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[desequilibre]

PLAYER INFO.
✖ Handle: Sarah
✖ Contact: spitfired
✖ Are You Over 16: 26
✖ Other Characters Played in Consignment: n/a

CHARACTER INFO.
✖ Character Name: Athos ( nb: In the BBC version of The Musketeers Athos doesn't have a canon first name. Everyone refers to him by his last. If you need me to have a first name, other adaptations have him go by Oliver. )
✖ Canon: The Musketeers | Episode 10: Musketeers Don't Die Easily.
✖ Character Appearance: Here..
✖ Character Age: 32 ( There's no canon age so I'm guestimating. )
✖ Pick A Number: 16 | 30

✖ Canon Setting: Athos is from seventeenth century France ( more specifically, the year 1630 ). His is a world without electricity, without running water, without the kind of machinery he will see in game. It is a country that has been previously shaken by revolt ( the King's mother rising up against her son ) and one where the rumours of a war are whispered between hierarchy. There is much division between the religion and politics, with men taking to using bombs to get their point across. It's a monarchy, and Athos is part of the group that lives to protect the King and Queen. The Musketeers are the King's guard, meaning he has a very specific sense of a hierarchy and whose orders he must follow.

Before he became a soldier, Athos was the Comte de la Fere. He was a nobleman with a great wealth and a large house. It would have been easy for him to live in peace there, but too many to wait on hand and foot made him uncomfortable. This is just an example of how progressive France was trying to become at the time. Though it is years before the French Revolution, people were still aiming to change. Women wanted to be educated, slavery was spoken with more disgust, religion held less impact. There is a fervour in the air and it's obvious throughout the series.

✖ Character History: Link.

✖ Character Personality: Athos is a man torn between love and loyalty. Those are his two defining factors, he would be nothing without them nor without the struggle they put him through. To Athos, there isn't anything that should move him more than his honour. Because he is a Musketeer, he has a duty to the King and to France and it's one he is always trying to uphold.

He is a moral compass, when other's honour and duty is questioned Athos is the one to hold them to high regard ( "I don't believe Treville is guilty, and I never will. but we won't stand in your way." ) but he is also one that constantly doubts himself in every way possible. Because to have honour means to be absolute in his actions, to never regret them, and yet as we see throughout the show that is exactly what he does. Athos is torn by the war between his head and his heart and that encapsulates everything that he is, the cold logical thinker and the devastating lover.

When we meet him for the first time we get a sense of the juxtaposition he embodies. He is a man who has serious alcohol issues but he works through the stages to become who he's supposed to be. Put together, armed, clever and quick. He has an incredible sense of pride in doing what he does, to be a Musketeer means everything and it is literally all he has. Because being a Musketeer means you are bound by chivalry and honour. ( "Attacking an unarmed opponent defies every principle of chivalry." ) There is a code and you stand to it. His relationships, his whole life is built around this one role. It's through his actions as a Musketeer that we learn more and more about him. We also see that he's a natural leader, he is the centre of the three Musketeers. He brings them together when their captain needs to see them, rallying the troops as it were. He's the glue between them, the thing that stops them from going completely off the rails at some points. He's obviously clever and a man of some learning, but seems naturally suited to life as a soldier. Athos is a man who gives up money and safety to become who he is, to defend those who need defending. He is the rational thought to the other's fiery tempers or to their passions, the one who chooses to think instead of feel. This is his public image, this is what he shows the world that he is. He needs to be strong and contained. He commands respect from everyone he meets. And yet he is also someone who is sharp and witty, whose humour can and does get him into trouble. Athos is more than a little sarcastic ( "Let me think ... No, because that would be illegal" ) but he knows when and where there's a place for it. Arrogant and sharp, Athos could easily be someone disliked. Add his black moods and his reliance on alcohol, it would be easy to hate the kind of man he is. But he takes to friendships, he is kind when people are deserving of it, and when he decides to trust a person they have that always and regardless of how things may seem.

