🌹C.🫀

“Louis doesn’t sound like Louis” “Is this it? They skimmed over Lestat’s history so quick” “I don’t like that the narrative is all over the place the writing’s taken a downturn”, these are all things I’ve seen different people say multiple times now.

Lestat is telling this story. Louis doesn’t sound like how we’ve previously seen him because we’re seeing him through Lestat’s eyes. This is episode 2/7, maybe it’s Lestat who didn’t want to spend a long time talking about Auvergne? Maybe its set up for when it comes crashing back down later? The storyline is all over the place because Lestat’s mind is a fucking mess, not because the writing’s gone downhill. It’s unserious at times because Lestat is unserious. Mind you, it’s common knowledge that he starts his book sounding like Ebony Darkness Dementia Raven Way. lol.

And that’s not talking down on Lestat, because I’m genuinely enjoying this so far and I find him to be fun! It’s meant to have an element of camp to it! I’ve been liking the mess in Lestat’s mind and trying to find meaning in it almost as much as I love Louis’ linear storytelling with cracks starting to show until it was too much to cover up. The mess doesn’t mean that there are less things to look for or read into.

I think people are also having an issue because they see the chaos in Lestat’s narrative as the narrative trying to convey authenticity vs. Louis’ cleaner, more linear narrative as inauthentic. That’s where they’re wrong, because it’s written a means to hide things in plain sight.

Neither are fully authentic or inauthentic, Louis truly is a much more focused and calmer person relative to Lestat, but he also makes use of those traits as a cover. As Daniel said “Sidestep the big picture, get the story straight first” Louis jumping to see the big picture and tie things up in a neat and tidy way sometimes means that doesn’t notice the small things impacting his narrative, whether it be himself or outside influences, until they turn into huge things that are impossible to ignore.

Lestat is a lot more rough around the edges, his imperfections are exposed to the world and a lot of that is true, but he makes use of that as well to distract and misguide from what he doesn’t want you to look at— It’s not so much of a cover because the narrative has made it so he can’t hide from his… well… failures (or what he perceives as his own failures even when they’re not, like his victimhood), so what I think is happening here is that he’s going to wrestle with it as a part of the storytelling— it’s a far more purposeful action than Louis’ lack of realizations— and fail. For the victimhood he’s trying to distract from, we’ll see the true impact of it all eventually instead of the cool persona he’s trying to build that he thinks it’s going to take away from, but I think with this kind of framing it also means that any excuses he makes for his wrongful actions are going to fall apart as well. Or at least I see the story heading this way.

We’re starting to see some of that now in 3x02, he spends the whole episode almost trying to justify Gabriella’s incestuous abuse of him and then at the end puts up a weak “it’s different for vampires”.

I also think it depends greatly on the premise. Louis’ interview was an invitation, Lestat’s is his answer for playing a part in an apocalypse, not an introspection on his own terms and he’s vying for some sort of control here because… and now we’ve circled back to what I mentioned at the start… he’s a mess!