Comment on A Cabal of Paris

  1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 12:56AM UTC

    Absolutely Porthos is marriage material; out of them all, Novel Porthos married his mistress at the end (when she finally became a wealthy widow) so he stuck to her instead of throwing her over, and he seems to have settled down to live in domesticity with her and gained his baronetcy and his biggest problem was being slightly bored with a happy conventional life, which is why he let both d'Artagnan and then Aramis talk him into One More Last Adventure For Old Times' Sake.

    Aramis is hard to get a read on; probably he did genuinely have feelings for Marie, but he does age into being the 'have conventional discreet affairs which don't mean much and are as much about political and social advantage as anything'. He does provide for his ex-lover and their (presumably but not necessarily his) offspring but also pretty much arranges that they'll never come into contact again, which is a little cold-blooded.

    Athos is STAY AWAY DO NOT APPROACH DON'T EVEN DREAM OF THIS and of the two romances we hear about (and there's no sign there were any flirtations or indiscretions in between them) the first one ended with MURDERATION and the second one was "I was drunk, she was disguised as a man, she put the moves on me and by the time I realised she wasn't a man - well, that's where babies come from, Raoul" which is a hilarious story particularly when he gets pregnant the one and only time they have sex (and the way it's written, Athos is in the conventional position of the seduced and abandoned pregnant woman) but isn't really a foundation for marriage, happy or otherwise.

    Then again, I'm not inclined to marriage or romance myself, so I find myself in agreement with Athos. He's terrible - he gambles, he beats his servant, he's a complete misanthrope, but I love him desperately anyway!

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    1. ysande on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:11AM UTC

      I just love how utterly incompetent Athos is at relationships; there's the "oops now I have to murder you" relationship; the "fuck, I thought you were a man" relationship; and the other, his first and my actual fav, "holy shit I'm in love with a statue" relationship, which Donna_Immaculata and I came to the joint and several obvious conclusion that the statue (the gender of which was never specified in the books) was a of a very pretty man.

      And undoubtedly there's no excusing Athos' behaviour at all, except that the books offer so many plausible excuses and because I'm besotted, I happily swallow them all: he does gamble, but he does it with such calm coolness and never cares whether he wins or loses! And he does beat his servant and forbids him from ever speaking (what the fuck, Athos!!) but Grimaud is the most loving and devoted servant and does not actually seem to have stockholm syndrome and probably is free to leave but then is still around as his loyal Alfred Pennyworth in 20YA to pose as a jailor for months, so there must have been SOMETHING between Athos and Grimaud and I have spent a lot of time over my life dreaming up scenarios of what that something is. (I never watched series 3 of the BBC show, because series 2 was such a fucking disaster; but one of the additional reasons I never watched series 3 was because apparently they turned Grimaud into a scary villain, which just!!! What!! The!! Fuck!!!)

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      1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:17AM UTC

        Oh I forgot the statue, how could I forget the statue? "Dude, don't you think it's a bit weird your fifteen year old kid is talking about marrying a seven year old child?" "Oh ho ho ho, teenagers are like that, why at his age I was in love with a statue! He'll grow out of it and be completely normal, just like me!"

        Thing is, I could absolutely see why he'd fall in love with a statue at that delicate age of development. Him and me, both useless at real relationships, we're made for one another! Well, made for drinking together while being supercilious about the world and the rest of the people around us! :-)

        (Season three of the show was a disaster. You did well to avoid it. One or two good scenes but my God, they tried to cram so much in it split like a sausage, and they treated Milady dreadfully, and yes they took Grimaud's name and made him completely unrelated to Athos but still his Nemesis, and it would take too long to list everything wrong with it).

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        1. ysande on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:36AM UTC

          I just - I love that Athos is so fucking competent at people things when he wants to be (amazing at Court! perfect manners! best conversationalist!) but then when you look at his personal life it's like he's a poorly programmed robot that only has the most approximate idea of what human relationships are actually like. And you could imagine that being loved by Athos would be the most intense and uncomfortable love ever; I'm not actually surprised that Raoul turned out a bit weird with his obsession of the girl, because he only had Athos to learn from...

          But I think Athos IS a champion of Moody Drinking and Supercilious Judgment and being Too Cool To Care whenever he can tamp down on the wild and obsessive loves that cross his life, and I think these things are actually a huge part of why we are hopelessly in love with his problematic but excellent self, so I think sharing these qualities with Athos would make you an excellent companion ;)

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          1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:45AM UTC

            I can see some of my bad qualities in Athos - for instance, the judgmental, black-and-white thinking, the immediate emotional reaction that he tries to justify as acting out of reason and duty, when it came to Milady. Or how he deals with things by throwing everything up, heading off to Paris, and drinking to numb his emotions. Or how he is bad at relationships. Or the repressing emotions behind a facade of cool, rational, unphased calm.

            I also see things in him I admire, which are maybe out of tune with the current of today, or are just more examples of him going too far. Like him, I'd tend to Honour Above All (the TV Trope about how Good can be Stupid when it comes to things like this in Paladins) and putting a huge emphasis on Duty and Correct Behaviour.

            I can see why he'd be competent at Courtly duties like having perfect manners and conducting conversations along the lines of how the rules say you should have witty and elegant discourse while knowing how to correctly address those around you (equals, superiors, inferiors) and generally playing the game, because there are rules you can follow and you can train for it. Having a spontaneous open conversation would be an entirely different thing! When he gets jarred out of his rut, he finds it very difficult to handle things. Aramis is much more adaptable, and Porthos just rolls with it.

