AMC's Interview with the Vampire is a Postcolonial adaption

So idk if I've ever like, functionally stated it, but one of the reasons the AMC IwtV adaption differs from the book so much is because Rolin and Hannah turned to the text and filtered it through a post-colonial lense.

Which, if you're not in academia, is a theory that started getting popular in the 1990s in the academic field because it asks questions about the marginalized characters in a text. Why are they depicted the way they are? Do they have rich inner lives? The margins are going to be identified with a whole bunch of other critical theories, like critical race theory, feminist theory, marxist theory, new Historical theory, ect, and utilize them as tools to challenge the assumptions the original text makes.

Why are Louis and Claudia Black? Because when you look into the margins of the story, you repeatedly see Black characters suffering at the hands of the white masters who own their bodies. Including -and especially- the owners of Lestat and Louis. However as book!Louis goes through the... interesting character arc of finding similarities between him and the slaves he owns, he uses that to frame his own relationship with Lestat.

AMC just decided to take this and close the gap. Instead of a slave owner finding comeraderie with the slaves he will continue to own and consume, the adaption made him (and Claudia) Black to really hammer home that message. It's not interperative anymore, they're saying it outright. The power inequality of the maker/fledgling relationship is one that will put those who are in more intersecting margins at risk.

This post-colonial lense also is why Claudia's arc is changed. In the book, it is positioned that her death is inevitable. The grief Louis goes through is Anne's own. However, that is now how Show!Claudia's death is framed. Show!Claudia is a victim of a system that feeds its own narrative of inevitability. Show!Claudia was let down by the men in power caught up in their own lives to change the system that led to her death. The only reason her death could be seen as "inevitable" is because of inaction. But actions could have been taken to resist by every Character.

Anne Rice's TVC tends to let us sit in inevitability. The philosophical exchanges of the characters allow them to consider what has happened. They are ghosts in the world, they can only drift with thoughts and musings, and feel the pain of feeding whenever they cause each other harm.

AMC uses the post-colonial lense to challenge that inevitability. The characters are suffering for actions they chose NOT to take. The characters are challenged if they let themselves become ghosts. The vampires are all victims of the circumstances of their turning - but that doesn't mean that they are without the ability to interact with the world. And there's complexities and contradictions in how someone who has been harmed in the margins has to seek power. There's intersections and systems at play to make struggles harder than others. There's time periods and historical contexts in which a vampire is made.

But AMC doesn't want us to say "oh well, the system happened, we can move on." Louis is angry and grieving over the violence that took Claudia. AMC is not letting her just be a dead daughter, she is the reason these systems need to be dismantled; or more Claudia's will be made, and suffer, and die. Only inaction lets that tragedy be inevitable- something has to change. Something has to burn.

TVC is all about inaction. AMC is challenging that notion.

Loumand Victim Types

Loumand as each other's preferred victim types 🙏

In life we see Louis collects and engages with women who have few options in and amongst brothels to line his pockets,¹ both socially and economically, which means he's attentive to vulnerability. However, he is not drawn to them except by their availability, and he chooses to pursue the prettiest man in the room. Lestat took him hunting on his first night and he immediately eyes the loudest and prettiest boy in the room. The most powerful man in the room, too; he eyes the circles of power with desire and thirst, especially if they try to put him down.

Louis loves his youths and the ones who linger in parks looking for something more. Sex and sexuality to him are inseperable from his vampirism. He's a smile, a promise, and a kiss of bliss on a night they'll never recover from.

And what is Armand but the prettiest man in the room desperate to be loved, and desperate for the promise of a never-ending embrace? Meeting Louis in that park was a calculated move on Armand's part, and you can't help but see that Armand wanted to make the best of Louis's hunting grounds 😏 He's both vulnerable and the most powerful entity in Paris, and Louis just wants to wiggle into that empty space the contradition brings and BITE.

Armand hunts thrill seekers and the passively suicidal. He peers into their innermost thoughts and draws their insecurities to the surface. He tests the metal of their will to live with a patient hand, and watches them melt under the heat.

