Alright, let's keep the memory of this kindness together, before we let it go.
I can understand how kind and generous this was, but I still can't imagine why 😭🥹🫀.
I did want to try to play with this tender bit of the play, feeling it as a gift, as the play itself is a beautiful gift, full of feeling.
Even though I literally called what I did a curse, hahaha, I DIE. (Am I curse?)
But I hope that my improvising with this little bit of play wasn't too weird or wrong.
Why am I a person for whom a beautiful thing is gifted to me, and my mind (and beyond that: my body) is like "Oh no, I must have done something AWFUL... You should panic. PANIC!"
But this was just so lovely of him, so: thank you so very much Joe!
For one day, I felt something I created had been heard, and responded to as if it were... a gift. 🥹
What's more generous than offering that?
Edited a week after the event... I don't want to make a new post about it... but I want to share my experience - to remember, just for me, really.
Also, in case anyone ever happens upon this post who may struggle with their own self-worth, to know: I see you and if you ever want to chat with someone who feels this kind of way, I (a person who relates to characters such as Nicolas and Sasha in ways that... are) am here to listen.
That said...
A week on from Joe posting my daft music, I just wanted to say… it was such a super-kind little thing, and it threw me into a spin - taking me from panic to contemplation to beauty.
My hope, as I played, was that my silly music could be a kind of gift.
But then it was received, generously, as a gift, and I panicked at being witnessed. Is that weird of me?
I post my music because I believe it’s important for us all to create. Improvising is about the act of creating, not about making art or anything “good”.
I can’t imagine anyone actually listening. Or, if they do, thinking anything other than “I hate it.” So when someone comments, I appreciate it so much… but part of me assumes you’re just being kind.
I think Joe’s generous repost and kind words challenged my perception of myself, as I couldn’t ignore that my music had been seen.
I don’t consider myself a musician, yet music is a big part of who I am. So my music being seen made me feel I had somehow been witnessed, a tiny act of kindness creating a powerful impact.
And maybe my initial panic makes it even more beautiful in the end. I’m not an artist, so I’m never observed in that way. Joe made my music feel heard.
You never know the impact your small act of kindness might have on someone. Here’s to kindness.
And thank you to every one of you who has ever shown me, or each other, or anyone kindness.
I post my music because I believe it’s important for us all to create. Improvising is about the act of creating, not about making art or anything “good”.
...
I don’t consider myself a musician, yet music is a big part of who I am. So my music being seen made me feel I had somehow been witnessed, a tiny act of kindness creating a powerful impact.
Hey) If you don't consider yourself a musician, who do you consider yourself to be? Why are you improvising? It makes you happy?
I'm asking because I have a slightly similar experience, I think, but with eeeerm visual arts. I've had a natural talent for drawing and painting since I was a child, or at least that's what was believed about me, but I think my family pushed me too much so I would start to detest it and abandoned and buried that for many years.
I rememeber enjoying drawing and creating in a more general sense as a child, but when I've come to hate it, if I was drawing or painting at all, it didn't make me happy. I would still do it ocassionally, but I believe I was likely always motivated by pride and arrogance. I knew that I was good at it and better than many. I would do that to prove to them and to myself that. And I hated it, of course, and it was only making me miserable. Now, I understand that I felt this way likely because I was creating for the wrong reason. That I was doing that not for myself but for other people - to hurt them or to gain their approval. And I, of course, was anxious, and self-conscious, and very aware of my vulnerability and imperfections.
It's been many years ago and since then, my mental health declined drastically to the point of being debilitating and interfering with every aspect of my life. It changed how I think about others and my priorities a lot. For better or worse, I dislike if not despise humanity in general, though I still believe that individual people deserve to be treated with compassion and kindness as there's too much suffering in the world already. Anyway, my main point is that I can't care less about what other people think about me (unless you're my friend or I want you to be my friend or I look up to you) because why would I care what these soulless cruel unable to think clearly monsters think about me, basically. And, God, it's so freeing.
You know, how they always say that you shouldn't care much about what others think? Well, it's very hard to do unless you truly despise each and everyone's guts.
That said, I've returned to drawing recently. I was doing that this time with the intention, conscious or not, to never show the end result to anyone and to do whatever I want, no matter the rules, expectations, standards or opinions. Even if what I created would be considered bad or talentless or crude or a failure in any way. I also didn't set any expectations for myself. Like I was not hoping to achieve a specific result. I was simply doing what I liked the way I liked with the intention to enjoy the process. And I did! It was immensily enjoyable. I don't remember the last time I felt so happy when drawing. I was genuinely enjoying seeing different colors together, how they blend into one another, how the textures look or feel. I thought, maybe, improvising feels similar to you.
Also, what I did, I'd call it art. Exactly because I did it for myself and it came from my soul and being. Is it not the purest definiton of creating?
I'd even say that you don't have to like what I create and might consider it worthless or ugly and I can feel the same way about what you do. It would still be art. It doesn't have to be liked.
But I'd love to hear about your experience and thoughts!
Also, I like your improvisations. Not all of them, but I do listen to them... well, periodically)
Nicki from The Vampire Lestat (Spoilers for TVC Book 2)
So obviously I’ve been reading The Vampire Lestat for the first ( I’m trying to read all of TVC), and before I started it I kept hearing about what a great relationship Nicki and Lestat had. How true and special their love was, etc. From other readers, fans of the show, and even Sam Reid in one interview. But when Nicki was first introduced after Lestat became the Wolfkiller, I just had bad vibes. It seemed, to me at least, that Nicki was very disingenuous or that he just didn’t care as much as Lestat did (about their friendship or romantic relationship).
Suffice it to say I was right. I’m on part 5 now (I’m a slow reader bear with me). So after Nicki is turned he enters this kind of catatonic state, and when he finally comes out of it he goes off on Lestat. He demands the theater and proceeds to tell Lestat that he never loved him, he was only with him to piss off his dad. That he was hoping that he and Lestat would fail in Paris or die so that his family (Nicki’s family) couldn’t later claim that they were proud of him. That he has always resented and hated that Lestat seems to succeed at all of the things he dedicates himself too. He also says that Lestat is stupid for still trying to be a good or even just semi decent person after being turned into a vampire.
So my point, or question rather, is why does everyone talk about this relationship like it was so sweet, and healthy, and loving?
Obviously I understand that Lestat’s feelings were true. That he did and still does truly love Nicki. But those feelings were never reciprocated. I noticed this as soon as they begun spending time together and Nicki would call Lestat’s thoughts and feelings (about everything really, but mostly art, life, death, and the meaning to life and death) ridiculous.
I’m trying to figure out how this is such a great love story, according to everyone else. On Lestat’s side, yes. He was feelings were true and he did everything he could think of to make Nicki feel loved and like he mattered. But that never went both ways. Even from the beginning.
Can someone tell me if I’m missing something (without spoilers, I’ve not finished the book yet)? Because it seems to me like their relationship was always one sided and never that great to begin with.
I must apologize first. And please know that I write that in good faith and with respect for you as a reader and an individual. I don't want to sound hurtful, but it seems to me you didn't read the first half of the book paying attention to Nicki's character at all. You say he treated Lestat poorly from the beginning? Didn't care about him, had to put up with him? Could you quote the passages that prove that? Because I can only find the opposite.
1) Nicki was absolutely in love with Lestat when he first met him, very excited to get to know him, rushing to their first meeting in a tavern as a giddy idiot.
2) He was clearly worried and scared when Lestat had his first encounter with The Darkness/existential crisis, did all to comfort him, cared for him, took him home, reassured him, played for him, held him again and again. Lestat also specifically describes him being genuine and without his usual sarcasm when he's playing violin for him the very first time.
3) Lestat says they were inseparable in Auvergne and recounts sweet things they did together (picnics, laying in an orchard eating fruit whatever it means, a lot of talking, Lestat sharing things he never told anyone else).
4) Lestat is not and never was a stupid naive gullible baby unable to read people that needs to be protected and pandered. God, this "everyone uses and abuses him" narrative is horrible. He is an adult man who is very capable of defending himself and hurting others. Himpathy, classical example. Yes, he can be vulnerable and he also suffers but that's not all that he is. If Nicki didn't care for him or hated him, he would know it. But he says that they were happy and super close and that Nicki understood him as no one else.
5) Nicki protected Lestat in Paris: insisted on him not seeing public executions, death, and other horrors; played on the streets for money with Lestat doing almost nothing but asking passerbys for to pay after Lestat spent all the money they had on theatre (plus Nicki accompanying him while he wasn't a fan at all, insisted on sharing his nice clothes with Lestat, which is a sweet gesture). Starting working at the Renaud's with him (again, if all Nicki wanted is for them to die, why on Earth was he doing that and not dragging Lestat deeper into poverty, alcoholism, and worse). Btw, that's precisely what Nicki is doing to himself when he believes that Lestat never loved him (after just returned vampire Lestat repeatedly pushed him away and threatened at Renaud's). He stops playing the violin, which is the only thing that he loves aside from Lestat and that gives him meaning, working, spends all his time in the most dangerous parts of the city drinking and basically looking for death.
6) Still, even then, after all the betrayal Nicki felt, when Lestat's mom comes to Paris to die, Nicki cleans himself, pulls himself together and spends days and nights beside her bed holding her hand. That's Lestat's words. While Gabrielle doesn't care about him at all and is absolutely fine to abandon him and everyone else when Lestat makes her a vampire. When Nicki is tortured and starts to rapidly unravel, she suggests sending him off to America and forgetting about him, to Lestat's horror (he knows he won't survive and we'll be treated worse than a madman).
7) The last thing Lestat sees in Nicki's mind before drinking his blood to turn him, is an image of them being together, living together, growing old together, so happy, so happy even in misery. That's a direct quote. That's in Nicki's mind. That's all he wanted. He was miserable and in pain, but loving Lestat made it bearable. He wanted to grow old with him and he knew he would be happy simply because they're together. Despite the pain and misery Nicki's life was otherwise.
8) The scene at Renaud's (Lestat's return as a vampire) is heartbreaking. Nicki immediately goes to him, hugs him, asks what happened. Despite Lestat continuously pushing him away physically and psychologically (he was afraid to kill him, but Nicki didn't know that, of course). When Lestat crashes out and everyone, the whole theatre is terrified and runs away, Nicki runs to Lestat and calls to him again and again to the point of being held by others for his safety (Lestat says they were terrified for Nicki's life). When Lestat is shot, Nicki runs to him, sees that, has a hysterical reaction (he though I would die in front of his eyes - Lestat). Lestat compares him to his dying horse. Nicki still clings to Lestat, doesn't want him to go, and Lestat repeatedly pushes him away and threatens him. He mentioned being afraid to break his spine trying to tear Nicki away from him.
9) Nicki helps Lestat learn his lines because Lestat can't read, and that's sweet. Nicki keeps a shrine to Lestat in their dressing room while Lestat is gone, keeping everything just as he left it in perfect order. When vampire Lestat stalks human Nicki, he reads his mind, how desperate and distraught he is. Nicki defends Lestat to their friends, insists that something happened to him, while others are fine with having Lestat's gifts and money and don't really care. Then Nicki senses Lestat's presence, calls out to him, and tries to summon him playing a heart wrenching melody for him on his balcony.
10) Lestat says that they were inexplicably happy in Paris, even in poverty, which, again, I believe him.
11) Nicki being sad and mean. Yeah, but he also feels guilty for that and feels pain for that and apologizes.
'But I was bruised by this little talk and he knew it, and as I started to pull off my boots, he got up from the chair and came and sat next to me.
"I'm sorry, " he said in the most broken voice. It was so changed from the posture of a minute ago that I looked up at him, and he was so young and so miserable that I couldn't help putting my arm around him and telling him that he must not worry about it anymore.'
Then he says that famous quote about Lestat being full of light, Nicki keeping his darkness away from him, because he desperately needs his light.
12) Jealousy. I sincerely hope you never truly understand that because to understand, you must be just as depressed and desperate and suicidal as Nicki was. I am this way, and of course I feel jealousy and anger even towards those I love when I'm at my lowest. Mental disorders are hard to understand and grasp, if you haven't gone through that, but as another example, if you were living with constant physical pain, disabled by it in so many ways, that your life would be for the most part unbearable, scared and terrified and exhausted of being scared and terrified, helpless and never truly understood even by the closest to you, because they can't possibly do that, and that's not even their fault, wouldn't you be angry and jealous of your friends and loved ones who are relatively healthy and do not have to go through all that? Even once? Also, if you're in a lot of pain, it's really, really hard to be nice and understanding and kind. And I sincerely don't wish that for you to understand, and I'm immensely sorry if you already do. Like, I'm a much better person and friend now that I'm medicated out of my mind and can more or less function. And even before I tried so hard to be kind and to not hurt others. But I still did.
13) Nicki's and Lestat's love story is a tragedy exactly because they loved each other so much and so deeply, and it still wasn't enough to survive the horror of the vampirism. And Nicki was written to die. He is innocent and young and very human and very fragile. He's jealous and insecure because he's human, and he's easy to break and ruin because he's mentally ill and miserable from the start. And it breaks my heart how people seemingly allow nuance and moral greyness to other characters but Nicki is vilified. It's especially discouraging for people with mental illnesses or even debilitating physical illnesses. We are not evil, we're weak and we're in pain. And it's hard to love us, yes, but we're not abusers or monsters or manipulators by default.
14) Oh, also, I haven't seen anyone mentioning that, but Nicki sacrificed everything for Lestat. When they're in Paris, his family disowned him. His university friends are terrible and soon not mentioned at all. He only has Lestat and the theatre troupe. No one else and nothing else. And he had friends and siblings, and mother before. They're just absent from then on. And then Lestat is gone, and after that the theatre troupe is gone on Lestat's orders. When Nicki is made vampire, he has no one at all. Of course he tries turning his former theatre friends and is forbidden and threatened, again, by Lestat. By that time he's certain Lestat doesn't love him and cannot stand him, which is true, at least partially. God, Nicki's turning is heartbreaking. He goes from thinking of him and Lestat being together until they die and "unspoken words of love coming from him" to a silent catatonic vampire, to whom Lestat's immediate reaction is that he cannot bear the sight of him. Nicki didn't do anything at that point to deserve that. He just died and was in pain. And then Lestat insists on him playing the violin, gets terrified and disgusted by the music, and runs away. Of course Nicki is certain that Lestat hates him and only sticks around due to the sense of responsibility.
