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Season 2 dashed hopes 🫠

This is nothing against the girl Autumn who worked with AMC, but I don’t think she should’ve been the one for this season. I think they should’ve kept Naomi because she would’ve asked really good questions especially on racial topics that needed to be touched on. And she looks like a white girl so I’m assuming she’s white and as a white person so she can only do so much.

Her interviews weren’t bad it’s just I needed them to go deeper and we won’t have that chance again since we’re working on the next book which focuses on white characters mostly. As watchers of the show noted especially the Black fans there were something’s in the show that was extremely fucked up that was done to Louis & Claudia especially when we talk about the trial (& Madeleine but you know she was just an unfortunate roped into it all).

I would have loved to have that talked about. I will add that I don’t think the cast would have the most to say because some of these topics need more than life experience but that’s where a good interviewer helps.

This feels very jumbled but I wish that we had interviews that fully acknowledged the racial aspect of the show and even the deeper parts of the relationships the characters have with each other. For example, so many people say that Louis chose Armand over Claudia but when you watch the show Louis only gets deeper into the relationship whenever Armand props himself (or the coven) up as a potential danger to Claudia.

IWTV S2 Ep8 Musings - Lestat & Gender: "I am she, she is me."

Scrolling the tags and sighing, cuz I just KNEW people were gonna take this line out of context, as proof that Lestat's the woman/wife/mother/femme-fatale (which @dwreader had to explain cuz folks just don't get it X X), blahblahblah. I've already said my whole bit on Lestat as the patriarchal father/husband, and the dandified matador/killer (a la Bruce). But I just wanna remind y'all that THE SAINT IS NOT A CITY.

Either the fandom's got a bunch of new Lestans posting who missed the discourse from S1 about the meaning behind Les's monologues from the books; or y'all just have frightfully short memories.

He's NOT talking about stupid effing New Orleans; and he's NOT calling himself a woman. He's talking about LOUIS. Louis' motherland! Louis' culture! Louis' ancestor's bones! Louis' grave soil! Louis's HOME--Louis' back at home, and Louis IS his home.

But here y'all go, always centering everything on Lestat's yaasification, and ignoring the Louis-shaped elephant in the room.

Lestat's been talking about Louis to his nameless Millennial Fledgling this whole time. Everyone knows who Louis is--and what he means to Lestat. This is CRUCIAL for Loustat going forward in TVC, when Lou's held as collateral against Lest by Akasha and Rhoshamandes.

But for some reason Lestans are hella quick to separate Lestat's identity from Louis every chance y'all get, then wanna whine & complain about the QotD movie pairing Lestat with Jesse, or AR tryna pair Les with Tom, Dick & Harry.

And YES, I will die on the hill that this whole anti-feminine discourse about AMC!Louis is couched in racial prejudice and biases--a trap that even Black fans who are pro-Louis fall into, while ignoring the struggles of effeminate/feminized gay Black men in their own effing community (X X X X).

But this is BY FAR more endemic in spaces predominately occupied by straight white women, who utterly fail to relate to their direct antithesis: gay Black men (X X). So of course they'll leap on every chance they get to glom onto long-haired blonde white drama queen Lestat as their spirit animal, even when he's LITERALLY TELLING Y'ALL that he himself identifies himself with LOUIS.

(Lestat's toxic color blindness is a whole 'nother conversation, omg. X X X)

Lestat says "she" because it's conventional speech to refer to places--especially continents, countries, and cities--as female, denoting motherhood and wives--places as people that take care of their own, as a mother would her children and/or spouse; a la the Statue of Liberty, personified virtues, and most abstract concepts we've inherited from Greco-Roman gender inequality about women as home-makers (HOUSEWIVES) being barefoot & pregnant in the kitchen. It's not even an exclusively English phenomenon. NOLA, like any city, is referred to as a "she."

So yes, to an extent, Lestat is channeling LOUIS; waiting at home for his spouse to come back and TAKE CARE OF HIM again. But Lestat is NOT a home-maker. He's living in a nasty AF shack, with only his music for company (and we know his tour's all about TVL & Akasha & Marius & Claudia & Louis). He treats his own Millennial Fledgling (his BLOOD CHILD) like trash; setting him on fire "IN LOUIS' HONOR" and not even knowing his name--he's NOT tryna be no one's MOTHER. He couldn't even bring himself to be Claudia's effing FATHER when she was literally burning alive two feet away from him, FFS.

