I like the fact that there are striking and clearly purposeful parallels throughout the seasons. For example, Episode 3 in both Season 2 and Season 3 features flashbacks to Paris (and Nicki). And we can also clearly see two different versions of the wolf-killer cloak: a splendid, lush velvet cloak in bright red, with a fluffy golden fur hood, in Season 2, and a much more demure woollen coat in a duller raspberry-red shade, with much less fur around the edge of the hood, in Season 3. As always, the difference matters.
Whereas in Season 2 we see an exaggerated “fanfiction” version through Armand’s eyes—for him, everything about Lestat is brighter, richer, more indiscreet, hence the much more luxurious version of the cloak—in Season 3 we see the “real” wolf-killer cloak/coat. It is also beautiful, but at this point we know that the villagers who presented Lestat with the cloak simply did not have the means to afford lush velvet of royal quality. Lestat’s family is impoverished, the village is poor, and even Nicki’s wealthy father, who made the cloak, is only wealthy enough to afford red wool. So the real wolf-killer cloak is less exciting than the one from Armand’s fantasy.
Every on screen relationship in season 3 / The Vampire Lestat concerns a power differential, either in the form of parent-child or employer-employee. Louis and Lestat are both having sex with their lawyers. Louis is paying Regina to roleplay as Claudia, while Regina is held hostage by Armand's possession of her work visa. Lestat's band is literally "downstairs" in the tour bus, where servants live in large aristocratic homes. Marius digs up Lestat so he can be a servant-child to the Queen-Mother. Daniel and Lestat are both wrestling with Armand and Gabriella's parental abandonment. Armand is attempting to stabilize his relationships with Daniel, Lestat, and Louis with transactional apologies ("I say sorry and now YOU say sorry, someone needs to pay for how I'M hurting too!").
The "You Owe Me" theme of this season is a cycle of abuse that's only broken when characters can offer genuine empathy and receive it in return. Louis has no obligation to apologize to Armand, who harmed Louis in incalculable ways both large and small for over a century, up to and including a live-streamed beheading. But Louis, who lies to himself about how good he is; who cultivates and nurtures guilt rather than take accountability; who is more concerned with the righteousness of his soul than the effect his actions have on others; this man ascended from his cycles of dysfunction and gave Armand the gift of bearing witness to his pain. This action benefits Louis as well, because it's the only time in the series that Louis is actually the type of good and kind person he wants to see himself as. He performs an act of true empathy and the crippling guilt that defines his life becomes a little easier to carry.
It's significant that Armand's deepest wound wasn't caused by Louis, but Louis "apologizes" for it anyway because it's what Armand needs to hear. This demonstrates that the cycle of transactional, conditional love that characterizes the relationships this season can't be broken or healed by additional parsing of blame or retribution. Lestat says in episode 6 that "the blame, the blame," (making a circle motion with his hand!) can't be put into any kind of order or math equation that will adequately explain or resolve the dysfunction and pain of his relationship with Gabriella. That only happens for Lestat when Paul appears to confirm that Louis does love him. Like Louis and Armand, Paul isn't responsible for Lestat's true source of pain and trauma. Additionally, Paul is not Lestat's lover or victim, unlike everyone else at that final Long Table Stage, and therefore has no obligation to offer him kindness or empathy. Paul owes Lestat nothing. Nevertheless, Paul offers Lestat the same gift Louis offers Armand--the naming and witnessing of another's emotional truth without expectation or obligation.
Devil's Minion as Hades and Persephone AU except Daniel is trying to swallow a whole pomegranate while Armand is trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him
I will also raise you this idea: I do not think there is a version of events where Armand turns someone into a vampire where he doesn’t consider it an act of violence. Daniel’s turning was absolutely violent. I just think we are thinking of that word wrong.
Vampirism is abhorrent to him. That does not change after he turns Daniel. Armand perhaps has the most realistic view of being a vampire. He sees it for exactly what it is because his existence has almost exclusively been horrific. He knows the depths of loneliness better than anyone and spent four hundred years festering in self-hatred underground. He has such severe identity problems when it comes to how he feels about being a vampire, but I don’t think those feelings are misplaced. The universe did nothing to sugarcoat how bleak it can get when it came to him. He has seen it all, and that is why he wouldn’t turn Madeleine. Because it is the very worst thing he thinks you can do to someone.
