Anne Rice's Gothic Immortals
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What Do These Gothic Characters Have In Common?
What is it about witches, ghosts, vampires and other supernatural phenomena that fascinates us so much? How to explain the claims of departed souls returning to make contact with the living world, thus giving us a moving, three dimensional glimpse of the past? What about witches, and the spiritual paths that practice witchcraft and give us a direct access point to the astral plane? And how about vampires, those tormented souls who must survive by feeding on human blood but that survival means never dying and never reaching salvation?
Each of them, alive, dead, and undead, seem to be searching life and death within life for answers to the big questions, not just what happens when we die. A ghost has presumably already demonstrated what happens - a part of us lives on. A witch demonstrates a unique ability to concentrate will, to communicate with spirits and to command the lesser forces. A vampire, the most mystical and fascinating of all, is not dead, but not alive, somewhere between life and death, but prevented from peace and eternally wandering and searching. A ghost is already dead. A ghost is existing in the realm of the living but cannot actively participate in life and share in the lives of the loved ones he/she left behind. A ghost is on the sidelines, at the mercy of whomever chooses to see and to listen. If a ghost is ignored, so report the sensationalist experts on the paranormal, the ghost tries to draw attention to itself by making ungodly amounts of noise or causing unexplained disturbances that skeptics will then be determine to disprove as paranormal activity. Those who aren't sure will simply be annoyed - or scared. And that's where a ghosts attempts are thwarted because maybe it isn't really the ghost itself we're afraid of, but where that ghost might have come from. What if that ghost is in fact here to take us to another place we aren't ready to go and can't come back from? Or do we watch too many movies? A meeting with a vampire, depending on how one defines a vampire, could mean certain, instantaneous death. There are as many types of vampires as there are books and movies about them. Do they look like Fright Night? Are they The Lost Boys? Do they look like Bela Lugosi or Gary Oldman? How about Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt? Are they pure evil, out to create legions of followers available when they want to feed, as the hirsuit, shockingly ugly Count Dracula informed the band who burst in on him and Mina Harker? Are they something to be saved from or are the vampires themselves the ones who need salvation?
A look at the monsters of Fright Night, The Lost Boys, and previous versions of Dracula, all depict vampires as monsters who must be vanquished, destroyed, if humanity is to be saved. Vampires are not tragic figures but evil, associated directly with the Devil himself. Anne Rice did something different with vampires - she made them tragic figures with limitations not often paid attention to except as material for pop quizzes in fan circles, figures who are eternally wandering, capable of feeling and understanding human emotion, though they are not human. Their curse of eternal life and the need for blood as sustenance is what damns them, as they are the bringers of death. They long for human interaction in a human, companionlike manner, yet they cannot fully attain it because their baser need means human death.
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Perhaps my favorite vampire movie is Bram Stoker's Dracula . Though there have been arguments that it was badly acted on the parts of Keanu Reeves and even Winona Ryder and some moviegoers were not impressed with the fact that the entire movie was shot on a sound stage, James V. Hart and Francis Ford Coppola took it places and brought out things that made this film closer to the original book than any other version I've seen. In this movie, we see Dracula as more than just the demon monster that must be destroyed if Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra are to achieve salvation at death rather than vampirism and eternal damnation. Of course, this aspect of Dracula has not changed, but his motives have been developed more in relation to the female protagonist, Mina.
In history, Vlad the Impaler's wife, the "River Princess", was supposed to have drowned herself in the river to avoid the Turks. Though the acts of Vlad the Impaler were (and still are) considered to be extremely diabolical, to say the least, he is still considered a hero in Romania. It would have been diabolical to the sensitivities of Victorian England in the late 19th century. In the book Dracula , this aspect of the Count's "evil" history is used to demonstrate his lust for power and dominion, to the point where he has given up salvation in return for earthly power - something destined not to last.