But it's not about the brick & mortar or the PLACE itself--it's about the PERSON it's attached to--cuz Lestat always knew that Louis would eventually come back to NOLA--come back HOME--and FIND LESTAT WAITING FOR HIM THERE.

EVERYTHING & ANYTHING FOR LOUIS.

But AMC leaves it deliberately open-ended and ambiguous what Louis says to Lestat during their hug, and we don't see Lestat in Dubai, or any implication that Loustat is remarried/a couple again. Louis' putting down the torch, to stop accepting everyone's effing dregs; "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Cuz Lou's decided to finally start learning how to live on his own for the first time in his entire life; for himself, not other people--AND realize that he doesn't need to rely on his husbands to fight his battles for him. "I own the night!"

One thing that fandom misses is that the antiblackness and racism Louis faces is also a reason why Louis hesitates to take to vampirism naturally. Because at its core vampirism is about the taking of life to sustain your own. Not taking into account the pain and grief you cause just so you can thrive and live a comfortable life. Taking life with no hesitancy because you feel you are owed a life to survive.

Just like white people during slavery and the Jim Crow era. Who took lives of human beings to live a better life. Beat them, killed them, raped them. Played with them. Vampirism is about dehumanising humans. Louis knows how it feels to be dehumanised by those who have more power over you so they justify their actions.

Of course he'd be hesitant to do what was done to him. Its not just about his catholic guilt, saying so would just be so one dimensional to Louis' character.

It's about the guilt of being not on the receiving end of what he suffered. To be the one dehumanising people whether it's a black person or a white person. He knows families whose son or daughter were taken away from them for fickle reasons.

I don't think non-poc colour can understand the guilt you feel to treat others like how someone prejudice treats you. Even if it's someone in the same position as you or not. The guilt alone eats at you.

So it makes sense he struggled with it. Because he had to deal with racism from the day he was born until present day in Dubai. No matter how rich he was. No matter how powerful. Unlike catholic guilt which could be set aside and reasoned that some of the rules are outdated in terms of queerness and the judgement of God. Racism was a constant reminder. It could not be set aside. It could never be left alone. It was a constant wound of Louis knowing even if he was stronger than the racist he killed, even in their death they saw him as nothing.

It also feeds the Catholic Self-hatred he because God deems black people not good enough to save. Those are thoughts that a black person has, not all but enough to take note.

And that's why I think Lestat and the fandom really do not understand Louis as ALL. Because they treat the racism Louis faces and its challenges it brings to his life as if it's an inconvenience and not as if it didn't and doesn't completely shape him as a person.

It's like they missed the monologue of Louis killing the important council man as Lestat says near his business. That black man had another organ that no other man had that made to survive the constant emotional, psychological strain of living in that era.

It's the same organ that keeps him from inflicting similar hurt to others and keeps him from enjoying to kill.

Then again you could argue that Claudia was not the same. She's also black so why didn't she actually like Louis?

Simple answer: not all black people are the same.

There are different ways black people face Racism and oppression. Different emotions take reign. Claudia was the kind of person who would take power in her hands and concentrate on keeping it so that she never ever have to face not having it again. No matter how many people get hurt. Because that is how the world treated her so why could not have the courtesy of giving back what she was given.

Omg no one has ever responded to me so thoroughly and eloquently. Thank you OP!!!

I had a lot of fun reading the links you provided, so thank you for that as well!

I really appreciate your point of view on this topic. I think I’m still firmly in the camp of blaming Lestat and Louis, both, for Claudia’s death. However, you have made me realize that I may not blame them equally.

Out of the two, Lestat was the only one with over a century of vampiric knowledge and experience, and thus was really the only one who could make an informed decision when it came to the Turning of Claudia - which, in my mind, was her true death sentence, and the moment from which all her future suffering stems from.

Sure, Louis’ pride was the catalyst for the fire that should’ve killed her, and he was the one who brought her home instead of to a hospital, and it was he who begged Lestat to turn her, and it was one Mr. Louis du Pointe Du Lac who disregarded Lestat’s many pleas that a vampire teenager would be miserable for the rest of her days.

