Getting a tumblr was the best worst idea ever!

Sam Reid as LESTAT DE LIONCOURT

Much has been said about the differences in Gabrielle's characterisation in the books, to Gabriella in the TV show. And I agree, it's quite different, if we're only looking at TVL. But, I recently re-read The Vampire Armand, and [minus the sexual abuse] his description of her is much, much closer to the one in the show.

Highlights of Armand's description of Gabrielle include:

Everyone hates her.

She abandons Lestat for centuries

Doesn't heed Lestat’s frantic cries for help

Looks just like Lestat, except she’s a woman,

small-waisted

big-breasted

Sweet-eyed in the most unnerving and dishonest fashion

Looks gorgeous in a black ball gown with her hair free

A vampire so cunning and cold that she has forgotten what it ever meant to be human or in pain... if she ever knew it.

In mortal life...she always wondered what the others were carrying on about.

Low-voiced

Unintentionally vicious

Glacial

Forbidding

Ungiving

a wanderer

Something more akin to a prehistoric reptile than a human.

A stalker

a quick killer

a pitiless and seemingly thoughtful but eternally secretive thing.

virtually useless to anyone but herself

See what I mean?!

It makes me suspect that Rolin and Hannah agree with Armand. In writing her character for Season 3, it seems likely they consciously decided to put aside much of Lestat's perspective on her personality, in favor of Armand's much more blunt and unforgiving assessment.

Fascinating choice!

(full TVA quotes under the cut)

In TVL After Dark, Rolin talked about a potential season 4 and the interesting idea of the singular perspective per chapter that Queen of the Damned has and how they could adapt that.

This leads me to hope my head canon that Daniel or the Talamasca or just each vampire themselves will tell their story leading up to the Queen and give us little pieces of the puzzle leading up to Lestat’s Failures recollection of it.

We could start with smaller characters like Baby Jenks and Rashid, seeing their perspectives with glimpses at our main characters. Then slowly work our way up through ancillary characters like Lemuel (especially if he’s Seth!!) and Fareed and Regina, we could bring in other vampires like Pandora or just Marius himself to round off this group of perspectives. Then you finish with our main four and of course, the Queen herself. Perhaps we’ll get the twins Maharet and Makere but that is to be seen once we know more about Akasha’s human life.

I’m genuinely curious as to why 3x07 is perceived by some fans as the worst thing Armand has ever done. Has he not already acted with the same, if not worse brutality in previous seasons? In fact just because he did not physically cause harm to Madeleine, Louis, and Claudia himself in the trial, does not mean he was not responsible for their torture (mental, emotional and physical) and, in the case of Madeleine and Claudia, their (painful!!) deaths. Which of these occasions do you think was worse for Louis? In fact Armand admits he orchestrated their deaths to be “visually aesthetic” the torture was the point. He left Louis in that coffin until he was screaming, not knowing what had happened to Claudia. For Daniel, he was held in a room and tortured for days. Does the harm only matter when it is enacted in front of you? In the end, Louis and Regina were mentally traumatised but no physically worse off. Claudia and Madeleine, however…

To me it brings up a philosophical question of what harm actually means. Because in our current day we have to see beyond individual people to our wider society. Who has caused more damage, and with more of a malicious intent - an elite class who plan and commit atrocities for the purpose of power and profit, or the people who are forced or persuaded into committing those atrocities? Do we blame the soldier themselves, or the commander giving the orders? Is the ruling class less responsible because they do not pull the trigger, even though they are the ones that hold the power? And so on and so forth. Because we see Armand committing the act himself in 3x07, he is suddenly ‘more’ of a villain, a ‘cartoon’, when the act itself is no worse than what he has already done. Is 77 years of gaslighting and mental abuse not just as bad? Nevermind the fact that Armand even after he was exposed for his gaslighting concocted an elaborate scheme to flaunt a Claudia lookalike in front of Louis just to fuck with him! And the things Regina says to Louis at the start while Armand was still controlling her mind, insulting and mocking Louis just as he has done in the past… The trial itself villifies Claudia and Louis in multiple ways, including misogynistic, racist and overall it demeans them. He made it this way. This was his vision.

And I think this question is something the writer’s actually have thought extensively on. Why else make Armand’s signature move be forcing people to commit suicide? Ah, perhaps because he is not the one killing them. He is not the one who pushed Larry in front of the train, is he? He didn’t cut Nelson’s throat himself. And in terms of his mental abuse, he did not make Alex physically pick up a bottle of wine. Why do you think Armand broke down specifically when Louis said ‘I saw good in you for a while’? Because it is the illusion of goodness that he has clung on to with his lies. That’s what he wanted Louis to see, not this ‘dark-sided’ version of him. Which, of course, is the real Armand.

So, then, 3x07’s visceral and disturbing imagery is there for a purpose. The audience can no longer turn away from the truth of Armand. You can no longer soften him, excuse him, or push away the blame. You are seeing in front of you the harm he has already caused, but now in a way that cannot be denied.

something about that of all the awful things he's done being the most repugnant to him