#both martyrs for god
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bibopbi · 6 months ago
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does anyone else find the story of cain and abel tragic not just for abel, but for cain as well?
i mean, they were brothers, they grew up hand in hand. tiller and shepherd. one raises life out of the dirt, the other puts the life back into it. they loved each other, so much that abel died, so much that cain killed him.
abel was a tragedy of a child prodigy, the golden child. he was favored chosen again and again, to the point where he was killed. he was as innocent as the livestock he sacrificed. a shepherd into the lamb. he never meant to be, he loved his brother. he loved his brother when they were kids, he loved his brother when they were offering to god, he loved his brother when he followed him into the field, he loved his brother even as he died.
cain was a tragedy of a child pushed aside. how many times had he noticed his brother getting favored? did he know he was undesired, that his effort would never be enough? cain didnt know about murder, it wasnt a thing. did he know how abel choses his sacrifices? did he see how he took the prettiest, most well kept lamb of the flock and took it to god? did he see how god favored the crimson from the lamb more than the gold of his wheat? did he lay abel out as a sacrifice? hoping that in the crimson of his brother, so perfect and good like the lambs he offers, cain would finally be enough?
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daylighteclipsed · 2 years ago
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Y’all ever think about if Sora falls to darkness that inside his heart will look like the Destiny Islands falling again
#i do a lot#kingdom hearts#one of the biggest reasons i think we’ll see something like this in canon. briefly at least#not only would parallel ddd w ven’s heart/armor no longer there to protect sora#and roxas and xion gone from sora’s heart too. so sora would be alone#and actually there as opposed to in the RoL/awake when riku dives in#but also there is no way nomura’s gonna pass up the chance to bring us full circle like this. he loves making his characters revisit/relive#worlds and memories like this to make a point. and sora’s heart was sunset in ddd… following kh1 the dark and stormy night comes next#The thought of sora and riku reaffirming their love and friendship here when it broke the first time the islands fell#both of them having to in a way relive this horrible night for the final time#but riku doing the total opposite of last time. trying to save sora trying to stop the darkness from consuming everything#being totally honest with sora. reaching his hand out for sora but this time he’s not being consumed by darkness.#he’s become the light in the darkness. and they finally reach each other they finally grasp hands. I’m chewing on glass#i don’t think sora would ‘fall’ to darkness in the traditional sense#thematically i think it makes more sense for him to be faced w another martyr choice#though his own negative feelings would still be tangled up in there. and this would parallel kh3#and if sora chooses to let darkness into his heart to save others it’d also parallel kh1 w riku choosing to open the door/let the darkness#into destiny islands at the risk of others#god it’d be just like kh1 but we’d be playing as riku and he’d be the one looking frantically for sora#a reversed dynamic. but now they understand each other’s pain and feelings so they can reach each other#figuratively and literally#i love parallels i love symbolism i love themes kick my ass !!!!
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thelibraryofsylphide · 1 year ago
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Loki, the Martyr, the Result. Loki.
Loki Moodboard trilogy: 1 | 2 | 3
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feliformiaboy · 1 year ago
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vinyls-and-valentines · 1 month ago
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I hate how hard it is to come up with character names because how am I supposed to make character playlists that make me even more insane about my own OCs WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO PUT THEIR GOTDAMN NAMES IN THE PLAYLIST TITLE??!
#making romantic songs platonic is my specialty and visatori cu plumb in ochi by alternosfera and zid by om la luna are literally my latest#ocs. the martyr and the person who most cherishes them#bitches aren't even doomed by the narrative they just choose to doom themselves the moment they meet eyes in every universe without fail#they could be born in completely different solar systems and somehow they'll still find each other#they are not soulmates. the universe has not ordained this. they have perfectly good matches out there AND YET. every. single. fucking. time#they manage to drift together for a fraction of a second and latch onto eachother like baby sloths with separation anxiety. they make the#gods froth at the mouth. they have a liege-devoted knight relationship but they both believe themselves to be the knight. one is always#fated to die young and the other is fated to outlive everybody they care about. they kill each other in at least half the lives they lived#because they trust no one else to know their will better even though they do not remember any of their previous lives. they drive me nuts.#i have become the god of mysteries. he is me. stop killing yourself gayboy it automatically transfers ownership of the revolution to my#representative and she's scary! she's gonna take your plan and add a 20 year projection of ways to improve it! i need you to step up and#force her to make sensible decision PLEASE#anyways. this is part me rambling part me leaving myself a note to add this songs to a playlist that may or may not exist in the future#boo rambles
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rabbits-of-negative-euphoria · 11 months ago
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anyone else find the lyric
If you let me I will catch fire To let your glory and mercy shine
extremely sobering considering the direction Paramore has gone in?
