Family and Name Analysis of the de Sade House

This is an analysis of the de Sade’s family name in The Case Study of Vanitas (VnC). This is mostly to serve as a prelude to Louis’s and Dominique’s birth flower analysis in a future article, and for better understanding of the role that the members from House of de Sade plays in VnC’s story line.

The twins had different fates, and while one of them could have been ‘disposed’ based on their father’s random choice, the Teacher interfered to take Louis as an ‘experiment’. (As told by Veronica to Domi when she was at Noe’s bedside.) I realize that their given names also allude to something of nobility as well. Let’s examine their family name first.

The ‘de Sade’ is likely inspired by the real Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse François). He was a French nobleman involved with politics, contributed to philosophical discussions but was best known for his notorious and controversial written works. Due to the latter, the name ‘de Sade’ inspired the word we know as ‘sadism’ today. There are several popular VnC theories that go into the specifics of this historical figure on Tumblr and elsewhere, but the general run down is that this person was involved in politics and scandalous extremities.

This characteristic is pretty well established in VnC’s version of this family as we see in the elder de Sade siblings’ behaviour and occupations. At the Bal Masque, Veronica instigates a witch hunt on Vanitas and suggests to end him in front of Dominique who tried to deflect her search. (Mostly to see Domi’s horrified expression).

This event highlights Veronica’s condescending outlook towards humans, and also her treatment to those who she perceives to be of lower status than the House of de Sade as the Vampire Queen’s Bestia. Dominique also uses Veronica’s torture chamber to interrogate Vanitas at prior to this happening, and this is before she knew Veronica would be present at the event. (Perhaps like typical siblings, they don’t like to share things.)

Antoine de Sade, Veronica and Domi’s half-brother, is also a member of the Vampire Senate. While his interaction with Domi is short, he doesn’t dance around like Veronica in pointing out that Domi can’t do anything with her lack of capability and authority. He reminds her where her place is in society, but also within the family straightforwardly. We also see him pulling strings behind the curtains as a strategist within the Senate. This page, however, also shows why Domi has a lack of self-confidence or esteem, because of both her actual lack of power and the perceptions other place on her. She’s the youngest de Sade with no real authority. (As we see so far.)

Louis also had a bit of a tendency to be harsh or a bit mean as Noe described. In an Memoire 51.5, Louis deliberately hides in the forest and wakes up from sleeping in the tree when he hears little Noe and Domi looking for him. (This brat was quite satisfied when they both looked scared. He did feel a bit guilty afterwards when they started to cry lol.) Louis plays more into the ‘philosophical’ or studious side of the real Marquis de Sade since his grandfather plays a bit of a historical observer and is Noe’s Teacher. We also get flash backs of Louis helping Noe with studying too.

When Dominique makes her first appearance, she showcases her extravagance and confidence. One of her most memoirable statements is the quote from Memoire 12’s Dance of Romance: “I possess no passions that deserve priority over admiring a beautiful flower that blooms before me” — This quote that Domi uses from her father also ties a play into some of the real Marquis de Sade’s work: pursing passionate desires and some sensual hedonistic tendencies. This is likely reflected in her dress-up activities and taking care of Noe’s sense of fashion, and compared to the rest of the house, Domi is much more tame in her pursuits.

With a quick glance at their given names, Dominique is the French feminine form of Dominick, a name of Latin origin meaning ‘ruler, lord, or of the Lord’. It can be interpreted as a general meaning of being associated to a noble class or status.

Louis is also a French form of the name ‘Lewis’. The name itself means ‘Famous Warrior’ or ‘Loot Bringer’ (LMAO). But the name Louis is significant as it’s a very popular name throughout European history, especially with a large list of French Kings and other notable royal members in French royal families.

Antoine’s name is also a very popular French name meaning ‘highly praised’ or ‘worthy of praise’. Aside from the human soldier called ‘Antoine’ that Vanitas and Dante saw in Gedauvan from Chloe’s closed world in the 16th century. Domi’s elder brother is someone who seems to be quite capable in achieving things as a political strategist and knows what can help him achieve the things he needs to do for his own goals.

Veronica’s name is from Greek origins which mean ‘she who brings victory’ and ‘true image’. Like Antoine, her name bears a sense of initiative that reflects her name’s meaning. The ‘true image’ could be something that she alone is proud of, often scolding Domi about her role as the family failure and her decisions that impact the family name such as forbidding Domi to ask for Jeanne’s rescue.

The twins have names signifying that they are biological members to a prominent house in Vampire Society. Aside from The Teacher tossing titles and glories aside to his adopted son, his grandchildren have some positions with power or rankings that serve the Vampire government in different areas:

The significant thing here, is that The Teacher adopted Domi’s biological father, he has no blood relation to the rest of the House of de Sade as far as we know in the story. In Ruthven words, no one knows how old he is or where he came from, and Vanitas has told us that he only knows that he’s the ‘shapeless one’ and other vampires are afraid of him. Even Noe doesn’t seem to know anything much about him as he’s away from his castle too frequently too.

As teacher changes his form and name frequently, this doesn’t confirm that the ‘de Sade’ name came from him and was passed onto the twins’ father when he was adopted. Their father (who I will call ‘The Son’ moving forward) could have already possessed this name before getting adopted by the Teacher, and somehow, could have made a name for the House of de Sade with Teacher’s assistance.

We also don’t know why or when The Teacher adopted The Son either. Was he adopted prior to having a family of his own or was he an orphan like Noe To be a part of The Teacher’s observations? This will be explored in the next segment.

We know that VnC currently takes place in the the late 18th Century of France. I remember reading that the year happens to be 1889, but this is a rumor that I remember seeing online and hasn’t been confirmed. (I’ll still be working off this exact year for now.)

In VnC, it’s been confirmed that The Teacher gave off his title and material wealth over to his adopted child (presumed to The Son). So it’s likely The Son is the legal head of the house, but The Teacher still holds power over the family as Veronica reluctantly admits (in the same chapter that reveals that Louis and Domi are twins).

The real Marquis de Sade died in 1814 at the age of 74. In VnC’s story and in Vampire years, this is very recent. As Domi is the current youngest member of the family at 20 years old, she’s likely born in 1869 if the current year of 1889 is accurate. I originally thought that the de Sade parents were deceased as their children are the most present in the story working in the government, but the timelines don’t seem to match and that it could just be that Noe doesn’t interact with them much, which is why we don’t see them. Remember that VnC is told from Noe’s memories, that he was raised in isolation and that he’s mostly interacts with Vanitas and Domi in the present. (Turns out that Domi’s father is alive as in Memoire 43, she goes to his ‘territory’ to ask him to save Jeanne.)

The senior family members is much likely to be over 100+ years old. The Teacher is likely to be as older or as old as the Babel incident. I have a theory that the Teacher could be Paracelsus (the alchemist that started Babel) but that’s a different story for another time.

As a prelude to other character’s birth flowers, I thought some background on this prominent Vampire family would be helpful when doing an analysis for the de Sade twin’s birth flowers. I’d like to cover the other characters too, but since the story is told through Noe’s memory and observations, it just makes every other character is just as mysterious as the Book of Vanitas.

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