"if things ever get bad again, these are the words you'll hear in your mind like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. these words will hold you up and carry you. they are your lifeline."
The thing about Louis's relationship with Claudia is that, yes it's not on the same level of Armand and Lestat's, but you're making a mistake in even equating the latter two in some way. One is her maker, the man who was also her parent, who failed in parenting her and taking care of her emotionally (even when he severely rejected turning her before giving in), who abused her physically and emotionally, while the other is a coven master who never promised her any support or protection in the first place and took part in hazing a vampire who is the equivalent of a child to his age (and I don't say this to excuse his behavior).
Louis's relationship with Claudia also isn't just marred by parental neglect when he's also in the same line of men who put his hand around her neck. He physically abused her the same way Lestat first did, and for that he even threatened to tear Lestat's head off, yet in a moment of turmoil, didn't hesitate to replicate it. But even taking that aside, the parental neglect is severe on both his and Lestat's end. During the opening scene of 1.05, Louis makes no mention (in past scenes) of knowing she was self-harming, yet Lestat mentions she self-harmed for attention during the trial. So who exactly knew? Was it both of them? And even if Louis didn't know, it's pretty blatant within the symbolism itself in 1.05 that he takes part in this neglect until cops knock on their door over the dead bodies found as a result of Claudia's instability. They both avoid confronting the issue until they literally can't anymore, and even then, their argument turns from yelling at her to yelling at each other. Same thing that happens later in the ending fight scene: even in these horrible moments of conflict, she's never the center of it even if her wants and needs are in the beginning of it.
This is what she means when she tells Louis that she's been "a third, all my life". Even when Louis promises "it's you and me", it doesn't end that way. Even if he's conspiring with Armand to keep control of the coven for her, or trying to twist his relationship around into having more control for her, none of it ends up centering her and what she wants. This is true even when it comes down to her being turned: Louis drags her body around like a lifeless doll while dangling the promise of never leaving Lestat to him just so he can agree to turn her. Even if they considered the consequences of turning her, it didn't matter because Lestat ended up doing it anyway. In this, Claudia is angry at both of them because from her perspective, when exactly was she prioritized as the daughter? When Louis wanted her turned for the sake of dampening down his guilt? When Lestat turned her for the sake of keeping Louis close? When both of them ignored the glaring issue of her emotional instability and loneliness? When she nursed Louis back to health only for her abusive parent to still be let back in the house? When even in his supposed self-sacrifice, Louis hurls "go sit with your choices!" at her? And this doesn't even touch upon the diaries and Louis's need to editorialize them to alleviate his guilt, when they're the last remains of her existence.
Louis didn't orchestrate the trial or sit in as witness testifying against her, but he feels guilty over her destiny all the same, because he's directly responsible for when she was turned ("created") in the first place. It's not about the men he chose "over her" or even just how his own parenting mirrors that of his family's treatment of him. "Hey, it's not on you. You hear me? I carried her home. I made you turn her. And saved her from a fire… so a half century later she could…" - this line isn't him simply absolving Lestat from his guilt over her life/death, it's him expressing his own guilt and viewed culpability in how he failed her.
jdeanmorgan
sophsun1
danlous
capyclara
jeonwonwoo
renrapp
clarkgriffon
holocrone
fayevalcntine
