In the end of the book, the musketeers capture Milady and kill her and the Cardinal realizes the great people that the musketeers are and decides to spare their life and even promote D'Artagnan to lieutenant of the musketeers. Dumas' message in this book is that being a hero takes a lot of honesty and heart, by heart I mean courage and loyalty. If you have those qualities, they overcome your other traits and make you a real hero. He proves that in the end of the book when he shows that all the good characters turned out to have a happy ending. D'Artagnan became lieutenant of the Musketeers, his goal when going to Paris was to only to become a musketeer. Aramis became a priest, like he always wanted. Porthos married the attorney's wife, the woman that he loved, since the attorney died. And Athos remained in the force for a few more years and then moved to small piece of land in a calm place.
Friday, January 11
Sunday, January 6
Show Offs or Men in Need
In chapter 46, the three musketeers and D'Artagnan go to an inn in order to plan out their next move. Once they get there the place is packed with soldiers, very noisy soldiers. There was no way they could do any planning there, and they could be killed. Athos then makes a bet with four of the soldiers there, he wages that him and his friends can hold the Bastion Saint-Gervais by themselves for an hour, if they complete this task then the soldiers would have to buy "an unlimited dinner for eight."
Then in chapter 47, they manage to hold their council at the bastion and they fought off two waves of attacks. Their lives were endangered but they all managed to survive.
In my opinion Athos has some sort of greed for glory. His ability to use words to influence his friends help him a lot with this tendency of his. I believe that Athos, even though he told his friends it was the only way the could hold their council without the Cardinal's men finding out, wanted the glory of being known for his heroism of holding the bastion with three other friends only.
The Villain vs. The Hero
In chapter 40, there is a very interesting encounter between D'Artagnan and the "big kahuna" of the villains, the Cardinal. In this encounter, the Cardinal refers to D'Artagnan with much respect and compliments him in his bravery, by calling him a "man of head and heart". In this same conversation the Cardinal offers D'Artagnan a well paid job in his company of Guards. This is where Dumas shows the big difference between a hero and a villain. The villain, the Cardinal, has just cowered and asked D'Artagnan to join him. He fears D'Artagnan, so he wants him as friend rather than an enemy. While D'Artagnan, who is loyal to his king and friends, refuses this great opportunity.
This part of the story reminds me of the scene in the movie "300" where the Spartan King Leonidas comes face to face with the evil Persian King Xerxes. King Xerxes feared King Leonidas because he has been killing thousands of his troops with only 300 hundred soldiers, he knew that King Leonidas' army was the only one who could ruin his rule. When they come face to face King Xerxes offers an alliance to King Leonidas, all he had to do is surrender his land of Sparta and he would give him a position of warlord of all of the known world. King Leonidas refuses the offer and insists in fighting, making funny remarks about the inability of his opponents soldiers.
In conclusion, a hero never cowers, and never drifts away from his objective, while a villain is a big coward who is willing to join his enemy in order to maintain his power.
The link below is for the scene from the movie 300 that I mentioned above:
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=iA1GC3T-Ldg&feature=related
