rhodrymavelyne

All right, I didn’t want to spoiler anything in my book review for Volume 26. I’m going to say what I suspect here.

It’s vampires. They’re the ones that represent the stars. Blavat has been feeding them at the music hall. Lizzie is under the spell of one of them.

I think the other Ciel is in league with them, too. He’s joined them to free his twin from Sebastian.

Lizzie is helping him because he’s the Ciel she truly loves. At the same time, she’s not without feelings for the boy who tried so hard to play the role of her fiance.

Another possibility is that the other Ciel is a vampire himself. He may have risen as one of the undead once the cult was finished with him. At which point, the boy we’ve known as Ciel up to this point was certain he was dead.

Our anti-hero decided to become Ciel Phantomhive, bear the burden of being earl, all to avenge his twin’s death with Sebastian at his side.

Only the true Ciel rose as a vampire or perhaps he was given enough vampire blood to heal. He stayed in the shadows and watched, knowing it was too late to safe his twin. His twin already belonged to a demon.

The Ciel we knew didn’t care. All of what he did was not only to avenge his mother and father but his twin as well.

One Ciel smiles more than the other. Is he really any less ruthless than the Ciel we know? Especially considering what he’s done to Agni.

One boy is determined to do whatever he has to do to avenge his twin. The other is willing to do anything to free his brother.

I’ll admit, this is similar to some of the drama I have planned for Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest; The Hand and the Eye of the Tower, and A Godling for Your Thoughts? Tayel can be quite relentless when it comes to protecting Danyel, while Leiwell can be downright ruthless in order to keep both Danyel and Tayel safe.

I wonder if Yana Toboso has similar ideas or plans?

One of my resolutions for this year was to return to a lot of my favorite books and read them again. One of them was The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, published in 1988. Reading the intro, I realized that it had been published when the WB movie, Batman, which first hooked my interest in the Dark Knight.

still remember that movie, all the complex emotions and interest it inspired. I saw it over and over again in the little theatre in the town of Davis. It was one of the two other films playing besides Ghostbusters 2 and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. All three movies I watched, over and over.

This was the same summer I discovered Anne Rice, falling in love with her Vampire Chronicles. Batman caught my interest at the same time.

The movie Batman was gorgeous. It brought the gothic out of Gotham. Yes, something was missing from Jack Nicholson depiction of Joker. I got the impression that the Joker became Jack Nicholson rather than Jack Nicholson was the Joker. That classic villain was still so iconic, along with his adversity with Batman as his opposite, the power of both radiated from the big screen. Nor was it completely denied, although I sensed we were only scratching the surface of what could be. Vicki Vale, played by Kim Basinger was lovely against this dark, gothic setting of mystery and danger, even if she screamed way too much, especially for a hardened photographer who’d been on site in war zones. I detested the Joker’s romantic interest in her, yet I kept returning to it in renewed, homoerotic forms.

There was a lot of complain about in that movie, but it got me interested. It started an interest which continued to this day.

When I read Scott Snyder’s gorgeous graphic novels about the Dark Knight, or Marguerite Bennet’s equally stunning tales of Batwoman, I realize I owe that movie a lot. It introduced me to a fandom I’ve been part of for 20 years.

It introduced me to my husband. The first night we met, we stayed up, obsessing and talking about Batman. He created the beginnings of another bond which lasted to this day.

Batman changed my life. That movie in 1989 changed my life.

Thank you, Batman.

I just finished reading Vampire Game after all these years, wanting to return to one of my favorite manga series, giving each volume a rating and review for Goodreads.

Much as I enjoy it, one thing which never satisfied me was the answer to the Phelios question.

Warning, this is where things get spoilery. If you haven’t read Vampire Game (and it’s an excellent manga which I strongly recommend picking up) you may want to wait on reading this blog until you’ve finished it.

There’s been plenty of hints that Phelios may have been in love with the Vampire King Duzell. Ishtar once asked Duzell if he’d been in love with Phelios. He replied that his was the stupidest question she’d ever asked.

Was it? Why did Duzell devote himself to hunting down Phelios? Why did Phelios tell Duzell that he wanted the vampire king to be his, only to forge Sidia, and cast La Gamme, destroying both of them?

More than revenge, I think Duzell wanted the answers to those questions.

