I’ve always found Marius’ complete ideological 180 at the end of TVA (and presumably carrying over into his foul mood in BaG) really confusing. But rereading bits of QotD it occurred to me that Marius’ speech to Armand explaining his loss of faith has a lot of similarities with Akasha’s speech when explaining why humanity is inherently evil and overdue for a cull.
I’ve already talked about this with a few of you guys but i-want-my-iwtv thought I should still make a proper post with quotes and things, so here goes.
//Reminder that a lot of Louis’ problem concerning his ego has less to do with him coming from a rich bourgeois background and more to do with the fact that due to Lestat’s dominance and manipulation, Louis developed a crippling dependency on his intelligence because it was the one thing that Lestat could not take from him. He has always been philosophical, yes, but I highly doubt he was a Shakespeare fanatic or poetry addict before Lestat turned him (remember, he practically ran the plantation before his brother’s death, and after his death, Louis spent his time drinking and making half assed suicide attempts; he was never in his study reading books). And he not only sees his intelligence as something that somehow makes him better than those around him, but more importantly, something that differentiates him from Lestat. He cannot stand the thought of being anything like Lestat; he refuses to hunt like him, dress like him, or do anything that he would approve of. So, part of the reason he leans so heavily on his book smarts is because it creates a dichotomy between him and Lestat. And once he realizes how to play his cards correctly, he fucking goes all out and makes sure Lestat knows how well read he is, and how shitty and embarrassing it is that Lestat never properly learned to read. It’s no wonder he’s a rhetorical genius; I think he realized very early on in their relationship that rhetoric was his only weapon against a maker that was so much stronger than him in every other way.
He represents such an interesting mix of character traits, because while his core is highly emotional and intuitive and prone to grief, he relies heavily on logic and intelligence. He is equally headstrong as he is heartstrong, and that is where a lot of his conflict lies. In addition to all the reasons stated above, I also think his inflated self-importance connected to his intelligence may be a form of overcompensation, because Louis often feels stupid and irrational when he gets overly emotional. This doesn’t excuse his pretentiousness at all when it comes to his intellect, but I do think it presents an interesting challenge since Louis put so much effort into crafting a stuffy erudite persona that somewhere along the line he actually started to believe it.
favorite thing about them: His despair. His tragedy. I know it’s not for everyone but it is ABSOLUTELY for me. His desire to do things with the intent of perfectly harming other’s plans and hurting himself in the process. That he cuts off his nose to spite his face, I love that. It’s the way someone who so completely hates themselves that they hate life itself behaves. I love it. LOVE IT. He encapsulates one of my favorite elements of early VC: That people do what is wrong because they want to feel in control of something. That said, I utterly despise this in real life, HAHAHA.
least favorite thing about them: Perhaps that he was so brief? But in a way I’m glad he didn’t get any redemption. It’s not exactly easy to come back from that.
favorite line: OH BOY…
“All a misunderstanding, my love,” he said. Acid on the tongue. The blood sweat had broken out again, and his eyes glistened as if they were wet. “It was to hurt others, don’t you see, the violin playing, to anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule. They would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it.”
During this part I was publically weeping. HAHAH!
brOTP I don’t have one. You’re hot and cold with Nicki. Maybe Santiago was his fledgling and they got along great.
OTP Lestat, Armand.
nOTP I don’t have those really.
random headcanon When he laughs it begins with the soft clicking of his palette like water dripping on damp wood. The back of the throat. He only breathes in as a vampire to shriek and has otherwise abandoned human habit.
unpopular opinion Idk, that I like him in a way that reminds me of the worst part of illness. Hell, the better I feel in life the more I love him for that snapshot of terrible times. Reminds me of the storm before a rainbow. Allows for contemplation of darker feelings.
song i associate with them
Ysaye Violin Solo Sonata, Op. 27, No. 3, “Ballade”
When he got his violin back after turning this was the song that came to mind as I read…
Mayumi Kanagawa’s performance is HEADS AND SHOULDERS above any other rendition of this song I’ve heard to date and it was THIS specific performance and the memory of its sound that gave me goosebumps reading.
favorite picture of them For SURE Victoria Fraces’ illustration of him, how haunting!!
