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sofipitch · 1 year

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Interview with the Vampire first draft trivia

I've been meaning to make this post for a while now so I'm doing it. The Vampire Companion is a reference book for the Vampire Chronicles made in collaboration with Anne Rice. It is basically the VC wiki in book form from the 90s but with analysis of lots of themes and symbolism (there's entries for literally anything got even a passing mention in the series, and example of entries on one page chose at random are " adventure, Aegean sea, aesthetic choice" with multiple paragraphs each I shit you not like the "Aegean sea" entry explains it is basically just mentioned in passing it is COMPREHENSIVE. It also famously has an entry for penis/phallus (none for vagina or vulva tho booo). This book features a lot of analysis of VC and it's themes and it is legit some of the worst analysis I've ever seen. A lot of it is in the Freudian mindset/style which *Kubrick stares in psychology student*. It also just reflects a lot of the opinions Anne Rice had about her characters she had in the 90s, the entry on Louis really shows she hates him.

HOWEVER The Vampire Companion has one really cool feature and that is that it mentions things that were in the first draft of IWTV which was later removed. I love this kind of trivia, I love reading the IMDB trivia for these kinds of facts, so I'm collecting them all here in this post:

Lestat was supposed to die in the fire at Rue Royale. When he comes back from the swamp it was originally his last appearance and even then when they meet the Nosferatu/zombie-like vampires of Eastern Europe Louis concludes that the murder attempt left Lestat like those vampires, literally an animated corpse when he came back from the swamp and to Louis, whether Lestat survived the fire or not, Lestat is dead

Lestat's original backstory in IWTV is that Lestat was a poet as a boy. I'm just transcribing this part bc I love it so much: "....it was his poetry full of dreams and longings, that endeared Louis to him. When Louis tries to get Lestat to talk about his poetry, Lestat curtly dismisses it, as if he views it as an idealistic boy's worthless fancies." T_T I think about this part a lot and I kind of wish this part had not been removed but given that Lestat was originally based on Anne's husband Stan who was a poet, she probably removed it for personal reasons.

Rice had originally planned for Louis's tone in IWTV to be similar to that of Oscar Wilde but it changed when she changed from the POV of Daniel (1st draft) to Louis (final version). As annoying as the constant quotation marks are in IWTV, I think nonstop "the vampire said___" would have been worse

The reporter says that Louis looks to be around 35 instead of the final 25

When in Paris Louis and Claudia both accidently run into a random vampire and he runs away scared, Louis and Claudia then make themselves more obvious as vampires to attract the others to them

One evening they come home and a whole bunch of vampires are in their flat, and they take them to a rotting mansion with older human servants who are hoping to be turned into vampires. There they finally meet Armand

The vampires then get together in a room and recite Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal" and then a blonde woman is brought in, begging for her life, and she is passed around as they drink from her. Louis is horrified but drinks from her, and then Armand takes Louis to his bedroom where a woman is asleep on the bed and Louis crawls into the bed and drinks from her, killing her in her sleep

The group of vampires have more strict rules than the theater ones seem to described as loving conformity, abhor wasted opportunities, and constantly provoking each other into dares and challenges (vampire Jackass). Louis doesn't like the vampires but Claudia joins them, dressing in all black, dies her hair white, and befriends 3 brothers and has fun tormenting priests

In the original version of IWTV Claudia goes off with three vampire brothers she meets in Paris and does not die (I think Claudia leaving and meeting Bruce in the AMC show might have been an allusion to this). However AR claims she experienced "psychological difficulties" (the book's phrasing not mine) until she rewrote the ending where Claudia dies. Having Louis grieve Claudia was cathartic for her

When the vampires learn that Claudia killed Lestat they think his death was just and no punishment is required XD

Louis finally leaves not fitting in and Armand chases after him, asking why he left and then leaves the others for Louis. He also tells Louis his backstory (which is never revealed in IWTV)

In the original draft of IWTV Claudia is described as 3 or 4 instead of 5

Anne Rice did not originally realize that Claudia, the 5 year old who can never die, was a projection of her own desire for her daughter who died at 5. She originally saw Claudia as a way to talk about how women can be infantilized or considered inferior to men, by making the way women can be treated (not intelligent, not strong, not rational) physical in the form of a child

AR did use Michelle's (her daughter's) physical appearance, blond hair and blue eyes for describing Claudia, but again, denies that she was aware of a deeper significance at the time, but says it made a lot of sense later. However Claudia's personality is not based on Michelle (which makes sense bc we mostly see an adult Claudia in the book and movie and Michelle died at 5)

