Enough about Odysseus' thighs, what about Menelaus

Is Mael alive? Sources say yes.

This is just something I think is sort of funny so I wanted to make a quick post about it. Because The Vampire Chronicles are told largely in first person by various characters, what they know and believe can vary.

We know that Mael did go into the sun in Memnoch the Devil, much like Armand. (Discussions of why a druid would do this are fun and interesting but not why we're here today.) Armand obviously survived that and he's much younger, so it stands to reason that Mael should have (or at least, could have) survived it, as well.

Mael only appears in future books in flashback and does not join the others at Court. But in Blood and Gold, Marius does say he survived his attempted suicide by sun:

It was a Druid priest who brought me to this peculiar death, a creature named Mael, mortal when he wronged me, but a blood drinker soon after, and one who still lives though he tried not long ago to sacrifice his life in a new religious fervor. What a fool.

(BTW, I love Marius' judgemental editorializing of this, and it's extra funny because if I recall correctly, he does not comment on Armand doing the same thing in the same way, and is in fact very worried for him in TVA. The first person narration is gold sometimes.)

However, in Prince Lestat, Lestat believes Mael is dead, though not with any conviction, even commenting that he doesn't think such an act should have killed him:

Mael, I knew, had perished in New York, though precisely how I wasn’t certain. He’d gone into the sun on the steps of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, but surely that had not been enough to destroy him.

So Lestat thinks he's dead but isn't like, sure sure and Marius says otherwise.

I'm inclined to believe Marius has kept better tabs on this and Mael is, in fact, alive. He's just not interested in participating in Court, and probably a little embarrassed about the whole business.

(I personally believe Jesse also knows he's alive and that he has no interest in joining the others at Trinity Gate, but that is pure headcanon.)

book 10 doodle

marius' love of the world is something that can be soooooo personal to you if you let it

By Hyginus's account, Odysseus never forgave Palamedes for ruining his attempt to stay out of the Trojan War. When Palamedes advised the Greeks to return home, Odysseus hid gold in his tent and wrote a fake letter purportedly from Priam. Thus Palamedes was accused of treason and stoned to death by the Greeks.

been thinking about this audio a lot LMAO. rip my guy