jesse

Strap in folks because this is a long one (TW: sexual abuse, incest)

Introduction:

I have always praised IWTV season 1 and 2 for being what an adaptation should be. It didn't tell us the exact same story we know and love, but it took the soul of that story and imbued it into new, unique ideas. The plot wasn't the same, but it was recognizable. The characters weren't the same, but they were recognizable. Not only that, but there was this intrinsic understanding of the source material that allowed for many of the themes in the books to be expanded upon in insightful ways. For example, one of the best changes they have ever made was making Louis a black man; Vampirism had always been, at least in part, about being the 'other'- outcasted, demeaned by society because of your traumas or identities. Tying race into that is BRILLIANT, and adds a whole new layer to the themes of the books that so many people took comfort in and related to. TVL, however, has shown none of the integrity the first two seasons had (so far), and- I would dare to say- is intentionally straying away from the source material, thus isolating book fans in favor for a more popular show.

He did the exact same storyline in 2.08 as 3.03, blade/buffy!Louis because he's never really thought of him as a character with any interiority. The black writers of the first two seasons saw him and were what made him so dynamic. Rolin is not skilled enough to hide his disdain for certain characters and he despises Louis. I can love a show and still question what the writers are doing for certain characters. If Louis is somehow in season four along with Akasha will it be an all white writer's room that consistently has blind spots? Will Akasha have even less of a storyline since he's made Gabriella more important to the story? Teasing incest as if Game of Thrones wasn't on television for 7-8 years?

Sometimes I feel Rolin resents how loved season 1 & 2 are, since it he trashed it, as it seems clearer, at least to me, that he had little to do with Louis' characterization. I had faith in Hannah because she wrote some of my favorite episodes. I even had faith in Rolin, but his glee at episode six where racial slurs are spoken to a black character seems to have his tail wagging in excitement at the potential discourse on twitter*/social media when there are still black fans of us watching* despite their wanting us gone from fandom, who may be offended at the usage of slurs, especially used flippantly done by an all white writer's room.

rolin jones 🤝 sam levinson: both obsessed with slinging antiblack slurs that don't affect them in the slightest to their biracial leads talents

and i saw ppl say that assad heard ppl responded badly to him saying he sympathises with armand so now hes doing the 'of course i denounce him' type disclaimers like he cant even talk about his own character without framing him as utterly evil

what the actual fuck is wrong with this show

nobody can sympathise with a survivor of extreme abuse? nobody can see him as a whole person rather than just a cartoon villain?

him being abused as a kid is the shows big joke now? the grooming victim wanting to be loved is the fandoms big joke? the south asian man being undesirable is so hilarious? his sexuality, the sexual acts forced on him, and his sexual performance are all just snappy memeable comebacks?

seriously the big punchline of big boss was *the trafficked desi csa survivors sexual inadequacy*

fuck this show frankly fuck everyone whos hooting and hollering about these lines

Jones says they grappled with how to condense and retell what happens between Queen of the Damned Molloy, a.k.a. the Devil’s Minion, and Armand. “In the book, it's all about a human and a vampire falling in love. We've removed that, and we've also aged [Molloy] up, so we have different circumstances,” he explains. “But we still owe the same sort of a weirdness to their manifestation, of what it's like to be bonded between those two, and that was exciting for us.”

EXCUSE ME MA’AM ?!! No you didn’t, that’s not what you conveyed in this episode AT ALL (except if you go on a very boring route).

You clearly implied that Past DM has occurred, it would be absolutely illogical to not go there. Do your little month of post Dubai to grow a new relationship if you want, I also need my old man yaoi BUT don’t tell us that there’re wasn’t anything before that, it would be the most atrocious waste of a good and complex storyline. With all the glances, the lines still not explained (“protect me from you Mr Molloy”, “she wanted to say yes”, why do I owe you my shame”)

AUTUMN: In this season, Rolin and the writers have talked about, you know, due to creative and budgetary reasons, they can't do all the scenes from the 18th century within the 18th century. So they're moving those plot lines and character journeys into the present day. And I really think that–

ASSAD: If there's anything you don't like or you're confused by, just call it creative and budgetary reasons! That's the party line.

AUTUMN: Well, so here's the thing, too: I think this season really do have to rewatch and you do have to hold out for– Because I'm learning so much upon all of these rewatches where I'm like, wait a second. 

