Ok so my two cents on the vampire show having watched S3 is like
I very much liked it. I read the first book but otherwise I'm show-only.
It's a vast departure in tone and pov because we're getting it from Lestat's pov. Not to mention after 77 years of being pretty much alone and probably on the internet way too much.
Are we forgetting all of s2 where Louis' memories are unraveling and we see where he was also selfish and seeing lestat through rose tinted glasses? Where the whole 2 seasons Claudia was begging to be prioritized, where here stories and feelings were editorialized? Where her memory was used to recraft her tragedy and neglect into something that absolves Louis of his own guilt, when he knew he was dooming her to a volatile existence? As was explained to him at her turning and several times after?
I understand that there may be more of a desire to have seen some relationships developing, and I totally understand the desire to have more screentime with Armand, letting Daniel be more clever, people not getting what's going on with the Great Conversion - these are also threads that were planted in iwtv and if there was more of a focus on the modern day and rumination on the past, centring trauma and abuse it's because these are the things haunting Lestat.
In this continuance we have the framing device of the failures with Daniel on the road with them filming a docu. It's a separate thing, which will highlight different aspects of the characters but I don't see any where these characters were entirely butchered?
I even liked Gabriella and her weird little boy mom/gf angle. I liked that she was unlikeable and I love the concept of her character where she was unable to escape her life and tired of being a mom by like her 8th pregnancy. She is a groomer but her possessiveness is complex. It comes from also Lestat being codependent for too long and wanting to have her around, which neither of them are equipped to deal with what with Gabriella never having been able to choose anything for herself and Lestat not having been able to see himself beyond his belittled existence in his human family. I would have wanted to see her tmasc swag but I also think that as she uses sex to control her son, it's still a compelling enough abuse/codependency angle. The reckoning with the grotesquerie of it was a really powerful scene, and relatable to me as someone coming to terms with control-telated trauma from.my own family which was not sexual, sure, but it's always hard to admit when the people you love have harmed you.
Its also not uncharacteristic for the Chronicles. In iwtv we are also introduced to this sort of thing -grooming and incest. Tuan and Quang Pham are having threesomes with each other. There is a lot of implied child sexual abuse going on. There is even a remark where Louis had a 16 year old lover when he was "older" than that. People speculate on Claudia being Louis' child bride, which in the book is kind of a thing. This was a temperature gauge in how we will handle abusive sexual relationships in future explorations.
The accusations of racism are strange to me as well. In the first 2 seasons we had Claudia referring to Louis as a slave already. We had Louis being made to act like a valet for Lestat. He had racist violence being depicted in the show. We even had Madeleine having a sexual history with a Nazi? There was always racial weirdness and to be honest, it's era appropriate where selfish people make relationships with flawed people as it benefits them. Geopolitically, socioeconomically, the first 2 seasons were entirely set in Dubai which in the real world is run by exploited slave labour, something Louis is never made to contend with.
Louis as a beneficiary of exploitation was always part of him as a capitalist - where he was a beneficiary of a sugar plantation then a brothel, and later in real estate and fine art, a part of him we see realized in the present day as one of the richest people in the world. In the damn 70s he was picking up queer men and draining them. He's not in it for community and we can see that he never was. This is not to cancel him, but it's an alluring aspect of his character and a central tension with Armand as was elaborated on in the finale. This is part of his failure to understand and care for his own, another central aspect to his distancing himself from his human family. Claudia was always a prop for him to feel redemption from his past failures and sins and he constantly failed her.
As a person of colour, I do understand this is the white boy season, and we see less of our faves who are characters of colour we have grown to love and appreciate. That being said, I think it makes sense with who is telling the story, and I would rather have these characters be treated with the messy nuance of being imperfect and horrible people. It's necessary that POC aren't automatically taken as perfect beings who will always act rationally for themselves and others of their communities and in-groups. Maybe it should have focussed on another character and have been an entirely different project. But we aren't judging the imaginary juggernaut we think this should have been in the safety of our minds.
Like are we mad that our faves weren't fucking enough? Yeah it's fun to watch these people having sex and that's great and all but there's plenty of messy gay drama and I am out here having fun. Hell I even like the corny music and how much of a loser Lestat is, as he is in his own mind.
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