#who saved louis

[dispossesst]

who really saved louis?

Armand takes credit for pulling louis out the cabinet of the theatre weteoom wall, and he takes credit for giving louis blood to drink and revive him. BUT we don’t actually see him do it, they never show us armand’s face, hands, nothing. Just a coffin being pulled out, and a blood being poured into the stones. We know Sam is working the talamasca and they are always keeping track of things, and sometimes ensure things go the way they are ‘supposed to’ do wdy think? Maybe it was Lestat? Maybe it really was Armand?

[dreadfuldevotee]

The fundamental issue with how people talk about Louis is that people think he needs to be coerced and magic'd into making bad decisions. Don't let his proximity to the two craziest fuckers in this universe make you forget that he saw Lestat freeze time in their second meeting and was not only un-phased, but actively attracted to it. Claudia, came to him and told him Armand was using the knowledge of Lestat against her and Louis scoffed and went "Nah he wouldn't do that" like that's some shit his sisterdaughter, of all people, would lie about. I proooomise he is more than capable of making delusional, dickmatized moves with the best of them, I pinky swear.

[asthedeathoflight]

Idk why everyone is always so convinced Armand has a master plan behind the scenes. Like at this moment obviously his story doesn't line up and there's certainly a lot of things he's not saying. But i simply dont understand the appeal of a version of this story in which Armand was secretly in control the whole time. I think what makes him interesting is that he's weak. Hes a coward. Obviously him saying 'i could not prevent it' is a bald faced lie. But that doesn't mean the truth is that he CAUSED IT. I just think its way more interesting if he had nothing to do with the trial and he just kind of. Stood there and did nothing. Hes telling himself he could not have prevented it the same way Louis told himself Lestat didn't warn him about Claudia. Its not a calculated lie meant to deceive Daniel and Louis. It's a lie he's been telling himself for decades. The truth isnt complicated or clever its just very banal and therefore even more tragic. The truth is very simply that he could have prevented it, and he didn't.

[transsexualcoriolanus]

the idea that louis' relationship with armand was just about spiting lestat is inaccurate and reductive. in actuality, loumand was the vampire equivalent of dating the only other gay kid in your school who you can stand, only for 77 years and also everyone involved has tried to kill each other

[mitzvahmelting]

please please please all i want is claudia/madeleine spending their six months of freedom on a Rocky montage training up their mind powers so they can come back and neutralize all the threats to their happiness together before anyone gets a chance to take a run at them

and by "neutralize" i mean i want madeleine eparvier fastening a collar around armand's throat and exclusively referring to him as "jeune homme" is that TOO MUCH TO ASK

[mwagneto]

the way everyone* immediately called bullshit on armand being incapable of interfering with the trial and being held captive LMAO

*except his boyfriend of 77 years

[indelicateink]

maybe this question can only be answered by s3, but

something i’m kinda struggling with is: after daniel’s reveal of armand’s duplicity, louis seems to absolve lestat of claudia’s death. the crux of it all seemed to be that armand was the one to help orchestrate louis’s death, and lestat stepped in at the last second and manipulated the audience to sentence him to ‘banishment’ (so it turns out he was ‘only’ locked in a nightmare box for a long indeterminate amt of time, but that’s another post)

at some point louis’s anger shifted from claudia’s death to culpability for louis’s attempted murder?

because given s2, i’m under the impression that whatever his motives, lestat does bear some responsibility for claudia’s death. she would have died whether he testified or not, but he chose to be a party to it (to save louis).

did flipping through the script with armand’s stage directions help louis see enough ‘lestat—do this, lestat—do that’ to give him the impression lestat was a pawn? i guess that was enough to get him over the hump of lestat participating in claudia’s murder? and/or was sleeping with the enemy for 77 years such a blow to louis that anything in comparison was small beans?

lol, i’m a fan of loustat and all the parties involved (and i know they’re all our beloved monstrous monsters), i’m not against any of them; i’m just struggling with louis’s thought process on this one. maybe i’m missing something? is he taking claudia’s death off lestat’s ledger, or has it just stopped mattering by the 2020s?

