ohyouflirt Kisses back, Anon ❤
I read Memnoch the Devil as a kind of fanfic of the bible, in which Lestat takes a tour of heaven and hell, gets the behind-the-scenes story for God’s reasons for creating the world, and why he runs it the way he does (he’s a very hands-off kinda parent). The hell portion of the tour Lestat goes on, well, it’s pretty intense. I think we all preferred the heaven part! Lestat sneakily shoplifting parts of the experience bc of course he does; there was no ‘exit through the Gift Shop’ and he needed SOUVENIRS!
This was my face for alot of that book the first time through, IIRC:
You had the same expression, it seems, haha. I can understand your turmoil.
More spoilers ahead.
I think the first time through, I was right behind Lestat’s shoulder, hanging onto him piggy-back-style maybe, peeking over and hoping at every turn of the page NOT to see Nicki, or Claudia, worried that either of them -or both!- could be in hell and angrier -or in more pain- then they ever were in life ;A; That would have been so awful. Lestat might really have lost ALL of his marbles. It was bad enough when he was faced with an avalanche of his own victims!
“And who stands behind those doors,” said a sombre Helpful Ghost, her beautiful hair shimmering around her in ethereal whiteness, her soft hand on my face. “See there—” … “Your dead, my beloved, your dead, all those you’ve killed!”
“Not my dead,” I cried. I turned and ran… "HELP ME!“ I cried and cried. I never knew such release in screaming, such pure and abandoned cowardice, to shout to High Heaven in this Godforsaken place where cries were the very air itself, and no one heard, no one but the smiling Helpful Dead.
His dead were supposed to be Evildoers, tho, so they should be in hell, right? So he’s been doing a good job if they’re mostly there, rather than innocents in heaven ;]
He does call for Claudia and Nicolas, “Claudia, where are you? Where are you, the one I wronged! Claudia! Nicolas, help me!“ But apparently Memnoch has a way for the dead to achieve absolution, so hopefully, they did.
I’ve only reread that book a few times, and each time I do, obviously I know what’s going to happen, but hmmm… how different would things be if Lestat had gotten another chance at confronting those two? Whether it was real or all a big cosmic trick… would he apologize more? Probably yes. Would they have accepted anything he might say? Probably not.
AND THEN, back with the coven, and his fave murder brother:
[fanart by @garama]
It’s comforting that, as he tells the fam the whole story, Lestat himself isn’t 100% sure that he really went on that whole trip. When Armand asks permission to “check” via blood sample, Lestat flatly refuses: “No, all you’ll know is that I believe what I saw, that’s all.” Why is that so comforting? If it was all a lie, then God and the devil may not be real after all, and an eternity of suffering might not await every single one of the vampires that shuffle off their immortal coil! That’s good ;D
But really, if it was all real, who better for God and the devil to have a glorious tug-of-war over than our own Lestat “His Royal Highness Crybaby Awesomesauce Homicidal Hamburger-Brained Moron” de Lioncourt? Pffffft.
I-want-my-IWTV 