#The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All a Child's Demanding

[interviewwiththevampireart]

Portions of "FROM ONE SIDE TO THE OTHER" (Sadie Sheldon, 2014)

1.04 "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding"

[transldpdl]

The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding | LDPDL

[iwtvfanevents]

Rewind the tape —an AMC IWTV group rewatch

Episode 4: …The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding

In the time leading up to the second season, which premieres on May 12th, we’re hosting a group rewatch of season one! Today, Sunday, March 31st, we’re starting with Episode 4, …The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding.

You can watch with your friends or in your own time, and come talk about it in the #vampterview tag! We want to hear your thoughts, theories and burning questions, as well as your favorite moments, costumes and lines from the episode.

Come revisit the first season, and countdown the weeks to the second with us, here or on Twitter, using the tag #vampterview.

Click here to learn more about this dedicated tag ►

We’re kicking off discussion of Episode 4 with two questions: 

Unlike Louis, Claudia never gets a pitch about becoming a vampire or even a choice. What does vampirism offer Claudia, if anything? How does Claudia joining Lestat and Louis’ family affect or change them, separately and also as a couple?

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

(from paper to screen, the comparative study continues... Back at it again)

Season 1 episode 4 [The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All a Child's Demanding] - part 1/2

- Oh, the sun! Hello, the sun. You're not a familiar presence here.

- Eyyy, we're opening with another Armandaniel scene. I mean, that Rashid guy and our Danny boy. "Mr de Pointe du Lac will be resting today" - Armand what does that meaaaaan. Armand giving Daniel Claudia's diaries. Oof. Are we ready for the paiiiiin.

- Shout out to the props department because those diaries are so pretty.

- Shout out to Bailey, I adore her voice.

- [Lestat] "'You were ready to abandon our home, and now you want a third.' [Louis] 'I just need her not to die. Please.'" - you know, there are hospitals. Yeah, skin grafts are not a thing in 1917, but the hospitals can still help her... She is not your penance.

Fascinating the way the scene completely changes tone and atmosphere in Lestat's recollection. Though, which one is the most real... Memory is a beast. But Louis remembers it as something quite romantic in a way, life blossoming out of darkness. Meanwhile, for Lestat, Claudia's rebirth is mired in desperation, anguish and Louis' loss of control. And the way Claudia writes it, well, she never had a say in it, didn't she? She was ready to die, she welcomed death. And then she was pulled back from it and thrust into a new life, and like she says, "I decided to make the best of it".

- [Louis] "'It's a special trick only folks like us have, like the nails and the teeth.' [Claudia] 'So you can hear me, but he can't? That make him the dumb one?'" - oooh, ouch. Right from the beginning, it's Louis and Claudia, and then Lestat left behind. You can hear the abandonment issues making themselves louder.

[Lestat] "'I'll teach you, just like I taught Louis here. But not if we're going to have family secrets.' [Claudia] 'We're a family?' [Louis] 'Yeah, but with no secrets.'" - points afforded for trying. Also, the different roles are already made: Lestat teaches how to be a vampire, Louis upholds humanity and family values. And Claudia is an excellent student...

Love how she immediately calls them "Daddy Lou" and "Uncle Les".

- [Louis] "Looks like she take after me" - aw, Lou, baby. You couldn't be more wrong.

That first hunt is interesting. First the way they talk about Claudia's outfit - she's a doll to them. It's all about how they can mold her, how they can make her into a reflection of themselves, and which one will have more influence, will be more represented in her. What she wants, who she is, barely even enters into consideration.

Secondly, there's the speed with which Claudia adapts to hunting. The way she lures the policeman by humming, playing the lost little girl, that's not something she was taught, that's something she's learned to do herself, naturally, instinctively.

- [Lestat] "An ominous observation, her young lady metabolism is permanent now" - nooo, you don't say? At least Lestat is aware. Welcome to eternal teenagehood. What a hell.

[Lestat] "'Histrionics.' [Louis] 'Some sleep is what she needs.' [Lestat] 'Sedation is what she needs.' [Louis] 'She'll settle.'"

