Louis and his experiences with one particular Christmas song throughout the years. Of course there’s also a bit of Lestat in there, because what would we do without him?
Inspired by one of @merciful-death’s great headcanons and originally written as a Secret Santa gift to her. @i-want-my-iwtv helped with feedback and improvements.
“First of all how dare you. I love it! …Very well done. I’m glad you took on the challenge of hitting all of her prompts, and it’s clear a lot of thought and care went into this.”
Some of my actual notes while beta’ing this lovely piece, in the order that the notes appeared:
For sure! He did come across as a lot less intelligent than he had proven himself in ALL of the prior VC up to that point, but there are legitimate reasons. Which I’m gonna lay out for you, under the cut, bc SPOILER ALERTS.
When you consider the larger picture: of the ocean of crap he’s waded through up until that point, we can’t just write him off as “crazy” or “dumb.“ He’s actually wounded in many ways, so his mind can’t be firing on all cylinders.
Not the least of which was the devastating betrayal of Louis and Marius, in their refusal to help him in his hour of need.
In IWTV he was an enigmatic tyrant, in TVL he partially corrected that by revealing his backstory and the vampire origin story and showed that he is a BAMF which means he CAN BE tyrannical sometimes,…
So if he comes across as such a disgusting moron, why share this story with us? Could be for the same reason he shared TVL: to correct the record, and to try to make some sense of it, get some closure, and maybe learn something from the experience as a whole. He’s sharing it with us so that maybe we can benefit, too, and as bizarre and as big a turn-off as it is, the very least you can take from it is the tried-and-true: “BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR – YOU JUST MIGHT GET IT”which seems to be a recurring theme for him, and in VC in general.
[Spoilers ahead…]
It’s in QOTD when we see him attempt to find himself a role in the modern era, that’s also when he appears to lose some of that quick wit we loved him for, as his new SJW GF wears him down, intending to destroy the fabric of society in the name of Extreme Social Justice. He can’t dissuade her from her plans, so he eventually just stops trying. He’s practically praying for Marius internally. She is manipulating him vigorously throughout their time together, keeping him sleep-deprived and physically addicted to her, arguing her philosophy irrationally, he’s constantly reminding the reader that he’s slipping, losing himself in her, he’s actually terrified into submission to her to the point where he doesn’t know where his loyalty lies when it finally comes down to choosingsides. He was not the one to save the day in that story. He watches passively as someone else does.
Akasha’s damage was done, a part of him has been crushed… it was a major blow to his sanity and his ability to be rational about things before leaping into action. In the beginning of TOBT he’s suffering already, haunted by his past. He is not healed emotionally, not in a position to make the kind of deal that he makes with RJ, and after that, he’s even less equipped, emotionally AND physically, to try to remedy the situation that HE CREATED.
The most devastating blow is probably when Louis and Marius both refuse to help him. At that point, he’s broken mentally from that betrayal, more physically weakened, and just grasping at straws to try to get things back to normal.
So is all that an excuse for the awful, terrible things he does in that story? Absolutely NOT. But you can see that he’s crippled in many ways, so his mind can’t be firing on all cylinders.
It’s only 7 pm in Italy, but I’ll be busy, so I’m wishing you a happy new year a little earlier. And here’s a gentle reminder for all vampires with the air-gift: don’t fly tonight. Stay safely on the ground so you won’t run a risk at catching fire.
*~Happy New Year to all the fanged little trash monsters and kittens!~*
You’re going to be disappointed in Lestat. He does some terrible, awful, things in TOBT. He’s done some terrible, awful things before it, and will do terrible, awful things after.
He’s not a #perfect cinnamon roll too good for this world. FAR FROM IT. He’s a little shit a lot of the time. There’s no way I can wave a magic wand and raise anyone’s opinion of him.
Pretty sure that ALL the VC characters are problematic in some regard. In fact, message me the characters with a list of their offensiveness. I would really like to compile a list.
What I CAN give you: If you’re disappointed in a character, does that mean it’s because you had a higher opinion of him before? Did you care about him before? Wanted to read his story? See more of him in canon?
Is it because you can see that he’s an evolving character, and though he has done bad things, he is capable of change? We don’t change overnight. People can continue to do bad things on their journey, failing bc of weakness or in an attempt to do the right thing.
With Lestat, you can rest assured that he wants to be good, but like an alcoholic, he falls off the “good” wagon. Repeatedly. It’s in his persistence in climbing back on again and again that should be considered when you’re formulating your opinion of him. If you can’t handle the failures, close the book. Unfollow his story. No one is forcing you to take the ride with him.
I think a crucial part of doing the right thing is having a better understanding of the wrong thing, a lot of Lestat’s failure comes from his inner turmoil. Even before he was turned into a monster, we can all agree that he had issues, to put it lightly.
“… Fiction is how we both study and de-fang our monsters. To lock violent fiction away, or to close our eyes to it, is to give our monsters and our fears undeserved power and richer hunting grounds.“
(a bit more under the cut)
“I don’t understand.” How many times have you read that in conjunction with a violent act?
“I don’tunderstand why he did it.” Or “I don’t understand why this happened.” Sammy Yatim, shot dead and then tasered by police on a Toronto streetcar, and even the chair of the Police Services Board asks, “How could this happen?”
….Here in Britain, our weakling government is attempting to launch a web filter that would somehow erase “violent material” from Internet provision — placing it, by association, in the same category as child pornography. Every week seems to bring a new attempt to ban something or other because it’s uncomfortably or scary or perhaps even indefensibly disgusting.
….we generally demonize violent acts and violent work. We make them Other, and we just distance ourselves. They are Other, and they didn’t come from us, and we’re just going to stand over there and shake our heads sadly. And, moreover, anyone who gets closer to it in order to experience or understand it must be a freak.
…The function of fiction is being lost in the conversation on violence. My book editor, Sean McDonald, thinks of it as “radical empathy.” Fiction, like any other form of art, is there to consider aspects of the real world in the ways that simple objective views can’t — from the inside. We cannot Other characters when we are seeing the world from the inside of their skulls. This is the great success of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter, both in print and as so richly embodied by Mads Mikkelsen in the Hannibal television series: For every three scary, strange things we discover about him, there is one thing that we can relate to. The Other is revealed as a damaged or alienated human, and we learn something about the roots of violence and the traps of horror.
… Fiction is how we both study and de-fang our monsters. To lock violent fiction away, or to close our eyes to it, is to give our monsters and our fears undeserved power and richer hunting grounds.”
Usually I can break into the other person’s mind and prevent attacks that way if I wish. The fight is often over before it begins in such situations as some find it difficult to defend both mind and body from attack simultaneously.
Alternatively, I tend to rely more upon speed and weak points in muscles and bone structure as my preferred method of attack. Knowing which joints are vulnerable or which pressure points will hurt enough to stall someone’s defences can be very useful. Crippling an opponent at the knees, for example, is useful if they exceed you in general height and weight.
Physical weapons are rarely a necessity for me. I was trained in how to use a rapier, but since it was not an advantage for me as a mortal, I prefer to use other methods. Swordplay is not much use in an era where guns and knives seem to be preferred weaponry.
Essentially, my preferred fighting style is the style that ensures I do not lose in a given situation.
