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nalyra-dreaming · 1 month

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Hi Nalyra. I would love to hear your thoughts about Nickistat because Virginia is very biased against the relationship and often romanticizes Loustat and ignores all the clues that Nicki was Lestat's first and deepest love. Lestat might have fell deeply for Louis, but he would never have left Nicki if Nicki and Gabrielle didn't tell him to. I just don't understand how anyone can diminish Nickistat and say Nicki didn't love him because if Lestat had to pick between the lover that wanted them to struggle because of his own depression and the lover that literally tried to kill him, I'm opting for the first. I honestly believe that Nickistat would still be together and Lestat would have never paid Louis a second glance if Nicki never died. If Nicki never unalived himself, I don't think anyone could deny that if Nicki showed up during Loustat's "raccoon era", Lestat would not have thought twice about leaving Louis to be with Nicki. Lestat would have been out of there so quickly and I wouldn't have blamed him. It's unfortunate that the depression got the most of Nicki because they had the potential to be on a far grander and happier scale than Loustat. Louis would have been the Antoinette to Lestat had Nicki lived.

My brother in Christopher.

Louis would have been the Antoinette? Lestat would not have thought twice about leaving Louis?

Nonny. Dear.

So totally apart from the fact that I also think Antoinette was a bit different than meets the eye right now...

You said that "you would opt for the first" and I think that's the crux of the matter. You would, and that's okay. However, lets take a look at some facts.

Louis did not try to kill Lestat, that was Claudia

Nicolas depression started way before his relationship with Lestat

Nicki isn't someone who comes into the relationship with Lestat "untainted". He's already rebelled. Already went against his father's wishes, already sold his watch when his father smashed his violin. Gabrielle notes that "the worst part is that he plays rather well", because he is too old make it as a career.

Nicolas must have been told that and must be aware of that, because he literally builds that first connection with Lestat by using the quite self-aware admission that he, too, is "impossible".

Nicolas is sarcastic when he tells Lestat of Paris: "But in rapid, sometimes sarcastic speech[...]"

He's also not too fond of his own experiences: "I'll tell you, " he said finally, "it all sounds a hell of a lot better in this room than it really is. "

Right after this, there is this note from Lestat: "I was beginning to understand why he was so sarcastic arid cynical.

Sarcastic. Arid. Cynical.

These are Lestat's first impressions of Nicolas. He also gives us what drew him nonetheless: "But no matter how deadening was this sarcasm of his, a great energy poured out of him, an irrepressible passion. And this drew me to him. I think I loved him."

This passion drew Lestat. But he recognized the darkness within Nicolas even then.

Nicolas was doomed from the start. He calls the violin the "Devil's Instrument".

He literally tells Lestat that he thinks Paris a "miserable hellhole" in their first conversation.

As others, Nicolas is drawn to Lestat's light though (as it is called in the books), and there is this... let's call it helpless love that develops. They are young, they have common ground, and they click. First love.

I absolutely believe that the love they felt was real, and that they were infatuated, and loved each other very much.

But Nicolas never wanted to go back to the "hellhole". When he later tells Lestat that he wanted them to "go down", to starve on the streets, then that calls right back to that very first conversation. It is right there, from the beginning.

"I make music and it makes me happy, " he said. "What is blessed or good about that? " I waved it away as I always did his cynicism now.

Lestat... waves the darkness away, but he perceives it.

Nicolas believes that "sin always feels good". He sees what they have as a sin. And he revels in it.

"Lestat, we're partners in sin, " he said, smiling finally.

When they talk about running away, Lestat is mightily excited... but not excited enough to miss the warning signs: "All his cynicism had vanished, even though he did throw in the word "spite " every ten words or so."

Nicolas does not run away to Paris for a new start. He does it to spite his father.

"All a misunderstanding, my love, " he said. Acid on the tongue. The blood sweat had broken out again, and his eyes glistened as if they were wet. "It was to hurt others, don't you see, the violin playing, to anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule. They would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it. " I didn't answer. I wanted him to go on. "And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that we would go down and down and down. It was what I wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them. I thought we would go down! We were supposed to go down. " "Oh, Nicki... " I whispered.

Oh, Nicki, indeed.

Lestat loved Nicki.

Despite the darkness. Maybe because of it. He certainly was aware of it. Just as he is aware of the darkness in Louis later.

But...

Nicolas... wasn't love at first sight for Lestat. Gabrielle had to tell him to go and make a friend of him, to which Lestat's first reaction was: "Why the hell should I do that?"

