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

Loyal and Brave. Yet Broke?

What I have noticed throughout this book is that, even though these great fighters, who are loyal and courageous, they never have any money. The only time they are rewarded for their works is in the beginning of the novel, in Chapter 6, when they take out the Cardinal's men. Besides that, they always struggled to equip themselves due to lack of money, and, even with such a challenge, they always managed to equip themselves, there were a few times where they didn't even have equipment.

What I got out of this is the value of our heroes. They do not fight for money, they fight because of their loyalty to the king. They do not live miserably, but they don't seem to have much money to spare.

The History Behind Dumas and The Musketeers

I'm going to be honest, I didn't do much of the independent reading this week, so I decided to make a post about some of the history of Alexandre Dumas and the Three Musketeers.

Alexandre Dumas lived in the 1800s, 1802-1870 to be exact, and the stories written by him were usually based on historical content. Dumas used historical facts, usually from the 1600s, and created stories that didn't necessarily follow the actual facts. Many characters in his books were actual people. Dumas' novels are very fast paced, and includes romance, action, adventure, comedy, suspense and drama. These characteristics are very important in a story when speaking of heroism, because when people think of heroes they think of action, and Dumas does a great job incorporating those characteristics to show the heroism in The Three Musketeers.

According to the website www.dictionary.com, a musketeer is a soldier armed with a musket. The French musketeers were the royal bodyguards through the 17th and 18th centuries. In the book, the three musketeers are not once referred to as using a musket at any time in the book. I believe that Dumas kept the muskets out of the story to emphasize the heroic values of the characters. It is much more heroic to fight someone with a sword with the concept of "survivor of the fittest" or "may the best man win" than to go into a duel and blow the opponent's head off with a musket.