Handful of people on my flist who also have read Anne Rice – can we talk about Armand for a minute? Because I hate him, and also don't get him, and need to discuss this with other humans, lol. I'm at the point of The Vampire Lestat where we get Armand's backstory, which I had honestly forgotten in its entirety, and I have been having Thoughts since he reappeared in the book/my life and really I just have nowhere else to discuss these old-ass books nobody cares about anymore.
I am pretty sure I have just always hated Armand. Conversely, some of my favorite quotes of the novels come from him – nearly all the stuff he's had to say about how changing times consume vampires and kill them more than anything else are great. Really interesting stuff. And as a character I would perhaps be more able to deal with him if he wasn't so clearly stamped all over as authorial wankbait. I mean: he is flatly awful. And that's cool! Awful characters are necessary in fiction. But Anne Rice has such a clear and distinct hard-on for Armand (her favoritism is so blatant sometimes, lorddd) that it confuses and muddles things for me personally as a reader. This is how I feel: in Interview with the Vampire, I did not feel such intense authorial prodding in the narrative voice of the text. I felt like I was being presented with these characters and places and events but I was free to make up my own mind about everything that was going down. I don't feel that in the Vampire Lestat. This is not to say that I don't still love and deeply enjoy this book; I really do. But I feel like I am being presented with these characters and places and events and there is all this subtextual nudging telling me to feel one way or another about them, and it's at odds with how I actually feel. I don't think it's just a difference in Louis and Lestat as narrators. I think it's a clear difference in how Rice is writing.
And it's also a big part of why I can't deal with Armand. I didn't care for him in IwtV specifically because of the one instance where he basically vampire roofies Louis to force him to turn a woman to care for Claudia and then admits it and Louis has to be like: uh, that's okay that you did that, I guess, because you love me and stuff. This is classic Rice: she always romanticizes rape and lack of consent, perhaps exemplified best in her absurd porn novels that are basically just an endless stream of scenes in which characters are raped, but enjoy it. I think it's even evident in how the act of feeding is written; it's been said many times that they are meant to stand in for sex, but I don't think so. I think they're meant to stand in for rape that becomes pleasurable, aka the ultimate bodice-ripper trope of the 70s and 80s. The characters are never fed on by choice, to my memory, and they always fight but then give in. I also think this ties in importantly with the fact that the fledgeling almost always turns on their maker, as the act itself is seen as a betrayal. So the scenes are written, in my opinion, more like pleasurable rape than sex. I have never felt grosser writing anything in my life. Ew. I'm bringing this up because it comes up a lot specifically in regards to Armand.
Most of the main characters have a kind of confusing love-hate relationship with Armand. They despise him for his actions but he has such otherworldly beauty (more so even than everyone else's otherworldly beauty, it seems) that they cannot help but be seduced. Armand actually exemplifies a lot of Anne Rice's weird sex stuff, and having such bizarre psychological nonsense heaped on a fictional character does make me partially sympathetic to him. First, there's the fact that she is SUCH A PEDO, as I have said many times before. Armand appears as a seventeen year old boy (seventeen, tops; that's what Wiki says, but I was always under the impression he was physically closer to fifteen or so) and it seems to me that this is linked with the over-the-top, fawning descriptions of his beauty – from an author who is known for purple prose, esp. re: the physical appearances of characters. He is an angel, a cherub, a Botticelli in motion; his beauty is somehow so pure it eclipses his behavior, and it is intrinsically linked to how childlike he appears. Second, there is the way Armand bulldozes over consent. Pedophilia and rape are big parts of Armand's story, especially when he is a human. As a vampire, he exhibits his control through classic abusive manipulation techniques and more blatant mind control (what I tend to think of, tactlessly, as vampire roofies). He does this in IwtV to Louis to get what he wants. And he does it in TVL to Lestat to reach the same ends. The scene in TVL is even more explicitly rape-y, because Armand ~seduces~ Lestat with MIND CONTROL at a party, draws him away from everyone, and then violently assaults him, drinking his blood in an attempt to take Lestat's power (explicitly, this is what he says after). Lestat fights him off but is afterwards still tormented by how drawn to Armand he is, because of Armand's beauty.
Now: is Anne Rice doing this on purpose? Does Armand act out in abusive ways because he was abused so horribly himself? Logic would deem it so, but she either brushes aside his abuse entirely or turns it into a romance, so I don't think her intention is to draw the line between past and present abuse, or even characterize Armand's behavior as abusive.
