Pandora is a powerful ancient Roman vampire, and one of the Children of the Millennia. Originally named Lydia, she was the daughter of a Roman senator, and changed her name to Pandora while on the run from her family's enemies. As of the 21st century, she is over two thousand years old.
Pandora is noted by others to be particularly melancholic and quiet. As a human, she was independent and outspoken, traits that often appear when she interacts with her maker and sometimes lover, Marius. Initially Marius describes her in The Vampire Lestat as a Greek courtesan, something she speculates in her own biography he did to protect her privacy about her mortal life. Like Marius, Pandora does not reveal the name of her mortal family to protect their historical reputation.
Description[]
"Pandora, child of two millennia, consort to my own beloved Marius a thousand years before I was ever born. A goddess, made of bleeding marble, a powerful beauty out of the deepest and most ancient soul of Roman Italy, fierce with the moral fiber of the old Senatorial class of the greatest Empire the Western world has ever known. ...Her oval face shimmers beneath a mantle of rippling brown hair. She seems too beautiful to hurt anyone. She is tender-voiced, with innocent, imploring eyes, her flawless face instantly vulnerable and warm with empathy, a mystery. ...she is too ravishing for mortal males and the envy of females."
- Armand describes Pandora in The Vampire Armand.
Personality[]
As a human, Pandora is strong willed, vivacious, and has a clear sense of humor. An adult woman twice married and widowed at the time of her death, Pandora lacks basic skills to dress and groom herself, having always lived in luxury with slaves to do it for her, and nonetheless moves through the world with the air of a confident noblewoman. She is open and explicit about her sexual attraction to men, including Flavius and Marius, often to Marius's apparent embarrassment. Despite her natural personality, Pandora is overwhelmed with extreme grief after the death of her family, and carries this inner sorrow into her immortal life.
Pandora is noted as being melancholic with an air of mystery as a vampire. In The Queen of the Damned, Lestat de Lioncourt suggests that Pandora was troubled in some deep, fundamental way even before she became a vampire, because she's the only vampire who doesn't receive visions of Maharet and Mekare in her dreams. During the confrontation in Maharet's house, when Akasha directly asks Pandora to join with her or die, Pandora merely responds in a quiet, indifferent voice that she can't do what Akasha is asking of her, and accepts the idea of being killed. On Night Island, Pandora is withdrawn and antisocial.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Pandora was born with the name Lydia a few years before the birth of Christ in the Roman Republic, the daughter of a wealthy Roman Senator. Like many senators' daughters at the time, Lydia is taught to read and write. She comes to love poetry, especially works by Ovid, and frequents the temple of the goddess Isis.
She meets Marius, another wealthy patrician, when she is ten and he is twenty-five. Marius asks her father for permission to become betrothed to her, but is refused, and Lydia's father explains to her that Marius only wished to marry her to avoid having to get married until she was of age. Five years later, Lydia and Marius meet again at a religious festival. She begs her father to let her marry Marius, but her father refuses again.
The Roman Republic comes to an end when Augustus Caesar takes power. Lydia's family, loyal to the Republic, are killed by Primus, Lydia's treacherous brother. Lydia, the sole survivor, is taken to Antioch by a man close to her father and changes her name to Pandora to hide her identity. She acquires multiple slaves, including a man with a false leg named Flavius, who she forms a fast friendship with. She meets Marius, who is now a vampire, twenty years after their last encounter, when she is 35, and she is intrigued by his new mysterious appearance and apparent abilities. Pandora is haunted by visions of Akasha, and is drawn to Marius's home, where he keeps Those Who Must Be Kept.
A burned vampire named Akbar attempts to regain his health by drinking Akasha's blood. Marius and Pandora try to stop him, but Akbar uses Marius's love for the mortal Pandora and holds her hostage to allow him to get close to Akasha. Akbar drains her nearly to the point of death, forcing Marius to allow her to drink his blood to begin her transformation into a vampire. Akasha kills Akbar when he attempts to drink her blood.
