He’s Dead, Jim

How you gonna write out the Zen master glare?
image via The Sun

If you listened to this weeks episode of the pod, you already know I was rather effusive in my praise of The Musketeers.  If you haven’t listened yet, *spoiler alert* I really like that show.

Curious as to whether or not THOSE WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF SUCH THINGS had yet solved the Capaldi Conundrum (as Jon pointed out to me, the duties of the Doctor extend far beyond the filming of 12 glorious episodes), I took to my trust search engine, entering the following question: who is replacing Peter Capaldi as Cardinal Richelieu on the Musketeers?

The prompt returned several articles, all of which informed me that rather than casting a new actor in the role of Richelieu, the writers have made Roquefort (he of the famed, “isn’t that a stinky kind of a cheese,” line uttered by Oliver Platt in the Disney version) the primary villain of the piece moving forward.

Wait, what?

And, another turn of the screw, the departure of he who is the main villain, he who triumphs at the end of a very long book, he who shoves his hand up the king’s ass and uses him for a puppet will be signed off with a, “oh, the Cardinal?  He’s dead.”

THIS IS NOT HOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO USE THE ALL-KNOWING BOX, JERKS!

image via
clever wood.com (as in wooden puzzles, you pervs)

The show runners are quoted in a couple of the articles as having called the move, “economical writing.”

Economical my ass.

Want to play with the mythos?  Have to play with the mythos?  Usually I’m fine with it, though in this case, I take a bit of issue.  Richelieu is the core of this story.  He moves all the pieces, he plays sleight of hand, he makes the whole thing go ’round.  Yes, the book is called The Three Musketeers, but Dumas could just as easily have titled it, How Cardinal Richelieu Bribed Friends and Influenced People and Laughed all the Way to the Royal Treasury Which he Then Used to Buy Gifts For his Mistresses While He Chortled at that Lameass Louis XII and all of the Peons Who Thought They Were in Command of Their Own Destinies.  Richelieu is not a character who can be removed from this story; Richlieu is the story.

Yes, Roquefort is a character in the book, one with a decent presence and in important role.  He is D’Artagnan’s nemesis.  Sort of.  He acts as the go between for the Cardinal and Milady.  But count and Cardinal are not commensurate roles.  No matter how important an aristocrat the writers make Stinky Cheese, not even the king is equal in import to the fucking Cardinal of fucking France.  Part of what makes the Musketeers so heroic is their eternal battle against a foe they can only hope to delay temporarily in his machinations.  A count?  Athos is a count, big flippin’ deal.  Counts can be challenged to illegal duels and run through.

British television has a long tradition of replacing departing actors with someone in a role.  Why they opted not to do that here I can’t say, but it’s a terrible decision.

Worse still is the manner of the Cardinal’s departure.  A brief, “oh, him?  He’s dead.”  For the fucking Cardinal of fucking France?  No funeral, no summary of a long illness or a riding accident or he had a heart attacking screwing that maid with the giant boobs on the grand staircase.  “Oh, him?  He’s dead?”

Okay, sure, he had her executed for doing it with Aramis, but France had no shortage of ladies.
image via The Daily Mail

That’s not economical writing, kids.  That’s lazy.

Why the rant?  Well, yes, I do enjoy a good blog rant every now and again (okay, fine, at lest once a week).  The more important reason, however, is that this character write-off is a travesty of redshirting.  Someone, someone who is, undoubtedly, underpaid and overworked, spend the time to build this character up, to choose each and every word he says, to describe what he wears, what his facial hair looks like, when he’s going to glare, when he’s going to fake smile, when he’s going to storm away in a billow of cloak.  Peter Capaldi brought him to life, sure, but that’s the last step in a very long, painstaking chain of events.  If the script calls for redshirting that red guard Captain we’ve only seen once and won’t ever see again, mostly because someone twisted his head the wrong way ’round in a fight scene, fine.  But one of the most disrespectful thing you can do to a writer is redshirt a character she’s spent months bringing to life.

Do not do this to your characters.  They deserve better.  You, as the writer, deserve better.  You’ve worked hard on them, spend months or years tweaking and perfecting, making them into the people you want them to be.  You give up meals and sleep and family time for these people.  You put them before yourself, let them invade your brain and your heart.

If you’re offing one of them, you’ve thought about it long and hard.  So don’t rely on the box.  Don’t toss out a, “he’s dead, Jim,” and consider the matter closed.  Give them a proper send off.  The character deserves it and so do you.

This show, as I wax rhapsodic about on the pod, pays great attention to detail of personality, armament, and a whole shit ton of other things.  To do anything less with a major character, who shouldn’t be going anywhere in the first place, has me rethinking my commitment.