Also, God, I don't want to be a dick at all, but many of what you wrote sounds kinda... childish? I mean... It's not an easy and linear story. It's like... It's as if you see a person being mean and hurtful to their lover at some point, and that somehow means they never truly loved them? Like as if Nicki's and Lestat's relationship must be this perfect and pure and no one says mean things to one another, no one doubts one another, no one is angry? It's... It's a really well-written book and Nicki is an incredibly well-written and interesting character. Because he's most likely based on Anne's own feelings and struggles, just as Louis. Do you know what a flawed character is? What it means to be weak? And I say it without any malice or contempt. I barely understood Nicki as a character when I first read the book at 15. I related to the sad suicidal part of him, yes, but that's more or less all. And I reread it many times before I could truly get him. I'm not some superior human. But I'm more knowledgeable and experienced than I was then, I've had a life, I've been through so much pain, and I've also been well educated and grown old, and I've read and seen and witnessed a lot, and I have a specific and unique connection to Nicki due to a severe chronic mental illness. I understand it from inside much better than I could at 15 or 20. So I guess it's okay to not understand. It still pains me, though, when people don't, and I sincerely hope that I was useful even a little trying to explain.
Ah, also, another important point is that Nicki is cynical and mean not because he's evil or cold. And Lestat knows that. He is this way because he's disillusioned and desperate. Lestat mentioned desperation a lot in respect to Nicki. Also, he realizes that Nicki needed justice, he needed the world to be just. But it could never be. He also needed something to believe in, that their existence had to have some meaning, and without God, in whom he could no longer believe, he saw life as meaningless. Existence of the true evil, of vampirism, breaks him completely. He says that he's better than Lestat at that and that he always belonged to the darkness, but it's just a bravado and delusion. That's his worst fear. The world is not only unjust and there's no God, but the only real truth of it is this complete magnificent evil of whatever he calls it. And he pretends to be a hunter in this world while he's always been a prey. He pretends for a while and then kills himself. As another note, it's a bit funny to me how he says that he and Lestat are equal now and that he's even better at it, while Nicki after his turning is just so traumatized that he becomes catatonic and keeps thinking about funeral pyres and monsters. Poor Nicki. I also love him for his vulnerability and weakness, because it makes him so human. And I think he's sometimes if not often hated and disliked precisely because he's weak. Because he breaks. Because he's not a perfect victim. Because he needs help and cannot survive on his own. And that's what being ill is very often. You're just doomed without help. Self-destructive, self sabotaging, pathetic disaster. And no amount of love can heal that. Maybe, that's the meaning of their relationship. That sometimes there's nothing you can do and your love is not enough. At least I can confirm it with my experience. It cannot fix you or heal you.
And finally, I don't blame Lestat, really. "To love me is to suffer me". Not many can do that and that's okay. So it's also a story about that. How hard and heartbreaking it is to no longer be able to love someone because you're not strong enough to share their suffering. It's horrific to be on the receiving end of that, but to be the one who leaves is also terrible. And arguably Lestat does that, and it's interesting and insightful to see him reaping the consequences of that and eventually being able to forgive himself.
I was going to respond in the comments but this is going to be pretty long. A couple things first. 1) I’m not offended. I wanted other people’s opinions. 2) I definitely read the first half of the book. These are just my personal opinions and interpretations of things (doesn’t mean I’m right, but it also doesn’t mean that I’m wrong). And 3) I do believe that Nicki cared about Lestat. I just don’t believe that he was in love with him. Or that he cared as much about their relationship that Lestat did (I’ll get into this later).
Point 1)I read this scene as the excitement someone feels when meeting a local celebrity (also, later it seemed premeditated and rehearsed to me, once I got further in the book).
Point 2) I think most people are concerned when someone they know and care about has a sudden mental breakdown and existential crisis right in front of them. Of course he would be worried about his friend.
Point 3) I know that spent a lot of time together they were friends. And again I do believe they cared about each other. That being said, neither one of them had any other friends, and they were both trying to spend as little time with their respectively horrible families. They did have anyone else to be with, it was the default. Up until this point they were practically held hostage in their own homes (obviously for different reasons). They were each other’s default.
Point 4) I don’t believe I ever said that Lestat was gullible or naive. Or even innocent. I said that at this point in history from, his point of view, everyone he’s known so far uses and abuses him. His family (plenty of physical and emotional abuse there), his mother (there relationship both before and after her turning is a whole separate conversation, but mainly the grooming and incest), Magnus (duh), Armand (attacks him tries to mind control him, then love bombs, and so much more) , and yes Nicki. Nicki starts hanging out with Lestat simply to piss his dad off, which he admits. Which is by definition using him. I’m fully aware how he feels about Nicki. My problem is how Nicki feels about Lestat.
Point 5) Yes, Nicki protected Lestat’s emotional state in Paris, which was very kind of him. But I also think he did it to save himself the extra emotional labor. As for him sharing his belongings and trying to make money, he didn’t have much of a choice there. They were living together, depending on each other. But I agree it was sweet of him. As for not letting him slip into further poverty, alcoholism, etc., Nicki literally later admits that he was hoping that they would fail then they left. Hoping they would either drink themselves to death, freeze to die, or the poverty would cause them to die from starvation. That’s not my opinion, Nicki says this himself in the book. As for him quitting the violin because he was even more depressed without Lestat. This is only partially accurate I think. Nicki had wanted to stop making music earlier, before they even left Auvergne. His depression (as well as his family and what he’s been through) makes him feel that it’s evil. Again his words. So yes, Lestat’ disappearance put the nail in the coffin, but him missing Lestat wasn’t the over all cause.
Point 6) Nicki making himself presentable for Gabrielle is very kind and caring. I agree. As for Lestat not sending Nicki away, as I’ve said, I absolutely believe Lestat loved Nicki, so this isn’t at all surprising.
Point 7) I believe I said this in a response to someone else in this thread, but I fully believe Nicki wanted to love Lestat. I think that Nicki believed since they both had such bad families and home lives that he and Lestat would have similar personalities. I think that once he realized that Lestat didn’t think or feel the same way he did, he couldn’t make himself feel for Lestat what Lestat felt for him. Or even what he himself wanted to feel for Lestat. But that doesn’t mean that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a life with Lestat, he wanted to grow old with him. He just couldn’t. And he couldn’t make himself. It’s not surprising that he wants something he knows he can’t make happen, it’s a pretty common thing.
Point 8) As for the reunion, I agree, this was absolutely heartbreaking. I think I cried. That being said, I’ve never seen anyone I’ve cared about be shot in front of me, but I would assume that anyone in that situation would horrified and scared. I don’t think that means he was in love with Lestat. Or that their relationship was stronger than it was.
Point 9) Nicki read Lesat’s lines to him because Lestat couldn’t read. Yes it was helpful, but seeing as their income was coming from the theatre at the time, it would’ve been more counterproductive if he hadn’t. Although i am aware that he wouldn’t have cared what happened to himself if Lestat wasn’t with him at the time. But just because he cared about Lestat more than he cared about himself doesn’t mean that he was in love with him. And obviously Nicki would stick up for Lestat and miss. He has literally no one else.
Point 10) Yes they were happy. That doesn’t mean that Nicki was in love with Lestat or necessarily reciprocated his feelings. I’m sure he cared about him, and loved him in some way. But I definitely feel it wasn’t the same thing that Lestat felt for him. And I don’t believe he does a good job at pretending he does.
Point 11) Nicki being sad and mean isn’t necessarily my issue. My issue is that during all of their “conversations” as Lestat calls them, every time Lestat voice his opinion or beliefs, Nicki either immediately tells him that he’s wrong or that he’s being ridiculous. He never actually takes his side into account. He does hear him out sometimes, but he never holds any weight to the things he says.
Point 12) Unfortunately you and I have depression in common with Nicki. I don’t believe his jealousy was ever malicious. I don’t think he wanted to be jealous or envious of Lestat. He just was. And unfortunately it built resentment within him. And I think it affected their relationship. I personally feel that before Lestat was kidnapped you could feel the tension between them.
Point 13) I don’t think Nicki is a bad person, I don’t believe I ever said that. I just don’t think he was in love with Lestat. I don’t think it was possible for him to reciprocate. I believe some of their issues were because of his mental illness (and Lestat’s, because he definitely had/has his own). And that it made things harder. But I don’t think it was the cause. I think the cause was that their love was never going to be what Lestat thought it was, or what Nicki wished he could make it. That doesn’t make him a monster though. Yes, their live story is a tragedy. In more ways than one though. It’s tragic because of the mental illness and the death of Nicki, but it’s also tragic because they could never love each other the way that the other needed. Or just as much as the other did. Lestat loved too much, and Nicki couldn’t love him enough.
Point 14) Nicki left with Lestat because he saw the chance to escape his horrible family and he took it. It’s that simple. No one forced him, no one coerced him. All Lestat did was ask, and Nicki jumped at the chance.I don’t think he was concerned with his feelings for Lestat at all in that moment. As for his turning, and him being alone as a new vampire. One, I’m aware that he was in a horrible mental state, but that doesn’t change the fact that he pushed Lestat away. And I don’t recall him even liking the other members of the theater troupe. He just wanted to make more vampires. And it’s a good thing that they didn’t let, he was in no headspace for that. He was lonely though. Rightfully. And he should’ve never been turned, given the headspace he was in. That being said, he did ask to be turned. Even though I agree Lestat shouldn’t have done it, it was his choice. One Lestat told him was a horrible idea. And Lestat not want anything to do with him after his turning was unfair. Although given, how he turned out it’s hard to hold that against him. He wanted to cause pain to people because he felt pain. He admits that he never loved Lestat. That he wanted them to either fail their endeavors or die (by starvation, freezing to death or drinking themselves to death) so that his father and family could never claim they were proud of him. All of this he says himself. He says how Lestat has always been stupid for trying to be a good person. And then tells him how much he hates him. So while it didn’t initially make sense why Lestat couldn’t stand the now vampiric Nicki, within only 72 hours it all makes sense. And this is a major reason that I don’t see their relationship as this great love story.
Point 15) I think I already touched on this, but just in case. Nicki being jaded and pessimistic about the world isn’t why I think he isn’t in love with Lestat. Or doesn’t reciprocate the romantic feelings Lestat has for him. We all can be jaded and mean and emotional sometimes that doesn’t make us bad people. I don’t think Nicki is a bad person. I just think he doesn’t feel the same way about Lestat that Lestat feels about him. Nicki has no one once he starts the Theatre de Vampires because he pushed Lestat away, and he couldn’t make any other connections. With the other vampires or with the human troupe that they worked with.
Point 16) As for me sounding childish. I’m 22 take that to mean what you want. I think that Nicki is a phenomenally written character. I never said that he wasn’t, or that he had to be the perfect person or love interest. But I do think that he wasn’t in love with Lestat. I think he found companionship in him and he thought that would be enough to form a long lasting relationship. It obviously wasn’t. I don’t think that expecting Nicki to care for someone he was sharing his life with beyond a superficial level is childish. I don’t want him to be perfect. I just don’t think that this a an epic love story when it’s romantically so one sided.
Point 17) I understand that he was hurting and he was scared. And the bravado he was showing. I personally have had my own struggles with depression and whether or not God exists and the darkness in this world. But I don’t take it o out on the people I love. I don’t tell the people that I love that what they believe is wrong and ridiculous just because I don’t want to be miserable alone. That’s not something you do to people you love. But I agree that he needed something to believe. In fact I believe this is why he clung onto his relationship with Lestat, knowing he didn’t feel and couldn’t feel what Lestat did. What he wanted to feel. Again this doesn’t make him evil or a monster, I never thought it did. Although, I would argue that Nicki IS the perfect victim. That he didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to him. (Except demanding to be a vampire, but he didn’t know what he was getting himself into) It’s not his fault that he couldn’t love Lestat, or that he was mentally ill, or that he was tortured. He couldn’t change any of those things.
Point 18) I don’t blame anyone for what happened. The relationship ending the way it did or Nicki’s death. I don’t think it could’ve been helped. Lestat couldn’t have helped Nicki. His love wouldn’t have ever been enough. It’s sad but it’s true. And Nicki couldn’t have ever truly loved Lestat. He couldn’t even love himself. He had to many issues within himself and his own life. And trying to force this relationship (on Nicki’s part), trying to force himself to love Lestat in a way he knew he couldn’t, forcing himself into these situations (going to Paris, joining the theatre, becoming a vampire), it all was too much for him. And it really is a tragedy. No ones the villain, no one’s at fault. Neither of them did anything wrong.
All that being said, I don’t believe that this is a great love story. I believe that Nicki cared about Lestat, maybe even loved him. I don’t believe he was ever IN love with Lestat though. He says and does to many things that would contradict that. Again, a large example is what he says to Lestat after becoming a vampire at theatre. And I don’t think we can excuse all the cruel things he says by saying that he was mentally unwell. All of that had been building for a while it’s clear to see. But, like I said, there were other moments that it was clear to me to.
In conclusion, yes, Lestat and Nicki’s story is a heartbreaking tragedy. Yes, Nicki deserved better. No he was not evil, or a villain. He just wasn’t in love with Lestat. He cared for him. He wanted to be in love with him, but he couldn’t. So, even though I know Lestat was in love with Nicki, I still can’t see how people tote their relationship as this pure, true love. It just doesn’t seem that way to me.
Well, that's good that you weren't offended, because I'm goint to get even more unsufferable)) Also, every time you feel the urge to mention that 'you never said that', don't mind it. I didn't mean that that's what I thought you believed. I did share my thoughts about the ideas and beliefs about Nicki's chracter or his relationship with Lestat that exist in the fandom in general and were related to what we've discussed. If there's anything you say that I don't agree with, I'd call it out directly. And it's not like I hate you or think you're stupid or anything, it's not personal, really, I just treat it as a literary debate rather. I also try not to treat characters themselves as people and individuals but rather as vessels to explore ideas and phenomenas, and I mainly take issue with takes on Nicki's character because of what he represents - a mentally ill comunity. I deeply care about this community and believe that there's a lot of misconceptions and harmful, even dangerous beliefs about us. With Nicki more often than not, peoples dislike or hate of him is directly tied to his mentall illness and not his character, I'll get to it later, so I feel the need to address it.
As another general note, I'm glad that we both don't consider either character a villain and that you don't think that Nicki is a bad person.
