Have watched episode five of IWTV - if you don’t want spoilers, skip this post.

I went into this expecting to absolutely hate it but honestly I actually did like most of the episode. The deterioration of their relationships - both as a family unit and Lestat and Louis as a couple - was well portrayed, methinks. I liked the beginning, Claudia going full serial killer colecting trophies, and I liked seeing Claudia away from the for a while, and seeing how lost and depressed Louis was without Claudia in their lives.

But the thing with Claudia and Killer like ohh boy I think this was the one thing that made me more mad? Like this is the cameo from a QotD character that the showrunners mentioned, a small one-time character in that book raping Claudia? And even if it was offscreen it seemed to utterly unnecessary and cruel to me. I hate rape storylines most of the time, even more so if they’re adding something that does not exist in the original books like this. There was not even any reason to make Killer’s violence on Claudia be sexual, so the whole thing left me with such a bitter taste.

And the whole beat down with Lestat and Louis… yeah that was very tough to watch. Earlier today I mentioned I don’t think this is such an extrapolation of Lestat’s character in the book - he can be very cruel, capable of great violence and Anne even made him a rapist in book four - and I kept thinking about that one part of The Tale of the Body Thief where he is seething at Louis, the angriest he gets at him in the books.

And the part ehere he knew that if he saw Louis in that moment of pure anger, he would do something he would regret.

And then he goes and stays away for a week, letting his anger get colder and trying to get his temper to calm down so he wouldn’t actually hurt Louis when he saw him again.

So the thing is that he Lestat never does this especifically kind of violence in the books (domestic violence). It’s one of the few lines he never did cross, Anne never went there with him so yeah, even if I think it was not a strech of who Lestat is capable of being, it’s an extrapolation I wish they hadn’t done.

It’s sad that it didn’t feel out of the place in the episode, but it was very upsetting to see they going there in the show and considering that Lestat is The protagonist of the books it seems a very weird and bold choice to make the main protagonist a domestic abuser, especially this early on.

I’m still waiting for the last two episodes to make a full judgment but, this far it’s really hard to understand how they’re going to spin this in any way.

The IWTV movie completely glosses over this moment, but something that I wonder if we’ll get in the show is Louis’ reaction in the aftermath of Claudia trying to kill Lestat. The show is its own thing so it may go down completely different, but I do wonder because it’s one of the most interesting parts of the book for me.

The IWTV book has Lestat portrayed at his worst, and Louis claims to despise him for most of the book, but his reaction in the aftermath of Claudia killing Lestat is very telling. He gets very shocked and numb, his mind fog-like, even thinking that if Lestat is going down, maybe he should be going down with him.

But what stood out the most for me when I first read it was how angry and disgusted he was with Claudia. He ends up softening when she has a breakdown, but at first he’s very cold and attemps to reject her.

I especially like this scene in Claudia’s official graphic novel, since it’s from her point of view and it’s always interesting to see things from her pov.

It stands out to me that even in the novel that paints Lestat at his worst, Louis has such a visceral reaction to his death. And like I said, it may go down completely different in the show but I do think Jacob Anderson’s delivery of a line like “Then we deserve to die. The same way. Every night of our lives.” would be wonderful.

Rashid does give off some Weird vibes and I do think it could be interesting if he was Armand tho it would be a bit messy to conciliate the way he’s behaving now with his usual personality but it WOULD make his interactions with Daniel very funny

But tbh the first idea that came to me was that maybe Rashid could be an aged up version of Benji? I mean, Benji was only like twelve when Marius turned him (in the nineties… after everything… I do hate Marius so much) as some sort of fucked up little gift for Armand, younger than Claudia in the show so if it is him makes sense to age him up a little.

And I do remember that in TVA both Benji and Sybelle had this sort of reverence almost divine for Armand, so the I serve a god comment made me go hmmm in my first watch

But than again Benji is such a minor character not sure they would go to such efforts to introduce him lmao

Their domestic fucked up little happy time was a joy to watch as I thought it would but ngl I’m a bit sad that even in her diary Claudia calls Lestat her uncle like nooo that her father, they are BOTH her fathers! I always loved in the books that she calls Lestat her father even as she’s plotting his murder and Lestat falls for the poisoned blood because he’s the world’s Worst dad but he IS her dad and he trusted her and and

Can’t believe that this time Louis actually babytrapped himself

(I know there’s a lot of new fans on fandom these days, so fair warning - this post has heavy spoilers of Merrick, the seventh book of the Vampire Chronicles. Scroll past this post if you don’t want to be spoiled.)