In the movie, Dracula's motives for becoming a vampire, for thirsting for blood, are a combined result of battle with the Turks (we see an impaling scene in the beginning battle sequence) and his wife's suicide as a result of her being falsely led to believe he had been killed. Instead of thirst for power, his becomes a thirst for revenge, as if the blood is a salve for a broken heart.
Dracula is the enemy who would be destroyed because he has the power to destroy Mina's immortal soul; Dracula sees Jonathan Harker and the rest of the men who destroy him as his enemies because they keep him from reuniting with his one true love, his wife (who is reincarnated through Mina in the film). Only with her love can his own soul be restored and indeed, that is what happens, though he must truly die a human death to achieve the peace he so needed.
Bram Stoker's Dracula, though appealing to the vampire fans, Gothic enthusiasts and MTV culture, actually has a good deal in common with Anne Rice's concept of the vampire. Lestat describes Dracula as "hirsute", which he certainly was. Lestat himself, the Brat Prince, was from the start the sexy, alluring vampire that Dracula is often expected to be. But both Dracula in the film and Lestat in the books are vampires who search on behalf of their own souls and are motivated by similar losses. Both must drink blood to survive and they don't always turn their victims into vampires, nor do they always kill their victims.
Dracula (as depicted in the film) and Lestat (as he is in the books) could be described as monsters who have lost their souls when they weren't intending to. Ghosts like Lasher are lost souls in a way. They are clearly the remnants - they are dead. Yet, they have somehow become earthbound and unable to pass on to wherever it is souls go when people die. So they linger on, unable to interact, unable to rest, and at the mercy of the reactions of the living. Witches as lost souls is debatable. If we mean a witch is a lost soul due to past persecution of supposed witches or being called charlatans, that depends on what they were doing and why. Then there is the debate of what a witch is and what a witch does. Are they Satanists? No. Are they perverts? No. Are they evil? No. That is, depending on your definition of evil in this world. Can they be lost? I'm sure they can. There is one thing that keeps them rooted here and not lost though - witches are still living. Isn't that the difference between vampires and ghosts as tortured souls and witches as the living people who can identify them, communicate with them and understand what they are?
But what if a witch is born with her or his power? A witch's soul can be lost if being a witch is defined in similar terms as the Mayfair Witches. If a witch is confused by and does not understand that power, they can surely be tormented. Consider Rowan Mayfair, whose power to kill through directed rage was incomprehensible to her, made her feel dirty like a murderer so much so that she used her talent and intelligence to go into medicine to make up for the lives she knew she had taken, but did not understand how, why, or where this ability came from Claiming her family has a great deal of meaning for Rowan since she is not only claiming a life she had been kept from; she is claiming her witch heritage and clear answers as to how she came to have this power, along with mind reading and affecting living, organic matter like cellular structure.
We become lost souls in life and in death if we are simply not understood. What we don't know is scary to us. What is most precious to us, life, is even more precious if we have lost it and must watch others continue in life. We want what we cannot have. Lasher thought life was so much more precious than eternity that he went to great lengths over a period of 300 years to come back in the flesh. He paid a terrible price for that hunger by dying so soon after his rebirth.
Revenants - Western Europe's Version of the Vampire
Lately, I have been researching revenants - a combination of ghost and undead. Revenants are a tradition from Western Europe, whereas vampires originated in the mythology of Eastern Europe. Regardless of location, revenants and vampires have much in common.
Like vampires, revenants are literally "the walking dead." They arise from their graves to suck life - the blood - out of living humans, thus killing them. Once finished, they return to their graves by day. Unlike vampires, revenants often attack people they had known in life, usually out of a diabolical desire for revenge. Revenants were often identified as people who had led "unholy" lives, sinners of the worst sort.
Like their Eastern European counterparts, people in villages under attack by a revenant congregate to reopen a revenant's grave and dispatch the revenant by staking the heart and decapitating the corpse. What was also similar to the myth of vampires was the state of the corpse when exhumed. Corpses were found to appear as if they were merely sleeping and not dead, their flesh had a rosy flush to it and the corpse was bloated, engorged with blood and leaking blood through the ears, nose and mouth. This was supposed to be the ultimate proof that the person in the grave was in fact a revenant that must be destroyed in order for the village to be returned to peace.