And it also became a dissertation, so, I'm sorry, and you don't have to read it all. I'm not forcing you)
Speaking of him never loving Lestat, however, I disagree with that. You say that he din't love Lestat, couldn't love him, but wanted to love him. And that even though he didn't love him, he cared about him. Well, 1) how can you know if he didn't love and even further, couldn't love him? We just cannot know. The book is written from Lestat's perspective, there're no letters from Nicki, and we can only know what Lestat observed and what he said Nicki said, and a three instances of him reading Nicki's mind. So only these three instances might be actually used to know what Nicki felt or thought. To say that a person is incapable of love is a very strong statement. Why? Because he is a raging narcissist or bipolar or whatever and it's not in his nature to be capable of love? Is there something about Lestat making him impossible for Nicki to love? Do we have actual proof of Nicki's inability to love Lestat? 2) If Nicki cannot love Lestat or love him to the same extent Lestat loves him, whatever it is, but he wants to, needs to, forces himself to love him, and even if he failed at that, still cares about Lestat, isn't it what love is? What defenition of love are you applying to them? Love is a feeling, it's unique to every person, we all feel it differently, we all define it differently. It's still love. Love being or not being enough is a point of perspective, and that's okay. 3) If Nicki doesn't love Lestat but wants to love him, why? Because he doesn't want to be alone and wants something to believe in? Then why specifically Lestat? Why does he want or need to believe in something? Likely because he doesn't really want to die, and believing in something is what he needs to continue living. Okay, but why Lestat? What's so unique about him, why Nicki chooses him? Because there's no one else? No one else who would love Nicki? Well, that's not true. He said to Lestat the last night they were together as mortals, 'I love you as I have loved few people in my life'. Meaning he loved other people in his life, few, but not none. He could've tried to believe in them. And if he was just putting up with Lestat, envious and annoyed by him, despising him for his ideals and beliefs, why stay with him and force himself to love him? We've established that Nicki wanted to be ruined and to die, so he could leave Lestat at any moment if he started to despise him and do that, but he was not leaving him. In fact, he was terrified of losing him (the night Lestat was shot, and his anguish during the months after he dissapeared). But why if he simply 'cared' about him? Or 'pretended' to love him. It seems to me like too much effort to put in keeping a relationship with someone you despise or vaguely care about for no reason, considering that Nicki hated Paris, didn't want to live, and was bitterly dissapointed in God and humanity. Why stick around? If his 'care' for Lestat was forcing him to keep living and trying really hard to 'love' Lestat 'enough', if this 'care' was stronger than his depression and despair and misery, why not call it love?
Another thing, is that I see you bring up their last argument a lot as a large and, as I understand it, main reason why you believe Nicki never loved Lestat. You say:
>> He says and does to many things that would contradict that.
Which 'many' things? Please list them. I'm not doing that to torture you or because I disrespect you. It's just normal for us, when something makes a strong impression on us, to start to believe or assume that we have 'many' reasons for that. And when we start counting them, it's just two things, or something. The same goes for twisting reality and our memory to match our belief, working from up to bottom. When we take a rather ambiguous fact that can be applied to any end, but use it as evidence for our particular belief. Also, saying that 'there're many things", or "mountain of evidence", or "it's a common knowledge" to support a statement is just a really bad argument.
Then you say:
>> we can excuse all the cruel things he says by saying that he was mentally unwell
And it ties to the argument used as an 'evidence' in general by you or other people. Its not that he was mentally unwell. He was mentally unwell before he met Lestat and when they were living together in Paris as mortals. At the time of the argument, Nicki is in probably one of the worst states he's ever been in his life. He's completely manic (just went from complete catatonia to all that). He just performed that fucked up violin solo ("music was a lamentation, a future of terror", "melody melted into harrowing sadness", 'it screamed of pain, of horror, of the pure rebellion of the soul against all things') that Lestat describes as the violin telling Nicki's story and the melody being his thoughts, and that melody is so horrible that it makes Lestat have something akin to a panic attack.
Lestat's description of Nicki's mind during his turning is also telling:
"I screamed but without a sound. I felt my mouth full of blood and each swallow passing down my throat and into fathomless thirst. And I wanted to say, yes, I understand now, I understand how terrible, how unbearable, this darkness. I didn't know. Couldn't know. The bird sailing on through the darkness over the barren shore, the seamless sea. Dear God, stop it. Worse than the horror in the inn. Worse than the helpless trumpeting of the fallen horse in the snow."
"But please stop this vision. Stop the upward flight and the great slant of the colorless landscape, the cawing that meant nothing over the howl of the wind. The pain is nothing compared to this darkness. I don't want to . . . I don't want to . . ."
To me, it sounds truly horrific, unbearable. And that's the state Nicki was likely more or less in even before. Another instance of Lestat reading his mind:
"Yet I couldn't stop myself from sensing a vast secret terrain inside him, grimmer perhaps than I had ever dreamed, and his words came back to me that the darkness in him was like the darkness I'd seen at the inn, and that he tried to conceal it from me. I could almost see it, this terrain. And in a real way it was beyond his mind, as if his mind were merely a portal to a chaos stretching out from the borders of all we know. Too frightening that.
I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to feel what he felt!"
That's after Lestat was kidnapped but before the horrors. Lestat consistently cannot bear what's inside Nicki's mind. And you're right when you say that Lestat has his own suffering and mental struggles, but he's incredibly strong, even as a young vampire. He has a talent for enduring. And still, he cannot bear or endure Nicki's darkness (or mental illness in other words) at all, which, I think, speaks of its severity.
But that's not even all of that!
The events leading to Nicki's breakdown and 'the speech' are the following:
Lestat's abduction (Nicki hears him screaming his name but cannot wake, later finds the window broken + the supernatural nature of all that, room being locked from inside)
Months spent without Lestat, when his friends are low-key gaslighting him into believing that Lestat is fine while he knows it's not true, and Lestat not communicating with him at all, just sending money (Nicki later directly says that money mean nothing to him and I guess that's why this behavior angered him, that he wanted to actually hear from Lestat and for Lestat to return basically)
Lestat's traumatizing return that leaves Nicki seeing Lestat being killed but still alive and with a broken heart, as Lestat describes it (Lestat continue throwing money at everyone and runs away)
Nicki goes straight to drinking himself to death
Lestat continues not communicating with anyone, throwing money at everyone, demanding all to leave Paris, and Nicki go to Italy with his mother because he knows Nicki cares about her, loves her, as he says
Nicki has to wath Gabrielle slowly dying and then dissapearing with Lestat in a supernatural way (again, no communication from Lestat whatsoever)
Nicki starts to believe that Lestat has likely discovered witchcraft, shared it with his mother, and wants nothing to do with Nicki now, because he is a commoner, but Lestat and Gabrielle are nobles, and witchcraft is reserved for their kind. Likely starts to question whether Lestat loved him to begin with or even if he did, he must've considered him inferior and clearly didn't value him as much as Nicki did ("I would have shared anything I possessed with you!")
Nicki is kidnapped by the Armand's coven, tortured, fed on, starved at least for two nights and a day, kept in a cage atop a pyre with lit torches ready to be killed ("I could find no recognition in his face or his thoughts", "Nicolas looked like an animated corpse")
Lestat saves Nicki, locks him in the tower. Nicki has another breakdown, is turned into a vampire, goes catatonic
Lestat is immediately repulsed by him and can't stand him, so he's only cared for by Gabrielle, until he escapes
I'd also say that Lestat communicates with Nicki really poorly. You said that Nicki didn't love Lestat 'enough' or not as much as Lestat. Well, I honestly don't think Lestat loved Nicki enough. Or he did, he just communicated it extremely poorly after being turned, which is understandable, so I don't blame him. But even before, Lestat never really understood Nicki (at the very least, the extent of his mental illness - see the quotes above).
I'm absolutely not surprised that Nicki would think that Lestat didn't love him or hated him after he dissapeared. No communication whatsoever except for the money and gifts, coldness and detachment at Renaud's, not explaining anything (the only verbal exchange they had in months is Lestat yelling "Let go of me, Nicki!" and pushing him away), still expecting Nicki to follow his orders after (take Gabrielle to Italy), and then that whole turning event. Nicki is hysterical and tries to talk to Lestat, and Lestat replies with exactly five lines of dialogue that included: "You have misunderstood everything. You have misunderstood everything you have seen and heard. " and "Take your life and leave with it. Run. " I'm sorry, Lestat has suffered through horrors and everything, but Nicki did as well, and you're in control now, Lestat, completely, and you can't bring yourself to at least try and comfort your lover? He just tells Nicki that he has misunderstood everything, strikes him in the middle of that, so Nicki falls to the ground and is terrified of him, says that he, Lestat, didn't want this power, thank you for sharing at least that, and then beckons Nicki to come. Then Nicki is turned, and Lestat is repulsed by him. Wonderful. That's all the communication they had in monthsssss. Like seriously. And Nicki, who even before the turning went super mad and broken, must be gentler and nicer to Lestat, must be understanding? Put aside all that's been done to him and be there for Lestat? Hoping that he'll stop hating the sight of him, as Nicki is apparently repulsive now once he died? Or once Lestat saw his illness and darkness in its fullness for the first time? And no, violin playing doesn't help. Hurts Nicki a lot, arguably kills the last shreds of humanity in him (that 'Devil's instrument' phrase) and breaks his mind completely, but doesn't make Lestat love him again. Further communication from Lestat is the following: "It is petty! It is merely beautiful and clever and nothing more. " (about Nicki's ideas for the theatre), "There is no splendor in it, there is nothing sublime. Fooling helpless mortals, mocking them, and then going out from here at night to take life in the same old petty manner, one death after another in all its inevitable cruelty and shabbiness so that we can live. And man can kill another man! Play your violin forever. Dance as you wish. Give them their money's worth if it keeps you busy and eats up eternity! It's simply clever and beautiful. A grove in the Savage Garden. Nothing more. ", "You may have it, if you wish. It is yours if it will take you and your malice and your fractured reason off my hands. " (about Nicki wanting the theatre), "Oh, Nicki... ". Then hits him twice, throwing him to a wall each time, the second time is just beautiful. "I turned and smacked him and sent him hurtling into the dressing room, his right hand smashing the mirror, his head cracking against the far wall. For one moment he lay like something broken against the mass of old clothing". Cool cool cool. I wonder why Nicki hates him so much. And it's not like Lestat isn't angry with him, he is very much so.
Also, that 'speech' Lestat provoked out of Nicki. He insisted on Nicki answering him, and that's just after insulting him, saying that his ideas for vampiric existence are petty and meaningless, that there's nothing special about them, that a mortal man can kill another man, and that his theatre is just beautiful and clever, nothing splendind about it. Mocks him, "play your violin forever, dance as you wish, give them their money's worth" which is a step away from comparing Nicki to a prostitute, honestly, and that's especially hurting because that was Lestat's whole thing when they were mortals. Nicki saying that they engage in bad art (basically mediocre meaningless comedic plays akin to modern soap operas, I encourage you to read about Lelio and the plays featuring him) that is meaningless and Lestat replying that well, at least it makes people happy and keeps them from thinking about meaningliness and death, so it's a good thing. So Lestat's "beautiful and clever" plays are not petty, they're good, they're meaningful simply because they make people happier, even if there's no splendor or depth to them, but Nicki's "beautiful and clever" plays are petty. Interesting. And it's devastating, because that's the only meaning Nicki can scramble out of his current existence now that he:
believes that Lestat no longer loves him;
knows for sure that there's no God;
knows for certain that there's evil, though, and it's vast and overconsuming, that renders everything else meaningless;
life is still meaningless;
playing the violin is also kinda meaningless because he mastered it in minutes with his new vampiric powers - something he wouldn't ever be able to do as a mortal. It's truly crushing when you torture yourself for years trying to achive something, and then here comes an evil murderous creature and masters the same thing within minutes as if it's nothing.
So life is hell. And aside of all that you're still super ill and this Dark Gift didn't cure you, and you are still lesser and iferior. Even worse, it made your illness worse.
Okay, we have that, then we have Lestat throwing Nicki across the room and excersing his power and control over him to terrify him so him would answer him:
'When I saw he wouldn't move, my anger rose up and out of me like an invisible fist. And I saw him moved backwards as if the fist had struck him. And he hit the wail with sudden force. I could have been free of the place in an instant. I knew Gabrielle was only waiting to follow me. But I didn't leave. I stopped and looked back at him, and he was still against the wall as if he couldn't move. And he was watching me and the hatred was as pure, as undiluted by remembered love, as it had been all along. But I wanted to understand, I wanted really to know what had happened. And I came towards him again in silence and this time it was I who was menacing, and my hands looked like claws and I could feel his fear. They were all, except for Eleni, full of fear. I stopped when I was very close to him and he looked directly at me, and it was as if he knew exactly what I was asking him.'
Nicki:
"All a misunderstanding, my love, " he said. Acid on the tongue.
The blood sweat had broken out again, and his eyes glistened as if they were wet. "It was to hurt others, don't you see, the violin playing, to anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule.
They would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it. "
It's not about his love for Lestat or their relationship. Misunderstanding is him mocking Lestat for calling his perceptions about evil/vampirism misunderstanding. And more, it's about what playing the violin meant to Nicki. Lestat was insisting that it was beautiful and good because it affected others. And Nicki says that no, it had nothing to do with others, and there's nothing good or beautiful in it because it's brought from pain. Also, this whole sentence reeks of despair. And also, desperate desire for freedom, even if the only way to achieve it was through self-destruction and death. It's not about Lestat or his ideas, it's about Nicki. And Lestat never understood it about him and thus was only hurting him saying all that things about goodness and beauty and somber light. And wet eyes is clearly Nicki crying. So it's not like 'I'm in control, I'm enjoying hurting you', it's 'I'm in pain, partially because of you, so I bite back, plus you never really understood me even though you claimed to love me'.
Then:
"And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that we would go down and down and down. It was what I wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them. I thought we would go down! We were supposed to go down. "
'We decided' - he didn't force Lestat, didn't manipulate him into joining him on this double-suicide trip, he says it was their joint decision. 'I thought we would starve' - not I hoped or I wanted. He thought. And that's fair, why wouldn't they? All the odds were againsts them. 'I though we would go down, we were supposed to'. Again, nothing about Lestat or that Nicki wanted that for Lestat. He though they would die because they were supposed to - it's not his evil plan, his end goal 'supposed to', it's an obvious consequence. Because he's not naive and idealistic, he suspected it wouldn't work out.
'And for every aspect of our proposed damnation you found exuberance, and there was no end to your enthusiasm and the passion coming out of you-and the light, always the light. And in exact proportion to the light coming out of you, there was the darkness in me! Every exuberance piercing me and creating its exact proportion of darkness and despair!'
Yeah, classical desperate envy of a really sick person. It's hard to watch someone succed and remain strong and full of light and passion and enthusiam no matter what when you could never be that strong. It's torturous witnessing it and being intimately close with it, when you fucking cannot be like that, and you only get worse because of the despair and hopelessness of that. And it's equally torturous when it's someone you love and want to be happy for, and support them, but it's so hard to do that when you're just spiraling down and down. It's a miracle and I don't even know what it takes to remain kind and supportive, and genuinely happy for your loved one, and don't feel even an ounce of despair or envy when you're in a really bad place and are only getting worse. It's human to envy when you're like that, we're no saints.
