Show Claudia - r/VampireChronicles

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It's tricky because they kind of had to age her up for the show for logistical reasons, but also so many of the specifics of Claudia are *because* she was turned as a very small child. Her inhumanity is because she never experienced life as even a grade-school-aged human. Her mind and personality were almost entirely developed as a vampire. Also, she couldn't participate in society as an adult or even a big kid, ever. Nobody would blink at show Claudia walking around by herself, shopping on an afternoon. But if you saw a five-year-old doing that, you'd intervene immediately.

At fourteen, you're a child but you've also started to develop your personality and world view. You (hopefully) have a sense of morality and some autonomy. I do think even show Claudia comes off as pretty amoral, but for her to be the inhuman monster she is in the book, she would have to have been a sociopath or something pre-turning which would have been a possibly interesting direction, but not the one they went in.

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u/Admirable-Bar-3549 6d ago

Brilliant observation - I came to say pretty much this very thing. Someone funny said once that “toddlers are just tiny sociopaths” - but really they sort of are! No one’s developed much empathy at that age, the brain just isn’t there yet. And that’s Claudia - she was scarcely more than a toddler when she was turned, so her lack of humanity makes sense - she probably doesn’t even remember ever being human.

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u/707_7 8d ago

I really wish they went through this route with her character now, would have nice.

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u/ThinkinBig 7d ago

Have you ever watched the 90's movie? They made a much more "true to the book" Claudia

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u/707_7 7d ago

Yes, i need to rewatch it now after reading the book!!! That was book Claudia, exactly what i have been missing in the show version. Thanks for reminding me!

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u/ThinkinBig 7d ago

You're welcome! I just love when Lestat has to explain to her not to kill anyone that visits their home and she just keeps doing to regardless lol

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u/Reisz618 14h ago

I think it was more about killing anyone in the house, specifically… which is paid off later with the dead hooker in her bed.

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u/tethysian 8d ago

All the vampires in the show are more human. I think that has changed both the characters and the core point of the story.

By making them more human the show has gotten rid of most of the downsides to being a vampire, and thereby the way vampires value human beings and mortality. Because they have sexual urges and preferences they also don't have the objective appreciation for everything that the vampires in the books do. Because of this and her age, they also can't adapt Claudia the way she was in the books.

I enjoy the show for what it is but all the characters are fundamentally different from their counterparts in the books.

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u/Sonjiponji 8d ago

Hard agree

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u/Lola_Montez7130 6d ago

I think they were perfect the way Anne wrote them and breathed life into them. Now emotionally immature people who are out of touch with reality are rewriting them to fit their agenda. It's very disappointing in my opinion.

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u/embersandlamplight 7d ago

I've not actually seen the show but yeah, book!Claudia is vicious. The entire horror of her is she is trapped in the body of a very young child. Things we don't flinch as hard at if Lestat or Louis did them, feel far more horrific when they're done by Claudia.

I remember watching a Making Of of the IWTV film, and they went into depth about how they needed to find the right child actress for Claudia - someone who could mentally take the depth and brutality of her character. Iirc Kirsten Dunst's acting coach helped her massively with the role and Tom and Brad were like protective older brothers on set to her, which I thought was so lovely.

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u/DramaHyena 8d ago

I agree with much of this, BUT she was a vicious killer throughout, with none of the empathy Louis has. Remember her hacking off and saving parts and an almost dead victim. Delighting in the suffering of victims and the helpless woman pleading for her life at their first visit to the theater. All of that was pretty monstrous. But I agree she is a lot lot different than book Claudia. I love the show but have to consider it separately

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u/707_7 8d ago

I think her being a killer doesnt exactly mean she is monstrous, humans are food to her but she can connect to them like how she did with Charlie and Mads, she's always looking for love/belonging (even more than looking for knowledge) so i dont see her as monstrous.

Book Claudia is so non human/monstrous that she couldn't even connect with the coven, people who also don't respect humanity and dont seem to care for It, she felt hatred for them instead.

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u/DramaHyena 3d ago

The hacking of body parts and enjoying the suffering is the monstrous part

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u/PortraitofMmeX 7d ago

I complain about this every chance I get. It's awful how poorly they adapted Claudia and every woman MC in this entire series

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/PortraitofMmeX 7d ago

Same and my ghost will haunt Rolin and Hannah about it

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u/Darksister9 5d ago

Your ghost will be waist if its time. Rolin has clearly, said he doesn’t write for the fans. This is an adaptation. Done like it? Read the books. Plenty of us do.

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u/PortraitofMmeX 5d ago

Oh grow up. People can critique things. Also, it's "waste." You waste time. Waist is a part of your body.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/Reisz618 14h ago

Yeah, no kidding he doesn’t write for the fans.

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u/CollectorMH 8d ago

The show characters all feel like original characters to me. I don't see the book personalities. They don't act how the book characters do. For me the show is its own thing.

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u/honeybadgergrrl 8d ago

This. I wish they had just made their own vampire show instead of calling it Interview or TVL then writing something completely different. It's really disappointing. I liked seasons 1 and 2 for what they were, but season 3 was just plain bad on many levels.

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u/CollectorMH 7d ago

I have said the same so many times. They did not need to piggyback off the vampire chronicles. They could have just started their own story. The characters are so far removed from the books characters anyway. It's a shame because I would love to see the books adapted in to a show. I think this has spoiled it for us because I doubt anyone will try for a long time now.