It is the corpse's appearance at this stage that is the original idea of what a vampire actually looked like. Certainly, a bloated, bloody corpse was not a figurehead of preternatural sexuality. People in villages of Eastern Europe had the same findings in their attempts to dispatch vampires in the same fashion. What people of the middle ages did not know was that bloating, blood leakage and flushing were stages of decomposition. Rates of decomposition vary according to several factors - temperature, burial containers, presence of water, condition of the soil, cause of death, and later embalming being among the primary factors.
Revenants differ from traditional ghosts because they use a corporeal body to move about. They also have a very specific purpose in returning from the grave, whereas a classic ghost's reasons are anybody's guess.
Lasher was assumed by many to be a ghost, even more to be a demon, but no one ever referred to him as a revenant. Though he does turn out to be the spirit of a 16th century Taltos, he claimed that wanting to be in the flesh again was not directly an act of revenge, but of reclaiming what he had lost when the villagers of Donnelaith murdered him. In a way, his return could be said to be revenge against a God who turned out not to exist for him by echoing the birth of Christ.
Whether revenants actually intend to harm their victims or not, Lasher's destruction certainly had that effect upon the Mayfairs, the women in particular. This destruction is what motivated Michael Curry to destroy Lasher in much the same way the villagers of Europe dispatched revenants and vampires. The only difference was that Michael killed Lasher by blows to the head rather than by piercing the heart. He did, however, remove the head in keeping with the mythology of revenants and vampires. Take a look at Wikipedia's listing for revenants by clicking the link below. There are also links to some fascinating documents from earlier centuries about revenants.
What Is A Witch?
"A witch is someone who can see and command spirits..."
What does "the witching hour" mean?
In folklore, the "witching hour" typically meant midnight. At midnight, all supernatural beings, such as witches, ghosts, vampires, and other creatures that typically function at night are at their greatest power (excepting Hallowe'en, or Samhain in Old Religion). The witching hour, in many traditions, often extends from midnight to about 3 a.m. A Christian example of the witching hour was the time of the birth of Christ. We're all familiar with the Nativity scene, in which Mary and Joseph are seen in Bethlehem at night and it is night when Mary gives birth to Jesus in a stable. There is always a star shining brightly overhead. It is often thought that Jesus was born at midnight.
In The Witching Hour, when Rowan gives birth to Lasher in the hall at First Street, it is midnight, the appointed hour chosen by Lasher to be born. Here is an astounding combination of the powers of Lasher being at their strongest, which might explain the burning smell in the house that makes Rowan think the house is on fire, and the fact that Lasher chose the moment of Christmas, the time of the birth of Jesus, to fuse with the fetus in Rowan and be born through her.
Click here to read about the witching hour on Wikipedia
Witches today do not typically worship the Judeo-Christian God, or G-d. While some of the Mayfairs, most notably Marguerite, Mary Beth, Stella, and Great Nananne, practiced Vodou, they werre also firmly rooted in Christianity via their Catholic faith. The Mayfair family, including Merrick, remain Catholic today.
However, witchcraft, or Wicca as is often called, takes issue with various aspects of Christianity, including but not limited to its historically documented tendency to "borrow" from older traditions and religions. Ancient Egyptian practices were often sampled to entice people to convert to the new Church. Below is a picture I found that compares the imagery of Isis nursing Horus to the imagery of Mary holding the Baby Jesus.
Modern wicca and witchcraft separate themselves from Christianity as a whole. However, the blend of the innate abilities of the Mayfair Witches, their knowledge of and practice of Vodou and their devotion to their Catholic faith all combine to make an exotic combination of mystery and power.
Witches in Popular Culture Today
The popular image of a witch today is of those who identify themselves as Wiccans, or even Pagans. Sections have been designated in bookstores for books on metaphysics and New Age spirituality. Many of those books concern the practice of Wicca, the use of divination and the casting of spells - magic.