Armand is also one of the biggest victims of Rice's purple prose; half the scenes he appears in are just endless synonyms and incomprehensible emotional descriptions. He is always having these huge shifts from angelic solemnity to hideous all-consuming rage, and there are equal shifts in Lestat from fear to derision to adoration. It's a fucking rollercoaster and OH GOD DO I HATE IT. CAN SOMEONE IN THESE BOOKS FEEL THE SAME WAY FOR LONGER THAN THIRTY SECONDS????? But I guess it's mostly around Armand that this nonsense happens. Which brings me to my issue again: am I supposed to realize that this is because he is manipulating the emotions of those around him? That is what I think. Or am I supposed to think that he is so incredible and challenging and powerful that he inspires these intense emotions in others? I think that is what Anne wants me to think.
So. To the story of Armand's human life, which I just finished. I read the Wiki article about him in preparation for writing this just to keep my details straight, and it summarized a lot of what happens in the novel the Vampire Armand (which I never read, because I am a hater) and it differs SO ENTIRELY from the account Armand gives in the Vampire Lestat that I am cackling, omg I can't.
But basically, shit's about to get creepy (creepier).
Armand is abducted, I suppose would be the word, from his home in Russia (I think???) as a child, is brought to Constantinople and sold into slavery, where he is purchased by Venetians and put to work in a brothel. Assuming he is in fact seventeen when turned, he'd have to be around fifteen when he is sold to the brothel. The novel is not at all clear as to Armand's age, but assuming my guess of fifteen/sixteen when turned is correct, he'd be somewhere around twelve then, and I do feel the novel stresses that he is a child. So. Armand is subjected to extreme amounts of sexual abuse before he is again sold, and this is where it gets even shadier. He is sold to Marius, a vampire, who becomes a relatively big character within the books. I haven't gotten to the Marius sections yet, but to my memory he was always treated as wise and kind, highly respected. And now re-reading this section as an adult, I am pretty horrified. Marius takes Armand in and continues to abuse him, though now it is presented as a good thing, as a special and singular relationship, because Marius loves Armand deeply. Also because Anne Rice is obsessed with sexualizing children and obsessed with romanticizing sexual relationships that adults have with children.
And Armand and Marius' relationship is definitely sexual, despite the vampires-don't-have-sex thing. It is also couched in the kind of language that we associate with the abuse of children, even as the novel tries to tell me this relationship was amazing. Marius feeds on Armand, Armand sleeps in Marius' bed. (This also sets up the relationship Armand has with a young human boy in IwtV, which is extremely similar.)
"...his face in the Master's hands as, alone in the bedchamber again, that secret, never tell anyone, kiss."
"Holding tight to the Master. Waiting for the rapture of the kiss. Dark secret, unspoken secret. The Master slipping out of the door sometime before dawn."
I MEAN. It certainly reads to me like Marius is abusing Armand, but the tone of the book simultaneously says the opposite. Marius also tells him to "forget the bitterness" of the brothel, which just seems to gloss right over the actual horrifying things Armand endured, and it claims in the wiki that Marius took Armand to brothels when he "came of age" (at, what, fifteen?) which seems immensely gross and also glaringly insensitive.
All of this is gross, but it is not why I hate Armand, nor why I don't get him. I am actually shocked that I am writing a whole verbose post about him, because I generally try to think of England and wait for all Armand sections to be over. But he is just so confusing to me. There are lines like: "It occurred to me [Lestat] as it had in Notre Dam that he spoke the way angels must speak, if they exist." Actual note written by me in my book next to this line: r u kidding me.
Lestat wants Armand, but fears him. He knows Armand is dangerous. He refuses to be Armand's companion, but also refuses to let Armand leave. Shit like this: "My heart expanded slightly, against my will, as it had on the battlements when I had heard his voice. I thought of the pain only half an hour ago in the Palais when the lie had broken with the stab of his fangs into my neck. I hated him. But I couldn't stop looking at him."
This sums it up, really. Even Gabrielle seems to have a desire to be near Armand despite her distrust of him. Awesomely, she rips him a new one in this book, because she is a queen and I love her, but it ALSO seems to me the novel wants to position her as cruel and cold SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO REALLY THINK, ANNE? ALSO THINGS LIKE THIS: "Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this."
WHY IS ALL THE LANGUAGE RELATING TO ARMAND SO FUCKING UNBEARABLE. Whoa sorry I got so capsy. I am just endlessly confusseeeeeddd by him, can someone explain him to me? This shit goes on constantly whenever he shows up, and it exhausts me. I think I am supposed to love him but I do not. Has Anne spoken about this? Are there articles about these books, academic or otherwise? I have never actually looked but I deeply need something or someone to elucidate this shit for me.
