When I find myself in times of trouble Father Louis come to me, speaking words of wisdom “You crazy, careless, flamboyant, vain monster, I don’t mean this to hurt you but I love you”.
And he said all this in the space of 4 pages lol
Tag Archives: tale of the body thief
I just read you Lestat/Life = OTP answer to the anon, and a thought came into my head: Do you think through the series Lestat, as you said, has so many different lovers and so much love to give because that’s just what he’s about, or do you think it has a little to with AR needing to give him new lovers as the series progressed to keep things interesting and give the reader a new way of connecting with him? (Also: my headcanon where Lestat just owns a bunch of fluffy dogs that make him happy).
[This post right here, is the Lestat/Life OTP post, if anyone wants to catch up]
BRACE YOSELF FOR A WALL OF TEXT™©®
…like GDI YOU ASKED FOR IT.
^This is like the only time they hold hands in the movie ;A; not ghey enuf
I think I can say w/ 100% certainty that AR did not set out to write the Vampire Chronicles as we know it now. When her original short story of IWTV was published in 1973, she didn’t plan for a 2014 VC that diverged from canon, sinking several ships in its wake (including Lestat/Rowan).
No, I don’t think the VC relies on Lestat’s romantic relationships specifically to keep the series interesting and keep ppl connecting with him. There are ships in canon other than whoever Lestat is throwing himself at! Armand/Daniel, for example. Marius/Pandora. Marius/Amadeo.
Of course, I’m sure some readers need the romance in VC in order to stay interested/connected to it, and that’s fine, too, but I would ask them to consider looking deeper.
TL;DR: Lestat is all about love, yes, but not necessarily in pursuit of specific ships. He’s filling a void that was made in his childhood and no one seems to be enough to fill it other than simply the pursuit of it. AR does throw in a little fanservice now and then, but I think she writes for deeper reasons, and the romance aspect – or lack thereof – is part of her exploration.
Hit the jump for more. I also address your doggie headcanon 😉
AR wrote the first short story basically to ask why her daughter died of leukemia. She wanted to interview God, the Devil, and/or Death himself. She wanted to know: Was she and/or her husband being punished for being bad Christians, or was their daughter a bad Christian? When a parent loses a child they want to know why. So she made Louis, and he answered her, “There was no reason, that girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t serve Heaven or Hell, I was just hungry, I’m sorry, I feel like shit. Also, blame Lestat.”
Then she had to interview Lestat and find out where the evil comes from. How evil can he be, when he was forced into vampiring, totally against his will?
Everything else that followed in the series stems from that central question. Why do bad things happen? Why do people do bad things? What if the person doing the bad thing did it accidentally? Or they feel terrible about it? What if they are trying to change and be better? Why do they want to be better?
Lestat strives to be good bc he wants love. He is making up for an enormous void, his formative years spent mostly unloved and untouched, a childhood in which the only love he got was from his animals, the teachers in the school he briefly went to, the theatre troupe he ran off with, and a teensy bit from his mother. When he expressed himself, he was often shot down, and with beatings.
He knows the equations he’s been taught:
- Be Good —> Get Loved.
- Give Love —> Get Loved.
- Be in Control —> Take Love.
So I think his huge heart is a hungry one, he can’t get enough, and he can’t seem to get enough from one person. I think he’s afraid of commitment. To commit to one person is to risk that person having too much control.
Having lots of relationships, well, I do think AR was doing a little fanservice when she set him up with women. That was probably a response to so many POTP begging her to set him up with a woman for a change.
But I on the other hand, I feel like alot of his dating record is unsurprising. Who can predict their future lovers? I think we can all learn from our past relationships, and that improves subsequent ones. Lestat does tend to repeat some mistakes and he does have issues with consent in relationships, but he at least is good at confessing these things and presumably working on them.
We all agree Lestat is a dog person!
He had a pack of them as a mortal, and yes, I think he’d love to own a bunch of fluffy dogs that make him happy! But dogs do not like vampires:
“I’d expected to hear from [the dog] before this time, for surely it would pick up my scent, know instinctively that I wasn’t human, and then begin to sound its natural alarm of growls and barks. Dogs had done that enough to me over the centuries, though they don’t always. Sometimes I can entrance them and command them. But I feared the instinctive rejection and it always sent a pain through my heart.” – Lestat, Tale of the Body Thief.
