Armand as the Anxious Manifestation of the Assimilation coping Mechanism - A Postcolonial analysis
Armand is a distinctly fascinating character for a number of reasons. He is an extremely powerful vampire—old and wise beyond the typical life-span of the average vampire—and has a very complicated relationship with that power. He doesn't use it freely, even at times he possibly should, but it isn't something he is afraid of either.
One of the things vampires in Anne Ricean philosophy present to us, is that these creatures are those who were once human—but at some point have turned into monsters. These monsters, as in most Gothic fiction, are literalizations of an undying anxiety that follows us and continues to wield power and haunt our realities. It's part of the complexity of these characters, because they are both victim and perpetrator at the same time, which reveal to use the cycles of abuse, harm, pain, and that intentions made with warped actions still result in spilt blood and victims. To keep expectations informed, I will not be referring to Armand's actions against Louis in this analysis as "abusive," even though they are, but rather I will be explaining how they relate to Armand's coping mechanisms in response to uncertainty and the trauma of his colonized past, which interact with Louis in numerous ways.
I'm going to approach Armand from a postcolonial analysis, which is going to focus on subtextual implications, and how he functions as a racialized character within the setting of seasons 1 and 2 of AMC's Interview with the Vampire. If you want an overview of where I see it in other characters, please see this post here.
To be upfront about a bias check; I am an American white person, partially educated at the University of Alaska in English and History - which emphasizes postcolonial theory in its curriculum, I am in my mid-twenties, and am much more familiar with speaking about active colonization and peering into history/literature/the historical record to piece together the mythology of the colonizer's version of the "American Indian," than I am at locating orientalism or racism directed to South Asians by Euroamerican sociopolitical culture. There may be things I misrepresent, or miss, so please feel free to treat this as an open-discussion.
Armand in Dubai
We are first introduced to Armand as a character at the end of season 1, however he as a character had been present and interactive with the titular characters Louis and Daniel the entire season. He is introduced as "Rashid" (later revealed to be the name of the real butler that serves the household), wearing a disguise that was both disarming and attention grabbing — he wears slighly-oversized gloves rather than filing his nails, wears black contacts to shield his otherworldly eyes, and wears all-black to mirror Louis and the staff, and his clothes are flowing, slightly baggy and occasionally sensually exposing his chest — that creates an effect in the audience that may either reinforce racial-biases they may hold, and/or creates an element of paranoid suspicion that the butler "Rashid" was more than he seemed.
This introduction is a dramatic twist reveal of a character, but it also is revealing something important about how his character makes choices: rather than hiding himself completely, Armand will attempt to blend in. He does this by creating a mask that reflects and confirms the biases and passive beliefs about the type of role he wishes to play to pass too much notice. He becomes a mirror to their expectations.
European America holds a mirror and a mask up to the Native American. The tricky mirror is that Other presence that reflects the Euro-American consciousness back at itself, but the side o f the mirror turned toward the Native is transparent, letting the Native see not his or her own reflection but the face of the Euro-American beyond the mirror. For the dominant culture, the Euro-American controlling this surveillance, the reflection provides merely a self-recognition that results in a kind of being-for-itself and, ultimately, as Fanon suggests, an utter absence of certainty of self. The Native, in turn, finds no reflection directed back from the center, no recognition of ‘‘being’’ from that direction. (Owens, 17)*1
This mirror tells us a lot about how Armand and Louis pre-planned to greet Daniel: Louis agrees to position himself as an isolated Black American multi-millionaire living in Dubai while taking advantage of the sociopolitical atmosphere of the city (which is charged, if we want to be nice about it) to make Daniel SEE Louis through that lens. Armand agrees to be hidden in plain sight, close enough to be of service to Louis and support him as needed, but also to support what Daniel expects to see from a high-class estate in Dubai; a young, brown, foreigner given special attention by his employer in exchange for power (being the trusted right-hand man of a man like Louis is definitely a position of power, especially for an immigrant living in Dubai). Armand is not looking to be out-of-place, at least not initially.
