Interview with the Vampire
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What is the Vampire mythology in this series?
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Michael
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Sep 23, 2014 07:02AM
I'm quite interested in reading this, so I'm curious. Like how can a vampire be killed, how powerful, sunlight, garlic.....etc You know how it goes.
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Rice sticks very close to the classic guidelines, although the garlic and cross nonsense is discarded. How powerful? That's dependent on many factors: the strength of the vampire who makes the new vampire, the age of the vampire, the vampire's own innate strengths. Far more "realistic" than any other vampire mythos I've ever encountered.
You find that first, you're reading about people — who happen to be vampires.
I know they cant be killed by stakes, so how can they be?
Fire, sunlight. They go dormant if locked in the dark for a long time and are weak when they emerge.
And that "no reflection in a mirror" silliness isn't there either, nor the sparkling idiocy.
So they can only be killed by fire or sunlight? That's pretty cool.
Yeah. They can be dismembered, but that's pretty grim since it's not true death.Oh, and theoretically they can be completely drained by a stronger vampire, but I'm not certain that that really kills them.
Renee wrote: "Yeah. They can be dismembered, but that's pretty grim since it's not true death.Oh, and theoretically they can be completely drained by a stronger vampire, but I'm not certain that that really ki..."
So, if they are decapitated, they can be put back together. Maybe I will read this series. I watched both the movies which is why I never really pushed the series. Are the movies a good adaptation?
The movies pale by comparison. By themselves, the movies were okay, but originating from the books they did, well, the movies sucked.
The Interview with the Vampire movie is good. Queen of the Damned was horrible as a movie.
To be fair, Queen of the Damned does have the up side of NOT having cast Tom Cruise.
Renee wrote: "To be fair, Queen of the Damned does have the up side of NOT having cast Tom Cruise."On the other hand, Queen of the Damned (the movie) butchers the plot so much that it's hilariously awful watching it after reading the book. xD (At some point I grew really frustrated with 'Queen of the Damned' (the book) because it took so long to reveal what the heck happened with the twins ... and then it wasn't really as interesting as I thought it would be).
The thing with Anne Rice's vampires is... they feel sorry about themselves too much and talk too much about religion.
Lestat is pretty cool, though.
Rice's vampires have psychic abilities.AS far as I know, they have the following "gifts":
Fire Gift (Pyrokinesis)
Cloud Gift (Flight)
Mind Gift (Telepathy, Telekinesis and, at least to some degree, Astral Projection)
They don't shapeshift, they are actually virtually indestructible. Although fire can burn them and the sun can reduce them into smithereens, the old ones can still be revived from the ashes, even if it was not actually tried in the books.
Religious relics do not have any effect on them. So does running water, garlic, and native soil.
They have reflections and as they grow old, they grow paler.
The older they get, the stronger they become, but also the more detached to humanity they grow.
They can't see ghosts although ghosts exist in the same mythos.
What else is there to know about Rice's vampires?
Uh... there's their penchant for philosophy and their apparent disregard to social norms about sexuality.
They're also fabulously fashionable and extravagant.
Oh, I forgot, their nails are like glass and their skin are porcelain smooth. Literally. Although they're as soft as humans.They're warm-blooded too. And they have heartbeats.
Well I have the movie and i do have the book have not read it yet but lestat is the one who turns brad pitt plays him Ohhh lewie and but i think i should enjoy it
Interview really just skims the surface on vampiric abilities. The next two books, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned, offer a much more robust and thorough picture of what vampires can and can't do.
Nicole wrote: "Well I have the movie and i do have the book have not read it yet but lestat is the one who turns brad pitt plays him Ohhh lewie and but i think i should enjoy it"Be aware that the movies have kept to the books at a bare minimum.
I found the cinematic Interview to be much more in line with the book, although there were some inconsistencies - Queen of the Damned was somehow two very long and detailed books smooshed into one very poor movie, messing the plot up is so many ways it was laughable. The best thing about the QotD movie was the soundtrack. As for the religion - I enjoyed that aspect of Rice with this storyline - because the characters grew up in times and regions where religion was a huge part of their backgrounds. The searching and questioning of religion as an immortal, in my opinion, would be realistic and made the characters all the more real and relatable. It does not dominate as a theme, just another layer of the intricacy.
Brad Pitt as Louis - yes! Antonio as Armand - No! What a tragedy that was!!
Back to the original topic - apparently decapitation, along with fire and sunlight - but the strong ones, the ancients, no longer fear even the sun. Only the young fledgling bloodsuckers fear this. Stakes - uhm no - Garlic - ha! Holy water is a joke.
I encourage anyone interested to read these. They are a quick read and worth the time invested, if they peak your interest at all.. sink your fangs in.
Tom Cruise as Lestat was . . . ludicrous, at best. Gagworthy was closer to my reaction. That's one place, maybe THE only place, QotD did nail it. Stuart Townsend made a great Lestat.
Doesn't Louis cover half of this in the first few paragraphs of his interview? The mythology is pretty standard. Read the books and you'll find out pretty quickly.
The question posed is the very question Rice poses in creating and exploring these stories.What is it like to live forever? What "soul" can endure such a thing?
Where did the vampire lore come from?
With each book, Rice presents a different, deepening storyline: Interview with Louis as central character in America, The Vampire Lestat, with Lestat as central character in Europe, and Queen of the Damned with a young woman Jesse and Lestat as central characters.
Consequently, with each novel, Rice brings the reader back in time, each time uncovering more about this "undead" condition. Its climax becomes the confrontation with Akasha, an Ancient, pre-Egyptian Queen, who has been awaiting revival for millennia.
Per the novels, vampire destruction includes: sunlight, (per mention above), fire burning, and drinking drugged / poisoned blood. Oh, and Akasha's telekinetic ability, of course, to simply destroy any of her successors.
And so, enjoy!
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