Armand

Antonio Banderas as Armand in Interview with the Vampire.

This is for the vampire. For the villain of the 2005 film, The Legend of Zorro, see Armand (Zorro character)

Armand is a fictional character in The Vampire Chronicles novels written by Anne Rice. Contrary to his appearance in the movie Interview with the Vampire (in which he was played by Antonio Banderas) Armand has a beautifully young, boy-like appearance; long, curly auburn hair and dark brown eyes. His features are at times compared to those of Cupid or a Botticelli angel.

He was a vampire created in the late 15th century in Venice, Italy. He was born with the name Andrei in the former Kievan Rus to an acclaimed hunter, Ivan. He showed great artistic skill from a young age, so the monks in the Orthodox Church employed him in painting their religious icons. They were so impressed with Armand's work that they told him that he possessed an unearthly gift, a Gift from God. Over time, tension between Ivan and the monks increased. The last straw was when the monks wanted to bury Armand alive in an underground tomb to paint icons until he starved to death. Infuriated, Armand's father told him to paint an icon for Prince Michael, the ruler of their province, and place it in a tree on the plains so that the Prince would know where his brother was. On the way there, the party was attacked and Armand was captured as a slave. He was taken by ship to Constantinople to be sold in the slave markets. During this time, Armand suffered an acute memory loss due to the immense emotional and physical trauma he went through, and forgot anything about himself or his native land.

A fifteen hundred year old Roman vampire Marius, a painter, bought him and took him to his household to raise him. Over the next two or three years, Marius and Armand had a close, sexual relationship.

When Armand was 16-17 years old, he engaged in a sword duel with an English lord, Lord Harlech, who was obsessed with him after spending three days and nights with Armand. Armand was stabbed by Lord Harlech's sword and nearly died of poison in the wound. To save him, Marius gave him the "Dark Gift": he made his young apprentice a vampire. The two lived in happiness for a short while until a Satanic cult of vampires, led by the vampire Santino whom Marius had scorned many years ago, raided Marius' palazzo and kidnapped Armand. Armand was forced to join the cult but while he performed all the rituals asked of him, he never truly accepted their teachings. He moved to Paris at around 1680 to lead the Parisian coven and stayed there for one hundred years, until the arrival of Lestat de Lioncourt, another vampire, with whom Armand fell in love.

He had his cult harass Lestat and Lestat's vampire mother, Gabrielle. The cult even kidnapped Lestat's mortal lover Nicki, forcing Lestat to their lair. Lestat retaliated by disproving the cult's religious convictions and beliefs, and declaring them ridiculous and unfitting for the times in which they lived. Armand, realising that Lestat spoke the truth, killed most of the cult members and joined the Théâtre des Vampires which Lestat founded for the four surviving members (Eleni, Laurent, Felix, Eugenie) of Armand's cult. In the late 1800s, Armand fell in love with the New World vampire, Louis. The pair left Paris after Louis burnt down the Theatre and drifted through the world and time. They stayed together until around the 1970s.

The Vampire Armand

Armand later formed an almost-sexual relationship with Daniel Molloy, a young journalist who had interviewed Louis about his life as a vampire. In 1985, after a 7- to 8-year relationship, Armand turned Daniel into a vampire under desperate circumstances. Daniel was Armand's first and only fledgling to date. Soon after turning Daniel, however, the two split up.

Armand was present when Lestat returned from his journeys into Heaven and Hell. Armand was so struck by the sight of Veronica's Veil that he tried to commit suicide as an offering to God by exposing himself to the sun. He failed and was rescued by two mortals, Benji and Sybelle. He loved them and they returned his affections. He stayed with them to keep in touch with the "normal", contemporary world of humans.

Armand took his mortal friends with him to see Lestat in his catatonic state in a church. He then left them with his Maker, Marius, while he went to tell his life story to David Talbot, a fledgling of Lestat's. Upon returning to Marius' home, Armand discovered that Marius had turned Benji and Sybelle into vampires, which crushed him.

Armand is first introduced as an innocent, idealistic young man, but centuries of eternal youth in contrast to the unpredictable, often regrettable turns his life takes gradually transform him into a bitter cynic.

In the 2006 musical, Lestat, Armand was portrayed by Drew Sarich.

Donate to Wikimedia