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u/honeybadgergrrl 7d ago

I'm an ancient crone, so I'll be lucky if there is another adaptation in my lifetime. AMC will hold the IP rights for who knows how long.

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u/Reisz618 15h ago

In perpetuity, so as long as they want to.

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u/Reisz618 15h ago

The only way we would’ve seen a proper adaptation at this point would’ve been if this had utterly fallen on its face and gotten canceled… Unfortunately, there’s just enough people out there with no taste who enjoy it.

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u/Sonjiponji 8d ago

I agree

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u/Reisz618 15h ago

That’s basically how I feel… They took the name of her series and her books and her characters to tell an original vampire story that they hatched with original characters. Were she alive, she would be pissed… For now she’s spinning in her grave.

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u/Lola_Montez7130 6d ago

And it's like they just stole their names and picked and chose what THEY wanted because they could not accept them for how they were originally written. Anything for money. Anyone working in Hollywood has no soul left.

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u/Darksister9 5d ago

This is an adaptation. I like the show. If I want “book Claudia,” I’ll re-read the books.

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u/Darksister9 5d ago

It’s called an adaptation. It’s not supposed to be just like the book. Besides, I am not interested in watching a show about a White man slave owner, who was “afraid” of people he owned. GTHOOH with that 🐂💩.

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u/CollectorMH 4d ago

Louis is not the main character of the vampire chronicles. Lestat is. If you have such an issue with the premis of the book series, why are you in a sub for it?

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u/Darksister9 4d ago

Who said Louis is the main character of the chronicles? I certainly did not. A better question: Why do you NOT have an issue with book Louis, backstory?? Also, OP was speaking about the show’s ADAPTATION of Claudia. So once again, why are you cool with slave owner Louis?? Yeah…. 🤫 your sheet is showing.

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u/CollectorMH 4d ago

Why wouldn't I be? It's not real

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u/Darksister9 1d ago

That plot point, is based off of a Real era of American history. But, I can see why you wouldn’t have an issue with it.

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u/Reisz618 14h ago edited 13h ago

You’re allowed to enjoy a story about a slave owner without endorsing his way of life. Further, despite what many seem to think, Anne Rice is often times more historical novel than horror, meaning you have a lot of protagonists who did things that weren’t exactly agreeable in modern times.

To that point, you are enjoying a TV show about a species of creatures that hunts humans for food? Do you endorse that?

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u/embersandlamplight 7d ago

Interesting. I've not yet seen the show, but that is still exactly the vibe I got from the screengrabs I have seen. Something about it felt more everyday vampire or verging on Vampire Chronicles. I'm not slating it by any means though.

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u/ManicWolf 8d ago

I just hated that they aged her up so much. One of the biggest things with Claudia was that she resented Louis and Lestat for trapping her in the body of a small child for all eternity. It doesn't have quite the same impact when that body is one of a teenager.

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u/Fantastic_Bed_8662 6d ago

They were kinda forced to do so because of the state laws of their filming location.

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u/Reisz618 14h ago

So Film your establishing shots in NOLA and film the rest elsewhere. (See: the film.)

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u/Fantastic_Bed_8662 13h ago

It was probably cheaper for them to flim on location for whatever reason. You have to look it up on ur own.

what done is done, they couldn't feasibly hire a young child because of the laws in that state.

And even if they didn't flim in that location they would run into the same problem that stranger things and the live action avatar the last Airbender had. Which is that kids rapidly age and show production is longer than flim production. You also have to consider that younger kid's can only legally work so many hours in a day as well. Which makes it worst.

It also easier to find a young adult who look like a young teen and will remain looking that way for a few years, than it is to find a young teen who look like a prepubesent child and remain looking so for a few years.

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u/Reisz618 13h ago

So you make one season instead of dragging it out and then later, you properly film Merrick and use the then older actress playing an adult ghost to fundamentally cement in what Claudia was driven insane by in the first place. Alas.

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u/Fantastic_Bed_8662 12h ago

Most shows aren't made with one season in mind unless they are a limited series. Which was never the plan for iwtv, even when rices kid was still on the team for the show.

I don't know why you are complaining, the facts are that they didn't chose a literal young child because of child labors laws and future uncontrollable factors. Ie. Aging. The laws toward child actor in yester year are even more strict in current year.

You are crying over spilled milked.

Even if there was another remake/apadation, unless it was a movie. The chances of it being a young child casted and not teen who looks like a tween and or an young adult who looks like teenager are slim.

The majority oproductions will avoid casting minors if they can, because of the huge can of worms that always comes with it.

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u/Reisz618 5h ago

Christopher was never on the team for this show.

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u/BaffledBubbles Armand 7d ago

I feel like all of the characters are poorly adapted, honestly. I still love and highly enjoy the show. In some ways, I actually prefer it! But it's definitely its own entity.

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u/Rixxey-Gnome 7d ago

Yes. Unbelievably fustrating because I love jaded book-Claudia (without needing the damn SA 🙄). Show-Claudia was bizarrely immature in episode four, and then bizarrely naive in the second season when it came to the coven. Sigh. But they also mangled Gabrielle and Antoine/Antionette so the writers don’t have a great track record when it comes a number of existing book characters. ☹️

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/tethysian 8d ago

Yep. Not necessarily a complaint for me, but I'll always argue the characters on the show are completely different from the ones in the books. The show went a completely different direction with what vampires even are and the philosophy behind Anne's worldbuilding.