All of that sucks. Bad dad, Louis. Bad dad. Go sit in the corner.

But Lestat, unlike Louis, KNEW, with all certainty, what it would mean to turn her. He tried to tell Louis, I’ll give him that, but he folded rather easily in the end.

Once again, Lestat chose Louis over Claudia. He didn’t want to lose the man he loved, and Claudia became the “bandaid for a shitty marriage” as Daniel so poignantly put it. He failed her the second he decided to make her his fledgling.

The most tragic part, I think, is that both Louis and Lestat had many opportunities to atone or redeem themselves for Claudia’s sake, and they just never could do it.

I hope she haunts the narrative next season, in some way. She deserves to be remembered. It’s the least her fathers could do for her, literally.

Lestat's getting away with murder. 😩🤦

BRUH.

Lestat's accountability is just a non-entity at this point, @aizenat.

I'm shocked everyone threw the blame at Armand's feet, when it was Santiago who broke into Louis' home and stole her diaries in the first place.

The Blonde Privilege is wild. 😔

@iamanoccasionaldoodler

Okay so,

There seems to be this negative reaction to the finale from a lot of Devil's Minion fans and I don't understand it for a lot of reasons, but one of them is ... I don't get why people are upset that, when read at it's worst, Armand and Daniel are seemingly not on good terms after Daniel is turned. I keep seeing this belief that Armand "abandoned" him, which I think is fully pulled from y'alls collective ass, and a disappointment that Daniel would call Armand a "fucking asshole."

But the thing about Armand/Daniel everyone seems to be forgetting is that even in the source material, they first had to tear each other down to their bare bones before they could see each other well enough to love one another -- REALLY love one another. Because Armand is a russian nesting doll of lies, masks, and emotional walls, and with Daniel, idek if I can explain it properly, but I think its some combination of Armand needing to break him a bit to get him on his level of broken freakitude, and also Armand not being able to relate to the 20th Century Human period and needing to drill down into Daniel's core, straight down into the monkey brain that every homo sapien has shared for eons, before he can find something he understands.

If we were to ever get a proper Devil's Minion storyline on this show (and we will), they've laid the perfect groundwork by having Daniel EVISCERATE Armand right to his face, slicing his Gorgon's knot of lies and schemes in half and leaving it lay on that table. And Armand's face! HIS FACE! He can't believe it! Seventy-seven years with Louis who never could unravel all the strings, or simply didn't care to even bother. And THIS guy who seemingly hates him found Armand fascinating enough to try. AND succeed!

And why wouldn't he? Daniel may not have remembered until they were nearing the end of the interview, but Armand SHOWED Daniel what was beneath the mask years ago, the very first time they met. The jealous, insecure, desperate creature that was hiding under there, that IS Armand to Daniel.

I'm getting off track here, but what I'm trying to say is that as much as Armand turning Daniel in the books is SUCH a flawless scene, ultimately, if you believe in the infinite and eternal nature of their love story, it doesn't matter whether Armand turned Daniel before they fell for each other, afterward, during a break-up or at the climax of their most romantic streak. Like Lestat said, "We'll be together ten thousand nights, a hundred thousand. What we're doing is hard."

So maybe Armand turned Daniel shortly after Daniel stripped him bare in front of Louis, and Louis was so disgusted by what he saw, he threw him into a stone wall. Daniel could have run, too. For some reason, he didnt. Armand could have killed him in an instant, sitting at that table or after Louis left. He didn't. Armand made a conscious decision to tie himself to this man who just exposed him for ETERNITY. Because as horrific an experience as it was, as devastating and life-altering, he was seen.

"It is difficult to explain how his words disarmed me, how efficiently succinct and impenetrable his argument was. All my conceptions, even my guilt and my wish to die, seemed utterly unimportant, and I completely forgot myself and the barbaric scene that surrounded me. For the first time in my life, I was seen."

Louis said those words about Lestat as he described being made a vampire, when he kissed Lestat on the altar.

That feeling, of someone cutting to the core of you and telling you exactly what you are as no one else has ever been able to understand, made Louis accept the Dark Gift from Lestat.

