So first off, it sounds like you’ve been having a streak of bad days and I am sorry for that. Chronic illnesses suck balls, and I hope that there is something, somewhere, that is giving you a happy. (I’d love to hear about your other wips, even if you don’t have the energy to post them. You have some glorious ideas, and you write your characters very sensitively.)
If you’re too tired, or simply not in the mood, to read the discussion that follows, or answer it, that’s totally cool. (But I don’t often get to talk about why Porthos troubles me, sometimes, so here goes.)
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I don't want to read Porthos as abusive.
And yet, I agree with most of your points. (More on that later.)
We do see him, later in s3, stanning for Sylvie when she's in trouble. And we see him admitting to a woman he's helping through childbirth that at one point in the war he was so scared he deserted for a night (which perhaps contributes to his aggressiveness towards Aramis in 3.01 - projecting shame about that onto his friend).
I will throw in the long sequence at the end of s2 where he goes alone into Spain to bring back Vargas to help the mess Aramis is caught up in (though, a lot of that is general politics). And late in s3 he is visibly shaking when Aramis is near death.
But no, he never, ever admits that he's been treating Aramis badly, or judging him harshly for things Porthos himself has done or wanted to. The hug at the end seems parsed more as 'I've finally forgiven you for wanting things and people that aren't me' not 'yeah I was a shit'.
It's something I missed from the end of the show, the unpacking of that dynamic, as the glowing eulogies for Treville which never acknowledged the shady, complicated things he'd done in the past put my back up.
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I do disagree with you about Alice. I think she knew exactly what handsome soldiers hanging around at the back of the church meant for wealthy widows (if she didn’t already, the ladies sitting next to her surely told her) and her main reaction to seeing Porthos, so magnificent, so deferential, was Wheeeeeeee…! I think she is very aware of what is going on when he mentions the gold snuffer and she offers it as a present - an exchange of value to keep everyone happy, phrased more discreetly than “I’ll leave the money on the dresser.” (This is far-and-away a nicer adaptation of his seduction of a wealthy lawyer’s wife in the book, by the by, where he is callous, pushy, and manipulative… and gets happiness and lifelong prosperity out of it.)
And some of the behaviour that I think you consider abusive I read more as horseplay and rough joking. They all wrestle, they manhandle each other, they jibe - Aramis, speaking of Athos’ supposed death, says “He was a little moody, maybe we can find a better friend” or similar. There is a roughness that all of them have with each other, which I think they accept as just plain day to day life.
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But you’re right - Porthos does leave his best friend to whistle in the wind when he’s struggling with the mess of Marsac’s accusations against Treville; he does sleep with a high-status woman (Flea) while her SO, his old friend, is recovering from a bullet wound and - it didn't cause the 'bomb the Court of Miracles into the ground' plot, but it sure didn't help Charon rethink his life choices, either; he does routinely consider moving on from the regiment as early as 1.03 (Bonnaire’s accounts of how great plantation life is - he’d get respect) and as late as 3.07 (to follow a girl) and has formally resigned his commission without considering his friends’ feelings about it at any point. He judges Aramis harshly for things he has himself done, and never apologises or visibly reconsiders. He judges the refugees harshly for stealing to survive when he’d done exactly the same in his youth.
How much of that is manipulativeness and deliberate emotional abuse, vs. a man in pain who is shortsighted in that pain and lashing out, and how much it matters if it’s intentional, when he’s still causing pain… that’s a difficult, painful question, and I don’t really blame fic writers for avoiding it. That is part of why I had trouble writing Porthos for a while - the plotbunnies kept skewing to ‘Porthos realises that he’s been an obnoxious shit’ and it depressed the hell out of me. (There didn’t seem to be any place to go from there.)
There are fics out there that deal with his judgemental streak and his lopsided view of what is appropriate behaviour for him vs. appropriate behaviour for other people, though not many. I can rec them for you if you’d like.
no subject
If you’re too tired, or simply not in the mood, to read the discussion that follows, or answer it, that’s totally cool. (But I don’t often get to talk about why Porthos troubles me, sometimes, so here goes.)
**
I don't want to read Porthos as abusive.
And yet, I agree with most of your points. (More on that later.)
We do see him, later in s3, stanning for Sylvie when she's in trouble. And we see him admitting to a woman he's helping through childbirth that at one point in the war he was so scared he deserted for a night (which perhaps contributes to his aggressiveness towards Aramis in 3.01 - projecting shame about that onto his friend).
I will throw in the long sequence at the end of s2 where he goes alone into Spain to bring back Vargas to help the mess Aramis is caught up in (though, a lot of that is general politics). And late in s3 he is visibly shaking when Aramis is near death.
But no, he never, ever admits that he's been treating Aramis badly, or judging him harshly for things Porthos himself has done or wanted to. The hug at the end seems parsed more as 'I've finally forgiven you for wanting things and people that aren't me' not 'yeah I was a shit'.
It's something I missed from the end of the show, the unpacking of that dynamic, as the glowing eulogies for Treville which never acknowledged the shady, complicated things he'd done in the past put my back up.
**
I do disagree with you about Alice. I think she knew exactly what handsome soldiers hanging around at the back of the church meant for wealthy widows (if she didn’t already, the ladies sitting next to her surely told her) and her main reaction to seeing Porthos, so magnificent, so deferential, was Wheeeeeeee…! I think she is very aware of what is going on when he mentions the gold snuffer and she offers it as a present - an exchange of value to keep everyone happy, phrased more discreetly than “I’ll leave the money on the dresser.” (This is far-and-away a nicer adaptation of his seduction of a wealthy lawyer’s wife in the book, by the by, where he is callous, pushy, and manipulative… and gets happiness and lifelong prosperity out of it.)
And some of the behaviour that I think you consider abusive I read more as horseplay and rough joking. They all wrestle, they manhandle each other, they jibe - Aramis, speaking of Athos’ supposed death, says “He was a little moody, maybe we can find a better friend” or similar. There is a roughness that all of them have with each other, which I think they accept as just plain day to day life.
**
But you’re right - Porthos does leave his best friend to whistle in the wind when he’s struggling with the mess of Marsac’s accusations against Treville; he does sleep with a high-status woman (Flea) while her SO, his old friend, is recovering from a bullet wound and - it didn't cause the 'bomb the Court of Miracles into the ground' plot, but it sure didn't help Charon rethink his life choices, either; he does routinely consider moving on from the regiment as early as 1.03 (Bonnaire’s accounts of how great plantation life is - he’d get respect) and as late as 3.07 (to follow a girl) and has formally resigned his commission without considering his friends’ feelings about it at any point. He judges Aramis harshly for things he has himself done, and never apologises or visibly reconsiders. He judges the refugees harshly for stealing to survive when he’d done exactly the same in his youth.
How much of that is manipulativeness and deliberate emotional abuse, vs. a man in pain who is shortsighted in that pain and lashing out, and how much it matters if it’s intentional, when he’s still causing pain… that’s a difficult, painful question, and I don’t really blame fic writers for avoiding it. That is part of why I had trouble writing Porthos for a while - the plotbunnies kept skewing to ‘Porthos realises that he’s been an obnoxious shit’ and it depressed the hell out of me. (There didn’t seem to be any place to go from there.)
There are fics out there that deal with his judgemental streak and his lopsided view of what is appropriate behaviour for him vs. appropriate behaviour for other people, though not many. I can rec them for you if you’d like.