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#IwtV analysis
handsomelyerin · 1 year
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the idea of woobiefying lestat (at least as he's written in the show) is just so boring to me. why would you want to erase what makes him such a fascinating character which is he endured horrible suffering and abuse and instead of breaking the cycle he chooses to be an absolute cunt and destroy every chance he has at happiness. why would you want to take all those things away just so he can be your uwu emo blorbo. that's not who he is, he's the cunt you married.
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things in IWTV season 2 i'd lose my mind if it actually happens (or when. because some of those things will happen.). sorry for the mistakes btw
1. Claudeleine romantic relationship
Claudia finally having a vampire lover she can be herself with. the romantic & sexual tension. the heart to heart Louis and Claudia would have before changing Madeleine. the yearning. the tragic ending. the change of dynamics in the De Pointe du Lac family. the disruption of it all.
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2. an exploration of Armand's relationship to religion, faith and God
specially in 2022. past religious crisis. how he articulates his vampire nature, his faith and his despair. lots of hints of TVA. God and art. religion, Armand and Louis. his religion (conversion from being christian to being muslim in this universe? if so, why?). "i serve, a God," would you mind to develop?
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3. dramatic irony about Daniel's past and Devil's Minion
the rent boy. Daniel actually realising he had been a dick about that. "oh." after understanding the irony of it all. Armand talking in riddles and hinting at something Daniel is totally ignorant of. young Daniel's life and messy, loving and weird relationship with Armand. some activism. 2022 Daniel getting old, sicker and sicker. laughs. angst. tension. yearning. longing stares. petty remarks. revelations.
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4. Loumand complex relationship
the love and the suffering. how they are both deeply attached to each other. how they show their care. the place Lestat holds right in the middle. how they deal with Claudia's death. what Louis really thinks about it. the tension. the yearning. how their relationship actually developed. the extent of Louis' memory alteration and how it plays a role into their dynamics. the after: how Armand helped Louis. messy divorce vibes. petty moves. to what extent their relationship is doomed. how one person can love several persons and in different ways, and how complex and delicate it is.
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5. The Groan™
what is that. a metaphor for sexual arousal? Lestat scratching the walls? Rashid trapped? some clues. what the fuck.
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6. Antoinette alive and kicking
and coming back right on time for the trial, because it would be 1) so fucking funny 2) utterly tragic, considering Claudia would be killed for killing nobody.
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7. amazing outfits
amazing outfits
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8. lots of french
i'm french
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9. Claudia and Armand's relationship
Claudia being protective of Louis. Armand dealing with it. some sort of bond rivalry. both of them aware that something's wrong with the other. Armand and Claudia's similarities being acknowledged (age, killing a human they loved — Charlie, Ricardo — and complex situation regarding their maker), even a possibility for some kind of understanding and compassion (making the end more tragic). Armand seeing a some of Lestat in Claudia. Claudia seeing Armand's love for Lestat. a common love for theater and spectacular shows. that awful experience before Claudia's death.
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10. Louis and memories
the photos he takes (where are they in 2022? will they clash with Louis' tale?). the metatextual dimension of themes such as: unreliable narration, memories and perspective, autofiction. Daniel calling out Louis' avoiding strategies. Louis calling out Daniel's rudeness and biais. how Louis really sees his relationship with Claudia? the gap between Louis' and Armand's recalling. a deeper exploration of his superimposed identities (black, queer, american man; in 1940, 1973, 2022). learning how to trust someone new after being abused. the rain metaphors. Louis saying the most poetic and heartbreaking thing you'll ever heard. his relationship to vampirism as he joins Armand's coven. grief and loss of a family member. hallucinations and how they are filmed / manifesting. guilt. loving Claudia and Armand. loving Lestat, still. etc.
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tysm for coming to my tedtalk. it was very self-indulgent but very much pleasant. i won't be mad if it doesn't happen (obviously!), or not like i imagine. still, it's fun to imagine and put that here on tumblr. no shame on lestat, i just have no special things i'm waiting for about him, and will be very happy indeed to see him again. salut
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squirrellypoo · 1 year
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Mapping the Rue Royale Townhouse
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Photos from Alfonso Bresciani for AMC
Around episode 2 or 3 I started to struggle in mapping the layout of the townhouse’s rooms in my head - how many pianos do they have? What orientation is the bed to the coffin room? Where are the fireplaces located? I like to build maps in my head to orient myself (no surprise that the 3D render is my favourite part of any Grand Designs episode) so my first port of call was to look at the floorplan of the original 1132 Rue Royale, the historic Gallier House.