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            1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:52AM UTC

              Like, the Milady situation: Aramis would have found a way to disentangle himself politely that didn't involve bloodshed, and Porthos would have been "Whoo. So you used to be a criminal, baby? Well, we're none of us perfect. Errr - you have given up robbing and stealing, right?" Athos was completely thrown and couldn't handle that everything he thought he knew about the relationship was upside-down, so he acted out of anger and immediate emotional meltdown, then justified it to himself later as "she was a criminal, she was lower class, she deceived me into marriage and by doing so disgraced my noble bloodline and ruined any chance of a proper marriage and producing an heir, she was guilty and I carried out the sentence as was my right as the upholder of the law!"

              But he can't even convince himself of that, so he throws away the entire estate and title for which he killed her, goes to Paris, takes an assumed name, joins a regiment, and drinks himself into oblivion.

              Honey, I love you, but even I can tell this is going too far!

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            3. ysande on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:05AM UTC

              I think though that Athos must have been more than exceedingly good at playing the game and knowing all the rules of court, although these were undoubtedly a necessary part of his skills there. If it were just a matter of being an expertly programmed automaton, I don't think he would be as well received by the court or by Aramis and Porthos when he criticises them; I think it must be a combination of knowing all the technicalities plus a very particular kind of emotional intelligence which allows him to charm people by reflexively knowing the correct thing to say and the correct way and time to say it in a courtly setting. I have a good friend like this; he is actually a deeply introverted person who is the best self-trained extrovert I have ever met, and when he socialises in a professional setting he is unbeatable, and everyone adores him, but if you know him very well you can see the edges of where the mask fits and I think that must be what it's like for Athos. He is capable of being emotionally in tune and the perfect companion, but it requires a huge amount of energy so he probably prefers to limit the number of times he has to do it.

              I wonder how much of Athos' insistence on Duty and Honour is because they offer a safe and reliable rulebook for life; like, I think he IS a genuinely a good man, in his way (when he isn't murdering and beating people, etc) so those rules appeal to him above any others, but maybe it's easier not to have to make so many decisions and just let Duty and Honour take their course so all things can be attributed and blamed to them. But again I still think it's a choice to adhere to that rule book instead of Aramis' choice of power or Porthos' choice of money, so that's a thing. (But maybe Aramis chooses power because he knows too well (and hates) the feeling of powerlessness, and Porthos chooses money because he very clearly does not come from money to begin with, whereas Athos had both these things in abundance at one point and chooses to abandon them because he has the luxury of that choice, and so Duty and Honour are what he runs to)

              ALSO Athos' (very well perfected) tendency to bury his emotions and wounds under his facade of unphased calm is probably my Number One reason of why I love him and I fell in love with him the moment he strolled into Treville's rooms pretending there was nothing wrong and then promptly fainting from blood loss <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

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              1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:21AM UTC

                Oh, there's plenty of room for head canons about the boys (and the girls, and everyone really in the novels). I tend to agree that for Athos, the rulebook is very important because it chimes in with his nature that there are Things Which Are Just Not Done (e.g. his rebuke to King Louis later on about Louise, that he and his family have always been loyal to the king and the king can cut his head off if he likes, but now that the young king has not Behaved Like A Gentleman by stealing Louise away from Raoul, Athos is Finished With Him). The rulebook of Duty and Honour puts things down neatly in black and white, and he finds that easy to follow (because he is that type of person) and he can't understand too well why others don't (at least, not in his early life before he gets more experience of the world).

                So when he hits up against the very much not black-and-white situation of his marriage and the truth there, he's completely unmoored and acts on a combination of instinct and emotionally overwhelmed, and then tries to tidy it all up later by stuffing it into the parameters of the rulebook - but the edges keep sticking out and he cuts himself on them.

                I too loved the fainting maiden from the start! Between that and fainting dead away when he's back in his rooms after the execution of Charles I and finds the king's blood spattered on his face - poor sensitive emotional darling! :-)

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                1. ysande on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:48AM UTC

                  I agree with Athos' deep unhappiness probably stemming more from the dissonance of what he did/what he 'had to do' than truly from Milady's secret; there's probably a lot of guilt and self-loathing there that he hides under his blanket of misogyny which he hides under his blanket of cool and aloof noble. His unswerving determination to have Milady killed (ok, yes, she was a spy for the Cardinal and a dangerous opponent and she did murder poor sweet d'Dartagnan's poor sweet Constance) likely stemmed from a deep seated hope that if Milady were truly dead (for totes legit reasons) then his role in her original attempted murder could also be forgotten :( And then his weird and irrational terror of Morduant is because he realises that it can't be forgotten; here is a piece of Milady who won't die, and more importantly, won't let him forget :(

                  Also I have to admit I liked 3M Athos much better than 20YA Athos... by 20YA he has lost too much of his sass and his aloofness and his superiority and I really just missed the original Athos :(

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        3. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 03:37PM UTC

          Oh, how could you forget the statue! Especially since we know whose statue it was. A lot of rage happened over that statue (and the original), you know :D

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      3. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:55PM UTC

        In fact, El and I have now identified the statue to be Antinuous. A very popular statue, as statues go, and Athos would have ample opportunity to admire him and his nipples the noble lines of his body from many angles.

        apparently they turned Grimaud into a scary villain, which just!!! What!! The!! Fuck!!!

        Oh gods, of all the crimes they committed this is probably the worst.

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