ASSAD: [...] I think structurally it's such a... I'd be really interested, and I know that this isn't me interviewing you, but actually I'm way more interested in hearing how you and also the rest of the audience are navigating this new almost– Because I– I was having sort of um, peaks and troughs of going on a journey myself as I was reading the scripts. And trying to um, reconcile with this form, and how it was so different but also um, taking on a new voice that this was the only way that– this was the perfect way to sort of take it. I was struggling with understanding where we were and where the crux of the story was going to land. [...] But I um. Yeah, I went on a journey. I went on a real journey with this season... as an audience member trying to understand it. Trying to... get into the same rhythm. How has it been for you, this rhythm? Have you...

AUTUMN: No, it's been very very different from my previous two experiences. I'm really glad that I'm not doing my weekly reaction videos because how I'm feeling immediately after watching episodes is very very very different to how I feel now after like immediately re-watching it then and there, and then also rewatching it with the context of the episodes that I have now, which of course I still don't have episode seven but um, there's so many moments from episodes one, two, three and four that make a lot more sense once you reach, up to episode six and everything.

ASSAD: Yeah, but this is it, and one of the things that I found fascinating and I think is really genius is the fact that you're made to feel such– I felt so strongly, for and against some of these things that were happening early on, but they are then revisited later on and acknowledged and completely recontextualized... which I found really fascinating, because I was like, what? why am I going on a bipolar journey here? Sometimes I'm devastated and then other times I'm looking back on that and going, why was I so devastated or... I don't know. But it kind of tracks with Lestat. Lestat is this amalgamation of so much emotion and instinct and performance and chaos and all of that stuff. And I think we should be feeling that as well! We shouldn't be like, you know; Louis was beautifully classy, and beautifully put. His story was beautifully put together and understood with the help of Molloy, because he let Molloy in and helped him navigate and understand the story, so we went on that journey together. Whereas here it's like Molloy is trying but Lestat is like, "Fuck you, I'm gonna tell this my way and I'm not going to tell it in any order that makes sense to you. I'm going to tell it how I feel at the time and I might go back and revisit something that seemed inconsequential to you, but I've just realised something about that thing so I'm going to look at that again. By the way, I'm going to go for a shit, and then I'll come back and tell you some more." and we're all like, "W-What...? Okay..."

AUTUMN: Trying to keep up with it all!

ASSAD: Yeah.

I remember watching an analysis on how well the first seasons incorporated blackness into the narrative. It wasn't just a race-swap; louis' blackness became the key motivation behind his character, his suppressed rage and need to be seen made his turning so much more powerful than the standard 'don't you want to live forever?' shtick. You take that identity away from him and you'd have to rewrite the entire script. I would even go as far as to say it made iwtv better.

I know the show doesn't have the space to focus on Armand's identity to that extent, so i'm not too bothered, but.

rentboy, nicki's slur, bottom twink, ragdoll for hire, etc, etc. If you're going to mention all this anyways, can there be a little more to it?

I know this is not South-Asian exclusive. At this point of the show you could make armand white and you could argue it would largely stay the same* save for some insults switched around and, dare i say, have him be portrayed as more desirable like in the books. I almost wish this wasn't the case, I wish it was a race-adaption instead of a race-swap, because there's so much potential.

Everything about armands' story feels riddled with orientalist and colonialist themes. There's the historical association of south asian men as less masculine and feminized compared to their white counterparts, the simultaneous desire (exotic, youthful, novel) and ridicule (gremlin, monkey, dirty). Characters constantly humiliating and talking down to him, backhanded compliments because admitting that he could be desirable feels shameful so they have to take it out on the object instead. Marius' painting where his brown identity was stripped but the art was kept, because it sold better this way (scandinavian scarves, clean girl aesthetics, yoga). His complex view of his master as a rescuer, his relationship to religion, languages, names, ownership, identity, all colonialist themes.

And why not get geo-political with it? there's a wealth of detail that his background provides. Why not talk about Dehli's huge child trafficking problem that continues to this day? Or how his parents selling him could have been influenced by India's caste system? What was it like spending 400 years in a country with anti-Romani sentiment? How did Santiago, who existed during the period where India was under British rule, feel about having to answer to a brown man? Did it influence their dynamic at all? What about living in Dubai, a country built on slave labour?