"I thought I'd finally shaken you two off."
One of the main impacts on Athos' life is his friendship with the other Musketeers, Porthos and Aramis. They are his friends, the only two who he seems genuinely attached to even when he's trying to be aloof. He becomes a wholly different person around them, one who smiles and jokes and teases. It's a brotherhood. You never see one Musketeer without the others in his shadow. Their's is a friendship based on mutual faults and the acknowledgement of that. He would lay down his life for them and vice versa. The Musketeers are a family, one united by something more than blood. When Porthos is charged with murder, Athos is the one to enter the Court of Miracles to try and find him. This is important because as we saw a few episodes before, he put his own pain before his friend's life. That behaviour was not his usual, he was wrapped up in his own hurt enough to act out of character. He couldn't even bare to be near the place where his life was so utterly changed. Enough that even Aramis notices it, enough to question exactly what is wrong with Athos. He needs to atone for that in any way he can. Because he believes in Porthos, there is none more honourable than he and Athos knows that. He's willing to go under the radar to prove that and move outside of the law. Porthos and Aramis' loyalty to Athos also allows us to see that he's a man that allows himself to be loved so deeply. If he were as unkind or cruel as he thought himself then surely there would not be two willing to go out of their way to save him too. In the very first episode he is being framed for murder, has been put to trial and is to be executed. Yet Captain Treville and the others instinctively know that this isn't the case. Because Athos is not a murderer, nor is he anyone who would act so dishonourably. They know him too well to be tricked. This instinctive understanding of each of the Musketeers runs deep through all of them and shows they are quite a unit.

That they have found a way under his skin and a home in his heart shows he is more than capable of human relationships. But their friendship also lets us see just how tightly locked up Athos is too. D'Artagnan is the one who notices how low in spirits Athos is, is the one to comment on it more often than not. Because he is not as used to his moods as the others, it is most definitely something he picks up on. It's fairly obvious that Athos has spent his time fobbing their concerns off, that they have learnt to accept his ill humour as something he is. He doesn't let them in. It's almost as if there is a maze to unlocking the true Athos and he's very clever about cutting people off.

"There was someone special once, she died. That's all he ever said."
Athos wears a chain around his neck as a sign of all that he has loved and lost. His broken heart is practically written right across his face and yet he's somehow managed to not let anyone dig deeper than that. He's evasive, but it's not a devious trait. It's more a way to protect himself. Once you let someone see your heart it makes it easier for them to strike at it. And yet d'Artagnan somehow manages it, finds out more about Athos than any of his friends. Because he comes back for Athos, finds him in his burning home and pulls him free and I think that makes something crumble within him. There is a wall and it's breaking down bit by bit. It cements their friendship and gives the other an understanding of the man he is. It is through d'Artagnan that Athos begins to change. Though we don't see it on screen, we do find out that he eventually opens up to the others. I believe it is because of d'Artagnan's certainty in him that he is able to tell them the truth of his old love. By episode ten all four know of his past, and they work together to end her torment of him. It's here he becomes something more of a brother, and here that we see the first mention of "All for one and one for all". With good emotional support, Athos is better suited to personal honesty.

"He's a Gascon farm boy, promising but raw."
D'Artagnan is one of, if not the most, important factors in understanding Athos as a character. It is through d'Artagnan that we learn more and more about him, that the truth of the man he was and who he has come to be is revealed. When they first meet, we as an audience are supposed to believe along with d'Artagnan that Athos is a murderer. But even when he is being challenged, he follows a strict code. Were he the man we expect of him, he'd have no qualms in slitting d'Artagnan's throat. And yet he sees all that anger and pain and tries to reason with him.

"That could have been your throat, don't make me kill you over a mistake. I didn't kill your father and I don't want to kill you."
He doesn't fight to kill, only to disarm. He sees the fire in d'Artagnan and I think that he also understands how grief moves a person. D'Artagnan is hurt, he's wounded, he's lost his family. He needs someone to strike out against and Athos is a willing target. He is very much like Athos himself. And so he allows it up until a point. And yet he knows very little of the other man by the time he has become part of their company. There's an instinctual trust however, he doesn't rally against someone younger and more capable joining his ranks. Instead he's almost concerned, protective. When d'Artagnan is the one to go undercover, Athos is the voice of concern. It's not because he doesn't think he's capable, no, it's more that he's worried about him getting caught up in his own business. That he worries so soon about him also shows his deep affinity for love and affection. Here is a man who has tried to kill him, and yet he did everything he could to also clear Athos' name. That has sealed the deal for Athos. He is now one of them and therefore under his protection. So when d'Artagnan steps in the way of danger Athos is the one constantly seeking out news of his welfare throughout. He would not be able to live with himself if d'Artagnan were to be killed or injured but he doesn't seek to stop him from becoming one of them. Later in the series this becomes more and more obvious, Athos becomes something of a mentor to him. We see him training with d'Artagnan, being the one who guides him. He knows him quite well, provoking him often to try and teach him to use his head over his heart. He sees the things that d'Artagnan can achieve and wants only the greatest for him. ( "All I know is that d'Artagnan has it in him to be a fine Musketeer. Perhaps the greatest of us all." )

