Meme Answers: The Count of Monte Cristo
Apr. 27th, 2017 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerFor minutia_r: The Count of Monte Cristo
the character I least understand
Most of Dumas’ characters have pretty simple motivations - they want Love or Vengeance or Status or Money - so I don’t think any of them are hard to understand, really.
interactions I enjoyed the most
Any scene where the Count and Mercedes interact is 100% pure gold and I love it. The tension just crackles off the page!
the character who scares me the most
Honestly the Count is terrifying in his single-mindedness. I sort of root for him anyway, because it’s hard not to, but at the same time - the collateral damage he causes! All of Villefort’s innocent relations who are poisoned for no fault of their own! And it never bothers the Count until he realizes that Valentine’s death would harm Morrel, who he likes. The non-Morrel-harming deaths that have already happened, meh, he never really cares about that.
the character who is mostly like me
Probably Valentine, simply because she is the least epically dramatic person on this epically dramatic cast. And even she ends up almost being poisoned by her stepmother, so she’s got some drama going on to, so really none of them I guess.
hottest looks character
The book keeps describing Mercedes’ beauty, so I think it’s got to be her. Although Eugenie and Valentine are clearly lookers too.
one thing I dislike about my fave character
How am I supposed to pick just one favorite? There are like five hundred characters in this book, picking a single favorite is like taking just one potato chip.
one thing I like about my hated character
All of the men involved in Dantes’ denunciation are pretty loathsome, but I do feel some sneaking admiration for Villefort’s hard work and devotion to duty. His whole life is coming down around his ears, everyone in his household is dying, and yet still he’s filling out case dossiers.
a quote or scene that haunts me
MERCEDES AND THE DRAMA!VEIL. The whole scene where she confronts Edmond and convinces him not to kill her son - aaaaaaaah that’s just so good.
Also the scene where Noirtier saves the day through dramatic eyeblinks. Who would have thought that eyeblinks could create such a held-breath sense of tension?
a death that left me indifferent
I don’t think I was as upset by the Abbe Faria’s death as I should have been. He’s just got “Wise Old Mentor, Marked For Death” written on his forehead from the moment we meet him.
a character I wish died but didn’t
Danglars! Of all of Dantes’ tormentors he is the most purely evil, and yet he’s the one who escapes both alive and sane. So unfair!
my ship that never sailed
I WILL MOURN THE LACK OF ENDGAME EDMOND/MERCEDES TILL THE END OF TIME. Get over the fact that she married someone else, Edmond! You were practically dead at the time! Did you want her to live the rest of her life in abject misery because of your loss?
I mean, he totally did, and really that ought to make me reconsider whether they ought to get back together - is Edmond “I have spent literally decades plotting my vengeance. It is my only purpose in life” Dantes really such a catch? But it does not. They are meant to be together. Look at that scene with the drama!veil: they understand each other! They are soulmates! ADMIT IT TO YOURSELF, EDMOND. GO BACK TO HER AND TELL HER YOU WERE A FOOL NOT TO FALL AT HER FEET THE MOMENT SHE WAS FREE OF FERNAND.
minutia_r: The Count of Monte Cristothe character I least understand
Most of Dumas’ characters have pretty simple motivations - they want Love or Vengeance or Status or Money - so I don’t think any of them are hard to understand, really.
interactions I enjoyed the most
Any scene where the Count and Mercedes interact is 100% pure gold and I love it. The tension just crackles off the page!
the character who scares me the most
Honestly the Count is terrifying in his single-mindedness. I sort of root for him anyway, because it’s hard not to, but at the same time - the collateral damage he causes! All of Villefort’s innocent relations who are poisoned for no fault of their own! And it never bothers the Count until he realizes that Valentine’s death would harm Morrel, who he likes. The non-Morrel-harming deaths that have already happened, meh, he never really cares about that.
the character who is mostly like me
Probably Valentine, simply because she is the least epically dramatic person on this epically dramatic cast. And even she ends up almost being poisoned by her stepmother, so she’s got some drama going on to, so really none of them I guess.
hottest looks character
The book keeps describing Mercedes’ beauty, so I think it’s got to be her. Although Eugenie and Valentine are clearly lookers too.
one thing I dislike about my fave character
How am I supposed to pick just one favorite? There are like five hundred characters in this book, picking a single favorite is like taking just one potato chip.
one thing I like about my hated character
All of the men involved in Dantes’ denunciation are pretty loathsome, but I do feel some sneaking admiration for Villefort’s hard work and devotion to duty. His whole life is coming down around his ears, everyone in his household is dying, and yet still he’s filling out case dossiers.
a quote or scene that haunts me
MERCEDES AND THE DRAMA!VEIL. The whole scene where she confronts Edmond and convinces him not to kill her son - aaaaaaaah that’s just so good.
