You gotta give him a hand! At least one.
(Bc I couldn’t choose which one, you get both a silly and a sad fanart)
The silly:
^X
The sad:
^X Our Oldest Friend by Mizzy-chan
…in the book Armand cut off another Vampires hands so he wouldnt kill himself. In “The Vampire Lestat” Armand is this kind of really i cant think of any other word to describe him but “emo” vampire. So I just kind of imagined Armand sitting there all emo holding another Vampires severed hands. I dunno…
I think they might have edited this remix together, lol.
Ah, okay. Nicolas had a rough time in canon, sadly ;A;
[^X Nicolas by @unionthesalmon – plz reblog from X or the source]
“Armand was a little bitch just because of the whole Nicki thing.” – Armand may have been trying to help Nicki in the ways he knew how. Armand had been a coven master for hundreds of years, dealt with madness from many ages of vampires, maybe this was something that helped in other cases. It could be seen as cruel from our mortal standards, but maybe that was considered a reasonable form of treatment for vampires.
We only have the account of Nicolas and Armand’s interactions in Eleni’s letters and very little is said. No one ever brings it up again (unless they do in PLROA, which I still haven’t finished), and since we only have the one account, I can’t jump to the conclusion that Armand was definitely torturing Nicki. He can be cruel, but Lestat asked him to take good care of Nicki, and I feel like Armand tried to do the right thing.
“And I agree with you that Nicki was mentally ill” – Some ppl headcanon that he was, and I don’t know what I think about that, but again, maybe Armand was trying to treat the illness and save Nicki!
“And I freaking loved Nicki, I cried when he died. If Armand hadn’t have done that, would Nicki had lived on? Maybe not, but still.” – If we go by my theory that Armand was trying to help him, maybe Armand’s treatment prolonged Nicki’s life. We just don’t know.
If Armand was really torturing Nicki, I think we would have found out more about it in TVA, or some other book, or Lestat would have confronted Armand about it.
But whether Armand really antagonized Nicolas to his death or not, Nicolas had enough reason on his own to end badly even before Armand got involved… as Nicolas tells Lestat, it was his intention all along to fail:
“All a misunderstanding, my love, ” he said. Acid on the tongue.
The blood sweat had broken out again, and his eyes glistened as if they
were wet. “It was to hurt others, don’t you see, the violin playing, to
anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule.
They would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it.” I didn’t
answer. I wanted him to go on.“And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in
Paris, that we would go down and down and down. It was what I
wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should
rise for them. I thought we would go down! We were supposed to go
down.”
Perhaps becoming a vampire was not the cure for that intention/feeling/illness, and it just magnified the self-destruction he already felt ;A;
Thanks for lovin’ mah blargh
♥u♥
I understand, and I sympathize, we’d all love to have someone who’s closer to our headcanon for Armand *hugs* (I also appreciated Banderas’ Armand*, and @vraik had a post worth checking out re: the casting of Banderas instead of someone who fit the canon description better).
That said, an “accurate representation” is pretty tough to ask for bc actors are all human, and there will always be room for improvement. This is especially true re: a character like Armand who may be one of the furthest from being human than any of the other VC characters. Angel, demon, coven leader, youth, imp, etc… he is many things. And AR is not totally wrong, people do age, and it would be unfortunate to have to recast a character bc their actor “aged out” of the role, extra sad if they had built up good chemistry with the other actors!
What we need is someone who’s a little older than necessary who has that elusive *~forever-young gene~* (you know, like Keanu Reeves, someone who doesn’t age), and there are such ppl! I have it. I’m 33 and people still think I’m 17:
^This was before I got my haircut, but it’s pretty recent, no airbrushing, the mirror’s a little dirty tho OH WELL. I’m also posting it w/ this response bc really, the only VC character I could cosplay would be Armand, it’s just the face shape I have, being half Russian and all.
You can dig around in my #VC Casting tag for more ideas but here’s a few, under the cut.
Casting Armand is gonna be tough, bc not only does he need to look that young and stay that young, he also needs to look like a painted portrait, I mean who really looks like a Botticelli angel?! And even then, we don’t all agree 100% on what these characters look like, we’re all influenced by our own culture’s ideals of beauty, our own aesthetic tastes, etc. So my choice of Botticelli angel might not even be yours.
