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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| 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 |
