Claudia de Lioncourt
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20110510
Claudia de Lioncourt
Claudia de Lioncourt
Claudia (her last name is never given) was a young girl who lived in the poor, plague-ravaged quarters of 18th century New Orleans. She lost both of her parents to the plague, and is first introduced as a crying child of five or six years old in her house, next to her mother's dead body. She is small and delicately shaped, with golden ringlets for hair and pale skin. She is found by Louis de Pointe du Lac, the protagonist ofInterview with the Vampire, and begs him to “wake” her mother. Louis instead feeds on her, much to his self-disgust, and her life is temporarily saved by Lestat de Lioncourt, Louis' maker.
Claudia is taken to the vampires' townhouse in the heart of New Orleans, and there she is turned into a vampire by Lestat. Lestat tells her that she is his and Louis' “daughter” and that now that she is in their family, Louis will not leave them. Though Louis is at first horrified at the thought of a vampire child (and indeed he accuses Lestat of condemning Claudia to hell), he and Claudia become very attached, and the three form a vampiric “family” for decades.
Although the three vampires spend many years in happiness, Claudia begins to grow more and more detached, insisting on self-sufficiency and even gaining her own coffin so that she does not have to sleep with either Lestat or Louis during the daylight hours. Claudia becomes self-educated and philosophical under Louis' tutelage and also an indiscriminate murderer under Lestat's guidance. She would “appear to her victims as a little angel” and lure them to their deaths.
As the years pass, Claudia becomes increasingly dissatisfied with being constantly “dressed as a doll” by her two fathers, and her frustration leads her to kill a mother and daughter and leave them to rot in the kitchens of the townhouse. When her deed is discovered by Lestat, she flies into a rage and informs the two that she has been damned to a body never able to grow old, that she wants to be a grown woman and will never have that chance, and that she hates them both more than she ever thought possible.
After driving a wedge between them all, Claudia remains attached to Louis and increasingly cold toward Lestat. Obsessed with finding out the origins of vampires and finding “her own kind,” Claudia questions Lestat on his maker and on creating other vampires, of the creation of the first vampire and any other subject, though Lestat refuses to say a word. Finally through with her “dark father,” Claudia poisons Lestat with the blood of a poisoned young boy and gashes his throat, having Louis leave Lestat's broken body for dead in the swamps.
Claudia and Louis escape New Orleans and head to Europe, where Claudia's research has indicated vampiric activity. They are embittered and disillusioned when the only vampires they come across are mindless beasts who've been left for dead in their coffins, and eventually head to Paris to embrace civilization. The wedge between Louis and Claudia grows larger than ever as Claudia spirals even further into maddened fury at the thought of being trapped within the body of a little girl forever.
Everything changes when the two find the Théâtre des Vampires, a group of vampire mummers disguising themselves as humans playing vampires onstage, and she and Louis meet Armand. Armand and Louis fall in love, and Claudia hears Armand telling her telepathically to leave Louis to Armand. Feeling threatened by the vampire Santiago's claim that the only crime punishable by death to vampires is the killing of their own kind, Claudia sinks into a sort of paranoid madness, finally forcing Louis to create his first vampire, a woman named Madeleine, to care for Claudia when he is gone, severing the ties between them, seemingly forever.
Shortly after this, however, the Parisian vampires abduct the three of them and take them to the Théâtre des Vampires, where it is revealed that Lestat is alive and has sought punishment for Claudia's crimes. Though Louis' life is spared, Claudia and Madeleine are left to die in a room where they cannot escape exposure to the sun. Claudia is burned to death, and her death spurs Louis into a rage that inspires him to take vengeance on the vampires, torching the Théâtre des Vampires and killing all inside before escaping with Armand. It is Claudia's death that finally turns Louis cold and away from his “mortal passion,” a death that Armand mourns.
More of Claudia's relationship with Lestat is revealed in Lestat's eponymous autobiography, where he describes her fondness for playing with her victims as he did, and his sorrow at the turn their relationship took. Still, he reiterates his statement made at the end of Interview, that Claudia “should never have been one of us.”
When Jessica Miriam Reeves, at the time an investigator of paranormal activities for the Talamasca, received the assignment to purchase and uncover the townhouse of Lestat's coven in New Orleans, she finds Claudia's room as well as a diary kept in secret by Claudia, revealing more of her inner thoughts about her love/hate relationship with Lestat in particular, as well as hints of her growing rage and confusion at being an adult woman trapped forever within a child's body.
