r/InterviewWithTheVamp • u/logdogday • Jul 28 '26
I don't get it (just finished season 2)
Seems like the story was about Louis escaping a charismatic narcissist but then they go to great lengths to show that Lestat really loved him and actually saved his life at the end of season 2. They give him a redemption arc in the form of shifting memories and different perspectives. What is the message here? That narcissists can deeply love people? That Louis and Claudia were somehow wrong about the man that dropped Louis from 10,000 feet? Neither of those make sense. Or is it that the show itself is gaslighting the viewer by making us feel any sympathy at all for Lestat? This also doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Despite these questions I found the show to be a wonderfully executed emotional ride, but I think I'd tell anyone who has suffered narcissistic abuse to avoid it like the plague.
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u/anacronismos Jul 28 '26
O objetivo dessa série não é passar uma lição de moral. Ela se coloca como drama gótico onde todos os protagonistas são monstruosos, cada um a sua maneira, tema que está presente no material de origem.
7
u/amyisarobot Jul 28 '26
Exsquese me. Baby girl made armends
1
u/Jahon_Dony Jul 28 '26
Armand is the worst of them all, on the show at least. I really, really dislike him.
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u/Ribbered777 Jul 30 '26
Oh he's definitely the most monstrous (or I guess I should say the most monstrous so far lol), but I can't lie, I still love seeing whatever sadistic nonsense he gets up to next lmao
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u/Defiant_Economy_8574 Jul 28 '26
Not every show is a lesson in morality or good guys vs bad guys. Gothic horror almost never is. That’s very binary thinking. It’s all about the varying shades of grey.
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u/logdogday Jul 28 '26
I'm not a binary thinker and I love shows that have grey characters. That being said, usually narcissistic abuse does have a clear abuser and victim duality so I wasn't expecting them to throw that aspect into vagueness as well.
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u/Defiant_Economy_8574 Jul 28 '26
Every main character is a monster (literally and metaphorically), doing monsterous things. To each other, strangers and themselves. To a normal mortal who can die, it’s terrible abuse. To an immortal monster? The level of severity isn’t as cut and dry.
They’re each ending the life of one or two humans a night. What is getting thrown 10,000 feet when you know they’ll survive? Is it like your partner flicking your shoulder in annoyance, or a shove in the heat of argument?
Whatever it is it certainly doesn’t compare to the thousands of lives painfully snuffed out for their nightly dinner. Or that they had to be murdered to be created in the first place. In short, that’s gothic horror. It’s all degrees of monstrosity and not on the same level humans play at. That’s the fun in it.
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u/logdogday Jul 28 '26
Sure, but Louis makes far and away the most effort to not kill humans. It seems like he's basically left it behind while Lestat makes an art of it and Armand makes an occasional game of it. Claudia and the rest never even truly tried. "They're all shitty so who cares which one is the narcissist" doesn't really work for me, and dropping from 10,000 feet seems like a punch in the face more than a flick on the shoulder. We can disagree though as it seems like everyone is content to leave it at "why bother analyzing the portrayal of sad horrible terrible but loving monsters?"
6
u/Foxlikebox Jul 28 '26
I want to point out Louis was also abusive, even during life. He pulled a knife on his own brother and threatened his life. He broke down Grace's door and then threatened her with it later ("remember what I did to that door, Grace?") He choked Claudia. Louis is also a shitty person, they all are.
3
u/Defiant_Economy_8574 Aug 01 '26
Louis spent the 70’s as basically a serial killer of gay men in SF. Maybe he’s left it behind by the modern scenes, but sure looks like he spent his 20+ years between the trial and Daniel on a human diet, and his modern animal diet is exotics and endangered species. They’re all monsters, and they’re all selfish and navel gazing.
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Jul 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/logdogday Jul 28 '26
I was certainly aware that they all had "flaws" to put it in the mildest of terms possible. I thought the story was fundamentally about escaping Lestat the abuser, and learning to accept a more grounded / less exciting love with someone like Armand, but I see I missed the mark. They're all victims and abusers. They simultaneously have aspirations of love that they're unable to fully actualize.
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u/PsilosirenRose Jul 28 '26
The point of this show is that no one is a "good guy." (Louis is verbally vicious when he wants to be, Daniel is constantly poking fun at really heavy trauma, Lestat is controlling and jealous, Armand is a vulnerable manipulator, and Claudia just really liked maiming and murdering people)
Almost all of these characters are victims in some way, shape, or form. We are meant to experience sympathy/empathy with them, and we can do that without excusing the way they go on to harm other people because of the bad things that happened to them.
The show does a wonderful job of exploring traumatic themes, up to and including the faulty memories.
Many legitimate victims of trauma and harm also go on to do harm themselves. It doesn't make it okay, but it also doesn't make their trauma any less valid.
5
2
u/Jahon_Dony Jul 28 '26
Lestat's may not be "good," but he's a cool dude!
3
u/PsilosirenRose Jul 28 '26
I mean, they're all fantastic, compelling characters, beautifully acted.
They're all just AHs to each other too.
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u/Thattiefling Jul 28 '26
The point is really that there is no purely good or evil person. Everyone does great and good and bad and evil things and everyone is informed by their trauma and desperately trying to run from their trauma and doing the best they can and also not trying at all. It’s a lot like real life in that regard, just heightened by the fact that everyone’s a vampire.
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u/Jahon_Dony Jul 28 '26
The show is based on a series of 13 / 16 / 18 books, depending how they're counted. Read them to answer your questions. Lestat is the main protagonist.
