#tvl essay

[literaphobe]

can i convince you to elaborate on any tvl analysis point you want? ok here i go. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

HELLO AND WELCOME TO -> the fundamental misunderstanding tvl ladynoir have leading up to ch9 (if u haven’t caught up to At least ch9 THIS IS UR SIGN TO SCROLL AWAY)

this will be kind of an unpacking and detailing of why ch9 unfolded the way it did. ch9 consists of two main parts -> 1. tvl ladynoir navigating a misunderstanding in their relationship. chat noir handles the situation sort of badly, and you’d think that would cause a big fight, which it almost does, but ladybug shows a Vulnerability that causes them to start Communicating and find a Solution. it ALMOST looks healthy. it ALMOST looks right. but really, it’s a red herring. and it lowers both their guards. to the point that 2. a tiny incident allows long lost misunderstandings (chat noir not knowing ladybug used to be in love with him, ladybug not really realizing he didn’t know) to resurface, and this mixing in with their Messy Current Dynamic makes it all implode, which is how you got tvl chat noir confessing his doomed love

but why DO things explode so bad? why does tvl chat noir handle the knowledge of tvl ladybug’s past love (s5 love square flip) so destructively?

it’s largely because it recontextualized their relationship in a very painful way. all this time he only HUNG ON because he thought ladybug could never love him back, that getting to have sex with her was the Most it could go, the most he could get. he’s upset because if she DID have the ability to love him, why didn’t she? and why didn’t he know before it was too late?

it doesn’t help that she’s been so accommodating of SEVERAL of his wants and needs. BUT he sees all these needs as… emotional. romantic. in nature. whereas SHE has seen them as physical. and sexual.

it’s why they have ‘worked’ so surprisingly well up till the blow up in ch9! it’s why tvl ladybug has been so ‘comfortable’! unfortunately, she THINKS he’s been viewing it through the same sexual lens she has been using

starting w their first conflict that gets explicitly laid out in ch6 -> tvl chat noir being unwilling to sleep with tvl ladybug UNLESS she agrees that it will happen MORE THAN ONCE

tvl chat noir: wants this because he cannot handle the coldness of a One Night Stand. he’s well aware that he WILL get emotionally attached if he sleeps with ladybug and he WILL get very frustrated if it all stops there. he wants it to be indefinite. because INDEFINITE screams commitment. and affection. and some mimicry of love. which is why he was so afraid to bring it up for so long -> he thought she would be against something that would connect them so deeply

tvl ladybug: was MOREEEE than okay to accommodate such an arrangement because she viewed his request as one borne of sexual desire! greed for more pleasure of a lustful nature! mutually beneficial exchange!

this brings us to our next Accommodation. tvl chat noir gets bolder, more presumptuous, and asks to be ROOMMATES bc his previous request was accommodated so easily

which throws her off, obviously, but he manages to make good excuses, scale down his request. realizes that’s too much, that he’s taken an inch and asked for a mile

and this instills The Fear in him again. but while he gets scared off, she decides to recompartmentalize his request as a simple matter of Loneliness. which she relates to! a Specific form of loneliness that only she can really understand as well. so she accepts to a degree! <- have more sleepovers. helping him meet a PHYSICAL need of requiring human companionship. a SOCIAL need to be around someone who’s experienced their very specific double life

this brings them to their next dilemma. tvl chat noir having difficulty sleeping without her. in ch7, he now becomes once more afraid to ask if they can share a bed at night, since he jumped the gun with his previous request, and she also made them two different custom bedrooms for their sleepover… reiterating to him that sharing a bed (like a couple would) is NOT something she would want. he is WELL AWARE that his problem is deeply emotional in nature. he has fallen for her again in debilitating ways. he wants to respect her wishes, and yet a part of his sleep deprived, desperate self cannot help trying to scheme his way into spending more time with her -> this causes him to act strangely during their sexual activities (terrified to come early and get sent back to his room, failing to exhaust her sexually enough to not care whether he sleeps in her bed or not)

however, she surprises him again by SORT OF figuring him out. but AGAIN, she categorizes his problem as a PHYSICAL need. to just sleep next to ANYONE. and that she’s only helping him bc she’s available and willing to. not… because she’s the only one who can

…which he very sadly realizes. but he also realizes that it’s better that she keeps Slightly misunderstanding everything. bc it’s how he’s getting So Much of… everything he’s ever wished. everything he desperately wants from her, that he wouldn’t get if she knew the truth -> he doesn’t just want to have sex. he’s in love with her (again) (electric boogaloo)

and in his eyes. she’s NEVER loved him Like That. so how could she understand? in a selfish way he wants to keep this a secret from her because he’d rather love her in halves than not at all. it’s also selfLESS. bc she gets to have sex without worrying about complicated feelings. and really. it’s a blameless thing. he can’t be blamed for falling in love with the easiest person to fall in love with ever, and he can’t blame her for not falling in love with him. she just isn’t capable of it, right?

yet the way she’s been acting SCREAMS of someone deeply in love. tvl alya very clearly recognizes this, despite not being present for any of their trysts. if anything, she’s only witnessed them interacting in chapter FIVE, which is literally all the way before they even HOOKED UP and started what tvl chat FEARED would get him so attached

we even find out that tvl marinette is TOTALLYYYY ok and chill w tvl chat noir occasionally getting a crush on her. or having feelings. because it’s the perfect way for her to excuse HER ‘occasional’ crush and feelings. as long as he doesn’t tell her! as long as he remembers he needs to squash it down every once in a while! just like she does (tries to)

in ch8, tvl alya accuses marinette of acting like she’s on honeymoon with chat noir. in ch9? she starts acting like his wife

-> chasing him for not being home, nagging him when he stays out late. welcoming him home with a tasty dessert when he arrives. fussing over his health, his rest, his sleep, wanting constant access to him, even when he’s busy or ‘with friends’

-> very obvious constant flirting, aka kissing him outside of a sexual context, like in the beginning of ch9’s last scene, when he alludes to the fact that she’s been kissing him non-sexually Very Often. obviously this has started even before ch9 but it’s clearly gotten worse (‘This is the eighth time you’ve done something like that this week!’)

