Can I just say. Edmund from King Lear and Benedetto from TCOMC are the same person, just put in different situations.

No kidding. It’s true. Lemme prove it.

Ok let’s start with Edmund. If instead of raising him to whatever extent Gloucester raised him, Gloucester would have been like “whoops this kid sure is a mistake that could potentially be bad for my reputation!” And tried to kill him when he was an infant to cover his tracks, we’d literally just end up with Benedetto instead of Edmund. Are you gonna tell me that if Edmund survives and finds out about that whole attempted murder thing he wouldn’t go find Gloucester and publicly be like “yeah so that guy’s my dad. Also he tried to kill me because he was scared that having a kid out of wedlock might ruin his reputation. Well how’s your reputation looking now, dad?”

And now onto Benedetto. If instead of trying to kill him, Villefort left him alive and raised him with Valentine, he totally would have become salty that Valentine was favored above him and he would definitely not like that Valentine is getting all the inheritance money. So of course he’d pull the same thing Edmund pulled, ie. telling Valentine something like “oh no dad is just soooo mad at you! You gotta leave immediately!” And he’d have no trouble forging a letter from Valentine that says “I sure hate dad!” (After all, he’s literally a counterfeiter.) Villefort would believe it right away, (after all, he believed Dr. D’avrigny (or whatever his name was) that Valentine was the killer) and that would be that.

In conclusion- Benedetto=Edmund and Edmund=Benedetto

So that’s that.