And Louis loves a good thrill and a test. Anything less than that is boring boring boring. He wants his innermost thoughts to be listened to and challenged, which is why he loves philosophical debate. The suicidality of Louis is also undeniable, and Armand loves to keep the impending emptiness of death in his peripheral.

This use of ideal prey makes their love so 🤌 because they keep feeding on the parts that make them weakest. It makes the feedback loop more stable, as neither of them are seeking transformation from the other, just reinforcing their preferred trait of what the other already is.

But the key to why they juggle dominance and submission? Armand likes his victims dead despite being able to control how he feeds, while Louis struggles to stop from killing, and prefers to avoid feeding on humans entirely. And then that shifts after the trial, where Louis stops caring and starts feeding and feeding and feeding, and then again in Dubai, where Louis has reached a management of his desire for blood. Meanwhile Armand slowly brings those insecurities to the surface because he plays a long game.

¹ I bring this up in the sense that sex work and brothel work are neutral entities and NOT as a way to cast Louis as a predatory brothel madam/pimp stereotype. He -as a man of color with limited options for investment in the Jim Crow era- hired women of color and disabled women as a boss hires employees, and the predatory nature of this is reflected in his PERSONAL morals meeting the realities of sexwork, and the limited options that women had for work in the early 1900s. There was more safety and reliability in a brothel house, which was why women chose to work there. The pimp/former sex worker is a part of Loumand that shouldn't be steered away from, and adds thematic and character layers to the way they view/play their roles that reinforces the victim-type I'm presenting here.

Why Loumand Work Together

Louis gets to enter a relationship with the first reoccurring sexual partner since Lestat, allowing him to explore his sexuality in both one-night stands and in ongoing discovery with someone. Armand who has a breadth of experience to share with him, until he finds things that really click. Louis knows his tastes a lot better, now.

Armand getting to be swept off his feet by a partner he is reluctant to hold power over ("Maitre is a coven endearment. For you, Armand")
((I know there is a deeper discussion in the Fandom about how much power Armand actually held in the relationship, which is fine to discuss, but Armand's intentions are not to hold power over Louis as a Maitre, which is an important detail to me))

Louis really getting to figure out his values and what he wants from a relationship before he dedicates himself to it. He doesn't want anyone to put him in his place, or fall into the rhythm he fell into with Lestat. He wants to choose it. And he gets to choose Maitre.

"I want you. I want you more than anything in the world."
"Are you sure about that, Arun?"

And then Armand, who has been wrestling with indifference and boredom running the coven, now getting a chance to touch the freedom Louis refuses to give up. He's always telling Louis how the coven insists on things and how he'll be difficult to be in a relationship with. And Louis chooses to pursue him anyway, bringing sparks of interest (and tension) back to Armand's world.

"Been thinking about you. Been thinking about you often."
"Tricky."
"What's that?"
"Us. Coven life, it can get labyrinthian depths of... it can be tricky."

"I never laughed at you," he said. "I cannot afford to laugh at you. It is through you that I can save myself from the despair which I've described to you as our death. It is through you that I must make my link with this nineteenth century and come to understand in a way that will revitalize me, which I so desperately need. It is for you that I've been waiting at the Théâtre des Vampires. If I knew a mortal of that sensitivity, that pain, that focus, I would make him a vampire in an instant."

Armand in Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

And even after the trial, when Louis chooses Armand out of spite because of a lie that will be maintained over the next 77 years, they are not hitting a wall of no growth. They're just growing differently and with more toxicity.

Louis uses Armand as a fulcrum of stability in his shattered grief. Armand, as fucked up as he is, is a pillar of strength when understanding the endurance it takes to be a vampire. Without Armand there, would Louis have survived those 70 years? I think there could be an argument for yes, but the self-destructive behavior in San Francisco was only maintainable because Armand was holding parts of him together. If Louis is afraid of who he'd be when he's alone, because he's depressed and suicidal and simmering in self-hatred, then Armand is a soothing cool bandage to reassure Louis in who he can be. ((Which is why the gaslighting is framed the way it is. He keeps my best interests in mind, even when I can't or won't. It's learned dependence.)) It is through enough time with Armand (and the final snips on the twine holding them together from Daniel) that lets Louis realize he is a fully formed vampire that can handle the future without spite and compromise. A vampire on his own terms.

