Hi! Sorry for the long ask. 😅
So, why does Armand hate Claudia so much in the show?
Ik she's a violation of all the rules. Turned as a kid, killed another vampire, wrote vampire "history". Ik he thinks she's 100% doomed. But louis and lestat broke rules too.
I've seen people say that he was just indifferent to her but it seems like vitriol to me. People say he wanted Louis all to himself and was jealous and insecure about L and C's love for each other. That he'd have to share him with C. Suuure but also like, she and Madeleine would just leave, leave the country maybe, write occasionally to Louis, meet each other once every 5 years perhaps. So what's the big deal? Louis wouldn't even have to divide his time or affection evenly between C and A.
It doesn't entirely make sense to me because he's somehow not that hateful towards Lestat's love for Louis??? When that was the infinitely bigger danger regarding A losing Louis???
"But she didn't love you. Not like he did." boggles my mind because why tf is he still throwing shade at Louis' daughter who has been dead for decades and yet has no qualms about saying that his ex-husband, who Louis is clearly very much in love with to this day (1973), loved him deeply. The man literally called Lestat and let him talk to Louis?? And he did this of his own accord???
Again in 2022, Louis spends the whole interview, which is supposed to be about his whole life, speaking in detail about his ex-husband and A is barely a footnote. But he's like "he truly loved you, I can say that now." What???
And yet he's jealous and hateful of Louis' love for Claudia?? Girl make it make sense.
Hmmm. I'm not sure I would call it "vitriol".
I think it ultimately boils down to what he calls it in the books:
"I never loved her. I didn't know how."
He never loved her. He did not know how.
Armand's actions in Paris are more colored by his being the coven master and falling in love with Louis than anything else, imho. Because the coven (and Armand) knew who they were, immediately. Armand knew immediately what they had done, and it would have been/was his duty to judge them.
What stayed that initial judgement (so killing them or at least engaging them as they entered Paris) was Armand's (past) relationship to Lestat. And this relationship with Lestat - Armand's wish for a relationship with Lestat (which he fucked up, something we'll still get to see in s3!) is what made him hesitate.
Armand wanted a relationship with Lestat - begged to leave Paris with him and Gabrielle even, but they turned him down. Left him behind.
And here are Louis and Claudia, fledglings by Lestat, having done exactly what Armand told Lestat his "silent children" would do, namely resent him for the dark gift and rise up against him, killing him, for all intents and purposes.
Now, we'll probably still see if Lestat was already there in Paris or not, or shortly after (I do NOT think he was called over via the Eiffeltower), in the book he was.
But Armand, having imprinted so heavily on Lestat, immediately found his fledglings fascinating. And this fascination, this sheer fact stayed his hand - initially.
This is an important aspect.
Because while Armand then falls for Louis, slowly and impossibly given the rules and situations he lives by and in, he just does not know how to love Claudia.
The coven plays with them, it's a long play, one where the ending is already fixed. They know they will (want to) kill them at the end. It's entertainment to them. And they know what Louis and Claudia did, and it does not matter to them that they did not live by those rules - the coven did and judges them by those.
And when Claudia joins the coven... they start to play with her in full.
Trying to break her. Drive her mad with the play, being Baby Lu. It's what Armand talks about in the tunnels. Her fate was sealed, though Louis tried to prevent it by influencing Armand, knowing the danger early on after all but suppressing the fear for her. (Or so the show tale goes - in the books Claudia knows the vampires are after her, and Louis dismisses it - given that they lived in Paris for a while that will likely not be called into question.)
Claudia hurt Lestat. Who Armand... well, loves. And hates. It's complicated :) For the coven it was a matter of rules - for Armand it was infinitely more difficult, because Claudia hurt Lestat, but Claudia was also Lestat's fledgling and he loved Louis, and he loved Lestat, and he was torn between the past and his role and the coven and the rules, and the possibilities.
Madeleine was made in disregard of the rules - in KNOWING disregard of the rules - and if she and Claudia had stayed away... it might have gone all very differently. But they came back, and it forced Armand's hand, because Paris is Armand's. Or was. And the coven has its own dynamics, and enforcing the rules... is more or less a must.
As for Lestat's love for Louis being a danger to losing Armand...
The desire for Louis is and will always be something that Armand and Lestat share. Armand knows in the books that he has blown it with Lestat, and he knows he has blown it with Louis. But the desire for either will never truly leave, though it becomes more subdued later. And it is something acknowledged between Armand and Lestat, too.
Armand loving Louis - and loving Lestat - makes all the difference here. He can empathize with them, to an extent, he feels the pain enough to make an effort. He could not do that for Claudia - he did not know how.
That comment ""But she didn't love you. Not like he did."" - that is after Armand accuses Louis of using Claudia as a "throw pillow". A decoration. Pretty, and easily put aside. Something one can hold in ones lap to hide parts of oneself a bit, too.
He is not throwing shade at Claudia there.
He is throwing shade at Louis.
Louis, who used Claudia in a bid at redemption, made Lestat turn her despite Lestat warning him what would happen. Louis, who broke promises to Lestat right off the bat for her, who did not want to hear about her problems. Who stood by when Lestat was forced to do the hard parenting, Louis who coddled her, but did not even pay enough attention to her to know she wasn't in her coffin.
Claudia was a "throw pillow" to Louis. Loved, yes, and deeply, but not wanted for herself, but just as something she could be for Louis.
Armand is not jealous of Louis' love for Claudia, that's BS imho - he is calling out Louis for using that tale of that love as a shield.
Because Louis instrumentalizes Claudia - changes parts of the story, shields her actions from Daniel in others, removes pages of her diary - to portray her in this loved and loving light.
But Armand has read the diaries.
He knows there's more to it. (Which will still be part of the show.)
Louis knows that, too, though Armand has removed parts of that, and Louis has refused to remember others.
Armand lets the interview in Dubai happen, because he thinks he can control the outcome, and because he wants to see Daniel again.
I think by now that the "surprise" at the end was supposed to have been Louis turning Daniel for Armand.
And he says that there, at the end, ""he truly loved you, I can say that now."" because he thinks he has won.
He thinks he has successfully edited Louis' mind enough to control the narrative, just as he put him to sleep while he told Daniel of his past with Lestat. He thinks he has managed to control the interview, that Daniel will be turned soon, and then under his control, too (and so much more) and so he is... throwing Louis a proverbial bone there.
Yeah, yeah, Lestat loves you. Can we move on now?
Armand does not hate Claudia in the show.
Her very existence, her being Lestat's and joining his coven, and Louis NOT joining his coven and them creating Madeleine, and Armand falling for Louis... that is what puts him (in his mind) into an impossible situation.
Because Armand has been a coven leader for so long that this behavior, the enforcing of rules, never really leaves him again in the books. It's ingrained in him, part of who he is, after 500 years of enforcing them.
And he cannot align the warring parts of himself, the want for love and Louis and Lestat and his coven... with the rules he and the others live by.
And that is what ultimately led to disaster.
areudirty
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