Keep Hoping Machine Running (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thefourthvine) wrote2004-05-14 05:15 pm
thefourthvine) wrote2004-05-14 05:15 pm
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Fandoms I Have Loved 5: Master and Commander
I read the first few Patrick O'Brian novels when I was in college. I had to stop when I developed a hatred of Diana so intense the books simply smoldered in my hands. In 2003 I started over again after promising myself that I wouldn't let Diana get to me. After that vow bit the dust, I made another one: that I wouldn't let that evil, doctor-tormenting creature stand between me and some damn fine reading chock full of slashy goodness. That turned out to be the right attitude.
My greater knowledge of fan fiction also supported me through the most Diana-intensive parts of the series. When Diana was treating Maturin badly (in other words, when she was in the same hemisphere as he was), I could turn to fan fiction and see Aubrey treating him very well indeed. When Maturin was concluding that he couldn't consider himself truly alive without Diana, I could hit a few links and discover a Maturin not just lively but downright springy and bendable. So slash in this canon doesn't just entertain me; it sustains me in the face of the evil that goes by the name Diana Villiers.
And the movie helped, too; the filmmakers wisely excised all mention of Diana and nearly all mention of Sophie from the script, proving they really had a handle on the essence of Master & Commander. Because I think that even Patrick O'Brian couldn't deny that in this world, the women just get in the way.
-The Characters-
JACK AUBREY is a bold, strapping naval officer with a flair for strategy and leadership. When at sea, that is. On land, he's a complete moron who can't keep money in his pocket, a civil tongue in his head, or his prick in his pants. (His various episodes of adultery are tolerable, at least to me, but I absolutely writhed when he gave a power of attorney to a freaking mining prospector just before leaving the country. Hello, debtors' prison. And for Jack, it wouldn't be the first time.)
He begins the series with golden hair and a lovely face that gets progressively more beat up over time, as his skin is variously sliced, burned, shot, scoured, and infected. He plays the violin and has no interest whatsoever in natural history. He is afraid of spiders and snakes and despises Napoleon.
STEPHEN MATURIN is a crabby, drug-addicted, brilliant Irish bastard (literally) with a flair for surgery and medicine when at sea, and for spying and military intelligence when on land. He's a mean hand with a sword or a pistol, but he has a far more vicious tongue, especially before he's had his coffee in the morning or when he's going through withdrawal. In other words, do not prod the surgeon. You will get bit, and unless your name is Jack Aubrey or Diana Villiers, the wound will probably turn septic.
He begins the series with dark hair and a scrunchy face and pretty much remains that way; turns out time is kinder to scrawny, ill-tempered surgeons than to handsome, dashing rogues. He plays the cello and has an obsessive interest in natural history, and he fears nothing except humiliation and the rule of Napoleon. Well, and torture, after a while.
DIANA MATURIN (NEE VILLIERS) is a cast iron bitch who deserves to burn burn burn in the fires of hell. She is by turns a tease, a kept woman, and an unwitting spy and traitor, and those are actually her best qualities. Her main interests include staring lovingly into mirrors, jilting, mocking, and tormenting certain Naval surgeons, and, presumably, kicking babies and destroying priceless works of art. She begins her run in the books by trying to drive a wedge between Maturin and Aubrey; a few books on, she's more focused on driving Maturin crazy. They eventually marry, but only because she's run out of other ways of making his life wretched. Her plan backfires a bit, though, because the marriage is actually relatively good for Maturin; it gets her out of his system somewhat and they live apart.
Please note that some may consider this assessment of her slightly biased or even a wee bit off-base. I don't care. I loathe the woman, and after all, this is my summary. If you want to write a summary that mentions her free and independent spirit, her beauty, her talent with horses and guns, her feelings of imprisonment in the stultifying Regency society, and her facility with languages and cultures, go right ahead. I'll stick to my guns, thanks. And said guns will be pointed right at Diana.