That’s part of what made Mojo so special, that he seemed to override whatever natural dog instinct with love for Lestat ❤
Lestat also has expensive tastes in terms of furniture and fashion, and that’s incompatible with having a pack of dogs. People with even one dog have to dog-proof their home to some extent or risk sacrificing things to a curious doggie.
And plus he’s a wanderlust, he likes to just up and leave for long periods, and he can’t leave a pack of dogs with Louis to babysit. Plus, he knows he can’t be there for all those puppies during the day when they need to be walked and run around, so I would imagine he would have to set them up to be taken care of on someone’s huge farm or wherever so he can play with them occasionally when he needs a good dose of animal therapy ❤
The words Mentalist fans have playing over and over in their heads.
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
I’m sorry if I sound uninformed or ignorant, but I am confused about some of the characters sexualities. I understand that once they become vampires that sort of thing doesn’t matter, but as humans I wonder…Lestat was stated to be bisexual, was he really? He seemed to have a preference for men and I cant recall there being a relationship significant or genuine enough to really say he was truly attracted to women. What was Louis’ sexuality as a human, I’ve only seen him interested in men too?
It’s fine to ask! It depends on how much (and which) canon and fanfic you have read, and how much you’ve read between the lines.
#Let’s talk about sex
I’d say they both defied definitions, but the short answer would be, mortal!Lestat loves who he loves regardless of their physical container, and mortal!Louis struggled with bisexual/homosexual desires.
Spoilers ahead:
Mortal!Lestat:
I don’t want to try to assign a label like “bisexual” or “pansexual” bc there’s so many labels for orientation now and the definitions are confusing no matter how many definitions I read or how many times ppl try to explain the thing to me 😛
I’d say mortal!Lestat is romantically drawn to someone for their soul first and their physical accessories second. He’s had relationships with men and women, been physically attracted to both.
- He had a relationship with Nicolas, for sure. They kissed, they slept together, it was all heavily implied. I doubt vampirebaby!Lestat would have been stalking mortal!Nicolas if they had only been Super Best Friends 5ever.
- Lestat didn’t talk about long-term female relationships as a mortal, but that he bedded the village girls (I can’t find a reference but I’m pretty sure he mentions it).
- And he bedded one of the actresses in the troupe he tried to run away from home with: “That night, the actress who played my inamorata gave me her own very special and intimate accolades. I went to sleep in her arms…”
- He might have had a side fling with the female actresses in the Paris theatre, Renaud’s: “Send flowers for Jeannette and Luchina, the girls I had fought with the most and most loved,”
- In ToBT, mortal!Lestat beds a woman (non-con), and has a short but intense relationship with another woman, and returns to her to prove he was telling the truth about himself. She kicks his sorry butt out the door.
- Also in ToBT, Lestat wages a campaign of seduction on David Talbot, who does not give in, despite a valiant effort on Lestat’s part!
- in later canon, Lestat is powerfully drawn to Dr. Rowan Mayfair and promises he’ll give her the Dark Gift.
Mortal!Louis
He really doesn’t talk much about his pre-vampiring life. Claudia asks him about sex and he tells her:
“It was something hurried, and … it was seldom savored … something acute that was quickly lost. I think that it was the pale shadow of killing.”
Maybe he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, since he knew she could never experience it herself. Maybe he really felt that way.
Personally, I headcanon that Louis might have had a little experience in being with men as a mortal, but Lestat’s the one who really pushed him over the edge. Alot of vampirebaby!Louis’ issues with Lestat could have partly been bc Louis was brought up in a religious frame of mind that meant homosexuality was sinful, so whenever he felt physical and emotional desire for Lestat, he hit himself with a wave of self-hatred 😛
me: *goes to nasa* hello i would like to volunteer to be thrown into the sun
nasa: u would die
me: i beg u
Did Louis actually visit Lestat in IWTV when Lestat went back to New Orleans to rot in his house? Because Lestat didn’t mention that Louis had visited him in “The vampire lestat”. Lestat only said that Armand visited him and that he knew that Louis was in New Orleans. Thanks for clearing up :)
Ooooh good question! In IWTV, Louis says that he did visit Lestat (and it was in the movie).
We actually don’t know if it happened :-
- book!IWTV has Louis following a young vampire to Lestat’s door.
- In the Tale of the Body Thief, Lestat says it never happened.
