sorry for the long thinkpiece. your recent post reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about again lately, especially after the new song came out, remembering that louis is going to hear it, and the rest of Lestat’s story - children quite often don’t know much about their parents’ past, whatever it may be and whether or not they may be ready and willing to hear about it. there’s so much about lestat before he met louis that is unknown to him, much more than is normal for married people to not know about each other. he only finds out about magnus initially because claudia makes a point of getting at the very least that much out of lestat. with other relationships the unraveling of one’s past doesn’t necessarily feel like that but with loustat I truly cannot help but feel a parallel with stories about parents suddenly telling a story from their past that is shocking and recontextualizes them as a person, especially with how Lestat’s blood IS Louis’ blood and technically by learning about magnus louis learns about his own origins too, and by learning about gabriell(a) he will also learn about his vampire kin, being two “notable” Lestat’s fledglings. all vampires have two family trees and they can’t escape either . wanting to know your parent as a full person and then regretting it because it’s actually been easier to gloss over the blanks and make safer assumptions, but also seeing the trickle effect, how what happened in their past has led to the way you were brought up - as a child, as a newly turned vampire
Thank you for sharing, this is wonderfully put!
“there’s so much about lestat before he met louis that is unknown to him, much more than is normal for married people to not know about each other. he only finds out about magnus initially because claudia makes a point of getting at the very least that much out of lestat.” <-This is something that I think about often as well, that there is so much about Lestat that Louis just doesn’t know and like you said, this is not normal for typical married people. People are quick to reduce this to Louis being incurious or not caring about Lestat and his past, but this is just not true. In S1E1 Louis said he did ask about Lestat’s power, showing that he did care to understand and learn more about Lestat (as would anyone to people they’re romantically interested in), Lestat just avoided answering. And in S1E6 when Lestat told Louis and Claudia his history with Magnus upon Claudia’s insistence, Louis is shown to be incredibly empathetic towards Lestat, something that Claudia noted after the scene (and mind you, this is also after Lestat has brutally assaulted him and dropped him from the sky).
Louis not knowing about Lestat’s past is something done purposefully by Lestat, because as much as Lestat told Louis that he wanted a lover and an equal (something that Louis desperately wanted to believe in), Lestat has always treated Louis like a child and himself his parent. As said by Rolin in this SFX interview, Lestat is “vaguely not interested in his personal history”. So Lestat not telling Louis about his past shows his paternalism in his treatment towards Louis: because Lestat is not interested in his own history, he automatically decides that Louis would not be as well. The consequence of this, of course, is Louis having to be dependent on Lestat even more.
(Sidenote but I think this is also why Lestat was incredibly annoyed at Claudia probing him about his past and his vampiric knowledge, and it also explains his mocking tone and unserious attitude during and after Claudia negotiated to be referred to as their sister. To Lestat, what Claudia is doing is disrupting the “natural order”. Lestat’s assertion of his position as Louis and Claudia’s maker during the scene in S1E6 and him still positioning himself as “the Beauceron” to Louis’s and Claudia’s “lambs” reflect this. There are many parallels between Lestat’s parenting towards Claudia (his daughter) with his treatment towards Louis (his spouse), as they’re both his children, in a sense.)
“with other relationships the unraveling of one’s past doesn’t necessarily feel like that but with loustat I truly cannot help but feel a parallel with stories about parents suddenly telling a story from their past that is shocking and recontextualizes them as a person”, “all vampires have two family trees and they can’t escape either. wanting to know your parent as a full person and then regretting it because it’s actually been easier to gloss over the blanks and make safer assumptions, but also seeing the trickle effect, how what happened in their past has led to the way you were brought up - as a child, as a newly turned vampire” <- this! Season 3 is going to be Lestat’s big reckoning with himself and his past of course, but I think it’s going to be quite confronting for Louis to learn these things about Lestat as well. Sometimes you are with someone for almost your entire life but then something happens and you realize that you don’t know anything about who this person is or was at all even when they’ve always been a constant presence in your life. I think this is quite a common experience for children with avoidant parents, and it can be quite shocking and world-shattering. Through the process of re-contextualizing who your parents are, you re-contextualize your own upbringing and origins and suddenly a lot of pieces of your life just click into place. I think season 3 is going to be a major journey for both Lestat and Louis in figuring out who they are and what that means for their relationship going forward!
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