#benni proof

It clarifies something that's always confused me about that scene, which is why Armand saves Daniel the first time. He wouldn't save Daniel as a person, he clearly knows Daniel needs to die, but he's not seeing Daniel as a person there. Daniel is just a substance. He rips him away from Louis to stop him from using.

And i think that adds a whole other layer to the fight he and Armand have to think that this is Louis on a bender, with Armand cleaning up after him because he's not stable enough to. Louis in the bed for a week isn't just healing from the burns, he's going through withdrawal. Him at the table with Daniel giving him the "bright young reporter" speech is probably the first time he's been sober in months.

A) Armand is old but not insanely old for a vampire. He doesn't count as an "ancient" and there's a whole class of vampire that's way older than him. His maker is literally four times older than him.

However because they're both so damn stubborn this would result in their first ever couple fight post-turning which inevitably becomes extremely personal extremely quickly (should Rachael get to live forever with Deckard? Is her life beautiful BECAUSE its short? Does Deckard's love for her mean more if he's turning his back on his long-lived brethren to embrace the ephemerality of her existence?) and results in several pieces of furniture being destroyed. After this Armand has a blu ray of the final cut overnighted bc neither of them have ever seen it (even tho its available digitally) and they have a seven hour long conversation about whether Deckard is a replicant and what it would mean if he was which at some point turns into makeup sex but never stops also being a philosophical discussion of the themes of timeless Ridley Scott classic Blade Runner.

But like Armand is someone who has for his entire life been another person's possession, who has defined himself as a person that people Have instead of Love. And what the Queen of the Damned chapter shows is Daniel Molloy as someone who Armand wanted to possess and who wanted to be possessed by Armand. Armand has never owned anything in his entire 500 year life and so he NEEDS to own Daniel, he needs to have just this ONE THING to himself after all this time. And Daniel for his part is very into being so consumed by another person. For a time, Daniel is exactly what Armand needs. Here is a person who cannot hurt him, who wants to belong to him, who he can finally assert authority over and in doing so assert his own independence. Nobody in Armand's life has ever been truly HIS in the way that Daniel is.

But the longer theyre together the less urgent the need to possess and control is, and the more Armand is able to love Daniel selflessly, the more they come into conflict because Daniel still WANTS that level of obsession. Their breakup in the books is inevitable because their relationship was built on impulses that, while important stages in their growth, over time became unhealthy. Daniel needs to get out of his cycle of addiction and Armand needs to grow past needing to possess people to believing they'll stay of their own free will. So they need to break up.

BUT unlike in the books where Armand's resolve ultimately fails him and he turns Daniel anyways, cementing the both of them into both of their unhealthiest habits, show Armand manages to work through his issues to the next stage of his growth: that he needs to let Daniel go. And he does! He lets Daniel go and he bears the burden of their relationship alone for 50 years so that Daniel could not only have a human life but also develop as a person in a way he never could have if he stayed with Armand. Show Daniel is a different man from 70s/book Daniel. He knows who he is. Even though he's falling back into old patterns now that he's a vampire he's still been through this cycle a few times and hes stronger now than he would have been if he was turned when he was 30.

Armand Interviewwiththevampire is autistic obviously in the very direct dsm v way what with the blenders but Armand is also like. Thematically autistic. Like you know how monsters are always a metaphor for something? The werewolf story is a story about puberty, or transness, etc etc. Armand's vampirism is about autism.

Like what if there was something wrong with you. What if there was something wrong with you that threatened the very fabric of reality for most people. What if your existence somehow challenged every social norm and rule and convention and you couldn't turn it off. What if everywhere you went everyone could see that there was something wrong with you and this being seen was your death because everyone knows what people do with things that are different.

So you pretend - right, you have to pretend. Only the thing that is wrong with you lives in every fiber of your body and every movement your body makes or doesn't make and everyone knows anyways. Everyone knows about the thing that is wrong with you because you are a bad actor (this, in some ways, is a direct result of The Thing That Is Wrong With You) and so you walk around with your shoddy mask and your bad lies and everyone turns up their nose but that doesnt mean you get to stop pretending, no, because you need to want them to like you. They will never like you but you need to want it, you need to want it like a dog. So you stand in the corner and you blink the right amount of times and you wear the thing somebody said once might be the right thing and it eats you up inside but you never get to drop the mask even for a second because THATS the monster, the monster is the thing that lives in your heart, its not the thing they've turned you into. Your rage, your sadness, your pain, your JOY is their monster and who even fucking cares if you can see yourself in the fucking mirror anymore.