Of the perpetrators, Steven Green said, “I didn’t think of Iraqis as humans.” James Barker took a plea deal and immediately after, smoked a cigarette and grinned as reporters passed by.

May Abeer and her family rest in peace while the monsters who did this and allowed it to happen suffer for eternity.

Jimoteè Chamameé

my read on this scene is that we're seeing armand and fareed (armand is muslim-coded although his religion is never specified or explained which is a seperate issue of orientalism, and fareed is pretty presumably muslim edit: @knight-in-shimmering-armour made a really good point, i assumed this is about islamophobia because they’re both shown in proximity to islam in dubai and that’s the only time religion comes up other than with tcod with armand, but by both fareed’s last name and when/where armand was enslaved, they should both be hindu/raised hindu, so we don’t actually know if the intent behind the scene was islamophobia or hinduphobia,) torture louis and regina (both Black) in a kosher butcher's shop as a nod to white supremacist ideologies pitting people against each other along racial/ethnic and religious lines. because i can't see any other reason for it. and it might also be a subtle nod that yes, they are going to adapt the anti-semitic lore from the later books that is universally regarded as stupid (the reptlimoids, for one.) so. AND i recently found out that hannah moscovitch (who was the only jewish person in the room when they wrote this, afaik) is a zionist.

second edit: i had a lovely conversation with @bratboymolloy about this, where they pointed out i kinda tacked that last sentence on and people might misunderstand. there's been some anti-semitic rhetoric around this one, so just to clarify, /i/ believe hannah moscovitch is a zionist for a couple reasons i'll elaborate on, but i don't think she's a zionist because she went to israel, which i have seen a couple people say, or because she's jewish. i personally, as a jew, have kind of a hard-ass take on going to israel at all, but it's a much longer conversation about occupation and privilege and how living on a kibbutz is something mostly teenagers do, not everybody who's been to israel is automatically a zionist, nor should all jews be seen as zionists until proven otherwise. that's anti-semitic. just randomly assuming every jewish person is pro-ethnic cleansing and genocide is pretty close to blood libel, don't do that.

the reason i think hannah moscovitch is a zionist is because she says /to the times of israel/ (which is a zionist publication that's defined as 'centrist' but i would call um. Other Things.) that "there are enough works out there about north american jews who go to israel and discover how much more complex the situation is than they thought or were taught to believe," when It Most Cetainly Is Not. zionism is just the belief that there should be a state of israel in palestine, so to say it's complicated as to whether or not there should be a state of israel falls into the 'strong suspicion she's a zionist' category /to me./ she also wrote a play based on a guy at her kibbutz whose grandfather was a nazi who was there to make amends. the plot of east of berlin explores the legacy of genocide and the effect it has on survivors/perpetrators' children and grandchildren. but she didn't take into account her privilege as a white jew from the diaspora who was living on palestinian land at the time, or the inherent privilege of that experience, the systemic violence and oppression that allowed that to happen.

https://nitter.net/ariesmandeo/status/2078651331905028178#m

textually engaging with the fact that armand is a lyncher and the violence he does to louis is often directly pulled from the violence done to black people under enslavement and segregation would mean the nonblack writers would have to textually engage with blackness as a central theme and question their own impulses like why the show disproportionately and voyeuristically depicts the brutalization of black bodies- textually engaging with the fact that gabriella has been raping her own son for over 200 years would mean the misogynistic writers would have to engage with the subject of sexual abuse and assault beyond "louis the pimp" and question their own impulses like why so many of gabriella's scenes with lestat are played for taboo titillation or "comic relief". it's a lot easier to sidestep all of that and go "oh these relationships were fucked up and doomed bc there's no real love there".

This was the narrative function:

Bonus reaction image:

Proof:

IWTVL S3 Ep7 Musings - DARVO, the "Mutual Abuse" myth, and The Armends

[x x] Hannah Moscovitch said that Armand "had been done wrong" and "used in all sorts of ways by Louis."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis only "rightfully" hurt Armand 5-10%; and that he's 90-95% "partially responsible" for his own predicament (read: torture & abuse) and "owes" something to Armand for having his head up his own arse (read: grieving & PTSD).

[x] Rolin Jones said "the twist" of Armand planning this elaborate years-long revenge was to for "Louis to finally understand the depth of the damage he’s inflicted on Armand, which prompts him to make genuine amends to Armand." "'What am I actually accountable for when I froze this guy out?.... What didn't [Louis] say when he threw him into the wall in Dubai?" Rolin feels "very empathetic towards Armand at that moment."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis found out what Armand did (read: sold him out to the coven, directed the play, lied on Lestat to Louis about killing Claudia, driving Louis to suicide, mindwiping him, more lies, Fred Steins, lied on Daniel about forging the real Trial script, etc), and because Louis "never apologized for the 50 years" of Loumand's failmarriage, that's why Armand's a gremlin now.

[x] Rolin Jones confirmed that the plan happened as Armand sat in the debris of the wall Louis shoved him onto (after Daniel exposed his Seismic Lie about "Banishment"). Since there were "two people in that relationship" (despite there not being two people who knew Armand lied about everything....)

