Eli/Elias
Who is Eli?
I’m going to just refer to Eli as he, instead of she because biologically speaking, Eli is still a boy. Be that it may be the fault of the English language; it’s difficult to pin Eli as anything but Eli.
Eli is a vampire child who lived for 220 years, he looks very much like a girl to many people who sees Eli, dresses in girl’s clothes or gender-neutral ones, and is also very beautiful. Originally, Eli is a boy named ‘Elias’ who lived on a farm whose father worked for the Lord. That Lord turns out to be a vampire who turned Elias. There had been a ‘competition’ for boys at age of 8 to 12. There are 7 young boys, including Elias, at the castle. The Lord rolled a dice, came up six, Elias was the seventh. However, The Lord pointed his finger at Elias, and we see that the dice was actually now seven. He had been taken into some room, had his genitals removed, his blood was drunk by the Lord and then he bit Elias afterwards. When did he release Elias? Did he release him? What happened to his family? How did the name Elias change to Eli? What did the Lord do to him after castrating him? No idea, so it’s up to the readers to speculate.
From what I can speculate, Eli had had no happiness until he meets Oskar. Eli is most likely spending years hating what he is and for having to feed on people in order to survive. He even needed people to help him after his hibernation. This hibernation might be due to Elias’ depression of being a vampire, all alone and unloved.
He cannot kill himself because he wanted to live. He believes that his conscience is weaker than his will to live. Eli also spends many months hibernating, which causing him to become weak, defenseless, and needing someone to help procure blood for him. He doesn’t have an identity for himself, because he has no idea what he is. He’s not a boy, not a girl, he’s not young, and he’s not old. He thinks he’s nothing. He doesn’t see himself as a boy because he doesn’t have male genitalia. He doesn’t see himself as a girl, even though people mistake him for one, because he doesn’t have girl’s genitalia either. He does wear girls’ clothes, but not because he thinks he is a girl. It’s likely used in order to fool her victims as he had fooled Jocke and drank his blood. He doesn’t see himself as young because he cannot age. He’s not old because he never aged. He had told Oskar, “It’s one thing I still think is strange. Why I’m never older than twelve.”
In the novel, Eli dresses and looks feminine, but his behavior is masculine. For instance: Challenging Oskar when being called stupid, choosing to be a monster rather than a fair maiden in a game they’re playing, wrestling each other, holding Oskar from behind, and more. He does not see himself as a he or a she. It’s been the perspective from other characters that they view Eli as a girl. It was only when Eli tells Oskar that he’s not a girl. Why is that? It’s likely that Eli doesn’t care for others to correct them, but when feeling close to Oskar, he wanted to remind Oskar who he is really, but is also afraid that he’ll freak out. He wasn’t too far off, but after considering thinking things over, Oskar still likes Eli.
In the film, we’re presented an actress named Lina who plays Eli. We’re given mainly a feminine perspective in the story instead of the masculine perspective although, there had been instances from the director that they did intend to find androgynous boys for the part as well as androgynous girls. Lina landed the part. Plus, it would be a little hard to find boys who would be comfortable playing the part. There’s also a scene they put in that is a peek scene of Eli’s crotch. This was done to show the audience that something bad had happened to Eli and that Eli isn’t a girl. But it still was confusing for the audience who hadn’t read the book.
For all those years, he likely had built a shell around him, feeling disconnected from the world, always lonely, always in the hands of helpers who wanted to help him but for very different reasons (Which I suspect weren’t kind or caring). He chose Hakan because he wanted to use someone who can be baited to get blood in order to give what they wanted. There has been a thread that explains why Eli couldn’t use anyone who isn’t a sexual predator. They would be a lot more difficult to control. Eli doesn’t have hypnotic powers to control anyone, otherwise everything would have been too easy and the story wouldn’t have been interesting.
We know that he did not like being a vampire, he did not enjoy inflicting death on people, and he did not want to infect people. He simply wanted to live, to be happy, to enjoy life and no longer have to kill to live. As sympathetic we should feel for Eli, we should also keep in mind that John, the author, and Tomas, the film director, don’t think we should let our guard down and that we should steer clear from Eli. Eli is a predator who will kill to survive.
