Tired Sunrises Meta

"Louis lured me in"

In the early stages of their courtship, Armand is already de-fanging himself, framing himself as a 'failed predator'; unable to lure Louis in, he instead was the one being lured by the more powerful presence.

"Louis made me love him, it was so scary 🥺" Shattered, a deliberately forceful phrase. And the way Armand's eyes glow when he says how 'frightened' he was of Louis...

Armand locked "I love you" away after Lestat's abandonment of him, but Louis didn't inspire him to 'open up' - Louis shattered the lock, forced his way past Armand's boundaries. By Armand's description, Louis is the forceful one, the one who makes Armand change, and Armand is just the person Louis does these things to, and is 'frightened' of Louis's power to bring about those changes in him.

(Compare to Lestat basically expressing the same sentiment but more active in his language. After a century, Lestat "tried again" to find love - he was active in pursuing it/Louis, describes himself as having made a conscious choice to do so, rather than Louis making him)

Once you start looking for it, every other thing out of Armand's mouth is some variation of "I could not prevent it"; he doesn't do things, things happen to him, or around him, never because of him. He's always framing himself as a passive agent or helpless victim, with no, or very little, agency of his own.

Armand understands himself to be someone 'with power' (literally with the power of life/death over Louis in this moment) but cannot frame himself as 'powerful' - instead he's 'the weakest', unable to carry out the execution the coven wanted him to, but also unable to fully own the choice he is making. If Armand were to tell the coven "I'm the coven leader and what I say goes, I'm going to spare Louis and everyone has to deal with it" that would be an active wielding of power, not weakness. But since Armand refuses to frame himself as powerful, him not killing Louis is a failure of duty, a shortcoming, a display of weakness. He was supposed to do something and he couldn't rather than making an active choice not to do something.

He won't even take responsibility for walking Louis home (bc this would mean taking responsibility for defying the coven and sparing Louis's life); even though he obviously knew where he was bringing Louis, he barged into his apartment unannounced earlier that same episode.

When Louis asks if Armand wants to come upstairs, Armand doesn't answer outright, but counters with his own question, centering Louis as the active one in the situation. Armand won't come upstairs just because he "wants" to, because that would mean he is in control of what happens - he wanted something and took it. His instinct is to frame his own desire as something Louis is stoking and in control of. Armand didn't 'go in'; Louis 'invited him in' and Armand simply 'complied'.

The "asking or making" refrain is this in a nutshell. Asking vs making doesn't really matter, because either way, it puts the agency in someone else's hands, rather than Armand himself owning whatever he chooses to do (whether it's attending Madeleine's turning or sparing Daniel). Either he's just doing what someone else asked him to do, carrying out someone else's wishes (passive) or being forced to do something someone else wanted him to do (victim).

It's also giving Louis the illusion of choice (the false power Armand consistently imbues Louis with in their relationship) bc both options serve Armand's desire, which is making Louis responsible for Armand's actions.

I think it is telling that Louis opts out completely the first time Armand pulls out this phrase, and only plays into it when the stakes are dire (Daniel's life). And even then Louis never 'makes' Armand, only says he's 'not asking'.

Obviously the literal difference between asking/making is that with asking there is an implied freedom to say no - but I can't really imagine Armand whipping out "asking or making" if he was going to refuse Louis, because he tells Louis no all the time and doesn't need that framing to do so lol.

I think Armand uses asking/making to escape personal culpability when faced with something he doesn't want to do, but doesn't feel it's beneficial to outright refuse in the moment, both for himself (his own psychological/emotional needs) and in anticipation of reframing his behavior to others ('well *I* didn't choose to do this, Louis asked me to/made me') - it's not something Armand did, it's something Louis wanted, and Armand carried out on his behalf.

There's a lot you could say about this behavior as a trauma response/learned helplessness/victim mentality (which are not uncommon following childhood abuse), but tbh I'm not a psychology expert (and I assume ppl have already talked this to death?)

I also don't want to fall into the trap of downplaying Armand's agency as much as he does. The fact is, he isn't powerless in any of these situations, nor does he truly believe himself to be, because he wields his power (specifically over Louis) whenever he sees fit to do so (most obviously in 205 and the end of 107, where his 'servitude' to Louis is shown to literally be a costume he can discard whenever he pleases, and he does so, revealing himself to/threatening Daniel and bringing the interview to a screeching halt as Louis begs him not to).

And as soon as the mask drops and Armand is floating in the air above them, he assumes his rightful place as paternal authority over Louis, stops defending him and starts telling Daniel how Louis 'acts out' and needs Armand to control/mitigate his behavior (like a parent talking to another adult about an unruly child right in front of them)

I think Armand is more complex than just "acts helpless because he feels helpless" (bc clearly whenever helplessness no longer suits him, he throws it to the ground like his brown contacts and gloves), he understands how powerful a manipulation tactic it is to make everyone buy into the fiction that he is helpless/believes himself to be (so can never be truly culpable of wrongdoing/harm - "I will not harm you/I never have") AND I also think it is personally comforting/instinctive for him on some level to (falsely) claim a 'powerless' role because of his trauma. Yes, he is a deeply traumatized character, but also he does things deliberately and with intent; both can be true.

One way we can see this is how Armand's framing shifts after the choice has been made. When Armand wants to kill Daniel and Louis wants to stop him, its "are you asking me, Maitre?", putting responsibility in Louis's hands. But afterwards, Armand reframes his not killing Daniel as an act of benevolence on his part, not something Louis 'made' him do. In San Francisco, it awards Armand credibility as 'compromising partner' to spare Daniel only at Louis's urging; in Dubai, it awards credibility to Armand as Louis's 'caretaker' to take responsibility for sparing Daniel in order to 'preserve Louis's happiness'.

Armand's choice to present himself as passive agent or benevolent caretaker shifts based on what best serves him in the moment; it's a deliberate manipulation either way.