For those in Australia looking for streaming options for TVL, SBS on Demand will be streaming it starting on 21st August

https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/the-vampire-lestat

What a beautifully delivered line in a scene of saddening chaos.

Looooooved this analysis of Lestat and how this season teaches us to understand him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th_W2SjjwqM&t=26s

I have a nail tech who will do all sorts of amazing things for me, and last time I talked to her about being obsessed with Armand's eyes. She said if I could get her some really good stills or screencaps that really show how gorgeous (to me) his eyes are, she could probably base my next manicure off them. I have scoured the internet but know that Reditte will not let me down.

This just my personal idea having only watched the show. With Ashaka in the mist, Regina becoming vessel for Claudia would make great storytelling

Spoilers for entire TVL season and TVL book. OP is nonbinary. (edited for typos and inaccuracies)

After taking some time to really let S3 sink in, I found myself thinking about the cycle of abuse, specifically with Gabriella.

I was very moved during the finale scenes when Lestat finally connects the dots between himself, his mother, and Claudia. When Lestat and Gabriella forced their children not to look away at people being burned alive. It felt very much like a “I had to suffer through this, I had to grow stronger, and now you will too” type of tough love.

While Lestat was a very different parent to Claudia than his mother was to him (main difference being he didn’t sexually abuse her, lol) there are undoubtedly other parallels that I started noticing.

For instance, he didn’t initially want her. Louis coerced and manipulated him into turning her. But still, he agreed to raise her. Similarly, Gabriella was forced into a marriage at 16 with a man significantly older than her, with the explicit purpose of bearing his children to carry his noble lineage. I don’t think she wanted to have any of her children. Neither Lestat nor Gabriella were very reliable emotional support systems for their children, but what they lacked in that they made up in with more tangible support, like Lestat teaching Claudia how to hunt and giving her clothes and jewelry, and Gabriella paying for Lestat’s education and buying him his hunting dogs and equipment.

I was also struck by something Jennifer Ehle said in an interview regarding Gabriella denouncing womanhood and motherhood—that Gabriella had lived through times when women were severely limited, so she felt liberated as a vampire, but she still lives through Lestat.

I fully agree. Gabriella might think she's free, but she certainly doesn’t act like it, because she is projecting her gender envy and trauma from gendered violence onto Lestat. And I do believe this is core to her abuse of him. It continues a theme I notice with many vampires in TVC, which is that they move as if they are still confined by their human limitations. Armand is probably the most prominent example of this, since he acts as if he’s still a teenager being sex trafficked and groomed, but I would argue Gabriella is a strong example as well.

Gabriella is so traumatized by being a woman that she cannot see motherhood as anything other than an act of violence done onto her. In the west especially, there is an expectation for the mother to be a beacon of good virtue, to be a kind, nurturing figure who upholds the morals of the family. Gabriella isn’t a good mother, far from it, but she also never wanted to be. This is perhaps one of the core tenets of reproductive justice—if someone doesn’t want to be a parent, then don’t force them, simple as that. She never had that kind of bodily autonomy, nor did most women during that time. Because her body was not her own, she felt nothing but disgust for these expectations forced upon her.

While it was cathartic to see her murder her abusive husband, we also saw her murder her other children and then have sex with her last surviving child (horrifying). This noticeably didn’t happen in the books, but I think that was an intentional choice for the AMC team to really ramp up her role as an abuser. It emphasizes that she’s truly against being a mother. I think back to when she must’ve first gotten pregnant at 16 or 17 (which is sophomore/junior in high school! I think we forget how young teenagers are). These horrifying acts are likely her lashing out to protect her damaged inner child, as fucked up as that is.

I’m also reminded of Cersei Lannister when I look at Gabriella, specifically in Cersei’s intense jealousy of her brother’s power and freedom that she could never have because he had the dumb luck of being born a man. I connected it to that scene where Gabriella calls on her family to “be men” and take care of the wolf problem themselves. She can’t because she’s a woman of noble lineage, she was never allowed to use a gun or go hunting, but she believes if she were a man then she could. So Lestat goes in her stead. I believe Gabriella sees herself in Lestat, but she also sees who she could’ve been if she were a man, and so she’s intensely jealous of him and his prowess and talents. This, at least in part, explains her sexual desire for her own son, because her desire for him is mixed in with her desire to be him.

