Lestat Mon Amour

Don't hide it away, don't bury those feelings, don't worship that grave dug on your own. Don't burn alone.

I remember that before the season premiered many people said that Louis would be jealous of Gabrielle and that Lestat would prioritize her but you always insisted that wouldn't happen because those two relationships are very different for Lestat. And you took that position even before knowing how the show would change the foundation of his relationship with Gabrielle.

Now those who said that are saying things like well things changed in the show we had no way of knowing...

BUT YOU KNEW IT!!!

I mean, I don't know much, but I do know Louis and Lestat and their relationship. If I could make them my career area of expertise, I would! 😅

Because Gabrielle(a) was never going to come before Louis. No one comes before Louis.

The thesis of the finale (+ the season overall) was Lestat not being a "failure" for the simple fact that Louis loves him.

That's just the fact of the matter. ♥️

@armandsbitchboy and I were discussing the lack of sex between the main "ships" this season, and how we both actually prefer non sexual intimacy - for me this was a huge draw of the books when I was first reading them as a teenager, as well as the way the characters can have sex without actually having it, via biting and blood drinking.

This made me start thinking about the way sex is shown in TVL as opposed to series 1 and 2.

For those first two seasons sex is generally shown on screen as a pleasant experience for all concerned. Unpleasant sexual encounters such as Claudia's repeated assaults by Bruce take place offscreen.

In TVL this dynamic is reversed. Every sexual encounter we are shown is rape (Magnus), abusive (Gabriella) or indifferent (the constant groupie sex that Lestat has). The only true intimate encounter we see, between Nicky and Lestat, has a cut away before anything really happens.

I would surmise that this is deliberate and speaks to the attitude of the respective narrators towards sexual intimacy. For Louis sex is associated with love, hence why he's hurt when Lestat wants other sexual partners. Even when he does have his own encounter with someone else immediately following this conversation, it's with someone he loved.

For Lestat sex is either traumatic, or it is utilised like a drug to numb his feelings of emptiness and loneliness, as he tells us in the song of the same name. BTW, it is not uncommon at all for people with a traumatic sexual history to become hypersexual as a coping mechanism, so these two things are not incongruent.

This leads me to the idea that perhaps for Lestat non-sexual intimacy with partners he actually loves may be more important to him. One of the reasons episode 6 was by far and away my favourite episode this season was because of how closely Lestat and Louis' relationship mirrored the dynamic of the books, and how intimate they were onscreen without even a kiss.

Another point I'd like to make regarding this: I've seen many in the fandom bemoaning the lack of sex scenes between intimate partners this season (Devils Minion, Lestat and Louis, Lestat and Nicky etc).

I would say that due to the way all the other sexual encounters are shown (violent, abusive or meaningless) it would be extremely difficult to frame an intimate sexual encounter as tender and emotional. Can you imagine showing Lestat and Nicky together in the same episode Lestat is raped by Magnus? Or Lestat and Louis getting back together in this way in the same episode that Gabriella's incestuous abuse is exposed? It would leave a really foul taste to the whole thing, and during episode 6 in particular I was really hoping nothing physical happened between Lestat and Louis for precisely that reason.

Really loved a Lot of it, but I admittedly don't think overall it's the best episode of the series. Maybe because it was mostly introspective and little action? I don't know. Whatever.

I love Lestat. He's a hot mess and a sexy diva and a monster and a lover and sees himself as a failure and he's a narcissist and he's weak and he's strong and he's a loser and he's the chosen one and he's absolutely awful and I love him not in spite of all that, but because of it.

So in terms of the finale giving me that, a success.

On a side note, I loved a lot of other things. All the Loustat. Paul. Claudia not at the table because she already said all she needed. I loved "room without walls" Armand finally got the proper damn apology that he deserved from Louis but also still is still a manipulative fuck cloud.

I'm not going to try to get deep into a lot of things I could and other people have. Seen some things I agree with and some I don't. And, admittedly some I'm like, uh... Sis you read the books??

Anyways. Complex characters, unreliable narrators, decapitation, and a tender love story (sorta).

Let the beloved monsters be monsters.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 3.07: The Failures TVLTwT/IWTVTwT Version.

The only question is, why does Lestat do the concert? For this to work, he has to do it with Louis' blessing. I'm ok with physical separation, but if they argue at the beginning of S4 i'll be pissed.

Apparently the season was supposed to end with Akasha but they decided to open s4 with it, meaning (I hope) that Louis and Lestat will be together and in love when it happens

I think it would be interesting to seem them separated by an outside force and fighting to get back to each other. That's a different type of yearning and angst for them.

Oh, I have no doubt we'll get that.

It's the aftermath that's giving me pause.

It's this —

And Rolin's comment about Lestat still referring to Louis as "Mr. du Lac" in the recordings. He says that is because "shit happens" (which we know it does), but that implies Louis and Lestat are at odds again.

Book canonically, there's not truly a fissure between them after Akasha. There's a newfound understanding, some very tender moments, and it's also the era that gives us Louis' verbal love affirmation to Lestat, which the show is seemingly following.

"He didn't go into the details of his day. I would only hear of them later. After the concert. After the mayhem."

What could possibly happen to put them at odds again and take them from this....

....to this?

Meanwhile, Sam is saying he's calling Louis "Mr. du Lac" to represent how Lestat felt during the time he's recalling on the recordings.

This is what I am telling you guys. Thank you yet again, Sam. It is never Lesmandover or Loumandover. We can never lose if you ignore all the times that we’ve lost.