thetitularvampire

[thetitularvampire]

so, mr. du lac, how long have you been dead?

[thetitularvampire]

Interview with the Vampire

louis, armand & daniel + proximity

[2.02 / 2.03 / 2.04 / 2.04 / 2.06 / 2.07 / 2.08 / 2.08]

[thetitularvampire]

the missing part || louis de pointe du lac in disco elysium art style

[thetitularvampire]

I saw a woman tonight in a patchy five-year-old dress putting on a brand new lipstick. And what's that supposed to say?

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 2.02 "Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death"

[thetitularvampire]

parallels…

[thetitularvampire]

helen of troy herself, monsieur louis de pointe du lac

[thetitularvampire]

hold me like water, or christ, hold me like a knife

[thetitularvampire]

i think a lot of extreme readings on louis's character painting him either as the true abuser or as an helpless victim are failing to capture one of the main points of his story and of the portrayal of vampirism as a gift, which is the well-worn fictional theme of how terrible it can be to obtain everything you ever wanted.

throughout the interview louis is not just trying to exculpate himself or, on the other hand, just trying to come to terms with the abuse received. he, is of course, doing neither and both. he is trying to untangle the particular guilt created when harm descends on yourself and others from a situation that you did not directly create, but from which you partly benefitted. the fact that this guilt gets rielaborated for a long time through a pre-existing tendency for self-deception, does not mean that the harm received was not real or that the deception was only internal. it just signals that in order to move forward, louis needs to come to terms with the specific ways his own issues have informed the events in iwtv.

louis is a character profoundly scored by contrasting feelings of shame. even before meeting lestat, his role in society as an homosexual black man creates a set of conflicting instincts and expectations impossible to fulfill simultaneously. his feminine coding in the story is not arbitrary, but a logical consequence of the exclusion of blackness and homosexuality from the societal construct of masculinity. the standard societal role that men are expected to fulfill is of course one of dominance, assertiveness, and aggressiveness, translated in all spheres of life, be it professional, familial, or sexual. as a man, and in particular the head of his family, louis is supposed to fit into all of these expectations. however, as the rhetoric around the subjugation of black people relies on the (covert or overt) image of them as violent savages that need to be civilised, black-maleness is associated with an over-dramatisation of these characteristics (hypermasculinity), which ideologically requires the submission of black men in order to control the threat they pose. which means, as a black man trying to fit in white society, louis is also expected to react graciously to subduing, suppress anger, and appear non-threating (even sexually). on top of that, homosexuality entails an inherent humiliation into feminisation, as the masculine role of dominance does not exist in a vacuum, but is directly constructed upon the submission of women. and the breaking of gender roles for louis is compounded by some of his own personal traits, which lean towards nurturing, sensitivity and passivity. a passivity that, incidentally, is also informed by the tiredeness descending from his own parentified role in the family and by the many different necessities pulling him at the same time.

the picture painted here is extremely complicated. louis is not simply a man failing in his gender role. he lives in a society that assigns to him both masculine and feminine traits and punishes him when he cannot achieve them, while at the same time shaming him when he displays them. he feels shame over his sexual and violent urges, but also inadequate when he does not perform dominance. he feels ashamed of his desire for passivity and motherhood, but also inadequate when he cannot control his aversion to actual subjugation. he wants all of it: he wants to be powerful, respected, and strong, but he also wants to care and be cared for, to relax into the power of someone else, and to be able to avoid the responsibility of always being the one making decisions. he wants, in other words, to be a full human being. but the fragmentation of his identity in society will not allow it. and the cost of failing to maintain this delicate balance is not just societal reproach, there is a direct threat of violence hanging over him. this creates a paralysis in decision-making and identity-building that heavily colors louis's choices throughout his life.

part of how he deals with this in order to function, is by creating fictional roles for himself to inhabit and denying the aspects of himself he dislikes by projecting them on others. in s1, for instance, there is something to be said about louis taking all the masculine traits he feels ashamed of (the bloodlust, the desire for violence, the desire for (gay) sex) and assigning them to lestat, as well as blaming their growth in him to lestat's influence and vampirism. which is not an incorrect reading of the situation. the predatory drive he sees in lestat is not only an externalisation of his own issues. he is actually being hunted. and then of course he is actually being abused. moreover, vampirism does enhance his violent instincts. but all of this is also not a causal coincidence between reality and his own illusions. part of the reason louis loves lestat and is attracted to vampirism (because of him and through him), is precisely that they represent unashamed possession of what he hates in himself. he admires lestat for this and he also feels relief over his presence, as it enables him to experience those traits vicariously with reduced self-blaming by directing any condemnation externally. moreover, the stalking and power-imbalance and the forced turning create a fracture in his instincts. they provide him with seduction and power he did desire and they do that by permitting him to claim a passive role in them, so that he can avoid culpability. this is extremely confusing, as i don't think he is ever able to fully reconcile how much of what happened he wanted to happen.

