Hi. I really love hearing all your takes. I was reading one of the asks. And it mentioned the transference of lesmand and Loumand and how it impacted lestat and Nicki. Can you elaborate on that and would you be able talk about Nicki’s impact on Lestat? I would love to read what you think about it all because I do believe Lestat loved Nicki very much. Thank you
Hey!
In (very!) short, Armand was canonically obsessed with Lestat. When Lestat was a newborn vampire in Paris, Armand stalked him and kidnapped Nicki to, essentially, try to make Lestat follow the old laws that had been established under the children of satan cult. Lestat, of course, refuses and upends the coven hierarchies and destroys it by showing them that they don't have to live like neglected and deprived phantoms under the tombs in darkness and be governed by archaic bullshit.
As a result, Armand had it in for Lestat. He continued to stalk Lestat, kept spellbinding him, tried to convince him to kill Gabrielle and Nicki and to be his companion. Lestat refuses. This culminates in Armand spellbinding Lestat again and raping him. Lestat, as a result, beats the shit out of Armand and leaves him the theater in Paris. Nicki and Armand were the true founders of the Théâtre des Vampires. It was not Lestat. He actually hated the idea.
The (blood) rape ^^ is why Lestat never becomes a lover or a companion with Armand.
When the trial happens, Armand keeps Lestat as a prisoner, he tortures him into a confession, he starves him, and he mind-fucks him into participating and testifying against Claudia. In the aftermath, he basically tells Lestat that he did all that because Lestat wouldn't love him, and he pushes Lestat off a tower. (Fans have been wanting this showdown since S2, but I digress.)
What you saw in Episode 7 between Armand and Louis is, canonically, what should've been happening between Armand and Lestat. Instead, the show has seemingly transferred that canon obsession to Louis and has framed Armand's relationship with Lestat as "consensual" and as if Lestat was "cheating" on Nicki with Armand.
They've seemingly erased the entire heart of the real dynamic between Lestat and Armand by framing them as "petty exes" instead of including the major WHY they were never in a relationship in the first place — the rape.
How does that impact Nicki? As I said, it frames Lestat as "cheating" on Nicki. It frames Lestat as being in cahoots with Armand to, essentially, murder Nicki instead of the canon way Nicki actually died — suicide — and the suicide was after Armand had tortured Nicki and cut off his hands due to Nicki's madness and Armand not knowing how to handle it.
They've cheapened Lestat's relationship with Nicki into it just being a mistake Lestat made and one he "fixed" by basically killing the problem. They've written it as Nicki loving Lestat more than Lestat loved him and, canonically speaking, the opposite was true. Lestat loved him. Nicki? Some believe he loved Lestat, too, but I don't hold that opinion given the climax of their pairing was Nicki going on a tirade and telling Lestat that he always hated him, had always been jealous of him, and actively wanted him to fail and die in the gutters of Paris. It was a very formative experience for Lestat and one he carried with him for an entirely different reason than what they've done in the show. In the show, they've softened Nicki's character, made him much more sympathetic, and framed Lestat as the "bad" partner who drove Nicki to his demise when the entire point of that in the book canon was that Lestat was not the "bad" partner and what happened with Nicki actually was not his fault, because Nicki was determined to destroy himself but merely used Lestat as the scapegoat. As I said, all of that has been softened and cheapened.
And going back to Armand, like I said, they've made it seem as if Lestat was just off carelessly fucking and frolicking with Armand while Nicki mentally spiraled when that NEVER would've happened in the books because one, Lestat loved Nicki and two, Armand raped Lestat and therefore, that ruined any hope of them having an actual relationship.
That history between Lestat and Armand has been erased, canon Nickistat is the casualty of that erasure, and the canon "why wouldn't you love me?!?!" torturing meltdown that Armand has on Lestat has now been inexplicably given to Louis and therefore, we're asked to pretend the Loumand dynamic in S2 wasn't what it was, because now we're meant to believe Louis and Armand never addressed the Maître/Arun role-play when that was the entire premise of their pairing and one they routinely implemented to have the upper-hand on each other in their scheming. We're meant to think Armand actually gave a shit about that pairing when, book canonically, he did not and states (in the show!) that he never loved Louis and wanted him dead in Paris for the aesthetic of it all. Therefore, this effectively erases a key canon trait between Louis and Armand — Armand was always the only other being (besides Lestat) who loved Louis and would keep Louis safe.
Louis is not safe with Armand, and that is ON TOP OF the horrific choice to make Louis "apologize" to Armand when the show made the point that Armand had been Louis' actual abuser for decades and killed his daughter. (This isn't even going into the fact the writers continue to dance around the trial elephant in the room and cannot commit to a clear answer of what actually happened and how actively involved Lestat actually was but again, I digress. Fans have been waiting two years for an answer and now, with the way they've left it yet again, they'll be waiting another two years for a total of four years of the festering implication that Lestat actively participated and wanted Claudia dead, and a clarification on that isn't even guaranteed anymore given what they've seemingly done with Armand and Lestat + Nicki being apparently murdered by them. ^^)
So yeah, that's the general gist of it. It's like the writers have an aversion to making Armand culpable in anything he canonically did, and that is causing huge problems for the other characters and for their canon arcs.