There is also something to say about the accent; Armand's version of Rashid is reflective OF Rashid — British-Indian diaspora working in an ex-patriot American household — but he does maintain the RP accent after his removal of that mask. In a similar way to Louis mimicking his own pattern of speech after James Baldwin, to encourage the interpretation of intellectualism, Armand is maintaining the fantasy of a sophisticated and intelligent diasporic Indian man that can be taken seriously by dominant culture. Especially to American Daniel, as a good portion of Americans do have an unconscious bias that may interpret British RP as this posh, intelligent, indicator of good class.
Together, Loumand have presented this chameleon disguise of "you only see as far as you're willing to look" presentation of social assimilation; they are both impressive and modeling themselves after interpretations of model minority ideals given to each of their respective races to reach respect and social assimilation within White dominant culture. This, as season 2 reveals over its run of 8 episodes, is not how Louis chooses to operate on his own, but rather how Armand has guided them both to operate within Louis's desire for success without drawing undue attention. Through Armand, Louis learned how to utilize assimilation as a survival tool to handle the stresses of living after colonial subjugation and white heteropatriarchal culture — become what they expect you to be, and show them you can do it better. This is why Louis's Black Excellence coping mechanism redeveloped after dedicating himself to Armand, and dealing with the rejection from the Gallery (?) owner.
One of the things that is really interesting about Armand's presentation of himself in Dubai, however, is what he reacts to. What Armand chooses to use his agency for while trying to blend in is often what breaks his cover and reveals a flaw in the mirror. I'm not just talking what Daniel made notes on, I'm more talking the other things. Armand!Rashid did not have to introduce Daniel to Marius's painting — he ends up supporting Louis' mask by ending it with "Mr. de Pointe du Lac" covets the rare — but he does show his own face in that interaction. He is motivated to explain the painting made by his maker, why Louis has it, and to tell Daniel what he should be expecting, while confirming that his loyalty to Louis is "as serving a God." Noteably, this is the last time he is seen on screen in 1×02.
The next episode, he also draws attention to himself by praying in the room beside Daniel. This scene is important for the audience, because it reveals something important about Armand; while he may consider himself as serving a God by serving a vampire, this is not a replacement for his spiritual well-being, and this is important for Daniel because it creates a flaw in the mask that Armand had used to reflect Daniel's expectations back at him. This is extremely important to understand about Armand, both in his spiritual journey that I am expecting to see, but also in the fact that even though living in submission to a dominant western American perspective, he will not be neatly contained.
"…it is crucial for postcolonial theory to take seriously the idea of a psychological resistance to colonialism's civilising mission. To this end, it needs historically to exhume those defences of mind which helped to turn the West 'into a reasonably manageable vector' (Nandy 1983). In this regard it is worth recalling that the slave figure in Sartre's Being and Nothingness also makes the following revolutionary pronouncement: 'I lay claim to this being which I am; that is, I wish to recover it, or, more exactly, I am the project of the recovery of my being'." (17, Gandhi)*2
"For when this theory returns to the colonial scene, it finds two stories: the seductive narrative of power, and alongside that the counter-narrative of the colonised- politely, but firmly declining the come on of colonialism. It is important to re‐member both‐‐to remember in other words, that postcoloniality derives its genealogy from both narratives." (22, Gandhi)
The beginning of 1×05 is one of my favorite scenes, and I could talk about it forever, but one of the things I think is important when analyzing it is what makes Armand "break" character. The first "break" is talking to Daniel about the contents of Claudia's diaries, where Armand takes it upon himself to declare that Daniel was chronicling Louis's suicide and that by judging Claudia for recording the final words of the dead, Daniel was doing the same. This is revealing to us Armand's anxiety about the interview and especially the future of it being published, because he fears Louis's demise — which would make Armand's actions that are revealed in season 2 to be for nothing. Some would say it's ironic Armand would be afraid of Louis's death because of Armand's betrayal in the trial - and this is just more of Armand's lies - but I actually think it's because Armand has spent the last 73 years-or-so keeping Louis going through bearing the burden of his spite, and that means that if Louis dies NOW, then Armand would have failed what he made of his purpose.
