#tvc book spoilers

[camellia-thea]

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.

[toriangeli]

Thoughts about Lesmand next season

I maintain that one of the most important relationships of s3 is going to be Lestat/Armand, not because of shipping, but because it's very central to TVL and the series as a whole. Their complicated feelings about each other are fascinating. And they're complicating them even further.

One clear change made is that Lestat now blames Armand for Nicki's death. For those who haven't read the books, Lestat never blamed Armand for Nicki's suicide. This is because one of book!Lestat's most infuriating flaws is that he forgives immediately. This isn't because he's a sweetheart or virtuous or any of that shit, it's because he doesn't like feeling negatively. It's a trait that gets him into a lot of trouble.

But on a television show, something visual and far more concrete than the contents of a book, I can see how this attitude could lead an audience to believe Lestat didn't really care about Nicki. I think that's a good enough reason to make the change already. But there's another important reason to change this.

People talk about how much Lestat's characterization changes between the first two books, but seldom do we get into how vastly Armand changes. Not as a result of character development--as a result of Anne Rice not quite knowing who he is. He was the villain of the first two books, and she expected him to remain a villain until she wrote QOTD and realized he isn't evil.

But by the time she'd figured that out about him, TVL was already out there, and the conflicted nature of Lesmand was very much one-sided. Lestat thought they were besties, while Armand had basically no redeeming characteristics. In this light, Marius' abandonment of Armand is more understandable than it is later on, because as of the writing of TVL, Armand really was meant to be beyond hope.

So at the start, Lestat and Armand really just had a hero-villain relationship. Straight-up. With mutual pining. Some of the major beats of their dynamic, like Armand's sincere belief that Lestat led him on, or Lestat's strange trust in a very unstable Armand, came out of nowhere. It seemed like some of Lestat's attitude towards him was only there to make the betrayals even crueler. Lestat was a total martyr. Hell, at one point (in Memnoch I think) he even asked how Armand could still love him "after everything I've done to you." Lestat didn't do shit to Armand.

Conversely, it can also feel like their later closeness comes out of nowhere. A lot of grudges are let go during QOTD in the face of bigger problems, and the Lesmand conflict is one of them. But what did they do to earn the closeness they have as of Memnoch? What bonded them so much that Armand was the only one who could safely approach a coma'd Lestat?

The show has the opportunity to make these beats feel earned. It has the opportunity to make the conflict something they both contribute to, rather than just Armand. Just like with Lestat, they are drawing characterization of Armand from later books where Anne had his personality down more solidly. They've ironed out some of the big conflicting things, like him spell-gifting Louis into turning Madeleine when turning people is later established to be utterly against his moral code.

More than anything, I hope to see what made them so important to each other right away. I want to see Lestat's pity and mercy as he realizes how very unwell Armand is, and how that is the reason he lashes out. I do think it should still fall apart because Armand bites the hand that feeds him. I do still want the unhinged gremlin we saw in 2.05. But I think if the audience is going to empathize with him--something Rolin has said is important to them--Lestat shouldn't be quite so much of a saint. I think there should be a crumb of a reason Armand thinks Lestat led him on, albeit a small enough one that it's still not a conclusion a rational person would come to. Like the blood-sharing and casual (for Lestat) sex in Armand's little story. Ideally even smaller. I'd like there to be some trigger. Otherwise, the audience will wonder if they missed something (as I did).

I'll probably ramble more as thoughts come up, but that's it for now.

