I loved this series, even with all of its flaws and bits and characters that I hated. I love Anne Rice's prose. I love her way of writing and I'm a huge fan of her detailed descriptions and her character's long monologues and dialogues on philosophical themes. I love some of her characters and hate some of them as well. Some of her characters and plots are so unrealistic that it's hilarious, but still, I can't help but love it as a whole.
I hated Rowan as a person, but her character was well constructed and her actions and decisions made sense considering her personality. I mean some of her decisions made sense… She was supposedly an extremely smart, driven woman, very career-oriented, a brilliant neurosurgeon, with no interest in long-term relationships with men, just hook-ups. Until she met Michael, with whom she fell in love in a day, and decided to abandon her work, get married, and start a family with him, despite never before having a single thought or desire to become a mom. That didn't make sense. But her decisions regarding Lasher made sense, because she's so arrogant and she thinks she's better and smarter than all the Mayfair women before her, and she'd be able to out-smart Lasher.
I kind of liked Michael, but hated how Rowan described him. Her hyper-sexualization of him was extremely gross to me. I liked the parts about his childhood, about his mom. He was a very idealized character, but Anne Rice does that sometimes… some of her characters are so over the top extraordinary that it's so unrealistic. But… I still like reading about such characters. I don't want to read about boring mediocre people.
I liked Aaron and was upset he died… I would have loved for him to get to have a last conversation with David Talbot (turned vampire).
I even kind of liked Mona, even though her character is one of the most ridiculously unrealistic in the whole series. In my head, I just changed her age to 17, because she had no business being 13. I get that Anne Rice wanted to make her very precocious but it's ridiculous. There's nothing being lost if she's 17 – the story stays the same, it's just a tiny bit more realistic. Her parents were poor, cause the drunk all their money, so poor that their house was in shambles but somehow Mona had the most high-tech computer of the age, internet, and – I might misremember, but I think she even somehow invested in stocks… at 13. Anyway, I just learned to tune out some of the outlandishly unrealistic stuff, because I genuinely love the other parts.
I loved the entire Mayfair history that the Talamasca collected, that part is my favorite part of the whole series.
Anne Rice has this habit of writing tragic, traumatic backstories to some of her characters and then have that not reflected at all in their adult lives. Take Yuri for example. He was living on the streets and supporting himself through sex-work as a CHILD, yet he grows up to be a perfectly balanced adult with no trauma. What's the point then? If the childhood trauma has no ramifications in his adult life then why even include it? And it's not like we get to see how he healed and learned to put that past him, it's just never ever again addressed.
Going back to the rest of the cast…
I didn't like Stella, I didn't like Carlotta, I loved Julien.
Yes, Julien is problematic in so many different ways, and outright reprehensible at times, and the most unrealistic character in the series, even more so than Mona. But still… I can't help but like his personality, his charisma, his lust for life. Again, Anne Rice is shooting herself in the foot by exaggerating way, way, WAY too much when trying to make a character extraordinary. He somehow remembers conversations with his great-grandmother since he was 3 years old. He was reading Dante's Inferno at 4 years old… And I don't quite understand why. Like, add a decade to those ages and not much would be lost from the story. It would still be impressive, just a tad more realistic. She wanted to make him a genius, like Mozart-level genius. But why? Why did he need to read at 3 years old? Especially since later in life he didn't become a world-renowned author, composer, philosopher, anything?
Anyway, what I can't figure out is if it's my fault that I didn't understand Carlotta's plan and Julien's plan in regards to Lasher, or if it's meant not to be understood. Carlotta and Julien appear to be in opposition, to want completely different things in regards to Lasher, and I don't get what either of them was trying to do. Julien seems to help Lasher at some points, but then at other points he appears to work towards a plan where Lasher gets tricked. Carlotta obviously doesn't want Lasher to win, but her ultimate plan is also elusive.
Did Carlotta sacrifice Antha and Deidre in the hopes that Lasher's powers will just weaken to the point where… what? He'll just disappear?
Julien's apparitions to Michael about the doorway, the 13th were meant to prevent Lasher from being born, or were they meant to steer Michael to the Mayfairs so that Lasher can be born? Michael was the one who killed Lasher, so was that the outcome Julien wanted? Did Julien want Lasher to be born so that he could be killed?
Julien seemed to do things that helped Lasher's plans – he had all those incest kids. He also let Lasher take his form and other such things that strengthened Lasher. So did he want to help Lasher, or trick him? Julien's ghost also lured Mona to Michael and facilitated them sleeping together. I'm just not sure where it was all meant to lead.
What do you think? What was Julien's plan?
Which characters did you like? And which did you dislike?
Which parts did you find most unrealistic?
by sad-bewilderment