Why I am not mourning Bill Compton

Why I am not mourning Bill Compton

I am not mourning Bill Compton because I have faith in his character and I think he will still be redeemable in an emotional and heart breaking moment of clarity for the character. I think this is really the only thing Bill could do. I mean, do we really want him to be the character of nonexistance like Charlaine Harris has made him, lurking in Sookie's woods and declaring his eternal love for her while she throws his heart away? I don't. Frankly, Charlaine Harris has turned Bill into just another of Sookie's sycophants. Believe me, I agree with Pam, I am so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina.

I know it is tough to see Bill be something other than the courtly Ashley Wilkes type, Louis, Barnabus, Angel, Vampire with a heart of gold but really, Bill has been working up to this. He has lost everything and now he thinks he has found something to replace and protect him from the hurt and pain and loss he has experienced. Now, we know this is a bad way to experience this sense of grace and being lost and now I am found sort of thing, but dammit, it is the most human thing he has ever done. There are real humans who immerse themselves in all sorts of religions and cults and practices because they think it somehow makes their life better. Like I tell anyone who comes up to me and says: I wanna be a witch! I tell them simply the craft does not solve all your problems and in a way, it may make your problems worse so really think about it. Bill didn't, most don't and he will find a way out in the end.

Now, the thing is, I felt bad for Eric too. When he was looking for Godric and and when he was looking for himself when he was amnesiac, I felt bad for him. And I feel bad for Eric now. Eric has finally come to a conclusion about Bill. Maybe it was because the both of them had tried to kill each other and both of them had saved each other's lives. Maybe it is because Eric knows a little about what it is like to not have control of himself when Marnie was petting his sweet foggy little bean like he was a lap dog (Damn you unhand my Viking, you foul old crone). Whatever the reason, Eric now has a real respect for Bill and he obviously thought Bill was worthy of saving except Bill pulled a trick on them and reconstituted himself as a saber toothed Vampire in terrible need of a good hot shower.

I don't go in for the reverse hating thing and say the Eric Girls have pressured AB and the writers to make Bill's character evil no more than I went for the palaver about AB being a Bill Boy and gonna make it Sookie and Bill forever because Stephen and Anna are married in real life. It's just stupid to think that way. And I think it is a rush to judgement to say Bill is lost for all time and can't be redeemed. I think he still can. Even if it is the last episode of the last season, I believe Bill can be redeemed.

So I am not going to mourn Bill Compton. I am going to go with the flow. If Stephen didn't think he would want to play Bill that way, I would say he could say no and his word would have a lot of sway by now. Stephen likes the direction of his character. He is enjoying the opening up of his character, just as Alex said he enjoyed playing sweet innocent Eric when he was amnesiac. He also said something on one of those behind the scenes things on HBO GO that Eric has discovered he liked Bill and that is something really new for Eric because he is a lot like Pam and really had no respect for Bill but now he does and Bill is actually the closest he has to a best friend. So I say, tear off the black crepe ladies, put away your widows weeds. Admire the wonderful job Stephen does playing this established character in a new and amazing way.

Eric once said Trust me...I say the same thing..Trust Bill....

Vampires and Religion

I have been thinking about this sort of essay for a while now and I have been doing some thinking and reading about it and while I don't have any answers for my questions, I think the fact Vampire is actually a metaphor for us, the human condition, I thought I would put down my observations and meanderings. So much of what we write about Vampires have some level of spiritual thought and this may be by virtue of their being supernatural and the legend of the Vampire and how they came to be.

What I have attempted to do in writing this essay is try to keep religion as a neutral thing and not lean too heavily on any one religious group or creed. What I have done is separated religion into Western religion and that includes Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as well Pagan religions and Eastern religion, which would include Buddhism and Hinduism and the other contemplative religions of the far east. Technically, Christianity and Judaism and Islam are eastern religions by the fact they come from the Middle East, but for the purposes of this essay, I have called these religions Western. I have also tried to use neutral terms for God as not everyone sees the Creator the same way and I use terms like heaven and hell as simply common terms, not meant to be associated with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic notions of these places.

So, like I do with all my essays, I begin simply by asking myself questions. The "What if" questions are the basis of all thought and writing and even the formation of religions. Asking why or what or who or where and how leads us to ask the age old questions of Who are we? Where do we come from? How did we get here? What does it all mean? and Where do we go when our bodies die? Had we never asked these questions and sought the answers we would be devoid of religion and philosophical thought. As to my applying these questions to the mythology of Vampires and asking these questions about them, perhaps what I am really doing is asking the question about us, the human race in general, and myself. We all feel at one time or another very separate from our fellow man and this separateness is what is unique in the supernatural world.
Before we explore the souls of Vampires and their place in the world of imagination and what they really mean to us, I suppose I must begin this essay by defining religion and what is the ultimate goal of religion. Then I shall explore how these concepts can or cannot be applied to Vampires of lore and our story, True Blood, and then I will go into the notion of final "salvation" and the belief in the soul and that might work with Vampires and then I will discuss the notion of Vampire religion.

So what is religion? What is it meant to do? Is there one true religion above all religions and who gets to go to "heaven"? Who are the chosen people?

Asking these questions are the foundations of not only religion but of personal faith. We ask ourselves these questions and then explore what this means to us. Sometimes these questionings lead us to believe in something, sometimes it doesn't. Just as many people are turned off by the notion of religion as are turned on. If you are a believer then your own personal questions and the answers you come up with come together and give you a picture of not only the afterlife but the Creator. All cultures have some sort of religious or spiritual facet to their lives and they try to answer the questions the society has about life (Why is life difficult? How did we come to be? Who made me?) Death (Why do people die? Is death a punishment?) and the Afterlife (Where do we go? What happens to our soul when the body dies? If there is a place of reward, is there a place of punishment and who gets to go?).

The apparent goal of religion is twofold. The first goal is to forge a closer, more intimate relationship with the Creator and getting to know them. The second goal is to eventually be admitted into the afterlife. What lies between and makes up the different facets of religious faith is how do we get to the good place and how do we avoid the bad place. The basic rules are a system of checks and balances, codes of conduct and limits on behavior. Assurance of reward comes from "confessions of faith" or moments of enlightenment. This may come from the following and systematic fulfillment of rites and rituals and sacraments meant to help us incrementally more complex and closer relationships with the Creator. Others believe in study, contemplation and meditation to bring us into the embrace of the divine. Some believe a combination of the two is what is required to harmonize both faith and logic.

