Levels of Knowing Stuff (TCOMC edition)
The different types of knowledge that tcomc characters have:
Knows stuff they have literally no way of knowing-
Caderousse- drunk knowledge
When he’s with Danglars and Fernand, he gets super drunk. He drunkenly hears them plotting against Edmond and says something along the lines of “hey guys you really shouldn’t do this. If you send Edmond to prison, he’ll break out and get revenge on all of us.” He himself didn’t know what he was saying because he was drunk, but he had literally no reason to even consider that a possibility. Pre- Chateau D’If Edmond isn’t the kind of person who would be capable of breaking out of prison or getting revenge. And yet Caderousse, of all people, somehow predicted that correctly.
Morrel- Gets some knowledge to make the story more interesting
He somehow knows that the mysterious person who saved him and his family was Edmond Dantes, even though he was told Edmond was dead. Again, he had literally no way of knowing this.
Franz- how the heck he’s like a mind reader or can see the past or something
When he’s in Monte Cristo’s cave, he straight up says to Sinbad the Sailor something along the lines of “ oh hey you look like the type of guy who was plotted against but escaped prison and is gonna go get revenge on his enemies now”. Idk why he would know this, or guess this, but meh I guess the only reasonable reason for this is that he’s secretly a mystical being of some sort.
Doesn’t know stuff they were literally warned about-
Villefort- in denial
In complete denial that his family is being poisoned to death until he’s already lost too many people. Dr. D’avrigny told him “dude your family is being poisoned. Do something about it you idiot”. But it took some more murders for Villefort to realize “huh maybe someone is murdering my family…”
Albert- just too naive and trusting
Franz warns him straight out that the Count is sketchy and definitely someone to be suspicious of. Mercedes also somewhat warned him. But he was like “nah the count is super cool!” Then he was all shocked when it turned out that the Count was actually indirectly involved in the whole Haydee drama. Really, Albert? You had plenty of warnings.
Knows. Just Knows.-
Mercedes- knows with a legit reason to know
She knew more or less right away that the Count was Edmond. But unlike category 1, she had a fare reason to know something that the other characters couldn’t figure out. She was close to Edmond and knew him well. It would be hard to believe that absolutely no one recognized him, so I appreciate that this was put into the story.
Nortier- knowledge from age (probably)
I dont have a specific example for this one, but he DEFINITELY knows stuff. Definitely.
Right but wrong. Wrong but right-
Benedetto- analyzes data, comes to right solution, ruins it by jumping to conclusions
He was able to get as far as to realize that the Count was behind all of it. I’ll give him credit for that. He was one of the few characters who didnt think that everything was just happening on its own. But then he had to ruin it by assuming that the reason he’s being involved in the whole drama was because the Count was his father. In his defense, he did provide a few solid reasons for why he came to that conclusion. But still.
Dr. D’avrigny- correct facts, almost the right conclusion
If he wasn’t missing a few small pieces of data, he would have solved the entire murder case. While everyone was brushing off the deaths as just bad luck, he said “nope. People dont just die all at once like that because of “bad luck”” He was able to figure out it was due to someone in that family poisoning them. His deduction for why he suspected that Valentine was the murderer was all logical, but he was unfortunately missing a few crucial pieces of information.
Lucien- wrong analysis of data, but somehow correct conclusion.
This is fully based on that one time by Benedetto’s trial where he sees Hermine Danglars wearing a veil and says something along the lines of “thats not Hermine Danglars. That’s probably Cavalcanti’s mother.” Which is wrong, because 1) it IS Hermine and 2) Cavalcanti both doesn’t exist, and even if he did, his mother died in his backstory. And even so, he’s not wrong.
(Gonna make a part 2 eventually)