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Are we sure he's not an immortal...?
Sharpe's Sword (transcript here) is yet another interesting addition to the Sharpe series. The South Essex, the unit the Riflemen are attached to, seems to have a competent colonel for once and an achievable goal instead of another suicide mission. Of course, it all goes blooey because this is a Sharpe story.
Why isn't there more fic for this fandom? You'd think anything that includes in its canon a wet and naked Sean Bean character would have oodles of fanfic...and yes, I'm serious. This is episode that Sharpe winds up seriously ill from an infected gut wound and his men and the camp women dump him into a tin bath and pour ice-cold well-water over him to break the fever. It seems like a ready-made scenario for the h/c crowd.
The number of times that Sharpe has limped off into the sunset in this series is truly improbable. The number of times he is wounded in the series and bounces back makes the crossover to Highlander with him as an immortal so very easy. Of course, he does it again here, having fought a battle and then a duel the day after he rises from his sickbed.
The subplot with the traumatized novitiate (Lass) is delightful. Sharpe is so terribly amusing when he's trying to do the right thing and bewildered by her at every turn; the best part of it is that she's not trying to confuse him, but has just attached herself to him like a stray puppy. The bit where he told her to put some clothes on as she's only lost everything else but her shift and she comes back in a Rifles uniform is funny and sweet; she tried to do what he wanted. And it's not like he objects to women cross-dressing, which would have been a much bigger deal at the time, as Teresa did it all the time and he loved her; it's that the Lass keeps trying to please him and doing something utterly off the wall in her efforts. For the record, I'm pretty sure they never got beyond a few kisses, if only because he was at death's door the day before and managed to pop the stitches in his stomach by fighting a battle and then dueling anyway.
Harper's devotion to Sharpe really stands out this time, what with the sword that he makes for his major. I love his dispute with Ramona over not wanting to marry her, mainly because Sharpe so patently thinks it is stupid and wants to order Harper to marry her just so that he can get his laundry done without having to ask three people to do it. Of course, part of that is the fact that as soon as Teresa told him about their daughter Antonia, Sharpe started publicly calling her his wife, being used to the common-law arrangements, instead of Harper and Ramona's more Catholic expectations of a formal church ceremony.
Harris, bless his little Ravenclaw soul, is growing on me. I loved his little subplot about figuring out the book code. The factor that actor looks oddly like a young Benjamin Franklin -- curly red hair, receding hairline, and spectacles -- just makes it weirder. He's a wonderful background character, and is a great way to drop information that Sharpe doesn't have because of his lack of a formal education.
The bit with Major Munro and the bagpipes was a wonderful bit of physical and verbal humor. Sharpe accidentally sitting on the pipes was almost as good as Munro offering a choice between "Which would you prefer me to do, Sharpe? Play Bealach na Broga - that's the Munro March - or send you on a dangerous mission?" -- though the bit with the guards with the cotton balls in their ears was genius.
The point about men breaking under torture is interesting, and of course Sharpe wouldn't think of that himself. People have tried to torture him, and it just turns him into a hissing, spitting hellcat. Not that its that much different from his battlefield behavior, except you're unfortunately likely to be at much closer range if you've been torturing him and thus have a much shorter life expectancy.
Simmerson's reappearance works so very well because he's so very vile yet basically untouchable due to his rank. He can be shunted out of the army and into political appointments, but Sharpe really can't destroy him until Sharpe's Regiment, where it's more Countess Camoynes taking him down as byproduct of her own goals that does it. Sharpe just can't manage Slytherins, because he's so purely Gryffindor, and can't manage to think like a politician instead of a soldier. Simmerson trying to coerce Lass and her handling of him just goes to prove that Sharpe really does like dangerous women -- the more dangerous the better he likes them. This is why he winds up with a woman who shot him the first time they met.
Why isn't there more fic for this fandom? You'd think anything that includes in its canon a wet and naked Sean Bean character would have oodles of fanfic...and yes, I'm serious. This is episode that Sharpe winds up seriously ill from an infected gut wound and his men and the camp women dump him into a tin bath and pour ice-cold well-water over him to break the fever. It seems like a ready-made scenario for the h/c crowd.
The number of times that Sharpe has limped off into the sunset in this series is truly improbable. The number of times he is wounded in the series and bounces back makes the crossover to Highlander with him as an immortal so very easy. Of course, he does it again here, having fought a battle and then a duel the day after he rises from his sickbed.
The subplot with the traumatized novitiate (Lass) is delightful. Sharpe is so terribly amusing when he's trying to do the right thing and bewildered by her at every turn; the best part of it is that she's not trying to confuse him, but has just attached herself to him like a stray puppy. The bit where he told her to put some clothes on as she's only lost everything else but her shift and she comes back in a Rifles uniform is funny and sweet; she tried to do what he wanted. And it's not like he objects to women cross-dressing, which would have been a much bigger deal at the time, as Teresa did it all the time and he loved her; it's that the Lass keeps trying to please him and doing something utterly off the wall in her efforts. For the record, I'm pretty sure they never got beyond a few kisses, if only because he was at death's door the day before and managed to pop the stitches in his stomach by fighting a battle and then dueling anyway.
Harper's devotion to Sharpe really stands out this time, what with the sword that he makes for his major. I love his dispute with Ramona over not wanting to marry her, mainly because Sharpe so patently thinks it is stupid and wants to order Harper to marry her just so that he can get his laundry done without having to ask three people to do it. Of course, part of that is the fact that as soon as Teresa told him about their daughter Antonia, Sharpe started publicly calling her his wife, being used to the common-law arrangements, instead of Harper and Ramona's more Catholic expectations of a formal church ceremony.
Harris, bless his little Ravenclaw soul, is growing on me. I loved his little subplot about figuring out the book code. The factor that actor looks oddly like a young Benjamin Franklin -- curly red hair, receding hairline, and spectacles -- just makes it weirder. He's a wonderful background character, and is a great way to drop information that Sharpe doesn't have because of his lack of a formal education.
The bit with Major Munro and the bagpipes was a wonderful bit of physical and verbal humor. Sharpe accidentally sitting on the pipes was almost as good as Munro offering a choice between "Which would you prefer me to do, Sharpe? Play Bealach na Broga - that's the Munro March - or send you on a dangerous mission?" -- though the bit with the guards with the cotton balls in their ears was genius.
The point about men breaking under torture is interesting, and of course Sharpe wouldn't think of that himself. People have tried to torture him, and it just turns him into a hissing, spitting hellcat. Not that its that much different from his battlefield behavior, except you're unfortunately likely to be at much closer range if you've been torturing him and thus have a much shorter life expectancy.
Simmerson's reappearance works so very well because he's so very vile yet basically untouchable due to his rank. He can be shunted out of the army and into political appointments, but Sharpe really can't destroy him until Sharpe's Regiment, where it's more Countess Camoynes taking him down as byproduct of her own goals that does it. Sharpe just can't manage Slytherins, because he's so purely Gryffindor, and can't manage to think like a politician instead of a soldier. Simmerson trying to coerce Lass and her handling of him just goes to prove that Sharpe really does like dangerous women -- the more dangerous the better he likes them. This is why he winds up with a woman who shot him the first time they met.
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