And for Armand? He is finally the one who was chosen and who was taken with instead of left behind. Finally, free from Paris and coven responsibilities, he is able to rearrange himself to fit Louis's needs. And by rearranging himself for Louis, who is in some ways replacing the sun that was his maker, Armand is able to deconstruct from the methods of existence he had been taught in the cult. Subtextually, Loumand is Armand's last step to finish deconstructing the cult (started by Lestat) by giving him something to replace those coping mechanisms with.

Like fuck, man. Even if they balanced on the knife's edge of destruction, as they stitched each other together, they still stitched themselves up. It was bad. They were suffocating each other, Armand was draining Louis and leaving him a husk. The love had turned rancid and stale. They needed that divorce so badly. But they got through the decades together by holding the other in the mold of a role that allowed them to cure themselves from the inside. That is what is so beautiful about Loumand.

They really can never be untangled from each other's story.

Daniel's Book?

 

The conversation around Daniel, Louis, Claudia, (and now Armand and Lestat) on the publishing of Daniel's book is really interesting and also... dramatically complicated. For one primary reason.

We have no idea what Daniel wrote.

We have snippets!! We have clues!! We have the obvious Talamasca editing and involvement that have changed the nature of the book enough Daniel is doing his own grumpy investigating of them, but we don't have the book. We will never have the book, and that's really helpful as a writer's tool.

Which to me means that the way YOU, yes you, feel about Daniel is going to greatly impact how you think he handled the book.

We have no idea how Daniel has portrayed any character. Was he waxing poetic on Armand, on Louis, on their preturnatual beauty? Did Daniel include measured discussions around race, racism, abuse, and colonialism? Does Daniel operate with a post-colonial view to his journalism that allows him to measure his involvement in the exploitation of delivering a story about racism, race, class, sexism, trauma, and abuse? Especially to characters who have had these things weaponized against them, and in Claudia's case led to her death? Or is he a product of his generation, nation, and journalistic ethics that often lead to further harm? Considering his warning to Louis about presenting Claudia's story, he is incredibly aware that even the best presentation can fail under biased public perception.

Daniel would have been part of The New Journalism movement in America as a youth, which was a movement that encouraged the inclusion of narrative to create a moving and purposefully subjective story. The journalist was as much of an important character in the creation of the news story as the people and events they were covering. The journalist is a meta narrative device that allows these stories to be told with the understanding that these stories are subjective. It is challenging traditional journalist "objective" integrity, because true objectivity is simply not an ideal that can be reached. It's also about turning ordinary instances into art. (A young reporter with a point of view).

 

 

"The writers who came to be described as New Journalists styled themselves as interpreters of large social trends, and magazines like Esquire, Harper's, and New York sought the work of those writers in order to create an identity that would appear o the educated, upscale readers. The ethical challenges of negotiating the delicate relations between subjects, stories, and truth --but from the moral claims made on its behalf. How did writers, editors, and publications explain what they were up to, and why it mattered?" ("The New Journalism and the struggle for interpretation", JJ Pauly)

With this in mind, Daniel making himself a character that is telling the story that was told to him and pulling in all the research that cements this story as "real" is how the book is structured (which is why the snippets we got from the Talamasca include his own musings about his time, place, and perception. He is aware of his place as a biased entity.) Considering the reveal of Daniel as a vampire came WITH the reveal of the discourse around the book being published in season 2, I think we have a narrative answer to how we are supposed to frame it. Daniel is a vampire, and he is metaphorically feeding on this narrative.