The practitioners of this earth-based spirituality have no dogma and no religious hierarchy, though many choose to meet in covens with High Priestesses and High Priests, and the older traditions have varying degrees of adeptness assigned to coven members. The ways Wicca is actually practiced is as varied as the Wiccans themselves; however, there are some basic tenets of this spirituality that seem to be universal to witchcraft.
Of course, there are the cauldron, broomstick, cape and pentacle (as sacred to a Wiccan as the Crucifix is to a Catholic), and the image of a witch brewing concoctions with herbs and oils by the light of a candle. The witch is usually saying words that are the spell, and the words have to be correct or said with a particular delivery. Then there is the magic circle, the elements, the directions, and the altar itself.
These are the tools and "trappings" of witchcraft. What is actually going on is more profound, and it is this deeper meaning that is central to the Mayfair Witches.
Wicca and the Mayfair Witches
The witches who describe themselves as Wiccans often keep grimoires, or a "Book of Shadows," in which spellwork is recorded along with other information the witch may refer to later on. Julien Mayfair kept grimoires, found during the renovation of First Street, and an assessment of them seems to indicate that this is the kind of information recorded in them. It was described as being the same as what information about witchcraft was already widely available. However, the Mayfair Witches, for the most part, did not make a regular practice of rites such as circle-casting, or use divination tools such as Runes or Tarot cards to "see".
This is not to say that no Mayfair has ever tried these things; it is only to say that it was not common. Below are some examples of the times the Mayfairs used what could be defined as witchcraft, particularly in a notable way.
Examples of Witchcraft among the Mayfair Witches
Suzanne Mayfair called up the spirit Lasher by mistake in the circle of stones. A witch, according to the Talamasca, can command spirits at will, which is exactly what Suzanne did. All of her direct descendants since have had this ability, hence they are called the "Mayfair Witches". It is this very ability that determines which female child will be the next Designee of the Legacy.
Marguerite Mayfair commanded Lasher to try and animate the dead bodies of slaves and their stillborns with no success. Though she could command the spirit Lasher, she was not strong enough to use her will to command cells to return to life and replicate, nor was she able to determine if there was life left. The jars left over from her experiments are found in the attic at First Street upon the death of Carlotta Mayfair. They are sent by Rowan and collected by Aaron Lightner for the Talamasca archives. The remaining tissue on the heads in the jars bear evidence of Lasher and Marguerite's attempts to change matter and restore life.
It would be Rowan who would be able to command cells in such a fashion, but even Rowan had limits. She can only bring life back if life is still inside, which is how she was able to rescue Michael from completely drowning. However, she would not have been able to revive her mother, Deirdre, because as she verified for herself, there was no life left in Deirdre.
This "diagnostic sense" would be something akin to telepathy, as her ability to use the sheer force of her own will to kill someone is called telekinesis.
Magic and the Mayfair Witches
This sheer force of will, the operative word being "will", is part of the basic definition of what magic is, according to many magic-practicing Pagans. It is by the focused direction of our will that change can occur. The tools of magic are meant to aid the magician in focusing that will and in signaling the spirits and gods with rich symbolism. If one has a direct line to spirits, though, these tools just may not be necessary.
Many Mayfairs, not just the Legacy line, can hear people's thoughts and divine things from far away. This is not an example of will but of ability. The Legacy witches, heirs to Lasher, seemed to exert their will through him. Stella, Antha, and Deirdre were all expelled from one school after another because of their involvement with Lasher - a commonly occuring incident is the floating flowers that scare and enthrall the other classmates. Otherwise, the three were simply caught with him at one point or another and accused of breaking rules and/or consorting with a young man. Mary Beth Mayfair may have been the only witch in the line capable of exerting her will for short periods before Rowan. If she was truly capable of bilocation, the act could not have been completed without the strength of her own will. Even so, Mary Beth still relied upon Lasher but unlike the others, whom Lasher exploited through their dependence, Mary Beth was strong and willful enough to exert her will over him, to "whip him and make him obey." Julien did this as well.
