The biggest crime of the later books is how Anne Rice completely threw away what would’ve been far more profound for Louis (and of course, Claudia was dead) because of her rampant author’s pet blind spot. Ironically, Louis was her self-insert, while Lestat was her husband and Claudia was her dead daughter.
It’s like it never occurred to her that the “Human Nature” trope (see Clark in Superman II, Angel in Angel: the Series, Clark again in Smallville, the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who, Castiel in Supernatural, etc…) is so much more profound for the tragic inhuman character who actually desires most to be human, is at odds with their own species or wants to experience human belonging/family/love, rather than the one who would happily throw away that humanity they never really wanted (Lestat in The Tale of the Body Thief). Funnily enough, Brad Pitt’s Meet Joe Black is also this trope. Louis, not Lestat, is the character who belonged with this trope as it is in every other piece of fiction that uses it. Those medias understood it’s best used as a heartbreaking gut punch instead of a comedy romp. It’s something that hurts when it is cruelly snatched away or must be given up for the sake of a duty larger than oneself. The only Vampire Chronicles character who would prefer even more to be human than Louis because of the profound unhappiness in their physical form would be Claudia. It’s the thing they most have in common together.
Merrick was yet another time when these characters’ potential to continue on the center stage was woefully misused and under-realized in favor of endless new OCs and Lestat. Louis was written out of the starring role that put Anne Rice’s career on the map the second she and the fandom wrote him off as a liar, despite never being able to fully retcon out Lestat’s actions during Interview with the Vampire. There were certainly better uses for Claudia’s ghost than as a cruel manipulation that then never gets closure for her or Louis’ obviously continuing feelings for her. Given that he’s still not over her death more than a century later, it’s always the elephant in the room in regards to Louis in the present. It’s the storyline that keeps Louis frozen in time, unable to continue his own story beyond the 19th century except as a series of vignettes and observations by other characters. Merrick completely failed both Louis and Claudia. He’s as much of a ghost in the present story as she is.
Because of this, Louis’ story now will always be incomplete; a profoundly influential character used as little more than a prop in the background of other characters’ narration. And of course, Claudia’s tragedy was being incomplete from the start.
Characters like Angel and many copycats (not only vampire characters either–Russell T Davies has fully admitted Buffy and Angel’s influence on his Doctor Who revival and Torchwood spinoff, while the entire Fanged Four are Anne Rice’s archetypal lineup) would directly not exist without Louis. And yet, Angel got the center stage as the deeply-flawed inhuman protagonist with a “human soul” that Louis never got again. Louis is Anne Rice’s archetype (a massive influence on all inhuman creatures with human feelings ostracized from their own kinds, doomed to never belong to either world and the outsider looking in on a life they can never have) that has actually inspired more leads than Lestat ever did. Other media, in Interview with the Vampire’s image, knew that the flashier, funnier, cooler Lestat archetype (which was likewise influential, but rarely an initial lead) is instead an antagonistic, often villainous foil to a more serious, introspective character’s existential crisis and the greater philosophical and moral depth that this brings a story.
Anne Rice stumbled upon that when she wrote Interview with the Vampire, but seemingly didn’t understand it. Or perhaps it was easier for her to avoid her personal trauma by focusing instead on an object of fantasy and fancy.
Unfortunately, she denigrated Louis to make Lestat palatable as an antihero instead of a villain or even antivillain. He and his POV became inconvenient to the change in narrative and Lestat’s POV became rarely challenged, despite him being the more likely of the two to fit as the unreliable narrator with far more reasons to lie and make himself look better. His verifiable actions contradict lies like him only killing evildoers. Claudia being the most glaring refutation, but also the fact that Louis was targeted not because he was evil, but rather because he had wealth Lestat wanted. Louis was telling his story as a cautionary tale in which he wasn’t sugarcoating himself (quite the opposite–he’s the king of self-loathing) or anyone else, not a narcissistic ego trip disguised as a rebuttal.
The author’s retcon and fandom buying into the narrative of Louis as the unreliable narrator is a huge mistake and it goes a long way to explain the fall in quality of the later series. Louis should never have been consigned to the role of Antonio Salieri.
This one was made a while ago, but I held off on posting it a bit since I had some stuff like the Mona story cut the line. Let’s get a little weird with the narration and tense. Enjoy!
Premise: Dean loves a quiet library where he can lose himself parsing the text of a good book. Today, he returns to an old favorite: an ancient, cryptic book detailing the intimacies of demons.
