[EDIT: Tumblr ate half my post! I took out all the indented “quote” formatting to fix it]

IKR?? He tolerates it, rolls his eyes at it when he reads it, but when it gets to a certain amount…

Louis says of himself in IWTV:

“You wonder if I was a handsome man when I was alive,” said the vampire. The boy nodded. “I was. Nothing structurally is changed in me. Only I never knew that I was handsome. Life whirled about me a wind of petty concerns, as I’ve said. I gazed at nothing, not even a mirror… especially not a mirror… with a free eye.”

The compilation of descriptions of Louis that @i-see-light-blog put together are mostly from Lestat, I think, and at least one or two are from Armand, both were lovers of Louis at one point. The others who describe him are Daniel, David, and Marius.*

And I think the deal with describing Louis is partly that, hey, it’s fun to do, like having a favorite flower, and AR takes the opportunity to remind us of it, and put the camera on him in a scene, so we know he’s present. It also serves a purpose, we usually get at least a scrap of context about him and/or the scene:

“I glared at him, at the sharp graceful angles of his imperturbable face, […] his wide-set eyes, with their fine rich black lashes. How perfect the tender indentation of his upper lip.” -Lestat, The Tale of the Body Thief

• Lestat glares at Louis. –> Lestat is clearly pissed.

• Louis’ imperturbable face –>

  Louis is not scared of Lestat being pissed.

• And then Lestat lavishes this extra description on him, appreciatively. Attention on the lip area, now we’re picturing him pointedly staring there, which might precede a kiss, so we can infer that Lestat desperately wants to kiss him, probably. What I get from all that is the exquisite tension of Lestat wanting someone he can’t have, someone he treasures and wants even MORE bc of the difficulty. And Louis knows this when he reads those flowery descriptions. I think Louis secretly enjoys the power that he holds over all these hopeless admirers, when he reads these descriptions.

It’s the tension of the other characters pining for Louis that AR wrings every drop out for us, she’s showing us how helpless these other characters are that they can only try to capture Louis with descriptions since he defies being owned by anyone. Unrequited love is a powerful thing.

In my reading of IWTV, Louis was not just some dishrag Lestat could toss around at will. Even before Claudia appears, Louis is setting boundaries with Lestat:

“And to Babette I came now with Lestat. He would have killed the Frenieres long ago if I hadn’t stopped him,…

…`You call me the idiot, and you’ve been the idiot all along. Do you think I don’t know why you made me a vampire? You couldn’t live by yourself, you couldn’t manage even the simplest things. For years now, I’ve managed everything while you sat about making a pretense of superiority. There’s nothing left for you to tell me about life. I have no need of you and no use for you. It’s you who need me, and if you touch but one of the Freniere slaves, I’ll get rid of you. It will be a battle between us, and I needn’t point out to you I have more wit to fare better in my little finger than you in your entire frame. Do as I say.” – Louis, Interview with the Vampire

^And this is part of Louis’s hawtness, as well. He absolutely will cut a b*tch, if necessary.

Hit the jump for a little more, cut for it’s-slightly-off-topic-but-oh-well

*I’m pretty sure the other quotes are from Daniel, David, and Marius, I’m not checking bc I’m like 90% sure.

• Daniel’s drawn to him in IWTV bc his story is so compelling, and that Louis is a vampire in the presence of a mortal who knows what he is, so he has that preternatural thing going on, mortal!Daniel is enthralled. Plus, Louis may have spellbound him inadvertently, as according to Armand:

“Louis… unable to read minds, or to levitate, or to spellbind others except inadvertently, which can be hilarious, an immortal with whom mortals fall in love…” – the Vampire Armand

• David probably has some mixed feelings about Louis, especially in Merrick, bc Lestat’s out of the picture for most of that book, and I think David is stepping into Lestat’s role in his absence, to some extent, so I think he’s trying see Louis as Lestat sees him.

• There was an artist in IWTV who painted Louis’ portrait, it makes sense that Marius, another artist who has done portraits, would also be drawn to Louis for this reason. Marius also thinks about what would happen if Louis were upgraded, and hey, I would think he’s had those thoughts about other vampires who are significantly younger than himself, for whom an upgrade really might change them. Now that I’m thinking about it, this was info that Marius confessed to Lestat when Lestat was drafting QOTD, and I bet this comment stuck in his mind, he very much wanted to upgrade Louis for awhile, but for different reasons.