“haha lestat is so motherrrr!! he’s so girlypop he needs his top!! louis come get yr bottom!! haha”

me, about to blow a gasket: “haha no uh actually that’s not right! actually that’s antithetical to the narrative haha… it’s totally fine for you guys to think that………. it’s just so deeply incorrect….haha….but that’s fine…”

as a solely show-interactor, what is the most important info someone would need to know going into season two if they wanted a little more background or understanding (or just, lore depth)? <33

Hey dear!

Soooo spoiler free?! :)

Lestat had his reasons to warn of the European vampires...

These vampires have history with each other

Not all of them will make it out alive

I will add a few more things under the cut, but beware that these are explicit spoilers. (I mean, since you are on my blog you probably read a few already^^, but... just in case.) I'm listing the spoilers here which will very likely come into play next season, since they were already hinted at/mentioned in season 1:

Not all vampires possess the "spark" after turning, there are those who do not quite make it, and who are little more than mindless monsters, they are called revenants in the books

Lestat and Armand have history. Lestat destroyed Armand's cult (The Children of Satan) back then, after his turning, more or less because he defied their rules. Armand got the theater from Lestat, who had been an actor there in his mortal life. Nicolas, who is Lestat's lover and second fledgling, goes mad after turning (he was depressed before, and he had been kidnapped and tortured by Armand and his cult) and is left in Armand's care. Armand later cuts off Nicolas' hands in an attempt to control him, and Nicolas goes into the fire.

Armand is Marius' fledgling. Marius is a 2000 year old vampire, who was also turned against his will. Marius and Armand were separated by the Children of Satan, and Armand was broken by them to join their cult, and ultimately became the leader of the Parisian coven.

Marius is a mentor for Lestat. Lestat seeks to find him after he leaves Paris (with Gabrielle, his turned mother(!), who is his first fledgling), and eventually finds him. Marius is also the keeper of "Those who must be kept", who are the first vampires, and must, as the designation says, be "kept" safe.

Marius extracts a promise from Lestat not to tell, or else, which is the main reason why he does not tell much while with Louis and Claudia.

Lestat goes to Armand for (promised) help, but instead Armand tortures him, forces him to testify against Claudia, and then throws him off a tower.

Armand (mind) controls Louis on several occasions, something Louis is aware of afterwards. Louis is also entombed while Claudia's execution happens, and he destroys the theater afterwards.

Armand conducts a medical experiment on Claudia and ultimately sends her out into the sun to burn, an event which is witnessed by Lestat and breaks him.

There are things in the cut-out/torn-out pages of the diaries which will in all likelihood come into play and will come with grave consequences.

Daniel is of bigger importance to Armand than might seem right now. He will become Armand's only fledgling.

Armand and Louis do love each other, despite Louis knowing Armand killed Claudia. Though there are long stretches of time where Louis is simply numb, or trying to numb himself, what we see in Dubai is likely after a series of other events.

These are the things that... might be most important, I guess. If anyone wants to add on, go ahead, but all the above things will come into play in some kind of fashion next season, as all the trailers/teaser/bts photos have shown.

The only thing might be that we will not yet see Gabrielle, and the details of Marius' and Lestat's relationship, but since they already mentioned "Those who must be kept"... :)

The theater is built on the "Grand Guignol" theater, a rather macabre theater indeed. Here is some more information.

There will be a very palpable shift in the tale now (there was in the book as well), and, no matter how they revisit (as they said) it's going to shift certain things. And Armand's POV of Lestat will be very interesting indeed.

The Queen of the Damned is a lesson in how NOT to write a book. Holy shit. I now know why the first book anyone really talks about.

Book 1 of the Vampire Chronicles (Interview with the Vampire) was well executed. It has several solid conflicts that carry through, decent themes, a somewhat morally gray but relatable main character, and a bit of the shock at the end. 9/10, would read again.

Book 2 (The Vampire Lestat) is...not even half as good. You can chalk it up to it being written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. There no real core conflict other than Lestat's flakey sense of morality that only comes up sometimes. Problems get resolved within pages of arriving. Even escaping from other vampires that wanted to kill Lestat (which he'd intentionally made himself a target for) was resolved as they were all killed by some "mysterious" force. 4/10, not worth revisting.

Then there's book 3. Oh boy.

The first half was decent if a bit tedious at times. It was more a collection of short stories of other characters experiencing the impact of Lestat's concert, often with telling their whole backstory first. Sometimes it was to introduce a character who would be involved later or was previously known. Like telling the fate of the guy who interviewed Louis. Then with how much detail was given to Jesse's story of how she came to be involved with this you'd think she would have had a bigger role in the final moments. But no.

On top of all the "wow Lestat's so cool" stuff, there was an added layer of all the vampires (except Lestat) experiencing weird dreams. Loosely telling the tale of two red haired twins from about 4000BC in the middle east who ate the bodies of their dead. Then were tortured and wandered through the desert and no connection to vampires was ever shown in the dreams.