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This is a real life historic house that you can visit, and Anne Rice has said it was the inspiration for Lestat’s townhouse in the book, as well as being used for all the exterior shots in the tv show.
But then I was watching a presentation on YouTube by the show’s production designer, Mara LePere-Schloop, and she actually shared the floorplan used to build the townhouse set! I excitedly took a screenshot (again, apologies for the quality, which was limited by the video quality) to compare against the original Gallier House. Even though the actual house is on two levels with a central staircase, the set is built with both levels side by side, with a partial staircase in between for ease of production. Even with this key difference, they were surprisingly faithful to the layout of the original house, even where they didn’t need to be.
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Case in point - there’s a door leading from the coffin room to the landing, which makes sense in Gallier House as the coffin room is a sitting room. But seeing as how the coffin room is meant to be secret in the show (concealed behind a hidden door in the bedroom panelling), there’s no real need to have a door there, especially when it’s barely concealed by tapestries and furniture on the show (and burst through during the episode 5 fight). I’m not even going to mention the failings of the New Orleans police department in not noticing it during their search in episode 5!
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Another feature from the original house that was replicated on set are the steps leading down into Claudia’s room from the landing. The placement of Claudia’s room is where the bath and slave quarters were in the original house, and appear to be an extension, where the difference in levels necessitating a few steps would make sense. But there’s no real need for these when you’re building a set from scratch, and I kinda love that they kept them in even though there was no real need for them there (if nothing else, it meant we got to see Lestat prance down them to throw open her coffin lid in episode 5!)
And the final original detail that they didn’t really have to replicate (but I’m very glad they did!) was the incredible aperture skylight on the landing above the piano. Apparently Mara was so taken with the one in Gallier House on an early visit that Rolin Jones (showrunner) found a way to incorporate it into the script, meaning we not only got to see Lestat closing it in episode 2, but Claudia using it to self-harm in episode 4.
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I absolutely love the detail and thought that went into the Rue Royale townhouse, from the design to the furnishings to the artwork but also that they built a near-realistic townhouse on set - it brings a level of realism to the show that wouldn’t be present if it was filmed in a series of disconnected, 3-walled set rooms.
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There is a lot that has been written about the ways that the Louis/Lestat relationship becomes an interesting sort of commentary on colonialism -- the white Frenchman who is framed as the more masculine and dominant partner with a black Creole man in New Orleans, who basically uproots his life so that he can be his forever companion -- but the decision in episode 3 to have Lestat basically help Jelly Roll Morton "write" one of his trademark songs is interesting to me in light of this, as someone who knows a fair amount about the early history of jazz and the role of race in it. It's framed as Lestat having the idea to inject classical music into jazz, and I've seen many people in the fandom suggest that he "invented orchestral jazz" in that moment. So it's curious that 2022 Interview with the Vampire, a show that otherwise seems very aware of the racial disparities it comments on through its changes to the original novel, not only gave a white European man that role but had him basically usurp the role of a real black Creole man from Louisiana who is widely acknowledged as one of the originators of jazz, particularly in terms of its use of improvisation and arranging/improving on preexisting works of music (as Lestat is doing there).
I don't say this is "curious" for the reasons you think. For one, I think it's important to remember that what we're "seeing" is Louis' recollections of what happened, what he's telling to Daniel Molloy, and not necessarily the unbiased "fact" of what went down. But more to the point, it's interesting to do this with "orchestral jazz" because that's a genre whose history is defined by that kind of appropriation.
I'm probably going to write way more about this than is necessary, so let's put this below a cut:
First of all, jazz has basically always had classical music as its close stylistic companion. There's a reason jazz originated in New Orleans, a city that had a history of having a black middle and arguably even upper class before Jim Crow laws tried to bring them all down to the same level (discussed in the show) -- a middle/upper class that particularly represented black people who had mixed European ancestry, which is historically what "Creole" meant in New Orleans when applied to people of color. And middle-class in the 19th-early 20th century meant having a piano at home and it meant at least some degree of "classical" training in music, and in America, an up-and-coming country that had become the industrial and political equal of Europe but was still struggling to be taken seriously culturally, a lot was riding on their association with European art forms like classical music. It was a big part of how class disparity was defined at the time, education about and interest in classical music.