SOPHIE AUBREY (NEE WILLIAMS) is a sweet, dewy-eyed creature who thinks babies are found in cabbage patches and who is much given to sighing and visible displays of patience. And let's be honest here - she's got a lot to be patient about; she should never have married any Navy officer, let alone Jack Aubrey, who is pretty much the archetypal Navy man. Her only good fortune is that he's gone most of the time. The best and the worst that can be said of Sophie is that she's very much a woman of her times. Her main interests are children, housekeeping, social activities, domestic economy, and avoiding her mother (and you'd be interested in that last if you had Sophie's mother, believe me).
-The Plot-
There are ships. There are battles. There are repairs. There is endless use of naval terminology, much of archaic and all of it arcane. There are moments of leadership and musical interludes and historically accurate surgical procedures that make you want to get down on your knees and thank god for anesthetic. Maturin spies and investigates, Aubrey commands and fights, and god help us all if they go anywhere near England.
Really, it's far more compelling than it sounds.
Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep, so beware. In this particular case, you should beware of PO'B fanatics of the gen persuasion; in many cases, they make Trekkies look detached and apathetic toward their canon. You don't know terror until you've encountered a true PO'B fan with a question of trifling naval procedure before him, and you don't know boredom until you've listened to him answer said question. Over the course of 8 hours. With reference to 18 different books, including a number of period works, and many verbatim quotes from memory of certain moving passages from the Aubrey-Maturin works. (Gen fans call the series Aubrey-Maturin or Aubrey/Maturin. Slash fans call it Master & Commander. This is one of the mysteries of the universe.)
-If You Don't Know the Canon-
For the record, when I say canon in this particular fandom I mean the books. To me, the movie is good fan fiction; it will give you a nice feel for the period, yes, but only in the books can you get a real sense of the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin and the nature of their world, their society, and their lives on shore and on land. Still, if you have an allergy to archaic naval terminology or whatever, you can probably fake it with:
A Gunroom Guide to Patrick O'Brian Web Resources. If you cast your eye over this page, you'll see what I mean about obsessive O'Brian fans. This is, essentially, a very very long list of links, covering everything from O'Brian's obituaries and memorials to historical information about the age of fighting sail to pictures of ships, and touching on all points in between. As you scan this, you may find yourself thinking, hell, it'd be easier just to read the books. You would not be wrong.
Maturin's Medicine. I don’t care how many years you've been practicing medicine; if you want to understand what Maturin is doing in sick bay, you'll need this site. Only here can you discover what Aleppo buttons are, or what marthambles was, or what grey powder was used to treat. (Respectively: staphyloccal abcesses, even O'Brian didn't know, and everything.)
The Articles of War, 1749 edition. These are often read by Aubrey in the series and often violated by Aubrey and Maturin in fan fiction. So, hey, might as well read them.
An Aubrey-Maturin Chronology. If you're going to be writing fan fiction, this may help you keep the events of the books straight, especially where they vary from history. (The M&C series is slightly AU, but you'd have to be anal-retentive to notice on a casual reading.)
-Where to Start Reading in M&C-
With small, sweet pieces (of smut, naturally), if for no other reason than that you'll be hard pressed to find a story in this fandom that isn't at least a little sweet. I also recommend – and I'm going way out on a limb here – starting with at least some movie FF. Actually, no. I recommend seeing the movie and then reading some movie FF; it's much easier to get a handle on the movie canon, such as it is, than the book canon. And you'll be able to decide if you like the characters enough to embark on the novels.
If You Want to Get to Know O'Brian's Voice: Influence, by shalott. Book-based. So, I tell you to read movie FF and then I immediately recommend stuff based on the book. Why, yes, I do have conflicting feelings about the whole movie/book thing. But this may be the story to read if you're unfamiliar with the novels; shalott captures O'Brian's voice and Maturin's character remarkably well. Check out the rest of shalott's Aubrey/Maturin, too; it's all really, really good, and she does movie, book, and AU FF with equal skill. (Her Five Things That Never Happened series is amazing; I don't recommend AU stuff for people new to a fandom, but once you've settled in you must read these stories.)
