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murfpersonalblog · 2 days ago

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IWTV S2 Ep7 Musings - Sam Reid’s Autumn Brown Interview (Pt2) S3 Akasha, the Drop, & Amel

Ok, returning to the whole "Blame Amel For Lestat's Abusive Behavior."

Sam referred to something VERY important that I think people overlooked in his segment on the Ep5 revisit; they heard the Akasha bit and just ran with it. But this is exactly what he said:

[SR] Loustat "had the potential to have something very beautiful, but [Lestat's] too messy and chaotic, and Louis and Lestat are also...the beauty of their violence and hatred together, their dynamic...you know.... [AB] It's the best! They have exactly what each other needs. But also everything that makes both of them the worst parts of themselves and the best parts of themselves. [SR] And I think that's kind of cool, when we revisit that scene from Episode 5 in Season 1. And you see that in the in the Trial. I think there's something really wildly beautiful, between the two of them, in that violence. Because Louis is unhinged and angry at Lestat, and I think Lestat is more obviously--he's way more powerful, and his act of violence is, you know, like unforgivable. [SR] But there's this space that private space that they have in the coffin room...how much they hate each other...that's how much Louis hates him, and that's how much Lestat is...hurt, and then turns into this violent, angry, I hate you!.... They have that much hate. They also have that much love; because they're also vampires, and so they operate on like a level of like-- [AB] Emotion that's dialed up to-- [SR] Pure chaos! They're operating on that level, and then Lestat drops him from the sky, and it is an irredeemable event in their relationship. It cannot come back from that. And it creates this kind of cascade in a set of events, that leads to Lestat being killed. And I think that's part of our adaptation. It's not necessarily the the real events Anne Rice's books, but this is what is in our adaptation. And I think it does feed into that overall sentiment that Lestat acknowledges his evil, hellish self-loathing self...that is there; and we obviously heighten things and make it bigger. [AB] In Season 1 you know that there's something else going on, on the other side of the wall; because you can hear the fight dies down. There's a break, and you think it's over, and suddenly starts back up again. And we have this moment of Lestat taking Louis into the sky. We finally get to see what that moment was. And Louis is chilling--oh my god that little laugh that he does! He's like I'm gonna cut your head off! I'm gonna feed it to the lions and I'm gonna laugh about it! I mean, do you think for Lestat in that moment...? Cuz what leads to Louis saying that is Lestat asking Are you going to leave me? Had Louis just said: Yeah! and walked out the door and left with Claudia, would that have led to the explosion? Was it the act of him leaving, or was it the words that instigated that level of vitriol? [SR] Uhhh....I don't know about that. And I don't know if it's worth speculating what would have happened if that didn't happen.

--MURF INTERJECTION-- Thank GOD Sam shut that ish down, omfg. Again: STOP tryna find ways to victim blame Louis for what went down or say he "instigated" the fight! 🤬 It doesn't frikkin MATTER what Louis said or didn't say. All that matters is what happened TO Louis, and TO Claudia, that was what got Lestat "killed."

[SR] But I think more importantly is that--and this is something that I've felt has been really important about playing Lestat from the beginning, and probably something that people find probably a little bit confronting--but for me, for Queen of the Damned to work, Lestat has to have a level of toxic male rage in him, so that when he is angry, and when he's violent, it has to be a toxic masculine rage for Akasha to follow through with the events that she does. And why she says: You are everything about masculinity that's wrong and terrible. And so that's why you're going to be my right-hand guy, and you're going to help me kill them all. And I think...I always felt like, when he does have those spurts of anger, it does have to come from a very toxic place. [SR] Where we're going, when we're looking at it, obviously there's a scene back in Season 1: he's had a drink of this, like, fountain that nobody knows he's had. Nobody knows. No one in the show. Nobody knows. The only person who knows is Lestat. And most of the people watching the show don't know this, at this point in time. [AB] There's just that one little throwaway line about Those Who Must Be Kept, and then nothing else. [SR] And originally in Season 1, when they're in the sky and they're having that moment, Lestat was originally scripted to tell Louis about The Sacred Fount! In that moment, Lestat actually tells Louis about what he has inside of him; what, who he's drunk from. I'm trying to be really vague for anyone who's watching this, and has no idea, and I'm not going to give anything away! But anyone who does know, will know. But originally it's that he's up in the sky. [SR] And I think that is the parallel line that we're drawing with. That level of rage that Lestat has. That toxic abusive rage is also coming from an extreme monstrous power, coming from this intense monster that he has, and he has no idea how to control; he's trying to repress it all the time. But he knows, if he can, if somebody just ticks him off a bit.... He's a volatile guy already, but he's got this thing in that makes him go: AAH! [AB] It's almost going back to that element of vanity that you're were talking about: being like, you would do this to ME?! You don't even KNOW what I have within me! [SR] Yeah, exactly! So that also means that we can feed that shame and shock into his monstrous self--and acknowledgement OF his monstrous self--into his progressive spiral, into where we're going. (34:10 - 40:59)

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So. All of this stuff about Akasha (& Amel) needs to be recontextualized, cuz what Sam said is that "ORIGINALLY" the 1x5 script had Lestat threaten Louis with the warning: I'm trying to restrain the monstrous thing in me that makes me go AAH; you don't even KNOW what I have in me, AAH!

But guess what else happened? OBVIOUSLY, THEY TOTALLY TOSSED THAT ISH OUT OF THE SCRIPT, in S1 AND in the S2 revisit. 😂🤣 The time to have teased/suggested that there was something controlling Lestat that made him "accidentally" hurt Louis came & went in BOTH seasons, so arse-pulling Amel so late into the show after we already got Lestat's admission during the Trial looks goofy AF.

