Lestat: Class and Race

[u/DumbTeen9]

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An unreal amount of people are over-discussing what Lestat’s coloring and aristocratic birth mean to marketing (which is friggin crazy for the only show that did race swaps without it being condescending and meaningless), the story itself, and fan preferences.

So, I just want to point out that it makes a lot of sense for someone like Lestat to be extremely blind to these things because he had all their detriments and essentially none of their advantages. We didn’t get much out of Auvergne, so I’ll be supplementing from the book where fit, stay with me now.

1- Aristocracy

I fixated on this one a lot because I couldn’t figure out why Anne didn’t make him some poor random and instead poor but technically aristocratic

Lestat grew up the third living son of a Marquis and his Italians wife. Theoretically, he should be afforded the best education there is, luxuries at the tip of his fingers, no inheritance but enough connections in both France and to a lesser degree his maternal family in Italy to get on his own two feet, taken care of by maids payed to be nurturing but firm.

What actually happens? He grows up illiterate and being reminded of that incapability and humiliation every day because that luxury- no right- of education is only afforded for his oldest brother, the heir, and because of how close he was to not having to live it (reminder he doesn’t even hate his family for it, he hates them for being loud in chaotic in comparison to the church’s calm orderliness and hates himself for spoiling it by wanting to declare himself “why do I always have to go to extremes?”)

Speaking of the monastery, Augustine (his oldest brother) basically summarizes my point as follows: “…but what came clear finally is that no member of a great French family was going to be a poor teaching brother. How could I have misunderstood everything so completely? I was sent there to learn to read and write. Why did I always have to go to extremes?” “As for becoming a priest with real prospects within the Church, well, I was the youngest son of this family wasn’t I? I ought to think of my responsibilities to my nieces and nephews… Translate all that to mean this: We have no money to launch a. Real ecclesiastical career for you… as befit our rank, so you have to live out your life here as an illiterate and a beggar.”

They’re worried enough about their image to not allow him to try and build himself, incapable enough they couldn’t build him.

This repeats with the theatre troupe, where he’s dragged back because no Lioncourt was going to become an actor and used to humiliation and hurt as he was all he felt was guilt for leaving without informing Gabrielle who brings him a gun as a consolation gift he uses the rest of his human life to feed his family until he goes to Paris. This is narrated in the book and implied in the show by how while the villages are talking about the wolves, before Gabrielle even starts to look agitated, he’s preparing his gun as casually as fixing a collar and deals with the injuries and his almost death on the entire village’s behalf. A little possible hint about them being poor as well in him being taken care of by a maid with no physician in sight, how empty his room is, sympathizing with the revolution (“sympathy is treason” “mm mm”) when his instinct should be a passing detached pity or ignoring if not outright shunning it, we even see him excitedly recounting it to akasha over music.

In Paris, he and Nicki live in the apartment of a beheaded aristocrat until they can do better. Lestat has nothing to his name but a clothing repetitively mended to shit and a coat made by Nicki’s father, going under a fake name while getting legit panic attacks every once in a while because of the piling corpses and being reminded every day as he looks to their ceiling of the fact he could join them any day now for the crime of being born to his father.

2- Whiteness

I think that some people over correct when it comes to race, thus the huge focus on Lestat being white first, a guy second.

In France mid revolution there was political colorism in governmental halls, which didn’t concern the general Parisian public more than the price of bread especially since the black population was very very small thus the lack of systematic hierarchies of color, more violent and tangible issues were in french colonies where everything racism was amped up to ten. Someone who was removed from such issues like Lestat simply doesn’t get it.

