Knowledge and Fort Wilderness: Part 2
Unfortunately, I still have thoughts about this, enough to call for a wholly separate post. The Patriot is obviously ahistorical with regards to the 18th C, but the lack of internal logic governing who knows what about the protagonist is absurd for any era.
Adding on to the first post, isn't it wild that none of the British or even South Carolina Loyalists have connected Martin to Fort Wilderness, but Major Villeneuve has? For him to have heard about this from Colonel Burwell or any other Continental officer seems counterproductive at best. They expect these two men to work together efficiently; "Btw, this guy tortured your countrymen to death for vengeance/political efficacy" seems like an odd way to go about it. Most likely, he has this information from fellow Frenchmen's recollections of the Seven Years War: American Edition. But somehow all British participants who are still loyal to the Crown have complete amnesia about this incident and who as involved? Hmmm.
It's also extraordinary that none of Martin's children know anything about Fort Wilderness in spite of growing up in a community where their father is revered for it. Do they not have access to any other adults who are veterans of the French and Indian War? What about the children of those adults? If Gabriel has only heard of Fort Wilderness from the men who bought his father drinks, Martin was there to shut them down if they tried to divulge any further details. But then Gabriel goes off to war with other sons of South Carolina Patriot gentlemen for three years and . . . nobody told him anything? There was never any talk of Fort Wilderness after a particularly gruesome battle that had Gabriel going, "Dawg, please. My dad totally kept us in the dark. Fill ya boy in" (you know Gabriel Martin would talk exactly like this).
The same lack of logic holds for far more recent occurrences than Fort Wilderness. Immediately following the massacre in the woods. Tavington orders Captain Bordon to gather a patrol and "catch this ghost before word of his exploit spreads." A few minutes of screentime later, Martin's old friend is informing him of a rumor about 20 redcoats being killed in the woods by someone who used a Cherokee tomahawk: "a ghost or some damn thing."
How in the fuck did these words from Tavington's mouth end up in John Billings' ears? Moreover, neither Tavington nor any other British soldier ever mentions Martin using a Cherokee tomahawk despite the single survivor of this massacre being hand delivered to Tavington by Cherokee scouts! If anyone is able to recognize the handiwork of this specific community's weapons, they could.
Is Billings stepping out on Martha with a Cherokee turncoat? Is he, in fact, stepping out on Martha with Colonel Tavington? The film declines to answer these questions.
Either the rumor mill is owned and operated exclusively by Patriots, or the logic of determining internal knowledge is wholly external to the narrative. Villeneuve already knows about Fort Wilderness because it gives him and Martin something to talk about. Gabriel does not know about Fort Wilderness because the revelation gives him and his dad something to talk about. A backwoods family man has more intelligence on the massacre of twenty British soldiers than the British Army because . . . by any level of logic, this is stupid. I assume the British don't know about the tomahawk for some reason because, if they knew about that, I'd think they'd have a pretty good idea of who used it. The Cherokees are British allies in this war; men who used tomahawks against the British would be pretty thin on the ground. Even without factoring in the Cherokee scouts, Tavington knows who was in charge of the men he sent Gabriel with, and given that the bodies were discovered, he likely knows what happened to him, too. If he knew about the weapon . . .
Tavington to Wilkins: "The men who were killed were conveying a pretty twink I plucked from this address. Who is his father?"
Wilkins: "That would be Benjamin Martin."
Tavington: "Handy with a tomahawk, is he?"
Wilkins: "Hooooooo is he ever!"
Tavington: "Excellent! Where can we collect the remains of his litter?"
There, Roland. I shaved an unnecessary hour from your bloated film. You're welcome!
