headcanon perfection ;A;

Lestat continues after the jump, cut for length.

image

♛The other aspect of being a vampire: Killing. Few people seem to realize how customer-service oriented this lifestyle really is. You’ll have to kill people, or practice the Little Drink (most fledglings have difficulty stopping mid-kill). If you are able to master it, you’ll spend even more nightly time pursuing more victims than just the few that would satisfy you if you killed them. Killing means you have to find fewer, but still, victims. Louis refused to choose, feeling unworthy of making that choice. Could you do it? Really? Or, you can not choose. As he later was able to embrace. Could you do that?

Louis’ practice of drinking animal blood as a substitute for human blood for his first few years, I’m convinced that’s one of the reasons he was so weak for so long. And so cranky! For whatever reason, animal blood is just not as satisfying for us as human blood is, and I would speculate that it has something to do with the difference in souls. Not to say animal souls are lesser; Mojo had more soul than so many humans I’ve met. But there is a difference. So the animal solution is the vampire equivalent of eating fast food, and it takes its toll. 

Those are the main concerns, that young naive mortals should consider seriously before they agree to become one of us. There are many more, but these seem to be required for everyone. Should you be offered the choice to take the Dark Gift, your maker would be having these conversations with you, specific to you, and to them, about other considerations. 

Hi, I was wondering if you know where it is first mentioned that Armand made a vow never to make fledgelings? I don’t remember reading about it until QoTD, but it seems so important to him that I’m sure it must have been brought up earlier. I can’t remember whether it was talked about in TVA either… thanks :)

Leave a comment

Well I found it! In TVL, when Armand is telling Lestat and Gabrielle his story:

“In quiet allegiance to the Dark Ways, Armand
continued to serve. Yet in the centuries of his long obedience, Armand
kept two secrets to himself. These were his property, these secrets,
more purely his than the coffin in which he locked himself by day, or
the few amulets he wore. The first was that no matter how great his
loneliness, or how long the search for brothers and sisters in whom he
might find some comfort, he never worked the Dark Trick himself.
He wouldn’t give that to Satan, no Child of Darkness made by him.”

Hit the jump for more, cut for length.

Still in TVL, that quote above is right after he’s gone over how he’s seen so many vampires die:

In this particular, let
Armand observe that there was no vampire then living who was more
than three hundred years old. No one alive then could remember the
first Roman coven. The devil frequently calls his vampires home….

He had witnessed
the inevitable dissolution of covens, seen immortality defeat the most
perfectly made Children of Darkness, and it seemed at times some
awesome punishment that it never defeated him. Was he destined to
be one of the ancient ones? The Children of the Millennia? Could one
believe those stories which persisted still?

He’s also mentioned that the Dark Trick is not an exact science (also TVL):

But
let Armand understand here also that the effect of the Dark Trick is
unpredictable, even when passed on by the very young vampire and
with all due care. For reasons no one knows, some mortals when Born
to Darkness become as powerful as Titans, others may be no more
than corpses that move. That is why mortals must be chosen with
skill. Those with great passion and indomitable will should be avoided
as well as those who have none. 

So Armand’s reasons for refusing to turn Daniel, if you trust him to be honest about the ones he’s giving, seem to be that:

  • Not everyone has the stamina for vampiring
  • Mortal life is better and Daniel should appreciate it more!
  • The Dark Trick is unpredictable and could leave Daniel in worse condition than mortal life ;A;
  • Armand really underscores that mortal life is better, also bc of the tragedy he’s experienced in his own vampiring. 
  • Armand has his own enemies to deal with (“I’m like any beast on the prowl. I have enemies who are older and
    stronger who would try to destroy me if it interested them to do so, I am sure.” – QOTD)
  • There’s also the threat of extermination happening to alot of vampires in QOTD so... bad timing. (”What matters is that the end
    may be at hand…

    There is a vague repeated cry of
    danger, but no one seems to know whence it comes. They only know that we are being sought out and
    annihilated, that coven houses, meeting places, go up in flames.“ – QOTD)

Later, in QOTD, Daniel refers to it as a vow, maybe that’s he terminology Armand used when he told Daniel about it:

[Daniel says:] “Of course I believed you. The vow you made, you explained everything. But Armand, this is my question, to
whom did you make this vow?" 

Laughter. 

^He made the vow to himself ;A;

[Armand says:] "So you would have me break my vow. You would have what you think you want. But look well at this
garden, because once I do it, you’ll never read my thoughts or see my visions again. A veil of silence will
come down.”

1. I think this is definitively where Daniel realizes Armand’s not going to turn him:

Then the realization had come to Daniel as they stood together in the ruined dining room with its famous
murals of ritual flagellation barely visible in the dark: He isn’t going to kill me after all. He isn’t going to do it.
Of course he won’t make me what he is, but he isn’t going to kill me. The dance will not end like that.

2. Then Armand starts trying to get Daniel to understand his reasons for not wanting to give him the Dark Gift

“Give me what I want,” Daniel had demanded. 

“I’m giving you everything you could ever ask for." 

"Yes, but not what I have asked for, not what I want!" 

"Be alive, Daniel.” A low whisper, like a kiss. “Let me tell you from my heart that life is better than death.”

3. … which intensifies:

Ugly fights, terrible fights, finally, Armand broken down, glassy-eyed with silent rage, then crying softly but
uncontrollably as if some lost emotion had been rediscovered which threatened to tear him apart. “I will not
do it, I cannot do it. Ask me to kill you, it would be easier than that. You don’t know what you ask for, don’t
you see? It is always a damnable error! Don’t you realize that any one of us would give it up for one human
lifetime?

Dear lestat claus sense its christmas and gift giving is a must. Do you buy a gift of just go with going easy and cheap by giving the “dark gift” Forever your fan~crissabelle

Leave a comment

♛The Dark Gift has its price, ma petite. Expensive in other ways. It’s one of the most fun gifts to give, I must admit. I feel excited just thinking about doing it again… I don’t think I’ll be giving any Dark Gifts given this month, but hey, we still have some 3 weeks left, you never know…

image

You are the brat Prince, correct? Any advice for one newly gifted with the darkest of gifts?

Leave a comment

♛I am indeed. You’ve found me, ma jeunesse.

So much advice to give, and yet, when others have given me advice it often fails to sink in until I’ve learned it the hard way… that’s why the “brat” part was wedged into my title *sighs* 

There’s too much to tell, and I’d rather not bother with the obvious things your maker should have taught you, or if you lacked one as I did, things you learned yourself in the first few nights (for your sanity: try to keep to a diet of evildoers only, try to cover up your kills, try not to kill in your home, spare no expense on lair security, etc.)…

But I’ll give you a few other choice pieces that I’ve picked up along the way, which can apply to mortals as well:

image
image
image

What if you bite me and keep me with you for all the eternity?

Leave a comment

♛Satisfaction is not guaranteed, ma petite. In every sense of the phrase.

image

You do know that there’s more involved than simply a bite? I have to actually kill you first. It’s extremely erotic, but extremely painful. I have to actually forcibly pull your life away entirely – and you’ll fight me through it if you want to survive – and then feed a demon, a kind of cancer, into your body and soul. We still don’t know if it’s contamination or evolution. And it doesn’t always work.

There are worse things than death.

Every time the Dark Gift is given, a soul might be condemned for eternity. Some might say anyone I “keep with me” is condemned to the torment of my presence, or the desperation for me in my absence. Admittedly, monogamy has never been a strong suit for me. Not everyone is “tall enough to ride this ride,” if you get my meaning.

Reconsider your request.