#Louis and Claudia come by it honestly

[thomas-the-goat-of-satan]

you're ugly when you act like that.

[rivercule]

I know it isn’t the case but it would be kind of fun and epic if actually neither Lestat nor Armand saved Louis they just both took credit for it at separate times under the assumption that the other did it.

Of course the only alternatives I can think of are Claudia (probably too messed up to do it at the time and I can’t see her saving Louis over Madeleine in that moment unless she really meant for it to be a punishment worse than death for putting her in the situation in the first place), or Sam Barclay Beckett, great and powerful member of Daft Punk who may have beef with other coven members and somehow managed to escape his fated end with the rest of them

[reireichu]

Louis will be the one to turn Daniel into a vampire.

We're nearly at the end of the line***, and I have this theory that Armand is not going to turn Daniel into a vampire at the end of the season. Instead, Louis will, and it's because of the above scene.

The entire Season 2 has established very nicely that Armand is a lying liar who lies, but it also has established something else very important:

Louis (is also a lying liar who lies!!!!!) has not forgiven Armand, he has never forgiven Armand, and he never will.

Look at that face.

IWTV hit the lottery with all the actors, and that's including the background actors, the extras, bit parts, the entire Theatres des Vampires and most importantly, with their main characters. Jacob and Assad (and Sam, but we aren't talking about him here) have used the entire fucking season as a masterclass in micro-expressions and honestly, it's so telling that you can rewatch an episode once, twice, ten times, and you will probably catch some tail-end of a thought in Armand's head, or Louis' mind, something you missed, maybe that slight curl of the lip, twitch of the brow, or maybe it was a trick of the light.

We are seeing these particular expressions in real time, instead of via a narrative. These expressions are who they are, how they feel, what they think in that particular moment. None of these acting choices are accidental.

(I could go on a tangent about the big game of Who Lives Who Dies Who Is Telling The Fucking Story Right Now*** and how manipulative Armand and Louis are in their versions of things, how Louis has painted this portray of Lestat that we see and read through his eyes, how they are reading each other, but that's not for today, today is about old maniel okay thanks bye.)

Armand and Louis have a contentious relationship, it’s basically the prolonged divorce of two assholes trapped in a toxic relationship. They’re both the victim and they’re both the villain. They both accept and avoid accountability for all faults. They're as bad as each other.

Is there love there? Yes. That’s what a toxic relationship uses to cage you in—the entire “I can fix him” joke and “but daddy, I love him” trope came from this—and toxic relationships can endure for a very long time, and it can eat you from the inside out, twisting you into some sort of malevolent creature of held together with tape, glue, spite and cruelty wearing the mask of an angel.

Louis and Armand have turned maiming each other with love into a higher art form. They've used it as their courting game, their mating ritual, and now it's their fucking battleground. They love each other, they break each other, and they stay together, and they love each other. Love and hate, different sides of same fucking coin. It put the particular scene when Louis offers Daniel The Gift into a different light for me.

Armand’s expression, as fake!Rashid,could have been read as so many different things (all the awards and commendations to Assad Zaman, please and thank you), and that’s probably the beauty of this entire show. Watch it again now, after the knowledge that Armand sat there as Claudia was burned to death because he ‘could not prevent it’ (LIAR!!!), after knowing that Louis has been with Armand for seventy-seven years of love and hate and ‘tri-annual fuck off and find me’s and everything else in between.

Louis has spent seventy seven years with Armand. He had seventy seven years to see what vulnerabilities there are to exploit, which buttons to push, what words will trigger.*** He’s also a patient man. He’s the guy that will buy a splotchy painting to see it go up in value. He invested in real estate before it was trendy y’all, he’s not here for your fucking NFTs or get rich quick schemes. Louis is a schemer, manipulator and a long term investor.

He’s been waiting for awhile, but he’s also spent decades chipping away that armour Armand wears. The little jibes here and there, dismissive, snarky, cunty or full on there it is, that half blank half apocalyptic stare because this man is either all or nothing. I love you, I hate you, I’m not your fucking companion, you’re so boring, leave him alive Arun, you’re a beige pillow, have you met the love of my life.

Armand is fully aware of what Louis is capable of. Armand might have played Judas in his coven’s little play, he might have been cast out, he might have been persona non grata, but Theatre des Vampires was still his coven and (spoiler alert book wise but I mean we are all know this happens) Louis burnt it all down to the ground. Armand might have hated them by then, Armand might have loathed them, Armand might have tired of them, but if anyone was to light the match on his wretched coven, it should have been Armand.

And now, Louis has invited Daniel into his coffin, the graveyard where Louis has spent the last weeks enshrining Lestat like he’s the beautiful boy nailed to the cross, Lestat whom he hates, Lestat whom he loves, Lestat Lestat Lestat Lestat Lestat.***

Why does it have to be Daniel?

It could have been anyone. History isn’t all that important, or maybe it is.

