Armand

In the first draft of IV, there is no Theatre of the Vampires and Armand is almost a different character altogether. He is a more innocent, angelic figure who had been made a vampire at the age of twenty rather than seventeen. He had grown up in Venice, the son of a guilder, and had lived with his vampire maker (who is not identified) for over a century. For Louis, Armand is the culmination of intense longing, and they travel the world in teach other's company. At one point, Armand is even convinced by Louis's argument that what they do is evil, so he offers to die with Louis in the sun. Louis, however, cannot take such a step and comes to adopt Armand's austere ways. They are still together at the end of the novel, and they ride off in a cab when Louis is finished with the boy reporter.

In this first draft, Armand's approach to vampirism is more highly developed. He shows Louis how to identify and mercifully kill Those Who Want to Die. Louis describes his encounter in a cemetery with a woman who has lost her mother and daughter and does not want to remain alive. Armand is gentle with her and gives her what she wants - death.

The version of IV that was rewritten , then published, tells a different story. Armand, claiming to be, at four hundred years of age, the oldest living vampire, invites Louis to the Theatre of the Vampires. Louis looks to him for wisdom and information about the supernatural, but Armand merely advises Louis to look to the power within himself for answers. He is drawn to Louis for he sees in Louis a vampire with passion who can connect him to the nineteenth century. Armand attempts to seduce Louis to become his companion. Louis resists, wanting to remain with Claudia, but Armand forces Louis to make Madeleine into a vampire to take care of Claudia. He then engineers Claudia's destruction, but in his obsession to have Louis for himself, destroys in Louis the very thing to which he is attracted - Louis's passion. They travel together without really connecting, and eventually Armand drifts away. For Louis, Armand has become a mirror of the only thing he can hope to be: an evil, cunning destroyer; for Armand, Louis has become a reflection of Armand's own inner emptiness. Louis believes that Armand has gone away to die, so he places Armand's coffin in his family crypt, then removes it and smashes it to pieces.

In VL, which is told by Lestat, who is describing earlier times, Armand is a scruffy, filthy creature of the night who practices satanic rituals beneath Les Innocents cemetery in Paris. He teaches a coven of vampires to practice secrecy and to live as demons. Armand does not actually believe the doctrines he teaches, but believes in what they are, because they provide a sense of identity and continuity. The little world he creates is shattered when Lestat and Gabrielle become vampires and walk boldly among mortals, even entering sacred places. Their behaviour shows that his rituals are based on lies and it plants doubt n the minds of Armand's coven about following these rituals.

This enrages Armand, who leads his coven against Lestat and Gabrielle. It is too late, however; the damage is done. The coven will no longer trust and support Armand. Armand then takes his frustration out on his coven and destroys all but four vampires, who manage to escape. He then cleans himself up and presents himself in the full glory of his beauty, to try to lure Lestat to him in a different way.

To Lestat, Armand is like a "flash of heaven" in the pit of Hell. He seems to offer a promise of love and great intimacy - the state of grace Lestat seeks. However, Armand's allure is deceptive. He invites Lestat close, then bites him to suck into himself Lestat's power. They battle and Lestat wins, but out of compasion he takes Armand with him to his lair. When Armand recovers, he uses telepathic images to convey his story to Gabrielle and Lestat.

Armand was abducted as a boy in Russia by Tartars, who sold him to a brothel in Constantinople. Marius bought and apprenticed him in Venice, did a painting of him called The Temptation of Amedeo, then made him a vampire. To Marius, Armand was a wounded boy whose blend of sadness and simplicity was too great to resist. They understood each other as no one ever had before. Soon, however, a satanic coven of vampires invaded Marius's villa and threw Armand into a burning pyre. They then relented, rescued him, and initiated him into the Dark Ways of the Roman coven. He became a missionary, perfecting the techniques of the kill to a degree that he considered spiritual, yet never himself making another vampire. To get victims, he conjured up visions that seduced those people who wished to die, so that they came unresisting to him. Rice described this technique more fully in "The Art of the Vampire at Its Peak in the Year 1876," which appeared in the January 1979 issue of Playboy.

Armand eventually took over the leadership of a coven in Paris, bringing the spiritual and carnal together in an inverted echo of Holy Communion; he considered himself a saint of evil and preserved these satanic rituals until Lestat's arrival brought his coven to an end.

Lestat describes Armand as a manipulative absorber, "the embodiment of thirst itself." Armand seems to Lestat to fall easily under the spell of an idea or person that represents to him a spiritual extreme; then, however, he wants to take control. He believes nothing, craves nothing, and exists in a void of deepening despair, though the burden of immortality seems never to have defeated him. Lestat believes that Armand has no substance; as such, Armand symbolises the essence of vampirism on both a spiritual and physical level.

Armand begs to be allowed to accompany Lestat and Gabrielle, but they resist, believing he may be too treacherous in his dependency. Instead, they give him their tower lair for his own use and urge him to join with the surviving members of his former coven at the Theatre of the Vampires.

Armand reluctantly accpets. He builds a mansion filled with books and lives there as a "gentleman," riding about Paris in a carriage and managing the theatre. However, he dislikes what the vampires have become with their cheap theatrics. Nursing his bitterness, he later repays Lestat for those years of rejection by throwing him off the tower when Lestat seeks his assistance.

Over the years, while Armand manages the theatre group, he keeps his eyes open for a kindred soul. Louis arrives, which is described in IV, and seems to Armand to be the perfect companion. However, their joy in each other's company is short-lived, and Armand then tries again with Lestat in New Orleans, but in vain. Not until Daniel arrives in New Orleans in the 1970's does Armand find the companion he wants. He falls completely in love with Daniel and uses him to connect with the mortal world. When Daniel's tormenting thirst for immortality overcomes him and he starts to die in an alcoholic stupor, Armand saves him with the vampire's kiss.

By the time Lestat writes BT, he is no longer sure where Armand is, because after recovering with the ordeal with Akasha, the surviving vampires went their separate ways. Raglan James, however, indicates that Armand has abandoned Night Island and vanished.

When Lestat needs to find David in New Orleans, he sees him through Armand's eyes, then meets them both in City Park. Armand has come to New Orleans because he is worried about Lestat. Despite their uneven history, Lestat admits a strong affection for Armand. Lestat tells him about the Ordinary Man named Memnoch who claims to be the Devil and wants Lestat to accompany him to Heaven and Hell. Armand warns Lestat not to go. He is suspicious that Memnoch is making a moral issue of Lestat's involvement with the Devil's dispute with God.

Nevertheless, Lestat goes, and when he returns from his ordeal in Hell and describes what has happened, the story shakes Armand. He believes that Lestat has seen God. Armand begs to drink from Lestat to determine whether he has truly partaken of the blood of Christ, but Lestat refuses him. Then Lestat shows him Veronica's veil and claims that Christ himself entrusted it to him. Armand is shattered by this evidence.

These revelations bring Armand back full circle to his original religious fervour as part of Santino's vampire coven. He greatly needs to have a supreme spiritual experience. When Dora takes the veil to display it to the public, Armand decides to go die in the sun to confirm the miracle. He is completely enveloped by it, and, to Lestat's horror, destroys himself in a blaze of fire. His example draws other vampires who likewise kill themselves in surrender to what they take to be the supreme religious truth.