#for him to die of just an entirely random illness but 🤷

[dykesynthezoid]

I get why people sometimes like to retcon show!Armand’s parents selling him into slavery but if I’m being honest I think it’s actually pretty important for them to keep that narratively going forward. It was just such a common way for people to become enslaved throughout all of human history. It presents a very difficult reality but one that I think is integral to understanding how these things perpetuate in the first place.

I know people can have this instinct to go “oh well that’s just too sad” and like I get it! There’s an impulse to give Armand some kind of reprieve from his history of suffering. But also. A lot of real life people have histories just like that. A lot of trafficking victims are trafficked by a parent or an older sibling. A lot of victims previously had an unstable or difficult home life that made them vulnerable to trafficking, even if they were never trafficked by a family member.

A lot of real life people have lives that look like that. There’s no secret hidden surprise memories that their parents actually really loved them. Sometimes things were just always kind of bad. Sometimes that’s just how it is. And those people can still go on to heal and have a better life. There is no “too sad.” There’s just the actual diverse range of human experiences and perseverance.

(Also I understand the argument of “but Armand himself doesn’t remember!” but tbh I think it’s evidence of people not really understanding how repressed memories/dissociative amnesia works. If Armand can say out loud, with conviction, that Arun’s parents sold him into slavery, it’s probably because he knows it to be true, down to a gut instinct. Sometimes those bone-deep feelings are all you have when the detailed episodic memories are nonexistent. The vague knowing is also a type of memory.

If Armand thinks that is what happened that is probably what happened. Questioning his recollection when his sense of connection to that history is already so unstable almost feels kind of cruel if you’ve been in those shoes; but I get that’s not people’s intention! People just want a reality where he didn’t have to suffer as much and I feel for that.)