#burton

Burton got this look from Guy…

(First ep of Talamasca was released, and the pages screenshot has broken on Twitter, too! I talked about the handful of connections I noticed earlier.)

The first episode of The Talamasca not only set up the narrative surrounding Guy surprisingly well, but also established a myriad of little things wrt Daniel, too.

It is 2025, and he’s out there promoting his book on book tours - we knew that already, but to see it, and see the audience for it is fun nonetheless.

He is also reading to them with his "mortal eyes".

The moment when Daniel sees the page Guy holds open to him is extremely telling though - he already knows why, at least to an extent.

This page holds information - for Guy, in-universe, namely the name “Anna Leamas”, but also that Daniel knows something about it. (And the fact that Burton opens the page for Guy and also knows something is equally interesting.) Daniel's reaction is telling, and we are left with the suspicion and impression that there is a lot more to it as well.

Outside, Daniel dismisses both glasses and "human disguise" (for a lack of a better word for now, as said before, I think there is even more going on wrt his eyes).

In the discussion about the page it becomes clear that Daniel does not only know about the "752"... but also does not like being asked about it... ("thinking" pertains to Daniel here)

... but he helps him nonetheless.

Daniel also warns Guy right off the bat that “they are using him”. "They" being the Talamasca here, and this means that Daniel… was used by them.

How though?

The prop they used there holds two pages which unfortunately do not fit together narratively completely (more on that a bit later). They’re two parts they give us there with a (deliberately) missing piece in the middle, but two equally interesting parts I think.

The left page (page 226)

Daniel’s style is very vibrant, and very “Daniel” - tbh, if AMC wanted to make more money, I’d tell them to ghostwrite THIS version of IWTV as well, and sell it - I would buy it in a second.

He is also very blunt once more, and I am quite amused at how close his words come to what I have posted about in some of my asks and posts as well, especially wrt to Dubai:

"Real Rashid brings me my morning coffee, which I sip on the balcony, trying the get a bit of vitamin D and keep my doctors off my case before my next hours-long session in the penthouse prison."

Him calling Dubai a prison is of course very fitting, but also quite scathing as a judgement. It also means that he does not believe the happy presentation of Loumand for a second, which we already knew, but which is now in written-in-universe proof.

"I take in the skyline, a metropolis in the middle of the desert, built on blood, sweat, tears and slave labor. Like Dubai, I am somewhere I shouldn’t be, a rich man’s vanity project and now a dumping ground for checkered pasts. Louis is my Sheikh Rashid bin Sareed Al Maktoum."

For those who might not know, Rashid bin Sareed Al Maktroum was the one of the founding fathers of the United Arab Emirates.

Daniel compares himself to Dubai here, as a “vanity project” - another scathing little judgement as per to what Dubai is, and what he is for Louis, especially compared with the “dumping ground” comment right after.

Specifically seeing himself as “dumping ground” here is interesting I think. Because there, too, is judgment in it, judgment brought to paper, namely a devaluation, an almost scathing dismissal of what Louis tells him.

It makes me wonder at which point the book has actually been written, because the fact whether he was still mortal or not, might have influenced the tone of the book immensely.

For those who have seen the old IWTV movie, it ends with Lestat saying: “Still whining, Louis?” and then turning to Daniel, going: “Have you heard enough? I’ve had to listen to that, for centuries.”

The show updated Louis, softened the blow by shifting some of the blame to Armand, but there is truth in that, because Louis, for all the shit he has endured, all the suffering he has been through… has no idea how good he’s had as a vampire. All things considered, of course, and nonetheless. Both book and show.

Louis grew up pampered, Jacob has commented on that as well, and despite his chosen profession to keep making money, which certainly came with difficulties(!), his life was a far cry from what it could have been. The fact remains that he lived quite comfortably, and then was asked into vampirism.

He chose this, and that is what he grapples with afterwards, in both book and show (in the books he finally comes to terms to it in “Prince Lestat”), because it did not turn out to be what he thought it would be.

But then life rarely is.

A lot of the other vampires… never got that choice. Were raped into it, groomed… turned and locked up until they were able to break out of walls starving and raving mad, prepared and delivered as sacrifice, tortured, whatever.

Some were also made in and from love, of course.

But Louis’ trauma, as valid as it is, has always been mild in comparison to others, especially if focusing on the personal trauma itself, and not on the loss of his child, something that the book IWTV is built on, but the show… not quite as much, I’d say (unfortunately).

I’m not trying to take away that here, on the contrary, but Louis’ difficulties with vampirism did not start nor end with Claudia.

And so Daniel calling the interviews “dumping” here, calling back to “trauma dumping”, is hugely interesting.

It is his job to provide the counterpoint, to provide the mirror, to provide the open ear, too. The “dumping” Louis is doing is the interview after all. Daniel calls the payment his “whore number” later (in the interview's proceeding), further demonstrating that his stance on it is … not wholly professional there I’d say.

On one hand this is his job, and we all (hopefully) get paid for our jobs. But “whoring oneself out” comes with different connotations than “job”, and the choice of words gives strong reluctance at the very least, if not low-level rejection of what Daniel is told.

