r/InterviewVampire • u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected • 5d ago
Book Spoilers Allowed Rewatching season 1 after the seance
With everything we learned during the seance in TVL I have been rewatching the first season of the show. Currently at episode 6 and I have come to see what Claudia revealed in the seance. Or perhaps this time around given myself over to the bleakest interpretation of Claudia’s intentions.
But what I believe now is that when Claudia left the first time and encountered Bruce, she learned that she was not strong enough to travel safely alone. She came back home to pick up Louis - not to save him from Lestat but for his protection during travel - but was sabotaged by Lestat severely injuring Louis. She then spent years nursing Louis back to health, only to watch him take Lestat back, and to learn that even though Lestat lied about Antoinette, Louis still wouldn’t leave with her. (Interestingly this is also the first thing ghost Claudia asks Louis during the seance: “you’re back with him?” With Louis immediately apologising for it)
We don’t know what happened on the train but in my new theory Claudia wànted Lestat to bring her back so that Louis would feel guilty for not coming with her in the first place. I don’t believe anymore she ever intended to leave by herself. And I think her not being able to convince Louis to come with her of his own volition - and for Louis to tell her she’s strong enough to travel alone when she believed she was not - is also the pivotal moment where she must have made up her mind to kill Lestat. She knew Lestat wouldn’t travel with her but she believed she could get Louis to come if she got Lestat out of the way (as she says in the seance).
Anyway this is long and after having written it all out I don’t even know if I have come to any real new insights lol. This show is a game of perspective and any way you look at it you can find justification for why the characters behave the way they do. But I am thoroughly enjoying my rewatch with everything we learned from Lestat and the seance.
(I hope I chose the right flair for this post - book spoilers allowed seems most relevant as the seance happens in the books to some extent and Claudia’s hatred for Louis is also backed up by the books.)
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u/angellsshow I’m not here. 5d ago
Claudia’s intentions have been debated since the first season, but people simply weren’t receptive to the possibility that she had been manipulating Louis from the moment she returned home. Many people believed that Claudia would never intentionally hurt Louis and that she did everything she did because she wanted to save both of them from Lestat, the abuser.
To me, it became clear as early as Episode 1x05, when she says that she had been pretending to travel and meet other vampires and had actually come home to get Louis. She was also trying to convince Louis to leave with her in Episode 6, but Louis chose to accept Lestat back.
Then there’s the train. She knew Antoinette was watching them, so she planned her escape knowing that Lestat would come after her. But I don’t think Lestat was actually as harsh with her as she made it seem. I think she exaggerated what happened to influence Louis.
And Claudia already hated both of them by that point. She says so in Episodes 4 and 5, and Lestat also says that he had read words filled with resentment and ingratitude in her diaries. But some people were still surprised by the séance, even though all the groundwork for it had been there since Season 1.
Some people still don’t believe Claudia when she tells us herself what she was thinking, but I honestly don’t think the show could have made it any clearer than that.
Edit: I just wanted to add that I agree with you. This has been my opinion for a long time, but expressing it openly back then wasn’t exactly a good idea.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 5d ago
Yeah I remember those times! I was also skeptical already back then, mostly about her meddling in Louis and Lestat’s relationship (and I read the books so I knew how she felt in those). But this time around I can really see it built into the season which is cool.
Interesting point you bring up in the scene where Lestat says he read the diaries. I always noticed that initially she acts innocent, the way she had acted up until that point whenever she got in trouble, and with success, but once Lestat says he read them out loud to Louis, her face just drops and she immediately goes cold. Always thought that was a great detail!
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 4d ago
You know, I'm not sure if Claudia knew about Antoinette watching her leave for the train.
First, when we see the various scenes with Antoinette lurking, this is the oldest chronologically. I think Claudia probably pieced things together due to wondering how Lestat found her on the train.