It soon becomes clear to Jesse that Claudia's ghost, or at least a psychic imprint left behind after her violent death, is haunting the townhouse. Claudia's ghost realizes that Jesse can see her, and haunts her all the way back to the Motherhouse when Jesse is taken off of the assignment. Jesse sees her as a little girl playing with a woman-shaped doll, sitting outside of her window and watching her, and describes a feeling of menace and anger radiating from Claudia. When Jesse is turned into a vampire by the end of the novel, she loses the ability to see and communicate with spirits, as is usually the case with vampires, and thus loses the ability to see Claudia.Claudia's ghost again makes her presence known to Lestat in The Tale of the Body Thief, where she haunts him mercilessly in an attempt to make him feel the pain she believes he inflicted upon her when he turned her into a vampire as a child. Claudia's ghost and the ensuing guilt that Lestat feels drives him to a half-hearted suicide attempt in the beginning of the novel, and Claudia does not appear to Lestat again.In The Vampire Armand, Armand tells his own story of what happened in the Théâtre des Vampires leading up to Claudia's execution: Claudia offered to leave Louis if Armand could give her the body of a woman, no matter how painful or violent this effort would be. Armand agreed to Claudia's demands, and decapitated her, attempting to place her head – and thus her mind – on the body of another vampire woman, believing that the healing powers of vampire blood would allow Claudia to heal herself. The attempt failed, and, with Claudia near death and Armand seeing that he could rid himself of her and have Louis to himself, he simply locked her in the air shaft with Madeleine and left them both to die.In Merrick, the eponymous character Merrick Mayfair – a powerful witch and one of the descendants of the opulant witchcraft family described in Rice's The Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy – is contacted by Louis to seek out the ghost of Claudia. When Merrick summons her, Claudia returns with a vengeance and takes her rage out on Louis. Claudia attempts to drive a stake through Louis' heart and kill him. When Louis survives, Claudia disappears, apparently put to rest by taking revenge upon both of her vampire “fathers.”
Merrick goes on to theorize that Claudia had already forgiven Louis, and that some of Claudia's rage during her reappearance was projected onto her by Louis' overwhelming guilt at her fate.
Claudia is never seen nor heard from again throughout the rest of The Vampire Chronicles, and it seems that she has been put to rest.
Born: 1789-09-21, New Orleans, USA.
Maker: Lestat de Lioncourt
Zodiac:
Fledglings: -
Religion: Christian (as a human)
Nationality: American
Claudia (her last name is never given) was a young girl who lived in the poor, plague-ravaged quarters of 18th century New Orleans. She lost both of her parents to the plague, and is first introduced as a crying child of five or six years old in her house, next to her mother's dead body. She is small and delicately shaped, with golden ringlets for hair and pale skin. She is found by Louis de Pointe du Lac, the protagonist ofInterview with the Vampire, and begs him to “wake” her mother. Louis instead feeds on her, much to his self-disgust, and her life is temporarily saved by Lestat de Lioncourt, Louis' maker.
Claudia is taken to the vampires' townhouse in the heart of New Orleans, and there she is turned into a vampire by Lestat. Lestat tells her that she is his and Louis' “daughter” and that now that she is in their family, Louis will not leave them. Though Louis is at first horrified at the thought of a vampire child (and indeed he accuses Lestat of condemning Claudia to hell), he and Claudia become very attached, and the three form a vampiric “family” for decades.
Although the three vampires spend many years in happiness, Claudia begins to grow more and more detached, insisting on self-sufficiency and even gaining her own coffin so that she does not have to sleep with either Lestat or Louis during the daylight hours. Claudia becomes self-educated and philosophical under Louis' tutelage and also an indiscriminate murderer under Lestat's guidance. She would “appear to her victims as a little angel” and lure them to their deaths.
As the years pass, Claudia becomes increasingly dissatisfied with being constantly “dressed as a doll” by her two fathers, and her frustration leads her to kill a mother and daughter and leave them to rot in the kitchens of the townhouse. When her deed is discovered by Lestat, she flies into a rage and informs the two that she has been damned to a body never able to grow old, that she wants to be a grown woman and will never have that chance, and that she hates them both more than she ever thought possible.
After driving a wedge between them all, Claudia remains attached to Louis and increasingly cold toward Lestat. Obsessed with finding out the origins of vampires and finding “her own kind,” Claudia questions Lestat on his maker and on creating other vampires, of the creation of the first vampire and any other subject, though Lestat refuses to say a word. Finally through with her “dark father,” Claudia poisons Lestat with the blood of a poisoned young boy and gashes his throat, having Louis leave Lestat's broken body for dead in the swamps.
