IWTVL S3 Ep5 Musings - Out with the old, in with the new
I find this scene SO fascinating, because it foreshadows everything that would happen for the rest of Lesatat's 20th century.
He ignores/breaks Marius' rule ("practical limitations") to NEVER feed Akasha blood (NEVER feed Gremlins after midnight!) that he sees no point or purpose to. Likewise, he doesn't tell Louis & Claudia about The Great Laws (enough or at all, it doesn't matter).
He wants to make Akasha beautiful as they ring in the New Year ("a splash of red"); "a romantic gesture" (that he probably secretly hoped might actually wake her up--a la book!Lestat playing the violin). Likewise, he turned Louis & Claudia into vampires; more "romantic gestures," that entirely ignored the red flags & warning signs about what BAD IDEAS those were ("Disaster, my son").
In Lestat's supreme delusion, he trusted Armand of all people ("rotten boy!") to "watch the music," (a la Nicki & TDV; "I gave you to Armand" x x). When everything inevitably goes to Hell, Lestat is furious with Armand "I don't know why I invite you, worthless!" But there's still that kernel where he knows that HE chose to put Armand in charge ("I INVITE YOU") against his better judgement ("I don't know why"). The onus is on HIM for putting Armand in charge at all, when he should've handled it himself.
The record scratched BEFORE he ever touched it ("divine error"), because he is doomed by the narrator ("my life...a three--century trainwreck"). Like Louis, he DOES blame himself for things that are out of his control. Magnus was psychotic BEFORE he met Lestat, but Lestat made an entire music video absolving Magnus for "losing all decorum" after seeing his 19 performances as Lelio ("I scratched it!"). Nicki was bipolar & depressed BEFORE he met Lestat. Louis was suicidal & depressed BEFORE he met Lestat.
But he's a crashout with a volatile & violent temper, that leads him to make mountains out of molehills, making bad thing even worse when his maladapted personality disorder rears its ugly head & escalates the situation unnecessarily. ("Stupid! I ruined your party.") What happened to Nicki & Louis (& Claudia/Larry) was made worse partially/largely through some of Lestat's horrible behavior towards them, too ("I carried the box because I destroyed him, Dan.").
"We made it!" The horrors persist, but so does Lestat ("I have a capacity for enduring"). His book canonical optimism & HOPE still shines through; always looking for the silver lining where things will get better tomorrow.
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Do you think Lestat's outburst against Claudia before the drop, is also informed by his relationship to Gabriella? Doing everything he can to make Gabriella love him- the incest ( even though he doesn't say it, there must be some revulsion subconsciously). The love perverted by Gabriella-> unconditional between Louis and Claudia. In his jealousy he says some crude and unthinkable things about Louclaudia. None of his parents were ever there for Lestat-Gabriella never was his immortal companion. Louis was ready to be so for Claudia.
About 90% of Lestatās feelings about LouClaudia are related to Gabriella. The last 10% is more about Lestat projecting his grief over Nicki onto Claudia. But thatās a diff convo.
So yes, Lestatās reaction to the love between LouClaudia is heavily based on the traumatic relationship with his own mother. But imo itās about more than the unconditional love between them. Itās about their enmeshment and Louisā dependency on Claudia. LouClaudia had the unhealthy dynamic Lestat wishes he had with Gabriella.
Young Lestat & Gabriella looked a lot like LouClaudia. Bonding with each other to a heightened degree due to the patriarchal abuse in their household.
Similar to Louis, Gabriella projected her own identity onto Lestat. However, the difference is Gabriella turned their dynamic into sexual assault. She felt empowered living vicariously through Lestat, while at the same time feeling empowered by hurting and controlling him.
On the flip side, Louis seeks redemption and purity through Claudia. He feels his life can finally have value by identifying himself solely in relation to her (āWho are you, Louis?ā āIām your brother.ā) He is not living through her, he is being saved through her.
Both GabiLou reached for their ideal selves through LesClaudia, but where Lestatās masculinity was the goal for Gabriella, Claudiaās innocence was the goal for Louis. (And both were false perspectives, mind you, but thatās also a different convo. Iām going to kms with all these possible tangents!!)
So LouClaudiaās relationship does not and would not ever turn sexual, but it was emotionally incestuous. Their identities blended together and eliminated the very needed boundaries that are supposed to exist between parent/child or brother/sister.
The ātwo blood fat cocksā line in S2 was funny from an outside pov, but what siblings are actually saying that to each other?!
The Loustat sex scene where Claudia telepathically talks to Louis is referenced often, but even before that.