So who is Eli? Well, Eli is Eli. Not a vampire, not a human, not a child, not an adult, not a boy, not a girl, he is simply Eli.
What is Eli’s relationship with other people?
We know that Eli lived with Hakan next door to Oskar. We know that Hakan isn’t her father, and we know that Eli doesn’t really love Hakan. On the contrary, Eli understands very little about love. Hakan views love as this: Real love is to offer your life at the feet of another.
Hakan has told Eli: You only love me to the extent I help you stay alive.
Eli’s reply is: Yes. Isn’t that what love is?
Hakan’s response to that is: If only I thought you would love me even if I didn’t do it…
There’s another dialogue between them:
Eli: I love you.
Hakan: No you don’t.
Eli: Yes. In a way.
Hakan: There’s no such thing. You either love someone or you don’t.
Eli: Really?
Hakan: Yes.
Eli: In that case I have to think about it.
Hakan considers Eli as his love, Eli considers Hakan as a caretaker who gets him blood. Sadly (Sarcasm) to say, Hakan would never be loved in that way. This is because Eli is a 12 year old who lived for a long time, not a 220 year old person. Young children cannot understand romance between adults, so Hakan’s love is simply one way street and was trying to get Eli to feel the same for him. It doesn’t work that way, it never works that way.
When it comes down to Eli and Oskar, the love is not sexual. This is what John wants; a pure love that doesn’t need to be sexual and gender identity is unimportant in love. This is why Eli is a castrated boy and not a girl. Could the story work if Eli had actually been a girl? I don’t know. Maybe, but I can be wrong. The way I see it, love is not fixed upon gender identity or sexual orientation, it’s about caring, accepting, and understanding each other.
What did Eli first think of Oskar? It’s likely that she doesn’t think of him as anything but a possible meal as all other people. When Oskar engages a conversation, offers him a Rubik’s Cube, hugged him after offering to share his candy, and wanting to be together with him, changes all that. Eli, who is perceived as a girl to Oskar, accepts him and understands a lot, underwent a lot of changes. Even Hakan has seen that. Eli had first became closed, secretive, demanding, and bold, then she becomes fun, energetic with Oskar, even jokes and plays games with him. But alas, Eli cannot escape what he is; a vampire. It even bothers Eli a lot, which is why Eli doesn’t wish to tell him. He, Oskar, does find out when trying to make a pact in the basement by cutting his own hand and trying to mix his blood with Eli’s.
In the end, Eli truly loved Oskar. They both understood each other, cared about each other, and even accepted each other. Oskar later knew that Eli is a vampire and a boy, yet he still accepts Eli. (In my opinion, a lot of guys would flip out and ran out screaming homophobic stuff)
What does he feel about Hakan? Hakan is someone to take care of Eli and to get him blood, he doesn’t see him as a father or anything else. After having met Oskar, he does try to play with Hakan by “Hide the key” and tickles him when Hakan doesn’t show an enthusiasm for the game. It seems to me that Eli wanted to enjoy life, be a kid again (Because it was taken away from him by the vampire and suffered) and hoped that this kind of thing can be shared with Hakan. Hakan however rather perceives Eli as an ‘adult’ in a child’s body, not actually a child who lived for a very long time.
It’s not a surprise to me that Eli doesn’t love Hakan the way Hakan ‘loves’ Eli. Eli doesn’t understand the romantic feelings of an adult, even though he had seen it a lot, maybe had people like Hakan who tried to get romantic with him, but Eli never felt romantic to them. This is because Eli is a child who lived for two hundred years. Like a still painting than never changes, never really age through the years.
There is a debate on whether or not Eli was “Grooming” Oskar or that the love was “Genuine.” I’m on the ‘genuine’ side because the book has some instances where Eli doesn’t want new helpers. He turns up to the sky and shouted, “I don’t want to!”
Is Eli a good person?
