bbcmusketeerskink | discussion post

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From: (Anonymous)

It seemed she was seeing or realizing unhappiness in retrospect only? Because she said to her husband she didn't think she was unhappy until d'Artagnan came.

I don't know? It's compounded by the circumstances and fallout of discovery, as well, which is why I'm dreading the results if Aramis and Queen Anne consummate anything.

From: (Anonymous)

ayrt

But her BFF in Rebellious Woman said she didn't want to be forced into a loveless marriage to a man she hates like Constance was. And the best Constance could come up with was that she didn't hate him. I don't hate lots of people I wouldn't want to be married to. (And when trying to get away from an angry man who has absolutely power over you, you probably SHOULD say that you weren't unhappy from the get go. It's not scene overwhelmed with reliable narration).

Aramis was cheating with a woman last episode, and with Adele first episode (not married, but def with someone who expected her not to sleep around!). Adele was actually the most actively cheating person so far, in that she's the only one who's clearly had a vote in her relationship. Queen Anne certainly didn't.

I can see why you have a problem with it, but I also see why neither the show nor most of fandom does.

For the love of God, never read the book, is all I can say.

From: (Anonymous)

DA

It's not really a show that has a problem with infidality. In episodes so far:

One: Milady (married) slept with the Spanish Dude and d'Artagnan. Adele was sleeping with Aramis and Richelieu
Two: had a prostitute in love with a thief, so she was probably okay. Anne (married) flirted with Aramis.
Three: Pirate dude was trying to chat up the bar wench when his wife caught him.
Four: Catherine of Savoy was not sleeping around, but was spying on her husband.
Five: Porthos slept with Flea who was in a relationship with Charon.
Six: Aramis flirted with a widow, and no one got laid.
Seven: Athos (married) flirted with Ninon, and Constance (also married) slept with d'Artagnan. Anne (still married) continued to flirt with Aramis.
Eighth episode: Porthos slept with a widow, and Aramis slept with a married woman (I think that was the one with the husband and the yappy dogs?). Constance (married) still sleeping with d'Artagnan, until forced to stop.

I will grant extenuating circumstances with the Milady/Athos union, even though they're still clearly into each other in a hateship sort of way, but they were married in the eyes of God and knew it when they were making out with other people. Show doesn't give a shit. Vadim and Suzette, Aramis and the widow (who was not over her husband), and Porthos and Alice have been the only non cheating couples so far.

To be fair, they did warn us first episode, when d'Artagnan objected to a relationship with Constance on grounds that she was married, and Porthos and Aramis thought that was hilarious.

From: (Anonymous)

SA

Oh, also in episode three: Milady seduced Remy when she was clearly married to Athos. Which was to save her own life, but after she murdered Athos' brother.

One gets the impression that Dumas didn't have a high opinion of marriage. I'm trying to think of a single happy one in the books, and am drawing a blank. Tréville maybe? Was Tréville married?

From: (Anonymous)

You forgot Marie de Midici and the captain of her guard. Pretty sure they were clear. So the show's about 50/50 by now.

From: (Anonymous)

Involving infidelity of some kind:
Milady/Remy, Milady/d'Artagnan, Milady/Spanish Ambassador, d'Artagnan/Constance, Aramis/Adele, Aramis/Anne, Aramis/Married Woman, Bonnaire/Waitress, Porthos/Flea, Athos/Ninon.

No infidelity:
Suzette/Vadim, Marie de Medici/Guard Captain, Porthos/Alice, Aramis/Widow w/ Baby.

If you discount Athos/Milady, it's about that.

From: (Anonymous)

If you want to get really technical, you could divide it so:

People who shouldn't be flirting, but totally are:
Milady, Athos, Constance, Queen Anne, Adele, Married Woman, Flea, Emil Bonnaire, King Louis

People who knowingly flirt with people they should not flirt with, though they themselves are free,
Aramis, d'Artagnan, Remy, Porthos

People who have on screen only flirted with people with whom they're in a relationship:
Marie Bonnaire, Richelieu, Jacques, Charon, Married Woman's Husband

People who have flirted onscreen, but never with someone they knew they ought not to have flirted with:
Spanish Ambassador, Waitress, Ninon, Suzette, Vadim, Marie de Medici, Guard Captain, Alice, Agnes

From: (Anonymous)

Richelieu is a priest in the Catholic church, so he def. belongs in the first category.

From: (Anonymous)

ayrt

Mmmmmm but was there any expectation at the time of keeping that? He's much more a politician than a religious figure (though actual Richelieu was pretty religious).

I made those categories late at night, and need to work on them, anyway.

From: (Anonymous)

Mmmmmm but was there any expectation at the time of keeping that?

Probably not universally, no. But that's true of everyone on that list.

(There is a bit in the novel where Richelieu is about to do something that will affect Our heroes negatively and Athos distracts him by starting to babble about his mistresses. Which suggests to me that even if everyone knew that Richelieu wasn't exactly chaste, it was not 100% uncontroversial.)