'And what did you do with it but use your Satanic powers to simulate the actions of a good man! '
I fully support Nicki on that. They're now evil. They're murderers. They're unnatural beings, they're corpses that must prey on living people and drink their blood to exist. By their very nature, they're evil. It's hypocrisy to try to act as a moral person, to do good. Your whole existence is abhorent. What amount of good deeds exactly will excuse the hundreds of murders you commited? The only moral thing Lestat could do is to throw himself in the fire after Magnus or scatter his ashes and go into the sun. Continue living and attempting to be 'ethical' is obscene. Of course Nicki is pissed off by that hypocrisy and Lestat's projected moral superiority (plus all that 'oh Nicki, you stupid little thing, you misunderstood everything'). And Nicki apparently has these high moral standards and desire and need for justice, so by his standards, yeah, unforgivable behavior.
"And for what purpose? What does it mean, the murdering monster who is filled with light! "
Exactly. It's absurd.
Then Lestat throws him that second time I quoted.
"I despise you, " he said.
No wonder.
So, like, yes, Nicki is being mean and nasty, but Lestat is not much better. They're equally mean and horrible to each other, the only difference is that Lestat is in control and Nicki not at all, well, barely.
Also, if 'But I am done with you. ... and then I won't ever look upon your light again.' is not this typical response of a heartbroken miserable thing that is trying really hard to show that they don't care, I don't love you at all now, not going to miss you, I'm fine without you, and that's me breaking up with you, not you! take your beautiful face and beautiful soul elsewhere, never needed them in the first place, than I don't know what it is. Like all this talk about his light and him not needing it anymore. He clearly needs it.
All I see is despair and broken heart. Maybe, if Nicki wasn't as insane as he was at that point, he would come around, but then Lestat left, and he only spiraled further.
And also they were both young and stupid, they were like 20. And went through all that shit. Expecting both of them to behave rationally, well, lol.
So, Nicki never says that he never loved Lestat or that he was hoping Lestat would die. He is bitter and angry and unraveling and is pushed beyound his limits.
Okay, I'm not done!
>> Point 1)I read this scene as the excitement someone feels when meeting a local celebrity (also, later it seemed premeditated and rehearsed to me, once I got further in the book).
Rehearsed and premeditated?) So we're going into the manipulative obsessed narcissist playing 4d chests with Lestat territory? I've read somewhere, due to the ridiculousness of this whole idea, a suggestion that it was Nicki's plan all along. That it's he who summoned the wolves to the village, so Lestat had to kill them, and Nicki would get him to himself. Also, all Lestat did is killed the wolves alone. Yeah, amazing, but Nicki was also studying under Mozart and attending a Parisian univesity with all his posh friends and their modern cool cynical chats in cafes and bars surrounded by the contemporary intellectuals and artists. And with Nicki's disillusionment and disgust with these mortal passions and shallowness was likely not giving a damn about celebrities. And he was super rich and fashionable and educated and whatever. I can't believe he would care about Lestat if the only thing he liked about him were the wolves. Lestat describes Nicki during their first meetings (giving the cloak and then the tavern) as affectionate and kind. Yes, he and his father almost worship him when they meet him, but he is a noble lord, and they're kinda his subjects. There's this status disparity between them that was very real at that time. @savagewilderness did an amazing post about that. But I think he liked Lestat because he saw a similar soul in him. They were both rebels, both strange. He remembered Lestat crying at the Witches Place, showing kindness and empathy instead of superstition and fear. He tells him that he's also impossible and comforts him saying that only the impossible can do the impossible, while Lestat's brothers mock him. Very nice of him. If you say that was premeditated, I will kill you) And for a manipulative narcissist he is kinda passive. Never approached Lestat before, gave the gifts, asks if he minds meeting again, left. Didn't contact Lestat until Lestat decided that he wants to meet him. Was very intrigued and pleased with Lestat's personality ('Ah, you're a dreamer!'). Lestat likely attracts him and charms him by his kindness and light and idealistic worldview, while Nicki is dissapointed in everything and everyone. He does for Lestat whatever he wants, runs home to catch his violin to play for Lestat when he asks, genuinely touched by Lestat's reaction. Don't know, looks like a genuine mutual attraction, like finding a person who truly gets you when you lost all hope of finding them, so you become inseparable and just yap for hours and are stupidly in love.
>> Point 2) I think most people are concerned when someone they know and care about has a sudden mental breakdown and existential crisis right in front of them. Of course he would be worried about his friend.
So at least they're friends)) But also, what a diminishment and minimalizing of Nicki's feelings. Ah, it's nothing special, anyone would behave like that.
Let's also revisit the first date at the tavern and Nicki playing.
"Monsieur, what's the matter! " he said, almost helplessly.
Aww, almost helplessly, and they just met.
He sat next to me, hugging me and asking me why I was crying, and though I couldn't tell him, I could see that he was overwhelmed that his music had produced this effect. There was no sarcasm or bitterness in him now.
I'm inclined to believe Lestat when he describes him like that. I truly don't know why you would read it as something else than a genuine affection, or something to be brushed away, or even worse, premeditated. Besides, Lestat is literally crying and being emotional all the time, if Nicki didn't like him, I can't imagine him putting up with all that, and Lestat opening up to him as much. He told him everything about himself. And Nicki did likewise. I just can't believe you can do that with someone who is tricking you and barely cares about you. That's real closeness. And in a matter of weeks at that point, like they got from a lord and a merchant's son to sharing secrets Lestat hasn't even told his mother.
"You and the theaters of Paris, " he said to me. "No matter what we're talking about you bring it back to the theaters and the actors-' His brown eyes were very big and trusting.
There's no scorn or mockery, it's rather affectionate. Nicki is cynical, yes, but Lestat's passion is endearing to him.
"I'm speaking of those who won't accept a useless lie, just because they were born to it. ... They work, they sacrifice, they do things. . . " He was moved by this, and I was a little surprised that I'd said it. Yet I felt I had hurt him somehow.
They're disagreeing here, and on the very serious topic of basically faith and morality, and Nicki is moved, though hurt.
He looked sad for me. And he looked hurt still. ... As if he could read my mind, he asked:
"But do you really believe those things? "
To me, it's compassion and sadness and affection of a cynical and disillusioned person seeing naivety and hope in someone they like or love. He's not moking him, he is sad for him.
Lestat insisting that there's goodness in acting, Nicki not believing in that:
He shook his head. And I knew there were things he wanted to say which out of respect for me he was leaving to silence.
"You don't understand, do you? " I asked.
"Lestat, sin always feels good, " he said gravely. "Don't you see that? '
Again, he's not mocking him, he's not hurting him. He's absolutely disagreeing with him, but he doesn't want to hurt him, even though ne himself is already hurt and in a bad mood (Lestat asked him about him sacrifising everything for the violin). An you must understand, that it's the 18th century, and the Christianity was much farther away from its nowadays version. Actors were considered sinners and had to be buried outside of the Church's grounds. Lestat was raised practically an atheist, but Nicki was still religious. I mean, he was dissapointed in Christianity and was going through the 'I like sin and cannot escape it which means that I'm a sinner and belong in Hell so I guess that's it, and I hate myself and everything is sad and bad' phase.
Also, he's not being simply worried abut him. He is literally doing evrything in his power to comfort him and help him, and when nothing works:
And then Nicolas said maybe the music would make me feel better. He would play the violin.
I was afraid of the intensity of it. But we went to the orchard and in the sunshine Nicolas played every song he knew.
... and Nicolas put his arms around me finally and we just sat there silent, and then he said very softly, "Lestat, believe me, this will pass. "
"Play again, " I said. "The music is innocent. " Nicolas smiled and nodded.
I mean, he is caring and gentle and kind and not annoyed or mocking at all. He is very understanding. Maybe because Lestat is going through something he's already experienced (meaninglessness of existence).
Also, I'm just skimming the book now, and I've found this:
"Get your violin! " I said. "Play a song about going to Paris, we're on our way. We're going in the morning! "
"And how are we going to feed ourselves in Paris? " he sang out as he made with his empty hands to play an invisible violin. "Are you going to shoot rats for our supper? "
How sweet, Nicki is quoting what Lestat earlier said to him. They're sweet.
Also:
"Because I'll be damned in hell before I'll play the penniless country cousin begging at the big houses. "
"Do you think I want you to do that? " he demanded. "I mean run away, Lestat, " he said.
He says that he doesn't want Lestat to basically go to other nobles and ask for money. Which is very nice of him, he respects Lestat and doesn't want him to go through that.
I loved this change in "our conversation "! I loved seeing him believe we could do it. All his cynicism had vanished, even though he did throw in the word "spite " every ten words or so. It seemed possible suddenly to do all this. And this notion of the meaninglessness of our lives here began to enflame us.
Lestat describes Nicki being genuinely hopeful about running away, no longer cynical, but excited. And look, in 'the speech' Nicki says the exact opposite, that he wanted to die and go down in Paris. But this whole conversation (it's just before Lestat's existencial crisis) is so hopeful and sincere.
"I'll play my violin for coins on the boulevard du Temple if I have to, and you can go to the theaters! " Now he was really challenging me.
Again, if you say that it was his evil plan all along, and he was lying here, setting a trap for Lestat, because he wanted them to fail, I mean...
We were at the inn again and Nicolas, who was walking about the room and gesturing dramatically, declared what had been on our minds all along. That we should run away to Paris, even if we were penniless, that it was better than remaining here. Even if we lived as beggars in Paris! It had to be better.
I don't read it as a manipulation or whatever. It's hopeful. And it's a story as old as time, really. Young lovers running to a big city with nothing but a dream. He's twenty, he's not a Gone Girl or whatever, he fell in love and found meaning in his life again and is finally hopeful about his future, because it had to be better.
Also, regarding them being each others defaults. Nicki had friends and loved ones. At school, at university, likely his siblings and mother (he only hates his father). Maybe not at that particular time, but he had them before. Lestat is not like his first friend or loved one ever. Yes, he was isolated when they became friends, but because he was disgraced and just came from Paris. I don't think he chose Lestat out of desperation and because there was no one else so he was stuck with him.
>> Nicki starts hanging out with Lestat simply to piss his dad off, which he admits. Which is by definition using him.
When? When did he admit that?
>> Yes, Nicki protected Lestat’s emotional state in Paris, which was very kind of him. But I also think he did it to save himself the extra emotional labor.
That's what I meant when I said about deciding on something and then interpreting everything to fit this concept. In this case, you take something good a person does and interpret it as them being selfish. Them not doing that because they love and care and have something good in them but because they self-preserve and are annoyed and tired of dealing with the consequences of them not doing the right thing. It paints Nicki as this calculating narcissist who only cares about himself and does it for himself. You do say 'also', but I still disagree. It is just offensive. It's very hurtful to say to a person that they're caring about their loved one, at part, because they want to save themselves unnecessary emotional labor. And also, if Nicki truly wanted for them to fail and freeze to death, why not let Lestat drop deeper into despair and existencial crisis he knows he is susceptible to? They'd die much faster.
>> As for him sharing his belongings and trying to make money, he didn’t have much of a choice there. They were living together, depending on each other. But I agree it was sweet of him. As for not letting him slip into further poverty, alcoholism, etc., Nicki literally later admits that he was hoping that they would fail then they left. Hoping they would either drink themselves to death, freeze to die, or the poverty would cause them to die from starvation.
He didn't have much of a choice, as they were depending on each other but he 'literally later admits that he was hoping that they would fail then they left. Hoping they would either drink themselves to death, freeze to die', or starve. I mean, please read that again. He hoped they would starve/freeze to death/drink themselves to death but he had no choice but to support Lestat and earn money as they depended on each other? Why? Why earning money? If his goal is to kill them? And starve them?
Besides, he doesn't 'literally admit' that he hoped they would die. But I've covered that above.
>> Nicki had wanted to stop making music earlier, before they even left Auvergne. His depression (as well as his family and what he’s been through) makes him feel that it’s evil. Again his words.
Please present me a quote. Because he also says that he wants to be a great violinist, and while in Auvergne, he could at least pretend that he could do that. That's a conversation somewhere near Lestat being kidnapped.
>> I think that once he realized that Lestat didn’t think or feel the same way he did, he couldn’t make himself feel for Lestat what Lestat felt for him. Or even what he himself wanted to feel for Lestat. But that doesn’t mean that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a life with Lestat, he wanted to grow old with him. He just couldn’t. And he couldn’t make himself.
Just give up at this point. He wanted a life with Lestat. But he couldn't. But he wanted. He wanted to love him. But he couldn't. But he tried. I mean, usually, when you find out that the person you love is not who you thought they were, you go through all those stages of grief and eventually leave them. And that happened. After Lestat dissapeared and came back. Not before. Also, you can still love someone even if you have different views. My opinion is more like he wouldn't fell in love with Lestat if they were exactly the same. He desperately needed Lestat's light. He wouldn't just date himself. He needed Lestat precisely for their differences, he gave him hope.
>> That being said, I’ve never seen anyone I’ve cared about be shot in front of me, but I would assume that anyone in that situation would horrified and scared.
My point from above about dismissing and minimizing. Well, not a big deal, anyone would be scared. He was not scared. He was inconsolable and hysterical. And it is in the context of Lestat doing all those unnatural things and terrifying everyone. And Nicki still desperately tried to be with him. You must really care about someone to behave like that. And like, what do you mean, with someone you care about? Like there's a spectrum? A girl from school you like to hang out with but never talk outside of school to your partner or parent? Or is it a close friend - lover - child - parent spectrum? If the latter, I mean, the intensity of 'care' can be pretty much the same. It's just different kinds of love.
>> Nicki read Lesat’s lines to him because Lestat couldn’t read. Yes it was helpful, but seeing as their income was coming from the theatre at the time, it would’ve been more counterproductive if he hadn’t.
But he wanted them to freeze to death and starve and die! It was his hope and goal! It would be very productive to force Lestat to loose his income and shorten the distance between them and starvation.
>> Although i am aware that he wouldn’t have cared what happened to himself if Lestat wasn’t with him at the time. But just because he cared about Lestat more than he cared about himself doesn’t mean that he was in love with him.
Interesting. What does it mean?
>> And obviously Nicki would stick up for Lestat and miss. He has literally no one else.
Yeah, good point. So I guess that suggests that without Lestat his life was pretty much meaningless and that would make Lestat's dissapearance especially heartbreaking?
>> I’m sure he cared about him, and loved him in some way.
Give up. You're so close.
>> My issue is that during all of their “conversations” as Lestat calls them, every time Lestat voice his opinion or beliefs, Nicki either immediately tells him that he’s wrong or that he’s being ridiculous. He never actually takes his side into account. He does hear him out sometimes, but he never holds any weight to the things he says.
