isthatanascot

[apoptoses]

🚨 what do you think is the best and worst thing Armand ever did?

Oh anon strap in, this is gonna get heavy.

Disclaimer: this is my personal read, my own meta, everyone else is entitled to their own takes etc etc

We're gonna start with the worst: everything he did with Louis in iwtv.

Let me explain.

Something that is very common for survivors of trauma that was more psychological in nature and required betraying oneself in order to stay safe is to enter the fawn response. Aka people pleasing. Someone who has learned that they have to pretend to be someone else in order to keep others around them happy and keep themselves safe doesn't just shake that when the threat has ended. They then go on to feel as if they must do that in all future relationships in order to be loved and cared for, and if this goes unchecked then it can manifest into some really damaging behavior.

Things like lying about personal beliefs in order to tell the desired companion what the traumatized person thinks they want to hear, trying to control outcomes of certain situations in order for things to happen that they think will keep the desired companion with them. Someone who is people pleasing ends up saying "Yes I love the thing that you love" to one person, while saying deep down (or to another person) "I actually hate this thing so much".

And while it's understandable why someone who is people pleasing believes they have to act that way, it leads to their companion feeling manipulated when they find out that all the things that were said and done to 'please' them were untrue or done simply to control the situation and keep them around.

(And if it gets really out of control, subconscious behavior can become conscious acts of manipulation)

So with Louis we meet an Armand who says that he cares nothing for god, that if he met a mortal who inspired a lust for life in him once again he would turn that mortal immediately, that he would have turned Madeline himself. As readers we find out this isn't true later, that Armand struggles with his faith, that Armand would rather suffer anything than turn someone else into a vampire. But if we look at his words from a perspective of someone in a fawn response, he's saying those things because he believes that's what Louis needs to hear in order to accept his love and love him back.

And in more overt ways he forces Louis' hand with Madeline by using his influence, because Armand has decided it would be 'good' for Louis to turn her, that this will help him accept the loss of Claudia and come be with him. It's an act of controlling the situation to try to control for Armand's desired outcome (Louis loves me and will leave Claudia behind for me) but he's doing it under the people pleasing lie of 'this is what Louis needs, this is what will make him happy' when really it's about what will make Armand happy and safe. In that act subconscious fawning has become conscious manipulation.

While Armand's emotional detachment and lack of reaction to the burning of the theater and death of Denis is in many ways related to his self-admitted inability to feel anything at that time, there's also an aspect of fawning there: in order to people please one cannot offer their real feelings for fear of upsetting the companion. So really it just leads this situation where Louis doesn't know how Armand really feels about anything. He never shows Louis a moment of hurt or anger or outage, which we readers know he is capable of, because in order to feel safe and continue to 'please' he cannot let himself feel anything at all except that which his companion feels.

And that's why their relationship crumbles, because Louis is right: they cannot offer each other real love because Louis is mired in grief and Armand is incapable of being fully honest. He can't cultivate a true sense of self and show Louis that self because he's too swept in fawning for him and 'pleasing' him. Even when he and Louis break up he doesn't show his hurt, doesn't articulate having felt neglected. He just walks away, holds it all in, and fawns away his own feelings.

So that's why I think the best thing he did was that moment of sincerity with Daniel right before he turned him: admitting that he felt like a coward, and that he loved Daniel far too much to let him die.

In his explorations with Daniel Armand stops pleasing and swings to far other end of the spectrum for a time: he is so utterly absorbed in exploring the world and figuring out who he is and how he fits in that at times he doesn't consider Daniel's feelings much at all. But by the end of things when the running begins, he doesn't chase Daniel until Daniel calls for him. He becomes honest about his feelings and desires, despite the layers of shame he's heaped upon them. He stops detaching and fawning and gets real.

Which in the end is the key to him re-uniting with Louis and building a healthier relationship, creating his own home, opening the door to future reconciliation with Marius and having Daniel move back in with him. Armand had to learn to be himself fearlessly so that he would have genuine love to give.