From: (Anonymous)

Yeah. I need to rewrite that list so it makes sense. Hang on:

People who are flirting outside wedding vows, serious relationships and/or vows of celibacy:
Milady, Athos, Constance, Queen Anne, Adele, Married Woman, Flea, Emil Bonnaire, King Louis, Richelieu

People who knowingly flirt with people they should not flirt with, though they themselves are free,
Aramis, d'Artagnan, Remy, Porthos

People who have, on screen, only flirted with people with whom they're in a relationship:
Marie Bonnaire, Jacques, Charon, Suzette, Vadim, Marie de Medici, Guard Captain, Duke of Savoy, Duchess of Savoy

Random other people who flirted:
Spanish Ambassador, Waitress, Ninon, Alice, Agnes

You're right, anon. Every other religious person so far has been really good about keeping their vows, so Richelieu is an outlier and deserves the spot.

From: (Anonymous)

Surely that visiting Duchess who was trying to seduce King Louis counts as well?

From: (Anonymous)

ayrt couldn't tell if she was actually hitting on him or just generally friendly, but sure.

From: (Anonymous)

Had married popes till 1449 and it is said 50 percent of preists were married and accepted by people infifteenth cetury. I know this 300 years past but marriage was still argued and would happen from time to time. Always a controversial topic in its validity in church.

From: (Anonymous)

Dumas had so many problems with marriage. Almost as many as he did illegitimate children. (Hence the many famous and literary issues of Dumas fils.)

From: (Anonymous)

NA I'm with you - show doesn't have a problem with it, and Paris had a bit of a reputation at the time in "real" life about affairs running rampant. And in the book, pretty casually so. Even Aramis and Athos sleep with the same woman after all.

But, if the original anon is worried about that, at least in the book Constance and d'Artagnan never consummated their flirting. They never had the actual affair.

From: (Anonymous)

DA: And yet Constance denied that she hated him, and later said she didn't know she wasn't happy until d'Artagnan came along. Her husband treated her well, and we actually don't know his intentions when he married her (I think it's easy to imagine he very much expected her to love him, and vice versa).

And I get the cheating squick. Part of it for me is that d'Artagnan and Constance seem really naive about and almost act like they are entitled to their affair - kissing in the street, etc. She is in a marriage and seems to have had no plans to leave it. For all we know is that her plan was to just keep having sex with d'Artagnan while staying with her husband.

Aramis and Anne, who honestly squick me just about as much, at least have their eyes wide open about their situation.

From: (Anonymous)

da I'm not going to argue the point of entitled, although I fear the message could be, look at this man who is so boring and older than Constance, no wonder she chooses d'Artagnan. But I think this is far from a black and white issue.

On to the naive thing. I do agree with you about that bit. I don't know why that bugged me about them but it did. Kissing in the street. Really? No thought for how this was really going to work. What were they planning? Expecting?

From: (Anonymous)

Fluer seemed pretty sure that she wasn't happy, and she was her best friend, and again she was telling the very angry husband who has absolute power over her that she hadn't known she was unhappy, so that may or may not have been true.

Whatever his expectations at the time of their marriage, or hers, they're stuck with is now. It's not like they could get divorced, and I doubt they could afford an annulment.

In any case, weather she should have cheated or not in the first place, I'm pretty firmly on her side because of his response. I'll kill your boyfriend followed by (when that option is gone), I'll kill myself is a much bigger squick for me than infidelity in a dubiously consensual marriage ever will be.

From: (Anonymous)

Amen.

It's hard enough to leave such a manipulative person in this modern world.

From: (Anonymous)

DA

With the caveat that I am actually on Constance's side in this in most ways, I don't think the show stated anywhere that Fluer was/is her best friend. Even if she is, Constance is a woman who can speak for herself, and has been shown to speak for herself boldly and without hesitation on many occasions. Her situation is tragically difficult, but dismissing her own voice in this matter feels diminishing to her character somehow.

She said she didn't hate her husband (in a context where it would have been safe to admit that she did), and I believed her. She told her husband that she hadn't known she was unhappy, and I believed her then too.

She had no problem telling the husband who had "absolute power" over her that she wasn't planning to stop her affair with d'Artagnan in the same conversation that she told him she hadn't been unhappy (or hadn't recognized that she wasn't happy). Why would telling him she had been unhappy be more difficult than telling him she wasn't planning to give up her affair?

Once again, I'm on Constance's side for a variety of reasons, but let's not erase her character's voice and actions in the matter. It isn't a black and white issue, much as we might want it to be. It might be easy to dismiss the husband as a cartoon villain and imagine he's been keeping her a slave all these years and never had a moment of good intention towards her (he certainly was more buffoon than person in the books, and fills that same non-person role in the show so far). But Constance is not without fault. She is as flawed a character as the rest of them, and is as entitled to being as flawed a character as the rest of them.

She is in a challenging (and somewhat tragic situation) but she is not a wilting flower, nor is she entirely right in her approach (nor perhaps, entirely wrong).