(previously: haelblazer)

-- Wait, why would we do that? Hasn't the poor guy been through enough?

-- Don't worry he totally deserves it for his heinous behaviours including stalking Regina and making Claudia's death about himself, which are absolutely the worst things that anyone on this show has ever done-- plus he was selfishly upset about Lestat sleeping with his mother and lying to him about her death for 100 years for like a whole 30 seconds before going to comfort him, and for some unexamined reason I just don't really care about him like the other characters...

-- No questions here! So how are we going to take him down?

-- Simple, by getting ghost Claudia to say the meanest, most devastating things to him.

-- Huh? But despite their complicated relationship and the fact that Louis definitely deserves to be told where to shove it, Claudia has always loved Louis as much as she's hated or been angry with him. How will we get her to say those things?

-- Well, by trapping her in unending torment alone in a horrific hellscape, of course, so that she's only speaking from her pain.

--But won't that leave a Black woman who's already been deeply wronged/abused by other characters/ the narrative (arguably to a gratuitous extent) in a state of perpetual torturous agony? And couldn't one argue that by this we are doing the exact same thing she's telling Louis and Lestat off for, prioritizing their pain above her?

-- Eh, don't worry about it, that's not important. By the way, let's also bring in some heinous slurs, pretending that Claudia's earlier politically aware use of a similar schematic in reference the racialized power dynamics between her and Louis and Lestat would absolutely translate into a politically incoherent and deeply antiblack use of similar terms towards Louis, just 'cause she's mad.

-- Great! Let's not examine that. But at least Louis will be devastated to hear what's happened to Claudia and try to free her soul or die in the attempt, right?

-- Nope, he doesn't really care. (And he only resorts to self harm when Armand says something mean to him.) He just wants to hang out in a park with Lestat. Honestly, he's probably relieved to have his own feelings of guilt resolved since now that Claudia was mean to him/she was lying he doesn't have to care about her anymore...

-- Wait, but I thought we were trying to emotionally devastate him?