"You were sold into what you were sold into. I saw that a lot running the houses I ran. We didn't really talk about it..."
Armand: " Arun, I cannot be SURE, the abuse at the brothel was such he cannot be SURE that's what his parents named him." Armand in this same ep says he wants Louis more than anything in the world. Louis in response : “You SURE about that, Arun?" Armand, stops smiling: "yes, Maitre (master)". Armand in this episode, put the Stein photos in the pile to fuck with Louis' head and ask him : "You SURE about that?" The same episode a photographer looked at Louis' photo of Armand and said Armand was fragile. YEAH ... when people say the role play was consensual , I'm like yeah , but 'dubious consent' is a thing too. Armand at the very least had subconscious resentment for the whole thing.
"Who am I Louis? Am I the past I've endured? I do not know anymore". Louis AFTER hearing this, then instigates the arun- role play. Louis the very next episode: "I'm the vampire Armand and my daddy groomed me into a little bitch." .
Armand: "Louis' tri-annual, fuck off ... with apologies to follow." Louis laughing back sarcastically: "I'm sorry". Armand (after Louis flung himself into the sun): "you said the worst things you ever said to me". Louis : "so-sorr- sorry". Armand: "meaningless word." Because Louis before the sorry said he didn't remember their verbal argument before he went into the sun. Louis: "Arun, you need a love that will cradle you. you should have that .And I was never that for you. And I'm sorry.
Louis (inadvertently or not ) even got a doppleganger of the white washed Amadeo from the painting , and said he was superior to Armand. Louis literally found a guy who looked like Amadeo, was the same age as him in the painting, and even did sex work. Armand psychologically snapped trying to figure out how he could be more like Daniel (aka the white washed Amadeo, since Louis was picking at an old racialized wound ). Louis also said: “Tell the boy your story. I'm Armand and my daddy vampire groomed into a little bitch." Cause Armand didn't technically tell his story to Louis. He told the boy in the painting (because Armands’ back was to Louis as he faced Amadeo ) . After Louis’ comment , Armand almost tells Daniel (Amadeo) his story . So Armand decided to use a doppleganger to also psychologically mess with Louis' psyche in the same way Louis did to him.
Armand wanted an apology for how Louis instigated his age-regression via 'arun' ( and introduced the master/pimp-slave dynamic). Armand shared his past because he wanted empathy from Louis. Armand dealt with the brothels, then his own vampiric lover Marius became his literal master who pimp-ed him out . He didn't want to role-play that dynamic with Louis because it traumatized him. Louis was lashing out at Armand for his sa: because Armand's human past was a constant subconscious reminder of Louis "sins" in his human life.
Armand to Louis in s3 : "I think I'm a room without walls , floors, or ceiling an infinite nothing." Armand laughing at Louis' life philosophy in the 40s: "Evil is just a perilous gulf one falls into after the FIRST SIN? Only one sin is needed? That's your argument?" Louis: "kind of... it's dark and it's empty and I can't see the bottom of it. Armand in the 70s: "My FIRST memory I was being rundown by slavers , my second... a black hole. " Armand post-paris adopted Louis' bleak philosophy, but his initial rebuttal in paris to Louis was :" Aren't there gradations to evil... surely there are degrees and variations to goodness?" Louis in s3 admits Armand's life philosophy was a better philosophy to live by. There's variations/gradients to good and evil in every person. Louis : " I didn't want to look at my own sins... You have reason to be dark-sided... but I did see good in you." Armand then immediately heals Regina's wounds and lets her go -then gets Rashid to reattach Louis' head.
I wish the 2 could have sincerely apologized to each other (and in a way where Louis didn't have to lose his head). The writers may have been trying to show that even when someone like Armand is doing truly "evil " acts (and feeling trapped in the dark hole) he can choose to do "good" and get out of it . I just wish it was executed more sensitively. But the symbolism in the apology, was poetic, none the less.
