Blackwood Farm Chapter 41
Feb. 16th, 2018 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratI started this morning feeling like a bad rat mom because Blaze's cage is a barren wasteland devoid of toys. Then I realized he's got a hanging bird toy of wooden blocks and bells to jingle and chew, a little hanging wooden ladder/bridge, a soda box to hide in, a wood straw ball to push around, and a bundle of paper scraps wrapped together than he can pull them apart. So maybe he's doing ok.
BUT HE STILL NEEDS *MOAR*!
Speaking of toys, my mice destroy everything I give them, which is good because that's how I know they like them! I wish Blaze destroyed stuff, then I'd know if he's into it!
CHAPTER 41
Arion takes Quinn to the cellar under the house which has a crypt in it. He explains that the sun will kill Quinn, and that it will still be able to do him great harm even when he's as old as Arion, as can fire. Besides that, he says no other injury can kill him. Canonically, I don't think that's true, I think Akasha was killed by having her heart and brain torn out, but maybe Arion doesn't know that. He also says that the wounds Petronia gave Quinn will heal over the day's time and "weren't very serious for one of my strength". We learn later that Quinn is a pretty strong vampire because of his maker being Petronia, and having drunk from both Arion and Manfred as well. I don't have a problem with that in a vacuum, but I do notice that Rice's protagonists always have to be exceptionally strong/powerful? So as part of a pattern, I'm just like "yeah, of fucking course he's strong straight out of the gate, god forbid he not be" in a sarcastic tone. I know this is actually STANDARD for fantasy protags, and again, I would not mind it on it's own, it's just, again, it's predictable as part of her "rich white pretty boy bisexual hero" pattern. Indeed, to my memory, any and all vampires of any importance or goodness are strong vampires? Which is a bit more...iffy, to me. They're also all white and rich too. I feel like Armand MIGHT be weak in a really fetishized/feminized way but I haven't really read anything of him and DON'T WANT TO so I don't know.
Arion tells Quinn not to be afraid of the "narrow box" nor of his dreams in it. "You are an immortal now, and all your faculties are enhanced. Accept it and rejoice in it."
Instead of rejoicing though, Quinn suffers "unspeakable horror" over being in the crypt, and weeps till he loses consciousness. This lasts a total of one sentence, and I'm torn between feeling that writing out Quinn's horror and crying would be better for conveying it, and the downsides of vampirism, but on the other hand let's be real, I don't wanna read it and I'd consider it a waste of words because I have no emotional investment in Quinn.
Anyway, then he dreams about Patsy, and being pushed off her lap as a child, then killing her and drinking her blood and dumping her in the swamp. He feels "horror" but it is "too late to save her." Rebecca laughs "A death for my death" to which Quinn replies, "Oh yes, you think you planned everything." Father Kevin says "The Damnation of Quinn."
Quinn wakes up to Arion, who leads him up to the terrace. There is some truly lovely description of the night sky. Not only is it lovely, it's organic and not overdone. A+ to Rice on that. Arion says that lots of other "Blood Hunters" don't get to see this since they're not strong enough to wake early enough for it. Quinn thinks how he'll never see the light of day again, Arion tells him to "look back on nothing" and he will take Quinn to hunt as "my apprentice for the evening."
Quinn assumes he's disappointed Petronia and that she doesn't want anything more to do with him. Arion laughs and says actually she's "eager to see you" but is "a miserable teacher" so Arion has "told her no" and that he instead will take Quinn "to hunt the cafes and clubs of Napoli."
We're told what Arion is wearing, then Quinn is taken to a room where "the mortal boy" helps Quinn select a similar outfit. He tells the boy he'd give him money if he had any, the boy smiles and pats his shoulder. I think Quinn should at least ask his name but he doesn't.
"Then we were off to the cafes and bars for more lessons" where they "moved through all manner of crowds. They take the Little Drink "over and over, until I was very skilled at it" and then they corner two murderers and kill them. We're not really told what sort of murderers these men are, what exactly they did or why, and we're not even given any description of the hunt or the finding them or the cornering. We're just told they found two "perfect killers" and slashed their throats to make it look like they'd died that way.
It's not that I want them to kill innocent people. I sure as hell would not root for them if they did. But this just seems so...easy. It takes out any kind of moral conflict, which really should be at the heart of “human” vampires like Rice vamps supposedly are, who AREN'T meant to be amoral monsters, who value human life, who don't wish to kill innocents to feed. Giving them acceptable targets on a platter absolves them of any kind of hard decisions, and the unglamorous consequences of making the choice not to kill. They get to have their cake and eat it too---they don't get reduced to eating rats and dogs to survive, yet they also get to make the “right” choice, the “heroic” one even. It's lazy writing in my opinion, and given that Rice is the mother of modern vampire fiction, it's really ironic to me that she's focusing on just the cool, fun parts of being a vampire and taking away the difficult aspects with this “well they just eat murderers, who can conviently be found around every corner” skirting.