Don’t tell me Louis hasn’t consumated and consumed so many other writers, because we know he has. Because what is it, Daniel, did you think you were special? How many hundred something boys has Louis fucked around and found out with, after lying and telling you it’s just five. How many after that. How many in those seventy-seven years of Loui’s fuck off and find me sprees, surely there’s been hundreds of writers.

So why Daniel.

Because Armand now has only one thing in this world that is truly his, or was truly his, depends how you see it. Armand loves someone, and that someone is mortal, breakable, dying. Because the Dark Gift has been the thing that broken Armand and Lestat and freed Louis. Because Louis and Armand are lying liars who lie, because love of my life is not the same as coal fire in winter. Because Armand is a broken, manipulative asshole who was the victim, who is the villain, who Louis loves and hates. Armand took Claudia, Armand ruined his life, Armand lied, Armand was Arun was Amedeo was a fucking whore and I’ve always been real good at running the fucking show, Armand Armand Armand Armand Armand—

A very wise old man (and evil dictator, murderer of children, rose garden enthusiast)*** once said:

It's the things we love the most that destroy us.

And Louis has spent a very long time waiting for the right moment to destroy Armand.

And he’s going to use Daniel to do it.

HAPPY FINALE WEEK Y’ALL.

aLSOOoooo:

Just me reaching with weird foreshadowing or references, idek.

Not Lestat's blood. [...] Not good enough for her.

***I’ve had this post in my drafts for about three weeks, and only am posting it now because I basically have been trying to make it more concise or less nonsensical, only to realise that finale week is here so instead it’s now just waffling, with footnotes, bad references, stolen gifs, and inconsistent theorising? Pls forgive me for typos bc I just word vomitted this out to beat the Aus Timezone episode drop.

***Donald Sutherland you were the OG the big bad RIP :(((( you will live on in MASH, Hunger Games and fandom head canons of your twinky younger self from the prequel movie

***I'm actually such Hamiltrash that I couldn't make this post without one Hamilton reference.

***hello arun maitre dom/sub dynamic that reads like a fanfic, the contrast of a former pimp and the former prostitute, using your body to get what you want vs using breadcrumbs affection to manipulate a person, all the narcissism bpd ptsd broken meow meows someone else make this post pls.

***the fact that i cannot let go of this scene, and have used it in both this post and parasite, idek anymore.

[hostiae]

benji getting to interact with claudia is still huge on my wishlist.

[harmonybarmy]

can I be honest...............it's hard for me to finish this season of interview with the vampire

[fayevalcntine]

People really don't seem to get that regardless of whatever feelings they have about Daniel, he's in Dubai because of Louis. Think of him however you like but he said it plainly, "hire a transcriber. I don't do puff portraiture anymore". Louis had the complete option of simply not contacting him, simply letting Daniel die in his own oblivion and irrelevance that even Daniel himself points out.

"Legacy? That's for board members and assholes in loafers". Armand doesn't seem to want Daniel in Dubai either because of what Louis may want Daniel to do (publish a book, risk other vampires to come after him). So for all the questioning and sarcasm Daniel throws at Louis, he's still an old man in his 70s with a developing disability, locked in a penthouse apartment with no way out with two old vampires who are more than capable of tearing him to shreds. That's his choice but it's also Louis' choice to even have him there. If Louis didn't want the sarcasm, the bitterness, the relentless questioning and invalidation of his (blatantly constructed) narrative, he wouldn't have taken to asking Daniel to interview him again. If this was solely about Armand, Louis' life story has absolutely zero to do with whatever went down with Armand and Daniel. Louis has followed Daniel's work, has read his autobiography. He knows Daniel's work even has a motif of unreliable memory that becomes obscured with time (or another vampire's mind-bending ability). Again, Daniel is in Dubai because of Louis. No one is demanding he continue an interview with an old mortal man whom he could just as easily kill with no one questioning anyone else about it afterwards. Daniel is of no importance to even his own family now, yet Louis still wants their interview to continue. Frankly for all of Daniel's dismissive comments, Louis has had every opportunity and chance to kill him already or shut him up, have his mind wiped and send him home. The fact that he doesn't is more glaring than anything else.

[lizardkingeliot]

Hoooo boy okay let's do this. 2x06 was a goddamn doozy, you guys. There was a very strong theme here throughout the episode of makers and fledglings being able to feel one another through their shared blood even when they can't read each other's minds. Louis says he can feel Madeleine is out of town because she is his fledgling. Likewise, Madeleine calls out the fact that she can feel Louis after acknowledging she can't read his mind. But there's something else happening here too....

She looks to Armand. Says she can feel Louis' love for him through their blood. Then calls out the fact that... Louis won't tell him? Only... Louis HAS told Armand "I love you". That was a pretty important element of 2x04. The casual way he said it with the vision of Lestat laughing at the bedside all the while. The one Louis actually couldn't say it to...

Was Lestat. We all remember, but just in case anyone forgot...

But what does Madeleine ascribe this feeling to? Why does she think she can FEEL Louis loving Armand? Because of the blood they share. The blood they share that comes from Lestat. The blood Claudia didn't want Madeleine to have BECAUSE it's Lestat's. The episode did a really great job of reminding us about the blood bonds and just what it means to have a connection to your maker. And when that maker is also your lover..... hoooooo boy.........

