Spirit. Ghost. Shade. Apparition. Remnant. Soul. Demon.
The Ghost That Was Lasher
Lasher himself seems, in his disembodied state, to have no
recollection of where he came from or even what he was before
Suzanne called him in the circle of stones. He did not recall
anything of his life before he became Lasher until he was born in
the flesh. He told Rowan he learned to want and to plan from
her ancestors, the Mayfair Witches. In this sense, his memory
might be childlike: "once I didn't know how to do it, but now I
do." He could tell her nothing of his identity since he could
not remember his life, or if he even had one.
In The Witching Hour, Lasher is the Demon, the Devil.
He is also the Dream Lover, the Incubus. He is not natural,
not of this world. He wants something from the Mayfair Witches
that he has been manipulating them to be able to provide over the
centuries. In exchange, he lends them his own abilities as
power and uses it to gain them immense wealth and status.
Ultimately, what he wants will be prohibitively expensive, a cost
that even the Legacy cannot finance: to return in the flesh to
regenerate his own species, one that threatens the very existence of
human life.
Lasher, as a ghost, is feared not only for what he wants, but for
what is not known about him. The human family he dominates has
tried for centuries to learn more about what he is and where he
comes from. At times, the answer is right in front of them and
they miss it, like any other ordinary human. It is the human
essence that is at stake here, not the preservation of
witch-producing genes, and the Mayfairs seem to know this difference
instinctively. Preserving human life so it can survive to
reproduce itself is the "bottom line" when it comes to evolution and
even religion, which may be the only idea on which evolution and
Christianity are in some sort of tentative agreement. Lasher,
a spirit of some kind, is a direct threat to humanity
itself. But how?
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| Demon Lover |
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The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall |
To even interpret that question, one has to have some
background knowledge of ghosts in history and popular culture as
well as the myths and beliefs surrounding ghosts.
People have been asking and attempting to answer questions
about the nature of ghosts for millenia. Ghosts have
appeared everywhere in documented form, from religious
texts and canons to literature and camp-fire tales. Movies
and plays have been written about ghosts both real and made up,
and people across time, nations and cultures have claimed to see
or experience them in one form or another.
Unlike communion with God, the saints or direct communication
with the gods, during which it is implicitly understood that
these gods and their intercessors have rightful charge
over the world and its inhabitants, ghosts are almost
universally understood to be the discarnate souls of people who
have died. Various explanations exist for why a person
would return to the world as a ghost, but as to what
implications it has for the living, there is yet another almost
universal understanding: the ghost does not belong.
Many believe a ghost returns to resolve unfinished business, in
a manner similar to what Lasher did. Then, there are
ghosts of people who do not know they have died, like Quinn
Blackwood's mother, Patsy. The ghosts people are afraid
of, like a ghost returned for revenge or to wreak general havoc
among the living out of jealousy that the living can still
experience sensation, are the ghosts that appear in popular
culture and urban legends. Lasher could be described as
one such ghosts. All are afraid of him and with good
reason.
The Mayfair Ghosts
Then, there are earthbound spirits attached to a particular
place or person, like Julien Mayfair. He deliberately
attached himself to an object that would be a sort of doorway
for him back into the world, the Victrola. His hair and
nail clippings were secreted inside the player, a living part
of him that would bind him to the world so he could continue
to fight Lasher even after his own death. Julien's
return is not revenge, but unfinished business.
Unfortunately for Julien, he may never really rest in peace
because it is after his death that he learns that his many
sexual blunders in life were part of the very thing that
rendered his (many) descendants vulnerable to Lasher, the
being he remained behind to fight.
Julien's sexual blunders apparently were not limited to
his lifetime. It was he who, through an illusion he
created using the Victrola, brought Mona and Michael
together in the double parlor for the purpose of waking
Michael from his stupor. Julien's only goals were
that Rowan be found and Lasher stopped before Lasher could
fulfill his goal. Michael had to come out of his
stupor to do this. Michael was the angel referred to
in Evelyn's poem. Julien needed Michael to help him
fulfill his own destiny as a ghost.
From the description of the ghost Julien and his
blunders, ghosts are not all-seeing, all-knowing, nor are
they infallible. If so, Julien would have seen the
dreadful error of pairing off two people who carried the
genes necessary to create the very being Lasher actually
was: the Taltos. This is the species that would take
over and have dominion over the earth - what Julien would
ultimately stop if he were to succeed in stopping
Lasher.
This error is what causes him to remain in the
earthly realm. He appears later, in
Blackwood Farm, to warn Quinn that he cannot
marry Mona Mayfair due to yet another sexual escapade
that resulted in the spread of the Mayfair genes -
Julien Mayfair as a stand-in for William Blackwood so
Manfred Blackwood could have grandchildren and a line
of descent. Quinn Blackwood's ability to see
Goblin, his doppelganger mirror twin, is in fact
inherited from Julien Mayfair.
What Can Ghosts Actually Do?
Is it possible that ghosts can appear as vital and
alive as Julien Mayfair did for Quinn Blackwood in
the garden? Is it possible that ghosts can
cause purely physical sensations and reactions in
living people as Lasher did for Rowan and her
forebears? In order to do this, Rowan
surmises, Lasher must gather his own molecules
together to form solid matter, a process that would
require a great deal of energy to do and to hold it
as the molecules must be far more fine than the
molecules of living humans, right down to atomic
structure. Lasher as a ghost does this more
than once but cannot hold himself together solidly
to appear for long.
Is it possible that, assuming ghosts can gather in
a solid mass in this manner, that ghosts appear so
briefly because they have used up energy regulated
by their own molecular properties? Rowan could
be right when she said science may someday be able
to explain ghosts, explain Lasher. Whatever
the scientific or religious explanations, it is
generally accepted that a ghost is a representation
of a person now dead, regardless of the nature of
how the apparition came to be.
The Good vs. Evil of Ghosts
Ghosts in and of themselves seem to be neutral with
no real moral gradient. It is their purpose
and the effects of their actions that
determines the good/bad in the equation, even their
intent. Lasher could be called a tragic figure
because he had been a Taltos savagely murdered
for no reason other than he was of a species
that humans considered to be a threat, but a
dangerous figure because he did not realize until
later in his short life and at the moment of
his death what a danger he was. He took
that knowledge into the spirit world,
using a vague awareness of it as the blueprint
for his purpose in breeding the Mayfair Witches the
way he did. It is destruction that is the
determining factor in whether or not Lasher was a
good or evil ghost.
In human ghosts such as Julien, intent plays a role
in the good/bad question because even though Julien
blundered terribly with Mona, his intention was
to help motivate Michael, rejuvenate him the best
way he knew how in order to accomplish a
crucial and necessary, good task. Despite
Julien's mistake, what he was in life or his
relentless stalking of Lestat, all of these things
were done with good intentions, aimed at the greater
good of all involved. This is what would make
him a "good" ghost as opposed to an
evil one.
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| Rama Spurns Demon Lover |