And what of Phelios? What did he want badly enough to die in battle for? Enough to reincarnate as Duzell’s brother in the last pages of the last volume of Vampire Game?

Duzell and Phelios didn’t just reincarnate as brothers either. They reincarnated as Ishtar and Darres’s sons.

Whose dying wish was to reborn in his next life with Ishtar and Darres? Whose blood was never sampled by Duzell before he died, even though he cut himself and offered it for the vampire king to sample? Who gave Duzell a dramatic, teasing look in the very first volume, back when Duzell was pretending to be a krawl kitten? Who was devious, manipulative, heroic, and caring, much like Phelios himself may well have been? Who put those qualities to work for Pheliostra and the people he loved, pitting them against Sharlen, the enemy of the realm and the heir to Duzell’s former dark dreams? Who else would have had the nerve to call the Holy Knight Phelios inconsiderate other Phelios’s reincarnation himself? (Well, Ishtar would have, but everyone, including Duzell himself thought she was his reincarnation at first.)

Perhaps someone who’d proved throughout the series that he had a melancholy, self hating, self destructive streak under his teasing smile. Someone who always wanted what he couldn’t have, yet did the best he could for everyone around him.

Think about it.

If you have a wish you want granted, you may find yourself at Yuuko’s shop. Not everyone can see it. Only those who have a need to enter can.

If you do, you may find Yuuko-san sprawled out in a kimono, smoking a pipe, drinking, or fondling one of her cute, soulless minions. She won’t be surprised to see you. After all, it was destiny that you came to her.
Who exactly is Yuuko-san? Often dressed in traditional Japanese attire, she wears a sly smile that hints of all the things she knows which you don’t. For Yuuko knows a lot. She’s acquainted with quite a few prominent people involved in the occult, such as Clow Reed, Sumeragi Subaru, and Kakei of the Green Drug Store. She’s got a keen nose for when supernatural trouble is brewing and often drags her helpers straight into the middle of it.

Sometimes Yuuko-san saves people in trouble. At others, she leaves them to the fate they’ve brought upon themselves, no matter how horrible.

After all, she runs a shop, not a charity. She’ll grant a wish in return for something else, but there are some things she has no right to fix.

These qualities make Yuuko-san intriguing neutral. She and her shop made me realize just how much story potential a small setting, like a shop have in speculative fiction. The transactions and interaction which happen there can be just as exciting as a rugged journey across the landscape of another world, fighting monsters. A shop could sell items like a ring which absorbed your lies until it shattered, or give a monkey’s paw to someone who didn’t have an affinity for it and destroyed herself with her wishes.

It’s thanks to Yuuko-san and her shop that I didn’t just come up with Tales of the Navel and the Shadow Forest. They inspired the concept of ambient fantasy, emotionally driven stories which contain magic, monsters, and otherworldly things.

Readers are offered tantalizing glimpses of these and of Yuuko-san herself through the people around her. Yuuko-san never reveals the whole mystery she’s at the heart of. She strides boldy into people’s lives, offering them what they want for a price. It’s not that she doesn’t care or isn’t fair. She insists on taking no more than what her gift or service is worth.

I got the impression that Yuuko’s role as shopkeeper was a mask, or a guise she adopted as an agent of balance. She made certain people got what they were owed, what was coming to them, and saw to it that they always paid up. They couldn’t escape from the murders they’d committed by entering her store. They faced the consequences of the lies they told or the words they used. They’d acquire the means to travel between worlds, regaining someone’s memories, by sacrificing a magical tattoo, a sword, and a relationship.

Not all of the wishes were granted. Sometimes they changed. One of those less than lucky wishers was Watanuki, the main character. He fled into Yuuko’s store, fleeing from the spirits pursuing him. He hoped to no longer have to see them. This changed when he learned more about himself, found himself more and more compelled to help others, including Yuuko-san. In the end, Watanuki ended up taking over the store in Yuuko-san’s place. He ended up becoming more and more like Yuuko herself.

This makes me wonder, especially since Watanuki looks very much like a young Clow Reed. Was Yuuko-san once in Watanuki’s shoes? Did she wander into the store that would become hers one day with a wish? Did she meet, say Clow Reed when he was running it? Or Fei Wang Reed?

I could see one of those two as being in the business of granting wishes. Perhaps Yuuko-san was around when Clow created Yue, Kerberos, and the Clow Cards. Or perhaps Clow left Yuuko-san running the store so he could go do those things?

