The thing that irks me about all this boils down to basic writing choices: what is the most interesting story?
In IwtV it is more interesting and heartbreaking if Armand chose the coven because he thought Louis didn't love him/love him enough and meanwhile Louis does love him, he's just guarded and bad at saying it, and Armand only finds out the night of the betrayal. That's the most interesting and tragic version and it's what they did.
In TVL the writers flatten it all out.
Armand as manipulator is like...one character beat amongst many. We also see Armand as reaching for connection. Armand as a distorted releflection of Claudia. Armand with a job he does not want and a love he thinks will not last. Armand the survivor. Armand whose powers don't match his emotional capability to wield them.
Villain vs victim is a flat dynamic that TVL throws out perfectly good characterization for and they do it consistently to every character. And it's bad writing because they choose the least interesting options almost every time.
It is more interesting and more heartbreaking if Louis and Armand had love in with the resentment and betrayal and desperation not to be alone. It engages more with both their histories of love being a bartering chip and a weapon. It is more interesting if their love is both because of and a repudiation of their love for Lestat. It is more interesting if there was love but it didn't save them, it just kept them locked in a relationship they couldn't or wouldn't ever heal.
I think what happens in TVL, going hand in hand with Villain vs Victim, is the writers seem determined to play oppression olympics with the characters. Whose pain is more valid, who deserves the forgiveness of the writer's room and who needs to be humbled? (that's a rant about racism for another day.) The decisions they make in service of this ranking of pain requires the flattening of motives and simplification of characterization. See also Gabrielle's entire history being erased which takes a deeply complicated situation and makes it 'bad lady abused Lestat' which is, again, the least interesting option.
Armand put the Steins in to fuck with Louis: least interesting option. Louis never loved Armand: a retcon and the least interesting option.
I have a lot more examples of beats and scenes where the least interesting option happens, the ranking of pain occurs, and then the characters just weirdly and abruptly move along to something else. (I also have some things to say about the truly amateur hour pacing going on) It seems to be because the writers are less interested in the story than in showing us Rolin's very specific version of his blorbo (Lestat) which is not rooted in the first two seasons or the books and gets in the way of good storytelling.
(ALSO! In 77 years the vampires doing M/s bdsm didn't reconcile their histories at all? Really? The more interesting version is that they did talk about it but have terrible Ye Olde mental health ideas and instead of reconciling it they hurt themselves and each other with it, think they've done a good job, fuck nasty about it, and make the whole thing more complicated.)
In any case, my thoughts on the Louis never loved Armand bit can be summed up thusly:
Of course, the writers fucked up their framing devices so technically every moment of the entire season is Lestat POV, except the first scene of ep1 and the last scene of ep7, and therefore not reliable. Which is a cope on my part because I suspect that they did not intend it to be, they just fucked up three seperate framing devices. But hey, based purely on what's on screen: all Lestat POV and he wasnt even there. So. I am also electing to say Lestat simply tells an unreliable, embellished, worse, flatter, and far more racist story than Louis, which...I mean, that almost makes it sound like the writers knew what they were doing but *gestures at writer's comment* clearly that is not the case at all.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk
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