You know it's a Gothic Horror show, and you're supposed to feel uncomfortable, right? I do. But do you? Do you, Rolin, and Hannah understand that? Because from where I stand, only the Black characters seem to be trapped in a horror story. The others appear to be in a completely different genre.
The issue isn't that viewers like myself don't want to feel uncomfortable. The issue is that, in this Gothic Horror show, Black characters disproportionately bear the brunt of the violence.
Take this season finale as an example.
At the end of Episode 6, two characters are beheaded. Yet in Episode 7, we are shown the severed head and mutilated body of the black character in explicit details, while the white character's mutilated body is shown only briefly and out of focus, and his severed head is hidden from us.
Louis's arc is presented as a parallel to Lestat's. Both characters are placed in situations where they must confront people they have wronged, or at least people the narrative insists they have wronged, as well as their pasts, relationships, and mistakes. (Personally, I don't believe Louis owes Armand anything, but the narrative clearly wants the audience to think otherwise.🙄🙄🙄)
Yet the way these parallel journeys are depicted are drastically different.
Lestat's reckoning unfolds in beautiful rooms, elegant spaces, and dreamlike settings. He sits comfortably while listening to the grievances of the people in his life. He argues back. He reflects. He moves through beautiful environments, from grand rooms to forests and back again. Even when he is forced to confront painful memories, the experience is framed as introspection. The focus remains on his emotional and psychological journey.
Meanwhile, Louis is placed in what looks like a torture room straight out of a Saw movie. His severed head sits on a table, hooked up to a machine. His body is positioned across from him, forcing him to stare at it. His suffering is not just physical; it is public and humiliating. His torture is broadcast for others to watch and study. His pain becomes both spectacle and data. He is joined by Regina, another Black character, whose torture is used as leverage against him.
The man torturing Louis demands an apology, not for any genuine wrongdoing, but because Louis failed to love him the way he believed he deserved to be loved, and failed to show enough empathy for his trauma. This is the same man who murdered Louis's daughter in a lynching and attempted to murder Louis in that same lynching, and who, only minutes earlier, boasted that he took aesthetic pleasure in making Louis's death visually exhilarating as part of that lynching.
And so the torture continues. Louis is pushed to the brink of death. Regina is slicing her wrist. Eventually, Louis gives in. He apologizes. He accepts responsibility not only for hurting his torturer's feelings but for the torture itself. He tells his torturer that his coldness and denial drove him (the torturer) to these actions (the torture). The torturer receives the apology he wants, ends the torture, heals and frees Regina, and leaves, but not before carving the letter "A" onto Louis's mutilated body.
Meanwhile, Lestat is still moving through beautiful settings, confronting his past, and listening to others condemn him for the failures of his life. His story reaches its climax in the final act, when he is surrounded by the people in his life and the people he has wronged, some of whom are cheering him on. Rather than being subjected to physical degradation, he is given space for self-reflection. The focus remains on his memories, his relationships, his mistakes, the horrors he has committed, and his regrets. He eventually acknowledges some of his mistakes and even apologizes to one of his victims. Instead of fleeing from his past, he chooses to face it. His reckoning culminates in understanding, and the arc ultimately ends with imagery that evokes transcendence, as though he is ascending to heaven.
Both Louis and Lestat are given parallel narrative arcs centered on confronting their pasts, their relationships, and the harm they have caused. Yet the show presents those reckonings through vastly different visual and narrative lenses. Lestat's journey is psychological, reflective, and aesthetically beautiful. Louis's journey is a sustained ordeal of physical and psychological torture, humiliation, and degradation. One character is invited to examine himself; the other is turned into a spectacle of suffering. While Lestat is afforded reflection, Louis is afforded degradation.
And I'm supposed to look at that contrast and just shrug and say, "Well, that's Gothic horror for you"? Really? Take the blinders off. Look at what is being asked of Louis and compare it to what is being asked of Lestat. One is granted introspection, reflection, and, ultimately, transcendence. The other is subjected to torture, humiliation, and spectacle. The genre does not erase that disparity. If anything, it makes it more obvious.