[duriens]

btw someone smarter than I am please explain to me the meaning of the sentence "maitre in the bedroom, maitre only when it's hot or convenient" than Daniel says re: Armand refusing to turn Madeleine, cause I can't understand it. it seems to me Daniel means Armand is the maitre in question in all those situations (in the bedroom/when it's hot or convenient) but to me it's... wrong? in the lousmand dynamic we see pretty quickly it's Louis the 'maitre' in the bedroom. same for when it gets 'hot' - Louis is the maitre when it's "hot". we only see Armand as the maitre when... well, when it's convenient, obviously. so... whatever the hell did he mean with that? to me it's like Daniel deeply misinterpreted something essential to their dynamic and armand's whole maitre deal. which is a bit weird

[pirateshelly]

It just occurred to that Armand saying "she wanted to say yes but she didn't trust you, you hadn't given her a reason to" is very much about him and Louis.

Because what Armand strives for more than anything else is safety (or at least his own very warped idea of safety), and something/someone to give him a purpose and identity, and from his perspective Louis in paris has not given him a solid reason to believe he can give him that (which is true! Louis really isn't all in, that's made clear over and over again!) (and blah blah obligatory disclaimer that articulating a character's reasons for doing a shitty thing doesn't excuse the shitty thing etc blah blah).

Meanwhile the coven he CAN trust because it's been his life for centuries, it doesn't bring him any happiness but it's something safe and something he understands. So when given the choice between an uncertain future with Louis who he's not sure he can trust, and going all in again with the coven it makes sense that he fully picks the coven over Louis! It's a horrible and infuriating choice, but imo when you look at who he is as a character and the experiences that have shaped him it makes absolute sense.

So I think he did WANT to "say yes" to Louis but he simply could not risk alienating the coven for someone who could potentially abandon or grow bored with him because with neither of those things he would be, in his mind, nobody.

[hellameyers]

It's funny looking back and listening to podcasts from Season 1 of IWTV, and hearing people say Louis's relationship with Armand was healthier than Lestat. Hilarious!

At least with Lestat, you knew up front what you were getting. Armand was just more clever with his control and machinations.

[spacedlexi]

the post about the mirrors between the Kenny & Jane fight and the Minnie & Clem fight just reminds me of all the similarities between Violet and Kenny. like obviously they’re different characters, I just find it interesting how they share so many traits (being very loyal, may or may not sustain an eye injury, like fishing even if one is rod fishing and the other is spear fishing). there’s some more similarities I forgot to mention but I’ve been patiently waiting for someone to draw Violet and Kenny fishing wearing “women love me, fish fear me” hats or something.

oh yeah, ALSO. they both have moments where you can fight them and calm them down (Kenny on the train, Violet in the ending where you didn’t save her).

this is just so interesting! wish other people acknowledged it.

anon unknowingly unlocking my beef with kenny defenders who hate violet

vi was one of the first characters for me where i realized that a female character can have all the traits people will defend in their favorite male character(s) and yet theyll still find a way to absolutely despise her for some reason

kennys #1 defense is that him losing his family is what drove him to the brink and its soooo understandable for him to act out the way he does (brutally killing people, abusive even if it comes from a place of wanting to protect "his group"). but violet, who acts the way she does (isolationist loner) because.... she lost her family... is a disloyal bitch for some reason 😐 even while shes nothing but loyal to clem regardless of choice (people are quick to defend louis' actions in ep 2 as well and his behavior never makes Him disloyal for some reason 😐 "he lost his best friend!" and vi lost her best friends/gf because of marlon so?), and only has a lapse in judgement after you (determinately) "betray" her 💀 AND she apologizes for it if you do!!

if nothing about violet changed besides her pronouns the fandom reception to her would be so dramatically different and i refuse to believe otherwise

[theglassespredicament]

subtly emerging with grace - eyes on fire (on yt here)

[dxxtruction]

Another post on Armand's decisions because I need to just write down my incoherant thoughts.

I think Armand didn't care what happened with Claudia and Madeleine in the slightest, they could've ran off together or burned and he wouldn't care. Honestly, it seemed he'd been trying to get Louis to feel the same way. He always saw them as a doomed inevitability, but this can not be said the same with Louis.

Fact is there's a conflation of motivations that doesn't make a lot of sense if Armand had no intention or desire to ever save Louis. Yet maybe the point is Armand couldn't even make complete sense of his own motivations himself. He didn’t want anyone to die I don’t think, his allegiances were everywhere to the point he only really had himself. He couldn't tell Louis no, he couldn't tell the coven no either. Pulled in two directions up to the very end. He needed the coven appeased, the coven he never wanted but wouldn’t wish death upon, what he wanted was Louis, while the coven wanted him and his little family dead. Then it comes to it that he could have Louis, but at a cost that they go through with a trial. The trial he directed. So then it's about how Louis could die after a brief happiness or he could find a way to save him - through being close to the whole thing maybe. He's still directing the trial when it comes time. And to that point he may not have known what to do to save him, so just play into it. But I think he'd have still desired being a savior, cause Louis is what he really chose. He maybe legitimately just didn't know if he could be.