[iamthedevilsminion]

thinking about maharet and akasha as foils for one another.

akasha, connected to the entire vampire species, both as progenitor and through the sireline. when she hurts, so do they. akasha, who does not care for her fledglings, who hunts them down, who only spares those who lestat cares for. the few who survive her gathered in fear, uncertain of how they can survive her. how akasha is the start of sires abandoning and hurting their fledglings. how khayman is turned and abandoned, and how he does it to makare and maharet, even unintentionally. how, from here, fledglings and their makers are not bound through love truly. how, no matter how much a sire and fledgling love each other, they can only hurt one another. khayman hurting maharet. teskhman harming and abandoning marius through no fault of his own, because of akasha. marius hurting and leaving armand because of akasha. armand and daniel. then magnus and lestat, lestat and nicki, lestat leaving gabrielle for his father, lestat and louis, lestat and claudia. and all of lestat's loves being saved. the elder, unnamed, dragging akasha and enkil into the sun only to find that doing so would harm him instead of them. akasha, who has no care for her people.

and maharet, who's daughter and sister are her lifelines. who, when turned into a vampire, after all she's suffered, does everything she can to reunite with her daughter. who looks after her daughter's children, and their children, and their children's children. who helps craft her family and keeps them safe as thousands of years pass. who never forgets her task of finding her sister, but also her task of protecting her children. who seeks out those who are blessed as witches. she makes a role for herself in each generation, someone to "inherit" the title of maharet, so she can keep their history safe and can keep close to them. she, who writes to jesse and keeps her safe, and jesse, who loves her aunt with her entire being, enough to keep the great family safe from the talamasca. who hears that jesse is in danger and drops everything for her. maharet who's family is in every continent, every country. who's family is the great family, who have spread to every corner of the globe and who are representative of humanity, and all that is possible. maharet, her family, and their love. maharet, a vampire who loves her mortal family with all of her being.

[violinsandblood]

why is lestat's turn of events more truthful than louis'?? like, no doubt about it that louis is an unreliable narrator. which he also does admit to himself, he is very aware that he is speaking from his perspective and he doesn't know everything and time does change memories and views of those memories.

but why do so many people in the fandom believe lestat over louis? why is he automatically more reliable and truthful than louis?

[darnmand]

As a lifelong Armand girlie I have to say not only could he have prevented it he fucking caused it.

[queenoftheimps]

The concert sequence of Queen of the Damned:

Lestat: WHAT’S UP SAN FRANCISCO CAN I GET A ‘I DESERVE TO BE MURDERED’ UP IN HERE

Khayman and Mael: -circling each other like wary cats-

Jesse: -having the most extreme fangirl moment of her life-

Armand: even though I look like an adolescent I think I might be the only adult here

Daniel: babe have you ever really LOOKED at human skin

Armand: Daniel bb I really need you to get it together ok

Akasha: MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER

David Talbot and Aaron Lightner: hi we’re here to pick up our daughter?

[unbroken-teacup]

people on tik tok need to keep my boy armand’s name out of their mouths, like “he’s a MASTER MANIPULATOR” sure jan they’re all manipulative vampires that’s the point of the show… it’s just annoying how everyone wants to paint him as this supreme bad guy when all he wants is to finally be loved

rant over

[limpwristssavelives]

i just finished queen of the damned and when i tell you i was giggling and kicking my feet at the last paragraph between louis and lestat

[klaushargreeveses]

Begging the IWTV writers to give us Lestat’s interview with the whole gang present so they can jeer and heckle fact-check him in real-time:

Lestat: Of course, I am famously six feet tall...

Louis: You’re 5′10′’, now behave yourself. 

Lestat: Upon my damnéd soul I swear it, I am SIX FEET-

Louis: Say it one more time and I’m getting the tape measure.

Lestat: Oh, all right. Anyway! That night I wore a most elegantly tailored Armani suit, black leather boots and...

Armand: Incorrect! The floozy wore barbie pink booty shorts with the words ‘tutti frutti’ imprinted on the ass. And they didn’t even match his skin tone. Ghastly.

Lestat: You still got down on all fours like a lôwly maggôt and begged me to fuck you!

Armand: So?

Lestat: ANYWAY. Struck by the tragedy of my existence, I went home, flung myself to the floor and lay for thirteen hours thrashing my arms, kicking my legs, and weeping hysterically.

