i did really like daniel in the books and other adaptations, but i think what they’ve done with him in the amc series is so incredibly cool and intriguing.
the concept of a cynical, acerbic old journalist who battled a lifetime of trauma and addiction being faced with mortality through a fatal degenerative disease that will slowly rob him of his autonomy. a closeted elder gay man who spent the 80s in the queer scene in san francisco living through the aids crisis. he’s persistently clever and cunning and is strongly implied to have some sort of resistance towards mind control. he’s ruined every single relationship in his life so now he’s an asshole old man living alone with a terminal illness and his daughters don’t even talk to him while he keeps their childhood belongings in his closet. he ruins lives and people but is an expert at self-preservation.
and now! he’s a vampire, cured of his degenerative disease, free of the threat of mortality that has been looming over his head since the 80s, and he’s a cool mean old gay guy vampire who walks around in a leather jacket and sunglasses ripping people’s heads off and smoking out of a hookah. he’s been saved from death but given a fate that many in-universe consider arguably worse.
