in the book, i think paul’s death , the frenieres and their connection via slavery are more important mortals to book louis than his sister or mother. they both remain unnamed figures, tertiary symbols for how immortality and time strip u away from the mortal sphere. we have kalyne’s acting and the show to thank for making her a complex character.
the show elevates the entire du lac family dynamic imo, paul’s one-dimensional fanaticism becomes a compelling sort of religious psychosis - a mad black man clinging to faith in a world that gave him very few other options. the ‘asylum in jackson’ at their time was a segregated facility that made their patients build the infrastructure themselves. the last sunrise book louis saw of his sleeping sister becomes the last sunrise show louis saw - his younger brother killing himself the morning after his sister’s wedding.
paul is also an introduction for the ‘roles louis (and paul, who is unable to) has to play’. unable to mask, paul propositions a lady of the night with the word of god. louis, who ‘did not want to draw a knife on [his] brother, but couldnt afford to look weak on liberty’, threatens paul. lestat is seduced not by the act alone, but the tempest in louis’s mind as he commits it. it is paul’s suicide that is the last time louis sees the sunrise, and grace + florence’s subsequent responses to it that drive louis in the drunken haze he was in before/while being turned. with the loss of paul, louis is the sole ‘aberration’ of their family while grace is the ‘good sister’ as kalyne coleman worded it.
grace’s arc in the show is rendered a fascinating parallel to louis’s. as pointed out in many gifsets + the like, grace is married proper while louis has a bloody vow of immortality in st. augustine’s. also grace, whos able to be properly married with children of her own, her expected role as a (cis) woman of her age, v. louis, whos rendered an immortal placee, who nearly eats his own nephew and weeps bc he cannot have ‘children of his own’ (unlike grace, is whats unsaid).
he desires to have a family to complete his companionship, and also to be in an ‘aberrant’ role for a man of his age. louis, in his adoption of claudia in the next episode, then brings her to the first time to his mother’s funeral, with a ‘family of his own’ to protect him from his mortal family’s dispute.
grace is also rendered a sort of babette here, as a mortal observer to louis’s immortality, who watches him be gradually removed from their day, and ends up parting with louis on vaguely similar notes - fear of the devil in louis.
but where babette was terrified of book louis (& lestat, though she gave no indication of knowing they were both there) bc of his oppressive hunting of the people in his capture, bc louis+ lestat were threatening her for a way to escape to new orleans; grace in the show was burying the memory of the brother she once had, lost to the abstract devil that is immortality. its a coda, a sequel of sorts to the confrontation at the du lac mansion in episode 3, where florence calls louis the devil. grace buries louis with him standing there. the makeup is dubious, but grace is meant to be older as indicated by her attire + dialogue (“prayed myself old thinkin bout u”). babette’s departure from the narrative segways claudia’s entry, but in the show, grace’s departure from the narrative marks a turning point for claudia and louis. claudia watching louis weep over his own grave makes her believe she was ‘made to be louis’s sister’, and louis losing his last mortal connection marks a turning point that opens him for further abuse that very episode ends on.
all of this is to say this is an extremely compelling depiction of siblinghood, and how love can be lost and/or estranged between family.
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