#even if adaptations show time in prison everything is so romanticized it’s baffling

[hanakihan]

oh my fucking god

my friend just texted me after finishing watching Monte Cristo adaptations and asked me why man went so hard on revenge shit because it’s not like his time in prison was that bad and he had treasure on him why not just move on or do it other way

head in hands

see that’s what I mean by adaptations missing the key point of his imprisonment time

without knowing what happened in château d’if, without understanding how much of his life was destroyed here along with his psyche and morals, without understanding that he was so destroyed that by the time he met abbe faria, even faria himself high key was regretting teaching/telling dantes who screwed him over because at this point he helped to finalize monster in dantes, because if faria didn’t tell him that, dantes would’ve never even decided to have revenge because he didn’t had need/target for it

i just keep noticing that people who watch adaptations without reading source material always get confused on ‘why’ of his revenge because the start and result don’t weight the same for them and such people more than right to ask the question what stopped him from starting new life with treasures faria left him

dantes with his wealth honestly could’ve simply hired assassins or mercenaries to kill people he deems responsible for his demise and call it a day. but no, he wastes even more of his years for a revenge and even went overboard with it because it’s extremely personal for him in his broken unhinged mind. his broken psyche concluded that death would be too easy for them, they need to go through equal amounts of hell he went through. because his revenge is more psychological torture focused than physical one, he is a broken man who doesn’t understand he overstepped boundaries of equal revenge and only snaps out of it when his plans backfire on people uninvolved.

his hyperfixation on such hard to execute and too complex revenge is pretty much what is keeping what remains of his broken mind and morals intact, since he in his head (as well as narrative) justifies his actions and goals based on what he went trough in prison. because if abbe faria didn’t unintentionally given him a goal, a target of revenge, even if he proceeded to escape and find a treasure, he simply would’ve started his life anew.

so yea adaptations missing on fatalism and mindfuckery of his time in château d’if is what ruins them all. book really gives you time to savor the shit he went through here, starting from time passage, changing of his cells and how ‘life’ around goes up to his mood and behavior changes through years, from hopeful hysterical boy to depressed apathetic half corpse who ironically considered his jailers as some sort of friends he can talk to even if they don’t talk back to him anymore