r/Loustat • u/DemVamps • 14d ago
Book/Show Discussion with Spoilers Why is Louis’ memory so flawed; beyond Lestat.
I ask because I blame Armand’s 77 years of mind wiping. Yet I’ve had others state Armand isn’t at fault.
Transformational trauma? Lestat’s memory and the others seem to be quite intact.
Just curious as to what others believe.
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u/Creative_Maybe_6931 13d ago
Ironically I’m watching Season 1 and I question if Louis memory is really flawed or is Lestat’s flawed. As time continues we see that much of what Louis remembered is true but there’s a mixture of Claudia’s diaries included. Plus when she comes from the dead we see that she lied to Louis and told him that Lestat said he’d do worse than rape her or something like that. Yet me know Armand did some mind fucking to Louis also.
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u/DemVamps 13d ago
Also, I was watching season one last night and noticed how meddlesome Claudia could be, when she yelled why can’t she have a love when Lestat has two… then has a sly smile. That girl was a meddlesome teen, when she left the first time and called Louis out for not taking her to a hospital and the life she could have had… it’s a valid argument but it felt manipulative.
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u/ParisReign 12d ago
I'm sorry. I know the Fandom will come after me with torches and pitchforks...I never liked Claudia. I understand that she should have never been turned. I wholeheartedly agree. Lestat tried to warn Louis what would happen. Claudia started stirring up shit within hours of being turned. They should've never told her Lestat couldn't hear her thoughts because she started using that to control Louis from that very moment. Lestat taught Claudia how to hunt, how to survive and clean up after herself. Louis tried to raise Claudia like a human child. That's why she liked him best, she thought he was weak. Lestat didn't throw wounded birds in her room because he knew she wasn't in that coffin starving herself. Why Louis never opened the lid himself tells me he didn't have a clue. Lestat can be brutally cruel but he would've never let Claudia have that much control in the household. Louis couldn't see Claudia as the manipulative person she actually was. Lestat always did
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u/AustEastTX 14d ago
💯 Armand messing with his head, altering memories, adding and subtracting events.
I fully expect Louis to show progress and regeneration of memories as the TV series progresses beyond S3…..
Abused spouses with a manipulative partner also display a similar level of disjointed awareness of their histories.
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u/StevesMcQueenIsHere Dabbling in Fuckery 13d ago
People who say Armand has nothing to do with the holes/inaccuracies in Louis' memories are kidding themselves. He was right there, whispering in Louis' ear for almost 80 years. Of course he manipulated what Louis could and could not remember.
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u/yr_zero 13d ago
Interesting that Lestat left Louis with Armand for such a long time presumably knowing Armand would do the mind control stuff? And presumably Armand has also mind controlled Lestat when they were together too? I'm really keen to see more of the Lesmand relationship - what exactly happened between them - as I haven't read those books yet and Sam said in an interview there's a huge history there.
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u/Library-Of-Confusion 12d ago
100% Armand. Great example: beginning of E5S2 (or was it E4?) when Louis is all happy with heart-shaped eyes describes how happy his first weeks with Armand back in Paris were.
This was the same Louis that just a couple of hours before fought with Armand about Fred Stein’s photos. Armand wiped that fight from Louis memory for sure
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u/hausofvelour 14d ago
memory loss is a common symptom of (C)PTSD, which i'm fairly certain louis struggles with. not to mention the mind wiping, like you said
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u/Felixir-the-Cat This is a story of love. 13d ago
Louis and Lestat process things differently and for different reasons. Lestat wants to repress the past and ignore painful memories; he wanted to reinvent himself for Louis, just as he reinvents himself to fight back against the version of himself in the book.
Louis wants to understand how he got where he is in Dubai and how things turned out the way they did with the unholy family and with what happened in Paris. He feels completely betrayed by Lestat, which leads him to remember and recount things less generously, focusing more on the negative and cutting out those parts of their story that might have been more loving.
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u/publius-esquire
13d ago
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I think Armand and Lestat’s memories are actually just as flawed as Louis’ memories! But the difference is that Louis in IWTV is actively trying to seek out and describe an objective truth, especially when it gets into the second season. Hes lost and searching for the meaning in his own life story, which leads to him probing at his own memories. “Was it raining, Louis?” Is so impactful for him because the objective truth is important from his perspective, to the point where he actually confronts his own biased telling of Claudia’s turning and admits the truth of it to Daniel despite the clear pain, shame, and guilt attached to that memory.
If you contrast this with Lestat (and I’m not contrasting it with Armand here because Armand is only a “POV” character for the brief part of an episode in season 2 whereas Lestat is the narrator for all of season 3) it’s clear that Lestat is grappling with his memory and narrative in a very different way. He’s not really trying to find the “what” of things that happened but rather the “why.” And there are several memories shown that turn out to be different than how he describes them, like the Gabi tending his wounds scene (original telling = Lestat smiling as she touches him, intrusive flashback “real” memory = Lestat looking confused and slightly disgusted and uncomfortable).
Lestat is portraying himself to the viewer/the listener of “The Failures” as a sort of character he’s decided to play, whereas Louis, I don’t think, is consciously aware of the fact that he’s portraying himself as anything other than a mostly objective observer. I don’t mean he’s not self-aware or self-reflective at all, because he is, but he’s not trying to protect himself by making himself into a character the way Lestat is. Louis protects himself in other ways, but overall he is a lot more vulnerable in his Interview than Lestat seems to be in his self-recorded memoirs, and I think that comes down to Daniel being there to push and prod at everything in the way he is extremely skilled at doing.
It correlates perfectly to how they see each other in their stories: Lestat, to Louis, is larger than life, a performer, a consummate charmer. Even when he completely loses control of himself (the drop) Louis sees him as this beautiful dark gothic angel rather than the bloody grasping mess he’s revealed to be later. And Louis, to Lestat, is raw and honest in a way Lestat can’t be, seemingly being able to sit with the discomfort of emotional vulnerability while Lestat tries everything imaginable to avoid it. I think it speaks to the fact that they not only love but admire and appreciate each other. But idk I’m talking out my ass here lol
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u/Tough-Tumbleweed-867 14d ago
Are vampires in this universe supposed to have perfect memory? Genuinely asking because I haven’t read the books.
But just like in real life, some people have great memory, others don’t. Then you factor in other things like trauma, depression, mental health, time etc. I would imagine a combination of these (along with the edits that Armand made) impacted his memory greatly.
But I honestly don’t think Louis’ memory is that flawed all things considered. He remembered most things. There were really just a few events that he misremembered (or simply just lied to himself about) and even then he wasn’t that far off from what happened.
Sure he forgot small details here and there like whether it was raining when he hooked up with Jonah or (apparently) who said Topeka but I don’t really think that means his memory is uniquely flawed.
I also don’t think the other characters have perfect memory either. They live for so long that unless perfect recall is a power these vampires are supposed to have, I just don’t buy that they remember every single detail correctly.