Andres Risso
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“The hell I won’t!” – Interview with the Vampire
“The hell I’m not!” – The Vampire Lestat
“Like hell it is!” – Queen of the DamnedI think Lestat actually described each book’s plot with a slight variation of expression.
*laughs hysterically*
If scientists could develop an artificial blood that could sustain you would you use it? would you stop killing completely or alternate them?
Part of the pleasure isn’t just in the blood…it’s the fine art of killing, the thrill of the hunt, the struggle, the thoughts that only my fangs in an artery can conjure. Nothing artificial can replace all of that.
Besides, I no longer thirst like some newborn fledgling and I am discriminating in my tastes. I hunt big game. The gators that lay in wait beneath the still waters, the widows in the crevices, the asp in the grass…the truly vile souls that you never see coming and will never be brought to trial.
They vanish without a trace and you want to know why? I’m the boogeyman’s boogeyman….and I’m hiding under their beds.
I may be fiction but I like to keep it real, baby!
My temper is extraordinarily foul this day….approach with caution.
Don’t make me regret whatever horrible thing happens to you if you do.
Oh, my lord the harecatcher. So frightening, so intimidating.
Bring it on, you piece of shit.
I pity you….don’t ask me to elaborate. *turns away and goes back to writing, ignoring you and your cry for attention*
Excellent. The feeling is mutual.
Non, I don’t think the feeling is mutual….far from it.
I was always meant for something greater and I was going to obtain it one way or another. You provided the catalyst…descriptions of Paris and beyond, the spark that became a wildfire inside me. I had to go and I would have done so with or without you.
You, who attached yourself to the illiterate, ignorant but hopeful youth that I was. You, who disgraced your father and dashed all his hopes for you. You who clung to the shadow of greatness that was Mozart for mere scraps. You who dissolved your dark thoughts at the bottom of a bottle every night. You who languished in obscurity and petty jealousies.
I dragged you everywhere when I should have let you lay in that elaborate sarcophagus you’d already created for yourself long before we were ever really close, waiting to die….so that you’d earn your adoration after your early demise. “So sad, so beautiful, such a promising life cut short!”
And THAT is why I pity you…second fiddle! You are petty, jealous and malcontent with anything and everything you ever wanted! I was too much for you and when I tried lifting you towards greatness with me, you backhanded me with your “madness” that was an utter lie! You weren’t mad! You were only more fully yourself…..even more the pitiable soul and when I saw this, I knew there was to be no help for you on this Earth that I could provide to satisfy you, toxic creature!
Spare me the poisoned words that would drip from your lips in response. They are so much mist against my coat. The cold breath of an angry ghost against one whose mind is currently the father of Winter, of Death. You cannot hurt me any longer, even when I can spare you a memory.
Do you think vampires are better than humans?
I think that we are designed to be supreme predators, our instincts finely tuned, our bodies and minds honed to withstand time…with some caveats below. I think that we are often silent witnesses to the passage of time….how history repeats itself. If we’re looking at it from a physical standpoint, then yes…I think we’re superior.
Now on a mental, spiritual level, I need to elaborate.
Sometimes, I do think we’re better than humans. Aside from our occasional squabbles and naturally solitary nature, we live in relative harmony with each other…whereas human beings are slaughtering each other in the streets if they don’t like their ideas, lifestyles or perhaps even how they look. The more civilized and advanced humans become, there is an equally savage and primitive reaction. There is an acute misery in the human condition. How that precious time, that finite lifespan, is often squandered, utterly wasted. They spend so much of their time worrying about petty issues, things that affect themselves right now and then burying their heads in the sand over global issues..things that can affect the long term, future generations.
