Because the Lestat I love isn’t the one Anne’s interested in writing. The Lestat I love isn’t an infallible, untouchable prince whom everyone falls in love with at first sight. He’s a fuckup who never stops trying.
I love the Lestat who came out of an abusive home and still wanted desperately that there was good in the world, and that he could be a good person. Who wanted to make people happy and who was desperately in love with his depressed as fuck proto-hipster boyfriend. Who lived as a queer man without shame.
I love the Lestat who had panic attacks about death and the unknowable enormity of the universe.
I love the Lestat who was a victim and a survivor, who was moved not to exert his power over others but make sure they didn’t suffer like he had.
I love the Lestat who tried to take care of his loved ones even when he was spectacularly bad at it, who wore his heart sincerely on his sleeve and lived in terror of his loved ones throwing him away because they didn’t need him anymore.
I rooted for the Lestat who realized the enormity of the wrongs he did to Louis by keeping him ignorant and by indulging his need to be needed. I loved the Lestat who was willing to show all of his fears and his fuckups in print, when his whole life had been dedicated to pretending he was untouchable, just to apologize to the man he loved.
I loved a Lestat who was allowed to be wrong, to be punished, to be humbled and rejected and keep going. Whose bravado and bluster was a cover for a sincere heart, not a hard and empty shell. The Lestat I love isn’t a rapist, an autocrat, a power hungry monster. He had countless flaws, but he was meant to fix them, not wait around for the universe to concoct a reason why his bad behavior and disregard for others’ agency is okay.
I don’t know where that Lestat went. But I miss him.
I don’t know that summarizing VC will allow you to “catch up” with the fandom, you really only need to read the first 3 books and the Vampire Armand to get most of the jokes on tumblr, bc most of the jokes seem to center around:
Louis being a pyromaniac,
Lestat being an obnoxious but somehow lovable glittery murder machine,
Lestat and Louis being awesome and shitty murder dads,
Claudia being an ungrateful spoiled brat,
Armand being a little brat, or a slut, or an evul coven master, or all of the above,
Daniel Molloy just wanting to vampire plz!!!11!,
Marius being a pedo, or too bossy, or both,
Gabrielle is a bad mom and an ice queen,
Nicolas is spelled NICOLAS and he is NOT DEAD!,
Secondary characters not getting enough love from anyone!!
There are often spoilers in summaries tho, do you really want to be spoiled? I LOVE being spoiled.
We have these unreliable narrators, there is a lot of disagreement as to what canon really is, and some fans choose to ignore parts of (or entire books) in the series. We bring our own experiences to the reading, and we choose what to connect with, so I think we can agree on some things about each book, but you will probably get a different summary from any given reader. Even AR has told us to disregard the hybrid Mayfair/VC books (Blood Canticle, possibly Merrick and Blackwood Farm) when moving onto the more recent VC additions (PL and PLROA). So, for example, I have a friend who has only read the first 3 books. She doesn’t even know what happens after that bc she prefers to think it ended after QOTD. So any new vampires made after QOTD do not exist to her.#Your headcanon may vary.
Anyway, you want summaries.
http://vampirechronicles.wikia.com has a pretty good write-up for each of the books (they don’t have PL and PLROA currently, maybe they will eventually). It contains spoilers.
Lestat’s Bisexual Adventures in 18th Century France
Lestat’s Adventures with the Queen of the Vampires
Lestat’s Adventures as a Human
Lestat’s Adventures with Satan
Lestat’s Adventures in a Coma
Lestat’s Adventures with Polyamory
Lestat’s Adventures in the Deep South
Lestat’s Adventures with Not Being There At All
Lestat’s Adventures with Witches and Other Weird Shit
Lestat’s adventures with Being the Vampire Head of State
Lestat’s Adventures with Literal Fucking Aliens
(Note, Pandora and Vittorio are technically stand-alone “New Tales of the Vampires” books, but Pandora would be No. 6 of the 13 book series).
