He offers Louis the chance to remove himself from the shackles of society, and to absolve himself of all the mortal responsibilities which so clearly weigh upon Louis.

Louis accepts, is turned, and then never absolves himself of said responsibilities. Lestat patiently waits, plays along, and entertains himself while waiting for Louis. They have eternity, he can wait a few decades until Louis' mortal ties slowly fade away.

But then Claudia. He turns her and suddenly Louis has an immortal tie to his mortal life. Louis can put all the importance he found in mortality into that relationship and, since she's immortal, Lestat will be waiting forever.

So Lestat continues to wait, but grows more and more frustrated. And from there, everything falls out. But through all the drama, he waits for Louis. Still waiting for Louis to absolve himself of the burdens of mortal life. To release himself and be free.

God Lestat is so down bad and just wants the best for his sweet baby angel and I'm so about it. Need me a freak like that.

oh my goddd I am so 100% with you until you get to the Claudia piece, because I think that's one area where I just can't shrug my shoulders and say hey, it's okay, it's vampire morality they are toxic4toxic and Lestat and Louis are both making a choice.

They roped that poor girl into their mess like a couple on the verge of a breakup adopting a feral dog and though Claudia was always a far better vampire than Louis let himself be, Lestat became highly resentful of her. I know that in the flash forwards he expresses pride at the killer she was, but he showed so little of that when she was around, and her distaste for him and view of him as abusive doesn't come from nowhere.

Yes, we can say that Louis likely guilted Lestat into it to some extent (assuming a merger of the two Claudia Making flashbacks is the closest to the truth), and that Lestat was so desperately lonesome for Louis' affection that he caved or something (ie that both Lestat and Louis are idiots), but Louis at least tried to be nice and present and consistent with the girl. He failed whenever he had a dick appointment that felt more pressing, but he did care, and he made real sacrifices for Claudia's happiness whereas Lestat did a lot to squelch her and squeeze her out.

Jealousy over Louis bond to Claudia is what really ramped up Lestat behaving like a monster. A lot of his other crash-outs are divalicious and somewhat sympathetic if you are willing to accept vampire morality, but the way he punished her for Louis' lack of love for him is really hard for me to get over as a fan.

Beyond that really glaring fault in his behavior, I do see Lestat as an over-the-top, effusive, obsessively loving and dramatic figure, and I find his constancy and intensity attractive. I'm really happy that my partner identifies with Lestat and understands his motivations the most, of all the core IWTV girlies, because I want to be fucking adored and showered with affection and have my every cloudy mood accepted and have a companion for life that would gladly live in a raccoon-infested book pile depression house if it meant getting to be with me; that shit feels safe.

And it's hot. Including the darker sides to it, obviously, I'm a Hannibal girlie from way back. On one of our first dates I told my partner that I understood why Jeffrey Dahmer used to drill holes in people's skulls and I, too, would love to be able to incapacitate someone into not leaving me (or to be so incapacitated). and they also found that hot and emotionally compelling. And we are both people who have made really big dramatic sacrifices for the ones we love and don't regret feeling things so deeply. Lestat would be an annoying torment to a regular person with boundaries but if you were a certified lovergirl back?/

Good question! In fact, it does, but very much not always. While passively slowly obliterating sin, more physical grime requires explicit mental concentration on the behalf of the angel, with the effector most commonly manifesting in a quite clearly visible extension of the halo beaming out of it and scrubbing across all affected surfaces. Kind of like this.

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Mozart (Currently shredding Violin Concerto No. 1 on the guitar, having figured it out within 30 seconds): What other music can be made from harnessed lightning?