- Danglars intentionally comes up with the plan to frame Dantes, because he was jealous that Dantes got promoted to captain instead of him. He gets +11 for intentionally committing a non-murder crime for a bad reason.
-Fernand is too stupid to get the full 5 points on how intentional it was- it wasn’t even his plan. So it’ll count as +3. His reason for going along with the plan was out of jealousy for Dantes marrying his crush. Pretty bad reason, he gets +5. And again, it’s not murder, so +1. So now he has +9.
-Caderousse was just there? Like he didn’t do anything yet, he was just there when they were plotting against Dantes. And he was drunk, so he can’t really be counted as a legit witness to the plot? So I’ll give him a +2 for being stupid enough to hand out with people who are plotting to frame other people.
-Edmond Dantes has gotta be here for carrying the letter in the first place. I’m only gonna give him a plus 1 for it, but I can’t give him nothing because if I don’t count treason now, I won’t be able to count it later. And there’s a whole bunch of treason in this book.
-Villefort sending Dantes to the Chateau D’If gives him a plus 11, burning the letter gives him a plus 5, and while technically protecting his father can be seen as a nice thing to do, we all know he only did it to protect his job- and since his father is technically a criminal and he’s keeping him out of jail, that gives him a plus 6. Leaving him with 22.
-Faria’s attempted prison break is technically illegal, so I’m gonna have to give him a plus 1.
-Noirtier’s overall treason gets a plus 5.
-Napoleon’s overall crimes would get a plus 15 but I’m not counting him in this since he isn’t really a character here.
-Villefort gets a plus 5 for lying to Morrel that he would help Dantes, because why??? Actually knock that up to a plus 7, because I’m gonna give him a plus 5 for ignoring Bertuccio, so if outright ignoring (but being honest that you don’t care about helping people) gets 5 points, then lying and pretending to help someone should get at least 7.
-Edmond gets plus 5 for the prison break, but -3 for being cool. So only a plus 2 I guess. But I’ll give him the plus 3 back for working with smugglers.
-Caderousse gets a plus 10 for existing right now, because I’m not in the mood to analyze him, yet here he is, on page 243. At the moment he’s not gonna commit any crimes (but give him a day or two and he’ll start his crime spree. Ya know what’s coming next). From this point on everyone’s gonna be committing crimes right and left and I won’t have to make up Non-crime reasons to give people points.
Book Caderousse: In his 20s at the beginning, and in his 40s or 50s (also dead) at the end. He’s probably drunk like 90% of the time.
Movie Caderousse: A very stupid old man.
Book Edmond: He starts out young and naive, but post chateau d’if he’s driven to revenge and sees the world in a much darker way.
Movie Edmond: REVENGE! IS! THE! ONLY! THING! THAT! MATTERS!
Book Eugenie: A smart, independent girl who pretty much every guy is intimidated by. In a stable and happy relationship with her girlfriend.
Movie Eugenie: Valentine, for some reason.
Book Albert: Passionate, loves his family, a bit too impulsive at times but it pretty chill with getting kidnapped by criminals.
Movie Albert: literally just a stupid and naive child.
Book Mercedes: A pretty good and well written character.
Movie Mercedes: love interest #1 for Dantes.
Book Maximilien: Cool soldier dude, also has normal human emotions (which you don’t see in all that many male characters tbh)
Movie Maximilien: Albert, for some reason.
Book Valentine: REALLY cares about her grandfather, also cares about Maximilien.
Movie Valentine: REALLY cares about Albert, who she’s dating for some reason? Also maybe cares about her grandfather?
Book Benedetto: ya know Edmund from King Lear? Ok, well he’s been reincarnated in 1817 for some reason. This is him. (For those of you who want a better description: nearly everyone who meets him trusts his for some reason even though they shouldn’t, he’s repeatedly described as a good looking dude, he lies and deceives people for the sake of getting money, and is a bastard in every regard.)
Movie Benedetto: standard stereotypical scam artist.
Book Villefort: A morally grey dude who has really poor judgement (which is ironic considering his career). He just won’t stop making horrible decisions. He literally won’t stop. And he thinks “hey, I’m not that bad..” but he is.
Movie Villefort: PURE EVIL. IS EVIL JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT.
Book Noirtier: ultimate badass.
Movie Noirtier: crippled old guy.
Book Danglars: relatively young at the start, pretty clever dude.
Movie Danglars: much older than everyone else, also has no personality whatsoever.
Book Fernand: not the brightest. Also not a good person. But he cares about his family at least (and is the only one of the 3.5 main antagonists to care about his family).
Movie Fernand: EVIL. HATES HIS FAMILY.
Book Faria: wise old man
Movie Faria: also wise old man. The movies don’t mess up Faria that much.
Book Any character that doesn’t appear in movies (Franz, Beauchamp…): has a cool backstory and a unique personality.