Claudia and Louis escape New Orleans and head to Europe, where Claudia's research has indicated vampiric activity. They are embittered and disillusioned when the only vampires they come across are mindless beasts who've been left for dead in their coffins, and eventually head to Paris to embrace civilization. The wedge between Louis and Claudia grows larger than ever as Claudia spirals even further into maddened fury at the thought of being trapped within the body of a little girl forever.
Everything changes when the two find the Théâtre des Vampires, a group of vampire mummers disguising themselves as humans playing vampires onstage, and she and Louis meet Armand. Armand and Louis fall in love, and Claudia hears Armand telling her telepathically to leave Louis to Armand. Feeling threatened by the vampire Santiago's claim that the only crime punishable by death to vampires is the killing of their own kind, Claudia sinks into a sort of paranoid madness, finally forcing Louis to create his first vampire, a woman named Madeleine, to care for Claudia when he is gone, severing the ties between them, seemingly forever.
Shortly after this, however, the Parisian vampires abduct the three of them and take them to the Théâtre des Vampires, where it is revealed that Lestat is alive and has sought punishment for Claudia's crimes. Though Louis' life is spared, Claudia and Madeleine are left to die in a room where they cannot escape exposure to the sun. Claudia is burned to death, and her death spurs Louis into a rage that inspires him to take vengeance on the vampires, torching the Théâtre des Vampires and killing all inside before escaping with Armand. It is Claudia's death that finally turns Louis cold and away from his “mortal passion,” a death that Armand mourns.
More of Claudia's relationship with Lestat is revealed in Lestat's eponymous autobiography, where he describes her fondness for playing with her victims as he did, and his sorrow at the turn their relationship took. Still, he reiterates his statement made at the end of Interview, that Claudia “should never have been one of us.”
When Jessica Miriam Reeves, at the time an investigator of paranormal activities for the Talamasca, received the assignment to purchase and uncover the townhouse of Lestat's coven in New Orleans, she finds Claudia's room as well as a diary kept in secret by Claudia, revealing more of her inner thoughts about her love/hate relationship with Lestat in particular, as well as hints of her growing rage and confusion at being an adult woman trapped forever within a child's body.
It soon becomes clear to Jesse that Claudia's ghost, or at least a psychic imprint left behind after her violent death, is haunting the townhouse. Claudia's ghost realizes that Jesse can see her, and haunts her all the way back to the Motherhouse when Jesse is taken off of the assignment. Jesse sees her as a little girl playing with a woman-shaped doll, sitting outside of her window and watching her, and describes a feeling of menace and anger radiating from Claudia. When Jesse is turned into a vampire by the end of the novel, she loses the ability to see and communicate with spirits, as is usually the case with vampires, and thus loses the ability to see Claudia.Claudia's ghost again makes her presence known to Lestat in The Tale of the Body Thief, where she haunts him mercilessly in an attempt to make him feel the pain she believes he inflicted upon her when he turned her into a vampire as a child. Claudia's ghost and the ensuing guilt that Lestat feels drives him to a half-hearted suicide attempt in the beginning of the novel, and Claudia does not appear to Lestat again.In The Vampire Armand, Armand tells his own story of what happened in the Théâtre des Vampires leading up to Claudia's execution: Claudia offered to leave Louis if Armand could give her the body of a woman, no matter how painful or violent this effort would be. Armand agreed to Claudia's demands, and decapitated her, attempting to place her head – and thus her mind – on the body of another vampire woman, believing that the healing powers of vampire blood would allow Claudia to heal herself. The attempt failed, and, with Claudia near death and Armand seeing that he could rid himself of her and have Louis to himself, he simply locked her in the air shaft with Madeleine and left them both to die.In Merrick, the eponymous character Merrick Mayfair – a powerful witch and one of the descendants of the opulant witchcraft family described in Rice's The Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy – is contacted by Louis to seek out the ghost of Claudia. When Merrick summons her, Claudia returns with a vengeance and takes her rage out on Louis. Claudia attempts to drive a stake through Louis' heart and kill him. When Louis survives, Claudia disappears, apparently put to rest by taking revenge upon both of her vampire “fathers.”
Merrick goes on to theorize that Claudia had already forgiven Louis, and that some of Claudia's rage during her reappearance was projected onto her by Louis' overwhelming guilt at her fate.
Claudia is never seen nor heard from again throughout the rest of The Vampire Chronicles, and it seems that she has been put to rest.
Born: 1789-09-21, New Orleans, USA.
Maker: Lestat de Lioncourt
Zodiac:
Fledglings: -
Religion: Christian (as a human)
Nationality: American
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