Daniel: You can’t expect us to believe you actually did that.

Gabrielle: Oh, trust me. He actually did that.

Ghost!Claudia: Heh. What a little bitch.

Lestat: Silence, foul spectre! *sniffling* Louis, make her stop calling me that.

[rustingways]

I keep encountering “Lestat would never hurt Louis, I can’t believe they wrote that domestic violence scene, it was so out of character!” naysayers in regards to S1E5. That scene didn’t surprise me or shock me as far as Lestat’s character goes, but I thought “Hmm, perhaps I’m too far removed from the books to remember well.” And I’ve been meandering through the series in no particular order for the last few months….

Y’all this man burned down Louis’ house. Specifically with the intent to hurt him. BY HIS OWN ADMISSION. He writes this IN HIS OWN BOOK. Why? Because Louis rejected him.

[lesbians4armand]

ohhh thinking very hard about what could have been if Armand and Claudia had met with no other circumstances dividing them, just seeing each other with no one else influencing their feelings about one another.

because ultimately in what we got between them, books or show, was disdain, hatred and disregard. Armand did not like Claudia, he never liked her, partially because she was made too young to exist in the first place and he would always want her dead for that because he saw her very existence as a cruelty and her death as mercy, which would still likely be the case if they met in a void of circumstances.

But the circumstances they did meet in are so tragic because they were so blinded by others- particularly by Louis- that they could not see the mirror that existed between them.

Armand also hated Claudia because she was a wall between him and Louis, and always would be. Louis cared more about Claudia than he ever would about Armand and he would never have Louis to himself if Claudia was there, another reason why he wanted to be rid of her. Claudia also deeply disliked Armand for this reason because she knew he wanted Louis to himself and wanted her gone (he was literally telepathically telling her to kill herself). That’s why she tried to save herself by getting Louis to turn Madeleine so that she could get away alive and leave Louis to Armand, though Armand never would have let her go alive for the reasons stated before, never mind her crime of killing Lestat, that was just an excuse to him, he knew Lestat wasn’t dead anyway.

But Oh! The way they’re both characters that could have understood one another like no one else could if it weren’t for all of this, if it weren’t for Louis and Lestat. Sure, Armand saw the existence of a child vampire as young as Claudia an abomination, but he also clearly saw so very much of himself in that, being a child vampire himself in the books, and even in the show where he is an adult when turned, still having gone through what he had as a child and the relationship he had with his own maker.

Armand very much saw this as an affront and almost an insult to him, because Lestat had already met Armand, seen how making a vampire young was a bad idea, and done it anyway. Of course Armand didn’t know that his own maker Marius had also told Lestat not to do such a thing because of how Armand turned out, directly calling him his greatest crime and a mistake, but he certainly would find this out later, making it even worse that he chose to make Claudia and it ended up back on Armand.

But just this dynamic, this similarity of being a child with no control or desire to be what they were and exist for so long in a body too small for them, made for selfish reasons disguised as love. I don’t think Armand could bear to see his own reality in a more extreme form staring back at him through Claudia’s eyes, he had to kill her.

But what could have been. what could have been if they met in a void, had one conversation about how similar they were. Armand saw all the similarities between himself and Claudia, but Claudia never knew. If they had been able to talk once about it without pre established relationships or beliefs clouding them. oh my.

[camellia-thea]

okay. just rambling here, but, i think armand took more than just the end of the interview away from daniel.

we got that little moment about that night, saying 'you asked me to' to louis. 'you asked me to take this from you, you could not live with it,' leading into, 'i look after you when you cannot look after yourself, i make those choices for you.'

we know that during the chase and devil's minion era, daniel was an addict, who was, by his own admission, slowly killing himself. he was also addicted to blood.

it's really not too far to make the jump, if devil's minion occurred, that armand made the choice to step in, in his own mind, for daniel's best interests. i know this isn't a unique jump to make, but; again with armand's "i look after him when he cannot look after himself" continual reiteration, i think it's a fair assumption.

