#i also feel like as much as book louis's weakness and passiveness and guilt can get frustrating and isn't always interesting to follow

[13eyond13]

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[madshelley]

gimmie a quick rundown of which scenes break your heart the most, i'm not sad enough and need the pain.

I love you and this is both the best and worstthing anyone has never asked me, because apparently, I have no clue what a “quick”rundown means.  I also tried very hard tonot make this entirely about Armand and… I failed about midway through. Butin my defense, can you ever be sad enough? No, you can’t.

SO HERE’S THE TOP JUST-A-BIT-TOO-MANY LIST OFHEARTBREAKING VAMPIRE MOMENTS™:

- Louiskilling the Marquis, and both his and Lestat’s reactions to it. Louis draggingLestat to his abusive father’s bed and forcing him to speak forgiveness,despite the fact that Lestat is having an obvious meltdown (“He threw up hishands and let out a terrible roar of desperation.  ‘Damn him! Kill him!’ he said.”/“Lestatdanced like the maddened Rumpelstilskin about to put his foot through thefloor”/ “Never had I seen him so weak and at the same time enraged”), thatLouis, in his lack of information, mistakes for impatience and indifference.Damn dysfunctional vampires with a thing for miscommunication.  If only there was a scene with the two of themdiscussing this in a later book, it would probably make the list too. But,alas.

Rest of the list under cut because of excessively long post that no one’s going to read:

 - Louisdumping Lestat’s ‘body’ in the bog.

“This is Lestat. This is all oftransformation and mystery, dead, gone into eternal darkness. I  felt a pull suddenly, as if some force wereurging me to go down with him, to descend into the dark water and never comeback”.

          For no other reason, but that I feelthis is the prime example of Louis’ tendency to be unable to take control ofhis life and stand up for himself and what he wants, ending up being a passive observerof the most tragic events of his life, lamenting them only when it’s too late.Oh, Louis.

-Armandlying to himself about his relationship with Marius.

“A love so strong hecouldn’t allow me to grow old and die. A love that waited patiently until I wasstrong enough to be born to darkness.”

-I don’t normally care about Madeleine, but thisquote shatters my heart on a daily basis, considering the context in which IwtVwas written.

“And cruelly, surely, I said to her, ‘Did you love this child?’

I will never forget her face then, the violence in her, the absolute hatred.‘Yes.’ She all but hissed the words at me. ‘How dare you!’ She reached for thelocket even as I clutched it. It was guilt that was consuming her, not love. Itwas guilt- that shop of dolls Claudia had described to me, shelves and shelvesof the effigy of that dead child”.

-Armandleaving Louis, unable to bear the loveless, cold partnership anymore, indespair and suicidal. Especially this part of the farewell speech:

“AndI believed I would gather you to me and hold you. And time would open to us,and we would be the teachers of one another. All the things that gave youhappiness would give me happiness; and I would be the protector of your pain.My power would be your power. My strength the same. But you’re dead inside tome, you’re cold and beyond my reach! It is as if I’m not here, beside you. And,not being here with you, I have the dreadful feeling that I don’t exist atall”.

Armand,the break-up line master. Jesus Christ.

-“Hebent down, pressing his head against my chest and holding my hand so tight thathe caused me pain. The room was filled with the flashing red light of thesiren, and then it was going away.

‘Louis,I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it,’ he growled through his tears. ‘Help me,Louis, stay with me’.”

- Theway IwtV ends in general, with no silver lining or sliver of hope. Lestat andArmand are dying, of old age and despair, Louis is continuing his existencelike a bloodless empty shell, seeing no possibility of recovery or light at theend of the tunnel, and there is no comforting cosmic reason anything is everhappening at all.  Life is pain and youdon’t even die. No wonder IwtV is such a downer to the non-initiated.

- LittleLestat being beaten bloody by his father and brothers.

-“Andwhen we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that wewould go down and down and down. It was what I wanted rather that what theywanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them. I thought we would godown! We were supposed to go down”.

