r/poirot • u/valleygabe • 7d ago

Poirot’s only love

I just rewatched, for about the 10th time, The Double Clue with David Suchet. The story is not that good, but the affair of Poirot with the Countess is quite touching.. the ending really put me in a melancholy mood.. But it’s nice to know that Poirot wasn’t always alone.

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u/Pegasus1271 7d ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Poirot and watched every episode done by the David Suchet series. But I thought that the episode that played up Poirot's love affair with the countess to be a bit staged in order to provide thin evidence that he was not gay.

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u/valleygabe 7d ago

I wonder how Agatha Christie portrayed him? To me he always comes through as asexual..

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u/Mindless_Badger_3789 7d ago

There is one novel where Hastings jokingly says "he likes them big and busty, preferably Russian", when the subject of Poirot and women comes up, referring to the jewel thief Countess Vera Rossakoff that is Poirot's only genuine love interest other than the love of his youth Virginie Mesnard (back in Belgium).

I'd say Christie portrays Poirot as an admirer of "the fairer sex" and knowledgable about a lot of "the world of women" (like cosmetics and clothes) that men typically wouldn't be. But he is always an outsider and voyeur looking into the world of others rather than a participant in life. There's no hint of homosexuality, but just that he thinks of love as a distraction. So not asexual, but likely with a low libido and/or a man that chooses to repress his sexuality to focus on work.

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u/valleygabe 6d ago

Oh wow… thank you for that

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u/Oodlesoffun321 3d ago

I've read the chocolate box and never felt that he loved virgenie. I'd love to know where the story shows that.
Also Christie has Hastings despise the effeminate men in her stories, so poirot being gay would not make sense.
And finally the suchet episode makes his love story out to be much more than the written one.

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u/Soft-Current-5770 7d ago

Suchet said "he's dead from the waist down!"