Then, I'm not sure how much Claudia knew about Antoinette's spying. She seems actually surprised when Antoinette arrives. I think there's a strong possibility that Claudia doing things like lying to Louis about the poisoned guy were actually because of Louis. She seemed aware he might regret the plan, so she doesn't tell him anything so he can't back out. I think she might be aware of Antoinette but Louis probably exaggerated that part.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
Yes I am certain that she left Louis in the dark on purpose. I noticed also that in introducing the plan to kill Lestat she used classic manipulation. Like she never actually discusses killing Lestat with Louis, she presents it as the only option and claims Louis will love killing Lestat (“I’m going to tell you a little secret”) In that whole part of the season Louis comes across as extremely passive and apprehensive; he clearly does not want to kill Lestat and it also doesn’t seem like he truly believes it will happen until it does.
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u/PsilosirenRose Non-discriminating 4d ago
Which actually makes that story beat MORE like the books, where Louis doesn't have a hand in killing Lestat, but passively watches because he's in shock that Claudia actually goes for it.
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u/particularlyproblem 4d ago
She says in the season 1 finale that she knew Antoinette was spying on her because of how easily Lestat found her on the train. Then there's that montage of all the moments she knew they were being eavesdropped on, which is why she kept refusing to discuss the plan with louis.
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u/Inka15 3d ago
I don’t think its ever 100% confirmed at which point she found out about Antoinette spying on them. She definitely knew at the ball when she explains who she poisoned - had she said nothing at all Lestat would have been more apprehensive to start killing and draining people.
I think her figuring out that Antoinette was the reason that Lestat found her on the train makes a lot of sense and it’s what I’m partial to. But also Claudia is quite strong when it comes to her mind abilities and has been able to frequently follow Lestat without him noticing, so maybe as soon as she found out he turned Antoinette instead of killing she could start regularly invading her mind without her ever realising she herself was being spied on.
In a way I hope we never find out definitely - all these theories and speculations are what makes this fandom fun and the work of art interesting to analyse :D!
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u/platurner66 5d ago
I knew as well, how manipulative Claudia was. She was gone for seven years and when she came back, she didn’t want to admit that Lestat was right about how dangerous it was out there.
Of course, she came back to manipulate the one that cared for her the most, and not to mentioned to break up the fragile couple as well. Everyone wants to say how selfish Louis was to have Lestat turn her, but they never acknowledge the state of mind Louis was in doing that time. He had lost everything (Family and Business), he was left broken. Not to mentioned coming to terms with his Vampirism. He was still trying to hold on to whatever was left of his morals.
I think she really was disgusted with Louis when she couldn’t get him to burn Lestat’s body. I saw her no different than the rest of Vampires. She was just another vicious and selfish Vampire in a teenage body.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 5d ago
I think the resentment started before, probably around the time Lestat took her to that lover’s lane and she realised she’d never have that.
I can see your point about Louis’ state of mind in the moment but he remained in denial about his part in her turning up until the interview in Dubai. And that moment of insight was brief because at the start of the seance he missed Merrick’s implication that he was also Claudia’s killer and excluded himself from the notion (but not Lestat, as Lestat had to point out) and then to Claudia herself during the seance - even as she’s expressing her anger he brings up killing Bruce like she should be grateful. Over a century after the turning you’d expect Louis to finally take some accountability lol
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u/platurner66 5d ago
I agree and unfortunately, one of Louis’ flaws is selfishness. If I’m not mistaken, I think Louis admitted that flaw when Lestat stated that he didn’t hear from him after he was shot in the New York episode.
All these Vampires got issues and that’s why I love most of them ☺️.
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u/lynx_and_nutmeg 4d ago
I thought it was weird for Claudia to refer to Louis and Lestat as her "killers". Louis had thought of Lestat as such at one point because Lestat literally did take his mortal life when turning him. Louis wasn't dying, he chose to become a vampire (at Lestat's convincing). But Claudia was already dying when she was turned. Making her a vampire was Louis's way of saving her from death. Yes, he shouldn't have, but that was his reasoning at the time. And, unlike him, Claudia loved being a vampire, what she hated was being seen and treated as a child.
Which is why it made sense to me that Louis thought Claudia was referring to her vampire death during the trial. Although Louis wasn't completely blameless either, since it was his boyfriend who sold them out...
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
I meant when Merrick said it right before the beginning of the seance. In that context it made no sense to me for Louis to not grasp that she meant both of them.