from an external point of view, the audience can at least see he did not really want to be subjected to violence and he perceives a real danger of it from lestat, which then gets realised. as much as the masculine, but respectful business-owner was a persona he assumed to navigate that threat in society, the adaptable housewife is also a persona he assumes to navigate that threat with lestat. and these are unsparing calculations made to physically avoid harm by performing the characteristics better suited for it in any given moment. but the specific choices made to obtain this result are clearly tied to an exaggereted exploration of feminine and masculine roles that he would not have been able to fully inhabit without the excuse of a threat, due to the mentioned combination of shame and perceived deficiency. as shame begets pride, however, the assumption of these roles is also meant to claw back some margin of agency through the construction of a self-image that is not tied to victimhood. in other words, creating for himself the belief that through this exaggerations he is just voluntarily expressing his true self and not only reacting to the constrictions of external circumtances, allows him to bear his reality by believing it was born at least partly out of his own choices and that it helped him obtain at least some favourable outcomes.

there is a fascinating tension in him, in both wanting to deny his culpability and free-will in events in order to absolve himself and at the same time not feeling worthy of this absolution and perceiving its acceptance as a further sin. moreover, there is attraction towards powerlessness as a state devoid of the burden of decision-making, but also a rejection of it due to the guilt generated by feeling co-responsible in his own victimisation because of his passivity.

in a healthy, safe environment all of this could be reconciled. however, "marrying" lestat and becoming a vampire create an interesting conundrum, whereby he receives solutions that are technically able to magically fulfill all of his most secret, shameful, and contradictory desires (bloodlust, hunger, power, violence, sex, motherhood, submissivness), but through circumstances where his consent is severely impaired and with consequences that are harmful to both himself and others. so that he finds himself unable to fully forgive himself (he did want these things to happen, although not this way, and he does enjoy some aspects of them), but also unable to escape the situation. he occupies a state of victimhood that he perceives of his own making, which further impairs him from rejecting it, as staying in it is both denial and penance.

the ending of season 2 being centred on him accepting vampirism as a gift is a full circle. the liberation achieved after the interview is not, i think, a simple recognition that there was nothing he could have done to prevent events and that he deserves to live a full life as a consequence. there are many possible nuances to this and the situation with armand deserves a whole different conversation, but on a very basic level i think what matters most is the acceptance that he will never know, exactly, what alternative course of action could have been taken. he knows what he did not do: he did not have an active role in paul's suicide, his estrangement with his family, and claudia's murder. but his shame and tendency to self-sacrifice have created a situation of immobility that impedes him from taking full stock of the part his wants have played in events. and to fully rielaborate his role as a victim he will need, i think, more reflection on that. but in the meantime, what is sure is that protracting the same tendency by denying himself any enjoyment of his vampire life and placing all the blame for his turning and their relationship on lestat (though he is to blame for many many things), would just constitute a further attempt to avoid guilt by negating that those wants ever existed at all. the way forward is only one. to accept everything he wants and be purposeful with it now. to refuse the gift does not eliminate the terrible things that came with it, it just ignores them. maybe, by honoring it, he can honor them too. and try to avoid them from happening again.

[thetitularvampire]

i love your fics a lot and think you have a wonderful (and true) understanding of louis and lestats uuhm manifestations of desire? Idk how to ask that but- could you like.. describe what connections to canon you use as indicators of louis wanting what he wants in your fics? (not like. a dick. but- be cared for, forced to abandon his shame/enjoy it, feminization, motherhood, protection)

these are just off the top of my head so i'm sure there's something obvious i'm missing and anyone can add on as they'd like but yeah. tried including from both seasons but i've obv sat longer with season 1 so those come easier for me.

cared for/protection: him hating/being miserable in the protector/provider role through which we meet him in 101; Paul paralleling Levi taking care of Grace to whether Louis is going to continue meeting w Lestat and committing only after he seems to have gotten confirmation for himself that they both now have someone in their life to take care of them; his pleasure having lestat backing him despite simultaneously being annoyed that he needs a white male backer anyway and how he’s upset at lestat when lestat first tells him no and visibly softens when he gets what he wants; his pouting when he’s fake crying about not having kids of his own (even though as a human he’d resigned himself to just being Paul’s keeper and had no visible intention of marrying a woman, so even this complaining is informed by him wanting this with/from lestat) and his joy when Lestat indulges him and spoils him (yes the valet thing sucks but his main emotion is happiness and we’re shown that Louis has no issue refusing these dates when he really doesn’t want to); his pure happiness in e4 when they’re playing house and it’s Lestat’s money fueling them; that the “sacrifice” he wants Lestat to make in e6 is going back to this time; this desire for care and protection is romantic for him bc he’s uncomfortable when Claudia’s the one who has to take of him in 106/201; that Claudia is specifically like give yourself to him, not just play nice with him but give yourself to him again, and that for Louis this is the most dangerous and totalizing way he can love lestat; how in 202/203 he tries goading Armand into making the first move: he prefers to be wanted, not to be the one doing the wanted; how dreamstat manifests as both his self loathing at believing he’s weak as well as him going to dreamstat for reassurance and to be coddled; how miserable he is starting the maitre thing w armand and 206 in general

