Memnoch The Devil: The Vampire Chronicles 5

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But even that gets mitigated with age. A sufficiently old vampire can, in fact, withstand exposure to daylight, at least for a time. The very oldest can even handle a full day out with minimal worry. Lestat finds his beliefs turned on their head when a strange man approaches him one night. The man introduces himself as Memnoch and claims to be the Devil himself, and that he needs Lestat’s help. Lestat finds himself travelling outside of time with the fallen angel to witness Heaven, Creation, and Hell. But will Lestat seize the chance to save his soul? Review Break the Haughty: A series of selfish, arrogant choices catches up with Lestat when Claudia and Louis leave him for dead; he spends years covered in hideous scars; and Armand manipulates him into testifying against Claudia, refuses his request for healing blood, and throws him off a building for good measure. Traumatized and humiliated, Lestat spends decades as a shut-in, surrounded by junk and animal corpses and abandoned by a string of vampires who show up out of curiosity more than compassion. Subverted in that he eventually recovers... after about a hundred years. This (except for the "exterminate all men" part) is justified in that Lestat's cadre of friends is the upper echelon of vampires who have been around for hundreds to thousands of years and who have very aggressively marked out their territory. They've gotten that old by being very clever and by learning how to move around in vampire society (i.e. learning who to not piss off). The vampires that Akasha kills are the young ones barely out of their first century, and considering how few older vampires are actually out there it seems reasonable to assume that even if she hadn't gone on a killing spree, most of them would still have died competing with one another for supremacy in a process of natural selection.

The novel finds Lestat haunted by his past and tiring of immortality. A thief switches bodies with him and runs off, and Lestat enlists David Talbot, leader of the Talamasca and one of his only remaining friends, to help him retrieve it. During this time, Armand and David also make appearances. What I love most about this series is the characters and the complex relationships they have. It was certainly a pleasure to see Lestat with them, particularly Armand as he’s definitely one of my favorites. However, any other vampires in the story are very minimally present. The Fake Cutie: Claudia plays her adorable exterior for all it's worth while manipulating her human victims and vampire "fathers." Living Forever Is Awesome: Lestat has this attitude despite the fact he's gone through numerous horrible traumas. Most of the other Ancients are similarly of the mindset that there's no point in dying. Louis, by contrast, is really the only one who romanticizes death. At least after the Paris Satanic cult was "reformed" by Lestat. They were pretty miserable.

These books provide examples of:

That being said there are a couple of vampires who deeply love their fledglings and are loved in return. The most notorious example, despite their Kiss-Kiss-Slap dynamics at times, would probably be Lestat and Louis. There's also Marius and Armand. Demonic Vampires: According to The Vampire Lestat, the first vampire was created when a bodiless demon fused with the blood of a dying Egyptian queen, and its power sustains all younger vampires. However, later books (and the Devil himself) clarify that the "demon" is a once-human spirit who escaped the afterlife, so vampires have no direct link to Hell.

God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Lestat meets them both (or, possibly, very convincing impostors), calls them both idiots, and declares that he wants nothing to do with either of them. Good Bad Girl: Gretchen, Dora, and Bianca all have premarital liaisons while being portrayed as basically good people.Louis' attempts to help Babette Freniere after Lestat kills her brother become this: While his advice initially allows her to save her family's fortune and regain her social status, he is forced to reveal his nature to her when his slaves drive him from Pointe du Lac. She becomes the first example of mortals tending to Go Mad from the Revelation that vampires exist, and dies "young and insane". Armand was also another character who didn't appear until towards the end of the first novel, but he ends up playing significant roles (or just to stand around looking pretty) in the books following "Interview" until he finally gets his own book, "The Vampire Armand"—same goes for Marius. Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Louis, Lestat, Armand, and Quinn. Based on his description in Blood and Gold, even Marius qualifies. Evil Takes a Nap: The first vampire Akasha and her consort fell into slumber for millennia as their thirst for blood diminished. In The Queen of the Damned, Lestat accidentally wakes Akasha with his music, so she sets out to cull the vampires and Take Over the World.

Inherent in the System: Lestat's maker Magnus warns him several times that he should not drain his victims completely; he should drink enough to sate his thirst and then let them die. The reason for this doesn't become clear until Lestat actually kills his second victim and and begins feeling guilt because he felt the man die instead of just watching it. Rice has penned an ambitious close to this long-running series, as well as a classy exit for a classic horror character. . Fans will no doubt devour this last visit with Lestat."After stalking and killing Roger, a ruthless but passionate mobster, Lestat is approached by Roger's ghost. Roger asks him to take care of his daughter Dora, a devout and popular televangelist, whom he wants to spare from embarrassment. At the same time, Lestat has become increasingly paranoid that he's being stalked by a powerful force. Eventually, Lestat meets the Devil, who calls himself Memnoch. He takes Lestat on a whirlwind tour of Heaven and Hell, and retells the entirety of history from his own point of view in an effort to convince Lestat to join him as God's adversary. In his journey, Memnoch claims he is not evil, but merely working for God by ushering lost souls into Heaven. Lestat is left in confusion, unable to decide whether or not to cast his lot with the Devil. Odd Friendship: Even Lestat seems a little bemused by his friendship with human Talamasca director David Talbot. The weirdness reaches an apex when Lestat sleeps off a sunburn on one of David's hunting trophies. Naked.