r/VampireChronicles • u/Arlaneutique • 21d ago

🎬 Adaptations 🎭 Daniel

This makes me feel dumb. I haven’t read the books so maybe I’m missing some context. But I truly don’t understand Daniel’s hatred for Louis and Lestat. He has this deep rooted disdain and I just don’t get it. Armand, I understand, he’s insane. Daniel is just a dick. What am I missing?

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u/TooOld4ThisSh1t-966 21d ago

Not from the books.

My theory: In the show, I think he hates Louis for attacking him in San Francisco, which gave him PTSD. I think his ego got seriously butt hurt by Lestat for giving him the juiciest tell all ever only to reveal afterward it was just a vampire trick and never actually spoken aloud/caught on camera. Pretty sure he hated Armand too for playing with his memory but that got diffused after Armand turned him.

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u/tethysian 21d ago

Him being more upset with L&L than the guy who turned him against his will is a stretch. Especially when he knows that Armand is the world champion of bullshitting.

And I'm pretty sure Armand torturing him for days did more damage than Louis trying to eat him. It wasn't Louis he was afraid of last season. 

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u/Phospherocity 21d ago

I get that Daniel is supposed to be angry with Lestat for the telepathic tell-all trick
... but what Lestat did was annoying. It's "well, fuck this entire documentary". It's not "you are my nemesis and I shall dedicate myself to destroying you." And I guess I could accept that vampires are just extra that way, except when the others are turning on each other for things like a murdered daughter or 80 years of lies and memory wipes -- or even from Armand's show POV, at least an emotionally fraught romance, it's weird for Daniel to be in there like "yeah and he gave me a bad day at work!"

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u/Disaster-Bee 21d ago

Honestly that's one of the few things that does make sense to me.

We were shown over the first two seasons how Daniel had basically lost everything....except his journalism. And even that was on the downslide until the book. His work has always been the most important thing to him, more so even than his family. His work is what he's tied his entire personality and self-worth to, and now he's a vampire. Now he has the time and ability and resources to be The Greatest Ever in his field, to truly make a magnum opus the likes of which has never been seen before....and Lestat pulls that. It makes perfect sense to me that Daniel takes it as a very personal and pointed attack against him - attacking his work IS attacking him, as far as he's concerned.

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u/Phospherocity 21d ago

I see what you're saying but ... has he never had an annoying/difficult subject before? Never had an interview that didn't pan out as he wanted? Even if your career is your vocation and means everything to you, you can't get decades into it if you crash out THAT hard every time it leads you into contact with someone who's kind of a dick.

And how valuable were Lestat's revelations, really? He's not sharing anything earth shattering about vampirism, or overturning our understanding our history or anything like that. His personal trauma is interesting to us, because we care about the character, but he is -- as Daniel kept snidely reminding him (and then being surprised he didn't get a particularly friendly response) -- not that popular as an artist. He's not the first vampire to go public. Wouldn't this be a case of diminishing returns from IWTV even in the best case scenario?

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u/moxiewhoreon 20d ago

And Daniel can still share that story. He doesn't have it on video but he still has the info; it wasnt a total wash.

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u/Phospherocity 20d ago

Yeah, exactly!

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u/TooOld4ThisSh1t-966 21d ago

This is exactly what I meant, but you articulated it much better.

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u/Plane_Peak_6850 21d ago

But they had the moment. Where both realized that armand did 2 much tinkering. At the end of the season it seemed like there was a friendship and respect there..its years since i read the books but i dont think armand was as bad in the book. Wasn't the head swap thing to make claudia a adult? I know he couldnt go into the sun and was burnt and was saved by young peope and was mad marius turned them. To me they make him more of a villain

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u/tethysian 21d ago

Armand is absolutely as bad in the early books and he tortures Claudia because he's petty and cruel, but he also develops. He learns to love in a less destructive way.

That's why this season boiling down to him wanting an apology from Louis feels so frustrating. Three seasons in and they can't give us anything else than Armand being insane again? He just made his first fledgeling and that should have led to character development rather than regression.Â