BTW, there are some gr9 reblogs/comments on that post about his accent, worth checking out. The general consensus seems to be that it depends upon what point in canon you’re at and accept, bc it changed over time (I’m going to reblog from smne on the chain after it has a little more time to get more responses).
//It’s been a while since I’ve drawn something. But this weekend I went to Paris. VIsiting Armand’s old domain and visiting the Louvre for at least six hours, I was immensely inspired to do this piece. Hope you guys like and share. ❤
In movie!IWTV, Armand’s origins aren’t explicitly stated, just that he’s an Old World vampire. He could very well be Spanish, that’s Banderas’ actual ethnicity. So we don’t know. Just bc Louis and Claudia meet him in Paris doesn’t mean he’s French; he tells them he’s 400 yrs old, he’s probably lived elsewhere.
On my recent post about Antonio!Armand, @slow-read shared this opinion: “I would like to add that Antonio’s accent also gives one a sense of age, otherness and it sounds (or sounded) exotic to the audience? It was perfect for Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world. *-*” The
ppl behind movie!IWTV might have chosen Banderas and made the character this way rather than a more canon-compliant actor bc they wanted him to be more convincing as
Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world to audiences who had not read the books. Filmmakers then (and now) want a movie to appeal to wide audiences. I was a kid then, but it seems to me that fandom (and specifically, trying to please the fanbase as a primary objective) wasn’t as much of a consideration at that time.
In the books, Armand comes from a place called Kiev, which according to AR is in Russia and according to the google is in the Ukraine, but idk. Then he spent years in Italy which is where he got most of his mortal education, so he may have picked up some of that accent from his teachers and friends… and then he lived in Paris for many years so he might have consciously tried to pick up some of that accent in order to blend in.
Anyone is welcome to answer this with what you think Armand’s accent is like!
Well, anon, lemme just take a look in my coat here…
The museum podLestat pissily refers to Armand building for Louis in PL (while OBVIOUSLY not getting him, unlike Podstat, who bought Louis what he definitely loves: clothes) was a really last ditch effort, maybe just before going to America. It contains every piece of art Louis expressed even the vaguest interest in during their decades together, whether bought, bargained, or stolen (there are some very convincing fakes out there now)
Louis’ initial feelings for Armand were entirely real – Armand only mentally interfered when trying to keep Louis from doing something that could then be rationalized as “for his own good.” Even still, Louis has kept Armand locked out of his head since the day he learned how
When Armand realized he couldn’t rouse joy in Louis, he settled for pain, emotional and physical. The physical was technically consented to but Louis was so nigh-catatonic it didn’t count for much. Playing the Lestat card was partly because they came to a line even Armand didn’t consider himself monstrous enough to cross
They’ve never talked about Armand’s feelings for Lestat, nor Daniel’s feelings for Louis. They really, really should
Benji was the only reason Louis initially agreed to stay at Trinity Gate, seeing him as an opportunity to atone for his treatment of Claudia
Armand sees himself in Sybelle’s “madness” (read: she seems to be autistic and predominantly nonverbal, ANNE YOU’RE WRITING IN A WORLD THAT IN-UNIVERSE NOW HAS A MORE NUANCED UNDERSTANDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS NOW, COME ON) He’s never actually sought modern diagnoses for himself, and fuck knows her parents never did that for her, but like recognizes like
Louis’ never really forgiven Armand for what he did, and Armand doesn’t expect him to. Rather, the fondness just trumps the resentment after a full century
They fell into “parenting” very easily, and didn’t think about their feelings beyond their roles for the first few years
Louis actually made the first move. Armand was doing his best to give Louis space after all those years of doing the opposite. The French Library was Armand’s gift, so Louis would have a place to be alone, and he never goes there
Armand still feels very lost in the wake of everything (his attempted suicide and the revelation that the being who drove him to it was just an elaborate con), but buckles down talking about it because ROLES. ROLES ARE HOW YOU SURVIVE AND KEEP GOING. But…Louis actually asked about it
They repaint the ceilings in the mansion together every few months based on skies around the world
I admit that I have a lot of nostalgia for Antonio!Armand, so it doesn’t seem as weird to me… I hope the new adaptation(s) have a more canon-compliant Armand bc I think it can be handled in a way that wasn’t possible in the early 90′s, the pedophilia inherent in an adult-looking vampire being in a relationship (of some kind) with a teenage-looking vampire, even though they are ~90 and ~400 years old, respectively.