BUT
BUT BUT BUT
I can't argue it's not a totally realistic and likely conclusion for vampires to come to, ESPECIALLY vampires who wish to be more than amoral monsters who kill indiscriminately. It is ABSOLUTELY something I think lots of people would decide to do; they get to still kill, and not only not feel bad about it, but feel GOOD about it, because they're doing something good, they're killing bad people. It's a very obvious solution, so even if I personally do not like the lack of a moral conflict...I can't fault anyone for having their vampires go this route. What I can fault Rice for is this---she still makes it too easy. It seems like her vampires can just go anywhere and instantly find serial killers and hitmen aplenty. I get they have telepathy so they don't need to do detective work, but can we at least see them still having to make some effort? Sifting through the minds of everyone on a crowded street, for instance, and having to go deep enough into each one to find out their worst deeds. Because everyone isn't going to have that on the forefront of their mind all the time, not if they're as callous as I think Rice wants the “Evil Doers” to be. Let me actually see the time it takes to find abusers and molesters and murderers. Let me see the vampires trying to judge if this TYPE of murder warrants enough to kill---because there are different sorts of murder, including types where the situation was very specific and thus the person is unlikely to kill again. Let me see them finding someone who is a heinous criminal, but loves his family, and trying to decide what to do there. Just give me SOMETHING other than “oh yeah we found these two guys who were definitely super evil and we killed them”. This is a novel about vampires, there should be focus on what actually makes them vampires---the stalking and consuming of other human beings. Hunting should not be an afterthought in any vampire tale, in my opinion, because it's one of the biggest adjustments/differentiations between the undead and human lifestyles. Even if NOTHING ELSE changes about a person when they become a vampire, this still does.
I think Rice just doesn't actually care much about this part and wants to get on with the story, which is fair. These dudes and their deaths aren't important in any way, so time and pages would admittedly be wasted being devoted to them. But (1) I think it would better show, as I described, the process of hunting, and this being Quinn's first time means it'd all be new to him, so we'd see his first adjustment towards this (2) Look, she spends pages and pages on lots of other irrelevant shit already, so WHY NOT?
(Also, I should note, one of my VtM characters is a professional escort who feeds on her clients and they think it's a sex thing, especially since "the kiss" in VtM feels really blissful and ecstatic. And there's never any moral conflict around that, nor did I ever tell myself I was giving her too "easy" a way out of killing or 'bad' ways of feeding. So I might just be looking for stones to throw here.)
Right after killing these guys, Arion explains how you totally SHOULDN'T kill and how "to thrive without killing, that is everything" but when the urge to kill is too much, "you'll want the burning bitter heart" and now he knows how to do it.
Given what Quinn and Lestat did to those two women, I'm going to say Quinn ends up not taking Arion's advice about never ever do this unless you can't help it. Quinn claims, however, that "he is my model to this very moment.
Quinn is "exhilrated" by all this and "enthralled" by Arion's "elegant figure". We're told he's very graceful and speaks in a way that commands respect and loyalty. Because I guess actually showing that would be too much; this is very typical Ricean Informed Traits. We're also told about how his skin is so black it has a bluish tinge under light, how white his powerful teeth are, and how his deep yellow eyes have flecks of green and brown. How the fuck does he have yellow eyes? What exactly is Arion supposed to be? I mean that both in terms of race and in species, because neither people nor vampires have yellow eyes.
"Finally, after we had hunted more than was perhaps required" they go hang out in a cafe where Arion puts his hand on Quinn's, kisses his fingers, then repeats the gesture. He tells Quinn to "understand the gift you've been given" and not to "forswear it" in the early years, that this has been the death of many. "Of course you despise Petronia for giving it to you--all this is natural and right" because when she drained Quinn, Quinn saw a vision of Paradise and his loved ones who were waiting for him there "and you turned away".
Quinn asks Arion how he knew that. Arion says "I could read your mind then" but can't now because they've exchanged too much blood. He says the same is true of Petronia so "don't let her fool you." He also says Petronia is "mercilessly clever and eternally whimsical and persistently unhappy." I would so much rather be reading about Petronia. "But for what it's worth, she loves you now" Why?! WHY?! Why the fuck does she love him?! How did that happen?! I know insta-love is Rice standard but this is just extra random and nonsensical!
Quinn asks if Petronia is "always a woman for you? Do you ever see her as a man?" Arion says that Petronia chose "early on" to be "the woman for me". He says when she fought in the arena, it was as a woman as well, and though people marveled at her muscles and stamina, they saw her as a woman too. "She switches back and forth. She's truly both."
Here's the thing, I do find this cool, I like the idea of a genderqueer/genderfluid character, but I can't help but notice of course the only character like that---and in a species of immortal, androgynous beings—is the one who is physically intersex. It seems very clear that this is WHY she's that way, and it feels very cissexist, biological essentialist, etc. That if you have a vagina you're a woman, if you have a penis you're a man, so someone with both must BE both. It reminds me of Narcissus, who wore dresses and then turned out to be intersex too, or of a character that a former friend had. She couldn't figure him out, because she wrote him as very feminine, a drag queen in fact, yet also did not write him as gay. So she decided he must be “a hermaphrodite” to account for this. The idea of a really femme straight guy who did drag was just that impossible for her, he HAD to be “part woman” if he wasn't gay. Funnily, she reminds me a lot of LKH and Rice----she was ostensibly liberal, but she really only supported very pretty young thin cis white gay men (whom she fetishized openly), hated other women (especially if they were skinny, pretty, or feminine), was extremely slut-shaming (teasingly about gay men, vitriolic about women), claimed to be one of the boys but wasn't even close to butch or even tomboyish (and also clearly very much enjoyed being 'the girl' in the group of her male friends), and would complain about sexist double standards and expectations, yet said she despised feminism (I guess she just wanted equitable treatment for herself, the rest of us dumb bimbos deserve what we get) Indeed, she's so like LKH/Anita in particular it's eerie, but I'd be derailing to go on. You'll notice she's a FORMER friend.
