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Noah Kahan
if i look back, i am lost
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
$LAYYYTER
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@ahubofreadersandmagicians
thinking about armand trying so so hard to understand what he’s doing wrong in relationships and going to support groups and reading psychology books and handwriting those letters to people he’s hurt… like yes he kills people yes he’s crazy but he’s TRYING he’s trying to be better he’s trying to be good…
ENOUGH REVISIONISM
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 2.06 - 'Smallfolk' 3.08 - 'The Treasons at Tumbleton'
Yes I would like to order one (1) peaceful safe farm home for these four. And Heleana’s little girl. That’s’ it. No one else is invited.
let’s be bear hugged by mama (literally)
you're in the wind, i'm in the water nobody's son, nobody's daughter.
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON | Season 3, Episode 8
Someone love Armand. On-screen.
Is that so much to ask for?
Not that this season's writers would've cared, but a lot of this shit was possible because they didn't do enough to properly race-bend Armand's character. Most of the impact was left to audience interpretation, which is limited by the dominant racial ideas in English-speaking western countries, particularly North America. That's where the series is most accessible for viewers and critics alike. And dominant ≠ well-informed & historically sound.
Even if it was easier to watch in the Global South, those (re)viewers would rarely be invited to screen the episodes or to cover them for major outlets.
This season has me seriously reflecting on the previous two, and I may have been too generous in finding intent behind what now seems incidental. Was Assad a case of colour-blind, not colour-conscious, casting? Maybe. A few location changes in his backstory aren't enough to convince me otherwise.
It's crazy to show so little understanding of Orientalism with this character, especially since so much of his trauma's the result of him being fetishised.
It's crazy to not revisit his account that Nicki, a white descendant of the crumbling French aristocracy, called him an anti-Roma slur in 1800's Paris. Has that also been written off as 'Armand fanfiction?' Because it was a good indicator of how fascists would've received him. Yet, he was leading a coven of white Europeans as Paris fell to the Nazis, and seemingly emerged unbothered. Yeah, Madeleine was human and exposed, but she should not be the only one with horrors to recount from that time.
(Again, thanks to @vorreitenertiqui for reminding me that Armand was perceived as Romani during WWII in one your tags)
OK, this gets long. I’m sorry. TL: dr; Ukrainian was also an inferior race for centuries, this does seem like a deliberate update. They spend care on it sometimes, such as the beautiful orange tapestry Ukrainian shirt Armand is wearing in the butcher shop, and then abandon it at important times. Not spending any time on the implications of Romani-looking (thanks, Nicky) Armand being coerced by a white coven into the trial right after Nazi France.
But I maintain that they had to have deliberately done it. Because race IS important with Armand. But western (and Global South) audiences are no longer going to see a Ukrainian Armand as the “dark inferior” to “great Russia” and western Europe. Western Europe viewed Ukrainians like that for centuries, but have stopped. now the only people in the world to see Ukraine like that are Russians. For the rest of the audience, he would just be a white man.
My point being, the Book already has an Armand who is a racial minority to a lot of of the other characters. I no longer trust that these show runners understand the visual language of racism. But they once did! And so I think the casting of Assad Zaman is actually deliberate and perfect: they’ve updated the character to read as racialized to a western audience, and they’ve still got an actor who is gorgeous, almost angelic, who you can map onto several pieces of Renaissance art. And, whose background and timeline can still contain a slave trade believably, and even a loose link to Ukraine itself through the Tatars!
It’s wild, because even now, there are places where a lot of care is being put into his ethnic identity, then the showrunners undo that. Case in point: The shirt that he’s wearing in the butcher shop is done by a Ukrainian designer, and Assad put a lot of work into learning about the design. But the way the butcher shop scene is lit to make Armand look monstrous, it just looks like a brown shirt!
Exploring the idea of Armand‘s coercion via white coven could’ve been really interesting! It’s 1940s Paris! He just escaped a concentration camp - he looks, as Nicki so cruelly commented, Romani! He has darker skin than Louis’s Of course his position in the coven is not stable! Vichy France was not stable! But we don’t spend any time on that either, just a quick reveal as Louis’s vitals are fading.
All the pieces of casting fit together so well it’s impossible to believe it wasn’t deliberate.
