IWTVL S3 Ep7 Musings - Lestat's Paul (Pt1: Religion & Love)
When Paul showed up I gasped out loud and nearly burst into tears; THE GOAT of the S1 Pilot. 👏😤
DANG, we were robbed, AMC. 😭💔 I only read Loustat fics, so usually I only see the ways the fandom puts Paul in different scenarios with Lestat. So I'd've LOVED to see how AMC would've had Paul react to Loumand & Daniel. 🤣 Especially since Hallucination!Paul represents Louis' love; how it manifests for Lestat, who's so desperate for even a crumb of Louis of Troy's attention & affection--his "validation." Paul is Lestat's HOPE, that Lestat's life has worth, because HE is worthy of Louis.
Like I've been saying this whole time, Queen Claudia said in the Ep5 Fight that he was UNWORTHY of Louis; and Lestat's been FAILING ever since; making all kinds of excuses for his monstrous behavior, leaning into the monster cuz he thinks/fears that he'd already lost his humanity, when that was NEVER the case: he was just too scared to be MATURE & face his flaws & fears head on. That's the ONLY way he'll ever be able to do right by Louis, and stop abusing the ONE (1) person that has ALWAYS loved Lestat as the man AND Lestat as the monster.
Who "deserves" Heaven, Hell, Purgatory? 🤔
If there's anyone in AMC's universe most deserving of a Heavenly afterlife, it's none other than Paul (and ofc bb!Lestat, back when he still wanted to be a priest at the Monastery). Lestat said it himself that he felt akin to Paul specifically because of that.
And I think it's VERY telling that Lestat imagines Paul belonging to a Heaven where God is a woman (*cough*); explicitly REJECTING the Christian dogma of a so-called "loving" MALE God who simultaneously HATES queer people (Loustat) AND suicides (Paul).
To Lestat, the Christian God itself is the failure of religion to let people love themselves, or have healthier ways of accepting things about themselves that so-called "Christian" society is unequipped to deal with.
It's basically what Nicki says in 3x3 about accepting the God of the Dark Wood (the Devil in Hell), since their toxic environment (family, lovers, society, etc) won't LET them change or HELP them be better. So eff it, just lean into the wickedness and be evil (Lestat & Armand do that A LOT); book!Nicki said this as he descended into manic psychosis the night he created the Theatre des Vampires.
Which is why it's SO MESSED UP that Lestat never EXPLAINED any of this to Louis, cuz it would've done WONDERS improving their failmarriage if Louis had had someone to talk to about all this from the get-go--jfc Lestat I can't stand you sometimes. 🤦♂️
Because in Lestat's time & Louis/Paul's time BOTH queer people AND the mentally ill were incarcerated in the exact same mental asylums--go ask Oscar Wilde. 💀
Cuz LBR, real!Paul would NEVER endorse Loustat. ❌🙅🛑❌ Even Lestat's logical brain cut thru the bullcrap long enough to give Paul a bit of his own voice back, instead of just being a mouthpiece saying all the things Lestat most wanted to hear in his desperation to not die thinking he was an unloved failure:
My favorite homophobe, ISTG. 😭😅
Lestat knew that Paul and all the DPDLs were raging homophobic bigots who HATED that Louis was gay. (Lestat says sometimes he wishes he was a woman cuz HE thinks it would've made his life with Louis so much easier--all while ignoring that if Lestat was a woman Louis would've never blinked twice at him--cuz LOUIS IS GAYGAYGAY. 🌈) Even in their genteel AF Southern bougie ways, they couldn't hide their disdain of Loustat's lifestyle--not ONCE did they ever set foot in Loustat's "sodomite townhouse", even as they nagged Louis for never coming home to visit THEM. 🙄😒
AMC totally effed up Lestat's characterization as a RUNAWAY who DID cut his family loose to go his own way in life (I need to make a whole post about this, cuz Lioncest's convo in 3x7 makes no dang sense), but wtvr--on one hand it made sense why Lestat was constantly telling Louis to cut the DPDLs loose after Paul died--but again: Lestat ALSO knew it was effed up of him to even expect Louis to EVER just cut his family ties, (internalized) homophobia warts and all--they're still FAMILY. Even HE can't fully ditch GabriellA even with all her effed up abuse against him.
TL;DR: Lestat stays trippin omg 😅
So yeah, let's not get the story twisted that THEE true spirit of Paul would've ever GAF about Lestat's suffering to condescend to that fugue state in purgatory just to make Lestat feel better about himself. 🤣 In LESTAT's mind, Heaven is a matriarchy and Paul is there, still being as homophobic as ever, but also kind & loving enough to prioritize Louis' happiness over his own hangups. But in reality, Catholicism says that suicides are all damned to the Wood of the Self-Murdered, Paul included--precisely what Louis said in 1x6 & 2x5. Because they're Catholic, the DPDLs all thought (Louis included) that Heaven is a patriarchy and Paul was in Hell. 😔
As suicidal as he himself was, Louis was always terrified of death/dying, cuz he knew he'd go straight to Hell, too--the suicide ofc being the Express route, but also for everything he said in the Confession Booth scene. So it's the sweetest kind of wish-fulfillment, that Paul lives on in Lestat's subjective Heaven, and gives him a much-needed pep talk in his darkest hour in the valley of the shadow of death.
Lestat just needed confirmation before he died that the one person who loved him really was Louis, the one relationship in his life that wasn't a total failure was with Louis, and because Lestat KNOWS how much Louis loves Paul, Paul became the symbolic representative of Louis' Love. (Yes, Lestat knows Louis loves Claudia, too--but he already knows she's in Hell, and isn't in the business of being a kindly herald advocating for Louis to CONTINUE loving Lestat, LOL 💀).
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