In the best case scenario, we invest our spiritual lives in ritual and study with a true heart and a desire to forge our intimate relationships with the Creator. In truth, there are many who go through the motions of rite and ritual because it is as much a part of cultural identity as a spiritual zeal. It may also be a way of simply satisfying the desire or dictate of family or culture or even government. For example, if we think Ireland, we think Catholic. Truth is, there are many Protestant churches in Ireland and the fastest growing religion in Ireland is Buddhism. Paying lip service to both "Church and State" for the sake of conformity and avoid persecution, either from the family unit or culture or government is a forgery for true faith but the sad truth of the matter is it does happen. To have complete control of a person or society, down to the state of one's soul and the rewards of the afterlife is considerable power and remarkably easy to abuse. To say "vote this way" or "support this political leader" or your soul is damned is the real politik is the first and most damaging and dangerous form of control one might exert.
Now, imagine you are Vampire.

Regardless of how you were made, either with or without your approval, you have thwarted the basic tenets of any religious faith. We are taught through our religious training the human body is mortal and will eventually die and disappear into nature but your immortal soul will move on in the next plane of existence. For the Vampire, the body is dead but it does not decay. It is held in stasis, still animated. Their souls do not do not cross over to the afterworld but resides in the dead body. This thwarts the grand design that our souls are meant to appear before the Creator and face final judgement to be deemed either worthy of heaven or damned to hell. But does this circumstance actually make you damned?

Let's look for a moment at Eastern religion. Most, though not all, Eastern religions believe in some form of reincarnation. If you managed to go through your life and you led an exemplary life you get to join the Creator and become one with them. If your life was less than exemplary, you get a celestial do over and you are reborn and you must relearn the lessons you didn't learn before.

As I noted in my essay in the Mythology thread about human Vampyres, they believe in reincarnation
( http://truebloodanonymous.forumotion.com/t9p200-mythology-of-true-blood-and-the-sookie-books#1631 ) and is through reincarnation the Vampyre gets their immortality. They believe that though they do die, their soul comes back has total recall of their past lives. In Eastern religions, you don't necessarily have total recall of the past life. If you are in a state of suffering then you are to pay attention and learn what the suffering is meant to teach you so you gain enlightenment. In short, if you are in pain, pay attention, God is tryin' to tell you somethin'.

So with this in mind, could being the Vampire of mythology a sort of physical expression of reincarnation. After all, in eastern thought we have reincarnation going from one rebirth to another, could this not be the same for the legendary Vampire, who must change to walk among us, to conform to certain extent to the changes wrought on the human world? Wouldn’t a Vampire like Eric look silly if he still dressed or spoke or behaved like the primitive person he was before he was Vampire? So the evolutionary process does exist for the Vampire, and therefore could he not be undergoing some level of reincarnation.

But what of God? Do they believe in God?

I suppose being immortal, or at the very least hard to kill, you might still believe in a Creator. After all Vampires had to come to come from somewhere and if they come from us, or were us originally, they would remember something about Creator, even if they are skeptical of their presence in their lives. In all the mythologies we read about Vampires, they are afraid of the True Death, or at least they do avoid it til they get to decide when they end. Being that they decide when they end, unless they themselves are killed, I suppose they would feel they would have no need of God. They may have decided in their own hearts they have nothing more to say to God, and because they have nothing more to say, they believe God has stopped having things to say to them. Perhaps the closest thing we can truly call them is agnostic. They acknowledge there may be God, but God is beyond them and they are beyond God.

When a Vampire dies, where does his soul go?

If we believe the Vampire is some sort of super concentrated ghost, as Madame Blavatsky states or as Edgar Cayce states, then they still have a soul, but its attachment to the physical self is different from our own, then we can state categorically the Vampire has a soul. Since the Vampire’s soul is no different than ours metaphysically, then we can have expectations the soul will undergo the same tests ours will when we die to enter the afterlife.

So who gets to go to the afterlife and are Vampires lost forever?

It is difficult to judge. We as humans are never supposed to judge, regardless of our creed. The Creator is the only one who may judge and how that is accomplished is different for every creed. But to simplify this discussion, I have taken the basic rules of any faith system, Christian or non and I have distilled them into a general code of conduct. As I said in the beginning of this essay, I am trying to avoid leaning one way or the other on any faith system, and these are general rules. Each creed has more detailed Spiritual Constitutions with amendments which discusses in detail the complex facets of life.

The Code of Conduct

Honor the creator
Honor the Earth
Do not kill
Do not steal
Do not lie
Respect your parents
Respect the sanctity of marriage
Respect your fellow man

If we look at the world created for us by True Blood and the Charlaine Harris novels, and we look at Vampire mythos, we could just about say, in snap judgement, all of our Vampires and the Vampires of mythology break these rules and they would therefore be lost to the afterlife. But if we look a little closer, we might have to wonder.

Honor the Creator- A Vampire has two creators: The Creator which made all mankind, and the creator of their Vampire life. Then they have their Maker and this ties into the respect your parents thing as well.

Honor the earth- I think Vampires do honor the earth. In some mythologies, a Vampire must lie in his home ground to rest during the day. This is where the Vampire gains his strength, this and blood.

Do not kill- This is tough for Vampires, but even humans say…Do not kill unless…We often read the paper and watch the news and say, “There is a person who could use being killing,” we do it all the time when we watch serial killers and child rapists and that sort of ilk. Vampires in True Blood and CH’s books do kill accidentally and on purpose, but usually for altruistic reasons: Eric killed the werewolf in Sookie’s house, he killed the red neck who burned the house with Liam, Malcolm and Diane in it, he kills to protect and to punish evil doers. So does Bill, he killed the Rattrays, he killed Uncle Bartlett, he killed witches. Godric in the book and the show killed Gabe when he was about to rape Sookie. So they seem to kill a certain type of human…a bad human or a human who has hurt them.

Do not steal- This too is hard for Vampires. We are told Vampires steal from the dead. For example, Bill made a gift to Lorena of a piece of jewelry he took off a victim. I have never seen him do it, but I am sure Eric steals or has stolen to survive. Some would say making Jessica stole her human life and forced her to be Vampire, which would go both in the stealing and do not kill categories. They do respect the Mine Law, which would keep one Vampire from claiming another Vampire’s human companion. To violate that law, you would be stealing. Pam stole from the Vampire under the spell of Marnie. Russell stole from Eric when he killed his parents and took his father’s crown. Eric stole when he seduced and killed Talbot and stole the crown back. But, if your family was starving or if you were in some dire straight, you might steal as well to survive. You might repent or even rationalize it for some altruistic reason, but you would do those things.

