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The Scarlet Pimpernel
World
The world is Earth, particularly France and England, at the end of the 18th century (1790's).
Percy Blakeney, an Englishman known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel to all except his loyal followers, rescues aristocrats and unfortunate innocents from the jaws of Madame Guillotine during the height of the Terror in revolutionary France in a series of novels by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. Armand St. Just is his young brother-in-law, since Percy married Marguerite St. Just, a famous actress, in 1791.
References (with additional explanation for 4th Wall questions):
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Wikipedia)
The Scarlet Pimpernel was first a stage play that opened in 1903 with the novel following shortly afterwards.
1903 (play) starring Fred Terry (Orczy's definitive Sir Percy actor)
1905 (novel) html | text | Libri Vox (audio)
1913 Eldorado (novel) text | Libri Vox (audio)
1917 (silent movie) starring Dustin Farnum as Sir Percy with Jack Nelson as Armand
1934 (movie) starring Leslie Howard as Sir Percy with Walter Rilla as Armand
1982 (TV movie) starring Anthony Andrews as Sir Percy with Malcolm Jamieson as Armand
1997 (musical) starring Douglas Sills as Sir Percy with Giles Chiasson as Armand
1999 (TV series) starring Richard E. Grant as Sir Percy with Pascal Langadale as Armand (in first episode only)
There are other films (and books) about the Scarlet Pimpernel, but they did not include Armand. If anyone wants to know more, most of this is from IMDb or Wikipedia. The 1982 movie probably the most recognizable since it also starred Jane Seymour and Sir Ian McKellen.
Baroness Orczy (Wikipedia) | Project Gutenberg
Blakeney Manor - a website devoted to Pimpernel fandom (fairly extensive if a bit snobby)
There are references to the Scarlet Pimpenel or the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel in other media and stories. The only big ones that come to my mind at the moment are Daffy Duck's The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Blackadder the Third's "Nob and Nobility" and the Blakeneys are included in a portrait in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I believe. And even though Wikipedia won't let people say it, the Pimpernel was the forerunner to all the secret-identity type superheroes. Zorro was blatantly the same story transferred to Spanish colonial California, and Bruce Wayne/Batman as a rich man righting wrongs are the most obvious.
The original book is often assigned as high school reading. Probably only a real bibliophile, someone who lived through the era they were originally published, or a hardcore fan will have read Eldorado. If your character encounted it during school, then they would likely know very little about Armand, and would mistakenly expect him to be nearly a decade older than he is. Certainly, only his name would ring a faint bell of recognition. A few from the later 20th century and beyond may also know the musical, which bore little resemblance to the main plot, but featured Armand as a young, naive member of the League whose arrest spurs Marguerite into spying for Chauvelin, etc.
As for appearances, Armand does look remarkably like Malcolm Jamieson (as I chose him for the icons), except for a few obvious differences -- I think he's shorter by an inch or so (can't find Jamieson's actual height but he's not that much shorter than Anthony Andrews), much younger, has blue-gray eyes not dark, and does have the scar on his forehead that he earned late in Eldorado, which Jamieson does not, even later in the film because the crisis is resolved differently. Jamieson is not a famous enough actor for it to be likely Armand would be mistaken for him or any of the other characters he's played.
Culture
By 1794, the French Revolution was in full swing. The French gloried in it, feared it, and those that could partied hardy. Theaters seldom closed. The various revolutionary governments ran into debt. France's wars with Austria and eventually England were costly, fueling the drive to execute more and more aristocrats to confiscate their estates to fund the government. Men with brilliant insight grew greedy. Ideals lost their luster. The revolutionary leaders started squabbling amongst themselves with camp after camp going to the guillotine alongside the artistocrats. The Girondists and the Montagnards were already gone. Soon the Jacobins, the very heart of the infamous ruling Committee for Public Safety, would go too.
Survival in France was nearly animalistic in its day to day desperation. Exiles to England were luckier, but refugees in a country where their language and culture was despised, even among the aristocracy, found it little eaiser without sponsorship from a noteworthy English patron. At least they were allowed to keep their heads.