You can check my #VC Synopsis tag, which has more capsule humorous summaries.
Gonna try to do a little summary for each VC under the cut as a personal challenge.
Spoilers ahead! I’ll try to do this with as few spoilers as possible, as factually as possible.
1. Interview with the Vampire – Louis tells the story of his life and unlife to Daniel Molloy. Louis starts at the point in his mortal life just before he meets Lestat, and how his life up until that meeting influenced the unlife that followed after he became a vampire. Lestat’s reasons for choosing Louis are unclear to Louis, but he wants Louis to choose to be a vampire. Louis is under so much duress (failing health, still in emotional distress over his guilt re: a close family member’s death) that the choice is not 100% legit, Lestat can’t wait for a more opportune time and proceeds to turn Louis anyway.
The whole story could be seen as Anne Rice’s exploration of the role of religion and the reasons why terrible things happen to innocent people, the concept of punishment.
For me, it was also eye-opening bc I was 11 when I read it and it introduced the possibility of love between a same-sex couple, even if that was in more of a read-between-the-lines way.
It also has a child vampire and I hadn’t seen any media even attempt to tell a story with a child vampire before. Few media that attempt it seem to have captured the beauty and tragedy of such a creature as in this story, and she reappears in a few of the other VC. <— bc IWTV is from Louis’s POV, as told to Daniel, and then written out and possibly revised by his editors, this is the beginning of the Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series.
^ok that was too long, I’m going for shorter.
2. The Vampire Lestat – Lestat seeks to “correct the record” that Louis laid out in IWTV by giving us his own backstory, starting at his mortal youth and how that influenced the unlife that followed when he became a vampire, against his will (hence the “I’m going to give you the choice I never had,” line from movie!IWTV). There is more exploration in the role of religion and reasons why bad things happen to basically innocent people, and whether you really can make the best of a shitty situation or just give up. More about punishment. A very unique take on the origin of the vampires as a species is revealed. And the reasons why Lestat behaved the way he did (basically all secretive) in IWTV. <— This is more of the Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series, who are we to believe? Lestat or Louis? And the author’s retconning which is perceived as “making excuses later in canon for behavior that’s already happened.” Some readers really despise this. Personally, I like having the options and trusting one version of events, or none of them.
3. The Queen of the Damned – Lestat’s modern-era rock career wakes the Queen of the Vampires and she has this awesome Radical Feminist idea for world peace. She’s already gotten started on it! She upgrades Lestat physically so that he can help her accomplish her goals, but he’s not really on board. They meet with the vampires she has allowed to survive her purge and it doesn’t go very well. Also in this book, we have different narrators, more about the vampire origin story, and the Armand/Daniel ship is sailing at its best here.
4. The Tale of the Body Thief – Having suffered so much through the past 3 books, Lestat is a suicidal hamburger-brained moron and makes some very bad choices. Despite everyone advising him NOT to, Lestat makes a terrible trade with a body thief and learns quickly that he had idealized being human. He does some horrendous stuff, and wants off the Being Human ride. He has one friend who helps him set things back to the way they should be, and then he betrays that friend in a spectacularly cruel way. More importantly, Lestat also gets a wonderful cuddly doggo.
5. Memnoch the Devil – Lestat Goes to Heaven and Hell, meets Jesus Christ, meets God, meets Satan (who prefers to go by “Memnoch”) it’s all a huge interview process to decide if Lestat might work for God or Satan and it’s basically fanfic of the Bible. Some people hated it for those reasons. I found it really intriguing, bc it presents a reason why God created the earth, and why there’s suffering, why God allows suffering to go on, and where religion comes from. Like Lestat, Memnoch says he’s not the antagonist, but really the good guy in all this. When Dorothy gets back to Kansas Lestat returns to earth, there is disagreement about whether he went on a real trip or he was just fooled by a really talented spirit. Lestat is so confused that he throws a huge tantrum and then gets solitary confinement, then slips into a coma.
