I study Gothic literature, in both critical and academic writing, but also how they are designed in creative writing.
While TVL had some elements of gothic storytelling (gothic doubles, incest as a story-telling motif, elements of melodrama), it did not use them to the story's benefit, and I will say they chose not to.
As both additions to the post say, Gothic is not about presenting a confrontational and uncomfortable idea without friction. Gothic is about presenting anxieties that "normalized" social structures take for granted. It is about taking the audience to the limits of humanity and asking us if we can find ourselves, there.
For example: Frankenstein isn't just about a man creating life and then abandoning it. Frankenstein is about asking us to look at a motivated and intelligent young person, eager to create life, suddenly finding themselves incapable of accepting it or taking care of it, and finding themselves in utter despair over such a thing. Yes, the monster is quite humanized and Victor is the bad guy in some people's interpretations, but it was written by Mary Shelley as an older teenager as she was considering her future as a potential mother, and the future of science and society. The gothic reality and the UNCOMFORTABLE reality that it gives us, is that some parents aren't capable of loving their children - their creations. That is a very real experience for a lot of children, however, so it becomes relatable and readable because that horror is GIVEN FRICTION. Instead of just presenting the monster as, well, a monster, Shelley wrote a story about an abandoned child who had to learn on their own and kept being rejected. The monster had emotional -and flawed- reactions to the rejection of his father. The monster Frankenstein created has nuance, presenting to us the complicated existence of a rejected child and an Outsider, and asking us to have empathy for them -- even if we only hear it through hearsay.
So, in the same line, if someone is presenting a racialized gothic story, you don’t use racist writing to present the uncomfortable reality unless you can provide empathy and those voices to upset it. That's like telling unwanted children they are monsters. Instead, you have to write it with love and friction, because the real target of the story should be the people living in a racialized society that normalizes racism. That is revealing the anxiety that people who benefit from "normalized" structures don't want to face: that people who face insults like as a normal part of their life CAN RESPOND. That they can have rage, and be upset, and be HUMANIZED MONSTERS, because social structures say they should just take it, and they will not.
If TVL had taken the gothic elements it included seriously, it would have
a) had Jarda be presented as the vulnerable self that Lestat kept denying himself to be, mirroring the things that Lestat could not accept that he was suffering. If Lestat cannot have empathy for his weaker "dumber" human mirror, he will never be able to accept himself as someone who is used and abused, and the denial creates a bigger monster. Using Jarda to visualize the abuses and suffering Lestat's "i am a god" was hiding, and having him be able to make connections the with others Lestat had been craving, would have been the proper use of the gothic double
b) Regina as Claudia's Gothic Double presenting Claudia's "real" voice and humanized perspective. We go round and round over how truthful Claudia was in her diaries, but Regina had a chance to show us a version of Claudia that made it to adulthood, and also GOT A CHOICE. Would Regina be enticed by vampirism? Is she truly being taken advantage of by Louis? Is Regina as content with her normal and average human life as Claudia wished she would have been, or is Regina still suffering under those same oppressive systems that led to Claudia's death? Regina could have been used as the continued thread of asking if Louis and Lestat damned Claudia that day, or if she was always doomed to die under oppresive forces. Regina could have reminded Louis that the things that led to the trial were not Armand, Paris, and a jealous murderous theatre troupe, but instead a white supremacist society that punishes disabled Black Women for daring to demand basic respect for themselves.
c) I have talked at length about incest as a storytelling motif in posts like this, but one thing that mother/son incest in Gothic Storytelling modes does, is upset the gendered binary by creating a dissonance to expected gender roles. Yes, traditionally women aren't the most likely to sexually abuse their children, but it does happen. This could have been used to ask questions about Gabriella's relationship with gender -- leading to a natural progression of the gender non-conforming character from the book -- and about the monstrous things women may feel compelled to do to gain power and safety in patriarchal society. It could have given Lestat a chance to reflect on his own understandings of the gender spectrum, because Gabriella may find that "othering" herself from patriarchal society (instead of feeding on it) is actually the freedom she craved. Instead of just presenting Gabriella as a lustful abuser, they could have used it as a way to genuinely make a comment on the stressors that patriarchal society puts on women and non-women. There are traces of that character in Gabriella as presented in season 3, but they aren't strong enough to counter the intensity of the lustful abuse narrative.
d) Lestat is a melodramatic character, so I expected melodrama to pair with the gothic unreality to present parody as a storytelling device. This is used really well in some places: the voice-over in episode 1 where Lestat comments on society, makes "editing" notes to himself, and gets too far ahead of himself because he gets caught up in some elements of his storytelling. This was also used really well in 3x03 in the Magnus parody, where parody fell through and gave us the reality Lestat faces with the muse he can't please. Having more moments of melodrama would have carried the tone, generated humor in moments it felt stale, and also helped keep the show from feeling like it's talking to us. Lestat is talking to us, and clearly Lestat makes mistakes. This would also need a lot more affection added to the voice over to make it work, but the point still stands.
e) If you're gonna build up racism as an "ignored" social anxiety, you HAVE to have a narrative flip. It's like those artistic pancakes, where bakers use different colored batter to make a picture. Before they flip it, it often looks messy and kind of disgusting. You don't see the picture clearly until it's flipped. If episode 7 had included Armand revealing all of the "details" (aka, people Lestat discarded and treated poorly, things he was privileged enough to ignore, the reactions of those he was racist/sexist/insulting to) Lestat left out of his narrative, it would have broken Lestat's uncanny reality and flipped the pancake. This provides relief to the audience who were stressed with Lestat's uncanny reality (and discomfort to those who had been too comfortable with it), sets up the truth that Lestat avoided the friction the whole time, and recontextualizes the whole season by giving us keys to break down Lestat's narration. Armand didn't need to be a HERO for this to work, he just needed to have a strong B-plot that worked to shadow, contrast, and connect the first 6 episodes into sharp relief. It would have proved that by ignoring Armand, Lestat can't be trusted with storytelling, and would have collected the stray plot threads. This could have added a lot of subtext, and contrast to the orientalist insults Armand was just "taking," because he could refute everything all at once.
Basically, if the writers had leaned into the elements of the gothic that were already present in the story they had written, and were intentional about the way that reality would read to the audience they attracted through the first two seasons, they could have made a good story. Or, at least an okay-if-flawed experimental narrative that they could learn from.
Like, I guarantee that people who are most consistent about criticisms of the writing and framing of the series aren't actually wimps who can't handle being uncomfortable. I love being uncomfortable. I just find bigotry and lost potential to be insulting, and I will criticize the show for choosing to be bigoted when the writers could have chosen not to be.
Gothic stories and historical gothic narratives are flawed, but their goal has always been to release tensions that society wants unspoken. They could have said something really powerful with TVL. Instead they chose a bitter and angry reaction that mocked anyone who tried to enjoy the subtext and storyelements they had laid out.
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