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Evil Overlord Mistake
The Masque de Fer may have supernatural strength and cunning, but he has clearly never read Item 1 on the Evil Overlord List...
(In which d'Artagnan and Porthos manage to infiltrate their enemies' stronghold and rescue the captive(s) by adopting the guards' uniform, which includes a masked helmet: Episode 49 of Sous le Signe des Mousquetaires)
I still find it fascinating to watch the non-canon parallels being used here; in this universe, Belle-Île is being fortified by the Masque de Fer, while the King has Richelieu and Treville teaming up to organise the assault, and the Musketeers are trying to free his brother from what has become in effect Philippe's position as a hostage to be used against him...
I like the way that, at certain moments when you think 'surely they can't be doing anything so stupid', it turns out that they are not: Milady does not actually imagine for one moment that she can trade the life of the little street urchin Jean against that of King Louis, as she claims. She is simply intending to take vengeance upon an easy target before being forced to quit Paris, while advertising her plans to d'Artagnan in the hopes that he might also be killed as a bonus. (It very nearly works; meanwhile Milady makes her getaway unpursued.) And Aramis turns out not after all to be placing a long-delayed personal vengeance above the urgency of saving the life of an innocent scheduled for execution, but simply to be trying to entrap the Masque de Fer (à la Sherlock Holmes) into betraying the location of his most closely-guarded possession, the key to the mask -- so that it can be removed to unveil the imposture *without* first having severed the head to which it is attached!
Although it makes no sense that Aramis is able to disarm the Masque de Fer during that fight and grab the key, given the superhuman abilities their enemy demonstrates everywhere else in the series, where nobody (including d'Artagnan, who attempts it several times) is ever able to stand for long against him in combat. Aramis may be a good swordsman, but we see nothing from her at any other point to suggest that she is that much more brilliant than anyone else; it is just a single lucky blow at a point when she is getting thrown around the room, after which her opponent -- who is subsquently shown to be capable of smashing open double doors with a single strike of his gloved hand -- mysteriously gulps and gives up...
(In which d'Artagnan and Porthos manage to infiltrate their enemies' stronghold and rescue the captive(s) by adopting the guards' uniform, which includes a masked helmet: Episode 49 of Sous le Signe des Mousquetaires)
I still find it fascinating to watch the non-canon parallels being used here; in this universe, Belle-Île is being fortified by the Masque de Fer, while the King has Richelieu and Treville teaming up to organise the assault, and the Musketeers are trying to free his brother from what has become in effect Philippe's position as a hostage to be used against him...
I like the way that, at certain moments when you think 'surely they can't be doing anything so stupid', it turns out that they are not: Milady does not actually imagine for one moment that she can trade the life of the little street urchin Jean against that of King Louis, as she claims. She is simply intending to take vengeance upon an easy target before being forced to quit Paris, while advertising her plans to d'Artagnan in the hopes that he might also be killed as a bonus. (It very nearly works; meanwhile Milady makes her getaway unpursued.) And Aramis turns out not after all to be placing a long-delayed personal vengeance above the urgency of saving the life of an innocent scheduled for execution, but simply to be trying to entrap the Masque de Fer (à la Sherlock Holmes) into betraying the location of his most closely-guarded possession, the key to the mask -- so that it can be removed to unveil the imposture *without* first having severed the head to which it is attached!
Although it makes no sense that Aramis is able to disarm the Masque de Fer during that fight and grab the key, given the superhuman abilities their enemy demonstrates everywhere else in the series, where nobody (including d'Artagnan, who attempts it several times) is ever able to stand for long against him in combat. Aramis may be a good swordsman, but we see nothing from her at any other point to suggest that she is that much more brilliant than anyone else; it is just a single lucky blow at a point when she is getting thrown around the room, after which her opponent -- who is subsquently shown to be capable of smashing open double doors with a single strike of his gloved hand -- mysteriously gulps and gives up...