30 Day Shipping Meme: Day 2

[aikaterini]

Day 2: A ship you've just discovered

Percy Blakeney/Marguerite Blakeney (The Scarlet Pimpernel)

http://www.blakeneymanor.com/images/1982/1982.jpg

I just discovered this ship because I’ve only recently gotten around to reading the book and watching the movie. I read The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy and thought that it was mildly good. I didn’t fall in love with it, but I didn’t dislike it. It was a fun story with a neat premise.

And then I watched the 1982 movie version. And that’s when I fell in love with Percy and Marguerite.

Sir Percy Blakeney, for those who may not know about him or his book, is basically the 18^th century English precursor to Bruce Wayne/Batman. He pretends to be a brainless fop in public in order to fool people into underestimating him. In reality, he’s the Scarlet Pimpernel, the anonymous rescuer of French nobles from the guillotine, whom Robespierre’s men have been trying for ages to catch. Through a mixture of disguises, trickery, and teamwork (he has a whole crew of men secretly working for him), he smuggles French aristocrats away from France.

His wife, Marguerite, meanwhile, is a French actress and witty socialite who doesn’t know that he’s the Pimpernel and wonders what happened to the man she fell in love with. When Chauvelin, the French agent tasked with finding the Scarlet Pimpernel, threatens to charge her brother with treason unless she helps him discover the Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity, she’s forced to agree. What ensues is an entertaining game of trickery as both Percy and Marguerite try to hide their secret operations from each other at the potential cost of their marriage.

Again, this is the scenario in both the book and movie, but I ended up preferring the movie because they fleshed out Percy and Marguerite’s relationship more fully, gave them more scenes together, and delivered a far more satisfactory ending (which will remain hidden now because of spoilers). The audience gets to see Percy and Marguerite’s courtship before they marry and, as such, get to see why Marguerite fell in love with him. Marguerite is also depicted more sympathetically in the film, since, unlike the book, she doesn’t inadvertently send an aristocratic family to the guillotine (instead, Chauvelin lied that she was an informer) and it’s clear that she knows that Percy’s foppish persona is a mask, but just doesn’t know why he puts it on to begin with. Jane Seymour does a terrific job portraying Marguerite’s vivacity and verve, as well as giving her quieter moments of slyness and sorrow. Anthony Andrews, on his part, also does full justice to the role of Percy, ably alternating between the annoying and seemingly air-headed fop and the passionate and dedicated leader who’s deeply in love with Marguerite.

I love this couple because both are intelligent, crafty, and passionate in their own ways, both are equal matches for each other, both eventually learn the truth about each other, and both have to recognize that they’ve misjudged each other. Marguerite mistakenly believes that Percy is now a shallow fop who doesn’t really love her anymore and Percy mistakenly believes that Marguerite will betray him if he tells her the truth. Through their shared adventure, Percy and Marguerite not only save the day, but also their marriage.

I also like this couple because it proves – without a shadow of a doubt – that married couples can have conflict and can still be interesting! Percy and Marguerite’s story doesn’t end when they get married. In fact, it only begins. They’re already married when the book opens, so boo to all those who claim that characters are boring once they get married.

So, for those interested, I would still recommend the book, since it started it all and is an entertaining read. But if you’re looking to see a first-rate adaptation and are looking to swoon, watch the 1982 film version. If anything else, Ian McKellen plays Chauvelin!