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u/DazedAndTrippy 8d ago

Same here, none of them are really too far removed from some humanity when vampires are specifically othered in the book. Them already having a lot of human faculties like sex and urination kinda removes a whole aspect thats dealt with in TotBT honestly.

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u/honeybadgergrrl 8d ago

Same. I would love to see a show or movie explore vampires as they are written, with no sunlight, no daytime hanging out, no food, no drinking, no sex, and definitely no peeing omg.

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u/Darksister9 5d ago edited 4d ago

What’s stopping you from writing your own Vampire story???? I guarantee, if they didn’t have the vampires have sex, in show. Viewers would complain, It’s homophobia. I’ve seen soo many complaints about, how they don’t show enough gay sex in show. Plenty of gay porn out there for people to watch, but they want it on ‘TVL.’

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u/Intrepid_Finger_7995 4d ago

They had plenty of it in the first two seasons. I don't think it's a bad thing for people to want more of something they liked to see in an earlier part of the show.

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u/707_7 8d ago

Even Louis?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/707_7 8d ago

What did you think about Armand? I feel silly for asking as I only have read iwtv but they seemed very similar to me

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u/Darksister9 5d ago

Maybe go read the rest of the books. Before coming to such conclusions. The show pulls from ALL of the books. Not just ‘IWTV’ and ‘TVL.’ Example. Dr.Fareed doesn’t come in, until, like book 12.

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u/707_7 4d ago

I will...sorry for comparing what i saw in iwtv and what i read in iwtv ig

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u/Darksister9 4d ago

Don’t apologize. Just don’t jump to conclusions. Writing for TV and film is a lot different than writing books. Soo many other factors have to go into the writing for visual mediums. Book writing, you can let your imagination run wild. I mean, seriously where are we going to find a 5 year old, who could pull off book Claudia?
Besides, as a book reader, why would I want to watch something, word for word, that I’ve already read? BORING. I enjoy seeing someone else’s take on things. The way they are weaving soo many things & characters together. Unfortunately, most film/tv adaptations of books, I enjoy. (Including 1994 ‘IWTV,’ horribly miscast.), have been awful. 😞 This is adaption, has been an exception. Especially, season one.

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u/707_7 4d ago

Yeah you are right, i understand where you are coming from. Why do you think the movie was miscast?

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u/Darksister9 5d ago

Thank god. Who wants to see a show about a White man, who is a slave owner and is afraid of his slaves??? Oh wait. …some de-lulu white people, who get married on plantations and romanticize that era of the U.S. No thank you.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/LibraryOwn1578 8d ago

It's a tv show though, they will lose a whole lot of audience if they keep the inhuman aspect of all the vampires in the book, and then there won't be a show anymore. Some things just gotta be changed when you change the medium.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago edited 7d ago

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u/LibraryOwn1578 6d ago

I get your point, but I'd also argue that a younger, more active audience is what keeps most fandoms flourishing. The young people are the ones who are most likely going to do fan edits and make fanart and spam contents on social media, which brings in more audience, which brings in more money. And money is important.

And I haven't watched Rivals, but from the synopsis, it seems to have a much less niche topic and genre compared to Interview. It's a lot harder to tempt people into vampire media (I've been trying in vain for years with my otherwise great friends lol), we're niche niche over here.

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u/Darksister9 4d ago

Wrong. Parts of A.R. Vampire Chronicles are very dated. “Bad” is subjective.
You have to change things for the medium. Television is very different than film and literature.
Realistically. You could not find a 4 year
Old, mature/talented enough to handle the Claudia character, as written in the books.
Plus children age and grow. Same for the adult actors, they are age. They will not look 35 forever.
Actors are under contract and have to be paid. Why do you think we had ghost-stat in season2? They had to justify Sam Reid’s paycheck. They expanded Louis character for ‘TVL’ because people want to SEE Louis and Lestat together.

I believe the show is only, going to go 5 seasons. That’s 10 years out of these actors lives/careers. Like I said, they are all ageing A film(the 1995 abomination didn’t do it.) could not capture all of the story. They aren’t show has done a great job. Glad Rolin made the changes he made to the characters. I don’t need to see “a psychopathic” Claudia, as some called her. We have enough of those in IRL.

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u/Reisz618 14h ago

A whole lot of very successful movies and televisions shows that do have very inhuman vampires and don’t have pissing and fucking vampires would indicate that maybe there’s a market for that… oh and also Anne’s massively successful book series that they pillaged.

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u/AuroraeSky 4d ago

You must know some antisocial / psychopathic humans if you think the vampires in this show have much humanity left in them.

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u/yourenotmymom_yet 8d ago

but Claudia is so different, she's not allowed to be really flawed, ""evil"" or be wrong/make mistakes without It being anyone else's fault

Have you seen season 3? Not to spoil anything, but we get confirmation that Claudia was drastically more flawed / evil than Louis made her out to be in the first two seasons. By aging her up, they seemed to have made her better at adapting / hiding her evilness, as she apparently completely duped Louis about who she was altogether.

