#mariusthevampire

hello??? my goodness!! thank you so much ! this just absolutely makes my day, and I greatly appreciate you coming to take the time to share your thoughts. what incredibly kind words. I am SO pleased that you found it compelling and appropriate - the interesting thing about writing minor canon characters such as laurent is the opportunity to imagine what he evolved from between the glimpses that we get to see of him. 

You were a gnostic malcontent. Touched by a greater understanding? Is that the way you must spin it? And how has that understanding fared, Santino? With your fine clothes and lack of remorse.

A vampire who represents the figure of the wise teacher.

“I’m always fascinated with the idea of the older, wiser teacher,” says Rice. “It captured my imagination in The Teachings of Don Juan- that an older, more experienced mystic or adept would teach one [an apprentice] how to use such powers.” 

Lestat first hears of Marius when Armand tells him how he became a vampire. When Armand first knew him in the fifteenth century, Marius had been a Venetian nobleman and artist. He chose to work among mortals, have mortal apprentices, and make religious art. It was Marius who bought Armand from the brothel and fell in love with him. He then painted The Temptation of Amadeo in an attempt to capture on canvas Armand’s qualities forever, and he made Armand so that he could join with another kindred soul. Marius desired their bond to be permanent, but their happiness was short-loved when, only six months later, Santino ’s coven put a torch to Marius and captured Armand. Marius managed to escape to his secret shrine in the mountains of Northern Italy, where he healed himself by drinking the healing blood of Those Who Must Be Kept. He did not see Armand again until 1985 in Sonoma, although he had been aware that Armand was suffering through three centuries of loneliness. (VL 292-300)

“I don’t remember the first moment Marius sprang into my mind,” says Rice. “Maybe it was when Lestat said he wanted to know whether immortals had been made in Roman times, when it was more enlightened and sophisticated than the Dark Ages. So Marius evolved as a character who really had the wisdom of that ancient world- the cleverness, the wit, the perspective on the world that I feel a sophisticated Roman should have had. He may have been evolved from the force of Armand’s image. I might have written Armand’s story before I knew who Marius really was.”

After hearing about Marius from Armand, Lestat decides Marius could teach him a lot about the best way of living as an immortal. He sets out to find him, for ten years leaving messages all across Europe until Marius- won over by Lestat’s persistence and innocence- finally comes to him. Marius then takes Lestat to his sanctuary on a Greek Island. (VL 310, 323, 338, 360-363)With blue eyes and white-blond hair, Marius wears red velvet no matter what the era. His face astonished Lestat: “What one of us could have such a face? What did we know of patience, of seeming goodness, of compassion?” (VL 361) 

Marius seems to depict a pure image of human love. Gentle, vital, and noble, he emanates a godlike power, although he is more human than any vampire Lestat ever encountered. Marius does have the ability to perform supernatural feats like levitation and mental telepathy, but he prefers to do things the human way. To him, human gestures are more elegant and require less energy. “There is wisdom in the flesh,” he claims. (VL 379) His goal is not to transcend human emotions but, rather, to refine and understand them. He also seems connected to everything around him- thus being the antithesis of Armand, who is connected to nothing. Marius shows Lestat Those Who Must Be Kept- Akasha and Enkil, the original vampires- and tells his own story. (VL 378, 385-396)

The bastard child of a Keltic woman and a wealthy Roman, he was a citizen of the Roman city of Massilia during the time of the Roman Empire. Never bored or defeated by life, he always felt a sense of invincibility and wonder. An important life theme for him was the idea of the existence of continuous awareness, because Marius desired that nothing spiritual ever be lost. A scholar, at the age of forty, at work on a history of the world when a Druid abducted him. Because he was an extraordinary human being, the Druids wanted him to replace the God of the Grove, a burned and crippled vampire who no longer inspired their ceremonies.

The Druid priest, Mael, forced Marius to learn the Druid language and customs. On the night of the great Feast of Samhain, the Druids took Marius to the giant oak tree where they had imprisoned their other god. Inside it, the vampire god taught him the lessons of the vampires and urged him to go to Egypt, to find out why vampires in other places- and himself as well- had been burned or destroyed. After being made a vampire, Marius broke free of the Druids and pursued this new course.In Alexandria, Marius encountered other burned vampires. One of them took him to the Elder- a vampire who told Marius about Akasha and Enkil, the vampire progenitors. Marius learned that he, like other vampires, is vitally connected to them, and that if they suffered harm, he and all other vampires would experience similar damage. Since they had been placed in the sun, as a consequence vampires everywhere had been burned or destroyed. The recognition that whatever happens to them happens to him upsets him, although it affirmed Marius’ desire for the existence of a continuous awareness.

