Ep#5 Da Vinci's Notebook

[sue]

Okay, I’m only going to make this brief, and address a couple of points. (Well, I tried to make it brief...didn't work so well... ;D keeping red as my comments. Seems to work pretty well.)

Well... I guess if I hadn't kept pausing my youtube tab and writing after every few scenes, I'd have written less - who can remember all that? As it was I left out a lot, because I didn't think it prudent to comment on EVERYTHING. And because I kept switching windows, I know I messed a lot of words up and didn't describe everything as I wanted to... my word choices are sooo sucky in that post.

Of course, pausing the playback (whatever medium,) and writing is pretty much the only way to truly address something where you want to make accurate comments and check on expressions, etc. It’s how I have been doing it, too.

Yeah, but that's the thing. In the scene, Mireille isn't 20 feet away - and it doesn't look like she is. She's barely a few feet away from him, so d'Art should have adjusted accordingly - I suppose Tobias Mehler followed the script, or something, or maybe no one noticed that he was waayy too close for that to be... realistic? I dunno, but yeah, I suppose I could chalk it down to that whole "TV physics" thing...

Actually, if you check, the musketeers are standing on one end of the plaza, and Mireille is under an overhang, across the plaza from where they are standing. She can’t hear his voice. She looks up, and SEES him there, THEN goes after him to find out about his transfer. And, yeah. I’m pretty sure that she is “besotted”, but not so much with D’Artagnan…she is of marriageable age, and wants to make a good match for herself…again, he represents a move upward for her.

It wasn't an extra scene, was it? I don't think it was... so we were meant to have seen it. Sigh. Is it too late to ask Mark Hildreth what that scene was all about?

Yeah, the interview was posted yesterday!

Well, I'll give Jacqueline a little more credit than that and say that she DOES know what she wants - heck, even I know what I want in a future boyfriend, and what I like when it comes to men. It's not about what she needs, it's about her own tastes in men - of course we can be blind to what we need, but here she is telling d'Artagnan what she prefers in men - and come to think of it, oftentimes what we want coincides with what we need. You say that she needs someone to lighten her up - that's your opinion, but how does anyone but God know what other people need. That's what you want for her to need, but I believe that Jacqueline knows exactly what she wants and needs in life - she's mature enough to have figured it out by now.

See, I think that she is pretty innocent…isolated out there on that farm for her whole life. How many people do you think she had met before moving to Paris? And, in any case, how MATURE do you think she is? You DO realize that, in spite of the fact that they are played by actors nearly 30 years old, that they are actually written to be around 15 – 20 years old, right? (again, we are expected to suspend reality a little bit…happens a lot with tv and actors’ ages.) She was only JUST an “old maid”…her father’s complaint that she needed gentler hobbies so that they could find her a husband implies that there is still some hope that she could marry, but she’s pretty much past her prime. In the 17th century, that was about 15. And privates in the army would have been in their teens. One would have graduated from university at about 15 or 16. You have to apply the ages of the time. PLUS a woman wasn’t really given much space to know her own mind or preferences in men. Fathers did that. Fathers chose the spouses in most cases. In that, already, we know that Jacqueline is very unique. She probably DOES know her own mind, to a point, but to what extent has she really been allowed to explore it?

I maintain that in the forest, being dragged away by the Dark Knights, Siroc wasn’t looking at Jacques at all, but at the three prisoners, here. He WAS looking in Jacqueline’s direction when he said it, but all three of them were in the same place, so…I just don’t see that.

And, okay, caring…I say, caring as a friend of Jacques’ and an acquaintance of Mireille and her father’s.


The point here being that he had to watch in the first place, instead of rescuing them right away and teasing the heck out of her later - but that goes under YB humor, and it is a TV show so we can guess that even though she's in trouble and he stops to have fun at her expense, we still know it'll all be all right in the end.

And, yes…D’Artagnan left them for a moment, a moment, I might add, that was not terribly tense, and for all we, the viewers know, it was important for that moment to pass so that the Dark Knight guarding them would be off his guard when they did strike…but, yeah…that was mostly just for humor’s sake as entertainment.

Again, we'll agree to disagree. For me, it's the actions I'm interested in, not his words, since we all know what speaks louder.