Lestat wasnāt wrong that Antoinette should generally be his and Louisā business rather than hers. But LouClaudia (as one identity) felt she had the place to get involved.
And even before that, before the drop, Louis became despondent when Claudia went off on her college phase. Itās one thing to feel guilt given they just had an argument when Claudia left out the door, but Louis practically fell apart. And stayed this way for years!
I say all this to point out that Louis & Claudiaās relationship, while beautiful and full of love, was also unhealthy.
And it was the way they were unhealthy that Lestat was envious of. Lestat projects onto Claudia a LOT and the older she got, the more he saw of himself in her. And this viewpoint leads him to becoming paranoid about LouClaudia given what happened with him and Gabi. Except there is no sex(ual assault) involved. Only emotional codependency. And this, ironically, makes Lestat even more furious about it.
He does not want to be in a sexual relationship with his mother, but he does want to be in a codependent relationship with his loved ones. He wanted Gabriella to ābelongā to no one except himself, and the same with Louis. He wants all of their attention all the time, and wants to be needed & sought after by them always.
He wouldāve done anything to have a mother whoād waste away by the simple suggestion he go somewhere by himself. He wouldāve done anything to have a mother who would want to forever share a coffin with him and have little to no interest in separating.
Louis is not ever abandoning Claudia, the only way sheād gain independence is by being the one to leave him (and the second time she tries to in S1, Louis literally plans to kill himself the morning after. He could not live without Claudia!) Itās the direct opposite of GabiStat where Gabriella routinely leaves him behind without a care in the world. Lestat wanted that part of Louisā attachment to Claudia. The ruinous devotion with no threat of abandonment ever. Where separation would feel like the equivalent of death for both of them.
One of the biggest reasons I think Lestat fell in love with Louis during their courtship era is because he could see how full of love and affection Louis was when it came to the people he cared about. Itās a trait they both share, being lover boys, while also being complementary: Lestat feeling wholly unloved and Louis overflowing with his capacity to love.
But when Louis gets turned and Lestat stops being able to read his mind, and they stop having sex, and, presumably, stop sharing blood, Lestat feels denied this aspect of Louis while believing Claudia is receiving all of it.
Lestat wants the love and emotional intimacy, but more pointedly he wants the enmeshment. He wants the āIāll completely fall apart or even kill myself if you leaveā, he wants the codependency. And it all ties back to Gabriellaās abuse as her relationship with Lestat was at the extreme other end in terms of affection and care. Because of how deprived of love Lestat has been his entire life, he craves the near-obsession toxic kind. LouClaudiaās codependency was his most desired kindāve dynamic to have with someone, and the fact he witnessed it every single day drove him mad.
Mind you, LouClaudiaās enmeshment is a result of Lestatās own abuse towards them. He played a role in creating the very relationship he always wanted. Just that its foundation is built as an outlet from him, their own messed up safe space. Making the cycle never ending where Lestat abuses LouClaudia -> LouClaudia grow closer to each other in response -> Lestat feels more excluded and the abuse gets worse. And it just kept going until you got the drop and again and again before exploding as Mardi Gras.
A lot of what happened at Rue Royale were the three of them projecting onto each other. We know Louis loves Lestat & Claudia equally. In 1x05, Louis doesnāt even actually agree to leave with Claudia and abandon Lestat. He wants to be with them both. And if S2 Dreamstat isnāt a reflection of Louisā cavernous grief during Claudiaās college phase then idk what is. But it really is about Lestat projecting his own trauma, desires, and fears onto LouClaudia that makes things spiral into hell.
This isnāt to say Louis was completely blameless. He wasnāt. 2022 Louis looked back and acknowledged that during Claudiaās college phase, he took satisfaction in provoking Lestat. In his depression, he wasnāt only sad but was also weaponizing his own guilt against Lestat. And so after years of this, Claudia does nothing but walk through the door and instantly receives a gentle, worshipful hug from Louis. On top of everything else, itās contrasts like these that also unravelled Lestat, who laser focuses on the negatives of his and Louisā relationship while only seeing the positives of Louisā relationships with other people.
But overall, yes. A lot of what upset Lestat about LouClaudia was a trauma response from his relationship with Gabriella. Unholy Family is an extremely complex dynamic that you could spend years talking about, and this is definitely one aspect of them.
"It seems to me a totally reasonable interpretation that he wrote a song for Nicki, and because his relationship with his mother and her abuse is insidious and currently very present, she infects the song with her presence."
