COUNTESS

what are you doing in here?

my life has reached its pinnacle.

good luck. don't screw it up.

a responsibility like this requires the obedience of a saint.

i'm guided by a force much greater than luck.

y'know something? you used to be cute.

i wonder if i'll be held responsible for this.

something happened to me last night.

i guess he didn't live up to the responsibility of the position, did he?

will you stop yelling, please?

when did you have time to make these?

listening to this crap is guaranteed to make you sterile.

who knows where thoughts come from? they just appear!

god, nothing's ever enough for him, huh?

she hates me, too, but i have enough sense to hate her back.

if you are in trouble, you can talk to me, you know that?

we're all in some kind of trouble. am i the only one who sees it?

you screwed me, ____. you know that, right?

what do you want me to do?

in this life, there are nothing but possibilities.

you did have hair when you went in there, right?

is it true you committed the perfect crime?

shock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior.

i swear, you get smarter the shorter your skirt gets.

it's a wonderful look for you, darling.

without this, life would be meaningless.

we're both screwed. at least you're used to it.

always play with their minds.

isn't it customary to leave the scene after committing the crime?

where do you get this hostility from?

i don't feel that i need to explain my art to you.

this isn't about you, okay?

you didn't do anything wrong. i'm screwed up, okay?

don't touch me right now.

i just want you to get up and i want you to walk away.

the long arm of the law has embraced our dear friend ____.

you gonna fix me, ____? okay, fix me.

you're doing a good job.

i'm not as sweet as you think.

you sure you wanna do this?

i'm sorry. i just wanna be alone, okay?

i don't need to do what you do all the time.

don't let me stop you.

you deserved that. you know it, right?

what? no applause?

i was lying about your hair. it looks stupid.

at least i don't hide what i am.

it's always about her.

no, it's not gonna be fine! nothing's ever fine!

i'm either going to jail or hell. i can't decide which.

well, is it better to know or not to know?

jesus, i hate this funeral.

you're always talking about how i do what i want to do, but i don't. i don't.

i know if i don't do something i'm gonna end up like my mother.

that is so sweet, i think i'm gonna barf. excuse me.

i don't know, i was just really tired of being invisible.

stop calling me ____! my name isn't fucking ____!

so, do i get the job?

i thought i knew what i was doing, but i didn't, okay? i give up.

i wish it had gone without saying, but you don't seem to shut up.

all that i can say, all that i can know is that i'll be dreaming pieces of you.

what am i to do?

all my little troubles haven't got a prayer.

heaven's all around you when you haven't got a care.

how they end depend on how you play your part.

fortunately, how you played your part has got you here.

use discretion. stay alert.

welcome to eternity. now eat your just desserts.

you haven't slept in many suns and moons.

i will sleep when we reach shore.

there's the bad. lanterns down.

i don't want to go to sleep. in all my dreams, i drown.

scold me, hold me. i'll be yours to keep.

the only thing i beg of you, don't make me go to sleep.

as you'll note, the rules are clearly stated.

there are consequences, morbid consequences, crueler than ever imagined.

oh, yes, there are consequences, bloody consequences, when you don't follow the rules.

reckless creatures, always one another find.

we're like moths to the flame.

now, tarry no longer.

let's burn one another.

now, let's play a game.

hello, beautiful stranger.

how familiar the danger.

shadow takes all, my pet.

i could say that i'm hurt, but it wouldn't be true.

the knife in my back — it reminds me of you.

let me tell you a tale for a penny.

it doesn't end well. no, it never ends well.

would it not be a sin for you to deny yourselves a tale?

that greed, it'll kill you.

these are difficult times, yes, difficult times.

never tasted as sweet a poison as you have.

you're an urge that can never be cured.

you're a bad little love and i'm yours.

trust me, darling dear.

trust me, honey, do, just like i trust you.

babe, you're a hard game to catch.

you fight and refuse, oh, you're a wild little bruise.

you know you never can hide.

you're a bad little love and you're mine.

how many kisses do you need?

black is love's potion. we drink from its well.

let's drink to true love.

let me tell you a tale of a love that did fail.

