History YMMV / TheThreeMusketeers

* MagnificentBastard: Richelieu, in spite of opposing the heroes through most of the book and being quite a ruthless bastard, ultimately comes across as strangely likable to both d'Artagnan and the readers. By the end of the book, their mutual respect is so great that Richelieu gives d'Artagnan a promotion. In later books, the Musketeers look back fondly on Richelieu as a worthy adversary with some measure of greatness. Probably inherited from the [[RealLife original]]. In the second book, Athos and D'Artagnan both mildly concede that they may have been on the wrong side, considering how badly Louis fared. Mazarin thinks he's this, but his greed and miserliness holds him back.
** The point could be made that Richelieu never saw them as actual enemies, and saw them more as "Those damnable kids" since when he *does* think on them, he wishes he could win them to his side, rather then killing them outright. He merely wants to rule France through the king as his puppet, and seems to admire their boldness, even if it does stymy his plans. He even takes them as his guards in the dark of night, when they were all on the field of battle against a city full of Puritan dissenters.
** You have to hand it to Milady as well - locked in a small room and guarded by someone specifically chosen as loyal and impossible to seduce, she [[spoiler: turns him into her very means of escape ''and'' of assassinating the Duke of Buckingham.]]

* CompleteMonster: The mysterious, murderous [[FemmeFatale Milady de Winter]] is one of the top agents of the isionary Cardinal Richelieu in his campaign to strengthen France and free it of foreign influence, but shares none of her employer's lofty ideals. Instead, she uses her position, resources, and quasi-supernatural beauty and charisma to indulge her limitless appetites for money, power, and indiscriminate, disproportionate revenge on anyone who gets on her bad side. Ever since [[FromNobodyToNightmare her humble origins]] as a [[NunTooHoly larcenous nun]], she's targeted and seduced any sufficiently-useful man she comes across, destroying those who reject her and either killing or abandoning anyone unlucky enough to become her thrall as soon as they're no longer valuable. Her steadily-escalating battle with d'Artagnan brings out all her worst excesses, as she first tries to enlist him to kill her brother-in-law for his inheritance and a young noble for apparently turning her advances down, then, after he humiliates her, repeatedly attempts to kill him with zero regard for collateral damage, endangering and killing several innocents along the way, and finally murders his LoveInterest as RevengeByProxy whilst pretending to be her dearest friend.

* CompleteMonster: The mysterious, murderous [[FemmeFatale Milady de Winter]] is one of is one of the top agents of the isionary Cardinal Richelieu in his campaign to strengthen France and free it of foreign influence, but shares none of her employer's lofty ideals. Instead, she uses her position, resources, and quasi-supernatural beauty and charisma to indulge her limitless appetites for money, power, and indiscriminate, disproportionate revenge on anyone who gets on her bad side. Ever since [[FromNobodyToNightmare her humble origins]] as a [[NunTooHoly larcenous nun]], she's targeted and seduced any sufficiently-useful man she comes across, destroying those who reject her and either killing or abandoning anyone unlucky enough to become her thrall as soon as they're no longer valuable. Her steadily-escalating battle with d'Artagnan brings out all her worst excesses, as she first tries to enlist him to kill her brother-in-law for his inheritance and a young noble for apparently turning her advances down, then, after he humiliates her, repeatedly attempts to kill him with zero regard for collateral damage, endangering and killing several innocents along the way, and finally murders his LoveInterest as RevengeByProxy whilst pretending to be her dearest friend.

* CompleteMonster: The mysterious, murderous [[FemmeFatale Milady de Winter]] is one of is one of the top agents of the VisionaryVillain [[SinisterMinister Cardinal Richelieu]] in his campaign to strengthen France and free it of foreign influence, but shares none of her employer's lofty ideals. Instead, she uses her position, resources, and quasi-supernatural [[ScrewTheRulesImBeautiful beauty]] and [[CompellingVoice charisma]] to indulge her limitless appetites for money, power, and indiscriminate, disproportionate revenge on anyone who gets on her bad side. Ever since [[FromNobodyToNightmare her humble origins]] as a [[NunTooHoly larcenous nun]], she's targeted and seduced any sufficiently-useful man she comes across, [[WomanScorned destroying those who reject her]] and either killing or abandoning anyone unlucky enough to become her thrall as soon as [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness they're no longer valuable]]. Her steadily-escalating battle with [[TheHero d'Artagnan]] brings out all her worst excesses, as she first tries to enlist him to kill her brother-in-law for his inheritance and a young noble for apparently turning her advances down, then, after he humiliates her, repeatedly attempts to kill him with zero regard for collateral damage, endangering and killing several innocents along the way, and finally murders his LoveInterest as RevengeByProxy whilst pretending to be her dearest friend.

