#a single feather | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

camellia-thea · 2 months

Text

so @coprinellus-cluster sent me an ask about daniel and armand and why i find them so compelling. that turned into a 2000 word essay. this is very armand focused, but i promise i love daniel too.

anne rice initially wrote armand as an antagonist, and even went into writing qotd with him intended to be part of the antagonistic force, however she found while writing the devil's minion chapter that armand had become someone completely different. i love that. i love that a lot. i have sources for this somewhere but they're buried. i'll add 'em if i find them again.

i love how the chapter takes two characters who had very little identity beyond their interaction with louis and lestat. daniel was functionally exclusively a framing device in the first book. he didn't really have a character, and he literally was not named. armand was defined almost entirely by his relationships, and while his sections have always been my favourite parts of iwtv and tvl, i think there was a lack of depth there that gets discussed so much more in the devil's minion chapter.

armand is a character who has always defined himself by the people around him. from marius, to santino, to the children of darkness, to lestat, to the théâtre des vampires, to louis. each link ushers in a different aspect of himself, and the show deals with the amazingly well. the arun/amadeo/armand, the good nurse or the gremlin, it's phenomenal. daniel in the books is meant to be the next part of the transition. armand goes to both lestat and louis, show me how to live in this modern era.

"We cannot be Marius for you," I said, "or the dark lord, Santino[…]" "You have to suffer through this emptiness," I said, "and find what impels you to continue. If you come with us we will fail you and you will destroy us." "How suffer through it?" [Armand] looked up at me and his eyebrows came together in the most poignant frown. "How do I begin? You move like the right hand of God! But for me the world, the real world in which Marius lived, is beyond reach. I never lived in it. I push against the glass. But how do I get in?" "I can't tell you that," I said. "You have to study this age, " Gabrielle interrupted. Her voice was calm but commanding. He looked towards her as she spoke. "You have to understand the age, " she continued, "through its literature and its music and its art. You have come up out of the earth, as you yourself put it. Now live in the world. " [...] "And what better place is there than the center of things, the boulevard and the theater? " Gabrielle asked. He frowned, his head turning dismissively, but she pressed on. "Your gift is for leading the coven, and your coven is still there."

from the vampire lestat

this conversation you can see is what leads him to approach louis for the same thing.

["]It is through you that I can save myself from the despair which I’ve described to you as our death. It is through you that I must make my link with this nineteenth century and come to understand it in a way that will revitalize me, which I so desperately need. It is for you that I’ve been waiting at the Théâtre des Vampires. If I knew a mortal of that sensitivity, that pain, that focus, I would make him a vampire in an instant. But such can rarely be done. No, I’ve had to wait and watch for you. And now I’ll fight for you. Do you see how ruthless I am in love? Is this what you meant by love?["]

from interview with the vampire

(i do think the little "if i found a mortal with that sensitivity, that pain, that focus, i would make him a vampire in an instant", but that's not the point of this)

armand is a creature of habit, of cycles, and daniel is meant to be the next member of the loop. he uses daniel in the exact same fashion, to usher himself into the new era;

"You are my teacher," Armand told him. "You will tell me everything about this century. I am learning secrets already that have eluded me since the beginning. You'll sleep when the sun rises, if you wish, but the nights are mine."

from queen of the damned

but, something changes with daniel. and i think it is what is missing from louis; daniel has a passion for life and living that louis lacks. he's interviewing people to reveal their lives!

suddenly armand is not being ushered into the new era, he's living it. you get his excitement, his delight, his engagement. he is no longer detached from the world in the way that he is in the first two novels. he is bright and full of life.

daniel remarks a few times about how armand's laughter and delight makes him suddenly look mortal. i find it enthralling. how this one mortal, who's life purpose initially is revealing the lives of people around him to the world, brings the 500 year old vampire joy and delight and that joy stays.

i love that this mortal man could bring anne rice to completely change her perception of armand.

and on daniel's part, he is utterly fascinating. he falls in love with the monster chasing him, for his monstrosity.

