I’m not Black, I’m Asian, so I’m not even going to touch the racial aspect of this. But purely from a trauma and abuse standpoint, Armand and Lestat turned out to be even worse to Louis than I originally thought after watching the finale.
First of all, it’s funny to everyone who kept insisting Louis was the pimp in the Regina situation. It was Armand who pimped out Regina. He intentionally used her to trigger another psychotic episode in Louis. Then he brought her back and forced Louis to watch someone who looked like his daughter self harm and kill herself in front of him.
Oh, Lestat de I Gave You to Armand Lioncourt. I bet you’re enjoying your revenge.
Armand said it himself in his letter. He enjoyed watching Louis spiral in grief, addiction, and guilt because it kept Louis bound to him. He pretended to care so he could manipulate Louis into staying longer, gaslight him, and keep messing with his mind. And then there’s the lie. The lie both of these manchildren maintained while painting themselves as the victims who were never understood or loved enough by “cold, selfish Louis.”
Oh, Lestat. Have you ever actually asked why Louis stopped sleeping in a coffin? Did it ever occur to you that it might have something to do with the trial you obviously participated in, the same trial where you still haven’t answered the question of why you crossed the ocean to rehearse a play and kill your daughter, and lynched your ex-husband and willingly let him go with another abuser?
I can accept it if Lestat genuinely hates Louis and sees his actions as revenge. At least that would be honest. But now we’re supposed to believe Paul is thanking him for loving Louis the “right way”? Paul?
Lestat, you are truly narcissistic if you believe you are the best Louis can ever have when you have openly admitted that you gave him to Armand so that you can make Louis suffer.
I’m not from America, but how can the fandom be so oblivious to what feels like victim blaming from the writers and actually think Louis, out of all these fucked up vampires, is the one who needs to be better? He’s the only one who has ever shown Lestat and Armand’s BPD abusive asses genuine compassion. And people don’t think it’s a form of self harm for him to sympathize with his abusers? They clapped and enjoyed that?
And the writers… I don’t understand what kind of resentment they have toward Louis. It’s like they can’t let him be confident or happy. Honestly, the fandom and this season really echo Alderman Fenwick: “The problem with you, Louis, is that you’re too arrogant.”
The whole show seems determined to humble Louis, a man who has already spent so much of his existence drowning in self hatred and guilt. Not only did they make him carry guilt for decades over the very man who tried or threatened to kill him three times, but they also make him apologise to and take care of men who repeatedly lied to him while accusing him of not being vulnerable enough.
I honestly wonder if Lestat and Armand have ever asked themselves why Louis would struggle to trust them enough to be vulnerable and give himself completely to them. Every time Louis got close to opening up, these men did something that shattered that trust all over again.
Louis trusted Armand in the beginning, until Claudia screamed at him that she was threatened by Armand. Louis asked Lestat, “Am I not enough?” and Lestat laughed in his face and suggested an already open relationship. Louis forgave Lestat after hearing the Magnus story and sympathising with his trauma, only for Lestat to cheat on him again, pushing Louis back into depression. Which makes the entire Antoinette discussion in 03x06 even more outrageous.
And Armand, Madeleine said it herself, she felt Louis love for Armand after Armand told him he chose him over the coven. BUT WHY DID LOUIS STOP LOVING HIM? WHY WAS HE NEVER ABLE TO LOVE HIM AGAIN? INDEED, WHY???
It feels like people completely ignored everything established in the first two seasons, and now suddenly Louis is “the pimp,” Louis is the cold and selfish one, while Lestat and Armand are portrayed as poor victims who had no choice but to suffer because of him.
They are traumatized, sure. But instead of confronting their own abusers, they repeatedly displaced that pain onto, further brutalised and blame their partner who was centuries younger, and already drowning in self hate themselves. And somehow the writers think it’s that partner who needs to confront his flaws.
TF
The Paul scene pisses me off the most. They barely mentioned Paul for the longest time, especially in season two, despite him being such an important part of Louis’s own story. Then they bring him back only to use him as a way to validate Lestat’s delusions about himself.
