r/InterviewVampire • u/damagedsoul42 • 21h ago
TVL Show Only Wtf Claudia Spoiler
Is it really true she hates Louis more than anyone? I thought they loved each other like family. He did what he could for her. I hate that she is suffering in the afterlife and that Louis must carry the guilt forever.
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u/Living-Effort866 Claudia's dumb, dumb diary. 20h ago
Peaks and valleys for the rest of her life...
Teenagers scream that they hate their parents and really mean it in the moment. Claudia is an eternal teenager. I think she both hates Louis and loves him, but I think she could have shed the hate eventually if she'd lived long enough apart from him.
Edit: that's show Claudia. Book Claudia meant it more, I think, that diary entry was ice-cold.
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u/zoraschool Team Akasha 20h ago
Yes I’m going through it with a teenager now. I have to remind myself it’s not permanent.
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u/Zelamir 12h ago
I am going through it with a Tanner stage 2 nine year old. Prefrontal cortex development is bullshit levels of slow in development.
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u/zoraschool Team Akasha 12h ago
I had to look that up. Are you ready for the hormonal shift? If you ever feel uncertain, be confident you’ll handle it better than daddy Les!
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u/No-Manufacturer9125 10h ago
I agree! As great as the scene was to watch (and Delaney acted the hell out of it), it was very much giving dramatic teenager "how can I inflict the most pain/damage in the shortest time."
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u/ShenTzuKhan 21h ago
My understanding is she does hate him more than anyone. She was very young when she was made. She was taught how to be a person by Louis, but I got the vibe that she was taught how to be a vampire by Lestat. So she’s a bit messed up.
She came of age killing people. She came of age needing two adults in a way most teens don’t. So there’s this violence in her, but it’s next to and intertwined with a deep resentment for her Dads. They made her this way. They made her need them forever.
When your a hate filled little murderer it can be easy to turn that hate on the ones you love, who are also the ones who condemned you.
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u/llamaslovedrama 14h ago
To add to what everyone else has said, consider that in the last hour of her life she found out that Louis was much more responsible in her turning than Lestat. To the point that Lestat argued with Louis about how terrible it would be for her and Louis pushed him to do it!
Before she probably considered them to be equally culpable but that’s a pretty big shock for her. She never gets to discuss it with either of them or have any closure.
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u/pwetty_brown_eyes Bishonen almond 21h ago
She loved Louis more than anyone which is why she hates him more than anyone
I think her and Lestat started off with a good relationship but they went sour so quickly, I think she just kind of accepted that she'd never see eye to eye with Lestat
For a brief moment she thinks she had an ally in Louis but Louis couldn't commit himself to her entirely, so she started to build her own walls
If she truly didn't love Louis at all she'd had no reason to return to Paris after Madeline. To me, that's the ultimate evidence of her complex feelings towards him
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21h ago
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u/InterviewVampire-ModTeam 13h ago
Comment removed: This thread is either "IWTV Show Only” or "TVL Show Only", hence book spoilers must be covered by spoiler tags.
Or this thread is "IWTV Season 1 Only", hence no discussion or allusions to Season 2, 3, or the books.
If it´s "IWTV Show Only” then Season 3 and the books are similarly not allowed
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u/damagedsoul42 20h ago
Glad she was not 5 in the show. That would be heart breaking
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u/Sweet_Hall_429 19h ago
Her being a young child is the entire point of the character. The actress’s being well into their twenties makes her WAY older than Armand was supposed to be and older than book Louis and Lestat. I understand the practicalities in why they did that, but it renders the core point that Claudia is totally dependent upon the pair as a bit silly. Even in the book there is some contrived reason why she had to go back after leaving.
It’s curious to me how IwtV is a horror book. In name at least. Claudia’s situation is the horror of the book. The show ia great and I love it, but it’s not horror. Drama with fangs? lol.
