History Literature / TheThreeMusketeers

* BoisterousBruiser: Porthos, more and moreso as the books go on. Makes sense, since his strength grows too. His boisterousness bites him in the ass once, when his temper allows a cardinal's agent to lure him into duel and Porthos [[CurbStompBattle gets run thorough with a sword before he can react]]. In his next fight he is much more careful and collected.

For a list of works based off or inspired by ''The Three Musketeers'' and its sequels, see [[DerivativeWorks/TheThreeMusketeers here]].

** [[spoiler: That said, from a certain perspective, it's still a BittersweetEnding of sorts. Namely, Porthos dies honorably for Aramis while Athos gets to reunite with his son in the afterlife. Likewise, D'Artagnan meets with Aramis one last time and successfully achieved his goal in life despite all odds, gladly departing to heaven soon after.]]

** [[spoiler: That said, from a certain perspective, it's still a BittersweetEnding of sorts. Namely, Porthos dies honorably while Athos gets to reunite with his son in the afterlife. Likewise, D'Artagnan meets with Aramis one last time and successfully achieved his goal in life despite all odds, gladly departing to heaven soon after.]]

** Aramis in the final book (''The Man in the Iron Mask''), in which, ''not'' to be confused with the film, he alone (with Porthos tricked into it as {{dumb muscle}}) initiates the plot to [[spoiler:replace the King with his long-imprisoned twin brother]]--which is actually [[spoiler:foiled with D'Artagnan's assistance, although Fouquet takes the major credit and thus postpones his downfall by a few days]]. The point being that [[spoiler:it turns out the kingdom is best served by having the original Louis as king, Colbert as finance minister, and D'Artagnan in charge of the army, than it ever would have been served by his brother who, knowing nothing about the state of affairs but what Aramis told him, would have had to rely completely on Aramis and leave the likeable but corrupt Fouquet to embezzle and squander what was left of the treasury, and that D'Artagnan's loyalty to Louis ends up being the '''''right''''' choice, and Aramis's plot therefore makes him a traitor and a true Face Heel Turn since he betrays not only his King but also the whole Musketeers group by an act that he knew neither D'Artagnan nor Athos could be persuaded into, and Porthos only by trickery.]] And the irony being that [[spoiler:Fouquet plays a major role in saving Louis even though he knows Louis is working for his downfall, and it was in his interest to cooperate with the substitution: and Louis's first act after being saved is to dispose of Fouquet in favour of Colbert]].
** Part of the point of the book is that some of the older generation (like Athos) believe that a nobleman's duty is to [[MyMasterRightOrWrong serve the king no matter what]] (although he does add an escape clause in telling Raoul to serve royalty and not the king). [[spoiler:Aramis' actions violate this principle (and he manipulates Porthos into doing the same); d'Artagnan isn't sure what to think about this but ultimately lands on the side of the King]].
* FakeKing: One of the plots in ''The Man in the Iron Mask''. The king is replaced by his twin Louis.

** [[spoiler: That said, from a certain perspective, it's still a BittersweetEnding of sorts. Namely, Porthos dies as his faithful self while Athos gets to reunite with his son in the afterlife. Likewise, D'Artagnan reunites with Aramis one last time and successfully achieved his goals despite all odds, gladly departing to heaven soon after.]]

* BittersweetEnding: The final book, ''The Vicomte of Bragelonne'', has a pretty[[DownerEnding crapsack ending]]. [[spoiler:Aramis breaks up the fellowship for good, his plan backfires spectacularly and gets Porthos killed and him exiled with guilt, Raoul loses his girlfriend and his will to live, Athos dies shortly after he hears of Raoul's death, and D'Artagnan finally receives that promotion he's been awaiting for decades... which arrives shortly before he dies from a cannonball.]]

* BittersweetEnding: The final book, ''The Vicomte of Bragelonne'', has an outright [[DownerEnding crapsack ending]]. [[spoiler:Aramis breaks up the fellowship for good, his plan backfires spectacularly and gets Porthos killed and him exiled, Raoul loses his girlfriend and his will to live, Athos dies shortly after he hears of Raoul's death, and D'Artagnan finally receives that promotion he's been awaiting for decades... which arrives shortly before he dies of his wounds.]]

* GoldDigger: Milady probably qualifies, as she came from a much lower background than Athos (a rich Count) and deliberately kept her shady past from him in order to ensnare him into marriage. Porthos, meanwhile, is a rare male example. His M.O. consists of romancing and eventually marrying rich, elderly widows (or, well, the first one wasn't even widowed when he started romancing her). Whether it pays off is debatable. He does end up very rich, but his neighbours don't respect him, his wives are all way past child-bearing age so they cannot give him heirs, and since they die well before him he's also bereft of their company. Not that he seemed to particularly care about that last aspect. [[HoYay In fact, none of the Musketeers except maybe Aramis seem to find any spiritual or emotional fulfilment in their relationships with women.]

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: UsefulNotes/LouisXIII, his wife Anne of Austria, his minister Cardinal Richelieu; UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, his mistress Louise de La Vallière, his ministers UsefulNotes/CardinalMazarin and Jean-Baptiste Colbert; the English monarch UsefulNotes/CharlesI of UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart, his wife Henrietta Marie, his Parliamentary opponent UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell; and even The Man In The Iron Mask, who ''was'' an actual person, though very little is known of him. That's why he has been such a popular figure in fiction.