Also the scene where Noirtier saves the day through dramatic eyeblinks. Who would have thought that eyeblinks could create such a held-breath sense of tension?
a death that left me indifferent
I don’t think I was as upset by the Abbe Faria’s death as I should have been. He’s just got “Wise Old Mentor, Marked For Death” written on his forehead from the moment we meet him.
a character I wish died but didn’t
Danglars! Of all of Dantes’ tormentors he is the most purely evil, and yet he’s the one who escapes both alive and sane. So unfair!
my ship that never sailed
I WILL MOURN THE LACK OF ENDGAME EDMOND/MERCEDES TILL THE END OF TIME. Get over the fact that she married someone else, Edmond! You were practically dead at the time! Did you want her to live the rest of her life in abject misery because of your loss?
I mean, he totally did, and really that ought to make me reconsider whether they ought to get back together - is Edmond “I have spent literally decades plotting my vengeance. It is my only purpose in life” Dantes really such a catch? But it does not. They are meant to be together. Look at that scene with the drama!veil: they understand each other! They are soulmates! ADMIT IT TO YOURSELF, EDMOND. GO BACK TO HER AND TELL HER YOU WERE A FOOL NOT TO FALL AT HER FEET THE MOMENT SHE WAS FREE OF FERNAND.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-27 12:31 pm (UTC)LOL, so true. Unfortunately for Faria. (Yes, all that treasure! All those years of patient digging! It's all for someone else's benefit. It is the way of the novel.)
It's such a ride, though, as you say. Epically dramatic! Real people can only sort of wander around saying they're maybe like Valentine (or possibly Franz, I suppose, who enjoys watching it all and then wanders off).
no subject
Date: 2017-04-27 08:55 pm (UTC)What happens to Franz anyway? He breaks off his engagement to Valentine and then just sort of disappears.
Maybe he realized that the safest place to be is as far away from the Count as possible and acted accordingly.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-28 07:52 am (UTC)I wasn't sure if my feeling that Franz had just vanished was my faulty memory or not, but obviously not, then. I should think he wisely retired to the sidelines and watched events unfold with opera glasses. Probably taking notes for the stage play version. It seems only reasonable.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-27 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-28 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-28 04:04 pm (UTC)I also like Edmond/Haydee? I don't remember that it's ever made clear exactly how old she was when he acquired her, but I don't read her as ever having seen him as a father figure. I am specifically thinking of the scene where he's made up his mind to lose the duel with Albert and he's writing his will all "Mercedes was so concerned for her son but I forgot I had a daughter" and Haydee is WTF NO. I mean, she's mostly WTF NO about him deciding to die, but IIRC (it's been a while since I read the book and I can't find my copy to look it up now, sorry) she's also WTF NO about the "daughter" part. And on Edmond's side, I can't help but read it as him denying his feelings for Haydee because Mercedes is The Only Woman He Can Ever Love and the whole "daughter. totally daughter." thing is part of that.
But that's just my read.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-28 09:08 pm (UTC)I think if Mercedes had some other prospect of happiness I would be able to let Mercedes/Edmund go - perhaps with a sigh of mourning - but at the end of a book she all but tells Edmond that she's going to sit in her garden and despair until she dies. It seems so unfair when she never plotted against him at all and only married when she had every reason to believe he was never coming back.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-30 01:52 pm (UTC)Also, I recommend all of El Staplador's Count of Monte Cristo fic, but especially the Eugenie/Louise ones (which is the only CoMC ship that I'm really invested in.)
no subject
Date: 2017-04-30 03:04 pm (UTC)To be fair to Edmond, he's into this whole "suicide as proof of true love" thing for both genders: he also checks to make sure Morrel is willing to kill himself (to the point of watching him take what Morrel thinks is a deadly poison!) before reuniting him with the supposedly-dead Valentine, never mind that Valentine might never have been supposedly-dead with Edmond's plots.
But at the same time, Edmond didn't kill himself upon being sundered from Mercedes, so perhaps he ought to contemplate whether his own love reaches this standard of purity before he gets all judgmental at her.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-30 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-30 06:28 pm (UTC)