#iwtv thoughts

In the Louvre, Armand says that his parents sold him into slavery to a ship captain, but they lied and said he would be an employee. Then, in the 70s flashback, he tells Daniel that the slavers ran him down. Obviously very different.

I remember reading a fic where the author noted how the show was inaccurate because there are no maritime trade routes directly from Delhi to... anywhere. The Yamuna river goes to the Bay of Bengal anyway (opposite direction of Venice). So it makes zero sense for his parents to have sold him (or found him employment) to a merchant ship. It would have been more likely for him to be sold to a land-based merchant caravan that passed through Delhi.

I'm realizing that this inaccuracy is NOT an accident. It would have been SO easy for the writers to find out there was no major water trade out of Delhi. They could have easily made Armand from anywhere along the west coast of India, like Mumbai (Bombay back then) would have been just as recognizable to global viewers as Delhi, if they were worried about that. Instead, I think they purposefully add this inconsistency to point out the flaws in Armand's story.

Also, in the Louvre, Armand calls Marius "merciful," but then Louis calls him a "groomer" in the 70s, which Armand doesn't refute. Louis also makes a reference to Armand cutting off Nicolas's hands during the argument, which implies that they may have spoken extensively about Armand's past post-trial.

Maybe during these conversations, Armand came to the conclusion that his memories had been tampered with. He wouldn't just have a flawed recollection of being sold to a ship captain if he was actually from Delhi. But you know who wouldn't know anything about trade in South Asia? Marius. I think that he tampered with Armand's memories so that he wouldn't want to return home. Hence where he got the memory of his parents selling him.

I do think that Armand would've travelled by boat, but he would've had to first make the long journey to Bharuch (then Barygaza) over land. Which is a long ass trip for his parents to arrange for "employment."

(I'm sure other people have had the whole "Marius fucked with his memories" theory, but thinking about Armand being sold to a ship captain when he lived in a landlocked area really cements the idea to me.)

Ooo I wanna know how Armand realizes this so bad! And I want Marius's lying ass to try to justify himself. Nasty ass racist colonizer pedophile 😤

One of the funniest things to me about Armand portraying Lestat as Harlequin in the episode 0203 flashback, and Lestat later vehemently refuting it, is not so much that it is an insult (Lestat was always Lelio, and Armand knows it) and a hilarious one at that (portraying Lestat as the 'clown' character, as a buffoon). No what gets me every time is the irony of it being Harlequin, who aside from being perhaps the best known (and well loved!) character of the commedia dell'arte tradition, is also the ONE character Armand seems to mirror the most himself.

Hear me out Anne Rice in not subtle in the books about the similarities between Lestat and Lelio, both the aristocratic devilishly handsome young lovers archetype, who falls in love easily and desperately. It is perfect, so much so it becomes a major theme in The Vampire Lestat (Lelio Rising) And while this is the most important parallel, it seems to me a waste to not apply this as a lens from which to explore other characters and their dynamics in the Vampire Chronicles and the TV show, especially given the sheer influence of Commedia on the literary world at large - Shakespeare anyone?

I might explore others at a different point, but first back to Armand as Harlequin: Harlequin, or Arlecchino, as he is known in the Italian tradition, like the rest of the character gallery of Commedia, has undergone a lot of change throughout the years, and there is not one single iteration which is the 'true' form of Harlequin. However, he is perhaps the one character's whose role in the plays shifted the most. Though his exact origins are contested, he is often connected to medieval devil and demon imagery (Arlichino from Dante's Inferno or the Hellequin stock character in French Passion Plays, who lure the souls of the damned into Hell). In early Commedia, he is then conceived of as a poor man out of Bergamo, who finds himself in Venice in the service of a vecchi (wealthy older men, Masters) often Pantalone. Importantly this Harlequin is an immigrant and an outsider, who does not have the literacy and refinement of the aristocratic vecchi or inamorati - and he othered and looked down upon because of it. In these iterations, he is a zanni character (servant/clown archetype), whose main role is that of a comedic side character, whose involvement may impede or facilitate the plotting of the young lovers (inamorati archetypes) or the vecchi but often by sheer accident or at least without skillful plotting of his own. He is defined by his hunger and has a fair share of his own amorous pursuits. In later traditions, however, it is Harlequin who takes center stage and becomes a romantic hero in his own right (e.g. in the harlequinades of British Pantomine and other pantomine traditions, like the Danish. In Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen there is still a pantomine theatre, where the tradition is being kept alive and well!). Here he is much more refined and cunning than in his zanni era - and more often than not wins the heart of his beloved.

Does any of this remind you of anyone? As this is already turning out to be ridiculously long rant, I will stick to the highlights:

Armand is an immigrant to the city of Venice, where he is the devoted (and innocent) servant to his Master

Armand also has a dark past with the Children of Darkness, whose rituals and devil antics are reminiscent of the stories of the Wild Hunt (French Hellequin)

Armand has become a fan-favourite so much so that even Anne Rice herself had to bring him back to life and give him his very own book.

