You have wonderful takes on IWTV and I love your thoughts on louclaudia. So I was wondering, what are your thoughts on the take: “Louis was just as responsible for Claudia’s death as Lestat was”?
I’ve seen this said often. I don’t really agree with it and feel like it’s… strange but I can’t fully put into words why it feels off. Even if you support the “Lestat was being held against his will” theory, and while I’m sure there was a level of coercion involved, it’s hard for me to see them as having equal responsibility given Armantiago’s plan was for Louclaudia to die by Lestat’s hand.
Like, even if the three of them were all being held against their will in some way, Lestat was not on the chopping block, meanwhile Louis was supposed to die just as much as Claudia was. I struggle to see Louis & Lestat’s involvement as being anywhere close to equal when it comes to the trial.
But maybe I’m wearing rose colored glasses and love Louis too much idk. What are your thoughts on that take?
Hi nonnie! My thoughts are that the take is complete horseshit pedalled by losers who love to stan “problematic faves” and then can’t handle the shit their faves did so try to “share” the blame. I mean how the hell are you seriously going to blame the death of a victim of a lynching on another victim of THE VERY SAME LYNCHING. Can we get a fucking grip in this fandom for fuck’s sake!
Louis can be blamed for his share of things wrt Claudia (and if you don’t make that disclaimer explicitly on every damn post this stupid ass fandom will crawl up your ass whinging and whining even if you already talked about where he holds responsibility) but her death is not one of them. There is no equal blame to spread around. Armand is responsible for her death bc he directed the lynching. Santiago and the rest of the fuck ass coven are responsible for her death bc they carried out the lynching. Lestat’s level of responsibility is to be confirmed I suppose but at the very least there is some bc within the constraints of what he could or couldn’t do, it is a fact that he had the power to make the audience pick a different sentence for Claudia, and he chose not to. And this is intentional - she was sentenced before Louis, so there’s no excuse of “oh, he meant to, but he didn’t have enough power left after saving Louis” no, he chose to not even try to save Claudia. He made that decision knowingly.
What the hell could Louis have done to save her? Beaten and starved with his ankles slashed right alongside her? Mind you he still tried, he literally threw himself off the bench to try to get at Santiago and they all laughed at him bc everyone knew was futile. Even if folks wanna talk about before, how the hell could he have known that Armand was planning to lynch them? He was literally with Armand for Claudia’s safety, right from when Armand implicitly threatened them both when he took Louis down to that tunnel. As far as Louis could reason, they should’ve been safe from Armand so long as he gave himself to Armand, and since Armand is stronger than the whole coven, they should’ve been safe from them too.
The only thing Louis did wrong re: keeping Claudia safe from Armand and the coven was not telling her that Armand knew about Lestat. She had every right to know so she could guard herself, and if Louis had told her, maybe they could’ve come up with a plan together to deal with it. We know why he didn’t - he didn’t want to ruin her happiness with the coven - but it was still a wrong move. It’s debatable how much it would’ve mattered seeing as Armand didn’t intend to let them leave anyway (and before any idiot brings up 2x04 don’t bother bc when Louis wanted to leave in 2x03 Armand was like “should I allow the London coven such exposure?” CLEARLY that suggestion was bs. He knew damn well that Louis wouldn’t leave without Claudia right after Armand himself had just threatened her. And when she left he waited until she came back to see Louis and fucking lynched her) but they may have stood more of a chance anyway.
And if we’re counting ALL possible blame then we gotta turn back to Lestat again bc if he hadn’t been so cruel and abusive to Claudia that she believed every word out of his mouth was a lie, if he had actually been forthcoming about Paris and the danger there instead of withholding information as usual, then even if Claudia decided to go to Europe anyway, she would’ve been armed with knowledge and cautious about Paris, not so willing to trust the coven. And I know someone is gonna come with a “well akshully he couldn’t say anything bc of Marius and Those Who Must Be Kept! He tried to warn her when he said “the vampires out there are vicious”!” so I will preemptively call bullshit bc 1. Marius had nothing to do with Lestat’s business with the Paris coven. Lestat mentioned Nicki didn’t he? So he absolutely could’ve talked about Paris. He could’ve told them about Armand. He could’ve told them how Armand was involved in Nicki’s death, but he didn’t. Also, it’s laughable to expect Claudia to believe a word out of Lestat’s mouth in that moment when the very next thing he does is belittle her sexual assault and then mock Charlie’s death and then… oh yeah, attack Claudia and almost fucking kill Louis for wanting to leave with her. Forgive me, but I’d be a little skeptical too.
So no, the level of responsibility is nowhere close to equal. The chain of blame goes:
Armand for orchestrating the lynching
The fuckass coven for carrying it out
Lestat for being a shit father and a relentless abuser, and for choosing not to save Claudia, his daughter
The evil ugly audience for being evil and antiblack
Maaaaybe Louis. If you squint and turn your head to the side and bend all the way over. And believe that a person can be responsible for their own lynching.
N.B. Louis blames himself bc of fucking course he does. That’s like. Normal anyway for a grieving parent, but we’re talking ldpdl here, king of self flagellation. But while Claudia’s turning is actually something they share equal blame in (if Louis hadn’t begged, Lestat wouldn’t have turned her, but if Lestat didn’t turn her, Louis couldn’t have done anything but accept it ultimately), that isn’t the same as her death (the permanent one, at least. The first death isn’t actually either of them’ fault, it’s a result of systemic antiblackness leading to a fucking race riot and while I have a lot to say about Lestat’s response to that, it’s not something either of them had control over bc that’s the nature of race riots), and she was never actually “doomed”, despite how people love to push that narrative both in the text and in the fandom. She had made a good life for herself and was frankly better adjusted than the rest of them. She would’ve made it, had Armand and the coven not decided to lynch her.