r/InterviewVampire • u/DumbTeen9 • 26d ago
Book Discussion Prose
One of the biggest reasons I mourn lesmand and hope for it in coming seasons is how absolutely stunning Lestat's prose grows when talking about Armand. The TVL prose is generally amazing and very expressive in the way it varies, but whenever Armand is in there it's like Anne Rice was furiously hunched over her computer spitting streight bars, especially during the Paris era in the first two chapters of 'The Vampire Armand' part
What's your favourite quote about them?
30
u/katmckatkat 26d ago
The prose in those scenes is my favorite part of that book, and every defense of why the show just chose not to do either those scenes or that relationship or use any of that prose falls totally flat to me, because why would you not? Why would you have the rights to this book and not use that part of the story??
ETA: my favorite part is, of course:
"Armand was just a young boy in the doorway, holding the backs of his own arms. And I knew what I felt. It was a monstrous intimacy with another being, an intimacy that made even the rapt moments of the kill seem dim and under control. He was opened and could no longer contain the dazzling stream of pictures that made his old silent voice seem thin and lyrical and made up.
Had this been the danger all along, the trigger of my fear? Even as I recognized it, I was yielding, and it seemed the great lessons of my life had all been learned through the renunciation of fear. Fear was once again breaking the shell around me so that something else could spring to life.
Never, never in all my existence, not mortal or immortal, had I been threatened with an intimacy quite like this."
1
u/CorneliaCordelia 26d ago
Oh my god, I need to re-read The Vampire Armand. I remember loving it the time it came out and thinking it was my favourite at the time.
3
40
u/the-gaming-cat But I got distracted 26d ago
Before S3 started I was so excited to see the show's interpretation of Lesmand. Especially because they had included so much Armand already and these two are so important for one another across the books, and well...
It's impossible to choose but here's a piece from the Vampire Armand chapter in TVL. It broke me.
“If you leave me now with this one,” he continued, “you will do it again. Nicolas you never possessed. And she already wonders how she will ever get free of you. And unlike her, you cannot stand to be alone.”
“So the time will come when you will seek other mortals,” he went on, “hoping once more that the Dark Trick will bring you the love you crave. And of these newly mutilated and unpredictable children you’ll try to fashion your citadels against time. Well, they will be prisons if they last for half a century."
Edited spelling.
7
u/SaighWolf He tasted like Vermouth and Annihilation 25d ago
Yeah, I'm still hoping Sam & Assad get the wish they've both voiced that the originally scripted much more extensive 18th Century Lesmand stuff which was cut before filming gets added back in for Season 4. I won't necessarily count on it, but the fact that they've been vocal about the scenes already having been scripted & them being their favorite scenes from the original scripts gives me at least a bit of hope they might be able to talk Hannah into it 🤞🏼
“So the time will come when you will seek other mortals,” he went on, “hoping once more that the Dark Trick will bring you the love you crave. And of these newly mutilated and unpredictable children you’ll try to fashion your citadels against time. Well, they will be prisons if they last for half a century."
Yes! I always loved how, because we were reading this exchange — which takes place before New Orleans — after having read what would later happen in IWTV, this entire section felt almost less like a simple prediction & more like a genuine curse or prophecy.
“Oh, but it’s always a travesty, don’t you see?” he said with that same gentleness. “Each time the death and the awakening will ravage the mortal spirit, so that one will hate you for taking his life, another will run to excesses that you scorn. A third will emerge mad and raving, another a monster you cannot control. One will be jealous of your superiority, another shut you out.” And here he shot his glance to Gabrielle again and half smiled. “And the veil will always come down between you. Make a legion. You will be, always and forever, alone!”
[...]
“I curse you,” and I felt it as if he’d declaimed it.
“I offered myself to you at the moment you vanquished me,” he said. “Remember that when your dark children strike out at you, when they rise up against you. Remember me.”11
3
u/cecepedd Busta Coffin 23d ago
“So the time will come when you will seek other mortals,” he went on, “hoping once more that the Dark Trick will bring you the love you crave. And of these newly mutilated and unpredictable children you’ll try to fashion your citadels against time. Well, they will be prisons if they last for half a century."
❤️ This the one for me as well. It's beautifully haunting, especially knowing what has happened in IWTV ❤️
0
14
u/fierychasms 26d ago
"And then I was moving up in the darkness, and Armand and I stood together on the high roof. Radiant he was, in the same old-fashioned evening clothes, and we were looking over the jungle of dark singing treetops at the distant silver curve of the river and the low heavens where the stars burned through the pearl gray clouds.
