Horatio Hornblower (TV series)/YMMV

The books:

• Angst Dissonance: Hornblower has a habit of becoming more depressed after successes, taking himself to task for the "foolish" risks he's taken. His awareness of this doesn't actually help. Conversely, he sometimes gets more cheerful when facing difficulties.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Commodore, a general firing howitzers mentions the possibility of timing the fuse so the targets wouldn't have time to extinguish it. In Hotspur, Hornblower does precisely that. The reason it's "Hilarious" is that while Hotspur is the earlier book in sequence, it was written after Commodore.
• Ho Yay - Between Hornblower and Bush.
  • In the 1951 movie it seems to be just about every man in the British Navy towards Hornblower, apart from Lady Barbara's husband.
• Older Than They Think: Being written from 1937 to 1967.
• The Scrappy: Maria. In and out of universe. Hornblower marries her largely out of a sense of guilt because he's too passive to reject her unwanted affection and hurt her feelings. He manages to spend his marriage under a cloud of guilt and repressed, hidden unhappiness. Her presence generally results in making Hornblower less likable as a character by bringing out his emotional/social cowardice.
  • The Woobie: Maria's basically a sweet if naive girl, and she adores Hornblower so unreservedly that many of his complaints would probably be solved by simply telling her about it. (e.g. Being called "Horry.") The abandonment and the hollow falseness of the affection she receives from the "hero" is almost heart-breaking at times. Mercifully she never knows or even suspects he doesn't love her as much as she loves him.
• Values Dissonance: Viewed through the lens of a modern American generation that hasn't ever had to worry about the draft, the pressing of men into sailors, who must obey their new masters on pain of brutal beating or death, comes off as basically slavery. This is more jarring when in Flying Colours, Hornblower promises freedom to a chain-gang in exchange for helping him escape France to England only to react with cheer when they are pressed as seamen after arrival.
  • Although Hornblower expresses antislavery views in Lieutenant Hornblower, he's still as racist as most white Brits in the 1800s. He insists on only pressing white crewmen from the East India convoy in Ship of the Line. And using the word "nigger" a few pages before that. He also has a poor opinion of women in general and is rather put out by the fact that Lady Barbara is intelligent and competent. His romance and marriage to her modifies this a bit, but it doesn't cure it completely.
    • Most of this is Deliberate Values Dissonance.
• The Woobie: In The Hornblower Addendum, George III. It's 1812 and he's gone completely bonkers, and we are treated to one of his doctors telling Hornblower the king's typical (and utterly horrific) treatment plan. The king himself is completely sweet to Hornblower and fearless in the face of sea action, but cowers badly when faced with his own doctor. It's hard not to want to give him a hug and punch his doctor.

