InsaneJournal

In Greek mythology, Vulcan fashioned Pandora, the "all-giver," from clay in the image of Aphrodite, although ostensibly each of the gods and goddesses participated in her creation. Zeus offered her as a gift to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Having stolen fire from the gods to give to humankind, Prometheus knew the gods were angered at him and warned his brother not to accept the gift; Epimetheus took Pandora anyway. Jupiter gave Pandora a sealed earthenware jar to take with her and endowed her with an insatiable curiosity. He then instructed her never to open the container, but, of course, she did, thereby letting out all manner of diseases and evil and bringing the Golden Age to an end. She closed the jar just in time to seal Hope inside. From then on, sickness and death separated humans from the gods, and humanity's only salvation was hope.

Pandora's tragic act is akin to that of the vampires, who take the Dark Gift and only perceive its evil when it is too late. This is especially true of the vampire named Pandora.

Marius falls in love with the tall, brown-haired Greek courtesan when she is a mortal. She knows exactly what he is and seduces him into making her a vampire; she claims she once had been a vampire, destroyed when the Mother and Father were placed in the sun, then reincarnated into mortal form.

Marius does not know whether her account of herself is accurate, but he makes her into his vampire companion at the shrine of Akasha and Enkil, allowing Pandora to drink from Akasha and receive the powerful blood. They live together for two hundred years, singing hymns and bringing flowers to the Mother and Father, but arguments eventually divide them. Marius sees her once more in Dresden, then loses her until she rescues him from the ice under which Akasha has buried him.

Pandora is a dark, despairing immortal. Although she had wanted immortality initially, she is soon unhappy with her choice. Lestat thinks she was damaged in some crucial way even before the confrontation with Akasha. She had failed to receive the dreams of the twins as the other vampires did, only learning of it and Marius's subsequent dilemma from Azim.

Although Pandora is one of the vampires who confronts Akasha, she remains distant durning the scene, staring out the window. Apparently indifferent to her fate, she only rouses herself enough to say that Akasha is attempting to validate deplorable methods of bloodshed, and her ideas bring moral dialogue to an end.

Even after Akasha dies, Pandora remains detached, immersing herself in videos and barely noticing Marius's solicitous attention. There is no sense of recovery in her, as there is with the others. She departs early from Night Island, still despairing.

-- Bio Courtesy Of Katherine Ramsland