…and… that’s how tvl ladybug managed to get SO comfortable that she doesn’t realize how STUPID it is to bring up that she used to be in love with him

even though she assumed he knew somewhat, and had let her down easy (I love you, but as a friend.), all those years ago. as time passed her memory shifted slightly. became -> he DEFINITELY knows! he DEFINITELY doesn’t want to be with me anymore! he DEFINITELY understands that us being together is a bad idea! he DEFINITELY doesn’t care that we have sex because that’s all he could want from me now!

and they’re terrifyingly WRONG assumptions to make. cue dramatic breakup in the pouring rain even tho they didn’t date. but at the same time, they were practically married

[leslutdepointedulac]

I was looking through Eleni's letters to Lestat in TVL yesterday for hurting my feelings reasons and I–

Idk why I've never really clocked it before, considering I've read this a million times, but the fact that Armand was affected by Nicki's death really does make me feel some kind of way.

[zombie-bait]

The Death of a Vampire

Lestat as a protagonist just works so incredibly well and a very significant aspect of that is him being Anne Rice's self-insert. Lived experience can be critical when it comes to writing a good story and many memorable novels will feature elements of that. Anne is built different, though. Lestat (book 2 onwards) is basically Anne's journal for dealing with her grievances and trauma, which, on its own, is a very questionable method of writing. More often than not, it causes him to be characterized inconsistently between books because Anne's own opinions have changed. But it also makes him so real.

You follow his struggles with religion, you see him yearn for forgiveness from a god that has seemingly abandoned him a long time ago and you feel it. The passage I will never get over is in the early chapters of The Vampire Lestat, when Lestat has a breakdown over his mother's (and frankly his own) mortality. He struggles and he cries and he can't get out of bed because there's nothing he can do. Eventually he starts to live again, forces himself to.

But.

"I wandered into the church and on my knees I leaned against the wall and I looked at the ancient statues and I felt the same gratitude looking at the finely carved fingers and the noses and the ears and the expressions on their faces and the deep folds in their garments, and I couldn’t stop myself from crying. At least we had these beautiful things, I said. Such goodness. But nothing natural seemed beautiful to me now! The very sight of a great tree standing alone in a field could make me tremble and cry out. Fill the orchard with music. And let me tell you a little secret. It never did pass, really."

I think about those last two sentences a lot. I think about them even more since Anne Rice passed away.

Every page of Interview is spent talking about death and yet (imo) it's only in TVL that you really feel it. Louis in book 1 welcomes death quite readily because, besides his toxic boyfriend and their traumatized daughter, he doesn't have much to live for. He's basically given up by the time Lestat appears. The greatest torture, to Louis, is the knowledge that he can live forever on the suffering of others.

But Lestat is the complete opposite. He wants to listen to music, to explore Paris, to perform on any stage that will take him, to embrace the man he loves and to send his ailing mother letters of his accomplishments. Death matters most to those who are desperate to live and god is he desperate. He's haunted by his mother's sickness, by the wolves on the mountain that threaten to end his life before he's even lived it, the witches place that reeks of meaningless suffering. And in a way, the dark gift provides opportunity to escape that. But it is still death. It takes away Nicki in a very literal way and takes away his mother in a more personal one. Magnus, like death, chose Lestat arbitrarily. He sees the cellar of blonde corpses and knows that he was only one of dozens to meet an untimely death with no explanation.

Lestat also really wants you to know that he is, truly, a good person. He must be. He swears to only hunt criminals and then goes back on that two pages later. He reshapes stories to present himself as the noble protagonist and the audience has no choice but to believe him. He wants, desperately, to be loved for all that he is, man and monster. He wants to be the hero.

He's this awful, fascinating, very human man so clearly born out of the internal struggle to find meaning and love in a cruel, unpredictable world we all tend to share. He's made up of incredibly basic and powerful human desires hidden behind a mask of bravado and I can't recalling seeing another protagonist like him.

(Quick mention: This isn't some kind of "wow Anne Rice is an incredible author who can do no wrong" piece. She's written a lot of fucked up and bad shit that cannot be easily brushed over. But I don't think I'll ever get over reading TVL for the first time. To read someone bare their soul in such a way creates a truly unique experience. A lot of characters in a lot of pieces of media face death, but it's rare to see a character face mortality in such a personal way.)

(Also odds are I've written similar posts to this before but shhhhh these sad gay vampires are all I have)

[lestatdelioncoeur]

What significance does "the witches place" have on Lestat's subsequent adventures? How does that mortal confrontation with horror define him?

[cbrownjc]

That post about Lestat turning Daniel... I also think it's going to be this way but I have the craziest theory about this: the groan in the penthouse is actually Lestat. He's living there as a hostage. one day, Daniel decides to follow the groan and discovers the prisoner. Lestat somehow convinces Daniel to help him out but Lestat is super hungry and feeds himself from Daniel and escape. Armand decides to turn Daniel to avoid his death.

