#lestat wields a lot of power in it of course but louis does too

[pynkhues]

I would LOVE to read your analysis of louis as byronic hero as apposed to his reading as gothic heroine. lots of the latter and zero of the former in the fandom.

Sure! Mmm, okay, so –

What are we talking about when we talk about Gothic Heroes?  

When we talk about gothic heroes, we’re really talking about three pretty different character archetypes. All three are vital to the genre, but some are more popular in certain subgenres i.e. your Prometheus Hero may be more common in gothic horror, whereas your Byronic Hero might be more likely to be found in gothic romance. That’s not to say they’re exclusive to those subgenres at all, and there is an argument that these archetypes themselves are gendered (in many ways, I think people confuse Anne being an author of the female gothic with Louis being a gothic heroine, but I’ll get into that later), but this is also not necessarily something that’s exclusive.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, haha, so the three gothic hero archetypes are:

Milton’s Satan who is the classic gothic hero-villain. You can probably guess from the name, but he was originated in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost. He is God’s favourite angel, but God is forced to cast him out of heaven when he rebels against him. As an archetype, he’s a man pretty much defined by his pride, vanity and self-love, usually fucks his way through whatever book or poem he’s in, has a perverted, incestuous family, and a desire to corrupt other people. He’s also defined as being “too weak to choose what is moral and right, and instead chooses what is pleasurable only to him” and his greatest character flaw, in spite of all The Horrors, is that he’s usually easily misguided or led astray. (I would argue that Lestat fits into this archetype pretty neatly, but that’s a whole other post.)

Prometheus who was established as a gothic archetype by Mary Shelley with Frankenstein in 1818. Your Prometheus Hero is basically represented by the quest for knowledge and the overreach of that quest to bring on unintended consequences. He’s tied, of course, to the Prometheus of Greek myth, so you can get elements of that in this character design too in that he can be devious or a trickster, but the most important part of him is that he is split between his extreme intelligence and his sense of rebellion, and that his sense of rebellion and boundary pushing overtakes his intelligence and basically leads to All The Gothic Horrors.

And the Byronic Hero, who as the name implies, was both created by and inspired by the romantic poet, Lord Byron in his semi-autobiographical poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage which was published between 1812-1818. The archetype is kind of an idealized version of himself, and as historian and critic Lord Macaulay wrote, the character is “a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection.” Adding to that, he’s often called ‘the gloomy egoist’ as a protagonist type, hates society, is often self-destructive and lives either exiled or in a self-exile, and is a stalwart of gothic literature, but especially gothic romance. Interestingly too, in his most iconic depictions he’s often a) darkly featured and/or not white (Heathcliff being the most obvious example of this given Emily Bronte clearly writes him as either Black or South Asian), and b) is often used to explore queer identity, with Byron himself having been bisexual.

Okay, but what about the Gothic Heroine?

Gothic heroines are less delineated and have had more of an evolution over time, which makes sense, given women have consistently been the main audience of gothic literature and have frequently been the most influential writers of the genre too. The gothic genre sort of ‘officially’ started with Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto and Isabella is largely regarded as the first gothic heroine and the foundation of the archetype, and the book opens even with one of the key defining traits – an innocent, chaste woman without the protection of a family being pursued and persecuted by a man on the rampage.

The gothic heroine was, for years, defined by her lack of agency. She was innocent, chaste, beautiful, curious, plagued by tragedy and often, ultimately, tragic. Isabella survives in The Castle of Otranto, but she’s one of the lucky ones – Cathy dies in Wuthering Heights, Sybil dies in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Justine and Elizabeth both die in Frankenstein, Mina survives in Dracula, but Lucy doesn’t. There’s an argument frequently posited that the gothic genre was, and is, about dead women and the men who mourn them, and Interview with the Vampire certainly lends itself to that pretty neatly.

