Sorry for the belated reply! I'm never on LJ anymore (as you can see this post is from last year), and the comment notifications go to an old email account.
No worries. I figure if I comment on a year-old post, I'm lucky if it even gets seen. So, thanks for your thoughtful reply.
My problem with all this is that they are always presented in adaptations as the great big heroes, and they have embedded themselves in the audience's awareness as the great big heroes.
It's interesting how some stories, when remade, almost inevitably get the plot messed with. Versions of Hamlet get less bodies on the floor, say, or remakes of The Count of Monte Cristo get Dantes back with Mercedes. For all we try and gritty things up, some stories are just so dark. And I guess, what a lot of people like about the original characters is the way the temperaments balance out and they have wacky adventures.
At the same time, the show makes a point to emphasise that Milady committed crimes when she "killed people". Yeah, she did kill people. So did the musketeers. They killed far more people than she did, yet their killings are never questioned.
To be fair, several of show!Milady's killings are flat murder, not fighting an armed and aware opponent. (Though, she's smaller than every man she fights, and prohibited from carrying a sword: no fight she gets into is ever going to be on equal ground. What else is she supposed to do? Not leverage the odds, and die?) Also to be fair (to the show) - she does describe herself as a soldier to Athos, only this was just after she wangled Ninon into a trumped-up trial, so that line was never going to be convincing.
They are still the good and basically very decent guys whose fundamental morality is never questioned.
I dunno. There was that whole business with Treville and Porthos' Mum. When he explained why he abandoned a woman and child in a rookery of thieves, he didn't just say that Belgarde lied to him, or messed with his head. He described himself, de Foix, and Belgarde as blood brothers, the inseparables of their day. I think that was a deliberate choice by the script-writer, either to show a dark version of the main characters... or to make us wonder - what if one of them asked the others for something truly immoral? Would they do it? For their brother?
And, while I think the show often over-simplifies history or plot in the name of keeping the action going, it does also put in these little... blips. Like the Evil Count(TM) from that episode at Athos' home, where he got a half minute mourning scene over his awful son, complete with sad music, because even horrible people care about their offspring. Or Emile Bonnaire vehemently declaring, I am not a prejudiced man. (And I think he was telling the truth there, and was only in human trafficking for the money. And the lack of malice simply didn't matter.) Or that bit in "The Good Soldier" where Our Heroes realise that a political prisoner has been held without trial for five sodding years and immediately race to... foil the rescue party. The show doesn't wave flags over its moments of moral ambiguity, but it still has them - it's something I like about it.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2015-09-08 12:06 pm (UTC)No worries. I figure if I comment on a year-old post, I'm lucky if it even gets seen. So, thanks for your thoughtful reply.
My problem with all this is that they are always presented in adaptations as the great big heroes, and they have embedded themselves in the audience's awareness as the great big heroes.
It's interesting how some stories, when remade, almost inevitably get the plot messed with. Versions of Hamlet get less bodies on the floor, say, or remakes of The Count of Monte Cristo get Dantes back with Mercedes. For all we try and gritty things up, some stories are just so dark. And I guess, what a lot of people like about the original characters is the way the temperaments balance out and they have wacky adventures.
At the same time, the show makes a point to emphasise that Milady committed crimes when she "killed people". Yeah, she did kill people. So did the musketeers. They killed far more people than she did, yet their killings are never questioned.
To be fair, several of show!Milady's killings are flat murder, not fighting an armed and aware opponent. (Though, she's smaller than every man she fights, and prohibited from carrying a sword: no fight she gets into is ever going to be on equal ground. What else is she supposed to do? Not leverage the odds, and die?) Also to be fair (to the show) - she does describe herself as a soldier to Athos, only this was just after she wangled Ninon into a trumped-up trial, so that line was never going to be convincing.
They are still the good and basically very decent guys whose fundamental morality is never questioned.
I dunno. There was that whole business with Treville and Porthos' Mum. When he explained why he abandoned a woman and child in a rookery of thieves, he didn't just say that Belgarde lied to him, or messed with his head. He described himself, de Foix, and Belgarde as blood brothers, the inseparables of their day. I think that was a deliberate choice by the script-writer, either to show a dark version of the main characters... or to make us wonder - what if one of them asked the others for something truly immoral? Would they do it? For their brother?
And, while I think the show often over-simplifies history or plot in the name of keeping the action going, it does also put in these little... blips. Like the Evil Count(TM) from that episode at Athos' home, where he got a half minute mourning scene over his awful son, complete with sad music, because even horrible people care about their offspring. Or Emile Bonnaire vehemently declaring, I am not a prejudiced man. (And I think he was telling the truth there, and was only in human trafficking for the money. And the lack of malice simply didn't matter.) Or that bit in "The Good Soldier" where Our Heroes realise that a political prisoner has been held without trial for five sodding years and immediately race to... foil the rescue party. The show doesn't wave flags over its moments of moral ambiguity, but it still has them - it's something I like about it.