#like for real if cluzet being a spanish spy is worthy of dying in jail forgotten shouldn't that be up to the discretion of his own ruler??

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

plus france abducted his chancellor because - still from the duke's pov - cluzet had sniffed out the plot + was advising the duke to ally with spain instead. yes cluzet was a spanish spy before that, but why is that treated like an unforgivable sin when the duchess being a french spy is considered brave and praiseworthy and worth the life of 20 musketeers? OBVIOUSLY cluzet was going to think it was better to side with the country that wasn't trying to kill his head of state??

and yeah the duke slaughtered the musketeers and it was dishonorable to attack them when they were unprepared but it's richelieu and treville offered up the musketeers regiment as a sacrifice. from the duke's perspective, a neighboring superpower with a vested interest in getting his half-french son on his throne was making an incursion into his territory to murder him. he wasn't taking any chances and frankly all the main characters of the show, even the good guys, are personally responsible for stuff that is WAY more morally reprehensible than taking an assassination squad by surprise. it's france's fault he thought they were assassins, so his retaliation is on them. his sentiment that france is "a nation of liars and cheats" is entirely justified from the info he has (the info he was purposely fed by france), and I'd argue he'd have even more reasons to hate and distrust them if he knew the whole truth. the whole episode is a shabby cover-up of a previous cover-up and we're supposed to be happy the duke gets duped into signing that treaty with a government that has done nothing but threaten his sovereignty and treat him like an idiot and a pawn.

and let's not forget that while the first "coup" was only a misdirection to protect the duchess, richelieu starts hinting at plotting a real one WITHIN SECONDS OF THE TREATY BEING SIGNED AT THE END. the duke is right all along the line. apart from generally being extremely unpleasant of a person I'd say he didn't deserve that bullshit and he should have gone with the spanish alliance. aramis and treville's reconciliation over being "soldiers who follow their orders no matter where they lead, even to death" is huhhhhhhhhhh. an interesting conclusion to this particular episode.

rewatching the savoy episode, huhhhhh.... the duke isn't the bad guy? he's rude and brash and arrogant and brutal, but from an objective standpoint he wasn't the villain of the situation. we all hate him because the savoy massacre was awful and we don't like to see aramis be sad, but france started it all when, from his pov, they tried to have him assassinated out of political convenience. it's not like he set out to kill people for fun.