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The Secret of Aramis
The Secret of Aramis (episode 45 of Sous le Signe des Mousquetaires): we finally get Aramis' backstory, and it's... a bit underwhelming. Six years ago she was the young fiancée of the nobleman who was Prince Philippe's guardian (from the interactions we are shown, I had actually assumed that she was his little sister!), and who was killed by the Iron Mask's men when the latter snatched Philippe for his own purposes. And supposedly she decided to become a musketeer in the hopes of somehow getting revenge upon the killers of her beloved some day; it seems to me that it would probably have been more productive to have remained a bereaved maiden and petitioned for justice! At any rate it's hard to believe that all this was planned out as an Iron-Mask-related plotline back when the character was first introduced, at a point when they presumably didn't know if they were going to have a second season of the show; it feels very much like an afterthought, and rather less convincing than Terry Nation's introduction of Anna Grant into Avon's past in the second season of "Blake's 7"...
(I still feel somehow that it would have been more psychologically convincing to have her as François' little sister growing up to swear vengeance on her brother's killers, rather than as his lover attempting to take immediate action without really achieving anything; it would fit the obvious and unavoidable (she has to be young enough to be only a few years d'Artagnan's senior six years later, while François has to have been old enough to have been in charge of the young prince for ten years or so) age gap better. And it would have been more consistent with the general child-centric feeling of the show, where Constance is devoted to her father and d'Artagnan and Constance are effectively in the throes of the most innocent calf-love.)
But at least Athos and Rochefort are now allies, as hopefully anticipated (albeit in the guise of a joint attempt at escape after a failed attempt at rescuing the Cardinal!)
I separated and potted-up the three towel-tomatoes, which will now have to take their chances outside -- after the last week or so they have hardened off a bit, I hope. At any rate they no longer fit into the mini-greenhouse! Meanwhile I have a good five seedlings emerging from the second sowing, and the sweet peas in the jar now urgently need potting-up.
(I still feel somehow that it would have been more psychologically convincing to have her as François' little sister growing up to swear vengeance on her brother's killers, rather than as his lover attempting to take immediate action without really achieving anything; it would fit the obvious and unavoidable (she has to be young enough to be only a few years d'Artagnan's senior six years later, while François has to have been old enough to have been in charge of the young prince for ten years or so) age gap better. And it would have been more consistent with the general child-centric feeling of the show, where Constance is devoted to her father and d'Artagnan and Constance are effectively in the throes of the most innocent calf-love.)
But at least Athos and Rochefort are now allies, as hopefully anticipated (albeit in the guise of a joint attempt at escape after a failed attempt at rescuing the Cardinal!)
I separated and potted-up the three towel-tomatoes, which will now have to take their chances outside -- after the last week or so they have hardened off a bit, I hope. At any rate they no longer fit into the mini-greenhouse! Meanwhile I have a good five seedlings emerging from the second sowing, and the sweet peas in the jar now urgently need potting-up.
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I checked back, and all that she actually *says* is Celui que vous avez tué était mon fiancé/J'ai pris des vêtements masculins pour pouvoir plus aisement venger François, et c'est ainsi que je suis devenue mousquetaire" (The man you killed was my fiancé/I adopted male clothing to be able to more easily avenge François, and it was thus that I became a musketeer). And then the rest of the scene is basically all fighting as Manson pulls out a concealed weapon and counter-attacks, and we don't get any further explanation.
So she doesn't literally say that she became a musketeer for the purposes of revenge, but only that wearing male clothing made it possible -- though I think the implication is there, and I certainly heard and interpreted it that way! But whatever her intentions (becoming "a lawman" with powers to track down malefactors?), they were clearly entirely ineffective, since she has got nowhere towards finding the murderers despite the passage of six years -- until she stumbles upon them by accident, that is :-p And more seriously, unlike the original Athos, who is clearly set up from the beginning as being haunted by an undisclosed past, she has given absolutely no signs until this point of carrying a tragic backstory and a burning desire for revenge, so it doesn't come across as a revelation about the character but as a rather baffling insertion.