"… the colonial aftermath is also fraught by the anxieties and fears of failure which attend the need to satisfy the historical burden of expectation. In Sinai's words, 'I must work fast, faster than Scheherazade, if I am to end up meaning--yes, meaning--something. I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity (Rushdie 1982, p.9)."
The second "break" of character comes from Louis's second powerplay. The first powerplay comes from interrupting Armand—belittling his opinions, his agency, and reminding him that Armand wasn't asked to share his damnation of the interview—Louis is reminding Armand subtly that he is breaking character in front of Daniel. Louis could have stopped here, but he puts Daniel down as well by mocking Daniel's curious thoughts of what Armand's blood tastes like, which leads to Armand speaking up (again - which ignores Louis's reminder. I love him, since it passively shares he's not someone who submits perfectly) about never letting Daniel near his neck, resulting in Louis's second powerplay that breaks Armand a second time: Louis describes his weight by continuing to voice Daniel's thoughts to mock him, and it also puts Armand on the back-foot. While Daniel is thinking about the weight in a blood-loss context, Louis makes it into a selling point. It becomes almost like Louis is showing Armand off, crowing about what he does to present himself as desirable for Louis, rather than sticking to the reminder. Here, Armand is a prize, not a person, and this powerplay starts with weight, which something you would associate with goods—something to keep a note of because of Armand's past as a literal human good. The fact that it's Daniel that gives Armand an out here, by requesting a refill for coffee, is also important when thinking of how Armand and Daniel do relate to each other. (x)
What gets Armand to reveal himself is also very interesting, and plays specifically into one of the elements of the postcolonial existence that is a source of anxiety. Armand moves to defend Louis as Daniel begins shining light on the flaws of Louis's narrative by contesting Louis's claim that he and Claudia decided together to not burn him, and that Louis really believed him dead. This isn't just the act of remembrance, but rather an act of unraveling a self-protective fantasy to reveal an ugly truth; Louis knew Lestat was alive and he's the one who chose for him to be that way against Claudia's wishes. Daniel is exposing Louis's created amnesia:
"If postcoloniality can be described as a condition troubled by the consequences of a self-willed historical amnesia, then the theoretical value of postcolonialism inheres, in part, ability to elaborate the forgotten memories of this condition (7-8, Gandhi)" "While some memories are accessible to consciousness, others, which are blocked and banned--sometimes with good reason--perambulate the unconscious in dangerous ways, causing seemingly inexplicable symptoms in everyday life. Such symptoms, as we have seen, can best be relieved when the analyst--or, in Bhabha's case the theorist--releases offending memories from their captivity." (9, Gandhi)
Daniel acts as the analyst and theorist of Louis's past, relieving the symptoms of Louis's self-willed historical amnesia, which Armand reacts defensively against. Why? Because it is completely at odds with Armand's own coping mechanism, what he's attempted to lead Louis into coping with, and —because of this—is a direct threat to Armand's literal power of blurring people's memories.
Armand's Memory Powers are Post-traumatic Amnesia made Supernatural
I made this post way back in my beginnings in the fandom, and I genuinely think it is important to the truth of why Armand's "Spell Gift" was adapted this way. Armand's powers aren't there to make him a manipulative mastermind, they are there to passively tell us what powers he finds come naturally to him. He puts his will into the ability to forget.
"The emergence of anti-colonial and 'independant' nation-States after colonialism is frequently accompanied by a desire to forget the colonial past. This 'will-to-forget' takes a number of historical forms, and is impelled by a variety of cultural and political motivations. Principally, postcolonial amnesia is symptomatic of the urge for historical self-invention or the need to make a new start--to erase painful memories of colonial subordination… The mere repression of colonial memories is never, in itself, tantamount to a surpassing of or emancipation from the uncomfortable realities of the colonial encounter (4, Gandhi)."
