Eli's Strength?

[epicfan84]

It would seem that Eli obviously puts conscious thought into transforming her physical form, and strength would be part of this.
I think that Eli's ability to physically transform should be seen as completely separate from killing machine Eli. The later she has little control over.
And although Eli consciously sets up her killings, and there must be a point at which child Eli intentionally lets go and permits murder to unfold, I think the actual killings are not done by her.

This is not entirely clear. Virginia's experience supports this view, as does Eli's behaviour in front of Oscars bleeding hand in the basement. However, in the episode with the cancerous woman, (the human part of) Eli seems to be the agent all the time:

Ett svagt pipande; kvinnans andning. Eli lutade sig ner, höll sin näsa tätt intill kvinnans pulsåder. Tvål, svett, doft av gammal hud … den där sjukshuslukten … nånting mer, som var kvinnans egen lukt. Och under, igenom allt detta: blodet.
Kvinnan gnydde när Elis näsa nuddade vid hennes hals, började vrida på huvudet, men Eli tog ett fast grepp med ena handen runt kvinnans armar och bröst, höll med den andra fast hennes huvud. Öppnade munnen så mycket det gick, förde den ner mot kvinnans hals tills tungan pressades mot pulsådern och bet ihop. Låste käkarna.
A soft wheezing; the woman's breathing. Eli leaned forward, held (his/her) nose close to the woman's artery. Soap, sweat, the scent of old skin … that hospital odour … something more, that was the woman's own scent. And bellow, though all this: the blood.
The woman whimpered when Eli's nose touched her neck, started turning her head, but Eli took a firm grip with one arm around the woman's arms and chest, held with the other one around her head. Opened (his/her) mouth as much as it went, lowered it towards the woman's neck until (his/her) tongue was pressed against the artery and bit. Locked (his/her) jaws. My translation.

Eli is also able to contain herself when he is cutting Tommy in the basement. The blood falls but it's not like he goes crazy. He even checks in on Tommy to make sure he's alright. He's able to contain it and not let it control her as both Virginia and Eli speak of in the novel I believe.

[metoo]

Eli is also able to contain herself when he is cutting Tommy in the basement. The blood falls but it's not like he goes crazy. He even checks in on Tommy to make sure he's alright. He's able to contain it and not let it control her as both Virginia and Eli speak of in the novel I believe.

Yes. When Lacke objects to Virginia's claim to be a vampire, saying she seems normal, she replies:

"Jag anstränger mig. Och så har jag ju fått blod. Men jag kan släppa. När som helst kan jag släppa. Så tar det över. Jag vet det. Jag känner det." Virginia andades några tunga andetag, fortsatte: "Du står där. Jag ser på dig. Och jag vill … äta dig."
"I'm making an effort. And I've ben given blood. But I can let go. Anytime I can let go. Then it will take over. I know it. I feel it." Virginia took a few heavy breaths, continued: "You're standing there. I look at you. And I want to … eat you." My translation.

But Virginia didn't trust her ability to restrain the infection from taking over. She didn't want Lacke to remove the leather straps that were fettering her. Neither did Eli trust his ability to keep the infection at bay in the basement. The force of the infection apparently is very hard for it's host to overcome.

A possible solution to this apparent inconsistency in the novel would be if the infection stays silent as long as its host keeps delivering. Perhaps Eli found being controlled by that creature in his chest even more horrible than actively doing what needed to be done himself?

[intrige]

People are well known to do almost anything to survive. When individuals in this real world kill other humans not because of survival, I somehow can't find it hard to imagine someone doing it because they have to. Those stories of people eating off their fellow dead passangers on crashed plains or lifeboats oyt on sea. Children can endour incredable and horrible things aswell. But they as children are, are easely shapable, more so than adults. And tend to get serious lasting mental damage from simelar horrors. Like child soilders in Africa, if they don't kill they will get killed. They get taught that it is not as bad as they think, that they are invinsable. It is suggested that Eli stayed with the wigged man for a long time. He was said to be around 11 when captueed, at age 12 when he was turned. Meanwhile he might have been taught that killing would soon be part of his survival, that it was alright, and that he would become invinsable. Children who experience such horrors always turn into unstable, suicidal and post-traumatik stressed adults. Eli never did turn into an adult. He seemed to be suicidal though.

[artredfield1999]

So when zombie Hakan and Eli are in the basement and Hakan tackles him to the ground, Hakan somehow overpowers Eli and rips tendons and such. Why wasn't Eli able to just throw Hakan off of him if he has superhuman strength? Hakan is also incredibly strong as he bludgeons Eli's ear off. With all that being said, what makes other vampires stronger than others? Is strength related to physique? It certainly isn't to age because Eli is wayyyy older than Hakan. Anybody have a theory?

If it bleeds, we can kill it.

One doubt that I have concerning the Novel "Let The Right One" is the nature of the way that vampires in this novel can be killed or destroyed, As anyone here who has read the novel we remember when Håkan in it's "zombie" stage was able to take several amounts of damage by Eli and Tommy and even when he had his face completely smashed by the several hits by Tommy with the trophy, Håkan didn't die immediately.
That would be the same in Eli or any other vampire?
I only mean the ability to absorb such damage.

[ltroifanatic]

Well Eli can sure take some punishment.As for strength I'd say as a general rule the bigger the vampire the stronger? You're right about Hakan being hard to kill and it got me thinking about how would you kill Eli? Other than the stake through the heart,fire or sunlight it seems very hard to do.Hakan was in pieces and still lived (in a manner of speaking).Anyway it's a moot point because who would want to hurt our dear little vampire?.. Oh and welcome to the forum.

