Castration Confusion

[Stangarlins]

The vampire lord just enjoyed torturing Eli. Of course, if this was actually done over a long period of time, endless time, while Eli was imprisoned, the bites could have been anywhere and everywhere.

Yeah, I guess that's about it. He seems pretty sadistic to me as well, it's not hard to believe that he would be able to keep Eli imprisioned just to torture her. But, as I was writing this, another thought came to mind: Was Eli supposed to survive? After the castration? After he had tortured her? Was he twisted enought so that he wanted to spread his evil throughout the world, or was it something that never should have happened?

[rgh]

The vampire lord just enjoyed torturing Eli. Of course, if this was actually done over a long period of time, endless time, while Eli was imprisoned, the bites could have been anywhere and everywhere.

Yeah, I guess that's about it. He seems pretty sadistic to me as well, it's not hard to believe that he would be able to keep Eli imprisioned just to torture her. But, as I was writing this, another thought came to mind: Was Eli supposed to survive? After the castration? After he had tortured her? Was he twisted enought so that he wanted to spread his evil throughout the world, or was it something that never should have happened?

I don't think that is clear to anyone. The vampire lord's motives are never explored in the novel and we really never get a real idea of what exactly happened to Eli while held captive, how long, or how she finally escaped.
Some fan fiction has speculated and it is always rough on Eli.

[ZWD40]

The way I see it, ol baddie wanted:
1) To preserve genderless beauty like Elias'
2) To indulge in his power. With serfdom being cut off, his time of power was coming to a close
3) To be responsible for the corruption of something pure, and in doing so, owning Elias' new life

[God of Vampires]

The way I see it, ol baddie wanted:
1) To preserve genderless beauty like Elias'
2) To indulge in his power. With serfdom being cut off, his time of power was coming to a close.

Makes complete sense, loosing power can easily drive a man to madness. And the actions of this lord is insanity.

The way I see it, ol baddie wanted:
3) To be responsible for the corruption of something pure, and in doing so, owning Elias' new life

Vampire Lord, you failed . Eli is purer than most, maybe thanks to Oskar .

As for the motivation of the lord, even being a pedophile won't explain his actions. Most likely he was a psychotic sadist pedophile .

[crazychristina]

I doubt the experience could have been drawn out. Eli, once turned, had the needs of a vampire to consume blood. If he had been imprisoned for any length of time after being turned he would have died. I think the horrible experience just seemed endless.

[rgh]

The primary reason I considered that it could have been drawn out over time is the use of the word imprisoned. It sort of has a connotation of being held captive for a (long) period of time. Without that word, I would have simply accepted without question that the horrible experience just seemed to go on forever.

[TheVoxHumanus]

I haven't read it in a while, but I always got the impression that Eli was held and tortured further. We have to assume she was kept alive for a specific purpose because the vampire lord wouldn't have expended resources if Eli being alive weren't important to him.

I don't think it's necessary to understand why she was kept alive or what the lord's motivations were (except, of course, for the fact that it makes for fun speculation), just that the "something very bad happened here" placeholder tells us what we need to know.

As I've said before it's not unheard of for wealthy, bored men of that time period to keep young children, boys especially, as sex slaves after they've been sexually mutilated (this would fit with Eli's . I'm not sure that's what happened here because I think I remember reading that Eli felt the lord's eyes were devoid of humanity -- I remember getting the impression that that meant to suggest Eli was kept alive in a deliberate attempt to spread whatever entity had taken over the vampire lord.

[Ash]

From what I gather, and what has been previously mentioned, the "turning" process is very swift. So Eli, unable to procure food for herself while being kept by the lord, would have needed him to provide a regular, fresh supply of victims to keep him alive. Therefore, Eli may have, probably would have, had his little friends over for dinner, not strangers like in later times, but his playmates from the village. If this is the case, the "Be me a little." only gave Oskar (and us) a very small fraction of the true horrors Eli had been through.

[Pevalwen]

Yes, perhaps the flashbacks were, among other things, mainly a suggestion to imply that Eli had been through some ordeals, being so brief but offering interesting stimulation for thoughts, leaving the rest to our imaginations and speculation. Like a slice of troubling cake- we get the idea that it's unpleasant and we can speculate what it's made of from the texture and taste, but the ingredients are all smudged out on the list; however the baker intended this because he wanted the effect to come through but not the details to spoil the potential speculations. I hope my little metaphor makes sense

[DMt.]

ACL has his Eli say "Defiling children was his way of defying God", which I thought pretty, er, sharp.