Anyway, my point is, if the only way you can conceive of someone like this is for it to be part of their physical biology, you're not really as liberal and open-mined as you think, because you're still thinking within the box of “genitalia = gender identity”
Of course, in all fairness, Rice is several generations older than me and not LGBT, so this kind of information is probably not something she heard much of in her life. On the other hand, she wrote this in 2002, the Internet existed, I feel like she could have still done better, or at least not cast Petronia as the freakish villain...of course, Petronia's not so much a villain now because she “loves” Quinn, I guess. Even if she still beats him when he fucks up. I guess basically what I'm trying to say is I have problems with how this was done but don't find it quite as “how the fuck could you think this was okay” as, say, the black servants who work for no pay by choice and don't even get to live in the goddamn house. Like I can see how she could think she was being progressive with Petronia.
….progressive with her gender, I mean. Not with writing about it in such an “ooh, freaky!” way or having her rape Quinn.
Arion says "Let's talk of you" and Quinn says he blames himself for what has happened to him, because he saw his grandparents at the gates of Paradise but turned away. He asked if that was real. Arion says he doesn't know, but that his own victims often see the same thing "and so they leave my embrace, in spirit, and I am left with a corpse"
His answer "rattled" Quinn, who thinks about Nash and if he'll ever go home and see him again. Arion goes back to what he was saying about "don't get destroyed in the first years" which happens "to many" because they despair and feel the world no longer belongs to them, but in fact the world is "all yours and the passage of years is yours" Quinn asks how many years they have, Arion says forever, that they're immortal. He takes about a paragraph to say this. Quinn asks "What sustains you? What supports you? Surely it can't be Petronia and the Old Man"
Arion says not to judge, that he loves Petronia and "I can control her." He says the reason he didn't stop her from "defiling" Quinn is because "I saw her as giving you immortality."
Because Arion just loves Quinn for no reason instantly too, if you'll recall from previous chapters. He elaborates he perhaps wanted to see Quinn transformed because Quinn is hot---excuse me, he is "so very admirable" and "splendid in all your parts"
Quinn asks about the girls and boy who prepared him, who had said there had been others. Arion says "she plays with others" and that the girl is "ignorant and greedy" but that the boy has "some spark" so perhaps Petronia will "bring him to us" as well.
Quinn asks him if “it” has been “well done”, meaning his transformation into a vampire. Arion says it has, though with more violence and cursing than he'd have preferred. He tells Quinn: “When you drink from the evil ones, you have to revel in it, not cringe from the evil. It's your chance to be evil as the one you kill. Follow your victim's evil as you empty his soul. Make it your adventure into crimes you yourself would never wantonly commit. When you've finished, you take your soul back with what you've learned and you're clean again.”
Question: What kind of person WANTS to vicariously live out the horrible evils (supposedly) done by the vampire's victims? Now, admittedly, I don't think having fantasies about doing bad things makes you bad, nor finding safe ways to act out those fantasies. But the depth of immersion that Arion is talking about, and the way he advises it to Quinn as just a general piece of advice, really makes me wonder about this guy, especially given some other remarks he's made earlier in this chapter. I'm starting to think Petronia isn't the most “evil” one of the group after all. Which, in Arion's case, is intriguing, not obnoxious like Quinn or Lestat, unless we start getting asked too much to keep seeing him as the gentle kind one like Quinn thus far has.
Quinn says he feels “anything but clean” and Arion advises him “Then feel powerful” because old age and disease and death can't touch him, his wounds will heal overnight, and only fire and sunlight can do him any harm and “forever you will look as you do now, my Caravaggio Christ.”
MY CARAVAGGIO CHRIST
Arion re-emphasizes the bit about fire and sunlight, and warns Quinn once again not to “yield to the desire for death” as many young vampires do because of their “impetuosity and grand emotions”
In other words, young vampires are so angsty a lot of them commit suicide. You'd think that would just leave a bunch of callous monsters---which, to their credit, Petronia and Arion at least do seem to be, but Rice's main cast---Louis, Pandora, Marius, even Lestat once she de-fanged him---leave a lot to be desired in that category to my memory.
Arion goes on to say that Quinn is a strong vampire from having drunk from the three of them, and also that he has ten times the strength of a mortal man. Quinn says he's “drenched in murder” and thinks of how Mona, being a witch, would detect the blood on his hands. I don't recall her saying that was in her repetoire of powers, but okay.
Arion says that feeding on mortals is his nature now, that Blood Hunters have been around “since the beginning of time” (actually not the case, as we know from Queen of the Damned, but there's no reason Arion should know that), that we know this from so many ancient mythos of them. He then explains the events of the Queen of the Damned--- how The Mother (Akasha, the first vampire) not long ago rose from her slumber, destroyed loads of vampires but conveniently spared Rice's favorites because they're Lestat's friends (and, we learn, also passed over Arion & Co by sheer random chance) and then was destroyed herself, with the “sacred nucleus” being passed to another ancient vampire (Mekare, readers will recall, though Arion doesn't say her name and does not know it, though he knows she's a woman) because if it's not contained in someone, all vampires would just drop dead. He mentions how Mekare is so old she doesn't even need to drink blood, and Quinn asks if that will ever be the case for him. Arion laughs gently and says not for thousands of years, but due to the power Quinn has from Arion's blood, Quinn can at least go for many nights with just the Little Drink or even nothing at all.
Quinn asks what is expected of him, besides to kill the Evil-Doer and to do the Little Drink with stealth and grace. Arion says nothing, that Quinn can do and go as he wishes, and what will sustain him is figuring out what that is.
