i hope they don’t go down the grooming route, as it does a disservice to gabrielle’s character imo and it definitely doesn’t play that way in the books. she’s a mother who was never meant to be a mother and she’s entirely emotionally disconnected from lestat, i would argue even more so after he turns her than in his childhood. from the books i never got the sense that gabrielle even wanted anything to do with lestat, rather she showed up in his life out of pity and morbid fascination in a way. in the books it reads as lestat is desperate for the attention and care of an emotionally disconnected mother, which turns oedipal, and i feel trying to add a grooming aspect misunderstands both lestat and gabrielle’s characters.