Part VII: The Demise of Robert
“What the hell, man?” he said. “You come, you promise me a starring role – Robert, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, you offer me millions of dollars, but that’s not why I came. No, you GUARANTEED that we’d win Academy Awards, that I’ll finally return to the limelight!”
“Chill, dude,” I responded. “You will, don’t worry – ”
“Don’t worry? Don’t worry?” He laughed. “You’re right I won’t worry. Why? BECAUSE I QUIT!”
“Seriously? Seriously? After all we’ve been through?”
“After all we’ve been through, after all we’ve been through – ain’t that cute. Yea, that’s right – CUTE! I get one #$@%@$% scene – just a cameo, even – and that’s it. I’m playing the ELDEST SON, for Pete’s sake! I’m supposed to be the HEIR – and then you hand it over to freakin’ Richard Madden’s character! That dude’s already got Robb Stark in Game of Thrones for crying out loud!”
“Calm down, dude, calm down. Surely we can work something out.”
“Damn right we can – you can just simply edit me out of the whole damn AAR, that’s what!”
“Come on, wouldn’t that be a bit too far?”
“Well, then tell me, I pray, [B]WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MY PART!!! [/B]I’ve had enough of this – I’m up to here with frustration! I haven’t won any Grammies, or Tonys, or AARlander Awards, and yet you see Anne Hathaway winning an Emmy for a role that isn’t even in most of the movie!
Seriously?!?!? I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! And if you don’t give me what I want, then I’m gonna call my agent, and we’re gonna sue you so hard you’ll be begging on the streets outside the subway station, too poor to afford rent on a box!”
Author’s Note: This is not the most updated version, but what I found on Google.
I sighed. “Well, then, if you really feel this way…Lemme get to it…You game for one last write-off scene?”
It was an usually frigid January in Normandy, as blankets of snow quilted everything from the beaches in the South to the dense forests in the North…or was it beaches in the North and dense forests in the South? Whatever – nobody who reads anything like this actually knows geography I presume – I mean, come on, it’s France, what do you expect?
Robert, the Count of Normandy and acting as Duke while his father played King of the Hill over in England during the Yorkist and Marxist Revolt, trudged through deep banks of snow, en route from his nice, cozy castle in Caen, to investigate an official complain to the King sent by the local towns. They spoke of battles of witches and warlocks, of fierce monsters and magicians, of beasts of ancient epics…and beasts unknown to the human imagination. The storms of late had been fierce, forest fires had raged for weeks on end – and still continued, supposedly, in the forests of Britanny.
Which meant, Robert mused, that it was nothing but a couple of really bad blizzards – nothing gets the peasants more anxious than ten feet of snow, a lightning show, and a forest fire.
Just ahead of him three kids, roughly 14-15 years old, began to cross the road. Nothing unusual – except one of the three wasn’t wearing any pants, and where his pants were supposed to be, were hairy legs, and hooves.
“What in the name of the good Lord are you kids doing out here on the highway?” Robert motioned to the hairy-legged-hooved one. “And you, put on some pants, you freak!”
The third one gulped. “Uh, sorry sir, Your Majesty, whatever it is you’d like to be called, but I don’t have any pants.”
“Well, then what the hell are you doing out here?!?!? Stealing probably, or maybe you just murdered somebody,” he said, gesturing to the sword at the belt of one of them. “Tell me, what is your business, or I will arrest you, in the name of the Duke of Normandy, William de Normandie, King of England.”
The sword-clad one stepped forward. “If I may explain, my liege. I am Paul, this here is Sansa (evidently the other one was a girl…stranger and stranger…), and this faun is Gracchus. We come from the Twelfth Legion, ordered by Jupiter to confront the bronze bull that has been torturing these parts of the woods.”
Robert laughed out loud. “Where then is this bronze bull you speak of, if that’s what you’re truly out here for? And what is this legion you speak of – this is Normandy, vassal to the King of France, Lorded over by the King of England, NOT the Roman Empire…and even the Emperor in Germany no longer uses legions, nor the Greek one in…well, Greece.”
“Uh, take a look behind you.” So Robert did…and then proceeded to scream like a little girl. Rather than try to explain with words, here’s a picture of that bull:
Yea, understand why he screamed now?
The two kids drew swords – well, the girl hadn’t drawn it, it simply appeared from God knows where – and, pushing Robert aside, began to dual the bull. Together they worked, as if with one body, one distracting and the other charging, but, ultimately, they were unable to bring it down. And then all of a sudden a bronze sword flew through the bull, and it disintegrated into dust, and then another boy appeared out of nowhere, a helm in his hand as if he had just taken it off. “You’re welcome, Roman scum,” he said.
Paul turned red, and it wasn’t from the cold. ‘You Graecus, you people always mess things up. We had it totally under control.”