^^^All this!
He encapsulates one of my favorite elements of early VC: That people do what is wrong because they want to feel in control of something.
The Addams family was, in fact, both magical and supernatural for its depiction of a healthy, loving, supportive, and fun married m/f couple.
This is now officially an Addams family appreciation post
In order to depict such purity and love in a m/f relationship, one must first set the foundation that these people are odd and not the norm. (per media standards)
They cared about their children, their children’s interests, and wanted the kids to always be true to themselves. How peculiar!
Gomez and Morticia never showed negative jealousy towards each other’s past love interests. Even going to far as complimenting them for being special to their true love. How bizarre!
They could forgive almost any character flaw in a friend or relative. The only thing that could not be forgiven was betrayals and pastels. Weird amirite?
Morticia is a woman’s woman. She allies herself with other women instead of competing with them. She even seeks to understand women different from herself and her beliefs. Strange.
Gomez wants Morticia to have whatever Morticia wants. He doesn’t give her permission, he actively supports her and motivates her. Fa-reaky.
Do you think this show was social commentary, stating that what we believe a normal life is is unattainable so long as we continue living life the way society expects, and when we live life the way we need to is when we live authentically despite what makes us different
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’m sure we are all familiar with the scene where Lestat is speaking with Claudia and quips “I hope it’s a beautiful woman, with endowments you’ll never possess.” The line is often seen as Lestat being an absolute dick, and don’t get me wrong, he totally is here, but I think it also shows his fatherly side.
Maybe it’s just a case of my family being terrible (which I don’t think they are, usually at least), but things like that were said to me a lot growing up. That is, the “don’t grow up” part, not the “I have a murder victim in the next room” part. What I mean is that I think of this scene more in the sense of parents sensing their children are growing up, but they want to hold on to the illusion that the child is still young and in need of guidance and is completely reliant.
I think the line is really just one of Lestat’s many messed up ways of trying to say “I love you. Please don’t leave me.”
Hey anon! I’m sorry that this took so long, but I’m very passionate about my boy Daniel
Favorite thing about them: Daniel is the most real out of the entire cast of characters in the series, to me. He is the one with the most real thoughts, the most real concerns, the most real emotions, and the most real motivations. It makes him the most down-to-earth being out of the entire coven, yes, even with his flaws. The other vampires have motivations to either suppress internal conflicts (David, Gabrielle, Louis), or to live up to expectations of who they think they should be (Armand, Marius, LESTAT especially). Daniel, at his core, is honest, for better or for worse, and that makes him very compelling in a literary series where both of the central narrators have their authenticity questioned by fans.
Least favorite thing about them: More like, my least favorite thing Anne did to him which was to complete push the easily most interesting character and the most narratively USEFUL character to the side. Daniel, not Louis or Lestat, is the audience’s window to the vampire world. He’s the one that is eased into his transition and our experience of that transition is open for our comprehension needs (which also is the reason why his “insanity” later makes NO sense). David cannot be argued the same as he is not as invested in the vampire world as Daniel was, and his transition was sudden and “unwanted.” It is also because of Daniel’s honesty that we can trust his vision into this world the most. And none of this was utilized.
“there is a very black and white viewpoint on him, especially when it comes to his mental illness, his addictive habits, and his queerness. i don’t think daniel leans feminine or masculine in his queer expression. i don’t think the fans have to 100% sympathize with daniel’s substance addiction, and refuse to condemn it or look at it objectively, in order to have compassion for him as a character and for his struggles that lead to said addiction. i don’t think daniel needs to be painted so tragically–he has a degree of ownership in his decisions and recognizes and even loves the weight of them, but these decisions should be considered open-mindedly by us as well. daniel is not evil, but daniel loves the dark, and we should not forget this.“
Okay so I know we talk a lot about how Armand is obsessive, and we talk a lot about Daniel and his trains and how he’s trying to build this tiny world that’s safe and contained and controlled because he’s too overwhelmed by the real world… but can we also discuss the fact that Lestat literally builds life-sized replicas of the periods in his life when he was most happy???