But let’s assume we all agree on THIS angel for the sake of argument, and we hand this over to a casting agent:
[^Madonna of the Pomegranate by Sandro Botticelli, circa 1487, detail]
Fortunately, there are ppl out there who refuse to age, who look younger than they are already, and that’s the kind of actor I’d want ;3 so…
Hit the jump for some options, cut for length.
^Levi Miller, AR’s choice at one point, not sure if she still wants him. I think he’s 15 now, but that face, very childlike. Too childlike? idk.
^X Jaco Van Den Hoven, model, is 26 now, but looks like he could pass for ten years younger.
^X Armand by @teambratprince (hit the X for larger version!) which is really one of my fave fanarts of him ever, and it was based on Jaco Van Den Hoven.
^X Matthew Clavane, a current fandom fave, idk how old he is. Could pass for 15 but he’s a working model so I assume he’s 21+?
^Thomas Brodie-Sangster is 26 and could pass for 15. Idk how old he is in this gif.
^Kirill Nikolini, also a model. @faceofabotticelliangel‘s FC for Armand for awhile. Idk how old he is in the pic or now but… an option? Maybe.
*The book version of Armand, IIRC, was not really developed as much in IWTV, yet another reason they could cast Banderas (preeeetty sure you know by now that I have a place in my heart for his Armand, too <3). I’m pretty sure that his physical appearance is sketched out (auburn hair and brown eyes) in IWTV, the focus is more on his attitude and what he says. His description is clarified in TVL and the later books.
Awww, @wicked-felina and I are happy to have done that to you! Thank you for the compliments ❤ yes, Nicki/Lestat were SO cute and lovely (Anon refers to the Poor and the Dead)
(X via the-temptation-of-amadeo, the-vampire-chronicles)
(Armand wasn’t in that fic, so I’m not sure in what context you’re referring to him. I did have him being quite a little bitch in my other recent fic that I did w/ @vampchronfic, Hunting in a Walmart, and yes, I think his beauty helps him get away w/ a lot of questionable behavior!)
Idk what would have happened if Nicki hadn’t “gone insane,” but also if Lestat hadn’t been kidnapped that night ;A; Nicki always seemed to have that darkness in him. Would Lestat have been medication enough to keep Nicki… I hesitate to use the word “sane” here, or “happy,” but would Lestat have been enough to make life seem worth living for Nicki?
There is some fanon that Nicki suffered from mental illness, and idk if Lestat was really equipped to handle the role of being a support and caregiver to someone who might have needed alot more than that *cries forever for Nicki*
//tbh if armand had been born in the 20th century instead of the 15th he’d probably be talamasca
^These tags tho!: #ooc, #way too much creepy psychic shit going on, #i mean shall we make a list, #out of body experience, #near death vision, #religious visions, #channeling god/trancelike state, #crazy telepathy skills, #projection of visions, #seeing ppl’s auras, #seeing and talking to ghosts, #(like srsly no other vampires besides david can do that???), #spellbinding/dazzling/confusing/calming ppl, #aka the mindwhammy,
Yeah, Armand seemed to exhibit quite a lot of abilities (these are a mix of pre- and post-turning), so maybe the vampiring just enhanced what he already had.
Working at the Talamasca could have been perfect for him.
@i-want-my-iwtv – more VC-Group Pictures (by Endymiasyzygy source deviantart)
//ooc; The resemblance is uncanny…!
As always, #Your Headcanon May Vary, these are just my own opinions, and I am SURE other ppl have other excellent answers for this.
I’m focusing on Louis’s strength at turning and the first few years after, since he does grow more powerful over time on his own (and he also gets *~upgraded~* later in canon, idk whether you accept later canon but it happens!).
TL;DR: I don’t think Lestat purposely made Louis weak, it was a combination of factors, but mostly that the procedure isn’t an exact science*, Lestat was a young maker and turned Louis too soon after making two fledglings before, and the fact that Louis was malnourished** (refusal to kill ppl) for those first few years might have been a contributing factor.
**So Lestat does talk about Louis being weak in IWTV, but not that he purposely made him that way, just that he allowed it to go uncorrected; he didn’t force Louis to kill ppl, or force Louis to embrace his vampiric gifts and learn how to use them:
“Lestat looked at me. ‘I expected you to feel these things
instinctually, as I did,’ he said. When I gave you that first kill, I
thought you would hunger for the next and the next, that you would
go to each human life as if to a full cup, the way I had. But you didn’t.
And all this time I suppose I kept from straightening you out because
you were best weaker. I’d watch you playing shadow in the night,
staring at the falling rain, and I’d think, He’s easy to manage, he’s
simple. But you’re weak, Louis. You’re a mark. For vampires and
now for humans alike. This thing with Babette has exposed us both.
