I missed one REALLY obvious parallel and so I gotta tell you all about it now.
CADEROUSSE = RODERIGO
For all of you who are like “who’s Roderigo?” And “what does Caderousse have to do with Roderigo?” It’s ok. I’ll tell you the similarities right now.
SO They both have this “friend” who gives them bad advice in a way that sounds like good advice, so they take the advice, which turns out to not end too well for them. And that “friend” ends up stabbing them and they die. But they happen to have a letter in their pocket at the time listing the crimes of this “friend”, which is later found and used against the “friend”. SO YEAH I THINK IT’S A PRETTY GOOD PARALLEL.
who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite
OK LET’S TALK ABOUT MERCEDES
SHE DESERVES BETTER.
Ifeel so bad for her. Like. I would love read tcomc from her point of view. She was about to get married to the man that she loved, when suddenly he’s arrested on false charges. She waits for him to be released for SO LONG. She helps his father in the meantime and tries her best to make sure he’s ok. But his father dies, he never returns, and to make matters worse, Fernand, her one friend, is drafted and goes off to war.
At this point her life is so tragic that it’s starting to sound like a villain origin story. But did she become angry and bitter? NO. Eventually Fernand came back and she agreed to marry him. They had one son together. That son was literally the best human being ever. So everything looks like it’s going well now, right? Her husband’s a rich fancy Count and she’s a Countess and they’re happily married with a smart talented son. BUT NO. The guy she was supposed to marry is back! And oops looks like he’s trying to duel her son, with the full intention of killing him! Also it turns out that her husband actually 1- was involved in sending her fiancé #1 to prison, and also 2- committed multiple war crimes and got their entire fortune through pretty bad means.
AND TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE SHE BLAMES HERSELF FOR ALL OF THIS!
AND NO ONE CORRECTS HER!
When she’s apologizing to Edmond for everything he’s just like “welp. You should have waited. You shouldn’t have married him in the first place. Sucks to be you, I guess.”
Like. I like Edmond, ok. But he should really have told Mercedes that it’s not her fault. It’s literally everyone else’s fault. She’s completely innocent.
who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite
OK LET’S TALK ABOUT MAXIMILIEN
SO. He’s just. So pure and innocent. But also he’s a soldier- which is something I keep forgetting- probably because the entire fandom portrays him as pure and innocent.
Also I think he’s like cannonly 30 something? But everyone’s like NOPE he’s totally in his early 20s. Which is kinda the same thing we all do for Hamlet. I guess when an author decides a character’s too old, we’re all like NOPE he’s whatever age we want! Because yeah a 30 something guy with an ~18 year old girl is kinda not too good…
Anyway. Something else no one mentions is how he saved Chateau-Renaud (or however you spell his name) this one time, and because of that CR was like “hey I’m gonna introduce you to The Friend Group.” And ever since that day he started hanging out with the cool kids. Good for him!
AND OF COURSE I have to mention that his relationship with Valentine is one of the most stable and functional relationships in the book. The rank list of Stable and Functional Relationships is:
1. Emmanuel and Julie
2. Eugenie and Louise
3. Teresa and Luigi
4. Maximilian and Valentine
You may be thinking that that’s not too high up on the list. But there are a ton of relationships in the book, so compared to all of them theirs is impressively stable and functional.
One day autocorrect is going to change Fernand to Ferdinand or vice vera, and either the entire tcomc fandom or the entire fandom of The Tempest is going to be yelling at me in the comments
Albert: Count! You have to help me- someone wrote this horrible article about my father’s war crimes!
The Count:
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Albert: *discovers that Danglars was investigating his father’s past*
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Danglars: Wait, you think I was responsible for all of this? Ha no, the Count of Monte Cristo told me exactly who to ask and where to look for information on your father.