Fine, if the writers want to torture Louis, that’s one thing. But did they really have to taint the most important person in his life just to whitewash his abuser?
my final thoughts on tvl (mostly under a read more as this is a very long post):
from the moment the first episode of the vampire lestat dropped, it was evident that this show was going to be nothing more than a shoddy, poorly paced mess that cared more about humiliating louis—alongside its other black and brown characters—than telling any sort of cohesive or lovingly crafted story. the amc team set out to undo the two previous seasons of impactful writing, and punish those of us who resonated with interview with the vampire and the characters it presented to us viewers.
rolin, hannah & co. rewrote some of their powerhouse characters (louis, claudia and assad) around uplifting a white man and excusing him of the things that he's done, but even in that they failed. because this season did not make lestat more likeable; it barely fleshed out any of his past, but made it a point to show us him kissing his mother every episode, and even that was oftentimes played for no more than shock value or laughs. there was no character development on lestat's part, even when other characters' writing was sacrificed to exonerate him.
there is genuinely no winning with this fandom or show as a black viewer. when the first season came out everyone went on and on about Book Accuracy™ and how the changes made were an affront to the legacy of anne rice's story. and as a result it was review-bombed by racists for how unabashedly black it was. then season two came out and everyone took the opportunity to say that louis was lying about what happened and that he was on an equal playing field regarding lestat and armand. and critics couldn't be bothered to praise jacob, delainey and assad for their incredible performances, instead turning the spotlight on sam, despite lestat being one of the more minor characters until ep 7. and things only got worse once iwtv ended
s3/tvl started promo and already the shift was obvious. rolin talked shit from day one "it's the lestat show", "it's no longer two old men sitting in a room", "the season ended with hugs and kisses", "if you hate this season you hate lestat and daniel" etc. sam had to correct rolin twice over the things he was saying regarding other cast members. promotion for this season when above and beyond, every poster was a lestat solo and people argued that that was due to this being lestat's season. ignoring the fact that lestat was still a prominent character on many of the s2 posters. they did countless tv spots and photoshoots and a live concert and a fashion collab, and basically did everything in their power to promote this now white-led season as much as they could.
they baited people with loustat and lestat flashbacks and incredible writing, claiming that this was their best season yet, and there's been either none or very little of those things. the pacing is awful, louis been reduced to a caricature and punching bag, and not a single character feels fully flushed out or written with genuine passion. yet the book purists aren't kicking up nearly as much of a fuss. lestat being a rockstar was not as big of a plot point as it's been during this season, and they're focusing so much on that (and his relationship with gabriella) that the writing is suffering tremendously.
but then again, i can't even say that because a lot of the choices feel very sinister and intentional: all the women we've seen thus far being sexual props (dee basically just being toted around as a groupie to fuck lestat and whoever else, gabriella being a poorly constructed "femme-fatale" and fucking lestat and whoever else every episode, regina having an only fans, tc having unresolved desires about motherhood(?), christine fucking lestat/being mocked for that and also having a sex dungeon or something? the faux-madeleine kiss). what happened to our well-written and interesting characters? can women not be engaging to viewers unless they're sexual in some way, shape or form?
and louis....they've completely butchered his character to a degree that, as ive said a hundred times before, feels incredibly racist and deliberate. anyone that tries to say that the writers didn't purposefully set out to humiliate louis' character and subject him to as much antiblack racism as possible are purposefully ignoring the evidence in favor of supporting the garbage that was shoveled at us this season. what narrative explanation is there for:
louis apologizing to lestat for a book he didn't want written
louis being called a "nappy headed slave"
louis being told that he can't escape the slave mentality etched into his being
louis being told by claudia that she hates him more than her abusers, rapists, and lynchers
louis sympathizing with a man who mocked his suicide attempt
louis making a comment on being sexually assaulted as a child and never having it explored
louis specifically having his head cut off and put on display
louis being tortured by armand (the man who organized his lynching) and apologizing to armand
louis having armand carve a branding (the first letter of armand's name) into his chest following his (louis') being called a slave in the prior episode
louis' torture being broadcasted live as some sort of fucked up red-room bullshit
louis not seeing the ghost/hallucination of his brother, but that being reserved for lestat. and that ghost then apologizing to lestat on louis' behalf and thanking lestat for "loving him the way he needs to be loved".
nothing that the writers had louis experience this season did anything for his character, he was used for torture porn and to lick the wounds of his white (ex)-partner, who he still refers to as the love of his life. louis is denied the right to be a victim and expected to understand that everything he went through was ultimately a result of his own sins and flaws. why was louis not someone that armand apologized to when he wrote his letters? because those apologies were reserved for white men that he did not hurt nearly as much as louis?
