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Aug. 15th, 2018 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThe first Scarlet Pimpernel sequel, I Will Repay, demonstrates very clearly that Baroness Orczy has A Kink and that kink is 'Woman Betrays Man, Then Attempts to Fix It Through Desperate Sacrifice Which He Must Rescue Her From But Also Finds Very Hot!"
I Will Repay stars two French aristocrats, Juliette de Marny and Paul Deroulede. Paul Deroulede killed Juliette's brother in a duel that totally wasn't his fault, because Juliette's brother was an idiot; nonetheless, Juliette's father! on his deathbed!! made Juliette SWEAR VENGEANCE!!!
Fast-forward ten years to the French Revolution, where Paul Deroulede is somehow cool with the Committee for Public Safety despite being a former aristocrat and an all-around Baroness Orczy Approved Gentleman. Juliette tricks her way into his house, and They Fall In Love, but alas! she is honor-bound to betray him!
Enter: The Scarlet Pimpernel!
PERCY: So, things are looking bad, are you ready to flee the country yet like I've been asking you to for months?
PAUL: Nope! Question for you: are you ready to help me rescue Marie Antoinette like I've been asking you for months?
PERCY: I repeat: HARD NO.
PAUL: But you're supposed to be a superhuman rescuer! You've never failed!
PERCY: Yes, I have never failed because I've never done anything THIS STUPID. You know why my plans work? Because I only rescue people who are willing to put on gross disguises and ride in the bottom of an apple cart for three weeks. You know who's not willing to put on a gross disguise and ride in the bottom of an apple cart for three weeks? MARIE FUCKING ANTOINETTE.
PAUL: Come on, I've written out twelve different ways we could make this work!
PERCY: You wrote them down? Oh, boy. Oh .... oh, boy.
PERCY: OK so enough about this, how's your love life? Would your girlfriend, for example, denounce you and your TWELVE DETAILED WRITTEN MARIE ANTOINETTE ESCAPE PLANS to the Committee of Public Safety?
PAUL: oh she's not my girlfriend, I wouldn't dare touch this immaculate Madonna
PERCY:
PAUL: a perfect angel with a soul 100% unspotted who has never done anything wrong in her life, ever
PERCY:
PAUL: a beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure
PERCY: Paul, my pal, here is my prediction: your girlfriend is definitely going to betray you to the Committee of Public Safety and .... it is going to be so much better for your romance than this Madonna bullshit, I speak from experience, everyone should try it!
PAUL:
PERCY: I promise, you'll thank me later.
(As a sidenote, Paul also lives with his old mother and a Tragic Lame Cousin who is in love with him, but whom he can never love back, because ablism. This girl spends the entire first half of the book ALSO being like "your girlfriend whose brother you stabbed is 100% going to betray you," and nobody listens, because ablism.)
So, of course, Juliette definitely betrays Paul to the Committee of Public Safety, and then immediately is like "WHOOPS NO I DIDN'T MEAN IT" and tries to hide the evidence, which means that she gets hauled into prison instead of him.
But it's OK! The Scarlet Pimpernel is on the case! In this case ... DISGUISED AS A BRAND NEW MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY.
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: I have a brilliant plan! Instead of just executing her, let's haul her up on public trial so he'll confess trying to defend her, and the mob turns against him, and then we'll execute them both!
THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY: huzzah! brilliant! marvelous! we have no idea who you are, but you're so right!
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: And then while the slathering Parisian mob is acting like the zombies in a monster movie, we can sneak them away in the chaos, AND ALSO Paul's reputation will be so completely ruined he'll HAVE to flee the country the way I've been asking him to for months instead of trying to rescue Marie Antoinette!
THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY: what was that?
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: Nothing! I am very French! Hon hon!
(A direct canonical description of Percy speaking French: "the voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to belong to no province of France." PERCY, YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING.)
The book concludes with a dramatic trial, during which Paul tries very hard to get Juliette off the hook by giving a long speech about how girls are incapable of rational actions: "Would you extract vinegar from rose leaves? Just as readily could you find reason in a young girl's head. Is that a crime?"
I should add that Juliette is, at the start of this trial, sentenced to public whipping and a stay in a reformatory -- obviously not fun, but survivable -- and by the end of it, she and Paul are both sentenced to death, so, you know, good work there.
Fortunately, this is all according to Percy's plan, and by the end Paul, Juliette, Paul's mother, Paul's poor tragic unlovable cousin, and Juliette's old nurse are all on their way to England to set up for the next book, which I was planning to write about in this post but will save for the next one because this has already gotten long!