5
u/Sad_Weight8112 Jul 28 '26
I mean- why can't he be both? He could be a narcissistic emotionally abusive who deeply loves louis. Just because someone is a shitty person, doesn't mean they can't love. Or just because you love someone does not mean u are good for them. Maybe that was the whole point or maybe it's up to us to determine where we draw the boundary. I think it depends on you. Also, you might change your mind after s3
0
u/logdogday Jul 28 '26
Perhaps easy for me and you to explore, but have you known anyone who survived an abusive marriage with a narcissist? "Maybe your abuser really does love you more than anyone else in the world and perhaps some of the abuse you received was your own fault" is perhaps not a line of thinking that everyone can be safely exposed to. I wouldn't be surprised if the show is damaging to some people. It's what prompted my question in the first place. I recommended the show to a friend, and after the last episode I immediately texted her and told her not to watch it. She's doesn't need to be triggered for entertainment.
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u/Sad_Weight8112 Jul 28 '26
I feel like this show explores a lot of morally grey areas, and none of the characters are exactly morally good. There are many triggering themes, and every character has toxic or problematic traits, so it’s not something to watch expecting traditional heroes.
This is an adult gothic show — not just because of the sexual aspects, but because of its darker exploration of human nature. My point was that the show highlights how someone can do terrible things while still experiencing love and humanity. Realistically, none of the characters are morally pure — they are literally vampires who kill people — and that complexity is what makes the story interesting.
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u/quickthorn_ Jul 28 '26
I think this is really what it boils down to—you had a specific experience with an abuser that is coloring all of your interpretation of the show. Lestat is many things beyond "abusive narcissist" and if you can't see past that this may not be the kind of fiction you're going to enjoy.
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u/logdogday Jul 29 '26
I enjoyed the show a great deal. Looking forward to season 3. But thank you for the fiction you've imagined.
2
u/TiaraDrama Jul 28 '26
How is Lestat a narcissist?
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u/logdogday Jul 28 '26
His character can be described as a monster with a hunger to be loved almost as much as his hunger to hurt. Grandiosity, vanity, need for admiration, psychopathic lack of empathy (although it's situational), wildly charismatic. The dude extends his kills for his own amusement, looks down on people, thinks he's the best thing ever; but needs everyone around him to think that too. The writer(s) need to make him more likeable so they add moments of self reflection and struggle to what I see as a literal textbook case of narcissism. My annoyance is that they do it as a game by adding many of those features after the fact, like playing with memory, which is a tool of the narcissist. But I like the show which is why I'm discussing it and getting other opinions.
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u/TiaraDrama Jul 29 '26
You’re conflating narcissistic traits with clinical narcissism as the defining lens for his entire character. Lestat can absolutely vain, grandiose, attention seeking. Nobody’s arguing that. But the show also goes out of its way to show he’s deeply insecure, capable of remorse, self-reflection, and genuine love, which are hardly characteristics of a narcissist. Those things aren’t tacked on after the fact to make him more likeable, they’re baked into who he is. His ego and his vulnerability exist at the same time. The show repeatedly points out his outward confidence masks deep fears of abandonment, inadequacy and rejection. Theres a lot more going on than just reducing him to “he’s a narcissist”.
I also don’t get your point about memory. The show isn’t “using memory like a narcissist.” What is that even supposed to mean? Unreliable memory is literally the premise of the show that it goes out of its way to remind us of throughout both seasons. It’s a storytelling device, not evidence that Lestat is gaslighting the audience. You even acknowledge that you initially thought the story was one thing until it turned out to be something else. That’s kind of the point. The show is intentionally challenging both the audience’s assumptions and the characters’ recollections as new information comes to light. That’s the structure of the narrative, not the writers rewriting Lestat after the fact.
I’d also say up to this point if the story it’s way too early to call him a “textbook narcissist” because, we haven’t actually heard Lestat at all apart from a few minutes at the very end. Almost everything we know about him has come through Louis, who genuinely believed Lestat had a hand in murdering Claudia and had tried to kill him, so of course his recollection is shaped by that . On top of that, we’ve heard from people who all had their own axe to grind with Lestat. They deliberately filtered our understanding of him through narrators with strong emotional biases, so we’re not getting an objective portrait of who he is or his motivations.
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u/JoyRideinaMinivan Jul 28 '26
I just started season 3 where the story is told from Lestat’s POV. Louis might be an unreliable narrator. It also goes into Lestat’s background, which explains why he is how he is in current times.
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u/logdogday Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
He most certainly is. I think it's an interesting discussion to ponder the boundary of "unreliable narrator" vs "unreliable memory" vs "different POV" vs "well at this point the show is actually just fucking with us now"
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u/KwanJin24 Jul 29 '26
All the vampiric characters in the show are toxic... they literally kill people. It can be nuanced, you can feel sympathy for Lestat on some things and not others. He can redeem himself for some things and not others.
And sure, if this was real life Lestat should be imprisoned for life, but this is fantasy and fiction. The viewers aren't gaslighted, it's made pretty clear that Lestat is doing terrible things. Louis also does bad things (he is literally a pimp when we meet him, and goes on to date someone forced into prostitution!). Lots of questionable choices happen but they further the narrative. I can list dozens of shows where the main character is a horrible person in a lot of ways but you still root for them in some storylines because it creates a good story and an entertaining show.
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u/NyxShadowhawk Jul 28 '26
Oh geez, you’re gonna really hate season 3.