Studying was important. It was a central lesson Dean had followed since his earliest days, and what had led him to such heights now. He’d succeeded as a scholar and now had all the time in the world to bask in the fruit of the library as he pleased. It was his favorite hobby, one he couldn’t help but come back to over and over again.
This deep underground library was a chore to navigate. It was an ancient one, built on a cave system and plunging down remarkably deep. The hours melted together here. Dean could scarcely remember the last time he’d emerged from the hideaway for any long period of time. Though some may find it a lonely place, Dean found it enthralling.
At the deepest depths of the structure sat his dear favorite book: The encyclopedia of demon machinations. This particular book was a bit difficult to digest. It was bound in some rough leathery material, scarred, scratched, and black as coal. It was a tome of the arcane, and a strange one at that. While most texts on anything to do with the more forgotten sides of religion bore intimidating satanic iconography, this book was different. A heart was plastered on the front. By all means, this book should have been far older than the common modern symbol of a heart, but here it was. The only real deviations from the modern icon were a few stems jutting from the side, and an open bottom, looking almost like a womb.
The parchment was so aged he feared at first just his turns of the page would rip it to shreds. Perhaps his hands were a bit clumsy at first and nearly damaged the book, but not anymore. His smooth hands were far better at such intricate movements. The delicate, soft motions he’d once found so challenging for his twitchy touch were now effortless affairs after so many sessions with this tome’s words.
To think he’d been so absorbed in a single book for so many months. Most of the library’s books had information he’d already digested. It was rare for a text with anything fresh to materialize, and what did was normally tackled in a day. This book though… somehow whenever he opened its folds, he sunk hours into it with countless amounts left to read. It was difficult to translate the text at first in its strange dead language, but now he could parse its words far faster. It was if the demon’s tongue were a second language at this point
He took a seat at an old splintered table and opened that forbidden tome. His hair got in the way… How long it had gotten lately. Perhaps he’d neglected that bit of him throughout all this studying. It’d grown so long, straight, and glossy. That was particularly odd, given he remembered having curly hair. The dampness of the depths must have humidified it. He pushed his luscious locks aside and opened the covers. Where had he left off again? Ah yes, page 792; deep into the chapter on demon fertility.
Yet again the sweet internal audio of read text echoed through Dean’s head. Every word felt as if it were imprinting itself right inside his brain. Only earthly concerns could interrupt this delicious trance-like plunge into knowledge now, fidgets or uncomfortable muscles from too much stationary sitting.
An itch on his ear came to light. Drat. His hand reached up to scratch the lobe, colliding with something cold and metal. Those were… earrings? Oh, yes, he’d almost forgotten he’d gotten them on a whim. Reading this book seemed to put him in a suggestable mood, and something as bold as hoop earrings gave him a nice outlet of expression. Perhaps a boy with gold jewelry looked fairly ridiculous. No matter, it wasn’t as if he cared about his looks among a sea of parchment. His peers of books, silverfish, and other pests of the deep hardly cared about his look. He scratched the lobe with his long nails and carried on fully concentrated.
The textbook got racier. A more dedicated description of just what demonic fertility involved began. Dean blushed. His foot started to twitch. Dean’s leg always seemed to grow restless when he sat for too long. Now though, it was particularly annoying with the loud clacking of his shoes. Once more, Dean addressed the problem. He took a second to flex his legs, his big, strong, wide legs, and give his muscles some much needed movement. The space beneath the library table was too small. He pushed his chair back for a moment and flexed in the open air. He admired the musculature of his form as his juicy quadriceps bulged. Not to mention, wow, did he ever look nice in those shoes. Gold high heels looked wonderful against the red of his painted nails.
Focus turned back to the book. The text grew even more robust and obscene in its descriptions. Vivid accounts of demon sex, impregnation, and transformation were all presented to Dean’s mortal eyes. It was captivating. Had Dean already read this passage before? It seemed so familiar, like he’d worked over it for months and never fully passed it. Something always got him worked up reading this bit.
It was more transfixing the deeper he dove into it, so very captivating. The way a demon might tempt a mortal and show them the body of their fantasies, the way they might expose them to a true self beneath the poison of mortal flesh, the way the subject needs only the slightest bit of curiosity to fall deep into the sweet honey of a truer self subject to the whims of promiscuous demons…
Dean’s heartbeat was racing.
This was too much. Dean couldn’t bear to keep reading without answering his needy body. Even if this were a public library, damn the consequences. He needed to masturbate.
