#which you can't necessarily just flat out deny without denying his 'person'. But can of course question and challenge.

[dxxtruction]

Something to just consider is that Armand is a collectivist. Culturally I think this makes sense, considering he would've been raised in his foundational years in that sort of culture that values collectivism over individualism. He's also had to live in several high control environments afterwards, which demanded servitude, where putting himself first would've led to trouble, up to and including death. In the Children of Darkness, for example, the very idea of seeking pleasure at all is against the commandments, and since he is forced to lead this group (under careful surveillance), he can not therefore show if he even wishes to seek pleasure, because this would disrupt the collective thought, and further, place a level of threat upon himself for disobeying the laws he's meant to be upholding. He's at threat that he can be killed for it, because that's how such laws are handled. So he necessarily can not hold an individualistic, self serving, opinion, and hope to live, and lived in that kind of envoirment for centuries. Even the TdV carries on the same sort of traditions to less strict, more secular, degrees. Seeking pleasure in TdV is rewarded, even exhaulted, but the great laws are still imposed to the level of threat which is death, and everyone is always surveilling each other on this matter. He's a collectivist, especially in situations which impose certain, or uncertain threat of violence, for going against the group, or person, as in such a situation being individualistic is perhaps the last thing you may get to ever do. Nothing personally driven, therefore, seems that worth it provided the risk.

Whether he remembers this earliest period of childhood, or not, those sorts of values (likely positive then as things like sharing, community building, reaching mutually beneficial decisions, aid, and consideration of others feelings). Ingrained into his personality, and he doesn't have the kind of amnesia where it appears his personality was fundamentally changed by it. Rather, that since it's more of a dissociative amnesia barrier protecting him from traumas, that his personality would rather be fragmented, as opposed to altered. (Meaning such values are still there, but are now also acting alongside various further alteration to what is means to be in collective. And that if such amnesiac parts ever do surface, it is only reacting as if it is re-experiencing, and in the same context to the trauma. Depending on how complex this part is it could take on further environmental inputs while in this state, developing or simply having, essentially, its own personality... but I digress).

He does things for the group, which can at times only be one person, more-so than he serves himself. Placing what serves situation and context more highly that individual personal traits and feelings. But, by thinking he has no self, he naturally falls to self justifying everything wrongful he personally does, as for the benefit of the group. It's a cognitive distortion which doesn't recognize it's own selfishness because it sees itself as being selfless regardless of actual outcome. Further, this makes it so he takes no responsibility for others actions he may have caused, or to how a situation came about because of himself, if he doesn't then apply having any self to that situation. He'll bend to opinion even if its false, and create or even take on an entire role of falsehood, if he believes it serves a mutual benefit.

He uses this as a kind of shield against the world he must fundamentally view as threatening, and imposing, with very limited spaces of safety. But doesn't impose himself in healthy ways, therefore becomes an enabler of certain toxic behaviors getting out of hand, and creating unsafe environments. Desiring such places being controlled, and predictable, environments, but not fostering what's needed for that, and certainly not in a healthy way. Rather lending to manipulating others, or using threats, or force, to make it so he's secure in this. Again, self justifying that it's for a collectivist benefit. If he does at all recognize his own selfishness it's due to how he's able to come out of his own cognitive distortions, and dissonance, and admit faults and failings. Seeing that hiding his own faults and failings from others is something selfish, and therefore that he does indeed have a self there. In doing so, developing an understanding that he acts as a self in all things, and therefore understanding the effects of his actions are actually his. (Or else falling right back into the distortions). He has to be selfish, in a way, to ever be truly selfless. If that's really his goal.

To want something for itself, as opposed to some other means. To want good, love, and safety, for itself as opposed to what it does. He has to develop a sense of his own idea of these things, in order to form a consistent and more secure identity, not founded or attached to a group or person. And further needs whatever self that is, to be embraced, by himself, and not insecure in how others would react to it. To not be afraid of this self expression and personal desire, thought, opinion, feeling, and so on. By developing his own person he'd be able to better embrace his own bad qualities, even change them. As he then feels he has such agency, and isn't just simply reacting and serving to the world around him. I think there's something in how he changes Daniel which says he is moving in sort of this direction, there's something in how it appears he's roaming around on his own right now that suggests he is on a journey of this sort. I'm not expecting greatness out of it, but I am thinking there will be progress for present day Armand in future seasons. I think he is capable of change, and is not fundamentally as he appears. (And this would align to his narrative arc in the books anyway.)

And just also like I don’t think he knows entirely where the boundaries of anything really are or should be. Between himself and others or like where right begins and wrong ends and so forth. Not a moment in his memorable life, mortal or immortal, hasn't been without the presence of vampires, and therefore conditioned more under vampiric understandings as opposed to human ones. And because he's disconsidering of self, and hasn’t exactly been modeled what these should be, he's not able to function sanely in his environment. He's not sane I think I can say. But I do think he’s someone who learns experientially, and can do that on his own, so where those must lie he’s not in total lack of awareness either.