sophie. 30 years old. british.
“'But do you really mean, Sir,' said Peter, 'that there could be other worlds — all over the place, just round the corner — like that?'"
It's cropped terribly because I don't know how to make the reply section bigger, but big up @vorreitenertiqui for capturing this so perfectly:
Louis apparently has 2 viable love interests in the whole wide world. His one true love, the white guy, relentlessly pursued, isolated, then racially violated him for years. In order to make sure he'll never venture beyond that hellscape again, and that fans never want him to, he has to suffer even worse racist violation from the other one—his brown & insignificant 77-year-long partner. The latter has to be even more of an anti-Black cartoon villain despite never acknowledging his own racialisation. And whilst non-Black POC have long been recruited into collaboration with whiteness through anti-Blackness, a group of white writers don't seem to know how to depict that. Especially when said collaborator has darker skin than the Black character & was trafficked by Europeans during colonialism's heyday.
Though heightened by them being vampires, Lestat lived as white men with a fetish did during segregation. He did as klan members do when they have Black partners, which is more common than you'd expect. That ordinariness is an added layer to be escaped. His violence was orthodox in a way that Armand's will never be. The outside world is more likely to hold Armand accountable. We see it in the fan reaction, and the show's press & priorities: people are less likely to forgive Armand, no matter if he's seen to be remorseful and/or pitiful. In addition to positioning him as Lestat's usurper, there were a ton of western biases (if I meant white, I'd have said it) working against him before the big revelations & the attempts to excuse Lestat's abuse.
These white writers have given him very white patterns of violence, including that unleashed by European colonisers against their South Asian subjects during Armand's 500-year existence. Even when that room was more diverse, there was little specificity in how white supremacist domination worked for people with Armand's history. My mistake was believing that an honest effort would be made.
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You know it's a Gothic Horror show, and you're supposed to feel uncomfortable, right? I do. But do you? Do you, Rolin, and Hannah understand that? Because from where I stand, only the Black characters seem to be trapped in a horror story. The others appear to be in a completely different genre.
The issue isn't that viewers like myself don't want to feel uncomfortable. The issue is that, in this Gothic Horror show, Black characters disproportionately bear the brunt of the violence.
Take this season finale as an example.
At the end of Episode 6, two characters are beheaded. Yet in Episode 7, we are shown the severed head and mutilated body of the black character in explicit details, while the white character's mutilated body is shown only briefly and out of focus, and his severed head is hidden from us.
Louis's arc is presented as a parallel to Lestat's. Both characters are placed in situations where they must confront people they have wronged, or at least people the narrative insists they have wronged, as well as their pasts, relationships, and mistakes. (Personally, I don't believe Louis owes Armand anything, but the narrative clearly wants the audience to think otherwise.🙄🙄🙄)
Yet the way these parallel journeys are depicted are drastically different.
Lestat's reckoning unfolds in beautiful rooms, elegant spaces, and dreamlike settings. He sits comfortably while listening to the grievances of the people in his life. He argues back. He reflects. He moves through beautiful environments, from grand rooms to forests and back again. Even when he is forced to confront painful memories, the experience is framed as introspection. The focus remains on his emotional and psychological journey.
Meanwhile, Louis is placed in what looks like a torture room straight out of a Saw movie. His severed head sits on a table, hooked up to a machine. His body is positioned across from him, forcing him to stare at it. His suffering is not just physical; it is public and humiliating. His torture is broadcast for others to watch and study. His pain becomes both spectacle and data. He is joined by Regina, another Black character, whose torture is used as leverage against him.
The man torturing Louis demands an apology, not for any genuine wrongdoing, but because Louis failed to love him the way he believed he deserved to be loved, and failed to show enough empathy for his trauma. This is the same man who murdered Louis's daughter in a lynching and attempted to murder Louis in that same lynching, and who, only minutes earlier, boasted that he took aesthetic pleasure in making Louis's death visually exhilarating as part of that lynching.