All of the Mayfair Witches were able to see and command Lasher as well as a host of other ghosts and spirits over time. This means they fit the Talamasca's definition of what a witch is. Witches may also have certain abilities that do not necessarily fall in the category of magic, such as telepathy, precognition, postcognition, clairvoyance, and in Rowan's case, telekinesis. As for magic itself, let me suggest that the Mayfair Witches might not be considered natural practitioners of magic as their will to create change beyond conventional parameters was accomplished through Lasher's aid.
Rowan and Mona Mayfair
According to the Talamasca, or because it did not include this in its definition, witches are defined by their ability to see and command a spirit, but not by their ability to perform or practice magic. What they are able to do in varying ways may be loosely defined as magic, but not if you apply the simple definition of magic. Rowan and Mona Mayfair are able to see and communicate with spirits and sense whether or not life is still present in a person who is unconscious or even clinically dead. They are telepathic, able to hear other people's thoughts.
There is little evidence of Mona's actual abilities or examples of her exerting her will, but it is clear from her ability to survive delivering a Taltos that she does indeed have strengths and capabilities comparable to Rowan Mayfair.
It is by this and by the genetic blueprinting of all the Mayfairs in the wake of Lasher's fatal mating rampage that we know Mona is a witch as more fully defined by the family's genetics.
Further Definition of a Witch by Heritable Traits
It is evident that only a witch, one with the extra chromosomes, can produce a Taltos, but even a Mayfair with 46 chromosomes can produce another witch with a person who has the extra chromosomes. Curiously, Deirdre Mayfair managed to produce Rowan when she herself did not have the extra chromosomes. Therefore, Cortland Mayfair must have been the parent who passed the extra chromosomes to Rowan. Cortland Mayfair had the same abilities as the other Mayfairs who could be described as witches besides the Legacy line - the clairvoyance and telepathy, most notably. He was also the son of Julien Mayfair, the disputed 8th witch of the line.
A witch, in this sense, is also someone who inherits dominant alleles expressed as psychic abilities from one or both parents. These psychic abilities would then have to have a physiological vehicle in the individual through which to work. The most obvious possibility would be sensory perception, meaning heightened awareness through sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. This means the second possibility is the nervous system itself.
A Witch's Nerves
If a witch is defined by inherited psychic abilities triggered by physiological and psychological responses, the core of those abilities would have to be seated in the nervous system. An individual has nerve endings in every part of the body that exchange information with and interpret the external environment.
This information flows to and from the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) via the peripheral nervous system, the major nerves that branch out from the spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system is divided into three subdivisions, the autonomic (maintains homeostasis by regulating the heart and internal organs, pupil dilation, etc of which the parasympathetic system is yet another division), the somatic (voluntary movement such as musculoskeletal movement) and the enteric (gastrointestinal function, of which the sympathetic system is yet another division). The somatic nervous system is also what controls reflexive arcs, or what we do when we are in imminent danger and must protect ourselves.
If the nervous system, which controls our "five senses", conducts information via its synapses, dendrites and axons in a witch as defined by genetics, traits that enhance perception and ability would express in the nervous system. The "energy" that is such a popular topic in New Age circles could be broadly defined in scientific terms as an external layer around a human witch produced by the nervous system that is designed to exchange information in much finer detail. The witch's nervous system is genetically enhanced to receive this information but it is the reasoning, logical mind which must deduce its meaning.
Conclusion
Clearly, the Mayfairs have passed on traits that express abilities such as the ability to see and command a spirit, Lasher in particular. Some of them are more able to do this than others, and have more psychic ability than others, even in the Legacy Line (compare Deirdre to Mary Beth, or her own daughter, Rowan). Genetics are a crap shoot as a rule and there is no way of knowing exactly which traits will be passed or which traits will actually express. A trait being passed on chromosomes does not necessarily mean it will express, even if conditions that would normally trigger that trait are optimal. Clearly, the Mayfairs were not exempt from this law of biology despite their extraordinary abilities.