Daniel stared hard at the creature before him, this thing that looked human and sounded human but was not. There was a horrid shift in his consciousness; he saw this being like a great insect, a monstrous evil predator who had devoured a million human lives. And yet he loved this thing. He loved its smooth white skin, its great dark brown eyes. He loved it not because it looked like a gentle, thoughtful young man, but because it was ghastly and awful and loathsome, and beautiful all at the same time. He loved it the way people love evil, because it thrills them to the core of their souls. Imagine, killing like that, just taking life any time you want it, just doing it, sinking your teeth into another and taking all that that person can possibly give. Look at the garments he wore. Blue cotton shirt, brass-buttoned denim jacket. Where had he gotten them? Off a victim, yes, like taking out his knife and skinning the kill while it was still warm? No wonder they reeked of salt and blood, though none was visible. And the hair trimmed just as if it weren't going to grow out within twenty-four hours to its regular shoulder length. This is evil. This is illusion. This is what I want to be, which is why I cannot stand to look at him. Armand's lips had moved in a soft, slightly concealed smile. And then his eyes had misted and closed. He had bent close to Daniel, pressed his lips to Daniel's neck.

from queen of the damned

this passage has lived in my mind since i first read queen of the damned. daniel loves armand in spite of his beauty, not because of it. it is the monstrosity that he loves. and it's exactly what armand needs. their relationship has such a push-pull dynamic as well. daniel up and leaving when they have fights, armand waiting him out before reappearing. armand and daniel’s relationship is a direct link to addiction, which i think is really interesting. daniel is quite literally addicted to armand and that’s something i think is really interesting when it comes to mortal relationships with vampires.

there’s also something in the power dynamics between them with armand exerting control over daniel through finances, but it’s really interesting because daniel is rich. he got a lot of money from publishing interview. armand gets him so many things, buys him houses and clothes and a fucking island, and daniel lets him. and i don’t necessarily think daniel has the capacity to really say no here, but it really does make their dynamic super interesting.

i think daniel gives armand the potential to be more than who he was made to be, the roles he was put into. the muse, the protégé, the cult leader, the coven member, he lingers in his own victimhood, and i think it’s a very interesting thing. daniel is an escape from that. daniel loves the vampire, loves the monster, and doesn’t necessarily want something from armand beyond being pulled into vampirism with him. and that is something that armand very distinctly has control to say no to. and i think that’s very important to armand.

"Tell me what you want, Daniel, and I'll get it for you. Why do you keep running away?" "Lies, you bastard. Say that you wanted me. You'll torment me forever, won't you, and then you'll watch me die, and you'll find I that interesting, won't you? It was true what Louis said. You watch them die, your mortal slaves, they mean nothing to you. You'll watch the colors change in my face as I die." "That's Louis's language," Armand said patiently. "Please don't quote that book to me. I'd rather die than see you die, Daniel." "Then give it to me! Damn you! Immortality that close, as close as your arms." "No, Daniel, because I'd rather die than do that, too."

from queen of the damned

this is another moment that lives in my head, i’d rather die than do that too. there is something so electric between them. how willing daniel is to give in to armand, and yet how willing he is to fight for it, for them. i don’t read daniel’s obsession with vampirism being entirely for himself by the end of the era. i truly think that there is an element of it so that he can remain with armand.

but there’s something else there too, that i don’t think the other relationships we see in the vampire chronicles really capture, and that is the mundanity that they relish in together. they go out together, to clubs, to performances, to museums and art galleries, to bars and to rock concerts, but they also experience life together in a way that lestat and louis don’t really convey when narrating their novels. daniel and armand have made a life together, and it’s weird and unconventional but it works. they have houses together, the little villa on night island, it’s just. genuine. it has all the trappings of the unhealthy, awful nature that a mortal and vampire relationship can be, and simultaneously they’ve managed to create something that is domestic. and i don’t think daniel leaving armand, and often the country they were in, necessarily negates it. they’re not good people, it’s not a good relationship, but it’s enough.

and armand does love daniel enough to turn him. that’s a significant part of it. when he is legitimately faced with daniel’s death, he cannot bear the idea of losing him.

and. there’s a bigger part too. daniel is what stops armand from wanting to die.

"Years ago," Armand interrupted, "it wouldn't have mattered to me, all this." "What do you mean?" "But I don't want it to end now. I don't want to continue unless you-" His face changed slightly. Faint look of surprise. "I don't want you to die."

from queen of the damned

daniel has fundamentally changed armand. armand does not want to die. and he does not want to live without daniel.

and it’s awful, and yet it’s enthralling. there was never going to be an outcome in which daniel did not die. it is the fate of any mortal, and most immortals as well. and i think they both knew that. and that’s the tragedy of it too, the beautiful, horrific nature of them both is that armand was always going to be the one who killed daniel, and the only question was whether daniel would remain afterwards.

and i think that armand was never going to let daniel go.

daniel and armand love each other, and i think rice did a disservice to them both by setting them aside in later books, but i won't go into that here.

#feather speaks #the vampire chronicles #iwtv #armand #daniel molloy #meta #long post #tvc book spoilers #daniel and armand are pair bonded: do not separate.#be glad i didn't mention the voyeurism chair hjkgdfhjkgd #i could have #i also did not quote every single line i'm obsessed with from the chapter. which is most lines.

143 notes · View notes