And so the torture continues. Louis is pushed to the brink of death. Regina is slicing her wrist. Eventually, Louis gives in. He apologizes. He accepts responsibility not only for hurting his torturer's feelings but for the torture itself. He tells his torturer that his coldness and denial drove him (the torturer) to these actions (the torture). The torturer receives the apology he wants, ends the torture, heals and frees Regina, and leaves, but not before carving the letter "A" onto Louis's mutilated body.
Meanwhile, Lestat is still moving through beautiful settings, confronting his past, and listening to others condemn him for the failures of his life. His story reaches its climax in the final act, when he is surrounded by the people in his life and the people he has wronged, some of whom are cheering him on. Rather than being subjected to physical degradation, he is given space for self-reflection. The focus remains on his memories, his relationships, his mistakes, the horrors he has committed, and his regrets. He eventually acknowledges some of his mistakes and even apologizes to one of his victims. Instead of fleeing from his past, he chooses to face it. His reckoning culminates in understanding, and the arc ultimately ends with imagery that evokes transcendence, as though he is ascending to heaven.
Both Louis and Lestat are given parallel narrative arcs centered on confronting their pasts, their relationships, and the harm they have caused. Yet the show presents those reckonings through vastly different visual and narrative lenses. Lestat's journey is psychological, reflective, and aesthetically beautiful. Louis's journey is a sustained ordeal of physical and psychological torture, humiliation, and degradation. One character is invited to examine himself; the other is turned into a spectacle of suffering. While Lestat is afforded reflection, Louis is afforded degradation.
And I'm supposed to look at that contrast and just shrug and say, "Well, that's Gothic horror for you"? Really? Take the blinders off. Look at what is being asked of Louis and compare it to what is being asked of Lestat. One is granted introspection, reflection, and, ultimately, transcendence. The other is subjected to torture, humiliation, and spectacle. The genre does not erase that disparity. If anything, it makes it more obvious.
My issue is not the horror. My issue is who is repeatedly asked to embody that horror, whose pain is treated as spectacle, and whose pain is afforded dignity, nuance, and care.
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I do want to say, in advance of the finale getting its usual release, to any POC fans, you’re going to have a lot of people telling you you’re reading too much into things, you probably already are, and you’re not.
You’re just not. And being white is not an excuse for not seeing this. Louis fans and Armand fans in particular have been noticing it because those two are most affected by this writing. You’re not crazy. You’re not being parasocial. It is that deep. The writers tell us repeatedly that they make this show very detailed, so you’re not crazy for reading between the lies. If they can plant hidden details in every episode, they can be aware of their biases and how they’re portraying the characters of colour. I’ve never understood the separation of these things. They aren’t different skill sets. If you’re a good writer, you’re a good writer.
I just want it to be clear because, as a white fan, it is so obvious. Disappointment is okay. Anything you’re feeling is okay, especially with the promise that this show presented in the first two seasons of being a post-colonial adaptation of what are frankly incredibly racist, xenophobic and orientalist novels.
I mean you read them and it’s jaw dropping frankly the shit Anne Rice came up with. And this season just furthers what the books were doing instead of breaking it down. So feel what you feel, stop watching if you want, and do not let anyone tell you it’s not really there because it is and white people are perfectly capable of seeing it and calling it out, so don’t let anyone gaslight you. You’re right. It did happen. It’s there.
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having armand just admit that he put the fred stein's in louis' photo collection "just to fuck with his head". way to remove any nuance or question around louis as an unreliable narrator. the question of who put the stein's in the photo collection did not need to be answered. it was fine to leave it as debatable as to whether armand did it, or louis did it by mistake, or even rashid did it. but no, that just had to be confirmed as something armand did.
i wanted so much to enjoy assad's performance and i will maybe revisit the last episode once i can gain some perspective and distance, but the scene where louis is talking about little arun just doesn't hit me with feelings for armand. the context is just crazy. his ex, the man he's lived with 77 years, is reduced to a decapitated head on the table, barely coherent, louis' daughter stand-in is also being tortured, and we're supposed to feel for little arun? how am i supposed to take it seriously or feel any sort of empathy for armand in that context. assad's acting could not save it because the feelings he was supposed to convey were corrupted by the circumstances of that scene. if the writers don't understand this then we've really lost the plot on everything that makes good storytelling.