I don’t see any “action”…the three who were still standing picked him up, he sort of groggily got up with them, arms over BOTH Jacqueline and D’Artagnan, and he sort of glances over in front of where Jacques is standing, but not at her. Nothing there. Surely you realize that you are up against the odds with the whole thing…the show was WRITTEN to put Jacques and D’Artagnan together. It’s introduced that way in the first scene of the first episode…the very mention of his name before meeting him…the way she reacts when she DOES meet him…the spark and fire. It’s all so obvious that any deviation from that is sort of bucking the tide; swimming upstream, you know? Not that it couldn’t have been changed if the producers had decided that the chemistry was better, but I’m saying that it was written as it was, and anything else is purely imagination. Not bad. Just not THERE .

[RK9]

Actually, if you check, the musketeers are standing on one end of the plaza, and Mireille is under an overhang, across the plaza from where they are standing. She can’t hear his voice. She looks up, and SEES him there, THEN goes after him to find out about his transfer. And, yeah. I’m pretty sure that she is “besotted”, but not so much with D’Artagnan…she is of marriageable age, and wants to make a good match for herself…again, he represents a move upward for her.

I don't think so - I think she's just that type of stereotypical girl who falls easily and hard for any handsome man. If she were interested in moving up in the world, she wouldn't be falling for "cheese-mongers and bakers", like her father mentioned about her previous crushes. I bet if she met a vegetable seller like her father who was handsome and a gentleman like d'Artagnan, she'd fall for him and want to marry him too - now, there's a girl who needs growing up, and if you tell me she's supposed to only be 15-17 I'd believe it.

And I did check. The musketeers are outside the door, and she is inside the wash-house - not across the plaza, not all that far away. Maybe not a few feet - I can't measure by feet, we use meters here and I suck even at those - but near enough to see d'Art even if she couldn't hear him. But that's a minor matter, so... hey, whatever! LOL.

See, I think that she is pretty innocent…isolated out there on that farm for her whole life. How many people do you think she had met before moving to Paris? And, in any case, how MATURE do you think she is? You DO realize that, in spite of the fact that they are played by actors nearly 30 years old, that they are actually written to be around 15 – 20 years old, right? (again, we are expected to suspend reality a little bit…happens a lot with tv and actors’ ages.) She was only JUST an “old maid”…her father’s complaint that she needed gentler hobbies so that they could find her a husband implies that there is still some hope that she could marry, but she’s pretty much past her prime. In the 17th century, that was about 15. And privates in the army would have been in their teens. One would have graduated from university at about 15 or 16. You have to apply the ages of the time. PLUS a woman wasn’t really given much space to know her own mind or preferences in men. Fathers did that. Fathers chose the spouses in most cases. In that, already, we know that Jacqueline is very unique. She probably DOES know her own mind, to a point, but to what extent has she really been allowed to explore it?

Okay, I have several problems with all that. For one thing, age has nothing to do with a person's maturity. I know people who are younger than me, but they are much more mature than I am. Jacqueline might be young, but that doesn't mean she's all innocent and immature - so she grew up on a farm, was probably even isolated. That just means she's a little naive about the ways of the world, that she isn't street-smart - considering her dreams of being a musketeer and the way she acts in the pilot when she's still a green new recruit, I agree with that part of her characterization. It doesn't mean she doesn't know what she wants in a man! And it doesn't matter that in those days women weren't given much leeway as to what they wanted in men - do you think she wouldn't have dreamed about the person she wants to be her "Prince Charming" someday? All girls have dreams - I bet even in those days, no matter what, no one could stop little girls from dreaming about the kind of man they wanted to sweep them off their feet some day, the person they want to spend the rest of their life with together. Not even society and its restrictions could have stopped Jacqueline's dreams. They might have tempered them with reality as she grew, but I doubt they stopped her from knowing exactly what kind of man she wanted to end up with.

As for the fact that she was probably around 15-17 - I doubt it. I would say she and the other three are all around the same age, since they all get along so well - none of them tease her, or call her 'kid', or treat her like she's supposed to be a younger boy - no, they treat her like an equal, and she's even promoted from a cadet (in the pilot, since I doubt she can just join into a ranked position) to a private in a later episode (the captain refers to her as "Private Leponte"), so she's even the same rank as the others. And trust me, since Ramon and Siroc were supposed to be thinking that she's a "man", if they'd thought she was a boy of fifteen, they would have teased her and ribbed her - it's what guys do. In fact, I'd bet there was some initial ragging in between episodes, even if we didn't see it onscreen, if not from the other three then from the other musketeers in the garrison.