Thank you! I've been thinking the exact same thing - just as she came between them in life, she's coming between them again (and interesting how the 'I tried to write you the prettiest song in the world but I got distracted' part in Why Do I Have to Feel, a song which is ostensibly about Nicki but got redirected towards Louis, does actually perfectly fit this whole situation - he's been trying to write Hit the Lights for Nicki but keeps getting distracted by the Gabriella of it all). Upon rewatch, it also seems important that as Lestat lets the beach abandonment flashback take him over, he loses track of the lyrics and ends up just humming the tune instead - once he's sidetracked by the memory he gives up on the words, because the words are meant for Nicki. Plus it makes total sense to show him writing a song for Nicki in this ep specifically, because he's been hallucinating him the whole time! So of course he'd be on his mind, and of course he'd be trying to show pissy ghost muse Nicki how much Lestat truly loved him.
Sorry, I didn't realise how strongly I felt about this!
šÆ to all of that! I think because weāre watching this story episode by episode and we get like this song for ep 2 and this song for ep 5 it can be difficult to think about the songs as more wholistic than just the scene we see them in? But like I think itās super important that hit the lights is the song weāve seen him noodling about with most - humming it and playing it and even in ep 4 playing a very stripped down āwork in progressā version. Heās not writing songs thinking about this one very specific thing - hes writing songs from his own feelings and experience and that can be messy and confusing and multilayered. Why canāt he have been writing āwhy do I have to feelā and then when heās there singing it and Louis listening, it grows additional meaningsā¦
on this idea that āhit the lightsā was written as a Nicki song that was āgivenā to Gabriella - that seems a bit reductive to me.
Like, metatextually they couldnāt work out how to fit it in ep 3 with the more explicit Nicki stuff so they put it in ep 4 because it worked there too, but textually it doesnāt seem to me like that makes it about Gabriella. Only that Gabriella is doing to Lestat more of what sheās been doing all season: encroaching and invading his feelings about other things. Specifically his relationship with Nicki which he has been minimising and deflecting attention from because of his motherās presence and needing to keep her around.
It seems to me a totally reasonable interpretation that he wrote a song for Nicki, and because his relationship with his mother and her abuse is insidious and currently very present, she infects the song with her presence.
Every time I think about the whole 'who is telling the truth? Is it Louis, Lestat, Claudia?' debate that goes round and round in circles here, I swear I can hear Rackham's final words in Black Sails, a show which is thematically all about the power of stories and the manipulation of truth:
"A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends it matters less and less. The stories we want to believeā¦ Those are the ones that survive, despite upheaval, and transition, and progress. Those are the stories that shape history. And then what does it matter if it was true when it was born? It's found truth in its maturityā¦"
the point is not 'the truth'. There will never be a scene of unvarnished 'truth' in this show waiting like a smoking gun to set the viewer to rights about who was the good guy and who was the bad guy.
This is not a story about the story. This is a story about why the story exists in the first place.
These events happened years ago, the 'truth' has already been swallowed up by time. you might even argue that there is no truth because what each individual believes is it's own truth. it's true lestat was abusive, but it's also true that louis is emotionally manipulative and cruel in ways he hid from claudia. it's true claudia hated lestat but it's also true that proper hatred like that is built out of the betrayal of love and trust. it's true she and louis loved each other even if both of them loved the idea of each other more than the actual person in front of them. it's true louis seeks out art as a form of emotional connection but that his unwillingness to be emotionally vulnerable precludes him from being the creative he so desperately wanted to be so he leaches of the creativity of others. it is true lestat was abused and hurt and shunned by his loved ones but it's also true that his desperation and stunted emotional maturity made him unstable and controlling.
A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends it matters less and less.
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loustat has truly (to me) never been more couple than louis calling lestat and asking him to look at regina and tell him if she really looks like claudia.
like they are NOT on good terms this season, but this is a moment of, "i am showing this painful, infected wound to you because you have a matching one, and you are the only one who can do this for me." like this is a big, extremely vulnerable ask from louis.
and even lestat's quiet "yes. okay." in this request even though things are bad, because this is a request of one parent to another and thus sidesteps the conflict of, "we are supposed to be something to each other, but you didn't even call when i was shot." like louis is louis and the great love of his life, but louis is also the person he raised a child with, and that bond still stands strong enough to call a favor in on.
and louis's tone when lestat brings up claudia's eyes and louis jumps in with, "i know, right? there's no spark." and there is SO MUCH pain in it but also such a moment of, "she was our child and you know her like i did. you know her eyes. talk to me about her because it's the only way she can still exist, and you are the only one she can exist for me with. she was ours."
like there is SO MUCH piled on their relationship, but the way the core of it is, "we are parents without our child, and the only thing stronger than love between us is grief."
