I found this meta about patriarchal themes in s3 in my drafts, that I had made up after episode 6. I think my train of thought here was really interesting, but after episode 7 I have no desire to return to it and finish it. I'll share it, just for anyone who is interested in non-critical meta.
I keep thinking about the crumbled Enkil, and what that means holistically for the show's themes.
Symbolic-wise, he's the crumbling promise of the patriarchy. That statue isn't protecting anyone, freeing anyone, or thinking of anyone. The back of the head is also in charge of some very interesting brain functions:
Enkil's brain is pretty heavily shattered (does that mean much to a vampire that old? Who knows?) but we can say that his right side of the brain is the most damaged, which includes vision and object recognition, emotional memory, spatial awareness, and MUSICAL memory.
There's some interesting signs of what is therefore "wrong" about some of the things Lestat is telling us, and other odd little inconsistencies the show has included.
Lestat makes up the spaces that scenes occur (Danlou date in 3x02). (Where was Sam Barclay in the trial? đ¤)
Is "Armand Told the Truth" real, or an omen?
Two of the 1920s movie posters in the background of Regina's diner are lost films.**
The Devil's Minion height difference seems to be changing depending on the episode.
Claudia in the seance has difficulty recognizing whether she was looking at Louis or Lestat in the beginning.
This show season has been relying on the "facts are irrelevant, FEELS are everything line" but Lestat shows us quite the emotionally inhibited and damaged character who can't really commit to his emotions on any one things, especially in his memories.
Musically, he's also looping (literally in 3x05) and the grief of his vision of his daughter doesn't break him out of a cycle, but instead into a whole new one where he makes a whole new "family" of vampires to achieve this hidden perfection he's seeking. His music is no longer about feeling and seeking acceptance within humanity, it's about vampires feeding on their own emotions.
He can't figure out who his songs are about, lmao. Is it Nicki, Louis, Gabriella? Even Big Boss has plenty of lines that fit Lestat just as well as Armand.
** So I haven't really made a meta about this because irl has been unfriendly to me, but the films on the posters in the background of Regina's Diner are really interesting. I've been itching to piece together what all the films mean, but interestingly, they are all about going to a big city with big dreams, and failing to achieve them.
There's also Enkil's broken limbs. He's lost his pointer and middle finger of his right hand, in addition to his right foot. (Louis is missing his left foot in the framing device)
Since there's been a shit-ton of religious symbolism (particularly in the episode we meet TWMBK), I looked up the Biblical symbolism:
The term "right-hand" holds significant symbolic and theological meaning throughout the Bible, often representing power, authority, blessing, and favor. In biblical times, the right hand was considered the hand of strength and skill, and it frequently appears in Scripture to convey divine power and protection.
Symbol of Power and Authority
The right hand is frequently associated with God's power and authority. In Exodus 15:6, during the Song of Moses, it is declared, "Your right hand, O LORD, is majestic in power; Your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy." This verse highlights the right hand as a symbol of God's might and His ability to deliver His people from their foes.
Similarly, in Psalm 110:1, a Messianic psalm, the LORD says to the Messiah, "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet." Here, the right hand signifies a place of honor and authority*, indicating the Messiah's exalted position and His ultimate victory over His enemies.
Divine Protection and Support
The right hand is also a metaphor for God's protection and support. In Isaiah 41:10, God reassures His people, "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." This passage emphasizes God's commitment to uphold and sustain His people with His powerful and righteous right hand.
Christ at the Right Hand of God
In the New Testament, the right hand of God is a key theme in the exaltation of Jesus Christ. After His resurrection and ascension, Christ is described as seated at the right hand of God, a position of supreme authority and honor. In Mark 16:19, it is recorded, "After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God." This imagery underscores Christ's divine authority and His role as intercessor for believers.
Judgment and Salvation
The right hand also plays a role in eschatological themes of judgment and salvation. In Matthew 25:33, during the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus says, "He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left." The right hand here symbolizes the place of favor and acceptance, as the sheep represent those who have followed Christ and are granted eternal life.
*Something I found interesting is Lestat keeps a ring on his right hand, and he fiddles with it when he's nervous in 3x03. I don't remember what points exactly he fiddles with it, but I do think those might be important to review.
Point is, the right hand of power is flawed, with the pointer-finger gone complete. There aren't going to be any âď¸ coming from Enkil anytime soon. And if I can "blue curtains this," this is also why Lestat's pointing for "blame" is so pointless. The only one he has to blame is himself, really.