That is why Armand tells Daniel that it is him who he has done the most harm to in the bowling alley. Nothing could ever be worse than making a vampire. Even if he was gentle, which he almost certainly was, it wouldn’t matter. He murdered Daniel and damned him for all eternity. He polluted the veins of someone so very dear to him with this evil filth that has made his existence a living hell for half a millennium now. That is violence. It is perhaps, to him, as pure as violence gets and I think that is a perspective you can only really understand when you’ve lived for as long as he has and you’ve endured what he’s endured.
But he loves Daniel. It’s purely selfish. He cannot let him die. He loves Daniel so much it overrides everything. It’s not just his need to be loved, it is Daniel specifically. He can’t exist without him, so he does the very worst thing, in his mind, that he has ever done.
One of my favorite things about Armand as a character is how much of a hypocrite he is like. It’s this combination of being one of the more empathetic characters in the series (ironically. And this doesn’t mean he feels sympathy to be clear) and a staunch refusal or inability to examine or face anything he’s been through that leads to like. It’s complicated but in the books (spoilers) he gives his children, who TLDR of The Vampire Armand are human kids who remind him of himself as a human child (again I don’t know if he ever notices this) to Marius for safekeeping and is fucking shocked and horrified when Marius hurts them to hurt Armand (turns them). Like. He has this whole crash out at Marius for doing to these kids exactly what he did to him but he could never see it for what it was until it was done to others like him. In IWTV he makes some mention of like oh Claudia was made too young how tragic her life will be so hard and Louis (understandably) frames this as Armand not knowing Claudia and like ofc being generally a dick responsible for her death which like yeah all true but also like would (book) Armand maybe know something about being made too early? And in TVL Armand fucking HATES Gabrielle like HATES her and it’s like oh ok so there’s this parental figure with a very predatory relationship with her child which ofc Armand would know nothing abt duhh except here he immediately is like wow this woman is the worst. And yeah I think a lot of it’s framed as like he’s obsessed with Lestat which right true but. Come on. Like he’s always the first to clock something being genuinely wrong for other characters when it mirrors his own trauma but also he staunchly refuses to examine any of his own trauma or the fact that it exists. Like idk man it’s so interesting.
Can we talk about the Rothko Chapel and the Dubai penthouse because what do you mean the place Daniel mourned his daughter’s hatred looks exactly like the place Louis tells the story of his own daughter he failed? What do you mean Armand led Daniel to that chapel from the shadows and made sure he could mourn in peace and was disguised as “Rashid” during that part of Claudia’s story? What do you mean the house of worship Armand’s fascinating boy finds relief in looks just like the coffin home he’s brought in to wreck?
Some in the fandom have already been talking about how Thomas Pitty He's A Whore is a reference to the Jacobean revenge tragedy by John Ford, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Sam Reid played Soranzo in a particularly controversial production of it one time, we know this. The play, like all Jacobean revenge tragedies, deals with extreme violence in the context of an extremely salacious romantic relationship, and how the violence radiates out from that core to damage everyone around it. I won't get into how I think that applies in TVL (though I think it's less obvious than it sounds) because we're already having that conversation.
Instead, I want to talk about a cross-reference: "'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore", a track on David Bowie's 2016 album Blackstar. Because in my view, it's a very Loustat song on a very Failures-era Lestat album.
Basically, I think this is a layered reference to an album about posthumous art that tells us how the show is engaging with vampiric (im)mortality and ALSO it's Lestat getting out his bitterness about the hurt he feels he has had to accept from Louis in exchange for his love.
It's pretty obvious that Lestat's whole glam rock, experimental eclecticism vibe as a musical act draws heavily on Bowie's aesthetics. The Bowie connection is obvious and acknowledged, but we mostly talk about it in terms of like, Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, for obvious fictional stage persona reasons.
Blackstar is much later than that. To understand what I'm seeing here, you need to know about Blackstar was two days off from being a posthumous album. Bowie wrote and recorded it largely in secret, while actively dying of live cancer. He released it on October 8, 2016, and died on October 10.
We know that at this point in the narrative, most of the world thinks Lestat is dead. He is recording in secret, he intends to release the album "posthumously", and the show consistently presents the failures as posthumous. Blackstar is Bowie engaging with his actual impending death, but I think that especially by Episode 5, Lestat is thinking about mortality also, just in a more vampiric way. And Blackstar can also speak to that.
