You talk as if I've already lost

How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? 👁️

It'll Be Worth It

LOOK WHO I FOUND

Tumbleton - House of the Dragon 03.04

....or?

It mostly just comes as an extension of loving Armand for me, because Marius and their relationship is so foundational to so much of who Armand is.

The thing about Marius and the thing about marimand is that it's so fucked up and so horrific, because Amadeo was an allegedly 15 year old sex trafficking victim who Marius then went on to groom and sexually abuse even further, but it's also the safest and most loved Armand has ever been in his life. That's the thing that fucked Armand up. It's not the trauma itself, Armand had plenty of that already, it's the fact that he can never separate this particular trauma from happiness and safety. He loved Marius more than he's ever loved anybody, and more crucially Marius loved him more than anybody else has ever loved him. Marius is his saviour, Marius is his teacher, Marius is the one who saw him and chose him, Marius is the one who believed he could be saved. And then Marius is taken from him and it's literally the worst thing that has ever happened to him from his perspective, and now he has to believe that Marius is dead because the alternative is that he gave up on him.

IT'S JUST SO JUICY. Like even if you hate Marius with the passion of a thousand suns, Armand never will, because Marius is the one spark of good a lifetime of darkness. That is the biggest tragedy of Armand. So much of his relationship with Marius was abuse, but even if he realised that (and I get the feeling that the show version of Armand does, to an extent) he can never confront it head on because if he does then he has nothing left to hold on to.

Then there's Marius himself who does love Armand. Or at least he did love Amadeo. He wanted to save him, but he just completely misunderstands (or actively ignores) what Amadeo actually needed. He was so preoccupied with creating a perfect companion that he never really saw Amadeo at all, and centuries later Armand is still feeling the repurcussions of that.