Also, according to Zak, in the original character overview, Ramon was 28 years old at the start of the series, so I'd put Jacqueline at at least 20-25 years of age. Definitely not as young as 15, and definitely old enough to have some confirmed thoughts about her future by then. I'd say that following Zak's info about Ramon's age (and the fact that someone here once mentioned that musketeers had to be at least 23-25 years of age to enlist or something) - she's closer to 23-25 years old. I guess the people who produced this show didn't have access to the information you had on France's history and the ways of that era, so I can safely say that canon-wise, Jacqueline is much older than 15-17 - she's not a teen growing into maturity, she is an ADULT young woman, pretending to be a man. From episodes like The Exile, I feel that my speculations about her age are pretty accurate, too, because she doesn't react to Charles as a teen, though some of her reactions are a bit off and a little awkward/innocent at times.

And as to her father choosing her a spouse - that was not the feeling I got about Claude Roget. I'd say he loved his daughter, and while he wanted her married, he did respect her wishes and was allowing her to choose her own husband. Or else why bother to chide her for still being unmarried? He'd have just said, "I've found you a good man. You'll be getting married to him as soon as we can get the wedding planned," and that would have settled it.

I maintain that in the forest, being dragged away by the Dark Knights, Siroc wasn’t looking at Jacques at all, but at the three prisoners, here. He WAS looking in Jacqueline’s direction when he said it, but all three of them were in the same place, so…I just don’t see that.

And, okay, caring…I say, caring as a friend of Jacques’ and an acquaintance of Mireille and her father’s.

Yeah, if you go back you'll see I was saying that too. I made comments both as a shipper and a non-shipper, to be fair to canon and the ship I support.

I know you don't see it, but it's what I see, so please respect that. I'm not expecting you to see what I see, just to respect that I see it. I do respect the canon ship and that it exists, even if I prefer Siroc/Jacqueline - they can be friends, you know, so it isn't completely unbelievable that Siroc would have been looking at Jacqueline.

Ships don't have to be canon for people to support them, as long as we the shippers see evidence for our ships - some ships even exist as alternate universe things because there's no evidence whatsoever for them in the shows or books. It's up to the shippers perogative (sp?) which ship we want to support, and it's just netiquette for people to respect that others might prefer something that isn't canon. I made those comments as a shipper and non-shipper to show that I do know the S/J ship isn't canon (though who's to say it might not have become canon, if the show had gone on to season 2?), but that different scenes can still be interpreted in several different ways, such as how I did as an S/J shipper. If there were any Ramon/Jacqueline shippers (step out of the closet, you guys!), you can bet they'd read more into certain scenes than we do as well.

I don’t see any “action”…the three who were still standing picked him up, he sort of groggily got up with them, arms over BOTH Jacqueline and D’Artagnan, and he sort of glances over in front of where Jacques is standing, but not at her. Nothing there.

Yeah, I know, but again I don't expect you to see what I see... I'm just saying what I see, I'm not asking you to see the same. I was referring to Siroc's actions, which means the way he was acting, the subtle actions of his natural body language that tell me more about what he's feeling that thinking than the words alone ever will. I can read more into that scene because I support S/J - Siroc was saying that to all of them, but from his body language, I submit that it's entirely possible that he was also saying something more when he looked at Jacqueline after saying it. As an S/J shipper, it makes me go squee, and proves that there's hope for the ship I love - it's more than a figment of my imagination, there's proof too if you choose to see it as such.

Surely you realize that you are up against the odds with the whole thing…the show was WRITTEN to put Jacques and D’Artagnan together. It’s introduced that way in the first scene of the first episode…the very mention of his name before meeting him…the way she reacts when she DOES meet him…the spark and fire. It’s all so obvious that any deviation from that is sort of bucking the tide; swimming upstream, you know? Not that it couldn’t have been changed if the producers had decided that the chemistry was better, but I’m saying that it was written as it was, and anything else is purely imagination. Not bad. Just not THERE .

