Language of Obsessions

[squirrellypoo]

Real People References in The Vampire Lestat

s3e01 - Detroit:

T. Rex, band (Daniel)

Joey Chestnut, competitive eater

[Gaetano] Donizetti, composer

David [Bowie], musician

Freddie [Mercury], musician

Prince Rogers [Nelson], musician

Post Malone, musician (Daniel)

Jelly Roll, musician (Daniel)

Frederick Law Olmstead, landscape architect ("Olmstead Park")

Bela Lugosi, actor / Bauhaus, band

Chris Rock, comedian (Daniel)

Torvill & Dean, ice skaters

The Smiths, band (“Frankly Mr Shankly”/“The Queen is Dead”)

Stewart Copeland, composer (Christine)

s3e02 - Toledo

[Sigmund] Freud, psychoanalyst

Aristotle, philosopher

Erasmus, scholar

[Thomas] Aquinis, philosopher

Cicero, scholar (Gabriella)

[Leon Battista] Alberti, architect (Gabriella)

[Giordano] Bruno, philosopher (Gabriella)

Thin Lizzy, band

Grace Jones, musician (Christine)

s3e03 - Toronto

Justin Bieber, singer (Daniel)

Jefferson Starship, band

Raphael, artist

[Constantin] Brancusci, sculptor

[Italo] Calvino, writer

[Wolfgang Amadeus] Mozart, composer (Nicki)

Herman’s Hermits, band

The Police, band

Eminem, musician

s3e04 - The Devil’s Road

[Bob] Seger, musican

[Jackson] Browne, musician

Jon Bon Jovi, musician

Phil X, musician

Richie Sambora, musician

P Diddy, musician

[Anthony] Bourdain, chef

[Joe] Rosenthal, photographer (Daniel)

[Matt] Apuzzo, journalist (Daniel)

[Ronan] Farrow, journalist (Daniel)

[Glenn] Greenwald, journalist (Daniel)

Phish, band (Daniel)

[Josef] Mengele, Nazi physician (Daniel)

Dee Dee [Ramone], musician

Joey [Ramone], musician

[Steve] Perry, [Neal] Schon & [Jonathan] Cain, members of Journey, band (“took the midnight train”)

Dante [Alighieri], writer (Gabriella)

s3e05 - New York

Elvis [Presley], musician

Andy Kaufman, comedian

Yoko [Ono], artist (TC)

[Helen] Mirren, actor (TC)

Florence Welch, musician (Gabriella)

Milli Vanilli, musicians (man on street interview)

[Marie] Antoinette, queen

Thomas Aquinas, philosopher

s3e06 - Montreal

Drake, musician

Mayor [Ray] Nagin, politician

James Carville, political consultant

Taylor [Swift], musician (Daniel)

Travis [Kelce], American football player (Daniel)

Jesus Christ, religious leader (Daniel)

Iggy Pop, musician (Daniel)

[Stephen] Sondheim, composer

[Ryuichi] Sakamoto, composer

s3e07 - The Failures

Fred Stein, photographer (Armand)

Drake, musician (“Wheelchair Jimmy”) (Daniel)

[Vincent] Van Gogh, artist (Gabriella)

Robert Plant, musician (Louis)

The Pope, religious leader

Bonus! References in songs

Babe Ruth, baseball player (Plastic Fiends)

[Elon] Musk, businessman (Plastic Fiends)

Vlad[amir Putin], politician (Plastic Fiends)

Harvey LeRoy [“Lee” Atwater], political consultant (Plastic Fiends)

Louis XVI, king (Plastic Fiends)

[Marie] Antoinette, queen (Plastic Fiends)

Friedrich Flick, businessman (Plastic Fiends)

The Vampire Lestat (2026), AMC+

(Links to Wikipedia entry. In show references by Lestat unless otherwise noted)

[umbilicallove]

[thevampirecaspian]

The gender envy I get from them

[curioussubjects]

honestly, i think what trips people up about iwtv/tvl is that the show just isn't interested in the logic of punishment. all these characters have suffered, have caused suffering, are suffering. none of it is fair. to try and point out who is good or bad, or to cast all of them as evil, is frankly, missing the whole point.

if anything, the arguments presented by iwtv and tvl are that nobody comes to violence on their own. hurt people, the show argues, hurt people. and perhaps most difficult to accept in a society like ours: harming other people can be, itself, traumatic.

this is a story about cycles of trauma and abuse, and it posits that breaking out of it is a choice a person has to make, for one. and two, that someone's ability to make that choice depends on the tools they have at their disposal (for example: louis and lestat finally realizing they gotta work on themselves AND understanding that they lacked a lot of the tools to arrive at that conclusion because of the time they were born in). yes, there's systemic shit, but individuals also have power within themselves to Choose to Stop, to be and do better.

worth noting, though, that the show isn't arguing for a can't we all just get along vision of breaking the cycle. sometimes you have to carry the fact you caused harm that won't be neatly resolved (like, say, daniel and his daughters). some bridges are burned (perhaps) forever, but that also doesn't mean the people that were hurt are caught up in their own pain. you don't need to forgive to move on, nor do you need to be forgiven to move on.

yet, i don't think the show is arguing against the possibility of reconciliation, either. the argument seems to be that there can be no reconciliation without acknowledgement that people have a right to self-determination. and perhaps the way to get there is through compassion.

ultimately, compassion seems to be precisely what the show asks of the viewer and the characters both. it does so by eliciting sympathy through interiority. that is, by exposing the private selves of these characters. through that exposition, the show invites the viewer to reflect on what suffering does to people as well as what it leads people to do.

iwtv is a thought experiment, in a way, and the narrative really opens up once you allow yourself to engage in it.

[beaulesbian]

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE + enduring

A pedigreed vampire, as you know, can endure a great deal.

[thewindermerepeaks]

Ask for it wolfkiller and you shall live forever

2026 oil

[nightninjaboy]

Big Guy

[thevampirecaspian]

He was so sweet

[animentality]

[alfgifu]

this reads like it was submitted to a local newspaper in the early 1900s

[dizzyghoast]

every so often i remember how awesome the modern interconnected multicultural world is. i grew up getting to hear fairy tales from all over the world. africa, asia, europe, america. everywhere in between. i can have bagels for breakfast, curry for lunch, and ramen for dinner without even leaving the city limits. music and art and philosophy and technology that originated thousands of miles and years apart from eachother have come together and interwoven into something greater than the sum of its parts. its hard not fall into despair when thinking about the horrors but god. god the wonders.

[thevampirecaspian]

He is exactly the man he thinks he is

[humphreybogie]

The way Giles is so fatherly and tender with Buffy and Willow and even Anya at some point but he acts like he genuinely wants to throttle Xander every single time he has to interact with him 1 on 1. He is me.

[endiness]

💅

[flopstat]

life changing i'd say

[thevampirecaspian]

If only I could freeze the moment

[carmillaswifeaurora]

What fucks me up is the fact that Sam manages to play Lestat as so so so childlike during some GabriellA scenes. Like we can literally see his age regression. It's so freaking devastating and I want to rip my eyes out

[trashcakery]

That scene where Gabriwhore tells Lestat to grow up… That’s where the crack in Lestat really starts to show to the audience. It gives us a brutal look into just how fucked their dynamic is. He literally regresses into an embarrassed/humiliated child being yelled at by his mother. You can see his face physically turn into a child’s. Insane work. Heartbreaking. Sam deserves awards.