Movie Any character that doesn’t appear in movies: non- existent.
-Edmond gets a plus 20 for CONSTANTLY lying about his identity. he be like “hey I’m Bussoni” “hey I’m sinbad the sailor (even though that’s a completely ridiculous alias)” “hey I’m lord wilmore” “heyy I’m THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO”. Sure ya are, Edmond. Sure ya are.
-Caderousse gets a minus 5 for being honest about his involvement in Edmond’s arrest. Then a minus five for “Did you know him? Is he alive? Is he free? Is he happy?”. The fact that he didn’t only ask if Edmond’s alive, but also if he’s free and happy is a pretty neat thing.
-Fernand gets a plus 2 for marrying Mercedes. How dare he.
-The three main conspirators (Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort) get a plus 10 because their actions indirectly resulted in Louis Dantes dying.
SO we all know Dumas likes to put some Shakespeare parodies in his books, right??
So Maximilien and Valentine are definitely supposed to be Romeo and Juliet with the whole “oh no she’s dead I’m gonna kill myself” and “oh no a Morrel can never be with a Villefort and vice versa” and “but wait! She isn’t actually dead! She just drank the thing that makes it LOOK like she’s dead!”
And Franz is probably supposed to be Paris then
And we all know that Caderousse’s wife is probably supposed to be Lady Macbeth with the whole “Don’t be a coward, you coward! Just murder the guy already!”
So I guess it’s not that far off to compare Benedetto to Edmund of Gloucester? I mean it works out well, with the whole “and I’m not really responsible for anything I do, it’s not my fault I was born lol sorry dad but maybe take better care of your illegitimate kids next time”
I think Dumas probably put a lot more parallels in there that I just didn’t notice?
Maybe Edouard is that kid from Coriolanus? Idk I never read Coriolanus.
Maybe Fernand is Macbeth?
Maybe Albert is Hamlet? ( “I’m gonna avenge my dad/ my dad’s honor! Yeah!” )
Maybe Heloise is both Goneril and Regan? ( “oh boy if only I’d get that neat inheritance money! Also I’m gonna poison people. And poison myself. )
Maybe Edmond is Macduff? ( “my family/ father was killed/ died because of you , and now I’m gonna return to my homeland and get some revenge.” )
Idk can anyone come up with more parallels? I’m sure there are more
I bet every character is a parody of some Shakespearean character
I think we all forgot that Julie and Emmanuel exist
So this is just your friendly reminder that there is exactly one happy couple that wasn’t involved in any of the drama of the story because they were overall nice people who weren’t unfortunate enough to be related to any of the 3 main antagonists
-Sinbad the sailor (aka our dear friend Edmond Dantes) gets a plus 3 for doing drugs and a plus 2 for sharing the drugs with a child (yeah I know Franz is probably in his 20s but I don’t care)
-Franz gets a minus 3 for being like “oh you wanna go by a stupid alias? Well then I’m gonna go by an even stupider alias”. But he gets a plus 3 for doing drugs. BUT he gets a minus 3 for figuring Edmond out in like 2 seconds (”yeah you just look like the type of man who was wronged and is back for revenge now.”)
-Albert is here now! That’s fantastic! He gets a minus 10 for existing because he’s fantastic.
-Luigi Vampa gets a plus 40 for doing SO MUCH crime. All the time. He just never stops doing crime.
-Mr Monte Cristo gets a plus 5 for forcing two innocent children to watch an execution (yes I know both Albert and Franz are in their 20s). He gets another plus 5 for pulling strings to get a criminal who should have been executed not executed.
-Luigi Vampa gets a plus 10 for kidnapping Albert. That was pretty rude of him.
-Albert gets a minus 10 for taking a nap after he’s kidnapped, because that’s the biggest power move ever. He literally doesn’t care that they’re gonna murder him. He also gets a minus 5 for “and he lit his cigar on Vampa’s torch.”
If someone would have told me a year ago that the chapter title “How to rescue a gardener from dormice who are eating his peaches” is not from Percy Jackson, but rather from an 1800s revenge novel, I don’t think I’d believe them.
-Lucien, Beauchamp, and Chateau-Renaud get minus 2 each for being super hilarious and entertaining. They’re the best. But Chateau-Renaud gets a plus 3 for that one time he broke Franz’s arm. (I bet you forgot about that.)
-MAXIMILIEN HAS ARRIVED! Minus 10. No explanation needed.
-Monte Cristo gets a plus 3 for stressing Mercedes. How dare he. Also plus 1 for stressing Bertuccio. He really likes stressing people.
-LONG BACKSTORY TIME! And this backstory involves a lot of crime and some murder. So get ready for everyone to get a whole lot of points
Villefort gets a plus 6 for ignoring Bertuccio when his brother was killed
Bertuccio gets a plus 11 for trying to kill Villefort (wait. Is this the first murder/attempted murder mentioned in the book? Because I think this is the first time I actually used the original point system to figure out how many points to give?)
