Louis killing indiscriminately and such
Jan. 19th, 2014 01:14 pmHere's my patented Wall of Text™©® in response to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cloudsinvenice's post in THE VAMPIRE LESTAT GROUP READ: SECTION 1 DISCUSSION.
http://vc-media.dreamwidth.org/229154.html?thread=6627874#cmt6627874
I'm just running in here to throw this QotD exchange in bc it seems quite relevant to the discussion of whether our vampires should meddle in human affairs/politics beyond their own need to kill... and the whole topic of Lestat teaching Louis to follow his example in "killing indiscriminately," well:
1) Lestat was just desperate to get Louis to kill PEOPLE at that point, so he may have been trying to appeal to Louis' moral/psychological/etc. dilemma(s) about it,
2) we're getting Lestat's words 3rd-hand, from Louis (2nd) to Daniel (3rd) (we're not even considering that Daniel might have also had an publisher/editor to satisfy), so it might not be exactly what Lestat said, and,
3) again, IWTV-Lestat is not the same character as EverythingWrittenAfterThat-Lestat. Both in representation and personal growth.
Plus, it also has the Louis "described as the most ruthless, or the most vampiric, of the lot because he simply kills those who cross his path." which I underlined.
From QotD:
"You speak of the intellectual attitudes of a few." [Akasha]
"No," [Marius] said. "I speak of changing philosophy; I speak of idealism from which true realities will be born. Akasha, flawed, as they are, they must have the time to perfect their own dreams, don't you see?"
"Yes!" It was Louis who spoke out.
My heart sank. So vulnerable! Were she to turn her anger on him-But in his quiet and refined manner, he was going on:
♥(Just have to jump in for a sec, sorry) Oh Louis! and Lestat being all protective, like when Nicki was captured! *sob!*♥
"It's their world, not ours," [Louis] said humbly. "Surely we forfeited it when we lost our mortality. We have no right now to interrupt their struggle. If we do we rob them of victories that have cost them too much! Even in the last hundred years their progress has been miraculous; they have righted wrongs that mankind thought were inevitable; they have for the first time developed a concept of the true family of man."
"You touch me with your sincerity," she answered. "I spared you only because Lestat loved you. Now I know the reason for that love. What courage it must take for you to speak your heart to me. Yet you yourself are the most predatory of all the immortals here. You kill without regard for age or sex or will to live."
"Then kill me!" he answered.
♥(Just have to jump in AGAIN, sorry) Oh LOUIS!! No! *wants to hug him so badly*♥
"I wish that you would. But don't kill human beings! Don't interfere with them. Even if they kill each other! Give them time to see this new vision realized; give the cities of the West, corrupt as they may be, time to take their ideals to a suffering and blighted world."
So I think that actually answers alot here, I think alot of the vampires would probably have agreed with this reasoning. Well in actuality they DID, forming a unified front on the subject against Akasha's designs.
As for Louis refusing powerful blood...
Marius thinking about it here:
"...and again Marius smiled. This one was so gifted yet not gifted at the same time; he wondered if the human light would go out of Louis's eyes if he ever gained more power, if he ever had, for instance, a little of the blood of Marius in his veins...Just a little blood, and Louis might be stronger, true, but then he might lose the human tenderness, the human wisdom that no one could give another; the gift of knowing others' suffering with which Louis had probably been born."
So do with that what you will... Louis does want to keep what humanity he has left. After making Madeleine, he was especially distraught at having lost another piece, he assumed it was the last, of his humanity:
"'For you see,' I said to her in that same calm voice,'what died tonight an this room was not that woman... What has died in this room tonight is the last vestige in me of what was human'"
I couldn't find the part where Maharet talks about it, but I feel like she does at some point...
I'm intrigued by your questions on that subject. First I have one, though. Wouldn't it be a huge benefit for Louis to accept that stronger blood in that he wouldn't have to kill as often? One would think that would be reason enough for him to take it without further question!
cloudsinvenice:"Is washing his hands of judgment a supremely moral decision or an incredibly immoral one? Are we obliged to consider each life and death in increments of harm done/benefit gained by humanity, or is every unnatural death an equal crime?"
I think HE thinks washing his hands of judgment makes him good, because he's not weighing one big-time druglord's evil against a high-school drug-dealer's evil (which is more evil? Which death would be more harm done/benefit gained can be argued either way), or a pedophile of strangers against a pedophile of one's own family (again, which is MORE evil? Which death would be more harm done/benefit gained can be argued either way), for 2 examples. Even in our own criminal justice system, there are appeals on the convictions of practically every level of crime! The appeals are very often based on the judgment of the level the severity of the crime, because the punishment is linked to that.
Louis feels he's Doing The Right Thing in not choosing, after all, there's a huge spectrum of Evil to Innocent people/animals who die every day on the street and in the wild, many in much more gruesome ways than his gentle kiss... this is a huge topic, too of course... I guess what I'm saying is that Louis needs to kill to live, and if this is what works for him, then it doesn't make him more or less repulsive than Lestat who DOES (for the most part) kill discriminately. HOWEVER IT IS MORE repulsive when Lestat, who again, DOES try to kill only evildoers, ends up killing an innocent now and then. He's not perfect. We always knew that. They're both damaged, aside from being vampires, and managing as best they can.
Being somewhat still attached to his religion I think Louis would be following this quote: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7), amirite? Someone is going to shoot me down for misinterpreting this quote, I can see that happening already... siiiighh.... From the perspective of someone who feels he has no right to judge, being someone WITH SIN, then EVERY unnatural death is an equal crime, so not judging means an equally unnatural death for an innocent or an evil person and everyone in between on the spectrum. Truly the definition of indiscriminate.
