"Before I'm Dead" by Kidneythieves

We're going to stay within the Vampire Chronicles, simply because the "Queen of the Damned" was one of the best soundtracks that came out of the early 2000s. I could do a post on every single song on the album, it's that good. I've been watching this YouTube channel about the different ways film addresses meaning, through philosophy and metaphysics. It has illuminated some of my favorite movies in ways I have never thought. One of the ways the channel accomplishes that is through discussing different character archetypes and, of course, how those archetypes play out on The Hero's Journey. One of the videos I watched today mentioned that the Hero's Journey always begins with an initiation. A transitional experience (and often, a choice) the Hero must encounter in order to cross over from the profane world (that which know as ordinary reality) into the sacred world. In the video, the narrator stated that in the modern era, our encounters with the sacred world are becoming more sparse. Entry into the sacred world used to be something every human experienced, because it was baked into our tribal culture through rites of passage. Now, a contemporary human may go their entire lives without passing through any barriers into transcendence. The irony is that society has invented pseudo-initiations to fill in the gap, but very few things come close to the transformative event that is described in the Hero's Journey.

This discussion of the sacred-profane dichotomy brought to mind the Order of the Talamasca. The Talamasca is a secret society in the Vampire/Mayfair Witch Chronicles that was established to keep watch over the world of the paranormal. As desperately as I wish such a thing existed, the most disappointing thing about this secret society is it is purely academic - or it's meant to be. Their motto is "We watch. And we are always there." But that's all they're supposed to do. However, it's an occultist society and you can imagine the type of people it attracts. Naturally, it attracts people who feel out of place in the profane world. People who, without proof, believe that something more must exist. Or they come from lineages well-steeped in the mysterious and supernatural. Some of my favorite characters in the Chronicles timeline - Jessica "Jesse" Reeves and Merrick Mayfair - are just such people. We'll focus on Jesse, because she's one of the main characters in "Queen of the Damned." She's orphaned at a young age but is sent to live with relatives of what is referred to as The Great Family. The Great Family was born of one of the oldest vampires, Maharet, before she was turned by Akasha, who wanted to claim her power as witch through consuming her blood. The mythos of the Chronicles is intense and varied, so I'll try to sum up as best I can without rewriting the whole damn series. After she is turned, Maharet makes it her mission to ensure her descendants are taken care of. She even visits many of them regularly, though she keeps her distance. This is probably what I'd do if I were immortal. As sad as it would be, I'd still watch my son grow up. And then his children after him. And their children after them. Jesse knows Maharet as her aunt but has always felt drawn to her and the forced distance has always weighed on her heart. Jesse has natural psychic gifts of her own, which is how the Talamasca finds and recruits her. However, she is charged to watch the supernatural world but be not of it. Ultimately, she cannot uphold that promise, because it is built on an unstable foundation. It goes against her soul and there is nothing so untenable as trying to keep a promise that is in conflict with your soul. The irony is that the Talamasca is filled with people who long to join the sacred world, but most are too cowardly to face the initiation and so choose to dress up their cowardice as "academic interest" or "serving the common good." They hide behind societal morals and ethics, always with one toe on the threshold but never daring to cross.

Epochs fly, reminds me

What I hide, reminds me

The desert skies

Cracks the spies

Reminds me what I never tried

The ocean wide salted red

Reminds me what to do before I'm dead

Some do, though. Jesse does, in the end. As does Merrick Mayfair (although that's an entire novel on its own). And, of course, the ethereal beauty of the Mayfair witches draws in its fair share of male Talamasca members, most of whom suffer an unfortunate fate. They forgot the most important guideline - never fall in love with a witch....not even once. The only thing almost as tragic is having a vampire fall in love with you, which is what happens to Jesse. To be fair, Lestat has a habit of falling in love with everyone, so she's kind of the rule, not the exception. Still, Lestat offered and she accepted. That's the difference. To go on the Hero's Journey, when presented with an opportunity, you must accept it. Yes, in some cases, the Hero is forced onto the path but there is always a choice to not continue. There's always the option to go back to The Shire and live out the rest of your days peacefully. There's nothing wrong with this except that you'll always be haunted by the "what ifs," which isn't so bad. You can be haunted by "what ifs" for opportunities that weren't even possibilities for you, anyway, so it seems a small price to pay for a comfortable life. It just seems like a shame to merely taste the extraordinary only to go back to the mundane, with very little to show for it except memories. In order to be transformed, you have to be immersed in the sacred fully and come out the other side. One must walk through flames and allow the old self (i.e., the ego) be utterly destroyed. But you must go in willingly, with no illusions of security or comfort. Only then can the Hero emerge.