This creates a situation where in New Orleans, we see a lot of overlap between classical musicians and black blues musicians, and that is one of the many influences that went into the gumbo (if you will) that is jazz. If you count ragtime as jazz, ragtime composers like Scott Joplin were pretty open about wanting to be seen as similar to classical musicians, with Joplin composing in classical forms like opera. (Granted, talking about ragtime gets us further afield from NOLA specifically, but it was part of that influence stew at the time.) If you go to New Orleans and you listen to the style of jazz widely played there, much of which attempts to harken back to the kind popular in the early part of the 20th century, you'll hear a lot more classical influence than you will with (some) later forms. It even includes some "classical" instruments whose popularity in jazz has waned in the decades since, such as the clarinet or the tuba.
Anyway, so this early influence was largely the work of black composers who were interested in classical music, But a lot of what "mainstreamed" orchestral-flavored jazz in the 1920s was -- as is so often the case with black music in the U.S. -- white musicians, helped along by Jim Crow making it hard for black people to get the opportunities and audiences white people did. (There are lots of stories where famous black musicians from the era like Louis Armstrong played in concert halls and clubs where they would not have been allowed to attend a concert as a spectator. Think about that.) Many people think of "orchestral jazz" and think instantly of "Rhapsody in Blue," a work by a white composer, George Gershwin (albeit, also a son of Jewish immigrants who had grown up in immigrant communities in New York, not someone who'd be seen as unimpeachably "white" at the time). But its first performance was in a band version by the group led by -- no joke, this is his real name -- Paul Whiteman. Whiteman is a controversial figure in the history of early jazz for having profited off the innovations of black musicians, including in making a lot of his fame from the "idea" of blending jazz with classical music. (As that Wikipedia article shows, there are some who dispute this, and note that he frequently collaborated with black musicians as much as was allowed during segregation, and no less of a black jazz luminary than Duke Ellington sung his praises.)
You could argue there is some inherent "whitewashing" going on in “orchestral jazz,” as it was obviously going to be more palatable to white classical music listeners who saw jazz as beneath them. There is, of course, a pattern of this throughout the history of black music, that continues to this day, and isn't always done by white people. (The popularity of Hamilton among people who don't otherwise listen to hip-hop always felt like a reflection of this trend to me.) Oftentimes it's made by minority musicians who like classical music (or whichever white genre) pretty genuinely. As stated before, a lot of the earliest orchestral jazz is just... jazz. It was the kind "originally done" by black people. But there's a reason that blending jazz more "obviously" (to the then-contemporary white listener) with classical music and other pre-existing "white"-coded genres (like the marching band tradition) is what helped get jazz into more and more "respectable" white venues. And that association with whiteness and white "respectability" is why white people were so easily able to take credit for something that in fact black musicians had been doing for decades.
So it's interesting to me that Interview with the Vampire, a show that is always very conscious of the racial dynamics of New Orleans in the early 20th century and particularly within the Lestat/Louis relationship, gives us a scene where Lestat gets to take credit for a big innovation in jazz history, by pretty effortlessly doing jazz-improvisation on a preexisting classical piece and it "inspiring" Jelly Roll Morton to try the same thing himself. You know, rather than that being something Jelly Roll came up with on his own and was already doing.
There's a lot to unpack here. Lestat admits later that Jelly Roll sounded fine, and he did what he did for other reasons; his snobbery toward jazz is also implied to be a front, and I think it pretty much has to be for him to be able to improvise that easily. I'm someone who has been actually trained somewhat in jazz, and let me tell you, that kind of improvisation on the fly is hard and not something someone would be able to do without being practiced at it. You're basically doing what composers do but on the spur of the moment, and in a genre that has distinctly different rules about harmony, rhythm, etc. than classical music normally does. He had to have had practice -- if indeed, this did actually happen as we see it.