I do realize that canon points a lot more to d'Art ending up with Jacqueline, but just because it does doesn't mean that I HAVE to like/agree with/support that ship. I agree that the writer's probably meant for d'Artagnan to end up with Jacqueline, but the most conclusive evidence we have to that end is the last episode when they ride off together - it doesn't say they actually do end up married to each other with 2.5 kids in a house with a white picket fence. Had the show gone on to season 2 and actually showed evidence to that regard... I can't honestly say I'd support d'Artagnan/Jacqueline even then, because the writers would have to give me a very good reason through the episodes to drop my love for what I feel is a better ship.
And to say that the show was WRITTEN to put them together - no, it was written to tell us the story of d'Artagnan's son and his three friends, of Duval and Louis and the Queen. Though it might have been written with d'Art/Jacqueline in mind, there was never any conclusive evidence given to that end... just lots of juicy hints, but always, a freedom to interpret differently, thought scenes between Jacqueline, d'Artagnan, and the other characters as well.

To me, the so-called evidence for d'Art/Jac can easily be interpreted as something else, too. The writers dropped lots of lovely hints, but that's not to say that Siroc/Jacqueline moments were completely non-existent either! They made every effort to hint at D/J but without ever making definite statement towards it - and that opened the doors of possibility for other ships to exist, among them Siroc/Jacqueline.

You sound like you're trying to convince me that Siroc/Jacqueline is completely wrong and out there and impossible, but you still do have to respect that it's a relationship that I love and enjoy, and that I WANT to see, because it isn't as implausible to me as it is to you. I don't like the D/J ship at all, really - friendship, maybe, but for Jacqueline to end up with d'Artagnan is something that I doubt she really wants, from the hints about her that we get from the episodes, and so I can't believe in it or want it the way I do Siroc/Jacqueline. To me, that's more realistic and plausible than D/J will ever be.

Take this for instance: Sara Sidle was written into CSI as a potential love interest for Gil Grissom, but I never once supported that ship - I was more of a Greg/Sara and Grissom/Catherine fan. For many seasons, I enjoyed the show, because while canon hinted at Grissom/Sara, there were also many other hints to Nick/Sara, Warrick/Sara, Grissom/Catherine and other such ships that probably even I can't see. GSR (Grissom/Sara) shippers dismiss such scenes as friendship/team bonding scenes or completely natural reactions between friends and co-workers, but those who support those other ships see more. Do you see what I'm saying? For every show, there are bound to be many different ships. Some will be canon, some won't be, some won't even have any evidence whatsoever in the show/book at all, but it's still the shipper's perogative as to what ship they believe in and support and prefer. So, just because I support Siroc/Jacqueline and it doesn't SEEM canon, doesn't mean that the ship itself is completely impossible. I don't expect you or other people to support S/J along with me, but I do expect you to respect the possibility that another ship other than D/J might exist, and that others might prefer it better. That's basic, unspoken netiquette - one I learned the hard way myself a few years back. Discussing ships is always touchy - some shippers are very fierce when it comes to defending their ships, and can get nasty when others bash it or the possibility of such a ship existing at all - but what needs to be done is for both parties to air their views neutrally on certain scenes, without bashing the scene for other ships, just stating what they see and believe without attacking other ships or saying that other ships couldn't possibly exist one way or the other just because a show was "written" for a certain ship. That way, it's all neutral and unbiased, and others can make their own decisions about the same scene without worrying about getting caught up in shipping wars.

Sorry, I'm not offended or being angry or trying to attack you. I'm just responding to your final paragraph, in which you say that it's completely imagination and not bad, just not THERE, and other such comments - just pointing out that it's not very nice to say such a thing, because just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there, that it isn't at all possible. No one can say a ship is or isn't there for other people, so we respect their ships, even those that seem completely implausible to us - like for CSI: NY, saying that Mac would get together with, say, Jessica Angell, when he hasn't shown any hints towards it in the show except for the proper respect for a co-worker that he works with often. Totally out there, even to me - but some might see something that we missed. A shared glance that seems completely natural and platonic, but could be read into more? A brush of shoulders as they pass each other in the hallway that could be more than just an accident? Who knows? I myself have never seen such things (all just examples), but I'm not going to say it's completely impossible. There are few things that are truly impossible in life - improbable, yes, impossible? Who can say? Back in YB's time, after all, people would have said it's impossible that man could fly. Today, we have the Concorde. Nothing is impossible.

*here ends the tangent*

Sorry, but like I said - discussion of ships needs to be done properly, with the proper respect shown from both parties. Statements like those in your last paragraph are rather challenging, and you need to excuse me, but of course I as a shipper would get rather ...challenged by it.