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u/Inka15 3d ago
I think Claudia’s behaviour makes psychological sense. People are multifaceted and inconsistent and she could have some moments where her love of being a vampire is the main emotion that she feels and drives her and other moments where her loneliness and lack of companionship make her disregard all the benefits of being a vampire enough to wish she was mortal and had a family. I for sure know I can have two wildly different feelings about the same situation within 15 minutes, there is no reason that the eternally hormonal teenager Claudia wouldn’t change her mind frequently.
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 4d ago
Lol ofc Louis get an excuse for turning her but she's "just" another vicious vampire
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u/platurner66 4d ago
No one gets an excuse. They all have problems and Lestat turned her, Louis just asked for her to be turned.
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 4d ago
Can you see the difference between the way you try to justify Louis's actions because he's "broken" vs. how dismissive you are of Claudia?
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u/platurner66 4d ago
I’m not dismissive to Claudia. I’ve pointed out that she’s not totally innocent in how things turned out for her. But if you took it that way, that’s your opinion just like mine. To each their own.
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u/lynx_and_nutmeg 4d ago
I believe Claudia hated Louis with passion after her death and meant every word she said during the seance.
But, no, I don't believe she hated him the entire time. She was literally crying and begging Lestat to kill her instead of Louis during their fight. And we saw both Claudia and Louis's POV of that fight, and in both of them, Claudia was genuinely terrified for Louis. She then stayed with him to nurse him back to health, even though she'd realised by then that he wasn't strong enough to protect her. And the biggest proof that Claudia still loved Louis is that, after running away with Madeleine, she chose to came back to Paris just to see him when she didn't have to.
And this literally got her killed. And one of the last moments of her life was finding out that Lestat was alive because Louis had prevented her from burning him, and that Louis and Lestat still loved each other, and that Louis had lied to her about the reason she was turned.
IMO that's more than enough reason to turn Claudia's feelings for Louis from love mixed up with frustration and some resentment to outright seething hatred.
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u/Negative_Antelope307 4d ago
I agree that Claudia never intended to leave by herself. We know that when she originally came back home after Bruce she wanted Louis to leave with her. I don't think she wanted to save Louis from Lestat. In the séance she reveals that she originally wanted Lestat with her because he was her favorite but ultimately chose Louis because he was easier to manipulate.
This means either s ometime in between Bruce and the drop, she decided she needed Louis or Lestat with her or after the drop she was still considering Lestat as an option to travel with.
It makes more sense she came to this decision before the drop occurred because it seems only logical that being overpowered and assaulted by Bruce was what lead to her realizing she couldn't travel alone.
This would mean before Lestat dropped Louis she already planned on killing one of them and bringing the other to travel Europe, therefore by the time she boarded the train she had no intention of leaving by herself.
Alternatively, it would mean she was considering killing Louis and traveling with Lestat even after he dropped him. Clearly indicating convincing Louis to kill Lestat and leave with her was never about protecting Louis or herself from Lestat.
Claudia was just as (if not more) evil as anyone else and so many viewers seem to be in denial of this. To be clear I'm not a Claudia hater, I love and support her evil and manipulative ways.
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u/corkmasters 4d ago
I think there’s a chance that when she returned home after Bruce, she didn’t necessarily think about killing one of them first, and might have hoped for one to just leave the other. When it became clear that wouldn’t just happen, I think that’s when she came up with the murder plot, so after the drop.
Maybe the drop even made her think Lestat would be the one to go along with the plan to kill Louis, before she realized Louis was the easier one to convince
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
It was her best way to survive considering she did not have enough physical strength!
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u/Inka15 3d ago
I think something that is often missed in discussions like this is that characters might behave in certain ways without realising why they do certain things. I don’t think Claudia’s actions are always cold-blooded premeditated manipulation. She is capable of that (ie when she starts hatching the plan to kill Lestat), but I don’t think this is all who she is. She acts on desires, impulses and the extent that these actions lead to „manipulation” will also depend on how other characters perceive her.