Villefort gets a plus 13 for attempted infanticide.
Bertuccio gets a plus 3 for being a smuggler
Assunta gets a minus 4 for trying her best to raise Benedetto
Benedetto gets a plus 15 for all the crimes he went around doing for fun when he was a literal child (he was literally robbing people when he was 5-6 years old?? Woah.)
Benedetto gets a plus 11 for killing Assunta (what the heck, child? Why- ugh I know it was by accident, but still.)
Caderousse gets a plus 13 for killing his wife, and plus 1 for fleeing the crime scene
The one and only good thing about TCOMC having such a small fandom is that there are no ships that don’t make sense. All the ships that I’ve seen here are either canon, or the characters in the ship actually make sense to be together.
For example, people ship Eugenie and Louise (a very canon ship), and people ship Lucien with Beauchamp (not canon but I can understand why they’d be shipped), but NO ONE is like “huh yeah know I ship Caderousse and Mercedes hehe” (and by the way it took a while to come up with a ship that bad).
-Hermine gets 3 points for cheating on her husband with Lucien. Lucien gets plus 2.
-Danglars gets plus 1 for lying about how much money he got for Hermine’s horses. The Count gets plus 1 for causing drama.
-The Count gets a plus 5 for endangering Heloise and Edouard. He also gets a plus 4 for the whole “oh yeah this poison sure is toxic. It sure can kill people. Do you by any chance want some for no particular reason?” thing.
- OH WAIT I skipped something! The count also gets a plus 5 for assorted racist things (ya know, the whole thing he said to Franz about Ali in the drug cave thing)
- Count gets a plus 1 for causing some more drama with Villefort, but a minus 1 for the line “But I think you said I have nothing to do. Now, Monsieur, I ask you, do you imagine you have anything to do? Or, to put it more clearly, do you believe that what you do deserves to be called something”.
- Count gets minus 2 for adopting Haydee. Yeah I know it’s just part of him big revenge scheme, but he had no obligation to be as nice to her as he was.
-All of the currently alive members of the Morrel (and Herbault) family get a minus 10 for being very wholesome. Valentine gets minus 7 because she’s also one of the few characters who doesn’t commit crime and all she wants to do is take care of her grandfather and marry Maximilien.
-Heloise is back and learning all about how to poison people! You’d think I’d give her some points for that, but nope- she’s gonna get 2 points for not raising Edouard a normal way. He has a bit too much of an attitude And it’s honestly not his fault- it’s clear that Heloise lets him do whatever he wants whenever he wants to, plus they’re relatively rich; now we’ve got a spoiled child to deal with. Also of course the Count gets a plus 10 for teaching her about poison and giving her a very convenient recipe for poison.
-Eugenie gets minus 5 for being cool. The Count gets a plus 1 for stressing Haydee. He just won’t stop stressing people.
-Major Cavalcanti gets a plus 5 for being a scam artist. Andrea gets a plus 3 for being a cool (and actually competent) scam artist. Count gets a plus 8 for hiring them.
-Maximilien and Valentine are very cute. Minus 10 each. Noirtier gets minus 20 for being one of the few characters who is both smart and a morally good person who cares about his granddaughter and doesn’t want her to marry a guy she doesn’t wanna marry.
-Count gets a plus 1, because that’s what he gets whenever he stresses someone out. In this case, it’s for the part where he invites Villefort to his brand new house that Villefort totally didn’t have an affair in 20 years ago. He also gets a plus 5 for messing with telegraphs.
-WAIT. He’s not done stressing people out. Plus 3 for stressing Bertuccio (even though the dinner party scene was pretty great), plus 2 for stressing both Villefort and Hermine with his totally fictional and in no way real story of a dead baby.
-Welp look who decided to show up now. It’s Caderousse. He gets a plus 5 for blackmail.
-wow the Count is starting the Mondego drama now. Plus 5 for starting drama. Minus 1 for pretending to be two different people giving reports on “the count of monte cristo” to Villefort, because yeah I guess that’s technically a crime, but it’s too funny to be counted as one.
-Wow a double murder! That means Heloise gets 26 points! And Dr. d’Avrigny gets a minus 5 for having common sense.
-I don’t remember if I’ve already given Noirtier points for killing Franz’s father, but I’m gonna give him another 10 points just in case. BUT he also gets a minus 5 for getting Valentine out of an arranged marriage she didn’t want to be in.
-Albert gets a plus 1 for each person (other than the Count) that he challenges to a duel over the whole Janina drama. So that would be a plus 3.
-More murder is happening in the Villefort household! Heloise gets 11 points for trying to kill Noirtier and another 5 for actually killing Barrois.
