#interview with a vampire spoilers

[iminaworldofpureimagination]

Louis: Claudia is dead and everything is worse now

[maggicktouched]

I finished Interview with a Vampire and wanted to share my thoughts. This will not be spoiler free so I will put it under a cut. But if you want my overall opinion if you’re like on the rails about watching this: watch it. It is so much more than I ever thought it would be. I don’t know a single person who has watched it and disliked it. Watch it. Give it a chance. Especially if you’ve ever liked the series.

Also you can watch on AMC+. An app that is genuinely awful but is running a special rn for like two bucks for two months. Not a bad deal for a good show.

I’ve had a very, very long history with the series, with the fandom at multiple times in my life, and with every iteration of the source material. I’ve most of the books multiple times and there was a long portion of my life where I would have claimed that The Vampire Armand was my favorite book, even if it kind of signaled the series flying off the rails.

I really didn’t expect to like this series. Even when I heard it was good I didn’t expect to like it. First and foremost because over the years I’ve become very disenchanted with Anne Rice’s work. Though I loved Armand’s book because I adore the character, I really struggled with Memnoch the Devil. At the time I was a teen and seriously grappling with religious trauma and any reference to the Christian faith triggered some ugly emotions in me. 

Rice also made some writing choices that just didn’t sit well with me. The Tale of the Body Thief has two sexual assaults if I remember correctly. And it wasn’t so much the character doing bad things that I minded as the way Rice framed him and clearly thought of him in spite of him being one of the most morally repulsive character she wrote.

I never made it through Prince Lestat tbh and I don’t even know the name of its sequel right off the top of my head. 

So when I heard there was a new series coming out I was mildly interested but had little hope that it would be decent. 

The pilot was a little bumpy of a watch for me. It highlights one of my only issues going forward with the series and it isn’t necessarily bad, it just means I’m likely not getting one of my favorite parts in the books and that is Daniel. Daniel who is my second favorite vampire in the series and a character that I have a very vivid picture of in my own mind.

The other issue I struggled with initially was Louis being a pimp. That felt so far off of the very reserved/miserable man in the books I often thought of him as. But it actually worked. 

I never loved Louis in the books tbh. I was very neutral about him and often felt sorry for him because he often felt like he was passed from one abusive partner to the next with very little agency of his own. He gets rid of Lestat just to fall prey to Armand just to go back to Lestat a short while later. Maybe it was just my interpretation of him at the time (I was like twenty the last time I read the books---literally a decade ago lol) but he kinda bored me. This Louis is a person I genuinely and wholeheartedly feel for. He feels much more real. Every scene where Daniel would get bitchy with him I’d be like “YOU BE NICE!!!!! HE HAS BEEN THROUGH A LOT!!!!” meanwhile being just as frustrated with him at times.

They made fantastic casting decisions for everyone. Lestat genuinely unnerved me in every scene. Honestly every time he’d look intensely at anyone this tiktok would play in my head but he was genuinely frightening. The scene where he’s talking to Claudia on the train? I felt physically sick listening to him threaten her to come back.

Claudia’s actress was also dead on. And honestly so was her character. I’ve never liked Claudia. I’ve never even felt bad for her even though she was written as a tragic character. But now knowing what happens in the books and knowing where this is going I’m so upset. I genuinely don’t know how they’re going to make me dislike her because for the first time she isn’t some spoiled blood hungry brat but a tortured woman living under the oppressive rule of an abusive man. And I know she’s not a child but Louis is very obviously her father figure/big brother and her having to be the one to save him---her having to stay behind and sacrifice her life and happiness for him---her being the one to have to stand up to Lestat and pull them out like that is a pain that I understand and goddamn do I feel for her. Abuse forces you to grow up way too fast, and in a body that never ages? It’s torment. Her life was torment.