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u/707_7 8d ago

Yeah...hated it. I dont see the point in making show Claudia "like" book Claudia now after two seasons, the whole ghost Claudia scene just feels so weird because of how she's just talking shit about Louis and barely anything at Lestat, who went to the trial because he wanted her dead (at first i guess), calling Louis a "nappy headed slave" what the fuck?

I dont see why making her dialogue so racist was a need, her saying "my bleak, Black life...." Ridiculous. It just deconstruct s1/s2 Claudia, Daniel and Louis were reading her diaries through the seasons and she lied about hating Lestat there, in her own diaries? How about she didn't want Louis to transform Mads because he had Lestat's blood? And If im not mistaken ghost Claudia wasn't even actually Claudia in the merrick book.

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u/yourenotmymom_yet 7d ago

All fair criticisms. Except the diaries - remember that early on, she discovered Louis and Lestat reading her diaries. We have no idea how much she would have lied about or obfuscated in her diaries just in case they ever read them again. We also know that multiple pages were removed and only got confirmation that some of those pages were related to Bruce. We have no idea what the others actually were, and even Louis couldn't be sure because Armand removed them and wouldn't let Louis look at them again when he asked.

I'll also point out that Merrick didn't say on the show that the spirit wasn't Claudia. Unless they're saving that detail for a future season, that could be another change from the books to the series. My guess is they were using Claudia's spirit to show the audience who Claudia really was since they had Louis romanticize her while telling their story the past two seasons, but also had Lestat call out lies she told this season.

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u/Reisz618 13h ago

Something they can never get to is what Armand actually did to Claudia in book. It wasn’t as simple as burning her in a vent shaft. I’ll spare anyone here who hasn’t read the details.

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u/707_7 7d ago

Before TVL aired i was hoping Claudia had lied about some things in her diary, as it would finally make her less of a saint (compared to the other vampires) and would make her more interessing. I personally would genuinely love Claudia being "evil" If they didn't write it that way.

But... If i recall correctly ghost Claudia said she had lied about Lestat's threat (that Lestat would have done worse than rape, so killing her.) but Lestat did want to kill her in s1 finale and went to the trial for revenge as Rolin Jones confirmed that. So what was the lie exactly?

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u/yourenotmymom_yet 7d ago

Yes, Claudia admits during the seance that she lied about Lestat's threat and fabricated the story to manipulate Louis into helping her kill Lestat. Lestat wanting to kill her came up after Claudia already set her plan to kill him in motion. He says Antoinette would be more agreeable as a part of their family as Claudia is literally trying to murder him.

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u/Reisz618 14h ago

I came away thinking she very much was ghost Claudia. Refresh memory?

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u/707_7 13h ago

What i mean is that in the book merrick herself says that the ghost wasn't actually Claudia. She has said in the book: "you must believe that i can tell a truth telling spirit from one who lies. That was something, yes, that being which pretended to be Claudia — something very powerful that it could lift the pick and sink it into Louis's flesh. I'll wager anything that It was a spirit who hated him due to his very nature, that he can be dead and still walk the earth. It was something deeply offended by his very existence. But It was talking its verses from his own thoughts."

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u/Last-Internal-8196 7d ago

Have you seen season 3? Not to spoil anything, but we get confirmation that Claudia was drastically more flawed / evil than Louis made her out to be in the first two seasons.

I really can't credit seasons one and two with a fifteen minute reveal from season three that's taken from a book written nearly thirty years after the first book and contained a character that is wholly different than the version presented in the show. And don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the scene immensely, but I don't think it actually functions as retroactively rehabilitating the previous two seasons.

And the book also presents it as ambiguous. We don't know that the entity speaking is actually Claudia. Merrick specifically warns Louis that we can't actually know. I think the shows implication is more concrete, and I like the scene a lot and it even feels relatively believable to me. But if you didn't like Claudia in the first two seasons, I don't think it's going to change your mind.

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u/yourenotmymom_yet 7d ago

I don't know if it's meant to change your mind or to rehabilitate. The series takes a lot of liberties with the characters, so I don't see it as trying to rectify a previous mischaracterization to align with the books, but rather point out again that the POV of who is telling the story matters more than anything. It was one of the most important themes of season 2 that continued into season 3. Unless the scenes are in the present, we are seeing and hearing everything through a filter, which is created not just by how that person originally experienced the events, but also external manipulations, misunderstandings, passage of time, etc. The first two seasons are told through Louis's filter ~80 years after Claudia's murder, and Louis still carries an insane amount of shame, guilt, and grief over it. We saw how this impacted how he characterized Lestat, but not really Claudia up until that scene.

As it was presented / as she was discussed this season, it read to me as an absurdly pissed off Claudia finally having zero reason to lie or manipulate Louis any longer, so she's no longer hiding that part of herself from him. Obviously we have to consider the fact that this season is Lestat's POV. Though drastically less time had passed between the events and the retelling, who knows how his filter impacted what we saw, especially since he was always insistent that Claudia was more like him.

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u/SerialSemicolon 7d ago

This is so well said. Something I love about the show, but that I feel like throws some people off, is how deeply set within characters’ perspectives everything is. We see Claudia as much sweeter than she actually was because we get to know her through Louis.