Hi Anon!

I'm 100% with you on "the groan" being Lestat. However, I don't think Lestat is currently conscious or awake. I think he's asleep/in a coma and creating "the groan" unconsciously. Kind of a spin on him/his body protecting itself when he was in his post-Memnoch the Devil coma.

And yes, I, too, can see Lestat attacking Daniel at the end of S2 after he wakes up, in a kind of shout-out to the end of the 1994 movie.

However, I think Daniel will get saved or something without needing to be turned by Armand, Louis, or even Lestat. Simply because I don't think the show is going to make Daniel a vampire that soon, i.e., at the end of S2.

Daniel has just begun to fulfill his story role as the ordinary human among these fantastical, supernatural characters. Even outside of what's been adapted so far, Daniel has yet to be changed enough over the course of the story of the show to be fully brought into that world just yet.

Plus, audiences who haven't read the books have no idea about Daniel's deeper - i.e., Devil's Minion - connection to all of this, just like Daniel doesn't at the moment. And there isn't time to tell that whole story in just 7-8 eps in S2, not with everything else S2 also has to cover.

The dramatic stakes are significantly lowered if Daniel is turned before he learns everything that took place regarding these things if he is turned before he learns it.

Also, I don't think Daniel would help Lestat out if he was in trouble. Like, not at all. Even if Daniel remembers having maybe met Lestat before in the 80s or something, he still barely knows the guy now, except for what he's heard and been told about by Louis. And what Louis has told him hasn't been all that good, to say the least.

That is partly why I strongly feel Daniel - while still human - will be the one interviewing Lestat in S3 when the show adapts The Vampire Lestat.

First, we already know the show's name isn't going to change in S3, Rolin Jones already said so in an interview. The show will still be called Interview with the Vampire in S3. And you've already got Daniel right there, you don't need to try and introduce another different character and set them up to do the interview for Lestat's life story, that's just wasting time. Also, Lestat just telling the story to himself as he writes it down, or something, is just boring visually. No way are they going to do it that way. The dynamics of a back-and-forth interview, as we've seen in just S1, are much more engaging.

And secondly, I'm pretty sure Daniel will have a low opinion of Lestat and his actions going into such an interview at the start, just like I bet many in the audience will (particularly, again, those who haven't read the books). But, the journalist that Daniel is, he'll still be curious to hear Lestat's side of everything and, therefore, will do the interview.

Daniel will push and ask questions that many watching, especially those who don't know the story, would want to ask. And I expect Daniel's opinions of Lestat will change over the course of the interview with him and learning what he does of Lestat's story and side of things, probably for the better in some significant regards.

But right now? Naw. Daniel wouldn't help Lestat, even if he somehow found him awake and in chains or something. That said, I do kinda think Daniel will either discover or be taken by Armand, Louis, or both and be shown the source of the "the groan" which will be a coma-sleeping Lestat.

As for who finally does turn Daniel, which I think will happen a few seasons from now (like S5 or so)? I could be wrong, and it really could still be Armand. I really do think Armand has Dr. Fareed doing something wrt the levodopa Daniel was given. My mom had Parkinson's, and the only time she was given an IV drip of levodopa was when she was in the hospital. Otherwise, she took her levodopa in pill form. So I think Armand has Dr. Fareed doing something to try and stay Daniel's Parkinson's. Because while I still think Armand is dead set against ever turning someone himself, I don't think he wants Daniel to die, and is looking for other ways to preserve his life.

That's why, IMO, Armand gave Louis that look when Louis offered to turn Daniel in EP6. Armand might have asked Louis to turn Daniel in the past, during the show's version of The Devil's Minion, and Louis refused. (And unlike with Madeline in the books, and possibly what will also happen on the show, Armand didn't try to mentally manipulate Louis into doing so this time.)

In the end, though, as in the books, Armand's hand might finally be forced to realize there is no way to stop Daniel from dying a natural death, and he's just going to have to make a choice to offer to turn him.

The real question is, though, would Daniel accept the offer? And, at the moment, I'm just feeling "no." Because Daniel is in a different place than he was almost 50 years ago. He basically alluded to it himself in EP6.

Unlike when he was in his 20s, being immortal now would now mean watching his daughters grow old and die.

So if Daniel continues to refuse the offer of the Dark Gift, even knowing he's dying (and I think he will), then the only way he's getting turned is if someone turns him against his will. And I just don't know if Armand would ever do that. I, personally, don't think he would.

However, I think Lestat would. And so would Marius.

Marius would do it because he's a controlling ass, and would do it for the same reason he turned Sybelle and Benji in the books IMO.

Lestat, OTOH, I think, would do it for the same reason he forcibly turned David Talbot. Which is that he just wanted to. (And, he didn't want to lose David, which he felt he had when David got his new body, along with a host of other things Lestat thinks about himself at that point, but that's a whole other thing I don't want to go into right now.) Anyway, as far as the show goes, I think Daniel and Lestat might end up having the same kind of friendship and love that book-Lestat and David had.

I know I'm not alone in thinking David Talbot's character has been cut from the show. (I feel more sure of it since Aaron Lightner was cut from The Mayfair Witches series too.) And I think one of the new things that will result in that is that Lestat and Daniel will grow to have an affectionate relationship between them like the one Lestat had with David in the books.

Whether Daniel gets David's body-swapping plot remains to be seen (and could open up a whole other can-of-worms, which I'll refrain from going into here.) Needless to say, I've said elsewhere that the four main characters of the show are Louis, Lestat, Armand, and Daniel, all of whom will have complicated relationships with each other; and I think the way they are going to go into building something between Lestat and Daniel is to pull from the relationship Lestat has with human-David in the books. An older man, who has a long life experience under him, and finds Lestat fascinating while not interested in being turned either, so the relationship develops rather equally.

