Comment on A Cabal of Paris

  1. ysande on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:27AM UTC

    I agree with you about Aramis' unhappy origin story: I think all three of them have unhappy origin stories, or else they would not have ended up in the musketeer regiment with assumed names and mysterious pasts. (In particular, their contrast with d'Artagnan is marked - he comes to town on a yellow horse with all the hallmarks of his rural family life; complete with (albeit stolen) letters of recommendation from his father to Treville; proudly and defiantly broadcasting his Gasconness. For Athos, Porthos and Aramis, what we have is:

    Unfortunately Porthos knew nothing of the life of his silent companion [Athos] but what revealed itself. It was said Athos had met with great crosses in love, and that a frightful treachery had forever poisoned the life of this gallant man. What could this treachery be? All the world was ignorant of it.

    As to Porthos, except his real name (as was the case with those of his two comrades), his life was very easily known. Vain and indiscreet, it was as easy to see through him as through a crystal. The only thing to mislead the investigator would have been belief in all the good things he said of himself.

    With respect to Aramis, though having the air of having nothing secret about him, he was a young fellow made up of mysteries, answering little to questions put to him about others

    And I would argue that d'Artagnan only thinks he knows about Porthos' life, but really he just sees the trappings that Porthos wears, since he never so much as gets invited into Porthos' lodgings for a drink.

    My own personal headcanon for Aramis is that he is the younger son of a Marquis who had a fairly miserable and neglected (if not actively abused) childhood before being shunted off to a church somewhere and never contacted by his family again. So I suppose I agree with you, and that some kind of sad childhood or origin story is a good basis for him having abandonment issues, and why he never seems to question things when someone who has seemingly had no issues with him appears to suddenly never want to see him again.

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    1. ElDiablito_SF on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:44AM UTC

      //It's so deliciously OTT and innuendo-laden and also exactly what Dumas would have written; I swear that despite Aramis' and Athos' plot points mostly turning on their dramas with women, Dumas actually didn't really care about their relationships with women at all.//

      Yes this is precisely it! Their dramas with women are only interesting in so far as they accentuate how stable their relationship is WITH EACH OTHER. ALSO, the fact that they both end up in bed with Marie to be entirely too intentional. LOL

      In other news, I have very similar headcanons about Aramis. I've also assumed he is the youngest son of probably some landed gentry who couldn't afford to feed him and carted him off to the church when he was 9. And this being the Catholic Church and Aramis being exceptionally pretty, I don't imagine he had a fantastic time there either. It's pretty clear Aramis has a lot of dark issues to work through. My poor sweetling :(

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      1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:14AM UTC

        Their dramas with women are only interesting in so far as they accentuate how stable their relationship is WITH EACH OTHER.

        I don't know if this was intentional or not, or if a 19th century French reader would have taken this meaning or not, but Dumas puts this in the mouth of Athos:

        Are you not aware that we are never seen one without the others, and that we are called among the Musketeers and the Guards, at court and in the city, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, or the Three Inseparables?

        And I found by accident that in French les inséperables is a name for what in English are called "lovebirds" ;-)

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        1. ysande on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:29AM UTC

          Oh my god, that is the greatest thing! <3 and I love that even though d'Artagnan is the protagonist of the book he isn't mentioned in the title and when people think about the Three Musketeers he doesn't come to mind, because it's actually about the love fest between Athos, Porthos and Aramis <3

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          1. ElDiablito_SF on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:35AM UTC

            D'Artagnan whomst? LOL

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            1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:57PM UTC

              It rings a bell... I seem to remember a fierce moustache

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        3. ElDiablito_SF on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:35AM UTC

          I'm really fucking embarrassed for all of them right now. And of course Alex had the Gay Disaster say this. *SMH*

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          1. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 11:22AM UTC

            Can't you just hear the Cardinal's Guards saying "Oooh, here come the Lovebirds!" :-D

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            1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:56PM UTC

              And this is how the duels happened :D

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            2. (3 more comments in this thread)

          3. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 01:58PM UTC

            They Knew No Shame

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        5. Marie_Michon on Chapter 2 Sun 06 Jan 2019 11:56PM UTC

          And I found by accident that in French les inséperables is a name for what in English are called "lovebirds" ;-)

          I thought that this was known, as even those little parrot birds, Agapornis, are called "love birds" or "Inseparables" in many languages as well. XD

          But the French wording is maybe a little more ambiguous towards the friendship of the 3 overall than the English one...