Of course he doesn't take his side and doesn't hold weight to the things he says, just as Lestat doesn't do that for him. They have very different views about God and goodness. And while they both are afraid of meaninglessness of existence, their ways of dealing with that are very different. Lestat basically tries to ignore it and not think about it and seeks meaning in beauty, music, and art. Nicki refuses or is likely unable to do that, he can't ignore it or not think about it, and all these things that comfort Lestat are not enough for Nicki.
Lestat also immediately tells Nicki that he's wrong and that he's a madman. They both try to comfort each other though but it's not always successful as they really strugle to understand each other's point of view. Besides, Lestat for the most part loved their conversations. It's possible to disagree about things but like talking to each other and trying to understand each other. By the end, though, it did look like it wasn't fun anymore and they couldn't change each other's beliefs and couldn't understand why they're still holding them.
Also:
That night Nicolas and I celebrated with a colossal drunk. We had all the troupe up to our rooms for it, and I climbed out on the slippery rooftops and opened my arms to Paris and Nicolas played his violin in the window until we'd awakened the whole neighborhood. The music was rapturous, yet people were snarling and screaming up the alleyways, and banging on pots and pans. We paid no attention. We were dancing and singing as we had in the witches' place. I almost fell off the window ledge.
Here you go, Nicki supporting Lestat's success, him hired as an actor at Renaud's.
Nicolas had taught me the part, bawling me out constantly for not learning to read.
So it's not like Nicki wasn't letting Lestat to learn to read so he could control him and make him dependent on him. He wanted him to read. It's Lestat who thought that unnecessary.
Earlier when he was making the fire, he had said he would never amount to much with the violin. In spite of his ear and his skill, there was too much he didn't know. And I would be a great actor, he was sure. I had said this was nonsense, but it was a shadow falling over my soul. I remembered my mother telling me that it was too late for him. He wasn't envious, he said. He was just unhappy a little, that's all.
Again, before Magnus and the horrors, Nicki saying the exact oposite to 'the speech', and I guess we choose not to believe him in this instance. He is still depressed, though, and Lestat describes him as being sad that day, but he is still not trying to hurt Lestat.
"But I want to be a great violinist, " he said. "And I'm afraid it will never be. As long as we were at home, I could pretend that it was going to be. "
"You can't give up on it! " I said.
"Lestat, let me be frank with you, " he said. "Things are easy for you. What you set your sights on you get for yourself. I know what you're thinking about all the years you were miserable at home. But even then, what you really set your mind to, you accomplished. And we left for Paris the very day that you decided to do it. "
"You don't regret coming to Paris, do you? " I asked.
"Of course not. I simply mean that you think things are possible which aren't possible! At least not for the rest of us. Like killing the wolves... "
That's a very good illustration of their misunderstandings. Nicki is sad and Lestat tries to support him saying that he can't give up on the violin. Nicki says, well, easy for you to say. You think everyone can do what you can do, but that's not true. It's like when you just cannot do something, and they tell you to just try harder. Believe in yourself. And you just can't. Sometimes, people just can't do things. And like you really, really try, but you cannot. And hearing that you're simply not trying hard enough is devastating.
"Nicki, this kind of talk is poison, " I said under my breath. "You can't do anything but try to get what you want. You knew the odds were against you when you started. There isn't anything else . . . except... "
"I know. " He smiled. "Except the meaninglessness. Death. "
"Yes, " I said. "All you can do is make your life have meaning, make it good. "
And then Lestat goes into 'well, you knew what you were getting yourself into and that it would be hard. So there's nothing else you can do. Either try harder or die)'
And he goes straight into the preacher mode with the 'goodness'. All you can do is make your life have meaning and make it good. And I guess like yeah, that's how Lestat does things and that's what he believes in, but Nicki can't do that. So of course he is annoyed by that.
"Oh, not goodness again, " he said. "You and your malady of mortality, and your malady of goodness. " He had been looking at the fire and he turned to me with a deliberately scornful expression.
"We're a pack of actors and entertainers who can't even be buried in consecrated ground. We're outcasts. "
"God, if you could only believe in it, " I said, "that we do good when we make others forget their sorrow, make them forget for a little while that. . . "
"What? That they are going to die? " He smiled in a particularly vicious way. "Lestat, I thought all this would change with you when we got to Paris. "
"That was foolish of you, Nick, " I answered. He was making me angry now. "I do good in the boulevard du Temple. I feel it- "
Nicki states an opinion, and Lestat immediately dismisses it and calls it foolish of him to think that Lestat would start to believe the same. They just do it to each other.
"Lestat, I love you, " Nicki said gravely. "I love you as I have loved few people in my life, but in a real way you're a fool with all your ideas about goodness. " I laughed.
Again, it's not mocking. He's annoyed, maybe, but it's more like early in their relationship when Nicki felt sad for him. And Lestat certaintly thinks that Nicki is a fool with his thoughts about sin and feels sad for him.
"Our conversation " could have fumed into a full-scale fight here if I had said all that was on my mind about bourgeois pomposity.
Basically saying that Nicki is a snob. Also, on the topic of intrusive thoughts, Lestat really doesn't like the bourgeois. And he hates these traits in Nicki, but still loves him.
And then a little after all that Nicki apologizes and feels bad, what I quoted in the previous post. It's kinda a healthy relationship, honestly. They disagree, they can't understand some things about each other, but they still love each other and care for each other and hate to see each other hurt.
"You have a radiance in you, Lestat, " he said. "And it draws everyone to you. It's there even when you're angry, or discouraged. "
"Poetry, " I said. "We're both tired. "
"No, it's true, " he said. "You have a light in you that's almost blinding. But in me there's only darkness. Sometimes I think it's like the darkness that infected you that night in the inn when you began to cry and to tremble. You were so helpless, so unprepared for it. I try to keep the darkness from you because I need your light. I need it desperately, but you don't need the darkness. "
"You're the mad one, " I said. "If you could see yourself, hear your own voice, your music-which of course you play for yourself-you wouldn't see darkness, Nicki. You'd see an illumination that is all your own. Somber, yes, but light and beauty come together in you in a thousand different patterns. "
He's not angry at him. He just apologized 'in a most broken voice' and Lestat is holding him, while he is 'young and miserable'. And, 'You were so helpless, so unprepared for it. I try to keep the darkness from you'. It's care. It's love. Nicki knows what this darkness is and he feels sad and sorry for Lestat when he had to experience it for the first time. Yes, he desperately needs Lestat's light, but there's also so much compassion and delicacy. They're protecting each other. Nicki looks at Lestat in some ways as at a naive child, but he recognizes at the same time that he is stronger than him and that his light is good and must be protected.
Lestat tells Nicki about Magnus:
We sat by the hearth together with our wine on the top of a little barrel, and in the firelight Nicki looked as weary and dejected as he had the night before. I didn't want to trouble him, but I couldn't forget about the face.
"Well, what does he look like? "
...
The description seemed to disturb Nicki as much as it disturbed me. He didn't say anything. But his face softened somewhat as if he were forgetting his sadness.
"Well, I don't want to get your hopes up, " he said. He was very kind and sincere now. "But maybe it is a mask you're seeing. And maybe it's someone from the Comedie-Francaise come to see you perform. "
See? He cares about him! So much that he puts him before himself and his worries. And that's after all their fights and disagreements, they're still together, and Nicki is still soft and caring.
He waited, but I could see I was passing on to him some of my own apprehension. He reached over and took the wine bottle by the neck and poured a little in my glass.
"Whoever he is, " I said, "he knows about the wolves. "
"He what? "
...
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. I've never spoken to him, never been near him. But he knows. "
"Ah, Lestat, " he said. He sat back on the bench. He was smiling at me in the most endearing way. "Next you'll be seeing ghosts. You have the strongest imagination of anyone I've ever known. "
"There are no ghosts, " I answered softly. I scowled at our little fire.
I laid a few more lumps of coal on it. All the humor went out of Nicolas.
"How in the hell could he know about the wolves? And how could you... "
He doesn't dismiss him here, he sees that Lestat is serious, and he believes him.
I was still sitting there, too unsure of myself to say anything, when Nicolas kissed me.
"Let's go to bed, " he said softly.
Not annoyed, but supportive and gentle.
>> I personally feel that before Lestat was kidnapped you could feel the tension between them.
What I've written just above. They disagree but they're still protective of each other and loving. Whatever disagreements they have, they still have each other's backs and don't want to hurt each other.
>> As for his turning, and him being alone as a new vampire. One, I’m aware that he was in a horrible mental state, but that doesn’t change the fact that he pushed Lestat away. And I don’t recall him even liking the other members of the theater troupe. He just wanted to make more vampires. And it’s a good thing that they didn’t let, he was in no headspace for that. He was lonely though. Rightfully.
What do you mean, rightfully? Like he deserved it?)) I've disussed the pushing away above.
When Lestat dissapeared and then started showering Nicki with money, he says:
I told the lawyer to make certain he studied with his Italian maestro and that he had everything he could possibly desire. But I did manage somehow to hear quite against my will that Nicolas hadn't quit the theater. He was still playing at Renaud's House of Thesbians. Now this maddened me. Why the hell, I thought, should he do that? Because he loved it there, the same as I had, that was why. Did anybody really have to tell me this? We had all been kindred in that little rattrap playhouse.
When he stalks him:
And then there was Nicolas in the glare of the supper table and Jeannette and Luchina were with him, and they were having the late night meal that we used to take together when the theater closed.
Implying that they did it before with these actresses, so they were kinda friends, and Nicki still hangs out with them all.
So yeah, I do believe that he wanted his 'family' back, but he was also mad and desperate, and with vampires, everything is amplified and distorted. So the need to be with those he loved is twisted into this dark plan to kill them and turn them into vampires, so they would be near him.
And also, when he escapes from Lestat and Gabrielle, he goes to the theatre and sits in the orchestra pit, where he would perform. He goes to his place in their little orchestra. I think it's because it's the only place he can call home and where he felt like home.
>> That being said, he did ask to be turned. Even though I agree Lestat shouldn’t have done it, it was his choice.
Well. I'd say in the state he was in he wasn't able to give consent. See the list far above with the chronology of events. He didn't know what he was getting in, he was desperate, and he didn't have any other choice. Lestat says it himself.
No one will ever believe his mad tales. But he knows the place where we lie, Mother. He knows our names, the name of our kin-too many things about us. And he will never go quietly to another country. And they may go after him; they will never let him live now. Where are they? I went up the stairs in the whirlwind of his echoing cries, looked out the little barred window at the open land. They'll be coming again.
He cannot run. He will either go mad from what he's been through and fear that it'll happen again, kill himself because his worst nightmares turned true and he has nothing and no one left and no meaning to hold on to, or these creatures will hunt him down and kill him.
There's not much of a choice.
And Lestat is a vampire, he has power over him now, he is mesmerized by him by the end:
Silent and lethal, I felt myself flooded with the power I had over him and his knowledge of it, and my love for him heated the sense of power, driving it towards a scorching embarrassment which suddenly changed into something else. We were in the wings of the theater again; we were in the village in Auvergne in that little inn. I smelled not merely the blood in him, but the sudden terror. He had taken a step back. And the very movement stoked the blaze in me, as much as the vision of his stricken face. He grew smaller, more fragile. Yet he'd never seemed stronger, more alluring than he was now. All the expression drained from his face as I drew nearer. His eyes were wondrously clear.
I mean, yeah, and that's the person you still love.
I can also comment this whole dialog line by line, because it's very interesting how Nicki's emotions and reactions change. He is genuinely hurt and tries to understand Lestat, and to make him understand.
"You, and your talk of goodness "-low seething voice, eyes glittering- "your talk of good and evil, your talk of what was right and what was wrong and death, oh yes, death, the horror, the tragedy . . . " Words. Borne on the ever swelling current of hatred, like flowers opening in the current, petals peeling back, then falling apart:
". . . and you shared it with her, the lord's son giveth to the lord's wife his great gift, the Dark Gift. Those who live in the castle share the Dark Gift-never were they dragged to the witches' place where the human grease pools on the ground at the foot of the burnt stake, no, kill the old crone who can no longer see to sew, and the idiot boy who cannot till the field. And what does he give us, the lord's son, the wolfkiller, the one who screamed in the witches' place? Coin of the realm! That's good enough for us! " Shuddering.
He's angry because he believes at this point that Lestat has discovered this secret noble witchcraft thing and kept it from him because he is of a lower status. That all these months Lestat was talking of morality and goodness and the tragedy of death, taking this superiour moral position, and now he is a part of this unnatural evil society. And he says that yeah, sure, you're a lord, you would never be punished for that. You are actually practicing the dark magic and witchcraft, but you'll never see the consequences because of your noble status. But commoners, disabled and weak, disposable, will be dragged to a pyre and burned alive. And you'll just trow money at us, at my class. That's all we deserve. I'm actually moved by his anger at the injustice of the prosecution of these innocent people. I mean, we already knew that he cared about justice and was specifically impressed by Lestat crying at the Witches Place, but he is so cynical when he talks about his beliefs, and here he is so vulnerable. He cares about goodness, actually, and all these things he is so cynical about actually hurt him.
But his voice had stopped. Something breaking in his face.
"How could you keep it from me! " he whispered.
"I would have shared anything I possessed with you! " Rage building again. He reached out. "It was you who never understood, " he whispered.
I struck him so hard he fell back wards, chastened, silent. "When it was offered me I said no. I tell you I said no. With my last breath, I said no. "
"You were always the fool, " he said. "I told you that. " But he was breaking down. He was shuddering and the rage was alchemizing into desperation. He lifted his arms again and then stopped. "You believed things that didn't matter, " he said almost gently. "There was something you failed to see. Is it impossible you don't know yourself what you possess now? " The glaze over his eyes broke instantly into tears. His face knotted. Unspoken words coming from him of love.
I mean, he realized that Lestat kept the Dark Gift from him because he tried to protect him, and he immediately stops being angry with him. He is just desperate and returns to his 'Lestat you are a naive child' sad state. And then he starts crying and he still loves Lestat nevertheless. And that's true. Lestat can read his mind, read and feel his every emotion. He is an open book to him now.
Again, if you say it's manipulative and rehearsed, I'll kill you) He cannot possibly lie in this instance. Or scheme. Or even try to manipulate Lestat. At all. He is not in control of anything. Not himself, not the situation, not Lestat. He is so vulnerable in every possible way.
And then Lestat sees Nicki's mind:
there flared a moment of us together in the garret, talking and talking as the moon glared on the snow-covered roofs, or walking through the Paris streets, passing the wine back and forth, heads bowed against the first gust of winter rain, and there had been the eternity of growing up and growing old before us, and so much joy even in misery, even in the misery-the real eternity, the real forever-the mortal mystery of that.
>> So while it didn’t initially make sense why Lestat couldn’t stand the now vampiric Nicki, within only 72 hours it all makes sense. And this is a major reason that I don’t see their relationship as this great love story.