I loved Armand’s actor. I absolutely hated the original IWAV Armand. He’s a great actor, but that was not Armand in my mind. This guy has the young face. He has the sharp features. And he has the menacing presence that Armand always had for me. I went into the series having that twist spoiled for me, so like I did know, but I actually think I preferred it that way. I am extremely excited to see where it goes with Armand, especially as the story goes on, because him being there AS the story is told is a big deal. And Louis and Armand’s love affair in the books isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, so the question is what is going on between them? Have they been together all this time? Or did Louis go TO Armand and admit he wanted to retell his story only to have Armand insist he do it there in his own home? Are they actually in a relationship or is Louis just as trapped in Dubai as he was New Orleans? Is it both? God I’m just so excited to see where Armand goes from here.

I also really really loved the pacing. And that’s something I didn’t think I would like. IWAV is not a book with padding. It is excellently paced. So I really worried when I found out not only was this a series, but it was only like half the fuckin book. I had zero faith that could be done without making it an unnecessary shit show of filler. But I think that the pacing is actually what makes this show so amazing. It gave us the time with each character to see them and who they are in this new adaptation and honestly I liked all of them. It showed us explicitly that Louis is not a reliable narrator, which makes me very curious to see other angles and points of view for characters.

The lighting was really great too. So many shows right now are making the “artistic” choice to turn every goddamn light in the studio off and shoot using a dinosaur nightlight plugged in 50 feet away from the camera rn. You can’t fucking see shit. Game of Thrones did it, so did House of the Dragon, so did any show that has ever been on the CW. And as funny as the memes are I like being able to see shit.

I like that the vampires are a little more feral than they are in the books. 

I liked Louis’ family. The part with his brother worried me at first, because disorders like that are often not shown in a kind light, but in the end I think they did a decent job. He was a tragic character and there was always the mystery of “did his mental illness kill him or did Lestat” and honestly I still am not certain Lestat wasn’t lying when he said that he didn’t kill him.

I liked the hints toward characters like Marius and Nikki. 

Most of all I loved how unabashedly gay this was. It’s what we have all wanted.

I am still disappointed about Daniel. I was disappointed in the original movie with him too. That’s just not what Daniel looks like in my mind. Him being older makes me wonder if they’re going to cross his story over with David and I won’t enjoy that. 

While Lestat/Louis was most people’s fav toxic couple, mine was Daniel and Armand. Two characters who were both horrifically broken people in a shit storm of Armand’s making because Armand doesn’t know how fucking else to love anyone because that’s how he was shown love by Marius from the start. Daniel’s misery and ultimately his madness. Even after being transformed he was always so painfully human to me. I always wanted them to somehow find a way to be ok on their own and come together again later in life, and I have heard that it does eventually happen in Prince Lestat and the sequel. So it doesn’t look like I’m going to have that, and if I do it’s going to look very different than how I personally wanted it, but that’s ok. It’s a personal preference.

But yeah. Currently those are all the feelings I wanted to get out. And they’re mostly overwhelmingly positive. I can hardly wait for another season and I hope everyone watches this show and we get more and more seasons to come.

I might even watch the Mayfair show. And I’ve never even read/liked those books.

[frecklesandfanfics]

Just screamed EWWWWWWWWWWWWW at my tv. He drove his hand right through the priest’s head! 

[gracerings]

daniel molloy character of all time once again: like imagine you’re a 20-something drug addict and a terrible journalist on account of being 20-something and a drug addict and you randomly meet a vampire at a gay bar and you think wow I might get drugs, gay sex and a story out of this and instead what you get is psychologically and physically tortured by his husband and your memories of it all erased and then 50 years later you’re DYING and those vampires show up in your life again to ask you to write the story of their happy marriage and your memory might be fucked but ON GOD you WILL ruin that marriage if it’s the last thing you do. and then not only do you succeed and walk out of it alive, but also with a bestseller, millions in your bank account AND immortality AND the knowledge that your annoying human ass was somehow the one thing that made that 500+ year old predator so mad that he broke his lifetime vow to never turn anyone. AND, on top of that, you’re out of the CLOSET.