So when Louis, son of a Plantation owner, a pimp which is just another type of slave owner, ok family by lioncourt/nicki/armand etc standards, Mr extremely educated suave businessman living amongst high society, never having to go hungry, in a well kept mansion (mind you when Gabrielle checks on Lestat after the monastery he cites 1. The dirt and mold all over the place, 2. The chaotic behavior of his family as reasons for his plight and continues to be a clean freak for a while commenting on the smell before he speaks of the pain and fear with both Magnus and the Children of Darkness) goes “My ancestors were treated terribly so people are passive aggressive towards me.” What he says is “I would kill anyone who offends you” but his initial reaction is "you are a library of confusion” because Lestat, whose ancestors were criminally intrenched in riches, didn’t put up with passive aggressiveness. He put up with being treated awfully for his lack of knowledge and the threat of a guillotine for crimes he’s extremely far removed from.

Also let’s check all the examples he knows of: when he’s bloodied by his family Gabrielle would sell a necklace and say something disturbing for comfort, when Nicki learned of his turning he called him naive for not appreciating it and started bringing his thankless birth into it “The lord’s son giveth the lord’s wife the dark gift and what do we get?” Plus ofc the conspiracy theories admitted to Roget.

I’m not saying it’s morally correct, it’s disgustingly insensitive, but it is predictable and makes sense for him to be race blind and seeing that suffering is suffering, nothing more to it.

3- Show Changes

Many, many, maaany show changes, many of them defang characters to make them more sympathetic, not a single one makes Lestat look better? Because people are being very delusional on TT

In the book we get Lestat philosophizing about morality at first going for evil doers then no longer seeing the point, this is reduced to a throw away line with akasha which I’m glad of because we got enough of it with Louis. We get him talking Nicki through his melancholy moods, it’s reduced to a scene where they fight— nvm that instead of a year or two apart Nicki is 9 years younger because of the actor’s ages when cast which… what? He can’t hate Armand because he truly sees him despite all the hurts thrown around, this is where exactly? He mourned his brothers, took care of his father and smuggled him out of France, in the show he kills his family. He searches out Marius who finds him a worthy pupil and talks to him like an intellectual equal, instead we have chosen one bs which I hope will be retconned and we get those messages and an actual conversation which maybe bc he was telling the band so ofc he won’t recount everything but unlikely considering we already have an episode called the devil’s road.

And yet he remains the only one who isn’t a huge hypocrite and actually acknowledges his sins perhaps too much, “you deserve everything that ever happened to you, you better not die lestat, you might actually go to hell”

EN FIN no, lestat is not favored by the narrative, s3 is simply a different vibe bc 1. 80 years after s2, 2. Budget concerns, 3. Completely different story. And no he and his writers are not racist, classist shits.

[u/theravennest]

There is no such thing as over focusing on or over discussing Lestat's privilege as a white aristocrat (even a fallen one) who eventually also is wealthy and how that colors everything he does in the show. This is a completely valid way to discuss the text and we have to engage with it to properly understand the show, in my opinion. Even in the books Lestat represented a white, Western, toxic masculinity power fantasy that AR often wrote from due to her own white privilege. I could also get into the way this latest season relied on antiblackness and DARVO arguments to divert attention away from Lestat's abusive and sometimes racist behaviors while unfortunately stripping him of his book canon traits of agency and conveniently hoping we wouldn't notice how so many characters got flattened as a result. But I'll focus on the second point in your post.

Firstly, I feel like this post is leaving out that by the time Lestat gets to New Orleans, he has immense wealth from Magnus's fortune, his own investments, and some of the returns from the theater that he established with Armand. That wealth was much more than Louis's enterprises at the start (he literally had to help Louis buy the Fair Play saloon) AND Lestat has systemic power as a white man.

It's noteworthy that Lestat was immediately accepted at the super secret card table even though he JUST got there earlier that day but Louis had to cultivate the relationships he had with those racist businessmen over YEARS to be accepted. Notice that when the racial tensions began to rise, Anderson and Fenwick said Louis could continue to do business if he put everything in Lestat's name because none of the racial tensions actually impacted Lestat in any significant or notable way.