Yet vampires have their drawbacks. We are often trapped within the confines of our time and have difficulty transitioning out of being echoes of our own pasts. We become the moral dictators, making our own judgments on who lives and who dies. We can be contradictory creatures….say one thing, do another. That solitary nature that I referred to earlier, makes us incredibly lonely…but enduring the company of another for centuries is often difficult because of our core, contrary state of being. We have a constant need for new blood and use our fledglings as crutches, to guide us through life because we are so easily lost and stray from the traditional paths. Because time moves differently for us, we can become completely absorbed in a single moment, a solitary object….glance up and months have passed. We can retain vast amounts of information but we are without practical application….sometimes what we carry with us, makes us lose our minds. We become walking revenants or spectres. There is also a cognitive dissonance for us and often, our beliefs and attitudes are quickly outdated, antiquated. For humans, it’s adapt or die. For vampires, we needn’t really adapt for us to survive…but it makes it hellishly difficult for us to live among our prey if we don’t keep up appearances at least.
In humans, I admire their ingenuity, their creative spark, the ability to adapt to each new situation and their tenacity for life….to persevere despite enormous challenges that threaten their very existences.
So in short, the answer is that each has it’s benefits and drawbacks. I can’t rightly say that one is superior to the other….I often believe that we are the dark mirror, reflecting the shadows of humans. We’re symbolic….hunger and primal lust disguised as gentiles in our fashion and finery. Our immortality and physical attributes are what all humans strive for….to live longer, to become stronger, to obtain and retain more information, to become more while we long for just a little more humanity….to feel as they do, to love, to create and move through this world with a bit of wonder at it’s fragile beauty.
Do you regret missing so much of the 1900’s? The 1920’s, 30’s, 60’s and 70’s especially?
I think I could have dazzled in the 20′s and 30′s! I would have thrown lavish parties that lasted for weeks, mingled with writers and artists of the era, delighted in the spread of Jazz, and made another fortune running gin, whiskey, rum, moonshine and vodka up and down the coast. I would have rubbed elbows with Capone, Maranzano, Luciano….perhaps they would have even given me some sort of nickname hmm?
As for the 60′s and 70′s, it was quite the tumultuous time….I don’t really care for much of the fashion but I would have found a great deal of enjoyment in the art and music. I would have also been a regular at Studio 54 and then CBGB’s (in the eighties, I did visit CBGB’s often when in NYC). I would have thrown myself into music and probably would have started recording much earlier than the eighties. The drug culture was interesting as well and it might have been fun to experiment a bit more….I would have loved meeting Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust phase).
However, the aesthetic of these eras have lasted throughout our brief history, thanks to the leaps and bounds made in preservation, and aside from the dead, we can revisit each as often as we like.
In your opinion, who was Lestat’s truest love? bc yeah we all know he loved dozens: Louis, Nikki, Akasha, Rowan Mayfair and lots more, but being as objective as possibile, who’s the one?
I assume you wanted a fluffy answer (and I answered something similar here in a fluffy way) I mean I have an OTP tag that is dominated with Lestat/Louis and I was all well and prepared to answer you as such, but when I really thought about it… and was talking about it with thelionscrimsonclaws…
I remembered this quote:
“I don’t like myself, you know. I love myself, of course, I’m committed to myself till my dying day. But I don’t like myself.“ – Lestat de Lioncourt, Memnoch the Devil.
And I feel like I doubt whether canon!Lestat can truly trust any of all his lovers to be the ONE TRUE LOVE. I think his one true love is himself, and his mission to find the answers he needs, so really, LIFE ITSELF.
Lestat/Life = OTP!
No one is better than he is at beating himself up and then healing from it; he’s had to rely on himself and his own judgment for most of the big decisions in his life. For better or worse.
Also, I think Lestat requires a lot of different interactions with different lovers, no one individual seems able (or willing) to satisfy all these myriad needs. Everyone who loves Lestat intimately seems to accept that they will have to share him, but he has an enormous amount of love to give, there seems to be a limitless supply for all of them ❤
Spoilers ahead…
Of the ones you mentioned, each one was a unique relationship. He’s never the same exact person, he behaves differently in different pairings.