My issue is not the horror. My issue is who is repeatedly asked to embody that horror, whose pain is treated as spectacle, and whose pain is afforded dignity, nuance, and care.
this season does just feel like an incredibly subjective and almost confusingly erratic story told by one guy. like yeah, the interviews were a bit like that, but you had daniel poking holes in the story every chance he got: an intrusion that was, on louis' part, mostly welcome and, on armand's part, hard to resist + the general device of louis and armand in the present reflecting off of the story told. in contrast, season three only ends up kind of fulfilling for lestat, even with his aversion to self-reflection and sincerity, but that's... about it.
interestingly enough, i do think the story works perfectly well in the bounds of being just something lestat babbles on and on about in a room by himself for hours, but it's not surprising how unnecessary many people found it because we do actually care about other characters and perspectives as well. and sure, lestat was the only one who didn't get to tell his side of the story in the first two seasons, while featuring in said story a lot (although i can't help but point out that the same could be said about armand and now we have to deal with him still being an enigmatic figure, certainly misrepresented and exaggerated in at least some parts, as he has mostly been described by two people who have - at best - a very complicated and highly biased opinion of him, three seasons and four (turning into six) years into this bloody thing), but lestat's pov shouldn't have been the entire season, the same way that louis' pov couldn't have been and indeed wasn't in iwtv.
it's true that many of the issues with season three can genuinely be explained away by simply stating that it was all lestat's unchallenged narration, but it quickly gets to a point where you start asking why his unchallenged narration would be the only thing we get for an entire season in the first place. it's like they fell in love with the idea of an unreliable narrator, but didn't understand why it worked so well, which parts of it wouldn't work when we are dealing with an ensemble cast, and how it needs to be balanced out. split it up with something fucking else! another interview! an omniscient point of view! anything! we've really just spent seven-ish hours in lestat's head and got very little out of it outside of lestat processing some things (which, like, cool, but that's it? for the ENTIRE season?). like, hell, we started at a point where we see an auction with armand missing an eye and louis missing a leg and that's as distant and confusing a future now that the season is over as it was when it had just begun.
add to all this the fact that we don't even have a season four confirmation yet and, even if we did, it takes them two years to finish each one, and i can't help but scratch my head at the decision to shove us into lestat's head for the whole thing and never ever let us out of it. this is a mini-series with a limited time AND your budget is shit, for gods' sake! why didn't you use both wisely?
having armand just admit that he put the fred stein's in louis' photo collection "just to fuck with his head". way to remove any nuance or question around louis as an unreliable narrator. the question of who put the stein's in the photo collection did not need to be answered. it was fine to leave it as debatable as to whether armand did it, or louis did it by mistake, or even rashid did it. but no, that just had to be confirmed as something armand did.
back on the evil masterplan thing because I can't stop thinking about how it's such a misunderstanding of who armand is that it's genuinely baffling that these are the same people who wrote him in s2.
for some reason they felt the need to retcon everything we've seen of him so far just to drop the underwhelming and overdone plot twist that armand has been lying about everything the whole time.
at some point during his cartoon villain monologue they quickly mention that armand planted the steins just to fuck with louis's head when in s2 the implication was always that he was coddling louis and making sure that he wasn't unhappy so that he wouldn't fucking leave him. the way armand controlled louis was specifically by "protecting his happiness", by keeping him calm and content in his gilded cage. he made himself subservient to louis in order to make him dependant on him. THAT'S how armand manipulates, out of fear, out of his obsession with control. it's something we're never told but that, in its subtlety, makes him so complex and fascinating. so it all gets thrown out the window to me when all we see him do is be evil for the sake of being evil without a genuine attempt at an arc or motivation.
and it's wild because the set up was there. we see him get involved with his AA cult at the beginning of the season and as ridiculous as it seems, it makes perfect sense. armand seeks purpose, he seeks control, he seeks routine, he seeks belonging. so it makes sense that, after watching everything he had built and "protected" for 70 years crumble, he needed to find something else to cling to. and they started heavily hinting at that thing being opposing the great conversion. so why set everything up for it and then not deliver??? why make it about louis instead? WHY NOT MAKE IT ABOUT LESTAT? especially with how little we have seen of their relationship, it could have been the perfect chance to delve into it a bit more and finally fucking do something with the tension that has been bubbling under the surface all season.
