#brawlingdiscontent

As the trial makes clear, Lestat is very conscious of the implications of his ‘wedding’ to Louis on the night of Louis’ turning when he speaks of offering himself, “in the church, on the altar.” But never does he use the term ‘marriage’ to describe what they have - it’s always ‘companionship’ or ‘union.’ 

At the moment of Louis’ turning, I think the marriage parallels are about making clear to the then-human Louis that what he is offering is akin to (better than) human marriage, and also that he takes not-so-secret delight in profaning the rites of Christianity through their bloody same-sex union (just like he gleefully destroys the wooden figure of crucified Jesus). 

During the trial, besides the marriage analogy being a tool to win over the human audience to his and Louis’ relationship (who he needs onside as much as possible to ease the way for his little mind-bending trick), I think the wedding ring functions as a signal to LOUIS, who he has always chided for his stubborn attachment to his humanity. He can’t do much within the trial’s carefully-controlled confines, but he can signal to Louis through the ring that he still loves him, that he still believes in their union, that he’s here to save him. 

Hello, luv!

3. how stir crazy are you on a scale of 1-10?

I’m currently occupying my dad’s flat instead of staying at my flatshare, so I’m not as stir crazy as I could be, I guess. Probably a 4? I know, I know #privilege but I’ve only recently remembered how much shit he’s put me through and I stopped feeling guilty about it. 

4. read anything yet?

I’ve read Rose by Martin Cruz Smith. I loved the Arkardy Renko cases as a teen, still love Polar Star to death, but this has been disappointingly straight-male-writer-ly with so much dumb, unecessary female objectification. Still finished it because when it’s good, it’s good. 

6. learned anything about yourself?

Yeah, I did, but it’s been a slow process. I recently re-watched Daniel Sloss’ shows on Netflix and his bit about how our lives are like jigsaw puzzles really made the pieces click (see what I did there, oh I’m HILARIOUS, I’ll shut up now). The root to my unhappiness is that I’ve been trying to solve an area where the parts are broken or missing for way too long, instead of building around it or starting new areas. It’s coming back to haunt me now, big time and is paralysing me.

19. what do you not miss?

Lestat has to die because of the evil shit he pulls with Claudia—when he essentially kidnaps her and threatens to kill her if she tries to leave again (out of a deranged but not wholly illogical attempt to look after Louis and preserve their relationship). This act is the unforgivable crime, or, depending on how you look at it, the action that cements the pattern by which the only way out is to kill Lestat. Louis would never have agreed to kill Lestat for himself, he only is willing to do it for Claudia’s sake. 

And this fact is especially why Lestat's apology during the trial really doesn't cut it. He's ready to apologize to Louis (for something that he likely already apologized for—albeit probably not satisfactorily—during his six years of groveling), but refuses to address or apologize to Claudia, when his negation of Claudia’s needs/autonomy/existence in service of his and Louis’ relationship is exactly what launched the murder plot in the first place. Similarly, it’s devastating that for whatever reason while Claudia is Louis’ staunch defender at the trial, Louis can’t pull it together to stand up for her in the moment. Perhaps he thinks their only chance for survival lies in silence, or is simply too stunned by Armand's betrayal and Lestat, but for Claudia it just marks a familiar pattern of parental/brotherly neglect. The scene fully exemplifies why Claudia feels like the shingle that flew off the roof in the stormy romance of Louis and Lestat.

Even if it's all building to something, it doesn't feel worth it in the moment. What is everyone's motivation? I can see thematic reasons for certain choices (at least theoretically) but am struggling to discern character-based ones. Where is the conflict that shapes their actions? Where is the show's nuanced attention to social positioning? Can they cool it with the exposition for five minutes (although it's also so poorly done that it's somehow not even enough exposition to properly fill in folks who haven't been following since day one)? Rehashing the past only works as a narrative device if it has stakes in the present!!! Make us care!!

Everyone feels one-dimensional. Louis is not that dumb and we haven't seen any level of desperation from him that would justify this behaviour. Armand: ??? (the question marks are all I have). In theory I'm all for DM but whatever they're giving us feels SO unearned. It's obvious they were trying to channel some of the grand 2.5 Loumand blowout -- but that only worked because it was built on miles of carefully constructed tension and development!! What is Gabriella's deal? Ordinarily I would be okay to wait for answers to something like this but I feel I have so few pieces of information to grasp onto right now (and there are so few female characters) that all I'm getting is "sexy evil cold bitch mom".....

I want to take a moment to reflect on Louis and Armand’s chosen art forms and how they relate to their crises of self and inform their relationship. (There’s a much longer post about art and representation as forms of meaning-making in the show, but that’s for later.)

When they meet in Paris, Louis is a photographer and Armand a theatre director. The show uses these occupations figuratively, signifying slippage between each character’s artistic medium and role and their personality/self. For Armand, being a director is a somewhat ill-fitting role. It calls on him to oversee the play, standing outside of it and shouldering sole responsibility for staging decisions without ever taking the stage himself.

In 1.1, we see Louis react to vampirism AS IF it is queerness. When Lestat first wields his vampiric powers Louis is surprisingly unphased, referring to them as “tricks” and persistently asking how he accomplishes them, with Lestat demurring. We can read this exchange as calling on a well-established trope of queerness being metaphorically tied to secrecy (including through being closeted). When Lestat whips out these powers during dinner (pun intended), Louis chides him, “Don’t do that shit here—not with my family,” in a way that feels like he's saying “it’s fine with me but don’t be queer in front of them.” Later, Lestat’s ‘petit coup’ counts as their first sexual encounter. They start making out, but the only climax that we see occur between the two of them is via the blood-drinking. And the way that Louis reacts afterwards, shying away from the intimacy of the act, feels much more accurate to internalized homophobia post-gay sex (which they arguably didn’t technically have), than being bitten on the neck and having one's blood sucked. This conflation carries into Louis’ confession that “the Devil is in New Orleans,” which we can read dually as Louis finally having suspicions about the killing-people part, and as referring to Lestat’s queerness—as seen particularly in the line “I laid down with a man. I laid down with the Devil.” 

We also see this play out in 1.2 in how Louis is shown to be newly a vampire AND newly queer/out as queer. Louis’ mother reads the signs of his vampirism as queerness, noting him “getting his nails done,” and the sunglasses to hide his vampiric eyes as, “some fashion men like him do.” We see this outward projection also with the tractor salesman. Upon first setting foot in the townhouse he says “just to be clear here, gents, we are here to talk about farm equipment” (i.e. 'no gay funny business'), and then, when Louis bites him, yells—’I knew it! I knew you—‘ even though biting someone’s neck to drink their blood is arguably not an ordinary part of queer courtship (someone correct me if I’m wrong here, small sample size).

The final piece of this delicious pie comes when the show explicitly addresses this conflation between vampirism and queerness in the conversation between Louis and Daniel in 1.2: Louis: …Death, rebirth, coming out, homicide… Daniel: …you robbed a daughter of her father… how’s sexuality play in that? Louis: It’s a complicated question, Daniel. 

I ADORE that show crosses over here from what is usually a metaphorical equivalence into the actual. Queerness isn’t just a metaphor for vampirism: they are ontologically indistinguishable! Which lends them both a refreshing kind of substance. It feels like such a fitting tribute to a long history of queer authors/artists who could only hint. And it’s not just speaking to vampirism specifically. The show takes in a whole tradition that configures queerness as monstrous and unnatural, including a homophobic/queerphobic norm/mainstream, and queer folks appropriating this metaphor in insider ways, and screams back, “YES, AND?” in full Romantic/gothic glory!