Anyway. The love. The blood. The bond with your maker. I can understand why Madeleine would be confused about the love Louis is feeling. She sees Louis with Armand. She assumes they're in love. She doesn't realize...

Her maker is sitting there thinking about his own maker the entire time. To the point he almost quotes him word for word before he stops himself...

And of course he's thinking about Lestat. He's just become a maker himself. Why WOULDN'T he be thinking about Lestat? Even after saying goodbye to Dreamstat, he can't get Lestat out of his mind. Even after becoming a shadow of who he used to be. Someone cold and distant. He's trying so hard, but it's never going to work. He's never going to be able to shove Lestat away completely. And he's certainly never going to be capable of loving Armand in the way Armand desperately wants Louis to love him. Because while Armand might say he belongs to Louis. If you ask Louis if he belongs to Armand, well...

And honestly... I feel so horrible for Armand here. Because there's nothing he could have done that would have made this particular outcome any different. He never stood a chance. Louis and Lestat are bonded not only in their blood but in their hearts and their souls. Lestat was not only Louis' maker but the love of his life. His first love. The first man he ever allowed himself true intimacy with. The one he shared a coffin with. The one he shares a heart with. Louis is trying so hard to be who he was before Lestat, someone closed off and cold. But he cannot sever the bond in their blood and in their hearts with all the coldness in the world...

Which leads me to wonder... did the love Madeleine detect in Louis not only have to do with his blood bond with Lestat/the fact that he was thinking about Lestat the whole time, but also the fact that Lestat was already in Paris? Could Louis feel it? Was he aware of feeling that innate connection but was so determined to make himself a hardened shell of who he once was that he just brushed it of? Thought it was residual grief? Is that why his visions of Lestat before he banished him in 2x04 were so vivid? Because Lestat was in Paris for years, and despite not really knowing that, Louis felt it all the same?

Anyway. Moving on. Circling back to Armand and Louis and the topic of love. When they're discussing Armand not being aware of what Santiago was truly up to, Armand blames being distracted on being in love and Louis just... outright scoffs at the idea?

We sure are a long way from "meet the vampire Armand, the love of my life" territory this deep into season 2, that's for sure. And sure, in Dubai Louis is feeling bitter and doesn't trust Armand for many reasons this particular post aren't about. But even looking back on it, on the time that should have been their honeymoon phase before it all went to shit, Louis just... doesn't see love there. Or at least not being In Love. Because the only one Louis was in love with in Paris was his maker. The one he was bonded to in blood.

And the one he's about to have to sit on a stage with next week and never once be permitted to touch. Never once be permitted a moment of truth with. But the bond is still going to be there. They'll still feel each other's hearts, beating as one with their shared blood. And we have to assume after that... they just never see each other again after Paris? And just thinking on that point alone... it truly is no wonder Louis is still so unwell in Dubai. Locked away in his tower that is his prison that is his forgetting. I wasn't sure I believed Armand when he said Louis asked him to take the memory of San Francisco away from him. But I think I actually do? It makes sense. That he would want to forget something like that. And it also makes me wonder...

What else did Louis want to forget? And how much of that forgetting is related to this agonizing, unbreakable blood bond he shares with Lestat? I truly have no clue how far they're going to take this, so I guess we'll just have to wait to find out...

[salethe2]

I’ve seen a lot of takes on this scene, and honestly they’re all so interesting, so I decided to give my perspective.

Okay, starting with Armand’s costume, which Carol Cutshall absolutely nailed. Here’s what she said about Armand’s costume design:

—“One of the things about Armand is he is so ancient and so powerful that he always presents himself as very open. Whereas some of the other characters are very covered up, he’s always very open because he really doesn’t see anyone as a threat to himself. He didn’t have any predators or any reason to be on guard, or be armoured.”

Personally, I find this design choice fascinating because, despite being a predator at the top of the food chain, vampires like Armand, especially as a coven leader, would normally need to remain vigilant. Yet, he’s completely at ease, even surrounded by other vampires.

I mean, look at him here. Sure, it’s not the deep, open V-neck shirts he wears in the interview scenes, but his outfit is still loose and open. And he’s literally surrounded by a group of vampires he knows are plotting against him. He even has his back to said vampires and yet, he’s not the least bit nervous in either situation!

Even with Daniel, he’s not nervous or afraid because he doesn’t initially see him as a threat.

So, if Armand isn’t scared of his own coven—a bunch of vampires ready to kill him at the first opportunity—or Daniel, who could potentially expose all his manipulations, then why on earth does he go into full armor mode to meet a seemingly inconsequential human he’s never encountered before? He’s literally in a turtleneck, shielding his most vulnerable area for crying at loud!

A for body language—honestly, Assad Zaman deserved an Emmy for this scene. We see Armand being aloof, a little suave and condescending, employing the whole, “I’m a four-century-old vampire; you’re just a lowly human” tactic. It’s like he’s sizing her up, wanting to understand who she is while simultaneously aiming to provoke her, curious to see how she will react.

