Further thoughts on Kidnapped

[regshoe]

Well, then! With RMSE over I no longer need to maintain anonymity about having re-read and been writing fic for Kidnapped, and so I can now post some more thoughts about it—which I am very glad to be able to do, as during my re-read and fic writing I fell into just a bit of gleeful fannish obsession over it and very much want to write long rambling DW posts. Here we go...

• This might not have been very clear before, but I really love Davie and Alan. The banter, the culture/political clashes, the deliberately annoying folk songs, the terribly serious gentlemanly honour, the deep and heartfelt care for each other underneath all the silliness, the derailing an argument through tactically provoking hurt/comfort instead... absolutely hilarious and adorable, all the time. I love them <333


• I will refrain from posting a wall of quotes, but I think my actual favourite moment is this:



“This is a pity,” he said at last. “There are things said that cannot be passed over.”

“I never asked you to,” said I. “I am as ready as yourself.”

“Ready?” said he.

“Ready,” I repeated. “I am no blower and boaster like some that I could name. Come on!” And drawing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan himself had taught me.

“David!” he cried. “Are ye daft? I cannae draw upon ye, David. It’s fair murder.”

“That was your look-out when you insulted me,” said I.

“It’s the truth!” cried Alan, and he stood for a moment, wringing his mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. “It’s the bare truth,” he said, and drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade with mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen to the ground. “Na, na,” he kept saying, “na, na—I cannae, I cannae.”



• 'I can't possibly fight you!'—'Aha, but you're an eighteenth-century gentleman, and you insulted me which means you BASICALLY already agreed to a fight!'—'Oh no, you're right!' *draws sword* ...beautiful logic, I love it. And then Alan discards gentlemanly honour and declares he can't do it after all! Amazing. I love them both so much.


• And, thinking about Jacobite slash in general, Davie/Alan is a really fun contrast to Ewen/Keith—insofar as Ewen attracts Keith by totally upending his stereotypes of what Highlanders are like, whereas Alan is, really, just as outlandish and weird and kind of terrifying as David expects Highlanders to be and Davie falls completely in love with him anyway. Great fun.


• That twelve-inch height difference: is it really that much, or is Davie just seeing how much he can get away with in the aftermath of the quarrel when Alan is desperately avoiding anything like disagreeing with him? I can't decide which is funnier.


• OK, a slightly more serious point—the language. David makes clear in several places that he speaks Scots, not standard English (It was in this way that I first heard the right English speech ... I have never grown used to it; nor yet altogether with the English grammar ...) despite both the narrative and (mostly) his dialogue being written in English. Meanwhile Alan's dialogue uses more Scots words, but (I'm fairly sure that!) it's not really authentic Scots; and he's a native Gaelic-speaking Highland gentleman, a population who from what I've read tended to speak standard English (as Ewen does, and Keith remarks on, for instance). My speculation is that what David as narrator is doing is 'translating' his own speech into standard English for the benefit of English-speaking readers, while using Scots vocabulary to create the same sense of foreignness in Alan's dialogue that Alan as a Highlander has for him.


• How old is David? The book opens in June 1751, and he says he's seventeen; but when he's talking to Mr Rankeillor at the end he says he was born in March 1733, which—unless my maths is wrong—means he ought to have turned eighteen before the beginning of the book.


• I recently learnt that some versions of the folk song I know as 'Wild Mountain Thyme' are called 'The Braes o' Balquhidder', and feature references to that place in the lyrics. I'm sure this could be used in a slash fic somehow.


• Speaking of which, I love that both Davie and Alan are canonically into folk music. I can make as many ballad references as I like in fic and it'll be totally in character! :D


• This book has been adapted a lot! Do people who've seen any of the various adaptations have any thoughts on them, would you recommend any in particular?

Comments

[sanguinity]

God, I love that quarrel on the moor so much. SO MUCH. SO FUCKING MUCH. Alan falling to his knees crying, because no matter the insult, he cannot bring himself to kill or injure Davy!

And then the bit immediately after, where Davy realizes the magnitude of what he's done, and the only way he can think of to walk it back is to PRETEND THAT HE'S DYING. (This was a VERY formative book for me, and that was my principal take-away: the best way to salvage a friendship is to PRETEND YOU'RE DYING.)

(Okay, yes, yes, he really was sick! But he ABSOLUTELY hammed it up for Alan!)

*collapses on my fainting couch while I take a moment*

12-inch height difference: I suspect they're playing it up in that moment, just for the pleasure of being friends again, but I'll bet you anything it's still something absurd. A good nine inches, at least, if not more.

I have seen no adaptations, although someone shared on tumblr a snippet of one from the 60s just a short while ago... (Here.) I'd like to see the one that has Paul McGann as a redcoat, because Paul McGann, but there's a part of me that's loathe to see ANY adaptation, because I have loved this book too long and too hard to risk someone else's casting getting stuck in my brain.

[regshoe]

I knowww! It's the best thing, I love it.

that was my principal take-away: the best way to salvage a friendship is to PRETEND YOU'RE DYING.

XD

Well, it totally worked! Hurt/comfort is much preferable to silly reasons for a duel, and Alan agrees. :P

Good theory about the height difference—of course there absolutely is a substantial difference (it seems David is serious about it being impractical for him to lean on Alan while walking, in any case), that's very important, even if illustrators haven't quite got the message.

And I know what you mean about adaptations—I'm hesitating over whether to watch any—although that clip is fun!