It’s an imperfect theory, yet I still wonder about the connection between Yuuko-san, Clow, and Fei Wang Reed. This may be another one of those CLAMP mysteries which is never explained. It could be part of Yuuko-san’s character to collect such mysteries along with everything else.

Perhaps she might be willing to offer up more information about her past if we offered her something of equal value in return?

We might not be willing to pay, though. :)

Buffy wasn’t the only female character who stood out for me on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There was another who broke new ground, bringing a new dimension of development to what I’d seen on television.

Willow seemed as revolutionary and as exciting as Buffy, even if she required a lot of rescuing. There was no attempt in the beginning to make her sexy, to draw attention to her clevage and legs. (This had been done with so many other female characters often enough to give the allure a cookie cutter sameness.)

Willow wore loose jumpers and looked mousy. She came off as a wallflower and a nerd. She was treated like one, too. There was a sweetness, though and a vulnerability about Willow that touched my heart. Seeing her getting bullied by Cordelia in her first scene with Buffy really got to me, striking home to my own past experiences of being bullied.

I could see it got to Buffy, too, even though her experience of being a nerd was fairly fresh and new after having been popular at her old school before becoming a Slayer. I could see it in the way Buffy watched Willow walk away from the drinking fountain after Cordelia shooed her away.

It was more than pity or even sympathy. Something clicked between those two girls from the very beginning.

I’ve been lucky enough to feel this magic with people myself. It’s something I never get tired of.

I saw that connection again, deepening between Buffy and Willow in their first private conversation. Buffy sought Willow out. Willow, shy and wounded after being bullied by Cordelia, wasn’t unfriendly, but reluctant to accept Buffy’s company. Buffy persisted with a charm that made me like her all the more. She admitted to having a burning desire to pass all her classes and said she’d heard Willow was the person to help her with this.

Willow warmed up instantly to this, dropping her guard.

I think the Slayer acquired her best friend at that moment, when she, the superhero asked for this shy girl’s help.

Not that Buffy didn’t return the favour tenfold. She became Willow’s champion, protecting her from the monsters that went bump in Sunnydale’s night. Many of them underestimated Willow as well, thinking she was easy prey.

Willow was more than that. Buffy protected her, but in other ways Willow protected Buffy. Willow became Buffy’s accademic and emotional champion, defending her against the many students and teachers who regarded Buffy as a freak. She also defended her against Xander, the person she loved most in the world when Buffy fell for Angel. Yes, she and Xander both had ulterior motives, Xander with his crush on Buffy, and Willow with her crush on Xander. At the same time, Willow truly did become Buffy’s champion in defending Buffy's feelings, even coming to rescue and returning Angel's soul to him.

The two girls had each other’s back. Willow didn’t stop at just being Buffy’s emotional and accademic champion. She started to have her back against the creatures of the night, in the on-going fight against the Hellmouth.

Willow started studying magic, becoming a quite powerful witch. She became more and more Buffy’s equal.

Eventually she threatened to become her superior.

This was the beginning to the real split between the two girls.

Things had divided Buffy and Willow before. Buffy’s tragic battle with Angel, sending him to hell, led to Buffy running away from Sunnydale, leaving all of her former friends behind. This divided them, but danger brought them back together. Buffy’s intense connection with Faith, a link with another Slayer which Willow couldn’t share caused friction, but the dark direction that took and the emotional fall out brought Buffy and Willow back together again. Willow’s delight in finding herself at college while Buffy just felt overwhelmed divided them. Buffy got involved with Riley while Willow had her secret relationship with Tara, driving them in opposite direction.

The great division was Willow getting power, Willow wanting power apart from Buffy, and Willow becoming her own woman. It was a natural, organic development which came out of many seasons of the characters and the show developing, growing, and changing.

Willow found herself no longer wanting power to accomplish special tasks or to help with the fight. She started to crave magical power for its own sake. Her power corrupted her. She ended up becoming one of the monsters Buffy had to fight.

In the end, it was Giles and Xander who saved Willow from herself, not with power, but with vulnerability. Xander opened his heart to Willow at the crucial moment, touching upon Willow’s own heart, and convincing her to stop.

It was one of the most emotionally charged moments in the series. It left Willow and I both weeping.

It also left an unanswered question. Where would Willow go from there?

