Music Appreciation

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't believe I ever posted this ficlet - Francis Urquhart in a missing moment from the very end of The Final Cut.


Urquhart had never understood what his wife saw in Wagner. Especially the Ring. All that turgid over-blown Germanic pomposity! Not his style at all.

“It’s the power thing,” Tim Stamper had said, grinning up at him, “surprised it doesn’t do it for you, really.” But though Tim – poor Tim – had had many admirable qualities, music appreciation had not been among them. Urquhart was no Wagnerian, but he had lived with one long enough to know that the Ring wasn’t an ode to power. It was about giving it up, or what might force you to do so. And giving up power didn’t suit him – or Elizabeth.

“We can be safe still,” she had said, bracing as ever. Yet there was an odd flicker behind her eyes, and Urquhart had felt the cold weight in his stomach grow heavier, not lighter.

Power, and what made you give it up. As he walked out to the unveiling ceremony, he found he was trying to recall how the final bars of Götterdämmerung went.

Preposterous. Not his style at all. And yet… well, maybe he would listen to them later. If there was time. He was trying hard not to be melodramatic - another Wagnarian vice that didn't suit him - but it felt like the very last act of all.

At any rate, perhaps there was something in it, after all. For Elizabeth, if not him.

Comments

[undomielregina]

Ooh, I like this very much. It suits him quite well and I rather like the idea that he had some subconscious inkling of what was coming.

[tree_and_leaf]

It's what he would have wanted!

[kerravonsen]

I have absolutely no idea of the context of this, not having seen what it's referring to, but it's a character-full vigniette nevertheless.

[tree_and_leaf]

Thank you! The "House of Cards" trilogy is about the rise and fall of a particularly machiavellian politician, Francis Urqhuart, who was wonderfully played by Ian Richardson. The third series is actually the weakest, but the end is still very well done...