Please see Merrick and Mayfair Religion for more discussion on the religious and spiritual practices of the Mayfair Witches.
What Is A Ghost?
Spirit. Ghost. Shade. Apparition. Remnant. Soul. Demon.
The Ghost That Was Lasher
Lasher himself seems, in his disembodied state, to have no recollection of where he came from or even what he was before Suzanne called him in the circle of stones. He did not recall anything of his life before he became Lasher until he was born in the flesh. He told Rowan he learned to want and to plan from her ancestors, the Mayfair Witches. In this sense, his memory might be childlike: "once I didn't know how to do it, but now I do." He could tell her nothing of his identity since he could not remember his life, or if he even had one.
In The Witching Hour, Lasher is the Demon, the Devil. He is also the Dream Lover, the Incubus. He is not natural, not of this world. He wants something from the Mayfair Witches that he has been manipulating them to be able to provide over the centuries. In exchange, he lends them his own abilities as power and uses it to gain them immense wealth and status. Ultimately, what he wants will be prohibitively expensive, a cost that even the Legacy cannot finance: to return in the flesh to regenerate his own species, one that threatens the very existence of human life.
Lasher, as a ghost, is feared not only for what he wants, but for what is not known about him. The human family he dominates has tried for centuries to learn more about what he is and where he comes from. At times, the answer is right in front of them and they miss it, like any other ordinary human. It is the human essence that is at stake here, not the preservation of witch-producing genes, and the Mayfairs seem to know this difference instinctively. Preserving human life so it can survive to reproduce itself is the "bottom line" when it comes to evolution and even religion, which may be the only idea on which evolution and Christianity are in some sort of tentative agreement.
Lasher, a spirit of some kind, is a direct threat to humanity itself. But how?
Ghosts Among Us
To even interpret that question, one has to have some background knowledge of ghosts in history and popular culture as well as the myths and beliefs surrounding ghosts. People have been asking and attempting to answer questions about the nature of ghosts for millennia. Ghosts have appeared everywhere in documented form, from religious texts and canons to literature and camp-fire tales. Movies and plays have been written about ghosts both real and made up, and people across time, nations and cultures have claimed to see or experience them in one form or another.
Unlike communion with God, the saints or direct communication with the gods, during which it is implicitly understood that these gods and their intercessors have rightful charge over the world and its inhabitants, ghosts are almost universally understood to be the discarnate souls of people who have died. Various explanations exist for why a person would return to the world as a ghost, but as to what implications it has for the living, there is yet another almost universal understanding: the ghost does not belong.
Many believe a ghost returns to resolve unfinished business, in a manner similar to what Lasher did. Then, there are ghosts of people who do not know they have died, like Quinn Blackwood's mother, Patsy. The ghosts people are afraid of, like a ghost returned for revenge or to wreak general havoc among the living out of jealousy that the living can still experience sensation, are the ghosts that appear in popular culture and urban legends. Lasher could be described as one such ghosts. All are afraid of him and with good reason.
Then, there are earthbound spirits attached to a particular place or person, like Julien Mayfair. He deliberately attached himself to an object that would be a sort of doorway for him back into the world, the Victrola. His hair and nail clippings were secreted inside the player, a living part of him that would bind him to the world so he could continue to fight Lasher even after his own death. Julien's return is not revenge, but unfinished business. Unfortunately for Julien, he may never really rest in peace because it is after his death that he learns that his many sexual blunders in life were part of the very thing that rendered his (many) descendants vulnerable to Lasher, the being he remained behind to fight.
The Mayfair Ghosts
Julien's sexual blunders apparently were not limited to his lifetime. It was he who, through an illusion he created using the Victrola, brought Mona and Michael together in the double parlor for the purpose of waking Michael from his stupor. Julien's only goals were that Rowan be found and Lasher stopped before Lasher could fulfill his goal. Michael had to come out of his stupor to do this. Michael was the angel referred to in Evelyn's poem. Julien needed Michael to help him fulfill his own destiny as a ghost.
