#aggressively over-analises the lyrics of a musical from the 80s to distract myself from how long the vote count is taking

[alicedrawslesmis]

I think the musical's version is that Jean Valjean being good/morally ambiguous made him realize that the law may not be an infallible judge/barometer of a person's goodness, and that made him realize that his whole career may not have been Good after all, and that there may have been other cases like Jean Valjean's (maybe), and so he wasn't just punishing "bad people". "And must I now begin to doubt, who never doubted all these years..."

you see I want to believe that's the reason and this is the lyric people are pointing to the most

but the song has a lot of other conflicting lyrics floating around, like: 'there is nothing on earth that we share/ it is either valjean or javert' which would indicate that Javert has a deeper issue with being similar to Valjean (I mean this part is him trying to hold onto his old worldview, but wouldn't that be weird? if the point was just about morality why is he so mad that they're somehow alike? what's going on here? clearly there's more to it. Like the fact that he is like Valjean is appalling to him) (so I think, if we take the lyrics completely at face value, there's a disconnect between Javert and his own origin 'from the gutter') (also maybe there is a resentment at Valjean being happy with a child and Javert still being horribly alone)

and then there's the 'how can I allow this man / to hold dominium over me' which would indicate that actually he resents Valjean for having any control over him, and resents himself for 'letting' that happen (emotionally? was he incapable of causing JVJ harm?)

and there's the lyric 'is he from heaven or from hell?' in the last few verses, that would indicate that he maybe didn't learn to change his worldview, just changed where Jean Valjean fits into his worldview. (or, he is unaware of how to interpret the consequence of him being unable to actually go through with the arrest) (is this good? is this bad? what does that make of him?)

and so when he says 'I'll escape now from that world / From the world of Jean Valjean.' it appears to me that in the musical, Javert is in doubt less about his worldview, and more about his specific view of Valjean in relationship to himself.

I mean I do I think Javert looses his footing because of Jean Valjean. But pair this song up with stars, where he Vows to put Jean Valjean behind bars and the whole 'I've hunted him all these years' makes me think that the 'never doubted all these years' is more about doubting his capacity to go through with finally arresting him (this fits with the "Damned if I'll live in the debt of a thief! / Damned if I'll yield at the end of the chase.")

Idk man, every second I look at the lyrics the more I'm leaning to 'Javert had projected a lot of stuff on Valjean and it turns out he had him all wrong so he jumped off a bridge'

TL;DR: I think musical!Javert is no longer emotionally capable of existing outside the Valjean chase