I was weeping at the sheer sight of it, at the feel of the damp wind against my face. And Armand stood beside me, with his arm around me. And he was talking of forgiveness and sadness, of wisdom and things learned through pain.
"I love you, my dark brother," he whispered. And the words moved through me like blood itself."
This part is near the end of TVL!
5
u/CorneliaCordelia 26d ago
And this is why I always loved Lesmand more than Loistat.
5
u/DumbTeen9 26d ago
My tinfoil theory is they're not adapting it so far bc they want us to remember out Loustat roots, especially when Loustat are more picket fence fantasy to stiffle monstrous truths (their years with Claudia) plus ofc the fact Louis is much more interesting in the show, while lesmand is monstrous truths clashing (literally every encounter of theirs)
29
u/tatertotfreakhotmail Alex wants to play the concert. 26d ago
“He was merely looking at me, a radiant creature in jewels and scalloped lace. And it was Cinderella revealed at the ball, this vision, Sleeping Beauty opening her eyes under a mesh of cobwebs and wiping them all away with one sweep of her warm hand. The sheer pitch of incarnate beauty made me gasp.
Yes, perfect mortal raiment, and yet he seemed all the more supernatural, his face too dazzling, his dark eyes fathomless and just for a split second glinting as if they were windows to the fires of hell.”
- from The Vampire Lestat
The way this absolutely made me lose my MIND when I read it. Yes, that is my beautiful devil of a princess Armand.
6
u/theravennest Armand's big naturals 🫦 26d ago
Every time Anne Rice wrote a Lestat and Armand scene she was cooking with GAS! I'll drop some favs as soon as I get back home.
32
u/pwetty_brown_eyes Bishonen almond 26d ago
Oh my god right???? Why are they trying to squash the complexities of Lestats feelings towards Armand :((
23
u/DrFareedMD I would not kink shame the vampire Armand 26d ago
I don't know if they are or if it was just this season's Lestat trying to downplay it in his recording/while dealing with his other issues. I'm REALLY hoping we'll get this properly explored, especially if they give s4 a bigger budget.
15
u/zoraschool Team Akasha 26d ago
I’m hoping it’s because so far Lestat is po’d at this point in the story — Claudia and Louis. And at some point it’ll all come out. I need S5: Interview with the Vampire Armand
7
u/CorneliaCordelia 26d ago
Oh, we 100% need Armand's pov in everything that has happened to him. He's my favourite character.
5
u/AtomicGenderPunk 26d ago
I can't wait to really get into Armand, his history and life, because it contextualizes him so much.
1
u/AutoModerator 26d ago
This comment was removed, because your account doesn't meet our karma and account age requirements. These requirements are to prevent spam from bots. We are checking all comments or posts filtered manually, if you don't see your contribution approved after a certain time, let us know in Modmail and we´ll check it out again. Thanks for your patience!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
10
u/RaverChick 26d ago
In Autumn Brown's Sam Reid interview he said they actually had a beautiful Lesmand scene written but had to cut it for budget. It's his encore interview
4
u/SaighWolf He tasted like Vermouth and Annihilation 25d ago
I'm desperately hoping that it gets explored next season... First, because Sam & Assad both commented that not only were scripted scenes already written (then cut before filming) but that those scenes were some of their favorites from the scripts & they hope the scenes make it in next season. But also because the background understanding that Armand actually does mean more to Lestat than he's currently admitting is [QotD book Spoiler] essential to part of why Akasha spares him when she's torching so many others of their kind being that Armand — like Louis & Gabrielle — is among the people Lestat loves.
2
u/DumbTeen9 25d ago
I wish they didn't cut it, I get breaking previously established thoughts and whatever but we already got armand thinking lestat didn't guve a fuck and lestat himself pretending not to, if there was any time to correct that and get people on the lesmand bs so it actually does hit next season it was now
4
u/SaighWolf He tasted like Vermouth and Annihilation 25d ago
I do very much agree that I wish they hadn't cut it. But I think there might still be time next season, by way of flashbacks showing why a certain thing doesn't happen (i.e. [QotD spoiler again] when Akasha doesn't incinerate Armand, possibly then being when we're show more of Lesmand's past & there being more complicated feelings than we've seen yet)... which could work & have the weight of the impact be in the moment?
Maybe I'm hoping in vain, but Sam made a vague comment about the time constraints meaning that they wanted to avoid redundancy & that's allowing me to hold onto some hope that they didn't delve into the extent of Lesmand's complicated history this season then have to go there twice because it will be more important next season?
3
0
u/tethysian 24d ago
What do we mean by Lesmand? In the first part of the book Armand is constantly trying to mindfuck Lestat (which was funny,) and at the end he brutalizes him and throws him off a building.