From the description of the ghost Julien and his blunders, ghosts are not all-seeing, all-knowing, nor are they infallible. If so, Julien would have seen the dreadful error of pairing off two people who carried the genes necessary to create the very being Lasher actually was: the Taltos. This is the species that would take over and have dominion over the earth - what Julien would ultimately stop if he were to succeed in stopping Lasher.
This error is what causes him to remain in the earthly realm. He appears later, in Blackwood Farm , to warn Quinn that he cannot marry Mona Mayfair due to yet another sexual escapade that resulted in the spread of the Mayfair genes - Julien Mayfair as a stand-in for William Blackwood so Manfred Blackwood could have grandchildren and a line of descent. Quinn Blackwood's ability to see Goblin, his doppelganger mirror twin, is in fact inherited from Julien Mayfair.
What Can Ghosts Actually Do?
Is it possible that ghosts can appear as vital and alive as Julien Mayfair did for Quinn Blackwood in the garden? Is it possible that ghosts can cause purely physical sensations and reactions in living people as Lasher did for Rowan and her forebears? In order to do this, Rowan surmises, Lasher must gather his own molecules together to form solid matter, a process that would require a great deal of energy to do and to hold it as the molecules must be far more fine than the molecules of living humans, right down to atomic structure. Lasher as a ghost does this more than once but cannot hold himself together solidly to appear for long.
Is it possible that, assuming ghosts can gather in a solid mass in this manner, that ghosts appear so briefly because they have used up energy regulated by their own molecular properties? Rowan could be right when she said science may someday be able to explain ghosts, explain Lasher. Whatever the scientific or religious explanations, it is generally accepted that a ghost is a representation of a person now dead, regardless of the nature of how the apparition came to be.
The Good vs. Evil of Ghosts
Ghosts in and of themselves seem to be neutral with no real moral gradient. It is their purpose and the effects of their actions that determines the good/bad in the equation, even their intent. Lasher could be called a tragic figure because he had been a Taltos savagely murdered for no reason other than he was of a species that humans considered to be a threat, but a dangerous figure because he did not realize until later in his short life and at the moment of his death what a danger he was. He took that knowledge into the spirit world, using a vague awareness of it as the blueprint for his purpose in breeding the Mayfair Witches the way he did. It is destruction that is the determining factor in whether or not Lasher was a good or evil ghost.
In human ghosts such as Julien, intent plays a role in the good/bad question because even though Julien blundered terribly with Mona, his intention was to help motivate Michael, rejuvenate him the best way he knew how in order to accomplish a crucial and necessary, good task. Despite Julien's mistake, what he was in life or his relentless stalking of Lestat, all of these things were done with good intentions, aimed at the greater good of all involved. This is what would make him a "good" ghost as opposed to an evil one.
A Unique Perspective on Faith
Out of Egypt
Christ the Lord #1
I think, if one reads all of Anne Rice's work since Interview With the Vampire, one will find that a common theme in her books is spiritual journeys and souls tormented by questions of God and eternity. Even if the characters never appeal to God directly, they are still tormented by the same questions.
Lestat, as he moves us through his existence, is increasingly tormented by the question of salvation and even sainthood. He takes us through his first sexual experience in 200 years with Gretchen in The Tale of the Body Thief, then anguishes over his love for Rowan Mayfair (but cannot actually have sex with her) in Blood Canticle.
Rowan Mayfair, though she never puts her questions in the context of God, explores the same questions more philosophically. Like Lestat, she is concerned with morals - right and wrong, natural versus unnatural. Even Mona, the "wanderslut," acts upon her moral conviction when she first learns of her pregnancy by announcing the baby will be delivered and raised by Mona ("this is a Catholic family...we don't do away with babies" ~Taltos). Later, she carries her grudge against Rowan for the reason that she feels Rowan is directly responsible for taking a newborn - Mona's newborn - away from its mother.