As for his questions, he frames them in the way you might expect a coven leader to interrogate a human he’s about to turn. Questions like, “How will you survive? Are you okay with killing people and being a monster?” It almost seems like he’s trying to make her reconsider her decision to turn, but it’s all a facade.

Because the question he really wants to ask is the last one, and when he finally approaches it, his entire demeanor shifts.

He sheds the suave demeanor and shifts to a more serious tone, embodying what Louis describes as his "post-apocalyptic look." He towers over Madeleine, gazing down at her in an attempt to intimidate. At this point, Madeleine's expression turns genuinely nervous, perhaps even frightened—and understandably so. Yet, she holds her ground. It's then that Armand poses the crucial question he had come specifically to ask.

“And what will you do in a few decades when she throws herself into the fire? Because she will.”

Now, why does this question seem familiar? It’s because Armand has previously made a similar statement to Louis. He had forewarned Louis that Claudia’s mind was bound to deteriorate over time. Now, Louis tearfully countered that Armand couldn’t be sure of this, yet part of him probably recognized the truth in Armand’s words, which likely contributed to his emotional plea for Armand to look after her.

Armand realized then that Louis, despite his deep love for Claudia, lacked the resolve to keep her grounded, effectively sealing her fate, which seemed all but inevitable by that point. He even assigns Claudia the role of Lulu as a way to infantilize her and further break her spirit—almost as a test to gauge Louis’ reaction. Unfortunately, Louis does nothing about it, while Madeleine clearly recognizes it for the manipulation it is.

And what does she do next? Madeleine quickly gets Claudia out of that outfit and into one more fitting for her. By doing this, she threatens Armand’s plans without even realizing it.

It’s also interesting to note that the only time Armand is ever truly angry with Claudia is when he sees her with Madeleine. This reaction underscores the threat he perceives in their bond, disrupting his control of the situation, and here is why.

When Armand posed the question to Madeleine about what she would do when Claudia throws herself into the fire, her response was:

“Or maybe she won’t. You don’t know. Maybe I’m what she needs to survive.”

And the way she meets his gaze as she says this marks a shift in their conversation. Throughout their entire conversation, Madeleine often looks away and breaks eye contact, but not in this moment. Here, she meets his gaze head-on. Even though she is clearly nervous, and likely a bit scared, she holds his gaze because she is sure of her words. This is a powerful moment where Madeleine not only asserts her belief but also turns the tables—now, it’s Armand’s turn to feel uneasy.

Of course, you don’t see it in his face, but it’s evident in his body language. The way he becomes closed off, his hand fidgeting, and his gaze fixed ahead as if deep in thought. He doesn’t even refute her.

Even with Lestat, when he warns him about Nicky, Armand doesn’t stay silent; he confidently affirms his insights, and Lestat—of all people—clearly believes him. But with Madeleine, it’s a different story. He goes silent, not uttering a word in response. He doesn’t attempt to persuade her because he recognizes that her mind is made up, her resolve unshakable. But perhaps the words that really hit home for him were “You don’t know.” This was probably the words that sealed Madeleine’s fate because the last thing you want to say to a master manipulator and control freak like Armand is that they don’t know something. Because now, all of a sudden Claudia’s death isn’t a certainty anymore and he can’t just sit back and wait for her to lose her sanity. He must take matters into his own hands now.

Anyway, one might think that Madeleine and Claudia leaving, thereby leaving Louis all to Armand, would satisfy him. After all, one of the first things he asks Claudia and Madeleine is if they’re considering returning to Paris, and you might assume Madeleine’s answer pleased him. However, her answer doesn’t satisfy him, not after what Madeleine says soon after.

Madeleine’s words confirm that Claudia indeed loves Louis, and because Madeleine loves Claudia, she persuades her to return to Paris despite her obvious and valid disdain for the city. This revelation proves to Armand, even if they leave Louis, Madeleine and Claudia will always remain a significant part of Louis’s life. For Armand, this is intolerable. To him, Claudia is a dangerous manipulator and a competitor of Louis’s attention.

So even if they all lived happy, separate lives, Armand’s nature is such that he cannot live with the doubt and fear that Claudia might draw Louis away from him. Having been abandoned too many times in his life, deeply wounded by those closest to him, and left behind for others, he cannot risk experiencing that pain again.

Thus, in that moment when he speaks to Madeleine in the apartment, he decides that both she and Claudia need to be eliminated. I believe this was the real reason Armand was there under the pretense of turning her. He needed to evaluate how much of a threat Madeleine posed to his plans, and upon realizing she was basically a live grenade, he knew he needed to act swiftly to get rid of her. Because as long as Madeleine is present, so will Claudia, and as long as Claudia exists, Louis will never truly belong to Armand.

[perseidlion]

The Interview With the Vampire TV show is a perfect example of how adaptations do not have to follow the source material closely to be an excellent adaptation.

(This is a spoiler-free commentary, but it does discuss the dynamics of the characters in general.)

