#iwtv asks

Sure! Mmm, okay, so –

What are we talking about when we talk about Gothic Heroes?  

When we talk about gothic heroes, we’re really talking about three pretty different character archetypes. All three are vital to the genre, but some are more popular in certain subgenres i.e. your Prometheus Hero may be more common in gothic horror, whereas your Byronic Hero might be more likely to be found in gothic romance. That’s not to say they’re exclusive to those subgenres at all, and there is an argument that these archetypes themselves are gendered (in many ways, I think people confuse Anne being an author of the female gothic with Louis being a gothic heroine, but I’ll get into that later), but this is also not necessarily something that’s exclusive.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, haha, so the three gothic hero archetypes are:

Milton’s Satan who is the classic gothic hero-villain. You can probably guess from the name, but he was originated in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost. He is God’s favourite angel, but God is forced to cast him out of heaven when he rebels against him. As an archetype, he’s a man pretty much defined by his pride, vanity and self-love, usually fucks his way through whatever book or poem he’s in, has a perverted, incestuous family, and a desire to corrupt other people. He’s also defined as being “too weak to choose what is moral and right, and instead chooses what is pleasurable only to him” and his greatest character flaw, in spite of all The Horrors, is that he’s usually easily misguided or led astray. (I would argue that Lestat fits into this archetype pretty neatly, but that’s a whole other post.)

Prometheus who was established as a gothic archetype by Mary Shelley with Frankenstein in 1818. Your Prometheus Hero is basically represented by the quest for knowledge and the overreach of that quest to bring on unintended consequences. He’s tied, of course, to the Prometheus of Greek myth, so you can get elements of that in this character design too in that he can be devious or a trickster, but the most important part of him is that he is split between his extreme intelligence and his sense of rebellion, and that his sense of rebellion and boundary pushing overtakes his intelligence and basically leads to All The Gothic Horrors.

And the Byronic Hero, who as the name implies, was both created by and inspired by the romantic poet, Lord Byron in his semi-autobiographical poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage which was published between 1812-1818. The archetype is kind of an idealized version of himself, and as historian and critic Lord Macaulay wrote, the character is “a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection.” Adding to that, he’s often called ‘the gloomy egoist’ as a protagonist type, hates society, is often self-destructive and lives either exiled or in a self-exile, and is a stalwart of gothic literature, but especially gothic romance. Interestingly too, in his most iconic depictions he’s often a) darkly featured and/or not white (Heathcliff being the most obvious example of this given Emily Bronte clearly writes him as either Black or South Asian), and b) is often used to explore queer identity, with Byron himself having been bisexual.

Okay, but what about the Gothic Heroine?

Gothic heroines are less delineated and have had more of an evolution over time, which makes sense, given women have consistently been the main audience of gothic literature and have frequently been the most influential writers of the genre too. The gothic genre sort of ‘officially’ started with Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto and Isabella is largely regarded as the first gothic heroine and the foundation of the archetype, and the book opens even with one of the key defining traits – an innocent, chaste woman without the protection of a family being pursued and persecuted by a man on the rampage.

The gothic heroine was, for years, defined by her lack of agency. She was innocent, chaste, beautiful, curious, plagued by tragedy and often, ultimately, tragic. Isabella survives in The Castle of Otranto, but she’s one of the lucky ones – Cathy dies in Wuthering Heights, Sybil dies in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Justine and Elizabeth both die in Frankenstein, Mina survives in Dracula, but Lucy doesn’t. There’s an argument frequently posited that the gothic genre was, and is, about dead women and the men who mourn them, and Interview with the Vampire certainly lends itself to that pretty neatly.

I can't take all the credit because it hit me while I was reading a lesbian DM fic when the author mentioned that Armand(e) kinda dresses like bette porter 😂

Respectfully, Anon, you're missing my point.

I'm not trying to negate what the show has alluded to re: Daniel's backstory and relationship with his family, what I'm saying is that, with so little to go on wrt Daniel's backstory and given that it is still totally plausible (to the point of being quite common, if you can believe it) for one to have a great deal of love for a parent with a history of substance abuse, neglect, or one you've decided to go no-contact with, the accepted Daniel's Kids Hate Him fanon feels flat and lacks appropriate nuance (and imagination!!! which is more annoying to me, personally) for the fandom of The Complicated Relationships Show.