If You Want to Get to Know O'Brian's Characters: Reverie, by Your Cruise Director (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cruisedirector). Movie-based. This is one of the approximately 9,400,870 stories set in the tent where Maturin recovers from his gunshot wound in the movies; that tent has some kind of magical sex-inducing power. (The challenge involving it probably didn't hurt, either.) This story is one of the better tentfic pieces, and ideal for newcomers to the fandom: it's solidly in-character smut. "Reverie" is actually a sequel, but it stands on its own, and the earlier story isn't nearly so smutty. Need I explain why I'm recommending this one?
If You Want to Get to Know O'Brian's World: Prizes Over Discovery I and Prizes Over Discovery II, by Keiko, and if anyone has a better link for her, please let me know. Keiko knows her book canon, and this series (if you like I and II, there's three more thus far, all available at her Aubrey/Maturin page) seems to me to integrate movie and book canon so well it's hard to tell just which it is. These stories may have a few weaknesses here and there, but the characters are very well done, and Keiko just really gets the M&C atmosphere. Definitely worth a read.
My greater knowledge of fan fiction also supported me through the most Diana-intensive parts of the series. When Diana was treating Maturin badly (in other words, when she was in the same hemisphere as he was), I could turn to fan fiction and see Aubrey treating him very well indeed. When Maturin was concluding that he couldn't consider himself truly alive without Diana, I could hit a few links and discover a Maturin not just lively but downright springy and bendable. So slash in this canon doesn't just entertain me; it sustains me in the face of the evil that goes by the name Diana Villiers.
And the movie helped, too; the filmmakers wisely excised all mention of Diana and nearly all mention of Sophie from the script, proving they really had a handle on the essence of Master & Commander. Because I think that even Patrick O'Brian couldn't deny that in this world, the women just get in the way.
-The Characters-
JACK AUBREY is a bold, strapping naval officer with a flair for strategy and leadership. When at sea, that is. On land, he's a complete moron who can't keep money in his pocket, a civil tongue in his head, or his prick in his pants. (His various episodes of adultery are tolerable, at least to me, but I absolutely writhed when he gave a power of attorney to a freaking mining prospector just before leaving the country. Hello, debtors' prison. And for Jack, it wouldn't be the first time.)
He begins the series with golden hair and a lovely face that gets progressively more beat up over time, as his skin is variously sliced, burned, shot, scoured, and infected. He plays the violin and has no interest whatsoever in natural history. He is afraid of spiders and snakes and despises Napoleon.
STEPHEN MATURIN is a crabby, drug-addicted, brilliant Irish bastard (literally) with a flair for surgery and medicine when at sea, and for spying and military intelligence when on land. He's a mean hand with a sword or a pistol, but he has a far more vicious tongue, especially before he's had his coffee in the morning or when he's going through withdrawal. In other words, do not prod the surgeon. You will get bit, and unless your name is Jack Aubrey or Diana Villiers, the wound will probably turn septic.
He begins the series with dark hair and a scrunchy face and pretty much remains that way; turns out time is kinder to scrawny, ill-tempered surgeons than to handsome, dashing rogues. He plays the cello and has an obsessive interest in natural history, and he fears nothing except humiliation and the rule of Napoleon. Well, and torture, after a while.
DIANA MATURIN (NEE VILLIERS) is a cast iron bitch who deserves to burn burn burn in the fires of hell. She is by turns a tease, a kept woman, and an unwitting spy and traitor, and those are actually her best qualities. Her main interests include staring lovingly into mirrors, jilting, mocking, and tormenting certain Naval surgeons, and, presumably, kicking babies and destroying priceless works of art. She begins her run in the books by trying to drive a wedge between Maturin and Aubrey; a few books on, she's more focused on driving Maturin crazy. They eventually marry, but only because she's run out of other ways of making his life wretched. Her plan backfires a bit, though, because the marriage is actually relatively good for Maturin; it gets her out of his system somewhat and they live apart.
