Eli as an animal you can't trust?

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Ash
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Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by Ash » Fri Sep 09, 2016 9:45 am

There has recently been a spate of pet dog attacks where I live by supposedly loving pets gone bad. I wonder how much of the animal you can actually take out of the animal.
The dog you roll on the bed with that licks your face, will under different circumstance rip your face off or your throat out without much thought between the two.
I think that JAL suggests that Eli always existed between brute animalistic drive and quasi-civility and that there wasn't much needed to switch her between the two modes regardless of who she was with, or how much or how little she cared for them. There are numerous instances in the novel where Oskar was looking at a good numming from Eli's animal instincts, even though she loved him dearly.
One could say that the only way she could ever protect Oskar from what had befallen Hakan, who she also loved, was to turn him into one of her own kind for good.... through marriage. And it doesn't matter if this was an ultimate act of selfishness or the ultimate act of love because the two are so intrinsically entwined.
The fact is that there was no future for either on them together while Eli was the hunting animal subjected to brute instincts and Oskar was human. I would say that both of them made the perfect choice... seen only out of mutual love.
or ended apart

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a_contemplative_life
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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by a_contemplative_life » Fri Sep 09, 2016 12:44 pm

Yeah, Eli can definitely turn rapidly into a feral little critter and it seems natural to think that over the long haul, Eli and Oskar would be happier together if Oskar were turned. OTOH, I don't think that excludes the alternative scenario that Oskar remains Eli's human lover for some period of time.
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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by dongregg » Fri Sep 09, 2016 10:34 pm

What if we were all animals and could turn on each other without warning? Oh, wait, we are (500 hundred murders in Chicago already this year).
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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cmfireflies
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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by cmfireflies » Sat Sep 10, 2016 3:35 am

Hey stop slandering Eli. She's perfectly capable of controlling her urges. Like how Hakan wasn't food when he screwed up. That said, I do agree that Oskar needs to turn to be with Eli, but that's because he's mortal, not because Eli may be a danger to Oskar.
"When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it."

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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by sauvin » Sat Sep 10, 2016 9:24 am

cmfireflies wrote:Hey stop slandering Eli. She's perfectly capable of controlling her urges. Like how Hakan wasn't food when he screwed up. That said, I do agree that Oskar needs to turn to be with Eli, but that's because he's mortal, not because Eli may be a danger to Oskar.
It's not slander.

Haakan's postmortem antics state unequivocally that the beast within has its own volition, some semblance of an independent mind and some kind of recognition of human appetites. If it can drive what should have been a corpse, it's highly likely it can drive a twelve year old child. It's not clear how well Eli can suppress that beast when she's alert and unimpaired by hunger - it seems a sated beast is a quiet beast - but what's even less clear are (1) how well an alert but starving Eli can resist what she apparently interprets as the same kind of hunger we experience, in tandem with (2) what may well be a beast whose driving power increases with degree of hunger.

The question in my mind is: can an unfettered Eliform vampire deliberately starve itself to death?

I've known hunger in a way most Americans haven't. It's no big deal for me to go a whole day or two without eating a single, solitary thing, but after the third day or so, the completely normal, natural, human hunger starts taking over to the extent that you'll almost kill your own mother for something to eat (a stage that won't last more than a day or two before a debilitating weakness starts setting in). If you're curious about what it's like for Eli, you may want to try it: just go a whole 48 hours without consuming anything solid, or anything that has food value - and then test your self-control when somebody waves a hot, steaming pizza under your nose.
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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by ltroifanatic » Sat Sep 10, 2016 11:05 am

It's true that there seems to be a very thin veneer separating the domesticated and wild.Animals can and do revert back to the wild given the right circumstances.Does it make a difference that it's sort of reverse for Eli?Reverting back to domestication (a 12 year old child) from the wild vampire that she was, given the right circumstances (meeting Oskar). Also let's not forget that the vast majority of animals can't be domesticated. :think: So many questions..my head hurts..
Please Oskar.Be me for a little while.