I like that take on things. So many vampires get wrapped up in the angst of immortality, or, alternatively just gloating about how old they are as a status symbol, that the sheer opportunity that being immortal affords often gets glossed over. You've got forever to figure yourself out and pursue your interests. Of course, in a lot of cases, that still takes money, which is a privilege most people won't have forever, if they even had it to begin with. Now I'm imagining a vampire who is indeed hundreds of years old, but has never managed to travel anywhere they want or see/do the things they dream about, because they can't get out of poverty. No matter what century they're in, no one wants to hire a smelly homeless person, so they have to keep sleeping in sewers and condemned buildings and filching their clothes out of garbage bins, and what money they come by keeps decreasing in value even as they save it, etc.
But really, I do like the bright side of vampirism being looked at, since it's part of what appeals to people about vampirism in real life and thus of course it should appeal to human nature in fiction too. And I would expect Arion, being an ancient vampire who has obviously NOT succumbed to the misery that he says affects young ones, to indeed see it as a blessing and a boon (especially since it really is in the Ricean world, at least if you're a main character or adjacent to them)(if you're, say, Baby Jenks from Queen of the Damned, however, you're shit out of luck as, say, the servant girl Quinn killed)
Quinn asks Arion how he did it, and Arion launches into his backstory. His "Master and Maker were one" a Greek writer before and during the time of Aeschylus. Prior to settling into the theatre in Athens, he was something of a roamer, and bought Arion when he traveled to India "from a man I scarcely remember who kept me for his bed and educate me for his library". Arion's new owner brought him to Athens "to copy for him and to be his bed slave. I loved it. The world of the stage delighted me." They worked on the scenery, and the training of the chorus and actors. His Master (as he calls him, with the capital M) wrote plays of all types, satires and comedies and tragedies, as well as lyrics and long epic poems. He writes for festivals and contests and everything he can. Arion seems to think a lot of his skill.
One night he came to Arion acting strangely, at first refusing to have anything to do with him, then drinking from him and turning him"in a desperate blundering moment", pleading with Arion and apologizing and saying he didn't understand what had happened to him. They become "neophytes" together as vampires, and he (the Master) burnt his plays, saying all he had written was worthless, as he was no longer part of humankind. He sought sorcerers and witches in hopes of a cure, and after twenty-five years, immolated himself to death before Arion's eyes, leaving Arion "a hardened orphan"
Arion, however, is never tempted by death. He now deals in diamonds and pearls, and claims to use the Mind Gift to make himself rich yet also claims to cheat no one. He keeps Petronia always with him, he says (makes me wonder where he was when she killed Rebecca) and loves the company of Manfred as well. He says he still remembers when Petronia brought him here, cursing and saying she had to keep a bargain. Hmm, so whatever else her faults, Petronia apparently does keep her word. He explains that Manfred and Petronia had met while Manfred was here in Naples, and she had taken a fancy to using his swamps as a hideaway from which she could hunt the drifters and gamblers of New Orleans. He eventually built her a "domicile and fancy tomb such as she desired" there, and she would go retreat there whenever she was angry with Arion (oh, okay, that explains where he was, or rather, wasn't, when she killed Rebecca) "or whenever she wanted what was new and raw" rather than Italy where "everything had been done a hundred times over"
In time she told Manfred what she was and told him she'd "give him the Blood" and Arion told her she had to keep her word so she did (oh, okay, so she doesn't so much keep her word as she does as Arion says) So she does so, and brought him here so everyone would think he just disappeared into the swamp and presumably died. He says he assumes the same will happen with Quinn, that everyone will think he died out in the swamp, and Quinn is silent. Then he thanks Arion for his patience and all he's done for him, and if he may ask one more question. The question is, what has Arion given back to the world in his two thousand years?
Warm and cordial, Arion says "Nothing"
Quinn asks why, Arion asks what he should give. Quinn says he doesn't know, but he feels like if he's going to live forever, he should give something back.
You know what? I like this. I don't think I've ever really seen this brought up in a vampire work (though admittedly, I don't really read a lot of vampire stuff because my tastes are so specific, despite really liking it in theory) and it's certainly not something you'd expect a fledgling vampire to bring up...but that's why I like it. I know this sounds dumb given how I just talked about how I usually like more monstrous vampires, but hey, there can be both! Especially when this is coming from a brand new vampire. Ironically, I think this is a more "human" notion than almost anything Quinn expressed during his mortal life. Which is also a neat thing.
And if any vampires are in the position to give things back, it's Rice's. They're very wealthy, seem to have lots of spare time, etc. Being something other than a literal parasite is most feasible for them, and honestly seems very in-character for them as well, given how cultured and artistically-focused and educated and "good" they're largely supposed to be. Speaking of being "good" I'm kind of surprised that Arion's response to giving something back wasn't that he kills bad people.
Arion says "But we're not part of it, don't you see?" to which Quinn gasps that he sees only too clearly. Arion asks Quinn if he felt he had to give something back when he was alive, to which Quinn says yes.
...yeah I never got that from Quinn. But Arion says Quinn is like his old Master with his poetry, and advies Quinn not to follow his example, that "there are small things to do. There are loving things."
He then says "let's go back to the palazzo. I know Petronia is waiting for you."
So, as I've said, I think a lot of things Arion has said in this chapter reveal him to actually be more detached from his human nature, if he even has it anymore, despite seeming like the "nice one" and I think this is another example---despite apparently liking Quinn, he doesn't seem to think for a second he's taking Quinn to go hang out with his rapist.