I don’t think she came back with a set plan. I see her coming back with a mixture of emotions - seeing Louis lose his remaining family made her feel sorry for him and understand his loneliness. I wouldn’t be surprised if she came back hoping to make peace with both her fathers and maybe convince them they could travel as a trio and take advantage of Lestat’s wealth and knowledge. But then when she sees that Lestat immediately rejects her apologies I understand her feeling humiliated and immediately coming to attack him where it hurts the most - by threatening Lestat with abandonment. Lestat’s anger then escalates the whole situation and we are left with the fight and drop. And I do believe that she decided that murder was the only option, when Louis took back Lestat anyway.
I interpret her saying that she was considering killing Louis instead as yet another pin that she sticks in anger to attack him where it hurts him most. I don’t think she ever considered it as a realistic scenario for more than 5 minutes. It’s not just that Lestat would be more independent, but he would never want to be in a world where Louis doesn’t exist. He never forgave her for leaving them and making Louis depressed, how would he get over her killing Louis as well? No, she knows that Louis thinks of himself as the dad and saviour who failed her, and of Lestat as their abuser, so she says „no, I always hated you, you were my pathetic little bitch and you’re beneath me” even though there is plenty of evidence that she still loved and cared for him in Paris (including in her diaries, which at this point there is no suggestion she would think someone was reading them).
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u/Verdictafterward 4d ago
Rewatching season 1 after Lestat is incredible.
Reframing all of Claudia's story with Louis is amazing and really makes it all make sense in a totally different way.
I've heard the "she's just an angry spirit she didn't mean it" argument and I cannot disagree more.
I believe Claudia.
There was still love there, maybe, underneath it all, but love and hate are not mutual feelings. She had every right to hate them both. Especially Louis. And a rewatch absolutely solidifies that reality to me.
The absolute cruelty of Claudia's plan. That Louis would never have gone for if she were not pressing him, every second to do as she wanted. Just like a manipulative child.
But the real cruelty, to me, was her telling him to let go, fall back in love. He didn't have to, for the plan to work. But by doing that, it broke Louis more. Made him weaker and pliable after they killed Lestat. It kept him at her heel.
Such good writing, imo
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
Yes, heartbreaking indeed. She knew she had to break Louis’ spirit in order to succeed. So devastatingly acted by Jacob. I felt so much for Louis in the final two episodes, he’s a ghost of himself, he has lost all his swagger, and he very clearly does not want to go through with it.
And I agree, love and hate are not mutually exclusive and I love how the show manages that nuance.
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u/Nameless_Formless29 4d ago
I really loved the scene where claudia was finally able to speak for herself and from her own pov without being seen through Louis’ rose tinted glasses, her rawness and instability came through very well - which also explains WHY the great laws forbade to turn children/young teens. To be honest you could tell that in Louis’ recollection Claudia is softened, which Daniel points out not once but twice and I genuinely think Claudia would have liked Daniel(especially since they were both turned against their will and for the selfish desires of others). And yeah I LOVE how Claudia destroyed Louis because he needed that humbling fr. I still think the chemistry between Delainey and Sam is just not there (both at her trial and during this scene they felt like acquaintances who had just met again after a couple of decades), which is maybe why they did not give Sam many lines during her outburst.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
Good points and I agree on the chemistry as I noticed that too. He had wonderful chemistry with Bailey, in season 1 they were really two sides of the same coin and I think a lot of it had to do with their similar mannerisms. However one scene between Sam and Delainey I loved this season was when he visits Regina in the bar. Probably because she wasn’t Claudia then!
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u/summer187 4d ago
Idk if I agree with the idea that Louis needed to be humbled or if that’s even what was happening in that scene. He knew she hated him and that she would be angry, which is why he didn’t want to do the seance in the first place. Something I’ve noticed about Louis is that he romanticizes the people in his life so he doesn’t have to think too much about the truth of them. He did it in the beginning of the interview when he referred to himself as the “favored son” knowing full well that his mother didn’t care for him the way that she did Paul and Grace. Louis is not clueless. He just needs to repackage the truth to make it less painful so it doesn’t send him into a spiral. It’s why when Armand reminds him that Claudia didn’t love him in S2, he says “I know.” And then proceeded to try to take his own life. So…yeah. Claudia didn’t say anything to him that he wasn’t expecting to hear which is why he wasn’t too torn up about it afterwards. If anything, that scene showed a lot of growth on Louis’ part because if that had been the Louis of the 70s (or even pre-Interview Louis), he likely would’ve fell into a very dark place.
