Queen of the Damned is a movie that was released in 2002, which was based on the third book in the Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice. The movie is filmed from the perspective of the main character, the vampire Lestat. Lestat’s story begins in a slumber from which he is soon awoken by the sounds of a rock band playing music. He was intrigued by the melodies and decided to adopt the band as his own, of which he became the singer. Lestat used the music as a tool to divulge precious vampire secrets to the world in order to cause a little controversy and stir things up among the vampire community. His songs became smash hits overnight and people all over the world were listening to them, which cause an insatiable rage within the other vampires because their sacred secrets were being paraded around in the open. Lestat’s boredom was soon cured when his eternal life was being threatened by an army of angry, bloodthirsty and super-strong vampires.
One of the songs that was used as Lestat’s vessel to spread these messages to the world was titled “Forsaken”. This song has, as most songs do, several symbolic words and phrases. The first symbol is in the second line, when Lestat refers to a “vast abyss”; an abyss is defined as a “deep, immeasurable space”. The second symbol was when Lestat said “I see”, which defined is the physical ability of sight or perceiving with the eyes. Next, the song contains the words “be alive”, which just means being in a state of existence or having life. Another symbol is the actual title of the song, namely “forsaken” which is defined as to abandon or desert. One of the lines from the chorus two strong symbolic words which are “feeding, raping” which are defined as the act of eating and the “act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person”, respectively. Also, the word “hide” appears in the song, which means “to prevent from being seen. Lastly, Lestat uses the word “mask” as part of his lyrics, which is defined as a “covering for all or part of the face, worn to conceal one’s identity”.
These symbols have a lot of connotative meaning that accompanies the denotative definitions; the way that Lestat shared the sacred vampire secrets with the world is through the meaning of these symbolic words. The “vast abyss” refers to the eternal and meaningless future that Lestat is faced with since he is immortal and cannot die. When Lestat sang the words “I see”, he didn’t mean that he was physically perceiving with his eyes, but rather that he has finally realized that he does not need to hide himself from humanity any longer. The words “be alive” don’t just mean to continue having life (which seems pretty contradictory for a vampire to be saying) but also to how Lestat felt when he came to the realization that the meaning that he was searching for in his eternal existence was to live out in the open and to let the human world know that vampires exist. The word “forsaken” has a lot of meaning, especially to Lestat’s past. He felt frustrated being “forsaken” by human beings because he had to hide himself from them and he was forsaken by his maker and only friend, the vampire Marius; he’s telling everyone that they can try to abandon and forget him, but there’s no way of ignoring the masses of vampires that are all over the world. This was Lestat’s challenge to human beings, by letting them know that there are vampires living among them, and a challenge to vampires as well by revealing their secrets. “Feeding, raping” also presents a similar challenge, because Lestat is confessing that vampires hunt and feed on humans, and implies the corruption of the human soul (the connotative meaning of rape is usually the corruption of something innocent). “Hide” is a symbol that is similar to its denotative definition, but in another respect; the vampires must hide among the humans, although they aren’t hiding out of fear but rather out of protection. Since they are vulnerable during the day, the usual slumber time for vampires because the sun is deadly to them, they keep their race away from humans until it’s hunting time. This doesn’t mean that they’re literally hiding (they actually do walk amongst the humans at nighttime, although vampire-human encounters are either very brief or the human turns into the evening’s dinner) but that they must conceal the secrets of their race so that the humans never find out a vampire’s weaknesses. Finally, when Lestat sings about “taking off the mask”, he’s referring to coming out of hiding and telling everyone what he is.
The entire song itself is very interesting because it’s so broad and general, yet it has an underlying message throughout the ambiguities in the lyrics. It starts with the words “I’m over it. You see I’m falling in a vast abyss Clouded by memories of the past. At last I see”. This was his way of basically explaining why he decided to betray his kind; he’s over the excitement of being a vampire (eternal life, super human strength, increased agility, among other gifts) and now he’s faced with a vast abyss of a lonely and meaningless future. He feels overwhelmed by countless memories that mean nothing to him and finally sees a reason to create memories.
The next lines are “I head it fading, I can’t speak it Or else you will dig my grave”. The sacredness of these secrets is fading to Lestat, but one of the cardinal rules in the “vampire code”, so to speak, is that you cannot unveil these secrets to humans or any other creature and the penalty of doing so is death. Not surprising, then, that other vampires tried to kill him during his concert. The song continues with “you feel them finding Always winding Take my hand Now be alive”. He is now talking about feeling their presences all around searching for their victims so now he wants to take her in and make her feel what he is feeling.
The chorus of the song is “You see I cannot be forsaken Because I’m not the only one. We walk amongst you Feeding, raping. Must we hide from everyone”. This is the most significant confession in this song, since Lestat is blatantly stating that there are vampires other than him among the humans and that they feed on human blood. The last line implies a certain ego, questioning why vampires have to hide when they’re obviously superior to and dominate human beings.
Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice.
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