Dean’s hands dove for his crotch, to stroke his hardening length with all his might. He attempted to slip his hands down his pants waistband, only to be reminded he hadn’t worn anything to cover himself that day but his chastity cage. His hands grasped nothing, then tapped longingly at his cock sealed beneath gold. A bead of pre dewed at the tip. He bit his plush red lips in frustration.
With his penile stimulation denied, Dean’s hands worked quickly for alternative sources of pleasure. That hand that had failed to grasp his cock earlier instead stunk deeper to play with his aching balls. His fingers shifted back and forth on his testes, as if imitating clitoral stimulation. It wasn’t very pleasurable at all, but the sheer desperation in the act made Dean’s pulse pound even faster.
His other free hand shot for his chest, and yanked aside his loose sweater. His sweaty breasts, each the size of his very head, bounced and jostled in the warm library air. His other hand shot for one of his fat nipples, squeezing the tip, trying to maneuver around the big whorish ring piercings marking his big slutty udders. Another party joined in to please the other. His long, red tail, tipped with a blunt heart shape, moved on its own volition to tease his other whorish udder.
Yet not even this cacophony of stimulation was enough for the hungry passion welling inside Dean. More was needed. His hand stopped massaging his ballsack and shot towards his purse. He needed his dear boyfriend to send him over the edge.
From inside the handbag, a large iron ribbed dildo emerged, the perfect partner to fuck that needy bright red ass. Dean shifted in his seat, pressing his weight against one of his ample cheeks to expose his greedy, stretched asshole for open access. The toy pressed against hole. Dean purred from that alone. Penetration. Oh sweet penetration! Dean groaned like the sex cattle he was into the empty halls of knowledge!
The obscene noises of slapping flesh rang out as Dean ruthlessly pounded his veteran hole over and over again with that big fake phallus. His moans grew deeper in a guttural feminine squeal as he felt his limit approach. His impressive horns, like that of a mighty ram’s, grew just a millimeter as they counted yet another intimate moment on his infernal resume. His eyes glittered with fluorescent pink as infernal energy swelled through his veins. The svelte flesh of his stomach too radiated that bright light, that same emblem on the book shining brightly among his body’s red skin just above his crotch. His body begged to be bred. Just a little bit more and sweet release would be-
“Ho-OOOOOOH…” Dean gasped as the sweet impact of orgasm washed across his body. His trapped cocklette burst with droplets of thin white, another burst of thin semen fitting for a submissive breeding sow of hell such as he. His asshole shook and clenched around the fat cock inside of his bottom, savoring the feeling of fullness from penetration so very dearly. His muscles writhed… then relaxed. His whole body slumped just a bit as post coital satisfaction washed over him.
My, did his memories ever get so clouded when he got horny. Thank goodness he had his favorite pornographic smut to comb through when his needs were truly desperate and none of his sisters in fallen grace were around to help. Dean-
Wait, Dean? Oh, had she forgotten her name again? My, how hilarious. To think she used to be so smart as a human, yet was so thick headed now.
She’d been horny and reckless as a mortal before, but that hardly compared to the intoxicated state the mind dove into when horny as hellspawn. How amazing it was that in her most desperate fits of neediness, her thoughts would peel back to a time before her dark ascension just to stifle her whirling mind from going mad with lust. At least it let her mime out those last moments of her mortality as a delicious daydream before starting her life proper.
Dean was her name back as a mortal vessel. Xesaiya was her name now that she was born of succulent demon flesh. What a repulsive name that was, Dean. To think she had ever considered herself a “Dean” or any sort of man. Her clammy larval state was so positively boring. Her regular rutting with the underworld’s deliciously strong masculine devils and seductive, busty, and hung feminine demons far surpassed any earthly hobby.
Reading mortal books, pah. What a sad source of entertainment. For a cock-brained submissive slut like her, even reading the deep insight of demonic literature seemed pointless when she could be getting fucked instead. Well, except that old favorite tome of hers. It was hard for her not to cherish that sweet first piece of written demonic pornography that had sent her down this indulgent, ungodly, unfathomably pleasurable path to her real self.
Xesaiya packed her fake cock back in her purse. She stood and pulled a nearby bookshelf aside, unmasking her stairway path from the world of mortal men back into the screaming depths of her dear home. She jauntily descended down the infernal steps, trotting in her massive heels as if they were as effortless to walk in as her bare feet.