%% * InnocentBlueEyes: Athos has "azure" eyes, presumably as a symbol of his pureness.

The book has been [[AdaptationOverdosed adapted many times, in many countries and in virtually every medium]]. It has two sequels, which are much less well known: ''Twenty Years After'' (1845) and ''The Vicomte of Bragelonne'' (serialized 1847–1850). The latter is so massive that it's often divided into three, four or five volumes. Some parts of one particular subplot in the second sequel, related to [[spoiler:the imprisoned twin brother of UsefulNotes/LouisXIV]] (the famous ManInTheIronMask), have also inspired several films.

* IntergenerationalFriendship: At the beginning of the story, D'Artagnan is 19 and Athos is said to be twice his age. The age gap is explicitly noted in-universe, as well as the father/mentor role played by Athos.

* LikeASonToMe: Athos sometimes calls D'Artagnan "my son" in moments of great affection, even after he has a real son.

For a list of works based off or inspired by ''The Three Musketeers'' and its sequels, see [[Franchise/TheThreeMusketeers here]].

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: ''Twenty Years After'' stops just short of making Charles I TheMessiah mk. II, both because it fits the ideals of the protagonists (such as seeing themselves as the last bastions of chivalry, defending royalty against a commoner uprising) and because it makes Mordaunt that much more of an AssholeVictim (not only did he give Cromwell the idea of bribing the last of the king's loyal soldiers, he volunteered to be his executioner, all because the king had denied him his inheritance and title).

* GoldDigger: Milady probably qualifies, as she came from a much lower background than Athos (a rich Count) and deliberately kept her shady past from him in order to ensnare him into marriage. Porthos, meanwhile, is a rare male example. His M.O. consists of romancing and eventually marrying rich, elderly widows (or, well, the first one wasn't even widowed when he started romancing her). Whether it pays off is debatable. He does end up very rich, but his neighbours don't respect him, his wives are all way past child-bearing age so they cannot give him heirs, and since they die well before him he's also bereft of their company. Not that he seemed to particularly care about that last aspect. [[HoYay] In fact, none of the Musketeers except maybe Aramis seem to find any spiritual or emotional fulfilment in their relationships with women.]

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Mordaunt. His killing spree is in no small part dedicated to his dead mother. When he is finally given a choice of a) being saved from drowning by Athos or b) drowning and trying to take Athos with him, he choses option b). His last words are an apology to his mother for being able to give her the death of only one of the Musketeers, thought at least he gets to pick the one she hated the most.

* GoldDigger: Milady probably qualifies, as she came from a much lower background than Athos (a rich Count) and deliberately kept her shady past from him in order to ensnare him into marriage. Porthos, meanwhile, is a rare male example. His M.O. consists of romancing and eventually marrying rich, elderly widows (yes, he does that more than once). Whether it pays off is debatable. He does end up very rich, but his neighbours don't respect him, his wives are all way past child-bearing age so they cannot give him heirs, and since they die well before him he's also bereft of their company. Not that he seemed to particularly care about that last aspect. [[HoYay]In fact, none of the Musketeers except maybe Aramis seem to find any spiritual or emotional fulfilment in their relationships with women.]

* HiddenBadass: Aramis, now a priest, recounts to D'Artagnan how a member of his congregation tried to pick a quarrel with him over his choice of sermon, believing Aramis to be a priest just like other priests (as opposed to be a former elite soldier). It didn't end well for the adversary.

** At the same time, Athos may count as an Inversion. In the first book, he was perfectly happy to duel (and kill!) people he didn't even know. He challenged D'Artagnan to a duel merely for bumping into him and deliberately murdered one of Lord Winter's friends for knowing his true name. Which Athos had deliberately told him! And even though the guy wasn't French and was therefore unlikely to tell anyone who cared. Meanwhile, in the sequel, he rides into battle with his sword sheated and his pistols holstered, and looks sadly at all the slaughter. He also refuses to kill Mordaunt, to stand by and let anyone else kill Mordaunt, or to even stand by and watch Mordaunt get HoistByHisOwnPetard. This despite Mordaunt having already committed several heinous crimes, and having made it perfectly clear that he won't stop until Athos and all his friends are dead.

* YouFightLikeACow: Several characters, the most serious offender being Porthos. He quips so much that it's actually part of his combat technique. In the first sword fight from the book the duel between d'Artagnan and all three of the musketeers, that got interrupted by the cardinal's guards, Porthos gets stuck fighting two adversaries at once and he finishes first because he keeps tormenting them with questions about the time, what they thought of this and that social event at court, corrections about their fighting styles, etc. He of course is not the only offender, all of the characters engaging in this behavior from time to time.

- What? That’s not true at all! Aramis (not Porthos) is the one who gets stuck with two adversaries, and by the time D’Artagnan finishes with his (one) adversary, he notes that Aramis has already killed one of his two adversaries and is holding up well against the other. Porthos, meanwhile, finishes last. The narration even notes that while Porthos keeps running his mouth, he makes little to no headway against his stubborn adversary (who is eventually persuaded to surrender by his already-wounded commanding officer after everyone else has finished their duels).