6. The Vampire Armand – Armand gets his spotlight and gets to really tell his story, do we believe everything he tells us?
Lots of good Italy times stuff.
Armand visits Lestat in his coma-state, and talks about that, too.
7. Merrick – Merrick is a Mayfair witch in NOLA who bewitches Louis in pursuit of his request for closure with Claudia, and hilarity ensues. Louis gets the most screentime he’s had since IWTV, but the whole book is told from a 3rd wheel’s POV, it would have been so much better from Louis’ or Merrick’s POV. Major fatal thing happens but fortunately Lestat wakes up from his coma in time to save the day.
8. Blood and Gold – Marius tells his story, as does the vampire Thorne tell his own story. Marius talks about his artistic influences and his experience with the early Talamasca and Santino and the Children of Satan. We see Daniel (now living with Marius) under a kind of spell, which Marius says is temporary.
9. Blackwood Farm – Lestat goes to the Deep South and hears the story of vampire Quinn (his story defies summary) and, with Merrick’s help, saves the day.
10. Blood Canticle – More vampire and Mayfair mixing. And Taltos. It’s a very big WTF book. But it has some very funny scenes and lines in it. It ends with Lestat promising the Dark Gift to someone.
11. Prince Lestat – Vampire scientists. A clone. Someone gets kidnapped. Ultimate Vampire Coven Gathering. Lestat is cranky, saves the day anyway. Ghosts apparently can linger on earth after death and make bodies for themselves. Characters from past books reappear. New characters are introduced. Louis writes a chapter about how OK fine, he does love Lestat. FINE.
12. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis – I haven’t finished this but basically… the REAL vampire origin story, and it involves bird-like aliens, who were sent to earth bc the aliens feed on the suffering of mortals. The bird-like aliens didnt want to create Atlantis. in fact they were pissed because this one creature of theirs, Amel, made Atlantis with the Luracastria (i dunno i think thats how it’s spelled) and their viewing tech couldn’t see through the material. Amel made Atlantis to spite the bird-like aliens omg i cant believe im typing this. Louis and Lestat finally have some legit canon cuddletimes.
– Pandora – the story of the vampire Pandora, and why Marius is bad at relationships. Lots of good Roman times stuff.
– Vittorio – is not a VC vampire, and wants nothing to do with that dysfunctional pile of fanged crazies. @monstersinthecosmos and @vittoriathevampire could give you a better summary of that one, since I didn’t absorb it too well 😛
Sick meaning: the flu, viruses (like HIV), and cancer? From my understanding, no, Ricean vampires are not susceptible to these kinds of diseases. In Only Lovers Left Alive, those vampires have arrangements w/ mortal agents to get clean blood rather than risk taking victims, whose blood could be tainted w/ modern disease or drugs, which OLLA vampires are vulnerable to (but they don’t go into much detail about it). I can’t think of any other vampire media that even touches on the issue of blood diseases and/or other physical illnesses.
@anton-mordrid makes an excellent point here [X]: #1 how the fuck can you not associate HIV/AIDS with vampires, you personally literally made it a blood disease transmitted by explicitly sexual acts between your gay male protagonists.
I’m not educated enough to go any further on this issue, but if you want more on this, go to @vraik and @anton-mordrid.
Sick meaning: physically repulsed to the point of having a visceral reaction? Yes.
In TVL, Lestat tosses his cookies (ok he vomits some blood, no cookies tossed) at the sight of a pile of dead bodies the night he’s turned. (He also hurls as he’s escorted down to the Children of Darkness meeting).
“In a deep prison cell lay a heap of corpses in all states of decay, the bones and rotted flesh crawling with worms and insects. Rats ran from the light of the torch, brushing past my legs as they made for the stairs. And my nausea became a knot in my throat. The stench suffocated me.