also while I'm at it— why the fuck did they make him purposely plant regina for louis to find? if he wanted to torture louis by threatening her life, why not just make it be louis' own doing, why not have him deal with the consequences of his actions for getting an innocent human girl involved in vampire affairs due to his own grief?? it would have been way more compelling and it would have at least tied in with louis's arc too but no, they just HAD to let us know that spooky evil armand has been behind it all along.
The showrunners chose to make Louis and Claudia black and experience life in the Jim crow era. They chose to do the full race swap in season 1, not just making the characters but also the story black. They chose to racialize the violence that both Louis and Claudia face throughout the first season. No one was forcing their hands and they got praised for the stuff they did in the first two seasons, for bringing in the added nuance of systemic racism. So why should I as an audience member of colour give them any grace when they choose to write dialogues containing numerous racialized and gendered micro aggressions not just towards Louis or Claudia but also towards minor characters like Dee or Lemuel who weren't supposed to exist as they are (black) in the show?? Why is Daniel (a white man) who is supposed to be a Pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist who was lecturing Louis on his own story about the racism he faced referring to him as a "bucket of Louisiana fried chicken"?? Why is Armand textually belittled for being a CSA victim while Lestat is endlessly provided with grace and understanding in the text of the show for his victimhood?? Who thought it was alright to adapt a scene from the books involving white characters talking about parental betrayal and insert racially charged dialogues (that too old school racist shit not even the n word) when it was unnecessary to preserve the nuance of the scene?? Why is this show denying the racialized nature of domestic violence that they chose to portray in S1 ??? (Lestat getting mildly annoyed that Louis didn't enjoy going to the operas in nola when he had to act as Lestat's servant to be allowed in tf??) Why is Gabriella like that??
I cannot help but look at this season of the show as a sign of the times tbh. IWTV aired during a very liberal era of entertainment and now that fascism and white supremacy are on the rise everywhere white entertainers have become comfortable enough to fall back into old habits. Never thought this show in particular would have this problem when I watched the first season but it is what it is I guess
You can tell the difference in Lestat’s intent based on who was telling the story.
In Claudia’s version of events, Lestat was being cruel by making her watch Charlie burn. Grabbing her with his hands and forcing her to gaze as his face melted. His face is serious as he tortures her with this lesson.
In Lestat’s memories, he was holding Claudia’s hand the entire time as she watched Charlie burn in front of her. His face is melancholic and tearful as he likely recalls Nicki being burned by Armand. He was enduring the pain with her in real time.
Claudia never knew any of this because she never looked back to see his face.
Rolin and co are trying very hard to convince you that Armand is the antagonist of TVL but he’s not. He’s getting the villain edit right now but villainy is the not the same as the structural role of an antagonist, the person creating obstacles to the protagonist’s actualization.
Lestat was Louis’s antagonist in the first season, and now he’s our protagonist. Armand was the antagonist in season 2, so people are primed to just view him in the same way.
But Gabriella is actually Lestat’s antagonist. That’s why Rolin talked about her as the second most important character this season. She’s the one pushing Lestat into a role he doesn’t want and preventing him from making peace with his muses. She’s the one bringing on the end of the world and using sex to manipulate and abuse him.
Louis is the B plot protagonist this season; his plot with Bruce, Regina, and Claudia is its own separate little track. But the fact that he and Lestat are finally not each other’s antagonists is what is allowing them to slowly but surely come back together this season.
Armand is actually the protagonist of the C plot of the series. They’ve chosen to completely mask the where’s and the whys of that c plot from view of the audience. They’re using it to generate suspense, and to show that we’re still firmly rooted in a limited point of view even in this new season. When Lestat doesn’t know what Armand is doing, neither do we.