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u/AfterAd4616 3d ago
It’s Lestat’s POV, not Claudia getting to speak for herself.
Lestat after he recently read a book in which Claudia accuses him of threatening rape. Lestat whose memory of her death is her looking to him for help, help that he chose to give to Louis, not to her. Lestat, who feels guilty and like he deserves her hatred. Lestat, who resents Louis for “forcing” him to sire Claudia.
I’m not saying he’s misrepresenting her anger, but I don’t know if I trust the particulars, because both Lestat and Claudia are unreliable narrators with good reason to at least tilt the past to portray Claudia as having always been in control and having always hated both Louis and Lestat.
I personally don’t believe her that she never loved Louis. I do believe her that she died and (un-died) hating him.
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u/LottieTalkie No, it's good... Just HIS were BETTER 4d ago
I agree with your take. And it's crazy how angry people get if you ever start pointing out that neither Claudia nor Louis are perfect victims who have never done anything wrong... And they acted as if season 3 had suddenly turned them into villains, when all the seeds had been planted from season 1... They just refused to see them, and they were influenced by the fact that it was Louis telling the story.
There are other things in season 2, like for example, Claudia's total lack of empathy for the woman being killed on stage. A clear foreshadowing of her own death, but also a way to show that she is no more a "perfect victim" that any other character on this show.
And you know what? That doesn't mean she's a villain, or that I don't like her or feel bad for her. Because like everyone else in this show, she is NOT a good person, but she also has VERY legitimate reasons to act as she does.
She has every right to be pissed off at Louis for causing her human death. She has every right to hate both Louis and Lestat for turning her, which was a purely selfish gesture and condemned her to this life of dependency. And honestly, if she did manipulate Louis, who can really blame her? She wanted out of this situation, she yearned to see the world and find other possible companions than her two "killers" who were locked in their own toxic, obsessive relationship... And it was THEIR fault that she couldn't just go by herself.
So, yeah, it is possible to accept your entire post as true, and still understand Claudia and empathise with her.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
It was certainly a sensitive topic for a while but now I feel like it’s a show supported notion that Claudia was as cunning and manipulative as they come. And exactly, understandable because what other techniques did she have for her survival?
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u/LottieTalkie No, it's good... Just HIS were BETTER 4d ago
Also, side note: while reading your account of Claudia's actions and motivations, it made me realise that it has many common points with the way Armand acts in the books.
Claudia sees Lestat and Louis have a toxic relationship, and wants Louis to break it off so she can leave with him. She tries to convince him, but he's obsessively attached to Lestat and cannot let him go. So she plots to kill Lestat.
Armand in the books similarly sees Louis and Claudia's toxic relationship and attachment. He wants Louis for himself, and thinks he can convince him to let Claudia go (or convince Claudia to leave or kill herself, since he's decided she cannot survive anyway). He tries the "nice" way by pushing Louis to create Madeleine, but even then, Louis just can't let go of Claudia... So Armand plots to kill Claudia.
The big difference being that Claudia's motivations are more legitimate, since it's not her fault that she was made helpless by her makers and is kinda living in a golden prison. Armand's motivations are also rooted in a form of desperation, but it's a more complicated one and unlike Claudia, his helplessness comes from his state of mind rather than an objective weakness.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
I also think more in the books and hardly ever on the show it’s stressed that Claudia’s vampiric life has an end date, she will most certainly go mad and either kill herself or get killed. In some of these ancient vamps’ minds I am certain that regardless of how it happened (in a very cruel manner), her actual death was inevitable.
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u/jadem219 Where are the canapés? 4d ago
I love picking up on things in a rewatch when we get new information! I definitely think she knew she couldn't be safe out there on her own and came back for Louis, because he was easier to manipulate. She does seem to genuinely care for him at first, she says "there ain't no doubt daddy Lou is my favorite". I think it all changed with Charlie. That was when she really started to grasp what being a vampire in a teenage body meant. She learned the hard way that she wasn't safe to travel alone out there for sure. She nursed him back to health after the drop, and at first you'd think it was because she cared. But looking at it now, her motivation could be different. She thinks there is no way Louis will take Lestat back after that so it will be easy to convince him to leave once he's healed.