And ends up with Lestat eventually turning him. And I can fully see the same happening with Daniel.

Damn, can I ever answer an ask without writing an essay in response? I guess not, when I have so many thoughts about this show in my head . . .

[camellia-thea]

so @coprinellus-cluster sent me an ask about daniel and armand and why i find them so compelling. that turned into a 2000 word essay. this is very armand focused, but i promise i love daniel too.

anne rice initially wrote armand as an antagonist, and even went into writing qotd with him intended to be part of the antagonistic force, however she found while writing the devil's minion chapter that armand had become someone completely different. i love that. i love that a lot. i have sources for this somewhere but they're buried. i'll add 'em if i find them again.

i love how the chapter takes two characters who had very little identity beyond their interaction with louis and lestat. daniel was functionally exclusively a framing device in the first book. he didn't really have a character, and he literally was not named. armand was defined almost entirely by his relationships, and while his sections have always been my favourite parts of iwtv and tvl, i think there was a lack of depth there that gets discussed so much more in the devil's minion chapter.

armand is a character who has always defined himself by the people around him. from marius, to santino, to the children of darkness, to lestat, to the théâtre des vampires, to louis. each link ushers in a different aspect of himself, and the show deals with the amazingly well. the arun/amadeo/armand, the good nurse or the gremlin, it's phenomenal. daniel in the books is meant to be the next part of the transition. armand goes to both lestat and louis, show me how to live in this modern era.

"We cannot be Marius for you," I said, "or the dark lord, Santino[…]" "You have to suffer through this emptiness," I said, "and find what impels you to continue. If you come with us we will fail you and you will destroy us." "How suffer through it?" [Armand] looked up at me and his eyebrows came together in the most poignant frown. "How do I begin? You move like the right hand of God! But for me the world, the real world in which Marius lived, is beyond reach. I never lived in it. I push against the glass. But how do I get in?" "I can't tell you that," I said. "You have to study this age, " Gabrielle interrupted. Her voice was calm but commanding. He looked towards her as she spoke. "You have to understand the age, " she continued, "through its literature and its music and its art. You have come up out of the earth, as you yourself put it. Now live in the world. " [...] "And what better place is there than the center of things, the boulevard and the theater? " Gabrielle asked. He frowned, his head turning dismissively, but she pressed on. "Your gift is for leading the coven, and your coven is still there."

from the vampire lestat

this conversation you can see is what leads him to approach louis for the same thing.

["]It is through you that I can save myself from the despair which I’ve described to you as our death. It is through you that I must make my link with this nineteenth century and come to understand it in a way that will revitalize me, which I so desperately need. It is for you that I’ve been waiting at the Théâtre des Vampires. If I knew a mortal of that sensitivity, that pain, that focus, I would make him a vampire in an instant. But such can rarely be done. No, I’ve had to wait and watch for you. And now I’ll fight for you. Do you see how ruthless I am in love? Is this what you meant by love?["]

from interview with the vampire

(i do think the little "if i found a mortal with that sensitivity, that pain, that focus, i would make him a vampire in an instant", but that's not the point of this)

armand is a creature of habit, of cycles, and daniel is meant to be the next member of the loop. he uses daniel in the exact same fashion, to usher himself into the new era;

"You are my teacher," Armand told him. "You will tell me everything about this century. I am learning secrets already that have eluded me since the beginning. You'll sleep when the sun rises, if you wish, but the nights are mine."

from queen of the damned

but, something changes with daniel. and i think it is what is missing from louis; daniel has a passion for life and living that louis lacks. he's interviewing people to reveal their lives!

suddenly armand is not being ushered into the new era, he's living it. you get his excitement, his delight, his engagement. he is no longer detached from the world in the way that he is in the first two novels. he is bright and full of life.

daniel remarks a few times about how armand's laughter and delight makes him suddenly look mortal. i find it enthralling. how this one mortal, who's life purpose initially is revealing the lives of people around him to the world, brings the 500 year old vampire joy and delight and that joy stays.

i love that this mortal man could bring anne rice to completely change her perception of armand.

and on daniel's part, he is utterly fascinating. he falls in love with the monster chasing him, for his monstrosity.

Daniel stared hard at the creature before him, this thing that looked human and sounded human but was not. There was a horrid shift in his consciousness; he saw this being like a great insect, a monstrous evil predator who had devoured a million human lives. And yet he loved this thing. He loved its smooth white skin, its great dark brown eyes. He loved it not because it looked like a gentle, thoughtful young man, but because it was ghastly and awful and loathsome, and beautiful all at the same time. He loved it the way people love evil, because it thrills them to the core of their souls. Imagine, killing like that, just taking life any time you want it, just doing it, sinking your teeth into another and taking all that that person can possibly give. Look at the garments he wore. Blue cotton shirt, brass-buttoned denim jacket. Where had he gotten them? Off a victim, yes, like taking out his knife and skinning the kill while it was still warm? No wonder they reeked of salt and blood, though none was visible. And the hair trimmed just as if it weren't going to grow out within twenty-four hours to its regular shoulder length. This is evil. This is illusion. This is what I want to be, which is why I cannot stand to look at him. Armand's lips had moved in a soft, slightly concealed smile. And then his eyes had misted and closed. He had bent close to Daniel, pressed his lips to Daniel's neck.

