Symptom: Makes everything you to touch look like:

One thing @canvasandcoffin that I completely agree with is that Marius treats everyone like children. Even Pandora. Even Bianca. Even Avicus! Not just Amadeo/Armand. When I read about people who claim that Marius loves Armand less because he treats him like a child, compared to Pandora or Bianca, it makes me laugh. Marius treats Pandora like a child who needs to be taught things, and that’s a cause for conflict. Marius treats Bianca like a child all the time, talking to her as if he has to teach her how to live in the world and not even trusting her when she says she’ll never be jealous of Pandora, causing Bianca to leave. And this is because Marius is immature, Marius is a jealous person, Marius is arrogant, and he thinks he knows better than everyone else. But why should these character flaws be a problem for character development? He isn’t bad because he’s paternalistic; it’s his way of caring for others. He protects the people he loves and sometimes doesn’t realize he’s being controlling. Marius’s personal growth lies precisely in stopping to view everyone as in need of his guidance, but in letting those who want his guidance take it, because he is a character who has much to teach, who has much to say. And that is why I love Marimand so much: from a teacher/student relationship, both come to understand that they need each other, ultimately simply because they love each other.

What puzzles me is how Marius’s character flaws are taken to extremes and used against the narrative, while the flaws of the other characters are always the result of some kind of trauma. It’s as if Marius hadn’t experienced any trauma or suffering in his human or vampire life. We are the result of our life experiences, and who we are at 20 is not who we will be at 30, or at 40, or at 50.

In "Blood and Gold," Anne Rice pointed out how Marius was incapable of changing and kept making the same mistake, until loneliness and then Akasha's betrayal changed his view of the world and of himself. Marius's transformation is quiet and painful; he loses all his convictions and the purpose that keeps him alive. When Marius tells his story to Thorne, he lays bare all his pettiness, the lies he told, the lies he believed, and he says to you: “I thought I was better than others, but I wasn’t.” We don’t see that kind of honesty from the other characters.

"Human body! Lestat, you can't become human by simply taking over a human body! You weren't human when you were alive! You were born a monster, and you know it. How the hell can you delude yourself like this."

"I'm going to weep if you don't stop."

"Weep. I'd like to see you weep. I've read a great deal about your weeping in the pages of your books but I've never seen you weep with my own eyes."

last conversation

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interrupting the lestat day posting to show you some modern gabrielle requests

Some The Vampire Armand sticker designs...