Of course, the genre has evolved, and in particular by the late 1800s, there was a notable shift in how the Gothic Heroine was depicted. The house became a place of imprisonment where they were further constrained and disempowered, she was infantilized and pathologized and diagnosed as hysterical, and as Avril Horner puts it in her excellent paper, Women, Power and Conflict: the Gothic heroine and ‘Chocolate-box Gothic’, gothic literature of this era “explores “the constraints enforced [by] a patriarchal society that is becoming increasingly nervous about the demands of the ‘New Woman’.”

This was an era where marriage was increasingly understood in feminist circles to be a civil death where women were further subjugated and became the property of their husbands. This was explored through gothic literature as the domestic space evolved into a symbol of patriarchal control in the Female Gothic.

Female Gothic vs Male Gothic

Because here’s the thing – the female gothic and the male gothic are generally understood to be two different subgenres of gothic literature.

While there are plenty of arguments as to what this entails, the basics is that the male gothic is written by men, and usually features graphic horror, rape and the masculine domination of women and often utilises the invasion of women’s spaces as a symbol of further penetrating their bodies, while the female gothic is written by women, and usually features graphic terror, as opposed to horror, while delving more specifically into gender politics. More than that though, its heroines are usually victimized, virginial and powerless while being pursued by villainous men.

The Female Gothic as a genre is also specifically interested in the passage from girlhood to female maturity, and does view the house as a place of entrapment, but she is usually suddenly “threatened with imprisonment in a castle or a great house under the control of a powerful male figure who gave her no chance to escape.”

That’s not Louis’ arc, that’s Claudia’s arc twice over, first with the house at Rue Royale, then with the Paris Coven, and Lestat and Armand aren’t the only powerful male figures who imprison her.

Claudia as the Gothic Heroine

Claudia in many ways is the absolute embodiment of the classic gothic heroine. Even the moment of their meeting is a product of Louis’ Byronic heroism – his act of implacable revenge against the Alderman Fenwick which prompts the rioting that almost kills her. She’s a victim of Louis’ monstrousness before they’ve even met, and while he saves her, he arguably does something worse in trapping her in the house with both himself and Lestat, holding her in an ever-virginal, ever-chaste eternal girlhood, playing into Lestat’s Milton-Satan by enhancing the perversion of family and ultimately infantilizing her out of his own desire for familial closeness.

Claudia has no family protection before Louis and Lestat – a staple of the gothic heroine – she is completely dependent on them in her actual girlhood, and again in adulthood, never developing the strength to be able to turn a companion, to say nothing about the sly lines here and there that further diminish and pathologise her (Lestat calling her histrionic, Louis making her out to be a burden, etc.). This is all further compounded again with the Coven, and when the tragedy of her life ultimately leads to the tragedy of her death.  

Louis as the Byronic Hero

Not to start with a quote, but here’s one from The Literary Icon of the Byronic Hero and its Reincarnation in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights:

“Generally speaking, the Byronic hero exhibits several particular characteristics. He does not possess heroic virtues in the usual, traditional sense. He is a well-educated, intelligent and sophisticated young man, sometimes a nobleman by birth, who at the same time manifests signs of rebellion against all fundamental values and moral codes of the society. Despite his obvious charm and attractiveness, the Byronic hero often shows a great deal of disrespect for any figure of authority. He was considered "the supreme embodiment [...] standing not only against a dehumanized system of labor but also against traditionally repressive religious, social, and familial institutions" (Moglen, 1976: 28).

The Byronic hero is usually a social outcast, a wanderer, or is in exile of some kind, one imposed upon him by some external forces or self-imposed. He also shows an obvious tendency to be arrogant, cunning, cynical, and unrepentant for his faults. He often indulges himself in self destructive activities that bring him to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself. He is hypersensitive, melancholic, introspective, emotionally conflicted, but at the same time mysterious, charismatic, seductive and sexually attractive.”

