December 10, 2025
Swords over shots!
Are the Three Musketeers allergic to muskets?(2014)
Fans cry 'Swordeteers' as BBC adds gunfire and D’Artagnan steals the spotlight
TLDR: Dumas’s Musketeers rarely use muskets because the guns were heavy, fuse-lit, and better for battle than street duels, while the BBC adds extra gunfire. Comments split between history sticklers and action lovers, with “slow muskets” chants, jokes like “Swordeteers,” and someone chasing that “cheerful footnotes” book.
BBC’s flashy new The Musketeers dropped with plenty of gunshots, but the book it’s based on? Almost no muskets. Oxford’s Dr. Simon Kemp says Dumas kept guns off the streets because early muskets were heavy, slow, and risky — you literally had to light a cord to fire. Cue the comment brawl: rob74 confessed they were “surprised not only by the lack of muskets,” and that the story was basically D’Artagnan & Friends. History nerds cheered the realism while action junkies yelled, “They’re named for guns!” Watwut brought receipts: “Matchlock Musket took forever to fire,” plus a video showing why sword-fighting beat fuse-lighting every time.
Then the thread split: one camp crowed that swords make sense in city chaos, the other demanded more bang-bang because, hello, title. Memes flew — fans dubbed them the Swordeteers, joked they’re “allergic to muskets,” and side-eyed the BBC’s extra pew-pew. Meanwhile, runxel hilariously derailed the debate, hunting for the edition with cheerful footnotes like a literary treasure quest. When someone noted Dumas finally drops an older gun hundreds of pages in, the crowd declared it the ultimate slow burn — literally. Verdict: history cops fenced their way to victory, but TV will keep pulling the trigger for the drama.
Key Points
- •The BBC’s The Musketeers features more gunfire than Alexandre Dumas’ novel, which sparsely depicts muskets.
- •In the 1620s, Musketeers were named for musket training, but muskets were heavy, matchlock-fired, and unwieldy.
- •Early parts of the novel emphasize sword-fighting; a mousqueton appears only much later and not with a musketeer.
- •At the siege of La Rochelle, a shot thought to be from a musket is identified as from an arquebuse.
- •Athos calls muskets “useless burdens” on a secret expedition, indicating they were suited to battlefields, not close-quarters exploits.