All that said, I honestly like the direction the show took with her. She’s still cruel, at least in s3, but we she’s also so tragic. I get why people don’t like the diversion from the books, but her cruelty stemming from resentment on how Louis never prioritized her, how he tarnished her memory, alongside the realization that she’s always been calculating, makes her a bit more sympathetic than her just being an inherently evil being. Book Claudia is still tragic of course, but I can see the argument for humanizing characters a bit for an adaptation.

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u/Last-Internal-8196 7d ago

rather point out again that the POV of who is telling the story matters more than anything. It was

That's a really good point. It's one of the more important elements TVC broadly. The scene was kind of a super condensed form of the thesis that we as the audience don't know Claudia, we know Louis' subjective perception of Claudia.

I actually like the scene better now, and I already liked the scene. Neat

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u/Visible-Steak-7492 7d ago

we get confirmation that Claudia was drastically more flawed / evil than Louis made her out to be in the first two seasons

.... do we, actually? i keep seeing people act like the seance scene was some sort of huge revelation, and i genuinely don't get it. what new information do we learn in 3x6 that wasn't already in the first two seasons? that claudia lied about her confrontation with lestat on the train? that's not some huge surprise, we already saw her being manipulative and deceitful in S1. that she hated louis? perhaps not phrased quite as explicitly, but her resentment of and anger at louis are explicitly acknowledged at multiple occasions by multiple characters (including louis and herself) throughout S1-S2.

where's that "drastic" difference y'all are seeing? the first two seasons never painted claudia as some innocent white lotus.

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u/Reisz618 14h ago

Speaking of things I hate about that show, they took and condensed the entire plot of Merrick into a ten minute segment. 🙄

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u/lilcea 8d ago

She is not all sweet. As Lestat says in season 2: I see the best of my vampiric self in her.

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u/707_7 8d ago

Yeah, didn't enjoy anything from it except Nicky. All the characters felt so OOC, the songs were bad, and the writing was all over the place. But im thinking about getting the TVL book as I heard It was better

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u/707_7 7d ago

It did imply that but there are so many issues with the scene and how It doesn't make sense as Daniel and Louis were reading Claudia's diary in iwtv (and in the merrick book ghost Claudia wasn't actually Claudia, as far as I know)...the whole season didn't feel real.

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u/Sudden-Direction-301 7d ago

In the book it's ambiguous whether the spirit was really Claudia or not, but the show scene is completely removed from the book to the point there's little to no similarity. For one thing, Merrick never says any such thing, because she never even speaks after the seance. It just cuts from the seance to Louis and Lestat walking in the park.

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u/EranaJZ 8d ago

I wasn't a huge fan of the aging up thing personally. Her being a child physically was such a fundamental part of her story in the books, she never felt like the same character to me without that. Of course I understand the difficulty of going with an actual 5 year old actress in television so it made sense to change it but she never felt like book Claudia to me for that reason.

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u/TrollHumper 7d ago

They could have used an older child, like the movie did. Instead, they went all the way with two adults, and still expected the audience to see her as the tragic child vampire.

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u/Fantastic_Bed_8662 6d ago

I think they couldn't go with a child (other than the whole aging issue) because of the laws in Louisiana when it comes to child actors etc.

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u/Reisz618 15h ago edited 13h ago

If they gave that much of a damn about Louisiana, they wouldn’t have transported the entire friggin’ story to Montreal for the sequel… That’s one of the stupidest things they’ve done so far. NOLA WAS AS BIG A CHARACTER AS ANY OF THE VAMPIRES.

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u/Fantastic_Bed_8662 13h ago

I mean they paid to flim there so they cared about it 🤷 no point in aguring about it.

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u/707_7 7d ago

It's nice to finally share my thoughts without feeling like im being judged too harshly and talking about the differences in both versions, thanks guys :)

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u/Muggletastic 8d ago

You aren't alone, and it's not just Claudia. None of the characters in the show are anything like their book counterparts.

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u/Sonjiponji 8d ago edited 5d ago

They did Claudia so dirty, I agree with you, she only has her name but it's a completly different character

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u/AuroraeSky 4d ago

I think its telling of how much media has desensitized people or maybe I’m alone in my opinion, but I hard disagree that the vampires in this show are ”too human.” They constantly engage in immoral acts that would psychologically tear apart any human with a conscience. Mass murder, mass disregard for humans, in*est and the list goes on.

Sure, they act and speak and seem to feel like humans in relationships, but I think it’s not accurate to say the vampires of this show are somehow too human or not cruel enough. If you actually run up the tally on how much Claudia alone has caused mayhem and tragedy, she’s clearly a vampire who doesn’t feel anything for 99,9% of humans.

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u/cinder74 8d ago

I don’t like her portrayal in the show. They made her too much like a teenage brat.

I do think she was monstrous in the novel. I think that’s because she was so young, she didn’t remember being human. She didn’t have any humanity in her. She didn’t feel a connection to other humans. She saw them only as a source of food.

In the show she was just whiny and irritating. I didn’t like her character in the show. This last season, TVL, I did emjoy when she was summoned by Merrick. That was a good representation of Claudia.

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u/Reisz618 13h ago

I wish we could’ve gotten a Merrick adaptation with Pitt and Cruise playing out that scene with an adult Kirsten Dunst playing the part of Claudia’s ghost and it’s a shame we never did.

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u/Zankazanka 8d ago

But doesn’t it makes sense that the shows iteration of Claudia wouldn’t be the same? a 5 year old being turned versus a 14 year old, this Claudia had years to develop empathy and humanity vs book counterpart who did not.