[SpartanAltego]

One thing to keep in mind as well is Hakan's endurance seems likely to be an exception more than a rule as far as vampiric constitution goes. He's not alive, doesn't feel pain, and crushing his heart does nothing of significance to hinder him.

That said, typical vampires are still exceptionally durable. Eli recovered fast from being literally folded in half despite explicitly feeling tendons snap. The cancer patient Eli infects wanders around on fire for some time before falling over. So it seems that at the very least they require immolation, massive blood loss, or the destruction of the heart to destroy (according to the vampire woman Eli met). If you're completely dead, though, then all bets are off and you become ridiculously hard to kill for the price of being a mindless husk.

As far as physical strength, Eli is capable of ripping people limb from limb as the pool demonstrates. His method of choice for Lacke was squeezing him until his ribs broke, which is an impressive amount of pressure for such a small body. He also punches directly into Zombie Hakan's chest cavity. I imagine that the enhancement of ste both is actually relative to your size; Eli may be superhuman but he can still only barely resist Zombie Hakan to any degree.

[PeteMork]

I believe Eli is alive with the infection. Hakan is dead. Only the infection is alive in him. All that aside, I tend to agree that he's stronger because he's bigger.

But Hakan's zombie-like behavior before -, and survival after his heart was destroyed, brings up another question: Does this mean the vampire woman that Eli met is incorrect about the location of the infection's 'brain'? It certainly seems so.

Hakan was killed in the fall only a few seconds after being infected, so why would he survive at all? According to JAL, the infection is halted if the victim's neck/spinal chord is broken. Does this mean Hakan died from another cause? (I guess the theory is that his spinal cord is the only path the infection can take.) But if that's so, then why doesn't the 'brain' ride on top of the heart in a dead host?

[dongregg]

Okay. You might see Håkan as a vampire with a brain so injured that he is effectively brain dead, but with no severed spinal cord. Or not. Why wouldn't his brain regenerate?

Anyway, he's a kind of anomaly. He doesn't really fit into the eliform mold that I think Eli, Virginia, and "that woman" fit into.

And how does "that woman" know what's sitting on top of her heart? She would have to 1.) have dissected a vampire and 2.) be a cardiac surgeon to know what she is looking at.

Okay. Never mind. There are some things that can't be cleared up because JAL didn't.

[metoo]

I believe Eli is alive with the infection. Hakan is dead. Only the infection is alive in him. All that aside, I tend to agree that he's stronger because he's bigger.

I agree. Håkan could overpower Eli because he was bigger (and because of the surprise).

But Hakan's zombie-like behavior before -, and survival after his heart was destroyed, brings up another question: Does this mean the vampire woman that Eli met is incorrect about the location of the infection's 'brain'? It certainly seems so.

No, because the narrator, i.e. JAL himself, explicitly tells that there is a new growth of brain tissue around the heart, in connection with Virginia's conversion. Additionally, without having been informed by another vampire, Virginia has the impression that the seat of the infection is in her heart.

Hakan was killed in the fall only a few seconds after being infected, so why would he survive at all? According to JAL, the infection is halted if the victim's neck/spinal chord is broken. Does this mean Hakan died from another cause? (I guess the theory is that his spinal cord is the only path the infection can take.) But if that's so, then why doesn't the 'brain' ride on top of the heart in a dead host?

Zombie Håkan is an enigma, and, I'd say, not entirely in concordance with the explanation of the infection such as it is described in Virginia's case. But we are talking about fiction in the horror genre here, and perhaps shouldn't expect logic all the time...

Now, Eli believes that zombie Håkan is a case of undead. He seemed to know about this concept but had not seen it before, and his knowledge was limited. Eli himself, however, was alive, and - perhaps more interesting - had never died:
"Är du ... död, liksom?"
Hon log för första gången han kommit.
"Nej. Märks inte det?"
"Nämen ... du vet ... har du dött nån gång, liksom?"
"Nej. Men jag har levt väldigt länge."
"Are you, like ... dead?"
She smiled for the first time since he had arrived.
"No. Can't you tell?"
"No, but ... you know ... have you, like, died sometime?"
"No. But I have lived for a very long time." My translation.

Virginia didn't die either, and she apparently became a full-blown vampire. The cancer woman certainly died (through blood loss), but we don't know whether she was alive the way Eli and Virginie were, or if she was more like Håkan.

Jocke didn't rise from the dead, however, but his neck had not only been broken, but almost completely severed. Perhaps Håkans spine was broken, which would have hindered the heart-brain to form (as per the description in the novel), but maybe this was insufficient to hinder the infection to revive the body? The logic is somewhat halting, I think, but again - it's only fiction!

[sauvin]

In the novel, when Eli discovered that Haakan was still alive, she was immediately concerned and told Oskar to stay indoors for a while. I remember Oskar remonstrating "what, you're my mother, now?" Earlier in the novel, when asked if she was a vampire, she denied it. I don't remember the wording, but she said something like "I love off blood, yes, but I'm not... that." When asked what the difference was, she said emphatically there was a very BIG difference.

I'm a bit fuzzy on what her motivations were, but it seems clear that when she learned of Haakan's survival (ahem), she'd very quickly resolved to find and destroy him. Maybe that was just out of concern for Oskar's safety and for that of such people as might be in his life, or maybe it was just some kind of responsibility she felt for preternatural pest control.

Whatever the case may be, I think it likely she knew something about infected people in Haakan's condition that Eli and JAL just didn't share with us.