I read the books back in the day, and of course, saw the original movie. Despite a laundry list of big changes, the series still feels extremely true to the books because it captures the spirit. It gets the characters and their fucked-up dynamics right. It doesn't shy away from them being melodramatic monsters. It keeps to the rules established in the source material. The show also makes sure to preserve key moments and key scenes, but always with a twist.

Since they did that, they were free to shift things in time, amp up and adapt certain dynamics, and change the race of characters in a way that deepens the story and complicates already extremely complicated power dynamics.

The original movie stuck more closely to the era and the appearance of the characters as described by Anne Rice, but I don't think the story loses anything by changing those two elements. In fact, it gives it modern relevance and room for political and social commentary.

I have never ascribed to the idea that an adaptation has to be slavishly accurate to the source material to be a good adaptation. It just has to be smart enough to identify what to keep and what can change. An adaptation adapts. Honestly, I find it boring when I see exactly what was in a book up on screen with no surprises. Where's the fun in that?

The difference between a good adaptation and a bad one is not how accurate it is to the source material, but how well the adaptation respects what made the story compelling to begin with.

What's important here?

Lestat is dramatic and powerful and a monster who is deeply charismatic, but also manipulative.

Louis is overdramatic and self-hating, but oddly drawn to Lestat.

Claudia is fierce, but bitter about her eternal childhood.

Their relationship is deeply toxic but with true affection. They are monsters, but monsters capable of intense love and devotion - to the point where it has the power to destroy them.

THAT is at the core of this story. THAT is what they keep intact. This frees up all sorts of avenues for play around a few key plot beats.

This room for play also gives opportunities to expand on thinner characters or rewrite them entirely. It's been a long time since I read the books, but I don't recall Daniel standing out as more than a framing device, especially in earlier books. But in the show, he's one of the best parts. Not only does he take a much more active role in the story, he delivers some of the most hilarious and cutting lines of the entire series. If the show had stuck closely to the source material, we wouldn't have this Daniel.

It was also smart of them to make Claudia a few years older. The eternal child element is preserved, but the layer of arrested teenaged hormones and womanhood that will never blossom adds an extra layer of angst and sadness. She is stuck forever in a state of rebellion, never allowed to settle and come into her own.

Having her be a young Black woman also deepens her attachment to Louis, visually, socially and symbolically. They are different from Lestat and they understand each other in a way he never can. She's still very much the Claudia from the book but with layers added to deepen her character and add new, fresh dynamics and complications.

It's also delightful to see the show take the homoeroticism that was subtextual in the early books with Louis and Lestat (and in the original film) and making it unapologetically text. Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles have always been incredibly queer and subversive, but it's amazing to see that side of it fully embraced and stated plainly with no ambiguity or qualifiers or hints. It's queer and that queerness is woven into the fabric of the entire narrative. Louis and Lestat are the toxic beating heart of the Vampire Chronicles.

It's also important because we need messy, dark, fucked-up queer narratives. Sweet, coming-of-age stories and romances are of course, important - especially for younger queer people. But us older queer folk not only want to see ourselves in multiple genres, we want permission to see imperfect, messy, and yes, even evil characters. It's a way of reclaiming the monstrous queer that was villainized for so long and making it our own. We want to find something beautiful in the dark.

If we all thought about it, we could probably think of dozens of examples where a show or movie went far off-script from the source material and was still an excellent adaptation.

Interview With the Vampire is just the most recent and one of the best examples of a stellar adaptation that respects the source material but also builds and expands on it.

I look forward to seeing how they surprise me next season.

[blueiight]

ldpdl, ethnicity, and the false monolith of blackness

there's this false tendency to think amc louis being made black is pandering, or a means of removing louis from his oh-so-detailed /sarcasm/ background in the books. i also find that people tend to not even understand what show louis's ethnic background is, despite rolin jones the showrunner and even the fictional louis both coalescing around this multigenerational explanation of the gens de couleur in new orleans, and how jim crow disempowered them.

I came around to his ethnicity a sort of interesting way which is through Lestat. [ … ] I was like lets give him a legitimate a third attempt at figuring how to be with somebody for the rest of his life and how to not repeat your mistakes. [ … ] I started from there so it had to be someone with some money cause he had to be with his own folks and I thought he wanted someone who could fight back and who could be a challenge and would force him to restrain himself. And nobody at AMC was interested in 7 seasons of the regretful plantation owner, so we made Louis come from a lineage that did have a plantation and did own slaves.

rolin jones in the s1 post-finale episode of the podcast names how he came to this understanding of louis's character. lestat, after failing to make a bride of his mother, and a concubine of nicki, was seeking for someone of a similar background, or the most approximate equivalent. he would not have been interested in louis if louis was an anglophone baptist black man descended from upper-south arrivals into new orleans, nor would he have been interested in louis if louis was a poor black creole honestly s1 does not give a good reading of claudia's ethnic bg in new orleans, but since she cannot understand french, we can presume shes either a poor creole removed from her cultural background with her vampiric adoption narrative in mind, or was also of an anglophone baptist black background like claudia was. louis coming from this fallen sort of gentry, the free gens de couleur, similar to that of the tvl lestat who came from this barren aristocracy dating back to the crusades, was key to lestat's long-term goals with louis.