I think what makes me take the side of that this story is false is the particular classical piece that Lestat chooses to improvise: the Minuet in G. This piece is often falsely attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, and Lestat does that here; the joke about "he had 20 children" is a reference to a really common story about Bach. But it was in fact written by the lesser-known composer Christian Petzold, and only gets mistakenly attributed to Bach because it was found in a book of music that Bach gave to his wife Anna Magdalena. There are countless J.S. Bach pieces that are famous and that we know he wrote, especially for the keyboard -- and that's the one the show chose to have Lestat play, the false-attribution. Given how attentive this show has been to its music, I can't help but think that is intentional, and so it means history is repeating itself: false attribution on top of false attribution.
So if this didn't happen, or even just didn't happen the way we're told, what is Louis' reason for putting forward this story including to Daniel Molloy? I think it's one small piece of a mountain of evidence that even in the present day, he retains a lot more fondness for Lestat than you'd think at first glance. He clearly still has feelings for him, and in this case, to the extent of constructing a false and politically-incorrect story to attest to his greatness. You can also put it in context with the holes Molloy keeps poking in Louis' story of how great this relationship is. "Yeah, sure, my boyfriend was abusive, but he was also a musical genius, how could I not be drawn to him?"
(Daniel Molloy's own skeptical reaction to this story is also something to take into account here. And the conversation between them helps give viewers context for just how big of a wrench Louis is throwing in the history of jazz by claiming this.)
What's most interesting about this to me is how this troubles the story of Louis the Anti-Racist Crusader that we see both in the story he tries to tell and also, honestly, in terms of how a lot of the fandom misinterprets him. Here Louis is directly making a story less "black" in order to make his white boyfriend look better. He's truly "whitewashing" history, in multiple senses of the word. But if you look closely at Louis' behavior, this shouldn't be surprising. He's willing to play the game with white segregationists, people whose thoughts he can read now to tell that they don't really respect him (but I think he always kinda knew this), as long as he gets to keep his business running. He kills Alderman Fenwick already sorta knowing that what happens after is not going to be good for the black residents of Storyville, the people he claims to protect... but he does it anyway, and makes a very public tableau of what he did, because it felt good. He's not the good person he tries to represent himself as in contrast to Lestat; he has his own largely-selfish motivations, and his priorities are squarely focused on the little family of vampires he's built, not on any broader community. Maybe on his own guilt and wanting to feel like he still has a moral compass, but he regularly disregards that and amends his "moral code" as convenient. Louis is very sympathetic, especially with all the discrimination he experiences and the fucked-up way that Lestat treats him, but that doesn't make Louis a good person. But it does make him a far more interesting character!
The Jelly Roll Morton story is just one small piece of the puzzle, but a very telling one when you dig a little bit deeper into it and ask yourself why these storytelling decisions were made. Both in the out-universe sense of what the showrunners are trying to tell us by highlighting particular moments in Louis' long life, but also in the in-universe sense of the choices Louis makes in telling his own story.
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eosphoroz · 1 year
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Can we talk about Louis being a passive aggressive bitch towards Daniel? 
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He called him out on his memoir and watched him delete the digital copy of their first interview AND throw the tapes in the trash.
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And after that he tilted the power dynamics and destroyed the tapes with the Fire Gift.
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Actually scaring Daniel in the process.
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And then BAM back to babygirl-face.
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Say whatever you want but Louis is kinda fucked up, too. He got what he wanted, the erasure by a third party of his first "unfiltered" interview (which is, mind you, now gone forever in this universe). He himself was the one who kept the tapes for 49 years and he could have destroyed them anytime, but no, he is performing and convincing himself his new "odyssey" is the only version of the story. Now, he will "let" this version be shared and published, and even let Daniel remember it.
Only time will tell what Louis's real intention with this second interview is, or why he and Armand are playing with Daniel and the narrative.
The purpose of this second interview is the real question and the driving force behind it all. I will never tire of saying it.