D'Artagnan highlights this part of Athos' personality. He becomes the pivot of Athos' desire for every person to have their chance. He feels like all men and women should be allowed the same opportunities as others. He meets people who are downtrodden and offers advice, when he had his own wealth and home he refused to have more servants because they make him uncomfortable, he wants d'Artagnan to be given as many opportunities as he can because he will be the greatest. Athos is encouraging under all of his brusqueness. It's important at this point to know that Athos' sense of honour is to people first and foremost. Like the other Musketeers, he does not think twice in working outside of the law when other people's lives are being threatened. How they react to the Cardinal is a fine example of this. He is a member of France's state and yet the Musketeers are often thwarting his plans. Their duty is to France itself. When others benefit off the pain of the people then they are the ones to lift up their swords and fight back ( eg sending Bonnaire back to Spain and protecting Ninon against the Red Guards ). Athos and the others have a deep sense of what is right and what is wrong and they stick to that.

"There was a woman ... she died by my hand."
"You murdered her?"
"I loved her."
If you take a look at Athos as a character then there is one thing that runs right through the core of him. He was once a man who had everything, a home, a family, a wife who loved him. That has all been ripped from him. And in a way that accounts for the vast majority of his personality. His wife Anne ( now Milady de Winter ) was a criminal and a liar and someone who he sees as having wormed her way into his life and struck at the very heart of him. He feels conned and tricked and foolish enough to have fallen for it and now he does everything in his power not to let that happen again. He has closed himself off from love. He tells Ninon that he will never have that again, romance and marriage are not something he craves nor does he think he deserves. He also, incidentally, has trouble trusting women. He acts uncomfortably around any that show an interest in him and often believes that they are somehow out to get him. He can't interact well with women. ( Ninon asks him on a date and instead he takes her to the morgue to show her what her actions have caused. ) Romance does not stop him from showing someone the harsh reality of life. The fact that Ninon seems so romantic in her views themselves, and thus forgets to see what it would inspire young women to do, offends him because he is constantly thinking of how his actions affect people. He could not stop to have a love life, not now, not ever again.

That Milady has broken him so thoroughly has caused such a disconnect between who he shows and who he is. For his life has become one eternal struggle through her actions, that of love versus loyalty. We see him as someone with such a strong moral backbone. That is what he is built on. The law is to be upheld when it is law that protects the basic human rights of people. We get a sense that this is who he's always been, a man with honour and beliefs. But with love his ground is shaken. That he loved Milady is not in question, that he still loves her is more than obvious. She has taken so much from him, she killed his brother, she turned his heart to stone. And yet his anger is more at himself than anything else. That he chose honour over keeping her safe. The guilt that he's felt over how he 'killed' her has eaten him up for the past five years. His house is basically a tomb for his failed love, a place where he keeps the portraits and the belongings covered in dust and dark nothingness. He doesn't feel as though he deserves forgiveness. He upheld the law, yes, but he's also the one who ordered the woman he loved to be put to death. To Athos that is as bad as murdering someone in cold blood. ( "Find some poor soul who deserves forgiveness Father, don't waste your time with me." ) He doesn't deserve to be saved, he has accepted his fate and flounders in it. When he finds out she has survived he is equally as devastated. He doesn't know how to carry on without his guilt for killing her. He's spent five years thinking that he took her life, that the love he could have had died at his hand, and now he knows she's still alive, that she's spent those years continuing in her ways. The fact that he wears her locket for so much of the season also tells us of our guilt. I think it's a deliberate mirroring of the noose he had placed around her neck. He can't lose it, he can't stop wearing it, it will always be a part of him. So it's important to note that in episode 10, when he takes it off and drops it, it is a shrugging off of what she has done to him. It's a deliberate action, she tells him they will always be a part of each other and he needs something physical to fly in the face of that.

Milady's actions have also caused something of a temper in him. It's a private temper, something that is rarely seen but is in fact all consuming. Athos is the calm one, the one who rarely reacts to taunts, but there are moments when this blackness consumes him. He is without a doubt suffering from depression. And with that depression comes an anger that boils beneath the surface. The minute he's pushed, Athos finds it hard to rear back ( best seen with his duel against the Duke of Savoy and his reaction to hearing Milady's voice at the court ). When Athos snaps, he snaps and there is very little beyond his friends that can bring him back. That they are surprised by his rage says a lot. He has kept it so tightly hidden within himself but has no hope in holding on to it always. He's a fuse that has been lit, that is always a part of him. He pushes his friends away when he can such as when he sends them all back to Paris, allows it to swallow him up to the point where he sees no hope. He doesn't wish for them to see what he is underneath his calm and unflappable exterior, he needs to be the person they trust and admire. With this we also discover a latent suicidal streak within him. Athos would never take his own life, there's nothing honourable about that, but he is more than quick to allow someone else to kill him - roaring at the firing line and then begging Milady to slit his throat -. Athos seeks death, he begs for it. When Milady leaves him inside of his burning house he hasn't moved before d'Artagnan arrives to pull him from the flames. For Athos, death would be a relief from all of the guilt that he has been drowning himself in. He could give up when the situation called for it, but if anyone were to see him do so he would fight.