from queen of the damned

this passage has lived in my mind since i first read queen of the damned. daniel loves armand in spite of his beauty, not because of it. it is the monstrosity that he loves. and it's exactly what armand needs. their relationship has such a push-pull dynamic as well. daniel up and leaving when they have fights, armand waiting him out before reappearing. armand and daniel’s relationship is a direct link to addiction, which i think is really interesting. daniel is quite literally addicted to armand and that’s something i think is really interesting when it comes to mortal relationships with vampires.

there’s also something in the power dynamics between them with armand exerting control over daniel through finances, but it’s really interesting because daniel is rich. he got a lot of money from publishing interview. armand gets him so many things, buys him houses and clothes and a fucking island, and daniel lets him. and i don’t necessarily think daniel has the capacity to really say no here, but it really does make their dynamic super interesting.

i think daniel gives armand the potential to be more than who he was made to be, the roles he was put into. the muse, the protégé, the cult leader, the coven member, he lingers in his own victimhood, and i think it’s a very interesting thing. daniel is an escape from that. daniel loves the vampire, loves the monster, and doesn’t necessarily want something from armand beyond being pulled into vampirism with him. and that is something that armand very distinctly has control to say no to. and i think that’s very important to armand.

"Tell me what you want, Daniel, and I'll get it for you. Why do you keep running away?" "Lies, you bastard. Say that you wanted me. You'll torment me forever, won't you, and then you'll watch me die, and you'll find I that interesting, won't you? It was true what Louis said. You watch them die, your mortal slaves, they mean nothing to you. You'll watch the colors change in my face as I die." "That's Louis's language," Armand said patiently. "Please don't quote that book to me. I'd rather die than see you die, Daniel." "Then give it to me! Damn you! Immortality that close, as close as your arms." "No, Daniel, because I'd rather die than do that, too."

from queen of the damned

this is another moment that lives in my head, i’d rather die than do that too. there is something so electric between them. how willing daniel is to give in to armand, and yet how willing he is to fight for it, for them. i don’t read daniel’s obsession with vampirism being entirely for himself by the end of the era. i truly think that there is an element of it so that he can remain with armand.

but there’s something else there too, that i don’t think the other relationships we see in the vampire chronicles really capture, and that is the mundanity that they relish in together. they go out together, to clubs, to performances, to museums and art galleries, to bars and to rock concerts, but they also experience life together in a way that lestat and louis don’t really convey when narrating their novels. daniel and armand have made a life together, and it’s weird and unconventional but it works. they have houses together, the little villa on night island, it’s just. genuine. it has all the trappings of the unhealthy, awful nature that a mortal and vampire relationship can be, and simultaneously they’ve managed to create something that is domestic. and i don’t think daniel leaving armand, and often the country they were in, necessarily negates it. they’re not good people, it’s not a good relationship, but it’s enough.

and armand does love daniel enough to turn him. that’s a significant part of it. when he is legitimately faced with daniel’s death, he cannot bear the idea of losing him.

and. there’s a bigger part too. daniel is what stops armand from wanting to die.

"Years ago," Armand interrupted, "it wouldn't have mattered to me, all this." "What do you mean?" "But I don't want it to end now. I don't want to continue unless you-" His face changed slightly. Faint look of surprise. "I don't want you to die."

from queen of the damned

daniel has fundamentally changed armand. armand does not want to die. and he does not want to live without daniel.

and it’s awful, and yet it’s enthralling. there was never going to be an outcome in which daniel did not die. it is the fate of any mortal, and most immortals as well. and i think they both knew that. and that’s the tragedy of it too, the beautiful, horrific nature of them both is that armand was always going to be the one who killed daniel, and the only question was whether daniel would remain afterwards.

and i think that armand was never going to let daniel go.

daniel and armand love each other, and i think rice did a disservice to them both by setting them aside in later books, but i won't go into that here.

[leliosinking]

Hot take I guess but the fandom was way too hard on this book (and still is tbh) and for what? Because it isn’t interested in fan service? If anything Anne’s writing was at its best when she ignored what fans wanted, and I think it’s time for a reevaluation of my boy Vittorio the Vampire.

I just think this was such a promising start to New Tales (more than Pandora, even) and I sort of hate all of you for boycotting it or telling new readers to skip it. (as far as i’m concerned TVA, Merrick, B&G, BF and BC are all unofficially New Tales anyway.. TVL-MtD are the only proper vampire chronicles, everything else falls into different categories, but I digress).

With regard to Vittorio, however, we were given a true blue Ricean vampire hunter novel (the only one mind you) with an actual, functioning plot and some of the best action she’s written since TVL… and you all shunned it. And I get it, we don’t read these books for conventional, commercial plot contrivances, but for the florid language and richly crafted characters; but this is the rare Anne Rice novel that’s just.. fun for the sake of fun?

And no, I’m not blind to its problems. It absolutely needed another draft or two (as do a lot of the later VC entires) and no, Vittorio is not her strongest protagonist by leagues. But what we got was still filled to the brim with good ideas?

The Court of the Ruby Grail cult, especially, is one my favorite of Anne’s inventions. Like their dynamic with the local human villages feeding them their castoffs was legitimately disturbing and IMO better executed than most of the times she retreaded the Children of Darkness post-TVL.

And while Vittorio the character might be kind of boring, Florian and Ursula carry this novel and deserved to enter the larger narrative tapestry on their strengths alone but “waaah Lestat and co. aren’t here” so “it’s bad” or whatever.. I really can’t stand some of y’all.

