Lestat de Lioncourt
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Lestat de Lioncourt (pronounced les-tät with a rather French flair, according to Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle and page 151 in Memnoch the Devil) is a fictional character appearing in several novels by Anne Rice, including The Vampire Lestat. He is a vampire and the main character in the majority of The Vampire Chronicles, narrated in first person.
Lestat is the seventh son of the marquis d'Auvergne and was born in 1760, in Auvergne, France in a castle belonging to his ancestors. Despite his apparent highborn background he grew up in relative poverty; his ancestors squandered the family riches. As the youngest in the family, Lestat stood to inherit nothing.
Perhaps the most pivotal moment in his mortal life was when he was nearly killed by a pack of wolves he was hunting in mountains surrounding Auvergne. He returned home a different person, determined to follow his own path.
He goes into a deep depression about his encounter with the wolves and the meaning of life, and with a friend, Nicholas, he leaves Auvergne and heads for Paris, intending to become an actor. During a performance, he attracted the attention of an ancient vampire named Magnus, who abducted and held him prisoner.
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[edit] As a vampire
Finding Lestat, Magnus made him a vampire. However, Magnus, weary of life, committed suicide soon after by throwing himself on a huge bonfire, leaving Lestat to fend for himself without any kind of guidance. Lestat found himself heir to nearly inexhaustible wealth, and began an adventure that led him all around the world.
Throughout his long life, Lestat was plagued by common philosophical questions, such as "Are my actions good or bad?", "Is there a God?", "Am I in His plan?", "What happens after death?", "What makes a person happy?" He found himself more in love with humanity than ever before, even if his relationship with mankind was savage. For a while, he saw life as "the Savage Garden", filled with beauty and death.
In the space of only a few centuries, Lestat became one of the most powerful of all vampires, surpassed only by the most ancient ones who age in the millennia. This was in part because the blood he received from Marius, one such ancient, was incredibly powerful, and because he had a relationship with the vampire queen Akasha.
Because of his boldness, Lestat's seniors referred to him affectionately as 'the Brat Prince', a title of which he was very fond. He was very vain and concerned with fashion, and would pause mid-narrative to remind the reader what he was wearing. Sexually ambiguous, he was attracted to whomever most interested him at the time. Most of his early experiences were with male companions. He himself explained this by saying the women in previous centuries simply weren't that interesting.
One such male companion was Louis de Pointe du Lac, a young Creole from New Orleans whom Lestat turned into a vampire in the 18th century. For almost a century, Lestat and Louis lived, traveled, and killed together. Though Louis claimed that Lestat made him into a vampire because Lestat merely wanted his fortune, Lestat refutes these claims in his own book and says it was rather because he fell "fatally in love" with Louis.
Their relationship started badly with mistrust and half-truths, though Lestat gradually came to regard his friend as a kind of student, albeit one who often resisted his "teachings" on killing and living life as a vampire. There was a certain element of feelings implicit in their relationship, but whether it was actually consummated is a matter of debate.
Lestat and Louis "adopted" a young orphan named Claudia in 1795, and Lestat turned her into a vampire over Louis' objections, as to tie Louis to him, who wished to leave Lestat. While Lestat spoiled her and tried to teach her how to become a vampire, it was Louis she truly loved, and ignored Lestat on several occasions, something he resented greatly. In 1860, after 65 years of living together, Claudia struggled with the reality of what she was, an immortal who would never grow into a woman.
She rebelled and tried to kill Lestat by giving him a dead boy who appeared merely unconscious for feeding (in the VCs, vampires cannot drink blood from dead humans or it will carry death), then cutting his throat, and, with the help of Louis, dumping him in a swamp near the Mississippi, after he came back, she tried yet again by burning down the French Quarter house they lived in, horribly disfiguring him. After Claudia and Louis escape Lestat, Armand, the leader of a coven of vampires, briefly takes them under his wing.
In the late 1920s (1988 in the film version), Louis once again discovered Lestat, who was again living in New Orleans in a catatonic state. Louis turned his back on him in pity and disgust. This version of events is again refuted by Lestat, who said that he had no contact with Louis in that era, although he had been visited by Armand around that time. Whatever the truth, Louis and Lestat reunited in the 1980s, only to be caught in the events that are detailed in The Queen of the Damned.
Overall, Lestat tends to be an extreme brat. He tends to gloss over his faults and exaggerate (or make up) his virtues. This is confirmed in the book The Tale of the Body Thief, where Louis attacks Lestat for constantly claiming in his books that certain events move him to tears. Louis sarcastically remarked that although he knew Lestat for more than two centuries, he did not remember him crying at all.
[edit] Lestat in other media
Lestat was played by Tom Cruise in Neil Jordan's 1994 film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire. The movie also starred Brad Pitt as Louis, Kirsten Dunst as Claudia, and Antonio Banderas as Armand.
Stuart Townsend played Lestat in the 2002 film adaptation of The Queen of the Damned, co-starring R&B singer Aaliyah as Akasha. In this adaptation, Lestat was not only a vampire but also a rock star (an aspect of his life which does appear in The Vampire Lestat, but is not dealt with at any real length until the next book, The Queen of the Damned).
Opening on Broadway in March 2006, with a pre-Broadway opening in December 2005, and running until May 2006, Lestat: The Musical features music by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The role of Lestat was performed by veteran Broadway actor Hugh Panaro. An Original Broadway Cast album was recorded in May 2006 a few days before Warner Bros. Theatrical Ventures announced the show would be closing the following week. The OBC was originally set to be released on July 22 by Mercury Records but has since been delayed indefinitely.
Lestat was parodied on the Fox television show American Dad! in episode 25, which first aired September 17, 2006. The character Roger the Alien was on a date with a gothic girl, while claiming to be Lestat - dressed in 18th century apparel, and speaking with a French accent.
[edit] Fledglings
[edit] External links
| The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice |
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| Interview with the Vampire | The Vampire Lestat | The Queen of the Damned | The Tale of the Body Thief | Memnoch the Devil The Vampire Armand | Merrick | Blood and Gold | Blackwood Farm | Blood Canticle |
| New Tales of the Vampires |
| Pandora | Vittorio the Vampire |
| Characters |
| Lestat | Gabrielle | Louis | Claudia | Armand | Magnus | Those Who Must Be Kept | Maharet and Mekare | Marius | Pandora Bianca | David | Jesse | Khayman | Daniel | Mael |