The second half was mostly the telling of the story in detail of how Akasha came to be the first vampire. And explaining who the twins were. Sprinkled in were scenes between Lestat and Akasha as they slaughtered impoverished cities.

This story spanned two separate nights, and was framed as "We must all know the details of what happened so we can find a way to defeat Akasha without killing ourselves" because since she was the first vampire, anything done to her would be felt by all.

All through out the story we were reminded of how the twins were going to eat the brain and heart of their dead mother but were denied. And were reminded that the twin who was lost was coming, through "visions" they all had of what she was seeing.

Mind you, while they were all sitting around listening to this story, Akasha was heading for them and they believed she would kill them. And she could kill with a thought, burning them alive.

Well, it turns out, vampires exist because some sort of invisible entity that they called a "spirit" had fused with Akasha's body and soul. Specifically its core was in her heart. And passing this spirit's essence (aka the blood) to others is what made vampires.

After spending hundreds of pages telling this story, nearly half the book, Akasha finally shows up. And all they do is talk. She sits at the table and argues politics with them all, and throws a childish fit because they won't see things her way. And they just beg her to give them time to show her how good humanity really is. Rather, three of them try to reason with her. Most everyone who was supposedly there barely said a word and I kept forgetting how many people were supposed to be there.

Then at the last second, a mud-slathered mad woman charges in, kills Akasha, and eats (or absorbs?!) her brain and heart. And it's over. In like 3 pages.

The problem is this part was told from Lestat's perspective, and he was fading in and out of consciousness as Akasha died, so he only saw bits and pieces. Like Akasha was thrown into the window, and the next sentence her head was rolling across the floor. No mention of how it was removed.

This wouldn't have been SO bad, except for the fact that he kept mentioning these weird flashes of visions he'd had, or dreams. Something about two red haired twins eating a heart and a brain that he didn't understand. As if the whole tale had only been from his perspective. Only we'd been told the story in excruciating detail. Okay, sure. But Lestat hadn't been there for it, right? Well, the whole book is meant to be written by Lestat based on things he pulled from the minds of other people, so he could include events he wasn't present for. And still it was written as if he would never know the meaning of those visions.

But the worst writing crime committed was he had to say it out loud. Essentially "The heart and the brain! That's what it means! Eat her heart and brain!" And he even says "But everyone already knew that's what it meant." And we only see the act of removing and then somehow consuming the two organs in the briefest of glimpses. It's the worst version of telling and not showing that I've ever experienced in a professionally published work.

But it gets worse.

With how much detail was given to Jesse's story, and how much was put into ensuring she was there for this all, she wasn't important to it one bit. In the aftermath, Lestat even said that Jesse was the only one who remained conscious enough to witness the full events of killing Akasha. And not a single fucking detail was filled in from this perspective. Either switch perspectives or include something like "What I learned later from Jesse's mind was..." and then explain what happened.

It was like there was a handful of chapters that Anne Rice wanted to tack on to the end of the last book, but it would have been too long. So she decided to stretch them into a whole novel. It's almost all filler. And what story is there isn't even well done. It had potential, but that was tossed out the window in favor of tidbits like Lestat looking at his dick in the mirror in between genocide sessions.

If you're going to have something epic happen in your story, like two ancient women going head-to-head and the one who uses mind powers is bested by the raw physical power of the other, actually fucking SHOW it. Explain what's happening. Don't just cut to "her head lay on the floor, the back of her skull shattered, as Mekare was handed the brain" or whatever the line was. The last book went into detail in a scene about Akasha briefly waking and busting out of the ground to crush a man to nothing more than a quivering pulp just by walking all over him. But for something 100x more epic we get "and then she was dead."

-4000/10, I'd burn it if it weren't a digital copy.

And then there's what HZZ told me about what comes later. Involving aliens and fucking Atlantis. But especially the origin of that spirit that went into Akasha.

CLAUDIA DE LIONCOURT ~ AGE: 19 ~ OCCUPATION: STUDENT

IN A PAST LIFE: 

Claudia was a five-year-old street urchin who lost both of her parents to the plague. While she wept over her mother’s corpse, she was found by a vampire named Louis. Feeling sympathy for her, Louis fed on her blood in an attempt to end the child’s suffering, only to have his companion and fellow vampire Lestat transformed her into a vampire in order to bind Louis to him. She became like a “daughter” to both vampires, but as time went on, she started to mature psychologically while still being trapped in the body of a child for eternity. In addition, she was more of an indiscriminate killer than either of her father figures. She began to desperately want to physically mature into a fully grown woman, and the fact that this was impossible enraged and devastated her. As a result, she started to resent both of her fathers for making her a vampire. She hated Lestat especially for refusing to answer any of her questions about vampirism, and she finally snapped and attempted to kill him. While he survived, she and Louis managed to escape and travelled alone together for a time. They eventually found a theatre troupe made up entirely of vampires, but found themselves in terrible danger when the coven learned of the crimes they had committed against vampire law. Louis was spared due to Lestat’s intervention, but Claudia was executed by being trapped in a room where there was no escape from the sunlight. After her death, she wandered the earth as a ghost for a short while, before she was transported to the town of Chicanery.