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selamat-linting · 7 months ago
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i have my preferences and im outspoken abt it, but i do dislike really negative/whiny/irony-poisoned ppl in wrestling fandom. like, i wish all of their faves went to the company they hate. thats one of the few things that does happen often.
i was giggling when ricochet went to aew, not because im particularly fans of him (the guys seems alright tho. nothing hateable in him) but because seeing the most insufferable ppl on reddit cry abt him going to aew and stupidly pretend he was never good anyway is genuinely fun for me. what idiots. when ricky starks show up on nxt, i'll be enjoying it as well because now its tumblr's most insufferable ppl's turn to cry and whine about how ricky is shackled in a prison or whatever. hue and cry girlies <3
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tropicalcontinental · 6 months ago
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Wait hold on scratch that regularly scheduled programming and that 10 morbillion years reveal this is an EAS Broadcast except it's not that at all and it's just more OC art (also old)
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They are NOT this cuddly or even romantic (to me at least, I just can't see it as romantic) in their current iterations in fact my feelings on their relationship is complicated (me below for reference)
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gingerbreadmonsters · 2 years ago
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polite and gentle reminder that it is perfectly okay to not say anything about any particular subject, because moralising about events and people that are not real on the internet does not in fact make you a defender of the good and righteous, but instead just makes you and the people around you miserable when everybody inevitably has to hash out the same argument again and again to no avail
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tsukihigui · 1 year ago
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deleted my twitter app (not account) bc i really can’t handle the intense no-nuance high-stakes takes right now. not that here is all that much better but it’s definitely less of a time sink
#i just.#ok.#i just think if ur gonna go scorched earth on prioritizing high minded ideals over outcomes ur not actually as morally pure as u think u r#and I also think if ur gonna do that u gotta say with ur CHEST the collateral damage you’ll sign onto#both by abstaining from concrete action now and by destroying infrastructure in the name of a brighter future#im not even gonna tell you ur wrong. but i want you to say who u think is worth sacrificing#i have awful news for you the folks who don’t make it thru the revolution are very rarely the rich and healthy and connected#it’s gonna be folks who are desperate enough to fight and folks who can’t handle more instability.#poor folks. sick folks. disabled folks. disenfranchised folks. unhoused folks.#you think you can build a functioning mutual aid network from scratch during a revolution serving tens of millions?#i know it’s a nice thought that the failures of US welfare programs are Just Capitalism. and that’s a huge chunk#but it’s also because IT IS DIFFICULT. and that’s WITH billions of dollars and a chokehold on the global supply chain#im not saying any of the options are good. but when u call for revolution u gotta acknowledge ur stealing from today for tomorrow#and look hard at the folks who stand to lose the most. say you’re fine with martyring them - whether or not they agree#I’ve got myself all worked up now and i wanna post about it. to maybe share some god damn perspective.#things are bad! things are not good. unsustainable trends abound. but wow for all ur whining online#about how everyone needs to know EVERYTHING about ALL ISSUES in EVERY CONFLICT or else you are EVIL#ur missing the forest for the trees my dude. takes are easy - policy is hard#get fucked. don’t get people killed.