* CompleteMonster:
** The mysterious, murderous [[FemmeFatale Milady de Winter]] is one of the top agents of the VisionaryVillain [[SinisterMinister Cardinal Richelieu]] in his campaign to strengthen France and free it of foreign influence, but shares none of her employer's lofty ideals. Instead, she uses her position, resources, and quasi-supernatural [[ScrewTheRulesImBeautiful beauty]] and [[CompellingVoice charisma]] to indulge her limitless appetites for money, power, and indiscriminate, disproportionate revenge on anyone who gets on her bad side. Ever since [[FromNobodyToNightmare her humble origins]] as a [[NunTooHoly larcenous nun]], she's targeted and seduced any sufficiently-useful man she comes across, [[WomanScorned destroying those who reject her]] and either killing or abandoning anyone unlucky enough to become her thrall as soon as [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness they're no longer valuable]]. Her steadily-escalating battle with [[TheHero d'Artagnan]] brings out all her worst excesses, as she first tries to enlist him to kill her brother-in-law for his inheritance and a young noble for apparently turning her advances down, then, after he humiliates her, repeatedly attempts to kill him with zero regard for collateral damage, endangering and killing several innocents along the way, and finally murders his LoveInterest as RevengeByProxy whilst pretending to be her dearest friend.
** She also manages to escape from an otherwise foolproof jail by presenting the Duke of Buckingham as one. English protestants already think of him as a degenerate heretic, she makes him out as a sadistic rapist who had her branded so as to discredit any of her accusations.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Milady - diabolically inspired temptress, or canny, increasingly desperate woman trying to survive (with style) after being seduced as a teenager by a dodgy priest? ([[DracoInLeatherPants Ignoring the fact that she was explicitly the aggressor and manipulator in her relationship with the priest]] and her [[{{Greed}}obsession with living like a queen when a humbler life would be less perilous]] is her major FatalFlaw.)

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Milady - diabolically inspired temptress, or canny, increasingly desperate woman trying to survive (with style) after being seduced as a teenager by a dodgy priest?

* CompleteMonster: The mysterious, murderous [[FemmeFatale Milady de Winter]] is one of the top agents of the VisionaryVillain [[SinisterMinister Cardinal Richelieu]] in his campaign to strengthen France and free it of foreign influence, but shares none of her employer's lofty ideals. Instead, she uses her position, resources, and quasi-supernatural [[ScrewTheRulesImBeautiful beauty]] and [[CompellingVoice charisma]] to indulge her limitless appetites for money, power, and indiscriminate, disproportionate revenge on anyone who gets on her bad side. Ever since [[FromNobodyToNightmare her humble origins]] as a [[NunTooHoly larcenous nun]], she's targeted and seduced any sufficiently-useful man she comes across, [[WomanScorned destroying those who reject her]] and either killing or abandoning anyone unlucky enough to become her thrall as soon as [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness they're no longer valuable]]. Her steadily-escalating battle with [[TheHero d'Artagnan]] brings out all her worst excesses, as she first tries to enlist him to kill her brother-in-law for his inheritance and a young noble for apparently turning her advances down, then, after he humiliates her, repeatedly attempts to kill him with zero regard for collateral damage, endangering and killing several innocents along the way, and finally murders his LoveInterest as RevengeByProxy whilst pretending to be her dearest friend.

* ValuesDissonance: Frequently Lampshaded by Dumas, as he often breaks the narrative to wryly note that his heroes' womanizing ways were just common practice in those days. Possibly actually meant to be a TakeThat against practices in his own time. This trope is notably averted when D'Artagnan seems just as troubled by [[spoiler: Athos' murder confession]] as the reader is. The fact that he later turned out to be mistaken only complicates the matter further.
** It's not always so deliberately Lampshaded; sometimes it's there in its regular form. Note how the narrator doesn't comment when [[spoiler: D'Artagnan pulls a BedTrick on Milady, which by modern standards is definitely rape.]] No wonder she was so pissed.
*** It seems the main reason for this is her being one hell of AssholeVictim.