We have discrepancy in canon. Your headcanon may be that it happened, and someone else’s may be that it didn’t. With Louis’ book, was he telling his tale to try to call out Lestat? Maybe he knew that inventing a scene like this might provoke Lestat to respond. If so, it worked, Lestat wrote TVL as a response to IWTV. Also, Louis told his story to Daniel, who then had to send it to his editor(s), so maybe it was invented by someone other than Louis for whatever reason.
So who do I believe? Umm, I don’t think Louis is a liar, and I don’t think anyone invented it. Lestat has said, “I never lie, at least not to those I don’t love.” which means that he DOES lie to those he loves.
I’m going w/ Louis on this and saying that it happened as Louis described it.
1. Book!IWTV:
“Because shortly after that I saw a vampire in New Orleans, a sleek white-faced young man walking alone on the broad sidewalks of St. Charles Avenue…” (this mystery vampire kills a woman and takes her baby to a shabby old house where he meets up with another vampire) “My eyes widened as I studied this stooped and shivering vampire whose rich blond hair hung down in loose waves covering his face… I saw clearly, unmistakably, the profile of Lestat, that smooth skin now devoid of even the faintest trace of his old scars.”
BTW, it’s implied that that young vampire was one of Lestat’s own fledglings (another mystery fledgling?!):
“ `You all leave me!’ he whined now in a thin, high-pitched voice.“
(Louis taps at the window)
…” `It’s Louis! Louis!’ he said. `Let him in’ And he gestured frantically, like an invalid, for the young `nurse’ to obey. … and I could see the tears welling in his eyes…How baffling and awful it was, this smoothfaced, shimmering immortal man bent and rattled and whining like a crone.”
2. HOWEVER…
In Tale of the Body Thief, Lestat calls Louis a liar, and I think he’s referring to the whole visit scene:
“Ah, that makes you out to be a perfect liar,” I said furiously. “You described my weeping in your miserable memoir in a scene which we both know did not take place!”
Your storytelling was so good that I spaced out and didnt see it coming that you’d turn David. Thats not like me. Usually im spot on with stuff like that. I knew it was like you to do it but i forgot and Im embarrassed.
♛ “Ohhh! Oh. Well…” Lestat trailed off.
“To be honest I didn’t see that coming, either.” He ran a hand through his hair, shook it, letting it fall back into his face. “I had planned to keep tormenting him with immortality until he was on his death bed begging for it.” A smile drew across his lips and then vanished.
“The fact is that David was there for me, we were bonded powerfully in that experience… my emotions were almost too much for me to bear and he was my rock through it all. There were moments when I wanted to give up, sobbing into his arms like a child. The feel of his hands on ‘my’ body felt alien. When he spurned my advances, it hurt, why not support me in that way, as well? Is that not another form of comfort? Closeness?”
“I understand now that some of that resistance on his part was due to his performance anxiety. Also, I think he still couldn’t see me inside that body, the man that I was and offered him was still a stranger to him.” Lestat swept his fingertips across his desk, clearing a little dust absently.
“His rejection was on my mind that night when I did it to him. His kind and soothing soul wed to that already attractive body drew me like a moth to the flame. At first I internally justified just touching him. Then I justified kissing him, then just a Little Drink. By the time I’d given myself permission to do those, I just… needed more. Needed him. Needed to try to have him with me always.”
“He has since forgiven me but I will always feel that there’s a betrayal between us that can never be healed.”
-finished tale of the body thief- … -stares blankly at lestat-
♛”What specifically blankens your stare, mon ami? Is it the incredible story that was woven so artfully by yours truly, the rollercoaster of anxiety and relief that coursed through you vicariously as I yet again prevailed in the face of certain doom?” Lestat leaned back in his chair, smiling triumphantly.
“Or were you disappointed in the coven as a whole for its failure on an individual basis to support me in my hour of need? That my One True Pairing of a lover completely left me to my own devices despite the fact that he himself would have been long dead by that time if I hadn’t fallen so hopelessly in love with him???”
Oh lord help me lestat is as helpless as a newborn after body switching, tripping on carpets, messing his pants, binging on chocolate and already half dead from a sickness. Just wanna squish his cheeks and feed him hot soup abububu
“I’ve watched two-year-old humans with interest for centuries. They’re miserable. They rush about, fall down, and scream almost constantly. They hate being human! They know already that it’s some sort of dirty trick.
”
– Lestat, Tale of the Body Thief
[fanart by sheepskeleton] <– Edit! I had the credit wrong! Sorries!
I-want-my-IWTV 