Let me die of laughter first, that banter is perfect. Total old married couple vibes. Now. Looove how they're here talking about Claudia while not even paying attention to her. They're in their bubble, remodelling their family life as if their third member didn't have their own agency and free will, as if they could control and predict how she'll act, and meanwhile Claudia's like "sayonara dummies, I'm starving and I've got all the power to help myself, don't need you". And ain't that gonna be the heart of the matter, control versus freedom, life as a unit versus individual agency.

- Really love the way they show Claudia's... Is it madness? Is it the chaos of teenage hormones being brought to a hundred by vampirism? In any case, she is all over the place at the beginning. Eating human food and repainting the walls with it, playing with the sun's fire...

- [Louis] "'The sun comes up, we go down. That's never gonna change. We've got rules, Lil Miss.' [Claudia] 'Rules are for fools, Daddy Lou.' [Louis] 'Keeping you safe, little waif.'" - excellent back and forth, top notch, rhymes comprised. Nothing to say.

- [Lestat] "'She talked to the book again. Why do you talk to the book?' [Claudia] 'The book is my friend!' [Louis] 'The book is her friend.' [Lestat] 'The book is a book.'" - parent 1 being completely befuddled by their child, parent 2 being overly indulgent with that same befuddling child and patiently telling their partner "there there. She'll make sense to you one day".

- The fight in French, lmao, I'm wheezing. But aside from the humor of the scene, there's the important, deeper part too: Claudia asking questions, as all teenagers do, and Lestat refusing to answer. Lestat's refusal to tell either Louis or Claudia his history is another one of those extremely crucial point at the centre of the conflict.

- The coffin scene, how Louis gets seriously into the roleplay (I see your kinks, Lou), and when Claudia doesn't play along and the guy gets suspicious, how he knows immediately what Lestat's about to do, without even looking at him.

- "A girl vampire needs her own space if she's gonna find herself in this no-day world. And diary, you can already tell, the words come easier when you're locked in tight, wrapped in pink satin and Daddy Lou's feet ain't in your face. It's just me, my pen, my brain, my heart and the blood of the street car conductor I drained after he got off work. Thank you, street car driver. I hope they got more of you at your company to fill in for you. It's never great waiting for the car, especially when the weather gets hot."

She's just like me fr fr. Joke aside, round of applause for Bailey's narration, and another for the writers. There's something so innocent still in this Claudia, something pure and untouched - despite the great ease and joy she has in killing and feeding. Like a baby bird...

And then spying on her parents getting it on, but also, aaaaw, soft Loustat scene. What halcyon days.

- [Louis] "Sometimes, old people don't like talkin' much about the past. Sometimes, you gotta be careful where you dig, you understand." - what kills me here is Louis' understanding. He's fine with Lestat not telling him where he's from or who turned him. He's aware Lestat's already old, and may not want to revisit painful memories, just like he himself doesn't want to revisit Paul's death or his human family rejecting him.

Now the thing is, in the book, Lestat arrives in NOLA barely 30 human years old and 11 in the Blood, with his very human and very old and very sick biological father. So this Lestat and this Louis are starting more or less from an equal point, both starting this journey as vampires more or less together - yes, Lestat has 10 more years of being a vampire plus old secrets that are not his to divulge, and two other fledglings, one who goes insane and dies, the other one who wants nothing to do with humanity and prefer the wilderness. Louis is his first real companion, in a sense. The first who chose to come with him - Gabrielle he brought because she was dying, Nicki because it was the only way to protect him from Armand's coven. Louis, he brought him in because he chose him and Louis said yes, and Louis does stay with him willingly and lovingly - at least for a while. While they were both still regaining some equilibrium. Before the lack of answers, the lack of total trust, and their respective issues and trauma reared their heads, and then Claudia happened.

But here, Lestat has a century of advance on Louis. He has a whole history. And Louis is aware of this history, even if he doesn't know the details, and he doesn't feel like pushing. He wants to keep the peace. Alas they still have the same lack of trust, communication and the same issues to deal with.

- [Claudia] "'How does it work, love between two men?' [Louis] 'I don't know. Works like... It works like love.'" - I need an edit of s1 Claudia asking that and s2 Claudia going "now I know what two fat cocks etc". And character development! Louis is fully alright with his sexuality now. AND it is love, that's literally him admitting it.

- MUSLIM ARMAND YES PLEASE. Hi Rolin Jones please, pleaaaaase confirm Muslim Armand in season 3 pleaaaaaase I'm begging on my knees.