That is, as mentioned earlier, until Athos begins to trust his fellow companions. At the very end of the series he seems much more capable of smothering that temper. While it still rages within him ( let's face it, that kind of anger doesn't diminish straight away ) he is able to be more clear headed. Milady threatens them all, she works for the Cardinal, and therefore it is not just his life on the line. Gone is the man dying at her feet, he is now someone who fights back ( "Do you really think I would forget who you are, and what you've done." / "It seems we are both prone to ressurection." ) Milady and Athos are two sides to a wheel, they can't exist without the other because to do so is self-destructive, but they also can't live together either. So Athos and the rest of the Musketeers hatch a plan to trick both her and her benefactor. She knows his weaknesses, and he plays into them, takes her down at her own game. There's is a volatile relationship, a game that like Milady says, cannot end until both of them are dead. It would be easy for Athos to kill her, but then he would not be Athos. He still thinks there is a way for the both of them to make amends.

"I made her what she is. Her murders are on my head."
Athos is a man who will rise to any occasion to protect his friends, his country, and it's people. He is all shards of emotion, of past guilt, of pain, but put together he is an honourable man who will do his best to do what's right. He isn't afraid to go up against those with more power, more strength than him, and he is clever enough to work around his limitations. Athos' honour, like the rest of him, doesn't die easily.

✖ Character Powers: Athos is proficient with any number of weapons ( swords, knives, pistols, muskets ). Captain Treville goes as far as saying he's the most gifted swordsman in the regiment. He fights with style as well as using the advantage of rough and dirty fighting the four of them seem to prefer. He's a remarkable fighter and an educated man who should speak more than one language. He's a man who used to have money so he's obviously well able to run an estate and keep his affairs in order so we can assume he has a good grasp of numbers etc.


CHARACTER SAMPLES.
✖ First Person POV: 1, 2, 3, 4.

✖ Third Person POV: It is strange to feel so free. For such a long time Athos had felt an invisible noose hanging round his neck. It had been the ghastly mirror image of the one placed around Anne's throat, and it had followed him wherever he went, had tightened as days went by. The locket he'd worn up until now had been part of the hangman's equipment and how easily had he left it to the dirt and the mire. He had thought it would be the thing to kill him. Not the fight itself, never that, for Athos cannot die when there are others he must protect. But in the dark of night with wine soaking his insides, he'd known that what he did, that would be the end of him.

Now he is free, no more is he the one who called for his wife's death. No, he had let her go free, but banished. Let Spain or England have her, for they are used to her ilk and he does not pretend that she won't find her way more easily there. He had seen the Cardinal's shadow on her and it had made his blood boil in a way he fears to examine. But he knows. She would still haunt him, there is little he can do to exhume her from his barren house of ribs, and if he believed in God as much as his dear friend Aramis he might have been tempted by exorcism. Anne will forever be a part of him, and he her. Now he just has to build himself back up around the missing pieces.

The night had been one for joviality, though it had been only Porthos not touched by an ill mood. He must speak to d'Artagnan soon, for he knows better than most how a heart can fester if it is not healed. Aramis he does not think he could offer much for. The Queen is with child. Were anyone to find out, were they to know that the baby growing inside her was not conceived by the King. Well, there would be many heads upon the chopping block. Too many to worry about by association. He just hopes romantic notions are as far from Aramis' thoughts as they can be.

He'd stayed when the company departed, offering a small smile to intent and concerned eyes. He had wanted merely to rest a while inside the warmth of the tavern, with brandy filling his cup and the hum of others in his ears. Now he is well on the way to drunk, hunched over himself in the corner with a candle flickering weakly before him, wax melted down to near enough the bottom. He should go soon, he thinks, before the cock crows and he must face his new days with the old kind of ache.

