sunguinevampyre

“I am someone else, and that someone else has fallen deeply and completely in love with Sybelle and Benjamin.” (The Vampire Armand)

And to be clear those diverse voices shouldn't just be there to write for Louis. They should be there to contribute to entirety of the plot just like Anusree Roy should absolutely be back as a voice to add authenticity to Armand while also getting to write about stuff that has nothing to do with him as she did this season.

That said: I do think other criticism about the structure, plotting, and pacing is less to do with objectively bad writing vs. what people got compared to what people thought they were going to get compared to what they wanted to get.

It sucks when that happens. It sucks when you have expectations for a show and that's not what you get. It sucks when you think you could do better. It sucks when you have scenes from a book that you really want to see and it's decided by other people that isn't something they want to focus on. It does not inherently make the writing bad.

Most importantly, beyond that, it doesn't make Rolin Jones evil. It doesn't make Hannah Moscovitch evil. It doesn't make Daniel Hart evil. It doesn't make Ryan Kattner evil. It doesn't make Kevin Hanna, Anusree Roy, or Jonathan Ceniceroz evil. It might make them writers you don't enjoy. Cool! I have loads of those. It might mean the show is made by people you don't enjoy - fair. It happens.

But I implore you to temper your language. Some people are going WAY too far in calling for firings, violence, weird parasocial stuff in real life that is volatile and dangerous. Whatever you think that's going to achieve, it's not going to do it. At best, AMC decides it's not worth the hassle and cancels the show. At worst, someone gets really, really hurt.

𝐖𝐞’𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 

Something a bit more experimental than usual that I had a lot of fun working on and! My full piece for the lovely Heritage minizine!

The Great Fire

Details:

I think it’s evident that in the IWTV/TVL fandom, there’s this simmering debate about moralizing the characters/show vs analyzing the show through a more critical & distant lense. And it reminds me of this time in college when I gave a presentation on a controversial religious sect and I was all “well, they’re good because of blah blah blah, but…. they’re bad because of blah blah”. And my professor interrupted me in the middle of the presentation and goes “this is the problem with Your Generation™️, you want to moralize everything and center yourself, but you will have a more impactful analysis if you stop inputting your own opinion and just analyze what is actually happening.”

So it’s kinda like the joke of there being a ‘Woke 1’ era vs the (current) beginning of ‘Woke 2’, you know? There’s an emerging bend towards understanding that identity politics and moralization flattens your (our) understanding and analysis of fictional events, or of historical events, etc. There’s an emergent recognition & reflection of how identity politics has been used by the far right & the capitalist class to keep people divided and bickering. And stating this DOES NOT therefore mean that identity politics should be trashed altogether, or that there’s no such thing as marginalization or privilege, etc. It just means that viewing things purely through the lens of identity politics is, by definition, reductionist, and that this element of this type of analysis is essentially why it has persisted for so long…because we talk in circles and circles and, in many cases, the result is… what?

In fact, I’m not even bagging on identity politics in particular, it’s just the prevalent method of our time. Like, analyzing anything through the lens of any one viewpoint is reductionist. That’s what reductionist means… to reduce to one thing, one viewpoint, etc. In political theory classes you may be asked to write papers on topics from the perspective of certain theories, like camera lenses, and even though you don’t agree with a particular theory, you need to write the goddamn paper anyway. It is okay, and safe, and can even be fun, to engage with art or concepts that you don’t personally agree with.

And I sorta think that this is why IWTV has become so popular, besides the good writing, etc, etc. I think, when we look back in 10 years, this show is going to be so clearly ‘of it’s time’ [affectionate] in the sense that it forces people to battle with this idea of there being a grey area. All of the characters suck and all of them are great. They’re literal monsters, remember? Like, they murder people? Like just cuz they’re hot doesn’t mean they’re not monsters. You like Lestat despite him abusing Louis by dropping him from 5,000 feet or whatever. You like Louis even though he’s creeping on some waitress. You like Claudia even though she accidentally murdered the men she dated. You like Armand even though— even though, even though, even though.

