#mochijun def did her research about vampires | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

linkedsoul · 2 years

Text

Vampire references in VnC

One of the first things that struck me in Vanitas no Carte were the little references to other literary vampires and figures peppered in the manga/anime. Then I started researching about vampires and realized there were WAY MORE than I thought (Mochizuki-sensei, your brain is big) so I thought I’d compile here the ones I found so far in case others hadn’t caught on either. Some are very clear references, other are suppositions from my part. Tell me which one you’d spotted and if you’ve noticed additional ones! (I’ll update this if I find more)

1. Count Orlock

Probably one of the easiest to spot: Count Orlock is the vampire in F.W Murnau’s movie “Nosferatu” (1922).

2. Mina

Sweet little Mina bears the same name as Jonathan Harker’s wife in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1901). In the book, Mina gets attacked by Count Dracula who puts her under his hypnosis and starts turning her into a vampire. In Dracula, Mina is saved when Dracula dies and in VnC.... poor baby unfortunately doesn’t have the same luck.

3. People exiting a room by the window / Vanitas leaving and entering through the window

Very reminiscent of Dracula crawling out of the window at night in his castle, or using the window to enter Lucy Westenra’s room and drain her of her blood. Vampires love windows because they’re informal threshold between the outside and the inside: you enter formally through a door and you need to be invited, but you can sneak through a window.

4. Walking on the walls

Just like the previous one, here is another reference to Dracula’s supernatural abilities! I’m actually starting to wonder if one of the Shapeless One’s names wasn’t Dracula at some point because he’s the one who taught Noé that kind of skills.

5. The bats

Another Dracula reference! Unlike the vampires we met so far, Dracula could turn into a bat (okay it was a giant bet, those are tiny) and hover angrily in front of people’s windows if he can’t enter. Like that “>:(=“

6. Lord Ruthven

Lord Ruthven is the vampire in John Polidori’s novella “The Vampyre”, and the very first aristocratic vampire of Western literature. Before that, “vampires” were more like village vampires, undead creatures in Eastern European (and more specifically Serbian) villages that rose from their graves and killed other people until they were staked and their head cut off. I’m not sure there was literature on vampires before Polidori’s novella. Lord Ruthven is rich, charming, seductive, bisexual vibes, and very evil. Looks deceptively gentlemanly but actually a rotten motherfucker.

7. Louis

Louis is the protagonist of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976), and one of the first (or at least most iconic) "introspective vampire” as Yoshitaka (2011) puts it. He suffers from his condition as an immortal vampire and is plagued by loneliness... hmm "plagued by loneliness” does remind me of someone.

8. Chloé d’Apchier

A bit of a supposition there and I think there’s more to Chloé than I found so far, but to me Chloé is a reference to Claudia from Interview with the Vampire. Claudia is a little girl turned into a vampire by Louis and Lestat, who grows up mentally to become an adult woman, but remains trapped into the body of a child and suffers from it, wishing to be able to grow up and change. In the same way, Chloé is an old vampire in a young body (I do love that she truly does act and think of herself as an adult) who at first tries to undo her condition as a vampire because she suffers from it.

9. Moreau

That one is harder to get: I literally just stumbled upon it today. Moreau is a reference to Dr Moreau, the mad scientist from sci-fi novel The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) b H.G Wells, who from the wiki description, “creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection.”

10. Count of Saint Germain

The Count of Saint-Germain was a mysterious historical figure who was a musician, adventurer, scientist, philosopher and whose origins are unclear. He’s shrouded in legends and reputed to be immortal. Author Chelsea Quinn Yabro wrote a series of novel about the Count where he’s a vampire.

11. Lord Ruthven watching Noé sleep

YES I KNOW IT’S A BIT OF A STRECH BUT YOU CAN’T TELL ME IT DOESN’T REMIND YOU OF EDWARD WATCHING BELLA SLEEP LIKE A CREEP IN TWILIGHT--

More seriously, I’ve always found VERY interesting the parallel between Jeanne and Vanitas’ romantic date, and Lord Ruthven and Noé’s “date”. If you remove the fact that Lord Ruthven is acting more like a mentor figure, the fact that he booked the entire café just for him and Noé to talk gives huge “rich man flaunting his wealth to impress his date” vibes with a bunch of red flags from Ruthven’s intentions and drugging Noé’s tea. Obviously nothing romantic going on here but the “date with red flags that the MC can’t see” vibes are RIGHT THERE. Maybe a ref to Lord Ruthven having bi vibes with his younger male friend Aubrey in Polidori’s novella? That would actually make more sense.

12. Chloé and Naenia’s relationship

This one might also be a bit of a stretch, but Carmilla vibes?? Carmilla is a vampire novella by Sheridan LeFanu (1872) in which a girl called Carmilla ends up living at the castle of young lady Laura and her father. Carmilla turns out to be a vampire after Laura’s blood: she’s the og “lesbian vampire” and has an interest in Laura that goes beyond gal pals.

Here, Naenia seems to be very close to Chloé, who welcomed her in her own castle, and seems to almost care for Chloé... except that Naenia has Chloé’s true name and remains as creepy as ever. Then the first time we see Naenia clearly kissing someone, 1. she’s not just a dark blob but actually a woman 2. the shot is clear and 100% explicit. It’s also a kiss that ends up corrupting Chloé. It might be a stretch as I said, but the Carmilla vibes are definitely there.

13. Dante

Not a vampire ref, but an obvious literary ref to Dante, the author and protagonist of the Divine Comedy, who descends into Hell and follows the lead of Roman poet Virgil from Hell to Paradise, and meeting there his beloved, Beatrice.

14. Béatrice

Our lovely Riche shares the name of the aforementioned love of Dante in the Divine Comedy. In the wiki, her full name is Béatrice so I’m not making that up. It’s harder to spot because the English version romanized her name as “Riche”, but in the French version she’s “Trix”, which made it easier to make the connection.

#vanitas no carte #vanitas no shuki #the case study of vanitas #les mémoires de vanitas #vampires #i should study but instead here i am #mochijun def did her research about vampires #i love it

16 notes · View notes