why did armand torture louis but leave lestat alone? why did the writers have armand torture a black woman as a way to hurt louis, but lestat was spared from this horrific abuse? why did louis have to apologize to armand for not loving him or whatever the fuck, while lestat was, as i said, not faced with this name vitriol? i don't even care about "ship wars" at this point, but why did armand tell louis that he never really loved him? and to expand on that point; why did claudia also tell louis that lestat was the one that she actually liked? why, again and again, is louis being shown as unlovable, undesirable, and the true evil villain that has plagued everyone's past.
there is a specific sick joy taken by the writers in subjecting louis (and regina and claudia) to as much antiblackness and suffering and cruelty as possible. louis is a victim as much (and even more, at times) than any one of the other main characters this season, and yet that is constantly cast aside so they can continue to push this rhetoric that louis is The Awful, Manipulative Pimp.
nevermind the fact that lestat murdered prostitutes and kept dee around to do no more than fuck and drink from her. nevermind the fact that armand kidnapped people to be tortured and eaten for his shitty plays. nevermind the fact that lestat and armand directly contributed to the almost-lynching of louis and the lynching of his daughter and her lover. "they're all monsters, they're going to behave this way" except for when its louis, then he needs to be repeatedly punished?
and with regards to the trial: why is that never fully addressed again? lestat can be disproportionately mad at louis for a book daniel wrote and published (without his permission), but louis can't be upset at lestat for taking part in the murder of their daughter? they couldn't even be bothered to write lestat telling louis that he was under armand's control. would that have not been another way to absolve this white man of his crimes, as they're so eager to do? but because they have it said two times that lestat went there of his own volition, we're just supposed to gloss over the fact that this man knowingly planned to murder his lover, and succeeded in murdering his daughter? but louis is the one that apologizes and begs for forgiveness??
this is a quick aside, but they also completely ruined armand's character. they took such a complex, interesting and fantastic character and stripped him of all his parts. now he's just the undesirable south-asian man (which is horribly racist in and of itself) that deluded himself into thinking he and lestat had a relationship, and apologizes genuinely to his white lovers but hates the black man he lied to and brainwashed for 77 years. the writers use armand as another character (like claudia) to spew their personal hatred for louis, and believe that they will be above reproach because armand is not a white man.
armand is a survivor of csa and that is their excuse for how he brutally tortures louis and drags an apology out of him, but when does he subject gabriella to this? she abused lestat for decades and decades as both a mortal and a vampire. but since that wasn't done to armand he doesn't care? but oh wait...that argument falls apart when you realize that louis didn't sexually abuse armand either. he is being punished for something he did (not to armand) over a century ago, and if that's the case, lestat and armand and gabriella should be drawn and quartered for their crimes. but, no, nothing anyone else does matters, this season is solely about humiliating louis as much as possible. lestat and daniel actually made fun of armand's trauma this season, but it's louis that deserves to be tortured....right, right...
i really don't even care about loustat at this point, but we were told that we were going to see louis "through lestat's eyes" and that it was going to be beautiful and this was allegedly the coolest louis has ever looked. but all we've gotten is lestat being horribly cruel to louis and calling him crazy, mocking his suicide attempt, and acting put-upon when louis goes to him for help. the closest we came to genuine loustat was at the very beginning of the season. and then when the book dropped they used that as an excuse to have lestat disparage louis in one way or another every time he's mentioned or they share a scene.
every single relationship louis made in the iwtv s1 & s2 is butchered or straight-up retconned. daniel wanted to reconcile with louis but all of a sudden doesn't care about that and is willing to help armand enact his laughably villainish plan? armand was chasing after louis and begging him to understand the end of the previous season but now he's torturing louis and forcing him to apologize for...what exactly? claudia berates him and the complex feelings she had for louis are watered down to vitriolic rage and antiblack language reserved solely for only one of her parents? lestat was tearful and remorseful during the iwtv s2 finale but is now mocking louis' suicide attempt and calling him a cancerous jackal?
the finale was all of their grievances with louis and hatred for the explicit blackness of the first two (but especially first) seasons rearing its nasty, ugly head. they succeeded in destroying beloved characters and giving the racist fans that hated louis exactly what they wanted. they backed out of and changed almost every writing choice they made during iwtv s1 and s2, and even if their end goal for this show was to drive louis and lestat back together, they did that in the most manufactured and racist way possible.
there was no story told this season, we learned almost nothing new by the end of it. akasha didn't even awaken and the rockstar angle was pointless and used as nothing more than to artificially pad the runtime and make up plot points that went literally nowhere. tvl felt like the writers fucked up version of a 'fix it' fanfiction, because there was nothing that needed to be fixed in iwtv to begin with.