I know children (even grandchildren) of addicts whose parents still managed to create good memories with them even as they battled addiction. Are these relationships dysfunctional? Yeah. Were these good parents? Jury's out. But imperfect or even bad parenting doesn't mean it was all bad, all the time.

On the subject of Daniel's estrangement from his daughters, the fandom bases this on one throwaway line Daniel says during a highly charged rant at Louis, who has been baiting him off and on for days. What does Daniel say right before "My daughters don't even talk to me?" Some snarky remark about legacies being for execs and assholes in loafers (paraphrasing). I got news for you, peeps, two-time Pulizer winners who teach Masterclass seminars and who go through the trouble of publishing an autobiography/memoir care very much about their legacy, despite what they might say in the heat of the moment.

BUT, even if one wants to interpret this one throwaway line literally and run with the notion that both of Daniel's daughters have gone no-contact with him, the show's canon still leaves the "when's" and "why's" of this estrangement wide open.

Who's to say this has always been the case? What if it's recent?

Terminal illness affects families in different ways; what if one daughter couldn't deal with the news and is coping by ignoring him, and the other cut contact bc she doesn't agree with Daniel's decision to continue living independently instead of moving in with her or into an assisted living facility? What if the news of Daniel's diagnosis caused his kids to start smothering him as though he was already in hospice until one day he snapped, said some messed up things, and demanded they give him space, so they're giving it to him (albeit not the way he wanted it).

What if it has nothing to do with the Parkinson's? What if one kid is a semi-homeless addict globetrotting around the world just like Daniel did back in the day (if we assume DM chase happend) and is just so caught up in doing her own thing she doesn't even think to call anyone in the family, much less Daniel? What if the other kid has a partner who doesn't like Daniel and Alice (if she's real) and since marrying this asshole has distanced herself from her family?

What if--as I said in my original post--they're simply really fucking busy being grown and having their own lives and don't have time to reply to Daniel's 90 million daily texts, and "My daughters won't even talk to me" is just Daniel being a surly, dramatic old man who's had it with the depressed vampire he's ranting at, and also wants his girls to be faster texters?

Or, Daniel was a druggie fuckup who was too strung out to ever meaningfully bond with his daughters who, now grown, actively despise him. <- Sure. The popular theory works, too, obviously but there's no reason this has to be THE go-to fanon explanation since

For the show/movie/fandom asks.

You cannot ask me that. How can I choose, honestly?

I don't know if it is my uncontested favorite, but season two episode five, simply for Assad Zaman's beautiful delivery of Armand's lines to Daniel.

Okay, anon, I'm so sorry. I went to answer this, had a ridiculously lengthy and detailed answer, and as I went to hit 'post now' tumblr deleted it all and said 'our servers aren't cool enough to handle your post right now!' and I was so nauseous, I spent so much time. I'm afraid this won't be as good, but I remember most of what I said, so I'll try to rehash it all best I can.

So, first of all, welcome to iwtv/tvc! it's always been chaos here. second of all, let's spend some time discussing the Armand-Louis-Lestat relationship, particularly in context of the first book and of the show, in turn!

Armand-Louis-Lestat has always been incredibly interesting and the show is, obviously ("the love of my life!") setting us up for continued interesting vibes. Here's what I will tell you about Armand and Louis in Interview (the book). As the show is setting up as well, Louis meets Armand in Paris following the "death" of Lestat. Up until Armand, Louis had been in an incredibly depressive episode (moreso than normal) because of Lestat's death. Meeting Armand fills Louis with this infatuation, and Armand, like all vampires, immediately falls deeply in love with Louis and his beauty and his remaining humanity. It's a beautiful couple of weeks/months, and I have no doubt that the show is going to capitalize on that and show us many many many cute, loving, sexy, and tender moments of Louis and Armand's relationship. What I will also tell you, without trying to spoil too much of the book, is that the period of happy and loving in Louis and Armand's relationship is very limited and, by the end of the book, Louis is so numb, so distant, so cold to Armand.

Now! I feel like I need to clarify that, in later books, Louis and Armand always reconnect, but I very much have always viewed it as a true friendship/companionship. I think, in a lot of ways, they both saw each other at their worst and have a trust that will always let them find solace in the other, even if it's just platonic.