Then there was Louis, who searched from the very beginning. In life, he had no answer for the loss of someone he loved (in the book, his brother; in the movie, his wife and child) so he wanted to end his life. When his life became a sort of living death, "undead," he had no choice but to search for meaning to his existence. Again, same questions, different framework.
Michael Curry, though he had separated from the Church (as had Rice at the time she wrote the Mayfair trilogy), still exhibited a desire to see, if not necessarily worship, at the altar of his childhood. Though his tour through St. Mary's is nostalgic more than anything else, he is still thrilled at the prospect of a traditional, beautiful white-dress wedding.
The Road to Cana
Christ the Lord #2
Granted, not all of Rice's characters are tormented souls, but the most famous of them certainly are. If Pandora and Vittorio were searching souls, I must have missed it, but they certainly had their anguish and their sense of what was good and right to them according to the time and culture their lives took place in.
Can we say Azriel was not searching for some kind of meaning, or the man who talked with him, hearing the story of how Azriel became the Servant of the Bones? Was not Triana Becker in a similar torment (the most autobiographical fiction character Rice ever wrote about; I thought Violin was one of her best and most underrated novels)? Though her torment, on the surface, seemed to be about her compromised talent for playing the violin and her own confidence, what we see under the surface is extreme guilt and pain for the people she has lost.
Authors write about what they know, what interests them and what concerns them. When I sit down to write (not on this site), I write from those three elements. You could also say that writers also pursue what obsesses them. In that way, writing can be cathartic, but also can give us greater understanding as we see the things our minds have created spelled out before us. Getting it down on paper (or word processor) allows us breathing room; it allows us to explore different aspects of the story and it grows from there, becomes richer and the things we weren't aware of about ourselves and the world we live in become apparent.
It was apparent to me that Rice's most enduring characters endured because she put more into them than others. The specific "thing" she put into them was an ongoing spiritual torment that could not be resolved; there was no neat beginning, middle and happy ending. Indeed, characters struggled to establish a beginning in order to find a path through the middle they were muddling through to get to that elusive happy ending.
Angel Time
Songs of the Seraphim #1
So it is with religious fiction. How is Toby O'Dare any different? Like Lestat, he started out wanting to be a priest, appreciate the arts, but became a killer because death visited him too early. Instead of a walking dead body, we have a walking dead soul. The parallels are in fact astonishing.
I don't think it was Rice's intention to reshape anything from the past to make it fit into her current context. It just happens that this is the major theme behind her life's work, and her life itself. This is what is the most apparent in her work because this is one of the most critical things to her as a person. I think fans appreciate that more than they will admit. It's easy to be scared off by the label "religious fiction" but this is hardly the first time in history that religious fiction has been written or published in any guise.
Rice's earlier work is often referred to as "gothic fiction." I think it would be very interesting to look at what is "gothic" and what is "religious.
Of Love and Evil
Songs of the Seraphim #2
If you look at the backside of the jacket to Angel Time, you see that what looks like clouds are in fact angels - millions upon billions upon trillions of angels, angels beyond count is what the picture implies. Some could be Roman, some Egyptian, some Chinese, some English, some South American, some Indian...or they could all just be.
They could speak English, or Spanish, or French, or Africaans...or they could have a language all their own that no living person could ever learn. They could be black, brown, white, pink, blue, yellow...or they could be of indeterminate color. I'll bet they know a lot about Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Wicca, Shinto, atheism...
Can they fly, or do they use teleporters? The angels in the picture seem to all have wings but are those our own metaphor for how we perceive their ability to be mobile in the atmosphere? To us, the only things that fly in the air have wings. Naturally, we are going to assign these heavenly creatures an anatomy that requires wings for flight. Does that mean they could be part raptor without the talons?
There are so many questions and so many different answers that it's easy for it all to make your head dizzy.
It's okay to ask questions...that is why religious and gothic fiction both are so enduring.