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deepfocusreviews · 8 months
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Art stages the scene in Louis’s “coffin,” as he refers to the Dubai penthouse, but when it comes to his life the references are literary, and none too subtle. A Doll’s House is attended as he’s trapped in an oppressive, offscreen marriage, inviting his audience to draw their own parallels. Flaubert and Chéri draw our attention to a sudden shift in tone, and a never-heard nickname, at the turning point of the season. The less said about On Marriage the better. These references serve as clues and markers, shaping his story, guiding his audience, which makes his first one, the opera Iolanta, so interesting. It feels most organic, almost a slip, considering its content. It’s about “a princess who didn’t know she was a princess,” and moved Louis to tears. Iolanta, who is blind, lives a pampered life in a tower. Her father hopes she’ll never have to realize she’s disabled, but eventually she does learn about sight from a stranger who wanders into her garden. They fall in love, and it’s to save his life that she submits to magic to gain vision. She recoils from the world once she does. Sights are disturbing and the people she thought she knew alien. Her new gift, born of trauma, isn’t a gift at all. The link to Louis is obvious, especially as we’ll watch him grapple with his new state of being throughout the rest of the season. He received his own “gift” that wasn’t a gift: he was unsuited to it, a failure, “botched,” will spend three mostly miserable decades in New Orleans, lose the only person that made those decades worth it and even now lives like Iolanta, trapped in another tower, symbolically in darkness: surrounded by torn diaries, distorted fragments of the past, feeding another fantasy to a person he pays to listen; severed from his favorite hobby, in poor mental health, in a potentially dangerous environment. . . . Iolanta’s story, however, doesn’t actually end in that tower. Though her early life was one of luxury, it was also extremely isolated and depressing. She was never truly happy (she believed her eyes were “only for crying”) and despite her father’s efforts was cognizant of missing something other people had. And though her sight was gained through terrible circumstances, and the world seemed overwhelming at first, by the final lines of the play she has come to understand and embrace her new life. She abandons “darkness” for “light” and love. For Iolanta, the trick was understanding her transformation couldn’t only be physical. Two worlds make up creation, according to her physician, “that of the flesh and that of the spirit.” Until she accepted the two went hand in hand, that “the notion of sight is not just of the flesh,” no real change was possible, and light would never penetrate her darkness. Be all the beautiful things that you are, Lestat asked as he and Louis knelt at the altar, and be them without apology.
In AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, the plot holes are the point. (We hope.)
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dlsintegration · 1 year
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okay so I haven't seen anyone actually talk about this and it's kind of driving me insane . in the ep 4 claudia bday scene louis Clearly has some blood on his lips, you don't clearly see it but its there
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Now he might have feasted on some festive birthday rat or whatever but . the number of bodies on the couch also matches; im pretty sure we have yet another instance of Louis not being as infaillible in his self-imposed moral code than what he wants us to believe.
Louis told us that he stopped drinking human blood in ep 3 and started drinking it again in ep 6 (from 17 to 37 so roughly 20 years?), coincidently at a moment where Daniel's awareness and senses were dulled out by the medicine, but thats a whole other post tbh, the point is that Louis glossed over that crucial change in a few seconds and Daniel didnt pick up on it.
And as many people have already pointed out in much better ways, his eating habits directly seem to correlate to his mental state and his persistent guilt, so it would make sense he was more enclined to indulge in that small time frame where things were good and he felt somewhat alleviated of that guilt, but either way I think it's interesting that his resolve wasn't as clear-cut as he made it out to be, explicitely or not, and that - once again - we know it per Claudia's narration.
Maybe it was just an exception, maybe Louis only allowed himself the excess on special occasions like here with Claudia's birthday, maybe he only caved that one time and it never happened again but the point is that he Did. And telling so would once again go against the careful tapestry of unwavering restraint and control that he has been trying to weave this whole season.
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opportunityarose · 1 year
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the way that louis spoke about the opera/tenor and "come to me" struck me as very similar, and y'all...
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ashes-in-a-meadow · 1 year
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okay so i have another take for y’all but this time it’s about louis and lestat’s relationship as a whole so obviously SPOILERS
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alright so i don’t feel like typing it all out again so i’ll post my ss from what i said on tiktok
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like i said in the ss, lestat sees the struggle black people go through but as a white man he doesn’t understand. to me it feels like lestat tries to show and tell louis that he doesn’t care what race he is but it comes off as “i’m color blind” and being racially color blind when you’re dating someone from a marginalized group doesn’t help your partner at all, if anything it can worsen your relationship.
lestat genuinely loves louis, we know that, but he doesn’t understand what loving louis’s blackness is.
no being black isn’t louis’s entire character but his blackness plays a major role in his character and the things that his character faces is stuff only he goes through because of his race.
lestat has seen this first hand and yet still doesn’t understand the depth that race has in louis’s life and in the way people will treat him.