My dear friend, so, it was absolutely fine for Lestat to be repulsed by just turned Nicki because by the end of 72 hours after that Nicki told him he hated him? God, I just love that. N: dies, is reborn as a vampire, instantly goes catatonic; L: instanty repulsed, gives N away to G; N: miserably exists for some time in a company with his ex who wouldn't even look at him and his ex'es mom who never cared about him anyway and didn't want him to be turned; N: is left unattended, runs away to his comfort place; L: finds him, forces to play for him; N: weakly protests; L: ignores protests, says 'whatever you believe it is, evil or not, just play'; N: plays, unravels completely, L is terrified and still repulsed, runs away; N: chases him, manic and angry, says everything he can think of to hurt L; L: hurts him back, pushes to explain why he is so angry; N: oh, so you have no idea why I'm angry, I guess I have no reason at all! Let me enlighten you. The audience: ah yes, completely reasonable to want to have nothing to do with this catatonic guy because Lestat can see the future. And his behavior in the present doesn't impact the future at all. That's like retroactively finding an exuse for something you did wrong.
>> I don’t think that expecting Nicki to care for someone he was sharing his life with beyond a superficial level is childish. I don’t want him to be perfect. I just don’t think that this a an epic love story when it’s romantically so one sided.
What Nicki had to do more for you to conclude that he reciprocated Lestat's feelings and cared for him beyond the superficial level?
As to your age, it only means that you are likely will be much more experienced, educated, and wise in 10 years than you're now. It doesn't mean that being 22 makes you impaired somehow or your opinions worthless. I'm certain you're smarter and wiser than many in their 40-50s. And then there're many in their 40-50s that are smarter than you. And everyone is unique and learns and develops at different speed. I, for example, changed very drasctically in my late twenties, and that was very rough and discouraging and I couldn't believe how naive I was before that. And after that I was abused, even though I was a feminist for many many years and knew a lot about abuse, dv, ipv, and abuse advocacy. Didn't help me, still happened. And then I wasn't believed, which I also didn't expect. So life is a constant process of learning.
>> But I don’t take it o out on the people I love. I don’t tell the people that I love that what they believe is wrong and ridiculous just because I don’t want to be miserable alone.
Well, good for you! I generally try to be kind to people and avoid suffering of others, but then there're days or hours when I'm at my lowest, sleep deprived, exausted, feel like shit, and I can get really mean. Or when I have to say something kindly again and again and they won't listen and I'll just have no patience. It's hard to be patient and reasonable and kind to anyone when, I don't know, your leg is cut open and someone is feeling with their fingers inside of it.
Also, 'what they believe is wrong and ridiculous just because I don’t want to be miserable alone'. Nicki didn't say that to Lestat because he didn't want to be miserable alone. He sincerely believed that. That Lestat is wrong. And what, he should've lied? That's also his opinion. They shared opinions with each other and sometimes it hurt them. Besides, all the instances when Nicki calls Lestat's ideas foolish is like, they're not mocking? The quote where he says that he loves Lestat but that he is a fool with all his ideas about goodness is not mocking at all. He is serious and sad. He sounds 'gravely'. And Lestat laughs. And by that point they are well aware of each others beliefs and that they cannot change them. And then before Nicki is turned? Not mocking at all, again, he is crying and he is saddened and crushed by the realization that Lestat held the Dark Gift away from him not due to malice but because of his 'foolish ideas about goodness'. He is saying it with desperation. He doesn't ridicule him. And their earlier conversations, when they talk about theatre and acting, Nicki states his beliefs that more or less align with the Christian teachings of that time. He makes an argument. Because that's his opinion. And he doesn't ridicule him, he says his words baffle him. And 'the speech' is, well, doesn't call him a fool then!
>> In fact I believe this is why he clung onto his relationship with Lestat, knowing he didn’t feel and couldn’t feel what Lestat did. What he wanted to feel.
That's actually a new level. So, Nicki not just didn't love Lestat. Not just couldn't love Lestat. He knew that he didn't love him and couldn't love him. But he wanted to love him. What an amazing level of self-awareness. Shame it's not mentioned or brought up at all in the book. Because it would be! Lestat would get it, Nicki would say it eventually, Armand would say it.
>> Nicki IS the perfect victim. That he didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to him.
That's actually a radical thought. Stay safe out there. And it's very sweet of you.
>> And Nicki couldn’t have ever truly loved Lestat. And trying to force this relationship (on Nicki’s part), trying to force himself to love Lestat in a way he knew he couldn’t, forcing himself into these situations (going to Paris, joining the theatre, becoming a vampire), it all was too much for him.
Again, too much effort for someone you consider a friend at best and just have him around to keep company.
Ah, but what does it even mean, true love? Can we call Lestat's love for Nicki true? He loves many parts of him, but cannot accept the others. He cannot stand what Nicki feels, the depth of his despair and pain, cannot accept or understand his beliefs, doesn't have much patience with him, brushes off or minimizes his pain and disstress a bit (Lestat calling Nicki "a little sad", his reply "slightly sharp", "less excited, but that was to be expected" was always funny to me in a sad way, like, yeah, just a little sad, while Nicki is spiraling down into another depressive episode), he dissaproves of his university friends. He treats Nicki with very little compassion and patience, if any, when Lestat is turned and after the Renaud's breakdown. He's even annoyed and angry at him.
Also:
"I make music and it makes me happy, " he said. "What is blessed or good about that? " I waved it away as I always did his cynicism now.
Who is ignoring the others guestions and opinions now?
Their love is imperfect from the both sides, but I'd argue that it's still true. It's desperate and very human, and very young. They make so many mistakes, both of them, but they desperately cling to each other. I'd say, that the potrayal of their relationship is a very good portrayal of a relationship with a very ill person. It can be very hard at times, and there're misunderstandings and pain, but there's still love.
You also said that you don't think Nicki's mental state was the real reason why they could never be together. I don't know about that. Their main diffrence is how they approach the meaninglessness of life. Lestat learned to live with that, and Nicki cannot. And then Lestat is more idealistic and hopeful, and Nicki seemingly has no hope left. I mean, I wonder sometimes what my life would be if I was healed. It's not only depression, I'm mostly affected by a severe OCD, but I just cannot imagine my life without it. I don't know why I would change. And I don't know if what I believe in is a symptom of my depression or it's just that, a belief. I don't see meaning in anything. I have no desire to live. I cannot imagine that if I treat my depression and it gets better, I'll discover some new meaning for my life, something that would convince me to want to leave and to be content with my existence. Like it's supposed to happen, right? Because if not, and I still think the life is meaningless and void, why would I be okay with it? I don't know what kind of person I would be without the depression, what I would want, why I would live. And I don't know what kind of person Nicki would be if he was healed? He might have ended with some healthier version of a Christian worldview, accepting that people are flawed and sinful but still deserving of love and forgiveness, as it was one of his issues (people being horrible). Trying to make the world a bit more just, a bit more harmonious. Neither he, nor Lestat were evil, and they actually had a lot in common in regard to their core values. Compassion, kindness, light, less suffering and injustice, beauty, art.
I don't know if pure is a word I'd use to describe their relationship, but it was very raw and real and fragile, human, and thus mortal.
Nicki from The Vampire Lestat (Spoilers for TVC Book 2)
So obviously I’ve been reading The Vampire Lestat for the first ( I’m trying to read all of TVC), and before I started it I kept hearing about what a great relationship Nicki and Lestat had. How true and special their love was, etc. From other readers, fans of the show, and even Sam Reid in one interview. But when Nicki was first introduced after Lestat became the Wolfkiller, I just had bad vibes. It seemed, to me at least, that Nicki was very disingenuous or that he just didn’t care as much as Lestat did (about their friendship or romantic relationship).
Suffice it to say I was right. I’m on part 5 now (I’m a slow reader bear with me). So after Nicki is turned he enters this kind of catatonic state, and when he finally comes out of it he goes off on Lestat. He demands the theater and proceeds to tell Lestat that he never loved him, he was only with him to piss off his dad. That he was hoping that he and Lestat would fail in Paris or die so that his family (Nicki’s family) couldn’t later claim that they were proud of him. That he has always resented and hated that Lestat seems to succeed at all of the things he dedicates himself too. He also says that Lestat is stupid for still trying to be a good or even just semi decent person after being turned into a vampire.
So my point, or question rather, is why does everyone talk about this relationship like it was so sweet, and healthy, and loving?
Obviously I understand that Lestat’s feelings were true. That he did and still does truly love Nicki. But those feelings were never reciprocated. I noticed this as soon as they begun spending time together and Nicki would call Lestat’s thoughts and feelings (about everything really, but mostly art, life, death, and the meaning to life and death) ridiculous.
I’m trying to figure out how this is such a great love story, according to everyone else. On Lestat’s side, yes. He was feelings were true and he did everything he could think of to make Nicki feel loved and like he mattered. But that never went both ways. Even from the beginning.
Can someone tell me if I’m missing something (without spoilers, I’ve not finished the book yet)? Because it seems to me like their relationship was always one sided and never that great to begin with.
I must apologize first. And please know that I write that in good faith and with respect for you as a reader and an individual. I don't want to sound hurtful, but it seems to me you didn't read the first half of the book paying attention to Nicki's character at all. You say he treated Lestat poorly from the beginning? Didn't care about him, had to put up with him? Could you quote the passages that prove that? Because I can only find the opposite.
1) Nicki was absolutely in love with Lestat when he first met him, very excited to get to know him, rushing to their first meeting in a tavern as a giddy idiot.
2) He was clearly worried and scared when Lestat had his first encounter with The Darkness/existential crisis, did all to comfort him, cared for him, took him home, reassured him, played for him, held him again and again. Lestat also specifically describes him being genuine and without his usual sarcasm when he's playing violin for him the very first time.
3) Lestat says they were inseparable in Auvergne and recounts sweet things they did together (picnics, laying in an orchard eating fruit whatever it means, a lot of talking, Lestat sharing things he never told anyone else).
4) Lestat is not and never was a stupid naive gullible baby unable to read people that needs to be protected and pandered. God, this "everyone uses and abuses him" narrative is horrible. He is an adult man who is very capable of defending himself and hurting others. Himpathy, classical example. Yes, he can be vulnerable and he also suffers but that's not all that he is. If Nicki didn't care for him or hated him, he would know it. But he says that they were happy and super close and that Nicki understood him as no one else.
5) Nicki protected Lestat in Paris: insisted on him not seeing public executions, death, and other horrors; played on the streets for money with Lestat doing almost nothing but asking passerbys for to pay after Lestat spent all the money they had on theatre (plus Nicki accompanying him while he wasn't a fan at all, insisted on sharing his nice clothes with Lestat, which is a sweet gesture). Starting working at the Renaud's with him (again, if all Nicki wanted is for them to die, why on Earth was he doing that and not dragging Lestat deeper into poverty, alcoholism, and worse). Btw, that's precisely what Nicki is doing to himself when he believes that Lestat never loved him (after just returned vampire Lestat repeatedly pushed him away and threatened at Renaud's). He stops playing the violin, which is the only thing that he loves aside from Lestat and that gives him meaning, working, spends all his time in the most dangerous parts of the city drinking and basically looking for death.
6) Still, even then, after all the betrayal Nicki felt, when Lestat's mom comes to Paris to die, Nicki cleans himself, pulls himself together and spends days and nights beside her bed holding her hand. That's Lestat's words. While Gabrielle doesn't care about him at all and is absolutely fine to abandon him and everyone else when Lestat makes her a vampire. When Nicki is tortured and starts to rapidly unravel, she suggests sending him off to America and forgetting about him, to Lestat's horror (he knows he won't survive and we'll be treated worse than a madman).
7) The last thing Lestat sees in Nicki's mind before drinking his blood to turn him, is an image of them being together, living together, growing old together, so happy, so happy even in misery. That's a direct quote. That's in Nicki's mind. That's all he wanted. He was miserable and in pain, but loving Lestat made it bearable. He wanted to grow old with him and he knew he would be happy simply because they're together. Despite the pain and misery Nicki's life was otherwise.
8) The scene at Renaud's (Lestat's return as a vampire) is heartbreaking. Nicki immediately goes to him, hugs him, asks what happened. Despite Lestat continuously pushing him away physically and psychologically (he was afraid to kill him, but Nicki didn't know that, of course). When Lestat crashes out and everyone, the whole theatre is terrified and runs away, Nicki runs to Lestat and calls to him again and again to the point of being held by others for his safety (Lestat says they were terrified for Nicki's life). When Lestat is shot, Nicki runs to him, sees that, has a hysterical reaction (he though I would die in front of his eyes - Lestat). Lestat compares him to his dying horse. Nicki still clings to Lestat, doesn't want him to go, and Lestat repeatedly pushes him away and threatens him. He mentioned being afraid to break his spine trying to tear Nicki away from him.
9) Nicki helps Lestat learn his lines because Lestat can't read, and that's sweet. Nicki keeps a shrine to Lestat in their dressing room while Lestat is gone, keeping everything just as he left it in perfect order. When vampire Lestat stalks human Nicki, he reads his mind, how desperate and distraught he is. Nicki defends Lestat to their friends, insists that something happened to him, while others are fine with having Lestat's gifts and money and don't really care. Then Nicki senses Lestat's presence, calls out to him, and tries to summon him playing a heart wrenching melody for him on his balcony.
10) Lestat says that they were inexplicably happy in Paris, even in poverty, which, again, I believe him.
11) Nicki being sad and mean. Yeah, but he also feels guilty for that and feels pain for that and apologizes.
'But I was bruised by this little talk and he knew it, and as I started to pull off my boots, he got up from the chair and came and sat next to me.
"I'm sorry, " he said in the most broken voice. It was so changed from the posture of a minute ago that I looked up at him, and he was so young and so miserable that I couldn't help putting my arm around him and telling him that he must not worry about it anymore.'
Then he says that famous quote about Lestat being full of light, Nicki keeping his darkness away from him, because he desperately needs his light.
12) Jealousy. I sincerely hope you never truly understand that because to understand, you must be just as depressed and desperate and suicidal as Nicki was. I am this way, and of course I feel jealousy and anger even towards those I love when I'm at my lowest. Mental disorders are hard to understand and grasp, if you haven't gone through that, but as another example, if you were living with constant physical pain, disabled by it in so many ways, that your life would be for the most part unbearable, scared and terrified and exhausted of being scared and terrified, helpless and never truly understood even by the closest to you, because they can't possibly do that, and that's not even their fault, wouldn't you be angry and jealous of your friends and loved ones who are relatively healthy and do not have to go through all that? Even once? Also, if you're in a lot of pain, it's really, really hard to be nice and understanding and kind. And I sincerely don't wish that for you to understand, and I'm immensely sorry if you already do. Like, I'm a much better person and friend now that I'm medicated out of my mind and can more or less function. And even before I tried so hard to be kind and to not hurt others. But I still did.
