Elizabeth

So many people seem to be loudly subscribing to this tribalistic "us vs them" version of identity politics that has them projecting a whole lot of their own issues onto media. There's an awareness of how political TV shows are despite the fact that media literacy is at an all time low. So many people are assigning moral value onto media works and so many people have been conditioned into thinking that portrayal somehow equals endorsement.

And because portrayal equals endorsement to certain types of people, portrayal always ends up getting the short end of the stick, whether or not its endorsement. You know, censorship, moralism, fascist thinking and all that stuff.

So yeah, I expected the backlash because this is the bullshit one always has to deal with if you like your shows with a bit of complexity to them.

But it pisses me off that the Claudia seance is being cheapened into another political soundbite about how "the writers just wanted an excuse to be racist."

Do I think people are allowed to be hurt by portrayals of racism in a show? Of course I do. I've been hurt by it since I was old enough to understand what race was. I'll probably be hurt by it until the day I die. It's valid to be upset by something and never want to watch it again. There are plenty of shows I haven't finished because they were too triggering for me.

Do I think that being upset by something gives me the right to assign values onto writers I know nothing about for simply doing their jobs and telling a story? No, the fuck I don't.

Writing about racism doesn't make you racist any more than writing about murder makes you killer. And the fact that lately, so many people can't grasp that is scary to me.

You tell a story about race, you tell a story about racism. Because racism is alive and well. And even if we manage to create a post-racism society, racism will have been alive and well. They're a package deal.

I want people to be able to tell stories about race. I want every kind of depiction about race there is. The good, the bad and the messy. We've been invisible for too long.

And if you think thoughtful media portrayals of racism are just a writer's excuse to be racist and not a portrayal of issues and inequalities that can and have played out in the real world because of the systems of oppression that underpin them, you're clearly unable to separate a fictional story from your own personal baggage and I have nothing to say to you.

These terrible takes about Claudia are extra irritating to me as someone from an African country, who grew up on multiracial and multicultural shows and studied post-apartheid and postcolonial literature at university, media that had racism as a recurring theme, because the narratives, like IWTV and TVL, were about racist structures and the people who lived in them.

It's so fucking painful to realize that the majority of these would be lumped under "generic racist propaganda" on this stupid US-centric website because for some reason people think that a piece of media having racism in it makes it politically incorrect propaganda, unfit to be enjoyed, studied or consumed. Without realizing what an oppressive, imperialistic, white standard that is.

"I'm a good person who only consumes media that is 100% non-racist, non-sexist and politically correct."

Congratulations. I can't go a week without experiencing some form of oppression, from other marginalized people even, because internalized marginalization is a thing and my parents and grandparents grew up in systems where racism was valued. In fact, racism is valued to this day in certain places, but I'm overjoyed to hear that I'd get punished by Western audiences if I were to write about it. I'd be nothing without your erasure.

The scene where Claudia finally gave Louis a piece of her mind could've been a wonderful opportunity for the fandom to talk about how racism is a structural context that marginalized people cannot separate themselves from or how traumatized people can and do weaponize each others' internalized racism against each other.

It could've been a wonderful opportunity to discuss how Claudia was misrepresented because of Louis' guilt and love for her or how female characters, black women in particular, are rarely allowed to show their ugly sides in media, especially when the narrative is told through a male lens. A male lens that's been well established as someone who puts himself and the people he loves on pedestals and continues to view her through rose-colored glasses to this day.

It could've been a wonderful opportunity to talk about the myth of the perfect victim or how her being trapped in a young girl's body means people have "no idea of her strength."

It could've been a wonderful opportunity to discuss how much of that scene was Claudia finally being honest and letting out all that pent up resentment she never got to share with Louis while losing him was at stake (but now she has nothing to lose) or how much was cruel lies motivated by the pain of being ripped from her resting place, seeing Louis and Lestat there together (Louis choosing Lestat over her AGAIN) while she's stuck having to exist without Madeleine.

Some people did speak about that which is awesome. Thank you for existing.

But mostly, it became all about "My morals have been violated" (fine, don't watch it then) and "what Claudia said was inexcusable, how dare she" (you're policing a traumatized black female character, EXCUSE YOU) and "the writers are such racist and sexist meanies for no longer portraying Claudia as Louis' most special manic pixie throw pillow" (??? make it make sense ???). It mostly boiled down to the fact that Claudia was cruel to Louis out of anger.

"This isn't Claudia."

There's literally an episode titled "The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding". Describing Claudia. From Louis' perspective. The person who has an admittedly rosy view of her.

She's ruthless. She's bloodthirsty. She's cruel.

She's every bit as ruthless as Lestat, whose blood flows through her veins. She's every bit as bloodthirsty as the coven that took her out. That's why they had to team up in order to do it. And she's every bit as cruel as Louis, who we've seen do this type of thing to multiple characters at multiple times. Lestat taught her how to hunt, but if there's one thing Claudia would have learned from Louis, it would be being cruel to people out of anger.

Racism is one of Louis' core wounds and triggers. We see it throughout season 1. Lestat uses the racially neutral term "fledgling" to address him, and he assigns racial meaning onto it, after which Lestat never uses the term again. Claudia uses "slaves" as a buzzword to manipulate him. Daniel uses racial terminology to get him to open up in the interviews. His favorite human meal is Jim Crow racists. Every time he acts on impulse, it's triggered by someone else's racism or perceived racism. It's a core wound so it's the best way to be cruel to Louis. Claudia is a predator and she went straight for the jugular.

Did you expect her not to?

