//okay but honestly how cool would it be if Louis’ dark gift was empathy all along??? Like, he obviously had the hardest time getting used to killing- harder than pretty much any other vampire we know of. And like, we know that when vampires feed, they kinda connect with the spirit of their victim- but what if Louis could do that without feeding? Like, he can’t read their thoughts, but what if he could feel their souls? What if he truly does have “the gift of knowing others’ suffering”???
And Lestat brushes it off like “lol ur just an emotional fledgling, chill out” and then Louis never ends up telling anyone about it lol and doesn’t bother mentioning it to Daniel bc he doesn’t think it’s important
This is really interesting, and Armand and Vittorio can do this to an extent, so it does exist in universe that you can kinda feel people’s souls/auras. It’s also telling when Armand mentions how Louis can spellbind people by accident haha. So yeah I could totally see him having some other version of telepathy that isn’t strictly verbal and maybe just never know how to articulate it.
Tag Archives: unable to spellbind others except inADVERTENTLY
Excuse me Lestat but may I just say that Louis’ green eyes are very beautiful and sexy. It looks like he is staring directly into people’s souls when he’s looking at someone.
♛You may say so. He has no idea how delicious he is. No matter how many times he’s told. Probably for the best.
He’s actually very sensitive about being objectified like this, so I try to keep my appreciation of him to my physical expression of love, rather than verbal praise *winks*
What you’re interpreting as his “sexy” eyes, or that he’s capable of looking into people’s souls, that’s usually his ability to spellbind others, and he does it without even consciously trying to do so. It’s not just his physical attributes, it’s one of his vampiric gifts he hasn’t really needed to consciously hone. I wish that he would, though *dreamy sigh*
I thought that Louis was really weak for a vampire but I was told that he wasn’t. I’m confused because I always remember him being portrayed a physically weak as far as vampires go.
Well, it depends what part of canon you’re at, and what amount of canon you accept.* I’m still not entirely sure what my headcanon is w/ his current abilities, but even if you ignore all of canon after IWTV, he’s been a vampire 225 years so he’s stronger just through age if nothing else.
He’s also one of the only vampires in canon who has never “gone to ground” (hiding/burying oneself in the ground for an extended period of time in a state of complete or semi-unconsciousness), even though he’s had very good reasons to ;A;
Armand describes Louis’ lack of powers here in TVA: “…unable to read minds, or to levitate, or to spellbind others except inadvertently, which can be hilarious, an immortal with whom mortals fall in love.”
Just from IWTV and into the later books, yes, Louis is referred to as physically weaker than the other vampires, and he doesn’t exhibit any of the gifts that some other fledglings have in canon (like telepathy, telekinesis). This doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any of these now, but that he hasn’t really exercised them in canon.
Lestat tells us in TVL: “I never revealed to him half my powers, and with reason, because he shrank in guilt and self-loathing from using even half of his own.”
But he’s still stronger and faster than a mortal. He’s also able to defend himself and kick a lot of ass, so to call him “really weak” is probably an overstatement. What he lacks physically he makes up for mentally, he’s strategic in the way he attacks when he does attack, and he can hold his own against much stronger and older vampires (he took out most of the Theatre des Vampires on his own in IWTV!)
Part of his weakness in comparison to the rest of the coven is the fact that he was Lestat’s 3rd fledgling in such a short period of time after Lestat’s 2nd fledgling (Nicolas). In Ricean vampire physiology, a maker needs to wait a good long while between making fledglings; too much frequency will make subsequent fledglings weaker than they could have been. Plus, even though Lestat had the blood of a much older and stronger vampire when he was turned, Lestat himself was only a decade into vampiring himself. It seems the vampiric spirit discourages the transfer of powers from young vampires to their fledglings. If anyone got the bulk of that power, it was Gabrielle, Lestat’s first.
There is also some speculation that the blood transfer needs to be exchanged more than once (how it was done w/ Louis) to ensure a stronger fledgling. Marius, for example, exchanged blood with his maker multiple times when he was turned.
*Spoilers under the cut.
Louis was upgraded in Merrick, and in PL, he can fly (the Cloud Gift). We don’t know if he has any others now. Maybe we’ll find out in PLROA! He has a significant role in it, according to AR.
“Louis, whose
green eyes are soulful, the very mirror of patient misery, soft-voiced, very human,
weak, having lived only two hundred years, unable to read minds, or to levitate, or to
spellbind others except inadvertently, which can be hilarious, an immortal with whom
mortals fall in love…” – the Vampire Armand
I-want-my-IWTV 