He also says that vampires can’t stand to be around the dead bodies of their kills, either:
Revulsion at the sight or smell of death seemed part of my nature. I couldn’t watch executions any more than when I was that trembling boy from the Auvergne, and corpses made me cover my face. I think I was offended by death unless I was the cause of it! And I had to get clean away from my dead victims almost immediately.
Dead blood is not poisonous to them, just distasteful. In TVL, Lestat goes to Armand in Paris for help after Claudia and Louis try to assassinate him a second time, and Armand throws him in a locked cell with a dead mortal for dinner: “Sometime in the dark, I discovered a mortal victim there. But the victim was dead. Cold blood, nauseating blood. The worst kind of feeding, lying on that clammy corpse, sucking up what was left.”
^So clearly dead blood is not bad in the sense of being poisonous, just icky 😛
Wow, bold of you to consider him as a favorite! I’m rarely asked about Magnus. If I might ask, why is he one of your faves? He is like the ultimate Your Fave is Problematic bc of the way he was first introduced in canon, forcing Lestat into vampirism and all that. Lestat pretty much forgives him at this point, having tried going back to mortality and been very unhappy with it, you could say Lestat finally got to make the choice he didn’t have originally well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Magnus tells his story in Prince Lestat! That he was a great Parisian alchemist. It’s glossed over fairly quickly, there could be more to Magnus. He was in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, we’ll probably see more of him.
There was a Magnus RPer, gone inactive now, but you might find good stuff in their archive, might reach out to any active RPers you find there: @theycallmemagnus.
well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Fortunately, someone HAS in fact written those essays! @anton-mordrid wrote an excellent piece on the themes of consent in Lestat’s character arc from IWTV through TotBT
Taking Bodies: Themes of Consent in Lestat’s Development
Well, anon, lemme just take a look in my coat here…
The museum podLestat pissily refers to Armand building for Louis in PL (while OBVIOUSLY not getting him, unlike Podstat, who bought Louis what he definitely loves: clothes) was a really last ditch effort, maybe just before going to America. It contains every piece of art Louis expressed even the vaguest interest in during their decades together, whether bought, bargained, or stolen (there are some very convincing fakes out there now)
Louis’ initial feelings for Armand were entirely real – Armand only mentally interfered when trying to keep Louis from doing something that could then be rationalized as “for his own good.” Even still, Louis has kept Armand locked out of his head since the day he learned how
When Armand realized he couldn’t rouse joy in Louis, he settled for pain, emotional and physical. The physical was technically consented to but Louis was so nigh-catatonic it didn’t count for much. Playing the Lestat card was partly because they came to a line even Armand didn’t consider himself monstrous enough to cross
They’ve never talked about Armand’s feelings for Lestat, nor Daniel’s feelings for Louis. They really, really should
Benji was the only reason Louis initially agreed to stay at Trinity Gate, seeing him as an opportunity to atone for his treatment of Claudia
Armand sees himself in Sybelle’s “madness” (read: she seems to be autistic and predominantly nonverbal, ANNE YOU’RE WRITING IN A WORLD THAT IN-UNIVERSE NOW HAS A MORE NUANCED UNDERSTANDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS NOW, COME ON) He’s never actually sought modern diagnoses for himself, and fuck knows her parents never did that for her, but like recognizes like
Louis’ never really forgiven Armand for what he did, and Armand doesn’t expect him to. Rather, the fondness just trumps the resentment after a full century
They fell into “parenting” very easily, and didn’t think about their feelings beyond their roles for the first few years
Louis actually made the first move. Armand was doing his best to give Louis space after all those years of doing the opposite. The French Library was Armand’s gift, so Louis would have a place to be alone, and he never goes there
Armand still feels very lost in the wake of everything (his attempted suicide and the revelation that the being who drove him to it was just an elaborate con), but buckles down talking about it because ROLES. ROLES ARE HOW YOU SURVIVE AND KEEP GOING. But…Louis actually asked about it
They repaint the ceilings in the mansion together every few months based on skies around the world
I admit that I have a lot of nostalgia for Antonio!Armand, so it doesn’t seem as weird to me… I hope the new adaptation(s) have a more canon-compliant Armand bc I think it can be handled in a way that wasn’t possible in the early 90′s, the pedophilia inherent in an adult-looking vampire being in a relationship (of some kind) with a teenage-looking vampire, even though they are ~90 and ~400 years old, respectively.