There were a lot of good reasons for casting a non-compliant Armand, and I talk about it in my #Defending Antonio tag, @vraik captured the taboo aspect of it very well [X]:
HEY. HEY. YOU KNOW WHO I LOVE?
Antonio Banderas Armand.
I ranted about this at length once, and realized it might be worth excising that particular section from my recaps and letting it stand on its own. SO LET ME TELL YOU A THING.
“Not only does Banderas give one hell of a performance, clearly entranced by Louis and convinced his ruthlessness is an acceptable means to an end (and then Louis dumps him immediately and Banderas’ crushed look that WHOOPS OVERESTIMATED just destroyed me). It’s really genuine, maybe the movie’s best after Cruise and Dunst, and at least half his dialogue is lifted without change from the books. But all that gets overlooked, because he doesn’t look like a teenager. And there’s a certain fairness to that – Armand’s body adds a dimension to his interactions with others as much as Claudia’s does. But now let me give you a hot dose of context.
In 1994, it was still a pretty common argument to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, particularly with gay men. THINK OF THE CHILDREN, Y’ALL. The movie already had to deal with the Claudia/Louis relationship, which only tenuously steps the worst landmines of creepiness, as we discussed, by avoiding physicality and giving mentally grown Claudia all the power. So, the filmmakers maybe didn’t want to stack, on top of that stack of gunpowder, a relationship with yet another underage character, particularly one that so played into existing stereotypes.
Then there’s the fact that, by virtue of the script, Louis’ feelings for Armand are a lot more explicitly tender and obvious than his relationship with Lestat. Back then, it was a big deal if you asked an actor to, gasp, play gay. Heavens forfend. But Banderas, in addition to being a handsome fellow and a marketable star, had also appeared in Philadelphia in 1993 (aka the movie where the Noble Gay dying nobly from AIDS is nice enough to teach A Straight to be a better person before he croaks). While their scenes were scrubbed of basically any intimacy, he was playing Tom Hanks’ lover, and apparently that was proximal enough to The Gay that he was an okay dude to ask. And then he fucking killed it with the material he was given it, in spite of the fact that the majority of his scenes were opposite the totally catatonic Pitt (who has made no bones about how much he haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated being in this movie). He’s a champ, and a treasure, come at me.”
such delish *u* altho Lestat was pretty much comatose… and it did end in Armand getting…
Ohh yes I do hope for more A/L stuff in PL since that last we saw if them two together was heartbreakingly sweet and tbh I wanna see more of how their relationship has built. You know i was talking with monsieur-le-rockstar
over the phone a week ago about how Armand, having never been properly taught by Marius or the Children of Darkness how to approach the scene in Palais Royale, really had no clue Lestat would reject his gesture of ‘vampire romance’ —for lack of a better word. That and Lestat himself had NO clue how that kind of thing happened because he still was confused about how to vampire and like—that whole scene would have gone entirely different I think if they had communicated more (also if Armand stopped with that glamouring). But ye…I could ramble about the palais royale scene bc it is just—another part of tvl that really set up and defined Lestat and Armand’s relationship….)
ABSOLUTELY AGREED. The first time I read that scene I was all “Ooooh Armand you lil monster! Beating earned.” But yeah, after all the subsequent VC information, I see that scene very differently now, more like: “Lestat you dumbass, he wasn’t attacking, that was leurve/making-out vampire style omg”
Well it may have been some of both but still.
I came across this old thread digging for smtg else, and there’s a good point here. Armand had some mixed feelings about fledgling!Lestat, both wanting to crush him into submission, but also, he might have been attracted to him.
@faceofabotticelliangel makes a good suggestion that Armand might have been trying to seduce Lestat in the vampiry way, which he hadn’t really been taught, and Lestat was a fresh vampire and didn’t know that’s what it was, so of course, when Lestat rejected him, of course Armand’s going to react badly:
And as he struggled, as he sought to resurrect himself with a burst of force, he shot his declaration at me that he would kill me because he had my strength now. He’d drunk it out of me and coupled with his own strength it would make him impossible to defeat.
^I don’t know whether Armand really believed what he was saying but it must have really hurt to be rejected. Whether or not Armand really was trying to seduce, @faceofabotticelliangel makes a good point, “that whole scene would have gone entirely different I think if they had communicated more (also if Armand stopped with that glamouring)… another part of tvl that really set up and defined Lestat and Armand’s relationship….)”
I-want-my-IWTV 