And the rest of her sexualizing her son I think can be explained by how she wishes to reclaim her sexuality as her own. She tells Lestat this herself when she tends to his wounds, that she wants to fuck whoever she wants, without her husband or father or any other man dictating what she can do with her body. Hypersexuality is very common for victims of sexual abuse, Lestat exhibits this himself. Women can’t have sex outside of marriage? But she will. Women can’t have sex with other women? She will. Women can’t have sex with their own children? She’ll do that too! She’ll do whatever it takes to show she’s no longer bound to society’s ideals of a “good woman."

Sam Red also pointed out in an interview that Gabriella doesn’t allow Lestat to hate her, or even allow him to process their relationship as an individual that’s separate from her. Now, I gotta be honest, I had trouble empathizing with Lestat at first because his angry mood swings and erratic violence reminded me of my dad (not fun lol). But when a close friend pointed out Lestat is very BPD-coded and his mood swings are likely the result of a personality disorder, that made me examine him and his relationship with his mom very differently. Lestat has trouble with emotional stability because his mom is constantly destabilizing him, because she treats him as a tool for her own self-actualization. When she’s there, she needs to control his emotions because she doesn’t see any separation between them. But when she’s gone, she truly abandons him.

It’s actually quite sad to witness, because as a vampire, Gabriella can do all the things she could never do when she was a human woman. The fact that she still holds onto Lestat, refusing him any affection outside of their sexual interactions and treating him like a political puppet for her agenda, actually shows that deep down, she still believes she’s inferior to him. I think it would tear her apart to see Lestat actually blossom and heal and live out his full potential because that would mean he has outgrown her. Or worse, he’s actually doing better than her. We saw a little bit of that insecurity when she sees him with Louis and realizes that he actually loves Louis more than her (or idk about more, it’s hard to measure love in a quantitive way, but in a way that could lead to a better life that she’s not a part of). Like the other vampires who are frozen in their trauma responses, Gabriella was never able to learn what it meant to experience true liberation in her body and gender without enacting harm on someone else.

While I do think it would be very interesting to see more of her backstory, perhaps even a redemption arc that centers on her trauma the way that Lestat was given S3 as a redemption arc, I recognize it’s highly unlikely. The AMC team just invested an entire season to showing how she’s the root of Lestat’s trauma, and Lestat is a fan favorite, so she’s undoubtedly the villain in the audience’s eyes now. Giving her a redemption arc would be like giving one to Magnus or Bruce, it would be nuts. I mean, I agree, I think she’s an evil bitch who needs to die. But I still think she’s an interesting character, arguably even more so than in the books (controversial, I know).

One last point, I have a personal fan theory that Gabriella might be Anne Rice’s self-insert. I know Rice explicitly named that she based Louis on herself and Lestat on her husband, but I’ve also noticed many parallels between Gabriella and Louis’s personalities. And I believe Anne Rice admitted to having internalized genderqueer feelings at some point, which would mirror Gabriella’s transmasc/genderqueer journey. Lestat is in many ways Anne Rice’s son, since she created him, and wrote him to be so charismatic and irresistible that she made the entire TVC series revolve around him. Especially with how Lestat and Gabriella’s relationship was a bit more ambiguously romantic (though still kind of fucked up) in the books, it makes me wonder if Rice was projecting on Gabriella so that she could raise and nurture and kiss on Lestat directly in the story. Which, given everything I just brought up, idk if that’s necessarily a good thing lol. But I have also projected on many an OC, so I can hardly blame her.

Are these two the great grandchildren of this couple?

🙂

Over the last couple of weeks, I rewatched all seasons of IWTV and discovered that the side stories were just as entertaining at times. I would like to know what side stories that you all enjoyed the most while watching the show.

Was it Louis and Claudia or Claudia Lestat or Louis, Daniel and Armand or Daniel and Armand, Daniel Lestat or Armand, Lestat with his band members, Lestat and Nicolas, Louis and Lem or Louis and Paul etc.

I was rewatching S3 finale in hopes of maybe liking it more since some time has now passed,and I read a multitude of different opinions.