13) Nicki's and Lestat's love story is a tragedy exactly because they loved each other so much and so deeply, and it still wasn't enough to survive the horror of the vampirism. And Nicki was written to die. He is innocent and young and very human and very fragile. He's jealous and insecure because he's human, and he's easy to break and ruin because he's mentally ill and miserable from the start. And it breaks my heart how people seemingly allow nuance and moral greyness to other characters but Nicki is vilified. It's especially discouraging for people with mental illnesses or even debilitating physical illnesses. We are not evil, we're weak and we're in pain. And it's hard to love us, yes, but we're not abusers or monsters or manipulators by default.
14) Oh, also, I haven't seen anyone mentioning that, but Nicki sacrificed everything for Lestat. When they're in Paris, his family disowned him. His university friends are terrible and soon not mentioned at all. He only has Lestat and the theatre troupe. No one else and nothing else. And he had friends and siblings, and mother before. They're just absent from then on. And then Lestat is gone, and after that the theatre troupe is gone on Lestat's orders. When Nicki is made vampire, he has no one at all. Of course he tries turning his former theatre friends and is forbidden and threatened, again, by Lestat. By that time he's certain Lestat doesn't love him and cannot stand him, which is true, at least partially. God, Nicki's turning is heartbreaking. He goes from thinking of him and Lestat being together until they die and "unspoken words of love coming from him" to a silent catatonic vampire, to whom Lestat's immediate reaction is that he cannot bear the sight of him. Nicki didn't do anything at that point to deserve that. He just died and was in pain. And then Lestat insists on him playing the violin, gets terrified and disgusted by the music, and runs away. Of course Nicki is certain that Lestat hates him and only sticks around due to the sense of responsibility.
Also, God, I don't want to be a dick at all, but many of what you wrote sounds kinda... childish? I mean... It's not an easy and linear story. It's like... It's as if you see a person being mean and hurtful to their lover at some point, and that somehow means they never truly loved them? Like as if Nicki's and Lestat's relationship must be this perfect and pure and no one says mean things to one another, no one doubts one another, no one is angry? It's... It's a really well-written book and Nicki is an incredibly well-written and interesting character. Because he's most likely based on Anne's own feelings and struggles, just as Louis. Do you know what a flawed character is? What it means to be weak? And I say it without any malice or contempt. I barely understood Nicki as a character when I first read the book at 15. I related to the sad suicidal part of him, yes, but that's more or less all. And I reread it many times before I could truly get him. I'm not some superior human. But I'm more knowledgeable and experienced than I was then, I've had a life, I've been through so much pain, and I've also been well educated and grown old, and I've read and seen and witnessed a lot, and I have a specific and unique connection to Nicki due to a severe chronic mental illness. I understand it from inside much better than I could at 15 or 20. So I guess it's okay to not understand. It still pains me, though, when people don't, and I sincerely hope that I was useful even a little trying to explain.
Ah, also, another important point is that Nicki is cynical and mean not because he's evil or cold. And Lestat knows that. He is this way because he's disillusioned and desperate. Lestat mentioned desperation a lot in respect to Nicki. Also, he realizes that Nicki needed justice, he needed the world to be just. But it could never be. He also needed something to believe in, that their existence had to have some meaning, and without God, in whom he could no longer believe, he saw life as meaningless. Existence of the true evil, of vampirism, breaks him completely. He says that he's better than Lestat at that and that he always belonged to the darkness, but it's just a bravado and delusion. That's his worst fear. The world is not only unjust and there's no God, but the only real truth of it is this complete magnificent evil of whatever he calls it. And he pretends to be a hunter in this world while he's always been a prey. He pretends for a while and then kills himself. As another note, it's a bit funny to me how he says that he and Lestat are equal now and that he's even better at it, while Nicki after his turning is just so traumatized that he becomes catatonic and keeps thinking about funeral pyres and monsters. Poor Nicki. I also love him for his vulnerability and weakness, because it makes him so human. And I think he's sometimes if not often hated and disliked precisely because he's weak. Because he breaks. Because he's not a perfect victim. Because he needs help and cannot survive on his own. And that's what being ill is very often. You're just doomed without help. Self-destructive, self sabotaging, pathetic disaster. And no amount of love can heal that. Maybe, that's the meaning of their relationship. That sometimes there's nothing you can do and your love is not enough. At least I can confirm it with my experience. It cannot fix you or heal you.
And finally, I don't blame Lestat, really. "To love me is to suffer me". Not many can do that and that's okay. So it's also a story about that. How hard and heartbreaking it is to no longer be able to love someone because you're not strong enough to share their suffering. It's horrific to be on the receiving end of that, but to be the one who leaves is also terrible. And arguably Lestat does that, and it's interesting and insightful to see him reaping the consequences of that and eventually being able to forgive himself.
Disclaimer... this is just my silly pondering, and it isn't fully formed, nor am I sure how true it is... but I'm really curious to hear everyone's thoughts (regarding any characters! Not just Lestat, Nicolas... and I begin to think a tiny bit on Louis too...)
I have been thinking about Lestat, Nicolas and what love means to them, and it has led me onto wondering what love means to all the other characters too.
And I wanted to talk about it! I don’t actually know if this is truly connected to their book-selves or not. Because basically I’ve been writing Lestat and Nicki’s final argument, from Nicki’s perspective.
And Nicki, from his perspective told me that he needs to be seen to feel loved. And he needs to see the fullness of the other to love.
Nicolas needs to be perceived: Intellectually, spiritually and truthfully. For him, love without perception is hollow. If you don’t see who he truly is, what part of him are you even loving? And he can see Lestat for his full, complicated self, for all his beauty, all his flaws and love it all. For Nicolas, love and hate are not mutually exclusive. He loves Lestat for who he is, and hates him for the same reason. This is an alien concept to Lestat: if you despise him, how can you love him?
Whereas Lestat’s love is action-based. He rushes in: saves, builds, defends, protects. And yet, he can be blind to the interiority of those he loves, certainly in those early days - in the case of Nicki. (But I think it holds true always - Lestat can love Louis and Claudia through their murder of him, for example.) Lestat doesn’t fully understand Nicki, but loves him fiercely anyway. His love is emotional, embodied, even possessive, but not analytical, not dependent on full understanding.
I guess, I may was well share that in writing Lestat’s POV, personally, he says (disclaimer - my thoughts - not Anne Rice’s!), "He wanted me to see him. But I had loved him. I loved him still, no matter who he was, no matter what he was. My love did not depend on some corrupted truth of him.” This is an alien concept to Nicolas! To Nicolas, if Lestat doesn't truly see him, he cannot love him.
It’s fundamentally different conceptions of what love is, and how fascinating is it to contemplate? Please chime in with not only your thoughts on Lestat and Nicolas, but also your thoughts on what love means to all the characters in The Vampire Chronicles!
To Lestat, his love is beyond anything he doesn't know of Nicki (or, of anyone.) His love is true and independent of anything he could learn about Nicolas. That's why he can both love and not be able to bear Nicki.
On the other hand, Nicki, too, by the end, despises Lestat, and loves him. But in a very different way. Nicki sees the fullness of Lestat and loves every aspect of him, even the parts he hates. For him love and hate can coexist, mutually. They can both be extreme feelings, and one does not negate the other. But both are dependent on the truth of Lestat, as I see it.
Whereas for Lestat, neither love nor hate depend on full truth. They are just what he feels?
I actually hadn't realised it, till I wrote Lestat's perspective. I thought "Oh, Lestat, never knew the all of Nicolas, so he could never have loved him, truly. Nicki must actually have loved Lestat more, because he saw Lestat truly! Lestat did not see Nicki in fullness, so he could not love him as deeply.” But I guess I felt that as, at the time I was writing Nicolas’ perspective, and he felt that. Then, I simply wrote Lestat's POV and he showed me how wrong I was. It was never that Lestat's love was less. Just that what love was for him was utterly different.
In fact, you could call Lestat's love deeper, as Lestat's love allows for change - "I love you no matter what you fully are, no matter what you could ever be, even if I cannot bear you." Whereas Nicki's love depends on who the other is right now? But you can say that, since it isn't killed by hate, it also allows for change? Because Nicki can keep on looking if a person changes, so can still love. Maybe Nicki's love can be more fully destroyed (if a person changes beyond recognition, beyond love), but the truth of Lestat's love can be more fully questioned (can it really be true without full knowledge?)
But I don't think either love is more or less, just different.
They're both trying to love each other in the ways that would make them feel most loved, and it's perfectly jarring mutual destruction!
Nicolas: "I'm going to show you that I see every single terrible thing about you, and that I love you anyway - isn't that the most profound love possible?"
Lestat: "ABSOLUTELY NOT. If I am all those terrible things then I am unlovable and your love is either a lie or a curse and I REJECT BOTH."
And then:
Lestat: "I love you no matter what you are or what you've done - isn't that the purest love possible?"
Nicolas: "ABSOLUTELY NOT. If you don't even know what I am or what I've done then you're not loving ME, you're loving some fantasy, which means I'm completely alone."
It's like they're each offering the other person their worst nightmare disguised as the greatest gift. Nicolas thinks he's giving Lestat the gift of being truly known and loved; Lestat experiences it as being destroyed. Lestat thinks he's giving Nicolas the gift of unconditional love; Nicolas experiences it as being erased.
And in a weird way they both end up feeling completely unloved despite being desperately, deeply loved by someone who would die for them!
Neither is wrong, but they're asking for the impossible from each other. Nicolas can't feel loved by someone who loves an idealised version of him, and Lestat can't provide the kind of forensic, unflinching witness that Nicolas needs to feel seen.
Lestat's love feels pure and unconditional to him, but to Nicolas it feels shallow and false because it's not based on truth.
When Nicolas forces Lestat to see his "corrupted truth," Lestat can still love him but can no longer bear him - which to Nicolas proves the love was never real.
Nicolas can hate and love simultaneously because both are responses to truth; Lestat experiences them as contradictory because his emotions exist independently of facts.
They're speaking completely different languages about what love even IS. And so they tear each other apart - they're each trying to love in the way they need to be loved, but it's exactly wrong for the other person.
I dunno… I feel in a bit of a tangle with all of this.
What’s different with Louis. Well, I think Lestat is different by this time. I think Lestat knows Louis more fully than he ever did Nicolas. So I don’t think his love is blind to Louis. Lestat already could love unconditionally, but by the time of Louis, I feel he can bear the knowledge of Louis more.
How about Louis? I feel like Louis’ love begins unconsciously. Louis absolutely resists love, at first. Yet he is naturally deeply empathetic. And I think once he accepts love (which takes many decades longer than Nicolas even lived for!) Louis’ love, eventually grows to be more similar to Lestat’s. Louis is great at understanding Lestat emotionally without words. Does Louis need to be truly known? Hmm… well, I think Lestat does know him way more than he ever knew Nicki… but I don’t think Louis needs it the way Nicki did?
I don’t know. I have never written Louis’ voice myself. Those of you who have, what did he tell you?
I wonder if I could do a poll? I don't think I can formulate anything on characters though... but maybe I could do one about love?
What kind of love resonates with you most?
Unconditional love, that doesn't need to know the fullness of a person
Love founded in absolute mutual knowledge of the all of each other
Love that is a choice: protective
Love founded in empathy above feeling or knowledge
I identify with Nicki so much, and I agree with your perception of him and his thoughts about love. To be frank, the idea of someone loving me 'unconditionally' but not being able to bear me, spend time with me, live with me, talk to me, look at me, would drive me crazy. Can it be even more hypocritical?
What does it even mean, to love someone without much knowledge about them? How does it happen? On pure instinct, intuition? Is it just being drawn to someone for barely any reason but similtaniosly not being able to stand them? Or loving someone until they change and you can't stand them anymore but you still care about them?
I understand the concept of loving someone but not desiring to be near them or even communicate with them. I don't believe it's unusual. A child can love their parent like that. You love them, you care about them, you want them to be happy and safe, but you're just too different, you cannot stand sharing space with them for long, you don't like spending time with them, being in their life. You still worry about them and will do anything for them. And the same can be true for a parent; it might be even more heartbreaking - loving a child unconditionally, no matter what they did or will do, even if it hurts you, even if you can't stand the sight of them when they become something you cannot accept no matter how hard you try.
A parent's love for their child is still love but it's not the same as a lover's love. Usually, when you fall in love with someone, when you're looking for a romantic relationship, a companionship, a person to share your life with, you want this relationship to be exclusive; for them to be yours and for you to be theirs. Loving people and caring about them but being perfectly fine with them leading a life separate from yours is called frienship. Or family. There can be long-distance romantic relationships, but they're still relationships. If you care about physical intimacy or contact, you might sext, call each other, arrange meetings; if not, romantic relationship usually means wanting connection with the person you love, wanting them in your life in any other way.
I think, maybe, mortal Lestat and Nicki loved each other as lovers and partners in a traditional sence, but once Lestat made Nicki a vampire, he, in a way, became his father, rather than his lover. He cared for him and loved him as a father would, and he grieved in a way a father would over a son who became someone he never wanted him to become. But he still loved him, it was love still.
Lestat seems to be this way with all his lovers. An along the lines of 'if you love everyone you don't love anyone' kind. If you love Lestat, you must be ready to share him with others. Louis, Armand, and others seem able to do that.
Nicki was clearly not.
If Nicki is like me, and he seemed to be, he drew the meaning of his life from love. Lestat was his life. I'm just like that. Everything seems meaningless and empty aside from loving someone and being loved in return. Only that can keep me alive. There's only darkness and suffering and emptiness for me without love.
I vividly remember others telling me that I'm obsessed, that I must find something else to do, to love myself, art, find meaning and fullfilment in something else. And I just couldn't. I tried everything and I just couldn't.
I wonder sometimes if it's just my depression, and that if I cure it completely one day, I will start seeing meaning in something else because I honestly can't remember, for the life of me can't remember if anything else ever gave me meaning.
It seems to me like by the end of the book series, Louis felt confident and content with what his relationship with Lestat ended to be. Like as if he knew that Lestat will never stop loving him and will always come back to him. That he will never be abandoned. It was also easier for him, I believe, to do, since they both were going to live forever. What is Lestat dissapearing from his life for years if they have eternity together before them?
Besides, as you said, they seemed to both came to this understanding about their feelings towards each other, the nature of their relationship, this form and kind of love, decades into them being vampires.
Nicki and Lestat fell in love while they still were human, and human understanding of love must be different from vampire's one. I believe the posessive, anxious, and excusive nature of human love could be explained by the shortness of our lives. We find someone we can't imagine our life without, someone perfect to us in every way, someone who makes us so overwhelmingly happy, and we can't let them go.
