#93 1.2.9

[primeideal]

ClubNinetyThree 1.2.9: Some one Escapes

There's not a lot of discussion about this, I guess--nobody's like "well so-and-so should live," no actual bickering over who's more expendable than who--which I feel is more cliche, to tie into some of the conversations about averting fairy-tale tropes? The captain gave them orders and everybody knows how to follow them. It's not pretty, but they've just seen one of their gunners executed, and nobody really stood up to protest. If someone else's life is forfeit, these guys aren't going to go out of their way to change things.

"the hostile ships will not see it; and besides, we will divert their attention meanwhile." So is this one downside of surrender, that it lets the enemy notice that somebody is getting away? They mention the possibility early on and then ignore it, this might be the reason why.

"one who belongs to this country" Somewhere more backwoodsy than the highfalutin Paris life that the leaders are used to. For all they tried to put down peasants and nobodies a couple chapters ago, they need to rely on someone with local knowledge to navigate at this point. (Looks like it's still "pays" in the French.)

[marsmeadow]

Club Ninety-Three 1.2.9: Quelqu'un echappe

Okay, I'm a sucker for self-sacrifice and so I can't resist feeling sorry for the royalists, here. But!

What the hell are they dying heroically for? Sure, the King and France and God. But there's almost no detail. We have La Vieuville and Boisberthelot talking about the horror of wigmakers, before switching to plays in Paris, but that's really it. They're ready to give their lives for the Cause, but do they even know what the Cause is? Why is it important to them? 

I've seen the ship's dire straits compared to the barricade scenes in Les Mis, and it does tug at the same hearstrings. But I don't have anywhere near the same appreciation of what these men are choosing to die fighting for.

(This could be yet another possible interpretation of the Symbolic Cannon: the counterrevolution as an unquestioning, almost automated and violent response to circumstance.) 

They do know General Inexorable, whose life is so important to the Cause that they're willing to die for him. But he's such a non-entity, with no name, almost no lines and one single character trait. They're dying for a distant, uncaring Idea.

(No no no, self, don't get all attached to them now, it's a little bit too late.) 

I don't really have a lot else to say about these chapters. Naval shenanigans and Symbolic Light! And people dying to let General Inexorable escape! No, wait, I take that last exclamation mark back. That's actually just awful.