#and marius can’t ‘amadeo is like a son to me’ his way out of being a slaveowner | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beneath-the-willow-tree · 4 months ago

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It has become increasingly apparent to me that many misunderstandings of Armand’s character come from people being uncomfortable engaging with the fact that he grew up in a time period and culture that they cannot fully understand or map onto their own experiences. And I don’t mean that in a “his relationship with Marius was fine because things were different in Renaissance Italy!” way, I mean it in a “there is a very very specific historical precedent for the abuse Amadeo experiences that is not really comparable to the way most people contextualize abuse in a modern setting” way.

#to be clear I think it’s perfectly fine and even constructive to relate to characters whose experiences aren’t identical to yours #(how sad it would be if humans couldn’t connect with humans different from them!)#I just think it is possible to do that without trying to reframe those experiences in a way that is more easily digestible to you #such that you discount the contexts that created them #I also think people are uncomfortable truly confronting the fact that armand was enslaved #and marius can’t ‘amadeo is like a son to me’ his way out of being a slaveowner #he gets to treat amadeo the way he does with no repercussions because amadeo has no social protections #marius didn’t ‘adopt’ him. he bought him. from a brothel. as a slave #and it is so telling that the master/slave dynamic seems to be the only way armand is able to parse power differentials #even in his later relationships #but I’ll get off my armand soapbox for the night #iwtv #the vampire chronicles

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