Drug-dealing Wall Street bankers wouldn't be hard to find, tho, maybe harder to find in New Orleans.
cloudsinvenice's post in THE VAMPIRE LESTAT GROUP READ: SECTION 1 DISCUSSION.http://vc-media.dreamwidth.org/229154.html?thread=6627874#cmt6627874
I'm just running in here to throw this QotD exchange in bc it seems quite relevant to the discussion of whether our vampires should meddle in human affairs/politics beyond their own need to kill... and the whole topic of Lestat teaching Louis to follow his example in "killing indiscriminately," well:
1) Lestat was just desperate to get Louis to kill PEOPLE at that point, so he may have been trying to appeal to Louis' moral/psychological/etc. dilemma(s) about it,
2) we're getting Lestat's words 3rd-hand, from Louis (2nd) to Daniel (3rd) (we're not even considering that Daniel might have also had an publisher/editor to satisfy), so it might not be exactly what Lestat said, and,
3) again, IWTV-Lestat is not the same character as EverythingWrittenAfterThat-Lestat. Both in representation and personal growth.
Plus, it also has the Louis "described as the most ruthless, or the most vampiric, of the lot because he simply kills those who cross his path." which I underlined.
From QotD:
"You speak of the intellectual attitudes of a few." [Akasha]
"No," [Marius] said. "I speak of changing philosophy; I speak of idealism from which true realities will be born. Akasha, flawed, as they are, they must have the time to perfect their own dreams, don't you see?"
"Yes!" It was Louis who spoke out.
My heart sank. So vulnerable! Were she to turn her anger on him-But in his quiet and refined manner, he was going on:
♥(Just have to jump in for a sec, sorry) Oh Louis! and Lestat being all protective, like when Nicki was captured! *sob!*♥
"It's their world, not ours," [Louis] said humbly. "Surely we forfeited it when we lost our mortality. We have no right now to interrupt their struggle. If we do we rob them of victories that have cost them too much! Even in the last hundred years their progress has been miraculous; they have righted wrongs that mankind thought were inevitable; they have for the first time developed a concept of the true family of man."
"You touch me with your sincerity," she answered. "I spared you only because Lestat loved you. Now I know the reason for that love. What courage it must take for you to speak your heart to me. Yet you yourself are the most predatory of all the immortals here. You kill without regard for age or sex or will to live."
"Then kill me!" he answered.
♥(Just have to jump in AGAIN, sorry) Oh LOUIS!! No! *wants to hug him so badly*♥
"I wish that you would. But don't kill human beings! Don't interfere with them. Even if they kill each other! Give them time to see this new vision realized; give the cities of the West, corrupt as they may be, time to take their ideals to a suffering and blighted world."
So I think that actually answers alot here, I think alot of the vampires would probably have agreed with this reasoning. Well in actuality they DID, forming a unified front on the subject against Akasha's designs.
As for Louis refusing powerful blood...
Marius thinking about it here:
"...and again Marius smiled. This one was so gifted yet not gifted at the same time; he wondered if the human light would go out of Louis's eyes if he ever gained more power, if he ever had, for instance, a little of the blood of Marius in his veins...Just a little blood, and Louis might be stronger, true, but then he might lose the human tenderness, the human wisdom that no one could give another; the gift of knowing others' suffering with which Louis had probably been born."
So do with that what you will... Louis does want to keep what humanity he has left. After making Madeleine, he was especially distraught at having lost another piece, he assumed it was the last, of his humanity:
"'For you see,' I said to her in that same calm voice,'what died tonight an this room was not that woman... What has died in this room tonight is the last vestige in me of what was human'"
I couldn't find the part where Maharet talks about it, but I feel like she does at some point...
I'm intrigued by your questions on that subject. First I have one, though. Wouldn't it be a huge benefit for Louis to accept that stronger blood in that he wouldn't have to kill as often? One would think that would be reason enough for him to take it without further question!
cloudsinvenice:"Is washing his hands of judgment a supremely moral decision or an incredibly immoral one? Are we obliged to consider each life and death in increments of harm done/benefit gained by humanity, or is every unnatural death an equal crime?"I think HE thinks washing his hands of judgment makes him good, because he's not weighing one big-time druglord's evil against a high-school drug-dealer's evil (which is more evil? Which death would be more harm done/benefit gained can be argued either way), or a pedophile of strangers against a pedophile of one's own family (again, which is MORE evil? Which death would be more harm done/benefit gained can be argued either way), for 2 examples. Even in our own criminal justice system, there are appeals on the convictions of practically every level of crime! The appeals are very often based on the judgment of the level the severity of the crime, because the punishment is linked to that.
Louis feels he's Doing The Right Thing in not choosing, after all, there's a huge spectrum of Evil to Innocent people/animals who die every day on the street and in the wild, many in much more gruesome ways than his gentle kiss... this is a huge topic, too of course... I guess what I'm saying is that Louis needs to kill to live, and if this is what works for him, then it doesn't make him more or less repulsive than Lestat who DOES (for the most part) kill discriminately. HOWEVER IT IS MORE repulsive when Lestat, who again, DOES try to kill only evildoers, ends up killing an innocent now and then. He's not perfect. We always knew that. They're both damaged, aside from being vampires, and managing as best they can.
Being somewhat still attached to his religion I think Louis would be following this quote: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7), amirite? Someone is going to shoot me down for misinterpreting this quote, I can see that happening already... siiiighh.... From the perspective of someone who feels he has no right to judge, being someone WITH SIN, then EVERY unnatural death is an equal crime, so not judging means an equally unnatural death for an innocent or an evil person and everyone in between on the spectrum. Truly the definition of indiscriminate.
Drug-dealing Wall Street bankers wouldn't be hard to find, tho, maybe harder to find in New Orleans.