Cuz possession is a lazy abuse apologia COP OUT. Having "It was Amel's fault all along" would've directly contradicted AND undermined their whole point about PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY that they clearly wanted to get across MORE than using spirit possession as a crutch to explain/excuse Lestat's abusive behavior.

Possession would imply too many things, distracting from the overall thrust of Rolin's vision for telling a very real & very "aggressive, toxic, beautiful love story" about the ways soulmates find their way back to each other after hurting each other over & over.

Esp. since Hannah Moscovich (Ep5's writer) has already been VERY clear about her take on Lestat's capacity for "evil." She mentions his bad actions in TotBT, when Lestat was HUMAN again--he wasn't even in his own vampiric body (attached to Amel/Akasha's blood), and he was STILL doing effed up things! So his issues have nothing to do with spirit possession.

[SR] "it does feed into that overall sentiment that Lestat acknowledges his evil, hellish self-loathing self...that is there; and we obviously heighten things and make it bigger."

(Funny, when Sam something it's flowers & praise; but when Hannah says the same thing it's boos & hisses from the exact same fans, lol.)

Vampirism EXACERBATES & INTENSIFIES aspects of ALL people's character/nature that was ALREADY there; "all feels amplified." Cuz ALL vampires have Amel's spirit in them, NOT just Lestat. ALL of them are powered by his monstrous spirit, and ALL of them are capable of heinous sadistic bloodlust & inhuman acts of violence--look at Claudia's 56 Floaters & Santiago at the Chateau & Armand chasing Malik (& book!Daniel) for the lolz; and how hard Louis tries to FIGHT succumbing to those same impulses too. (Nebamun/Gregory & Teskhamen drank Akasha/Amel's blood. Marius & Pandora & Bianca drank her blood. Sweet baby Khayman drank her blood. Her son Seth drank her blood. Even Big Bad Rhoshamandes drank her blood, and as twisted as he is, even HE was like naaah this heifer's crazy, I'm outta here. Plenty of vamps drank from the Sacred Fountain, and aren't half as crazy & abusive & evil as the vampires that DIDN'T: Magnus, Santiago, Santino, Bruce/Killer, etc.) So the (weak) argument that Amel/Akasha's blood alone is what drives vamps to go totally effing ballistic on their significant others whenever they get mad is patently false, by the book AND the show's own logic.

So I'm glad they got rid of those lines, and just had Les say EXACTLY why he "fought myself a million times; fought my nature, controlled my temper!" and got mad enough to beat the breaks off Lou:

It's INSECURITY--not that Les can't control the monster in him (though ofc that's a VERY legit fear, his struggles with his temper & anger issues); it's that he can't control his family; his husband & child; and can't even "force Louis to love me;" esp. cuz despite all the Dark Gifts he has, he CAN'T read Louis' mind or manipulate his thoughts the way he could back when Lou was still human.

Cuz what Lestat DOES have from Amel/Akasha is direct access to more raw POWER & more Dark Gifts than the average vampire his age. He got her blood straight from the source, not diluted across vampiric generations. Those Gifts are why his rage so dangerous--his ability to overpower weaker vamps & fly them up in the air to drop them & set Millennial Fledglings on fire just for irritating him, etc. Esp. cuz we know "he's a volatile guy already;" he's got patented anger issues up the wazoo ("I am cursed with my father's temper; I am burdened with my Maker's temper").

ALSO, why would Amel have possessed Les to do something so counter-productive to his Chosen One's survival as almost winding up in the incinerator right next to Antoinette? By that logic, we'd have to say that Louis chokeslammed Claudia cuz HE was possessed by Amel too! That entirely strips away precisely what Sam said: how much Loustat LOVES each other drives them to unhinged levels of violence AGAINST each other, AND ultimately Claudia, as they each fear she'll take them away from each other (to Europe/the incinerator).

Hence why AMC hasn't laid ANY breadcrumbs indicating that Lestat was "possessed" by anything--just plain ole oppressive patriarchal toxic masculinity, just like I've been saying all along:

Cuz that machismo's what draws Magnus to Les in TVL & Akasha to Les in QotD; and that "vanity" is what draws Raglan James to Les in TotBT, and that sin/guilt/shame/self-loathing is what draws Memnoch to Les in MtD. In every book until Merrick, Lestat proves the villain right, before he finally realizes how bad he's messed up AGAIN, and course corrects to try proving them WRONG about him.

But Lestat's character development is a marathon, not a sprint; so it's not until Blackwood Farm that Lestat finally simmers TF down, and it's not till the PL Trilogy that his redemption arc really shines best. In PLatRoA, Louis proposes to Lestat WITH AMEL STILL IN HIM, as the Sacred Core directly communicating with Lestat, with the greatest chance to ACTUALLY take over Les if he wanted to! Louis is arguably the MOST concerned about Amel staying posted up in Lestat & possibly taking over him, so sure, I CAN see AMC leaning into the fear that Lestat's underestimating the chance of being spiritually possessed; esp. when compared with Akasha & Rhoshamandes. But that's also what SEPARATES Lestat from those 2, cuz he IS different; he IS special--to Amel. Cuz Les has a massive capacity to LOVE; he LISTENS, and treats Amel like a FRIEND, a PERSON, not a monster. And Lestat was SAD when Kapetria darn near kidnapped him & forced the surgical operation that finally separated Amel from him--cuz Lestat's ALWAYS carried that fear of abandonment in him.

Cuz it's not about Amel at all: it's about the HUMAN SOUL in each & every vampire; at the core of Gothic lit as a genre.

Cuz vampires ARE monsters, but the whole point of TVC is how they all learn how to be BETTER monsters/people; and NOT act like "barbarians" & wild animals--hence: Lestat's Vampire Court in the Chateau Era at the end of the franchise. Hence: Lestat finally becoming WORTHY of Louis' love.