References:
The French Revolution (Wikipedia)
Powers
N/A
The world is Earth, particularly France and England, at the end of the 18th century (1790's).
Percy Blakeney, an Englishman known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel to all except his loyal followers, rescues aristocrats and unfortunate innocents from the jaws of Madame Guillotine during the height of the Terror in revolutionary France in a series of novels by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. Armand St. Just is his young brother-in-law, since Percy married Marguerite St. Just, a famous actress, in 1791.
References (with additional explanation for 4th Wall questions):
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Wikipedia)
The Scarlet Pimpernel was first a stage play that opened in 1903 with the novel following shortly afterwards.
1903 (play) starring Fred Terry (Orczy's definitive Sir Percy actor)
1905 (novel) html | text | Libri Vox (audio)
1913 Eldorado (novel) text | Libri Vox (audio)
1917 (silent movie) starring Dustin Farnum as Sir Percy with Jack Nelson as Armand
1934 (movie) starring Leslie Howard as Sir Percy with Walter Rilla as Armand
1982 (TV movie) starring Anthony Andrews as Sir Percy with Malcolm Jamieson as Armand
1997 (musical) starring Douglas Sills as Sir Percy with Giles Chiasson as Armand
1999 (TV series) starring Richard E. Grant as Sir Percy with Pascal Langadale as Armand (in first episode only)
There are other films (and books) about the Scarlet Pimpernel, but they did not include Armand. If anyone wants to know more, most of this is from IMDb or Wikipedia. The 1982 movie probably the most recognizable since it also starred Jane Seymour and Sir Ian McKellen.
Baroness Orczy (Wikipedia) | Project Gutenberg
Blakeney Manor - a website devoted to Pimpernel fandom (fairly extensive if a bit snobby)
There are references to the Scarlet Pimpenel or the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel in other media and stories. The only big ones that come to my mind at the moment are Daffy Duck's The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Blackadder the Third's "Nob and Nobility" and the Blakeneys are included in a portrait in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I believe. And even though Wikipedia won't let people say it, the Pimpernel was the forerunner to all the secret-identity type superheroes. Zorro was blatantly the same story transferred to Spanish colonial California, and Bruce Wayne/Batman as a rich man righting wrongs are the most obvious.
The original book is often assigned as high school reading. Probably only a real bibliophile, someone who lived through the era they were originally published, or a hardcore fan will have read Eldorado. If your character encounted it during school, then they would likely know very little about Armand, and would mistakenly expect him to be nearly a decade older than he is. Certainly, only his name would ring a faint bell of recognition. A few from the later 20th century and beyond may also know the musical, which bore little resemblance to the main plot, but featured Armand as a young, naive member of the League whose arrest spurs Marguerite into spying for Chauvelin, etc.
As for appearances, Armand does look remarkably like Malcolm Jamieson (as I chose him for the icons), except for a few obvious differences -- I think he's shorter by an inch or so (can't find Jamieson's actual height but he's not that much shorter than Anthony Andrews), much younger, has blue-gray eyes not dark, and does have the scar on his forehead that he earned late in Eldorado, which Jamieson does not, even later in the film because the crisis is resolved differently. Jamieson is not a famous enough actor for it to be likely Armand would be mistaken for him or any of the other characters he's played.
Culture
By 1794, the French Revolution was in full swing. The French gloried in it, feared it, and those that could partied hardy. Theaters seldom closed. The various revolutionary governments ran into debt. France's wars with Austria and eventually England were costly, fueling the drive to execute more and more aristocrats to confiscate their estates to fund the government. Men with brilliant insight grew greedy. Ideals lost their luster. The revolutionary leaders started squabbling amongst themselves with camp after camp going to the guillotine alongside the artistocrats. The Girondists and the Montagnards were already gone. Soon the Jacobins, the very heart of the infamous ruling Committee for Public Safety, would go too.
Survival in France was nearly animalistic in its day to day desperation. Exiles to England were luckier, but refugees in a country where their language and culture was despised, even among the aristocracy, found it little eaiser without sponsorship from a noteworthy English patron. At least they were allowed to keep their heads.
References:
The French Revolution (Wikipedia)
Powers
N/A
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Latest page update: made by ReynardBleu
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