Life As a Vampire[]
Pandora sees Akasha and Enkil, believes them to be the gods Osiris and Isis, and is overwhelmed with religious revelations and a certainty that the mysticism of the gods is real. Akasha takes hold of Pandora while Marius begs for her life, and Akasha allows Pandora to drink her blood. In the visions in Akasha's blood Pandora sees a wedding between she and Marius, and scenes of Akasha passing judgement on evildoers. Pandora tells Marius that Akasha chose her to be his bride and Akasha's priestess, insisting on Akasha's divinity, and Marius argues with her, insisting that Those Who Must Be Kept hold no special divine power. Pandora realizes he is correct about Akasha's nature, but wrong that the feelings of certainty and purpose she experienced from her belief in the goddess held no meaning, as they offered her a glimpse of some greater truth about how to face the chaos of existence.
Marius and Pandora stay together for the next two hundred years, constantly coming into conflict with each other. Marius forbids Pandora from making Flavius into a vampire when he becomes ill at the age of forty, and Pandora gives Flavius the Dark Gift almost immediately when Marius leaves. Eventually they argue and separate over their differing opinions on how to handle the growing curiosity from groups of religious vampires about Those Who Must Be Kept. Pandora waits for six months for Marius's return before realizing that he will never come back, and travels the world alone, where she is at some point worshiped as a goddess. In the sixth century she encounters a spirit that comes to Earth, and instructs it to create its own purpose if it wishes to inhabit the physical realm. The spirit is later revealed to have been Gremt Stryker Knollys, and her message plants the seed that leads to the founding of the Talamasca. Later, Pandora turns an Indian prince named Arjun into a vampire to be her companion, and lives for a time in Russia.
She runs into Marius sometime in the eighteenth century in Dresden, Germany. He tries in vain to win her back, promising to abandon his love, Bianca Solderini, if she abandons Arjun to be with him. She refuses, feeling Arjun's strong will will keep her sane with the passing ages, but later sends a note to Marius asking him to return for her, which does not find until it is too late. Pandora befriends Dmitri Fontayne, a book loving servant she meets in Saint Petersburg during the time of Catherine the Great. Arjun stabs Dmitri with a saber during an argument with Pandora, and Pandora turns him into a vampire, giving him money before instructing him to flee from Arjun.
The next time Marius and Pandora meet is in 1985, during the events of The Queen of the Damned. She and the vampire Santino come to his rescue after he is buried in ice by the newly-awakened Akasha. Together, they travel to Maharet's Sonoma Compound. She is one of the few vampires to survive Akasha's massacre. She is mostly quiet at this time, speaking only to tell Akasha that she cannot serve as one of her "angels" because she already deplores bringing death, and that bringing death for Akasha's purposes cannot redeem her.
David Talbot encounters her in a cafe in Paris and asks her to write down the story of her life in some notebooks. This story is Pandora, the first book in The New Tales of the Vampires series. The novel ends with Pandora planning to go New Orleans to look for Marius. In The Vampire Armand, Pandora is staying with Marius in his home in New Orleans, though the two have parted ways by the events of Blood and Gold. She returns at the end of Blood and Gold to witness Santino's trial and death.
In Prince Lestat Pandora returns to her lover and fledgling Arjun, who she left in hiding in India during the events of The Queen of the Damned, and discovers him with Gremt Stryker Knollys, who tells her about her role in the founding of the Talamasca. Pandora and Arjun are later seen among the vampires at Trinity Gate, and Pandora is reunited with her fledgling Flavius. Pandora and Marius are selected by Lestat to become the vampire makers of his biological son Viktor and his adoptive daughter Rose, but Pandora's attempt to transform Rose goes awry when Rose is distracted by despair and refuses to drink her blood, forcing Lestat to step in and become Rose's maker. Marius and Pandora are jointly put in charge of creating ceremonies and rituals for the new vampiric society.
Pandora and Arjun become romantic companions again, but Arjun begins to become belligerent at court and Pandora begins growing closer to Marius. Ultimately Arjun confronts Marius, who kills Arjun in self defense, and Marius accuses Pandora of manipulating him into getting rid of Arjun on her behalf. Pandora reunites with her fledgling Dimitri when Lestat brings him to the Château. When Marius is taken and presumed killed by Rhoshamandes, Pandora is seen in deep despair, mourning that she has lost both of her lovers. When Marius returns, Pandora accompanies him with Bianca when he goes to reunite with Armand.
In Marius's painting on the ceiling of the ballroom, Pandora is depicted next to Marius, with Flavius on her other side.
Image Gallery[]
Video Gallery[]
Anne Rice speaks on Pandora-0