It’s as if you want us both to be destroyed.‘”
^Lestat is saying Louis is weak by choice, and he’s describing weakness of character more than physical strength, so I believe he was physically weak bc of the Dark Gift. The Dark Gift is not an exact science*, despite all good/bad intentions, it’s the vampiric form of pregnancy. But there are things about the procedure that can affect the strength of the fledgling:
the volume of blood he needed, either.
Yes, post-QOTD (and pre-Merrick), Louis refused to drink Lestat’s blood. I headcanon that that felt like a rejection of Lestat bc blood-sharing is a major expression of intimacy for vampires. He might have refused it bc he saw how it had changed Lestat and he didn’t want that to happen to himself, but I think he also wanted to preserve his own vulnerability, in case he wanted to suicide ;A;
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
“So I’m confused, was Louis weak because Lestat made him that way on purpose?”
I don’t think it was on purpose. It’s not an exact science* and Lestat had only done it 2x, had only heard about the procedure from Armand and Marius. There is some speculation that the blood transfer needs to be exchanged more than once to ensure a stronger fledgling. Marius, for example, exchanged blood with his maker multiple times when he was turned, but with Louis, Lestat only did it once. I think that’s because Louis was so weakened by the bloodletting he’d been forced to undergo (”When
I was subdued finally, and exhausted then almost to the point of death,
they bled me. The fools.”) that Lestat didn’t want to risk exchanging more than once? Idk.
Also, Louis was feeding on animals for the first 4-ish years of vampiring, and that’s like bad junk food. He was probably not even drinking the volume of blood he needed, either. That might have had an impact on his strength. It probably contributed to his attitude at the time, being underfed and undernourished for so long ;A;
“Or was he weak because he was Lestat’s third fledgling in a decade?”
This is probably more of the reason. As Marius tells Lestat in TVL:
“Well, for one thing, ” he said, “your powers are extraordinary, but
you can’t expect those you make in the next fifty years to equal you or
Gabrielle. Your second child didn’t have half Gabrielle’s strength and
later children will have even less. The blood I gave you will make some difference. If you drink… if you drink from Akasha and Enkil,
which you may choose not to do… that will make some difference
too. But no matter, only so many children can be made by one in a
century. And new offspring will be weak. However, this is not
necessarily a bad thing. The rule of the old covens had wisdom in it
that strength should come with time. And then again, there is the old
truth: you might make titans or imbeciles, no one knows why or how.
In Ricean vampire physiology, a maker needs to wait a good long while between making fledglings; too much frequency will make subsequent fledglings weaker than they could have been. Plus, even though Lestat had the blood of a much older and stronger vampire when he was turned (Magnus), Lestat himself was only a decade into vampiring himself. It seems the vampiric spirit discourages the transfer of powers from young vampires to their fledglings. If anyone got the bulk of that power, it was Gabrielle, Lestat’s first.
“Wouldn’t he be stronger because Lestat had Akasha’s blood in him?”
Marius said that that would make “some difference” but I think the fact that Lestat had already turned 2 vampires, and was young still himself, prevented that power from being transferred.
“I know Louis refused to drink from Lestat, was he ultimately weak because he chose to be?”
He was weak by vampire standards at first, and yes, I think he chose to remain that way. But he’s still stronger and faster than a mortal. He’s also able to defend himself and kick a lot of ass. What he lacks physically he makes up for mentally, he’s strategic in the way he attacks when he does attack, and he can hold his own against much stronger and older vampires (he took out most of the Theatre des Vampires on his own in IWTV!).
Armand mentions in TVL:
But let Armand understand here also that the effect of the Dark Trick is unpredictable, even when passed on by the very young vampire and with all due care. For reasons no one knows, some mortals when Born to Darkness become as powerful as Titans, others may be no more than corpses that move. That is why mortals must be chosen with skill. Those with great passion and indomitable will should be avoided as well as those who have none.
Ok so basically Marius was dressed as Antonio!Armand? I will say that red robe looked very inviting *u*
Now I have this vision of Marius flipping pancakes (since the smell of cooking meat is gross to them), that seems like the kind of thing he’d be willing to cook. Dreams are strange things…
I’ll open this up tho, anyone else have VC dreams? There’s some in my #dream tag, I’ll reblog a few just for you, ‘nonnie.
I-want-my-IWTV 