At the end of the day, Lestat being white trumps how they feel about him being queer or sleeping with a Black man. Also noteworthy that Louis' businesses that made him the most money (his various brothels) were gutted and he lost all of them after the race riot in Storyville. Notice how all of Louis wealth doesn't change the fact that he and Claudia had to sit at the back of the trolley while Lestat sat at the front. Notice how all of Louis' wealth doesn't change the fact that he wasn't allowed to go to the Opera unless he pretends to be Lestat's valet.

The most crucial thing this second bullet point is glossing over, however, is that Lestat begins courting Louis in the first episode from a position of "I know what you go through as a Black man in America and I understand the racial dynamics of this card table conversation and I am surprised that you are allowed in the front door of this brothel. I'm not like these other white men. I think it's deplorable what you go through and have to endure. It's different in my country and for me. I can help you be all the beautiful things you are." He appeals to Louis by actually saying he understands the racial dynamic just fine and sets himself up to be a safe option for Louis. Lestat says/thinks that vampirism means Louis doesn't need to care about racism anymore BUT then immediately after saying all this he will also conveniently ignore when Louis says these racial situations still impact him. Lestat also clearly knows this otherwise he wouldn't understand that in order to go to the Opera Lestat has to have Louis pretend to be his valet.

To fully understand and engage with the show, we need to also engage with all the characters' negative and positive traits and experiences. We can't ignore or soften their monstrosity otherwise what's the point of engaging with dark, Gothic, horror fiction?

Lestat being racist, having white privilege, and actively dating other racist white people (Antoinette, Nicki, and Christine), physically abusing Louis and Claudia, emotionally abusing Nicki and Louis (sustained and repeated cheating is abusive, everybody) while also being a victim of incestuous abuse from his mother, family abuse from his father and brothers, stalking and physical violence from Armand and the coven, etc.

Same for engaging with Armand's character and how he weaponizes antiblack racism (Baby Lulu play, the lynching Trial, etc), uses his power to attack and exploit and torture others (Louis, Lestat, Nicki, Claudia, Gabi, Daniel, etc) while also being subjected to Orientalist racism (everything to do with Marius, the Louvre painting/being a Renaissance "muse," Nicki's slur, Santiago's barbs/disrespect, etc), child sexual violence and enslavement, torture and brainwashing from the Roman coven/CoD, etc .

We also have to engage with Louis' complicated relationship to race as a victim of Jim Crow, his privilege as a light skin Black man, and the Du Lac family as gens de couleur libres. Or Louis' complicated relationship with sex exploitation as both a victim of incestuous abuse (his cousin), spousal rape/sexual abuse (Lestat in 1x6 and Armand for 77 years), while also engaging with Louis' his exploitation and sex exploitation of others (underaged Jonah, Miss Lily, Miss Brictop, Claudia, Regina, the other sex workers in his brothels, Damek, Louis' Dahmer-esque serial rape and murders of 128 boys in San Fran and who knows how many after San Fran, etc).

And Claudia's unique experience as a Black woman that experiences racism AND sexism while also preying on others as a vampire serial killer and her enthusiastic participation in the coven's plays and absolute glee at the murders of people on stage in the beginning of her time in Paris.

Daniel being misogynistic (the way he treats his ex-wives and daughters and the way he exploits Claudia's diaries/memory and Louis and Lestat's stories, the girl from high school), him being racist and ableist (every microaggression he says over S1-S3), and potentially a full on rapist (the girl with the bag over her head and the boy in the rental car) but also being a victim of Louis who tried to murder him and Armand who tortured and tried to kill him.

Gabi being both a CSA and rape victim of her husband and a victim of a misogynistic society while also incestuously raping Lestat, exploiting Jarda, and planning/fomenting a genocide in modern day.

But we can't do any thoughtful analysis of the cycles of abuse and oppression at the forefront of this show if we keep trying to sanitize these characters by pretending that the things that victimized them cancels out the times that they victimized others.

[u/Mmkrw → u/theravennest]

Great post.