Claudia coming to hate and despise Lestat for creating her in a way that traps her within the body of a 5-year-old child while her mind continues to advance, and in turn hating Louis---for a brief period of time, at least---for the role that he had to play in that... She will never physically grow old. That aspect has been robbed of her. She didn't ask to be the way that she is and I get it, girl. You've been stuck this way for over sixty years.
It's so horribly unfair. And she wants something, just as Louis wants something, just as Lestat wants to keep them---I think a power and agency over herself, an independence robbed of her because of her body frozen in time, and retribution.
My mind, also, keeps floating back to Lestat confronting Claudia, telling her all of the same things he'd told Louis: That she has to learn her nature; she is a killer, et cetera. The fact that Louis recognizes that the words are empty and Claudia already curtails to that seriously implies that, much like the hand-wringing, these are words and arguments that Lestat falls back on when he's desperate and doesn't know what else to do or say. How much does he actually believe it, and how much of him saying that was only a desperate bid to keep Louis with him? Yes, Lestat does believe his own words, to some degree, considering his violent tendencies and willingness to treat humans like toys, but how much does he believe it? Is he trying, too, to delude himself, as he's trying to delude Louis and Claudia into staying with him?
Lestat freezing up when Claudia tricks him into admitting the reality---that he has known nothing all along, and has nothing substantial to teach them, and the fear that resulted from that. Lestat, he is afraid of being alone, isn't he? He is terrified of such a thing. And he was turned into a vampire, and ever since then, he's been flying by the seat of his pants, hasn't he? Is he afraid of the idea of meeting other vampires, who are more established? Is he also afraid that those vampires will look at him and shun him because he is 'doing it wrong'? And that is why he must convince his companions that he has the answer to everything even when he doesn't, because he's so desperate to keep them there with him.
Which then also leads into Louis, who still clings---still clings to the dregs of his humanity! Because he still is so at a loss of what his vampiric nature means for him, and if Lestat truly does know nothing, then what does that mean for him! How much of his killing humans stems from Leatat's insistence that it is vampiric nature? Before all he'd drank from was animals. It's because of Lestat that he transitioned to humans. Killing is the nature of vampires; such is the string pulling him, his inclination to kill and the necessity to drink blood...
...and yet he still finds it in himself to spare. Louis's inherent resistance to Lestat must be absolutely maddening! Louis is such a naturally gentle and empathetic person in comparison! It's almost like, despite them being vampires who need to drink the blood of the living to survive, they are no less individual beings than they were before. Hmm, imagine that. Imagine that there is no true answer to the question of vampiric nature, just as there is no true answer to the question of human nature, because the existence itself is the question and everybody's existence takes on a different gradient.
Oh, Lestat, you liar, you manipulator. You transformed a child to keep Louis with you, and it's looking as if it won't prevent the leaving entirely. You just postphoned the inevitable, and now it will hurt doubly so, being abandoned twice. Nobody causes more problems for Lestat than himself. I'm so eager to read his reality now.