With all that in mind, I actually have two passages from Interview (the book) that I'm going to type out and that I think are exceptionally important to Louis and Lestat's relationship, especially in comparison to Louis' relationship with anyone else.

In my version of Interview, the first passage is on page 123. It takes place immediately following Louis and Claudia "killing" Lestat:

"Claudia had wrapped Lestat's body in a sheet before I would even touch it, and then, to my horror, she had sprinkled it over with the long-stemmed chrysanthemums. So it had a sweet, funereal smell as I lifted it last of all from the carriage. It was almost weightless, as limp as something made of knots and cords, as I put it over my shoulder and moved down into the dark water, the water rising and filling my boots, my feet seeking some path in the ooze beneath, away from where I'd lain the two boys. I went deeper and deeper in with Lestat's remains, though why, I did not know. And finally, when I could barely see the pale space of the road and the sky which was coming dangerously close to dawn, I let his body slip down out of my arms into the water. I stood there shaken, looking at the amorphous form of the white sheet beneath the slimy surface. The numbness which had protected me since the carriage left the Rue Royale threatened to lift and leave me flayed suddenly, staring, thinking: This is Lestat. This is all of transformation and mystery, dead, gone into eternal darkness. I felt a pull suddenly, as if some force were urging me to go down with him, to descend into the dark water and never come back. It was so distinct and so strong that it made the articulation of voices seem only a murmur by comparison. It spoke without language, saying, "You know what you must do. Come down into the darkness. Let it all go away.""

The second passage is just a few paragraphs later, on page 124:

"...'He deserved to die!' she [Claudia] said to me.

"'Then we deserve to die. The same way. Every night of our lives,' I said back to her. 'Go away from me.' It was as if my words were my thoughts, my mind alone only formless confusion. 'I'll care for you because you can't care for yourself. But I don't want you near me. Sleep in that box you bought for yourself. Don't come near me.'

"'I told you I was going to do it. I told you...' she said...'Louis, I told you!' she said, her lips quivering. 'I did it for us. So we could be free.' I couldn't stand the sight of her."

The reason I think these passages are really important, especially in context of the show, is because this is Louis when he wasn't telling us everything. According to the show, Interview (the book) has already happened, at least up to a point. Louis has told Daniel this story before, but is doing so now with more truth, more nuance, more history. He kept out a lot, namely the depth of his relationship with Lestat, out of hatred or disdain or repression or something, towards himself, towards Lestat, towards life, etc. And yet these passages highlight something so so incredibly important, which is how much Louis loved/loves Lestat.

Lestat's death haunts Louis. In Europe, he talks about his grief in the narration, and it appears that in Claudia's diaries in the show, she discusses his grief too, namely that he is worse than ever following the death of Lestat.

Have you ever heard of how the opposite of love isn't hate, but apathy? I've heard it a lot in my life, never understood it until I got older, and I think Louis and Lestat, and Louis and Armand, are perfect examples of that.

Lestat drives Louis crazy. He lights fires in him, both good and bad, and, no doubt, damages Louis' blood pressure (if vampires have blood pressure to worry about, I guess), but he makes Louis feel, he makes him be alive. He drives Louis so crazy that Louis interviews TWICE about his relationship with the man.

Louis and Armand, while sweet in its own way, and will, undoubtedly, have its sweet moments, is going to fizzle out. And I think the show will very much do that on purpose to show us how any relationship Louis has (and Lestat has) pales in comparison to what he has with Lestat.

I've talked about it in a couple of asks before, about how I think the show is going to take a slightly different direction than the books re: polyamory and re: Loustat as a whole, and my general consensus is that Louis and Lestat are endgame in the books, but it's going to be so much more apparent, and will happen so much quicker, in the show. The show has so much content to work with re: storylines that there is no need to play relationship will-they-won't-they with Louis and Lestat. They can stabilize them (to a point -- any relationship with Lestat is always going to be slightly unstable) and have the actual plot (Akasha, Memnoch, Amel, etc.) be the main problems to work through versus relationship drama 24/7.

Lol literally anything and everything. Give me all of it!

But if I had to choose. I wanna see the moment that Armand realizes without any doubt, that he is truly loved. That he is chosen simply because of who he is, and not for what he can offer the other person. And that he’s not being used as a placeholder or to hurt someone else.