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      3. ysande on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:36AM UTC

        I agree; their dramas with women also just serve as a backdrop to the dramas that they engage in together, but none of those relationships are as enduring as the one they have with each other <3

        And now I want more tragic but still in-character backstory for each of the boys. Or better yet, Aramis scheming against and soundly defeating his old tormentors in the church with the level of vengeance and thoroughness that only Aramis is capable of and finding some kind of vicious catharsis through it <3

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        1. ElDiablito_SF on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:39AM UTC

          Well you know the story he tells about training for a year so that he could go and ruthlessly murder.... Uh... I mean heroically and honorably kill that one guy who insulted him? Imagine what he'd do to people who may have dared lay hands on him? It would be vicious and cathartic indeed! *thumbs up*

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          1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:39PM UTC

            Something occurred to me last night when I thought about poor, abandoned, friendless Aramis, all alone in the world, and I feel you need to know that: I remember I discussed in one of the Immortality comments that I'm convinced Aramis doesn't have any family because if he had any sisters he'd place them in Marie's household and try to marry them off strategically etc. etc. And last night I realised: Aramis would totally try to marry off his sister to the Comte de la Fère! "My dear Madeleine, the comte is the most noble man and a dear friend of mine. Do not be alarmed on your wedding night when he insists you keep your chemise on. In fact, if you wish to produce an offspring and heir to the comté and to the title within these twelve months, do consider dressing up in men's clothes. No reason! This is just the fashion in Paris. Why, I myself would enjoy it if my - hypothetical, for I am a man of God - paramours dressed as men occasionally..."

            This is... I feel like this should happen. In an AU.

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            1. ElDiablito_SF on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 05:42PM UTC

              Well AS IT HAPPENS, I have strategic headcanons ready for how Aramis could've had a sister that he knew nothing about. That is, she would've been born after his embarrassing family sent him away because they couldn't afford to feed him. They would've given the new baby away too but they were so guilt ridden already over tiny René and then the baby turned out to be a GIRL and his mom just couldn't do that because lbr everyone knows it sucks even more being an abandoned orphan girl.

              And were she not married already, he would absolutely try to marry her off as a beard to his dear old friend. Ha! (Athos would PROBABLY not kill Aramis' sister?)

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            2. Deiseach (Guest) on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 06:46PM UTC

              If Aramis had a sister, I feel she would be entirely delighted with the idea of dressing up as a man.

              And then going out and seducing all the female tenants of the estate.

              I think Athos would be quite insistent that one trip to the altar in holy matrimony was sufficient for a lifetime, and since he already had offspring that was his duty to perpetuate the lineage fulfilled, and certainly Aramis' sister could not fail to be a lovely girl with a fine intellect and dazzling personality but she would be thrown away on an old reclusive country-bred dull boring rustic like himself, much better to let her have the chance to make an impression on Paris and exercise her manifold talents to the furthest ;-)

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              1. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 07:05PM UTC

                She would certainly be a very spirited young lady, with the most beautiful hair and dazzling teeth.

                Ah, but Aramis wants to ensure that his sister marries well and wealth, and it should be someone he trusts, because he knows what those Parisian men are like. And Aramis can be quite persuasive - I mean he made Athos leave retirement and go spring a duke from prison, there was some silver-tongued talk there!

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          3. Marie_Michon on Chapter 2 Mon 07 Jan 2019 12:01AM UTC

            This is one of my most favourite thoughts about Aramis. I even wrote (or better, started) a whole story just around the "Aramis and his Thesis" chapter and I never want to be done with it.

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            1. ElDiablito_SF on Chapter 2 Mon 07 Jan 2019 12:12AM UTC

              Oh hello, nymph friend! How lovely to see you in this new year!

              One of your favorite thoughts about Aramis is how he must've been molested and then destroyed those who molested him? I'm not at all surprised! Madam is as bloodthirsty as Flittermouse ;)

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            2. (4 more comments in this thread)

      5. Donna_Immaculata on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Dec 2018 02:41PM UTC

        ALSO, the fact that they both end up in bed with Marie to be entirely too intentional. LOL

        Well, the nymph is very persuasive, so.

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