- Armandbegging Lestat and Gabrielle to take him with them and them refusing. I’m notgoing to go into details, I feel this is an obvious one.

Exceptfor these gems:

“Maybeas the years pass, desire will come again to me. I will know appetite again,even passion. Maybe when we meet in another age, these things will not beabstract and fleeting. I’ll speak with a vigour that matches yours, instead ofmerely reflecting it”.

and

“Armandwas a small boy in the doorway, holding the backs of his own arms”.

Theconsistent implication throughout the series that Armand gets cold when he’supset does things to my heart.

- Armand’sadmonition to Lestat that fledglings are bound to despise their makers, simplybecause it’s not true, or at least it doesn’t seem to be in most cases. IsArmand projecting because he’s practically almost incapable of verbalcommunication at this point in his life which makes a hindered mind gift seemlike an unsurpassable obstacle in his mind? Or is he projecting because, onsome level, he knows his relationship with Marius was abusive and probablydoomed? (Spoiler alert: probably both.)

- Mariuscalling Armand his mistake.

-Lestat hearing Armand crying after he pushedhim off the roof:

“Maybe I imagined it, his lastinvitation, and the anguish after. The weeping. I do know that as the monthspassed he was out there again. I heard him from time to time just walking thoseold Garden District streets. And I wanted to call to him, to tell him that itwas a lie I’d spoken to him, that I did love him. I did.”.

- “Uglyfights, terrible fights, finally, Armand broken down, glassy-eyed with silentrage, then crying softly but uncontrollably as if some lost emotion had beenrediscovered which threatened to tear him apart”.

-“Evenin moments of the greatest jeopardy, I knew we would meet before I would befree to die.”

Tell me again how Armand’s suicideattempt in Memnoch was out of character.

-Lestatbelieving that Daniel would have left Night Island with him if he had askedhim. So much theoretical pain.

- It’sa pity that Daniel leaving Armand isn’t technically  ~a scene, because that would make the top ofthe list.

- Everyscene in which Lestat is “haunted” by Claudia in TotBT. It’s not hard to seehow he made the connection between her and the Raglan episode, even with himnever straight-up admitting it to himself. Remember when Lestat still feltcrippling guilt for his worst actions, even subconsciously? Good times.

- David’sturning. But this is not the time to complain about this, it’s canon heartbreakappreciation time!

- Armand’ssuicide attempt in Memnoch the Devil. I’ve already elaborated on this way toomuch, but let’s take a moment to appreciate Lestat screaming Armand’s nameafter him. Take a moment. Thank you.

- Louisobjecting to Lestat being chained to the floor, but being completely dismissed.

- Theentire The Vampire Armand. I can’t let myself elaborate too much on this, as I’lljust be reciting the entire book. I can just open it to a random page and itwill probably be a Top Heartbreaking Vampire Moment:

 Armand’sobvious exhaustion at the beginning of the book, that no one seems to respect. Himscolding himself and admitting to David he feels he’s going mad. A child silentlywishing for death so hard, that Marius heard it amongst the mental voices ofthe entire city. Armand’s entire “relationship” with Marius. Armand having a breakdownat seeing religious imagery, not yet being sure why he has that reaction. Meetinghis parents, especially the broken Ivan. The “Bridge of Sighs” metaphor, Jesus.The ashes of the Palazzo boys. The whole Riccardo horror. Armand trying toconceal his scarred face from Benji and Sybelle, putting all his energy intothe illusion. The shattering feeling of betrayal about the turning of Armand’s “children”by Marius, and Armand’s conviction that it was meant as punishment. Louis beingunable to conceal his relief and joy to see Armand alive. Armand’s bitter, hurtdismissal of his relationship with Daniel as doomed from the start. Armandadmitting that Sybelle and Benji had to coax him out of depressive episodes attimes. Man, did Anne go ham on the pain in this one. Why, mom?