Please note that some may consider this assessment of her slightly biased or even a wee bit off-base. I don't care. I loathe the woman, and after all, this is my summary. If you want to write a summary that mentions her free and independent spirit, her beauty, her talent with horses and guns, her feelings of imprisonment in the stultifying Regency society, and her facility with languages and cultures, go right ahead. I'll stick to my guns, thanks. And said guns will be pointed right at Diana.
SOPHIE AUBREY (NEE WILLIAMS) is a sweet, dewy-eyed creature who thinks babies are found in cabbage patches and who is much given to sighing and visible displays of patience. And let's be honest here - she's got a lot to be patient about; she should never have married any Navy officer, let alone Jack Aubrey, who is pretty much the archetypal Navy man. Her only good fortune is that he's gone most of the time. The best and the worst that can be said of Sophie is that she's very much a woman of her times. Her main interests are children, housekeeping, social activities, domestic economy, and avoiding her mother (and you'd be interested in that last if you had Sophie's mother, believe me).
-The Plot-
There are ships. There are battles. There are repairs. There is endless use of naval terminology, much of archaic and all of it arcane. There are moments of leadership and musical interludes and historically accurate surgical procedures that make you want to get down on your knees and thank god for anesthetic. Maturin spies and investigates, Aubrey commands and fights, and god help us all if they go anywhere near England.
Really, it's far more compelling than it sounds.
Helpful Information for the M&C Novice
Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep, so beware. In this particular case, you should beware of PO'B fanatics of the gen persuasion; in many cases, they make Trekkies look detached and apathetic toward their canon. You don't know terror until you've encountered a true PO'B fan with a question of trifling naval procedure before him, and you don't know boredom until you've listened to him answer said question. Over the course of 8 hours. With reference to 18 different books, including a number of period works, and many verbatim quotes from memory of certain moving passages from the Aubrey-Maturin works. (Gen fans call the series Aubrey-Maturin or Aubrey/Maturin. Slash fans call it Master & Commander. This is one of the mysteries of the universe.)
-If You Don't Know the Canon-
For the record, when I say canon in this particular fandom I mean the books. To me, the movie is good fan fiction; it will give you a nice feel for the period, yes, but only in the books can you get a real sense of the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin and the nature of their world, their society, and their lives on shore and on land. Still, if you have an allergy to archaic naval terminology or whatever, you can probably fake it with:
A Gunroom Guide to Patrick O'Brian Web Resources. If you cast your eye over this page, you'll see what I mean about obsessive O'Brian fans. This is, essentially, a very very long list of links, covering everything from O'Brian's obituaries and memorials to historical information about the age of fighting sail to pictures of ships, and touching on all points in between. As you scan this, you may find yourself thinking, hell, it'd be easier just to read the books. You would not be wrong.
Maturin's Medicine. I don’t care how many years you've been practicing medicine; if you want to understand what Maturin is doing in sick bay, you'll need this site. Only here can you discover what Aleppo buttons are, or what marthambles was, or what grey powder was used to treat. (Respectively: staphyloccal abcesses, even O'Brian didn't know, and everything.)
The Articles of War, 1749 edition. These are often read by Aubrey in the series and often violated by Aubrey and Maturin in fan fiction. So, hey, might as well read them.
An Aubrey-Maturin Chronology. If you're going to be writing fan fiction, this may help you keep the events of the books straight, especially where they vary from history. (The M&C series is slightly AU, but you'd have to be anal-retentive to notice on a casual reading.)
-Where to Start Reading in M&C-
With small, sweet pieces (of smut, naturally), if for no other reason than that you'll be hard pressed to find a story in this fandom that isn't at least a little sweet. I also recommend – and I'm going way out on a limb here – starting with at least some movie FF. Actually, no. I recommend seeing the movie and then reading some movie FF; it's much easier to get a handle on the movie canon, such as it is, than the book canon. And you'll be able to decide if you like the characters enough to embark on the novels.
If You Want to Get to Know O'Brian's Voice: Influence, by shalott. Book-based. So, I tell you to read movie FF and then I immediately recommend stuff based on the book. Why, yes, I do have conflicting feelings about the whole movie/book thing. But this may be the story to read if you're unfamiliar with the novels; shalott captures O'Brian's voice and Maturin's character remarkably well. Check out the rest of shalott's Aubrey/Maturin, too; it's all really, really good, and she does movie, book, and AU FF with equal skill. (Her Five Things That Never Happened series is amazing; I don't recommend AU stuff for people new to a fandom, but once you've settled in you must read these stories.)
If You Want to Get to Know O'Brian's Characters: Reverie, by Your Cruise Director (
cruisedirector). Movie-based. This is one of the approximately 9,400,870 stories set in the tent where Maturin recovers from his gunshot wound in the movies; that tent has some kind of magical sex-inducing power. (The challenge involving it probably didn't hurt, either.) This story is one of the better tentfic pieces, and ideal for newcomers to the fandom: it's solidly in-character smut. "Reverie" is actually a sequel, but it stands on its own, and the earlier story isn't nearly so smutty. Need I explain why I'm recommending this one?If You Want to Get to Know O'Brian's World: Prizes Over Discovery I and Prizes Over Discovery II, by Keiko, and if anyone has a better link for her, please let me know. Keiko knows her book canon, and this series (if you like I and II, there's three more thus far, all available at her Aubrey/Maturin page) seems to me to integrate movie and book canon so well it's hard to tell just which it is. These stories may have a few weaknesses here and there, but the characters are very well done, and Keiko just really gets the M&C atmosphere. Definitely worth a read.
no subject
She’s nowhere near as intelligent as Stephen, as few people are, especially emotionally. While she lives outside accepted society, to a certain extent, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t absorbed their rules. I’m not sure that she’s just waiting for something better, although she is mercenary, I think she wants better for Stephen as well. In her estimation, marriage can be nothing more than a social and financial contract for mutual gain. There’s no space for love or companionship within that definition, although it does very well for looking pretty and liking sex. As I said, she has naturally internalised society’s codes, so she does know that she’s not a very good catch for him – damaged goods, not the traditional supporting wife. Stephen’s proposal can easily be interpreted as an act of pity, if one was as proud as Diana is. She doesn’t want him to fall out of love with her, knowing that because he is who he is, he would still feel bound to her (as he does, actually).
I was furious when she broke the engagement (and heartbroken when Stephen tells Jack that it wasn’t binding, that he was mistaken). But she accepts the proposal in a moment of weakness for her, where her defences are down, including the mental barriers she’s built to stop herself marrying Stephen. I see her breaking the engagement as more of a return to her belief that she can’t do that to him. No, it’s not commonsensical, it’s downright stupid, but it’s not malicious. So I can’t blame her for not realising that Stpehen was not only a viable out, but an attractive one. Her stabs at someone better aren’t because she doesn’t think Stephen wouldn’t love her or provide financially for her, but because she doesn’t want him to. (See pride, too much, and pity, distaste for other people’s.)
I’ve also never really believed in the ‘girl code’. Plus, Jack knew Stephen liked her, hence his equivocating. Isn’t that a worse betrayal? I can also like her because Stephen does, most of the time. I’m going to have to go back to the books, as there are a few things I’m thinking of, but don’t know if I’m remembering them right.
no subject
My response to the key points of your pro-Villiers argument:
1. Intelligence. You're absolutely right that she's not that bright. But Stephen's got no emotional intelligence at all; of the pair of them, she's actually got the higher emotional intelligence, in that at least she knows what she feels. Some of the time. But intelligence can't really help either of them here; the only thing intelligence could do is make Diana take the long view. Maybe if she was brilliant she'd be able to restrain her impulsiveness, but - well, she'd be a whole different person then.
2. Mores. I do believe she had absorbed the conventions of her times, and I'm sure she was at least partially aware that marriage was a social and financial contract. She'd been married once, and I don't get the impression that she loved her husband; he was just a good match for her. So we know she knew what marriage was at that time.
Stephen, by the social calculus of the times, was not a worthy match for her. He was Irish. A bastard. He had no relations and no money and no land worth speaking of. They weren't even of the same class. She couldn't have viewed herself as unworthy of him, because they both acknowledge that she's above him in social standing, and she, at least, knows that's what matters when it comes to marriage. Marrying him might have been an act of pity on her part, but his proposal could never be; it was, if anything, kind of audacious.
I do believe she rejected him at least in part because she couldn't lower herself so, because she knew he was beneath her, and you know what? If she'd simply said, no, Stephen, I can't marry you, not while I have the chance of a better match, I wouldn't hate her. I'd think her stupid and short-sighted, but I'd understand that she was a product of her time. But she didn't do that. On to point three, where we explore what she did do.
Continued in next comment.
no subject
3. The engagements. It's the plural there that gets me. Even though it was a total slap in the face to break the first engagement, I might be able to forgive her. But to do it more than once - well, it proves several of my points. She doesn't think of Stephen as above her; if she did, she'd never jilt him repeatedly. She sees him as beneath her, as barely human, because if she'd absorbed even an ounce of her time's mores (and we agree she did), she'd know she couldn't treat a man that way. It would be unthinkable.
She isn't worried about Stephen's feelings or his fate; if she was, she would never jilt him the way she does. She does accept his proposals in moments of weakness, but she doesn't break them because she wants something better for him (I mean, the fact that he offers again after she jilts him the first time would've told her he wasn't going to get anything better); she breaks them, very clearly, because she wants something better for herself. The running-off-to-America episode proves that. She takes Stephen because he loves her and because she thinks she's done something so socially unconscionable that no one else would take her; she gets offered something better (and that means she sees an illicit relationship as better than marriage to Stephen; given the times, that says a lot about what she thinks of Stephen) and she jumps at it, not even pausing to think about Stephen's feelings, not even worrying about breaking things off face to face or breaking the news gently. When she breaks that engagement, it can't have anything to do with what she's doing to him, or she'd never do it that way; it's all about what she can get for herself.
4. Girl Code. I shouldn't have called it the Girl Code, 'cause I don't buy that, either. Really, it's just the Common Sense Code. Common sense tells us that nothing good can come of fucking both halves of a friendship, especially in secrecy; if we have any respect at all for the friends, we pick one and skip the other. And, yeah, I'm not pleased with Jack for what he did, but I'm never pleased with Jack for his behavior when it's a question of sex. It's just something you have to accept if you're going to like Jack - the man has the sexual sense of a cat in heat (no surprise, really, when you think that he spent his teen years on a ship) and the self control of a three-year-old who has found the lid off the cookie jar (that's true in everything, really - Jack can't pass up food or drink or anything else, but it's more annoying when it's sex). So, yes, I believe that Jack was at fault, but he got over it, and he tried to protect Stephen later. Plus, he has other good traits. So I'm willing to forgive him. Diana has not one redeeming feature, and her crimes against Stephen were much worse, so I can't forgive her.
In short, I just can't see that Diana ever shows an ounce of concern for Stephen. Even after they're married, she doesn't make any attempts to think of his feelings; she goes on doing just as she likes, and expects him to follow. She's entirely and only concerned for herself, and it shows in every decision she makes and every action she takes, but especially in the way she breaks her engagements to Stephen.