We, The Infected

Does Eli sleep in a bath of blood? If so why can't he use the blood to feed?

ltroifanatic wrote:Does Eli sleep in a bath of blood? If so why can't he use the blood to feed?

Because it isn't human blood.

Clues supporting this thesis:

• A bath tub can hold about three hundred litres. Even if the one Eli lay in was just half-filled, it would still amount to more than 150 litres of blood.
• There were canisters in the bathroom that supposedly had contained the blood before it was poured into the tub.
• Eli's luggage was three cardboard boxes - in other words he didn't bring the plastic canisters with him when he picked Håkan up. Håkan (less likely Eli) must have acquired them in Blackeberg, since the moving truck driver sure would have noticed them.
• Håkan had killed three times for Eli, and would have brought home just a few litres of human blood.
• Therefore, the canisters must have contained animal blood, and so would the tub.

I had thought it was a small glitch in the novel. Didn't JAL explain at one point that it was a kind of tribute to Carmilla, and that he regretted having left it in? If that's the case, then it was most likely supposed to be human blood in spite of all the logical inconsistencies that metoo has pointed out.

Also, the fact that it didn't happen in the film could be another indication that he had finally abandoned the idea altogether. If it had been left in, it certainly would have made for a scene much darker than it was already, and to aficionados of vampire films, much creepier. (And if he had wanted to include it, I'm sure it could have been done without any special effects or significant extra cost.)

I imagined it was animal blood myself; considering it would take 30 people to fill half a bathtub. Håkan wasn't that great of a supplier, and Eli wouldn't have the self control save that much blood.

Maybe reconstituted dried blood would be suitable for sleeping in. Commercial black pudding is usually made from dried blood and it's even available from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dried-Blood-Bla ... ck+pudding

PeteMork wrote:I had thought it was a small glitch in the novel. Didn't JAL explain at one point that it was a kind of tribute to Carmilla, and that he regretted having left it in? If that's the case, then it was most likely supposed to be human blood in spite of all the logical inconsistencies that metoo has pointed out.

Yes, I think I've heard about the tribute, too. And perhaps he didn't actually regret leaving the blood bath in, but he has said somewhere that it might be somewhat over the top.

PeteMork wrote:Also, the fact that it didn't happen in the film could be another indication that he had finally abandoned the idea altogether. If it had been left in, it certainly would have made for a scene much darker than it was already, and to aficionados of vampire films, much creepier. (And if he had wanted to include it, I'm sure it could have been done without any special effects or significant extra cost.)

Maybe JAL had abandoned the idea. However, if it had been included it would have required Lina to lay naked on her back in the fake blood for quite some time while the blood drained. Of course, they could have used a doll instead of Lina for the duration of the draining and switched to a live actor for the subsequent attack, but it would still be questionable on ethic grounds.

Swaefheard wrote:Maybe reconstituted dried blood would be suitable for sleeping in. Commercial black pudding is usually made from dried blood and it's even available from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dried-Blood-Bla ... ck+pudding

Frozen pig and cattle blood is available at at least one supermarket in Lund, Sweden:

One reason they didn't use it in the movie may have been there was no need. In the novel, Eli was badly wounded from the attack and the sun, and may have needed the blood for extra healing. In the movie, it was just her/him sleeping as usual.

Drakeule wrote:One reason they didn't use it in the movie may have been there was no need. In the novel, Eli was badly wounded from the attack and the sun, and may have needed the blood for extra healing. In the movie, it was just her/him sleeping as usual.

Eli may have needed the blood for healing - this is speculation - but the point in the novel where he returns home, injured and scorched by the sun, he barely makes it to the bathtub. I would need to read that section again, but I don't think he has time to stop and empty containers into to the tub. No, I think the simpler soluton is that the tub regularly contains enough blood for him - for whatever reason this might be. (We really need an Eli-form vampire as a forum member to help with these things)

gkmoberg1 wrote:Eli may have needed the blood for healing - this is speculation - but the point in the novel where he returns home, injured and scorched by the sun, he barely makes it to the bathtub. I would need to read that section again, but I don't think he has time to stop and empty containers into to the tub. No, I think the simpler soluton is that the tub regularly contains enough blood for him - for whatever reason this might be. (We really need an Eli-form vampire as a forum member to help with these things)

Yes, the blood was there all the time. Lacke observed a dark stripe where the surface of the blood had been when he had pulled the plug, and he concluded that the blood had been there for a long time. Furthermore, Eli's note to Oskar said that Oskar should not enter the bath room. Why would Eli choose the bath room for his resting place, if not because he always rested submerged in blood?

By the way, the blood bath is inconsistent with Eli having a shower. However, the novel doesn't actually say that Eli showered, just that he washed himself and that splashing sounds were emitted. But Eli could have cleaned himself using a wet towel standing on the floor. Inconvenient, yes, but if the tub was occupied, then...

It's funny. We can accept vampirism, genital mutilation, shape shifting, and telepathy, but we can't rap our heads around a bathtub...