I Will Repay stars two French aristocrats, Juliette de Marny and Paul Deroulede. Paul Deroulede killed Juliette's brother in a duel that totally wasn't his fault, because Juliette's brother was an idiot; nonetheless, Juliette's father! on his deathbed!! made Juliette SWEAR VENGEANCE!!!
Fast-forward ten years to the French Revolution, where Paul Deroulede is somehow cool with the Committee for Public Safety despite being a former aristocrat and an all-around Baroness Orczy Approved Gentleman. Juliette tricks her way into his house, and They Fall In Love, but alas! she is honor-bound to betray him!
Enter: The Scarlet Pimpernel!
PERCY: So, things are looking bad, are you ready to flee the country yet like I've been asking you to for months?
PAUL: Nope! Question for you: are you ready to help me rescue Marie Antoinette like I've been asking you for months?
PERCY: I repeat: HARD NO.
PAUL: But you're supposed to be a superhuman rescuer! You've never failed!
PERCY: Yes, I have never failed because I've never done anything THIS STUPID. You know why my plans work? Because I only rescue people who are willing to put on gross disguises and ride in the bottom of an apple cart for three weeks. You know who's not willing to put on a gross disguise and ride in the bottom of an apple cart for three weeks? MARIE FUCKING ANTOINETTE.
PAUL: Come on, I've written out twelve different ways we could make this work!
PERCY: You wrote them down? Oh, boy. Oh .... oh, boy.
PERCY: OK so enough about this, how's your love life? Would your girlfriend, for example, denounce you and your TWELVE DETAILED WRITTEN MARIE ANTOINETTE ESCAPE PLANS to the Committee of Public Safety?
PAUL: oh she's not my girlfriend, I wouldn't dare touch this immaculate Madonna
PERCY:
PAUL: a perfect angel with a soul 100% unspotted who has never done anything wrong in her life, ever
PERCY:
PAUL: a beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure
PERCY: Paul, my pal, here is my prediction: your girlfriend is definitely going to betray you to the Committee of Public Safety and .... it is going to be so much better for your romance than this Madonna bullshit, I speak from experience, everyone should try it!
PAUL:
PERCY: I promise, you'll thank me later.
(As a sidenote, Paul also lives with his old mother and a Tragic Lame Cousin who is in love with him, but whom he can never love back, because ablism. This girl spends the entire first half of the book ALSO being like "your girlfriend whose brother you stabbed is 100% going to betray you," and nobody listens, because ablism.)
So, of course, Juliette definitely betrays Paul to the Committee of Public Safety, and then immediately is like "WHOOPS NO I DIDN'T MEAN IT" and tries to hide the evidence, which means that she gets hauled into prison instead of him.
But it's OK! The Scarlet Pimpernel is on the case! In this case ... DISGUISED AS A BRAND NEW MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY.
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: I have a brilliant plan! Instead of just executing her, let's haul her up on public trial so he'll confess trying to defend her, and the mob turns against him, and then we'll execute them both!
THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY: huzzah! brilliant! marvelous! we have no idea who you are, but you're so right!
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: And then while the slathering Parisian mob is acting like the zombies in a monster movie, we can sneak them away in the chaos, AND ALSO Paul's reputation will be so completely ruined he'll HAVE to flee the country the way I've been asking him to for months instead of trying to rescue Marie Antoinette!
THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY: what was that?
CITIZEN LENOIR WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL: Nothing! I am very French! Hon hon!
(A direct canonical description of Percy speaking French: "the voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to belong to no province of France." PERCY, YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING.)
The book concludes with a dramatic trial, during which Paul tries very hard to get Juliette off the hook by giving a long speech about how girls are incapable of rational actions: "Would you extract vinegar from rose leaves? Just as readily could you find reason in a young girl's head. Is that a crime?"
I should add that Juliette is, at the start of this trial, sentenced to public whipping and a stay in a reformatory -- obviously not fun, but survivable -- and by the end of it, she and Paul are both sentenced to death, so, you know, good work there.
Fortunately, this is all according to Percy's plan, and by the end Paul, Juliette, Paul's mother, Paul's poor tragic unlovable cousin, and Juliette's old nurse are all on their way to England to set up for the next book, which I was planning to write about in this post but will save for the next one because this has already gotten long!
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Date: 2018-08-21 10:04 pm (UTC)