They’re going to reveal at least part of what Armand has been up to in his own little side plot in the finale, at least enough for his actions to make sense and to understand how they impact Lestat. They’re trying to convince us he’s the villain now because it will make the reveal of his real motives, which I guarantee are more complicated than “being evil” more of a subversion and a surprise. Armand has been that last minute twist (Volta, if you will) in every season so far, and I don’t think this one is going to be any different.
The only thing I’m sure about what they’re setting up is that whatever Armand is doing is going to be the opposite of what is “expected” (by general audiences I have to say, not real Armand understanders). Instead of standing by helplessly, he is trying very hard to prevent something. Instead of destruction, he’s protecting something (while still being willing to break a few Larry shaped eggs to make an omelette 😂). I think he is doing it with a real sense of brokenness and bitterness that Louis and Lestat have rejected him so thoroughly, but he’s still showing up. What were effectively going to see in ep 7 is the end point (or maybe the midpoint really) of Armand’s arc. He’s been changing behind the scenes, but we don’t know how. That character shift is part of the reveal.
If I had to guess, I would say that I don’t think we’re going to get a full window into what’s going on with Armand until season 4. When Lestat is grabbed by Akasha and is no longer around to limit our perspective, there’s going to be a chance to relive the whole thing from Armand’s POV. At that point he will finally be the protagonist of his own story, and we’ll be able to see a full arc from him. And I actually suspect they’ll start that timeline much further in the past, with flashbacks to the 70s and 80s with Daniel and maybe even glimpses of Venice, and take it through the time of the tour. That would be fitting with the way the book Queen of the Damned is structured, with a focus on Devil’s minion and a structure that repeats the timeline of The Vampire Lestat, just viewed through different perspectives. That was also the book where Armand transformed from an antagonist into a character in his own right in Anne’s mind So I don’t think we should expect a full Armand arc until 2028 (😭). (I also hope season 4 will give us multiple other POVs as well to match the structure of qotd, but that’s just more future speculating at this point).
I’ve been thinking about TVL (the book) a lot and my experience reading it, and my takeaways removed from the context of the show and the show is actually following a lot of what those takeaways were, despite being extremely non-linear?
One thing in particular is “Armand told the truth”. Armand does some awful shit but at the end of it, ever since Lestat leaves him he’s still constantly present in the narrative. Lestat is always thinking about Armand, and the truth to what he’s told him about the way vampirism works even as he tries to talk about his adventures away from it all. He hates it, he tries to dismiss it but it follows him all the way until the end. He thinks of him and the truth he told when he hears about Nicki, when he’s with Marius, when he turns Claudia.
That’s what the show seems to be doing with the phrase “Armand told the truth”. Something that keeps pestering him from the edges of his psyche that he keeps trying to dismiss and ignore. He hates Armand but more than that he hates to admit when Armand is right, because that also leads to him admitting that he loves him in spite of the terrible things he has done. His hatred of Armand is easier to contend with especially when speaking to a larger audience, because his actions make him easy to hate for them too. It keeps Lestat relatable but by the end of the book he can’t fool himself or the audience anymore that the essence of Armand’s warnings and foreshadowing has always been correct in spite it all.
And that’s another thing, Lestat tries very hard to appeal to the audience. His framing isn’t self reflection, it’s entertainment even when telling the story of his own life, self reflection is an unintended consequence. That’s why this season feels so off and uncomfortable, I believe, because we see Lestat constantly trying to frame himself in a dishonest way, to make himself appear as an adventurous hero for the purpose of entertaining the listener of “The Failures”. But he’s reaching a breaking point where can no longer do that, because whatever it is, is going to force him to be honest with himself, maybe even as he narrates “The Failures”.
lestat: what if there was a great female vampire who was immensely powerful but needed me? what if she was made of stone so she could never leave or say something cruel or sit up or go anywhere without her keeper (me) her caretaker (also me) her child (me!!)? what if I showed her things that were interesting and exciting to me and she responded in ways I could construe as approving? what if the only thing I knew about her is that she is the progenitor of us all and I had no choice but to devote my life to caring for her and keeping track of her nightmarish fragility that could doom us all even though she has never asked for it because (again) she can't speak or protest?
also lestat: my relationship with my mother is fine.
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