Anyway, this is long enough and I really didn’t set out to write an essay in defense of what is ultimately a mid-tier entry into this series. But. I still feel that much in the way that MtD and Blackwood Farm have been recently reassessed as good novels that happen to be bad VC entires I think it’s time for some of you to similarly reevaluate Vittorio the Vampire, because this is a good vampire novel, it just isn’t a good vampire chronicle (well I think it is and yet and yet and yet). But it’s still part of the series and it does fit into the larger picture despite what some will have you believe.

If this is your first time, I personally like to read VTV between Body Thief and Memnoch. I think it is better thematically situated there than between TVA and Merrick as initially published. The archangels that enter later in the story build nicely upon David’s vision of God and Satan in TTOTBT and make for a strong intermission full of angels and demons that assist in setting up the Dantean finale of MtD. (I have more suggested reading orders btw, some other time perhaps).

I dunno.. if you like this book please let me know lol like I could use the solidarity because I feel like I’m the only one (I have it ranked #6 out of 15). But yeah, I think Vittorio is probably the most underrated and most unfairly slandered entry in Anne’s entire catalogue if I’m being completely honest.

[seraphtrevs]

Since I’m a huge fan of your writing, I’m curious: who are some your favorite writers and what are some of your favorite books or short stories??

Oh man, I've done so much reading over my life that it's hard to narrow down. Like I'm for sure going to leave people out.

For fiction: some of my favorite authors are the Bronte sisters (slight preference for Charlotte - Jane Eyre was one of my first loves and hugely shaped me as a reader and a writer), Daphne du Maurier (favorite of her books - Rebecca), Sarah Waters (can't decide between Fingersmith and The Paying Guests), Angela Carter (The Bloody Chamber), Susanna Clarke (Jonathon Strange and Mr Norell), Toni Morrison (Beloved), Robin Hobb (the Farseer trilogy and Fitz's further adventures, but I've heard good things about the Liveship Trader books!), Terry Pratchett (the Tiffany Aching books are particular favorites), and Anne Rice (well, depending on the book tbh, she's not very consistent lol - the first three Vampire Chronicle books are my favs from her), with special shout-outs to Robin McKinley (Beauty), Avi (The True Confession of Charlotte Doyle), LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), Frank L Baum (I have read every single Oz book - there are a ton of them!) and Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time), who were my favs when I was a kid (along with the Babysitter's Club book lol - but they're mostly ghostwritten so I'm not sure who to credit!)

Right now, I'm re-reading (for the millionth time) The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, which is a collection of fairy tale retellings - but that feels like a really inadequate way to describe it. It's very visceral, primal, and poetic. My favorite story from the collection is "The Bloody Chamber," which is a Bluebeard retelling. Bluebeard is one of my favorite fairy tales, but it understandably doesn't get a lot of adaptation. (I'm very curious what Disney's Bluebeard would look like lmao)

I'm also listening to the audiobook of The Vampire Lestat, which is the reason that Anne Rice is on that list. She really lost me with her later books, but listening to TVL reminded me that actually, she can be very good! She really excels at evocative descriptions and conveying emotion - she's very shameless, in a good way. A woman who always writes with her entire pussy, whatever else you might say about her.

But I actually read more nonfiction than fiction. I'm a big fan of memoirs - not celebrity memoirs (although Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died was probably my favorite book I've read this year), but memoirs that are more about someone grappling with the human experience - like, sometimes the author has been through something horrible and they've done a lot of mediation on what they've been through, or sometimes the author is just a very astute and entertaining observer of their own (and other people's) ridiculousness. Some of my favorites are Mary Karr, Caroline Knapp, David Sedaris, Cheryl Strayed, Jeanette Walls, Tara Westover, and Allie Brosh.

If I had to pick one to recommend - all of David Sedaris's books are extremely funny. He writes humorous personal essays, so I guess his books aren't really memoirs exactly (google says he's a humorist), but he usually writes about himself so I'm lumping him in this category lol. Me Talk Pretty One Day is a good place to start with his stuff - you will cry laughing.

I also love pop science and pop history - Mary Roach is a super approachable science writer with a quirky sense of humor. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers is so funny and candid - she asks every question you've ever had about dead bodies and then some. I also love Bill Bryson - another very accessible and funny writer - I really loved his A Short History of Nearly Everything, which covers exactly what it says. I ADORE Oliver Sacks - he was a neurologist who wrote so movingly about what it means to be human through the experiences of his patients - The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat reads more like a book of short stories, and I weep like a baby every time I read it (I actually started tearing up thinking of a few cases.) (Btw he's also written beautiful memoirs but I like his science writing best so I'm putting him here. Bill Bryson has written memoir too.) Carl Sagan is also approachable and humane - This Demon Haunted World is my favorite of his. Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is required reading for anyone who's dealt with mental illness, although it's difficult and painful at times (his Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity is also really good, but also difficult and painful - but worth it!)Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses has gorgeous prose and is a great book for artists and writers imo - it gets you thinking deeply about how we interact with the world.

For history, I am obsessed with this book called "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow - it will completely upend everything you think you know about the history of homo sapians. Mike Duncan got his start podcasting - his series Revolutions is about major world revolutions and is essentially like listening to an audiobook, so it's not a surprise his books are pretty fun too. Sarah Vowell has some really fun books about quirky historical topics - her Assassination Vacation is great (she goes on a roadtrip to visit locations in America where famous assassinations took place).

