MovieChat Forums > Hornblower: Mutiny (2001) Discussion > Is there more romance?

Is there more romance?

posted 18 years ago by TantanLex
7 replies | jump to latest

I haven't read the books but from the film there didn't seem to be much connection between 'Horrie' (painful nickname!) and Maria. It's obvious she loves him but I don't see much affection coming from him! Is there more romance in the later books? Does he have relationships with other women???

I will read the books at some point but am desperate to know now!!

[–] tmf_scipio 18 years ago

In the book, he only meets Maria at the end. You can tell he cares for her, but he almost marries her out of guilt/loyalty. A decision he instantly regrets. This regret lasts until 5 books later when he finds out that she died in childbirth. Thus, freeing him to pursue Lady Barbara whom he meets in the 6th book of the series (Beat to Quarters).

Hope that helps.

"Bear costumes are funny... Bears as well."

[–] TantanLex 18 years ago

Thank you! I'm glad he does find truer love but I feel sorry for Maria. : (

[–] JPfanatic93 16 years ago

The romance in Frogs and Lobsters kinda ruimed that particular movie, and though it was better done in the last two movies, romance is still not the strongest part of the Hornblower films.

[–] Conspirator_Slash 15 years ago

Oh yes it is. Just search in in the right place. Not with those puppets of girls who can't act. True romance here goes between the men.

Starry Vere, God bless you!

[–] lilale777 14 years ago

If you are looking for "romance", don't read the books. There is no romance.

Hornblower is a cross-grained character and until the last book never really finds love. Lady Barbara is wonderful and he falls in love with her, but comforts himself with Marie, a Frenchwoman. He leaves Marie, marries Barbara, betrays her and returns for a time to Marie. These complications in love are not romance stuff, no steeplechase race to the altar, no exterior obstacles, but character-driven problems and inner conflicts. Women love Hornblower but he can't really give himself up in love. He doesn't trust himself.

Hornblower is A Man Alone. Only on the last page of the last book, he and Barbara really get close.

Besides, there are quite a lot of things going on in Hornblower's life, not only women.

[–] max-silver 14 years ago

Lady Barbara is wonderful and he falls in love with her, but comforts himself with Marie, a Frenchwoman. He leaves Marie, marries Barbara, betrays her and returns for a time to Marie.

Not quite. Hornblower marries Maria, an Englishwoman and the daughter of the landlady, in the beginning of Hornblower and the Hotspur. He married her out of pity rather than love, and used his acting skill to appear he loved her, and never once betrayed this fact. He meets Lady Barbara Wellesly, the fictional sister of Arthur Wellesley, in Beat to Quarters, the first actual book in the series, but seventh by intertnal chronology. He meets Marie, the widowed daughter-in-law of the Comte de Graçay, in Flying Colours, third written, but ninth by internal chronology. Upon his return to England, he learns that Maria died in childbirth of his third child, Richard, who is adopted by Lady Barbara. He then marries Lady Barbara.

Hornblower meets Marie again while staying at the estate of the Comte de Graçay shortly after Napoleon's exile, and then leads a royalist guerilla uprising during Napoleon's Hundred Days. Marie is killed during the fighting, and Hornblower is about to be shot by the warrent issued in Flying Colours when Bounaparte is defeated by Hornblower's brother-in-law, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, at Waterloo.

[–] a-bollinger 13 years ago

Am I totally mistaken?? I just watched "Mutiny" (the movie we're discussing here) on DVD and I didn't see any romance or any love interest of Horatio's in THIS movie. You're probably referring to the later movies where Horatio meets his landlady's daughter??