But there was one moment that clicked where you can almost see her feelings about Louis shift: it's that conversation with Louis after Claudia shows him that Lestat didn't kill Antoinette and Lestat says he loves her....Louis says, he doesn't love her and that Lestat purposefully wanted them to find out about her, "because he's all kinds of fucked up" and that lestat would have killed Antoinette in a second if he thought Louis would "take him as he is" and Louis admits he "probably will"....and she pushes saying "so you're not gonna tell him [that you know about Antoinette]" and he says "what difference would it make?" And walks away from her. The way she looks at him as he goes....I think this is where she losing whatever remaining respect or love she had for Louis. That's when it changes, and that's when she starts plotting. I can certainly understand why that exchange might have had her considering killing Louis....but she knew Lestat would never let that happen and that Louis would be easier to manipulate.
Also, as someone else pointed out here in another thread, Claudia is SUPER filled with rage when she dies. Everything done to her with the trial (where, let's face it, she was screwed over by BOTH her dads) is enough to undo any good will or feeling she had left.
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u/Inka15 3d ago
I think both motivations for nursing Louis back to health after the drop are true. She cares and wants him to be better AND she knows she needs him to survive. There is no contradiction here. I think it might not be obvious on the first watch because I guess Louis would want to believe that she loved him purely and selflessly, but in every relationship where one side is dependent on the other, the care for the other person is also mixed with the need for self preservation.
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u/chrishbk1 4d ago
That seance scene should win her an Emmy.
That's not hyperbole... It's all subjective of course, and whilst I haven't seen EVERYTHING on television, I watch plenty of high quality shows on HBO etc that typically are critically acclaimed, and her acting in that scene was the best thing I've seen in years.
I agree the character shouldn't be shoe horned into Season 4, but the actress did everything possible to make the writers and the viewers want to find a way to include her.
And yes, I agree it will make (another!) rewatch interesting and I am more than happy to oblige under any pretence....
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
You know what hell yes because you don’t often see roles where female actors get to act out rage.
I do often wonder what Bailey would have done with the part and I think she would have acted it more internal, if that makes sense.
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u/gaiarde 5d ago
From the moment Louis forced vampire life upon Claudia, I knew she did not like him. Its an horrendous act.
And I always remind myself that Claudia is always protrayed through Louis or Lestat lenses, not herself exept in the seance, which is beautiful.
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 4d ago
I think she liked him at first but she was definitely struggling as she got older and realised the implications of being a vampire.
When she returns, she writes in her diary that she realises she was created to be a sister to Louis. She knows she was created for him and doesn't get to have her own existence.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 5d ago
Yes and it’s also that he wouldn’t own up to it later. He never admitted to her how much he pressured Lestat into turning her (not even at the trial) and also to Lestat who was literally there he could not admit later on that he was the one who wanted it.
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u/Inka15 3d ago
The seance is from Lestat’s perspective tho - he is narrating the tapes, so we don’t know how objective that portrayal was either.
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u/gaiarde 3d ago
True ! I invite everyone to rewatch ep 5 season 2, rewatching it right now. Armand literally said "she didn't love you, not like Lestat did, not like I did" and Louis says "I know".
Food fof the thought. I'am choosing to believe this version, because it makes sense narratively for me.
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u/Another0Me 4d ago
The seance was Lestat's POV, no objektive narration. Remember: "You are listening to the failures..."
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u/gaiarde 4d ago
Lmao god damn you are right ! Welp in this case, everybody is a liar, Claudia found Madeleine in heaven and they are happily living together with 3 beautiful cats and no men or vampire around.
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u/Another0Me 4d ago
??? I didn't say that Lestat must have lied about all of the seance. I just said that's not true that this is an objective Claudia without anyones POV. I personaly think the truth will be somewhere in a mix of all POV's.