Part of what makes the friction between Louis and Armand's coping mechanisms so delicious, is that Armand believes that within remembrance there is a disruption, while Louis wants to remember things correctly. This is why Armand's gaslighting is backed by Armand's wiping of Louis's memories in 2×05, because Armand's coping mechanism for helping himself —and others— deal with the aftermath of trauma is to forget it. Not because he thinks the past holds no value, since he recalls the Theatre plays fondly and keeps up with art history, but because there is disruption in the past that ruins one's ability to blend in and assimilate. If Louis remembered his own suicide attempt, he would carry that wound with him and the disruption that his unhappiness with Armand resulted in, and so it is easier to manage the future with it gone. Whether or not Louis really asked for it doesn't necessarily matter, it's the troubled feeling that Louis gets from realizing that wasn't there that becomes reflected in Armand's mirror. Suddenly, Armand and his coping mechanisms become suspect.
This is a literalization of how Black Americans view silenced pieces of their history, and how they often treat any attempts to keep peace with colonial oppressors as suspect. Armand has subtly been Louis's source of anxiety for decades, and in identifying the power, Louis identifies where his agency is being tested. Louis WANTS to remember, not to forget, and that puts their power dynamic at odds.
This is also what Armand's relationship with Daniel's lost memories are. Daniel is going through just as many of the symptoms of PTSD while in the penthouse that Louis is, and that is because of the realization of the extent of trauma that his first encounter with Louis held. Armand holding him in place, making him repeat the story in a hypnotic fashion, is equitable to Louis's self-willed amnesia produced through repetition of protective lies, but with the additional intent from Louis to protect Daniel's future. (No, I'm not saying it's colonial amnesia here, since this is not a metaphor for colonization - vampirism is - but just "treatment" of trauma via hypno-therapy) The fact that Armand does this with the intent to keep Daniel away from vampires would also be related for his need to keep the peace - since journalists have a chance to disturb his peace and expose the realities of what living with assimilation does.
As @smallangrycryingmugoftea wrote in a dissertation they shared with me:
"Through Armand, as well as through the broader structures governing vampiric society, the series explores how power reproduces itself through control over memory, identity, and belonging."
Oppressive Structures of Power
Season 2's main plot tension comes from the threat of the Theatre des Vampires on the safety and sanity of Louis and Claudia. Armand, as the coven's leader, is inextricably tied to the threat they pose, the pressures they represent, and the decisions they end up making, however to disregard Armand as a racialized entity in this group would be extremely foolish.
One of the ways French racism operates is by assimilation and by providing no language to discuss it. This blog post explains what it is like living as Black American in France, and realizing there is no discussion around Racial Discrimination. One of my good friends summarized it as this:
Wow, all of that sure sounds familiar, doesn't it? Lestat and Armand both exhibit a lot of this behavior, but it also explains why the coven was so initially against Louis and Claudia before their real issues began manifesting into danger: Louis and Claudia never tried to be French or to fit in, they were both very comfortably American. Louis, especially, was a target because of his reluctance to join the coven and properly "assimilate" with the local vampires, meaning he was the largest threat to them. Claudia just happened to be the easiest to access because of her interest in assimilating and joining the coven, but also could not assimilate properly because of her disability (being turned as a teenager - something she has no control over), which resulted in belittlement and mockery for. Again, this isn't to say these actions weren't racially motivated, but the racism was the third engine to the car, rather than the first.
Armand gains his social power through mimicry, which Bhabha theorized in 1984 as how colonial subjects survive through adopting and reproducing the behaviors, values, and structures of the coloniser.