Do not lie- That one is tricky. Eric does not really lie to Sookie. He omits, which to some is tantamount to lying (I know, I sound like Amy Burley) but he never strings words together he knows is a lie. Bill on the other hand lies like a rug, but he has altruistic reasons for that. So is what he does somehow worse than what Eric does, or both equally reprehensible? (Both are reprehensible to me) Because they both do what they do for altruistic reasons, maybe they don’t feel so guilty if they reach their goal, which is they are trying to protect someone they love. I would actually call what they do for Sookie’s benefit high handed, and they are both high handed. But we are all given to lying a little, the little white lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, the lie to cover some misstep, we have all done it…So it is all normal, something we all do out of fear or protection or some other reason.

Respect your parents- Vampires may not have living human parents, or be beyond their influence once they become Vampire, but the Maker/Child relationship is one of those honored ties. In the book, Russell says Bill was Lorena’s and he could not really get involved with their troubles. Bill is Jessica’s maker and Sookie going against him and undermining his authority was not simply dangerous, it was rude and sneaking of her to do, even if her reasons were pure. Eric and Godric (show) and Eric and Ocella (books) are tied by the bond of Maker and Child and he must do as his maker tells him. So in that, you can say, Vampires do respect their parents.

Respect the sanctity of marriage- Well, I would say that if you are Vampire you have probably seduced whoever was handy and their marital status was of little importance to you. But even in the Vampire world, they do have limits. When Eric and Sookie forge the bond and Eric marries her under Vampire custom, the King of Nevada has to respect their union. Vampires also have to follow the Mine Law, which if not a marriage a domestic arrangement of some sort and therefore sacrosanct.

Respect your fellow man- Vampires may not be human and may have very little regard for humans, they do respect their fellow Vampires, even if they don’t really like them. Bill was mad and hurt even when Liam, Malcom and Diane were killed in the book. He took out his grief and anger on Sookie when she told him about it in the grave yard. Eric admired Sophie Anne in the book, and regretted her loss, and he regretted the death of his maker, who he both loved and feared. Bill and Eric will never be MyFace friends but Bill does respect Eric to a degree as his sheriff and his elder. And in the show, the same can be said in reverse, that Eric does respect Bill as his king (for the time being) even though he is older.

To end my essay, I have not come up with any answers, but I have tried to look at what life might be like if there were Vampires. How would they change our human perceptions of religion? Would we give up on religion and make arrangements to become Vampire at our peak of health and attractiveness? Would we become ultrareligious and cling to the notion Vampires are evil and join churches like the Fellowship of the Sun? Or would we marvel that there really are creatures who are fundamentally us and have such insight we could learn from and even expand not only our social lives but our spiritual lives? I would like to think we would be open to the experience. Imagine what we could learn and how it would change us.

Godric's Humanity

I thought we should have a thread for this to start a dialogue about Godric, whom we hope to see more of in the future. In the books, Godric was quite different, but he was struggling with his soul and the sins of his life, and though he was an unlikable character in the books, we did feel sorry for him, much as Sookie did.

In the show, however, Alan Ball casts him as a beautiful and enlightened ancient child with a cheribic face and a wonderfully soft voice and enigmatic eyes. He seemed to look to me like the old Greek and Russian Orthodox depictions of young saints, like St. Stephen, who was stoned to death right after the death of Christ.

He tells Sookie "I no longer think like a Vampire," He tells Eric: "We shouldn't be here, we are wrong," He seemed to be in protracted purgatory, neither saved nor damned, tortured because he could not be human, but neither could he truly be Vampire.

Sookie tells Bill, "What if that were you in 1800 years?" and Bill had the saddest look upon his face. Do you think they really want to live that long? It seems Godric was not only conflicted about his being Vampire but also his long existence...What do you think? Talk to me.

One of the things I think is interesting in this season past is the notion of Vampires in an afterlife...considering the mythology of the Vampire as a creature lost to the outer darkness to think of Godric as being in some sort of hereafter is quite different. But is this the same as the human soul or are we so arrogant as think the Vampire cannot have his own soul with its own worth without the attributes of humanity?

I think if Godric does anything, he makes us wonder if the soul can only be expressed by the level of its humanity or does it have its own place in the spiritual stratosphere? Does the Vampire soul have it's own validity?

I have no clue...we tend to look at the Vampire based on our own experiences but I think they have their notion of the afterworld or perhaps, since they are immortal, they have little concept of it and once they are there, they are simply accepted as all amoral beings are, neither good nor bad, something savage but a part of the order things. We like to say the imagery of the lion and lamb in heaven is metaphor, but what if our Vampires were the lions and they had a place in the afterworld...perhaps not in an after world you and I would understand or believe in ourselves, but one that made sense to the lion....

Eric's Humanity

Eric’s Humanity

Granted, in the show, Eric has very little in the way of humanity. But we also see in season two that though he may not have feelings for humans (yet) he has feelings for his maker, the tragic Godric.

Eric was a man of his time. He was a Viking whose sole purpose in life was to kill and be killed. When he became Vampire, he took that philosophy with him into his Vampiric life, which seems to have served him well as he is a Vampire a thousand years old. When he reencounters Godric, he is faced with being in his maker’s presence for the first time in centuries. He cares for others, he explains to Bill, just not humans. His sole interest is his maker.

Sookie is the foil to Eric’s experiences with humans. I suspect that Eric’s experiences with humans have been limited to the blood whore he was feeding from, a contemptible creature good only for his personal satisfaction. He does business with humans and profits from them but he does not care for them. They are a means to an end.

When he sees his maker, he sees a changed Vampire. Godric has spent a great deal of time considering the light of his fellow Vampire and their relationship with humans. He has become far more philosophical. And Eric knows that his maker has changed. He has gone from being a powerful survivalist to philosopher. He declares to Eric: I was wrong, we are wrong, we don’t belong here! Eric roars “But we are here!!!” and then we see Eric’s façade crumble in front of his maker and Sookie. He falls on his knees and begs Godric to stay, to not give away his existence to the coming dawn.

How will Eric change? And what will Sookie’s influence do to the big Viking trying to find his way in this brave new world for both humans and supernaturals.

I think it is going be really interesting to see how he changes. For his growth to be so calculated, so measured, this is going to make his character really interesting and really difficult for Sookie to resist. Eric as he is, he would be easy to turn away, he being so limited and one dimensional. But as he evolves..it will be very intense.