I would have to say, Eli is a good person as a lion is a good predator. It’s not a bad thing to eat another living creature; it’s really part of survival. We eat meat too, which is part of our survival. (With due respect to vegans and PETA (None given) we have to consume life in order to live and plant is also life). The reason I believe that Eli is good is that Eli doesn’t relish in killing. I’ll bet that the lions and wolves feel the same; it’s just all about survival and needing to eat meat, nothing personal. While no human likes the idea of being eaten (Same goes for any other animals), Eli can’t be blamed for his actions. It’s just something that was forced on him.
Some members of We, the infected, asked that I put in a bit about Tommy and buying his blood. Here it goes; Eli had decided from some time, who knows when, to buy blood. Let me start off that Eli had told Hakan and Oskar that there was no other way to get blood. So it’s likely that Eli did tried to do other things to get blood without killing anyone; drinking blood of the already dead (Which makes you sick), drinking your own blood (Which doesn’t satiate the hunger), buying blood from others (Which risks infecting someone or that someone telling the police, or drinking the blood from animals (Which I guess didn’t work, otherwise Eli would just fed on animals at ease)
So what made Eli change his mind about buying blood? From what I can see, it didn’t work for Eli before. What happened? Someone who Eli bought blood from told on him, maybe someone got infected by accident (Which is why Eli checked on Tommy to be sure he doesn’t get infected, for Oskar’s sake), maybe something else happen? From what I can speculate, Eli wants to change things, wants to no longer repeat the same cycle. Eli might had decided, that maybe buying blood would be a better way. But it does carry risks of infection, of being caught by authorities, and more. Also, how many people are willing to go, “Oh, you want my blood? Sure, I’ll take that 3,000 kronors and you can have a liter of blood?” Not too many I suppose, and it’s unlikely, but not impossible, that people are willing to do this without saying anything to anyone about that (On accident or intentionally).
Oskar doesn’t have the look of satisfaction of causing damage to Conny, he has the satisfaction of standing up for himself. I’ll give a play by play on this. Conny is clearly intending to throw Oskar into the hole in the ice. Oskar picks up an orange pole after that. He knew he’s going to be bullied again that day. When Conny is about to push him in, Oskar has the face that says, “Enough!” When Conny is on the floor howling in pain, Oskar looks up in the sky with a satisfied look on his face. That is saying, “I finally did it, I’m no longer being tormented.” It’s not a “I caused pain! I’m overjoyed!” If it were, he would have hit him again and/or hit the other bullies. In the novel, he offered Jonny, who is Conny in the film, his sock to cover his bloody ear. He did not intent to cause this much pain, he just wanted him to leave him alone.
When he tells Eli about what happened, he mentions the part about Conny having to go to the hospital, he said it with a tone that says, “I didn’t mean to cause that much pain to send him to the hospital, but I’m glad I’m not being bullied that day.”
This is all understandable to why he feels that way. Having been bullied myself, I had remembered when I got back at someone. Though it was not at a school, he was a neighbor and a kid. I was around Oskar’s age that time. One day, I had a small stick and I don’t remember what I was doing, but this boy was trying to gross me out by blowing snot on my stick. I simply gently flicked the stick up at his face, and then he flips back his head, howling in pain. It caught me by surprise because I had no idea what just happened. When I tried to see what happened to his nose, his hands and nose was covered in blood. He ran home screaming after that, I was worried if his parents will come by and scream at me for causing pain to him. I don’t think it happened. Now, before all that, he and my younger brother were little monsters that refused to leave me the hell alone. I sometimes wake up with tape over my eyes, candy in my hair, and piss on my pillow and such. I never had a satisfaction of hurting him, but I had a satisfaction of knowing that he will now leave me alone. That is what’s Oskar’s face was saying, “Now he’ll leave me alone and I’m free.”
There are times when Oskar have been behaving bad, but there are times he behaved good and kind. This was done intentionally to create a balance in Oskar, Eli and some other characters. Just because we see bad things some character does, doesn’t mean we should view them poorly. No one is 100% kind or 100% mean. Even Jonny or Jimmy aren’t 100% pure monsters. No character was. (Maybe except Zombie Håkan, although he was not Håkan himself, but an infection that is in total control). Not even Håkan was 100% bad.