Quinn gives a "short, ironic laugh" and says "That's comforting"
A pair of pretty girls stare at them as they leave. Quinn looks at his reflection in the glass and finds he looks "human enough, even to my enhanced vision" and is "magnificently pleased" with this, and the chapter ends.
BUT HE STILL NEEDS *MOAR*!
Speaking of toys, my mice destroy everything I give them, which is good because that's how I know they like them! I wish Blaze destroyed stuff, then I'd know if he's into it!
CHAPTER 41
Arion takes Quinn to the cellar under the house which has a crypt in it. He explains that the sun will kill Quinn, and that it will still be able to do him great harm even when he's as old as Arion, as can fire. Besides that, he says no other injury can kill him. Canonically, I don't think that's true, I think Akasha was killed by having her heart and brain torn out, but maybe Arion doesn't know that. He also says that the wounds Petronia gave Quinn will heal over the day's time and "weren't very serious for one of my strength". We learn later that Quinn is a pretty strong vampire because of his maker being Petronia, and having drunk from both Arion and Manfred as well. I don't have a problem with that in a vacuum, but I do notice that Rice's protagonists always have to be exceptionally strong/powerful? So as part of a pattern, I'm just like "yeah, of fucking course he's strong straight out of the gate, god forbid he not be" in a sarcastic tone. I know this is actually STANDARD for fantasy protags, and again, I would not mind it on it's own, it's just, again, it's predictable as part of her "rich white pretty boy bisexual hero" pattern. Indeed, to my memory, any and all vampires of any importance or goodness are strong vampires? Which is a bit more...iffy, to me. They're also all white and rich too. I feel like Armand MIGHT be weak in a really fetishized/feminized way but I haven't really read anything of him and DON'T WANT TO so I don't know.
Arion tells Quinn not to be afraid of the "narrow box" nor of his dreams in it. "You are an immortal now, and all your faculties are enhanced. Accept it and rejoice in it."
Instead of rejoicing though, Quinn suffers "unspeakable horror" over being in the crypt, and weeps till he loses consciousness. This lasts a total of one sentence, and I'm torn between feeling that writing out Quinn's horror and crying would be better for conveying it, and the downsides of vampirism, but on the other hand let's be real, I don't wanna read it and I'd consider it a waste of words because I have no emotional investment in Quinn.
Anyway, then he dreams about Patsy, and being pushed off her lap as a child, then killing her and drinking her blood and dumping her in the swamp. He feels "horror" but it is "too late to save her." Rebecca laughs "A death for my death" to which Quinn replies, "Oh yes, you think you planned everything." Father Kevin says "The Damnation of Quinn."
Quinn wakes up to Arion, who leads him up to the terrace. There is some truly lovely description of the night sky. Not only is it lovely, it's organic and not overdone. A+ to Rice on that. Arion says that lots of other "Blood Hunters" don't get to see this since they're not strong enough to wake early enough for it. Quinn thinks how he'll never see the light of day again, Arion tells him to "look back on nothing" and he will take Quinn to hunt as "my apprentice for the evening."
Quinn assumes he's disappointed Petronia and that she doesn't want anything more to do with him. Arion laughs and says actually she's "eager to see you" but is "a miserable teacher" so Arion has "told her no" and that he instead will take Quinn "to hunt the cafes and clubs of Napoli."
We're told what Arion is wearing, then Quinn is taken to a room where "the mortal boy" helps Quinn select a similar outfit. He tells the boy he'd give him money if he had any, the boy smiles and pats his shoulder. I think Quinn should at least ask his name but he doesn't.
"Then we were off to the cafes and bars for more lessons" where they "moved through all manner of crowds. They take the Little Drink "over and over, until I was very skilled at it" and then they corner two murderers and kill them. We're not really told what sort of murderers these men are, what exactly they did or why, and we're not even given any description of the hunt or the finding them or the cornering. We're just told they found two "perfect killers" and slashed their throats to make it look like they'd died that way.
It's not that I want them to kill innocent people. I sure as hell would not root for them if they did. But this just seems so...easy. It takes out any kind of moral conflict, which really should be at the heart of “human” vampires like Rice vamps supposedly are, who AREN'T meant to be amoral monsters, who value human life, who don't wish to kill innocents to feed. Giving them acceptable targets on a platter absolves them of any kind of hard decisions, and the unglamorous consequences of making the choice not to kill. They get to have their cake and eat it too---they don't get reduced to eating rats and dogs to survive, yet they also get to make the “right” choice, the “heroic” one even. It's lazy writing in my opinion, and given that Rice is the mother of modern vampire fiction, it's really ironic to me that she's focusing on just the cool, fun parts of being a vampire and taking away the difficult aspects with this “well they just eat murderers, who can conviently be found around every corner” skirting.
