#it's probably only cause claudia's ghost left him to find louis so lestat had to check out what's going on with this recent development

[elvesofnoldor]

lestat spent the entirety of tva as at first a literal, unresponsive, living corpse, and then a fucking zombie for a spicy second. and of course Armand, who Daniel once described to have acted like "an insect", is the only fucking guy who perceived this shit and still see lestat as a person despite of it. Armand walked into the chapel where lestat laid comatose with zero vital signs and everybody was like, "oh armand you can't approach him! once some dude walked near him and lestat's body just automatically obliterated him" and armand was like, ok! but if! i approach him with like, idk, immense love and compassion in my heart? and this deep innate understanding that he is a person and not a spectacle to gawk at? what if i do that instead ?? maybe i wouldn't die? and then he did exactly that, and he in fact did not die. Then later on Lestat just showed up at Armand (and marius, pandora, and this two kids)'s dwelling, clothes tattered, hair dusty, no thoughts in his head. Eerybody was spooked out of their minds but armand just stood up and was like "oh hi lestat how are you" and gave him a hug and then they both sat down and just listen to sybelle playing piano and that's just how tva ends. im- how am i supposed to be normal after reading this fucking shit.

[licncourt]

Do you think Claudia loved Louis? I understand her hatred for him(and lestat) but was there any love there? Especially when we find out about the missing diary pages.. it seems any love that was there turned into manipulation. If madeleine and Claudia were about to get away and survive, do you think she would’ve ever came back for Louis? Met up with him or remembered him? I remember you saying that she never though highly of Louis too

I think that she definitely loved him early on, just like with Lestat, but that's pretty obvious. She was still mentally a child and they were her saviors and parents, of course she loved them both. I even think she loves Louis (albeit with a lower opinion of him and perhaps in a less daughterly way) when she finds out what both of their parts were in her turning. She's not just angry in that scene, she's deeply, unfathomably hurt too, and I think it's the beginning of her really hardening towards Louis. She needs him and hates that she needs him.

After all of that, I don't think she loved him, no. She has no real memory of being human and I think innate humanity is needed for forgiveness and loving someone who's hurt you. Five or six years as a human just isn't enough to instill some of the core human experiences she needed to relate to her parents. If she thought Louis was tolerably stupid before, she sees him as completely useless later, largely for the same reason. She can't empathize with the things Louis is going through in any way. In fact, it's everything she hates and sees as the ultimate weakness. He's a necessary evil, but if anything she seems to really loathe him most of the time.

I do think she sees Louis as stupid, sentimental, weak, boring, and definitely inferior to her, but how she feels about him moment to moment can vary a bit depending on the circumstances. If she's getting her way and frolicking around Paris, he's somewhat amusing for her as company. If she's angry at him, she would shank him and leave him for dead in a heartbeat if she was bigger. The most important thing is manipulation though, always. He's a means to her various ends first and foremost.

I feel like the only real caveat to all of this is her reaction to Louis' anger after her murder of Lestat and her emotions when she confronts Louis about wanting to leave her for Armand. Even then though, I think the approximation of love is coming more from the ouroboros nature of their relationship at that point. The two of them are well and truly alone in the world, and he's the ONLY world Claudia has ever known. He's literally her entire life and only option for companionship in the universe, so much so that she begins to see him in a romantic light for lack of anything else in her life.

She doesn't love Louis or like him or even respect him, but without him there is literally only the void, total nothingness for her forever. That's a terrifying, existentially horrific concept, even for a being as ruthless and cold-blooded as Claudia. Maybe she even felt a flicker of love in that moment, some kind of shadow of what she'd felt so long ago.

If she had successfully run away with Madeleine, I don't think she would have gone back to him though. I can't imagine nearly escaping a terrible death because her dad is an idiot would endear her to him any extra. It's just proof that he's a liability and "lost cause". If their paths somehow ever crossed again, I don't think she would avoid him, probably just give him the cold shoulder and let him grovel at her feet for a second before she left. Maybe she would confront him about the whole debacle, or maybe she would just let him stew in what's left unsaid.

There's that scene in Merrick where the alleged ghost Claudia is saying pretty much this stuff to Louis and blaming him for her death, and while I don't think that was really Claudia, I do unfortunately think that's probably not far off from how she would feel. In this case, Louis' worst fears are likely justified, and I think that's really unusual in a story but also kind of chilling to sit with. Sometimes there isn't redemption. Sometimes there wasn't love. Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake and you can never make it right. In a way I really enjoy that as part of a horror story.