There were a lot of good reasons for casting a non-compliant Armand, and I talk about it in my #Defending Antonio tag, @vraik captured the taboo aspect of it very well [X]:
HEY. HEY. YOU KNOW WHO I LOVE?
Antonio Banderas Armand.
I ranted about this at length once, and realized it might be worth excising that particular section from my recaps and letting it stand on its own. SO LET ME TELL YOU A THING.
“Not only does Banderas give one hell of a performance, clearly entranced by Louis and convinced his ruthlessness is an acceptable means to an end (and then Louis dumps him immediately and Banderas’ crushed look that WHOOPS OVERESTIMATED just destroyed me). It’s really genuine, maybe the movie’s best after Cruise and Dunst, and at least half his dialogue is lifted without change from the books. But all that gets overlooked, because he doesn’t look like a teenager. And there’s a certain fairness to that – Armand’s body adds a dimension to his interactions with others as much as Claudia’s does. But now let me give you a hot dose of context.
In 1994, it was still a pretty common argument to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, particularly with gay men. THINK OF THE CHILDREN, Y’ALL. The movie already had to deal with the Claudia/Louis relationship, which only tenuously steps the worst landmines of creepiness, as we discussed, by avoiding physicality and giving mentally grown Claudia all the power. So, the filmmakers maybe didn’t want to stack, on top of that stack of gunpowder, a relationship with yet another underage character, particularly one that so played into existing stereotypes.
Then there’s the fact that, by virtue of the script, Louis’ feelings for Armand are a lot more explicitly tender and obvious than his relationship with Lestat. Back then, it was a big deal if you asked an actor to, gasp, play gay. Heavens forfend. But Banderas, in addition to being a handsome fellow and a marketable star, had also appeared in Philadelphia in 1993 (aka the movie where the Noble Gay dying nobly from AIDS is nice enough to teach A Straight to be a better person before he croaks). While their scenes were scrubbed of basically any intimacy, he was playing Tom Hanks’ lover, and apparently that was proximal enough to The Gay that he was an okay dude to ask. And then he fucking killed it with the material he was given it, in spite of the fact that the majority of his scenes were opposite the totally catatonic Pitt (who has made no bones about how much he haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated being in this movie). He’s a champ, and a treasure, come at me.”
Welcome to our little corner of tumblrand, and mon dieu, a compliment like this is pure gold. PURE GOLD. As is our AU! Pure gold ;D
[X@yallpacino: when you find a really good alternative universe fanfiction]
If you love our Signature Blend,@wicked-felina also has another great VC AU (WIP) you should check out, The Grim Brothers.It’s a “VC take on Red Riding Hood,” as heartfelt and fun as our AU, it was one of the first AUs I really loved ❤
This fandom has some real life in it lately, and I would urge you to use the links provided above, but also check out some of the absolutely amazing meta we have seen from various people here on Tumblr, especially that of vraik and anton-mordrid. Check out the fics, too, and also I would recommend @monstersinthecosmos‘s fantastic fic.
I flit back and forth between this fandom (my first real fandom!) and Breaking Bad but this burst of energy and enthusiasm of late has sucked me right back in, dammit.
I’m thrilled you like the fic. You really don’t know what it means to know that people are enjoying reading it, and that you appreciate it. It makes it worthwhile.
I ranted about this at length once, and realized it might be worth excising that particular section from my recaps and letting it stand on its own.
SO LET ME TELL YOU A THING.