"Before I'm Dead" Video

" Sonata in E-flat Major for Piano, Hob. XVI:49/II. Adagio e cantabile" by Joseph Haydn

Exhausted yet again but I decided to try for just a short Song de la Nuit and wax poetic for a few minutes about one of my favorite literary characters. I saw "Interview with the Vampire" during my formative years and I remember the first time I watched it distinctly because my dad was building "bunky boards" for our new bunk beds. I'm fairly certain I was about 8 years old. No, my parents really didn't care what we watched when I was growing up (or even noticed, to be honest), which is why my knowledge of late 90s/early 2000s horror films is quite extensive. They also didn't take notice of what we were reading, either, which is how my sisters and I became big fans of Anne Rice. We even have copies of the BDSM erotica she wrote under the nom de plume A.N. Roquelaure. As you may have guessed, Lestat de Lioncourt is the aforementioned favorite literary character.

Assuming you've read all the Vampire Chronicles, like I have, Lestat has a somewhat checkered past. As a reader, your perspective on Lestat gets skewed because for the first book and the majority of the third, you see Lestat through the eyes of all the other characters in the books. Some think he's nuisance, others look up to him like he's a mentor (including Louis - you don't see this in "Interview" but Louis is quite devoted to Lestat as a dear friend after the events of that book). Some vampires believe he's their savior, others think his actions put all vampires in danger. However, you can only understand Lestat after reading his story in his own words, through the text of "The Vampire Lestat." Lestat is...complicated. He's not a bad guy, as you might think if you had only seen the movie. Honestly, the 1994 version of "Interview with the Vampire" makes him out to be more of a villain than he is. To really understand Lestat, just look at the first people he decides to turn into a vampires - his mother and his best friend/first love. Lestat suffers greatly from a fear of abandonment and every action he takes is to keep the ones he loves in his life. And one by one, the outcome is always the same. Nicholas resents Lestat for turning him and commits suicide. His mother, Gabrielle, leaves him during their wanderings to experience the freedom she never could've had as the wife of a French aristocrat. Marius sends him away after he awakens They Who Must Be Kept with his violin playing. And then there was that whole debacle with Claudia murdering him to run away with Louis. Needless to say, it's a common theme in his life. For all his efforts, his lesson on the Hero's Journey is how to be alone. Ironically, that's the most unbearable thing about immortality. Immortality comes at the price of watching everyone you love die around you, unable to prevent it yet also unwilling to join them in the after life. The Gift of Agelessness becomes more of a curse for those who have not mastered the ability to be alone without being lonely.

It is this dislike of being lonely that tempts him to do stupid things, like in "The Tale of the Body Thief," where he trades his immortal body for a mortal one for a day. Unfortunately, the body thief does not intend to return his body and Lestat realizes his foolishness. After nearly losing his immortality, he somehow ends up meeting the devil, drinks the actual blood of Jesus Christ, and by the end of the entire series of books, Lestat is basically the most powerful character in all of fiction. It's a crazy ride. At the latest point in the Vampire Chronicles (which Rice is still adding to), Lestat is nearly impossible to kill - though many have tried - and he's looked at as kind of the King of Vampires, even though he's reluctant to take on that role. That's the thing about building great characters - they have to always be evolving, while still retaining their core personality. One of the things I liked most about the Harry Potter books is that each book had a different tonal quality, which showed Harry's progression throughout the series. For example, in Book 5, Harry was pretty much a whiny, emo bitch so that book was all about him getting over his bad self, because taking action based on the ego always leads to bad times. Yet, in spite of all his missteps, it's his dedication to being courageous and loyal to the side of good that stands out. It's the same with Lestat - as he gains more experience, he goes through a transformative change with each new novel. The current Lestat is way more humble and understanding than newly turned Lestat ever could've been. That being said, he can still be a little extra at times - there's a reason people call him The Brat Prince. This is (or should be) how we take on our own lives. With each new chapter, we have to remember we are not the same person we used to be and yet the same person we always were. It's confusing. But if you get it, you get it. And if/when you do get it, I feel like it makes life go a whole helluva lot smoother, even when things start to get crazy in your external world.

"Lestat's Piano Sonata" Video