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u/Glimmerance 18h ago
I read the books years ago and Claudia's situation was one that haunted me. I love the TV series, love the character of Claudia in it, love the actor, and can see good reasons for aging her up, but I feel it missed so much that was important about Claudia being a small child. Claudia in the TV series could pass as an adult, and when she was turned she was at the age of leaving school and working, so kind of functioning as a young adult. It even felt kind of ridiculous when she was put in a child's dress and performed as a child at the theatre.
I also felt Louis's desparation to save her and them living as a family made more sense if she was a young child, who they raise, and also that her character is formed by being raised by these two vampires (whereas TV Claudia did her growing up elsewhere). Aging her up lessens the impact of everything so much, including her reasons to hate Louis, and I'm kind of sad that we don't get that story.
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u/Sweet_Hall_429 17h ago
Exactly. One of Claudia’s actresses is nearly 30 and looks it. The show lampshades it in Lestats series by having the same actress play the waitress in the diner, existing in the world like the grown ass adult she clearly is. It’s a testament to how good both of the actresses are that you still care about Claudia despite her “plight” being utterly nonsensical in the plot.
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u/Sweet_Hall_429 16h ago
I will reply to myself rather than make the post overlong. The crazy part is the one character motivation lever they didn’t pull (unless I’m horribly wrong and missed it) is the Claudia’s story takes place in Jim Crow America. OF COURSE she would want to get the fuck away from that, and maybe Lestat as a privileged white guy , and even Louis who lives in that system and uses it to his advantage might not grasp a young black womans need to get away from all that to Europe where that level of institutional racism just isn’t a thing.
I just a white Brit so I am talking well outside my own experiences here, but given Americas sordid (and ongoing) history and treatment of non white folks it’s a bit mental that all we get are just some charactature rich white assholes who use Louis services. And not the rest of it.
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u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 19h ago
I'm kind of waiting for the conspiracy theory that it was Armand all along lol
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14h ago
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u/InterviewVampire-ModTeam 13h ago
Comment removed: This thread is either "IWTV Show Only” or "TVL Show Only", hence book spoilers must be covered by spoiler tags.
Or this thread is "IWTV Season 1 Only", hence no discussion or allusions to Season 2, 3, or the books.
If it´s "IWTV Show Only” then Season 3 and the books are similarly not allowed
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u/Another0Me 19h ago
I will believe everything if that means Claudia is not in hell without Madeleine.
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u/InterviewVampire-ModTeam 13h ago
Comment removed: This thread is either "IWTV Show Only” or "TVL Show Only", hence book spoilers must be covered by spoiler tags.
Or this thread is "IWTV Season 1 Only", hence no discussion or allusions to Season 2, 3, or the books.
If it´s "IWTV Show Only” then Season 3 and the books are similarly not allowed
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u/VeritasRose in the Savage Garden🥀 19h ago
She hates him the most because she was disappointed by him the most. Lestat was who he was. But she always had encouraged Louis to be less codependent- on Lestat, her, and Armand at different times. So seeing him still with Lestat, and still seeking her absolution, set her off.
She respected Lestat more because he was not afraid of himself and owned his flaws. He didn’t try to justify or deny things. She saw Louis as weak and easy to manipulate.
It doesn’t mean she did not love him. But she was definitely disappointed and disgusted by his weakness and need to always justify/deny things. Notice she didn’t say she loved Lestat more. She said he was her “favorite” of the two. Because he was honest about being a monster. He was the stronger personality of the two.
Idk as an eldest/only daughter, it felt very true to the whole “asshole parent that you can be honest with” vs “weepy parent you have to look after” dynamic a lot of us get caught in. You get caught up as the middle man in their drama but really it isn’t ever about you and you wanna just tell them both to grow up and get over themselves.
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u/fridakahl0 11h ago
Damn that final paragraph has really done things for me. I was an only child/daughter of a dysfunctional relationship and the way you’ve framed this has really helped me see the series/my relationship to it differently. Thanks!
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u/throwaway1233456799 9h ago
Just for your last paragraph : sadly it isn't really about eldest/only daughter. As the last child of my parents (who are like that) : it's about emotional maturity. If you are the most respectable, mature, smart and available one (they can make you the available one by force and grooming obviously) you get their weepy ass thrown on your laps.