And, I don't think he could.

Him being powerful enough to prevent it all is an assumption we've just taken to heart because he has proven capable of a lot. I think Armand's aware of his power - he kept the coven at bay for as long as he can with it - but I think he's also aware of its limits. If thirteen bloodthirsty vampires all came after him, a lot like what had happened with Marius who was also incredibly powerful and ancient, I think he's in his mind that he couldn't take that on. Especially if he'd never desired killing anyone. It stands to also reason these limits are such that he probably couldn't have controlled the entire audience the way Lestat did. Maybe memory is being wacky and he tried as we saw, but it was Lestat who really succeeded, one upping him. Or maybe he'd just given up the hope for it and so it came as a complete surprise.

You also have to think about how beholden the laws are to the coven. Armand's been at the point where he kind of doesn't care for them, or at least he's become lenient and curious about the alternative when it comes to Louis, but the coven is founded on their principles or it wouldn't hold together. So, it's either to dissolve if Louis and Claudia, and Madeleine were to all show the laws can be broken without consequence. Or be mutiny, which is what did happen, and so if he doesn't let those happen then no one lives not even him. This is something that Armand has in mind when going through with it, I'm sure. Still plotting some way to save Louis, but he isn't powerful enough to sway the inevitable, so he figures he has to go along to at least save himself. If anything happens he wants to end up alive.

This may be the reason he needs the coven to keep existing, even though he hates it, it offers him something that's more written in stone, something guaranteed to last so long as consequences are had. It does pain him to do this but the coven was holding the keys to his very life over his head (Which I'd argue makes this whole thing a lack of a choice) and he'd rather stick to his life being miserable than die along with them. Much as Armand really wants love he'd feel safer in this 'forever' thing. I think he's being truthful when he says this.

I think it's truthful as well he was degraded with Santiago's take over, he wasn't secretly leading anything by the time the play was happening. 'The choice' was something Armand felt building he just didn't know when or how it would happen. Santiago being the one to come up with the plan in secret which included trapping Armand to join them or not seems to fit. 'we can kill you now or you can make yourself useful, your choice.' That could've happened at any moment but I think the night Madeleine is turned is probably when they confronted him. Santiago wanted control from Armand so he gets him where it hurts most, forcing a betrayal he wouldn't be able to refuse. Of course he could've tried to fight back, and he did say he could've, but of course there's just this large part of him who would love to be debased from leadership. It's sort of an easy choice to go along and keep going along, when it does debase him, he does get his love as he always wanted him for even just a short while, and ultimately he will live. I don't think he fought very hard. I don't think he found it in himself to.

I think he rides so hard on the he could not prevent it train because he never actually acted to know whether or not he really could've, adamantly believing at the time he couldn't. Coming only to regret it later that he hadn't done enough. He saw how actually easy it was to take the whole coven out when Louis did it, and knew from then on he probably could've done something. He'd rather say anything until it's true instead of be honest with what he really knows.

It may be true as well though that when this play was first conceived, and through rehearsal, he may have been of the shared opinion Claudia and Madeleine would be better out of the picture. Not for laws but selfish reasons. Which would be just another layer of sway over his choice, maybe even another reason why he took the role in it that he did. It was personal to him, he felt Claudia was a lot to blame for things turning out like this. So if he couldn't say no to it, at least he'll exact his little revenge for how Claudia had to go and ruin everything. But again I don't think he actually cared so long as neither of them were being disruptive to his life. Awful thing is he probably thought up till it was too late that they would be. If he really could've prevented anything it was to not let his own spite rule him so much, maybe then he would've prevented a whole lot more.

Now clearly none of this is justified, there was a heavy amount of coercion but I think Armand is very much to be held responsible for what went on in Paris, and his own actions to take part in this as closely as he had were deplorable. His inaction culpable. He's responsible for all the lies and manipulation that took place as a part of this too. And thereafter.

Anyway stay away from cults.

[fire-gift]

I'm obsessed with the way daniel says "HE DIDN'T SAVE YOU! LESTAT DID!"

[toriangeli]

"Armand told the truth" =/= "Armand told the truth about everything"

[flower-dagger-gay]

Me throughout the entirety of s2e8: