Choose your morally grey Edmund-
- Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia
-Edmund from King Lear
-Edmond Dantes from The Count of Monte Cristo
Choose your morally grey Edmund-
- Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia
-Edmund from King Lear
-Edmond Dantes from The Count of Monte Cristo
PART 1
Edmond Dantes (aka the Count of Monte Cristo/Abbe Bussoni/Lord Willmore/Sinbad the Sailor) - he’s cool, but he went a bit too far on the whole revenge thing. And when I say “a bit too far”, I’m referring to the fact that he has no problem with harming the children of the people who wronged him. Like it’s not Valentine or Albert’s fault that they have bad fathers.
Danglars- I don’t like him. He annoys me. His whole motive for framing Dantes was because he was jealous that Dantes got promoted over him, which is the worst reason out of the three. Also he’s a bad father to Eugenie. So yeah, he’s an overall bad person.
Fernand Mondego/ de Morcerf- He’s not as annoying as Danglars because his motives make more sense. Also the whole “frame Dantes” thing wasn’t his plan, and if Danglars wouldn’t have said anything he would have left Dantes alone. Also I think he’s kinda stupid, so you can’t blame an idiot for making bad decisions. He just doesn’t know any better. (But that whole betraying Haydee’s father and selling Haydee and her mother as slaves thing was pretty messed up)
Gaspard Caderousse- He’s the Most Annoying character in the book. Why is he even here? Just to tell Dantes the whole “Where Are They Now?” for all the characters we were introduced to in the first half of the book? (That’s literally the only plot relevant thing he did.) And then to die? Did anyone who has ever read TCOMC actually care when he died? Was anyone like “oh no Caderousse was murdered that’s so sad!”? NO. I guarantee you no one said that. Even people who like Caderousse didn’t say that.
Gerard de Villefort- I don’t like him but I get where he’s coming from regarding most of his crimes. He’s really bad at making on-the-spot decisions. The whole “toss Edmond in jail to protect the Villefort name/his job” thing is basically just a bad impulsive decision. And also the whole “kill yourself before I get home or I’ll have to do it” thing too. He has basically no excuse for the whole “pretend the baby is dead and then bury it alive” thing, because he had 9 whole months to figure out what to do with the child.
Part 2 coming soon.
Part 2
Louis Dantes- he’s pretty pointless plot-wise, other then his death being a motivator for Edmond to get revenge on everyone. I have nothing against him as a character though.
Marquis and Marquise de Saint-Meran- Basically the same thing as I had to say about Dantes sr. They exist only so that their death can move the plot along.
Renee de Saint-Meran- She’s literally such a sweet person like I know she was only in one chapter but she’s just so sweet. BUT ON THE OTHER HAND. Dumas is clearly making an argument about nature vs nurture. Making Renee a really sweet person and then having her die while Valentine was young, and leaving Valentine to be raised by Villefort, a not so great parent, is just another way Dumas is trying to tell us that it doesn’t matter who you’re raised by, it matters who your parents are- you’ll turn out like your parents. Which isn’t something I agree with. (The other primary example of this is how Benedetto was raised by Assunta but still became a criminal/murderer)
Noirtier- I cannot elaborate enough how cool this guy is. First off- he literally destroys people by blinking. He’s literally like don’t worry Valentine I’ll get you out of this arranged marriage that seems literally impossible to get out of! And boom!- he blinks a few times and problem solved! Secondly it’s really rare to see disabled people represented in books from the 1800s. But then again, this is Dumas. He’s pretty good at representation most of the time.
Part 3 coming soon
I wanna say Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers in TCOMC, but that really just doesn’t work for most of them.
-Renee died before she could really raise Valentine
-Heloise tried to murder her stepdaughter and actually murdered her son
-Hermine isn’t so bad but it would be nice if she could try to get along better with Eugenie
-Mercedes is the best. I have nothing bad to say about her. She’s the best mother in the book. Happy Mother’s Day Mercedes.
-I gotta include Assunta in here. She really tried her best with Benedetto. I don’t think she could have done anything to make him into a chill guy instead of the murderer he is.

Can I just say. I feel like no one’s really satisfied with the ending of TCOMC, but everyone has different things they’d want to change/fix. So I figured I’d post the thing I’d change about the ending and see if anyone agrees/other people’s opinions of it. So here it goes-
I really wish there was something at the end alluding to someone else- some side character or someone we weren’t really paying attention to- who was hurt by Edmond’s actions rising up and planning on taking revenge on him.
Since the whole ending of the book is like “hey kids, revenge isn’t always as great as it may seem! Don’t do revenge!”, wouldn’t an excellent way to prove that point be to show that revenge is a cycle that can repeat with no end?
Let’s say there was another chapter at the end of the book that was only a few paragraphs long, but in that chapter it was revealed that Edouard actually survived the poison and was conscious when Edmond came and revealed himself to his father? What if Edouard vowed to take revenge on the man who destroyed his family- the man who drove his father to insanity and his mother to suicide. The man who was responsible for the (supposed) death of his step-sister. What if, while Edmond is happily living with Haydee and visiting Maximillian and Valentine on the weekends, Edouard is preparing his revenge?
I don’t know about you, but I think that would be a pretty cool ending.

















There’s a small YouTube channel (Frostedfirefly) that makes fantastic TCOMC videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkCr3hUhvXICiHPcuJdgzfw
Frostedfirefly made these two TCOMC vine videos, which are both hilarious-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNUfUsgDshc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqzrwwgdvhY
And then there’s this beautiful video-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ux33M1MQog
It’s definitely worth your time to check it out!