Claudia was summoned to once again assuage the guilt of the two people who were complicit in both her deaths. She was immediately confronted with the image of the two of them together again after decades of searching for and not finding her companion, Madeleine.

Before she died she literally called them out for the self-absorbed bastards that they were, the fact that they constantly used her as a pawn in their drama and the fact that her being made a vampire was never about her, but about them.

She died because Louis refused to listen to her warnings about Armand. And then Louis still stayed with Armand for years after that, the very years she was stuck in purgatory without Madeleine, showed her private diaries to everyone, because her words were published in a fucking international bestseller, read out her most vulnerable thoughts about getting assaulted to her abuser to fuel his own sanctimonious hero complex and then paid a sex worker to act like her.

Of course, she's harder on Louis and easier on Lestat. Louis was supposed to be better than this. As unfair as it is, she always held him to a higher standard. Lestat was always the scumbag she detested (and father she loved in secret) and she never let him forget that. Louis was the father she was open about loving (and scumbag she detested in secret, because she could not afford to push him away when he always had one foot out the door anyways). Louis was the person she had the most faith in and trusted not to fail and betray her. And then he went and did all that. Lestat was just acting like Lestat, but Louis broke her heart.

She is allowed to be pissed and to say whatever the fuck she wants to in order to get that message across. She is allowed to say things that she knows will hurt them, Louis in particular, whether or not those things are true. She's allowed to be in enough anguish to lash out about it where it'll hurt most. Because they'll always have each other anyways.

- it’s bad because it has a different atmosphere than the first two seasons: correct. it is a different show based on a different book set 70 years later.

- lestat’s character is too different from the first two seasons: correct again! because the whole fucking thing with this series is that it’s all told by heavily biased and unreliable narrators. it’s the WHOLE plot, actually. this is the first time we’ve really met lestat. and even this version isn’t accurate because it’s his biased recounting of his own actions. arguably the most authentic version of him we’ve seen was in the hurricane scene from the s2 finale, and he was real soft and pathetic there, absolutely nothing like how louis described him.

- louis has been reduced to a side character: it is quite literally a completely different show titled “the vampire lestat.” please explain what you were expecting. louis is barely in the novels after the first one. anne rice clearly had a favorite. most of the rest of the books are about lestat. be glad louis is there at all

I personally adore this type of storytelling. The narrator is an actual character with their own biases and agenda, and not just a framing device for the story. You get a more intimate view of their inner world, as opposed to an omniscient view of the world through their eyes. They're telling a story to themselves about themselves to make sense of everything that happened to them - instead of just telling us what happened.

I love it not because I can use the unreliable narrator logic to dismiss any character action I disapprove of as a lie or an obfuscation. I love it because the flaws and inconsistencies in the narrator's story are where the real story is happening. Is the narrator lying? Are they being lied to? If so, why? What don't they know? What are they not telling us and why? What are they missing, and why? What truth are they not ready to face? What will happen when they do face it? Why do they perceive the events and other characters the way they do, and would a different narrator see things differently? What does the difference in perception tell us about them? That's the good stuff! That's what's interesting! It is not a silly TV gimmick, and it is not a mistake made by bad writers.

You know that thing where a story is written in tight third person limited — we’re meant to be inside someone’s head, seeing the world through their thoughts — and then suddenly the narration says “the blond frowned” or “the shorter woman sighed” about a person the POV character knows really well?

That’s called antonomasia — using a descriptive label instead of a name. And it’s fine when we’re talking about strangers: “the cashier handed her the receipt,” “the tall guy blocked the door.” The POV character doesn’t know their names, and we just need a quick way to tell people apart.

But the moment it’s used for someone the POV character already knows, it breaks immersion. Because that’s not how our minds work. We don’t think “the older man smiled at me.” We think “Mark smiled.” Or maybe “my boss” if that relationship matters in the moment.

Third person limited means the narration sits inside someone’s perception. Their inner monologue is the story’s voice. So when you switch from “Mark smiled” to “the blond smiled,” you’ve pulled the camera away from their mind and turned it into an outside shot.

If you want to create distance or irritation, you can do it on purpose —

“The idiot from accounting emailed again.”

That’s character voice. That’s judgment. That works.

But otherwise?

As soon as your POV character knows someone’s name, use it. While we do tend to worry about repetitions, names rarely register as such to the readers.

If you need variety for rhythm, use relational or emotional identifiers that make sense in their head: her friend, his partner, their teacher, the person they loved.

Because inside someone’s thoughts, there are no “blonds” or “brunettes.”

Present day Louis comes off as this this controlled and charming and soft spoken yet dangerous man he's very different from the flashbacks even the accent is gone so I assumed and the audience is primed to assume in the last hundred years he's grown and become powerful and confident in his own right, Dubai penthouse and multimilionare and servants and mind games the doctor and airport and cybersecurity like he has self-actualized he has become the ruler of his own life respected and feared

So the Armand reveal was shocking and powerful to me but for different reasons than book readers because even though I didnt know who this character was from context clues I got the jist earlier in the season we got this conspicous line "only the oldest and most powerful of us can fly" as setup then Armand straight up says I'm 500 and starts floating I was like ohhh fuckkkk I just watched Louis struggle and finally escape his powerful scary older vampire husband and I cheered and clapped when he killed him finally (even if he didnt really) and this triumph lasts for one minute before the illusion is shattered with "Meet Armand, The Love Of My Life" delivered with a dead eyed look and hollow smile actually he hasn't escaped at ALL he's still in the torment nexus and has been for 50 years at least with ANOTHER even older even more powerful scary vampire husband are you kidding me nooooo the Dubai penthouse and money and servants meant nothinggg he's still just as trapped as he was in NOLA