Breaking IWTV

An index post of my IWTV meta posts. Yes this is all going somewhere. These posts contain spoilers. This index is occasionally updated and reorganized (including recent link repairs on mobile) so if you get here from a reblog you can click here to refresh.

AMC's Interview with the Vampire is a puzzle story that can trace its lineage to Memento, Fight Club, and The Usual Suspects. The show's cleverly constructed script uses a fable about a toxic relationship to raise challenging questions about identity, memory, trauma & queerness. Solving the puzzle means finding the main character in this morass and using what we know about him to rewrite the story in a way that makes sense.

Thésée et le Minotaure (1500s). Public domain. The labyrinth exists so the Minotaur can't find you.

The trick is to do it not by saying the events didn't occur but by resetting the emotional context--what the events meant. Here are some of the ways that happens:

On the show's structure & the narration...

Opening the puzzle box - How the show manipulates the audience's expectations about structure & narrative to hide things about Louis, and how to find out what those things are.

Opening the puzzle box, part II - How learning about Louis' true character begins to reorganize the story in a way that makes sense.

This game is missing its instructions - Looking for the moment when the narrative breaks down and the trick is revealed (it's in Episode 6).

Louis' got tricks - Watch carefully, because Louis is not telling Daniel the same version he's telling us.

On Louis' psychology...

But whose heart would not take flight? - The key to unpacking the show's emotional context: looking at Louis' ability to hold irreconcilable emotions and beliefs in tension.

Script notes: Louis & dissociation - The supporting passages in the script describing Louis' dissociative episodes, where he talks about losing track of events and the real world.

The absence of metaphor - Exploring Madame Bovary syndrome, where the heroine takes flight from the bonds of domestic life by turning to fantasy and idealism.

"The devil made me do it" - How blaming the Devil sometimes makes Louis feel worse, and how Louis got trapped in his own coffin.

Just the way he likes it - Exploring the contradictory ways Louis approaches violence & morality, from feast to famine.

Louis the rebel - and his defiant, contrarian relationship to power.

On Louis & language...

Louis' thesaurus - Louis' gift for words, roles, and the way the important people in his life accumulate both.

How Louis flips the script - A few ways Louis uses his intellectual and verbal skills to reclaim power.

Shame on those who think ill of it - Looking at the language used in real Storyville Blue Book to create the "Queer Zone" that turns morality on its head.

Script notes: Louis at odds - Cataloging Louis' use of complex, contradictory phrases like sanctioned infidelity and mindless accomplices to make connections that defy simple logic & interpretation.

A knight in the corner - Unpacking one of Louis hardest-working jokes: "I am the knight," from Episode 6. As a chess piece, a knight is always the most powerful in the center of the board, where its unusual movements open up possibilities.

The inferior re-recording - Another subtle, smart joke that relies on wordplay, inherent contradictions, and Louis' own complicated self-awareness.

A doll's house - Louis' firehose of literary and dramatic references create a biting meta-commentary on his story and his relationship.

🐝 Sweet, but a little crazy - Also there was that time Louis named his club after a poisonous flower whose honey gives you mad visions.

On Louis & Lestat...

Louis' shadow self - Or why Louis can't hate or reject Lestat even at his very worst.

He can say it - The number of times and ways Louis says "I love you," to audiences that can't or won't hear him.

Everyone's an editor - When the way you love is judged and misunderstood by others.

Honey, don't feed it, it will come back - How Louis can love and forgive terrible things, for good and ill.

This is not a vampire romance - How the show uses romantic tropes to misdirect the audience about which character to watch.

Dead letter drop - When conflict, not miscommunication, is the real problem.

I'm altering the deal - How Louis & Lestat negotiate the terms of a deal they never made.

From the books...

"This is all of transformation and mystery" - After Lestat's death, Louis has a psychological meltdown that includes symbolic visions, hallucinations, delirium states, and profound feelings of alienation.

"Much madness is divinest sense" - Scroll to the end here for a look at Louis' hallucinations/delirium/symbolic visions, which are easily triggered by artistic realism and impressionism - In Louis' world flowers grow from paintings and people can have an angelic glow,

The sketch - Comparing a bizarre scene from Interview (the book) with an similar scene from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (a book about a young black man's struggle with identity and dehumanizing racism in the 1950s) to illuminate IWTV-the-show's preoccupation with identity.

"It is like love" - Louis' describing his craving for gentleness and softness as love, and his related struggle with sensory and emotional overwhelm.

"Your lady love, your fancy" - Comparing book Louis' relationship with Babette to show Louis' relationship with Jonah.

The other mind - the different ways Louis and Lestat see attraction, intimacy and love - this also includes passages about Louis' "great feminine longing," which is the basis for a lot of gender analysis in the show.

Conclusions

Dream a little dream of me - Louis' different versions of reality, how they give him space to exist in a hostile world, and how that relates to the show's transgressive themes.

I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave - Taking another look at the external social forces shaping the plot, and why analysis of psychological or interpersonal conflicts can miss important context.

Mirror, mirror - How the Rue Royale townhouse and the Dubai penthouse are mirror versions of each other.

In case of emergency, break glass - In fact, the entire show is a hall of mirrors, including parallels, reflections, reversals, and distortions, and suggesting portals to alternate worlds of dreams, myth and magic. The story is a box built to contain itself -- and it's the mirror the vampire can't see himself in.