So much potential. Obviously this can't all be fleshed out but the script definitely had room for a little self-awareness between the many, many, cases where we see armand grapple with these themes.

The absolutely pervasive mentality that unwanted criticism or critique shouldn't be given and should be ignored is why fans of color don't stay in fan spaces.

And I am not going to mince words here:

A lot of you are racist. A lot of your fan works are racist.

That might have been difficult to hear. And if it was, you should probably reflect on why that was.

"Fandom etiquette" has created a space where fans of color either bite our tongues and eventually leave or say something, get dogged on, and then eventually leave.

My personal Gabrielle fancast would be either Jennifer Ehle on the youngest end (age 53) and Greta Scacchi on the older side (age 63). They were both famous in the 90s so recognizable to some audiences but not famous enough to be distracting.

Ehle famously played Lizzie Bennett in the BBC p&p and had done a lot of good supporting work lately. She was also the original Catelyn Stark in the unaired game of thrones pilot.

why do i think so? no other good reason than i am bengali myself and i want armand to be. (also assad zaman's family is from bangladesh. bengali solidarity!!!)

bengal: the region in south asia comprising present-day bangladesh and the indian states of west bengal, odisha, assam and parts of bihar.

armand said in the season one finale, that takes place in 2022, he is a 514 year old vampire. is it 514 years including or excluding his human years? let's go with including. that means armand would have been born in 1508.

now what was going on in india and bengal in 1508? well, the mughals hadn't come to india yet; it's still about two decades before babur makes his way here. delhi was under the rule of the lodi dynasty, the delhi sultanate was in its dying days. most of north india, mainly uttar pradesh and bihar was under the jaunpur sultanate. bengal was still it's own independent kingdom, called the bengal sultanate. alauddin hussain shah had just seized power and become the sultan of bengal in 1494, beginning the hussain shahi dynasty (they ruled in bengal till 1538 when the mughals captured the region).

india as a country did not exist yet. even it's conception would be a few centuries away still. the subcontinent was a collection of big and small kingdoms and sultanates, constantly warring amongst themselves, some ruled by hindu rulers others by muslims, each with their own distinct histories and cultures. bengal was one of the most prosperous and thriving among them. the bangla language and bengali culture was just beginning to develop.

vasco da gama had arrived in india in 1498, landing at kozhikode on the malabar coast. this began the arrival of the portugese in india, and soon other european colonialists followed. they soon set up their capital in goa, built forts all along the western coast and established trade through obtaining licenses and exclusive permits from local rulers. they first made their way to the bay of bengal region around 1516, with the first portugese representative- a guy called joao coelho- coming to chittagong (present day bangladesh). the first factory was set up in chittagong the next year.

the portugese traded in spices and cotton and fruits and muslin and also slaves. the european indian ocean slave trade began with the coming of the portugese in the early 16th century. slavery in south asian societies had obviously existed long before, and it was a deeply complex and diverse system of dependency and regimes of slavery. slavery of youth and children was also pretty prevalent: it would not be uncommon for poor, farming families to sell away themselves or their children to zamindars (landlords) and colonial overlords in desperation. there were many, many cases of young children being forced to get onboard ships where they'd be held agains their will and taken to europe, the americas or south-east asia. goa and lisbon were the two cities that linked the movement of goods and people between the indian and atlantic oceans, but goa wasn't the only place where enslaved children were traded in portugese india nor lisbon the only european they were taken to.

one of those kids might as well have been arun.

i know the brief glimpse at the talamasca files showed armand's origin to be in delhi but in this particular scene he clearly says that he was sent *to* delhi, thinking he was going to work on a merchant boat.

this is just a theory i have btw. armand could've been from maharastra or the deccan as well idk. anyway.

armand is a monster, a vicious, villanious creature of unfathomable powers and ferocity. but he is also so deeply tragic. he had been forcibly torn away from his people and his land. he has no memory of his family or his humanity. he has lived for over half a millenium. the india he might've known hasn't existed for centuries, and he never got to know the one that exists today. the bangla he might've spoken no one remembers anymore. he has nothing left of the human he was except that name.

further readings (STRONGLY SUGGESTED!!!):