#but Armand is the most compelling enigmatic mysterious character of iwtv s1 and s2 sorry

[aryastark-valarmorghulis]

Reposting this on its own because I need to make sense re: Armand and what the hell was going on with him before and during the trial.

"I will not harm you" were the first words Armand said to Louis, and later, he reiterates "I will not harm you; and I never have".

Now, we know this isn’t quite true, because Armand hurt Louis - mostly by proxy but not exclusively - he lied, gaslighted him (very convenient to agree to erase Louis' memory in SF, right?) and ultimately betrayed him, causing Claudia's death.

On the other hand, when Armand had the chance to kill Louis with fire he didn’t, and not because he had some evil TM mastermind plan, but because he loved Louis (yes, in his own flawed, imperfect way, but he loved him). And most importantly, why does Armand set Louis free? He has nothing to gain from it and everything to lose: he could alienate the coven if discovered, he's aware Louis won't forgive him (he says it later!), and I'm pretty sure, if he knew Louis at all, he at least suspected Louis would try to go all Kill Bill. So why does Armand set Louis free? Because he loves him.

Oh, and he also had no guarantee at all that, after setting him free, Lestat wouldn’t run to Louis and reclaim his role as the big hero who saved him. In the tower scene, Armand is scared as hell that Lestat is going to expose him.

So. Armand loves Louis. He stayed with him for 70+ years fully knowing (at least, unconsciously) that he was a rebound. And if Armand loves him, why would he let him die on that stage? When he saved him before and rescued him after, at his own peril?

So, my opinion: Armand wasn’t going to let Louis die, but you cannot script a hurricane, so Lestat happened, and after, it was just so convenient to let Louis believe what suits both the most - that Lestat is an undeserving monster etc, etc.

Of course, there is always option 2: Armand knew Lestat wouldn't have let Louis die on that stage, so he allowed him to do the hard work and then stepped in to do his own little saving in secret.

But of course, now that all the stones (ha) have been turned, who will believe or trust Armand again? Louis? Not a chance. Lestat? Please. Daniel? We'll see. 

Maybe I'll add more later on Armand's opaqueness during S2 (to me, he was quite an enigma in the books, so, I'm not complaining too much. I loved him as a character in the books, love him now, my weird gremlin etc, etc), which of course includes the final twist of Daniel's turning; but I feel like we don't have enough on him. We only scratched the surface with S2 Armand and we have a lot of puzzle pieces that don't quite match and they're not enough to get the big picture, maybe only a reflection of it.