Of course I don't want to be soft and lovely dovey, I want him to be a real contrast to Bill. He should be a conflicted character but the other way around. Bill is a human like Vampire...but I want Eric to be a Vampire with human qualities...Does that make sense?

WHat is so funny is that we say they are not human....that they have limited abilities to feel emotions and all that, but I think their range of emotions are just aimed differently. They have a great range of emotions toward their own kind and now that they are living among us in this world, they are leaning a whole new set of feelings.

Funny, the traditions and taboos of Vampires in this world are far more complex than the way humans feel for each other. If you compare us and our interaction with one another. We are far more violent and disrespectful to one another. They seem to have more respect for one another as fellow beings if not as individuals....it is almost like a hive...if you harm one, they all come after you


Everything that happens to Eric from now on is going to be tough emotionally for Eric. He may have made a blood bond with Sookie, but he shared something with her that bonds people. I can't think of anything more intimate, excluding sex, than to cry and show your weakness in front of someone. Once you share that with someone, you are never the same between the two of you.

Yes, I imagine that Eric was private with his emotions as a human as well. He was of a warrior culture and he would have been taught from a young age to keep his emotions in check. I think too, the blood bond works both ways. He hasn't had her blood, but he feels his blood inside her, which is how Bill feels Sookie and how Eric feels Sookie. He would not only feel her reactions to his influence on her via the blood but feel her emotions whether they had anything to do with him or not and Sookie, if nothing else, is very very emotional and as Bill said, tender hearted. Imagine Eric feeling her compassion as it is directed to others, like Tara or Sam or Lafayette and even her misery and anger about Bill.

So Eric may have gotten more than he bargained for when he bonded with her. Bill, being so much closer to his humanity, would be able to internalize it and relish it as a way of reconnecting further with the humanity he seeks, but Eric may be a bundle of emotions in the future. DO you think, as his feelings for her intensifies, he will regret from time to time opening that link between them, after all, he will be having feelings and he even tells Sookie, "I don't like having feelings,"

What is so interesting about Eric is that he may want to be in Sookie's orbit but he really doesn't feel the whole human thing. He is still very much a Vampire, he doesn't want to be anything but.

But now we have seen his emotional side on the show, I wonder if that will change Eric's dynamic with Sookie. And one of the things that I have been wondering about is the thing Godric said: We are wrong, we don't belong here, and Eric roars "But We Are Here!!!" I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life.


Do you think Eric is afraid of exploring the vestiges of his humanity, because it seems he does. Like Gertrude, Hamlet's mother said, "The Lady (Vampire) doth protest too much," when he is confronted about his growing interest in Sookie. He tells Sookie: "Don't use words I don't understand," and "I am not interested in Sookie Stackhouse," and in the books, he tells her, "I don't like having feelings,"

And now that he has suffered this loss of the conflicted Godric and he is now in contact more with humans more than he has in a long time beyond the aspect of a sag and sip, do you think he will have as painful a rebirth as we all suspect? Or will he simply be a Vampire who has a strange obsession with our telepathic barmaid?

One of the things I thought was interesting was the way Eric said," Stop it, don't do that, it makes me feel strangely human" See, even now, being around Sookie and her own difference and having his blood inside her is making the Viking change somewhat. I predict that we will conflicting views of Eric. The raw, sensual character to the strangely sensitive character. Sookie, I think interprets this as some level of falsehood on the part of Eric and really all Vampires. But I think this is a real complication for him.

The way other Vampires seem to laugh at and marginalized Bill for his love for Sookie sort of gives you insight into what Eric may be fighting in his own self. So, as the story develops and we see Eric's conflict in his own nature, we will see him change and it will wonderful to watch the tearing down and rebuilding of this character.

Season three really showed us many sides to Eric's personality. Eric is now experiencing things that are quite new for him in his one thousand year existence. And we have seen him as he was in life and he was not unlike any other man. As Barrister said, he is looking for the solace of the warmth between a woman's legs and he is a person content to be in the bosom of his family but he is not looking for any real responsibility. He cares nothing for his father's crown and position....

Funny, but all that changes for Eric. Not only in the moment he sees his family butchered by wolves but in the moment he becomes a Vampire. I wonder if Eric had been wounded in a battle against the weres the night Godric saw him fighting. I wonder how he confided in his maker. The little bit we saw Godric in season two as he was before he was enlightened, I imagine the Vampire would have been up for the adventure of hunting werewolves, a long drawn out frolic.

He would also be teaching Eric the way to be a Vampire and teach him how to survive. Eric is a very bright man and would have been an apt pupil but he did that have weakness, the desire for revenge. He even violates the law of the blood. Which if you think about it is a very human thing to do. Most humans if asked would say I would do anything for revenge. I think that would be doubly so for a Vampire with unlimited time and amazing strength.

Through the long corridors of time, Eric follows the wolves and their Vampire master til he finally simply loses them. He tells the Authority he thought Edgington met the true death. But can you imagine the shock of being in some rich man's house and seeing something that belonged to your father a thousand years ago, simply another knick knack in a vast collection of things.

Eric's reaction is more than human. His rage is so exquisite, so overwhelming it amounts to a sort of madness in Eric. He takes risks, blinds himself to things that have no purpose to him at the moment. He knows this is his final chance to get the thing he has wanted since he was a human. To hold on to a grudge so long tells me something about the Viking...if he says he loves you...if he makes you a promise, he will keep it and be faithful to it forever. But is that a true example of humanity?

I am not sure...we as humans make vows all of the time. We promise to love honor and cherish til death do us part and we routinely break those promises (sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad). We make promises to our deities, but our God(s) know we are frail inconstant humans and we break our pledges to them on purpose or accidentally or we make promises rashly.

Not Eric. If he promises to kill you, he will, he will hound you to the end of his days. But what if he promises to love you? Would he love you to the day you die. I think he would. If you get the strong, stoic Viking to love you, he will. And if that is what you are looking for, then you have it made.

Eric has not fallen in love with Sookie yet but his mere interest in her at Fangtasia in season one, to his desire to trick her into a blood bond in season two and now his day dreams of her saying she smells his memories and she makes him feel uncomfortably human shows the slow build of his interest in her. And now he has tasted her blood. He is as much bonded to her as she is to him...