he can also replace and blur memories, which makes the discussion of alice and paris -- why the dessert from that night? -- and how immediate and sincere his answer of "she wanted to say yes, but she didn't trust you. you hadn't given her a reason to." this could be the night he took them away, replaced himself with alice, planted something similar for her to start the relationship, then step back and watch it fall. and i think the thing that stands out there is just how tender he is while saying it. there's an undercurrent of something else entirely underneath, it isn't a dig at daniel in the moment, despite the pushing earlier in the scene.

and then in s1, when louis say to daniel, "i'd give it to you now." and the cut to armand, still in disguise, and his micro-expression of horror, the way he stiffens and looks away... and the little moment of what i read as conflict when daniel says no. his jump to "may i be excused?" i can't tell in the moment, if he's horrified about the offer itself, the fact that it is louis offering to turn daniel rather than himself, or the fact that daniel denies it. because i don't think armand could actually let daniel die if this was the case.

the disguise itself-- why pretend to be rashid? i think part of it is to try and hide behind a human persona to keep those memories at bay; especially given the little moments of flashback that got triggered by little mannerisms. i can't decide whether they're intentional pushes or not, whether armand wanted/wants daniel to remember on his own, or wants to keep it under wraps. i think, even if he believes he doesn't want it to come forward, he truly does deep down.

and once he's revealed himself as armand, the way he gazes at daniel, his beautiful boy. the continued "our boy", from both he and louis, the "he's still in there, somewhere..."

and i think "our boy" is also really interesting, because why would daniel be armand's boy, based solely on the moments that louis initially remembered? armand didn't really have any emotional connection to daniel that night, sure, he saved him, but that doesn't really mean anything; he saved daniel for louis, not for daniel's sake.

and, jumping back "our boy,[...] he's still in there somewhere"... there's implication that louis might know about it? again, i don't think this is related to the original interview, or at least, limited to it? i don't have anything concrete here, just vibes, but again, why is armand's boy still in there somewhere?

and sure, some of these are reaches and i don't think i'm necessarily right, but god it would be deliciously awful if i was.

[joseigamer]

hi, so i was able to stumble on something really interesting: an interview with the vampire one volume manga adaptation called "yoake no vampire" that came out shortly after the original movie did in 1994. as an adaptation it's very faithful to the book, just really condensed.

the first two chapters got scanlated into english from japanese 13 years ago, but the last one never was. unfortunately the japanese raws of the thing are no longer online but i was able to find a portuguese scanlation of the last chapter. i ended up doing what i would call "edited machine translation" on it (consulting a portuguese version of the original book to cross reference translations since a lot of dialogue was taken directly, checking dictionaries to confirm translations, redrawing some parts, etc). it's not perfect but i think it makes sense from beginning to end.

would people still be interested in me sharing? i would also include the portuguese "raws" of course (the translation group is defunct now but with credit to them ofc) i figured it might be a fun treat for anyone who's already read the book while we wait for the later episodes of the amc show (but also just for book!iwtv fans).

below are example pages (not in order)

[monsterboyfriend]

Just finished Memnoch the Devil :/

[viensamoimoncher]

I feel as if s2ep5 is gonna be an explosive ep for a lot of reasons, in addition to getting 70s San Francisco flashbacks and Devil's Minion scenes

primarily (and I'm probably gonna be proven wrong) — in line with Louis' unreliable recollections, I strongly suspect we're gonna see 2 Claudia 'deaths' — one through 'rose tinted glasses' (which will be in this ep), and then when the dam in his mind finally breaks and the true recollections of events come back, we're gonna see the full, unfiltered, brutal truth of the trial

this would explain Lestat's relatively untouched / normal appearance in the teasers so far; when we see the 'true'/unaltered version of events, we'll see him looking much worse for wear after all that's happened to him

[darnmand]

“He was as much of a captive as we were” honey he’s the captor.