The most important thing was, not to kill him only—for I had an opportunity of doing so a hundred times—but to kill him without being discovered—at least, without being arrested.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 44

The broken father-son dynamic of Bertuccio and Benedetto is everything to me

Edward Robert Hughes (1851 - 1914) Bertuccio's Bride, 1851.

Description: Bertucciova nevésta.

Medium: watercolour and gouache on white paper.

Dimensions: height: 39.5 in ( 100.3cm); width: 30in ( 76.2cm).

Inscriptions: Text bottom left: E R Hughes 1895

What is it with babies being raised by criminals? (Bertuccio x benedetto, Caderousse and Toussaint, starlord with yondu and manic and Farrel from sonic underground)??¿ . This should be a trope on tvtropes.org. Farrel (bug dude) is a criminal that stole manic from the doorstep he was supposed to go to, probably thinking it was something valuable like money or Jewels and then opens it and sees its a baby Manic is like benedetto because he's from an important background and is adopted as a son figure by the thief that took him.

Foto is from the cartoon sonic underground on Youtube.

«[I]l n'y avait, à tout prendre, rien que de naturel dans ce qui arrivait, et, à part l'histoire du diamant qui me paraissait un peu invraisemblable, tout allait de source. (p. 573)

kinda rude of dumas to write an unrealistic plot and then have a character within the story say "sounds fake but okay" about it. it's his way of looking me right in the eye and saying "yeah this is unrealistic. whatcha gonna do about it, punk?"

1998 miniseries Bertuccio constantly trying to stop the count from killing/letting the kids of the people he wants to take revenge on die

Cetty Giordano in Bertuccio 9° anniversario

Cetty Giordano in Bertuccio 9° anniversario La ricordano con immenso amore il marito Vincenzo Bertuccio, i figli Giovanni, Maria, Enzo e gli adorati nipotini Gloria e kevin.

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Edward Robert Hughes - Bertuccio's Bride (1895)

The picture illustrates a story by Gian Francesco Straparola, a writer of whom little is known except that he was born in Caravaggio and died about 1557. Though credited with an early volume of poetry (1508), his most famous work is Le piacevole notte, a collection of novelle published in Venice 1550-3. In form this closely resembles Boccaccio's earlier and more familiar collection, the Decameron. Boccaccio's stories are told by a group of young men and women who have retreated to Fiesole to escape the plague-ridden city of Florence, Straparola's by a party which has gathered on the island of Murano during the Venetian carnival; they are led by Ottavino Maria Sforza, bishop-elect of Lodi, and include, among other notabilities, Pietro Bembo himself. The originality of the stories lies in the inclusion of many oriental folk tales and the use of animal fables - among them the famous tale of 'Puss in Boots', which Straparola seems to have invented. The stories are often rabelaisian, and many have priests as protagonists. This was considered offensive to Counter-Reformation sensibilities, and the book was placed on the Index in 1624. (source)

Edward Robert Hughes (English, 1851-1914)

Bertuccio’s Bride

Bertuccio’s Bride by Edward Robert Hughes (1895)

Title: Bertuccio's Bride

Artist: Edward Robert Hughes

Style: Romanticism

Genre: Literary Painting

So um... I guess I made genderbend versions of Count and Bertuccio with some extra shipping fuel. Two traumatised women being in love, my beloved

Bertuccio's Bride, 1895, Edward Robert Hughes

What is it with dudes that go all I'm not your son, so stop acting like my dad to a father figure?. Alexander Hamilton, Benedetto, and Peter Parker in one of the spider man movies. I'm like, man , this person cares about you enough to keep you alive, and you just disrespected them ?.

Peter and Uncle Ben, Hamilton and Washington and benedetto with Bertuccio:

Older man calls the young one Son.

Reaction to that comment " I'm not your bloody son"!!

Father-son issues in a nutshell.

This is a popular trope.