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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by cmfireflies » Sun Sep 11, 2016 2:39 am

sauvin wrote:It's not slander.

Haakan's postmortem antics state unequivocally that the beast within has its own volition, some semblance of an independent mind and some kind of recognition of human appetites. If it can drive what should have been a corpse, it's highly likely it can drive a twelve year old child. It's not clear how well Eli can suppress that beast when she's alert and unimpaired by hunger - it seems a sated beast is a quiet beast - but what's even less clear are (1) how well an alert but starving Eli can resist what she apparently interprets as the same kind of hunger we experience, in tandem with (2) what may well be a beast whose driving power increases with degree of hunger.

The question in my mind is: can an unfettered Eliform vampire deliberately starve itself to death?

I've known hunger in a way most Americans haven't. It's no big deal for me to go a whole day or two without eating a single, solitary thing, but after the third day or so, the completely normal, natural, human hunger starts taking over to the extent that you'll almost kill your own mother for something to eat (a stage that won't last more than a day or two before a debilitating weakness starts setting in). If you're curious about what it's like for Eli, you may want to try it: just go a whole 48 hours without consuming anything solid, or anything that has food value - and then test your self-control when somebody waves a hot, steaming pizza under your nose.
But that's not the question though. It's not about how a starving Eli would react to Oskar. It's about whether Eli would ever willingly harm Oskar. I suspect that if things were to get as bad as starvation, two starving vampires wouldn't fare better than a vampire and a human. No question that a starving Eli might unwillingly harm Oskar, but she'd separate them before then, or do everything in her power to keep Oskar safe. In that respect Eli is more than an animal. If it takes a a situation as extreme as death by starvation to have Oskar be threatened by Oskar, well, that actually shows how safe Oskar is around Eli. Eli asked Oskar to not be afraid of her, as there's nothing to fear.
"When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it."

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Ash
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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by Ash » Sun Sep 11, 2016 4:15 am

The flaw in the "starving Eli" position is that she doesn't necessarily have to be hungry to pose a threat to Oskar. She almost nommed him in the cellar when she was obviously well and had recently fed off Hakan.
I doesn't take much other than the sight of a few drops of blood or the feel of a warm neck to kick her into feeding mode. Albeit while she was intimate with Oskar in bed she could remain in control, but the imminent danger was ever-present.
Assuming that vampires don't (can't) feed off each other, then the only sure way of protecting Oskar was to make him like her, which became a mutual decision.
Note that I speak in the present tense because I'd love to think they're still out there somewhere in Europe living happily, and still very much intensely in love with each other.

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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by dongregg » Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:12 am

Ash wrote:Note that I speak in the present tense because I'd love to think they're still out there somewhere in Europe living happily, and still very much intensely in love with each other.
They are. And with the right mentors, they grow more sophisticated. With sophistication, they become more aware of how special their love for each other is.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Ash
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Re: Eli as an animal you can't trust?

Post by Ash » Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:22 am

Well acquiring sophistication requires developing maturity, and seeing as E&O, after being turned, no longer mature both psychologically and physically, I can't see them changing much in the sophistication department.
Hakan tried to impress on Eli the danger of immature impulsiveness with no more effect than adult lecturing has on today's adolescents. The fact is they are incapable of sophistication at their age.
And if we are to assume a non-manipulative Eli, then we better hope that sophistication of thought, and the corruption of innocence that is part and parcel of that deal, doesn't occur.
Otherwise there wouldn't be much to between them and the hollow woman's cynicism. Both alive but lives very different existentially.
Let's hope they don't actually grow up enough to recognise that murdering people, even if it is to stay alive, is morally wrong and indefensible. Only while they remain forever young unsophisticated children will that work for me.
Being children is the only "get out of gaol free" card they have to play IMO, and I wouldn't want them developing mature adult thought processes and sophistication of thought to take that one card away. It's all they have to separate acceptable childish nommings from brutal bloody murder.

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