"We could say that power traverses the imponderable charms between coercion and seduction through a variety of baffling self-representations. While it may manifest itself in a show and application of force, it is equally likely to appear as the disinterested purveyor of cultural enlightenment and reform. Through this double representation, power offers itself both as a political limit and as a cultural possibility. If power is at once the qualitative difference or gap between those who have it and those who must suffer it, it also designates an imaginative space that can be occupied, a cultural model that might be imitated and replicated. (14, Gandhi)"
Armand himself is woven into the fabric of this for his own survival. As a Brown man - historically identified as Romani in France (if you don't know the weight of that, please watch this video*) - Armand is at risk of the same type of control and racism as Louis and Claudia. Armand was planted in Paris as an external authority to bring stability to the Children of Darkness cult that he was forcefully converted into. Without knowing the language well, and being a dark-skinned stranger, Armand would have had to use a great force of power to establish respect, and he would have been unable to let go of his hold over it for fear of being ousted as a g**sy thief of their beliefs. It's no wonder that Armand's relationship with power is so toxic, because he is forced to maintain his political and cultural relevance in the eyes of his followers, rather than his own eyes and beliefs. Even though the cult was disbanded, the cultural shift was made up of largely the same parts, and so even when "liberated" from the cult, he must serve the structures of power with his power, or he will become a victim of it. The "dominant" Maitre he wears in Paris is still submissive and servile to the colonial domination of his past.
"So also the cosmetic veneer of national independence barely disguises the foundational economic, cultural, and political damage inflicted by colonial occupation. Colonisation, as Said argues, is a 'fate with lasting, indeed grotesquely unfair results' (1989) (Gandhi, 7)"
*"Romani are often gaslit and portrayed as perpetual victims in many European accounts (11:35)" is a really good note on what I think s3 is doing it its presentation of Armand right now - Lestat is playing up the passivity of Armand because he's a French dipshit, but that'll be shown to be a flattened version of his character, just like Gabriella.
This is Armand's internal conflict as he is courting Louis, something that genuinely puts him in danger of the coven's racist ideals. To Armand, Louis's unhardened heart and compassion for art and for Claudia are what call to him, reminders of an identity that can shaped by love and life rather than blatant survival and assimilation. We see this as Armand escorts Louis through the sewers, actively juggling the decision between killing him or sparing him. To Armand, the decision is "do I choose love and life, or safety and power?" and Armand ended up choosing Louis first. Deciding to handle the fallout of the coven as best he could.
Throughout their courtship, Armand is direct with his warnings to Louis: "leave Paris, or join the coven, it is too dangerous to operate alone here and I cannot protect you." Louis is dismissive of this for his own very good reasons, in addition to his blinding admiration for the reconstruction and freedom of post-war Paris. These warnings increase in intensity during 2×04, the episode where the coven begins to directly question Armand, and Armand realizes that the coven's fallout is growing imminent. Armand's threats to Claudia become more all-encompassing (telling her she can't take off the LuLu costume), and he is handling much more internal squabbling than normal. This is also the episode we really see Armand reach for his power the most; he stalls movement in the restaurant as Louis and Santiago argue, as well as using the cloud and spell gift in the Louvre on his date with Louis. As I stated before, this really shows us that Armand's use of power against others isn't for domination, but for assimilation and keeping peace. Unfortunately, he is distracted by Louis, and so he is leaving weak spots open in his struggle to protect his shaky companionship and keep peace in the coven.
Armand presents Louis a (literal) picture of his past to explain the Armand that Louis has been struggling to get to know. Here, Armand is able to show us the physical remnants of his (colonized and whitewashed) past, displayed in a museum for all to admire with distant, unknowing curiosity because of the hidden and accepted societal conditions that paint over the stories held within. I'll go into exactly what we learn from Armand and this scene in the next section, but I did want to lead into it with something that I feel gets distinctly misunderstood by both Louis (as a character) and a lot of Armand antis. Armand may technically be free, and in charge, but in Armand's beseeching Louis for a new internal definition, we see that freedom and self-actualization haven't actually sunk in.
"And the day oppression ceases, the new man is supposed to emerge before our eyes immediately. Now, I do not like to say so, but I must, since decolonisation has demonstrated it: this is not the way it happens. The new colonised lives for a long time before we see that really new man (Memmi, 1968).' Memmi's political pessimism delivers an account of postcoloniality as a historical condition marked by the visible apparatus of freedom and the congealed persistence of unfreedom. He suggests that the pathology of this postcolonial limbo between arrival and departure, independence and dependence, has its source in the residual traced and memories of subordination. (Gandhi, 6-7)"
Marimand's Grooming is Imperialism and Orientalism
Much has been said about Marius. I have said thousands of words about him myself, and I probably will say more. A lot of it is from filling in the dots of Armand's monologue, and from my own postcolonial reading of TVA, but it has been difficult to say in complete certainty how the series will depict it. At the time of writing this, Marius has not been shown on screen yet, nor has there been clarification of what Armand went through past Louis', "I'm the Vampire Armand and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little bitch. And then the vampires that killed my daddy made me believe I didn't have a dick for 240 years." This, however, is quite important because it seems that whatever Armand revealed off-screen to Louis was damning enough to make Louis decide that label was the best fit when mocking Armand.