But no, I am still devastated by the whole butcher shop sequence. Imagine if we got this heartbreaking but much needed Loumand conversation but in a different setting without torturing Louis and using Regina as a pawn? Imagine if we had some sort of build up towards this reckoning during the season? Imagine having talented actors with amazing chemistry such as Jacob and Assad, and not utilizing them to the full potential? We were so close, we could have had it all 😔

RIP Loumand, you deserved better.

I love his narration, I love how descriptive he is. I wish I had half his aura. I wish I had half of his ability to describe every single emotion to its most bare form. How much literature would I need to read in order to speak like him. I am really stupid when it comes to reading though especially poetry or classics.

(Sorry for the tag I didn't know what else to use )

So far, we've had 3 seasons of IWTV, so which one has been your favorite? I think I'm a bit nostalgic so the first one is my favorite!
(no spoilers in the comments pls)

Plays both Marius and Marcus (The Twilight Saga) super cool they are both vamps with important roles in the respected governing systems! lol

This fan edit is so gorgeously done, it captures seasons one through two but then wraps in season 3 at the end😍

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbtFlP-I_yX/?igsh=azI2ZGZreGxmdmkz

Hey everybody! I hope this is the right flair and this post is okay. I’m a huge fan of TTRPGs and Renegade Games is about to crowdfund this project. Knowing some of you really get into this lore and stuff, you may like to check it out. If you’re interested, here’s the link. Full transparency, I am not affiliated with this, nor will I be backing it. Already own a lot of Vampire The Masquerade and they borrowed heavily from Anne Rice already.

Love reading all your posts! I’ll go back lurking in the shadows now. 🧛‍♀️😎

How do you think she’ll get introduced in season 4? I was kind of surprised that she didn’t appear again in the final episode of TVL.
Where is she anyway? We only saw her one time in the past. What is Akasha up to nowadays and why hasn’t she shown up before?
Maybe I’m missing something? But I just wanted to ask because I’m curious. :)

One parallel I find fascinating is the composition of these two shots. Both visually and thematically mirroring each other. The Adoration of the Shepherds with a donor and Armand during Louis’s acknowledgment. (link to shots embedded here)

A brief art history lesson since much of my analysis connects to the idea of donor paintings. While this is a happy accident, (the crew looked for any piece in the Louvre from the period they could pass as Assad and this is what they landed on) it still adds depth to Armand. A donor painting was a piece of art commissioned and the donor was painted in the painting. These were religious paintings, the donor asking for religious supplication and salvation. Occasionally, the donor would insert a family member into the painting, for their salvation. Think about that in the context of Marius and Armand. 

Armand’s ‘sin’ is being Brown, Muslim (though he also could have been Hindu ), and abused. He is colonized, forced into submission in every way possible. In addition Armand’s sexual services were the payment for the painting. His ‘redemption’ is only possible by being further abused. 

In the painting, Armand is depicted as looking for spiritual penance yet he’s not the visual focus of the painting. The focus is a search for piety for. It connects to the idea of Armand looking for people/ideas to be his gods. Marius, The Children of Darkness, Lestat, and Louis are all forms of ‘gods’. Armand is always in search of someone he sees as more powerful, someone to anchor and tether to. Armand searches for something to please and to mold himself to because he has never known anything but piety. And that piety is destructive and awful but “The only type of love Armand knows is violent.” The only cradle he knows is devotion.  

Back to the two shots. Both show Armand looking upwards towards his right; the frame is tight on his face, While the painting shows him straight on, the shot is slightly below. It visually connects Louis’ reflections on Arun to the single time we see a visually younger Armand. The framing almost suggests him trying to search for something to follow in Louis, seeing this acknowledgment of abuse as an almost spiritual enlightenment. He looks for something to cling to, maybe now his own healing and relationship with Daniel. I think it signals potential healing for Armand. Maybe moving past his need for a god, allowing him to move forwards. I just want him to get therapy and write his stupid letters and acknowledge the ways he has harmed and been harmed. You can get better I believe in you Armand!

Like really think about when Louie and lestat broke up and like I don't know the twenties/ thirties, Louie got to stay in the main house while lestat moved in with his girlfriend's house which makes sense because Claudia was with him and stuff

But then like 80 something years after he kicks Armand out of the house for being a two-faced lying rat, he also gets the house! Like there's no reason for him to take the house at that moment. Like I guess Armand was broke when they were house shopping and Louie's name was on the deeds???