And it made Armand give that Gift to Daniel.

okay but Rashid revealing himself to be Armand and Louis calling him "the love of his life" with that forced look on his face felt like watching a horror movie where it's revealed the protagonist never truly escaped the monster and they're still trapped

Artistic Expression as a Form of Love: aka Some Meta About Interview with the Vampire

hey guess who spent all of today putting off a really boring work task

So I'm just suddenly just having a lot of feelings about how love is tied to creation in Interview with the Vampire.

Specifically, each character's artistic impulses and what they say about their relationships, and how they use their creative output as a sort of love language.

From the very first episode, we see hints of this. Miss Lilly asks about Lestat's music box, which plays a song he wrote for Nicholas once upon a time, evidence of his love for someone who's been dead for over a century.

He later writes his own song for Louis, 'Come to Me', and Claudia makes the connection explicit while deliberately poking at him -- he wrote a song for each of his true loves, but does one signal love more strongly than the other?

She's being facetious to prod at him, but the show seems to genuinely make the point that we can track each characters' relationships through the art we see them create.

After all, we see it with Claudia herself later -- even before there's any discussion of becoming companions, we can feel Madeleine's compatibility with Claudia in the way she makes dresses for her.

Madeleine dresses Claudia as the grown woman she wants to be seen as, as she really is, even before she fully understands the circumstances of Claudia's age. It's telling that in Madeleine's dying vision, the one that convinces Louis of her love for Claudia, that Claudia is wearing a dress that Madeleine made for her.

By contrast, we see how Claudia is incompatible with the coven in the role that they have quite literally written for her. If Madeleine shows her love by treating Claudia as an adult, the coven shows their lack of caring by creating artwork where Claudia is forced into playing a part that diminishes her.

In turn, we can see Claudia's enthusiasm for the coven tied into her willingness to perform -- she starts off trying to smile her way through the situation, before quickly growing tired of the performance (and, relatedly, the coven itself).

But then again, how does the coven show its real loyalties? Well, with a painting.

We don't know who painted Lestat (Armand, possibly?), but having artwork of him in a place of prominence is pretty telling. But then again, the theater's creation is itself a reflection of art as a signifier of love & bonding -- Lestat suggests a theater to a lonely Armand as a way to regain a family/coven structure, after the last one fell apart.

Which makes particular sense for Armand, the character who most explicitly equates artistic expression with love and understanding. We see him underline it in his own telling of his backstory -- "No one has painted me in over 400 years." He associates painting with being seen and cared for by his maker --

-- and yet we, the audience, can plainly see what a warped, toxic relationship it was from the painting itself : a whitewashed version of Armand's face that doesn't truly look like him.

Hell, we even see Armand's betrayal of Louis in the form of creative expression -- to quote Daniel, "He directed the play!"

His treason isn't just that he sold Louis & Claudia out, it's that he participated in a creation that would condemn them. Artistic expression shows us love and loyalty in this world, yes, but it can also be used as a tool of abuse or betrayal.

Which brings us to Louis, he who has the eye for art but maybe not the skill for it, who never said 'I love you' to Lestat and wouldn't call Armand his companion, who ultimately gives up on creation in favor of becoming a collector.

It's especially interesting that his abandonment of photography is also explicitly tied to the end of his visions of Dreamstat. Even the one photo he takes that garners praise is one he tries taking of Armand & Dreamstat at the same time -- as if the closest he can get to expressing love through creation is something that blurs the lines between both men he has complicated feelings for. (Note that the scene where he develops the photo is directly after the "Show me the only way you know how to love" sequence of Louis bashing some guy's head into a wall.)

Hell, if we want to take it even further, we can even see some of this pretense in the inclusion of the Fred Stein photos (assuming Armand actually did sneak them in). On one level, we can see it as Armand trying to build up Louis' happiness, but on the other, it's him trying to build up the image of their romance.

After all, if artistic creation is a sign of love -- especially to Armand! -- what does it mean if Louis is openly disparaging his own abilities to make anything at all?

Taking it further, what does it say that he and Armand have a collection of photos of various boys over the years and expensive artwork hanging on every wall, but Louis doesn't seem to have taken any pictures of Armand in almost eighty years?