[Rashid/Armand] "'Do you have what you need, Mr Molloy?' [Daniel] 'A cure for Parkinson's?'" - careful what you wish for, Danny. He might take you up on that a bit too literally.

[Daniel] "For a killing machine, I kinda like her." - yeah, me too.

[Rashid/Armand] "Dubai is a child, Mr Molloy. No one's a native." - little nod to book Armand, that, Daniel pinpointing Kazakhstan or Crimea as his origins. And interesting little insight into the mind of a 500yo guy. He's seen empires rise and fall, ancient cities levelled down... What is Dubai for him but a mere second of existence?

- "Daddy Lou, when am I gonna grow into this? [...] Kill, spend. Kill, spend. Then the next thing you know, the leaves are turnin'." - that scene is fascinating. Not just Claudia starting to realise she'll never change and also be a little girl, but also, the visual itself. Lestat and Louis sharing a dance, lost in each other, in their own little world, and Claudia standing in the corner, isolated, alone, lost staring in the fire. That speaks for itself.

And the Lioncourt domestic family life carries on undisturbed... For now.

episode 1 | episode 2 | episode 3 | part 2 | episode 5 | episode 6 | episode 7

[claudianolastname]

The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All a Child's Demanding | 😊 Claudia

[pommedepersephone]

@murphysscribe the boys need to go to THIS casino...

Spent 20 minutes editing the Casino Royale poker scene to be chutes and ladders instead of finishing my English homework.

[dragonloanshark]

feels like love

[neverswungonswingingstars]

Louis, Lestat and Claudia in The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding

[thkmadame]

Lestat putting Claudia in her new coffin so he and Louis can get back to cuddling in his

Go sleep 🤣 More like this

[interviewwiththevampireart]

1940s sewing pattern

1.04 “...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding”

[transldpdl]

The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All a Child's Demanding | LDPDL

[iwtvfanevents]

Rewind the tape —Episode 4 highlights

One of our favorite quotes is...

"Why do you talk to the book?"  "The book is my friend."  "The book is her friend."  "The book is a book." 

A wonderful exchange that gives the diaries an entity of their own. Just like "a door can be your best friend," these diaries were Claudia's ally in her vampire existence, carrying her life in them. A century later, they're the only thing left to speak for her. We are introduced to Claudia’s perspective through words on a page, and it is easy to be reminded of Claudia’s tangible absence in the Dubai sequences. The book is her friend, and her only advocate in the power play of ideas.

What's a favorite quote of yours? Something from Claudia's diary? One of her exchanges with Louis? Maybe a line from the modern day?

Reblog with your highlights, or make a new post with the tag #vampterview to join the conversation! And, if you're just getting caught up, learn all about our group rewatch here ►

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

Season 1 episode 4 [The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All a Child's Demanding] - part 2/2

- [Claudia] "We do like mortals do. We fight, we eat, we laugh, we sleep, we love. And then the phone rang last night. And all the easy times stopped." - ooof. How to destroy familial domesticity: bring back the real world.

I love, love, loooove Louis' coldness and casual cruelty at his mother's wake. And looooove the family solidarity. Oh, Daddy Lou's fighting with his sister? Time to show our fangs and have his back.

- Oooh, a Lestat and Claudia scene! Dad teaching his kid all the true, important ways to make it in the world. And accidentally making her realise some things she'll never get to have, stuck as she is as a young teenager. But the blood kinda makes up for it tho.

- "Uncle Les says I gotta practice killin' both the one and the plus one at the same time, but I came away understanding something else tonight. I can't quite put it into words, but it's like something opened up in my head, in my body. I've been 18 for 7 months now, and it's time I started acting like it."

Aaaaand there it is. Happy hunting indeed. Happy until the reality hits back...

"I've lost my appetite, I can't sleep!" - welcome to hormones. Can't say I know first-hand what you're going through but good luck. Oh, no, but this is waaay too adorable. The giggling and the skipping and the flowers and the staying on the balcony waiting for Charlie to look up...

- "Everyone in my family looks younger than their age." - yeah that's one way to put it I guess.

