Ok So.

ok so.

1976. anne rice publishes interview with the vampire, a meditative novel she used as a way to understand and articulate her grief over the death of her five year old daughter. lestat is the fun antagonist (but really there isn’t a clear villain.) louis is anne’s grief projection of herself. armand is the wise but ultimately selfish second romantic interest. subtext that louis is in love with lestat, but it’s very much hidden beneath grief, as all his emotions are. this was intended to be a standalone novel.

1985. anne has thought about lestat for a decade and decides to make him the protagonist. she doesn’t like louis anymore (you could probably write a psychological essay on why.) lestat loves louis though! actually, lestat loves everyone! lestat is great in fact. and armand is fucking insane and tragic, and louis has always loved lestat and now they’re in massive massive love. and they will be forever, despite breakups and anne going back to the church and all the other crazy shit that happens for 30 years.

so they’re making a movie! except this movie is only interview with the vampire, and it isn’t really incorporating much or any of the rest of the series. lestat is his shallow antagonist self, louis is miserable, armand is old and wise. it’s the original vision of interview, without the 180 in characterization anne does. they don’t make the vampire lestat. they make queen of the damned but it sucks so oh well.

so amc is making a tv show! and they want it to be the ENTIRE SERIES. they WANT to put back in the fun loving and ultimately humanistic lestat that anne developed in the sequel onwards, the louis that deeply loves him, hopefully the armand that’s so complex and messed up. but the thing is, anne didn’t write those characters and relationships initially. she essentially retconned them, for the better. so in order to adapt ALL the books, necessary changes need to be made. lestat needs to be more layered, more lovable. louis needs to be more conflicted in the romance. there needs to be a CLEAR EXPLICIT INITIAL ROMANCE. they need to believably get to their dancing, living in a castle endgame. and the whiplash of the books just won’t translate to television.

so that’s the explanation of the change in loustat’s relationship from the book to the show. there’s reason for the other changes as well, but people have discussed that at length and no one’s discussed this so i thought i’d try and help people understand who may not know any of it.