Thoughts on Detroit || TVL Reaction
Obviously, it doesn't mean much coming from someone who hated the book, but loved the first episode of The Vampire Lestat.
**SPOILERS**
for The Vampire Lestat, 1x01
**SPOILERS**
To begin with, Lestat is so much more interesting and sympathetic in this. He's not the vapid power fantasy of the book, and there's certainly not constant reminders of his whiteness and western civility and natural superiority, not have we (yet) been subjected to him beaming and bragging about putting the fear of God into the servants.
There are no scenes of him taking his privilege for granted in his proud declarations of his rebelliousness and strength.
Instead, he's a little fish in a big pond, who waited too long to capitalize on the shocking revelation that vampires exist and now can't really get arrested. Because nobody gives a shit.
Why? Well, everything sucks now.
So being a vampire rockstar isn't the power fantasy that Anne Rice wrote about, because we're too over-stimulated to care about shocking revelations and too poisoned by pop to care about rock music.
Lestat is blue. He's been texting his nightmare of a mother out of loneliness. You see, he was only doing all of this because he was pissed and wanted revenge, so he couldn't call Louis, even though Louis would've helped him. Because he is a whole dipshit.
I get him being mad, but I still think this is funny.
Lest we feel too badly for him, we're treated to Lestat being an absolute fucking asshole, not just to people he sees as his antagonists, but to the crew around him making his power trip possible, as he spoke and acted like they would all die without him and no one would miss them. Like he was a ten in a world of ones and zeros.
In fact, I wanted to smack him the way he was treating Larry. He kicked the front man out of his position and told him no one wanted to hear him play guitar, that he needed to stay on the fucking tambourine during Lestat's oh-so-important violin solo.
If his dropped fangs were any indication, he was fully about to kill Larry for it on stage. But then he had a nervous breakdown and realized, oh yeah, art isn't a power trip, and he was the problem that was keeping them adequate. It's not about controlling the narrative. You can't just open a floodgate for a crack and then close it.
His muses accosted him. And in that moment, he (at least in his art, and at least for now) got over his bullshit and started just making music with his band mates. Playing with them instead of commanding them. But the muses won't leave him alone. You can't close a floodgate once you've opened it. You have to let it run it's course.
This is the Lestat I love. The Lestat that interests me.
So Lestat munches on a speed freak and gets high as fuck. He has a vision of her floating on the ceiling, dragging his ass as he lays helpless beneath her, telling him that he and the people around him are going to die, (that Daniel would "die bad") and "they comin'." Heckling him for his inability to keep a lover.
She sounds so sure of what she's saying, everyone is acting like it's some kind of prophesy, but it looks more like she was plant by the Fang Gang to drug Lestat, and in her out-of-body trip, was spilling a plan to kill Lestat for revealing himself as a vampire (and Daniel for the book).
The Fang Gang are attempting to reform the Children of Darkness, a collection of old world satanic covens formed in the medieval era by a creep named Santino, only featured in Louis' story as the fuckers who kidnapped Armand as a fledgling, tortured and brainwashed him into being one of their many junkyard dogs.
The gang have wrist tattoos that say, "Armand Told The Truth," and of course, Lestat doesn't know what that means. Fans also speculate wildly on it, but my guess is it's something to do with him warning that the interview would have dire consequences.
"What do you think will happen to [Louis] when you publish this book, when the other vampires of the world get their hands on it? They will make their way to Dubai. They will scale the sides of this building, force their way inside, and paint the walls with his blood." -- 1x05
"[...] Revealing our nature to a reporter you met in a bar ten hours ago? What if it was published? You don't have enough to fear from Paris?" -- 2x05
Louis: "Armand didn't want me to do the interview, Daniel."
Armand: "Still don't."
-- 2x01
Luckily, Lestat has a documentary director nipping at his heels who refuses to let him die before winning an Oscar. Danny Boy Molloy, who is armed to the fangs with probing questions Lestat refuses to answer. Daniel won't stop taunting him with the truth, and with his assumption that the entire thing -- the music career, the tour, the documentary -- is all just a childish attempt to seize control of his personal narrative after the book was published.
While Lestat may have something crueler up his sleeve for Daniel, his only comeback accuses him of having transformational trauma, which Daniel outright refuses in a flippant tone that suggests he totally has transformational trauma.
In the end, Lestat escapes the attempt on his life, but accidentally outs himself as a real vampire. He flees to a motel where his mother arrives to kiss the boo-boos away and they commence to jigglin', cause that's how it is in their family.
All of this is framed with Louis, Armand, and Raglan bidding against each other for Lestat's personal recordings in the wake of Akasha's attempt to fix the world, scissors style.
As I read interviews with the cast, reviews, and rewatch teasers, I get the impression they added a lot of texture to Lestat and made his book characterization just a defense mechanism.
Cuz in the book, once he's out of his decaying, abusive home environment, he's a pillar of strength and rationality. As a vampire, once he's free of Magnus, he's an elegant bon vivant with bottomless pockets and his power is effortlessly unmatched. Loved by all, basically an atheist white Christ sent to civilize the filthy, superstitious savages. He enjoys analyzing the details of his past, and refuses to run from the things that frighten him. His every fart is manna from heaven. A perfect specimen preserved forever!
Marius: "We were both chosen for immortality for the very same reason [...] that we were the nonpareils of our blond and blue-eyed race, that we were taller and more finely made than other men. "
Lestat: "Ooooh, you have to tell me all of it! You have to explain everything!" -- TVL
But Show!Lestat is running scared. He's desperate, lonely, and hanging on by a thread. He had speech issues, CSA, was groomed by a trusted guardian, and became hypersexual. He has a fear of introspection that leads to involuntary trauma explosions manifesting like a sickness. Bats in the belfry, surviving and enduring at great cost. Twisting himself into knots to become whatever people want so they'll love him, and then it doesn't work because anyone who'd want that couldn't love you.
Is it just me, or does that sound like Armand? He even gives out Halloween treats and has started antagonizing Daniel.
Did they do that on purpose?
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