Louis as he exists in the show to me is pretty much all of those things, and I think to argue that he’s a gothic heroine not only diminishes Claudia’s arc, but robs Louis of his agency within his own story. Louis chooses Lestat, over and over again, he’s not imprisoned by the monster in the domestic sphere, he is one of the monsters who’s controlling the household, including making decisions of when they bring a child into it and when Lestat gets to live in it – he wanted to be turned, he wanted to live with Lestat in Rue Royale, and while there are certainly arguments to be made about their power dynamic within the household in the NOLA era, importantly Louis actually gained social power through his marriage to Lestat, particularly through The Azaelia, he didn’t lose it in the way that’s vital to the story of the gothic heroine.

Daniel Hart even said it in a recent twitter thread about Long Face, but there is an element of Lestat and Louis’ relationship that is transactional, and to me, for that to exist, they both have to have a degree of control over their circumstances and choices in order to negotiate those transactions. Claudia is the one who can’t, she’s the one who’s treated effectively as property, and she’s the one who lacks control over her circumstances.

While you could perhaps argue the constraints of the apartment in Dubai lend more to the gothic heroine archetype, I’d argue it as furthering the Byronic trope again by being representative both of Louis’ self-destruction and self-imposed exile. As Jacob has said a few times, Louis does seem to have known to a degree that Armand was involved in Claudia’s death on some level, and it’s that guilt and misery that has him allowing Armand his degree of control. The fact that Louis was able to leave Armand as easily and as definitively as he was I think demonstrates that distinction too – after all, to compare that ending to Claudia’s multiple attempts to leave the confines of the patriarchal house, both in Rue Royale and Paris, which were punished at every turn – first by her rape, then by Lestat dragging her back off the train, and then by the Coven orchestrating her murder.

Louis gets to leave because Louis can leave, he has both the social and narrative power to, and the fact that he does is, to me, completely at odds with the gothic heroine. Louis can, and does advocate for himself, Louis is proud, moody, cynical. Defiance is a key part of his character, just as his exile from NOLA society due to his race, and his chosen rejection of vampire society in Paris, is. He’s intelligent and sophisticated, travels the world, and has misery in his heart, guilt that eats him up, and self-destructive tendencies. That’s a Byronic Hero, baby!  

[naivety]

sorry i'm still thinking about "are you asking or making me?" i do think like. obviously louis resents armand a little bit for saying no but i also think he resents him for NOT saying no. for instead saying are you asking or making me, a Complete opposite of the last time he asked a vampire more powerful than him to turn someone for him. but while with lestat, louis was the one begging, here armand absolutely puts him on his back foot with a single sentence in which he surrenders the power louis is asking him to wield to LOUIS. permission not to beg, a power that's also a reminder that that power is completely artificial. yet it's still there! we see in san fransisco when armand asks questions like this he will absolutely do what louis Tells him to. but it's something that's entirely dependent on armand. he can only concede that power because he has it to begin with, and when he asks are you asking or telling, it puts louis in a position of power in which he can also abuse that power, which. i do think he'd like to think of himself as someone who never would, not after lestat, while lestat in contrast was asked directly by louis to turn claudia, was begged to, and he absolutely did Not have to say yes. but he did, just because louis asked.

armand's single question tempts to paint louis in this light he'd despise at the same time as making armand exempt to actually answer yes or no. it makes louis seem like a bully for asking at all when armand concedes the power of his own free will to him. of course he can't make him! he wouldn't! but that's not what he was doing! he was Asking armand. to do this thing for him. because, well. love <3 and armand refuses to answer! instead he warps the function of a question at all into something he doesn't have to answer! to actually engage with as a person with free will and responsibility for that free will! i think he'd much rather be told what to do because then he can't be held responsible for it. life feels a whole lot safer to live when he doesn't have to grapple with his own innocence or guilt in his 500 years of living a life full of crossroads and judgement calls and decisions. every decision he has or hasn't made in 5 centuries. like even in this last episode, he's admitting his guilt to daniel in the same breath as saying he couldn't stop it, there wasn't anything he could do, but also louis forgives him! like just because he doesn't want power or responsibility he thinks it means.... he doesn't have it? just because he's willing to verbally and even actionably cede his power to someone else, it means he isn't culpable. even though he can only cede it Because he has it in the first place, arguably more than anyone else in the situation.