how quickly we forget the sting, my love.

what a pretty yet dangerous line, my love.

what bitter yet delicious wine, my love.

remember that you were warned.

come drink a cup of my scorn.

let me open my teeth and cradle you there.

a sheep has left the fold.

we've got grace for sale.

how the worm is turning.

each of them is tested, blessed.

cast out for your sin? come here for redemption.

we've got grace for cheap, lest you end up bested, lost and torn to shreds, dissected.

pierre bezukhov: wow..... this strange behavior combined with the constant presence of her father around us throughout the entire engagement and the rumor that her brother was sent away specifically because he wanted to fuck her.... she must be a depraved woman. surely she is completely at fault here. there is nothing deeper going on in the kuragin household that could have lead her to act this way. she's just a horrible, immoral woman. case closed

i keep thinking about this quote from the drafts —

"there was nothing behind the brilliant forms, they were her goal." "there had been nothing and no one there." god...... the way anything true about her has been carved out in her desperation to become someone that anyone could love. "she had felt no frustration at this lack" — she can't, because admitting she's lying to herself would make her completely unable to lie to others the way she does

is that what you came in to tell me?

give me an excuse to complain about war and peace

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

i've been on tumblr for like 16 years and i've been a war and peace fan for about 10 years so i'm sure i've seen worse takes than this, but i saw this on pinterest a while back while i was going through various war and peace boards and i've been mad about it ever since oh my fucking god...

i don't know where the idea that hélène derives pleasure from the misery of others comes from? assuming that this is a great comet post, i'm guessing it's based on the line at the end of charming where she says "how the thought of throwing them together amuses me," but even then it's such a reach to come to the conclusion that she actively enjoys someone's misery from that?

there's something generally very uncomfortable to me about how willing people are to accept the idea that anatole's cruelty comes from his ignorance and lack of thought while insisting that hélène's cruelty is calculated and deliberate. i've even seen someone say that hélène was more to blame in anatole's attempted elopement with natasha than anatole himself specifically because of this line of thinking and the idea that anatole doesn't know any better, but hélène does.

every adaption turns her into a femme fatale with active disdain for the protagonists and it genuinely drives me insane because i literally do not think she cares enough about these people to want to hurt them. her "sin" lies in her selfishness and her ignorance.

it's especially frustrating when it is contradicted by the text:

hélène is thinking in the exact same way as anatole. she isn't thinking about the repercussions. she literally cannot be sitting there delighting in natasha's downfall because she doesn't see anything "wrong" with what she's doing. hélène, due to the lack of love in her life, fundamentally does not understand what it's like to love someone enough to put their feelings over your own desires. she's been raised to prioritize personal success and pleasure and has obtained a position that allows her to do so without consequence.

she can make herself believe that this will be fun for natasha because she's made herself believe that it's fun for her. admitting natasha and anatole's wrongdoing would mean admitting her own and she is entirely unwilling to do so.

tolstoy says flat out that hélène is unable to consider herself guilty and that truly is one of the most interesting aspects of her character to me and is also something that makes her so much more realistic. it's a lot easier to find people who are able to justify their actions to themselves than it is to find people who admit they're doing something wrong.

her thoughts on religion really emphasize this point

she believes that as long as she isn't acting with ill intent, she cannot be guilty, and any harm she causes isn't her fault because she didn't intend to do harm. her self-centeredness allows her to do as she pleases while still following this principle, as she is solely focused on her own desires. she has no desire to do anyone else harm, it's just that she will always prioritize her own satisfaction and comfort above the wants and even needs of others.

every director of every adaption seems to have looked at hélène and went "tolstoy wrote her as a STUPID BITCH and as a fresh modern take to combat this misogynistic outdated opinion we've decided to add some much-needed complexity and make her an EVIL BITCH instead #Girlboss" and i'm tired. i'm so tired.