- Specialmention to that one time Marius beat Armand out of “frustration” at him fortaking too long to emotionally get over his visit to Kiev, probably his mostblatantly abusive moment in the book.

“‘You’ve had enough time to grieve and to weep,’ hesaid, ‘and to reevaluate all you’ve been given. Now it’s back to work. Go tothe desk and prepare to write. Or I’ll whip you some more.’”

“He smacked me across the face. I was dizzy.”

Nice going, Marius.

- Secondspecial mention to this little passage, because no one ever talks about it andit makes my heart bleed:

“ I looked off, wanting the quiet, dreamingof bowers suddenly, not in words but in images, the way my old mind would doit, wanting to lie down in garden beds among growing flowers, wanting to pressmy face to earth and sing softly to myself”.

- Thirdspecial mention to this, but only out of context:

“For all the wrongs done you, andthe loneliness you’ve suffered, and the horrors that the world put upon youwhen you were too young and too untried to know how to fight them and then toovanquished to wage a battle with a full heart”.  

- SeeingDaniel in Blood and Gold after all those years. The shock of the degree inwhich his mental stability deteriorated, not objecting to being kept by Mariuslike a child. The terrifying possibilities of how he might have ended up therein the first place. The even more terrifying possibility that it might havebeen the news of Armand’s “death” that pushed him over the edge. How Armandmust have felt about this ‘relationship’.

- I am definitely not done, and yet I’m going to stop ‘cause even I had enough.

Tl;dr: Sad Vampires.

[13eyond13]

Just finished rereading book 2:

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE BOOKS INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE + THE VAMPIRE LESTAT:

-I think Anne Rice became a better writer in the decade between book 1 and book 2 in terms of improving some of the things narratively that were fairly bothersome to me about the first book (the extreme passivity and lack of decisiveness of the narrator/protagonist Louis especially... although this was understandable from a characterization standpoint in many circumstances due to the conflictedness and guilt and confusion he had about his own nature, it definitely got dull and very frustrating to follow him at times in that he nearly always just seemed to be reluctantly in the passenger seat for everything going on around him, and also is so weak in his convictions and rarely ever sticks to his guns about any of the things that he believes or feels or says or wants whenever he is put into a tough situation). By switching in this book to Lestat as the main narrator it feels like the character at the helm finally has very clear goals and decisions and desires, and his enthusiasm about his vampirism is definitely a nice refreshing change of pace from book one

-HOWEVER I also must admit that the Lestat in book two feels almost an entirely different character than the Lestat in book one to me, and I'm a little bit conflicted about that? There was something about the casual shittiness and unimpressiveness and pettiness of the book one Lestat that I rather liked and I kind of missed when reading book two. In book two Lestat is now nothing but unendingly charming and generous and talented, and continuously hopelessly in love with positively everything and everyone, and shockingly patient and kind toward and forgiving of the characters who wrong and insult him. He goes from being a bit of a pathetic and snobby and unenlightened and angry and flawed and manipulative and sometimes secretly vulnerable and insecure vampire in book one, and from a character who doesn't really care about trying to be good or nice or moral or fair from a human perspective – which was actually kind of interesting and made sense for him to me – to this apparently incredibly powerful and scrupulous and empathetic and secretly extremely rich and well-connected one who had all this first-hand information about the ancient vampires that he was supposedly just keeping secret all throughout the IWTV book because... because reasons? It still doesn't really fully make sense to me. Because I guess he just randomly decided to obey those rules from Marius about not telling Louis or Claudia anything about their own kind, even though he also normally hates following such rules, and even though he also was terrified Louis would eventually leave him (so you'd think he might've decided at some point to give Louis at least SOME of the answers, since Louis wanted a wise vampire teacher for a companion more than anything?) Of course you can blame some of those discrepancies between the two versions of things on poor communication and unreliable narration from both Louis and Lestat. But STILL. It's just hard to picture the Lestat from book two being that tight-lipped with Louis and Claudia about his past and what he actually knows about other vampires for so long, and hard to picture him being that fine with doing a lot of the shadier things that he does in book one. And I actually found myself a bit bored by Lestat's constant new shinyness and impressiveness and moral commitment to only killing evildoers in book two at times, and sort of missed the shittier less noble and less overpowered version of him who was genuinely financially dependent on Louis and much less interested in being a "good person" or romanticizing mortals from book one. 😅 Plus I almost feel like the "only killing evildoers" thing is much more something that a guilt-ridden vampire like Louis would decide to do, not Lestat... and it makes me wonder why Louis never thought to try doing that in book one?