It had been long enough that her sisters were surely back from their surface trips seducing men. Nothing would make her day now quite like rubbing cages together with her fellow demonic bitch subs. Perhaps she could even convince that exceptionally curvy hellspawn to sodomize her with a strap-on again. Oh, and she simply had to watch the way her elders took the fattest of hell’s cocks. There was much to learn, so much to indulge in during a deep uninterrupted study.
So we all know that Cale can be a hilariously unreliable narrator at times, but for me the most blatant example of this happens while Cale is earning the ‘future’ half of the Annual Rings of Life in chapter 665. The young Jour Thames is exclaiming over how cute Cale is (and rightfully so!!) when Cale thinks to himself:
[This was the first time that Cale had ever been told he was cute, whether in this world or during his life as Kim Rok Soo. He had never been called cute in his thirty-plus, almost forty years.]. Not only do I absolutely not believe for a second that Choi Jung Soo and Lee Soo Hyuk never oncecalled Kim Rok Soo cute, but when Alberu is showing Cale the ‘curse’ on the Crossman family in chapter 485 this exchange happens:
[“Are you not curious even though I used the word, ‘curse?’” “Not really.” “…You’re such… a cute dongsaeng.”]
He calls Cale cute to his face!!! Unless different words are all being translated as “cute”, our beloved boy really be out here just telling Lies and Falsehoods without even flinching—
“I love unreliable narrators in general. Dragon Age uses unreliable narrators for everything. The reason I love unreliable narrators is that it allows you to present information through the lens of someone who could be wrong, or intentionally misleading. ‘Brother Genitivi says’ is the way that most lore in Dragon Age: Origins is presented. And what that allows you to do is have him be wrong. Mislead the player, on purpose, or sometimes just give yourself the flexibility to change your mind, in order to change the lore, change the universe, around that established lore without actually violating it, because it’s an unreliable narrator. But the cool thing is you actually get all of that while also deepening the sense of your setting being lived in by real human beings. When information is presented by an unreliable narrator, it’s presented by a person within the setting. It’s not just sterile information dumped into a codex. It comes with this implication of story and life that doesn’t come from other ways of presenting information. To my mind it’s actually win-win across the board. It gives you extra flexibility while also making the setting feel more alive.”
So I was speaking with some fandom folk on Discord about Anne Rice and the Vampire Chronicles, and shared some of the e-mails we sent back and forth over the years. People seemed to enjoy it, so I’m going to share some in a series of posts.
Please note that I often disagreed with Anne on stuff, and we went back and forth, but I am leaving her virtuoso performances unedited so that you don’t interrogate the text from the wrong perspective.
On whether Louis or Lestat is lying, and what truly happened between them in Paris and when Louis stated he saw Lestat for the last time at the turn of the 20th century:
Unreliable narrators need to add something to the story. They aren’t an excuse for poor storytelling and inconsistencies.
If you have an unreliable narrator, you should be doing twice as much work in your plotting! At every turn of the story, you need to know both what’s actually happening AND what your narrator thinks is happening.
When you’re right, you’re right. And you’re right.
Not only does the author need to know what’s happening on both layers of story, they need to actually write in clues for the reader to telegraph the lower, “true,” layer of the story so the reader is capable of figuring it out if they choose to read closely. Without that double work, an unreliable narrator cannot perform its literary function.
It is the evidence of the truth, not the lie the narrator tells, that makes a narrator unreliable. Otherwise they are just a liar which the audience is incapable of catching due to the hobbling imposed by the medium. Which means the lie may as well be the truth, making it serve no function as a lie.
“I love unreliable narrators in general. Dragon Age uses unreliable narrators for everything. The reason I love unreliable narrators is that it allows you to present information through the lens of someone who could be wrong, or intentionally misleading. ‘Brother Genitivi says’ is the way that most lore in Dragon Age: Origins is presented. And what that allows you to do is have him be wrong. Mislead the player, on purpose, or sometimes just give yourself the flexibility to change your mind, in order to change the lore, change the universe, around that established lore without actually violating it, because it’s an unreliable narrator. But the cool thing is you actually get all of that while also deepening the sense of your setting being lived in by real human beings. When information is presented by an unreliable narrator, it’s presented by a person within the setting. It’s not just sterile information dumped into a codex. It comes with this implication of story and life that doesn’t come from other ways of presenting information. To my mind it’s actually win-win across the board. It gives you extra flexibility while also making the setting feel more alive.”