“Not only does Banderas give one hell of a performance, clearly entranced by Louis and convinced his ruthlessness is an acceptable means to an end (and then Louis dumps him immediately and Banderas’ crushed look that WHOOPS OVERESTIMATED just destroyed me). It’s really genuine, maybe the movie’s best after Cruise and Dunst, and at least half his dialogue is lifted without change from the books. But all that gets overlooked, because he doesn’t look like a teenager. And there’s a certain fairness to that – Armand’s body adds a dimension to his interactions with others as much as Claudia’s does. But now let me give you a hot dose of context.
In 1994, it was still a pretty common argument to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, particularly with gay men. THINK OF THE CHILDREN, Y’ALL. The movie already had to deal with the Claudia/Louis relationship, which only tenuously steps the worst landmines of creepiness, as we discussed, by avoiding physicality and giving mentally grown Claudia all the power. So, the filmmakers maybe didn’t want to stack, on top of that stack of gunpowder, a relationship with yet another underage character, particularly one that so played into existing stereotypes.
Then there’s the fact that, by virtue of the script, Louis’ feelings for Armand are a lot more explicitly tender and obvious than his relationship with Lestat. Back then, it was a big deal if you asked an actor to, gasp, play gay. Heavens forfend. But Banderas, in addition to being a handsome fellow and a marketable star, had also appeared in Philadelphia in 1993 (aka the movie where the Noble Gay dying nobly from AIDS is nice enough to teach A Straight to be a better person before he croaks). While their scenes were scrubbed of basically any intimacy, he was playing Tom Hanks’ lover, and apparently that was proximal enough to The Gay that he was an okay dude to ask. And then he fucking killed it with the material he was given it, in spite of the fact that the majority of his scenes were opposite the totally catatonic Pitt (who has made no bones about how much he haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated being in this movie). He’s a champ, and a treasure, come at me.
The part of me that loves this movie as its own movie is so into Antonio, too. The reasons you stated are part of it, but as an aesthetic decision as well I really love him as this like Dark Exotic European Vampire. It works as a jarring contrast to the world Louis had lived in with Lestat, and even as a movie ploy it’s such a dynamic visual. And goddamnit his gold eyes flashing in the firelight. He’s just a real VAMPIREY VAMPIRE. It’s obviously a departure from the novel but it works so well on its own.
I also think it works because the movie was never a series. If we’d gotten into the other stories it would’ve started mangling Armand’s character too much, but we don’t get to know him very personally here so it’s fine.
The scenes with Armand are my favorite in the whole movie. They feel so magnetic to me, and I appreciate more than I can ever explain that they gave that much screen time to these conversations. It nails the tone of the novels so well and is so so so important to keep.
I’m gonna cry! Thank you @vraik, for articulating this so thoroughly and adding so much more to my dusty old #Defending Antonio tag. It was most likely a deliberate choice to diverge from canon on Armand’s appearance, but much of the character is still preserved and shines through Antonio’s performance.
And @monstersinthecosmos makes an excellent point about how great his scenes are and what Antonio does bring to the table physically. His Tall Dark Exotic European look is in direct contrast with Lestat, who looks like Blonde Ambition Barbie in comparison.
Can we all keep this in mind for the upcoming adaptations? Whoever is cast, please give them a chance to do their jobs, which is ACTING. Even if the character does not fit your headcanon remotely. Let’s be considerate and keep in mind that some things are possible to explore in fiction that cannot yet, if ever, be shown in film/TV.
The Consulting Analyst Masterpost: Interview with the Vampire -Vrai Kaiser
Interview with the Vampire is a lot of things. A queer love story. A moving depiction of debilitating depression. Sometimes heartrending in its prose and sometimes an equally beautiful trainwreck. Frequently problematic from a modern perspective and yet unspeakably important as both an influential work of vampire fiction and one of the few widely-available works for queer kids to see themselves in. Above all, it’s dear to my heart. Which is probably why I spent several months flailing over it in considerable detail (along with the culture and various adaptations around it).
The entire series of essays is here collected for your reading pleasure – with plenty of time to catch up before we move to the next book.
I-want-my-IWTV 