on Louis' apology to Armand:
what I find brilliant about the Armand and Louis scene in 7 is that of course the Vampire Armand would have wanted an apology. let's take off our Fan Glasses and stop thinking about our favorite characters as people for a second. they're monsters in human relationships.
Armand and Louis are exes and their relationship lasted more than half a century and it was built on murders and lies, lies woven by the two of them, and in Armand's perspective it doesn't matter which lie is bigger and which act was more monstrous. he is not weighing his murderous play against Louis' indifferent treatment of him. he's not trying to win the argument of Who Is The Biggest Liar or The Biggest Victim. he's done terrible things to Louis, he tried to kill him, he killed his daughter, he took credit for saving his life, he trapped him in a love that was a coffin, he fucked with his head. all these things he did. he also tried to keep their relationship afloat as long as possible, because it's what he does, it's what he thought he had to do. and then the house of cards crumbled in front of his eyes, destroyed by the same man he's always been obsessed with, he's always loved, maybe, and 77 years of weaving lies and adjusting truths to accomodate their relationship and make it work went down the drain and this upsets him so, so much, because it means that all he did was for naught: "half a century wasted". of course he'd want to have it out with Louis, of course it's Louis he wants to monologue at right now, not Lestat: it's still not Lestat's turn. Lestat's influence on Armand goes deeper and is more complex than what has been freshly destroyed here, and what we saw so far between the two of them is barely the tip of the iceberg. we DID see the entire iceberg disintegrating when it comes to Loumand, and it needed addressing. (the corpse of this relationship is fresh and stinks, the corpse of whatever it was with Lestat has been hidden away and rotted through and you need to dig deeper to find it: that's for future seasons to dig it up.)
and Armand addresses the situation in the only way he's capable of, so far. he kidnaps his latest ex and tortures him, cause it's his way, and it has always been, he tortured Lestat and Claudia in the books after all, are we forgetting that?
he's Louis' ex and he feels wronged. he feels he did everything he could to make it work and he went to such lengths to keep Louis bound to him, to clean his image to be worthy of Louis' love. it wasn't enough for Louis. it wasn't even enough for Armand himself, and he admits this in the episode, when he says that he's not sure he's ever even loved him. it's all a mess and it started with Lestat, but Armand is not ready to process his history with Lestat yet, so he does the next logical thing: the freshest, not the greatest maybe,wound is with Louis. and he thinks that in this divorce they are both at fault, like so often happens in divorces. sure he did monstrous things, but he's the protagonist of his story. he feels hurt too, he feels angry, he feels that all he did for Louis and the relationship they built together was worth a forgiveness for his part in Paris, and in his skewed perspective, of course even the sins recently discovered should have been forgiven considering all his efforts.
but now he knows Louis had never forgiven him, Louis doesn't plan on forgiving anything. and Armand admits it: Louis is his Claudia, he had been obsessed with getting his forgiveness for 77 years, and is still hung up on it. so, of course he's stuck on the apology. he's been apologizing to everyone, why can't he get an apology too? he asks for one, he thinks he knows what he wants Louis to be sorry for. and then he gets what he didn't expect. he gets an apology that was delivered half in duress, half from a very dark, but also genuine, space (as Jacob Anderson himself said.) and he can't cope with that apology. it was too much and it went too deep, and it touched on their 77yo relationship, on the obsession/love with Daniel, on Lestat's influence on him all these years. and so he let him live, and went away, probably to find a love that will cradle him. somebody he now calls "companion" so readily, so quickly, that probably does not call him that yet, except sarcastically, but that will come to see him as a companion in the future.
I think, *spoilers from Qotd* since Armand is part of the gang that will try to save Lestat from Akasha in the books, they are trying to very slowly change the dynamic between the major characters and Armand, because so far he's hated and despised and snubbed, but it needs to change for further collaboration. but since Armand is such a complex and monstrous character the understanding of his character can't come in a perfectly clean, sanitized, or healthy way. it had to come from a monstrous experience, under terrifying circumstances, as is often the way with vampires. it doesn't make it less true. and Louis is the first character to "see" Armand. It makes the very first scene with them being "cordial" with e/o at the auction more believable and understandable. Next, it'll probably be Daniel. Daniel is already collaborating with Armand, although we don't know the extent of his trust toward Armand and the quality of their rapport (no, I don't believe they are romantically involved yet). But he'll come around soon. The others, Marius, Pandora, etc. they will come in S4 probably, and they have their own dynamic with Armand. And Lestat is the very last one. he's the protagonist of the series and the special snowflake of the saga, let's be honest, and of course he will be the last stitch in the tapestry of Armand's character development, cause they are part of each other's development, always have been.
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