i don't understand why people feel the need to turn her into this flat, overdone femme fatale trope who is shamelessly and openly cruel when the mundanity and humanity of hélène's cruelty is what makes her so interesting. she's not analytical nor cynical, she just genuinely believes her own lies and doesn't think there's anything wrong with her actions. the only difference between her and anatole is that she's a woman and therefore has to operate differently in order to successfully do what she wants, while he's emboldened by lack of consequence and is therefore more open about his carelessness.

it's also just a complete misunderstanding of how hélène operates within the narrative in relation to the overarching themes of russian sincerity vs french shallowness. the kuragins as characters represent petersburg society and the corrupting influence of the french on russia. they're the embodiment of the society they're in. hélène's ability to make society adore her isn't meant to be indicative of her intelligence, it's supposed to show how superficial that society is. her tact is seen specifically in her ability to conform perfectly to what has always been around her.

it could not be more blatant than in this excerpt:

it's all about the passivity and willful ignorance, pretending there isn't a problem at all to preserve their own comfort and satisfaction, which is a much more tangible and familiar form of evil.

hélène is so interesting to me specifically because she is so entirely the product of her circumstances. she is no doubt the product of a deeply misogynistic writer, but, despite being created to represent what tolstoy hated about women, she isn't uniquely evil. all her "depravity" is systematic and encouraged. she's much less a master manipulator than she is someone who knows how to pander to her audience.

RIGHT EXACTLY. okay lemme get into my actual hélène character study because honestly in my initial post i was very just. "if you're gonna hate her, at least hate her for how she's actually portrayed instead of making shit up" LMAOOOO that take pissed me off so bad i was like here's why even the author who hated her would disagree. bad take + L + you don't understand themes and narratives. ANYWAYS.

the reason it gets so tricky in regards to determining anything "true" about hélène is that we primarily see hélène from pierre's perspective, and pierre is simultaneously a voice of god self insert and an unreliable narrator. pierre cannot present an unbiased view of her, as she is someone he can't understand nor sympathize with whatsoever. her literal actions run contrary to how she's described and yet, keeping in mind my pierre rant, his opinion is meant to outweigh anything we see to the contrary.

that's what makes it so frustrating that people feel the need to paint her as deliberately manipulative in order to combat against the notion of her as "stupid" — you literally do not have to do all that. her skill and intelligence is literally seen in the text, it's just that because it's specifically social tact in a novel critiquing society, it isn't recognized as skill. and, of course, it's from pierre's perspective, whose first scene in the entire novel is about how little he understands how high society works and who eventually comes to hate everything about it.

removing it from the idea that pierre is meant to be Correct in his opinions, it's honestly very telling (and funny) that pierre saw hélène thriving in a space that he was fundamentally unable to fit into and decided that actually y'know what they're all just stupid hélène is stupid and society is stupid and that's the only reason they like her they don't know what it's like to be an INTELLECTUAL like me. particularly the scene describing her reputation after they reconcile is so fucking funny tbh.

he is so baffled by the idea of her being able to hold a conversation without knowing every single detail about the topic at hand. like... while it's laughably easy to see the bias against her here, i do think it's notable that she herself doesn't say anything particularly "intelligent" or insightful. pierre is confused specifically by why someone would enjoy talking to hélène about topics she can't provide her own insight on, because to him the value of conversation is the exchange of ideas and gaining a deeper understanding of the topic, while hélène's goal is just to make the other person feel understood, because that's what matters in terms of making others think favorably of her. he can't see the value of social niceties and that's exactly what hélène specializes in.

essentially pierre, while generally polite, is overall a "i hate small talk. talk to me about the universe" kinda guy who is kind of unpleasant to be around if you're not in the mood for a socratic seminar and hélène, while having ulterior motives, is the master of small talk and does genuinely make those around her feel important and special.

obviously hélène is not a Kind person. she acts entirely in her own interest and prioritizes her own desires before others. but it's kind of funny to me how she's portrayed as so villainous when 90% of what she does is go to parties and be nice to people so they like her... 😭 she wants power and influence, but there's nothing to indicate that she wants them for anything more than the feeling of adoration. the harm she causes is more often than not a symptom of the system she operates in, that she's been trained and groomed to operate in since birth.

war and peace (original draft), leo tolstoy / american psycho, bret easton ellis