Originally a side-character in Interview with the Vampire, Armand has become integral to both book and show canon, and his antics does indeed derail the romantic pursuits of the main characters on more than one occasion (for better or worse)

I'd argue that Armand is a romantic hero, with romantic plots and story archs that don't involve Louis or Lestat

He goes from being somewhat sheltered and ignorant of the modern world (from what we are told!) when Lestat 'liberates' him from under the catacombs of Paris, to becoming one of the vampires most involved with the modern age and with humans

For some reason, tvl seems to invite a wave of dislike from the fandom none of the previous seasons did and i geniuenly. Don't. Get. Why. Yes, the season has its flops because shrinking the material into 7 episodes while still including and giving significance to characters who aren't in the book takes a lot of pondering. BUT. But. but.

First, let's get something straight: iwtv is a NOT A GOTHIC ROMANCE. For god's sake, please stop calling it like that. Let's not mix up period styles, 'romance' (~early novel) components and the adjectives 'romantic' (loveable) and 'gothic' (eerie) as qualificatives etc. It is a supernatural horror. Like Hannibal level of horror. I would add, psychological (or queer). Most aspects I'm gonna touch on are psychological. The sole purpose is not loustat, loumand or dm, so crying or complaining about not getting any 'saucy scenes' or kisses this season show a lot about misaligned viewer attitudes. Yes, and these are usually the same people that criticise the show's realistic SA rep, saying it's not needed or deeming it distasteful towards survivors. Just because you don't want something this disturbing to exist, it won't disappear from the world. Quite frankly, consent becomes very blurry in the vampiric context, so I would argue that most sexual encounters we see in the show would be considered plain violations in the real world. See? Pretty horrific, and not romantic at all. And yet again, so horribly realistic.

(I’m gonna view the 3 seasons together, as a coherent body of work that is able to stand on its own, naturally, as an adaptation of the chronicles. RJ’s logic is sometimes hard to decipher but I’m giving it my best shot. If something isn’t making sense, I’m gonna call that out as well.)

but humbly, let's dive in, let's continue.

#1/ Eternalized human experience: It is human experience that inherently shapes all vampire into the form they're going to be trapped in enternity in. For example, Louis is often mocked for being sentimental, melanchonic, too attached to his humanistic (!) humanity by Lestat and others. Ep7 showed us that no vampires are able to overstep the limitations they faced as humans, almost all cases getting more serious with the amounts of trauma they've inherited and accumulated since their turning. Selfishness, pimping, domestic and sexual abuse, rape, sexual slavery, a fear of loneliness or sickness or death, possessiveness, thirst for appreciation, love, recognition, reassurance, guidance. An obsession to control, to rein, to gain the upper, decisive hand, to dominate, to use, to eternalize the 'rotten experience' Marius uses to conquer his own narrative because, in their vampiric minds, there is no o-t-h-e-r option. Failure falls on top of failure. At the end, all vampires remain humans. No transformation took place. We have yet to encounter a sane, independent one. That's why Lestat's purgatory especially important: he, and not others we thought as better equipped for an inner therapy process like this, took the FIRST STEP.

#2/ Louis's pimp identity: As I have propagated for YEARS, Louis's human identity as a 'collaborative' Black pimp is essential to his character and now it is finally canonically proved. The practice of human Louis conforming white standards in order to satisfy his desire of ambition, personal significance, wealth and status is historically inevitable, since minorities were forced to compete within the colonial economy or market. Louis abstractly or quite literally 'enslaved' his own community, the residents of his new orleans quarter in order to rise up on the social ladder. Once, turning, he refused to conform anymore, because he partly got out of the human 'oppressed-oppressor cycle'. At the same time, he didn't consider that his newfound immunity didn't extend to his community (the lynching leading to Claudia's turning). Obviously, during the process of conforming, he's hurt just like any Black person. He's a vamp but his pimp identity influences his relationship dynamics. He knows it and what's more important, consciously utilizes it to get the upper hand, like we saw in the kitchen scene with Armand.

#3/ Armand's breakdown: Armand's character is the most realistic and painful SA representation I've seen on screen so far. No miraculous recovery, no sudden realisation, no 'speaking-out' for himself. He was born in 1481. He knows, recognizes modern terms, but cannot internalize them, cannot understand them the way we do. The abuse is normalized by not being recognized by the very people he claims to have made him happy in the past (Louis, Lestat) or even people who are capable of contextualising the vocabulary needed for voicing the experience (Daniel). The uncomfortable power-exchange hierarchy in loumand briefly touched on in previous seasons becomes obvious and very frontal. As Assad said "Armand has given up on others understanding him". Each vampire is basically a solitary confinement and Armand doesn't have a voice, doesn't have a vocabulary to express what has happened to him. Louis tips him over the edge once again. His primal instincts: "how I make this right quickly so I can avoid forthcoming punishment?" "oh god, I need to set everything right in this instant to escape the retaliation." "please, I'll do anything, quickly, just don't hurt me anymore." Complete fawning. For a traumatized individual, no clear thoughts exist in that moment. Just the frantic need to escape and to redo any mistakes they've made. All other sectors of their reality are blocked, floating, drifting, slowing down, shutting down. Armand is so deep down in this, he can only act out of hurt because that is the sole emotion capable of occassionally outmatching the burden he carries within. But make no mistake, this does NOT make him a disney level sole villain, nor villainistic.

Let's train back our minds into critically engaging with a viewed material.

when he was in total despair and utterly broken, lestat sought armand out for help because he was the only one he could go to.