lestat sees louis but he doesn’t see him wholly and that’s like louis said at the end of ep 3, why they can’t ever work together. he sees the acts louis has done(pulling the knife on his brother and killing mr.fenwick) and sees it as coming from darkness or being immoral but it was coming from the fact that black men can’t/won���t be seen as weak so louis has to prove himself to everyone around him.
in the beginning of ep 2 when louis came into the room with daniel he apologized for his “outburst” and promised it wouldn’t happen again and many people were confused as to what louis was referring to, he was referring to when he started crying at the end of ep 1. so we can see that even in 2022 louis still feels that he can’t show weakness to anyone. and in ep 3 when daniel tries to get louis to understand that the total 180 his view of lestat took from 1973 - 2022 louis gets defensive and starts demanding that he is not a victim, that he was not abused and to me it speaks volumes.
speaking of that, that’s part of the reason i felt like lestat was so very wrong for how he reacted when louis asked “aren’t i enough?” because that was one of the rare moments louis “i can’t be weak in front of anyone” du lac was trying to show his true feelings and then…he got laughed at…by the same man who told him “be all the beautiful things you are, and be them without apology”, the same man who professed his love to him in a church and whom he started to let himself love back had just laughed in his face as he was trying to figure out why lestat felt he wasn’t enough for him anymore. and then he says “don’t laugh” twice and the second time he said it his voice cracked and he sounded so hurt and embarrassed and probably felt as if he was being whiny and “girly” for even asking about antoinette in the first place. louis for the rest of the ep never voiced how he specifically felt about lestat and antoinette together and i think it’s simply because he was embarrassed by his supposed “companion in immortality” laughing in his face the second he let himself show true emotion.
so to complete this, i feel that lestat not seeing louis’s blackness as a part of him but as just something that only affected him as a human is going to be one of the major problems that lead to their downfall.
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eyestrain-addict · 1 year
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I love the detail of how Louis hides or obscures almost all his interests from the outside world. Great example would be dancing. We see Louis loves dancing but hardly does it because that’s seen as emasculating during that time. He tap dances with his brother but plays coy about it. He dances with Lestat in their courtyard where no one can see them on Claudia’s birthday. When he comes out publicly at the finale party he does it with- guess what? a dance
this is all to say I wanna see Louis swing dance next season. An upbeat dance for once would do him good.
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handsomelyerin · 1 year
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the reaction to the newest iwtv episode on tumblr vs twitter is sooo funny like the fandom on twitter is like "this show about a toxic relationship is toxic? the evil vampire is evil? wtf??" like what did y'all expect?? i love lestat more than anything but as a VILLAIN. he's always been an absolute CUNT. he's the fuckin WORST!! he literally punched a hole through a man's face in the FIRST episode!!
that scene in ep 5 was problematic for a number of reasons. for the gratuitous violence against the black main character that wasn't really necessary, and for not including a trigger warning at the start of the episode. but it didn't "ruin" lestat?? he's still an incredible, complex character. but he's undeniably the villain of this story.
as a white person, i can't help but speculate that this choice to have lestat do this was a statement by the writers about us "woobiefying" white male villains, and prioritizing white characters over black ones in general. by having lestat commit a horrible, borderline unforgivable act of violence against his black lover, it leaves no room for us to make excuses for him, and gives our sympathy completely to louis and claudia, where it should've always been.
after last episode, i wondered what the point of advertising this show as a love story and the first four eps of romance between louis and lestat was. but in ep 1 louis tells daniel "let the tale seduce you, as i was seduced." we as the audience were being seduced as well! we were seduced into seeing lestat as a romantic, if incredibly toxic and dangerous anti hero. but he was always a monster. the signs were always there. killing the priests in brutal fashion. killing lily, a black sex worker, for no real reason other than that he got bored of her. killing the tenor for no reason other than his subpar voice. forcing claudia to watch her first love melt in the incinerator. he was always this person.
at first i was really heartbroken about this decision but now having sat with it the last few days, there's really no other way this character and this relationship could've gone. lestat was never going to let louis go without throwing a massive tantrum. even if lestat loves louis that doesn't keep him safe from his rage.
lestat is an amazing villain, and partially it's because he's a queer villain, but his evil isn't rooted in his queerness. his evil is rooted in his narcissism and inability to see past anything but his own desires. i for one am here for lestat and his villain era. and sam reid is killing the game as per usual.