BUT
BUT BUT BUT
I can't argue it's not a totally realistic and likely conclusion for vampires to come to, ESPECIALLY vampires who wish to be more than amoral monsters who kill indiscriminately. It is ABSOLUTELY something I think lots of people would decide to do; they get to still kill, and not only not feel bad about it, but feel GOOD about it, because they're doing something good, they're killing bad people. It's a very obvious solution, so even if I personally do not like the lack of a moral conflict...I can't fault anyone for having their vampires go this route. What I can fault Rice for is this---she still makes it too easy. It seems like her vampires can just go anywhere and instantly find serial killers and hitmen aplenty. I get they have telepathy so they don't need to do detective work, but can we at least see them still having to make some effort? Sifting through the minds of everyone on a crowded street, for instance, and having to go deep enough into each one to find out their worst deeds. Because everyone isn't going to have that on the forefront of their mind all the time, not if they're as callous as I think Rice wants the “Evil Doers” to be. Let me actually see the time it takes to find abusers and molesters and murderers. Let me see the vampires trying to judge if this TYPE of murder warrants enough to kill---because there are different sorts of murder, including types where the situation was very specific and thus the person is unlikely to kill again. Let me see them finding someone who is a heinous criminal, but loves his family, and trying to decide what to do there. Just give me SOMETHING other than “oh yeah we found these two guys who were definitely super evil and we killed them”. This is a novel about vampires, there should be focus on what actually makes them vampires---the stalking and consuming of other human beings. Hunting should not be an afterthought in any vampire tale, in my opinion, because it's one of the biggest adjustments/differentiations between the undead and human lifestyles. Even if NOTHING ELSE changes about a person when they become a vampire, this still does.
I think Rice just doesn't actually care much about this part and wants to get on with the story, which is fair. These dudes and their deaths aren't important in any way, so time and pages would admittedly be wasted being devoted to them. But (1) I think it would better show, as I described, the process of hunting, and this being Quinn's first time means it'd all be new to him, so we'd see his first adjustment towards this (2) Look, she spends pages and pages on lots of other irrelevant shit already, so WHY NOT?
(Also, I should note, one of my VtM characters is a professional escort who feeds on her clients and they think it's a sex thing, especially since "the kiss" in VtM feels really blissful and ecstatic. And there's never any moral conflict around that, nor did I ever tell myself I was giving her too "easy" a way out of killing or 'bad' ways of feeding. So I might just be looking for stones to throw here.)
Right after killing these guys, Arion explains how you totally SHOULDN'T kill and how "to thrive without killing, that is everything" but when the urge to kill is too much, "you'll want the burning bitter heart" and now he knows how to do it.
Given what Quinn and Lestat did to those two women, I'm going to say Quinn ends up not taking Arion's advice about never ever do this unless you can't help it. Quinn claims, however, that "he is my model to this very moment.
Quinn is "exhilrated" by all this and "enthralled" by Arion's "elegant figure". We're told he's very graceful and speaks in a way that commands respect and loyalty. Because I guess actually showing that would be too much; this is very typical Ricean Informed Traits. We're also told about how his skin is so black it has a bluish tinge under light, how white his powerful teeth are, and how his deep yellow eyes have flecks of green and brown. How the fuck does he have yellow eyes? What exactly is Arion supposed to be? I mean that both in terms of race and in species, because neither people nor vampires have yellow eyes.
"Finally, after we had hunted more than was perhaps required" they go hang out in a cafe where Arion puts his hand on Quinn's, kisses his fingers, then repeats the gesture. He tells Quinn to "understand the gift you've been given" and not to "forswear it" in the early years, that this has been the death of many. "Of course you despise Petronia for giving it to you--all this is natural and right" because when she drained Quinn, Quinn saw a vision of Paradise and his loved ones who were waiting for him there "and you turned away".
Quinn asks Arion how he knew that. Arion says "I could read your mind then" but can't now because they've exchanged too much blood. He says the same is true of Petronia so "don't let her fool you." He also says Petronia is "mercilessly clever and eternally whimsical and persistently unhappy." I would so much rather be reading about Petronia. "But for what it's worth, she loves you now" Why?! WHY?! Why the fuck does she love him?! How did that happen?! I know insta-love is Rice standard but this is just extra random and nonsensical!
Quinn asks if Petronia is "always a woman for you? Do you ever see her as a man?" Arion says that Petronia chose "early on" to be "the woman for me". He says when she fought in the arena, it was as a woman as well, and though people marveled at her muscles and stamina, they saw her as a woman too. "She switches back and forth. She's truly both."
Here's the thing, I do find this cool, I like the idea of a genderqueer/genderfluid character, but I can't help but notice of course the only character like that---and in a species of immortal, androgynous beings—is the one who is physically intersex. It seems very clear that this is WHY she's that way, and it feels very cissexist, biological essentialist, etc. That if you have a vagina you're a woman, if you have a penis you're a man, so someone with both must BE both. It reminds me of Narcissus, who wore dresses and then turned out to be intersex too, or of a character that a former friend had. She couldn't figure him out, because she wrote him as very feminine, a drag queen in fact, yet also did not write him as gay. So she decided he must be “a hermaphrodite” to account for this. The idea of a really femme straight guy who did drag was just that impossible for her, he HAD to be “part woman” if he wasn't gay. Funnily, she reminds me a lot of LKH and Rice----she was ostensibly liberal, but she really only supported very pretty young thin cis white gay men (whom she fetishized openly), hated other women (especially if they were skinny, pretty, or feminine), was extremely slut-shaming (teasingly about gay men, vitriolic about women), claimed to be one of the boys but wasn't even close to butch or even tomboyish (and also clearly very much enjoyed being 'the girl' in the group of her male friends), and would complain about sexist double standards and expectations, yet said she despised feminism (I guess she just wanted equitable treatment for herself, the rest of us dumb bimbos deserve what we get) Indeed, she's so like LKH/Anita in particular it's eerie, but I'd be derailing to go on. You'll notice she's a FORMER friend.