The book was written to elicit reactions. As an investigative journalist who has primarily covered AIDS, environmental exploitation, and online public opinion, Daniel's attention seems to cover what people are being told to look away from. He's calling them to look at it instead. Considering his belligerent comments on racism we see in the show (what was happening to Algerians in Paris, "White Master, Black Student, but equal in the quiet dark"), I doubt Daniel is going to pussyfoot around calling the trial a lynching, or presenting Louis or Claudia in a way that shrouds that element of their story. What he may be tripping on is how this connects into a conversation about vampires. Vampires as monstrous others. Racialized others. Disabled others. He is now in the group that he is exploiting, but he doesn't seem to be using his new identity to help prove his book's authenticity. (perhaps... as he was once before in AIDS. Which now, he's in a similar position. Is he hiding being a vampire for the same reason he may have been hiding homosexuality? Is this where he abandons subjective perspective for objective perspective? Out of fear? Out of a need to showcase a story that he is still hesistant at admitting he is an integral part of? It's easier to be taken seriously if you're presenting yourself as... well... an onlooker.)

Because this show has a tendency to root its conversations around these topics in a post-colonial lense, I always look for conversations around journalistic ethics that are coming from that purview. This article discusses the ways that media and journalism fail minorities and "others." Considering Daniel is writing a book about vampires as an ultimate other from specifically the story of Louis, who is a racialized other, are there places he is creating spaces that are reinforcing racist dialogue?

 

Does the reaction of Burton (the Talamasca), the girl in the bookshop, Louis and Lestat, and the other various lore drops give us a good glimpse into what was written? Well... I'm honestly unsure. Daniel is belligerent and... well, Daniel. He may be handling things with less tact than he could have, and depending on what state he was in when he wrote it (literally. was he a vampire already? Baby fledgling writing a book? Ooof) that will also affect his tone and portrayal of events. Is discourse healthy, or is it a way to enforce ideology?

Considering vampires ARE kind of a societal problem because they're... uh... killers, even using Louis as a "less problematic vampire" is going to come with it's own issues. (We all have certainly run the gauntlet of opinions on that, lmao.) This show is a Gothic horror, and Gothic horror has historically been used to challenge social anxieties and stigma by exposing the uncomfortable reactions of victims. Louis and Claudia are Gothic damsels. Lestat and Armand are enactors of Gothic exploitation and abuse. Daniel is a narrative... hero? Escape route? Louis seemed to think so.

 

 

Question: Did Louis state the Dubain interview because he had a hunch about Armand's lie? Anderson says, 'Yeah, I do,' in response to that question, and he's been theorizing this since filming the Season 1 finale. Louis has never seen this interview as the chronicling of a suicide like Armand (as Rashid) described it, according to Anderson.
"'The burning of the laptop, Louis doesn't really have a good understanding of how the cloud works,' Anderson says, making us both laugh. 'It's a dramatic flourish. It's more symbolic than anything.' Suspecting Armand 'was something that I started to get a sense of when we did that season 1 episode 7 moment of the 'love of my life' because Rolin always talks about that as the end of The Gradulate,' Anderson continues. 'I was like, 'Oh, it's a cry for help.' He found that person that he knew could draw the truth out of everyone, including himself.'
"Essentially, Daniel had been Louis' failsafe ever since San Francisco. 'He has this real connection with [Daniel], and we learn that he's given him this apology/gift of 'you are a bright young reporter.' If all else goes to sh**t, you will always have this,' says Anderson. 'He brings him back because he needs help. He's not quite sure what it is, but he just has this little thing in the back of his mind that's telling him, 'This isn't right, something's wrong here.''
"'Truth and reconciliation' is 'what it comes down to in the end. There is a poetic thing in that final moment. It was fun to shake [Bogosian's] hand because they don't touch each other really the whole time. It was quite nice to do that. Eric didn't know I was going to do it, and he genuinely flinched.' he adds with a laugh. 'There was a conversation about whether or not I should do it, but I would've fought back' had they told him not to." (TV Insider Interview for season 2 finale)

 

So yes, the show and Daniel's book is set up in a way that you as a viewer have a lot of power over interpretation and understanding through character. This is a character-centric narrative, and so it is rewarding to an audience member to sit down and think about how YOU view Daniel, and how that means YOU think he understood and depicted the events that Louis gave to him. With additional interaction from The Talamasca, and why the entire world seems to think this is best-selling fiction.