Blackstar is really interested in transformation at the moment of death. The (sort of) title track's visuals remind me very much of Akasha/Those Who Must Be Kept, especially in the books:
In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen
Stands a solitary candle, stands a solitary candle
And at the centre of it all, your eyes
On the day of execution, only women kneel and smile
At the centre of it all, your eyes, your eyes
And then later, the transformation:
Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar)
How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie instead of talking tall?
So in this song, death opens up the voice to "talk tall", but it's also someone who isn't really you doing the talking. Your narrative is no longer within your control. When I listen to this, I am thinking about The Book, but I'm also thinking about the people we see Daniel recording for the documentary after Lestat's "death".
On track 3, "Lazarus", there's another death-as-transformation moment, but this one reminds me of Claudia:
Look up here, I'm in Heaven
I've got scars that can't be seen
I've got drama, can't be stolen
Everybody knows me now
And then at the end of the song,
Just like that bluebird
Now, ain't that just like me?
Oh, I'll be free
In "Lazarus", death is a rebirth into freedom, but it's also a gateway to being known by "everybody" - and I think "known" here is partly in the sense of understanding, but also partly in the sense of posthumous fame. I think there's a little irony in that line that, for me, connects a lot to the idea that once your story is told, it belongs to the readers; you can't control how people understand you anymore. Death does the same thing, here.
Aside from the death-as-transformation, what does it mean for your art to be known after death themes, Blackstar in general resonates with 3x05 Lestat because Bowie very consciously avoided his old rock and roll sound in writing and producing it. He draws on experimental jazz, hip-hop, folk, and prog rock, but he doesn't go back into that old time rock and roll glam rock sound basically at all. We're getting this reference in TVL right when Lestat is turning away from the band's human rock sound to a more complicated sound tuned for vampires in particular.
So like, in general, thematically, you can see why I think Blackstar is such an appropriate reference for TVL. But I also think that "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" is an especially appropriate reference for Louis in particular.
First of all, the thematic connections from the reference to the play are very Loustat tension, in my opinion. 'Tis Pity is about an incestuous sibling relationship that ends in death and disaster, and I think a lot of Lestat's discomfort with Louis and Claudia's enmeshed dynamic isn't just about him always being on the outside, but also I think it reminds him uncomfortably of his actually incestuous enmeshment with Gabriell(e)(a).
The Bowie song has its own appropriate thematic connections. Originally, this was a B-side released in 2014, but Bowie rerecorded it for Blackstar. The A-side of the original single, "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" is kind of a "My Last Duchess"-y retelling of someone murdering his cheating wife. But "'Tis Pity" is like, a flipside to that violence. And I think Lestat is using that as short hand for his bitterest, meanest feelings about the breakdown of his relationship with Louis.
The rerecorded version starts with two intense inhales before the music comes in, like the singer is bracing for a fight. Here, the singer is the one getting hit ("Man, she punched me like a dude / Hold your mad hands, I cried"). This resonates for me with the trial version of the 2x05 fight - we see Louis beating the shit out of Lestat while he asks him to stop because he doesn't want to fight like that.
Lestat is beginning to see a pattern in his relationships, like he feels like he is allowing himself to be hurt for the sake of the relationship while his partners go to the crazy place. Nicki went mad and yelled at him and in some ways framed the violence he did to himself as Lestat's fault; Gabriella demands his sexuality and refuses to stay around unless he is hurt enough to "need" her.
Arguably, from Lestat's perspective, Louis asks the most of them all. Louis asks him to violate his ethics to make Claudia even though Lestat knows it will only hurt all of them and (though arguably this is more Claudia than Louis) requires him to kill someone he cares about if he wants to come home. This resonates with the next lines of the song: "'Tis a pity she was a whore / 'Tis my curse, I suppose". It's his curse - it just keeps happening.
A little later on there are a few lines that remind me even more of the situation where Lestat is supposed to kill Antoinette if he wants to come home to Louis and Claudia: "Black struck the kiss, she kept my cock / Smote the mistress, drifting on / 'Tis a pity she was a whore". Here, the dark, toxic kind of love Lestat feels he was experiencing at that point in their relationship "struck" him - he experienced love as violence at that time, but he was too entangled in loving Louis to do anything but keep going. Even though he doesn't kill Antoinette, he does hurt her for Louis (cutting off an appendage is not a small harm!), and then he is the reason that Louis/Claudia eventually do kill her.
There's also a refrain repeated in the song: "That was patrol / This is war". Lestat is obviously feeling an escalation of the conflict in his relationship with Louis after The Book, but he is also speaking back - finally he feels like he's engaging in a back and forth war instead of just patrolling his boundaries looking for the next painful thing he has to do to himself to keep someone he loves.
