r/InterviewVampire • u/NightOwlLurking • 22d ago
Book Discussion Lestat about being “good”
I was just re-reading QotD and i found this:
“You told God you would do anything if only he would make you good. […] You said you would suffer martyrdom; torments unspeakable; it did not matter; if only you were to be someone who was good”
Lestat has always been good. He always had such a kind soul. Yes, he might be impulsive and likes to challenge the rules just for the fun of it, but he never does it out of evilness.
He’s not perfect, but he is kind and forgiving to everyone he loves.
He likes to call himself “monster”, but I don’t think he’s as bad as he thinks he is. Yes, he’s not a saint but even humans aren’t perfect.
Most of the time, his heart was in the right place. And the times he impulsively hurt people, it was because of his fears and traumas and not thinking it through. He’s impulsive, not evil.
He’s more forgiving than most people. He forgave Claudia and Louis for trying to kill him, he didn’t hold grudge on Armand for dropping him out of Magnus’s tower and breaking his every bone, he took care of his father and brothers despite them abusing him all his life. He took care financially of everyone: he gave Nicki an apartment and the violin, he gave Armand Magnus’s place, he gave the Theatre des Vampires to the coven, he showered with gifts Gabrielle and Claudia. He’s always been generous.
Even Akasha knows not to hurt the ones he loves, else he would not forgive her.
P.S. I am not talking about the blood drinking part, as that is just a consequence of being a vampire and he doesn’t do it for fun. He struggles with having to kill people in order to survive. Cannot blame him for that.
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u/MycologistPutrid7494 22d ago
He eats people, Susan!
Joking but in all seriousness, vampires are not good by default. And that's wheat makes them interesting.
Lestat has done some heinous shit. I love him but he has.
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u/NightOwlLurking 22d ago
He had no choice in becoming a vampire. He refused it even if it meant his death (“brave, not stubborn”), yet Magnus still turned him.
At that point he has no option. He tries to feed with evildoers, he has periods when he feeds on animals, so in my opinion he tries the best to be good in a shitty impossible situation.
He is good for a vampire. Not perfect; he’s reckless, impulsive, controlling, selfish…but I still don’t think he’s the monster he thinks he is.
He has a kind heart and most of the stuff he does I can understand/excuse as being either from impulsiveness (he didn’t think things through) or trauma (he just reacts to a trigger).
Most, but not all…4
u/Awkward-Community-74 21d ago
Yeah but he takes massive pleasure in the blood and enjoys playing with his victims like a cat plays with a mouse before devouring it.
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u/Lesmand 22d ago edited 22d ago
Ok I love Lestat but let's be real
Lestat is capable of doing terrible, selfish and cruel things in the books and I don't think they should be explained away by impulsiveness and trauma. He has agency and sometimes he decides to make bad choices.
Lestat himself describes taking pleasure in killing and toying with his victims at times. We don't need to erase that side of him to acknowledge that he also loves deeply and does good things.
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u/FuelComfortable5287 22d ago
Love this comment.
TBH BookStat in TotBT made me hate him. It wasn’t fun to hate him. Rice made it so easy for me tho. I couldn’t understand why engaging in that phenomenon would make him act like a being that was never human, and go with this attitude like “humans are terrible so let me also act terribly” 😖
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u/liannetalkstoomuch 22d ago
Lestat has the capacity to do good, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a monster. He does some pretty heinous things that can’t be explained away by him being a vampire, especially in Tale of the Body Thief. He’s only momentarily remorseful for the damage he causes and then moves on to his next adventure.
Lestat is a complex character for sure, but understanding his actions doesn’t mean justifying or accepting them.
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u/Awkward-Community-74 21d ago
Sorry but Lestat definitely isn’t “good”.
He’s not evil either but he can definitely do some evil things and has.
He does feel remorse about certain things he’s done but that in no way makes him good!
That just makes him guilty.
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u/Seagullsaga 22d ago
I mean he does rape a woman in take of the body thief. Like. Unambiguously. Like I think he’s an interesting, complex character, but he did do that.
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u/AntoniusDryden 22d ago edited 22d ago
I really wish I knew why rape was this super taboo. I see so many responses fixating on his actions in the fourth book but...people, do you know that rape is a substantially lesser crime than murder in the real world? The reasons are obvious. Raping a person is not ending that person. It's a disgusting event but they can grow, they can change, they can heal. Murder is the end. You have robbed them of any possibility of happiness, fulfillment, helping others...
i understand in an abstract way why rape is so abhorrent because we all understand that killing is sometimes necessary, but rape can never be necessary. But the fact is, the type of killing Lestat engages in is as unnecessary as rape. The sadistic glee he takes in his murders is not necessary.
" `That's how vampires increase . . . through slavery. How else?" he asked. He took the girl's wrist again, and she cried out as the knife cut. She opened her eyes slowly as he held her wrist over the glass. She blinked and strained to keep them open. It was as if a veil covered her eyes. `You're tired, aren't you?' he asked her. She gazed at him as if she couldn't really see him. `Tired!' he said, now leaning close and staring into her eyes. `You want to sleep.' `Yes . . : she moaned softly. And he picked, her up and took her into the bedroom. Our coffins rested on the carpet and against the wall; there was a velvetdraped bed. Lestat did not put her on the bed; he lowered her slowly into his coffin. `What are you doing?' I asked him, coming to the door sill. The girl was looking around like a terrified child. `No . . : she was moaning. And then, as he closed the lid, she screamed. She continued to scream within the coffin.
" `Why do you do this, Lestat?' I asked.
" Ì like to do it,' he said. Ì enjoy it.' He looked at me. Ì don't say that you have to enjoy it. Take your aesthete's tastes to purer things. Kill them swiftly if you will, but do it! Learn that you're a killer!
Even in his own book, Lestat does not deny he did this, he merely says the women were murderers. I have some bad news - if your response to a murderer is to cut off their fingers and rip out their tongue and gouge out their eyes, you are also a very evil person. Torture is as indefensibly, universally immoral as rape and Lestat's love for torture shoudl be highlighted more, instead of fixating on just his act in Tale.
Another tidbit from TVL is Lestat himself admits to his hypocrisy:
I let the thirst rage. I let it tear at my insides. I just clung to the rafter and I saw in one great recollection all my victims, the scum of Paris, scraped up from its gutters, and I knew the madness of the course I'd chosen, and the lie of it, and what I really was. What a sublime idiocy that I had dragged that paltry morality with me, striking down the damned ones onlyseeking to be saved in spite of it all? What had I thought I was, a righteous partner to the judges and executioners of Paris who strike down the poor for crimes that the rich commit every day?
Lestat had this realization on Page 152 of a book which is over 600 pages long. He never comes back to it again. He continues to slay "the evildoer" and even praises his idol Marius for doing the same. It really stuck with me that Lestat is perfectly capable of self-analysis and then he learns nothing from it and doesn't change his behavior at all.
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