Before he can pick himself up, the seat across from him is taken. He finds the elderly woman's face is kind, though wizened, and her eyes speak of many things. Momentarily he thinks of the Mother Superior, how he'd like to speak with her again. But his attention is caught when this one smiles, a gap in her teeth and a husk to her voice.

"You don't seem like the kind of chap who should sit maudlin all by himself."

Athos finds himself almost smiling, one corner of his lip rising wryly. "How unfortunate, that is precisely the kind of man I am."

"A sous for 'em then." He is unused to the curiosity of strangers, not when his uniform is gone and he is just any man. He could easily avoid her question, reach for his hat on the table. He could go to his room and fall asleep on the sagging mattress and tomorrow he could put d'Artagnan through his paces, challenge Porthos to a fight, watch Aramis woo whatever pretty face he could find. He does none of those things.

"Save your money, it is not a happy tale."

"No tale worth hearing is."

Athos picks up his near-empty glass, drains the last. It is not nearly as satisfying, the burn dulled by whatever is in his body now. The taste has gone sour in his mouth and he wonders what it is that makes him speak. He has never been forthcoming. But perhaps there is a dam that has been cracked now. Perhaps he will never stop speaking of her. "I loved a woman. Isn't that how all tales start?"

"The interesting ones, surely."

"I loved a woman who haunted me for years. Or perhaps I haunted her." He leans back, shoulders still taut and a frown on his face, "We existed in each other's spheres and hurt a great many people just by being in love. We lost so much. And yet I still loved her."

He glances up and the woman fixes him with a kinder smile than he expects, sucking at her teeth before she responds. "Who did you lose?"

"My brother." It hurts, of course it hurts. Thomas exists within him as a gaping wound. However he might be able to let go of Anne, he cannot let go of this. "He has been dead these five years and yet it still aches as though it were only yesterday."

She sniffs a little, "I lost my boy twenty years ago. There isn't a day that goes by that doesn't make me think of him."

She reaches out, one hand covering Athos, her gnarled touch stroking along his knuckles. His family are all gone now, but he imagines this is what it might have been like had they lived. Caring, kind. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just bring them back?" she asks, and he feels something close over in his throat, "Wouldn't that be a miracle."

"Yes," he replies, closing his eyes for a moment. "Yes, it would."

He thinks of it now, of wide open fields and his brother's laughter. Of the people whose life he made better. Of his potential. Thomas was a ray of sunshine to Athos' cloudy day. If he keeps his eyes closed he can hear boyish voices so clear it feels almost like a dream, echoing and covering up the noise of the tavern. What would have become of them both, had Athos never met Anne? Had he not married? Would he have stayed in the village, or would he have left the running of the estate to Thomas? Younger brother that he was, he would have been better suited to it. Perhaps Athos would have still become a soldier. Though one who didn't drink himself into oblivion.

"Say there was a place where wishes could come true," the old woman says aloud, breaking him from his reverie. His body feels muted and he blinks slowly to get her back into focus, "Say there is a place of miracles."

"I have been to that court, it didn't agree with me," Athos murmurs. Alcohol has made him heavy, has blurred the edges of his thoughts but he still knows enough to smile at his own wit.

"Not there, boy. Someplace else. A place that could give you back what you've lost."

"There is no such place."

"Isn't there?" She leans forward, her hand once again touching his. He thinks of his mother. And then of Anne. "Or perhaps you are too afraid to look for it."

"I am a King's Musketeer. Cowardice does not go hand in hand with that." Athos' pride shivers inside of him like ruffled feathers. Perhaps she is a con woman, looking for money. He has none, he drank it all away. Perhaps this is just a dream. Perhaps she is just mad. Either way, he is not afraid. "By all means then, my lady. Show me this place where lost men can return to us. Where death is but a figure in a play and backstage my brother awaits."

She smiles, and rises from her seat, offering out her hand. Athos takes it. If anything, he will make sure she returns to her home. She is too old to be wandering the streets on a night like this and her talk of miracles has touched at his heart. So he follows, allows her to lead him out into the night.

Perhaps tomorrow he will drink a little less.

CHARACTER ITEMS.
✖ Pick a Team: Green.
✖ Mission Freebie: ( 1 ) Flintlock musket & ammunition.
✖ Personal Item or Weapon: ( 1 ) Rapier sword.

✖ Character Inventory:( 1 ) black leather jacket.
( 1 ) undershirt.
( 1 ) scarf.
( 1 ) leather trousers.
( 1 ) undergarments.
( 1 ) pair of boots.
( 1 ) Muskeeter arm guard.
( 1 ) belt.
( 1 ) cape.
( 1 ) hat.