I got a question I’ve had on my mind for a while. When Louis’ wife died (in the movie) do you think afterwards Yvette became his concubine (before his prostitute binge) for a short period of time. Maybe that’s why they seemed so close.

I think that’s a valid theory! I’m not sure I would use the word “concubine,” since that would imply that she was coerced into it due to her status on the plantation. My headcanon is that if she was in a relationship w/ him, she was willing, and not coerced into it, based on fanon that she was raised w/ him, and they were always very close and mutually respectful, even though he was her plantation master in title.* 

We see little of their interaction in the movie, so it’s impossible to say definitively, but it appears that she was not afraid of him before he was turned, could sense the change in himand was genuinely concerned about him with more than a servant’s required amount of care. 

Unfortunately we can’t talk about Louis/Yvette w/o bringing up the way he ended that relationship – rather badly (and I’m using a little levity in the pic below bc it’s very grim, upsetting, so many other words for how awful it is, but if anyone is offended, I apologize in advance. This is the way I choose to engage w/ the material, so Unfollow if you need to, I understand)

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After he kills her, Louis carries Yvette out of the house bridal-style, a reversal of the carrying-over-the-threshold tradition that newlywed men do w/ their living wives to signify that she is welcome and a necessary part of their home and life together. 

Louis carries Yvette OUT before he burns down the big house, so that she can be returned to her people (and family members, probably) and given the proper religious rites, funeral arrangements, etc. Conversely, he knows he doesn’t deserve any of that since he’s going straight to Hell; he intends to pay for her life (really, taking her life is the worst thing he’s done so far, especially considering their implied ship and the way he took her life) with his own. He knows that killing an innocent is terrible, even worse that she was someone he loved! He succumbed to desire, fed his vampire nature, and that finally sealed his damnation: This place is cursed. Damned! And yes your master is the Devil!

Fun fact: Brad Pitt and Thandie Newton (Yvette) were dating during the filming of IWTV. They are both professionals, but if my boyfriend had to basically act like he metaphorically raped and murdered me, or I had to do the same to him, pretty sure it’d kill the romance somewhat. [X]

Hit the jump for moar, cut for length.


There is some fanon out there that Yvette was raised along with Louis, that they had real history together and cared deeply for each other ❤ So the idea of them becoming closer than that would make sense. Yvette NOTICED his daytime absence in the fields, and seemed to want him back out there. She seems to genuinely care about him: “Are you still our master at all? You must send away this friend of yours… they’re frightened of him. And they’re frightened of you.” I headcanon that they had a good relationship prior to his turning, maybe the best possible relationship between two ppl of such different stations at that time.

This doesn’t seem like the face of someone required to be concerned for her boss, it seems like the face of a lover or family member, someone very close who senses something is very “off” about Louis, more even than when he was drinking and throwing himself at whores; she wants to help and probably thinks she knows him well enough to be able to talk some sense into him ;A;

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[X]

In movie!IWTV: Louis’ killing of Yvette seems to also be a metaphor for giving in to sexual urges, basically a metaphorical rape in how it’s nonconsensual :[

We see him struggling with it and trying to make Yvette leave him alone, even ordering her to leave: “That will be all, Yvette.” (which he can barely even say, so consumed w/ hunger) but she deliberately disobeys: “I will not go unless you listen to me!” Again, does not seem like the kind of interaction between a plantation owner and his servant.

He looks like he’s about to receive Holy Communion in the shot above, his eyes closed almost in prayer, he’s probably thinking about everything Lestat’s told him, and How wrong can this be when it seems so right? VERY WRONG. 

*So my answer is based on their 100% consensual relationship, but books could be (and have been!) written on the pressures of a slave being coerced into a relationship with the plantation’s owner, and I’m not going there.

I have a little doubt, are ricean vampires racist?

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Y’know, that is a good question but also a tough one to answer. I’m sure there are academic articles on it (here’s one I skimmed, looks intriguing, thanks to takemetocoffin-or-losemeforever for the link!), and I did a movie!IWTV kill tally (according to the tally, 73% of the on-screen mortals killed were Caucasian). 

I percolated on this with coldinhumanity, and the short answer is: Maybe, but if so, it’s unintentional. These are 200+ yr old vampires, and they have outdated conceptions of things.

In movie!IWTV: Louis kills Yvette, a poc, it was accidental. We see him struggling with it and trying to make Yvette leave him alone, but she seems to actually care about him, “Are you still our master at all? You must send away this friend of yours… they’re frightened of him. And they’re frightened of you.” I headcanon that they had a good relationship prior to his turning, maybe the best possible relationship under the circumstances.

Not saying that Louis was a fantastic slave owner, but we aren’t told negative things about him in that role, only that movie!Yvette (and I think it’s in book!IWTV, too) NOTICED his daytime absence in the fields, and seemed to want him back out there. 

I think Anne Rice attempts to consider political concepts and weave them into her work if possible, but it’s not her main focus. Akasha’s idea for world peace was presented, and refuted. Was Akasha a misandrist? That’s not racism, but it’s hatred of a group of people who all share a certain characteristic having and/or being a dick, and AR strove to show us how impractical it was to try to remove them, 40% of the world’s population, in order to “improve” the remainder. 


In the books, I’d say that:

  • Anne Rice began the first one in the style of the Victorian-era gothic novels she loved, and emulated the way those novels exoticised anything that could be exoticised, such as, exotic people. 
  • The whole series are basically white men from the capitals of Europe.
  • She has had some non-Caucasian vampires (I won’t spoil anything by mentioning them by name), who are typically from places that western history acknowledge as good and impressive, like Ancient Egypt and India.

I don’t think she intends to be racist, and her characters rarely have dialogue that would explicitly state such. In the narration, however, one could argue that there are implied racial opinions.