* MartyStu: Raoul.
** Debatable: [[spoiler: His illegitimate birth haunts him in social scenes, he hardly gets into duels, he pines over Louise de la Valliere only to lose her to the King, and in the end commits suicide by charging against the enemy.]]

*** It seems the main reason for this is her being one hell of an AssholeVictim.

** It's not always so deliberately Lampshaded; sometimes it's there in its regular form. Note how the narrator doesn't comment when [[spoiler: D'Artagnan pulls a BedTrick on Milady, which by modern standards is definitely rape.]]

* {{Sequelitis}}: The sequels are not as widely known as the original.

* CompleteMonster: The mysterious, murderous [[FemmeFatale Milady de Winter]] is one of is one of the top agents of the VisionaryVillain [[SinisterMinister Cardinal Richelieu]] in his campaign to strengthen France and free it of foreign influence, but shares none of her employer's lofty ideals. Instead, she uses her position, resources, and quasi-supernatural [[ScrewTheRulesImBeautiful beauty]] and [[CompellingVoice charisma]] to indulge her limitless appetites for money, power, and indiscriminate, disproportionate revenge on anyone who gets on her bad side. Ever since [[FromNobodyToNightmare her humble origins]] as a [[NunTooHoly larcenous nun]], she's targeted and seduced any sufficiently-useful man she comes across, [[WomanScorned destroying those who reject her]] and either killing or abandoning anyone unlucky enough to become her thrall as soon as [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness they're no longer valuable]]. Her steadily-escalating battle with [[TheHero d'Artagnan]] brings out all her worst excesses, as she first tries to enlist him to kill her brother-in-law for his inheritance and a young noble for apparently turning her advances down, then, after he humiliates her, repeatedly attempts to kill him with zero regard for collateral damage, endangering and killing several innocents along the way, and finally murders his LoveInterest as RevengeByProxy whilst pretending to be her dearest friend.

* CompleteMonster: Milady De Winter. [[spoiler: For AceAttorney fans, think of her as a precursor to Dahlia Hawthorne.]]

* VillainDecay: Going along with Le Vicomte de Bragelonne's main theme of how the new generation is far too Romantic and not as adventurous as the previous one, the villains suffer as well. De Wardes (son of the man d'Artagnan wounded in the first book) stirs up some romantic tension and briefly duels two people, but beyond that, is a far cry from Milady or Mordaunt. Similarly, Colbert lacks the respective cunning and manipulation of Richelieu and Mazarin.

* MagnificentBastard: Richelieu, in spite of opposing the heroes through most of the book and being quite a ruthless bastard, ultimately comes across as strangely likable to both d'Artagnan and the readers. By the end of the book, their mutual respect is so great that Richelieu gives d'Artagnan a promotion. In later books, the Musketeers look back fondly on Richelieu as a worthy adversary with some measure of greatness. Probably inherited from the [[RealLife original]]. Mazarin thinks he's this, but his greed and miserliness holds him back.
** The point could be made that Richelieu never saw them as actual enemies, and saw them more as "Those damnable kids" since when he *does* think on them, he wishes he could win them to his side, rather then killing them outright. He merely wants to rule France through the king as his puppet, and seems to admire them, at least in the first book. He even has them as his guards in the dark of night, when they were all on the field of battle against a city full of Puritan dissenters.

* {{Sequelitis}}: The sequels are not as widely popular as the original.

* {{Sequelitis}}: The sequels are not as widely popular as the original. YourMileageMayVary, of course.

* RuinedFOREVER or CrazyAwesome: The newest adaptation injects a hefty amount of SteamPunk, and turns Milady into a LadyOfWar. YMMV as to which of these it is, though either way it can't be argued that it would be CrazyAwesome to see one airship T-bone another.

* SoBadItsGood: the 2011 film. Definitely not a good movie, but it's hard not to enjoy it because of how over the top it is.

* RuinedFOREVER or CrazyAwesome: The newest adaptation injects a hefty amount of SteamPunk, and turns Milady into a LadyOfWar. YMMV as to which of these it is, though either way it can't be argued that it would be CrazyAwesome to see an airship T-bone another.