in conclusion, this show did not need to be made. begging jacob to come back just for his character to be treated this way was very, very callous and disrespectful to the phenomenal acting that jacob does. to say im disappointed and heartbroken for jacob, delainey and assad would be an understatement—they have been forced to defend and explain awful choices made for their characters this season despite not having been the ones to write them. and people will continue to use them as scapegoats for this season to pretend that "they were on board" with the racism and antiblackness, as if black and brown actors aren't repeatedly blacklisted for speaking out against bigoted writing choices. my heart bleeds for whatever jacob and assad will be subjected to at sdcc.
tldr; this season would have been written completely differently had louis, claudia and armand been white as they were in the books. rolin, hannah and the others writers for this season sought to create an antiblack, racist, misogynistic, misogynoir-laden mess in a failed attempt to rewrite their white lead's cruelties and victimize him at the expense of every non-white character in the show. and they delight in watching a large portion of their viewership happily consume this slop and defend every single one of their writing choices while their black and brown cast are put on the spot to defend this shit. it is obvious, and to defend or excuse it is doing no more than showing that you support what they've done and don't care about how harmful it is.
and, finally: if you're going to come into my comments or ask box to defend the blatant racism this season, please do not waste your breath. im at the point now where i will be blocking you instead of explaining my thoughts for the hundred millionth time. and beyond that, i have no desire to go back and forth with racist, media illiterate people on the internet.
The only person who has ever shown compassion to Lesmand is Louis. And yet they are the ones who brutalize him the most. Not their own abusers. Not each other, who they supposedly resent and have a love/hate relationship. But Louis. Again and again, they punish him for “not loving them enough.”
These centuries old manchildren keep displacing their anger onto their partner while casting themselves as the victims, and somehow the fandom goes along with it.
What frustrates me most is that I love Armand as a character. But this isn’t the Loumand from the books. This isn’t who Armand should be tormenting. Why are the writers so determined to turn Louis into nothing but Lesmand’s emotional and physical punching bag?
And the Paul scene? Please leave Paul alone, Lestat. Paul believed his brother deserved so much more. The two of them loved each other unconditionally, something that stands in stark contrast to “I crushed what I couldn’t own” and “I gave you to Armand.”
I genuinely hate this season.
I think I need to draw Louis instead and honor the character from Seasons 1 and 2, and honestly, even the Louis we’ve known up until now. Because no matter what this season insists on saying about him, Louis always tried to find meaning, to understand, and to become better.
Jacob Anderson once said that Louis blames himself for things that aren’t his fault, and that’s exactly what this feels like. Louis desperately needs to stop empathizing with people who are actively abusing him.
Showing compassion to your abuser while they’re still harming you, before they’ve even genuinely acknowledged what they’ve done, isn’t healing.
I'm genuinely so angry at what TVL writers did, I could cry. But it's just fury and numbness rolled into one. They played in everyone's faces.
I feel the same. I went from cautious optimism leading up to it, to falling out of love with the show and not caring if we get anymore seasons by ep 4.
I cried watching Louis being tortured all over again. Showing compassion to your abuser while they are still hurting you and before they’ve even acknowledged what they did is a form of self-harm. On top of everything Louis has already endured, they had him do that too. I fucking hate this episode.
I'm going to start this by saying if you're NOT BLACK and you come on here trying to tell me what other Black people are saying, or tell me about the books - A)you're getting blocked B) I know what you are - so stay in a white baby's place, which is not my comments.
See. the one thing that has remained true about all three seasons, is that Memory IS A Monster. Just not in the way these showrunners and writers are thinking.
The importance of having Black people in the writers room is not just the handling of dialog, but in the assistance of knowing details and the effect it may, or may not have on an audience. Now we know Rolin Jones wasn't eeeeeeeever going to allow them to call the trial a LYNCHING, because whiteness has to defend itself, but there are other things that stand out to me as a Black viewer.
LOUIS THE PIMP
I remember the very first time Mr. Charles and I watched S1Ep1 and Daniel says "You were a pimp!" in this kind of 'homg, what kind of Black debauchery is this' way. We were cackling.