forced to abandon his shame: how turned on he is being “emasculated” by lestat, wanting to be talked into going upstairs with Lestat in 101 but then surrendering himself totally when Lestat backs him up to a safe corner; the entire turning scene but notably him kissing Lestat with the priest’s blood on his mouth when so much of his shame is tied into being Catholic; again his joy in 104 tho i wanna be careful w this since the external force is obviously a very negative one but just thinking about how this role is his happiest but it’s not something he would’ve likely allowed himself if there was another choice if this makes sense. which is still fair like he’s a gay black man there are practicalities. but when the practicalities don’t matter as much and everything has been destroyed and he has nothing left to lose, that’s when he usually begins to shine and can be his truest self: see also 208 or 107; him doing the interview w the rudest journalist in the world in the first place as follow up

feminization and motherhood: historically there were no male creole brothel owners, all of them were women w powerful white husbands, but even without knowing that the relationship he has w the women on screen esp brick is pretty obviously distinct from how male pimps work then or now; how turned on he was being emasculated x2 and just his attraction to lestat being so tied into lestat making him feel like less of a man: that’s a turn on for him; his dynamic w his family esp his mother is more like that of an eldest daughter than an eldest son: the self sacrificing, the expectations and disdain and taking on a parental/caretaker role from what’s implied to be a young age, even before his father passed; their first time the creole woman that Lestat used to show louis he’s more of a man than Louis falls asleep and Louis comes to life and pounces on him, and for Louis, Lestat’s domination of him is tied into Lestat’s pinnacle masculinity and his own unmanliness, and this is something we watch Louis happily submit to. I am not saying that i believe that fem=sub but he’s a black Catholic in 1910 lol and even if it’s not polite to say on tumblr, for gay men being the submissive receiving partner in a gay relationship is more often than not associated w being the more fem one bc femininity is made up and this is subversive for a gay man regardless of whether it’s equal enough on tumblr; him handling Lestat’s wardrobe and furnishing his new house are typically a wife’s duties; the multiple parallels/foils between him and women in the show, from Lily to the random black woman watching her man eye another woman to dascia to Grace to Madeleine, as well as the acting choices Jacob references being mostly black women + one gnc effeminate man + Louis’ refs from rolin and the writers room being mostly women as well; Claudia views Louis as a housewife; even the racists like Tom Anderson pointedly do not project the typical racist myths about black men during Jim Crow onto louis, I can elaborate on this later if you want but their racism instead adjusts to match their understanding of Louis as not masculine enough instead of hypermasculine; even in the trial in 207 the initial beat w him as aggressive pursuer immediately does a hard shift to his greatest crime being that he was a jezebel (racist caricature of black women) who seduces a white man to commit the great crime of creating a tragic mulatto child even though it’s against the law and he would’ve never done this if not for the jezebel’s raw sensuality; the way Claudia comes to view her dads relationship after being assaulted by a white man is significant bc she comes to view it as another tragic case of a black person trapped in a facade of romance w a white man, and just historically that black person would’ve been a black woman. loustat’s long term common law marriage w an illegitimate child is just not how same sex intimacy bw black and white men usually went during this era, and the model the show is using is clearly that of a consensual bw/wm relationship that was shaky not only bc of il/legality but also bc the more common story for this racial dynamic was bw being assaulted by wm, with many prominent cases happening on or around college campuses like happens to Claudia. and since she’s reading about this stuff it’s safe to assume she came across the several huge stories that suggest that specific dynamic was the norm, not what her parents had. welcome to fairyland but Julio capo for info on how same sex relationships between powerful white men and less powerful black men usually went and “it was like we had all been raped” by danielle mcguire? for the rest

201 a woman vampire / a mom and just the full parallel between her made wrong child being deemed disgusting and inhumane by foreign vampires who kill him and she’s never able to have another child again so she commits suicide; idk most mother daughter relationships?😭 the enmeshment they have w e/o specifically is this type instead of a father/daughter thing; how they talk about raising Claudia is just pretty explicitly gendered in the sort of coddling suffocating mother/strict emotionless father dynamic stereotype lol; Louis is the primary parent which is the mom 99% of the time; 104 and carols costume choices and her explanation; New Orleans is feminized multiple times in the show and it couldn’t be more explicit that New Orleans=Louis; when he’s not actively performing masculinity he is just generally more feminine idk some stuff is just that we live in a society and there are things we know to be true.

[thetitularvampire]

louis shape studies

[thetitularvampire]

you have grown warm again, filled with love which you first came to paris with

[thetitularvampire]

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[thetitularvampire]

anyway louis' rampage & burning the theatre down is "her word will be the last word for this place" coded if i do say so myself

[thetitularvampire]

i wish i could explain to you all what was running through my head when i decided to draw this (original by @/marimofag on twt)

[thetitularvampire]

wow s3 pics leaked

[thetitularvampire]

Gay relationship drama disguised as supernatural horror fr……

[thetitularvampire]

New/Old video of Jacob Anderson behind the scenes of #InterviewWithTheVampire season 2.

Via juliana_rychlikova IG.