[the-rainbow-meme]

not a single reliable narrator in sight

[loo-nuh-tik]

Interview with the Vampire | 2.02

[shhhhimwatchingthis]

My favourite underrated thing about Louis de Point du Lac is that he truly is the least curious vampire to ever be made and he does not give fuck about vampires despite being one.

Its Claudia who goes to libraries, reads the folklore, tries to learn as much as she can and pushes Lestat for answers about who made him and where the others are. Claudia says Vampire Pride and Louis says hmmm Vampire Tolerance.

And Louis...truly does not care about vampire history,law, culture. He's never even thought to ask. There are vampire laws?...ok...Lestat never cared about them and he's not going to either, lol. He's broken a few and he will continue to do so. Oh you have a coven? he's not gonna join it, he's gonna do his own thing. but good for you good for you.

the 500+ year old Coven Leader, he's gonna call Louis, Maitre, actually.

He has fire powers? thats kinda cool. he'll learn that but only cause it lets him vent his feelings about Lestat.

Lestat and Armand say the name of the vampire queen in front of him and Lestat straight up says, "Louis has no idea who that is" and do you think Louis cares, outside of the fact that for some reason it means he can't kill Lestat? No! Do you think in the 77 years he's been with Armand he ever took 5 minutes to ask a follow up question? No!

Do you think he will care about Akasha in season 3? Doubt it! Outside of her obsession with Lestat, who is the only person left on the planet he seems to be able to filter Caring About This Shit through

He blatantly breaks the 3rd law and publishes a book about being a vampire and when the other vampires get pissed not only does he not apologise he literally sends them his location and says 'you wanna fight? lmao don't miss'

I love him. Daniel Molloy is gonna need to bring his A game because Louis will not be solving a single mystery next season, nor would it even occur to him to try.

[kayascodelorio]

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE S3 TEASER | Meet the Vampire Lestat ft. Sam Reid

[queenoftheimps]

Daniel Molloy has never been more relatable than when he visibly has the slow-sinking realization "Oh no, this man is about to forgive his boyfriend for all of it"

[speckled-jim]

Armand: "I had never made one. The idea repulsed m— repulses me."

Armand when Louis leaves him alone for two seconds with Daniel:

[zamanassad]

vampire with a pearl earring

[ayo-edebiri]

#And he was right!!!

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2022 - ) I 2.08

[maggicktouched]

Armand in 80s with a camera: excuse me can you record me real quick?

Daniel, exhausted: hm?

Armand: can you record me really quick?

Daniel: mm mm get somebody else to do it.

[userarmand]

I feel like I get to pick one thing for myself, and it's her. A weird white lady I met by happenstance.

[gracerings]

louis staying with the man who orchestrated the murder of his daughter for over 70 years just to spite his ex-husband and lestat deciding to let louis find out on his own about his new husband trying to kill him, breaking his own heart and torturing himself in the process too, just so he could say ‘see I was right’ 70 years later,, this is the toxic obsessive failmarriage representation we deserve

[prouvaireafterdark]

listen I know it's heartbreaking that Claudia dies and it's understandable to wish she didn't, but let's please not accuse the writers of fridging her. to do so is a fundamental misunderstanding of the story and is frankly insulting to the intelligence and skill of the writers of the show.

Claudia's death, and the overwhelming grief and regret her parents experience because of it, is quite literally the point of the entire story. she dies because Anne's daughter Michele died of leukemia when she was five years old and there was nothing she or her husband could do to prevent it.

writing IWTV was how Anne coped with the unimaginable loss of a parent losing her child. she created a story about a little girl that could not die and then killed her anyway. Claudia's death is a senseless, unavoidable tragedy, just like Michele's was. the grief that haunts Louis and Lestat for the rest of their lives is the same grief that haunted Anne and her husband.

so when you're accusing people of killing Claudia off to benefit a story about two men, please remember that in real life sometimes parents lose their children. please remember Michele Rice.

she's the reason Claudia exists.

she's also the reason Claudia cannot be saved.