I literally love all of you, but as a Tumblr veteran, Tumblr's main feature is the reblog feature. It is the beating heart of the dashboard and the foundation for a chronological timeline. The For You page here should not be your default setting.
You guys have got to start reblogging stuff you enjoy, especially, specifically gifs and fan art but also fics and fan theories or even hot takes if you're not afraid of a lil discourse. I'm tired of being the first or third reblog for a person's post and then seeing my blog's followers do nothing but hit like, while blogs sit there with no new posts in months or years!
Reblog more stuff please. Thank you, have a good day.
I wish we could get a clearer image of this. It looks like it lists everyone and their full names. We could finally have a last name for Jeff and Gareth and a (more or less) canon name for Unnamed Freak....
These are my name guesses and Iām assuming part of the text says Top Right or Row and Bottom Right or Row because yearbooks do that and it makes sense with the word blobs.
HELLFIRE CLUB MEMBERS Top Right or Row:
1) Mark W-something-ending-with-G?
2) Edward Munson (obvs)
3) Gareth Fuller?
4) I? I? (But double I feels crazy)
5) Brian Clark (maybe Mr. Clarkās kid?)
Bottom Right or Row:
6) Daniel or Darrell? F or P? (But D-something-ending-with-L for sure on that first name)
7) Jeff W? M? (no idea on that last name)
8) Cory, Cary, Gary? Hoffmann or Hopkin?
9) and Clara or C-something? (I really wanna know who she is!)
Yesterday I almost cried because my baby cousin ran up to my grandmother and was like. āHa! Buhbuh ba ha.ā And she said okay you want to show me something? And he led her over to the garden patch and crouched down and pointed at rocks and plants and was like. āAh. Habah ba ahā as she listened attentively.
And I was like that happened 1,000 years ago. Probably 10,000 years ago. Maybe 100,000. The youngest human in a group went to the oldest one and said to the best of their ability ācome see.ā And the adult went.
this is such a beautiful post it doesn't need my dumb addition, but i can't fit this in the tags. at the archaeological site Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic there are a bunch of really really fascinating finds and I'm only going to tell you about one tiny detail of one of the most interesting sites in the world.
at this settlement 20-30,000 years ago there lived a person who appears to have been a sort of sorcerer-grandmother-ceramics artist and her workshop was preserved very well in the sedimentary layers. her hut where she had her kilns was full of little sculptures of animals and people that seem to have been made to explode in the kiln on purpose, we're not sure why but nevermind. the relevant detail is that when you sculpt something with your hands and then fire it, your fingerprints can be preserved in the surface of the clay forever, so we have fingerprints of ancient ceramics artists that have survived for tens of thousands of years. and one of the major artifacts from Dolni Vestonice has a fingerprint on it that is so small it could only have belonged to a child
so this shaman-grandmother-sculptor, who was buried with her pet fox by the way, had children running through her workshop and touching everything she made while she was at her mysterious work of creating the world's oldest ceramics, none of which appear to be bowls, bottles, pots, or any "useful" items at all, but rather a collection of animal and human and sometimes anthropomorphic figures, some of which appear to be self portraits. exactly the same as sandersstudios' grandmother being led to the garden by an excited baby. we've all been the same for 30,000 years.
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#if you look at gauis' entire everything for more .5 seconds you're like 'wow shakespearen levels of moral complexity here' #but merlin is constrained by being a genre of show that can only be described as 'Hijinks' and so it's like #ah yes that's our ensemble cast's designated Funny Old Man. look at him he's raising an eyebrow in disapproval! #and like he is a damn funny old man icon! legend! beleaguered mentor dad to wizard jesus and babysitter to the magic hypochondriac king #except by rights its like hang on dude shouldn't you be like fundamentally broken inside. #stood by and facilitated the genocide of your own people and destroyed a way of life you had dedicated yourself to preserving #tried to save as many people as you could but had to essentially be choosy about how many you saved to be able to help more but also #to keep your own head. oh and also the guy who ordered the genocide is one the only friends you have left and you genuinely care about him #even though he's patently nuts and is directly responsible for the deaths of half your other friends. and he's your BOSS. #you end up looking out for young vulnerable terrified extremely powerful magic users in the heart of camelot #one of them you (tho this is hardly only half gauis fault tbf) inculcate into your own paranoia and loyalty to the monarch that #he becomes a shell of himself dedicated to protecting the king more than any of the ideals he came to the kingdom with #and the other just about goes mad after years of terror that the man she loves as a father would burn her a death for being who she is #and was so desperate for community she went looking for it in ways that went very Wrong when community was in fact there the whole time #but was lying to her face about it out of (genuine but misplaced) paternalistic care #literally gauis what the hell. i want to study you like a bug #sorry this was a funny post and look what ive gone and done to it dhejd
I never looked at Gaius the same way after I heard, on the Destiny and Chicken podcast, either Michelle or Ruth say that Gaius was basically Merlinās older self from the legends. Theyād split the character of Merlin in two.