Capital accrued from plantations of sugar and the blood of men who looked like my great grandfather but did not have his standing. But then decades of Jim Crow and the electrified light of a new century had vanquished any idea of a free man of color. - AMC IWTV 1x01

louis was of the first generations of the gens de couleur to be born, raised into, and face the institutional and personal ramifications of being viewed as black in america. this fuels much of the character's rage as he moves through storyville, trying to continue the similar modality of exploitation to the contrary of pretty baby with brooke shields, majority of the brothel circuit was statistically black girls + women being sexually pawned off to white men but ultimately failing to do so bc of the anglophone white american class that now rules over him. [tom anderson, alderman fenwick, finn o’shea starting out as louis’s subordinate then ending w/ him entering whiteness by having a sporting house throwing torches at louis’s brothel in s1e3]

By 1850, the free population of color, beset by the hostility of white supremacy, was economically diminished and residentially segregated. The Americanization of Louisiana, and in particular New Orleans, was completed before the state became the sixth to secede from the Union in 1861 in the struggle over the perpetuation of slavery. [link] The Democratic redeemers who came to power in 1877 lost no time in redefining the Negro's "place" in Louisiana life. They immediately restored the color line in the New Orleans public schools and offered silent support to de facto segregation practices in places of public accommodation. With the assistance of two landmark decisions by the United States Supreme Court, the redeemers soon dismantled the egalitarian legal apparatus put together piece by piece under the Radicals. Finally in 1890 they began to write their "final solution" into Louisiana law with a series of "separate but equal" statutes. Soon New Orleans Negroes were again segregated in virtually every public pursuit. [link]

[nalyra-dreaming]

I honestly can’t wait for Louis to finally connect the dots between many of Lestat’s behaviors and his past.

The fact the reason why Lestat was so mad at Paul and his religious rant is that he lost faith after God didn’t save him from the week long rape at Magnus’ hands. The reason behind his “set himself on fire” comment being that his mother ignored him like Louis did. The way his comments about being alone and leaving him struck Lestat so badly because everyone he loved abandoned him, everything he cared for hurt him, and everything he didn’t want followed and suffocated him. The reason why he was so awful to Claudia about Bruce being his own SA trauma. The threats made by Marius if he were ever to talk about the other vampires being the reason he kept them in the dark for all those years. And so many others.

I just wonder how Louis might react when learning all these information. Will he want to talk about it with Lestat? Will he be mad that he didn’t voice all that sooner? Will he feel bad for all the times he and Claudia inadvertently triggered his trauma? Would all those scenes be shown at all? Oh I have so many questions.

I hope they will be, just talked about this in another ask, but I HOPE that Louis will be there for some of those "documentary" scenes.

And I think he will react in ALL of these ways. He will experience all kinds of emotions when the pieces click into place at least, when he will ... understand.

A lot of understanding for Lestat's actions in s1&2 can only come from knowledge of his past. It is hinted at, but Louis' view of Lestat is a skewed one, an incomplete one.

It is no surprise that they reunite in the books when Louis understands.

And I think that might be the same in the show.

[cyranonic]

Louis de Pointe du Lac is the most important vampire in the world and let me explain to you why.

I find it incredibly fascinating that Louis is pretty unique among vampires for both his identification with and his connection to mortal humans. This trait is generally pretty inconvenient to him at first, as he struggles to break his connection to his mortal family and to justify killing humans for sustenance. However, we later see that Louis' fascination with human art and culture makes him more appealing, more life-like to other vampires. Armand in particular seems drawn to Louis because of his continuing interest in the world around him, whereas the rest of the coven has "turned inward" and thus stopped sustaining his emotional needs.

In the books, Marius gives Lestat pretty much the same advice--stay invested in the contemporary world around you in order to keep yourself sane. Lestat passes that wisdom on to Armand and his coven, dragging them out of their medieval worldview and bringing them into the ideological world of Enlightenment rationality.

However, where I think Louis does something different, something special, something radically unique, is in his relationship to Daniel Molloy and the interview. Louis goes a step further than Lestat or Marius. He does not simply draw upon humans as a source of artistic inspiration; he engages with Daniel Molloy on his own terms. He is a vampire who wants to tell his story, not to other vampires, but to the human world. He does not want to understand the contemporary human psyche, he wants them to understand him too.

Louis' desire to tell his story to Daniel seems to be based on his desire to find out what was true, to renegotiate the gaps in his own memory, but I think the other key component of what he is doing rhetorically is asking Daniel to perceive him as a human. He reclaims that lost humanity that he has been seeking by telling the tale of his life on human terms, to a human listener. He takes care to show Daniel the ways that he is inhuman, feeding in front of him, but then his story effectively reverses those feelings of alienation. Ultimately, the judgement he is asking Daniel to make is not just "is this real" but also "do I still count as one of you?" And by the end of season 2, as they sit side by side in the rock garden, Daniel seems to be answering affirmatively.

