History Literature / Vathek

* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: Gouls are pale and haggard human-looking beings that live inside the tombs and underneath the earth within cemetery walls. The fancier the cemetery, the more likely gouls live there. This knowledge is what draws Carathis when she finds herself en route to Istakar with dead guides, because she can give the gouls the corpses to eat in return for solid directions. Her servants, Nerkes and Cafour, also hope to get an orgy out of it, but while they do get the gouls interested, once Carathis has the information she needs, she orders them to leave with her immediately.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Vathek is vile, but he clearly loves his mother Carathis, and comes to love Nouronihar. For her part, Carathis ''may'' love Vathek (the political realities of her society mean that she has no practical alternative to supporting Vathek, so even if she only sees him as a tool to gain power, she can’t [[OffingTheOffspring just murder him and seize the throne for herself]] the way she could if [[HeirClubForMen she were a man]]).

* ShownTheirWork: ''Vathek'' is capped off by an extensive series of endnotes. Some of which have footnotes.[[note]]And one of those footnotes has a footnote. Eat your heart out, Creator/DavidFosterWallace![[/note]]

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Vathek is vile, but he clearly loves his mother Carathis, and comes to love Nouronihar. For her part, Carathis ''may'' love Vathek (the political realities of her society mean that she has no practical alternative to supporting Vathek).

''Vathek'' (alternatively titled ''Vathek, an Arabian Tale or The History of the Caliph Vathek'') is a GothicHorror novel written by William Beckford. It was composed in French beginning in 1782, and then published in 1786 without Beckford's name as "An {{Arabian|NightsDays}} Tale, From an Unpublished Manuscript," claiming to be translated directly from Arabic. (this was in fact an English translation by Reverend Samuel Henley). The novel chronicles the fall from power of the Caliph Vathek (a fictionalized version of the historical Al-Wathiq), who renounces Islam and engages with his mother, Carathis, in a series of licentious and deplorable activities designed to gain him supernatural powers.

* VillainProtagonist: Vathek is cruel, wrathful, ruthless and selfish at the ''start'' of the story, and he has degenerated into almost a CompleteMonster by the climax.

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: The only other living human being Vathek cares about at the start of the book is his mother Carathis.

* PressurePoint: Carathis' "mute negresses" practice a curious combat technique consisting of "pinching" opponents, even to ''death''. It's not certain if this is a national maritial art, or an evil extension of a common means of harem discipline.

** Carathis is more callous and business-like about it then her son, but deliberately sacrifices persons helping her at least once in the tale (when she [[spoiler:walks her huntsmen guides to death, and then instead of giving them decent burials, feeds them to ghouls]]). She also randomly poisons her daughters-in-law and other noblewomen, then heals them with antidotes, as a form of practice. And, of course, in the end she murders her [[spoiler:faithful mute negresses, apparently under the theory that they should not outlive their mistress]].

** Carathis is more callous and business-like about it then her son, but deliberately sacrifices persons helping her at least once in the tale (when she [[spoiler:walks her huntsmen guides to death, and then instead of giving them decent burials, feeds them to ghouls]]. She also randomly poisons her daughters-in-law and other noblewomen, then heals them with antidotes, as a form of practice.

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* VillainProtagonist: Vathek is cruel, wrathful, ruthless and selfish at the ''start'' of the story, and he has degenerated into almost a CompleteMonster by the climax.

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* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Carathis and her servants kill all of the palace attendants who try to rescuethem from what they believe to be the palace on fire (it is actually one of Carathis’s dark rituals). They then tell Morakanabad after the fact that those people died in the flames.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: A good genie, sent by UsefulNotes/TheProphetMuhammad, gives one to Vathek in which he enumerates all his sins, [[LastSecondChance just before]] the latter is about to make his damnation inevitable.

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* {{Hell}}: Vathek, Noureddin, and Carathis end up there (called "The Palace of Subterranean Fire" in the story) in their quest for power. Has a {{fire and brimstone|hell}} aspect in that the hearts of sinners are consumed with the flames of their sins such that it shines through their bodies.

* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Carathis and her servants kill all of the palace attendants who try to rescue them from what they believe to be the palace on fire (it is actually one of Carathis’s dark rituals). They then tell Morakanabad after the fact that those people died in the flames.

* FakingTheDead: Fakreddin, Noureddin's father, does this with her and Gulchenrouz in an attempt to keep Vathek away from her. [[spoiler: It doesn't work.]]

* TheHedonist: Vathek built five sub-palaces (annexes) to his own hereditary palace, each devoted to one of the senses.

* HumanSacrifice: Vathek goes so far as to sacrifice fifty children to an evil genie. [[spoiler: They are saved by a [[DeusExMachina Genie ex Machina.]]]]

* ArabianNightDays: Mixed with GothicHorror.