“Yea,” Robert said, his head still spinning. “About to die, but you had it under control.”
“Shut up, you craven idiot,” Sansa rebuked, pulling a rubber chicken from thin air and walloping the Son of William over the head with it. “You weren’t given permission to speak.”
“Excuse me, miss, I am the Son of the Duke and –“ Robert tried to interject.
“Typical Romans, take on a fight you can’t win, then the Greeks have to come in and save you, just like your PRECIOUS EMPIRE.”
Paul seethed. “You take that back, you foul-brained son of the scandalous Greek. You shouldn’t even exist; Minerva as a Greek shows you exactly what kind of untrustworthy, oath-breaking people you are.”
The boy smirked. “Oatmeal-making people who happened to come and save your behinds. Oh, and, remember, our half of YOUR empire is still standing.”
“You idiots didn’t even try to give us a hand when the Goths came,” Sansa whined.
“YOU guys kept screwing up every time you took on the Parthians,” the boy shot back. “And then –“
“ENOUGH!!!!” a voice boomed from heaven. Lightning shot across the sky and thunder boomed. “This is getting way too silly, and I’ve had enough! You are all FIRED, I tell you! FIRED! You people don’t know good comedy, or even good insults! The Monty Python gang would be ashamed to see what sort of people masquerade as Monty Python spoofs these days, and you are the WORST of the WORST!”
And with that, the cameras died, and Part VII of Can European Swallows Carry Coconuts? ended, with the “Death by ‘You’re Fired’ of Robert, Count of Normandy, of House Normandie, son of William, known as the Conqueror, King of England, and played by the famous actor – ”
EDITOR’S NOTE: FOR WHATEVER REASON, THE AARTIST’S RECORDS WERE CUT OFF HERE. NO SIGNS HAVE EVER BEEN FOUND AS TO WHAT ACTOR PLAYED COUNT ROBERT, FOR NO TAPES OF HIS SCENES WERE EVER FOUND, AND HIS VOICE WAS AS DULL AND FORGETTABLE AS THE MAN WHO SITS BEHIND HIS DESK FOR A LIVING.
Thanks again for reading! And, I should note, this is a purely non-gameplay post, as I needed some way to justify my almost complete removal of Robert from the story, and the passing over of him in the order of succession.
As always, comments are appreciated!
“What the hell, man?” he said. “You come, you promise me a starring role – Robert, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, you offer me millions of dollars, but that’s not why I came. No, you GUARANTEED that we’d win Academy Awards, that I’ll finally return to the limelight!”
“Chill, dude,” I responded. “You will, don’t worry – ”
“Don’t worry? Don’t worry?” He laughed. “You’re right I won’t worry. Why? BECAUSE I QUIT!”
“Seriously? Seriously? After all we’ve been through?”
“After all we’ve been through, after all we’ve been through – ain’t that cute. Yea, that’s right – CUTE! I get one #$@%@$% scene – just a cameo, even – and that’s it. I’m playing the ELDEST SON, for Pete’s sake! I’m supposed to be the HEIR – and then you hand it over to freakin’ Richard Madden’s character! That dude’s already got Robb Stark in Game of Thrones for crying out loud!”
“Calm down, dude, calm down. Surely we can work something out.”
“Damn right we can – you can just simply edit me out of the whole damn AAR, that’s what!”
“Come on, wouldn’t that be a bit too far?”
“Well, then tell me, I pray, [B]WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MY PART!!! [/B]I’ve had enough of this – I’m up to here with frustration! I haven’t won any Grammies, or Tonys, or AARlander Awards, and yet you see Anne Hathaway winning an Emmy for a role that isn’t even in most of the movie!
Seriously?!?!? I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! And if you don’t give me what I want, then I’m gonna call my agent, and we’re gonna sue you so hard you’ll be begging on the streets outside the subway station, too poor to afford rent on a box!”
Author’s Note: This is not the most updated version, but what I found on Google.
I sighed. “Well, then, if you really feel this way…Lemme get to it…You game for one last write-off scene?”
[video=youtube;ozcHOX7cYsc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozcHOX7cYsc[/video]
It was an usually frigid January in Normandy, as blankets of snow quilted everything from the beaches in the South to the dense forests in the North…or was it beaches in the North and dense forests in the South? Whatever – nobody who reads anything like this actually knows geography I presume – I mean, come on, it’s France, what do you expect?
Robert, the Count of Normandy and acting as Duke while his father played King of the Hill over in England during the Yorkist and Marxist Revolt, trudged through deep banks of snow, en route from his nice, cozy castle in Caen, to investigate an official complain to the King sent by the local towns. They spoke of battles of witches and warlocks, of fierce monsters and magicians, of beasts of ancient epics…and beasts unknown to the human imagination. The storms of late had been fierce, forest fires had raged for weeks on end – and still continued, supposedly, in the forests of Britanny.