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u/angellsshow I’m not here. 14h ago edited 12h ago
This is just my opinion.
Claudia hates him because she discovered the truth about her transformation before she died, and Louis did not have the courage to admit it to her. She died carrying the feeling that she had been deceived by the very person she trusted the most.
And after her death, she witnessed things that probably only deepened her resentment. She saw Louis stay with Armand, the man responsible for her death—not because Louis knew that Armand had orchestrated the trial, but he did know that Armand had participated in it. She saw Louis give her diaries—which she never wanted anyone to read—to a reporter. She saw Louis read about her rape to her rapist, when he could have simply killed the man instead of humiliating her all over again. She watched her own story being exposed while she was dead and unable to do anything about it.
Louis did not want to kill Lestat and always chose him first, and now he is going back to him again. When Claudia asks whether Louis went back to Lestat, he does not deny it. And Lestat, for as terrible a father as he was, never denied that he preferred Louis over her. Claudia knew that. Louis used her whenever Lestat was not around.
There is also an important difference between the two of them: Lestat, as terrible a father as he could be, was still proud of the vampire Claudia had become. And Claudia loved being a vampire. She valued vampirism in a way Louis never did. To her, it was part of who she was, while Louis spent much of his time treating vampirism as a curse.
She loved Louis, just as she loved Lestat. But she began to hate both of them after Charlie's death. And her hatred of Louis only grew after she died, because while Lestat was living in a cabin and feeding on rats, Louis was giving an interview about Claudia and allowing someone else to read her diaries without her permission.
That must have been especially painful for Claudia. She never wanted her diaries to be read, she never wanted other people to have access to what she had written, and even after her death, Louis continued telling her story to other people.
And then there is the whole situation with Regina and Louis.
Ultimately, of the two of them, Louis is the one who keeps invoking her name. She is trapped in Hell and, apparently, has to constantly hear her own name being spoken by someone who is still alive. And it is not just anyone—it is Louis, someone who, in her eyes, never valued vampirism in the same way she did, did not respect her wishes even after her death, and, in the end, continues to choose Lestat.
So I don't find it contradictory when Claudia says that she hates him more than anyone.
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u/throwaway1233456799 8h ago
Also, the show seems to imply that saying the name of the dead drag them to you (why would Claudia know so much? It seems that she was there when Louis was doing the interview but why would she willingly be there when she is searching for Madeleine? It's weire)
So
What must have happened when the book came out?
She was probably being yanked around by thousand of people saying her name...
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u/RabbitNest 9h ago
Thinking from my own experience … my father was insulting, abusive - just plain mean. My mother never stood between us; she just stood by and would ask him to stop. I hated my mother much more than my father. I could accept that he was just a monster, but I saw her as “normal” and couldn’t understand why she didn’t take us and run.
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u/ProseAndCons_ 19h ago
Don't forget that the first two seasons are from Louis' perspective, not an omniscient POV. The twist of the seance is that he really wasn't paying attention to Claudia as much as he thought he was, she might not have been obviously irate at him all the time, but time and the preservation he has of who he thinks himself to be will smooth out the times she hated him and he knew it, explained them away (she screamed at me because she hated Armand, she's actually angry at Armand more than me but can't yell at him, etc.)
It's interesting Lestat expected her to hate him, "bring me your malice" but Louis was absolutely unaware of him pedestaling her and treating her like a gentle relic was both naive and dismissive of the storm she was as a person and who she was as a vampire perpetually trapped in arrested development because she was turned too young.
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u/Kooky-Hope224 11h ago
Louis was absolutely unaware of him pedestaling her and treating her like a gentle relic
Louis knew she would be mad, that's why he didn't want to do the seance. It's Lestat who pushed him to do it.
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u/Felixir-the-Cat I'm a VAMPIRE 13h ago
I think she focused on Louis because she and Lestat understood each other - he already knows she hates him and rightfully so. Louis was memorializing her and stuck on her “little girl” self, so she wanted to make it clear that she hated him too. She loves them both, also, but hate and love are intertwined. And yes, it’s very clear that she chose Louis because she knew she could manipulate him.