Part of Book!Armand's struggle with Marius, which I believe is still maintained in the series and only strengthened in interpretation, is whether Armand is considered a child or a man. TVA even opens with Armand remarking on the fact that young boys aren't really considered smaller men, like young girls are. Emasculation is distinctly a function of Armand's internal struggles, beginning with being enslaved, trafficked, and labeled as an object of carnal and nearly feminized desire (Book!Armand was mistaken for a girl when he was first presented to merchants as a slave in Istanbul).
"Fanon's exploration, in Black Skin, White Masks, of the sexual economy underpinning the colonial encounter in Algeria leads him to conclude that the colonized black man is the real other for the colonizing white man. Several critics and historians have extended this analysis to the Indian context to argue that Colonial masculinity defined itself with a reference to the alleged feminacy of Indian men. The infamous Thomas Macaulay, among others, gives full expression to this British disdain for the Indian apology for maleness: 'The physical organization of the Bengali is feeble even to a feminacy he lives in a constant Vapor bath his Pursuits are sedentary his limbs delicate his movement languid during many ages. He has been trampled upon by man of Boulder and Hardy Deeds courage and dependence veracity are qualities to which is Constitution and a situation are equally unfavorable' (cited in Rosseli 1980). In other words, India is colonizable because it lacks real men.(Gandhi, 99)"
One thing that becomes ever-important when discussing Armand is that no matter what actually happened with Marius, the standard implications for Marius buying an Indian slave boy and grooming him for companionship (ie: restricting his knowledge and interaction with the world) is going to be Orientalist and Imperialistic in nature, especially if Marius is just as Roman as he is in the books, and maintains his status as Amadeo's teacher:
"Renaissance humanism and its inheritors insist that man is made human by the things he knows, that is, by the curricular content of his knowledge and education. Accordingly, it is predominantly concerned with a role and function of pedagogy. In contrast, Enlightenment humanism and its legatees take 'humanity' to be a function of the way in which man knows things. Its concern, accordingly, is with the structure of epistemology or the basis and validity of knowledge. (Gandhi, 29)"
To Armand, the legacy of Marius is complete and directly tied into his identity, but it is a lineage he struggles to find the authority to share. He thinks of Marius as a godly-near-religous figure, and so of course it is outside his power to desire to share that with others, on top of any underlying trauma of what he experienced in his actual turning.
'The Adoration of the Shepherds With a Donor.' Palma Vecchio. A contemporary of my maker, Marius De Romanus, also a fine painter, albeit one of lesser skill. In fact, the donor in the title was my maker. The canvas painted in my maker's studio. And in this case, the donation was... What is the modern word for it? In kind. This is Amadeo. He's 20 years here.He was rescued from a brothel when he was 15, named... named Arun then, I think. I cannot be sure. The abuse in the brothel was such that he cannot be sure that's what his... parents named him. Arun. The parents that sent him to work on a merchant boat in Delhi when in actuality they had sold him... into slavery to the ship's captain. All... fragments. Shackled on the boat. The brothel. My maker's purchase. His renaming me. His reluctance to share the Dark Gift, knowing what it would do to his beloved Amadeo. I served him with all my heart. Basked in his mercy, his worshipful mercy. Still... Amadeo had a skill. And if a friend wandered into town, I was occasionally... donated. Meatier in the forearms, but then this was...seven years before I was stricken with illness,before I was turned, and imbued with my powers." Louis: "And Armand?" "The name the coven in Rome gave me. After they set fire to the studio. Set fire to my maker. And sent me to Paris, to reign over the coven abandoned by Magnus. Magnus who begat Lestat. Lestat who begat Louis. On and on. - And on and on and on. - Ha! "Who am I, Louis? I am my history I have endured? I am the job I do not want? I do not know anymore. No one has painted me in over 400 years."
