#we got devils minion DANIEL IS ARMANDS ONLY FLEDGLING I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS

[funtheysaid]

That’s got to be the best, most insane, most satisfying, MOST FASCINATING season finale I’ve ever watched in my life. Holy fuck.

[wizardpink]

I screencapped these two posts four days ago because I had Something to Say and now I have no idea wth it was.

I think it had something to do with power dynamics and how Armand making Daniel a vampire actually handed Daniel a huge amount of power over Armand despite being the fledgling?

So number one Armand rendered his primary weapon against Daniel / form of self-defense completely useless by making Daniel his fledgling. He can no longer use the mind gift to manipulate Daniel or erase his memories. Which of course is true for all makers and fledglings, but most makers' fledglings aren't Sherlock Holmes with a BSJ. Daniel beat Armand's mental saw trap as a human. Armand is never, never getting one over on him now. Daniel will perceive the slightest change in energy coming from Armand and immediately know that he's lying, and 3 seconds of deduction later and he'll know why. He's an open book now, which must be terrifying.

Number two: mentorship. This is how Lestat kept control over Claudia and Louis for so long: he kept them dependent on him through ignorance. He only told them enough about vampirism to get through the day to day: don't go in the sun, don't drink dead blood, the other vampires of the world are vicious, etc. Every fledging needs their maker at LEAST in the beginning to teach them the ropes. Well, Daniel just wrote the goddamned book on vampirism, literally. Daniel sat there and listened as Louis told him everything he knew, everything Lestat ever taught him, everything Armand ever taught him. What other vampire ever got the in-depth two week course on Vampires 101 before they even got turned?! Crazy stuff.

Number three: vampire loneliness. Supposedly the most cruel and painful thing a vampire can endure. It keeps fledglings and makers tied to each other well past the point of being able to stand each other. And god knows Armand is staring down the barrel of having no one but Daniel. Which is unfortunate for him, considering Daniel is besties with his ex husband and touring with his ex boyfriend. Daniel has friends, friends that didn't torture him for 4 days then try to kill him. Oof.

All of this is to say that, with the info we have right now, Daniel has very little need for Armand. Armand in comparison needs him at least not to be alone, but what leverage does he have to get Daniel to stay with him? He's got nothing babes. I'm not a strong believer in the Armand is running from Daniel theory on season 3, but if he is, it's hard to blame him. He is shooting 0 for 1,000 right now, losing left and right, dying of shame and guilt and embarrassment. I'd probably crawl in a hole and die too.

"Oh but wizardpink, that's not very Devil's Minion of you!" AU CONTRAIRE. Because what could be more compelling and romantic than someone who has no use for you but nevertheless wants you? Thinks about you constantly and doesn't know why? You tried to capture them in a glass jar but they broke out and flew away, only to flutter back because they missed you? Yeah inject that straight into my veins.

And on the flip side? Maybe Armand goes straight back to that headspace he was in in '73, the crazed look in his eyes when he told Daniel he was going to teach him to be fascinating. That's ONE thing Armand still has on Daniel, he could probably overpower him enough to keep him trapped somewhere, if Armand thought Daniel was going to leave him. This, too, is Devil's Minion as fuck. Slowest of burns, as they say.

Hmm. Yeah I guess that was what I was gonna say.

[hekateinhell]

you probably got this question before, but how do you think daniel would react to TVA?

I don't think I have actually, but I sure do talk about it a lot!

I think the implication in QotD when Daniel (half dead and barely lucid) is tearing through TVL for any mention of Armand is that all this is brand new information to him. Armand doesn't exactly have the compulsion to share, so it's possible all Daniel knew up until then was what Louis had told him and whatever little superficial tidbits here and there Armand had slipped him over the course of twelve years.

Since TVA is set two years before B&G and there's probably more distance between the time Anne actually wrote the two, I don't know that she thought ahead enough about Daniel to consider his mental state during the TVA period as Armand is narrating. Anne was not Daniel's biggest fan (when she remembered he existed at all). So the way I think of it is that Armand wouldn't have known Daniel had delved into insanity at this point.

My personal headcanon based off of that is that Armand decided to share his story for the same reason Lestat did--to reach out to the fledgling who'd left him. Only Armand is less of "now this is what really happened, also I'm sorry," and more of "this is why it happened, here is everything you wanted to know," with an extra dose of bitterness sprinkled in since the wound is a only few years fresh vs several decades. Of course, this is purely fanon (see my point about Anne re: Daniel 🥲).

So I always think Daniel got to read TVA after his recovery, about 10 or so years after it would've been published. I imagine he felt lots of things! Delighted to finally learn more about Armand in his own words, devastated at the details of his life's story, frustrated that Armand never actually shared any of this with him during their time together, bitter over the way Armand describes their relationship. In Devil's Minion (as we presume Daniel is dictating to Lestat or vice versa) we don't get the sense that Armand is coming to their relationship from a place of anger and hatred at the world, as he says he was in TVA. Recklessness? Absolutely. Desperation? Probably, yes. But Armand being angry and hateful is not the read we generally get from QotD.

Ultimately, I like to think reading TVA was at least partially what motivated Daniel to give his relationship with Armand another go; it explained why Armand is the way that he is and his capacity and desire for love and forgiveness (see Marius, Santino, Lestat). If nothing else, it gave them something to talk about when they were first reconciling.