The way this fandom discusses unreliability is pretty childish and it’s tarnished by stan wars. A character can lie for plenty of reasons, they can lie to themselves, they can purposefully lie, they can do it in the heat of the moment, they can be actively manipulating someone… A character can also be an unreliable narrator, but that’s not necessarily the same as being a liar.
Actually, maybe I wouldn’t even label a character that lied at some point as A Liar. The label has a concrete connotation of repetition and intent.
Accuracy should be prioritized, instead of general statements that erase variety and homogenizes all the characters as unreliable liars. As if they lie the same way and for the same reason.
There is also a problem when it comes to perception, plenty of people believe that “lying = bad” so if a character lies with good reason they won’t acknowledge that the character can be a liar, because the character was “justified”. And when someone believes that lying is always bad, a bad character needs to be a liar even if they’re not, because “how dare you say that the “good” characters are not saying the truth but the “bad” character is”. I understand the reasoning, but it’s just not useful when it comes to analysis.
An unreliable narrator is a literary device, it tells us that the storyteller’s credibility is compromised. Discussions about an unreliable narrator may arise even as soon as we move away from an omniscient narrator. There must be an authorial intention for that unreliability tho, but an unreliable narrator can be about the psychology behind it too, this video explains it pretty well.
I believe the writers are very interested in that type of unreliability. Rolin said many things at the ATX TV festival in Austin, but one of them was that they have “an allergy in the writer’s room to the word truth” & that the team isn’t “necessarily interested in the objective truth”. I believe he means that the characters experience their lives, and their emotional truth is valid. The show is not interested is revealing The Truth, it’s interested in the introspective journey of the characters. But this doesn’t mean there aren’t falsehoods. I wish I could find it, but it reminds me of an interview where Jacob mentions that Sam kept saying “this never happened” regarding Lestat’s actions, and he told Sam that he needed to believe what he was saying as Louis. Basically as an actor, you have to believe what you’re saying regardless if it’s true or not, bc the character believes it.
You need to be in the correct headspace as an artist to create, you can’t be obsessed with the truth instead of the story and characters.
Seeing the discourse right after the new lesmand scene is particularly egregious to me, because it reads as dishonest. We have a confirmation that what Armand said wasn’t true. We don’t have a confirmation as to why it wasn’t true, but I think it’s pretty obvious that he lied. He didn’t forget, he didn’t misremember, he lied about his time with Lestat and Gabi ¿and now people want to remind everyone that there is no actual truth in the show and everyone is unreliable? It’s obviously coping. This isn’t the pathological liars show, we just have to follow the narrative.
In this show’s case unreliability is ingrained in the narrative, and it’s not hard to identify if we pay attention. The show itself addresses it, but nooo, we need to have fans accusing other fans of calling Louis a liar, acting like the show or the fans are gonna DARVO Louis. The book is a narrative device, it’s there to create tension between Louis and Lestat. Actually, the show is painting Louis in a pretty sympathetic light regarding the book, they have said plenty of times that he didn't want it published. The show is validating Lestat’s feelings about the book, and letting Louis off the hook at the same time, so we can have empathy for both. Let’s not take this for granted (although, I do think the show will walk a fine line because it exists in nuance, not in “ups actually character X did nothing wrong, nothing at all” idk. I assume ghost Claudia will be angry about the book too and the use of her diaries for example, Louis did read them. And the main problem with Loustat is that Louis didn’t tell him about it).
Louis is someone that cares deeply about telling the true story, and he also lies to himself a lot. The interview managed to reveal the truth about certain events, precisely because as a narrator Louis misremembered certain things and had the wrong information about others. One would think this would result in a truthful book, bc the book would be a reflection of the interview, but nope. We have to take into account:
- Daniel’s filter as a writer (yes, as good a journalist as he may be. In the Talamasca show Daniel narrates a part of the book, and we see that is told via Daniel’s POV. The book is called IWTV, so it contains Louis’ past, ofc, but also Daniel’s perspective of present day Dubai)
- The fact that Louis told many things while thinking that Lestat was complicit in Claudia’s death (his love for Lestat also shined through tho)
- The Armand of it all (lmao)
- The Talamasca of it all (who the fuck knows)
Besides, who knows how the book ends, what if in the book Armand saves Louis at the trial? It’s a big can of worms… Thanks to the clip released at CCXP Mexico we know Lestat is angry about:
- Painting him as stupid (infinitesimal)
- Being a caricature (Sam mentioned this)
All of these are supposed inaccuracies from the interview that made it into the book. Regarding Lestat’s anger at Louis (which makes sense bc, well, it’s Louis, and they were reconnecting), it’s interesting to remember that Armand was on the record and the book mentions him, but ¿As the love of Louis’ life? Or did Daniel’s perspective paint a different story (given how he never believed that they were a happy couple). Anyhow, it’s important that Lestat knows someone else was involved and it wasn’t just Louis saying things (as opposed to the real IWTV book).
Now Lestat is reading that book, ofc he wants to set the record straight. It’s not really a “he said, he said”, that’s why I don’t like seeing people acting like Lestat’s interview is DARVO, and he’s like an abuser discovering he’s been exposed.
Denying Lestat’s reliability on the basis of optics is preposterous anyway. We haven’t watched the season, we actually don’t know what he’s gonna say and if it’s true or not. I don’t like this “well he’s not more reliable than everyone else” bc sure, maybe he’s not, but we don’t actually know. And regardless of what he says, the narrative will let us know if it’s true or not, like with Louis.
Armand on the other hand, has been the biggest liar of them all. Both by omission and by purposeful manipulation, this is just the truth and what season two constructed. “I will not harm you” “and I never have”, “I could not prevent it”, “I love you too (Lestat to Armand)” come on… I’m against turning Armand into an evil caricature, but too many people refuse to acknowledge it. To be clear, Armand’s antagonist role doesn’t make me think in black and white. I think in episode 5 Loumand say very hurtful but truthful things about the other, not everything Armand says is a lie, the narrative is what shows me what to distrust.
Claudia can also lie and manipulate if she wants to btw, she’s not our little mouthpiece for the truth. How would she have managed to pull off murder night otherwise? But even if she wasn’t, why are people saying that she isn't an unreliable narrator? This is how I know people don’t know the difference between being a liar and being an unreliable narrator, because if we’re going with the “all the characters are unreliable narrators” ¿how can someone say Claudia’s diaries aren’t? Some people simply don’t know how to identify it and they assign the term based on the level of victimhood of the character.
Claudia gets granted the title of the truth-teller because (as far as we have seen) she’s the most victimized character, and sadly, for many people, suffering equals morality, and lying equals immorality. Everything in her diaries must be the objective truth, even tho the first episode of s2 addresses this, because Louis shouldn’t actually use her diaries as dictionaries for the truth.
And Lestat. Well, call him a dog, but an honest dog, right? Antoinette is one of the few examples of him outright lying, when he told Louis that he was fine with him “fucking whoever he wanted” too. He can obviously lie and omit things but his antagonistic role wasn’t based on deceit. In s3 he will be unreliable in his own way, but let’s not forget what Hannah said, “memory is a monster” is done, we’re leaving that in s1 and s2.
As opposed to Louis, Lestat doesn’t want to remember certain things, but he will remember regardless. The framing of those memories will be affected by something, and we will discover that something by paying attention.