No other vampire wants anything of the kind. In fact, the whole concept is expressly forbidden by vampire laws. Claudia comes the closest, but her lifestory is a diary, a tale told ostensibly only to herself. She narrates her vampiric existence with a lot of "humanity", but her audience remains solipsistic. Lestat derives a certain amount of glee from tricking mortals into believing he is one of them, then pulling the rug out from under their feet. Even Marius does not bother with writing down his life story or telling any of his secrets to anyone other than another vampire. And Armand clearly does not want Daniel or honestly anyone to get close to perceiving the truth about him.

However, I think that Louis and Daniel's published book changes things. Lestat in particular adopts Louis' perspective pretty quickly. The entire opening of The Vampire Lestat is a justification of himself to a human reader, framing the whole book as a message not just to other vampires, but as a correction to the mortals who Louis addressed. Eventually, almost every major character gets a book wherein they have the chance to tell their story, inevitably humanizing them in the process. Even the pretty villainous characters like Armand become more comprehensible through the process of self-narration, transforming the monster back into something closer to a person again.

So in conclusion, while in the books Lestat will eventually take the lead as a the character who is leading vampires into a new era, all of this is only possible because of the revolutionary thought that comes from Louis. And I am so excited to see where the show takes Louis next, as he declares his intention to go up against his own kind.

[the-quiet-youve-been-longing-for]

Has anyone tried to look at Daniel's notes from the beginning of 2x05, before he asks Louis about 1973? I like these little easter eggs, but there are parts I cannot make out for myself

First page that we see, unfortunately I couldn't get a screenshot where the paper was flat so I can't make out the bottom part. I put in brackets my own notes/guesses

It looks like he had tried to piece together the 1973 memories:

Polynesian Mary's

Grasshopper Amex (the card Louis used? Not sure)

Divisadero St (fuck friend?) (I'm not sure about friend, the first word looks like fuck)

Corpses? In plastic?

9/4 - 9/9 - Six days???!!!

Lonely?

Captive the old Trick (is this referred to Armand fishing in his memories?)/Buick

The clear

I cannot make anything out from below 'the clear'

Second page is better, and honestly interesting. It looks like he started writing about the Talamasca, but then switched back to 1973

Monitoring (fatal?) agents

Wire tap

Access to tapes?

Indoor monitoring

Moviment tracking

Louis paid

Cab

Kill (pad?)

Sleazy /Drab

(Quaaludes?)

Interview from tapes

Bitten

I'm on the floor

Jealousy (this is so interesting)

Paramours/parameters of "love of my life"

(Armand?) publication avail. back then (I have no idea what the crossed out word is)

/ Claudia as trigger (edited after seeing responses, Claudia makes more sense)

We saw this one several times, but it's the most chaotic of the three

Where is the coven now?

Today?

Cell phones, Google, cctv (possibly in reference to what he asked Armand)

San Francisco, Polynesian Mary?

Playboy Magazines

Alice and Kate (I guess the way they are written to put them in the same row)

They'll come for next (???) Lenora Lestat

As a doorstop CLAUDIA! (use Lestat and Claudia as a blocker if they make him think or bring up Lenora)

MARY'S CAB - COKE BETH (???)

THIS TIME I WON'T SAVE YOUR LIFE

MI6? AEGIS? BLACK CUBE?

HACKED YOUR LAPTOP!!!

If someone would like to help me out with the pieces I'm missing, I would be entirely grateful, thank you!

[fayevalcntine]

A lot of Louis' declarations of love towards Claudia in the episodes prior to episode 7 start to feel hollow once you get to that ending and then rewatch the previous scenes. Him saying she "silenced all the noise, chaos and crisis of his former existence", her absence "revealing who he and Lestat were without her", him saying he tore out the pages from her diary in order to not have her be exploited. And in her return Claudia becomes his 'protector', the child who in a way becomes the emotional barrier between the docile parent and the abusive one, and they manage to "break free" from Lestat. But then the ending comes in, and it's revealed that Louis was miserable in their trip to Europe, it was not "the new adventure of their lives", Claudia hated him during their trip to Europe. And then we finally see a true scene that isn't narrated in the slightest by Louis towards Daniel, therefore isn't tinkered with, isn't 'prepared' to be fed to Daniel's ears. Louis betrayed Claudia by pinning her the same way Lestat did and forbidding her from burning Lestat's body. He was fine with taking out other pages of her diary that likely detailed her true feelings of anger towards him, and even in spite of this, Daniel says that it feels like she 'hated his guts' during their trip. Louis may not have "technically" chosen Lestat over Claudia during his murder but would that make any difference to Claudia herself, when she wasn't allowed retribution for being turned by Lestat and being frozen in a teenager's body? And it's not to say that Louis doesn't or didn't love her, but his love for her is not really well-reflected upon his treatment of her. He says he loved her unconditionally and spoiled her, but won't allow her the chance to burn the body of her maker who turned her.