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prytania · 1 year
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✨Why Claudia is Thee Moment✨
I have loved Claudia since I “met” her in ‘96. And Bailey’s impressive adaptation resonated even more with me. (I also have deep emotional ties to Louis & Lestat, but this is Claudia’s post. 💕)
Claudia is smothered, kept naive, and expected to act a certain way. At the same time, she is ignored, discarded and treated as a problem, with her parents failing her time and time again. This is not to say Loustat didn’t love her, or she them. But their intent (how they feel towards her and what they wanted for her) vs. impact (how their words and actions or lack thereof affected her) majorly comes into play time & time again.
She is turned too young and in too small a body. Forever stunted and robbed of full vampire powers, she does whatever she can to better her situation and gain control over her own life. She is cruel, calculating, and manipulative. She is also exceptionally clever and perceptive, tenacious, and unapologetically herself.
Like all other VC vamps, she is not without flaws. She is without a doubt her father’s daughter. A mirror image of Lestat, both hot headed, vicious, and impulsive, with a knack for pushing limits. Both had traumatic childhoods, both were turned without given a choice, both had a maker who omitted crucial vampire info, both abandoned by those they love. Despite so many similarities, much compassion is given to Lestat for what he has gone through and how he is, but virtually none is given to Claudia when she is just as deserving of compassion too.
Claudia savvily used limited tools at her disposal to pull herself out of a stifling and depressing life. She did what she had to do to not only survive but thrive. I won’t ever fault her for that & will always cheer her on.🥲
And massive praise to Bailey Bass. She brilliantly lifted Claudia off the page & enhanced the depth and feeling of the character. Bailey not only brought it, but I find it is lost in many interviews and articles that she more than held her own acting opposite Sam & Jacob. I can’t wait to see what Bailey brings next season, and I think she is going to destroy us all with her performance.🥲 Here’s one of my all time favorite moments of Bailey speaking about Claudia. Bailey completely understands her.💕 (video source.)
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squirrellypoo · 1 year
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Miss "Bricktop" Williams appreciation post
She may have only appeared in four scenes across three episodes, but damned if Bricktop wasn’t one of the most memorable characters in this whole damned show, taking absolutely zero shit from anyone, compromising for no man. 💯
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Episode 1
She starts off on the lowest rung of the brothel ladder - the sex worker at the mercy of both the johns and the brothel owner, but still fighting to keep her dignity and autonomy however she can.
"Oh I'm a cunny now? A minute ago, I was his love"
"He stuck it in my shitbox." "Gave him a chance to pull out, and he kept on fucking, so I gave him a little squirt of my catfish dinner for going there. Don't believe me, check his dick." "Hell I mighta even said yes if you would just ask. But I don't care who you is, you put a dick in an asshole without asking, that's against Jesus. Fuck you."
"I ain't cleanin' his dick."
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Episode 2
Here she’s moving up in the world, brought up to the higher level of establishment when Louis opens up Azalea Hall and elevates his favourites with him.
No lines of dialogue in this scene but Louis refers to her as “Miss Williams”, and frankly, the lewk she is serving here needs no further comment!
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Episode 3
Further on her rise, we now see her not only as part-owner of the Azalea but also the one managing the finances of the brothel and able to speak her mind to the most powerful men in town when they dare try to insult her.
"Been called a cunny, a cow, and a bitch that ate a thousand dicks. You wanna apologize for callin' me a woman? Whoo, leave your wife. I'll make you a happy man, Mr Anderson."
(Tom Anderson: "...getting treatment for the clap.")
"I got pristine pussies walkin' my floor. Now I'm offended."
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In her final scene, we see her again in the role of actually running the Azalea and on something approaching equal footing with Louis as a business woman, unafraid to call out his bullshit.
[Louis shows her the "Coloured Only - No Whites Allowed" sign he’s been crafting]
"I'm gon' speak for the girls and say, as minority owners, that's a stupid fucking business plan."
Unfortunately, that’s the last we see of Miss Bricktop but in my head, after the Azalea burned at the end of episode 3, I think she took the remaining girls and opened up her own brothel, living a full and successful, kickass life as an epic Storyville madame.