And hey, speaking of fascinating boys: what does it mean when Louis hasn't made anything creative of Armand since the 1940s, but he has no problem writing a book for ten hours with some guy he picked up at the bar?

Hell, writing a book where Louis spends ten hours talking about his life and hasn't even gotten up to the part with Armand yet? The supposed love of his life doesn't even garner a mention, to the point where Daniel didn't even know he existed when he arrives fifty years later.

And what does it mean when that book you never wrote is a giant hanging thread in your life, enough to create a connection strong enough that you remember that guy fifty years later and go back to that writing it? Even over the objections of the love of your life?

Especially when find out that Daniel's entire writing career is sparked in part by inspirational words given to him by Louis -- a sign of their bond withstanding the test of time, enough to make them friends after a fifty year absence.

That said, if we're working with the idea of artistic expression as proof of connection -- especially when it comes to Armand -- then it also makes perfect sense why Armand would insert himself into the interview once he's been revealed.

Then it's no longer about Louis & Daniel, or Louis & Lestat, it's about Louis & Armand and artistic proof of their connection! They're both now creating a story, a book that will include their entire romance! It's the first time that Armand has had the possibility of being an artistic subject in decades, so no wonder he's quick to latch onto it.

Even then, though: I think it's interesting that when Armand is talking to Daniel alone, the first story he thinks to tell him about is his relationship with Lestat. Make of that what you will.

(Also, I've said this before, but I am very curious what Armand's feelings towards Daniel will be after having an entire book written in which he plays a starring role.)

I think that this is all very rich with subtext and possible further progression, especially since we are about to enter a season where a new book is being written by Daniel and there's going to be an entire tour's worth of music being performed, all of it ripe with potential for further relationship nuance.

And while I don't want to wander too far into book spoiler territory, I think this might even neatly factor into a potential Season 4 -- especially since book fans will know that a specific musical performance is the catalyst for a lot of what happens in The Queen of the Damned.

louis is going down as one of the characters of all time btw. there's something about characters who are so deeply repressed in every facet of their lives continuously fighting for happiness, yet ultimately unable to achieve that happiness because they've denied themselves for so long that they no longer know what they actually want vs what they've convinced themselves to chase.

and it's fascinating, because that's so clear in the way that louis conceptualizes happiness by fighting for the things previously denied to him; the spectre of his perceived failures as a human haunt him and preclude the possibility at any new lease on happiness in the future. he wants to buy the fairplay because he links success with respect, and respect with fulfillment: the idea that as soon as his (white) peers are forced to admit he's a better businessman than them, he'll be happy. except he isn't happy, because there is no goal post at which point they'll accept he's smarter or more capable than them, and so instead he's forced back into a game that will never fulfill him, no matter how powerful or capable he becomes.

and then he tries to build a family, tries to surround himself with people who he can care for and who he can have a positive impact on, building connections for himself and bringing meaning to his life. which also doesn't work, because he's simultaneously haunting and haunted by his human family, and there's no way for him to reconcile what he's lost with what he's gained. he wants grace, and he could have grace, but he's spent his entire life knowing that every facet of himself is unacceptable to society, that he can't admit what he is without also being condemned for it. and it doesn't matter that grace isn't society, that grace would accept him - he is, to his own mind, an unacceptable thing. to admit what he is out loud could only lead to catastrophe, because to think anything less is dangerous to the very principles that allow him to exist.

and so instead of having grace in his life, he has claudia. and he can love claudia and he can adore claudia, but he can not find a connection to humanity in her, because she isn't and doesn't want to be human. he has, in his quest to find meaning and connection with humanity, surrounded himself with monsters.

and then he has lestat. lestat who, for all his grandiosity and hedonism and theatricality, is just as festering a pool of repression as louis is. he's a person who can be anyone, so long as anyone is someone who is seen and adored and wanted, because to be wanted is to be happy.

and so you have louis, a man who can't admit what he wants, because admittance is vulnerability, and vulnerability is death; and you have lestat, a man who needs to be wanted, because if you aren't wanted you're abandoned, and abandonment is a fate worse than death.

and then they both try to get happy.