That is why I don't think the amnesia thing will be necessary. And I hope it is left out. I want to see them uncomfortable and a bit adversarial toward one another so he has to open up more to her so she will let him in to her confidences and she his. Intimacy is so much more than the intimacy of the body. She needs to see Eric as she has seen Bill. The only thing different will be the fact that she is already aware of Eric...there are no carefully built facades and deceptions. He is a brute, a part time villain, a head honcho full of politics....but she has also seen him loving and caring, she has seen his devotion, she has seen his love.

When Eric says his goodbye to Sookie when she goes to see him at Fangtasia, she may feel as though he tricked her with his...the only thing I will regret is not having kissed you...and then followed up by dumping her in his basement and chaining her up and seemingly selling her to Edgington for a chance to walk in the sun, she will realize that he...and Bill...were simply trying to get rid of Edgington once and for all.

So, now, to get in her good graces, he will have to tell her things about himself, a sort of true confessions. It is gamble, but now he is blood bound her as much as she is to him. This is where we will struggle with the faces of Eric's coin...and so will he.

Becoming human is not the easiest of births...there will be pain and I suspect....blood

One of the things I thought was interesting about Eric when he had amnesia was how old fashioned he could be on one hand and how he had these obvious memories of things he had mastered for his life in a modern world.

For example, he sort of gently chastises Sookie for being a woman out in the night and says she should be taken into her brother's home to be guarded and cared for. Sookie of course, a modern woman, thinks this a ridiculous burden for her brother when she can care for herself and a silly suggestion anyhow because Jason is not the sharpest tool in the shed.

His attitudes about sex do not surprise me in the least. The world he came from sex was earthy with few or no inhibitions and anything you might imagine we would do sexually has already been thought out and done and discussed in art religion and philosophy. So his sexual prowess and his openess to doing whatever with Sookie is just part of the man he was. It is ingrained in him like his being a Vampire is a fact he simply states. "Yes, I know I am Vampire, and you are not," he tells Sookie.

The only glitch in the story I see is the fact Eric has a hard time figuring out the lever to roll up the car windows on her shitty little car but later in the book when the witches and the weres are at Bill's house, he goes and gets Sookie's car. Of course you can argue that he has had a some time to think things over, perhaps he was trying to figure out what he did know how to do and driving was something he remembered.

But aside from the obvious, I think that one of the things we do see about Eric is not so much the modern man who is different by virtue of not remembering who he is and what he is the world, but a sort of reversion to the human he was and this is very interesting... and makes me wonder if he still feels after he is restored the man he once was and if he wants to go back to that more primal man who saw things in a very basic almost romantic way. In some ways, far more romantic than Bill with all his old fashioned ways. The simply earthy pleasure of sex and warmth, the companionship he confesses to Sookie much later which made him so happy and his struggle to maintain the Vampire self he has built over one thousand years is going to be an interesting re-imagining of Eric's character....

Bill's Humanity

So I have taken some time to hash over the last season and I am going to hit the other Vampires as well.

So we saw a lot of extremes this season in all of our Vampires. Some of it were extreme examples of humanity and others were extreme examples of Vampire.

In the case of Bill, as Barrister noted, we see things Bill does that we consider typical Bill behavior. His broodiness, his slavish love for Sookie, his willingness to do whatever he must to protect Sookie, either from other Vampires or from a truth so devastating it makes him treacherous to both kings and queens and other Vampires.

Bill is a pawn of the more powerful Vampires in his world. We find out Bill was a procurer, a Vampire who goes out to gather humans for food or pleasure or both as his queen desires. He carefully selects humans who will not be missed. Case in point, the stripper he procures as a blood meal for Lorena and Edgington and unwittingly for himself as they sort of force him to feed with them. They do this because they know Bill has been mainstreaming and except for love nips from Sookie and the occasional blood meal from a "baddie" trying to harm Sookie, Bill has turned over a new leaf. They cannot trust him so they have to make him "prove" his loyalty. He has to be a regular Vampire with them.

And this bothers Bill. After the stripper tells him "I know the truth about life....you won't get out alive" he says she's right about that. Except if you are a Vampire....maybe...because by the time Bill lunches down on the inner thigh of the doomed stripper, he thinks he is lost for all time. But let me back up a piece....because a lot happens between the time Bill is kidnapped to the time he is kicked out of Sookie's house in the finale.

Bill is immediately faced with dilemma. Does he fight and struggle to get away and get to Sookie and protect her or does he stay close and keep them away from her. He knows very well what he must do. He has to break his ties to her and he has to break off his budding humanity. He has to be Vampire.

His first act as Vampire? Renouncing his loyalty to Queen Sophie Anne. This effectively, in Bill's mind, makes it permissible to do whatever he must to ensure Sookie's freedom. He wants assurances from Edgington that he will be able to overthrow Sophie Anne.

Now, you can make a legitimate argument that if Edgington overthrows Sophie Anne would never know about the mission...and you would be right. But Bill is trying to keep Sookie alive. A dead Sookie is an ignorant Sookie...if he did not care for her, he would not care whether she lived or died. If she was just an object the queen sent him to procure then he decided to keep her for himself, he would have no compunction whatsoever to leave her in harm's way.

Bill then dreams of his other family, the family he had when he was human. It is heart breaking to watch Bill not only mourn his son but to see Caroline's dawning realization that Bill is no longer human. Her fear of him and his reaction to her is something that shows us the dividing line between Bill the human and Bill the Vampire. He is barely three years old as Vampire and very much in Lorena's sway. He must do as she says. She is teaching him something, that the human world and the their world are unviverses apart and I suspect that though Bill hates the lesson, he knows that on many levels this is true. He knows that he can no longer be in the home he lived in and be with the wife he cherished and the children he made with her. He is a slave, not only to his Vampire instincts but to his maker. Bill is still "clinging " to his humanity...pining for what was his life.

In response to this, the second thing he does to reclaim his Vampire self and ensure Sookie's safety is to ravish Lorena...and then tell Sookie about it...The attempt Bill makes to break up with Sookie is savage and his voice is as cool and careless as any other Vampire. But at the time, you can see Bill's torment. In the midst of his rage and anger you can also see the terror...as he told Lorena he was killing the last of his love for Sookie by being brutal and by being Vampire and by betraying her. But he is also taking a road he has always feared he could not come back from, he may not be able to. He told Sookie in Season Two he has fought very hard to reclaim his bit of humanity. If this is true, then his journey to return to a more human self is quite recent. As recent as his arrival in Bon Temps.