HERE IN CHICANERY: 

Claudia spent her early life homeless and living on the streets with her mother, and they struggled to get by every day. One bitter winter when Claudia was fifteen, her mother passed away from exposure, leaving her on her own. Devastated and desperate, Claudia sought shelter and safety, and was taken in by a young man who showed her kindness and quite possibly saved her life. Upon discovering that she was an orphan, the young man convinced his mother to legally adopt Claudia, making them adoptive siblings. Ever since then, Claudia has lived a charmed and pampered life, and has more than she had ever had before. She was even accepted into the Chicanery community college, and when she moved to the small town of Chicanery to attend her classes, her new brother moved along with her; both to help provide for her and to escape from his stalker. Claudia is closer to her brother and their housemate than she is to her classmates, though deep down she does want to make friends and fit in. Though she’s very mature for her age, she does have a fiery temper. She has aspirations of one day becoming a famous model.

WHISPERS AROUND TOWN:

Claudia lives with her adoptive older brother Lestat de Lioncourt and his on-and-off boyfriend Louis de Pointe du Lac. She has a fairly standard sibling relationship with Lestat, both loving and hating him in equal measures. She feels indebted to him for saving her life, though she also envies him greatly for his successful acting career and his relationship with Louis. She has harboured a crush on Louis since she first met him, a fact that Louis is aware of but as yet she has not acted upon for fear that he would reject her. She is friendly with their neighbour Armand de Romanus, finding him both sexy and dangerous, and knows he has connections in the modelling world. She finds it difficult to interact with her classmates at school, though she admires Ginger Fitzgerald and Esther Klammer from afar. She also lives in the same neighbourhood as Katrina Van Tassel, whom she admires as well and wishes to befriend. 

THIS LOST SOUL IS OPEN

LOUIS DE POINTE DU LAC ~ AGE: 27 ~ OCCUPATION: MUSICIAN/WRITER

IN A PAST LIFE: 

Louis was a sad and lonely man who was suicidal, and often tried to incite fights in the hopes that someone would kill him. However, a vampire named Lestat came to him and offered him salvation in the form of being transformed into a vampire himself. Louis accepted, and the two of them travelled together for some time; eventually becoming lovers. Their relationship was not without its pitfalls, and Lestat ended up turning a little girl named Claudia into a vampire to be their “daughter,” in order to bind Louis to him. This backfired on him however, when Claudia became resentful of him and tried to kill him. Though Lestat survived, Louis and Claudia travelled together without him for a time, eventually encountering a troupe of vampires who ran their own theatre. However, when they learned of the crimes that Louis and Claudia had committed under vampire law, Claudia was executed, but Louis was spared due to Lestat’s intervention. The two of them reconciled, but parted ways all the same. Some time later, Louis told his story to a human journalist, but Lestat once again intervened to prevent the tape from reaching the public. Under uncertain circumstances, Louis was transported to the town of Chicanery.

HERE IN CHICANERY: 

Louis was born and raised in New Orleans, where he lived a fairly happy life up until the death of his brother, Paul. He died after the two brothers had a particularly nasty fight, and they never got a chance to reconcile with each other. As a result, Louis carries a sense of guilt with him, and went through a period of time in his life when he wanted to die. His mother grew concerned for his wellbeing as she noticed more and more self-destructive behaviour from her remaining son, and Louis was in and out of therapy for a while until he finished school. He moved to the small town of Chicanery hoping to start over, though he still attends therapy sessions. He co-rents a house on the more well-off side of town. He struggles to engage socially with anyone aside from his housemates, though his biggest coping mechanisms come through music and writing. He’s had a few pieces published anonymously in the town newspaper, and occasionally plays public gigs at notable town venues such as the Laughing Lamb diner and the town community centre. He is generally a very soft-spoken and melancholy man, though he has his dramatic tendencies and is deeply caring towards those he’s close to.

WHISPERS AROUND TOWN:

Louis lives with his roommate and on-and-off boyfriend Lestat de Lioncourt. Though their relationship has its ups and downs, they are as close as two people can be and are fiercely loyal to each other, even when they’re not officially a couple. Also living with them is Lestat’s adoptive younger sister Claudia de Lioncourt, whom Louis is very fond of. However, while he only sees her like a little sister himself, he’s picked up on Claudia’s bizarre attraction to him. To his surprise, his ex-boyfriend Armand de Romanus also lives in the same neighbourhood. They haven’t seen each other in years, but Louis is still friendly with him to prevent things from becoming awkward. He hasn’t yet told Lestat that he used to date Armand. He maintains contact with town journalists Harry Mason and Elsa Frances, as well as the notable online blogger Patrick Netvor. In addition, he’s acquainted with the other members of the town’s music scene, most notably Eric Draven and Michael Emerson, though he’s fairly friendly with Anita “Needy” Lesnicki and Jennifer Check as well. He attends regular therapy sessions with psychiatrist Nancy Thompson.

THIS LOST SOUL IS OPEN