So why exactly the scathing judgment, the rejection of it all?

Remembering that Daniel is there in the first place because he was sent the first interview tapes has to bring back the fact that he carries a bite scar from that first interview.

A bite scar that was left to scar, deliberately.

Because we know Louis and Armand carry Daniel out of that apartment, make sure he lives - and we know vampire blood can heal.

For that bite to scar like that… it had to be left deliberately, and mostly untended.

No stitches. No blood.

This is a mark.

And he could not remember being marked.

Listening to the first interview tapes did not bring the memories, but it brought back the context.

And so Daniel, with that bite scar - and he must have told a myriad of little stories about those throughout his life?! - came to Dubai already quite pissed. Miffed. Aggravated.

I mean, we see this in his behavior, I know. The shortness of answers, the scathing commentary. But I think it is good to remember that him feeling this way… is actually quite valid.

Imagine waking up to the realization that chunks of your life have been removed, and that they want you to go in to probably risk more of it - or your whole life - once more.

Without telling you why or how… or who.

I’d resent that, too.

Now, that is the “mortal” aspect here, but then there is the question I think as to when exactly Daniel was turned.

We don’t know that yet. We only know he is turned and has been for a while, by the time he promotes the book. And we know that he thinks the Talamasca used him.

Daniel’s turning - no matter how or why or even when - had to come with heavy disappointments, too. His maker: gone afterwards. The Talamasca: using him. Louis: has not even read the book (at least up to 2x08).

And all those frustrations unload themselves in his style there I think. The scathing judgement of what Louis tells of, and how “valid” Daniel judges it to be in the grand scheme of things.

As a side note:

I am LIVING for the way the Talamasca is just… showing vampires. Because not all vampires are suffering like Louis. A lot of them are well adapted on the “Devil’s Road”, or as good as can be.

But... if Daniel was already a vampire when he wrote at least parts of the book… then his bitterness would take on a whole different dimension. For the vampires, everything is heightened - all the senses, all the emotions.

Imagine writing down Louis’ story, and woven into it parts of your own that you cannot remember, while writing about your (presumed) maker gaslighting you both about it.

It’s no wonder this bitterness shines through.

The next part which is really interesting as well:

"It’s not long before the sun rises enough that the heat becomes unbearable (really, no one should live here), so I move inside, where Armand meets me. Apparently, they have some business downtown to attend to, so we will not be interviewing until later. Something about a “prearrange appointment (?)” Armand answers, before I can even ask the question."

Business? What business. A prearranged appointment? We did not see that on the show. And during the day??? What was so important for Armand AND Louis to go downtown during the day, and leave Daniel alone?!!

And why could they not reschedule and/or reschedule the interview not to interfere? Why do the interview at that point in time then? Was the timing really that important?

Also: there’s intuition of course, but Armand answering Daniel here before he can ask, means Armand at the very least got the impression of the question from Daniel(’s mind), meaning he was observing him closely.

We know from the later episodes that Armand apparently is not able to read Daniel’s mind anymore, something he was able to easily do in San Francisco, but as with all the looks and comments, this little mention there means that Armand focuses on Daniel, and closely.

“The big windows utilize the same tinting technology present here. Beyond that we will exist and enter via underground parking. We have lived here a member of years, Mr. Molloy. With careful planning, the sun is no threat to him.”

“Careful planning.” Again, what business could be important enough to risk sun exposure, which would burn Louis (to death)? And why do they have to do that now?

"Armand leaves me with their trove of documents and records so I may spend the morning researching. I do, reading through the archives for 20 minutes before realizing the opportunity present. No one is here. Well, Real Rashid, but no one capable of inducing tremors should they feel I’ve created…."

… unfortunately this is where the narrative breaks.

Them doing it like THIS… means they mean to show us something here, because while it could be a mistake also, there was the mistake with Claudia’s diaries in season 1, and the writers acknowledged that mistake - and so I am not sure as to whether this is a mistake actually. Because putting these two things together in a double page? For us to have? Why?

In any case, this does not only give us a glimpse into Daniel’s style and mind set, it also gives us more information about Dubai, and things we have not seen there.

It is a moot point to speculate as to what exactly that business may have been at this point I think. As with the “groan”, or the “farm”, or the “surprise for Daniel” these might be points they will return to in upcoming seasons, maybe. And likely in IWTV/TVL/VC, not Talamasca.

But the fact remains now, that Daniel… was left alone in that apartment (with Real Rashid) for a prolonged length of time. And he still thinks Real Rashid a human. And Daniel realized the opportunity, and one can rest assured that he did, indeed, snoop around, and… given that this is where the narrative (prop) breaks - I feel this cannot be quite the coincidence.

Something was removed from the narrative here - for us, but also, if we take the prop as fact, for the reading audience of the in-universe book.

Now, it stands to reason that the finished actual in-universe book would have a … smoother transition.

There’s a paragraph missing after all, before we get back to the interview and Armand confirming all those names.

But I do not think this paragraph missing is a coincidence, nor the sheer fact that it is just… a paragraph (or two, a third of the page at max).