She’d proved that she wasn’t weak. Willow had power. What was she to do with it? How could she use it without abusing it?

For a while. Willow returned to being vulnerable. She ended up getting her skin flayed off by a demon. Buffy saved her in this state.

For a brief time, the two women returned to what they’d once been. Willow’s wounded state stirred up Buffy’s former protectiveness. This moment allowed Buffy, who’d been getting more ruthless to open up to Willow. The two women regained some of the natural ease which existed between them at the beginning.

The two of them couldn’t go back, though. Willow had a find a place for herself and her power in Buffy’s world.

Eventually, Willow found a way. She used her power to give girls all over the world power. She activated every potential Slayer in existence, surpassing the men who’d created the first Slayer. She shared strength around the world.

It was an epic ending for the girl who’d once been a shy wallflower. It’s a female hero’s journey from being shy and not knowing her own strength to confidence and power.

Like Buffy’s, this journey is not without pitfalls. Ultimately it’s an upward climb, going beyond the limits others have determined for her to find out who she really is. She seeks out power that women are often discouraged from seeking.

Yes, that power corrupts. Willow doesn’t avoid the trap of being corrupted. She climbs out wounded, much more wary than she was. She learns from her fall, allows herself to heal.

She comes to accept her power, tempering it with her experiences. She figures out a way to use that power to help countless other women. She and Buffy share their strength, making others strong in turn.

In the end, Willow proves that a powerful woman can do good as well as evil.

It’s her choice.

There’s a type of boy I’ve seen a lot in manga and anime. He makes hordes of girls blush and swoon. He’s good at sports and has a certain flair which catches everyone’s eye.

Often he’s regarded as more than a boy. He’s a prince.

In Revolutionary Girl Utena, this prince is a girl. Her name is Tenjou Utena.

Utena met a prince once when she was a little girl, who gave her the courage to go on living. Inspired and impressed by his example, she decided to become a prince herself. She wears a boy’s uniform and tries to rescue girls who are in trouble.

Something struck as being very sweet and perfectly natural about Utena’s reaction. Why wouldn’t she wish to be like someone who gave her courage?

There’s more to her wish to save girls in trouble, to be a prince that rescues princesses, a reason she’s forgotten. This is explored when she becomes engaged to Anthy Hinemiya.

Utena’s resolve to save girls in trouble leads her to avenge a friend’s humilation at the hands of a popular school heartthrob. She challenges this young man to a duel, only to find out there’s more to duelling at her school than she ever dreamed of.

Anthy Himemiya is at the heart of it. Whomever emerges from victorious from the duels in the Forest under the castle in the sky (which are the only duels allowed on campus) becomes engaged to Anthy, the Rose Bride. Once Utena defeats the duelling champion, she becomes engaged to the Rose Bride and all duelling challengers come after her.

Utena, along with her readers/audience, doesn’t understand what’s going on, what the purpose of the duelling game is, or how the Rose Bride is involved. At first, she doesn’t want to be engaged to Anthy. Utena still has hopes of being in relationship with a “normal boy” to use her own words, even though she’s chosen not to be a “normal girl” herself. Her attempts to try to be “normal”, like everyone else end in her unhappiness and weakening.

Utena comes to realize what’s normal for her isn’t normal for everyone else. She has to figure out what Anthy means to her, decide if their relationship is worth fighting for. Even if it means abandoning any hope of being normal. Even if it leads her to eventually abandon her dreams of her prince.

Utena’s heroic journey is that of an eccentric, an oddball who dares to follow her heart even if it thumps to a different beat than everyone else’s.

Daring to be different isn’t enough. Not for Utena. Eventually she finds her childish illusions which inspired her and gave her strength can trick and trap her. She’s forced to look beyond them, to face them for that they are.

Sometimes she finds herself fighting the embodiment of those dreams, those who represent her prince himself.

Utena never stops trying to be true to herself. When her dreams, her very memories turn on her, she tries to find what lies beyond them.

No series have ever come closer to doing what I’m trying to achieve in speculative fiction than Revolutionary Girl Utena. Not that my message is exactly the same as that story’s. The idea that there’s an ambiguous reality within an alternative reality, created by the thoughts and dreams of those that inhabit it is a concept I use in Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest. The theme that this reality can be beautiful as well as terrible is another concept I channel into my work.