Aaaand exit Charlie, pursued by a terrified horse. Taking this opportunity to say a lil something about how book!vampires are basically asexual in the way that their desire and pleasure express themselves through the blood, blood drinking and blood sharing. While the show being a visual media for a modern audience decided to make human sexuality also a part of vampire sexuality, all while keeping the blood as this irresistible force and the source of everything. Don't really have an opinion one way or another, except to say, please we need more asexual representation that still shows that ace people can find and express desire and pleasure outside of sexuality.

- Lestat taking on the ugly role of teaching Claudia about control and how it's hard for vampires to make lasting connections with mortals... Parenting's hard.

- [Louis] "Vivid writer, isn't she" - I'm kinda glad we don't get Claudia's own words about Charlie's death, knowing the writers they would have given us another lyrical prose that would have made us all bawl our eyes out.

The way Daniel is visibly impacted and heartbroken reading Claudia's diaries: he is deeply compassionate. And you can't read people and write about them without a certain level of compassion and even empathy. "Anne Frank meets Stephen King" indeed.

- [Louis] "Claudia was... everything." - ouch. Break my heart, won't you. It's the way Louis is physically struggling to talk about her, the way he needs the pebbles of his zen garden beneath his feet to anchor himself solidly enough to talk about her.

- "It's funnier when they fight in French. And diary, you'd think a girl whose mama died in childbirth, whose daddy gave her away to a mean old auntie who beat her 'cause no one said she couldn't, who died in a fire but came back by the blood magic of two demons, well, you'd think that girl wouldn't know what funny was. But you'd be wrong, diary. And if I told you, dumb diary, that that same girl was being raised to kill like her demon parents did, to take two souls a day so she could stay in the same flat-chested, hairless-crotched 14-year-old baby doll body as her mind and spirit turn 19, 20, 25, 63, 358, you dumb, dumb diary, I bet you'd say to anyone who'd listen 'Fun? Fun? How does she even get up in the morning?' Well, let me tell you something, you stuck-up, flower-covered, three-dollar fancy fucking paper diary, I'm doing just fine. And how do I know that? 'Cause the first man I killed called me the devil, and the last boy I killed, the last boy I'll ever love in this world, called me an angel. So that means I'm on the right path. And that means there's so much more fun out there to have. I'm just getting started."

THE INTENSITY, DAMN.

The crescendo of Claudia's voice overlayed by the music and echoed in the angrier and angrier words. Wow, I need a minute.

Between the "losing my mind in the coffin" scene, that "madwoman in the attic walking down from the attic" scene and the "the sun is a deadly laser" scene, someone needs to give Bailey several awards. And the writing team needs these awards too.

Show!Claudia actually has a backstory, not very detailed but still there, a miserable, painful human life, 14 years of misery and pain - she had a life, she had experiences before becoming a vampire; unlike book!Claudia who was 5 when she was turned, told Louis she couldn't remember her human life before being Louis and Lestat's, and doesn't have her own narration in between Louis' recollections.

Here, the addition of the diaries to the way the story is told not only allows a third party, a third perspective that's no more and no less of an unreliable narrator as Louis' voice, but it also, and I think more importantly, allows for Claudia to speak for herself. She isn't anymore just a footnote in the messy romance of Louis and Lestat. She is her own person, in her own narrative, with her own agency and life. And that's a huge difference between the two versions of Claudia: eternally-5-year-old Claudia couldn't have her own agency, no matter that she was really 40 in a child's body, because that child's body was more of a damnation, a cage, than a teenager's body. At 14 and with make-up, fashion, body language and speech, Claudia can make herself look marginally older, and thus can reclaim some of that agency, of that control. Therefore the issue comes not from the fact that Claudia needs at least one adult to have that agency by proxy, but from the fact that she might never pass for older than 18 and will be taken advantage of. As we'll soon see.

Also she was right, last boy she loved, but not last person, we stan a bisexual murder deranged queen.

And I did tell Lestat, that roof window is a structural failure.

Well, welcome to the Claudia show. That was one hell of an entrance. Crowd's seated for the next part, "Claudia goes Wild party in the Mississippi".

episode 1 | episode 2 | episode 3 | part 1 | episode 5 | episode 6 | episode 7

[claudianolastname]

The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All a Child's Demanding • Claudia

[valithiri]

Interview with the Vampire (2022-) | 1.04 | 2.02

Growth🌱

[soupy-sez]

Interview With The Vampire, S01E04