#like you can make an argument for paddy because he was still grieving eoin and that's messy but! augustin had such an embarrassing crush

[deepfriedpaddymayne]

Hi! I was wondering what you think about Augustin's sexuality esp during the getting pinned down/almost killed by Paddy scene=) I think he seems to enjoy it for a second, then gets annoyed and throws out the wife and kid line. But he also seems SO intrigued by him afterwards. Is he just comfortable in his sexuality?

hello anon first of all I am sorry for taking so long to answer this, it has been sitting in my brain for a long time. second of all mwah smooching you on the forehead for giving me an opportunity to ramble about my special boy

I am gonna preface this with the fact that while we do get a decent enough look at Augustin in the only two episodes we have him in, we do only have him around for two episodes. this means that a lot of my personal way of characterising Augustin is extrapolated from the little information we have, or from what I think makes a nice contrast with Paddy, because obviously those two are meant to be foils/parallels/mirrors/whatever it was that they were gonna do with them before the rewrites. replying to this ask is basically me explaining the process behind some of this extrapolation, because I think about Augustin Jordan a regular amount.

I personally find the way Augustin relates to his sexuality just... fascinating. on my first watch of The Sand Wrestling scene, my first impression was that the guy had to be ridiculously touch starved, because, like. it is undeniable that, even for just a few seconds, he was enjoying himself there. and okay, intricate rituals and homoeroticism and all of those things, but even then, Paddy is literally holding a knife to his throat. that should make you a little tense even if you are into sweaty wrestling with hot poets! and instead, Augustin is relaxing into it. as soon as the immediate fear goes away, he fucking melts under Paddy for a few seconds, and that's when the annoyance kicks in, after which his reactions seem a little more - contained, almost? he generally moves less and starts shushing Paddy, and then when he gets up shortly after he looks SO irritated (which is also so funny imo - my guy was just pinned to the ground with a knife to his throat by a guy who's famously insane and the most negativity he can muster is 'well that was annoying'). but of course, as you point out, after that, he is very obviously intrigued by Paddy - he's SO delighted when he realises that Paddy did just invite him to play russian roulette to prove a point, and in that entire scene he alternates between "my man you are insane what the hell" and "my man you are insane what the hell 👀". and the most obvious explanation for this is, ok, he's just very touch starved. sometimes it's just nice being held, even if that involves being threatened with a knife, you know? BUT WE KNOW HE'S NOT TOUCH STARVED. becuase we see him be physically affectionate with the rest of the French! he's not a loner who hasn't had any human touch in years!

which leads me to go, ok, well, then he's got to be very repressed. because that scene is quite sexual, blah blah blah homoeroticism of violence, while the rest of the affection we see him share with the others reads, at least to me, as very platonic. SO there is definitely some layer of repression going on - but I don't think it's a blanket repression of his sexuality. he's too confident later, when he goes up to Paddy and basically asks him if he's single while smoking his slutty little cigarette, to be someone who altogether panics at the concept of being into men. so WHY does he seem so irritated in the sand wrestling scene, and why does he throw in that line about having a wife and child? and I think the answer is that Augustin is a fairly controlled person. take the very composed confidence with which he shuts down Paddy's quoting TS Eliot at him, take the way he explains very flatly that they are used to following orders, take the fact that what he says to Paddy after the russian roulette is that they are here to defeat fascism, such a weirdly rational, to-the-point reaction to that entire interaction. he's upset in that moment, but he's getting himself together. he is very upset later, in episode 5, when he realises they've been betrayed, and even then, he keeps it together when he realises what Halevy is going to do, enough to encourage him and get himself out of there. Augustin is good at keeping it together, but here is the other thing - I think it's a facade. I think he's actually EXTREMELY intense, and this controlled rationality is not natural, it's learned. I am not sure why he would - though, again, I would guess that being gay in the 30s and 40s does all sorts of things to you - but I think he's taught himself to keep it together. and I think that's WHY he's so fascinated with Paddy, because Paddy is all but controlled. Paddy is a lot less insane than most people frame him as, but he is a wild, unbridled flood of emotion - especially when Augustin meets him, after Eoin, when the lines between feigned and real insanity start to blur. and I think seeing someone that's both so similar and so different from him is both scary and intoxicating for Augustin. imagine you spent your whole life teaching yourself to control your emotions and keep it together and then you meet a guy that's you, but whose heart is on his sleeve and constantly bleeding. terrifying, sure, but MAN, it must be a sight to behold.

and I think if you look at the sand wrestling scene from that angle, it makes it all make sense. he goes from the first moment of panic to elation to annoyance - and I think the annoyance is mostly at himself, because he's caught himself slipping, he's caught himself experiencing that rush of fear and adrenaline and probably attraction with a little too much pleasure. and that's why he says that he has a wife and child - not really because it's the being gay that he's repressing, but because he's kind of panicking at that flood of emotion (I personally believe he's lying in that moment - I know that it's possible that his file saying otherwise was just a mistake, but it's waaaay more interesting to me if he's lying. and, for what it's worth, the guy doesn't wear a wedding ring, on his hand or around his neck or anywhere else the costume department could have put it on him to signal that he's married). but later on, when he goes up to Paddy that evening, he's had enough time to kind of rationalise that emotion and slot it in a "well, yeah, that was kind of hot, but that's normal! regular body reaction to being pinned down by a hot man. nothing to unpack here", which obviously, insane thing to think, but it probably works for him, and I think that's why that relaxed confidence is back (of course, kinda too late by this point - my man is insane and now he's smitten).

so, tl;dr: I think Augustin is comfortable in his sexuality in the sense that I don't personally think he has too much of a problem with being attracted to men, but I do think he has a problem with, sort of, intense emotions and desire that he can't really control, and that's why he gets kind of irritated in that one scene. at the same time, he probably does want to break out of that strict control he's put himself in, which explains why he's immediately so taken with Paddy.

#this is over 1000 words jesus christ. all i can say is i am sorry. except i am not really i love talking about my special boy #i hope this vaguely answered your question anon. i think about augustin jordan a regular amount #sas rogue heroes #augustin jordan #paddy x augustin #oscar answers questions #idk i just think. augustin being both the same and the opposite to paddy in the sense that he's just as intense but wayyyyy more controlled #to the point of repression #is the most fascinating way to think about the two of them #because that way they can kind of influence each other either way #because i feel like paddy feels his emotions a lot but in a way where they tend to explode in his face #while augustin keeps a tight lid on them but in a way that's suffocating #so with their powers combined. a functional human maybe #i feel like this was a very paddy/augustin answer but like! i'm sorry you're not gonna convince me that augustin wasn't sooo into him! #like you can make an argument for paddy because he was still grieving eoin and that's messy but! augustin had such an embarrassing crush