#when louis and lestat come together again in the modern timeline i truly hope the show digs into how

[ladycatofwinterfell]

people who defend everything about lestat and insists he did nothing wrong because he says so in his books and that louis is either blatantly lying about all lestat put him through or mind controlled by armand into saying what he’s saying are so annoying… partly because it’s simply not true he insists he did nothing wrong in the books, he admits to wronging his fledglings and understands why claudia wanted to kill him. but also because lestat abused louis and claudia and he’s also interesting and i enjoy him as a character and it’s fine to do so. he doesn’t need to be good for you to like him, i promise you, you don’t need to justify it with that actually he’s a good person. no one in this show is entirely good and never in the wrong, they only have different perspectives on what happens and excuses for themselves. every single character becomes less interesting when you take their motivations and use that to completely justify or vilify their actions instead of seeing it as a reason for why they acted as they did. because lestat is neither an angel nor evil incarnated and for a show that explores cycles of abuse and patterns of violence so effectively you'd think people would understand that

this sort of defence of lestat also leaves a bad taste in my mouth because the violence he enacts on louis and claudia is so gendered and racialised, he's the white patriarch in the family and his gender nonconforming manners and at times progressive beliefs do not change that. he can be a flamboyant bisexual who does drag and still uphold patriarchal structures within his family. it just becomes weirdly racist and misogynist to completely disregard it.

for me the bad things about lestat can very much coexist with that i'm sympathetic to what he's been through and how that shaped him, that i believe he has good sides and that i think he's fun. because he is fun! it's a treat every time he's on screen! it can also coexist with that he loved both louis and claudia very very much. and that louis especially loved lestat very much in return. it's a very intense love, love to the point of hatred.

maybe next season we'll see him grow in the modern timeline, become a better person, be better to those around him than he was to louis and claudia during their time in new orleans. maybe his backstory will provide clarity on why he behaves the way he does as it did in the books. maybe we’ll see him still be toxic and abusive in ways. sam reid himself said he believes there needs to be a toxic masculinity to lestat for his queen of the damned arc to work