Utena is very close to my own characters in her uncertainty about who and what she is. Like my characters, her reality has been tampered with. How much of what she sees as “normal” is the result of a distortion in perception?

How much of what we see is?

Utena gets me thinking about what we take for granted as being “normal”. Who creates the rules of normalancy? What shapes our perceptions of what is normal and what isn’t?

How much as been contrived and repeated in mindless rituals, much lke the duels in the forest? Just how much odder is Utena truly from other people, who seem normal to her? Just how normal are those people, really?

Utena and her world made think like few stories have ever done before. It made me think about the very nature of reality itself and how it’s constructed.

I’m really grateful to Utena for heading for the dueler’s forest and opening the door. She showed me another perspective through which speculative fiction can be viewed.

This is one of the reasons why she and her story remain especial favorites of mine.

It’s impossible for me to bring up Naruto without mentioning his opposite.

Sasuke defines Naruto. The two rivals are a study in contrasts. Naruto is blonde and wears orange. Sasuke is dark and wears blue. Naruto is a rebel, a loudmouth, and a screw up. Sasuke is often silent, a genius, and born of a long, proud tradition.

They’re completely different, yet they discover they’re more alike than they realized in their stubborness and loneliness.

Naruto is constantly screwing up in little ways. Sasuke screws up less often, but in spectacularly tragic ways that plummet him into the darkness.

It makes a certain amount of sense that his opposite would respond by turning hero and try to save him.

A major part of Naruto’s hero’s journey is getting Sasuke back. The journey was quite the epic one. Ultimately it was a success. The two friends and rivals were reunited.

Sasuke didn’t stay at Naruto’s side. This made sense to me, too. I get the impression Sasuke can’t remain too close to Naruto because the two of them are so close.

They’re opposites, so they’ll always be at odds with each other, yet there’s an intimacy between them unlike any other for the same reason. This relationship fascinates me because of its powerful paradox. Watching Sasuke and Naruto has taught me how much conflict can be channeled into a bond which is as loving as it is adversarial.

It’s been a learning experience, following Sasuke and Naruto on their journey. I’ve discovered a great deal from their interaction not only as a reader and a fangirl, but as a writer as well.

As a SasuNaru devotee, It was a crushing blow when Sasuke and Naruto didn’t get together. I truly wish the ending had been a more open one without the decisive marrying off of both characters to other people which dashed my dreams.

Regardless of how Naruto ended, it doesn’t change the power of that driving relationship in the story.

Sasuke is the inspiration for Naruto. The thought of him is what keeps Naruto going, giving him an extra boost of strength to overcome his challenges.

It’s beautiful. It’s powerful. To me, it’s always romantic in the most primal sense of the ideal. Its rawness cuts to the heart as much as the moments when Sasuke disappoints Naruto, not living up to this ideal.

After a certain point, Sasuke claims to no longer care about Naruto or to admit their bond still exists. I never quite believed him. He protested (and fought) a bit too much to be believed. Besides, unlike Naruto, Sasuke has always been a little more mysterious about his motivations (although I’ve explored them a great deal in fanfic). There have been parts of the story where we never quite knew what he was thinking.

It can be fun filling in the blanks. (Like I said, I’ve done it myself in fanfic) This bit of intriguing mystery is something I should consider when crafting my own original stories and exploring my antagonist’s motivations.

I’ve been disappointed in Sasuke, furious at him, yet I’ve always enjoyed the dynamic between Sasuke and Naruto. I’ve often been brought to tears, witnessing the strength Sasuke inspired in Naruto even the two of them were apart.

Their relationship remains one of the most epic I’ve ever encountered. It won my heart.

Thank you, Kishimoto-sensei, for crafting it.

I’ll never forget the descriptions of Ozma in the original Oz books, how beautiful she was. This description was backed up by the illustrations of John R. Neill, which captured her beauty perfectly.

I think those illustrations shaped my developing aesthetics as a child, forming a base for what I would find attractive later.

There was something utterly enchanting about Ozma. She was a little girl’s princess. She saw other little girls in trouble and whisked them away from it, often to the land of Oz. She gave those girls a home where they never had to grow up. She provided a home for their families and pets, too. Those pets gained the ability to talk once they reached Oz (although Toto pretended not to for a long time :)).

