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Entry tags:
Leadership
Episode 50, La traversée de l'éléphant: I have been dragging these out because I know from the episode numbers that I am almost at the end, and wish to prolong the enjoyment...
Athos makes the (correct) call that they cannot possibly endanger the life of Prince Philippe and the future of the realm on the chance of being able to save the little mercer's daughter Constance from almost certain death, however much she means to them personally; Aramis makes the (correct) call to abandon the assault on the island by her small-boat force because the casualties among her men, who don't have Plot Armour, are too great; Treville manages to persuade the King to lead from the rear in order to keep the flagship out of range, which turns out to be the correct call, and Rochefort is obliged to make the call to abandon ship when they are almost within range after the fleet succumbs to red-hot shot from the fortress (the defences of which have been completed with the aid of the titular elephant). And Milady and the Iron Mask, having managed to drive off the two-pronged attack of the entire royal forces against their single point of refuge, make the unexpected call that they need to embroil foreign forces - 'France has plenty of enemies' -- in order to survive this, rather than just cackling villainously and assuming that they are invincible.
All of which is a welcome counterpoint to d'Artagnan being able to fight off forty enemies who are surrounding him, survive a fall from the topmost pinnacle of the topmost tower, sprint untouched along the battlements in the heart of his foes' fortress, and then be allowed to escape unpursued on the grounds that 'he cannot possibly escape the island'. To be fair, they are in the middlle of a major naval assault at the time, so not wasting time and troops on recapturing the juvenile protagonist may be a wiser decision on the Iron Mask's part ;-) I can give him a pass on cursing the others and flinging himself off the boat to die together with Constance even though he has no conceivable plan to save her (and doesn't even attempt it; they just cling together for comfort and are saved by a plot miracle), because that is simply Heroic Protagonist behaviour, but some of the rest of his achievements in this episode really are a little over the top...
Athos makes the (correct) call that they cannot possibly endanger the life of Prince Philippe and the future of the realm on the chance of being able to save the little mercer's daughter Constance from almost certain death, however much she means to them personally; Aramis makes the (correct) call to abandon the assault on the island by her small-boat force because the casualties among her men, who don't have Plot Armour, are too great; Treville manages to persuade the King to lead from the rear in order to keep the flagship out of range, which turns out to be the correct call, and Rochefort is obliged to make the call to abandon ship when they are almost within range after the fleet succumbs to red-hot shot from the fortress (the defences of which have been completed with the aid of the titular elephant). And Milady and the Iron Mask, having managed to drive off the two-pronged attack of the entire royal forces against their single point of refuge, make the unexpected call that they need to embroil foreign forces - 'France has plenty of enemies' -- in order to survive this, rather than just cackling villainously and assuming that they are invincible.
All of which is a welcome counterpoint to d'Artagnan being able to fight off forty enemies who are surrounding him, survive a fall from the topmost pinnacle of the topmost tower, sprint untouched along the battlements in the heart of his foes' fortress, and then be allowed to escape unpursued on the grounds that 'he cannot possibly escape the island'. To be fair, they are in the middlle of a major naval assault at the time, so not wasting time and troops on recapturing the juvenile protagonist may be a wiser decision on the Iron Mask's part ;-) I can give him a pass on cursing the others and flinging himself off the boat to die together with Constance even though he has no conceivable plan to save her (and doesn't even attempt it; they just cling together for comfort and are saved by a plot miracle), because that is simply Heroic Protagonist behaviour, but some of the rest of his achievements in this episode really are a little over the top...