That same night, Akasha asked Marius to take her and Enkil out of Egypt before the Elder- the one who had deliberately placed them in the sun- destroyed them. Marius took them as requested, traveling around Europe until he settled on the island fortress in the Aegean, where he built a shrine for them and where he now sits with Lestat. (VL 396-466)Marius feels he is truly immortal, that he is the perfect guardian for Akasha and Enkil, and that he is now the “continual awareness.” He is in love with humanity’s progress, although he realizes that human evolution away from belief in gods and superstitions has made him, as a vampire, obsolete. No purpose is left for him. (VL 466-467)

After Marius tells his story, he sends Lestat away to live on his own, for the equivalent of one mortal lifetime. He tells Lestat not to look to history to give him meaning, because the dilemma of how to live one’s life is always a personal one. However, Marius vows that he will be available if Lestat ever needs his help, and extracts from Lestat a promise never to tell anyone about him or his whereabouts. (VL 468-470)

They do not meet again until the twentieth century, when Lestat becomes a rock star and reveals the whole vampire history in his songs. By that time, Marius has moved his immortal charges to a northern wasteland where he plays Lestat’s music for them. In response, Akasha rises and destroys the shrine, trapping Marius in ice for ten days. Marius sends out signals of danger to the other vampires. His child and lover, Pandora, urges Santino to help dig Marius out, and while Marius survives, the experience has humiliated and spiritually bruised him. (QotD 17-31, 68, 264)

Marius joins the vampires who stand against Akasha and Lestat and their rampage of destruction, and uses his own belief in the need for human evolution to attempt to reason with Akasha. After he demise, he urges Lestat not to write about it, but Lestat ignores his advice. The surviving coven drifts apart, and Lestat believes that Marius has gone into Asia. (QotD 264-275, 437-444)

He appears again in BT only as an angry presence at Lestat’s antics; he turns his back on Lestat in front of Louis’ burning shack as if he is finally finished with him. (BT 272)

In a segment that was included in the first draft, then condensed to a few lines, Marius uses Khayman to bring Lestat to Hong Kong. There he scolds Lestat for making himself conspicuous to the mortal world. At this time Marius is still a scholar, reading newspapers and books in many languages, and looking through a high-powered telescope in search of the continuous awareness about which he dreams. (BT 4-5)

Marius took his leave from the court often now-- he carried a greater burden than anyone could conceive, trying to piece together and contain their elaborate world.  So, from time to time, he would vanish, but he would always return.  He slipped through gates, walking through the palatial doors.  

The thought occurred to him that it had been a terribly long time since he’d been home.  His shoes made no sounds on the glossy floors, polished to a such a shine that the ceiling reflected with perfect clarity.  And the lights dazzled.  Truly it was a marvelous place, but Marius never felt at home here.

He listened for sounds, voices, to discern who was present-- preferring the simple to the more exhausting use of his powerful preternatural gifts.  Some immortals liked to show off their gifts, but Marius used his own powers only when necessary or important.  

“Take anything you want from me.”

Marius cocked his head to the side because he knew that voice-- of course, he did.  That voice had whispered love, spoken sweet poetries, yelled harsh and hurtful words.  That voice had conveyed all manner and emotion.  One did not simply forget the most important voice in all of the world and eternity.

“Do you ask if I’m trying to persuade you? You’re the persuading one. Just the look in your eyes tells me, the hard grip on my ass, it urges me. You’re the one who wants me submitting to you. That’s what I’ll admit, that you want me.  And I admit that I like it. I like it when a man can take me, when he dares to hold me down.”

It took Marius a moment to process this as it felt more of an assault than mere voyeurism.  An embarrassingly long length of time stretched as he tried to process what he had heard.  It came in pieces.  The first that this was exactly what it appeared-- not a game or a recitation.  Pandora did read very vulgar literature from time to time, and she liked to share it with Marius.

Yes, what he heard from the other side of the door was exactly what it sounded.

Marius was a master or restraint, of putting his emotions away so deeply that it brought him no guilt, and utter ease, to lie of their existence.  

If he were to release his rage, the entire building would quake and the windows would shatter.  Betrayal was the ugliest of emotions, and his disgust made his head spin.  When Marius realized he was gripping his fists too tight, he let his fingers loosen.  The way he smoothed his shirt was a self-soothing gesture.  One deep breath helped the heat in his head cool, but that calm was short-lived-- his betrayal would offer no reprieve.  It would not let him go.

Would he burst in?

No, of course not.  What a perfectly inelegant thing to do.  He squared his shoulders and walked gently to the library to sit and wait.  The book in his lap went unread, but it gave him the illusion of normalcy.  Even as he felt his world had been turned upside down, he still wanted to convey ease.  And anyway, how could he read when his heart thundered in his head and chest.

Name: Marius de Romanus (His actual last name is not known. De Romanus was a name that he gave himself, meaning of Rome, on the spur of the moment when he was asked by Botticelli was his last name was.)

Birth Place: Born in Massilia, now known as Marseilles in France. It was part of Roman Gaul in Roman times. It’s also where Marius was abducted by the Druids. Read more about Marius’ making here.

Eyes: Blue.

Hair: Blond, wavy, to his shoulders. Sometimes clipped.

Parents: A Roman Patrician and a Keltic slave who died when he was born. Father adopted him and made him a legal Roman citizen.

Siblings: Yes, brothers have been mentioned, though we don’t know their names, ages, or numbers. Marius clearly has a different mother from all of them, but he was adopted by his father as a legal son.

Mortal Occupation(s): Roaming historian, solider, and Senator.

Immortal Occupation(s): Venetian painter and filmmaker.

Mortal Age: Most people say, because of what was claimed in The Vampire Lestat, that Marius is around the age of 40. But I found this to be inconsistent when I read later novels. And we all know that Anne can sometimes be inconsistent with her facts. So I used the more recent novel Pandora to come to the decision that he is closer to the age of 35. Want to know how? Then go here.

Immortal Age: Once estimated around 2039. Now, re-thought and re-estimated at 2037 (This is based on my age theory here).

Maker: Druid God of the Grove

Powers: Among them, the Mind Gift, the Fire Gift, the Cloud Gift, and the Killing Gift (More information found here).

Fledglings: Pandora, Armand, Bianca, Sybelle, & Benji