Another reason I feel like referencing this song indicates Lestat is thinking about Louis's violence in particular is the musicality - the experimental jazz, wall of sound, driving but chaotic rhythm of "'Tis Pity" reminds me so much of the soundtrack to Louis burning the coven in Paris, and to some extent also the soundtrack to killing the coven in Detroit. It has that same unhinged vibe to it that I think we often hear when Louis's inner violence becomes exterior.
And also, so much of Louis's character arc has been about unsatisfying revenge. It makes sense to reference a song about relationship violence and death that is itself referencing a revenge tragedy, if you're someone like Lestat, who thinks in layers of pop culture across time.
Basically what I'm saying is: I don't think the contact name is Lestat actually calling Louis a whore. I think it's him calling their relationship a Jacobean revenge tragedy that hurts Lestat and others around them, and I think it's him getting out his bitter feelings about the violence he feels he has had to accept from Louis. And I think, in the broader narrative, it's also a reference to the Bowie album, because what is 3x05 besides posthumous art and contemplation of vampiric (im)mortality.
SO THIS IS WHY TVL'S EPISODES ARE NAMED AFTER CITIES??? OH ROLIN YOU GENIUS
Ok ok OK you guys probably do not have any idea who Italo Calvino was (best Italian writer of the last 100 years) who wrote this masterpiece (my favourite book) and watching Lestat throwing it at Daniel??? Rolin I'm at your doorstep. Lemme introduce you to:
"Le Città Invisibili"
The book is framed as a conversation between the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, and Marco Polo. Now, Marco's name was as famous as a ROCK STAR of his era, his travel book (IL MILIONE) written while in prison a best seller. Italo wrote brief prose poems describing 55 fictitious cities that are narrated by Polo, many of which can be read as commentary on culture, language, time, MEMORY, DEATH, or THE ODYSSEY OF RECOLLECTION. Cities made of spiderwebs, sounds, abandoned cities, cities that look completely different when you enter its walls - you should read it. Short dialogues between Kublai and Polo (ALMOST LIKE AN INTERVIEW YOU MIGHT SAY) are interspersed every five to ten cities discussing the same topics. These interludes between the two characters are no less poetically constructed than the cities, and form a framing device that plays with the natural complexity of language, stories and LIES. Kublai also asks about a city Polo never mentioned, his hometown of Venice. Polo replies, "Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice." Now, we are listening to the voice of Lestat in his "failures" collection, which are like the chapters of his autobiography. As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. The episodes have been so far extremely hectic, hard to focus on, full of little lies and exaggerated scenes - seen through the main character's imaginative eyes. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.
The ending is a warning against despairing:
"The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together."
It’s The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino.
I managed to find the same cover as the one he was reading which I'll put below.
It's a book about a group of travellers who meet in what might be a castle and what might be a tavern after crossing a forest which renders them unable to speak. They attempt to tell each other their stories through a deck of tarot cards and the stories are interpreted through the openly subjective view of the narrator.
It's effectively about how we individually create meaning out of what we see. The travellers cannot talk and the cards can represent so many different things to each person. Then there's the picture that all the cards create together. It's all about personal analysis. Also the very obviously and openly unreliable narrator, who isn’t a liar exactly but can only offer one personal interpretation of the stories being told.
So it’s obviously a commentary on the show itself and, to me, a response to the absolutist interpretations that run rampant in the fanbase. There is no objectivity to anyone’s perspectives in the show, which is what the cast and crew have been saying the whole time, and finding a singular truth is not the point.
Louis has dressed Lestat conservatively, in outdated French fashion from the 1800's, which falls in line with his Catholic upbringing and his desire to see Lestat as a respectable suitor. The outdated clothing also suggests that Louis sees a piece of himself in Lestat's initial struggle to fit in in a society that judges you based off of the way that you look.
In Armand's eyes, Lestat is wearing a v-neck, with the buttons scandalously undone, and an open coat, revealing a little of his wild and unkempt ways, and hinting at a more promiscuous nature. This showcases Armand's desire to paint Lestat as an anarchist--someone who has no respect for the rules, purposefully breaks them, and does so without apology.
No one really talks about how afraid of Marius Amadeo was. It’s woven throughout their time together but he was never more terrified of him than he was in the banquet scene.
