Let's talk about Louis -- how he's been transformed from the melancholy, self-flagellating moral mess to almost equal parts temper and angst, ever balanced between joy and hope and rage.
I can't compare this series to the books because it is a different beast altogether, and I LOVE the changes.
There is something sinister and beautiful in the way that IwtV has turned gender politics on its head. Queer love is centered and the vulnerability of emotion demanded of women in depictions of romantic relationships gets equal demand in the male leads. That is wildly true of the novels and makes for a welcome shift in the way that men are portrayed on screen. Armand's NEED oozes out of his eyes when he's with Louis. He is so in love. He also opens a vein describing his life before vampirism. It's a narrative that typically frames womanhood -- objectified, sexualized, enslaved and without agency. Then there's Louis grief, guilt, and unrequited love for Lestat, a force in every scene Jacob Anderson is in.
The commentary on how women fit and are objectified within society are there too. Madeline's shunning after her affair with a young German solider is explained in equally by "patriotism" and loose morals (she is slut shamed). Claudia's infantilization, at complete odds with how she sees herself and wants to be seen is horrifying. Her "maman" in the play makes a comment about Baby Lulu distracting her father so that he keeps his hands off her (the mother). It's coarse theater, of course, and it's meant to be a purple comment that suggests and titillates. It is also, to a modern audience, or at least this person as audience, horrifying. It reminded me immediately of how women are portrayed as objectified stand ins to attract the male gaze. Claudia's debasement, sexualized infant for the mortals and walking ridicule as blasphemy to the immortals, is a game, a show and a joke for everyone. That girl is going to break. Her developing relationship with Madeline is the closest depiction of normalcy and something she craves and has craved since she accidentally ate that boy back in Season 1.
It all makes an interesting comment on power structure. Who has it, who doesn't, who wants it, who doesn't. Season 1 sets Louis as the beta to Lestat's alpha. It makes sense. Lestat is a natural born alpha, but Louis as a beta is a little sleight of hand. Yes with Lestat, but as is increasingly more obvious absolutely not with Armand. Louis even reminds us that he is good at running things.
I'd argue that Armand was never really an alpha vampire. He holds the coven because his dark gifts are strong enough to allow him to, but not because anyone is particularly afraid or in awe of him. It makes Louis and Armand as a coven of two an interesting question.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lynnenne has posited that Louis is the one in control. I find that idea deliciously fascinating and more likely as we're watching the events of the past. But because this is still a story of unreliable narrator's, I have to question the truth. Is he? or isn't he?
Louis dresses his disdain and his resistance to emotional intimacy in Lestat's figure. He holds on to him as armor to hold off real emotional attachment even as he stares lovingly into Armand's face in the present and declares that he loved him even back them. I don't know that him letting go of Lestat in the rain (SO FUCKING SAD AND OH!) was about him deciding to be in love so much as it is about him deciding to let go of guilt and fear so that he can move forward. Lestat was his past. Running the theater could be his future and it would be to protect Claudia as much as it would be to protect Armand.
But again … what of this story is real? Daniel's migraines, the reemerging memories of San Francisco that are very much centered around what looks like Armand playing mind games.
Little things I loved about this episode:
* Madeline and Claudia in the shop and the way that Claudia is lamenting that she is a vampire and Madeline is dinner.
* "Go sit in your choice, sister." - That fight was epic and hurtful and real. Both of them abandoned in different ways.
* Claudia calling Armand on his shit. She is Lestat's daughter for sure. She doesn't give a fuck about the rituals and the rules. Claudia is looking for a space to belong in, but it has to be shaped for her and according to her rules. Anything else will chafe.
* "The wilderness that is our daughter."
* Louis letting Lestat go is one of the saddest thing ever. The music is a slightly discordant, manipulative goodbye in this very constructed story reflecting a very constructed end between Louis and Lestat. I love the way that Louis makes Lestat say apple and then apple in French as proof that he is just a figment of his imagination because Lestat is never that accommodating. "There isn't going to be a hunt, is there?" And then he is washed away by the rain.
