One for all and all for one

There’s a hero in every story. This hero faces great difficulties, saves himself and soon gets into another conflict. He makes choices according to what he chooses in the first place as important in life. Let’s introduce (cursive text is from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/3musk/characters.html) the main characters of Three Musketeers and see what choices they made in this retrospect:

D'Artagnan - The central character of the novel, d'Artagnan is a young, impoverished Gascon nobleman who comes to make his fortune in Paris. He is brave, noble, ambitious, crafty, and intelligent. Like any Romantic hero, he is driven by love and ruled by chivalry, but occasionally prone to fall into amoral behavior.

Amoral behaviour here means his interaction with certain Lady de Winter, it’s very hard to see him as amoral character. D’Artagnan’s choice first was love and after that there really wasn’t anything that mattered to him that much.

Athos - The most important of the Three Musketeers, Athos is something of a father figure to d'Artagnan. He is older than his comrades, although still a young man. Athos is distinguished in every way--intellect, appearance, bravery, swordsmanship--yet he is tortured by a deep melancholy, the source of which no one knows.

It’s interesting that Athos is named here as most important of trio (Athos, Porthos and Aramis) – I would say it’s a toss up between him and Aramis. Athos gave greatest importance first to honour (rather alien concept nowadays) and later on it was his son.

Aramis - A young Musketeer, one of the great Three. Aramis is a handsome young man, quiet and somewhat foppish. He constantly protests that he is only temporarily in the Musketeers, and that any day now he will return to the Church to pursue his true calling. Aramis has a mysterious mistress, Madame de Chevreuse, a high noblewoman, whose existence and identity he tries to keep from his friends.

These descriptions are all from the first book when all of them were quite young. Aramis was after power all his life, endless pursuit to get into higher position in world.

Porthos - Porthos, the third of the Three Musketeers, is loud, brash, and self-important. He is extremely vain, and enjoys outfitting himself handsomely; but for all that, he is a valiant fighter and a courageous friend. His mistress is Madame Coquenard, the wife of a wealthy attorney.

Little bit cold description about the simple, good-hearted giant of man. What mattered most to Porthos was what others thought about him.

Surely we find similarities in these choices from our own life. I have no trouble of naming, which musketeer’s role I have picked. I am also little bit tempted to write such a little description about myself but I’ll skip it for now.