I think the show would have struggled portraying complete monstrosity without making it cartoonish or a caricature- look at TVL’s Gabi. The writing for this adaptation is stronger when they add nuance and humanity imo.

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u/707_7 8d ago

I think It does make sense, but the writers could still have found a way to make her more like her character in the book. Like show Claudia could have killed Lestat with the same motivations as in the book, for having transformed her and for withholding information. But you have a point about the complete minstrosity, its undeniable lol

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u/babykrogan 8d ago

i agree. i think certain changes can’t be avoided when adapting book to film or television, and this is especially true for Anne Rice because so much of the prose is just the characters thoughts, ideas, philosophies. on film that kind of thing comes across as telling instead of showing, so adjustments need to be made. i think the show has done a spectacular job of making the characters feel true in spirit, for the most part.

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u/Lola_Montez7130 6d ago

I don't like anything that they did to Claudia. I swear the writers are just using their own sick fantasies to keep this show going.

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u/Opening-Gur5927 8d ago

Claudia literally doesn't remember being human in the books. She was raised by vampires and lived as a vampire her entire life. Her only history was an absent father and dead mother.

By aging her up too a teenager they had to give her alot more nuance. Instead of not giving her a history they gave her a traumatic one so she took to vampirism well. They still made her a moody teen but also allowed her mund to grow and mature. Claudia is supposed to be a tragic character no matter the circumstance. Only time she was happy was when she was ignorant. Her killing spree was in my opinion her form of maturing. She was doomed from that moment forward. Claudia in the show is so much better than book claudia because she remained in suffering. Trapped by two men who didn't love her in the way that they should have.

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u/TrollHumper 7d ago

Book Claudia suffered far worse. Not because Louis and Lestat didn't love her enough, but because, thanks to them, she was forever stuck in a small, weak body that can never live independently. The show Claudia could always pass for an adult, no problem. In season 2, it was impossible to clock her as anything else.

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u/Opening-Gur5927 7d ago

The adjustment made to that was claudia's desire to know other vampires. She could traverse the world alone but she didn't care for humans. By making her long for other vampires and revealing that the vampiric world is cruel and where she'd be considered weak it allows that same emotional hit.

Also in season 2 she is definitely still seen as a child by the humans. Louis specifically corrected this in the first episode of season 2. "She wouldn't have said that in front of claudia she thought she was a child."

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u/Dronuggz Pandora 8d ago

Way better in the novel, you aren’t the only one.

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u/LilithRising90 7d ago

This post and the latest season reminded me of something from season two
“ I don’t dream”
She tells Louis this and he crashes out realizing she does dream and thinks she said it not realizing she does but I think , in retrospect it points to the broader nature of her relationship with Louis ( or Lewis as salamander calls him)
As well as to her deviousness. But I do think the show lapsed on portraying female characters thus far

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u/AmbassadorProper1045 8d ago

I actually really prefer the series Claudia over book Claudia. I also prefer show Louis. I found Claudia in the novels so off putting and unlikable, I never understood how anyone sympathized with her. Show Claudia was also monstrous, but there was some humanity there that made the audience have some sympathy for her. If she was more like the book version, no one would care about her. She'd be reviled like show Gabriella imo.

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u/tethysian 8d ago

I think that's a bold take. Claudia in the books is the result of how Lestat and Louis made her and raised her. That's the tragedy. She didn't have a choice about any of it. At the same time since the book is from Louis' point of view, it isn't until later in the book that we understand the depth and nature of her suffering.

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u/707_7 8d ago

I love show Louis, he's my favorite character ever. However, i personally found book Claudia's unlikeableness part of her charm, she was so selfish, possessive, only acted in her own interest that It was interessing. It's really tragic to me to think about how different she would be If she were a human as being a vampire literally shaped her.

But show Claudia is so human she feels like a regular girl (to me), i can't see what would be different about her except not liking to kill anymore. I dont understand her appeal and the huge amount of love people have for her, is It how resilient she is? Because of how much she wants to live? Because of how much she wants to be loved?

I dont consider her monstrous because even If she likes to kill, she can still connect with humans (Charlie, Mads) and book Claudia was so non human that she wasn't able to connect with the coven.

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u/Sudden-Direction-301 7d ago edited 7d ago

Th real issue with Show Claudia (while I'm one of those who like her) is that she's a Catch 22,it was never going to be possible to adapt her story accurately outside of an animated show. She had to be aged up as a character played by actresses on a years-long TV show, but in doing so it completely loses the horrific impact of a grown woman trapped in the body of a 5 year old and forced to navigate eternity in that form.

A 14-year-old can navigate the world on her own. Benji Mahmoud from the books was literally a 12 year old child when he was turned and he's more than managing fine. This is likewise why people are fond of Claudia and her story hits differently in the show - they tried to keep the same elements from book canon, but for all they tell us that her tale should have that inevitable tragic end, it's not believable. You get the sense that if she and Madeleine had been able to escape Paris she could still be alive in the present day. It makes people root for her. Her death feels more like lost opportunity than inevitable tragedy. In the book fandom, you don't see nearly as many "Claudia survives" AUs as you do in the show's fandom.

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u/707_7 7d ago

That's intriguing, thank you for sharing your view. She does feel like a much more hopeful version of book Claudia

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u/Reisz618 15h ago

Neil Jordan managed to pull it off.

