How did Louis and Lestat’s relationship go from this, a romantic love story, to this. Louis being involved with a psychopath vampire who is rageful and abusive? Well, the sad truth is, many people find themselves in these terrible situations. They are at first, swept away by the cocktail of hormones that come with falling in love, that they really neglect to see all the signs. Besides, Lestat killing a priest in front of Louis and then asking him to be his lifetime companion is a huge red flag. In my other video, I talked about how the vampire Lestat is allegorical for energy vampires and narcissists in our lives. In this video, I am going to do a deep dive, analyzing how and when Lestat became a narcissist, and how you can avoid all the pitfalls of falling in love with one.
The making of the Vampire Lestat
Lestat in one of his tirades talks about how he was blatantly abused by his father. Lestat, gifted in music, was shunned and even ridiculed by his father in his early years. In the Interview with the Vampire series, Lestat speaks of how his father abused him, discouraging him from exploring his love for music and his wanderlust for travel and adventure. Lestat also confesses that he was heading to the church to be a member of the clergy, when he was side-tracked by an infamous vampire known as Magnus. Magnus abducted Lestat in the pitch of the night, taking him to an obscure place, filled with corpses that were bloated and black. Lestat tells the tale of how Magnus fed on him every night, weakening him to a point of death. Only for Lestat to rise up in the dead of the night as a vampire. With no guidance or insight, Lestat is simply left with pile of money, and a brief glimpse of the vampire Magnus, before he leaps into flames and ends his life for good. As a result of this, Lestat has a fear of abandonment, and an even deeper fear of being alone.
Many psychologists believe that narcissistic personality disorders develop from parents who are overly zealous, spoiling their children rotten and giving them a heightened sense of entitlement. Or parents who neglect and abuse their children. This causes them to have poor boundaries and a weak sense of self. I believe that narcissism develops as a coping mechanism. Children who are often victims of abuse need to escape. They create their own little worlds where they are in control and have power and dominon over all those around them.
As they age, they only surround themselves with people who agree to submit. The narcissist is desperate for control and needs his victims to be subservient, adhering to the roles that he has written, and accepting the value he has given them. They seek to pull people into their own little twisted fantasies where they are king, and their leadership and dominance will never be questioned. The narcissist can never accept people for who they are, and they can never allow someone to be their equal. Instead, the narcissist has to degrade and ridicule to ensure that the people around him are inferior. We see this when Lestat and Louis attend an opera house, and Louis, dressed to impress needs to swallow his pride, suck up his feelings of indignation as he walks two steps behind Lestat, pretending to be his male servant. Other times, you see Lestat, sitting in the white section of the streetcar, while Louis and Claudia sit far off in the back, re-instilling the fact that Lestat is indeed king, and those who grace his presence will always be subjects.
In my other video, I mentioned that vampires, who in many cases represent narcissist, don’t have access to the light. They are plagued by a deep and loathing darkness, in which they can never escape from.
They can’t be inspired. They can’t find joy. Their life is riddled with discontentment, because they no longer have access to the light, and thus don’t have a soul. While fictional vampires survive on blood. Reall life narcissist survive on energy. Many of the ancient mystics would call this energy chi, or life-force, or ashé. And while the vampire drains people of their blood. The narcissist drains people of their Chi. We all know that the vampire can be heartless and cruel, attacking the meager, destitute, and weak, draining them of their blood and disposing as if they were scraps of meat. However, the narcissist is a bit more insidious. They drain people slowly over time, using manipulation techniques to keep their victims ensnarled in their trap. And since narcissists, much like the fictional vampire, is cut off from light and love. They develop a sick addiction to draining people of their energy. As the relationship progresses, the narcissists’ victims grow weaker, and the narcissists become more diabolical by nature. The narcissist develops a sick sense of pleasure by emotionally abusing, degrading, and physically harming their victims. So much so, that they can’t survive without engaging in these toxic behaviors. Lovers, relatives, and friends degrade into slaves, where their soul job is to provide supply to their narcissistic host. And the host controls his victims with an iron fist, out of fear that someone will step out of line, question him, or worse, make him feel the deep-seated emotions of abandonment that he had been avoiding his entire life.
In short, narcissism develops when people try to control their outside world, and not the emotions that they are feeling internally. They project all of their feelings and animosity onto other people. They never take full responsibility for their own actions and behaviors. As a result of this, they never self-reflect, or take the time needed to heal their deep-seated wounds. Then, the cycle continues. The narcissists needs others to carry their pain, because they are too cowardly and weak to deal with it themselves. The narcissist is a master of manipulation, or in Lestat’s case, a master of seduction. They know exactly what buttons to push and pull to lure you into their trap and turn you into a character in their own little play. Your wants, your needs, your desires, your happiness will no longer matter once you get involved with a narcissists. And much like a vampire, they won’t let go until they drain you dry.
