Quick, man, take your hat!

sequels make the musketeers into truly great characters. like, og Athos? red flags all around. sequels Athos is an amazing example of character growth and infinitely lovable. og Porthos? neat. sequels Porthos is to die for. og Aramis? cute. sequels Aramis is hauntingly complex and self-centered. og D'Artagnan? a typical shonen protagonist. sequels D'Artagnan is smart, loyal, cunning, aware of his strengths and weaknesses.

the trouble is that people stopped reading the sequels.

Paul: sings a soft cover of Strawberry Fields directly towards John who's not paying attention while news clippings of John saying "i love Yoko Ono" appear

Me:

HAPPY CHAIRS AGAINST MILVERTON DAY. GO GET YOUR CHAIRS AND THROW THEN AT THAT FRICKING MONSTER OF A MAN.

John and Paul would both devolve very quickly into “we’re the greatest artists of all time, our lives will be more successful and more important than yours anyway, it should be one of you two.” They would feel fucking horrible about it, but they don't want to die, and they don't want to see each other die. They would present a united front as long as there was never any realistic possibility of sacrificing one or the other of them – if George and Ringo had the sense to team up on one of them then things might be different, but they don't, so it isn't.

Ringo is the first one who would actually vote for himself. He'll even vote for himself when it doesn't make sense – Paul and John will pretty quickly team up on George just on instinct, and Ringo could probably push George over the edge if he really tried, but he's quickly resorted to pretending this isn't happening. Just keep voting Ringo. This will be over soon. Everything will be over soon. He’s quite sure that all of them will be sacrificed, so going to the quiet place inside of himself makes the most sense. Soon the waves will close over his head and he'll be warm below the storm. Happy and safe. Happy and safe. The others, too.

At one point, in a moment of either bravery or weakness, John would offer to sacrifice himself. But Ringo would vote Ringo and it would devolve into chaos. George, out of sheer contrariness, votes for Billy Shears. The argument continues.

The closest they'd come to escape is John and Paul finally, painfully, deciding to vote for Ringo. But George refuses. Partly because he feels very deeply that this is unfair, and partly because if the four of them can't agree then John and Paul both die, and he's so fucking angry at this point that he's perfectly willing to be sacrificed if it means that for once John and Paul won't get what they want at everyone else's expense.