Ozma was beautiful, but there was no expectation of her beauty being there to attract a man, a husband, or a prince. It simply existed. Nor was Ozma in a great hurry to grow up, although she had a great many adult responsibilities as a ruler of Oz. She remained a child ruler, although she was at times described as being a teenager.

Ozma’s purpose was to rule Oz by making her people happy. She loved each and every one of her subjects. If she found out any of them were suffering, she’d do something about it.

She did have her special friends, though. One of them was Dorothy.

There’s something so charming about Ozma and Dorothy’s friendship. Not only did they become best friends, but Ozma made Dorothy a princess.

If you think about it, the closest thing Ozma had to a consort was Dorothy. Not that I was aware of how that might be interpreted as a child.

I just liked Ozma better than all the Disney princesses who had to have a prince. (I grew up long before Frozen.) She was our princess, not some man’s. She belonged to little girls, since she was still part child. She’d never grown up, get married, and leave us all behind.

Ozma showed me at an early age that you didn’t have to do any of these things. A girl could still a beautiful princess without any of them.

Thank you, Ozma, for offering me that insight at an early age. You were an example which gave me a certain measure of internal independence which not everyone has.

For that, I’ll always love you.

Armand fascinates me. Louis breaks my heart. Lestat keeps Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles exciting.

If I were to name the vampire I emphasize with the most in the series, the one I find myself cheering for, it would be Marius.

Marius is something only too precious, an enlightened, educated immortal man.

His peaceful life was interrupted when he was abducted and forced to become a god through the blood of the God of the Grove. Later he found himself the guardians of Those Who Must Be Kept, the first immortals upon whose unlives all others depended.

Marius has never stopped learning, though. Nor has he ever abandoned his quest for knowledge over the centuries. All of his unlife, he’s been the voice of reason, trying to hold his own with reason against fanatics, true believers, and mobs.

They hate him for it. They keep trying to ruin his unlife, burning his sanctuaries, his collections of art and knowledge. They keep trying to destroy him.

They never do. Even during his bitterest hour in Queen of the Damned, he found beauty and peace in his surroundings, in holding Armand, his Amadeo once more.

Marius always strives to nurture the kindess and love within him wherever he finds himself. He’s the ultimate mentor, the patient teacher who tries to keep his temper, no matter how much his pupils frustrate him and break his heart.

No wonder neither Armand nor Lestat could ever get over him. I doubt Daniel will either. Marius strikes me in many ways as the perfect companion for David Talbot. Both strive to be scholarly gentlemen, sharing a great many interests.
Lestat gives each story dynamic energy and passion. Armand adds seductive danger and mystery. Louis brings tenderness and vulnerability.

Marius is the rock, giving everyone else a sense of home. He’s there for other vampires when they’re lost or wounded. He’s the Platonic ideal of the lover who’ll take care of his beloved, try to shape him into something stronger, more refined, more capable. He was definitely that ideal for Armand and to a certain measure for Lestat. He’s become the friend, lover, and mentor for many a lonely vampire. He’s never the king, or the owner of the island, but he’s always a lord advisor, bringing stability to that location, supporting the one who rules.

Of all the vampires, he’s never lost sight of trying to be a good man. Of all the vampires, Marius is perhaps the closest to being a well-adjusted, stable ancient. He’s the ideal many vampires strive for in the series, even when he’s at odds with the main character in a particular novel.

Those he loves honor, respect, and love him back, no matter how much they might disagree with him. This is what makes their conflict with Marius so interesting. It’s never about simple right and wrong with him, just different perspectives of right.

Marius takes The Vampire Chronicles to a deeper level. When the main character opposes him, the story turns a rich shade of gray, tinged with warmer, more earthy hues.

For the most intriguing adversaries for Marius are those whom he’s on intimate terms with, like Pandora, Armand, Lestat, Akasha, or even Mael. Marius elevates their conflict to a more cerebral level, confident, yet caring. His opponents find themselves doubting themselves when facing his kindness and reason. He prefers reason to violence. Given a choice, he’ll fight with reason.

Vampire stories are often dominated by violence and/or dark sexuality, but Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles have an intellectual and philosophical dimension which I haven’t seen as much of in the others. Marius is a character whom always brings that intellectual and philosophical side to the plot.

If I were to talk to any of Anne Rice’s vampires, Marius would be my first choice. He gives abstract concepts energy and charm.

Marius, I truly wish there were more people like you in the world. It would be a better place if there were.