So, I’ve been skimming the books and thinking a lot about Claudia this week, and how changing her age will inevitably change so much about her core character and what direction the show may take with her, so I’ve been skimming Merrick quite a bit. It remains honestly such a baffling book, even many years after I read it. I actually do like Merrick, or the idea of her, but the way David speaks of her, the interactions with Louis… ugh.

But anyway, Claudia. In the books, Claudia becomes a woman trapped in the body of a five year old child. The heart of her fury and desire for revenge is the horror that her mind and her desires age with time while she will forever have the appearence of a very small girl.

And the thing about Claudia is that she’s one of the coldest, most merciless vampires because she’s pure vampire. Claudia was turned too young to have human memories, human sympathies or influences; her infancy memories are all associated with being a bloodthirsty murderer alongside her fathers.

This reflects a lot in the way that she decides to kill Lestat - it’s both a vengeful and a practical decision, and in the bits of her diary we see in Merrick, she frames that decision with the base that it would be easier for her to control Louis.

And it had to be Lestat, of course - since Lestat was the one holding back knowledge, the one who didn’t want them to meet the others, it had to be him that Claudia had to kill. But despite the many issues I have with Merrick (which are…. a lot), I do like how this is framed, because it fits with my conception of Claudia as a characters in the books - love and hate for her fathers in equal messure.

And a single mindedness to get what she wants.

Even as she discusses love and hate and the pain of her existence, there’s a coldness and practicity in Claudia that is reflective of the humanity she lacks. She’s furious because she has the knowledge that Lestat and Louis took something irreplaceable from her whe she was turned, but she lacks the proper tools to properly mourn the loss of her humanity because she never fully experienced that.

In the show, I think a direction they could take is to completely flip around her character in the opposite direction.

After all, Claudia in the show will be turned at fourteen years old - right in the middle of her adolescence. Contrary to the books, she’ll remember humanity alright, and maybe? Maybe she could remember it too much.

Her tragedy will be to be forever stuck at her teenage years, not a child anymore but far from an adult, in an age where everything is too much and not enough and emotions run too high and too intense, and I think that, instead of being too cold and unfeeling, maybe she’ll be too passional and intense.

Everything is speculation right now (and the reason why I wanted to write this before she makes her debut), but I think this could be a possible direction for her character that they could take.

(In an unrelated last note about Merrick: this books still is baffling, but Louis’ goodbye letter and the part where he addresses Lestat still pulls a bit at my heartstrings.)

There’s many reasons for the mess that is Lestat and Louis’ relationship, the most glaring of them being their abismal lack of communication with each other of course, and the show also adds the fact that Lestat doesn’t seem able to understand that being a vampire does not free Louis from racism. Him being lived his entire life as a white man and inability to understand how being a black man in a racist society affects Louis is something that puts a big strain in their relationship.

But I think something else the show adds to their dynamic is that Lestat is much older than Louis here, when in the books he was only a little older - meaning that this Lestat has over a hundred years, probably spent a lot of these years in relative solitute, and he is much more… dlvorced from his humanity, per say.

I don’t think he understands why holding into his humanity means so much to Louis because it has been long since he was turned so everything Louis cares so deeply about - his human family, his job, his role in society likely looks like a blip in time for him - meaningless, things that are always changing. Not really important. A hobby as he says, because their immortality and the potencial of a thousand hundred nights together with Louis is what means the world to him.

Meanwhile, Louis hasn’t fully grasped what means for him being a vampire, being immortal, and he still clings so hard to his human life that he is hurt when Lestat just shrugs his problems off, because these thing are very important to him, so I don’t think at this point these two are capable o being in the same page.

BTW, I know I’m always focusing on loustat because tbh there was a time the books became too much (re: blood canticle) and it got to a point I only carried on with the new ones in the hope of getting any loustat content (which we thankfully did) so they are my main motivator in anything VC related BUT I do think this show has a very interesting plot so far,surprisingly so!

Like in modern times I’m very curious about the weird things in Dubai, some of it reminded me of the human who works for Lestat in his castle in the PL trilogy and the farm thing reminded me of that horrifying idea in Blood Communion, but I also get the feeling it’s something new.

AND in the past I love to see Louis’ struggles in trying to hold into his humanity, his family and slowly failing at everything, and how he may not be human anymore but he’s still a black man and being a rich vampire doesn’t shield him from racism it’s such a great source of conflict.

After everything Lestat had it coming but ouch, this is harsh. I think this instantly became my favorite mean!Louis moment, maybe even surpassing my previously favorite one from the books:

That scene with Louis and his family was so sad ): the way Grace looked at him…

Also, one of the main flaws of Lestat and Louis’ relationship,especially in this early stages is their utter inability of communicate with each other and this show just. gets it SO well