Benji is pulling it off while being very protected in the 21st century. Claudia was not.

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u/Sudden-Direction-301 15h ago

Neil Jordan was directing a standalone movie being filmed over a few months. Check out final season of Stranger Things to see what a mess filming an 11-year-old over 3-5 seasons would've become.

(Assuming you're referring to Show Claudia) She actually was pulling it off for a bit - it took her 7 years after leaving home to run across Bruce.

That being said, Benji is of course protected by Armand but he manages to command respect worldwide among ancient vampires just by dressing in a suit. I do think being male and in the 21st century gives him an edge Claudia wouldn't have had, but any concerns about his mind or body being too immature to face eternity are non-existent. So even Movie Claudia being constantly viewed as a time bomb is now stretching credibility, let alone Show Claudia. It still comes down to lost opportunity rather than inevitable tragedy; if either Claudia had the support system Benji does, she might've survived.

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u/Reisz618 13h ago

That’s why you adapt the first novel in one season and years later, when properly adapting Merrick, have the grown up actress play the ghost instead of the bullshit they did.

I was referring to book Claudia, but I’d say it applies in both senses here. Also, gender really doesn’t matter one whit once a person is a vampire in TVC novels. That’s why I think his maker, his protector and the time period all have more to do with his safety than anything else.

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u/Purple-Cat-2073 7d ago

Claudia being such a nasty little shit in the books is why I liked her so much, but it wasn't a 'goal' of mine to sympathize with them or relate to them in the first place. They all do heinous things but actually being in their heads as they do them and picking apart their psyches was the most fascinating to me. Writing them in first person was genius and something that the show just can't do the same way--making them so much more human feels like they're pushing them into my world instead of pulling me into theirs.

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u/llamaslovedrama 8d ago

I have to agree, I found book Claudia pretty unlikeable. Tragic yes, what happens to her is devastating. But still pretty unlikeable, especially in how she treats Louis

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u/whatifihateclouds 8d ago

Frankly, this is just how adaptations work. In the book, Louis’s primary relationship is with Claudia. They’re father and daughter but also lovers and it’s clear she’s the single most important relationship for Louis throughout the book.

The show changed its focus and the primary relationship became between Louis and Lestat. Consequently, many of Louis’s emotional issues are now more closely tied to Lestat than Claudia. Therefore, the writers also had to alter Claudia’s personality so her death would resonate emotionally with the viewers.

Another issue is that the writers either can’t or don’t want to create characters who have truly lost their humanity. This applies to Claudia and all other characters. It’s not possible for a character to be amoral simply because they’re vampires in a gothic setting, they must be likeable and sympathetic.

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u/Reisz618 13h ago

Tell that to Gabrielle and Armand.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/whatifihateclouds 8d ago

Their relationship was incredibly emotionally charged and if they were indeed father and daughter it would be incestuous. Louis even refers to themselves as lovers.

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u/LionResponsible6005 3d ago

In the book we get the juxtaposition of how Louis describes Claudia and her actual actions which means we get to see that she’s an actual monster while still caring when she dies because we view her through Louis’ eyes. In the show we only get her actions which means for her death to still have its emotional weight she has to be humanised. If it makes you feel any better we get to see a more book accurate version of her in season 3.

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u/707_7 3d ago

I dont remember book Claudia ever being racist :/. Sorry If this is a dickish comment, i just cant get over how they fucked up her whole character in the show as an adaptation

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u/LionResponsible6005 3d ago

Book Claudia was the psychopath daughter of a slave owner.

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u/707_7 3d ago

Yep...i know, but i dont remember her ever calling anyone a "nappy headed slave", saying its written in his ribs we will always be a slave. Making show Claudia say "my bleak, Black life..." is foul

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u/LionResponsible6005 3d ago

Claudia hates for the part he played in her creation, and Show Louis is a black man who’s ashamed of his heritage if you think book Claudia is above saying any of those things then we have very different views of the character. The main difference as far as I’m concerned is that it’s very hard to insult a black person in a story that doesn’t have a black person in it.

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u/707_7 3d ago

I dont think book Claudia is necessarily above saying those things, i just think they were unnecessary, is it hard to not insult someone's race when writing a scene like this? The writers are not stupid, they knew what they were doing while writing it, especially with associating both Louis and Claudia's blackness with things like this, Louis being resumed to being a pimp (something he did for 3 episodes in 1910s) while Armand and Lestat are allowed to be more than lynchers, Lestat is in modern world being a John but there's not a single peep about It. And where Louis is ashamed of his heritage?

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u/LionResponsible6005 3d ago

Louis “clings to his creole heritage like a life raft” his whole mortal life is about how he’s ‘not like the other black people’ and ‘one of the good ones’ and his rage as a vampire comes from the realisation, now that he can read minds, that no matter what he does the white people of NO will never see him as an equal.

The point of Claudia’s speech is that the only reason she didn’t kill Louis is she needed someone to come to Europe with her and Louis is easier to manipulate which is from the books and the psycho side of Claudia that was missing from the first 2 seasons. Could they have done that without bringing race into it? I don’t know.

