Essays on literary works - 2024
Lessons from “The Three Musketeers”
Okay, hear me out.
You’ve seen the feathered hats. The swords. The mustaches so twirled they might actually be sentient. You probably know the tagline—“All for one and one for all”—because it sounds nice on a dorm room poster or a coworking space wall. But if you think The Three Musketeers is just an old-school bromance dipped in wine and swordplay, you’re kind of... wrong. Or at least, you’re only getting the teaser trailer. Because what Alexandre Dumas actually did was write the most chaotic group chat energy before smartphones even existed.
And yes, we’re going there. We’re cracking open this 1800s French chaos-fest and dragging it across meme culture, group dynamics, moral ambiguity, and Gen Z’s entire emotional universe. Buckle up, or better—tighten your doublet.
D’Artagnan: The Original Try-Hard with Main Character Syndrome
Let’s start with our boy D’Artagnan. Literal embodiment of “new guy joins the group and immediately tries to run it.” He rolls into Paris with a letter from his dad, a bad horse, and the kind of chaotic energy that screams, “I’m not like other boys, I’m worse.”
The guy picks three fights in one day. Not because he has a beef. No. Because he has vibes. And maybe daddy issues. But mostly vibes.
What Dumas gets—like really gets—is that youth isn’t noble, it’s messy. D’Artagnan doesn’t enter with wisdom. He crashes in, tries to impress everyone, constantly screws up, but somehow? He’s still the heart of the story. Why? Because he cares. Loudly. Dramatically. The kind of care that breaks things.
Kind of like every 19-year-old who posts Instagram stories at 2am crying in their car to Frank Ocean and saying “loyalty is rare.”
That’s D’Artagnan.
Athos, Porthos, Aramis = A Broken Power Trio That Totally Ghosts Each Other Until It’s Convenient
Real talk: these three? Not besties. Not soulmates. They’re trauma-bonded co-workers who occasionally show up for brunch.
Athos is brooding because tragedy™ (honestly, half his character is just walking into a room, sighing dramatically, and drinking red wine like it’s an antidepressant). Aramis wants to quit and become a priest—like, every five minutes. And Porthos is... a walking thirst trap with luxury brand sponsorships in his head. Dude just wants to be rich and hot. Valid.
So yeah, “All for one” sounds cute. But the truth? This squad is stitched together with ego, secrets, and passive-aggressive loyalty. Just like that college friend group that slowly fractured when someone started dating someone else's situationship and no one talked about it until it exploded in the group DM.
The real lesson? Friendship isn’t aesthetic. It’s maintenance. And sometimes maintenance looks like dragging your bro out of a duel he scheduled while blackout drunk. Or helping him bury a literal body. Again.
Milady de Winter: Not a Villain. An Unapologetic Blueprint.
Now. Milady. Let’s stop pretending she’s the “evil temptress” just because a bunch of 19th-century men didn’t know how to emotionally process women who say “no.”
Milady is not evil—she’s efficient. Weaponized femininity? Check. Trauma response coded as revenge? Check. Doesn’t apologize for manipulating weak men to survive a world that tried to kill her? Double check.
If she were on TikTok today, she’d be that gorgeous, terrifying woman who teaches you how to freeze your ex’s credit score in three steps and posts “feminine rage makeup tutorials.” And we’d all follow her.
Here’s the tea: Milady isn’t the problem. She’s the product. A society chews her up, brands her (literally—girl has a scarlet fleur-de-lis burned into her shoulder), and spits her out. And she says “K.” Then proceeds to wreck everyone with unmatched precision.
She’s not the villain. She’s the audit.
Loyalty, But Make It Complicated
Everyone loves the musketeers for their loyalty. “All for one and one for all”—sure, tattoo it on your ribcage. But that loyalty? It’s full of caveats.
These men lie to each other. They abandon each other. They choose women (badly), they pick fights (stupidly), they change sides in wars because of feelings. Loyalty here doesn’t mean purity. It means riding through the storm even after you set it on fire yourself.
And honestly, that slaps.
We talk a lot about moral clarity in stories. “Who’s the good guy?” “What’s the message?” Dumas shrugs. There is no message. Just choices. Regret. More choices. And some wine. Maybe a duel. Maybe a second duel. Depends how mad you are.
Cardinal Richelieu: The Church Official Who Invented Gaslighting
Okay, this guy? Powercore. Machiavelli in robes. He’s not your Sunday school priest—he’s the man behind the curtain, manipulating everyone like a political Dungeon Master. Half the time you think he’s losing, and then—boom. Turns out you were just a pawn in his three-year checkmate.
He’s the reminder that institutions don’t love you back. They just use you until you’re no longer convenient. Looking at you, corporate internships and school boards.
But even he isn’t cartoonishly evil. He has his reasons. His endgames. His strategies. And sometimes, his regret. Because even the monsters Dumas gives us aren’t flat. They’re deliciously multi-dimensional. Like trauma lasagna.
“The Three Musketeers” Is a Found Family, But It’s Also a Hot Mess
Let’s be real. The real appeal of this book isn’t the historical setting (which is totally inaccurate btw), or the sword fights (lowkey chaotic), or even the plot (it spirals like a Twitter thread at 3am).
It’s the relationships. These guys shouldn’t work as a unit. But they do. And that’s the point.
They mess up. They judge. They abandon each other. But they also save. Fight. Return. There’s something raw and human about watching people screw up spectacularly and still find each other at the end of the chapter. Not because it’s deserved—but because it’s needed.
And if that’s not Gen Z friendship logic, I don’t know what is.
What TikTok Could Learn from Dumas
So why does The Three Musketeers still slap in 2025? Because it’s not trying to teach you. It’s trying to show you how absolutely unhinged humans are when they’re loyal, horny, betrayed, or wine-drunk in Paris.
It's also genre-fluid. Like, aggressively so. Spy thriller? Yes. Romance? Sure. Political drama? Yup. Comedy? Occasionally slapstick. It doesn’t stick to one tone because life doesn’t. One minute you’re sword-fighting in a field, the next you’re sobbing in a monastery because your ex-wife tried to murder you.
Dumas was writing for now, before “now” existed. He was already in his no-genre, morally-gray, emotionally chaotic, ensemble-cast era. Before Netflix got the memo.
TL;DR—but Make It a Tattoo
If you're looking for clean takeaways, you're reading the wrong novel. The Three Musketeers isn’t tidy. It’s not “wholesome.” It's about choosing your people, even when they absolutely do not deserve it. It’s about loving messy, fighting dirty, and sometimes burning the whole kingdom down because one of your friends got ghosted by a nun.
Also, it’s just fun. Like drama-in-your-friend-circle fun. Like texting your ex’s best friend fun. Like sword-fight-in-a-bar-over-a-joke-you-didn’t-understand fun.
So next time someone tells you classic lit is boring, just send them this energy:
“All for one, one for all... and also I kissed your ex, stabbed a Duke, and might be a spy. What are you doing tonight?”
Mic drop. Quill down. Dumas out.