So all the shit Old Merlin got up to in the legends, and all the old man and gaslighting behavior that the mythical Merlin got up to was now assigned to Gaius as a character instead. In the show you can even see Merlin evolving into Gaius by season 5.
I think it was Mark-Allenās comment originally, that Merlin+Kilgarrah+Gaius=merlinfromlegend which certainly felt like an āoh my god of courseā moment for me. Makes so much sense.
Loveeeeeed this conversation!!! I was super excited to see a Part 1 and Part 2, canāt wait to listen to Mockingjay in July. ā¤ļøā¤ļøā¤ļø
I agree that the final shot looking down at Katniss is very strange, especially because - if I remember correctly - in Mockingjay, Katniss is not fired up, sheās broken by the events of Catching Fire. So I donāt see how you end on a āIām the mockingjay, hear me roarā note when she should be just devastated and scared. Unless itās just a movie thing because you want people to come back for the third movie. I donāt remember the end of the book well enough, unfortunately, to know if thatās how Book 2 ends, Iād have to check.
I also loved the analysis about Finnick - I donāt know why, but it never occurred to me that Mags might have had a way out if he could have kept her safe long enough. That makes his panic when she walks into the fog all the more heartbreaking - I took her death almost as a foregone conclusion, but he had a little bit of hope. š„ŗš„ŗ Crushing.
Also, have you guys given any thought to talking about Ballad of Song and Snakes? I havenāt watched it yet myself, but I think it might be really interesting because it kind of ties in with Ruthās questions about Snowās competency. I think his backstory might explain some of why heās soooo obsessed with Katniss and why heās gotten a bit complacent (?) in his tyranny, why he lets himself be almost pulled around by Plutarch. Maybe he could see the bigger picture before, but now heās too arrogant or too blinded.
Last question - will you be reviewing Mockingjay Part 1 and 2 separately or as a whole?
Again, loved this conversation, love to hear your guysā analysis, as always. Canāt wait for Mockingjay!! ā¤ļøā¤ļøā¤ļø
So glad you enjoyed the conversation! Thanks so much for the message. Weāre so excited about getting to Mockingjay!
We will be talking about the 2 films separately, if only to avoid a 12hour podcast episode š
Glad you liked our discussion of Finnick. He such an interesting character! So crunchy.
It did occur to me that some of my questions about Snow might be answered in the prequel - honestly I donāt have very much interest simply because of the grimness of setting a story at the START of this dystopia rather than the endā¦ so likely we will not be going into that one.
Thanks again so much for getting in touch! These conversations have been so much fun.
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Ok ALSO (and then I promise Iāll shut up and dive in to the celebratory rewatch): EVEN IF IT WERE TRUE that Black Sails only has queer subtext (and let me make it clear, it absolutely is not true) that still doesnāt invalidate it as a piece of media?? The queer characters arenāt the only reason we love this show. We love this show because itās beautiful.
Itās heart-wrenching. It dares to ask the questions āwhat if your civilized society isnāt all that civilized? Who does it leave behind? Whose blood is it built on? What lengths will people go to and what will they sacrifice for even the tiniest bit of agency and freedom in a world that is actively trying to kill them? Are they justified? Can you even make that judgment call?ā
Itās a story about storytelling. It has narratives within narratives and foils and tragic flaws and parallels and overarching themes that begin in the very first moments in episode one and last all the way to the end. Itās a Greek tragedy put to the screen. Itās still so hopeful somehow, even when so many things fall apart. Itās the epitome of āthe love may not have been enough but itās important that it was there.ā The writing is wonderful (mostly, I have a few hangups but thatās not important here), the cinematography and score is almost reverent. People who worked on this show still gush 10 years later about how it was their masterpiece.
Those headlines of āthe best show nobody watchedā? Thereās a reason for that. Those of us who love Black Sails love it passionately, and the complex and wonderful queerness of it is only one of the reasons.
when black sails said āhaving your story go unrecorded in history is violenceā when it said āhaving your story misrecorded mistold distorted manipulated and defiled by history is violenceā when it said ābeing defined by someone elseās story is violenceā when it said ābeing unable to escape your own story is violenceā AND when it said over and over and over again: ājust because there is no story doesnāt mean there WAS no storyā like enough. ive had enough. release me
