#the tale of the body thief
The biggest crime of the later books is how Anne Rice completely threw away what would’ve been far more profound for Louis (and of course, Claudia was dead) because of her rampant author’s pet blind spot. Ironically, Louis was her self-insert, while Lestat was her husband and Claudia was her dead daughter.
It’s like it never occurred to her that the “Human Nature” trope (see Clark in Superman II, Angel in Angel: the Series, Clark again in Smallville, the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who, Castiel in Supernatural, etc…) is so much more profound for the tragic inhuman character who actually desires most to be human, is at odds with their own species or wants to experience human belonging/family/love, rather than the one who would happily throw away that humanity they never really wanted (Lestat in The Tale of the Body Thief). Funnily enough, Brad Pitt’s Meet Joe Black is also this trope. Louis, not Lestat, is the character who belonged with this trope as it is in every other piece of fiction that uses it. Those medias understood it’s best used as a heartbreaking gut punch instead of a comedy romp. It’s something that hurts when it is cruelly snatched away or must be given up for the sake of a duty larger than oneself. The only Vampire Chronicles character who would prefer even more to be human than Louis because of the profound unhappiness in their physical form would be Claudia. It’s the thing they most have in common together.
Merrick was yet another time when these characters’ potential to continue on the center stage was woefully misused and under-realized in favor of endless new OCs and Lestat. Louis was written out of the starring role that put Anne Rice’s career on the map the second she and the fandom wrote him off as a liar, despite never being able to fully retcon out Lestat’s actions during Interview with the Vampire. There were certainly better uses for Claudia’s ghost than as a cruel manipulation that then never gets closure for her or Louis’ obviously continuing feelings for her. Given that he’s still not over her death more than a century later, it’s always the elephant in the room in regards to Louis in the present. It’s the storyline that keeps Louis frozen in time, unable to continue his own story beyond the 19th century except as a series of vignettes and observations by other characters. Merrick completely failed both Louis and Claudia. He’s as much of a ghost in the present story as she is.
Because of this, Louis’ story now will always be incomplete; a profoundly influential character used as little more than a prop in the background of other characters’ narration. And of course, Claudia’s tragedy was being incomplete from the start.
Characters like Angel and many copycats (not only vampire characters either–Russell T Davies has fully admitted Buffy and Angel’s influence on his Doctor Who revival and Torchwood spinoff, while the entire Fanged Four are Anne Rice’s archetypal lineup) would directly not exist without Louis. And yet, Angel got the center stage as the deeply-flawed inhuman protagonist with a “human soul” that Louis never got again. Louis is Anne Rice’s archetype (a massive influence on all inhuman creatures with human feelings ostracized from their own kinds, doomed to never belong to either world and the outsider looking in on a life they can never have) that has actually inspired more leads than Lestat ever did. Other media, in Interview with the Vampire’s image, knew that the flashier, funnier, cooler Lestat archetype (which was likewise influential, but rarely an initial lead) is instead an antagonistic, often villainous foil to a more serious, introspective character’s existential crisis and the greater philosophical and moral depth that this brings a story.
Anne Rice stumbled upon that when she wrote Interview with the Vampire, but seemingly didn’t understand it. Or perhaps it was easier for her to avoid her personal trauma by focusing instead on an object of fantasy and fancy.
Unfortunately, she denigrated Louis to make Lestat palatable as an antihero instead of a villain or even antivillain. He and his POV became inconvenient to the change in narrative and Lestat’s POV became rarely challenged, despite him being the more likely of the two to fit as the unreliable narrator with far more reasons to lie and make himself look better. His verifiable actions contradict lies like him only killing evildoers. Claudia being the most glaring refutation, but also the fact that Louis was targeted not because he was evil, but rather because he had wealth Lestat wanted. Louis was telling his story as a cautionary tale in which he wasn’t sugarcoating himself (quite the opposite–he’s the king of self-loathing) or anyone else, not a narcissistic ego trip disguised as a rebuttal.
The author’s retcon and fandom buying into the narrative of Louis as the unreliable narrator is a huge mistake and it goes a long way to explain the fall in quality of the later series. Louis should never have been consigned to the role of Antonio Salieri.