Anyway, my point is, if the only way you can conceive of someone like this is for it to be part of their physical biology, you're not really as liberal and open-mined as you think, because you're still thinking within the box of “genitalia = gender identity”
Of course, in all fairness, Rice is several generations older than me and not LGBT, so this kind of information is probably not something she heard much of in her life. On the other hand, she wrote this in 2002, the Internet existed, I feel like she could have still done better, or at least not cast Petronia as the freakish villain...of course, Petronia's not so much a villain now because she “loves” Quinn, I guess. Even if she still beats him when he fucks up. I guess basically what I'm trying to say is I have problems with how this was done but don't find it quite as “how the fuck could you think this was okay” as, say, the black servants who work for no pay by choice and don't even get to live in the goddamn house. Like I can see how she could think she was being progressive with Petronia.
….progressive with her gender, I mean. Not with writing about it in such an “ooh, freaky!” way or having her rape Quinn.
Arion says "Let's talk of you" and Quinn says he blames himself for what has happened to him, because he saw his grandparents at the gates of Paradise but turned away. He asked if that was real. Arion says he doesn't know, but that his own victims often see the same thing "and so they leave my embrace, in spirit, and I am left with a corpse"
His answer "rattled" Quinn, who thinks about Nash and if he'll ever go home and see him again. Arion goes back to what he was saying about "don't get destroyed in the first years" which happens "to many" because they despair and feel the world no longer belongs to them, but in fact the world is "all yours and the passage of years is yours" Quinn asks how many years they have, Arion says forever, that they're immortal. He takes about a paragraph to say this. Quinn asks "What sustains you? What supports you? Surely it can't be Petronia and the Old Man"
Arion says not to judge, that he loves Petronia and "I can control her." He says the reason he didn't stop her from "defiling" Quinn is because "I saw her as giving you immortality."
Because Arion just loves Quinn for no reason instantly too, if you'll recall from previous chapters. He elaborates he perhaps wanted to see Quinn transformed because Quinn is hot---excuse me, he is "so very admirable" and "splendid in all your parts"
Quinn asks about the girls and boy who prepared him, who had said there had been others. Arion says "she plays with others" and that the girl is "ignorant and greedy" but that the boy has "some spark" so perhaps Petronia will "bring him to us" as well.
Quinn asks him if “it” has been “well done”, meaning his transformation into a vampire. Arion says it has, though with more violence and cursing than he'd have preferred. He tells Quinn: “When you drink from the evil ones, you have to revel in it, not cringe from the evil. It's your chance to be evil as the one you kill. Follow your victim's evil as you empty his soul. Make it your adventure into crimes you yourself would never wantonly commit. When you've finished, you take your soul back with what you've learned and you're clean again.”
Question: What kind of person WANTS to vicariously live out the horrible evils (supposedly) done by the vampire's victims? Now, admittedly, I don't think having fantasies about doing bad things makes you bad, nor finding safe ways to act out those fantasies. But the depth of immersion that Arion is talking about, and the way he advises it to Quinn as just a general piece of advice, really makes me wonder about this guy, especially given some other remarks he's made earlier in this chapter. I'm starting to think Petronia isn't the most “evil” one of the group after all. Which, in Arion's case, is intriguing, not obnoxious like Quinn or Lestat, unless we start getting asked too much to keep seeing him as the gentle kind one like Quinn thus far has.
Quinn says he feels “anything but clean” and Arion advises him “Then feel powerful” because old age and disease and death can't touch him, his wounds will heal overnight, and only fire and sunlight can do him any harm and “forever you will look as you do now, my Caravaggio Christ.”
MY CARAVAGGIO CHRIST
Arion re-emphasizes the bit about fire and sunlight, and warns Quinn once again not to “yield to the desire for death” as many young vampires do because of their “impetuosity and grand emotions”
In other words, young vampires are so angsty a lot of them commit suicide. You'd think that would just leave a bunch of callous monsters---which, to their credit, Petronia and Arion at least do seem to be, but Rice's main cast---Louis, Pandora, Marius, even Lestat once she de-fanged him---leave a lot to be desired in that category to my memory.
Arion goes on to say that Quinn is a strong vampire from having drunk from the three of them, and also that he has ten times the strength of a mortal man. Quinn says he's “drenched in murder” and thinks of how Mona, being a witch, would detect the blood on his hands. I don't recall her saying that was in her repetoire of powers, but okay.
Arion says that feeding on mortals is his nature now, that Blood Hunters have been around “since the beginning of time” (actually not the case, as we know from Queen of the Damned, but there's no reason Arion should know that), that we know this from so many ancient mythos of them. He then explains the events of the Queen of the Damned--- how The Mother (Akasha, the first vampire) not long ago rose from her slumber, destroyed loads of vampires but conveniently spared Rice's favorites because they're Lestat's friends (and, we learn, also passed over Arion & Co by sheer random chance) and then was destroyed herself, with the “sacred nucleus” being passed to another ancient vampire (Mekare, readers will recall, though Arion doesn't say her name and does not know it, though he knows she's a woman) because if it's not contained in someone, all vampires would just drop dead. He mentions how Mekare is so old she doesn't even need to drink blood, and Quinn asks if that will ever be the case for him. Arion laughs gently and says not for thousands of years, but due to the power Quinn has from Arion's blood, Quinn can at least go for many nights with just the Little Drink or even nothing at all.
Quinn asks what is expected of him, besides to kill the Evil-Doer and to do the Little Drink with stealth and grace. Arion says nothing, that Quinn can do and go as he wishes, and what will sustain him is figuring out what that is.
