#it is functionally a lynching. she exists. the other vampires assume she is inherently wrong.

[cinematicnomad]

#I think this is good analysis but it’s missing a fundamental element #they don’t think she’s fucked up for anything she’s done or will do. they don’t think her life is a tragedy from her actions. #her life is a tragedy bc she’s a child. think about how much independence and autonomy a child has. #she’s 14. barely out of middle school. #(her actress obviously is older. bc a real 14 year old could not provide the necessary level of performance. but TV claudia is 14.) #claudia cannot exist in human society without a parent figure. which means she is eternally tied to a vampire companion by necessity #book claudia is 5 years old. Louis carries her around like a babydoll. brushes her hair and puts ribbons in it. #obviously TV claudia would not put up with that treatment. she has MUCH more autonomy than book claudia. #but Claudia being uniquely cursed is due to her age. and as her maker lestat is responsible for that #and lestat projects his insecurity back at her #armand wants her out of the way and he recognizes her insecurities/weaknesses immediately and plays them up #that’s why he creates the psychological torture of the baby lulu character for her. #madeleine well that’s interesting. TV madeleine is much more well adjusted as a human being. #book madeleine is a doll maker who lost a child. and Claudia is her replacement baby. they match each other’s freak but it’s crazyyy #they never really touch on Claudia’s age in Europe. they show her basically as a functioning adult. #when like. a biggest part of her tragedy is that she CANT leave Louis. she NEEDS an adult body with her to be passably human. #I’m rambling but yeah. it’s her age. #but she’s literally a black 14 year old who can only go out at night #the human world is so fucking dangerous for her (via @punk-pins)

As much as nearly every character she meets tends to act like there's something uniquely broken and wrong with Claudia, at no point does it truly seem to me like there actually really is? I mean, obviously she is extremely fucked up, she straight up went through a serial killer collecting trophies phase, but there's a level of fucked up that's sort of the baseline for every character in the show, and obviously being turned into a vampire as a child puts her at a unique disadvantage. But for all that everyone around her spends their time bemoaning how dreadful and doomed her life is, even Louis who genuinely loves her but also builds so much of his identity around feeling responsible for her Terrible Fate™, I really don't think she's like, fundamentally damaged any more than any of the other vampires are.

But Lestat is so unwilling to be wrong that every time her life hits an inevitable road bump instead of helping her through it he points and says "look! see! she IS a monster, I was right Louis, making her was a mistake!" (and I think he sees his own monstrousness in her but fails to also see her humanity)

And then Armand meets her and sees only someone who will inevitably lose her mind, so of course speeding up the "inevitable" and siding with the coven to plan her death is just a mercy, absolving himself of any blame. (and he projects his own frailty and desire for death onto her, failing to see her strength and her desire for life)

Which makes it so cathartic when she meets Madeleine, admits to her how broken she feels sometimes, and Madeleine's response is just. Well that's normal. Who isn't a little broken these days. Let yourself feel it, move on, let yourself feel it again if you need to. After spending her life having others act as if her emotions are something uniquely dark and worrying, Madeleine's incredibly blase attitude must have been such an incredible breath of fresh air for Claudia!

To spend her whole life being made to feel like something is Wrong™ with her, and then meet someone who's just like, "yeah, and?? Who isn't? Join the club I guess"

Which makes her death so incredibly tragic and frustrating because like. She was fine! She was making a life for herself! She wasn't doomed by her nature, she wasn't "doomed by the narrative" (whatever the fuck that even means), she was doomed for no reason other than that everyone around her (except for Madeleine) preemptively DECIDED she was doomed and never gave her a chance to prove them wrong.

[stuckinthedeadlights]

#interview with the vampire#iwtv#iwtv amc#claudia de lioncourt#flawless tags are flawless#yeah this is one of those things where it's like#to discuss this aspect of the story you HAVE to acknowledge that the adaptation had to make allowances in the casting#to actually functionally MAKE the show#it's just a concession that had to happen. they had to age up claudia. but in doing so i DO feel like something was lost in translation#in s1 they really do try to make the case that her being a teenager means her emotions will always be at the extreme of either end#but then she DOES settle down. and you don't really see the same claudia as you do when she was first turned#she really does function in the world as an adult. like punk-pins says v few characters in s2 remark on her age#it's there (louis pretends he's her father + tells her to play with the children etc etc)#but it's not like. deeply embedded in the character#so like. op is right. in the canon of the show we really don't SEE evidence of cause for concern re:claudia#which i think?? works for all the reasons OP says. it makes her death even more tragic. there's no defense of it.#it is functionally a lynching. she exists. the other vampires assume she is inherently wrong.#and so they humiliate her and subjugate her and ultimately murder her.#the book it's all like. anne rice dealing with the trauma of her daughter's death from leukemia which can be genetic#so it's all of anne rice having to grapple with the grief she feels for losing her daughter.#but also the guilt for maybe passing on the very thing that killed her. right?#so for louis and lestat in the book: the very act of creating claudia. of loving claudia. dooms her at the same time.#her inevitable death cannot be avoided. she was always going to die.#and then the version in the show is much more about the choices we make and the consequences of our (in)action.#they love claudia and yet they do not protect her. in fact lestat helps to kill her. they love her but they do not save her.#she didn't HAVE to die like this. she could have been happy. she could have lived. their wild wonderful daughter could have thrived. (via @cinematicnomad)

As much as nearly every character she meets tends to act like there's something uniquely broken and wrong with Claudia, at no point does it truly seem to me like there actually really is? I mean, obviously she is extremely fucked up, she straight up went through a serial killer collecting trophies phase, but there's a level of fucked up that's sort of the baseline for every character in the show, and obviously being turned into a vampire as a child puts her at a unique disadvantage. But for all that everyone around her spends their time bemoaning how dreadful and doomed her life is, even Louis who genuinely loves her but also builds so much of his identity around feeling responsible for her Terrible Fate™, I really don't think she's like, fundamentally damaged any more than any of the other vampires are.

But Lestat is so unwilling to be wrong that every time her life hits an inevitable road bump instead of helping her through it he points and says "look! see! she IS a monster, I was right Louis, making her was a mistake!" (and I think he sees his own monstrousness in her but fails to also see her humanity)

And then Armand meets her and sees only someone who will inevitably lose her mind, so of course speeding up the "inevitable" and siding with the coven to plan her death is just a mercy, absolving himself of any blame. (and he projects his own frailty and desire for death onto her, failing to see her strength and her desire for life)

Which makes it so cathartic when she meets Madeleine, admits to her how broken she feels sometimes, and Madeleine's response is just. Well that's normal. Who isn't a little broken these days. Let yourself feel it, move on, let yourself feel it again if you need to. After spending her life having others act as if her emotions are something uniquely dark and worrying, Madeleine's incredibly blase attitude must have been such an incredible breath of fresh air for Claudia!

To spend her whole life being made to feel like something is Wrong™ with her, and then meet someone who's just like, "yeah, and?? Who isn't? Join the club I guess"

Which makes her death so incredibly tragic and frustrating because like. She was fine! She was making a life for herself! She wasn't doomed by her nature, she wasn't "doomed by the narrative" (whatever the fuck that even means), she was doomed for no reason other than that everyone around her (except for Madeleine) preemptively DECIDED she was doomed and never gave her a chance to prove them wrong.