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lovedelayed · 15 days ago
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📐 wait - day and chloe (5'6) and dag (5'7) cause i need it
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height comparison
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aficionadoenthusiast · 5 months ago
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yes, percy rose through the ranks of new rome disturbingly fast. no, jason did not do the same at camp half blood. yes, percy's rise to leadership at both camps took about two weeks and was completely unplanned. no, the same cannot be said for jason. his rise was carefully planned and took over a decade. they're both children of the big three, but where percy thrums with raw power, jason is a sword honed by zeus and hera. where percy is a survivor, jason is a weapon. where percy is a cycle breaker, jason can't get out. jason's fatal flaw was temptation to deliberate because he never managed to make his own choices. he was every classic definition of a hero rolled into one, and he never questioned it because his happiness came after the responsibility. jason was never going to ascend as fast as percy because jason was raised on hard work and discipline while percy, an abuse survivor and child of poverty, knew when to fight dirty. where jason was a transplant, percy was an invasive species. jason was always going to die because he was never more than a tool for the gods to throw away when he outlived his usefulness, or when he started to question his place. if someone as locked down as jason can question the system, anyone can. now that luke has put thoughts of overthrow in everyone's heads, zeus has to be very careful because while jason was expendable as his weapon, percy was unexpected in every way. zeus has no plan for him. when percy dies, he will become a martyr, so he can't die, except now everyone knows that percy doesn't want to be a god either. jason had to die, and now percy has to live.
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briannafrostgirl · 5 months ago
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A series of reaction GIFs that found their way into the chat of our last ME5e session, in which Lani and Atticus jumped on top of a spaceship as it was taking off and proceeded to speedrun both of the Anakin/Obiwan fights from Revenge of the Sith before Atticus finally beat the boss while Lani took a nice friendly fire-induced nap.
Also a turret did a double treason, the number 17 came up on dice a deeply suspicious amount of times, and we just barely didn't double level after spending 3 months IRL clearing a mega-dungeon.
I've never felt more alive (and my character has never been closer to permadeath!!!)
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joycrispy · 2 years ago
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Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:
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This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...
It. It kind of fucks. Severely.
And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.
I'll explain:
As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.
Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.
(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)
Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:
"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV
Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.
(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.
...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)
So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.
But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:
The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.
Do you understand?
The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.
The flaming sword was given to be used against them.
So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.
That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.
...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.
They're Crowley and Aziraphale.
(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)
In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.
It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.
...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.
And the Serpent--
(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)
--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.
As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:
"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll
The first to ask questions.
Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).
And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.
And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--
(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)
--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.
To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.
Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.
It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.
And then you keep writing.
And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.
(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).
It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)
...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:
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I love this shot so much.
Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.
You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.
"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.
But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.
Godfathers. Sort of.
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a-space-for-mimi · 1 year ago
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I find it interesting that people (rightly) take into consideration the culture context of people in other parts of the world, but don't do that when they look at cultures of the part. I think because we don't know a lot about world history, we don't have empathy for the people who lived before us.
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i-dreamed-i-had-a-son · 4 months ago
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A thousand times yes! This gave me so much to think about. Specifically, your point about how his name represents his old self/identity is very interesting to me, given what we see from him with Cosette towards the end of the novel.
I find it striking that Valjean tells Cosette to refer to him as "Monsieur Jean," out of all things. It makes sense that, because of his conversation with Marius and their belief that he must be cut out of Cosette's life, he wouldn't allow her to call him "Father." And, even though he literally has a full, sobbing breakdown in front of Marius when it seems like Cosette will find out about his past (the only time we see him cry in front of someone else, I'm pretty sure?), he doesn't go by Fauchelevent to her. Cosette likely would've found that less unusual, since we see her refer to him as "my father Fauchelevent" quite naturally, and it would make sense that Valjean would want to minimize her suspicions. But his great denied desire, as he expresses to Marius, is to be a part of a family; that's exactly what he felt he couldn't do as Fauchelevent. Keeping that name would mean he would always be worried that "the mask would suddenly be torn away," and he would be driven out as a monster. He wants to be accepted and loved for who he truly is, and while this isn't by any means complete honesty, in confessing to Marius and dropping the alias with Cosette, maybe he feels a little closer to what he's longed for.
There's also the social and metatextual significance of having Cosette call him "Monsieur Jean." First, in dropping his alias (which supplied Cosette's maiden name), he further severs any perceptible social tie between the two of them. "Jean," as you mentioned above, is a homonym of gens, which is fitting, since JVJ views himself as having become "just another person" to Cosette. And yet, calling him by his first name indicates some level of familiarity; social norms at the time meant that formal address used the last name. "Monsieur Jean" is oddly straddling the line between distant and personal (as Valjean himself is attempting to do).