-that being said, Armand is quite a bit more interesting in book two than book one to me! I think he is fleshed out so much more in the second book. And the bits with him and his creepy coven are some of the best parts of book two to me. His chemistry with Lestat is fun and funny to read too, since unlike Louis Lestat just doesn't really take Armand that seriously or fall for his manipulations all that much lol. HOWEVER it bugged me a bit when the story was changed to make Armand seem way more villainous about everything that went down with Claudia as well? In book one Louis clearly says that Lestat showed up at the theater and demanded that Claudia be put to death for trying to kill him, but in book two Lestat says that he "didn't blame her for it" and "would probably have done something like that himself," and that he just went to the theater to ask Armand for healing blood, and then Armand forced him to publicly condemn Claudia by torturing and locking him up and throwing him off a tower and breaking all his bones instead of helping him and whatnot... like yes, Armand often sucks and is sneakily cruel, but I feel like he almost just was made to take the fall for Lestat by the author here so Lestat could seem more sympathetic and blameless or whatever in a convenient retcon way that annoys me somehow.

-I think it is fun that we get to know Lestat's mom so well in this book, though I was def cringing at some of the romantic shit they do together as vampires lol

-I also think the aesthetics of this book are some of the best in the series, though the first book is still my fave for that. Loved all the stuff with young Lestat and the castle and the wolves and the creepy cemeteries and actors and mad violinists and so on

-However, one of my main complaints about this book series is that the prose can be extremely purple and overly sensual to the point of exhausting and nauseating at times. It's like, if literally EVERYTHING is beautiful and fascinating and enchanting and sexy and seductive and constantly described as such then it almost starts to feel like nothing is, and you can grow very desensitized to it as the audience from sheer oversaturation after a while. And as much as I love a good ol' unrealistic romanticized fantasy romp, I found myself almost wishing that a character would actually be ugly or super plain for once, just to shake things up a bit haha. HOWEVER at the same time, if I have to read that kind of purple prose then I can definitely stomach it best when reading a story like this with these particular aesthetics and vibes and themes and characters. After all, I probably wouldn't like these incredibly flamboyant gothic vampire characters talking about everything in stark and minimalist and plain Ernest Hemingway prose better, either...

-My other main complaint I have about this book is it is WAY TOO LONG. My god it was like 550 pages. I started impatiently skimming a lot whenever it got to the Marius flashbacks and Akasha and Enkil lore stuff (like yes, that's useful information, but surely it could be told to the audience much more succinctly than having another long origin story narration flashback from Marius to endure directly after just sitting through Armand's).

-Favourite part of the entire thing was Lestat gushing about Louis and then reuniting with him at the end hahaha shut upppp but it was actually so heartwarming and cute

-other fave part was Lestat first waking up and then describing his unique perspective on the 1980s from his "I've been around since the 1700s" point of view, that shit was great

-I will try to read the third book Queen of the Damned as well sometime soon, which will be the second time for me, first time also being way back in my teens (I read all the way to book 6 of the VC back then before I lost interest I think, though I remember only really enjoying the first 3 or 4 of the books to any extent). Will post some more thoughts after that mayhaps?

I really want to hear your opinions of the Vampire Chronicles after you finish each book because I also read them at 16

Omg ok! I'm already 100 pages into book 2 so we'll see how it goes