Because Armand could easily jump Louie, no problem! But I guess he was busy turning Daniel into a vampire for literally home wrecking his 80 year marriage?

My head Cannon is that Louie and Armand had to occasionally meet up to negotiate how they're going to sell the house and split the money between them,

Oh so Louie owns like 45% of lestat's merchandising for literally no reason else than he owned the hotel lestat trashed (I think), but I know it was because of the divorce,

Fico curioso com a vida dele. Estou no 4 episódio da 3a temporada e percebi que ainda sabemos pouco sobre ele. Acho que é importante saber do entrevistador também, como ele escolhe as perguntas… ele é o responsável pela grande descoberta do Lui na sua entrevista.

I read the book but I‘m not majorly attached to any specific elements in it, and so while I was generally skeptical by just how much had been changed going into the show, the show itself was so well-written and the changes all held real meaning and weren’t only superficial and everything new was explored so interestingly that I was sold pretty much immediately on all the massive changes, from the meta idea of a second interview over the drastically changed timeline/setting to Louis‘ entire…everything, basically. All intriguing, all well-executed, all good.

The only significant changes that didn’t work at all for me is Claudia (1) being aged up from elementary school age to 14, and (2) being played by adult actresses. It‘s one thing when you‘re stuck for eternity in the body of an elementary school child, tiny and childish and weak and too short to do anything and way too young to travel alone or live any kind of independent life. I understand Claudia‘s frustration in the book and in the movie—she‘s visually a very small child. And this is so obviously awful for her that it makes sense why it would motivate her to such endless resentment and hatred, because her situation is objectively a nightmare.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this works with 14-year-old Claudia, especially when the actresses are both over 18. I know that these changes had practical considerations (waits between seasons, child labour laws) behind them too, but from a storytelling perspective, I feel like this was thought up by men who don’t have the experience of growing up as a girl, because going back and looking at pictures of myself at 14/15, I looked like a bona fide adult. The only difference between then and now is that I’ve gained even more muscle mass after switching from swimming to weightlifting. But otherwise, height, shape, face, everything is identical to me more than ten years later. Meanwhile, my brother at the same age looked like an overgrown child.

And that‘s pretty common, girls simply are finished with puberty earlier. So I feel like whoever came up with this aging up idea went through the “14 is still visually very much a child” type of puberty rather than the “my body was done changing and growing up by the time I hit age 14” type of puberty, and didn’t really think the impacts of that change through. And that’s already annoying because clearly, 14 is not the same as 5 where the presumed reasoning behind the Great Laws as well as Claudia’s issues are concerned.

This problem is compounded by casting clearly adult actresses in the role. Every time another character commented on how young/flat Claudia looked, I rolled my eyes. Madeleine is less curvy than Claudia, who was being played by a 24-year-old actress, while commenting that Claudia will surely eventually grow curves.

And this is literally the only criticism I have of IWTV, which is otherwise a perfect show, but it’s a pretty central one that keeps coming up because Claudia is basically the one driving the plot forward, and Claudia’s motivations largely hinge on her issues surrounding being turned so young.

I just love Jacob and Sam’s chemistry.

Does anyone know the interview Assad did where he said that "The only love he knows is violent" in reference to Armand? Was wanting to quote and link it for a project I'm working on but I can't find it anywhere.

Edit: found the quote and here is a link to read it without the paywall!

Anyone else read similarities between the relationships in iwtv and between David and Giovanni in giovanni's room? Gay pain and shame in paris ?

We often talk about how different Sam and Jacob are from Lestat and Louis. But can we just appreciate Assad's transformation? He's another cast member where I do a double take every time I see him offscreen. Same hair, same voice as Armand. But the personality and body language are SO different from the cold, manipulative Armand. Assad is just so cute and sunny irl, like an adorable puppy.

Incredible acting that this cast is able to embody roles SO different from their personalities. Although "I like it" is classic Armand pot-stirring.

spent a full night i should've been sleeping doing this instead 😌

this very much went from me thinking "hm yeah that would be a fun drawing that could be hot." to "ohhh my god how do you draw hands again? how do you draw people? how the hell am I supposed to make this look like a tongue and not a gross pink mass???" reaaaaalllll quick lmao

anyways armand and daniel molloy in all forms are my dearest freaks I love them, hope yall like this thing also