And here are a few other miscellaneous non-fiction writers I enjoy - Sebastian Junger (just finished his In My Time of Dying about his near death experience - super thought-provoking - but it was A Perfect Storm that made me love him), Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild), Jon Ronson (The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry)

This was a fun question to think about! I hadn't realized I had such a strong preference for female writers until I actually listed all my favs out, which is an interesting thing to know about myself, so thanks for asking!

[subsequent-interviews]

I've made peace with the changes the show made as a matter of identity and necessity for it as an adaptation. honestly, I've never been too good with change, but usually once I give it some time to settle I find that I come around to it. but some of the changes made in the show are greater than they might appear, and I find myself thinking of those differences.

in the novels, Lestat is turned when he is twenty-one. when I first read the Vampire Lestat that seemed like an eternity away: to me then twenty-one was a full-grown adult, a man. it's an age I can look back on now as one of extreme youth -- not childhood, mind you, but still, youth. at twenty-one I was so sharp, so lost, so inexperienced. in your early twenties you're so desperate to prove that you're All Grown Up Now, but every effort I made towards that only seemed to underscore how much growing I had yet to do.

Lestat never got that. Lestat was turned into a vampire when he was younger than I was when I got married, when I met most of my current friends, when I moved into my own place with my wife, when I finished my first book's first draft. Lestat was turned into a vampire at an age when nightclubs were still asking me if I was here looking for a parent. Lestat had just began to tick off a list of firsts: his first boyfriend, his first apartment, his first job, his first foray into adult life.

and it was all cut short. what strikes me now when I re-read tVL is that, for Lestat, vampirism is very much his adulthood. vampirism is what came next after those first few firsts.

and Lestat's very young adulthood informs a whole lot of his character. one part of Lestat is always twenty-one. a part of being called "the brat prince" is that Lestat is twenty-one. a part of being constantly excused from fucking up is that Lestat is twenty-one. a part of trying to take on the roles of adulthood milestones -- becoming a husband and then a father -- and failing horribly at them is that Lestat is twenty-one.

of course Louis was upset with Lestat's immaturity, his disregard for future consequences. Lestat is twenty-one! and of course Lestat could not provide Claudia with true guidance as a parent. Lestat, tragically, is twenty-one.

we can keep going. Nicki, Marius, Akasha, David Talbot, Quinn, Antoine, more: so much of what happens between these characters and Lestat is informed by Lestat being trapped in vampirism at twenty-one.

it's not the only part of Lestat, of course: as the years go on there is another part gathering up all of the bitterness and the frustration and the disillusionment and the joy and the love and the wonder of still existing. but I've always understood Lestat best as someone who has been twenty-one for a very, very long time. and isn't that the horror of it all, that Lestat will never be afforded the chance to grow and change and age as a human might? that Lestat is forever Magnus's pinned butterfly?

and now ... we come to the show. because it's one thing to imagine everything that goes down with Lestat as twenty-one. it's quite another to see the same behavior done by someone in their thirties, almost forty. it makes it all feel very different.

yes: I've neglected nuance, spent precious little time on Lestat's gravity, on the psychology of being both twenty-one forever and forced to grow up all too quickly because otherwise your family might well have starved. I've compared the milestones of young adulthood in the 2010s to those of the 1780s without an essay on historical context. I didn't even mention Rose and Viktor. and I should say that none of this is meant as an exhaustive or definitive analysis. as with most of my posts on this website ... I'm just talking.

but ... doesn't it feel different, watching Lestat in his mid-30s grow jealous of Claudia's and Louis's closeness instead of Lestat in his very early 20s? Lestat at 21 throwing himself into endeavor after endeavor to get Louis's attention is one thing; Lestat more than a decade older doing the same behavior seems very much like another.

yes: I know that your thirties are your youth, too. but the story changes when the character is one who has been denied all but his most extreme youth as a human adult, instead of a character who has had a decade more lived experience as a human adult but who still can't lose a game of chess without a shouting match.

change is not bad. these differences emphasize different parts of the character, draw our focus to different aspects of the story. and with them, characters interact in different ways. but this particular change to Lestat's age was striking to me because of how much it recontextualizes Lestat's behavior. that behavior is no longer the antics of someone just out of his teens, and I guess I'm still sorting out just how much the rest of the story is impacted by that.

[literaphobe]

ok girl but what's your favorite chapter?

hehehehe im not even joking for the longest time even before i started posting tvl i was talking about how my faves is just the stretch from the last scene in ch9 all the way to ch11…. but also i love every tvl chapter in its own way for many different reasons… all my babies :( all scenes i crafted over like. ages. I could argue for virtually any chapter to be my fave but i do have scenes im EXTRA fond of here and there. if I could hold a poll for fave scenes in tvl I would. guys what r ur fave scenes in tvl

oh fun fact tho. aside from the first scene of ch8 (which took me 1-1.5 weeks to finish) all of ch8 was written in a stretch of several hours in which I sat down at my desk decided to type on my iPad to write for once and said ‘WE ARENT LEAVING TILL ITS DONE!!!’ obviously I have edited it for clarity and improvement since then but it’s crazy that I wrote most of ch8 in a day. it’s so funny to me. and it’s an absolute banger

anyway if there’s anything I can say for what ch10 and 11 are like I would say ch10 is very much so… non-linear storytelling. which is different from how tvl has been so far w events essentially just happening in sequence. and ch11 is very like. rapid fire! it has a lot more scenes than a usual chapter would but also they’re much shorter in nature. very much BAM! next. BAM! okay next. whereas so far in tvl you’ve had like Longer scenes where each chapter only has two or three scenes. and ch12 is also awesome but im currently reworking a scene to make it even more awesome. tvl takes forever but it’s worth it to me bc it’s a story I’ve really wanted to tell and im so glad u guys like reading it tee hee ^_^