Thank you, Dana Gourrier, for bringing Miss Bricktop to our screens! 👏
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transholmes · 1 year
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I'm wondering about the timeline in AMC's adaption of IWtV, specifically regarding Claudia and Louis breaking away from Lestat, the mess with Claudia and Armand, and then Louis and Lestat's final meeting.
In the book, Claudia and Louis break away in the latter half of the 19th century and the final meeting takes place in the 1920s. In AMC's adaption Claudia was created in 1917 and even with a sped-up plotline and the breakaway couldn't really happen before the 1920s. And then there's Armand and Claudia's fate, whatever fashion that plays out in, there will have to be some years in-between.
No matter how much they compress events we're getting awfully close to 1973 and Louis's original interview with Daniel. And that makes me wonder if that interview was Louis indirectly lashing out at Lestat in grief and pain over what happened to Claudia, to his "redemption" as he calls her, basically blaming him for everything and exonerating himself, because the wounds are still so new and painful? Unlike in the books where they're much older.
A lashing out he regretted, got his hands on the tapes and... did he make Daniel forget? Or was Daniel really just that high that night?
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A doll's house
Another for the literary references pile:
In Episode 2, when Louis & Lestat drop by Louis' family home, Lestat whines that they're going to miss "Nora's entrance with the Christmas tree."
They're going to see A Doll's House, a classic play about a young woman's disillusionment with her husband and his stereotyped and mistaken assumptions about her:
A Doll’s House explores the ways that societal expectations restrict individuals, especially women, as the young housewife Nora Helmer comes to the realization that she has spent her eight-year marriage, and indeed most of her life, pretending to be the person that [her husband] Torvald, her father, and society at large expect her to be. At the beginning of the play, Nora believes all she wants is to be happy... yet her self-sacrificing actions... prevent her from attaining this freedom. As Nora realizes that her selfless actions are now the source of her sorrow, she begins to question whether the life she leads is capable of providing her with happiness.  (source)
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Along with Iolanta, Madame Bovary, Cheri, Marriage in a Free Society, and Lestat's record, these references provide a meta-commentary on Louis' feelings about his position, as well as a pretty sharp, relentless, and honestly hilarious literary roasting of Lestat and the whole concept of traditional marriage.
For an even deeper cut check out the reference to Nora's Christmas tree, recalling Louis decorating for Christmas in Episode 7:
The Christmas tree, a festive object meant to serve a decorative purpose, symbolizes Nora’s position in her household as a plaything who is pleasing to look at and adds charm to the home... after Nora’s psychological condition has begun to erode, the stage directions indicate that the Christmas tree is correspondingly “dishevelled.” (source)
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(source)
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eosphoroz · 1 year
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On AMC Armand's timeline
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If Armand is 514 years old in 2022 that means that in AMC's 'Interview with the Vampire' Armand was born in 1508 and was probably turned when he was 26, in the year 1534. This is contrary to canon, where he was born in 1482 and was turned when he was 17, at the start of 1499.
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(Quote from 'The Vampire Armand')
Or, it could be that he is 514 years IN the Blood and he was actually born in 1482 as in canon and was turned at 26 instead of 17, still making his turning year 1508 and making him 514-years-old IN the Blood.
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But that would be conflicting (with the canon's timeline) with the mention that Marius is a contemporary of Tintoretto, because Tintoretto was born in 1518 in Venice and his earlier paintings were in the early part of the 1540's.
So maybe, just maybe, Armand spent more than a year with Marius after being turned (as he did in canon before being abducted), and Marius had more time to paint while Tintoretto was active, making him a “contemporary”.
And if we’re talking style-in-painting contemporary, that would give us even more space in the timeline, since Tintoretto’s style had a gradual change over his life and Marius’s painting seems to be replicating Tintoretto’s mid to late style, somewhat reminiscent of “The Brazen Serpent”, painted in 1575.
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So even if Armand was turned in the 1530’s, that would still make his time with Marius at least 40 years. And if he was turned according to the canon’s timeline, in 1508, his time with Marius would be even longer. This would be more in line with the first draft of 'Interview with the Vampire', which seems to be an inspiration for AMC's portrayal of Armand.
Guess we'll have to wait and see what the writers are planning to do with Armand's past and his relationship with Marius.
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