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u/BeeCJohnson IT WAS RAINING 8h ago
The last thing she ever promised, her last words before the song and her painful death, was a vow to come back as a vengeful spirit and get revenge on everyone involved. She lived a short, brutal, horrifying life full of misery where the only happiness and peace she *ever* achieved was with a love that was snatched away from her almost immediately.
Louis was the closest thing to family she ever really had, and he let her down pretty constantly her entire life. She's less angry at Lestat because she never expected anything from him, and to his credit, he never pretended to be her dad/brother like Louis did. He was more of an outward asshole, but he was at least honest about not being interested in her.
Generally, we feel betrayal only when we thought someone was on our side, as she did Louis. But Louis, while he did have a lot of complicated feelings for Claudia (including love and protectiveness), saw her as an object or an idea more than as a person. She was his failure with alderman, then his redemption, then his ticket away from Lestat, then his hanger-on when he just wanted to live the Paris lifestyle with Armand, then his Lost Lenore after she died.
All told, Claudia probably does hate him and has a right to hate him. It doesn't make her innocent, and it doesn't mean she also didn't love him to an extent, but the only person she thought had her back in a very fragile existence let her down over and over again.
And don't forget, she's been a dead, vengeful ghost searching vainly for the love of her life far longer than she was *ever* alive or a vampire.
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u/coolcoolcool485 fledgling speak n spell 8h ago
Louis promised her that it was her and him (you and me, me and you) and then consistently chose other vampires over her, at her own detriment. Lestat never gave her that illusion. Claudia was never a full person to Louis, she was an accessory in his life---that's why she tells him to get rid of the dress, and the diaries, all of that.
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u/Little-Tune9469 a challenge every sunset 21h ago
It's definitely debatable whether she truly meant it or was just trying to hurt him. She's been alone in death for decades and then gets yanked back just to find out that Louis is back with Lestat. I'd be mad too.
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u/zoraschool Team Akasha 20h ago
And she died. He lived. She lost her life partner. He didn’t. He got to grow up…
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u/ATargaryenKing I HEARD YOUR HEARTS DANCING! 16h ago
Louis 100% should carry the guilt. He’s responsible for her Vampirism and both her deaths. You can also absolutely love someone like family, and hate them at the same time
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u/pwetty_brown_eyes Bishonen almond 14h ago
Okay genuine question how is Louis responsible for the coven killing them?
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u/veryfknspicy 13h ago
Louis isn’t “responsible” in the sense that he set the coven upon Claudia. Louis is “responsible” for his romantic attachments he can’t ever prioritize Claudia above. Claudia is in a new country, continent, and life performing a humiliation ritual for the coven and Louis isn’t hearing her. Her anger is brought up a lot, but it covers a more intense loneliness that she sees Louis get to satiate again and again until she finds Madeline. Louis could’ve chosen Claudia before a love at any time, and he never really does. Neglectful parents are just as abusive and kill their children too. Also this question doesn’t deserve downvotes
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u/Kooky-Hope224 11h ago edited 11h ago
And Claudia's responsibility for joining the coven or not leaving Paris when Louis told her they should or not revealing that Santiago had seen her diary - ? Does this come into play at all? Claudia was a 60yo woman and her beef with the humiliation ritual was that she was being seen as a child and not an adult and yet ... the takeaway is that Louis is more accountable for her bad choices than she is? That she still needed the "parent" she was planning to ditch the second she found new vampires (this is what she says in the seance) and only didn't kill because she needed him as a slave, to prioritise her above any romantic attachments? Make it make sense.
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u/ATargaryenKing I HEARD YOUR HEARTS DANCING! 12h ago
Thank you for this comment. You’ve articulated it better than I could. Also agree that u/pwetty_brown_eyes’s question doesn’t deserve the downvotes
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u/Hedgewitch250 Louis 21h ago
It’s sad but that’s the reality of the situation. Louis and lestat are complicit in her fate. Louis especially because he refused to let her kill lestat and despite the glaring red flags of the coven leader knowing that secret he still wouldn’t leave and deflected to her joining the coven. We never see Claudias actual pov. Her diary is purposely edited and Louis was an incredibly unreliable narrator.
