foolishprincipalitea

[foolishprincipalitea]

Thinking about how, whether he is conscious of it or not, Armand has already partially broken the cycle of abuse he was subjected to, simply by not turning Daniel when he was young.

The precise nature of Armand's very existence is a permanent reminder of what he was forced to live through, regardless of if he even has the ability to process the trauma in the first place. If he so much as catches his reflection out of the corner of his eye, he is reminded of the coveting and commodification of his youth and how the most innocent time of his life was weaponised against him. He is frozen there. His face looks so innocent because it creates a satisfying contrast with his actions narratively, but its also because he was. He was innocent. And that was stolen from him by selfish, greedy people who pretended their actions were out of love.

By letting Daniel go (assuming Devil's Minion era happened in the seventies), Armand protected him from this. Daniel experienced his entire youth and what it was like to age out of it without the fear of no longer having value like Armand did, and then came adulthood. He has lived to an age that Arun never could have dreamt of, that Amadeo was forced to realise, at one point, he would never experience, not in the human sense at least. He'll never have lines on his face like Daniel does. His worry lines and smile lines will never deepen. He won't develop crow's feet from squinting in the sun, which turned its back on him long ago anyway. His hair will never grey. Marius made certain of that.

But Daniel got to have all of that. His beloved got to live his life, fuck it up over and over and make a million mistakes. He had the freedom and the agency to do it. Armand will not see it, but he gave Daniel exactly what was taken from him so long ago. He is not just evil. He does not destroy everything. He gave Daniel the real gift, and now they get to move onto the next stage of Daniel's life together (after a couple seasons of slow burn I would imagine).

Just as he sees the tragedy of his past on his own face, he sees the potential he has to be different on Daniel's. He has immortalised true beauty in Daniel. The beauty of having lived a long life.

[foolishprincipalitea]

I feel like calling Louis incurious about vampirism is unfair considering the vampires he was married to were Mr Gaslight and Mr Gatekeep

[foolishprincipalitea]

armand’s costumes are such an interesting data point re: his nebulous sense of identity.

when analyzing any costume, there are always many factors to consider: the setting, the character’s personal taste and economic constraints, storytelling concerns like tone and genre, etc. with armand, we also need to remember that he’s 500 years old and violently disconnected from his human origins. everything he wears has an element of disguise, selected to blend into a new environment.

armand was enslaved as a child in 16th century delhi, and barely remembers his mortal life. unlike louis - who can return to new orleans after 80 years and reconnect with his past - armand has no home to return to. his whole backstory, even his name, is rife with traumatic subtext, leaving him with an obsessive need for structure and control. this adds an extra layer of meaning to costuming choices that initially seem like straightforward menswear. 

armand’s 1940s wardrobe is very put-together - primarily three-piece suits and coats that make him look wealthier and more formal than louis, who is purposefully dressing down. most of these outfits are tailored to bulk up armand's frame, leaning into the "maitre" persona. and like his business-casual dubai wardrobe, he always leaves his collar open. when i interviewed costume designer carol cutshall, she described this as a symbolic power move, signalling that he's an apex predator who doesn't need to protect his throat.

my personal interpretation is that while armand clearly likes to look good, he has a complicated relationship with attractiveness. he doesn't always want to draw attention. his color palette is shadowy (black, grey, brown, olive green), and he’s much less flashy than the other Théâtre vamps. however when he’s feeling confident and flirty, he becomes more of a power-dresser - for instance his hunting outfit with the big coat and sunglasses, or his habit of wearing kohl.

interestingly, most of armand's 1940s costumes set him apart from the coven. the Théâtre vampires dress like cabaret performers, embracing a lot of period-specific styles. by contrast armand is more timeless and neutral. in fact, due to the relatively minor changes in men's suits over the past 100 years, there's a lot of overlap between his wardrobe in the 1940s, '70s and 2020s:

the rest of the Théâtre squad share an unofficial uniform of boldly clashing monochrome patterns with pops of bright color. meanwhile armand has a very plain wardrobe, emphasizing the image of him as a businesslike authority figure surrounded by zany artistes. he only wears subtle stripes on a few occasions in the '40s, reflecting the recurring prison motif we see in lestat's trial suit and (most famously) the dubai penthouse bedroom:

if we ask the question, "what does this person like to wear?" there are easy answers for lestat, louis and claudia. we understand their tastes, and the motives behind them. but armand is more enigmatic. we can recognize through-lines in his wardrobe, but his "taste" is dominated by whatever role he's currently decided to embody, whether that's a parisian theater director or a real estate mogul in dubai.

the times when he appears to have the most fun with clothing are when he steals a pair of sunglasses from his human dinner (!) and when he's pretending to be rashid. in other words, when he's explicitly performing for an audience. "real armand" is still a mystery.

