#votn

Even if Verne didn’t give any opinions on evolution, Arronax and Conseil, being naturalists in the 1860s, MUST have heard of Darwinism, right? I’m not sure how quickly Origin was translated into French, but I feel like within a decade is quite likely. Though being Frenchmen, they might still mostly follow Lamarck’s theory of evolution rather than natural selection.

They were already opposites attract, but now they want opposite things. Ned is dying to leave, Conseil is content to stay.

Conseil takes a very calm approach to it: at least no matter which happens, one of them will be happy. The idea of Ned being happy is enough of a comfort to soothe the loss of the underwater wonderland he’s fallen in love with.

I strongly doubt it’s the same the other way around, though. Conseil and Aronnax may mostly notice Ned complaining about having to eat fish all the time, but that’s probably just the surface expression of a more deeply-rooted strain. He’s trapped, and has been told that the ship will one day be his coffin. He just missed a celebration that he loved, and is homesick. Aronnax and Conseil don’t seem to have family to return to, but we don’t know about Ned! He’s probably used to going for long stretches of time without seeing them, but at least he could look forward to it—now it’s you’ll never see anyone you knew before again.