I think
it’s my favorite scene in the movie, because it’s the one where – when you are
blank of later stories portrayal – you realize that Lestat is not this
one-dimensional villain. This scene is so symptomatic of his attitude:
first he’s all flame and rage, then he casts a bard, and
while fiercely smiling over his “victory”, he already regrets what he just said.
He does have a conscience, whatever kind of nasty or stupid things he can come up with, and he’s genuinely affected and
struggled by what he’s inflicting on his loved ones. He’s without any shadow of a doubt an unbearable brat, but also so much more than that. It’s not that this
dork has no affection for Louis and Claudia – he indubitably does – it’s just
than he doesn’t know how to hold a close/family relationship without being sometimes unfair and/or cruel.
Big shout
out for Kristen Dunst and Tom Cruise here, by the way. They are both amazing.
I always think the look on Lestat’s face here is him realizing is that he genuinely doesn’t have an answer for Claudia’s question. Even he doesn’t know why he acts the way he does. I think he sincerely does want them to be a happy family, and yet he’s continually the one getting in the way of that by treating Louis and Claudia does. Even here, he’s obviously touched and happy at the idea of making peace with Claudia – “We forgive each other, then?” – and yet he instinctively still twists the knife in with what he says to her. He’s making himself miserable almost as much as Louis and Claudia, but he can’t seem to just snap out of it and be a genuinely good father or partner. And deep down, I don’t think he even really understands why he’s doing it.
It’s a question for the audience to think about too, I think – why does he do it? I think when you know his backstory, you have to wonder if on some level he associates love with being hurt, and he’d rather be the one hurting others than getting hurt again. Or maybe he just literally has no idea how to have a healthy relationship or a healthy family, since the family he grew up with was horribly abusive and he hasn’t really had any positive relationships since then. (His mother and Nicki are the two possible exceptions to that, but they both came with some serious complications and ultimately dysfunction.) None of this excuses the way he acts in any way, of course – it just is interesting to think about how he became the way he is.
I don’t know that he’s the best of any group, lol. I think he’s actually the worst among many. But, I do admire a lot of things about him. Sometimes we can’t help ourselves. As it was described to me once, falling for Lestat is like falling down a flight of stairs. Sometimes it happens and it’s not what you might have planned, and it’s not all rainbows and sparkles, it can be painful at times, lol. It is what it is. I should answer this more seriously but I can’t right now.
And do you know any good Lestat RP’s around here?
That’s really hard to answer bc:
A) I don’t follow as many RPers as I used to, there were too many threads on my dash and I couldn’t read them all.
B) I try not to pick out names bc that can make people feel left out.
C) My taste in an RPer is subjective, I don’t think it’s fair for me to say who’s good or not, I could never be objective about people RPing as the characters they love, doing it for free, for fun, on their own time!
^All that said, if you’re looking for a Lestat to RP with there are a pile of them out there at any given time, but whether they’re active or welcome new RP partners is up to each one individually. Most Lestats are happy to respond to Asks tho! (My Lestat will respond to asks, but will not do back and forth threads, the mun doesn’t have the time for that.)
Here are some Lestats I’ve seen around (in no particular order):
I-want-my-IWTV 