Some half-formed Kidnapped thoughts before bed

[verecunda]

1) I raise you: Alan getting in so deep in the gambling at Cluny's Cage, not just because he's daft when he gets to the cartes, but because he's only too aware that Davie is sick, and he needs the distraction to keep himself from freaking out completely. Unfortunately, by the end, Davie is still even more sick, and also very very angry to boot.

2) NTS!Alan doesn't seem to have quite the same sentimental attachment to Scotland that book!Alan does. Book!Alan says that he comes back as much out of homesickness as out of his duty to his chief, whereas NTS!Alan says that politics is the only reason he's back in "this godforsaken country" at all. Now, he's talking in anger, so maybe we shouldn't take him fully at his word, but still. Cf. the finale, when he says that he's "home"... and it's because of Davie. Davie is what has brought him home at last. <3

3) NTS!verse again: lowering Alan's age to twenty-five was probably a sound idea purely for adaptational purposes, but it also has me feeling some very strong emotions that I'm getting too sleepy to parse. Assuming that the play is also set in 1751 (albeit a wacky alternate 1751), that means Alan would have been Davie's own age at the time of the uprising. That's just... *gestures hopelessly* But not only that, twenty-five was also the age RLS himself was he met Frances (though in their case, she was the older one). Something something parallels. Kinda.

4) On Saturdays, I volunteer with the books at one of the local charity shops. Yesterday, I was going through the bags, when lo! out of one I pull a non-fiction book about the Appin Murder. :D Yes, I got it for myself. (I'm too tired to go rummaging for it now, so I can't remember the proper title or the author - Seamus somebody?) If nothing else, I'm hoping it'll be useful for mining background details for fic!

Comments

[muccamukk]

1) I think Alan also wants to impress his peers. He's feeling out of place, being on the run, spending time with Davie, being somewhat marginal in terms of his position in Scottish society in the first place (he's a foster son who seems to somewhat be on sufferance a lot of the time), and having started the war on the English side. He wants Cluny's approval, and for Cluny to like him.

3 & 4) are somewhat related? I think? I was talking about this on my blog a while ago, and if he joined up when he was 17-19, spent time in the English army, switched sides, he's never been in Scotland as a free adult. He grew up in Appin, sure, but after that he was either at war or in exile/on the run/having a price on his head. Book Alan at least had a shot at just LIVING.

4) That sounds like Killing the Red Fox, which is the one I pulled a lot of Alan info from, for his French military records.

[verecunda]

Oh, that's a really interesting idea about Alan wanting to impress Cluny, and I've never thought of it before. Generally I think he just does have a personality that is susceptible to the pull of gambling, but the status element of it is also super interesting. Alan's position is even more tenuous when you bring in the revelation from Catriona that he (or his father) is actually illegitimate, so yeah, he might well be deliberately trying to prove himself with Cluny.

omg yes, exactly! Play!Alan has spent pretty much his whole adult life at war or on the run. I'd love to know what book!Alan (or indeed real!Alan) was doing with himself before he joined the army.

It is indeed The Killing of the Red Fox. There's a couple of things I want to get read first, but I'm hoping to read it soon.

[muccamukk]

I really wish a researcher would really dig into Alan's life, because I've only ever heard rumours about what his background is. There's some story that his father was at the very least sketchy, but nothing you could really pin down. But yeah, the idea that he's James' foster son on sufferance would seem to make him a bit chippy and needing to prove things.

[regshoe]

I like all these thoughts very much, thank you for sharing them. :D

Point 1) is so terribly plausible, oof :( I did wonder about the equivalent bit in the play perhaps being a bit of a reaction to the last night and the not-yet-totally-secure relationship development with Davie (the way Alan talks about Davie to Rob Og seemed to suggest that). Either version of Alan does not deal with his emotions well, it seems...

twenty-five was also the age RLS himself was he met Frances

Oh, how neat <3

I'm too tired to go rummaging for it now, so I can't remember the proper title or the author - Seamus somebody?

That would be The Killing of the Red Fox by Seamus Carney! muccamukk read it a little while ago—apparently it's got a lot of stuff on the historical Alan's background, career in the French Army and future. I have a copy but have not got round to doing more than skimming brief bits of it yet. What a cool find :D

[verecunda]

Ooh yes, that's a good thought! I think that's probably lurking in the background of the whole thing, because the argument kind of culminates in Davie accusing him of being a coward etc. I think there's some good angsty stuff to mine here - book and NTS-verse. :D

It is the Carney book! (It spent the whole weekend in my rucksack, but I dug it out to check. XD) Sometimes the shop throws up a very serendipitous wee find like that, it's always good. :) I'm hoping to give it a read soon.