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis is the "most prideful" of the three vamps given Armends, and because he needs humbling Armand "is owed" an apology from Louis in the most brutal way imaginable.

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis' humbling requires that he "owe[s]...some accountability for why we are here."

[x x] Rolin Jones said that Louis' "growth" requires that Louis finally realize that there is "some part of me, of what i did in my life" that "made" Armand decapitate him & scam him with Regina; Louis clearly had "something to do with that."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis actually has "culpability" in how he "ended up here" because of what he "did to this person for 77 years of shutting him out" (after Armand not only sold him out to the coven but also deliberately lied to him about his daughter's death that he has never stopped grieving and told Armand to his face "You'll never make it up to me.").

[x] Rolin Jones said something Louis owes Armand for having "iced out for 77 years," and is "culpable for having brought him to this level of extremity."

[x] Rolin Jones says Louis reminding Armand about the Seismic Lie is just him "playing the victim card."

[x x] Rolin Jones said that the first step towards Louis needing to "work on" himself (read: be humbled) is to apologize to Armand (read: for not loving or forgiving him post-Paris).

[x] Jacob Anderson said that Rolin told him he would "never put anything in the show" that the actors weren't happy with.

[x x] Jacob Anderson said that 3x7 was Louis' smaller way of taking accountability that "the fault" was his for being tportured.

[x] Jacob Anderson said "I don’t know that I agree that Louis would be like, it’s my fault that you chopped off my head."

[x] Jacob Anderson hopes that Louis doesn't believe what he says, that his "withholding is what led to" Louis to deserve Armand torturing him.

[x] Jacob Anderson said he "wholly disagrees" that Louis withholding love & affection from Armand post-Trial "led to this moment"; that it's his fault he was being tortured by Armand

[x x] Jacob Anderson says he doesn't think Louis means all of that; Louis' just under duress & "trying to stay alive."

[x] Jacob Anderson agreed that Louis' willingness to shoulder the blame saved himself and Regina.

[x x x] Jacob Anderson said that abuse is also part of Loumand's relationship, but that it comes from "different angles"--as if it was mutually abusive.

[x] Jacob Anderson said that Louis' confession "is real to a certain extent," but was still "under extreme duress, so there is an element of self-preservation."

What DEEPLY horrifies me about Rolin Jones' rhetoric in S3 is that not ONCE does he ever couch these ruminations of Louis' within the broader context of abuse victims who blame themselves or are gaslit into blaming themselves for being abused.

For all the seriousness with which they want us to treat Lestat's abuse by his mother and how that affects his propensity to shirk accountability for his own cycles of abuse, not ONCE does Rolin or Hannah step back from the vapid Teehee Armand is such a Gremlin aren't you all glad to finally see him acting crazy in our Horror™ show~!? 🤭 to actually have a serious conversation about the ways that he weaponizes Reverse-Victim-Offender to put the onus on the other person: "You drove me to this; you made me do this!"

Not ONCE in S3 does he discuss the complex psyche of survivor's guilt, or abuse survivors, or Stockholm Syndrome. Not ONCE does he acknowledge Louis' self-hared and tendency to internalize the awful things Armand has levied against him, as a way of rationalizing what Armand is even "owed."

Not ONCE does Rolin factor in what those 77 years was even based on, and how Louis would have never spared Armand his wrath in Paris had he known Armand lied about "Banishment."

Not ONCE is Armand's own culpability addressed, knowing even before he and Louis started having sex that Louis was hallucinating DreamStat all over the city and already deep in the throes of mental illness--even admitting to Daniel that he knew DreamStat was there, (albeit not as vividly as Louis saw/felt him), and that he would only be entering a relationship with Louis as a rebound still hung up on his ex.

Not ONCE does Rolin give Louis the grace to acknowledge that although there is no such thing as a perfect victim on this show Louis was always at a far bigger disadvantage because there was so much he didn't know about Armand's machinations--let alone the true history of his dynamic with Lestat (and even Nicki & GabriellA). Which flies in the face of any attempt to dress up Loumand's dynamic as "mutual abuse" (which does not exist); even if one nobly tries to be diplomatic and see things neutrally or try to avoid the Perfect Victim Frying Pan by landing in the Mutual Abuse Fire.

As such, the OBVIOUS biases Hannah & Rolin have towards Armand--and the BLATANT disdain and resentment they have towards Louis who needs to be "humbled"--is loud and clear. And it is truly heartbreaking to see Jacob Anderson visibly struggling to make sense of it all, contradicting himself when left & right; Rolin and Hannah have been VERY consistently doubling down on their own explanations. 🤦‍♂️

Dishonorable Mentions: Rolin Jones pre-S3 on Armand "Apologists"

I've already shared my thoughts on these post-S2 / pre-S3 quotes, and how problematic they were even then.

[x] Rolin Jones "hoped Armand Apologists would multiply" by the end of S3.