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.
No one is a villain. It's just sad and tragic.