One thing that always stands out to me, in this process of speaking of vampirism as a metaphor for colonization, and as a manifestation of lines of societal power, is that Marius was reluctant to share the gift "because of what it would do to his beloved Amadeo." Marius's reluctance to share a gift of power with the one that he had purchased for that exact purpose is quite chilling, especially when thinking of the gift —as Marius would— as the passing down of legacy and power. He fears how this would transform Amadeo, and what giving Amadeo power would do to the servile young man he had groomed to be his mortal companion.
"For Bhabha, the colonized subject is rather more ontologically incalcuable. As he argues, this figure's ambivalent response to the colonial invader: 'half acquiescent, half oppositional, always untrustworthy—produces an unresolvable problem of cultural different for the very address of colonial cultural authority' (Bhabha 1994)." (135, Gandhi)
The benevolent approach, which Amadeo basked in, is still colonialism. It shapes the reality of Amadeo's past, his knowledge, his memories (which over-right his native cultural inheritance), his skills, and his relationship with power and subjugation. However, I do want to make clear (and remind us all of how Armand acted as Rashid) that Armand has never been particularly suited to pure submission, and when discussing colonial violence it is inherent and important to remember that those who have been colonized do not just accept this. In fact, because of this, the nature of the colonizer/colonized relationship becomes a conversation and exchange — Marius is changed by his relationship with Amadeo as well, he just has the power and sense of self because he was drained less by this exchange (the literal exchange of blood in the transformation of vampires), to be as lost without the relationship.
"For when this theory returns to the colonial scene, it finds two stories: the seductive narrative of power, and alongside that the counter-narrative of the colonised- politely, but firmly declining the come on of colonialism. It is important to re‐member both‐‐to remember in other words, that postcoloniality derives its genealogy from both narratives." (22, Gandhi)
In this sense, colonialism isn't just the exchange of blood of Marimand -- which Amadeo does desire-- but the exchange of philosophy, belief, and what makes one worthy of being "human." The production of Amadeo, leading to the burning and disruption of Amadeo's home and legacy-by-design, as he is violently tossed to the Roman cult and so begins his cycle of colonization again. Violently torn from his home, renamed, reshaped, and remade to suit the needs of another. By becoming an even stronger representation of the Indian diaspora, it is no wonder that Armand is perceived as Romani within France. One thing this also provides us, is how Armand achieves such flexibility in his coping mechanisms:
"Accordingly, the notion of diaspora is least problematic when it illustrates the necessary mobility of thought and consciousness produced by the cultural adhesions of colonialism… A significant incentive for work in this direction was provided by James Clifford's seminal essay 'Traveling cultures (1992)', which gestured toward the possibility of rethinking colonialism not only as the expression of settled European nationalism, but rather more interestingly as a historically nuanced culture of travel… the experience - and accompanying narrative- of travel was instrumental in the fashioning of imperial identity. On the basis of this understanding, it then becomes possible to reverse the twin discourses of hybridity and diaspora in order to disclose the instability and adulteration of colonial culture and subjectivity. (132-133, Gandhi)"
What does this mean for Armand?
And now I'm going to loop back to Louis, and how by Louis presenting himself in Paris as an alternate "savior" to Armand (because he doesn't 'rename' him, but instead bringing 'Arun' home with him, Louis is acting as a Marius-alternative). The Black-American guide that can help Armand solve his power problem. One thing that is notable, however, is that this is an attempt to almost disregard all of that colonial history to find the "real" Armand, rather than see the one that is literally sitting next to him right then, telling him that the coven is growing too dangerous to manage and he needs to flee.