"But why don't you go down to the town and make a friend of him? " she asked. "Why the hell should I do that? " I asked. "Lestat, really. Your brothers will hate it. And the old merchant will be beside himself with joy. His son and the Marquis's son. " "Those aren't good enough reasons." "He's been to Paris, " she said. She watched me for a long moment. Then she went back to her book, brushing her hair now and then lazily. I watched her reading, hating it. I wanted to ask her how she was, if her cough was very bad that day. But I couldn't broach the subject to her. "Go on down and talk to him, Lestat, " she said, without another glance at me.

Now, I am not trying to diminish Nickistat here.

It's beautiful, and tragic. I love their relationship, because of all the facets it has.

But it was doomed from the start.

If Nicki had survived, then this would have led to catastrophe, not relief. Nicki showing up through the "racoon era"... I mean, you are aware that Lestat stayed with Louis intentionally and voluntarily. (And that Louis did the same, something that somehow tends to be overlooked. They both could have left, could have moved out. But they didn't.) Lestat did not want to leave Louis, and Louis did not want to leave Lestat, despite everything. It is that simple.

If Nicolas would have showed up his darkness would have been festering for decades/centuries. He was already spiraling in Paris, and definitely so after turning, he would have been mad by then.

A mad vampire, hell-bent on relief for his pain, trapped in the darkness, fueled by twisted love.

If Nicolas would have showed up then, Louis would have been in danger, and Lestat would have been forced to kill him, eventually.

And Lestat always protects Louis.

Let's finish with Lestat's own words on Louis, and Nicolas:

Shortly after reaching the colony, I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter, graceful of speech and fastidious of manner, who seemed in his cynicism and self destructiveness the very twin of Nicolas. He had Nicki's grim intensity, his rebelliousness, his tortured capacity to believe and not to believe, and finally to despair. Yet Louis gained a hold over me far more powerful than Nicolas had ever had. Even in his cruelest moments, Louis touched the tenderness in me, seducing me with his staggering dependence, his infatuation with my every gesture and every spoken word. And his naiveté conquered me always, his strange bourgeois faith that God was still God even if he turned his back on us, that damnation and salvation established the boundaries of a small and hopeless world. Louis was a sufferer, a thing that loved mortals even more than I did. And I wonder sometimes if I didn't look to Louis to punish me for what had happened to Nicki, if I didn't create Louis to be my conscience and to mete out year in and year out the penance I felt I deserved. But I loved him, plain and simple.

I know the fandom jokes often about how stupid or shallow Lestat is, but he actually is quite aware. He reflects. He sees the parallels, and his own faults in the game. He owns up to his mistakes, too.

At the end of Blood Communion there is this little conversation, between him and Louis (and a nice little nod towards memory):

“Yes, Nicolas,” I answered. “Seemed all the little victories of life and life after death were so hard for him, happiness was so hard for him...joy was an agony I think, but I don’t want to think of it now.” “Some of us are infinitely better at being miserable than happy,” he said gently. “We’re good at it, and proud of it, and we get better and better at it, and we simply don’t know what it means to be happy.” I nodded. My thoughts were as thick and confused as the dancers, the music. But the dancers and the music were beautiful. My thoughts were not. I could not recall ever having spoken of Nicolas to Louis, never ever even mentioning Nicolas’s name. But then I do not remember everything, as I once thought I did. There is something in us, even us, that will not allow for that, something that pushes the memory of suffering that is unbearable slowly away. “I have no gift for being miserable,” I said. “I know,” he said. He laughed. Such a human face. Such a lovely face. There must surely have been twice as many blood drinkers now in this ballroom as there had ever been, and I sensed that I had ought to stop having such a marvelous time and return to greeting newcomers as the Prince should. But not before holding Louis for a moment, and then kissing him and telling him low in French that I loved him and always had.

This is where Anne ended the books.

With their dance, and Lestat telling Louis he loves him and always had. With the awareness that for Nicolas joy was agony. And Louis understanding. Because Louis has been there.

Other than Nicolas though... Louis manages to overcome his darkness. Eventually. He knows. He sees. He accepts. And he does not shy away from Lestat's "light".

And that is why, at the end, it is Louis, for Lestat.

_______

So, "biased" or not, I'm not sure I see it very differently to V?

Nicolas was doomed from the start, and so was their relationship.

Unfortunately.

Also, last but not least, if I may: "unalive"? You mean killed himself. Committed suicide. This isn't TikTok. Please use the proper words. Self-censorship is the way to preemptively accepting censorship. Thank you.

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