But then, Bill reverses gears. And it happens just as he is about to get back into the limo with the blood meal for Lorena and Edgington. He feels Sookie's fear and there is a part of him for a split second that is both happy and terrified for her. He knows she is near and he knows she is in danger. But there is nothing he can do about it without tipping his hand and the appearance of Tara and Franklin and the file Franklin found in Bill's house shows him his time is short and his rouse has been uncovered. He goes to Sookie to scare her away to send her out of the city. But he is too late.

When Lorena is ordered to kill Bill, we see him having the same old argument with his maker. The issue is his inability to be what she wanted him to be. He both pities and taunts her, comparing her to his makers maker, a vile cruel Vampire who made Lorena use her physical allure to trap men in her maker's clutches and use them in unspeakable ways...he says she will discard him once he meets the true death and find another good man to twist to her designs as she tried to twist him. As her maker twisted her.

For a brief moment, we see Bill ready to accept and embrace the true death. He tells Lorena that he is glad to die because finally he is rid of her...which is echoed by Tara when she is confronted by Franklin. She tells him to go ahead and kill her because that way she will escape from him forever. What is interesting is that it is both Stackhouses that save people they care about by killing Vampires: Lorena by Sookie and Franklin by Jason.

One of the heart breaking things that happen to Sookie and Bill, which hurts Bill deeply is the fact that he does nearly drain her to death. Bill would have had to have been truly out of his mind to do this. He does love Sookie. This also reminds Bill further that he is Vampire and there are things in being Vampire he would never be able to deny or promise it would never happen again. And this is the savage overpowering need for blood. He will always have to have blood, artificial or otherwise. No matter how human he tries to be, he will be Vampire til he meets the true death.

His observations: I want you to lie in the sun, grow old with someone, have children...all the things he could never do for her or with her...it is a sad moment, a moment of no turning back for him. In the books it is always Sookie that makes these observations. But in the show, so much of this uncertainty is transferred to Bill.

The there is the Wish sequence...Sookie and Bill make the most profound wish for the future: Bill would be a teacher, they would live between the Compton house and the Stackhouse house, they would grow a garden, Bill would go fishing, they would double date with Arlene and Terry, Sookie would sell real estate and everything would be perfect.

Until she finds out Bill was sent to Bon Temps to procure her for Queen Sophie Anne.

This is pretty bad news. I have to admit I would be so pissed off at Bill. Then we have the whammy delivered on us...He let the Rattrays beat her nearly to death to get his blood in her. Bill, all of your lies caught up with you.

But..in Bill's defense...this was a calculated plan on the part of a Vampire who had been sent on the orders of his queen to get Sookie Stackhouse for her own use, based on the babbling of her dimwitted cousin who told the queen all about her during a session of pillowtalk. Bill had no built in love for humans, separated though he was from his maker by this time for around 70 years, he was sufficiently Vampire enough to have shed most of his feelings for humans. He was there to do the job he was sent to do...he never counted on falling in love with Sookie.

It could be argued this is because in the course of feeding Sookie his blood, he got a taste of and for Sookie's blood. The blood bond works both ways. And again you would be right. Perhaps they glamoured one another with their blood...Sookie with Bill's and Bill with Sookie's. But I think too that as awful as his reasons for being there are, Bill did fall in love with her. I think her courage and her acceptance of him was something he had never felt...Bill tells her during their moonlight walk in season one: You aren't like other humans and Sookie simply says Who am I to judge something that is unusual. Her acceptance of him, her appreciation of him, her forcing him feel human, just a guy walking with a girl on a starry night, holding hands and kissing...of course he is reminded of his being Vampire, but I think too he is reminded how it was to be a human man.

And in retrospect, I think that is the reason Bill does not school her in the ins and outs of the Vampire world...yeah yeah, I know, he doesn't do that because he doesn't want her to find out about the mission...but I think he does it too so that she will not see him so much as Vampire and so he will see himself as more human. She even tells him in season three...As much as you want to be Human, I think I am meeting you half way to Vampire. His expression is so bizarre, because there is a part of him that finds it amusing, even a great idea, but I think there is a part of him that finds it a little sad. In season two, when Sookie sits down and asks Jessica to give her the evening with Bill he says "It's almost as though you glamoured her" Bill sees Sookie as something peculiar, human but not...

So what does this say about Bill's Humanity you ask, after slogging your way through my exploration. I think it says we all struggle with our notion of good and evil, humanity and inhumanity. Bill is a microcosm of these conflicts we see in the world around us. Is Bill far away from his humanity? No, I don't think so...he is very disturbed by his acts of inhumanity but he is not far off from his Vampire self either, that ruthlessness he had to have to survive. But I think this season especially, he has felt the burden of his humanity and I think that now he "has nothing to lose" Bill will be a very different person in the next season...and whether or not he recapture his bit of humanity is the I will be interested in the most...

I think Bill is hugely complex and I think he has much to atone for. Having said that, I will go on to say Sookie really needs to think things over about Bill and weigh the pros and cons about what his situation was and what his alternatives were and what he has done before and since. I know we are mostly speaking of Bill in the show here, but we are also speaking of Bill in the books.

Bill I think already atoned for his shenanigans with the Rattrays. Standing back and allowing them to beat her was a crime so indefensible in so many levels, and it is a perfect rationalisation he did what he did before he knew her. He warned Sookie the night he met her "Vampires don't have human values" and in the book he said "If you think I harbour one bit of sentimentality..." and he expalined her "vampires don't care automatically about humans"

And he cared nothing for her when he first met her. He knew she was the one his queen wanted, he knew she was different, but he cared nothing for her. So when does all this emotion happen towards her? I think in the show it happened when he told his story about the war and we see the way he was changed and made vampire and then walking home to see the ghosts of his wife and children sitting on his porch made him realized the connection between what he once was, and what he was becoming because of her innocent acts of acceptance and compassion. I wonder how long it had been since he felt that someone cared for him?

Bill has always had to walk a tight rope between vampire and being something else. And I think the moment he atoned to Sookie for his acts, by allowing the Rattrays to beat her, was when he walked into the sun. He would not have done that had he not cared for her. His crime to Sookie, now is the crime of omission.

So now he is in a situation, now he is a single parent ot Jessica, who is now going off into the world. Bill is having to imagine a world where Sookie may not be in it as his partner. That he may have sit back and watch her fall in love, either with Eric or someone else and he is going to have to deal with the most painful of human emotions...loss.

And it is his fault to an extent...But isn't that the way of all humanity? To Err? I would hate to think there would be no forgiveness for him... (Sean)

So now we are so close to the new season, just some 73 days or so. And I have reread all the Sookie books and I have finished the second season and am champing at the bit for the encore of the last season, priming us for the new season. So now I take time to write on this topic again...don't worry I will speak of Eric as well as we prepare for his abrupt change.