Have you ever met S1Ep1 Louis de Pointe du Lac? He banters with the girls, who in turn are not afraid to say whatever they want to him. He tries to smooth over problems and the only person we see him get rowdy with is Paul, because "You couldn't look weak on Liberty Street”
This was no Iceberg Slim. This wasn't Max Julien's Goldie. He wasn't even Willie Dynamite. That doesn't take away from the effect Louis had on his girls, those that cried and as he said, he stuffed his ears from the hearing of said cries - but he wasn't like others that I knew from the culture.
So, why has so much been made of Louis The Pimp this season? It's been hammered on again and again. Well, I think Merrick Mayfair tells us what the issue is in Episode 6.
"Great Mama Ernestine sends her regards, says the du Lac boys walked past her porch heads so high you wouldn’t know their money came from flesh."
You know who else had money that came from flesh? Louis de Pointe du Lac. The white one, from the books and films. Vampiredom's saddest, loneliest Participant in That Most Peculiar Institution.
I think this is RJ & Crew's way of saying "Sure, swap 'em out. Racebend to your heart's content, but he's not any better than the slave master and don't you forget it!"
Which is disingenuous for reasons I shouldn't have to explain to grown ass adults on this site.
This season, in my opinion, is about resentment of the Black characters. You don't have to agree, because I'm not writing this for agreement. I'm just thinking out loud. If you like s3, I love that for you. Anyways, the fandom to some degree has always hated Louis, but now I believe the writers are showing their hatred of this Louis to us. This Claudia This season is about the unmaking of these Black characters.
We've all seen the "Louisiana fried chicken" comment. That's not by accident, or a throwaway line. That's to "humble" the Black man that bought his sister a honeymoon package on The Blackstar Line - a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey, the organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
Rolin & Co. have fans clamouring for the 'knocking down a peg or two" of the Black man who loved his 'churchy', mentally ill brother enough to not institutionalize him and with him, give us a taste of our much beloved Nicholas, or Hines Brothers.
"With Episode 1, titled “In Throes of Increasing Wonder…,” the show not only crafts one of the best pilots in the history of television, it also showcases Black culture in New Orleans, and how essential this is to Louis’ life. It’s clear here, from Louis being called a slur by a fellow businessman to the familial joy seen at his sister Grace’s (Kalyne Coleman) wedding, that Blackness is not only integral to Louis’ story, but the story this adaptation is trying to tell." Paste Magazine
This is about the unmaking of Louis de Pointe du Lac and Claudia.
"I always thought that Louis slightly cribbed James Baldwin's speech patterns, and that's what he took with him to Dubai. It's an affectation. But then as he comes back to himself, his real, true New Orleans accent creeps back in." Jacob Anderson, Backstage
Claudia, Episode 6:
"took your Black queen and ran off with him across the ocean..."
Young militants referred to Baldwin, unsmilingly, as Martin Luther Queen. Henry Louis Gates, The Fire Last Time
The use of another Black voice to say these things is certainly interesting, but unsurprising. (I don't need to get into everything she said for obvious reasons - if you're fine with everything she said, hooray for you, we're here for what I think.)
"The one good thing in my bleak… [sobbing] Black life, and I don’t know where she is!"
I won't argue the difficulty of living as a Black woman with people who aren't either one, or agree with the sentiment above. I will point out that in her time in NOLA, following her transformation, Claudia did live better materially than most Black girls and women. The most notable exceptions that we know through the show being Grace and Florence - who did not live 'bleak Black lives'.
Claudia as a vampire had better chances at survival than most Black girls and women, even in her worst circumstances. But that line, isn't about any of that - that line is to undo every moment in S1 where Claudia did have moments of happiness. To undo moments in S2 where she found acceptance and what she wanted.
"Bleak Black Life", indeed. Catchy isn't it? Like the antithesis of 'Black Lives Matter'. AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE US - LOOK AT DEE PHARMA. A COCAINE WHORE BUCKET. (they like buckets, these white writers - buckets of chicken, whore buckets...)
AND SPEAKING OF HYPERSEXUALIZATION…
"Some joy I know, knowin’ is how good I humiliated you in New Orleans, how I ginned up the train for the slave here.
'Lestat said he’d do worse than rape me, Daddy Lou.'
Worked good, didn’t it?"
Because the only solution to having an audience thinking their white lead was capable of victimizing these Blacks that the writers didn't want in the first place, is to show that a lynched, Black female (I use this word deliberately) is unworthy of your belief with regards to him.
The same white guy that killed poor Miss Lilly for the crime of being a poor substitute for Louis. That dropped Louis from miles above earth. That raged at Claudia like she was a rival lover instead of an inconvenient daughter.
