something that’s haunting me after “Toronto” is seeing the scene of Claudia’s turning in a new light after watching the unraveling of Nicky. Especially these lines:
She will be at war with herself.
Her emotions will soar and plummet, mountains and valleys every day of her life.
She will be miserable and you will love her.
And it will spiral beyond your reach!
You will regret this for the rest of your life.
The first time I watched this scene during the trial episode, I wasn’t sure if Lestat had witnessed this kind of thing with a child before, or if he was just sort of using logic and the wisdom of his years to see how vampirism would wreak havoc on someone who was turned as a child. The “you will regret this for the rest of your life” seems like someone speaking from experience, but alas, I wasn’t sure if it was just Lestat’s patronizing arrogance speaking for him.
I always read the lines “you will love her and it will spiral beyond your reach” to be about Louis, especially at this point in the show, because Louis really was miserable, and it seemed Lestat couldn’t do anything about it except this one thing that he knew would blow up in their faces… and yet Louis’s favor was something he couldn’t bear to pass up.
but now, after Toronto, it’s so clear that absolutely all of this was Lestat reliving Nicky, and the mistakes he made, and trying to spare Louis from making the same ones. I’m not even sure Lestat was aware of it at the time??? As he seems pretty adept at suppressing his trauma. But the height of his emotions in this moment speaks to the fact that this is almost definitely a PTSD fear response. A therapist once told me “if it feels hysteric, it’s probably historic” and that’s what his behavior is giving in that scene.
I find this unbelievably devastating because of what Lestat says about Nicky in Toronto, how he loved him from the moment he saw him, how he was engulfed by love for him, but now, hundreds of years later, he’s not sure that was even true, if he really meant it.
but it is so clear from that scene from Claudia that he did. He does. He still carries Nicky with him. he carries everything with him. i.e., you will regret this for the rest of your life