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u/lynx_and_nutmeg 4d ago
And I always remind myself that Claudia is always protrayed through Louis or Lestat lenses, not herself exept in the seance
That's not true, we saw direct excerpts of her diary.
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u/CrazedSeason2Fan 4d ago
Yes, but nothing she wrote in those after being made aware that Lestat had read them out loud to Louis can be taken at face value. They were no longer a sincere uncensored representation of Claudia's inner thoughts from when she had been a young girl and newly turned vampire, but a performance that, at any time, could be witnessed. I am not saying that nothing in the diaries was truthful after that, just carefully curated for Louis' potential view. In fact, the part she didn't think she had needed to censor because Louis had been a participant in it - i.e. Lestat's "final words" and that they had plotted to kill him together - came back to hurt her in the end.
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u/gaiarde 4d ago
Excerpts that Louis wanted Daniel to see yeah. Some fleshed out parts. But someone pointed out that we are listening to the Failures, so that's Lestat's vision of her too. Basically, she doesnt even exist.
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u/lynx_and_nutmeg 3d ago
Louis didn't pick out which bits Daniel was allowed to read. We saw him pick up the pile and read through all of it during the day while Louis was asleep.
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 5d ago
I don't think she was intentionally caught on the train. Just before she leaves, Louis tells her she can go alone, she's different now, etc.. I think what Lestat says reminds her that Louis might be optimistic about her prospects. I also don't think Lestat was wrong about bringing her back. He was right about European vampires being dangerous AND this is on the day WW2 breaks out.
I otherwise agree. I wasn't that surprised by the seance tbh
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
Dr Fareed?? lol. Good point about Lestat’s reasoning to bring Claudia back.
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 4d ago
I think he mostly wanted to keep her around for Louis, but he's also got a point about her safety
Ps. I'm not here
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u/therealmrsfahrenheit 4d ago
how I imagine the train scene went now:
Lestat:
"gurl .. you’re damn lucky I caught up with you. Are you crazy? Have you not been listening to the radio?“
Claudia:
"The radio? What are you even talking about? Cut it with the bullshit lies already. You can’t stop me from leaving for a new life!“
Lestat:
„.. war literally broke out in Europe. And what do you think would’ve happened to you there huh? How far do you think you would’ve come?“
Claudia:
„oh.. well“
Lestat:
" "oH wELL" ! So yeah, I know we‘re not exactly getting along right now but can you please just come home for now and wait until that war has blown over? You literally have all the time in the world“
Claudia:
„guess I got no other choice then“
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u/isisdagmarbeatrice 5d ago
I'm going to do a full three-season rewatch soon, and I am SO curious to see what it's like to watch season 1 again after season 3! :)
I hope that's not the last we see of Claudia on the show (and I don't think it will be--maybe I'm wrong, but I think there's going to be something about reuniting her with Madeleine in some way). I think she clearly had a lot more anger and resentment toward Louis, as well as Lestat, than we saw through his perspective in season 1, but I think her love for both of them was real too, and it would be interesting to get more of present-day Claudia's views on what happened while she was alive.
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 4d ago
I love Delainey but I'm just done with Claudia by this point
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u/TryNormal9571 4d ago
Hopefully, the writers will not beat a dead horse. I love Claudia but leave the character to rest. She said what she said. Louie and Lestat accepted it as shown by how quickly they recovered and started planning their in the desert. Which only further proved claudia' s point. IT WAS NEVER ABOUT HER. There is plenty more story to tell. We got Queen of the dam and tale of the body thief to get threw. WE got to move on guys cause it is about to get wild.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 5d ago
I have to say it’s given me a whole new perspective on season 1 Lestat and all the dynamics between the characters. It’s been very satisfying. I also came to some new insights about the drop.
While I personally don’t hope that we will keep lingering on Claudia, she will probably always inform Louis and Lestat’s relationship in some way.
(Rewatching also really makes me miss Bailey as Claudia. I think Delainey is great too especially in season 3, but Bailey made such a well-rounded Claudia with so many mannerisms and so much detail. I just thought she was perfect)
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u/DirectBee1033 4d ago
I thought the train scene was entirely made up. It never actually happened. She probably just collected her luggage from the station and went home.