For the record, I don't have a problem with D/J friendship, but I prefer S/J as my ship for this fandom.

And I still think this was a terrific episode, and even non-shippers have to admit that there were hints towards S/J here, even if only friendship-wise for those non-S/J shippers. I know I admit it might not be anything more than just friendship, but I also know I love to think it might be something more than just that... *sighs* S/J goodness...

I'm going to be away at a Christian camp from the 13th to the 18th, so any further responses on my part will have to wait until I get back and can use my computer. I'll see y'all when I get back, probably will jump in on the discussion for Secrets of the Father which would have started by then.

*raises glass in toast* sue, if I don't make it back in time, I fully expect you to start that episode's discussion and get it rolling. Don't hold back, that's a lovely d'Art episode, even if it's not my favorite... And I would hope there are no hard feelings after that little tirade of mine. *extends pinky* Friends?

[sue]

Okay...just gonna say... I asked you to tell me what you saw. You have done that (I notice none of the other J/S ers have shown up, and I actually kinda like the idea of Ramón and Jacqueline, too, but then, that sort of starts making things a bit too...too, if you know what I mean.

I STILL can't see anything INSIDE the show...I'll keep my eyes open in future eps...

And using CSI as an example just DOES not work, since I won't watch ANY of the shows...too gruesome! I tried! I just can't take all that reality and blood and splatter and....my husband watches it. I get to hear enough!

I DO see some good stories that people have written about J/S pairings, and I can even take the way some of them are presented, but we'll just have to drink to differences...Maybe the fact that my husband is dark-haired, and all has something to do with it...

And, yeah, already started on next week!

This is fun!

Hope I haven't offended anyone...I just had to know where all that came from...still don't but I have a better idea. I guess.

[sue]

I just thought of something...it's a continuity problem. In the opening scene, D'Artagnan mentions that when he first met Mireille, which we assume to have been before Jacqueline joined the corps, they "had coffee together". But he wasn't introduced to coffee until the first episode. Hmmmm.

[thedaringhattrick]

On the note of shipping, I'd like to point out one thing: people see what they want to see. Certain characters strike a chord within some individuals, while others make a less than suitable impression. Naturally, you're going to want to pair off characters that you see fit for one another, regardless of what designs the series creators have in mind.

However, where certain ships are concerned, the 'evidence' that is gathered in support is fairly arbitrary and dependent on the individual who sees it. I, for one, don't need to hunt and peck for any one piece of evidence that demonstrates that Siroc and Jacqueline are friends. It's there bright as day, and it doesn't need to be pointed out and dissected from the handful of 'moments' the two spend together. Of course you're going to show concern for a friend, and in a deeply religious culture, of course you're going to request prayer and support from your friends. There doesn't have to be any underlining motive; a man and a woman are entirely capable of being friends without harbouring any secret romantic feelings for one another.

D/J supporters have the advantage here. It's impossible to watch an episode without the obviousness of that pairing clunking you right over your head. For someone who doesn't enjoy the d'Artagnan character but admires Jacqueline, that's going to get rather annoying because their dynamic is written that way. Furthermore, on account of being a woman disguised as a man without anyone knowing her secret other than d'Artagnan, somehow a romantic relationship with either of the other characters simply does not compute. Certainly, you can argue that Siroc might know the truth, but that's just speculation--thus far in the canon, we haven't seen anything that would suggest otherwise. Where canon is concerned, and based on looking at this whole shipping thing empirically, certain pairings are just not there .

But we're just discussing canon here and that's only one side of the fandom equation. If we were to delve into the wonderful world of viewer imagination, frankly, anything is possible. If I were to cross over to the other camp, in the interest of fanfiction and personal pairing preference, however, I definitely could dig up some evidence pointing to alternative pairings...

Heck, if I squinted hard enough, I could probably find suitable groundwork to put Louis/Jacqueline together... and totally negate this whole nonsense D/J thing

But you see what I mean. What pairing you support is entirely subjective and your imagination is entirely capable of weaving in around the canon-related obstacles to color in your interest. It's all in what camp you put things in: hard evidence versus creative sub-text.

At the end of the day, however, it's all in our heads.

[jeantre16]

Whoa! That red is ... RED! It's hard on the eyes. Looks like I have some catching up to do.