Louis: If there were a One True Love, it would be Louis. Their relationship, while volatile, even lethal at times, is something they both cleave to. Louis has learned from Lestat’s example and has become stronger over time, emotionally and physically (although he was always somewhat of a BAMF). Lestat has gained the skills of inner peace and patience from Louis’ example. Their chemistry has been the best of any pairing; they’re not two halves of one whole, but two individuals who challenge each other, who strive to surprise each other still, and in my opinion, that’s what the best relationships do.
However,
Louis tried to check out of the series w/out permission at one point, and well… that can’t be ignored.
Nicolas was Lestat’s first real long-term relationship at a time when Lestat desperately needed love and nurturing and wanted to give it back, too. Nicolas is the first person who really listened to him and they both helped each other immensely… but I don’t think that relationship could ever really work, because deep down Nicolas and Lestat always wanted different things out of life.
Akasha used Lestat. She held him in captivity and drugged him on her blood and her mental illusions, keeping him in a disoriented state by screwing with his Deathsleep patterns. She made him believe it was love, but it was really more a form of addiction. She needed him as a pawn in her grand scheme, both bc he’s a total studmuffin and also to win over the vampires that were loyal to him. She said to him that he would be her “instrument:”
“You are my only true companion, my finest instrument…. But as the stars are my witness, you will aid me in my mission. Or you will be no more than the instrument for the commencement, as Judas was to Christ. And I shall destroy you as Christ destroyed Judas once your usefulness is past.” – Akasha, Queen of the Damned.
So I wouldn’t call Lestat/Akasha a loving relationship, but hey, if you like it, that’s fine, too, I’m a #Ship and let ship girl!
Rowan Mayfair – to be honest, I can’t remember much of this pairing except that Lestat seemed captivated by her for no apparent reason other than that she was a strong woman and had a kind of tortured soul, which he recognized as being like his own. He promises her the Dark Gift:
“And the night will come when we’ll share the Blood. I promise you. The Dark Gift will be yours.” – Lestat, Blood Canticle
But AR diverted from canon with Prince Lestat, essentially rendering the Rowan/Lestat ship null and void. AR decided to sink that ship. I couldn’t really envision Rowan as being part of the coven, and it would be painful to see Louis shoved aside YET AGAIN to make way for YET ANOTHER fledgling.
…Fortunately David Talbot hasn’t minded being relegated to the background, and only getting brief moments of (dubcon) intimacy from Lestat. David knows he has to share.
What do you think about snow?
I’ve always had a fondness for snow….except when encased in the fragile skin of a mortal. The cold and wet has always made me miserable. I remember struggling through it as a mortal when the wolves were bearing down on me. I remember how insidiously it would creep in around the windows at the castle or into the corridors, where it would settle in drifts and make us all huddle closer to our hearths. I remember those same drifts, filling up the kitchen in Jamestown. Laying in them as my lungs stung with each coughing fit. Thinking that I was going to die there.
But I also remember how sunlight looked on snow….how every crystal refracted the light and set the ground on fire! And how blue the hills looked on full moon nights. How every surface was carved in ice and glittering immediately after a storm…..the way the Earth slept beneath her downy blanket, a beauty waiting for Apollo’s kiss.
Winter is always there. When you are high enough in the atmosphere, that is where water turns to ice crystals and the air is thin. It simply waits for when it can return to embrace the ground again.
Where did the idea of vampires having balls actually come from? Like what started that… “I’m a bloodsucking creature of the night; I feel like dressing fabulous and going to mingle in high society!”
when i read this i thought by “balls” you meant “testicles” and i just sat here for like two minutes thinking about why vampires having testicles is peculiar to you and why it means that they hang out with the upper class
The idea came from me….and as for the other balls, I was born with them. Big ones. They don’t just drop off after receiving the Dark Gift either.
I-want-my-IWTV 