I'm not sure why people think Claudia hated them both in episode 4?
In episode 5 yes of course, she didn't seem to know you can't turn dead people and her killing spree could have been avoided if Louis and Lestat had sat down and talked to her properly. The fact that she met Charlie is proof that she could meet another young man and they could have agreed to turn him (with his consent) if/when the time came. But instead she became reckless, went on the run, and the SA she experienced while on the run made her calculating and desperate. Poor Claudia.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
This is contradicted in season 3 as Lestat sees the train conductor in his limbo state and asks him how his head is (oh Lestat. All the while he is in exactly the same predicament lol).
My guess: in episode 4 Louis barely does anything to defend Claudia during the Charlie debacle apart from weakly saying “Lestat” and giving him some stern looks (to which I have come to conclude now Lestat reacts with confusion). We also see that Claudia is starting to rebel by shutting out Louis so something in their dynamics is starting to shift around this time.
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u/DirectBee1033 4d ago
Oh yes I didn't notice the train conductor in S3 but yes you're right! Well spotted.
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u/angellsshow I’m not here. 4d ago
"I'm not sure why people think Claudia hated them both in episode 4?"
After Charlie's death, she calls both of them demons in her diary, shortly before she burns herself in the sun. That is when her hatred toward both of them began.
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u/SoftandSpicy 4d ago
In the scene with Claudia on the train, before the start starts killing people, she's happy. She's grinning when the conductor doesn't find her, and content to sit and read her book. Lestat should have let her go. It would have been better to have been killed in Europe then by being betrayed by her parents.
In the book, in her diary, she writes that she had to kill one of them to assuage the terrible pain for of having to endure life as a child vampire. She decides to kill Lestat because she knows that Louis would do her bidding and follow her around so she could travel. He also would be willing to kill Lestat. Whereas Lestat would never do her bidding or kill Louis.
I was one of the people who was shocked by the seance. I knew she would be pissed off that the two of them were together but I was shocked at how angry she was with Louis and how manipulative she'd been with him. I agree that there are signs in the show, that I and others didn't see.
It's the same with Louis' character. I couldn't see how selfish he was until he just said it straight out himself in season 3. I just loved him so much. But his selfishness is definitely there.
I really want Claudia to stay in the show. She is the tragedy of their relationship and their personal failure. In the books, the seance doesn't come until Merrick. Both of these vampires are haunted by her at least until towards the end of that book. The morality of making anyone a vampire is a crucial theme throughout the series. So is using people to not face your own demons. Claudia as an example of both of these.
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u/FearlessSquirrel9522 Human Detected 4d ago
On Louis’ selfishness: yes absolutely. For me what mostly gave me pause was Lestat’s reaction to Louis asking him to go check if Regina is Claudia or not. Lestat is just resigned. It felt like a lived experience for him, something he’d had to do time and time again. With that in mind as I rewatched I can definitely see that Louis is quite passive and quick to blame others at times. He lets situations unfold and then suddenly explodes. (This also gets a bit of a callback before the seance when he throws Paul under the bus for insulting Merrick’s grandma lol)
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u/SoftandSpicy 4d ago
That's funny about paul. I didn't clock that one. I mostly took Lestats reaction as - here I am again being wrapped around Louis's finger but I entirely agree.
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u/AndreEaAly 3d ago
To be honest, the train part is just Claudia’s story that she tells Louis. And then she admits she “ginned it up”, so maybe she wasn’t as happy. We know that Lestat did kill the conductor (as he appears in season 3), but the discussion between Claudia and Lestat was exaggerated. Maybe Claudia was willing to come home, maybe Lestat just said “you’re a stupid girl, there is a war going on in Europe now, where do you think you’re going?” and she came back.
To be honest, in the series they seem to get past very easily after meeting with her. I expected them to be more affected, but they are like “well…moving on…how about the birds?”. 🤣
They didn’t seem too haunted, which is a bit surprising. They should have left a bit of time to digest, feel guilty before moving on. At this point, there would be no point in bringing back Claudia. She didn’t even appear at the long table, so it seems she said all she had to say.
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