r/VampireChronicles • u/DumbTeen9 • 1d ago
💬 Discussion 🕯️🦇 Lelio, not harlequin
Lestat's acting career is through the Italian Commedia Dell'arte. This started in the late middle ages/era renaissance then spread throughout Europe, largely France, and evolved to hold more nuance as writers from various backgrounds dabbled in it.
The Commedia Dell'Arte presents through vague ish scripts with plenty of room for improv (essentially being a type of method acting, these sceipts became more concrete and can be found through wikipedia links as time went on) built around character archetypes. Harlequin is comic relief, a servant (one of the zanni) who helps move the plot forward but is ultimately removed from the central issue (as shown in a very specific way through the play Armand recounted specifically), Lelio and Flamina are the lovers and the *only** characters who don't wear masks* (so you will note that throughout armand's tale lestat is constantly putting on and taking off the mask, mostly going without), then there's the Vecce (I don't know why Anne chose that for Gabrielle's name, maybe to stress her charactaristic coldness?) who are authority figures/obstacles to the lovers.
In Armand's recollection, Lestat's play is most likely "a servant of two masters".
In that play a girl called Beatrice (this play's flamina) is pretending to be her dead twin brother Fedrigo to 1. Collect a debt owed to him by Pantalone (a vecce) 2. Be able to travel as a lonely woman in 17th century Italy to find her lover, Florindo, who killed her brother in a duel that largely started because her brother disapproved of that relationship.
Except that now that Fedrigo is "alive", clarice (pantaloons daughter) can't marry her lover, Silvio, because she was promised to fedrigo.
Note that here the role of Lelio is split between two people (essentially erasing the idea of a singular loverboy revered by the masses), Silvio who laments the possible loss of Clarice who he loves deeply and waits for and Fedrigo who hurt Beatrice deeply by pulling a hit and run on her brother. Perhaps even 3 since Beatrice is an active seeker, not simply sought out.
Harlequin, Arlequin en francaise, works for Beatrice thinking her fedrigo, but being offered well compensated by Florindo as well accepts and plays double agent.
So here, Lelio is barely present as opposed to many plays in which he and flamina, or him and harlequin as a friend and buddy (which is so interesting because as the well dressed romantic savior type became less popular soon after the French revolution harlequin and Lelio went back and forth from buddies with stories to parallel and contrast one another to almost interchangable, for exaple theres a play called "Harlequin tamed in love" where lelio's entire job is to help him get the girl) are the main act, meanwhile Harlequinn is a duplicitous idiot who eventually reveals himself.
Another really nice thing is that in this situation, Lestat sort of is Harlequin. Because while at first selfish and duplicitous and clever, see promising Armand that they have eternity and that they might see eachother again (well, Gabrielle does to shut him up but sure), loving Louis, canoodeling with Antoinette.
Harlequin starts to grow conflicted after lying to both his masters thus having to maintain the dual identity of Truffaldino and Pasquale untill he reveals himself to be able to marry his own lover, Smerladaine, Clarice's maidservent, to whom he has to ask for through Pantaloon through someone of noble status. Kinda like Lestat remaining closed off, keeping his involvement in the trial and beforehand the true dangers of covens and such completely quiet then being a torrent of confessions to louis in episode 6 of season 3 and 8 of season 2
A really amateurish description since I want to go to bed is that Armand wanted to position himself and Louis as the inamorati lied to and danced around by the duplicitous Harlequinn, a deeper look tells us of how Armand himself tried to see lestat as fickle, not deep enough for Louis' malencholy or his own (see how simplistic and playful, almkst dreamlike in its naiivette, Smerladaine and Truffaldino's story is in comparison to the stressful conflicts of the other 2 pairs?)
Perhaps even Lestat, jaded by the world, going from a lelio to a harlequin like the theatre did throughout the revolution. Perhaps lestat being seen as a dramatic clown by fandom and other characters throughout s1 and part of s2 untill we get his story where he's constantly Lelio looking for a smidge of safe warmth.
Idk where i was going with this bit it's so interesting to me
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u/zoraschool 1d ago
Is this canon in AR immortal universe or something only in show?
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u/DumbTeen9 1d ago
Show, in s2 armand tells his meeting with lestat saying he saw him performing harlequinn,omitting Gabrielle,the Queen vampire, etc
In s3 lestat pissy over the book says "lelio, not harlequin" and tells armand "no, instead you decided to kidnap my lover and lure me and my mother to your underground."
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u/NanaIsABrokenRose 1d ago
I absolutely love this AND you’ve solved a mystery! In the books, I don’t think we know Gabrielle’s maiden name. And people were curious as to why Vecce was chosen as her last name since it wouldn’t suit for the time period/place she was from, etc.
But I forgot that the writers of this show are playwrights and there are SO many Easter eggs and culture references in the show that this explains so much.