One of the things that apparently happens according to the spoilers is that Bill takes on some mantle of responsibility in the Vampire community, something he has been reticent to do in both the books and the show. One of the things that Stephen has brought up about his character is Bill's willingness to become Vampire for Sookie to protect her. And on some levels to take some responsibility for Jessica, which apparently shores up the relationship between the two Vampires which before had been fractured, uneven and unfair to both characters. Jessica has been a fangy latch key kid and has had to learn to be a Vampire on her own and with the dubious help of Pam.

But I wonder if this indicates he is pretty much done with the whole trying to be human thing and being just a mainstreaming Vampire, because it seems to me that though he has accepted being a Vampire, he does not like it like that much and resents it like hell (With a maker like Lorena, who could blame it) and tried to be more human which leads to some unintentional funny moments with Bill, making him seem nerdy and powerless.

What we discovered however is Bill is capable of doing whatever is necessary to survive.He can kow tow and kiss ass with the best of them to protect his hide and protect those he is concerned about. But will that negate his desire to recapture what humanity he can salvage to survive in both the human world and the Vampire world? It sets up a real conundrum...

So now we are so close to the new season, just some 73 days or so. And I have reread all the Sookie books and I have finished the second season and am champing at the bit for the encore of the last season, priming us for the new season. So now I take time to write on this topic again...don't worry I will speak of Eric as well as we prepare for his abrupt change.

One of the things that apparently happens according to the spoilers is that Bill takes on some mantle of responsibility in the Vampire community, something he has been reticent to do in both the books and the show. One of the things that Stephen has brought up about his character is Bill's willingness to become Vampire for Sookie to protect her. And on some levels to take some responsibility for Jessica, which apparently shores up the relationship between the two Vampires which before had been fractured, uneven and unfair to both characters. Jessica has been a fangy latch key kid and has had to learn to be a Vampire on her own and with the dubious help of Pam.

But I wonder if this indicates he is pretty much done with the whole trying to be human thing and being just a mainstreaming Vampire, because it seems to me that though he has accepted being a Vampire, he does not like it like that much and resents it like hell (With a maker like Lorena, who could blame it) and tried to be more human which leads to some unintentional funny moments with Bill, making him seem nerdy and powerless.

What we discovered however is Bill is capable of doing whatever is necessary to survive.He can kow tow and kiss ass with the best of them to protect his hide and protect those he is concerned about. But will that negate his desire to recapture what humanity he can salvage to survive in both the human world and the Vampire world? It sets up a real conundrum...

So now we are so close to the new season, just some 73 days or so. And I have reread all the Sookie books and I have finished the second season and am champing at the bit for the encore of the last season, priming us for the new season. So now I take time to write on this topic again...don't worry I will speak of Eric as well as we prepare for his abrupt change.

One of the things that apparently happens according to the spoilers is that Bill takes on some mantle of responsibility in the Vampire community, something he has been reticent to do in both the books and the show. One of the things that Stephen has brought up about his character is Bill's willingness to become Vampire for Sookie to protect her. And on some levels to take some responsibility for Jessica, which apparently shores up the relationship between the two Vampires which before had been fractured, uneven and unfair to both characters. Jessica has been a fangy latch key kid and has had to learn to be a Vampire on her own and with the dubious help of Pam.

But I wonder if this indicates he is pretty much done with the whole trying to be human thing and being just a mainstreaming Vampire, because it seems to me that though he has accepted being a Vampire, he does not like it like that much and resents it like hell (With a maker like Lorena, who could blame it) and tried to be more human which leads to some unintentional funny moments with Bill, making him seem nerdy and powerless.

What we discovered however is Bill is capable of doing whatever is necessary to survive.He can kow tow and kiss ass with the best of them to protect his hide and protect those he is concerned about. But will that negate his desire to recapture what humanity he can salvage to survive in both the human world and the Vampire world? It sets up a real conundrum...

So now we are so close to the new season, just some 73 days or so. And I have reread all the Sookie books and I have finished the second season and am champing at the bit for the encore of the last season, priming us for the new season. So now I take time to write on this topic again...don't worry I will speak of Eric as well as we prepare for his abrupt change.

One of the things that apparently happens according to the spoilers is that Bill takes on some mantle of responsibility in the Vampire community, something he has been reticent to do in both the books and the show. One of the things that Stephen has brought up about his character is Bill's willingness to become Vampire for Sookie to protect her. And on some levels to take some responsibility for Jessica, which apparently shores up the relationship between the two Vampires which before had been fractured, uneven and unfair to both characters. Jessica has been a fangy latch key kid and has had to learn to be a Vampire on her own and with the dubious help of Pam.

But I wonder if this indicates he is pretty much done with the whole trying to be human thing and being just a mainstreaming Vampire, because it seems to me that though he has accepted being a Vampire, he does not like it like that much and resents it like hell (With a maker like Lorena, who could blame it) and tried to be more human which leads to some unintentional funny moments with Bill, making him seem nerdy and powerless.

What we discovered however is Bill is capable of doing whatever is necessary to survive.He can kow tow and kiss ass with the best of them to protect his hide and protect those he is concerned about. But will that negate his desire to recapture what humanity he can salvage to survive in both the human world and the Vampire world? It sets up a real conundrum...

Vampire Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment: The Law as Religion and Vice Versa By Sean McIntyre

So, Aslinn has this very eccentric library and one of the books I am reading is the Malleus Maleficarum. I don’t intend on repeating it word for word but it is basically a book set up in three parts with a series of challenges and rebuttals on points of law concerning the supernatural.

Part one concerns itself with investigating the supernatural, the signs of the devil and the rational of a God who would allow such evil power to exist. The second part concerns itself with the works of witchcraft how they can be countered. The third part concerns itself with both the legal (civil) and Ecclesiastical (Church) dealings with the witches they bring to trial. This part is broken up into three areas: Area One was concerning the accusing of the witch and what constitutes evidence and who may be a reliable witness. Area two discusses the trial and testimony and Area Three discusses the use of “Being Put to the Question” and the final judgment and punishment of the witch.

As a barrister, I am fascinated with early thought on the law and crime and punishment. In some instances, it is not as different as our own, in our present world. In others, the laws are barbarous and simply insane. Much as we are insulted as human beings there are places in the world where laws are different regarding men and women, i.e., the laws in Iran that have one set of punishments far more cruel and terrible for women than for men, where the MM would not be seen as too terribly unjust, we see that we have not traveled so far in the 521 years since the Malleus was written.

