YMMV / The King Amuses Himself

• Harsher in Hindsight: The play's final tragedy is Triboulet losing his daughter. Eleven years after the play's premiere, Victor Hugo's beloved nineteen-year-old daughter Léopoldine drowned in a boating accident on her honeymoon, leaving her father overwhelmed with grief from which he never fully recovered. He outlived all three of his sons as well, with only his schizophrenic youngest daughter Adéle outliving him.
• Jerkass Woobie: Poor Triboulet. He's still alive at the end, but he certainly wishes he wasn't, as he has lost everything that matters to him. He is cursed by Monsieur de Saint-Vallier after persuading his boss, King François I, not to sentence him to death, inadvertently assists in the abduction of his own daughter, Blanche, to be seduced by the King (in whose sexual conquests he has often been an accomplice), is mocked by the King's court when he discovers what has happened and swears vengeance against the King, and then finds that the body Saltabadil has given him that he thinks is the King's is actually Blanche's.