Really fixated on Lestat, Claudia and Armand all having SA trauma and none of them being able to help each other (trigger warning ahead: discussing CSA and SA)
There are parallels between Lestat and Claudia, Claudia and Armand and Lestat and Armand respectively, and all of them clashed with each other. They had too much in common. The kinship they could’ve had was never fully realised because they were too traumatised to allow it. I could write individual essays on each of them but I don’t want it to be too long.
Armand and Claudia is interesting. Armand has the most experience with being assaulted. It happens as a child at the brothel. That is repeated, unrelenting assault that left him with memory loss. Then he’s taken by Marius who convinces him that his assault of him is different because this isn’t abuse! It’s love! This is what love looks like! Hope this doesn’t forever change your ability to form healthy relationships! Then he has the cult warping his mind again and making him feel shame about sex. So many layers of aggressive abuse so it’s easy to see why he can’t face it. He’s traumatised and repressed and he has hundreds of years between him and the abuse too.
But it only needs to happen once for it to do damage, and it seemed to have been a repeat experience for both Lestat and Claudia too. They were both trapped for a finite amount of time and subjected to the abuse over and over but then they were ‘let go.’ This should’ve bonded them, even if they never spoke about it directly. But it didn’t. Claudia never knew what her maker went through because if he looked at her for too long, he might see himself in her. His daughter was his mirror and we know how vampires feel about mirrors…
On the topic of mirrors, Lestat and Armand. What to say about them? Lestat’s need to ridicule him says enough, I think. His self-hatred being passed off onto another person he has a little too much in common with. I see you, Lestat, even if you don’t.
The distinct difference here, regarding the Claudia of it all, is that Armand was not Claudia’s maker. She did not view him as a father. That’s where the real hurt is, I think. Some of it, at least.
Though you could also argue that the distance could’ve made it easier for them to bond. And they had age in common too.
Regardless, these people all could’ve helped each other. But it’s one of the hardest things to confront. Claudia was most aware that her abuse was abuse. Armand seems to understand that some of it was abuse. Lestat is the most in denial. None of them are wrong for responding this way. It’s the most horrendous thing anyone can ever go through. But mixing sexual trauma and vampirism clearly only leads to disaster.
I’m really glad this show is doing this. I hate SA in media usually because it’s so prominent and so exploitative, but this feels real. The fallout from this sort of experience is messy and it fucks you up forever and enables you fucking up other people too. But the show treats them all with empathy, and I really appreciate that.