And what is so striking about it is Marius has drunk the blood of multiple people, so he looks human. That’s what frightens Armand. He sees a person and pleads for the statuesque god-like figure he has been worshipping to return. He cannot stomach Marius looking like a person at all.
There’s a degree of separation when the person who holds so much power over you looks like they ought to be able to do it. When Marius looks like he’s made of marble and his skin is freezing and he appears so utterly inhuman, it makes sense of everything. When he shows you love, it’s love from a God. When he frightens you, it’s because that’s what gods are supposed to do. But imagine being loved by God. Imagine being plucked out of the horror of your past by a God and knowing you are his favourite. Literal divine intervention.
Amadeo: loved by God/ lover of God.
But then you see your God and suddenly he isn’t a God anymore. You see him as he was before he was turned. He’s just a man, and men are fallible. Men are imperfect. Marius is not meant to be either of those things.
Suddenly everything you’ve been through together stops making sense and all you want is for that hard, icy, merciful god to return to you. You have to restore the illusion or you might just start to examine what he’s subjected you too closely and lose yourself forever.
It’s why Armand can so easily say he basked in his mercy, and why he tolerated being donated in the show. Who is he to question the will of God? It does not matter if Marius in the show cannot be mistaken for Jesus. He’s God. That’s what actually matters. Even now, after everything, he’s still God. He might be forever.
Daniel and Armand have a peculiar rhythm when they speak to each other. They can converse like any other two people, but there is a noticeable pattern that emerges whenever one of them wants something from the other, or simply familiarity emerges in their dialogue. Two minds moving toward the same point in parallel.
They do not exactly finish each other’s sentences. They seem to read each other well enough though.
Armand: Let me help you finish that job.
Daniel: Yeah?
A: Love between vampires can be one thing, or it can be countless things.
D: I will never love...
A: Like Lestat and Sofia. I want to be your maker.
D: Finish the thought, Armand.
A: I want to give you half your life back.
D: Lestat and Sofia.
A: Help you walk in the sun. I knew her as Gabriella. She's Lestat's mother.
D: What?
A: Lestat lays with his mother.
Armand: It was wrong of Louis to enter your memories yesterday. You were invited here as a guest.
Daniel: Cell phones.
A: You were rude, but he crossed a line.
D: Artificial intelligence crunching improbable data.
A: I offer my apology...
D: How do you hide from the cloud?
A: On his behalf. We should probably wait for him.
D: Probably.
A: He'll awaken when the sun sleeps. Your cell phones make you slaves to your fetishes and data retrieval is primarily about profits, so I suspect no one at Amazon is trying to sell us blenders.
Armand’s dialogue is continuous, cumulative. Daniel, however, interrupts and redirects. His words function almost like punctuation against Armand’s longer, more structured sentences. He does not follow the path Armand takes. Instead, he jumps directly to the important point, cutting away all that is unnecessary. Daniel tends to move toward specific statements, because he demands clarity and specifics. He is impatient. Armand's language connects pieces precisely because Daniel's language separates them.
Daniel extracts. Armand explains.
Armand speaks in layers, Daniel peels the layers away.
Their rhythm creates a familiarity that borders on mind-reading, they understand the direction of each other’s thoughts, Daniel's pattern expresses this familiarity even more so. He is more active in this familiarity because his lack of words shows understanding of Armand, which is such a subconscious act for the person who lost his memories of said familiarity, but its trace lingers.
There is also distance in Daniel’s style. Daniel gives the node of the thought rather than the path that led him there. His ability to jump straight to the point is part of his emotional guardedness. He is highly observant, quick. He analyses rather than reveals.
But there is progression from season 2 to season 3. Daniel is vulnerable all the time. He is someone who needs gentleness, he is emotionally incandescent, always close to the surface, always on the verge of something breaking through.
His pattern also indicates that Daniel is closed off from Armand, he is emotionally guarded, which just brings this vulnerability to the surface. He is afraid.
They work perfectly together because Daniel identifies the missing pieces or important details and Armand gives context, history, and connection, which is surprising for his character. There is an innate predictability in the way they talk, which hints at past dm as much as everything else, but this level of subconscious intimacy is fascinating.
Second viewing: Who is Lestat, really? How does he see himself? How do people besides Louis, Claudia, and Armand see him? None of these questions can be answered in one way. He, like everyone in this series, like a more intense version of people in real life, is a kaleidoscope, shifting from moment to moment and decade to decade, depending on mood and audience. He distorts himself. Others distort him. They're all truthful. None is the whole truth.
romaincrisis