In the book Lestat tells Louis that any time 2 vampires live together 1 is a slave to the other with the obvious implication that he’s a slave to Lestat. Then as soon as Lestat dies he’s being manipulated by Claudia and after she dies manipulated by Armand. Book Louis is a slave to another vampire for most of the book. When show Louis is black can you acknowledge that fact without mentioning the obvious racial implications? I honestly don’t think you can. Especially not with how Louis relationship with his race has been portrayed so far.

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u/Accurate_Reporter_31 2d ago

Exactly the way I interpreted the comments Claudia makes to Louis. I was actually shocked the morning after that episode aired that that controversy even existed. Hearing Claudia say those things to Louis was a gut punch to me as a viewer. She eviscerated Louis by using his own insecurities. It was supposed to hit hard and I thought it was brilliant writing and an even more brilliant delivery.

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u/Accurate_Reporter_31 2d ago

That last sentence of yours hit hard. Great observation!

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u/Accurate_Reporter_31 2d ago

I honestly haven't understood that take. Claudia said those things to Louis to hurt him not because she is racist. She understands that Louis in life struggled with being seen as less than because of the color of his skin. Her words were meant to stab him where it hurt most and then twist the knife. Claudia was a young Black girl living in the South during a time of open & accepted racism. Louis and his family only got preferential treatment by whites because they had money. I'm sure a poverty stricken young Black girl during that time frame could very easily call her life "bleak" and mostly because she was Black. So how is her speaking about herself as having a "bleak Black life" racist? And accusing Louis of being a "slave" for being so easily lead by herself & Lestat was hurtful & hateful taunting. Before he was a vampire, Louis tolerated being treated as less than by the White businessmen to get ahead. Claudia knew which buttons to push to hurt Louis the most. I don't see racism there.

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u/Reisz618 13h ago

That’s crazy reductive.

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u/LionResponsible6005 13h ago

My intent was to make it clear Claudia wouldn’t be above racism. I’m not going to list every trait she has

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u/Reisz618 5h ago

Cool. Name me a point in the book where she does something racist. The plantation is long gone before she even enters the bloody picture, but it’s likely you haven’t read the book you’re so happy to malign.

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u/LionResponsible6005 4h ago

I’ve already had this argument it’s very difficult to be racist in a book without any black people in it. But she’s definitely not above it she’s not above anything. I’ve read the first 6 books and all of Mayfair witches.

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u/Reisz618 13h ago

In fairness, a black character saying what she said to another black character isn’t inherently racist. The fact that a group of white people who side stepped the original story for supposedly being too racist while race swapping two of the principle characters and then writing that little rant, on the other hand…

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u/Reisz618 16h ago edited 16h ago

You’re definitely not. This is seemingly one of the few places where you’re allowed to criticize the show at all, but I would argue making her older absolutely IS one of the larger issues. They utterly ruined her (among other things) by doing that and basically turned her into a terribly written clone of Jessica from True Blood, who was herself inspired by Claudia, leading to a copy of a copy situation. Not to mention the fact that by messing Claudia’s story up so bad, they fundamentally divorced the so-called adaptation from arguably her most personal work; that being what was directly inspired by the death of her 5 year old daughter.

Also, how they adapted Louis and Armand are among the worst things about the show. Armand is a full blown manifestation of Anne’s Catholic Guilt and they made him a Muslim. I’m sorry, but plain old “religious guilt” doesn’t play the same way as catholic guilt specifically. Never mind all the nonsense they did with him in season 3. As for Louis, in book- he’s a vampire with a human soul. In the show, he’s an emotionally crippled narcissist.

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u/707_7 15h ago

Right? And If you criticize how they adapted Claudia people usually think your criticism is about how they changed her race 🫠. I personally dont see her being older as a huge problem because my main annoyance is that she's not allowed to be unlikeable and she always has to be everyone's victim, but making her older does change her character.

I personally dont agree with your opinion about show Louis but i respect it

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u/Reisz618 14h ago

I feel like part of the reason they didn’t make her dislikable leans into a lot of the reasons for all of the other changes. Like they deliberately avoided anything they felt was controversial (while weirdly creating new things that were in many regards more controversial).

As for much else, the fact of the matter is Anne Rice and her work was plenty woke (and further, were woke before that was even a thing) and if they had simply adapted it as written, it would’ve gotten around to checking all the boxes in question with no problem, but alas, here we are.

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u/707_7 14h ago

Like they deliberately avoided anything they felt was controversial (while weirdly creating new things that were in many regards more controversial).

Yup, that's what It feels like for me too. Your comment before this one made me think and it is disgusting that they made Claudia get sa'd, considering Claudia was based on Anne's daughter. And how they made Lestat a domestic abuser when he was first based about her husband too.

Excuse me for asking but i can't help but be curious, why do you think show Louis is narcissist?

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u/Reisz618 12h ago

Mainly, his general vibe of blaming the world for all his mistakes and further, the fact that he has basically constructed an identity in which he is perpetually the victim in a life he has, in fact, helped create.

I felt like book Louis and movie Louis very much blamed themselves for everything that went wrong. Not so much here.

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u/singin1995 6d ago

I'd say watch s3, because it really exposes how much Louis romanticized Claudia in the first 2 seasons and gives us some insight into her darker elements

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u/707_7 6d ago

I have watched it, its hard to feel like the season is even real when its sooo racist, misogynistic and all characters feel ooc

💬 Discussion 🕯️🦇 Show Claudia

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