I like that take on things. So many vampires get wrapped up in the angst of immortality, or, alternatively just gloating about how old they are as a status symbol, that the sheer opportunity that being immortal affords often gets glossed over. You've got forever to figure yourself out and pursue your interests. Of course, in a lot of cases, that still takes money, which is a privilege most people won't have forever, if they even had it to begin with. Now I'm imagining a vampire who is indeed hundreds of years old, but has never managed to travel anywhere they want or see/do the things they dream about, because they can't get out of poverty. No matter what century they're in, no one wants to hire a smelly homeless person, so they have to keep sleeping in sewers and condemned buildings and filching their clothes out of garbage bins, and what money they come by keeps decreasing in value even as they save it, etc.
But really, I do like the bright side of vampirism being looked at, since it's part of what appeals to people about vampirism in real life and thus of course it should appeal to human nature in fiction too. And I would expect Arion, being an ancient vampire who has obviously NOT succumbed to the misery that he says affects young ones, to indeed see it as a blessing and a boon (especially since it really is in the Ricean world, at least if you're a main character or adjacent to them)(if you're, say, Baby Jenks from Queen of the Damned, however, you're shit out of luck as, say, the servant girl Quinn killed)
Quinn asks Arion how he did it, and Arion launches into his backstory. His "Master and Maker were one" a Greek writer before and during the time of Aeschylus. Prior to settling into the theatre in Athens, he was something of a roamer, and bought Arion when he traveled to India "from a man I scarcely remember who kept me for his bed and educate me for his library". Arion's new owner brought him to Athens "to copy for him and to be his bed slave. I loved it. The world of the stage delighted me." They worked on the scenery, and the training of the chorus and actors. His Master (as he calls him, with the capital M) wrote plays of all types, satires and comedies and tragedies, as well as lyrics and long epic poems. He writes for festivals and contests and everything he can. Arion seems to think a lot of his skill.
One night he came to Arion acting strangely, at first refusing to have anything to do with him, then drinking from him and turning him"in a desperate blundering moment", pleading with Arion and apologizing and saying he didn't understand what had happened to him. They become "neophytes" together as vampires, and he (the Master) burnt his plays, saying all he had written was worthless, as he was no longer part of humankind. He sought sorcerers and witches in hopes of a cure, and after twenty-five years, immolated himself to death before Arion's eyes, leaving Arion "a hardened orphan"
Arion, however, is never tempted by death. He now deals in diamonds and pearls, and claims to use the Mind Gift to make himself rich yet also claims to cheat no one. He keeps Petronia always with him, he says (makes me wonder where he was when she killed Rebecca) and loves the company of Manfred as well. He says he still remembers when Petronia brought him here, cursing and saying she had to keep a bargain. Hmm, so whatever else her faults, Petronia apparently does keep her word. He explains that Manfred and Petronia had met while Manfred was here in Naples, and she had taken a fancy to using his swamps as a hideaway from which she could hunt the drifters and gamblers of New Orleans. He eventually built her a "domicile and fancy tomb such as she desired" there, and she would go retreat there whenever she was angry with Arion (oh, okay, that explains where he was, or rather, wasn't, when she killed Rebecca) "or whenever she wanted what was new and raw" rather than Italy where "everything had been done a hundred times over"
In time she told Manfred what she was and told him she'd "give him the Blood" and Arion told her she had to keep her word so she did (oh, okay, so she doesn't so much keep her word as she does as Arion says) So she does so, and brought him here so everyone would think he just disappeared into the swamp and presumably died. He says he assumes the same will happen with Quinn, that everyone will think he died out in the swamp, and Quinn is silent. Then he thanks Arion for his patience and all he's done for him, and if he may ask one more question. The question is, what has Arion given back to the world in his two thousand years?
Warm and cordial, Arion says "Nothing"
Quinn asks why, Arion asks what he should give. Quinn says he doesn't know, but he feels like if he's going to live forever, he should give something back.
You know what? I like this. I don't think I've ever really seen this brought up in a vampire work (though admittedly, I don't really read a lot of vampire stuff because my tastes are so specific, despite really liking it in theory) and it's certainly not something you'd expect a fledgling vampire to bring up...but that's why I like it. I know this sounds dumb given how I just talked about how I usually like more monstrous vampires, but hey, there can be both! Especially when this is coming from a brand new vampire. Ironically, I think this is a more "human" notion than almost anything Quinn expressed during his mortal life. Which is also a neat thing.
And if any vampires are in the position to give things back, it's Rice's. They're very wealthy, seem to have lots of spare time, etc. Being something other than a literal parasite is most feasible for them, and honestly seems very in-character for them as well, given how cultured and artistically-focused and educated and "good" they're largely supposed to be. Speaking of being "good" I'm kind of surprised that Arion's response to giving something back wasn't that he kills bad people.
Arion says "But we're not part of it, don't you see?" to which Quinn gasps that he sees only too clearly. Arion asks Quinn if he felt he had to give something back when he was alive, to which Quinn says yes.
...yeah I never got that from Quinn. But Arion says Quinn is like his old Master with his poetry, and advies Quinn not to follow his example, that "there are small things to do. There are loving things."
He then says "let's go back to the palazzo. I know Petronia is waiting for you."
So, as I've said, I think a lot of things Arion has said in this chapter reveal him to actually be more detached from his human nature, if he even has it anymore, despite seeming like the "nice one" and I think this is another example---despite apparently liking Quinn, he doesn't seem to think for a second he's taking Quinn to go hang out with his rapist.
Quinn gives a "short, ironic laugh" and says "That's comforting"
A pair of pretty girls stare at them as they leave. Quinn looks at his reflection in the glass and finds he looks "human enough, even to my enhanced vision" and is "magnificently pleased" with this, and the chapter ends.