I am pretty sure I have just always hated Armand. Conversely, some of my favorite quotes of the novels come from him – nearly all the stuff he's had to say about how changing times consume vampires and kill them more than anything else are great. Really interesting stuff. And as a character I would perhaps be more able to deal with him if he wasn't so clearly stamped all over as authorial wankbait. I mean: he is flatly awful. And that's cool! Awful characters are necessary in fiction. But Anne Rice has such a clear and distinct hard-on for Armand (her favoritism is so blatant sometimes, lorddd) that it confuses and muddles things for me personally as a reader. This is how I feel: in Interview with the Vampire, I did not feel such intense authorial prodding in the narrative voice of the text. I felt like I was being presented with these characters and places and events but I was free to make up my own mind about everything that was going down. I don't feel that in the Vampire Lestat. This is not to say that I don't still love and deeply enjoy this book; I really do. But I feel like I am being presented with these characters and places and events and there is all this subtextual nudging telling me to feel one way or another about them, and it's at odds with how I actually feel. I don't think it's just a difference in Louis and Lestat as narrators. I think it's a clear difference in how Rice is writing.
And it's also a big part of why I can't deal with Armand. I didn't care for him in IwtV specifically because of the one instance where he basically vampire roofies Louis to force him to turn a woman to care for Claudia and then admits it and Louis has to be like: uh, that's okay that you did that, I guess, because you love me and stuff. This is classic Rice: she always romanticizes rape and lack of consent, perhaps exemplified best in her absurd porn novels that are basically just an endless stream of scenes in which characters are raped, but enjoy it. I think it's even evident in how the act of feeding is written; it's been said many times that they are meant to stand in for sex, but I don't think so. I think they're meant to stand in for rape that becomes pleasurable, aka the ultimate bodice-ripper trope of the 70s and 80s. The characters are never fed on by choice, to my memory, and they always fight but then give in. I also think this ties in importantly with the fact that the fledgeling almost always turns on their maker, as the act itself is seen as a betrayal. So the scenes are written, in my opinion, more like pleasurable rape than sex. I have never felt grosser writing anything in my life. Ew. I'm bringing this up because it comes up a lot specifically in regards to Armand.
Most of the main characters have a kind of confusing love-hate relationship with Armand. They despise him for his actions but he has such otherworldly beauty (more so even than everyone else's otherworldly beauty, it seems) that they cannot help but be seduced. Armand actually exemplifies a lot of Anne Rice's weird sex stuff, and having such bizarre psychological nonsense heaped on a fictional character does make me partially sympathetic to him. First, there's the fact that she is SUCH A PEDO, as I have said many times before. Armand appears as a seventeen year old boy (seventeen, tops; that's what Wiki says, but I was always under the impression he was physically closer to fifteen or so) and it seems to me that this is linked with the over-the-top, fawning descriptions of his beauty – from an author who is known for purple prose, esp. re: the physical appearances of characters. He is an angel, a cherub, a Botticelli in motion; his beauty is somehow so pure it eclipses his behavior, and it is intrinsically linked to how childlike he appears. Second, there is the way Armand bulldozes over consent. Pedophilia and rape are big parts of Armand's story, especially when he is a human. As a vampire, he exhibits his control through classic abusive manipulation techniques and more blatant mind control (what I tend to think of, tactlessly, as vampire roofies). He does this in IwtV to Louis to get what he wants. And he does it in TVL to Lestat to reach the same ends. The scene in TVL is even more explicitly rape-y, because Armand ~seduces~ Lestat with MIND CONTROL at a party, draws him away from everyone, and then violently assaults him, drinking his blood in an attempt to take Lestat's power (explicitly, this is what he says after). Lestat fights him off but is afterwards still tormented by how drawn to Armand he is, because of Armand's beauty.
Now: is Anne Rice doing this on purpose? Does Armand act out in abusive ways because he was abused so horribly himself? Logic would deem it so, but she either brushes aside his abuse entirely or turns it into a romance, so I don't think her intention is to draw the line between past and present abuse, or even characterize Armand's behavior as abusive.