Foot-wise, there's nothing really special about food symbolism. Flawed humility, inhibited ability to "move on," ect ect. I highlighted that blue section above because it IS a message about leaving enemies at the foot of The Father, but if that is connected to the fractured foot, I couldn't tell you.
There's also the story supporting the "why" of what happened to Enkil. If we trust Lestat's retelling of Marius's explanation, it's because of drunken neglect that led to a burning event. There does seem to be a dent or recessed section of the altar under his head, though, which makes me think there's more to that tale than either Lestat or Marius told.
Marius himself is something of an unholy father in many ways, with his brief connection in Lestat's life giving him a task and a job to care for "The Adam and Eve of the Damned" but without genuine guidance. Marius's self-assured contstruct of knowledge rings hollow, with his eclectic and dusty shrine, Lestat hasn't had guidance being a caretaker of anything except for pets, really, so he sinks into his own worship of the Divine Feminine figure of Akasha, whom he treats with the same childlike wonder and desire for affection that his own mother denied him.
One thing that does add to the themes, though, is the continued neglect of "fatherly" guardianship, and how that results in broken traditions. Without care, the only thing you're passing along are ruins, which reminds me of the crumbling Chateau, Lestat's ailing and sick father, and the calls to break Lestat's legs and his love for music and performance.
Now one thing I've commented on before, and I'll go into it in a real season-whole Gabistat incest analysis once my brain is nice to me again, is that Gabriella is passing down Patriarchal models of violence because she knows it works. If she is no longer a woman, or a mother, or a marquess, her design for power is going to feed on systems where she can succeed.
Lestat finds comfort in the emotional incestâit makes him feel secure in a family/world that seems to be shaped against him. But thatâs all he really wants, the emotional connection. This is directly at odds with the fact the Gabrielle is not actually emotionally available, and finds the emotional incest unsatisfying to her power, since gender roles would demand that she is the emotional support for her son. Gabriellaâs denial of this is subverting the gender role, and also denying Lestatâs escape into the taboo of their relationship. She will not be claimed as solely a mother, but as a person with physical and sexual autonomy, because that is what her vampiric coping mechanisms have established that power and freedom ARE.
Gabriella and Akasha are both characters that are simultaneously controlled by Patriarchal standards of power (Enkil chooses who feeds from Akasha and when in the books, and Gabriella only gains what she believes to be meaningful power from Lestat), and are able to control them back. Akasha is the source of power, not Enkil, and Gabriella is still stuck in this "need to please" around Lestat so that she won't lose who she's living vicariously through. They're interesting foils, and I think that if anyone is looking for the elements laid down for Gabriella's journey with gender, they very clearly feel there. Incest as a motif is about abuse, yes, but it is also about decay and being stuck. If Gabriella is still choosing incest to feel powerful, it's because she doesn't trust that SHE is powerful enough herself. She is, though, and I hope with the cyst burst, she can find her own masculine-esque identity in herself rather than in her son. Because, again, the patriarchal symbol is flawed.
I do also really like to think about this after the Claudia seance. There, she is raging against her father's for idolizing their grief for themselves, rather than for what Claudia actually lived and died for. She goes after Louis the hardest, because she already slit Lestat's throat, and it's Louis's self-feeding grief that ends up being the most insulting because the fact he loves Lestat more than he understands what Claudia tried to fight for (freedom from Lestat's abuse. "We keep the damage to remember the damage"). Louis's humility in the face of her rage does confirm everything she wrote in her diaries about how he failed her, but he once again is failing to recognize the bits that are important in Enkil's damaged brain: vision and object recognition, emotional memory, spatial awareness, and MUSICAL memory.
Louis's emotional memory is still about the grief about not being able to clasp her hand. This isn't WRONG, but it does damage why Louis would choose the dress Claudia died in as a symbol of his grief. Is Louis choosing that because Claudia is dead and he didn't witness it, or is it a reminder of the things that actually caused Claudia's murder--which was systemic violence against Black disabled women, and the things they want?
It's why the Regina plotline functions the way it does, because if Louis really saw his daughter and wanted a chance to "try again," he'd actually use her roleplay to experience things Claudia never got a chance to because she died too young (twice!). Instead, she's a service worker he employed to roleplay over memories that already happened because he was trying to vampirically feed on the possession of a daughter, again.
You ever hear the adage for why men should respect women? "She's someone'a sister, daughter, mother, wife?" And feminists have to pipe up and say, "but she's someone. That is just-as-if-not more important than being someone else's." That's where Louis trips up with Claudia. She is his daughter, not a girl whom he saved and adopted into his family and treats like her own person, but his daughter. And that's also part of the tattered legacy of patriarchy that Claudia can't seem to escape from, even in death.