the mental gymnastics he will go through to maintain his innocence in a given situation is crazyyy like talk about victim complex personified. but i also think it's one of the few genuine things about him. he actually looks relieved when louis' answer to his question is that it's okay. i won't make you. the last time his free will was truly stripped of him was so so long ago but his victimhood is also frozen in time forever. that wound of a more genuine powerlessness was never healed, not in 500 years, and it's easier to just stay in the open, festering shape of it than try to heal and grow around it into something new, even though it already has whether he liked or not, also without his say. i don't think he knows how to exist in that shape because he never chose it himself.

it is just delicious to me. loumand power dynamics are crazy but they can be so much crazier when contrasted directly with loustat. with loustat, lestat is clearly the one with the power in the dynamic but he also more often genuinely gives in to louis just because. just out of love. he does abuse that power too just like armand, but with loumand, armand more often directly puts the power of their dynamic into louis' hands, but it's only By backing him into a corner with questions like this. are you asking or making me. i won't say no to you. you can either make me or keep your mouth shut. and, well. more often than not he just doesn't ask at all. better to remain silent than to put himself in a position in which he'd have to beg ever again.

[pynkhues]

Recognizing most of your asks are about Louis and Lestat (for totally fair reasons), how are you thinking about the other characters now that we've got two seasons worth of material to look at? Do you feel engaged in any particular aspects of Claudia, Armand, and Daniel?

Oh, I love all of them! I feel so blessed to have a show back on my TV where I find literally all of the main characters really compelling and and the writing for those characters really rich. Like not to make your ask about fic, but I've only finished two in this fandom so far, and they've all snuck into them even when I didn't originally plan for them to be in there (Claudia and Armand in Hold Me Close and Hold Me Fast, and Daniel in to your beacon in the gloom) just because I wanted to write their voices.

I've actually written half of a longer reply on Claudia specifically, so I'll try and finish that off and post it later today just so it's not too repetitive, but as for Armand and Daniel - -

I've been thinking a lot about the way the show explores masculine power and authority lately, and it's such an interesting thing to me that most shows explore that as a sort of blunt force, which hey! This show does too - Lestat absolutely exerts power through that sort of brutality, but in so many ways, that's actually the least interesting way to explore it, and I think the show knows that. We're used to it being displayed that way, which is what makes the other explorations of it so interesting.

Armand and Daniel definitely represent that, after all (as do Louis and Santiago, in their own ways). I'm lowkey obsessed with the way the show explores it with Armand as a type of servitude and submission, because while it's absolutely something that's manifested out of the long tail of Armand's trauma and is a wrong sort of loving expression, he also absolutely uses it as a means to exert power and control. I love that - I find it so interesting, and the fact that it's born out of his trauma just as Lestat's brute force is born out of his own allows the show so many avenues to explore the way abuse doesn't necessarily repeat generationally, but rather can be a wound scabbed over and warped into its own, unique thing.

Daniel is interesting in that sense too because he is, of course, representative of knowledge as power which he's able to wield fairly effectively in a story he should be powerless in, but I also think his arc being that he was allowed to grow up and grow old in a way no other main character has been on this show is really its own marking of that too. Daniel might be dying, he might be mortal (at least for the first 14 episodes), but he's lived a full life which has granted him a surety of self and a power over his identity that he didn't have in '73. If he'd been turned then, Daniel would've had the same arrested development the rest of them do, but getting to live so fully, and all the ups and downs of that, has really given him this degree of I guess self-empowerment in his age that just makes me so excited to see where the show takes him.

So yes! Lots of other things too, haha, but this is what's taken over my head most recently.