the light side of the moon

i don't trust the writers nearly as much as i used to, but this is so fucking obvious that i don't think a professional writer who wrote two excellent episodes with realistic and complex depictions of abuse and even said that louis' victimhood won't ever be denied would be ignorant to not understand what she wrote. i mean, every writer has their blind spots, but it's simply impossible for me to believe.

i had a lot of fears in regards to louis in this season (if you know... you know), but i think if they truly wanted to villainize louis, they'd depict louis doing awful things to lestat. the worst louis has done this season was being weird with a woman who looked like his daughter & treating claudia as extension of himself again. it has nothing to do with lestat. and if they wanted to "humble" louis we'd see a lot more of him getting angry and jelous.

watching iwtv it may seem that louis is a weaker person between them, but now i don't think so. i think louis is actually a stronger person because he constantly seeks the meaning in his life and holds onto what he finds. it's mostly the circumstances, the society and certain awful people that crush him and inhibit him. in comparison to claudia louis is indeed weak and aimless, but reality is, he still persists no matter what ("as long as you walk the earth, i'll never taste the fire"). his biggest weakness is reliance and self-definition through other people.

but looking at lestat and how he describes his own existence, it feels like he only lives because he's afraid to die. it's like in his mind there's no alternative but to live, even when there's no meaning. and sometimes the meaning finds him, but usually he just... exists. and he spends the mindless years of his existence searching for "fun", like a child kicking rocks on a street. and when the reality crushes him, and it happens very often because literally everything crushes him, he hides. sometimes for 100 years at the time.

the way he lashes out and reacts to his ego being hurt can't be described as anything other than "immature". i keep finding myself shocked at the way he talks about louis and calls him names in tvl, but then i remind myself about the chess scene from s1e6. "finish the game!!" and the litany of childish but hurtful insults towards someone who refused to play by his rules. the racist microaggressions to provoke louis in s1e1. the possessiveness. it's the same lestat. his experience before he met louis didn't make him grow up, so why am i surprised that all the experience after hasn't changed him as well?

the way he tells his story, everything happens to him. he's the center of the world, but he doesn't really make decisions, it's always someone older than him saying that he needs to do something and he does it. or sometimes doesn't do it when he feels rebellious. we joked about louis not taking accountability sometimes, but lestat "accountability" is just him saying "yeah i hurt you on purpose, what's you gonna do about it?". arguably admitting you did something bad is very easy in this mindset, where guilt evaporates (but really, hides in the farthest corner of the mind) after new fun activity takes its place. when there's always a new game to play, there's no place to think about your life. when the old toy is broken, discard it for a new one.

the problem is that the show lacks any kinda objectivity now. s1&2 depicted 4 different povs. s3 depicts everything from lestat's pov (possibly amel's?). louis is saying that he's selfish, and from lestat's pov we're supposed to be mad at him, but there's no material action serious enough to justify this. in fact, some people made fun of lestat's words because it was ridiculous. but at the same time, many viewers are conditioned to believe that lestat is totally right to be mad at louis.

and like i said before, lestat's biased feelings are not the problem either. he's allowed to be mad all he wants, people don't really control their feelings. a rational viewer understands that lestat owes like 100 years of reparations to louis as his abusive fatherhusbandmaker. and considering what he said about keeping truth from louis during the 70 years after the trial... maybe 200 years of reparations, actually.

but what is this position the show takes? in s1 louis is judged both by himself and daniel. we're supposed to see and understand when he wasn't fair to others. but we're completely lost in lestat's pov. and in the perfect world i'd say "okay, this show is written for smart people, we're on the same page" if the majority of the fandom didn't agree with lestat. if casual audience didn't agree with lestat. if the writers didn't say stuff that make me think they agree with lestat.

material reality of s1&2 correlated with full picture presented by different povs. we could see when louis took too much accountability and when he didn't take enough. with lestat's pov it crosses the line where subjectivity does not correlate with material situation at all. it takes me out of the story. it makes me angry at lestat and the writers.