Thoughts
One of the things that I love about The Count of Monte Cristo is that it works almost entirely in negative space. It is so so rare that The
Count is "on-screen" described as doing something. Even as the reader, you don't see The Count alone, you don't see him make plans, you rarely see him execute on them. The whole book is written in this super distant third person. "A man" or "a priest" will do something and you have to guess that this is actually The Count every time. Because it's not The Count; The Count is a persona created by Dante and Dante is a dead shell of a man. And so he can be anyone and Dumas doesn't have to introduce him every time.