🍓StrawberryCake🍓

[day 30 of being an armand enjoyer]: and so his extensive trauma manifests in a long-repeating pattern of learned helplessness, wherein his subconscious renders him unable to exert his agency despite him objectively being the most powerful being around. in this essay i will-

I’m really not sure. Perhaps they wanted to avoid the whole Lestat knew Armand was SA’d and groomed by this guy and he sings his praises anyway thing, or they want to tackle it with more nuance in a later season where Marius is more of a character and we actually get to see him interact with Armand in present day, like in QotD. What better way to reveal the truth than to show us how Armand reacts to learning he’s alive? The budget really forced them to prioritise other scenes but frankly I do not want to see Armand and Marius to be filtered through Lestat’s delusions anyway. Not the very first time we find out what Marius really did.

Maybe Lestat doesn’t know Armand’s history with Marius at all. He might have the bullet points but considering Louis is taking a far more central role in Armand’s life compared to the books, maybe he’s the one who knows everything and Lestat hasn’t really found out yet. The way Lestat speaks about the great laws and puts so much blame on Armand with everything regarding the cult really suggests to me he doesn’t know about the torture, or at least how horrendous it really was. Perhaps the same is true of Marius.

(Side note: does the obvious love Daniel subconsciously has for Armand that came through in his book extend to Armand telling Louis about his past? Did Daniel leave it out of the book to protect him or did he lay it on thick to drive the point home? That would mean Lestat either doesn’t know about it at all, if Armand never told him anything in the past, or he has been trivialising Armand’s trauma because the evidently flattering portrayal of Armand in the rest of the book pissed him off and caused him to disregard it, even unconsciously.)

If Lestat does know, it could be a further extension of how in denial he is about everything regarding Armand. He pushes down that they were boyfriends because he feels guilt about everything with Nicki. Not just the cheating but turning him in the first place and causing his eventual unravelling. Perhaps he’s also pushing down his real view of Marius and their history together because he feels guilt about Armand. Maybe he’s pushing the responsibility onto Gabriella so he doesn’t need to face it, much like he’s pushing complete responsibility for the trial onto Armand despite them both being involved. It doesn’t make much sense for Gabriella to be fixated on Marius only for her to just vanish and make no further attempt to find him.

But the Marius/Lestat relationship is too significant for that to be all there is to it. Maybe Lestat won’t worship him quite as much as he does in the books, but there’s got to be so much more there.

I do think it has to come back to Armand though. The show hadn’t even brought up Marius grooming Armand yet, not directly enough for the general audience to understand that the guy is a literal pedophile at least. We know about the donations, sure, but you can argue that’s passive. It’s apathy. Still abusive and horrific, but it isn’t the active involvement in Armand’s sexual abuse that we know to be canon. Not only did this monster facilitate the serial rape of a child who had already endured that same type of abuse for three years straight at the brothel he “saved” him from, he was one of the most egregious assailants and on top of it, he psychologically abused him and beat him. He is why Armand cannot have normal relationships. We see the abuse every time we see Armand try and fail to hold onto a companion. We can trace the failure of Loumand all the way back to Venice.

Akasha is about as mystical as it gets. She’s this near god-like being. It’s very easy to romanticise her when she’s so ethereal and otherworldly. But Marius is a monster in the most human way there is. His brand of cruelty could only be invented by humanity, and Lestat knows a thing or two about being brutally assaulted by your maker. Armand might’ve romanticised Marius in his book, but the events he described were violent. Hard to get your listeners on board with your story if you lead with that. Hard to live with yourself when you know this is the true nature of someone you look up to. How do you reconcile the real love you have for the victim with the respect you have for their abuser?

Or maybe no one knows at all, not even Louis. Louis brought up the trafficking and the brothel, but maybe Armand hasn’t told anyone about the reality of Marius. This is an older Armand. I expect age has allowed him to learn to feel shame. Completely misplaced shame, but shame all the same, especially with the celibacy forced onto him by the cult. Maybe Armand kept the grooming all to himself because he knows something was wrong but he’s embarrassed to admit to it. He’s got to be so confused. He’s being pulled in five different directions at all times.

But Lestat very well may just feel ashamed, either he because he didn’t know the full truth at the time, or his denial about his own abuse would not allow him to take it seriously. He speaks to us in season 3 as someone who has come to terms with the fact his mother was abusing him and that he was raped by Magnus. He presents Gabriella to us as visibly feminine and utterly callous. I think he’s making sense of her by framing her as equal parts womanly and malicious. She takes a form he can understand or live with. I think similarly, Armand and Marius are both being filtered but this time because Lestat is in denial. Marius, to him at the time at least, was stern and a little quirky but ultimately harmless. A wise teacher suffering from cabin fever. So terribly human. They barely knew each other. Whereas Armand is soulless almost the entire season and Lestat knows him as intimately as it gets. Dehumanise the person you have to convince yourself you don’t care about and humanise the person who is far more of a monster. There’s a warped logic there but I do follow it. Push Armand away so much that you end up sanitising perhaps the biggest monster of the entire series as a result, but still keep distance between yourself and the monster.

They are people who got a role.

I don't care if you don't like them as these characters. I don't care if you don't like the characters themselves.

Let's be better than that.

she was loved and in love

im challenging myself to draw way faster and use big brushes to practice focusing on the structure and light instead of relying so much on detail brushes when I do portraits and it was fun

Assad Zaman on set with his favorite sweater.

What does it tell us about Lestat's perception of Louis and their relationship?

Because yes, Lestat's Louis is more self-assured and nicer to himself. But he is also emotionally distant and utterly alone.

He is completely isolated. He and Daniel are not friends anymore. And the only two people he has ever loved (apart from Lestat) hate his guts.

He doesn't have anyone left other than Lestat. And it is extremely in character for Lestat to think he is the only one who loves Louis. And that said love should be enough for him.

This is exactly what happens in s01. Lestat is so focused on himself that he fails to realise that his love is not enough for Louis. And his reaction? Isolation, cheating, and emotional and physical abuse.

And it's the same in s3; just in his narrative, he is not the abuser. No, that's Armand, Claudia and Daniel's roles. He is the hero. The only one who truly loves Louis, who knows how to love him and has forgiven him for his mistakes.

Armand and Claudia are the vessels of Lestat's own resentment towards Louis. Claudia's vitriolic words are Lestat's. Armand's irrationally violent behaviour is Lestat's. They are his mirrors. They are telling Louis and the audience what Lestat wanted to say but couldn't because he is a coward. He was a coward during their relationship, during the trial, and after. And he is also cruel.

Manipulation and punishment. This is how his mother taught him to love. And he is enacting it over and over with Louis. Lestat cannot yet perceive his mother as a monster because that would mean facing his own monstrosity. He won't do that.