"Rey Chow discerns a neo-Orientalist anxiety in the anthropological desire to retrieve and preserve the pure, authentic native… The native is no longer available as the pure, unadulturated object of Orientalist inquiry — she is contaminated by the West, dangerously un-Otherable. So it is that the contemporary Orientalist blames living third-world natives for their modernity, their inexcusable 'loss of the ancient non-Western civilisation, his loved object' (Chow, 1993)" (127, Gandhi)
Am I saying Louis is outright Orientalist? Mmmm probably not, but I don't think that Louis's misunderstanding of Armand isn't without some of those implications, either. Louis is blinded to the Armand that sits beside him, because he sees a victim of colonization struggling to find purpose. This isn't WRONG, it just isn't the complete picture, and Louis's own biases say that the best way to rebuild is to find the root and nurture it. Unfortunately for both of them, Armand was still planted in the coven, and so was still siphoning power and identity from those systems of vampiric oppression. Because Louis's path was unsure, and Armand began doubting his love just as Louis's love was really growing, Armand gave his loyalty back to the Coven.
If we acknowledge their penthouse in Dubai, which operates on contemporary colonial ideologies of globalism, living in a "neutral" city as a financial and cultural hub that hides the egregious exploitation of migrant workers -typically gathered from the Global South- that are wielded as disposable labour. Louis's penthouse is literally soaring about the Dubai skyline, with unseen support and eerily silent household staff, that shows their detachment from the labour. Once again, Armand masking his presence by mimicking a member of the staff holds these implications as well, and he can be read as disposable labour as soon as his desirability has over-stayed his presence.
I know I am in the minority in seeing Marimand and Loumand parallels, and treating Louis as part of them rather than just Armand manifesting them, but it's one that I can't quite shake based on my read Louis's personality, desire for refinement, and his own very personal love and appreciation for his cultural heritage and home. In many ways, Louis treaded a similar benevolent path with Armand that Marius did, but without the actual colonial subjugation, grooming, or power-differential that Marimand had, instead trying to instill identity into Armand through telling him the right steps forward. It is, however, through Armand's will that these Marimand cathedrals become so strong by Dubai (at least, as far as I can tell right now), which I think tells us not only how strong Armand's reality warping can be, but also how strong Louis's desire for respect is.
Either way, Armand seeking security through systems of power is from his long and complicated history with forced assimilation and colonization, resulting in him maintaining personal power through his coping mechanisms of memory and narrative control, accomodation, mimicry, and support of those system of control and subjugation. This, essentially, is a malformed response to the anxiety of rocking the boat, and the fact that Armand has little-to-no sense of self; a result of his colonial trauma. This can really be summarized in why Armand functions as the anxious representation of the vampiric lure of assimilation within colonial systems. Assimilation will not save you, and by feeding of those systems of power, you can still perpetuate unending harm to those who cannot assimilate and are barred from that coping mechanism (the trial, Claudia).
By grounding Armand's story away from an existential treatise on who we are if we live forever, to a story about historical and contemporary systems of control and subjugation that vampires feed off of, Armand becomes the twisted remnant of the quiet-yet-persistent presence of the orientalized "Other" that Western civilization produced in an attempt to define itself. This is still an ongoing conversation, because Armand is still in the in-between state of enslavement and freedom, and because of this, will continue to act as the mirror and reflect the Other to anyone who is unwilling to look deeper (like Lestat, right now).
^ see reference 1
References:
1 - OWENS, L. (2001). As If an Indian Were Really an Indian: Native American Voices and Postcolonial Theory. In G. M. BATAILLE (Ed.), Native American Representations: First Encounters, Distorted Images, and Literary Appropriations (pp. 11–24). University of Nebraska Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.32942784.5
2 -Leela Gandhi, A Critical Introduction: Postcolonial Theory (Columbia University Press 1998) -- yes I know there's a newer edition, but I am not rich and I get my books second hand :(
3 - https://jackviolet.com/2024/12/27/sex-work-themes-in-interview-with-the-vampire/
4 - https://blogs.dickinson.edu/toulouse/2024/05/14/france-and-racism-history-erasure-and-assimilation/
5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8NXfFQ3r_g