Maybe most interesting of all is that, as many have noticed, Hugo almost exclusively refers to JVJ by his full name, Jean Valjean. This is one of the only instances in which the last name is dropped, which is part of why it stood out so much on my readthrough. It feels noticably more intimate, but also incomplete. And I think it ties into what (as you mentioned above) his last name means: "voilà Jean/gens": "behold the man." He's not ready for Cosette to know the full truth about who he is, so narratively, it's fitting that the withheld last name (which would allow her to learn about his past) is one which itself references a full and raw perception. It was first used of the suffering Christ, naked and humiliated and condemned and innocent; Valjean, in his fear and self-loathing, does not allow that revelation of himself.
Les Mis Hidden Name Meanings: Jean Valjean
Every Les Mis character’s name is either a pun or has some deep symbolic meaning– or both at once! Jean Valjean’s name has a ton of layers so let’s dive in.
When we’re first introduced to him, Hugo tells us that his name is quote “a contraction of voilà Jean, or “here is Jean.”” We’re told that he was named after his father, and that his family name probably began as a nickname.
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The word “Jean” in french sounds like the word “gens,” which means “people.” So his last name is a pun meant to make you think “viola les gens”/ “here are people.”
The most obvious layer to his name is that Jean Valjean is basically John Doe. He is the anonymous Everyman. His sister’s name is Jeanne, so she’s basically Jane Doe. They aren’t special or exceptional or unusual; they’re just behold! The regular people.
In fact his name is so common-sounding that it's a plot point. Champmathieu, the man who is mistaken for Jean Valjean, has a name that the police connect with his. Javert theorizes that "Champ" is a version of "Jean" in a specific accent, while Mathieu was actually Jean Valjean's sister's maiden name. ("Champ" is also the French word for "field.") The fact that Jean Valjean is a peasant everyman makes it easy for others in his position to be conflated with him.
But the other layer is that this is all an elaborate pun biblical reference!
When Pontius Pilate presents a bound Jesus Christ to the crowd before his crucifixion, he says the words “ecce homo” or “Here is the man!”/”behold the man!”
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“Voila Jean” or “here is Jean!”/”behold Jean!” is meant to be a reference to that.
During his death scene Jean Voila-Jean even references the “Ecce homo” line explicitly, gesturing at a crucifix and saying:
“Voilà le grand martyr.”
Which Isabel Hapgood translates as “behold the great martyr.”
At another point in the same scene Marius says to Cosette:
“He has sacrificed himself. Viola l’Homme. Behold the man.”
But more references to that biblical moment appear throughout the novel; Jean Valjean is associated with it constantly, all the time. It’s one of his defining biblical allusions. He’ll be trying to live anonymously, or under an alias– and then suddenly his true name and criminal past will be revealed, he’ll be revealed to be ‘the man,’ and some great horrible act of martyrdom will follow.
Sometimes Jean Valjean is the one revealing his own identity, but sometimes Inspector Javert is put into the role of Pontius Pilate. Javert himself explicitly makes that comparison– Jean Valjean as Jesus, Javert as Pontius Pilate– when he’s contemplating suicide.
And this ties into one of the largest differences between the book and the stage musical.
In the musical, “prisoner 24601” is the name that represents Jean Valjean’s dehumanization–while “Jean Valjean” is the name he uses while standing up for his own humanity. He will be called 24601, and proudly declare that “my name is Jean Valjean” to assert he’s still a person.
And while this is a great storytelling choice, it’s almost the opposite of how the name “Jean Valjean” is handled in the book.
Because in the book…. Jean Valjean IS the name that dehumanizes him. Jean Valjean is the name that he’s running from. The name that Javert uses when he’s insulting him, the name that bigots use when they’re threatening him, the name that ignorant people use when they’re mocking him – it’s not 24601, it’s Jean Valjean.
And there’s a special kind of agony to that.
The name that is being used to torture, humiliate, and dehumanize him isn’t 24601– it’s his name.