Armand is also one of the biggest victims of Rice's purple prose; half the scenes he appears in are just endless synonyms and incomprehensible emotional descriptions. He is always having these huge shifts from angelic solemnity to hideous all-consuming rage, and there are equal shifts in Lestat from fear to derision to adoration. It's a fucking rollercoaster and OH GOD DO I HATE IT. CAN SOMEONE IN THESE BOOKS FEEL THE SAME WAY FOR LONGER THAN THIRTY SECONDS????? But I guess it's mostly around Armand that this nonsense happens. Which brings me to my issue again: am I supposed to realize that this is because he is manipulating the emotions of those around him? That is what I think. Or am I supposed to think that he is so incredible and challenging and powerful that he inspires these intense emotions in others? I think that is what Anne wants me to think.
So. To the story of Armand's human life, which I just finished. I read the Wiki article about him in preparation for writing this just to keep my details straight, and it summarized a lot of what happens in the novel the Vampire Armand (which I never read, because I am a hater) and it differs SO ENTIRELY from the account Armand gives in the Vampire Lestat that I am cackling, omg I can't.
But basically, shit's about to get creepy (creepier).
Armand is abducted, I suppose would be the word, from his home in Russia (I think???) as a child, is brought to Constantinople and sold into slavery, where he is purchased by Venetians and put to work in a brothel. Assuming he is in fact seventeen when turned, he'd have to be around fifteen when he is sold to the brothel. The novel is not at all clear as to Armand's age, but assuming my guess of fifteen/sixteen when turned is correct, he'd be somewhere around twelve then, and I do feel the novel stresses that he is a child. So. Armand is subjected to extreme amounts of sexual abuse before he is again sold, and this is where it gets even shadier. He is sold to Marius, a vampire, who becomes a relatively big character within the books. I haven't gotten to the Marius sections yet, but to my memory he was always treated as wise and kind, highly respected. And now re-reading this section as an adult, I am pretty horrified. Marius takes Armand in and continues to abuse him, though now it is presented as a good thing, as a special and singular relationship, because Marius loves Armand deeply. Also because Anne Rice is obsessed with sexualizing children and obsessed with romanticizing sexual relationships that adults have with children.
And Armand and Marius' relationship is definitely sexual, despite the vampires-don't-have-sex thing. It is also couched in the kind of language that we associate with the abuse of children, even as the novel tries to tell me this relationship was amazing. Marius feeds on Armand, Armand sleeps in Marius' bed. (This also sets up the relationship Armand has with a young human boy in IwtV, which is extremely similar.)
"...his face in the Master's hands as, alone in the bedchamber again, that secret, never tell anyone, kiss."
"Holding tight to the Master. Waiting for the rapture of the kiss. Dark secret, unspoken secret. The Master slipping out of the door sometime before dawn."
I MEAN. It certainly reads to me like Marius is abusing Armand, but the tone of the book simultaneously says the opposite. Marius also tells him to "forget the bitterness" of the brothel, which just seems to gloss right over the actual horrifying things Armand endured, and it claims in the wiki that Marius took Armand to brothels when he "came of age" (at, what, fifteen?) which seems immensely gross and also glaringly insensitive.
All of this is gross, but it is not why I hate Armand, nor why I don't get him. I am actually shocked that I am writing a whole verbose post about him, because I generally try to think of England and wait for all Armand sections to be over. But he is just so confusing to me. There are lines like: "It occurred to me [Lestat] as it had in Notre Dam that he spoke the way angels must speak, if they exist." Actual note written by me in my book next to this line: r u kidding me.
Lestat wants Armand, but fears him. He knows Armand is dangerous. He refuses to be Armand's companion, but also refuses to let Armand leave. Shit like this: "My heart expanded slightly, against my will, as it had on the battlements when I had heard his voice. I thought of the pain only half an hour ago in the Palais when the lie had broken with the stab of his fangs into my neck. I hated him. But I couldn't stop looking at him."
This sums it up, really. Even Gabrielle seems to have a desire to be near Armand despite her distrust of him. Awesomely, she rips him a new one in this book, because she is a queen and I love her, but it ALSO seems to me the novel wants to position her as cruel and cold SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO REALLY THINK, ANNE? ALSO THINGS LIKE THIS: "Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this."
WHY IS ALL THE LANGUAGE RELATING TO ARMAND SO FUCKING UNBEARABLE. Whoa sorry I got so capsy. I am just endlessly confusseeeeeddd by him, can someone explain him to me? This shit goes on constantly whenever he shows up, and it exhausts me. I think I am supposed to love him but I do not. Has Anne spoken about this? Are there articles about these books, academic or otherwise? I have never actually looked but I deeply need something or someone to elucidate this shit for me.