Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
can we please talk about the way louis’ voice is so warm and soft during that phone call with his sister, his hesitation as he approaches grace, how he tries to put together one real smile, “it’s me grace”, about how she keeps talking about him in the third person, in the past tense, and how his whole expression freezes when she puts the flowers on his grave, the way he stands like a pillar as she walks away, how he crumbles after she’s left
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.