The A&E series:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Plenty of this regarding Simpson, who is theorised about due to the ominous and vague lines other characters say in regards to him ("You don't know half what he's capable of") and the question of what, exactly, he'd been doing with the other midshipmen prior to Horatio's arrival.
  • Also in Series Two, the interpretation of how Captain Sawyer fell down the hatchway. The question of whether or not it was an accident leads often enough to the secondary question, whether it was in the nature of any of the characters present to actively push the captain.
• Adorkable: Horatio has shades of this especially in the first series. His awkwardness with the Duchess and his fanboyish reaction to Captain Foster (at the beginning of the second episode, at least) show this tendency.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Captain Sawyer may have been violent, insane, and definitely Series Two's major antagonist, but in Retribution we see just how far he's fallen from the officer he used to be, and by the time he is killed, it's hard not to pity him.
• Base Breaker: Archie, to an extent, caught between those fans who dislike his addition into the series as he wasn't in the books, and those who think he added a nice element to the narrative and a more accessible side to the title character.
• Complete Monster: For a short-lived and not all that powerful character, Jack Simpson qualifies. He ruthlessly torments his fellow midshipmen, cheats at cards and duels, and shoots one shipmate in the middle of a raid just after setting another adrift in a rowboat. Good thing both of the latter lived, even if Archie was imprisoned for a good long time as a result.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Known to fans as the "It's the bloody Indy!" theme.
• Die for Our Ship: Mariette in the fourth episode gets a bit of this from Horatio/Archie shippers, although she isn't a very popular character anyway.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Archie Kennedy, first to the writers and cast, then to the fans. Archie was only intended to be in Even Chance but he (and his actor Jamie Bamber) were so well liked by the cast and crew that he got written into Duchess and Frogs and Lobsters, making him a favorite among fans, particularly shippers. This led to the events in Executive Meddling.
  • Arguably, Major Edrington in "The Wrong War/The Frogs and the Lobsters." Only appears in one instalment, but he's very popular among the fans.
• Fan Nickname: There are others out there, probably, but the one that comes to mind right now is "Crumpet" for Archie Kennedy.
• Fan Community Nickname: Archie fans call themselves Crumpeteers.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Whether anything after Retribution-or namely Kennedy's death, happened. Fandom actually uses the terms 'LKU' and 'DKU' to differentiate whether this fic has Archie as alive or dead.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The line "You were born to hang, Mr Hornblower" becomes horrifying in the context of what nearly happened in Retribution.
• He's Just Hiding: Archie during The Fire Ships.
• Ho Yay: Between Hornblower and Archie Kennedy, and Bush later on. Some people also ship Pellew/Hornblower.
  • Considering Pellew regards Hornblower as a son, the latter is a little... disturbing.
  • Jack Hammond seems to have a crush on Captain Hornblower.
• Internet Backdraft: A more literal case, rumor has it that so many people went on the A&E boards to react after Archie Kennedy's death that the servers crashed.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hornblower himself, in the later films, due to Character Development. Most notably in his dealings with his wife, Maria. This is, of course, in line with his characterization in the books, where he became a fairly cold and calculating character, who had great difficulty in relating to other people.
• Kick the Dog: Moncoutant in "The Wrong War/The Frogs and the Lobsters" kicks off his return to Muzillac by shooting the mayor and threatening a kid. Later, he acts like a chauvinist pig toward Horatio's Love Interest and states straight out that anyone who doesn't think the lower class is made up of dumb animals is an idiot.
  • Also, in "The Duel/The Even Chance," Simpson's return to the midshipmen consists of him stealing Horatio's food and ordering him to dance. If the other midshipmen's reactions to him (especially Archie's) weren't enough, these are two pretty good indications of the kind of person he is.
• Large Ham: Colonel Moncoutant. So much eye-bulging.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • After many, many Kick the Dog moments, Colonel Moncoutant from The Frogs and the Lobsters crosses this when he orders half his village beheaded. Gleefully.
  • Jack Simpson from Even Chance may have crossed this before even appearing onscreen, considering the fact that his mere presence gives Archie Kennedy seizures, but he absolutely crosses it by the end of the boarding of the Papillon, when he attempts to murder both Kennedy and Hornblower.
• Narm: "I was just thinking of the distances we travel ... yet how far we still have to sail as men." Possibly the most mocked line in the series.
  • And earlier in the same episode, the slow-motion "BUUUUNTIIIIIING!!!" that Horatio yells out while chasing Bunting through the woods.
• No Yay: In the first instalment, if you're prone to noticing subtext, the Inquisition scene is full of this. Simpson leaning in way too close to Hornblower and suggesting he fancies other boys? Add to that the popular Rape as Backstory interpretation of Simpson's interactions with Kennedy, and it gets really suspicious.
• One True Threesome: Hornblower/Kennedy/Bush during the second series is a fairly popular ship.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Mariette in The Frogs and The Lobsters, who mostly only seems to be there to provide eye candy, and eventually to get killed in the final act so Hornblower could have some angst. ^[1]
• Shallow Love Interest: Mariette is given very little personality.
• Tear Jerker: "Retribution:" Everything from Horatio asking "Is that your blood?" to the courtroom scene in which Archie confesses to mutiny, saving Horatio's life, to Archie's death and Horatio's obvious devastation at losing his closest friend. The last fifteen minutes or so of "Retribution" are one big sob-fest.
  • "The Duchess and the Devil:" "You don't need me." Fortunately also a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming as Horatio insists that he does.
  • "The Wrong War/The Frogs and the Lobsters:" Their relationship may be a Romantic Plot Tumour but Horatio's reaction to Mariette's death makes it hard not to want to hug him.
  • Also, much of Horatio's interaction with Maria in the seventh and eighth instalments. He's so obviously not as interested in her as she is in him, and even when he marries her his affection seems much more like sympathy or pity and a sense of obligation than anything else. You've really got to feel sorry for the poor girl.
• When He Smiles: Horatio. Attractive at the best of times, but positively endearing when he's happy.
  • Also Archie Kennedy. When he's happy the sun comes out.
• The Woobie: Kennedy, though whenever he's not suffering horribly, he's a high-spirited person who makes it a point to keep Horatio from getting too serious. In Mutiny, Wellard becomes The Woobie and Kennedy helps him cope.
  • Stoic Woobie: Horatio himself at times. While he may rise in rank and become quite successful in his career, he has been through a lot of misery (including losing several friends, a love interest, and being tormented in the early days by a sadistic midshipman and later on by a crazed captain) and by the third series, is living in poverty and evident loneliness, even telling Maria that he thought for a long time she was his only friend in the world. That combined with his constant self-doubt makes him incredibly sympathetic ... but he never complains outright.

1. ↑ By all appearances, it seems they just took the character of Marie Ladon from the books, and moved their meeting to before she married the son of the Comte de Gracay. Both women notably suffered similar fates, albeit under very different circumstances.