This guy can't be held up as the great focus for the Great Conversion to S3 and a whiter audience and whiter tastes without the undoing and unmaking and unmanning of the lead/s of S1&S2.
Come on now, this was a bit heavy handed (from Merrick's summoning):
"Son of Ham," - That's real cute, paired with Claudia calling him a slave multiple times.
I don't need to get hit repeatedly on the head with a hammer to get the message Rolin & Co are sending. I'm out - but I just wanted to be clear about the why.
im honestly still not over this like a room full of nonblack people wrote claudia calling louis nappy-headed and telling him that etched in his ribs was the proof that he's a slave. something so horrifically anti-black because of its implications that louis being a slave is genetic and interwoven with his dna. that's literally a white supremacist talking point. they had claudia, a black person with a white lover, mock louis for being a black person with a white lover, and say that lestat was her actual blood relative after rejecting his blood in s2, acknowledging that it wasn't good enough for madeleine.
rolin truly said this and believed it to be true, and that should be enough for everyone to know what kind of person he is:
they had claudia refer to her life as not only bleak, but specifically bleak and black. a character who was never ashamed of her blackness. they had her say that she hates louis more than her rapist, abuser, and the people that orchestrated her lynching and burned her lover alive. they completely destroyed her character and killed two birds with one stone, butchering who claudia always was/how she saw louis and lestat, and throwing in more insults and hate at louis while mostly ignoring lestat.
and making it so that claudia is suffering endlessly, even in death, felt like another purposeful story choice. not to make claudia's character even more heartbreaking, either. it was pointless no matter how you look at it. this just felt like yet another way to torture a black character, and a black character that has been repeatedly exploited all season for everyone else's feelings. furthermore, summoning claudia had no effect on louis and lestat at all, as they were immediately over it by the next scene.
none of the heavy storybeats can have any emotional impact because both us and the characters are never given time to absorb them. they're just checking boxes with these heavy moments and moving onto the next scene. and all of this is, again, so we can absolve lestat of his wrongdoings and ensure no blame falls on him. his trauma is the only important thing in the show and the only thing worth discussing/unpacking. it's just antiblack, misogynistic writing again and again every week and rehashing it feels pointless but i can't help myself.
aside from the blatant racism and misogynoir, i also get the impression that these writers are just trying to get their quoteable, hashtag-able, gif-worthy scenes each episode. who needs a cohesive plot when you can have lestat say "serving cunt has its consequences" or give the viewers an iconic shot of their favorite ship that feels entirely unearned—one of my examples of this being the fact that devils minion feels like they just put together a bunch of shots that they thought people would love, without actually telling a story with these two characters. everything we learn of their history and relationship is given to us through exposition. and because assad is such a fantastic actor, he's making these scraps into something interesting.
the showrunners are no longer pretending to be subtle with their sloppy writing, poor pacing, and hatred towards louis and claudia. they're just writing the racism right into the script and think that, because a black character says it, they're free from all criticism. and a majority of their nonblack fans are jumping to defend them by saying that claudia's rage is justified and if you claim otherwise (even if you're not saying that) then you can't accept black characters being cruel and/or evil. which isn't true at all.
claudia's rage is entirely justified, her berating the two people that were supposed to love her and put her first but instead used both her life and death for their own gain is not the issue here. she could've been as cruel as she wanted—but having her say a slew of horribly racist things to louis and direct most of her ire towards him as opposed to lestat or the both of them equally was nothing more than these antiblack writers once again degrading louis for their own enjoyment because they hate his character and know they can get away with dragging him through the mud. especially if they hide behind another black character.
even the decapitation at the end felt like a quick moment of shock to the viewer that turned comical immediately after. the abysmal pacing of this show makes it so that loustat being beheaded has no actual weight because we know they're fine and we're given no opportunity to sit with this moment. there are no stakes and there was no real buildup to it. nor to armand and daniel coming up with this plan and suddenly working together the way they are. in fact after the dust settled, id say the scene was borderline cartoonishly evil.
these writers will never face the backlash that they deserve for this joke of a season. not only does this show not deserve to be renewed, but i sincerely hope that jacob, delainey and assad are (aside from being able to talk about it privately in some way) one day able to publicly talk about the racist/misogynistic bullshit that they had to endure this season all in the name of propping up a white character and furthering a bullshit narrative.
This has honestly ruined the first two seasons for me. I got hooked because of how well the show portrayed relationships, and I was deeply invested in Louis’s relationships with Daniel, Armand, Claudia, and Lestat.