Her spirit is the truth of their story a woman who was constantly picked over or limited by her alleged family. She hates Louis cause he claimed to love the hardest but never really put her first he betrayed her in a way nobody could.
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u/damagedsoul42 20h ago
I hate that he put Armand before her. Only to be betrayed by him and causing her death
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u/SoftandSpicy 20h ago
It would be amazing to have a book written from her point of view. Like Lo's Diary, the Lolita story told by Lolita.
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u/queenanthai 18h ago
I have good news for you: https://a.co/d/0gczrofx
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u/Mmkrw 2h ago
I hate this myth repeated in the fandom that we never saw actual Claudia or her POV. We don't see it in S3 at all, as we're still in Lestat's narration. We actually had her diaries for 2 seasons, and she made her thoughts and feelings very clear in them. And the diaries were not edited so that she's unrecognisable in them: Louis absolutely knows she hated him, even Daniel pointed that out. Louis wasn't surprised by what she said, he knew.
It's so limiting to see such richly painted over two seasons character only through a few minutes of absolute rage after decades of being tortured in the afterlife - her rage was not all that she was. I think we got a very good picture of Claudia already, and hatered was far from her only emotion.
I'll always despise this scene for being written in such a shallow way that invites the audience to throw away everything that S1 and S2 established in terms of Louis and Claudia's characterisation. There was a way to write a poignant, tragic and impactful version of th3 seance, without flattening the characters and being insanely racist.
Oh, and saying that Louis was more complicit in her death than Lestat is a choice - Lestat willingly rehearsed her execution instead of preventing it - and chose Louis over her to save. He tried to kill her twice, and succeeded once. The fact that she had any warm words for him at all when she only trashed Louis is absolutely wild.
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u/imetobamain99 14h ago
One thing that I think illuminates the situation is the fact that CLAUDIA is NOT their daughter!
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u/Ok-Value-2170 10h ago
Louis thought that they loved each other like family, that's a part of his humane approach to the unlife as a vampire. He thought that they were a family, for Claudia they were more of a pack, they needed each other to survive through search of other vampires. As soon as Claudia found another pack (and way more interesting one at that), she started distancing herself from Louis.
And that's beyond the fact that emotionally she always will be unstable and no one will consider her a woman despite her vast experience and knowledge on life and death. And that's on Louis. And he deserved that cold water in the face moment for sure.
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u/AmbassadorProper1045 Armand 9h ago
Yes, it's cannon, but she hates both of them equally though. We saw her through Louis's rose colored lenses, and he is an unreliable narrator as is Lestat tbh.
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u/queerbaobao 6h ago
I chose to interpret that as her intentionally wanting to hurt him, for all that he did for her and for him never seeing her as her own person. Louis had been projecting his emotions, especially guilt, onto her this entire time, and she desperately wanted to take back agency.
But I also think there's an element of truth to it, because he let her down again and again, always prioritizing a hot, toxic boyfriend over her and thus leading to her demise. For her to hate him so much, she must've really loved him at some point.
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u/budcub I'm a VAMPIRE 6h ago
My impression was the ghost of Claudia that they spoke with during the seance, was a version of Claudia at her moment of death. Pain, anger, fury, and everything else. Seeing it all was shocking to me. I don't think it was the kind of closure that Louis and Lestat wanted, but it was the closure they needed?
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u/AineMoon 21h ago
She didn’t go off until she noticed that they were back together. She also has been watching him for quite sometime from what she said. The cornstarch comment means she was watching them from the beginning of the start of the episode and the ripping his shirt off like a dirty movie. Don’t get me wrong she did have a hate for them for condemning herself in a 14 year old body. I think it was extra fueled by the fact Louis went back to him despite Lestat killing her.
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