I can't compare this series to the books because it is a different beast altogether, and I LOVE the changes.
There is something sinister and beautiful in the way that IwtV has turned gender politics on its head. Queer love is centered and the vulnerability of emotion demanded of women in depictions of romantic relationships gets equal demand in the male leads. That is wildly true of the novels and makes for a welcome shift in the way that men are portrayed on screen. Armand's NEED oozes out of his eyes when he's with Louis. He is so in love. He also opens a vein describing his life before vampirism. It's a narrative that typically frames womanhood -- objectified, sexualized, enslaved and without agency. Then there's Louis grief, guilt, and unrequited love for Lestat, a force in every scene Jacob Anderson is in.
The commentary on how women fit and are objectified within society are there too. Madeline's shunning after her affair with a young German solider is explained in equally by "patriotism" and loose morals (she is slut shamed). Claudia's infantilization, at complete odds with how she sees herself and wants to be seen is horrifying. Her "maman" in the play makes a comment about Baby Lulu distracting her father so that he keeps his hands off her (the mother). It's coarse theater, of course, and it's meant to be a purple comment that suggests and titillates. It is also, to a modern audience, or at least this person as audience, horrifying. It reminded me immediately of how women are portrayed as objectified stand ins to attract the male gaze. Claudia's debasement, sexualized infant for the mortals and walking ridicule as blasphemy to the immortals, is a game, a show and a joke for everyone. That girl is going to break. Her developing relationship with Madeline is the closest depiction of normalcy and something she craves and has craved since she accidentally ate that boy back in Season 1.
It all makes an interesting comment on power structure. Who has it, who doesn't, who wants it, who doesn't. Season 1 sets Louis as the beta to Lestat's alpha. It makes sense. Lestat is a natural born alpha, but Louis as a beta is a little sleight of hand. Yes with Lestat, but as is increasingly more obvious absolutely not with Armand. Louis even reminds us that he is good at running things.
I'd argue that Armand was never really an alpha vampire. He holds the coven because his dark gifts are strong enough to allow him to, but not because anyone is particularly afraid or in awe of him. It makes Louis and Armand as a coven of two an interesting question.
lynnenne has posited that Louis is the one in control. I find that idea deliciously fascinating and more likely as we're watching the events of the past. But because this is still a story of unreliable narrator's, I have to question the truth. Is he? or isn't he?Louis dresses his disdain and his resistance to emotional intimacy in Lestat's figure. He holds on to him as armor to hold off real emotional attachment even as he stares lovingly into Armand's face in the present and declares that he loved him even back them. I don't know that him letting go of Lestat in the rain (SO FUCKING SAD AND OH!) was about him deciding to be in love so much as it is about him deciding to let go of guilt and fear so that he can move forward. Lestat was his past. Running the theater could be his future and it would be to protect Claudia as much as it would be to protect Armand.
But again … what of this story is real? Daniel's migraines, the reemerging memories of San Francisco that are very much centered around what looks like Armand playing mind games.
Little things I loved about this episode:
* Madeline and Claudia in the shop and the way that Claudia is lamenting that she is a vampire and Madeline is dinner.
* "Go sit in your choice, sister." - That fight was epic and hurtful and real. Both of them abandoned in different ways.
* Claudia calling Armand on his shit. She is Lestat's daughter for sure. She doesn't give a fuck about the rituals and the rules. Claudia is looking for a space to belong in, but it has to be shaped for her and according to her rules. Anything else will chafe.
* "The wilderness that is our daughter."
* Louis letting Lestat go is one of the saddest thing ever. The music is a slightly discordant, manipulative goodbye in this very constructed story reflecting a very constructed end between Louis and Lestat. I love the way that Louis makes Lestat say apple and then apple in French as proof that he is just a figment of his imagination because Lestat is never that accommodating. "There isn't going to be a hunt, is there?" And then he is washed away by the rain.