Which meant, Robert mused, that it was nothing but a couple of really bad blizzards – nothing gets the peasants more anxious than ten feet of snow, a lightning show, and a forest fire.
Just ahead of him three kids, roughly 14-15 years old, began to cross the road. Nothing unusual – except one of the three wasn’t wearing any pants, and where his pants were supposed to be, were hairy legs, and hooves.
“What in the name of the good Lord are you kids doing out here on the highway?” Robert motioned to the hairy-legged-hooved one. “And you, put on some pants, you freak!”
The third one gulped. “Uh, sorry sir, Your Majesty, whatever it is you’d like to be called, but I don’t have any pants.”
“Well, then what the hell are you doing out here?!?!? Stealing probably, or maybe you just murdered somebody,” he said, gesturing to the sword at the belt of one of them. “Tell me, what is your business, or I will arrest you, in the name of the Duke of Normandy, William de Normandie, King of England.”
The sword-clad one stepped forward. “If I may explain, my liege. I am Paul, this here is Sansa (evidently the other one was a girl…stranger and stranger…), and this faun is Gracchus. We come from the Twelfth Legion, ordered by Jupiter to confront the bronze bull that has been torturing these parts of the woods.”
Robert laughed out loud. “Where then is this bronze bull you speak of, if that’s what you’re truly out here for? And what is this legion you speak of – this is Normandy, vassal to the King of France, Lorded over by the King of England, NOT the Roman Empire…and even the Emperor in Germany no longer uses legions, nor the Greek one in…well, Greece.”
“Uh, take a look behind you.” So Robert did…and then proceeded to scream like a little girl. Rather than try to explain with words, here’s a picture of that bull:
Yea, understand why he screamed now?
The two kids drew swords – well, the girl hadn’t drawn it, it simply appeared from God knows where – and, pushing Robert aside, began to dual the bull. Together they worked, as if with one body, one distracting and the other charging, but, ultimately, they were unable to bring it down. And then all of a sudden a bronze sword flew through the bull, and it disintegrated into dust, and then another boy appeared out of nowhere, a helm in his hand as if he had just taken it off. “You’re welcome, Roman scum,” he said.
Paul turned red, and it wasn’t from the cold. ‘You Graecus, you people always mess things up. We had it totally under control.”
“Yea,” Robert said, his head still spinning. “About to die, but you had it under control.”
“Shut up, you craven idiot,” Sansa rebuked, pulling a rubber chicken from thin air and walloping the Son of William over the head with it. “You weren’t given permission to speak.”
“Excuse me, miss, I am the Son of the Duke and –“ Robert tried to interject.
“Typical Romans, take on a fight you can’t win, then the Greeks have to come in and save you, just like your PRECIOUS EMPIRE.”
Paul seethed. “You take that back, you foul-brained son of the scandalous Greek. You shouldn’t even exist; Minerva as a Greek shows you exactly what kind of untrustworthy, oath-breaking people you are.”
The boy smirked. “Oatmeal-making people who happened to come and save your behinds. Oh, and, remember, our half of YOUR empire is still standing.”
“You idiots didn’t even try to give us a hand when the Goths came,” Sansa whined.
“YOU guys kept screwing up every time you took on the Parthians,” the boy shot back. “And then –“
“ENOUGH!!!!” a voice boomed from heaven. Lightning shot across the sky and thunder boomed. “This is getting way too silly, and I’ve had enough! You are all FIRED, I tell you! FIRED! You people don’t know good comedy, or even good insults! The Monty Python gang would be ashamed to see what sort of people masquerade as Monty Python spoofs these days, and you are the WORST of the WORST!”
And with that, the cameras died, and Part VII of Can European Swallows Carry Coconuts? ended, with the “Death by ‘You’re Fired’ of Robert, Count of Normandy, of House Normandie, son of William, known as the Conqueror, King of England, and played by the famous actor – ”
EDITOR’S NOTE: FOR WHATEVER REASON, THE AARTIST’S RECORDS WERE CUT OFF HERE. NO SIGNS HAVE EVER BEEN FOUND AS TO WHAT ACTOR PLAYED COUNT ROBERT, FOR NO TAPES OF HIS SCENES WERE EVER FOUND, AND HIS VOICE WAS AS DULL AND FORGETTABLE AS THE MAN WHO SITS BEHIND HIS DESK FOR A LIVING.
Thanks again for reading! And, I should note, this is a purely non-gameplay post, as I needed some way to justify my almost complete removal of Robert from the story, and the passing over of him in the order of succession.
As always, comments are appreciated!
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_as_Lancelot_in_the_London_production_of_Spamalot,_photo_by_Catherine_Ashmore1.jpg)
