skygiants | (no subject)

The most interesting thing about Lord Tony's Wife, the fifth Scarlet Pimpernel book, is how the book's villain-of-the-week is absolutely another book's antihero.

In the first chapter, we are introduced to Pierre Adet, a fiery young peasant who unfortunately jumps the gun and attempts to kick off the Revolution like a week too early.

PIERRE ADET: The Duc has unjustly murdered my brother-in-law for poaching on his land! Come, fellow peasants, let's seize the means of production!
THE DUC: I do not care about these peasants EXCEPT that my beautiful daughter Yvonne is on her way home from a friend's house and might run into difficulties with all these angry peasants blocking the road...
YVONNE'S DRIVER: My lady, there are a lot of peasants blocking the road, what should we do?
YVONNE: DRIVE STRAIGHT THROUGH

And thus with whip and tongue they urged their horses to break through the crowd regardless of human lives, knocking and trampling down men and lads heedless of curses and blasphemies.

However, alas, there's only SO many peasants you can run over before sheer mass eventually stops your carriage.

YVONNE: Who are you? And what do you want?
PIERRE ADET: Who are we, my fine lady? We are the men who throughout our lives have toiled and starved whilst you and such as you travel in fine coaches and eat your fill. What we want? Why, just the spectacle of such a fine lady as you are being knocked down into the mud just as our wives and daughters are if they happen to be in the way when your coach is passing.

If you are not Baroness Orczy, you might see a certain justice in these remarks, especially given that Yvonne's carriage did literally just trample several peasants into the ground. Obviously, I'm not pro the punishment kiss that Adet gives her afterwards -- and it's very explicitly sexual violence as vengeance and power play, and very effectively gross and creepy -- but I think it is fair to say that there's some nuance available here.

Anyway, this is still, as aforementioned, just slightly too early for the revolution, so Yvonne is promptly rescued, an injured Pierre Adet flees and spends the next several weeks in a coma, and Pierre Adet's harmless old father who never did anything wrong in his life is put to death in his place.

PIERRE ADET SWEARS REVENGE!

Meanwhile, beautiful sweet innocent Yvonne ends up as the love interest of the Scarlet Pimpernel's bff Tony.

YVONNE: Please Dad may I marry this handsome British aristocrat?
THE DUC: No, you must marry this wealthy businessman who is definitely absolutely not our nemesis in cunning disguise.
YVONNE: ....I think I'm going to marry this handsome British aristocrat.
THE DUC: ....oh no, I'm ill! Please help me to a health spring!
YVONNE: Oh no dear father, I'm coming!
THE DUC: Ha ha! This was a kidnapping, and now I shall compel you to marry this wealthy businessman who is definitely absolutely not our nemesis in cunning disguise! It's for your own good and the good of France!
PAUL ADET: HA HA! I am your nemesis in cunning disguise and now you are BOTH in my power, I shall turn you over to the Revolution forthwith!
THE DUC: ......... whoops

And, you know what: I absolutely have some respect for Paul Adet's absolutely absurd revenge scheme here. Years of study and labor and wealth acquisition! Building a whole fake pro-royalist personality! Forcing Yvonne's father to be the instrument of her destruction! The Count of Monte Cristo would be so proud!

PAUL ADET: so do you want to know why I hate you so
YVONNE: no
PAUL ADET: it's because in addition to the years of oppression you and your father unjustly ordered the execution of my harmless old father who was not in any way responsible for --
YVONNE: still don't care

Yvonne, I get that you're mad and also a sweet innocent naive virtuous maiden who never did anything wrong in your life except for all those peasants you trampled that one time, but maybe .... maybe you could care a little .......

This is about the point at which both Percy and Chauvelin get involved, mostly because each cunningly deduces that the other is about to get involved and want in on this nemesis action.

CHAUVELIN: He felt like a war-horse scenting blood and battle. He was aching to get to work - aching to form his plans - to lay his snares - to dispose his trap so that the noble English quarry should not fail to be caught within its meshes.

MEANWHILE, IN ENGLAND:

TONY: Percy, how can I ask you to put yourself in danger for me?
PERCY: stop talking nonsense, can't you see that I am aching to have at my old friend Chauvelin again?

I'm honestly just really glad they're both having so much fun with this shared hobby.

While this is not the best Scarlet Pimpernel book for thirsty nemesis action -- that honor right now is probably split between The Elusive Pimpernel and Eldorado -- I did enormously enjoy the moment when Percy is spying on Chauvelin and Adet doing their evil plotting:

CHAUVELIN: Beware, Adet. The Scarlet Pimpernel is everywhere! He could be listening to us RIGHT NOW!
PERCY, VERY LOUDLY: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
CHAUVELIN: oh my god fuck you

Like, you could have gotten more info out of Chauvelin there, Percy! You were completely concealed! You didn't have to break cover just to troll him extra hard!

Anyway, in the end of the book, the Duc is dead, Yvonne is rescued, and everyone's happy except Pierre Adet and his poor sister, who has a dead dad and a dead fiancee and absolutely nothing to show for it except some condescending remarks from Emma Orczy about how she's dull and dead-eyed. I'm sorry, Adets. If Alexandre Dumas was writing you, you would have had a better time of it.

Meanwhile, Percy still has not had a single swordfight and I'm so very proud of him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sovay

Obviously, I'm not pro the punishment kiss that Adet gives her afterwards -- and it's very explicitly sexual violence as vengeance and power play, and very effectively gross and creepy -- but I think it is fair to say that there's some nuance available here.

I must have had the wrong trope filters on, because I instantly assumed they were going to end up together, after some secondary-couple nemesising.

Like, you could have gotten more info out of Chauvelin there, Percy! You were completely concealed! You didn't have to break cover just to troll him extra hard!