True enlightenment is knowing that Loumand’s chemistry was so potent they had to dilute it with horror in season 3. But in case you forgot… here’s a reminder.
HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT
HADESTOWN NATION WE STAY WINNING
they're trying to make me hate loumand and its not going to work because THE LOVE WAS THERE what are they even on about. the whole point of the show is that the love was there, even if it was violent or imperfect or cruel. between louis and armand, lestat and armand, lestat and nicki, claudia and madeleine, lestat and his fucking mother idc the love was there don't piss me off don't retcon or minimise the other relationships to set up your hollywood endgames
Thr love was dripping off the screen in 3x07, ffs!
I can’t believe they are making her poly vampire world monogamous. They live for ETERNITY!!!
If Lestat had’ve really been dead or if Louis had actually been able to get over him then Armand and Louis would have been endgame.
There, I said it.
Louis is the love to cradle Armand, b/c he is the only vampire who understands him. Loumand is at the center of this story!!
God forbid these UNNATURAL BEINGS have a poly triad as an endgame!
Can you hear her? She's calling me...
they're trying to make me hate loumand and its not going to work because THE LOVE WAS THERE what are they even on about. the whole point of the show is that the love was there, even if it was violent or imperfect or cruel. between louis and armand, lestat and armand, lestat and nicki, claudia and madeleine, lestat and his fucking mother idc the love was there don't piss me off don't retcon or minimise the other relationships to set up your hollywood endgames
So… since tvl is over.
After the trial why did Armand pull out Louis coffin, feed him blood and save him?
Since it’s been confirmed that Lestat went to the trial willingly and let Louis go with Armand afterwards as revenge.
Many of us theorized that Lestat was unwilling, that he made some kind of deal with Armand to make him save Louis. This is very unlikely as we’ve learned. This means both Lestat and Armand both choose to save Louis life at different points. So Armand was perhaps telling a half-truth when he said he saved Louis life.
My new theory is that Armand did it out of love for Louis. When Lestat saved Louis, Armand could have prevented it, but didn’t, because he also wanted Louis to survive. But in true Armand fashions was unwilling to raise a hand because
1. The trauma of what happened to Marius when he stood up to a coven (burned and “killed”)
2. Self victimization
That’s also why Armand begs Louis to leave Paris, he loves him and wants him to survive.
Love.
He thought choosing the choosing over Louis would grant him safety and belonging.
He didn’t realize that, like a true Judas deal, he had given UP what he loved (Louis) for nothing in returned (b/c the coven did not want him, or like him, and he did not feel secure there).
Armand loves Louis, he truly does! But Louis did not look like a safe candidate for that sense of stability that a CPTSD-riddled monster who lives forever needs. Now? He still loves Louis, and there’s no other candidate for stability on the table. He had to take a gamble that he can be, if not forgiven, at least taken back.
And thus the nature of their relationship, before 3x07 confused it. It’s not a question of love, it’s gain, payment, debt, and punishment. And need. Desperate need. But of course there’s love, love is not the issue.
And forgiveness. One of the reasons that Armand got in that relationship was to be punished and earn forgiveness. If we are to believe 3x07, and I do not entirely, Louis never had any plans of forgiving him. That’s a betrayal of the original agreement. But that betrayal isn’t written in til 3x07 anyway!!
i feel like the show made it very very obvious how much armand had lost control of the coven. and while i personally believe he could have murdered them all easily, that obviously does not serve him when his primary goal is to not be alone. and he walked in on louis sitting in a puddle of his own blood because he did something armand begged him not to do. so choosing louis is also a huge risk. this doesn’t mean armand wants either louis or claudia dead.
armand’s self assessment is cowardice and it is correct.
armand is a classic femme fatale character. he spends most of the season telling louis he can’t or won’t protect him from the coven, and then he doesn’t.
directing the play shows how committed he is to putting his own ptsd riddled need for security over louis’ well being (which is tragic because he does loves louis), not that he orchestrated the whole thing. not that he wanted it to happen. given how much this show is about racism, it is wild to me how much people want to minimize santiago’s jealousy of louis as the inciting action for all of this.
Kinda insane just how much the accommodations and consideration for Patrick Page's disability improved the show and gave Hades a whole new layer of depth. Every show should be so good to their disabled actors