And I write of this book because of the attitudes and history of the Magister. Aslinn tells me the Magister claimed he had a history with the Inquisition and, having been so, I imagine he carried over his knowledge of the law into his vampire life. He simply applies its essential truths as he sees it to his new world and he has taken his faith in God and replaced it with faith in his vampirism. The blood, since there is no human soul to save, is the life he wishes to keep pure and safe.

The MM states without question there is a dark world of the Devil and his agents. For the Magister, this evil is organized anti-vampire groups and vampires who do not guard the blood as sacred. He believes in absolute punishment, which is why our vampires find themselves in such precarious situations.

Anything is permissible to the Magister. He employs torture. To wit: the torture endured by our Pam and the threat of more to Eric if he does not produce Bill Compton. We have also seen Eric as a ruthless lawman (in human eyes) in his dealings with Lafayette. Bill apologizes to Sookie in a way: “I am sorry you had to see what passes as for justice in our world,” (S2E4) and he further says “I have had worse Sheriffs,” (S2E4)

But even Eric was compelled to tell the truth. Whatever his reasoning for charging Bill before the court and bringing him to the Magister for the death of Long Shadow, Eric had to testify about Sookie and why she was there and the implication was that though what Bill had done was bad, all Eric could have done once he found out the truth was bring Long Shadow to stand trial before the Magister and he would have been punished. Unfortunately, Bill became Judge, Jury and Executioner and thus had to stand trial for his crimes. His reasons were negligible.

In the Malleus Maleficarum, the judge and jury were the Inquisition. There was no trial before your peers. In the vampire world, the tribunal votes for the righteousness of the judgment, not the guilt or innocence of the accused. Which I suppose is how it is done with the Inquisition. In the book, The Name of the Rose, William is an Inquisitor who has a ben sinister on his name because he voted against the righteous claim of Bernardo Gui, the head Inquisitor. I imagine the same would have been said to any vampire who thought Bill’s punishment was too harsh.

One of the questions put to Sprenger and Kramer is concerning the reliability of the witnesses against the accused. They said in part one that the witness statement of “mortal enemies” were acceptable even though there could be a hidden agenda behind it. Eric certainly had an agenda for charging Bill. He wanted Sookie. In a human court, I would have cross examined Eric and said his testimony was tainted because he wanted Bill’s human, Sookie Stackhouse, and that would have caused a question of doubt in the minds of the jury (tribunal) as to the truthfulness of the testimony.

I would have further suggested that if Mr. Northman had truly thought of Miss Stackhouse as a valuable human, he would have killed Long Shadow himself to protect Sookie which he as Sheriff would have had the right to do. (This of course is what he did in the book, though not without repercussions, he did have to pay a fine) In so doing, I would then charge Eric before the tribunal for bringing false charges and even fomenting the death of Long Shadow because he knew or suspected in advance that Long Shadow might be the culprit and having Bill bring Sookie to him to investigate was a self motivated plan to get not only his thieving partner but the telepathic human who belonged to Bill Compton. I would further say that Eric may have even suspected Log Shadow might try to kill Sookie before she could indict him. I might even try to pin a charge of attempted theft on Eric, as his design was to gain possession of Sookie, who was by vampire law, the property of Bill and therefore untouchable.

Now, Russell Edgington makes a declaration about whether or not vampire royalty can be staked. He says that is not an option for punishing royalty. However, I would point out, as Aslinn has, there are forms of punishment for nobility who murder. Elizabeth Bathory was walled into her house, Gilles De Rais was killed, even monarchs have been executed by uprisings. If the monarch is guilty of profaning the blood, which is the most grievous accusation which can be brought upon a vampire outside of causing final death, I would say this would cause the situation of Regent Incontestus that is the Unlawful Ruler, a ruler who does not follow the law of the land, and therefore cannot enforce the law.

Also, one must consider that since in the times of the past the Church made a King, the Magister must act in the place of the Church. Magister acting as “In Locus Pontificus” or “In Place of the Pope” makes the vampire King/Queen. The Church often dealt with unruly monarchs, even to excommunicating them and killing them, either openly or by stealth. In the case of the Magister, it may be that he will be public in his execution of whatever punishment he might have for any monarch for blasphemy of the blood.

In the books, the Magister is replaced by the Ancient Pythoness, one of the original oracles. Further, Bill acts as a judge during a series of court hearings and a vampire is staked as punishment for the crime of anti-social behaviour. When Queen Sophie Anne is brought up for killing her husband, she faces presumably final death, which is why Sookie’s testimony is so important.

As we watch the evolving stories and the role of the Magister in the stories, I will be more and more interested in how their law comes to light. I wonder if the writers of the show have realized just how complex a world they have created?

Vampire Laws

Here is another little thing reacquired in a forray to nameless for much loved stuff I didn't swick away with fast enough.

1. The Vampire is tied to his maker until he/she is released.
2. The Vampire, once released, holds no loyalty to his/her maker
3. Vampires must be invited into the home of a mortal.
4. If a mortal rescinds their invitation, they must leave immediately.
5. Vampires must not feed on a mortal belonging to another Vampire.
6. Strict penalties are involved if you violate the "____is mine" tradition
7. Vampires must pay stiff penalties if they kill one of their own kind.
8. Vampires first.
9. Selling V is a taboo practice
10. Authority is according to age and rank

11. Backward thinking Vampires are dangerous to the movement
12. You must present yourself at the nest or headquarters of the HVIC (Head Vampire In Charge- whomever that may be)
13. All legal disputes are brought before and heard by the Magister
14. Vampires must keep their fangs off teacup humans, no matter who cute and tasty they may be. They are not Vampire veal.

15. Should you not want to mainstream it is always wise to have a breathers consent before feeding
16. It is never wise to have a romance with another Vampire

17. If a Vampire's human shows interest in another Vampire without glamour, of their own free will, the original Vampire partner must acquiesce to the human's wishes.

18. Vampire Blood is to be restricted to procreation

19. Vampires cannot accuse their monarch of crimes...this is a treasonable offense

20. Refuting the highest levels of the Vampire government (the Authority) is blasphemy.
21. Vampire rulers must have marriages approved by the Authority.
22. A Vampire cannot charge his sovereign with a crime unless he/she has aligned himself with another ruler.
23. Royalty is not above the law.