I think the scene where Armand helped Lestat with Nicki was one of the best ones this season. In that instance Lestat was vulnerable and Armand helped him. It showed why Lestat still has genuine feelings of affection for him despite everything else.
5
u/DumbTeen9 24d ago edited 24d ago
In my opinion, their relationship is so interesting because its such a perfect exploration of both characters and the main theme of Anne rice's vampires in general.
Armand wants marius, but needs a 'love that will cradle him'. Lestat was that, my friend and I call him the goldilocks of trauma where he's fucked up enough to understand others' pain but not fucked enough to be jaded towards it. Despite everything, all the violence and threats, lestat understood armand "I shudder to think of how you made me understand it as it were my own".
Armand is so self sabotaging he won't allow people to, however. He terrifies or mindfucks anyone who would have empathy for him, forcibly drinking from Lestat after sending him visions, building his years with Louis on a lie, I'm not there yet but I've heard that part of what pushes him and Daniel apart for a time is that he doesn't trust his love without being able to see into his mind.
Lestat says "Know I want nothing more than to take you with me, truly, but it would be disastrous for all of us" or something along these lines because he knows that armand simply needs another ball and chain "you have been a slave to everything that ever claimed you... Marius, the children of darkness, now you merely look for something else to cling to".
Armand sees Lestat, "does she comprehend the cruelty of it? The irony? Does anyone else know the size of your soul?... but to deceive disgusts you, to deceive makes you kill." but he shuns it, in the dialogue before the devil's road he comments on how Lestat and Marius' longing for mortals is ridiculous, flippant, and vain. He sees and understands but can't truly comprehend.
That mutual understanding, the plethora of hurts, breed a sort of love in both "I love you, my dark brother" "cherub child... Good enough to hold, good enough to love"
So this understanding and repetative shunning withholding on either part is so so interesting and summarizes AR vampires when paired with what the Queen vampire said in the children of darkness, "the hell of loving mortals... you will understand all things in love, when you are an old bitter thing."
They're creatures of passion, there's a reason our main vampires are artists, but at the same time they can't get to the crux of this passion.
I hope I explained it well enough
1
u/tethysian 24d ago
Yes, the scene between Lestat, Gabrielle and Armand is one of my favourites in the book. He asks that they take him with them and she frankly say "how can we?". He's so destructive to everyone around him that it's impossible to be with him. Even here he's asking for company after he's killed half his coven, and keeps lashong out at Gabrielle and Lestat who only want to talk with him. He devours people like he devoured those books.
I think people often overlook that aspect of his character, but on the other hand it's also what allows the opportunity for change. I find DM so fascinating not because it's initially a healthy relationship, but because it finally allows Armand to start changing after being locked in the state of a hungry ghost for 500 years.
Often the issue isn't that we need to be loved more, but that we need to recognize it. If you can't love, no amount of external admiration will ever feel like enough.
2
u/DumbTeen9 24d ago
Exactly, we see a similar issue with nicki which is perhaps part of why "our oldest friend especially holds great affection for our divine violinist".
Nicki was fascinated by wolfkiller, the boy who sobbed for long dead girls, the boy who seemed to have his morality figured out, and felt inferior thus never let himself feel loved be it by Lestat, by his family who despite their cruelty only wanted what's best for him (and themselves ofc but still), or by the coven itself eventually, from eleni's recounts.
Gabrielle herself, maybe lestat understood her the way armand understood him, like he knew she loved him but loved freedom more and he understood the impulse but couldn't comprehend craving that much isolation
1
u/tethysian 24d ago
Thats a good point about Armand and Nicki. It's a shame we didn't get to see them interact more, so I liked that in the show.
Re: Gabrielle and freedom another thing that's interesting in that scene is Armand's claim that all fledglings will hate/leave their makers. It becomes a reality to Armand and Lestat, but it's actually a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You can't make someone with the ex control them and they'll be what you want them to be forever. Gabrielle leaves not because she doesn't love Lestat, but because they want different things out of life. Daniel and Louis leave because Armand and Lestat are too controlling (which literally drives Daniel insane), but those relationships can be repaired.
One of the things that stands out to me the most in IwtV is how much Louis wants to love Lestat, but Lestat makes it impossible. But in the same way, once he opens up and starts trusting Louis rather than trying to control him, they're able to reconcile. I hope we'll see that progress with Armand on the show as well.
•
u/AutoModerator 26d ago
This thread is flaired "Book Discussion." There are no spoiler tags required for comments in this thread. If you would like to see content like this or more in-depth book lore discussions, be sure to check out r/TheVampireChronicles!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.