But now it feels like this season is telling us that Louis has been using everyone, that everyone hates him, and yet the only person he ever apologizes to is Lestat. At this point, I can’t help but feel like I wasted my time watching IWTV.
And JA was right, this isn’t Louis’s vocabulary. I miss the depth, nuance, and emotional complexity of his character.
This is a quote from the production designer (Andres Cubillan) The way that the creative acts is so weird to me. Is that unfair? I mean, who is making this a competition but you? Nobody made you bring up the other characters.
Also in this article he references that Lestat probably crafts the apartment for Louis but he describes none of what that would mean 😪
Can we seriously discuss the language being used ? “What does his skin tone look like against these colors?” ???!?!? They never say that shit about a white character
@likecopperlikesalt I LOVE this point you made; I needed to address it separately.
IWTV Musings: Abuse Victims CAN Still Take Control (Gabrielle/a de Lioncourt & LDPDL)
I get SO irritated when people in this fandom labor under the misconception that a victim MUST be perfectly useless; that they're weak, never fight back, never have any say, never wield control/power, and are total doormats at the utter whim of their partner. NO. Just because someone weaponizes their limited power does NOT mean they're NOT a victim. And I fear that AMC!Gabrielle/a is gonna get reamed by this pearl-clutching fandom when we see precisely how "chaotic / empowering, manipulative" and unhinged she is. Cuz yeah, she does do some effed up stuff, even in the book--as a way to try and gain agency over her life that had spiraled out of her control.
"she wanted to be free and she did not want to serve her husband as a dead vampire."
Before I get into the letter @likecopperlikesalt mentioned, I'll take their last point about FREEDOM first. Cuz it goes back to the whole kerfluffle over Gabrielle's name being changed to Gabriella, and the first hints we got at NYCC25:
Even in the book, it was clear that Gabrielle/a did NOT want to be married or live in Auvergne. But I was taken aback by Ehle saying Gabe didn't even choose to marry the Marquis--this was strictly a transactional arranged marriage; where she was SOLD off to him. 😬
So I REALLY like Rolin's explanation here; it puts things into a much clearer perspective. It goes back to my point about Arun vs Amadeo/Armand & what a slave name entails: when someone's taken against their will from their homeland/native culture, relocated somewhere they can't escape, and given a brand new name that erases their old identity. For all intents & purposes, Gabrielle is Gabriella's slave name--OOF. 😔
"the extent of her withholding info is delaying one letter about his abusive, blind father whom she at least tried to mitigate or soften some of his abuse of Lestat. And witholding info is maybe months, not like hundreds of years. It's not even on the same scale."
I am SOOOO excited for this! People in this braindead fandom keep acting like a problematic person can't also be a victim; like there aren't folks who give their husbands HELL strictly because they're victims of patriarchal abuse. The only way they can exert any agency/power is to make their husband's life miserable--lying, conniving, manipulating, withholding, etc., being a total wench.
Some Lestans think it's a gotcha! to point out that Louis & Gabrielle were the ones running their awful households into the mud--AND?!
book!Gabrielle lied all the time, DUH! Yes, Gabe is the one who let the Chateau de Lioncourt fall to wreck & ruin--because SHE didn't wanna give the Marquis or their sons anymore of her dowry money, knowing they'd just waste what little she had left on gambling & women & other stupidness. They were poor because SHE let them stay poor, and lied about how much money she had. SHE was the one in control: of the purse-strings; and SHE was the one who decided whether Lestat would go to the monastery/circus/Paris/etc; cussing out the Marquis when she had to, to make sure Lestat had as many chances to escape & thrive as possible; when SHE couldn't.
Lestat HATED living in poverty, and he resented Gabe A LOT for withholding--affection, literacy, money, etc. But he also came around to realizing WHY she hoarded all of her money away, and only spent it on her books--and things to help Lestat GTFO Auvergne.
She was PISSED in the PL Trilogy when Lestat renovated the Chateau and asked her to move back to Auvergne with him; the same way she was PISSED when she hid the letter about Lestat's brothers being guillotined, cuz she was like good riddance to bad rubbish; eff them kids! She was FINE letting them all die & leaving the Marquis stranded in the middle of the mobs & letting the castle crumble; lying to Lestat about what happened to his letters for weeks if not months on end.