AR originally planned for Armand to be a central figure and villain in Queen of the Damned but decided he wasn't evil enough (I think this is cute)

Armand was completely different. He is described as innocent and angelic and in his twenties (However the final version of IWTV simply describes him as young, being 17 was added later and I personally always see him as early 20s bc of how I pictured him reading IWTV)

Armand was originally only from Venice, not Kiev, son of a guilder and later living with his maker for over a century (similar to what we learn in TVL and TVA but not nearly as dark, no sex trafficking or pedophilia)

Louis and Armand originally genuinely have a good relationship, traveling the world together after leaving Paris, and at one point Louis convinces him finally that vampires are inherently evil, he offers to go into the sun with Louis T_T However Louis cannot bring himself to do that so he adopts Armand's morals

Armand shows Louis a way to humanely kill and drink, by identifying "Those Who Want To Die" and Louis describes going to a cemetery and finding the mother of a child who had passed doesn't want to live anymore and Armand gently kills her. However Louis decides he simply likes it better when is victims fight back

The original ending of IWTV is Louis mentions that he hates going back to New Orleans because it was where he met his mortal love, but he never elaborates on who this was. (??? Anne???) As the interview ends around there Daniel notices the sun coming up and starts backing out of the room while Louis keeps talking because he was still afraid of Louis eating him. XD Louis finally realizes what was going on when Daniel makes it all the way to his car XD and is angry with him and asks for the tapes back. Armand arrives and says Daniel should have the tapes, that what Louis really wants is the tale to be public. Louis and Armand get in a cab and ride off into the night together (I also wonder if the end of s1 being Louis and Armand holding hands in front of Daniel is an allusion to this)

AR also points out that the book has large tonal differences, she wondered if it was an issue but then decided she liked it, saying Louis is a cynical cold person who warms up and then grows cold again throughout the novel. This character arc was never intentional though

Anne Rice says two main inspirations for IWTV are Richard Matheson's "Dress of White Silk" which is from the POV of a child vampire, and the movie "Dracula's Daughter" which had a tragic and sensual vampire.

The original IWTV short story (which you can still read) is very different, the vampire is not like Louis but based on Oscar Wilde, she intended the tone to be ironic and witty. The vampire enjoys killing and tells the reporter that, and like in the books says "the room the interview is in is just a room" but at the end reveals he is waiting for the occupant to come home so he can kill him, and the reporter runs away frightened. Lestat does not really exist other than as a nameless maker and Claudia and Armand also do not exist

The Vampire Companion does not really have "first draft" comments on any of the other books (only the first 4 had been out when it was published). I imagine it is because an author's first book is usually subjected to more edits and rewrites while they are struggling to get it published, but once the foot is in the door you don't have to do that as much (and AR took this a step further with firing her editor after becoming a NYT bestseller!).

However there were a few things about characters who appear later which I found interesting:

In the Daniel entry she says she wanted to explore Armand and Daniel's relationship more in future books, which we know she never does :(

Gabrielle was deliberately based on AR's own mother. Her mother was a feminist activist, often making AR feel like her mother paid more attention to her activism than to her, which mirrors Lestat wishing Gabrielle would teach him to read so he can enjoy the escapism. However both Gabrielle and AR's mother were unhappy in their domestic motherly roles, which is reflected in Gabrielle. AR's mother was also an alcoholic and died when AR was young of complications due to alcoholism. AR deliberately wrote Lestat saving his mother from death by making her a vampire, and Gabrielle being freed from the expectations of her gender as a wish she could have done the same with her mother T_T

David is also meant to be her father, he was dying due to some heart disease at the time she wrote TOTBT (he was not actually dead yet but I think was by the time she published or shortly after) and David is described as dying due to similar causes. So she wrote once again one of her parents not dying but becoming immortal. TOTBT is also much darker compared to TVL and QOTD, the previous two Lestat narrated books, and her grief helps explain why (but also "AR pls go to therapy" challenge)

I also find this excerpt on Anne Rice projecting onto Lestat interesting bc this is VERY similar to what Gabrielle says to Lestat: "As a writer I put myself into Lestat much more deeply than I had put myself into Louis because I was dealing with aggression in Lestat, and dealing with my own repressions. Lestat was my male hero who could do what I couldn't. I wanted to get out of the mindset of the passive grieving person [from when she was writing IWTV]." :/

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