[lizardkingeliot]

I took a ton of notes during my rewatch of 2x07 just now but the thing I kept coming back to again and again was Armand's framing of the entire narrative and how it plays with truth vs lies in such an insidious way it's honestly brilliant in its cruelty. Truth being used as a cudgel not only against Louis, but against Lestat as well. And against, us, the viewers at home.

We obviously all know Armand is a very powerful 500 year old vampire who is not going to be held back by an infant of a vampire like Santiago. Like… Armand. Babe. Let’s get real. But that’s the narrative set-up. The coven, now being led by Santiago, has Armand captive behind his little rickety baby gate with Sam and his prop weapon not letting the puppy come out to play. He cannot prevent it! Poor baby. Someone get him a juice box and a snack.

Enter Lestat. The vengeful lover come to make Louis and Claudia pay for what they did to him. What's interesting here is that everyone—Daniel, Louis, Armand—acknowledges in Dubai that the trial IS a sham from the beginning. A tool to allow Lestat his revenge. But the truth of why it's actually a sham is being hidden behind a thousand layers of gaslighting and deceit by Armand. Lestat is merely another prop on the stage. Being forced to use the TRUTH of his love story with Louis—and to twist essential elements of their beginning as a couple—as a weapon to drive the final wedge between them so that Armand might have Louis all to himself. That's what this is about. A farce so that Armand might have what he wants more than anything in the world. Someone who will be with him always. Without Claudia, without Lestat... who else is there for Louis to run to?

The trial as we see it is told mostly through Louis' POV. It seems to be a true picture of how it all happened but the cognitive dissonance watching him try to reconcile what Lestat was doing on the stage with the framing provided by Armand (who cuts in frequently to assure us that Lestat shapes things to suit HIS narrative) is painful. Louis sees and feels and hears the sincerity of Lestat. A Lestat who is defiant from the jump and refuses to paint the story as butchery. It's about LOVE. It is always always always about the love. An entire sham trial about vengeance and murder framed around... love.

Everyone who's familiar with the books already knows Lestat didn't want to be there. I won't go into that too much but the show did a good job of showing us just how unwell Lestat was during the entire process. But there are also some really interesting moments where we are TOLD explicitly through Louis' recounting of the events that Lestat was not actually there for revenge. Namely, the moment when Lestat says HE deserves to be punished alongside them. These are not the words of someone who is seeking vengeance. These are the words of someone desperately rattling the bars of his own cage trying everything he can to prevent what's happening. Because unlike a certain someone, in that moment Lestat is quite literally unable to prevent it!

The entire episode is Louis trying to reconcile the conflicting truths that exist inside him: that Lestat was there for revenge, that Armand couldn't prevent the coven from exacting their cruelty, and that the Lestat who was on stage WAS sincere and emotional and fighting with everything he had to let the truth ring as true as it was when he was able. He refused to refer to Louis as the accused every time Santiago insisted on it. He would only refer to Louis by name. He would NOT allow the narrative to frame him as someone who didn't also do monstrous things to his lover. He was weeping and flooded with shame. Sincerely, genuinely remorseful for the awful thing he had done to Louis.

There's also something else here about Lestat acknowledging he tried to crush what he could not own vs Armand deceiving Louis into the false sense of control that is the entire basis for their relationship. Owning something he does not crush, merely confines. He's not crushing Louis with insanity, he's locking him inside his prison of empathy. He quite literally has Louis locked in a cage while allowing him to believe he's truly free. Free from the insanity of Lestat. Evil, vengeful, gaslighting Lestat who only uses the truth to shape the narrative for himself.

There's a lot more going on here. I can't possibly get it all out of my brain right now and I imagine I'm going to be picking apart the nuances for a while. There are so many layers. The truth vs lies vs intentional reshaping of the truth of it all. But if you rewatch, pay attention to Armand's face, the score that accompanies his recounting of events, the passive way in which he holds his body in both Paris and Dubai. He's locking Louis in a dream world where the truth is present in such a way it only serves to amplify its own distortion. I don't even think he's fucking with Louis' memory all that much, just framing it in such a way that Louis cannot see past what is right there in front of him. What he already knows. If only he had just a few more tiny pieces of the puzzle...

But he's trying to get there. He is getting there. The truth of Lestat is breaking though. Lestat is still present there with him in Dubai, as real as if he were really in the room. After 74 years, Louis can still recall every detail of his face, still smile at him recalling the truth of his memories. The truth he wouldn't allow himself to look at all the way. The truth he himself had to distort for his own sake because it hurt too much. He's allowing himself to see not only the truth of himself and his own actions, but the truth of Lestat. All the complicated, sincere truth of him. The truth of the one who truly could not prevent it.

[froggyliciouz]

Something i really like about IWTV is how Louis‘ and Claudias relationship starts out as a father daughter relationship and turns into a brother sister relationship over time. Because the essence of found family is that it doesn’t have to follow traditional family dynamics. He failed her as a father but he can still be her brother.

Interestingly enough Lestat keeps his father status especially when it comes to parallels between him and Claudia. Maybe it’s like that because he mainly taught Claudia?

The dynamics in this show are honestly my favorite part about it, i think.