#regardless

it's so indicative of a philosophy that the show has seemingly decided to take on since switching the focus to lestat. lestat is a man who has lived through years of abuse and longs for a permanent connection that he can rely on, much unlike all the others he's suffered in his life. however, in seeking this connection and ensuring its permanence, he treats louis and claudia in ways that are most certainly abusive. he aggressively coerces the two people he loves the most into staying with him, because he cannot survive losing them. in the first two seasons, a more empathetic perspective can be seen if you're looking for it, but the show also doesn't excuse his behaviour and claim him to be perfectly innocent in all things. this is where lestat is at his best - cruel and possessive, but also anxious and loving and eager to please. the show works better when it does not try to relieve lestat of blame for his actions, but instead explains it so that his perspective can also be seen, because while lestat is physically and verbally aggressive toward louis, louis often provokes him and manipulates him into doing what he wants, playing on lestat's fear of being left. i want to clarify that i'm not saying this makes lestat less abusive or anything, i'm just saying that louis knows lestat well enough to hit him exactly where it hurts, and often makes use of that knowledge - oftentimes because of his own resentment towards lestat for taking away his humanity and treating him poorly.

this dual perspective - that lestat is often cruel to the people he loves, and yet can heal from what has been done to him and thus correct his behaviour - is one that the writers of tvl have decided they just don't want to support anymore, for some reason. instead, they're going to take the perspective of "actually, the world is divided into the abused and the abuser, and anything in between is impossible", and so they quickly siphon each of the characters into a box, victim or abuser, centralised around the most important victim of them all - lestat. gone are the days where lestat can be both victim and abuser, unable to break from a cycle first enacted upon him in his youth until he manages to take a real look inward, no, instead, lestat has never done anything wrong. rather, it is the people around him who have done him multitudes of wrong, and to repent they must either constantly self-flagellate and be tortured for what they've done (louis: i find this especially egregious as we all know louis' self-flagellation was a fatal flaw for him in the last two seasons), or be treated by a complete irredeemable monster by the narrative and, ultimately, when he 'comes to his senses', lestat (pretty much everyone else who has mildly done lestat wrong, especially gabi).

so, lestat cannot be redeemed in the writer's eyes, unless they make him the perfect victim. gabriella cannot play her role as lestat's abuser and simultaneously have sympathetic characteristics, so they make her irredeemable. louis sits somewhere in between - he's endgame for lestat, though not for the reasons they should be endgame, mind you - but he's been in a complicated relationship with lestat, the perfect victim, so he HAS to be an abuser right? thus, we have to make him fall over himself apologising and being tortured and apologising some more, so he can repent for being a bad person.

it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. lestat is a character that resonates with me for a lot of reasons, but chief of them all is that his reasons for wrongdoing are the same as mine. i don't think i've ever gone so far as to match the abuse lestat has enacted on his loved ones, but i definitely have things i'm not proud of. this season was especially exciting for me, because i was looking forward to seeing lestat be forced to confront, in a similar way to how louis was forced to confront a lot of his wilful denial in s1/2, how his perspective is warped by his emotions and experiences, and that he perhaps is maybe a bit more to blame than he'd like to admit, but also not an irredeemable monster and incapable of change, and that representing himself as such is not at all conducive to any sort of development. he was, to me, going to represent the reality of good and evil - that there is always a way to move on from what you've done, and that you don't have to conceal nor revel in your wrongdoing in order to be loved, that perhaps you'll have to apologise for what you've done wrong, and there will be consequences, and maybe the people you love won't forgive you, but nonetheless, you will still be deserving of love, somehow, somewhere.

I have the most basic ass music taste . . . oh well