I mean, I know a lot of people don’t accept PL/ROA as a canon basis for characterisation for Lestat, and tbh I get that, but this isn’t just new canon, this is a thing Lestat does.
Immediately after he rises from having been underground, after the whole Akasha debacle blows over, as soon as he has a chance to sort of settle down after that, what does he do? He builds a fucking museum to That One Time He Was Happy With His Ex. He even conceals the modern appliances to make it look authentic! And then he gets his ex to move into it with him again. :’)
Old sport.
I mean, I guess we already know that Lestat writes books because he’s looking to inject some meaning into the meaningless series of events that constitutes a life, so in that context it’s not surprising that he’d want to organise his physical surroundings. And after all the shit that went down with him in QotD, tbh, I understand him wanting a bit of familiarity. Plus he’s literally hallucinating Claudia’s ghost throughout TotBT, so he’s not exactly stable. But it’s still interesting and sad if this is his coping mechanism. (And tbh it’s really interesting how much he and Louis live in the past (literally! *shot*) compared to some of the other vampires in the coven.)
Now I’m just wondering if we can posit an architectural scale of Lestat’s well-being. Renovating: he’s doing good. Reconstructing his old flat: he’s struggling. Reconstructing an entire village complete with château: someone call Gabrielle.
^Very much agreed! I do think he likes to repeat the past, for sure. It makes sense to recreate happier times., especially in times of anxiety about the present/future. I do think Lestat digs deeper into the memory albums of his past happy times when he’s in a bad place mentally, for sure.
I would also add that Lestat is a very big fan of retail therapy, whether he’s conscious of it being therapy or not.Everything about buying stuff, flirting with the salesppl, bossing around the construction ppl, getting things delivered and opening tons of packages, feeling like he’s upgrading things, it’s all therapeutic. He’s doing self-care.
He does it to ppl, too, like when he’s berating Louis for his threadbare clothes. Lestat dresses himself nicely to make up for all that time when he was poor and couldn’t afford (and possibly didn’t feel he deserved) any better than threadbare clothes. Unless he was wearing a costume for the stage, flashy and attractive to the audience, and being loved by that audience (which taught him that playing a role and being sparkly and attractive would win him the affection he craved and couldn’t get just by being himself). Or borrowing his lover’s red velvet frock coat, far fancier than anything Lestat had ever owned up until that point, and it probably smelled like Nicolas, and that felt good, too.
For Lestat, gifts are love. Gabrielle parted with her heirloom jewels to buy him a better life. She bought him hunting equipment, upgrades to help him do what he already did. The mastiff pups, the mare, those were some of the first gifts he received that loved him back. From the villagers, he received gifts for slaying the wolves: a good sturdy (and fashionable!) cloak, and a new pair of boots. Upgrades that were both functional and had pleasing form to him.
^Sorry for the cheesy gif, but I do think Lestat has a need to return to places and exorcise his demons there. Reclaiming the space. He probably does it as idiotically as Ace Ventura sometimes *eyeroll*
He revamps (ok pun intended) the Rue Royale and his castle in the Auvergne as an act of cleansing it of the demons and bad memories. The castle of his childhood was cold, dark, bare, inadequate, he was beaten there, repeatedly. It was a place of suffering. He might have lived out his life and died there. So now that he has the $ and the power to do so, he rigs it with heating, electricity, and loads it with fancy furnishings, making it a place he can possibly build new memories, better times ❤
He almost died in the Rue Royale, how must it feel to walk through a room that you once lay dying, bleeding out on the floor? On your way to pop a DVD into a player instead? And then go back to the couch and curl up under a blanket with the lover who had done nothing but stand by as you felt yourself pass out of consciousness? No animosity now. The place has been reborn.
I would also add that AR did this in TVL, too, with Nicolas revamping (pun intended again) Renaud’s into the ~Theatre of the Vampires~: “The Theater of the Vampires,” [Lestat] whispered. “We have worked the Dark Trick on this little place.”
I-want-my-IWTV 