[slaygentford]

I am genuinely dying to hear your essay on why Louis is so boring in the book. My first guess is that at that point she was probably the most obligated to use an editor that she ever was. My second guess is that since he’s her avatar and lestat was her husband (I think he was supposed to be a poet originally lol) and the book was her working through trauma, Louis for her sake had to be someone where people would go, well he was obviously in the right. But maybe I’m being unfair to Anne there

I think its the second one 1000000000000% I was forcing my friend to listen to my lecture on this last night and truly I think it's because, like this is just saying what you're saying but a little to the left, Louis is boring because his SOLE purpose is to convey a theme and a metaphor and so his very personality kind of becomes that metaphor itself and theres just not a lot of actual person there. he's just a vehicle. which is why I think people go cuckoo bananas about lestat, it's because there is not a single cubic centimeter of metaphor in him and he is 100000% character, and after iwtv I can see how people are like oh thank god. which is also imo why tvl onward totally dropped the effort to be literary because how are you gonna bravely shoot (and miss! BUT SHOOT!) for literary fiction when any effort toward metaphor is just utterly gone. conversely the lack of metaphor is what makes the show so good but that's a totally different case because, respectfully, Anne was very plainly not thinking about any of this, at all. which im really happy about because I wouldn't trade the experience I had of reading the first page of tvl immediately after crying literally a single tear at the Louis and lestat baby thing at the end of iwtv for anything. I truly would not trade what I felt in that moment for the world

[zombie-bait]

listen if you love amc iwtv and haven’t read the books I’m begging you to read The Vampire Lestat. I know there’s hardcore fans out there who love book one and think you need to read them all in order and I respect the grind, I really do. But.

The Vampire Lestat changed me.

Everything about it was so instantly fascinating. The My Immortal ass prologue, the eloquent writing, the struggles with religion, the history, the overt queerness (this was pre amc iwtv so all I had was the movie ok 😭), the campiness, the quotes that run through my head night and day. Lestat is a bombastic protagonist who’s desperate to survive and find a single ounce of love in a godless world. You get to see a new side of Armand, you get Nicki, you get Lestat’s mother (who I could write a whole essay on). You get the Loustat reunion in all its emotionally glory. If you want to know why the went so hard with the show I implore you to read that book.

Interview is good but TVL is powerful. Where Interview was full of grief, TVL is full of hope and pessimism and defiance that rose from the ashes of that grief. You can feel how much Anne changed in the 7 years between the two books not just as an author but a person. Is it perfect? No of course not, its kind of insane at times. But this is the Vampire Chronicles we’re talking about, I think that’s a given (and, at many times, a positive).

((Edit because I was sleep deprived while writing this and left some stuff out: This is mostly aimed at ppl who are on the fence about reading the books after watching the show or who have tried to read Interview and weren't too grabbed by it. I would potentially recommend watching the movie, skimming book 1 and then reading book 2. The differences in Anne's writing style and opinions on religion are genuinely fascinating to read first hand. The stand out part of experiencing the two books together is how different Louis and Lestat's accounts are. It's an incredibly unique case of both protagonists being unreliable narrators that I haven't seen in other media. This post is largely just me going "hey, if you tried Interview and it made you not want to read more even though you really enjoy the ambiance/concept then TVL might be more up your alley." If you want an in-depth look into the series and if you want to catch/compare everything with the tv show, then absolutely read the first book! I did and I don't regret it, even though I do feel like book 2 is stronger. Tryna keep this short cuz I love this series and I have a million things to say hjdhsfhjkdhjh))

[blueiight]

U can tell when ppl ‘read’ books off no context essays or havent read since the dinosaurs roamed earth cuz they keep insisting therell be some parallel to armand whacking lestat off a tower in tvl (ignoring how quickly lestat recuperated & got his lick back beat the shit out of armand outside piece de sum france locale for trying to use his mindgift. overall a chosen ignorance to the difference between abusive dynamics explored thru vamps v. a fight for sublimation between an old monster+ a new one. hell iwtv the book was about the domestic horror) or the desire to constantly get 500 perspectives on some last 5 minutes of an episode at the expense of the wider story to assuage some audience member’s hurt feelings 🤣😂

[yespat49]

Macron et l’OTAN ont «des muscles en papier»

Chocs du monde avec Jacques Hogard Pour ce nouvel épisode de «Chocs du monde», le magazine des crises et de la prospective internationales de TVL, Edouard Chanot reçoit le colonel Jacques Hogard. «Le vent tourne» écrit notre invité dans son nouvel essai «La guerre en Ukraine – Regard critique sur les causes d’une tragédie». Après deux années de conflit et de mobilisation occidentale en faveur de…

[jakez19]

La vérité sur les essais Pfizer - Le Zoom - Christine Cotton - TVL

[sofipitch]

Wait, Lestat fucks his mom?? C’mon Anne whyyyy

Technically, no they do kiss on the lips with tongue and Lestat refers to Gabrielle as his lover. I think AR has a "forbidden love" kink that extends to incest, pedophilia, and gays, which I don't like that last one being linked with the other two but if you pay attention, those are the only couples in the series. I think she also thinks it's "okay" bc vamps can't have sex right? (Except she undoes that later on, and again, don't group gays in with pedos that's what conservative homophobes have been calling us for decades)

For my own sanity I ignore the tongue and lovers thing and just pretend that kissing your mom on the mouth (however long) is a European thing. It's a stretch I know, but it's for my sanity