(i may write more about armand's dubai wardrobe later, but for now, you can find all of my iwtv costumes posts on this tag!)

[foolishprincipalitea]

hélène cixous // marie howe // cristina rivera garza // anaïs nin // catherynne m. valente // sue zhao

[foolishprincipalitea]

our spiritually elevated rejection of canon vs their intellectually dishonest refusal to engage with the text

[foolishprincipalitea]

Obsessed with the idea that the reason why Armand was ultimately divorce lawyered by a grumpy human despite being a half millennium old master manipulator with mind powers is that the longer you live the dumber you get. You get further away from humanity and the way they think and it makes you underestimate them. There's a peak on the immortality/wiseness graph at probably a couple of hundred years old and then there's a steady decline. A vampire's final form is an evil himbo.

[foolishprincipalitea]

"I feel very proud to be a black Creole vampire, in the show. I mean, I hope that all it does is opens the gates for more. Let's tell more stories. Let's be monsters! And enjoy it! Yeah, let's be problematic. Give us the space to be a problem." - Jacob Anderson

[foolishprincipalitea]

the real reason the first interview went south is because daniel was not yet divorced and therefore could not relate to louis on a level of divorcee-to-divorcee. the second interview went so well because daniel, now divorced twice, could not only relate to louis on that level, but also could then sense a certain eau de divorce in the air and did not relent until he sniffed it out and ended another marriage.

[foolishprincipalitea]

I love how every week in post-episode interviews, jacob anderson is just chilling and pondering louis’ precarious psyche and being like ‘oh louis is so fucked up. that man is Not well, can you believe how unwell he is??’ while assad zaman kinda looks like he’s been up all night trying to absorb armand into his soul and he’s like ‘armand is a little scheming bitch, he’s always scheming and planning and also he’s lonely. but mostly scheming’ and then every once in a while a wild sam reid appears and he goes ‘btw whatever they’re telling you about lestat, they’re lying and my close personal friend lestat de lioncourt is NOT happy about it’

[foolishprincipalitea]

lestat in the first episode be like "oh no i dropped my anti racist literature books! i'm 6'2 btw"

[foolishprincipalitea]

I think what makes iwtv (and other such shows) so enjoyable is knowing everyone working on it is as passionate about it. Like yes please /do/ overanalyse that outfit and that set dressing and my performance, I too have spent nights awake figuring out every emotion and every movement of my character at any given time, past present and future. It's all premeditated and we WANT you to be mentally ill about it because we are also mentally ill about it.

Like that's PASSION and it's magnetic

[foolishprincipalitea]

[foolishprincipalitea]

their achilles heels cut the way slaves' were cut. the monstrous racist caricatures drawn. louis depicted as a violent, unstable, and predatory man. not allowing them to speak. the abuser crying about his loneliness as the entire crowd cries with him. louis begging on his knees and telling lestat he'll never leave him, will do whatever he wants, will always be happy, if he just turns claudia. even when lestat admits his faults the crowd sides with him. armand saying lestat took the pieces of louis life and reframed them to build an effigy to lestat as if he didn't do the exact same. claudia telling lestat and louis it was never about her. "i could not prevent it" as he controls an entire crowd. claudia singing "i dont like windows when they close" as she dies. louis buried in rocks and the rocks in the dubai penthouse. the absence of metaphor is striking.

[foolishprincipalitea]

[foolishprincipalitea]

daniel molloy character of all time once again: like imagine you’re a 20-something drug addict and a terrible journalist on account of being 20-something and a drug addict and you randomly meet a vampire at a gay bar and you think wow I might get drugs, gay sex and a story out of this and instead what you get is psychologically and physically tortured by his husband and your memories of it all erased and then 50 years later you’re DYING and those vampires show up in your life again to ask you to write the story of their happy marriage and your memory might be fucked but ON GOD you WILL ruin that marriage if it’s the last thing you do. and then not only do you succeed and walk out of it alive, but also with a bestseller, millions in your bank account AND immortality AND the knowledge that your annoying human ass was somehow the one thing that made that 500+ year old predator so mad that he broke his lifetime vow to never turn anyone. AND, on top of that, you’re out of the CLOSET.

[foolishprincipalitea]

crazy face to make at one half of the couple you’re impromptu divorce lawyering for after you’ve just exposed seventy years worth of his lies including but not limited to aiding abetting and directing the death of two beautiful lesbians one of which was sort of his stepdaughter also btw this couple is comprised of nuclear warheads in the shape of beautiful men and you sort of had a thing with both of them that one time in the seventies when you thought you were going to get high and your dick sucked but instead got saw-trapped by a renegade botticelli angel with all mental illnesses in the dsm-5 and a couple others we haven’t categorized yet. daniel molloy you will live forever

[foolishprincipalitea]

Spidey's little problem