Maybe Nicki and I are just not normal, sick, and miserable, I can't know for certain. Maybe people are just different and feel in different ways, find meaning and purpose in different things.
Maybe Lestat is love itself. A child's, a parent's, a lover's, a friend's, all at once; unnatural, monstrous to some, but truly all-encompassing.
А сегодня ко мне в окошко залетел шершень! Вот самый-самый настоящий, только что. Огромный, чёрный, страшный! А как жужжит! Я его в чашечку - и в форточку... Красивый-красивый! А деревья, ну, которые фруктовые, цветущие, вот яблони, все белые! Как облачка... И что-то синее, фиолетовое, зелёное проклёвывается, так чудесно... И солнце... Гулять и гулять! Вот когда перевалит далеко за полдень, как сейчас, в три часа, отличное время. Гулять и есть сладости! Вот именно так. Или нежиться в кровати. Для всего весна хороша, только не для учёбы и не для работы. Видел бы кто, как Э. сегодня плакала! Какие мрачные все делаются из-за таких вещей, из-за работы, из-за сессии, из-за "хвоста", не закрытого предмета. А мне бы что... И всё равно не закрою! Вот даже если так, разве конец всего? Весне, птицам, шершню... Хоть умри, а они будут жить, опять и опять, и снова осы будут залетать кому-нибудь в окна, снова кто-то будет резать розу, рассаживать цветы, белить бордюры и "зебры"... И сколько бы мир не бежал, не нёсся, не скакал впереди себя самого, а будет кружить и кружить за своим же хвостиком, да так монотонно, так хорошо, так ладно. Так же будет вставать и садиться солнце, завариваться чай, крошиться шоколад. И никто, в сущности, ни перед кем не в долгу.
Я сегодня - "Мэри Поппинс, до свидания" - бегу под дождём по бордюрчикам, ловко жонглируя из руки в руку зонтиком, чтобы не задеть прохожих. А коленки уже все насквозь мокрые! И устаёшь так - скорее бы дойти, скорее бы юркнуть под тысячи одеял и никуда-никуда не уходить, не показываться, не думать ни о чём. За окошком мир голубой-голубой, лазурный... Небо серое, а дома синие... И дети в дождевичках, мамы, папы; и тяжёлые мусорные баки - насквозь мокрые, а лужи-то какие! Не лужи - реки... Весна. А когда-то по такой весне мы пускали кораблики - в солнечно-слоновые деньки, совиные, сорочьи, и в пасмурные, писали на них что-то, а нет их уже больше, тех корабликов, и нас самих нету. Только коленки и пальчики мёрзнут. Греть бы их в чьих-нибудь руках! Всю дорогу, пока дремал в трамвае, думал о неприличном. Ужас! Но лучше, ясное дело, ванночка - с хвоей, с солью, зелёная, парная. И чай с шалфеем и мятой, и лавандой, и чабрецом.
Спать как хочется, а ещё столько всего несделанного, незаконченного! Мне бы ещё всю ночь сидеть, а ещё даже не за полночь, ну никаких силёнок на это нет, так бы и бросил всё. Если бы можно было не учиться - в июле! - если бы не переживать, не волноваться, не писать хвостовки, а быть умненьким, правильным мальчиком, а я таким уже давно не был! И не дивно это, не мило, и никто в спинку не дышит, холодный, влажный, как дождь, никто из угла не посмотрит, за собой не позовёт, а только серо всё и ну совсем по-человечьи. Так и решил, что сбегу. Уж слишком всё серьёзно и грустно, не получается по-взрослому, вот и буду так, как есть: говорить загадками, говорить ерунду, придумывать сказки... Может, гляди, всё вернётся к старому!
Вернулся отец, а от него, вот никогда не поверишь, пахнет зимой и ёлочными шариками. Он, конечно, жуть какой шумный, но запах же откуда-то принёс, точно был один на севере и колол себе сосульки. За такие штуки можно много-много чего выпросить, например, счастье. Жаль только, нельзя от этого счастья закрыться за дверцами, как в раковине, пока оно не кончит шуметь, а то жили бы совсем-совсем сказочно. Сколько всё-таки пользы от глухоты! Я бы тогда ходил, точно под водой, и дышал снегом и звёздочками, так бы всё со мной было. Отрежь какой-нибудь орган чувств, и будет тебе волшебная страна и лес, и Хогсмид, и Фангорн, и Брокилон. Вот уж скажите потом, что звёзды не пахнут! Всё это рядышком, под боком, только нужно чувствовать себя немножко другим, поэтому такое и сбудется.
Самое чудесное летом, наверное, это кутаться в большое тяжелое одеяло с головой и смотреть сны про китов... У меня вот теперь все ночи идет дождик, а улицы вымытые и свежие, а еще пахнут липой, как чай. А сегодня у меня будет много дел, от которых немножко устаешь, но иначе никак не получается, и, может быть, тогда у меня заживет свой маленький Мелвилл, а еще большая-пребольшая банка меда, который, конечно, есть совсем необязательно, потому что это вредно. А еще, наверное, я со временем все-таки выздоровею и похудею и буду красивый-красивый, а потом мы непременно отправимся в большое путешествие к озеру и в лес, а еще будем жить под одной крышей и разговаривать по ночам, а еще слушать сверчков и пить ужасно много горячего чая с имбирем и лимоном и делать другие непонятные и волшебные штуки, только это будет не сейчас, а потом, если я буду жив, весел и рыж, как солнышко.
Вообще, еще гаже, чем болеть серьезно, бывает болеть по чуть-чуть. А это, получается, совсем немного, одними косточками, когда ноет все-все-все, но самую маленькую капельку. Когда болеешь вот так, вокруг собирается страшно много совершенно неприятных и до жути отвратительных вещей, особенно среди постельного белья. Вот, например, влажные простыни и душные одеяла. Если лечь в такую кровать, то не дурно и умереть до первых петухов, если весь промокнешь от сырости и духоты, когда подушки липкие, а матрас очень похож на холодец. А еще очень страшными становятся распахнутые двери и скрипы, а еще шум воды в трубах и кашель, ну тот, который совсем чужой, а еще мамины шаги. Хуже всего болеть понарошку, когда до самой ночи все в квартире щелкает, шагает и кашляет, а еще стучит и рвется к тебе из-за закрытой двери и спрашивает совершенно глупые вещи, никак не похожие на боль в зубах, костях и внутри головы. А ни о чем, кроме этого, говорить не получается, вот и молчишь, дуешься и злишься. Мне сейчас больше всего хочется, чтобы стало тихо-тихо, а все были мертвыми и не разговаривали. Я бы тогда пил горячий чай, а еще читал вслух и, может быть, даже подготовился к экзамену, а вот так ну ничегошеньки не выходит - и больно, и страшно, и неприятно в самых разных отношениях.
Я думаю, все началось тогда, когда я гостил у дедушки. Мне вот было тогда совсем-совсем не страшно, что и не подумаешь даже, где был, а только теперь вспоминать боязно. Это было, ну, может, за пару деньков, и вот именно у дедушки я совсем потерял представление о реальности. Эта штука как-то вдруг сама по себе куда-то девалась, и все вокруг меня стало шуметь и вертеться. А еще ну самые разные вещи стали ненастоящими и неправильными. Вот раньше мне представлялось, что все предметы очень плотно друг с дружкой связаны и один за другого держатся, а теперь они плывут, как в киселе, ну а я будто бы наблюдаю за этим откуда-то со стороны, оттуда, где у кастрюли крышка. Я когда дома, мне окошки кажутся сахарными, вот бери руками и ешь, и мни, а захочешь - кроши в ладонях, как мелки. Я теперь когда думаю, то сразу о трех вещах, а все, что увижу, хочется ломать, рвать и комкать, а еще рыть ямки в шкафах и делать монетками дырочки в стекле. Ночью мне обязательно хочется гулять, а днем спрятаться глубоко-глубоко и сидеть, как мышь, пока все не уснут. Я сейчас очень хорошо помню, что мне можно делать с собой и вещами, а что мне делать нельзя. Мне это ни капельки не нравится и даже самую малость обижает, а еще очень расстраивает и злит, как если бы меня чем-нибудь били и мучили. Мне, например, совсем не нравится, что приходится спать, а потом просыпаться и разговаривать с кем-нибудь, а еще мне не нравится, что нужно пить и есть, и читать книжки, и становиться на носочки, чтобы поцеловать кого-нибудь высокого и красивого. Мне не нравится, что ночью очень тихо и темно, а днем шумно и плохо пахнет из каждого угла, а еще не нравится запах газа и стеклышки, в которые нужно смотреть телевизор. Еще мне не нравится, что дома квадратные и пузатые, как бочки, а коты меньше, чем некоторые собаки. Мне не нравятся лошади, потому что они страшные и очень грозные, а кроме лошадей мне не нравится, что по утрам на кухне готовят завтрак, а в кровати спят. Я теперь почти не различаю цветов, мне не хочется ни засыпать, ни завтракать, ни делать покупки, ни читать книжки, я бы день напролет лежал среди тряпья, свернулся бы в маленький клубочек и слушал, как по ковру катаются голубые и зеленые моря, такие, которые пенятся и встают высоко-высоко. Это потому, что все остальное неправильное и ненастоящее, рыхлое, как щербет, и очень горькое.
Я вхожу в этот мир медленно и с болью в глазах. Я очень робок и напуган, а еще весь в краске и редких перышках, прилипших к джинсам. А еще у меня зеленые глаза, как болото, и худые руки. Я кажусь себе очень маленьким и даже немного глупым и чувствую, как под моими пальцами дрожит стекло - большое, зеленое и мутное. Я прижмусь к нему щекой и буду смотреть так, как живут люди, а сам буду далеко-далеко, за тридевять земель, прямо у Медной горы, где зимуют Василиск и Гамаюн. Еще у меня будут лук и стрелы с перьями, как болотная ряска или стебелек камыша, и полоски на щеках, а еще глаз в сердцевине лба, чуть выше бровей, и кольчужная сетка до середины бедра. Когда-нибудь я обязательно вырасту и уйду еще дальше, в такое место, где живут рыцари и колдуны, большие змеи и ящеры с сапфировыми глазами. Это я себе обещаю.
А мне бы очень хотелось, чтобы когда-нибудь вот таким же точно декабрьским днем я стоял у окошка и глядел, глядел, как колышутся в сизых облаках древесные кроны. И каждая веточка, каждая жила мне бы в радость была, и выл бы высоко-высоко над крышами ветер, а мы отсиживались бы в теплой, натопленной комнатке с чаем и баранками, грелись бы друг о дружку и глядели искоса в дымкой сдобренное небо и на легонький снежок на подоконниках и крылечках, на увядшие, скрученные в трубочки листочки клена, и все было бы нам мило. Как же все-таки кругом красиво! И каждая дощечка, каждый кирпич, каждый мазок белил - точно драгоценные камушки в серебре. Может ли что пригожее быть, чем эти голубые ставенки и зеленые козырьки? Так все это мне по душе, так любить хочется: и снег, и землю - сморщенную, пегую, вздыбленную жухлой травой, - и каждого человека, каждого грустного-прегрустного прохожего, каждую озябшую зверушку ласкал бы я и грел. И горит, горит в окошке рыжим облачком свет, и тепло мне на душе, точно горячего меду выпил. Вот так-то я счастлив.
С каждым днем все холоднее и холоднее. Самое время кутаться в овечью шкуру, варить молочные каши и есть их с терпким медом, тоненькие лодыжки пряча в плед и шерстяные носки. Я теперь, точно самого большого праздника, жду Рождества. Кажется, что еще чуть-чуть, и побегу покупать хлопушки и елочные шарики в серебристой пудре, бенгальские огоньки, яркие фонарики и золоченые сосульки. А сам потом, забравшись в большое мягкое кресло, до носа укутаюсь в одеяло и примусь вырезать из цветного картона легонькие снежинки - нежно-голубые и светло-лиловые. Мне бы к ним еще большой светлый дом и огромную елку до потолка, и большое, дружное семейство, чтобы тут и бабушки, и дедушки, и внуки, и сыновья, и все, как один, счастливые. Я тогда, как и все томимый предновогодним ожиданием, тихонько бы устроился за елкой, в уголке, на самой первой ступеньке большой лестницы и глядел во все глаза, как снуют туда-сюда двоюродные и троюродные племянники и племянницы, как тетя накрывает на стол, как помогает и улыбается ей мама, красивая, свежая и очень радостная, а отец, уставший, но безмятежный, спит в кресле у разожженного камина. Так уж и мечты! А за окошком пусть метет и метет метель, сочная, белая, январская метель, и в снежные шапки кутаются высокие ели, а повсюду, куда не глянь, горят и мигают разноцветные огоньки. Вот это я понимаю - подарок.
А уже, подумать только, декабрь! И сколько бы плохого не случилось месяцем тому, какое бы лихо не стерегло меня на заре гибнущей осени, теперь уж это далеко-далеко позади. И хочется ну вот совсем по-весеннему любить и верить, и улыбаться снежными зимними деньками солнцу, и ждать Рождества, и пить, укутавшись в одеяла, обжигающее нежно-молочное какао. А сколько еще книг не прочитано, сколько еще чудес, сколько счастья и пусть даже... совсем немножечко неприятностей, но только веселых и глупых, как неловкая шутка. Страшное, недоброе время миновало, и все-все-все, о чем бы только не мыслилось, будет замечательно. Еще немного, и до самой земли посветлеет небо, а облака станут точно ватные и густые-густые, как туман, и земля станет белой, и люди с головы до пят - точно это сахарная пудра или мука. А я непременно буду счастлив, как мальчик из сказки, и ничегошеньки об этом не скажу... только бы не сглазили.
Внутри у меня - небо. По щекам, тронутым бирюзой, меня хлещут хвосты воздушных змеев. Я - голубой камушек, брошенный в снег, точно в перьевую перину. Я живу глазами и отвечаю сердцем, я шагаю стремительно вверх, меня переворачивает с ног на голову, и волосы закрывают лицо. Но струиться светом сквозь грязь мне кажется призванием, и я держусь пальцами за небо, точно боюсь притяжения. Меня рвет на клочья, я рассыпаюсь и гибну, как звезда в пустыне. Как сильно мне хотелось бы задержаться, коснуться чужой руки и чувствовать, как меня коснутся в ответ! Как сильно мечтаю я быть пойманным в чужие ладони, словно соцветие одуванчика, маленькая звездочка, сахарная снежинка... точно слепой птенец, я кинусь в клеть, я оступлюсь, я смирюсь, я подчинюсь, только бы не знать той ошеломляющей свободы, которая раз за разом приходится нам предательством.
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