The Vampire Lestat is about perspective. It's about the ways others will interpret your story, and create their own narrative that is an image of yours. Most people are not investigative journalists (or slightly annoying media analyzers like me) who analyze stories for real-life commentary. The Fandom, in many ways, has been playing out a lot of the meta perspectives we would see in the show. To them, it's fiction. To us, it's fiction. In arguing over interpretation, intention, and perception, we are basically putting season 3's narrative conflict on full interactive blast. The show is going to address these things, I have no doubt, considering it's the series catalyst.

How you connect to fiction will greatly impact your perspective on who, what, and why the story unravels the way it does, and what to do with it later. I know I'm personally enjoying the meta commentary on how people interact with fiction, but as you can tell, I am in the group of people who are very Daniel-Molloy-esque anyway.

Loumand's Divorce 🥰

One of the things I've always found really interesting about Armand's role in the interview is how objectively against the interview he is (constant reminders for Daniel and Louis), yet how much he's willing to be negotiated into it.

So much of the Loumand relationship as we see it is about negotiation. The BDSM, the power-dynamics, the past guilt and flaws, and especially the interview.

Armand haunting the background as fake Rashid was and is one of the craziest things they've done, but it was probably the only way Louis could talk Armand into allowing the interview. (And the fact that we seem to be witnessing an intense 24/7 roleplay scene to help 'Armand keep character' also reinforces this. Louis can order him around, and Armand can have a role to model). Yet he reveals himself as Louis is confronted with the reality that... maybe he did still love Lestat so that he could be a more physical and intentional reminder that Louis loves HIM and not Lestat.

Because the interview is working through the past misconceptions, lies, trauma, and other things that Louis has used to peice together the story that upkeeps his current reality, of course Armand is going to be fearful that poking holes in that narrative will make Louis fall out of love with him.

Louis, even after covering and recalling the trial, of his anger at Armand, throwing a bowl at Armand's head, is still willing to keep pushing forward. Louis, as uncertain about everything that he is, truly believes that Armand has his best intentions at heart. Flaws (and child murder) aside, Armand tries to do things for HIM.

Even Armand can see this interview had been healing for Louis, and so now Armand can introduce a new peice to Louis's puzzle that won't throw off their relationship. Louis no longer seems to be here out of spite. This can be a new beginning.

Now that Louis has laid his grievances out on the table again, he is prepared to move forward.

Because, and I think a lot of people miss this, while Armand may be abusive, he wants the best for Louis. And he knows Louis has not been doing well. So the negotiation of the interview, something he feared would break what little of Louis he had left, has instead strengthened their bond.

At least, until Louis finds out that Armand was willing to let Louis die at the trial.

Because that's the biggest part of the betrayal, right? That's what Armand has been trying to cover up. That he was more involved with the trail than he pretended to be, and he did nothing to save Louis' life as it happened. Armand only saved Louis afterwards (which I feel a lot of antis also forget. Like Armand did save Louis, it was just a little late).

And Armand scrambling after Louis reads the script, his begging and trying to fix it because obviously Louis is PAST this, Armand told him Lestat loved him and Louis was going to STAY-

And of course the best thing Louis could do was to shut Armand up. No more frantic words. No more soothing lies. No more accusations. No more negotiating.

Louis tends to make decisions at pivotal points in his life, but leaves the rest of the minute details up to others. And this was one he decided to make.

Now it's his turn to really decide how best to heal. Armand has shown with this new evidence that he doesn't always have Louis's best intentions at heart.

---

I love Loumand so much, and I can't wait to see how the show will dramatize their awkward relationship moving forward. As the Vampire Chronicles have laid out in its themeing: Love doesn't truly fade, it just makes the aches and pains feel stronger.

I can only hope it's a lot more entertaining and loving than my parents divorce

Just an update

I'm slowly transferring my tumblr blog onto here, since Tumblr is beginning to piss me off more and more, but I don't want to disappear into Discord fandom circles. It does primarily consist of AMC's Interview with the Vampire posts and media analysis, but I do read a lot of political fantasy, horror, and non-fiction philosophy books that I'll update here as well.

Please don't be afraid to say hi! Or ask questions! I'm still very new to dreamwidth, so I'll probably be figuring things out along the way, but I'm excited to be here.