He thinks of it as a “fatal name,” as a punishment. Living under that name is living in hell. When Jean Valjean is living under one of his aliases, concealing his identity, he thinks:
That which he had always feared most of all in his hours of self-communion, during his sleepless nights, was to ever hear that name {jean Valjean] pronounced; he had said to himself, that that would be the end of all things for him; that on the day when that name made its reappearance it would cause his new life to vanish from about him, and—who knows?—perhaps even his new soul from within him.
It’s no wonder that he ends up internalizing the way society views him, and developing so much fear and hatred of himself. He’s grown to see his name as just….well, ecce homo, behold the man. His name is just the two words people say before they violently punish him.
Names and namelessness are a major theme in Les Mis, and he’s the character who has the most complex relationship with his own names. He has a legal name, but it’s used to torture him, and he has a series of false names he uses to escape torture.
If I were to describe Jean Valjean– one of the most complex characters in all of literature, in one word, that word would be “grief.”
The criminal justice system takes everything from him, including things he wasn’t aware he was able to lose. His name, the last connection he had to his family and his old identity, gets warped into this thing needs to view with fear and horror. The thing society despises isn’t 24601, isn’t a number they’ve placed on him – the thing they despise is Jean Valjean, some intrinsic inherent part of himself. He isn’t hated for what he did, he’s hated for what he is, and that is something he can never escape.
{But speaking of complexity we’ve actually barely scratched the surface of how Jean Valjean reacts to names, because he spends most of the novel living under a series of nicknames aliases. And guess what! Each of these names also has some elaborate symbolic meaning! If you’re interested in more posts covering his different aliases, feel free to leave a comment in the replies!}
[thanks for reading! For more in-depth analysis, check out the @lesmisletters readalong or join our discord server!]
#my ultimate favorite posts#and also!! it kills me that cosette AND MARIUS *DO* find him innocent as soon as he's honest about ALL of who he is!#i mean what cosette knows is likely still minimal at that point but it would not matter. and marius is like BRO WHY DIDN'T YOU MENTION THIS#and jvj (props for genuine honest self-awareness‚ uncommon for him) is like 'well if i told you you would've let me stay'#which. there's a whole commentary in there about how his past crimes DID define him until marius decided he deserved it--#he had to earn forgiveness otherwise marius would have let him die alone which is CRAZY to me and makes me so angry but anyway#all i'm saying is if jvj was strong enough to face both his weakness and his virtue then he would find acceptance for all of it#at least from his loved ones. the whole societal aspect is definitely worth considering but for now i'm thinking of his deathbed#the whole ending is hugo saying yes‚ he is loved‚ and YES‚ he COULD have been loved more fully and for much longer#if he had let himself be honest instead of driving himself away‚ if he had COMMUNICATED WITH COSETTE AND GIVEN HER A CHOICE FOR GOD'S SAKE#he absolutely could have lived for many happy years together with the family he always wanted to be a part of. and that's why it's tragic#he seems conflicted on what role fear of society/the law plays for him in his withdrawal‚ and to be fair‚ i think it's somewhat a part of i#especially with marius acting as the personification of that force‚ which jvj even stands up to a bit before leaving his 'confession'#but i think the ultimate point is that individuals‚ and the society they comprise (marius explicitly represents this) will not remain unjus#hugo's writing this as an ode to progress. cajoling it‚ almost. if jvj had trusted that those who loved him would have accepted him--#he could have survived and lived out the full length of his days happy and loved. that's what hugo wants us to recognize#he even has jvj say that god was like 'do you think you are going to be abandoned‚ idiot?' (affectionate...?) which. yeah i know that voice#the whole thing is that people that you love won't leave you because you are forgiven. that's what the great martyr was all about.#'there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus.' romans 8:1#and even though les mis is about the many ways that that does NOT hold true in the wider world‚ it's also about how it SHOULD be#and how‚ on an individual level‚ it often is‚ if only we have faith enough to let it. after all:#'to love another person is to see the face of God.'#les mis#les miserables#jean valjean#quality meta seal of approval#kay has a party in the tags#kay is a classical literature nerd#meta#piggybacking
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