#alan breck

[camyfilms]

ME BEFORE YOU 2016

Don't think of me too often. I don't want you getting sad. Just live well. Just live. I'll be walking beside you every step of the way. 

[rangerpippin]

there are certain things that must be present in an adaptation of david:

he has So Much Conscience

he has so many EMOTIONS

he is built like the side of a barn

he is as autistic as a sackful of cats

he will get sick if someone coughs in the same county as him

he's just a little guy. he's just a little GUY. he's kind and loving and just trying to do the right thing and in way over his head and everyone who sees him wants to protect him

he is so brave. he's so so brave. you can't make him back down no matter how much you frighten him, if he's sure that what he's doing is right

his worst flaw is that he's very prideful and prone to self-righteousness. his second worst is that he's got a temper and he's very prone to mouthing off when he loses it

he's on a hair trigger when it comes to laying down his life, his honor, and everything else he has for anyone who needs help, even if it's already too late.

not a single adaptation I've seen yet has understood all of these things. most have gotten a few of them, and a few have gotten most of them. but the search continues

[immediatebreakfast]

Out of all of the things that have happened in Kidnapped, I never thought that I would see Alan Breck Stewart engage in a bagpipe contest/fight with a rival or an adversary because fighting with sword would end in a bloodbath.

And somehow, (I'm truly impressed by it I'm not lying) the bagpipe fight feels that it has more stakes, and personal dignity involved than any duel with weapons in this book.

[opelman]

Spa Summer Classic 2024 by Ste Tit

[ratuszarsenal]

assortment of my favourite alan brecks (could be used as icons)

[dotsayers]

started reading kidnapped in england and finished it in naples. and it slapped

[on-holidays-by-mistake]

RIP David McCallum (1933-2023) 💔

[chiropteracupola]

stand and deliverrrrrrr

[rangerpippin]

Please, someone. David's decision in this chapter means so much to me. The full import of it is something that's easy to overlook on a first or second or even third read, but it's THERE and it's lovely.

Please understand that at no point in the entire lead up to the conflict does David think that he or Alan will come out of this battle alive. He tells us this again and again. That he has no hope. That he fully expects his dead body to be cast into the sea before morning. What can a boy and a man, if they were brave as lions, do against a whole ship's company?

It's easy to read that and understand the danger he's walking into. That David is risking his life to save Alan's. But when you really consider it, it means so much more.

David doesn't think there is a way to save Alan.

In David's mind, even if he warns Alan and fights beside him, brave as a lion, Alan still dies. David has not the slightest glimmer of hope. The only thing that would change is that David would die too.

The choice isn't to risk his life to save the life of this stranger. The choice David makes is to lay down his life completely, step from relative present safety to certain death, just so that this stranger will not die with no one standing by him.

Even if it would never matter, in the final result, whether he did all he could or not, Alan's a human being, and that means it matters. And so he will do all he can. Even if just having done all he could for this stranger, even if it never changed a thing, costs him his life.

David sees Alan just sitting there eating his supper, and it's worth it.

[immediatebreakfast]

"I, angry and proud, and drawing what strength I had from these two violent and sinful feelings; Alan angry and ashamed, ashamed that he had lost my money, angry that I should take it so ill."

There is something really raw about this chapter, really raw and conflicting. Hell, at some point I felt that I shouldn't be reading the conversations between Davie and Alan because I felt like I was intruding in something so deeply personal between two friends who have went to hell, and back.

All of this comes to the financial betrayal of Alan to fill his gambling "needs" at the cost of his, and Davie's money; on top of not being only about the money, but the fact that he used Davie's feverish state to get it.

And Davie is so conflicted about this because through the whole journey he has been relying on Alan for almost everything, whenever is escaping or getting refugee. Since they have known eachother Davie has looked up to Alan for guidance, even if sometimes he doesn't understand his reasonings. Then, Alan goes and basically takes advantage of Davie's debilitating sickness to take his money for something so shaky as gambling, and when Davie confronts him? Alan just shakes his head, and simply tells him that he shouldn't have given him the money, that it was just a small incidente anyway, and insists that since he said sorry then Davie should forgive him.

So what does Davie do with all of the emotions? He shuts down. Davie shuts his mouth, and travels in silenced because he knows that in this emotional state he will say (in a very scottish accent that I didn't know he had) horrible things to Alan that he will regret immediatly. Moreover, Davie knows that this silence will make things worse.

"These were the two things uppermost in my mind; and I could open my mouth upon neither without black ungenerosity. So I did the next worst, and said nothing"

Until Alan keeps insisting that he talks, and that gives Davie the opportunity to basically spill everything that has been slowly eating up his brain, and it's personal yet so tired, and so so angry.

It's honest, and emotional that Alan only says:

“Aweel,” said Alan, “say nae mair.”

As a response before falling again into silence. The great Alan Breck Stewart, silenced by the honest response of young Davie Balfour.

[pyshechkapushkova]

Im tired as hell but i really wanted to do it so

No subs but

Sun in the eyes,

Forget offences

Tell me, how I lived

And what I have seen

Sun in the eyes,

Forget offences

Tell me, how I lived

And what I have seen

[ratuszarsenal]

the fact that stevenson laboured to reproduce alan breck's appearance from 18th century documents but specifically diverted from those accounts to make him a short king. hysterical

for curious fellows here are some of the descriptions that stevenson apparently would have worked with:

I also want to highlight this fragment which I found to be a very sweet thing for fanny stevenson to mention:

One day, while my husband was busily at work, I sat beside him reading an old cookery book called The Compleat Housewife: or Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion. In the midst of receipts for “Rabbits, and Chickens mumbled, Pickled Samphire, Skirret Pye, Baked Tansy,” and other forgotten delicacies, there were directions for the preparation of several lotions for the preservation of beauty. One of these was so charming that I interrupted my husband to read it aloud. “Just what I wanted!” he exclaimed; and the receipt for the “Lily of the Valley Water” was instantly incorporated into Kidnapped.

made all the funnier by the fact that apparently that recipe was "just what he wanted" with an exclamation mark and yet it literally does not show up anywhere in the book after its introduction. stevenson literally just liked how the checkov's gun looked like on the wall. no firing necessary

[dotsayers]

i am. in fact. rewatching nts kidnapped

[chiropteracupola]

Will you be ready, when your moment comes? Will your hand be steady, when you reach down for your guns?

[alan breck stewart, cowboy edition - requested by anonymous]

[rangerpippin]

David, so exhausted that he can't stand up, make himself stop smiling, or even sleep, seeing Alan look concerned: oh no are you mad at me

[immediatebreakfast]

"With that he began to run forward on his hands and knees with an incredible quickness, as though it were his natural way of going."

Holy shit I love Alan, he is so weird (affectionate) 💕.