And I think this season so far has created the start of some fantastic discourse about the cycle of abuse. It reminds me a lot of this Gabor Maté video (around the 20min mark) where he discusses how a traumatic childhood event manifests in his relationship style with his wife. And he says that doesn’t excuse him and absolve him from responsibility, but rather it makes him ask what can he do to liberate himself so that he doesn’t continue this cycle of imposing his issues onto his wife. Do you see how this is a deeper & more effective analysis than “bad man in relationship is bad”?

Lestat was Louis’s antagonist in the first season, and now he’s our protagonist. Armand was the antagonist in season 2, so people are primed to just view him in the same way.

But Gabriella is actually Lestat’s antagonist. That’s why Rolin talked about her as the second most important character this season. She’s the one pushing Lestat into a role he doesn’t want and preventing him from making peace with his muses. She’s the one bringing on the end of the world and using sex to manipulate and abuse him.

Louis is the B plot protagonist this season; his plot with Bruce, Regina, and Claudia is its own separate little track. But the fact that he and Lestat are finally not each other’s antagonists is what is allowing them to slowly but surely come back together this season.

Armand is actually the protagonist of the C plot of the series. They’ve chosen to completely mask the where’s and the whys of that c plot from view of the audience. They’re using it to generate suspense, and to show that we’re still firmly rooted in a limited point of view even in this new season. When Lestat doesn’t know what Armand is doing, neither do we.

They’re going to reveal at least part of what Armand has been up to in his own little side plot in the finale, at least enough for his actions to make sense and to understand how they impact Lestat. They’re trying to convince us he’s the villain now because it will make the reveal of his real motives, which I guarantee are more complicated than “being evil” more of a subversion and a surprise. Armand has been that last minute twist (Volta, if you will) in every season so far, and I don’t think this one is going to be any different.

The only thing I’m sure about what they’re setting up is that whatever Armand is doing is going to be the opposite of what is “expected” (by general audiences I have to say, not real Armand understanders). Instead of standing by helplessly, he is trying very hard to prevent something. Instead of destruction, he’s protecting something (while still being willing to break a few Larry shaped eggs to make an omelette 😂). I think he is doing it with a real sense of brokenness and bitterness that Louis and Lestat have rejected him so thoroughly, but he’s still showing up. What were effectively going to see in ep 7 is the end point (or maybe the midpoint really) of Armand’s arc. He’s been changing behind the scenes, but we don’t know how. That character shift is part of the reveal.

post 80's breakup DM. Daniel doesn't remember where this heartache is coming from so he falls back into drugs hard. Armand mourns their relationship, spending hours and hours in the little bathtub from the flat where everything began on divisadero street.

things to look for : they have matching ashtrays. Daniel has the remnants of a vampire bite but Armand also sports a human-shaped bitemark where he was letting Daniel mock-bite him. Hard so see because of the angle but Armand is sporting a black bindi (symbol of mourning) but his hands and feet are still adorning joyful mehndi from when he was with his beloved. The tapes around Armand are all recordings of Daniel's voice. They are both crying.

closeups of Armand's mehndi under the cut !!!

how lonely daniel seems when we first meet him in 2022, but now he knows he has never truly been alone. there is someone who knows him in all of his messy, human entirety. someone who knows the deepest depths of his soul. how terrifying that must be, how suffocating, how comforting. daniel holds so much shame for the choices he has made and the life he has lived and here armand is, saying he loves him, saying he has always loved him despite all of it. and if you were daniel, how could you not believe it? as humans we hold our mistakes and our shame close to our chest. it’s intoxicating to think someone could see that and still want you. armand could read his thoughts, saw him at his worst, and yet here is. in love with daniel. desperate for him.

And in a way, this is reverse devil's minion because... I see the monster in you. And I love you. I love you for the monster in you.