What exactly did Daniel find in Dubai? And why was it removed?

Because I cannot, for the life of me, imagine him not writing about what he saw there. What he found there.

Imagine Daniel finding the dog bowls and whips. The layout of that bedroom. THAT alone would have been a paragraph of rather biting commentary, you can be sure of it. Because Daniel and Armand shared book canonically a relationship that also veered into BDSM, and we know that this aspect of it all is why they did not show us Loumand sex scenes (I talked about how I do not agree them doing that) and what if this triggered some memories for Daniel? What if he… found things that belonged to him, to them, back then? Louis has photos with him, what if there is more, much more??

Also I’d argue that everyone of us would go and dig through the refrigerator to check what’s there, and in the pantry. Photos of the paintings on the wall, closet checks, whatever.

Time alone in a vampire’s lair for an investigative journalist.

Bitterness or not, but that is a dream come true.

So. Indeed hugely interesting to see the break and the implied removal.

Which brings us to the next hugely interesting page.

The right hand page (page 227)

"and so followed a month of overserving ourselves in and around quaint Josefstadt.” Aramnd offers matter-of-factly. A spike in postmortems performed by the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Vienna in October 2008 confirms the killing spree."

The right page throws us right back into the interview, and the interview already in full swing. Armand is talking this time, and talking about a time that “overserving ourselves.”

If this would have been a real tidbit, the over serving part would have been HUGELY interesting. As it is though…

Daniel tells us he did not write “that page”. “They did.”

The Talamasca wrote that page.

Meaning they appropriated that page - and they used that page to show and/or hide something in it.

Turning to the names. “How many of these are your victims?” I recite a list of the deceased. Jaca Novák, Michael Wgner, Dennis Schmitt, Susanne Schroder, Andreas Müller, Frank Schmidt, Martina Novotmÿ, Jürgen Fischer, Gabriele Meyer, Christina Kohler, Julia Herrmann, Thomas Schäfer, Uwe Klein, Fritz Neier, Kurt Muller, Jana Novak, Eva Svoboda, Anna Lamas, Hana Novotny, Lenka Dvorak, Luci Prochazka, Helena Viscera, Václav Matoušek, Karel, Bláha, Lubomir Zeman, ...

(Not going to write them all down here.)

For a reader a name list like this means exactly… nothing. The reader does not know these people after all - usually.

In Guy’s case this is obviously different, as the circled name suggests.

Anna Leamas - his mother, the information about her is what he hunts for.

Why would someone put a list of names like this into a book - except to “prove” their death to the public/reader, to proclaim them dead. Mixed into a whole list of actual deaths.

This list serves to push the narrative to “prove” that Anna Leamas died then. It might only be her name that was put it, it might be more than one. But in any case, within the in-universe narrative in the Talamasca it is our hint that Anna Leamas, of course, is NOT dead.

And the Talamasca using the book like this does raise more questions.

Going back to the teaser of SDCC/NYCC 2025, we have Louis saying he “does not like himself in it” (the book - “Passive, selfish, a liar, and not the lying to myself kind, a fucking liar”). To which Daniel… laughs out and points out the passage in the book that Lestat scratched out and wrote “never fucking happened” onto. Now, I talked about this, and that the train scene cannot have happened as told repeatedly, there were enough hints in the show, BUT, within context here…

What did we, the audience, actually see in seasons 1 and 2?

Because we SAW the train scene. We SAW the salesman scene. We SAW versions of murder night already (and I talked about the tale breaking in 1x07).

But what is so interesting here is that we do not KNOW whose … version we are/were on. Whose imagination.

Because that is what it boils to, anything apart from Dubai (and for me that does include NOLA in 2x08) is a narration, and that narration, the tale… contains false scenes. Cut out scenes. Things that were changed, and that were then corrected. Things that are still missing, as we already know. Things that will be revisited.

So - did we, the audience, by chance get to see the Talamasca version? Or did we see the version Louis told then, and which we know was influenced, and now the books has a “corrected and falsified” account of this interview? And what we saw was either Louis’ or Daniel’s imagination? And Armand’s, who officially joined the interview in 2x01 after all, and spun a little fanfic version of events in 2x03?

What is it the book actually contains? And what exactly did we watch?

As with the question on whose POV we’re on when the call to Lestat happens, this is currently not answerable. Rolin would probably, as he told Sam, Jacob and Assad when they asked him for 2x05, tell us not to worry :)

I’m not sure if we’ll get any more tidbits that pay into the overall lore wrt Louis’ tale from the Talamasca - but in any case:

AMC, please, I beg you, give me the Daniel Molloy version of IWTV. 😅 Pretty please, and thank you.

Also, Burton hating the word "interview" because of the book... lol.

And: he's another vampire with green eyes... considering the... predilection of Amel for green eyes... I wonder if he'll play a bigger part in the upcoming arcs.

Shawn Spencer

Juliet "Jules" O'Hara

Burton "Gus" Guster

Carlton "Lassie" Lassiter

Chief Karen Vick

Henry Spencer

I was a bride. My dreams were taken from me. But now - now I've stolen them from someone else.