Cuz she was abused, and miserable, and realized that the only power she held was through withholding, and manipulating/hiding the truth--about her finances, about the Revolution, etc; just to hold on to the little bit she had left. She wanted to keep Lestat close to her, too. And she was mad that he was still stuck holding on to his human family-just like LESTAT got mad at LOUIS, ironically. Because once again, yes, there are ways that spouses DO exert their own control & agency, while still operating under oppressive systems--even ones that LET them run roughshod, but simultaneously undermine them regardless.
Louis vs Lestat
Louis LITERALLY said "He didn't choose me to be his doormat. I knew he enjoyed it when I fought back." Louis deludes himself into thinking he's not a victim and wasn't abused because he DID fight back, and he DOES blamed himself and take accountability for the role he played in the Unholy Family imploding; internalizing every negative thing spewed at him at that disgusting Trail--the same exact garbage the Santiagoites in this rotten fandom had been saying ever since 1x5. They take the "negative" combative & confrontational head-f**k aspects of Louis' personality in bad faith, to BLAME him for everything by insisting how much "worse" he was than Lestat AND Armand; for having the nerve to stand up to them at all--and call HIM "the aggressor" & abuser towards Lestat AND Armand; while ignoring all the ways Lestat perpetuated his own father's patriarchal abuse (with his own sadistic twists); and ignoring how Armand gaslit TF out of Louis; the biggest headf**k on the show (x x x).
Louis gets his lickbacks from Lestat even outside the Ep5 Fight. I've BEEN saying since S1 that Louis has a lot of power in submission, because Louis IS a femme fatale in the Gothic genre; esp. vs Lestat. And whaddaya know, Jacob Anderson proved me right when he said he based his version Louis on the most famous Black maneaters/femme fatales in African American pop culture: Eartha Kitt & Grace Jones--cuz DUH! (x x). Is JA being a gender-essentialist misogynistic homophobe for feminizing Louis? NO! It's because there are BLATANT parallels with Louis and certain women in TVC that dingbats in this media illiterate fandom REFUSE to acknowledge, cuz they HATE giving Louis a SHRED of grace/credit as a gay Black man in Jim Crow who emulated/mimicked heteronormative traditional family values in his relationships, since that was the model during his time period Pre-Feminism & pre-Stonewall, DUH. Louis was determined to assert his masculinity and NOT be emasculated by his husbands, and he hit below the belt every effing chance to give as good/bad as he got. But his husbands trounced him every time he "acted out" and got too uppity, putting him right back in "his place."
But like I've said before, Gabrielle is FAR more successful than Louis is at resisting their crazy husband's influence, and living a more empowered life embracing the Dark Gifts, because despite the ways they're similar, there's very important ways they differ:
Gabrielle was HAPPY back in Italy, and just wanted to go back home. Lestat was HAPPY being in the monastery & in the circus. Louis told Lestat to his face "we were NEVER happy!," cuz Louis' been depressed his ENTIRE life, and has struggled his entire life. Jacob Anderson explained how Louis holds himself back just as much as other people hold him back, because he IS conflicted about his identity, and what he does & doesn't want in life; what he's deathly afraid to sacrifice or give up or let go of; with personal hangups that Gabrielle (let alone Lestat) NEVER felt or possessed.
Louis HATES himself, and he HATES his life, even after he's given the Dark Gift that liberated Gabrielle & Lestat. This is because of the FACT that Louis' NEVER felt "comfortable with who he is" in his own skin, as a Black closeted gay Catholic during Jim Crow--beaten down socio-economically because of his race, or forced to perform gender/sexuality by everyone he ever met, with the exception of PAUL. And even after he's a vampire, he thinks he's a "botched" job cuz he can't bring himself to get over killing humans as quickly as Lestat pushed him to; mocking him for wanting to go vegan or at least scale back & "be more selective" about not killing any ole soul.
So when people act like there's nothing Lestat ever did to make Louis feel like he had less control/agency, or wasn't Lestat's equal, and only listen to Louis when he accepts the internalized bullcrap about himself that other people fed to him, I give them a SERIOUS side eye. And I'll look at folks the same way if they start talking out the side of their neck about Gabrielle reacting to her abusers/oppressors, too.
Louis S3 anthem (in my delulu head): “Every Girl You've Ever Loved” — Miley Cyrus
I can hold you like a man and let you cry like a child
Looking for the one
But one is never enough
I'm every girl you've ever loved
I'm a little bit angel, I'm a little bit not
Why're you still holding onto your heart?
Come get under the one that you've been dreaming of
I'm every girl you've ever loved