The Count of Monte Cristo!

ooh GOOD ONE

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most) eugénie danglars. never getting over the time she murdered the count at the opera by asking if his much younger girlfriend was his daughter. she's engaged to albert and completely ignores him. she thinks her mom's lover is a total loser (correct, and also hilarious). she ends the book by dressing as a man and running away to brussels with her girlfriend. literally who is doing it like her.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped) THE TELEGRAPH MAN!!! he just wanted to grow nectarines and instead the count bullied him into committing fraud! 🥺😭

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave) bertuccio. he tried to murder villefort (understandable) and failed (understandable) but did manage to rescue the baby villefort had just tried to murder and bury in the backyard (badass). and he's very talented! i'm also fond of the comtesse G--, who thinks the count is a vampire.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week) i'm gonna go with dumas's obsession with the weird way he thinks english people walk and talk and just basically behave in general. i did in fact make a post listing every occurrence of this, so.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave) the abbé busoni specifically. he's such a little shithead in the interrogation with villefort. first of all he's lying to villefort the whole time, just totally fucking with him. secondly he has one of those desk lamps with the little colored shade and he keeps pointing it directly in villefort's face like HE'S the one being interrogated. thirdly he is SO snarky but in such a way that villefort can't call him out on it. the count is an asshole, but when he's an asshole as busoni i'm having so much fun with it.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason) albert. he's so fun to torment, and it's really easy: all you have to do is be a lady and not look at him. i'm already really really good at that!

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell) le procurer du roi. villefort can stay he just has to get a different job that is easier for me to pronounce.

The Count of Monte Cristo - What's in a Name?

I'm not sure whether this is what the author intended, or whether I'm even reading it right, but it struck me, even on my first read all those years ago, how the main character is referred to by the narration.

So we know his name is Edmond Dantes, and that's what the narration, obviously, calls him. Until it doesn't. After he gets rich and starts on his quest for revenge, he becomes the various aliases he adopts. The banking clerk, abbe Busoni and so on. This part (when he watches, hidden, M. Morrel having a first look at the new ship he bought for him) is particularly interesting:

“And now,” said the unknown, “farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been Heaven’s substitute to recompense the good—now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked!”

He is "the unknown". As he says farewell to kindness and humanity and gratitude.

Next comes the time jump and we only know him as the Count of Monte Cristo, first through Franz's eyes (well, to be precise, as Sinbad the Sailor initially). The only time the name Edmond Dantes is mentioned is when Bertuccio tells his story and he's quoting Caderousse.

On Caderousse's deathbed, the count reveals his true identity to the dying man--however, we don't get to hear that.

He approached the dying man, and, leaning over him with a calm and melancholy look, he whispered, “I am—I am——” And his almost closed lips uttered a name so low that the count himself appeared afraid to hear it.

I find this really fascinating.

And slowly, we start hearing his real name again.

There is the bit that has stayed with me since I first read the book more than 20 years ago: in the chapter where he visits the Morrels for the first time, Maximilian talks to the count about how his father was almost ruined, but was saved at the last minute by a mysterious benefactor. M. Morrel is now dead, having died happy, of old age, his last words being:

‘Maximilian, it was Edmond Dantès!’

I don't know about you, but this line gives me the shivers. In this chapter we also see the count get emotional, when up till now he has been cold and cynical. The Morrels are the ones who bring out the human side of him (see how disgusted he feels after he arranges for the reunion of the fake Cavalcanti father and son, and he decides to go visit the Morrels to cleanse the negative feelings).

Next when we hear the name, it comes from Mercedes--and she directly addresses him as such, when she pleads him not to kill her son in a duel. She repeats his name several times (quite a lot of times, actually, many highlights using Ctrl + F in this chapter in Gutenberg!). She manages to persuade him to spare Albert's life (which means he agrees to die) and the chapter ends with the famous quote "What a fool I was not to tear my heart out on the day when I resolved to avenge myself!" So he still has a heart!

Next utterance of the name Edmond Dantes comes Fernand when he recognises him, and the effect is so strong he kills himself (okay I exaggerate.) Then he tells the Morrels, who are, as expected, overcome with emotions. Then Villefort, who goes insane. Then, finally, Danglars. The quest for revenge is completed.

The book ends with a letter to Maximilian, signed Edmond Dantes, The Count of Monte Cristo. This is after he reunites the two star-crossed lovers and gifts them part of his fortune. It seems to me as if this means he reconciled his two identities.

Tell the angel who will watch over your future destiny, Morrel, to pray sometimes for a man, who, like Satan, thought himself for an instant equal to God, but who now acknowledges with Christian humility that God alone possesses supreme power and infinite wisdom.

So, idk, this is just my own thoughts and impressions.