no offense to op specifically, francis is one of my favourite characters in the book, but this way of seeing francis (as popular as it, sadly, is) is incredible mischaracterising, in my opinion, at least (this might not be wonderfully constructed because i’m writing this on my little phone in public transport, but i hope to get my point across).
francis is as much of a little b*tch as the others, arguably worse than some of them. he isn’t nice or a good friend, he took advantage of two men in vulnerable positions and he /m*rdered/ two people.
readers usually like him because he has anxiety and seems delicate, because they think it shows some form of regret for what he did. the only times francis expresses vivid concern regarding the m*rders are when he thinks he’s going to get caught (ex: when he learns that henry told richard about the bacchanal). otherwise he’s even able to make jokes about it ("the man isn’t voltaire we killed!" followed by a vague "but still, i feel bad", followed again by /snorting/ to something henry said. he doesn’t feel that bad, he’s afraid of getting caught.)
we don’t know much of his reactions to the m*rder alone, apart from the fact that he, according to henry, retched when taking a closer look at the farmer’s body. he’s only affected by physical harm because he finds it disgusting, as camilla does ("he made us k*ll a piglet. [...] it was awful. i nearly got sick"), and i’m making this parallel between them here because they’re mischaracterised in the exact same way, because they operate in similar ways. they seem delicate, harmless, almost powerless, manipulated, so we assume they’re most redeemable than the others, we assume they feel terrible, we assume they Must be somewhat good people. but what they are is manipulative, and richard eats out of their hands because he likes the picturesque, and he likes them, and he’s already chosen someone else to be the emotionless godlike figure in his universe (= henry, who actually shows quite a lot of emotions. richard’s intimidated by him, he sees him only through that and makes him look robotlike, fundamentally detached, which many clues in the book tell us he is far from being like.)
soft camilla, fragile and kind francis: these are things that RICHARD tells the readers. this is not what they, independently of richard, show us in the book. then again, francis and camilla are two of my favourite characters in the book, and what makes them good is Exactly that richard is terribly wrong about them. it’s how brilliantly they hide their dark nature under shallowness for camilla and fragileness and charming qualities for francis, because they know this is what richard’s going to believe.
romaincrisis
janainaart
origamiaround
gummygunk
areudirty
baratheonpilled
prguitarman
jbbartram-illu
andulkaphoto
