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:
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.
Gabrielle/David – Regardless of potential compatibility Lestat would have an opinion on this:
“DAVID’S MY BAE MOM!!!” *huffs*
Gabrielle/Jesse – yes.
Gabrielle/Marius – I think she’d have the same issue w/ him that she had w/ Lestat; Marius is a man of civilization. He builds a big sumptuous nest wherever he lives, w/ all the amenities. She might visit but she’d never stay. Marius holds onto beauty, Gabrielle wants to experience it and search for more. Intellectually they probably would argue all the time, like Marius did w/ Pandora, bc Marius thinks he knows everything about everything but he’s not as “with it” as Pandora and Gabrielle are.
Gabrielle/Pandora – Maybeeee… but Pandora had some serious issues, re: confidence. I don’t remember how or when that was resolved, but she was very dependent on Arjun, in a way that I doubt Gabrielle would tolerate, even in brief moments.
For sure, in many ways Lestat is worse than Gabrielle. And other characters have definitely treated him way worse than she has his own Louis tried to kill him at least twice, that’s a QUALITY boyfriend FFS. He certainly rocks the boat more than she does. He intentionally wanted to start a war between society and vampires. He went on vacation killing thousands of innocent men bc his girlfriend (and Matriarch of the Damned) told him to.
Is a mother’s lack of support and nurturing equal to such crimes? Is the suffering inflicted on one child equal to the deaths of thousands? One could argue that his crappy childhood made him more susceptible to the later, larger crimes. He wanted the war because he wanted recognition; many ppl learn early on that bad attention is better than no attention. Then, he let Akasha order him around because he thought she loved him. It’s taken him a long time to figure out how to relationship and he still has slipups including, but not limited to: issues w/ consent, possessiveness, respect for others’ physical space.
Lestat’s usually in pursuit of goodness when he is “bad.” He reflects on it, he can see were he went wrong, and usually tells us that the good extracted from the experience made it worth the wrongdoing, whereas with Gabrielle, since we don’t get her POV, and we don’t get much from her in spoken word in terms of her own pursuit of goodness, we have to wonder whether she cares for it at all. AR can’t write her ooc; Gabrielle has extended herself to rescue Lestat on several occasions, but she never seems to go further than that.
But the real issue with Gabrielle is probably that she lacks a dick, and is therefore unshippable.
But I like shipping her with Jesse or Eleni!
-Some spoilers under the cut-
Louis is actually only a bad vampire when he was being a foodie, when Claudia is “born,” he vampires more properly. In QOTD, Akasha says he’s the Most Predatory of All. It sounded like a backhanded compliment, but she was calling him a good vampire.
Armand is hot so he can get away w/ otherwise negative behavior… Plus Armand’s been on a rollercoaster in terms of “cold and distant.” He started out cold and distant (he was going to wall himself up in the caves in TVA for religion) became more so (kidnapped and thrown into the brothel) then more warm (Marius to the rescue!) then loving (Marius’ fledgling and the lead up to that), then cold and distant again (Children of Darkness and Theatre des Vampires eras), loving again (chasing after and getting Daniel Molloy), and now he seems cold and distant to protect himself.
I-want-my-IWTV 