And yet I feel that extra trolling, too, is one of the hallmarks of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

From:

skygiants

Well, here's the thing: in another book they definitely would have, because this is definitely somebody's kink.

"And just to punish you, my fine lady," he said in a whisper which sent a shudder of horror right through her, "to punish you for what you are, the brood of tyrants, proud, disdainful, a budding tyrant yourself, to punish you for every misery my mother and sister have had to endure, for every luxury which you have enjoyed, I will kiss you on the lips and the cheeks and just between your white throat and chin and never as long as you live if you die this night or live to be an hundred will you be able to wash off those kisses showered upon you by one who hates and loathes you—a miserable peasant whom you despise and who in your sight is lower far than your dogs."

From:

sovay

". . . and never as long as you live if you die this night or live to be an hundred will you be able to wash off those kisses showered upon you by one who hates and loathes you—a miserable peasant whom you despise and who in your sight is lower far than your dogs."

I swear Orczy had the same trope filters on when she wrote that.

Edited Date: 2019-01-13 01:22 am (UTC)

From:

lokifan

I SO AGREE about the initial assumption! And given that passage about kissing her white throat... yeeeeah. *gets out the Gothic heroine icon*

From:

troisoiseaux

Oh man, I used to love the Scarlet Pimpernel books but I don't think I ever got to the 5th one!

And, you know what: I absolutely have some respect for Paul Adet's absolutely absurd revenge scheme here. Years of study and labor and wealth acquisition! Building a whole fake pro-royalist personality! Forcing Yvonne's father to be the instrument of her destruction! The Count of Monte Cristo would be so proud!

I'm sorry, Adets. If Alexandre Dumas was writing you, you would have had a better time of it.

I feel like this is a really good example of the difference between French and English literature, here.

From:

skygiants

Earlier this year I was like 'I'm really feeling like I want to read something like The Scarlet Pimpernel' and then I remembered that, oh, there were twelve whole books exactly like The Scarlet Pimpernel that I had never read! We'll see if I actually manage to get through them all; I've got one more and then we hit the ones that are out of public domain....

From:

aella_irene

I'm sorry, Adets. If Alexandre Dumas was writing you, you would have had a better time of it.

I'm sorry, I have to go check if these books are out of copyright, because I have a powerful urge to add the Adets to my fantasy revolutionary novel in which Napoleon is a lesbian.

From:

skygiants

Pierre Adet, MASTER OF ENTREPRENEURIAL DISGUISE! It takes him like three years tops to go from 'impoverished French peasant' to 'plausibly billionaire Royalist European businessman!'

From:

osprey_archer

So Percy and Chauvelin are basically Kate Beaton's Nemesis comics except on dry land, is that right? They're just so excited to get the chance to play cat and mouse together again! PERCY'S EPIC TROLLING oh Percy.

From:

skygiants

Chauvelin one thousand percent keeps a portrait of his nemesis by his bedside table to fill him with vengeance, but I was so chuffed in this book to see Percy unequivocally sharing in his feelings! It's always a little sad when one person considers another their ultimate nemesis and the other just doesn't feel the same way.

From:

osprey_archer

There aren't even songs to dim the pain of realizing that your nemesis doesn't requite your feelings! "WHY DOESN'T HE HATE ME LIKE I HATE HIM?" the unrequited nemesis wails, possibly while clutching the portrait of his nemesis in both hands and gazing into the portrait's hard unseeing eyes. "And this will only make me hate him more. It's so unfair."

From:

skygiants

I don't know how much you've seen of Trek DS9, but Sisko's collection of nemesis who each clearly think they're his one and only is honestly heartbreaking. Special mentions have to go to the nemesis who mails him a copy of Les Mis to be like "I'M YOUR VALJEAN AND YOU'RE MY JAVERT!" and the nemesis who hasn't seen him in twenty years but nonetheless trained his entire crew in how to play baseball so that he would be able to crushingly defeat Sisko in his favorite game just in case they ever ran into each other again.

From:

osprey_archer

That is honestly so tragic. STOP COLLECTING SPACE NEMESES, SISKO, YOU CAD!

From:

pedanther

According to Wikipedia, when this novel was translated into French it was retitled "Le Rire du Mouron Rouge", which I'm pretty sure means "The Laughter of the Scarlet Pimpernel". Clearly somebody knew what the important part of the story really was.

From:

skygiants

oh my god OF COURSE IT WAS, I'm so proud of that translator whoever they are

From:

genarti

This book sounds SO FRUSTRATING but also, in different parts, SO HILARIOUS.

From:

skygiants

As with all Scarlet Pimpernel books, really: VERY MUCH BOTH

From:

larryhammer

I'm sorry, Adets. If Alexandre Dumas was writing you, you would have had a better time of it.

And this would be why I read Dumas instead of Orczy.

From:

skygiants

Yes, but then eventually one gets tired of hating everyone in Dumas for being assholes to their lackeys and has to go back to people who have at least nominal notions of human kindness, so it all balances out. Really I just want to read Tansy Rayner Roberts rewriting Dumas all the time, which satisfies all my needs!

From:

larryhammer

eventually one gets tired of hating everyone in Dumas for being assholes to ~~their lackeys~~ everybody

I fixed it for you.

And, yeah, that's one of the drawbacks of Dumas.

From:

lokifan

I'm honestly just really glad they're both having so much fun with this shared hobby.

LMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAO

CHAUVELIN: Beware, Adet. The Scarlet Pimpernel is everywhere! He could be listening to us RIGHT NOW!
PERCY, VERY LOUDLY: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
CHAUVELIN: oh my god fuck you

Like, you could have gotten more info out of Chauvelin there, Percy! You were completely concealed! You didn't have to break cover just to troll him extra hard!

*hearteyes for Percy* But he was having so much FUN!