#gillernormand

[pontmercysamis]

i think i’ve seen almost every les mis character headcanoned as poc (and wonderfully so) but you know what major character i’ve rarely (if never) seen headcanoned as poc?

Marius

i would love to see more poc marius headcanons!!!

sorry if this isn’t well organized, but especially in a modern au, Marius’ narrative fits so well with mixed kid experiences, gillenormand could easily be like a supremacist who doesn’t like georges for being poc, and marius’ whole napoleon era could be retconned to trying to reconnect to your culture when you were not raised in it? there’s so much room for thought here :))

[pilferingapples]

LM 4.8.7

Y'all know i hate Gillenormand right? right

so him having his "worst person you know just made a good point" moment here really burns XD

but he's right! he's totally right! Cosette and Marius getting married in their current known-to-them circumstances is a terrible idea

and as much as Marius--and some readers--might be shocked by the idea that Marius should make Cosette his mistress .... that's how he's been treating her. Only seeing her at night, alone, behind her dad's back, no chaperone...that's not how a man of Marius or Gillenormand's class courts a potential wife. Never mind if they've been "chaste" ; if anyone else found out about how they've been carrying on, Cosette's rep would still be as ruined as if they'd been having freaky sex parties all night. Gillenormand may have 18C libertine morals in conflict with Marius and his 19C Respectability , but in this case it just means Gillernormand is sympathetic and not shocked or treating Cosette like a shameful scandal, just going "sure!! have your mistresses! :D "

Seriously, look at this conversation:

Marius did not reply. M. Gillenormand continued:-- "Then I understand the girl is rich?" "As rich as I am." "What! No dowry?" "No." "Expectations?" "I think not." "Utterly naked! What's the father?" "I don't know."

That is not describing a marriage-ready relationship!

 ...the first time I saw her was at the Luxembourg, she came there; in the beginning, I did not pay much heed to her, and then, I don't know how it came about, I fell in love with her. Oh! how unhappy that made me! Now, at last, I see her every day, at her own home, her father does not know it,

this is an affair. As Gillenormand points out:

 As for the little one, she receives you without her father's knowledge. That's in the established order of things. I have had adventures of that same sort myself. More than one. Do you know what is done then? One does not take the matter ferociously; one does not precipitate himself into the tragic; one does not make one's mind to marriage and M. le Maire with his scarf. One simply behaves like a fellow of spirit. 

(italics mine) There is a way relationships like this are treated by Society and it's not as an engagement.

Honestly...I loathe Gillernormand, but it's occurring to me that on this point, Marius is probably lucky his grandpa is Old School; a parent of Marius' own social morality might never forgive Cosette for this Indiscretion. But for Gillenormand, "pretty girls are pretty girls"; his philosophy, ultimately, has room for a woman of Questionable Virtue marrying up.

Marius , meanwhile, can't even understand that he's actually put Cosette's reputation into question. Marius, you booby.

[syrupsyche]

for the ask au thing: do you have any les mis/greek mythology au? 🙏

ty for this fantastic ask ehehe

Valjean is your archetypal demigod with super strength and the most depressing and traumatising backstory + trials to accomplish that's been thrown onto him by the divine authorities from Above. I think if he was canonically a demigod I wouldn't be surprised either, but for this AU I think him being a demigod who feels abandoned by the gods before eventually accepting that ultimately it is his actions and kindness that dictates his life and not his godly parentage is pretty par for the course! (And as for which god, I'm kinda stumped ngl. Would love to hear other ppl's thoughts but I'm leaning towards Hercules)

In the same line of thought, Javert is also a demigod but doesn't quite take the abandonment well and that in turn fuels his desire to constantly adhere to the law and to the forces Above, in the hopes that he can ascend (a la Hercules, which is quite ironic). No idea about his godly parent either, but I'm leaning towards any of the Cthonic gods!

Fantine is a regular mortal, but Tholomyes is a god. I like to think of him as an Apollo, which makes Cosette a child of light and healing and prophecy (the future).

Les Amis de l'ABC in canon is made up of people from various backgrounds, which means a variety of mortals, demigods, and creatures in this AU! Here's a quick-fire list but I'd love to hear anyone else's opinions:

Enjolras: mortal, but very clearly blessed by the gods. He rejects their blessings, however, and is rumoured to have even rejected their offer to join them Above.

Combeferre: child of Athena; constantly checking with Joly about everyone's physiological differences

Courfeyrac: child of Apollo (making him Cosette's half-brother!)

Prouvaire: child of Erato (muse of love and lyric poetry)

Feuilly: mortal, but blessed by the gods as well. Like Enjolras, he rejects them.

Joly: mortal; constantly trying to figure out the physiological differences between all the Amis

Bossuet: child of Tyche (goddess of luck) because I love irony

Bahorel: mortal who has sworn that he has slept with Every God Ever, including all of the Amis's godly parents. No one finds it amusing.

Grantaire: a satyr (connected with Dionysus, god of wine and madness)

5. Gillernormand was a demigod of some fuckshit god (I'm thinking Zeus, to inflate his ego even more). His daughters were also demigods, so he wanted Marius to be a demigod as well. Alas, his mother married Georges Pontmercy, a mortal, resulting in Marius being a mortal (or 1/4 demigod if you're being anal, but Gillernormand clearly doesn't see it that way). Marius has felt this disparity since his youth, thus fuelling his anger even more when Gillernormand insults his father. As the story progresses, he finds himself interacting with many more demigods (Les Amis, Cosette etc.) and he's finally accepted into this community, despite his parentage.

[alicedrawslesmis]

honestly I don't think emotionally Eponine would be there, in the hypothetical 'everyone but Marius survives' AU, to do this. But I would LOVE if she got herself a random child and showed up to old Gillernormand's house like 'waddup old man this is Marius's baby with me, give me a pension'

Cause like!!!! He would take the child. She knows this or could easily find that out from Magnon. She's set! And I *think* if Gillenormand accepted the child even as a bastard, and it was a boy, legally this child is like. Gillenormand's actual heir.

And the fact that Eponine didn't do that is a wasted opportunity fully ready to be set up in the text

[balaga]

fuck gillernormand, i’m adopting baby marius

[igtfbaef]

For your consideration: Marius and Cosette dying together, old of age. Them  coming to the afterlife.

Marius Pontmercy finally getting to know his father, the real father not the idea of him .Georges being flattered, but also a bit confused, at how Marius grew obsessed with Napoleon thanks to him. Marius getting to know his mother. Her being peeved at how/how little Gillernormand talked about her. 

Cosette, knowing Jean Valjean’s past, knows him on a much deeper level and they talk so much about it. She gets to meet his sister with children; her aunt and cousins. And she gets to meet Fantine, Cosette seeing for herself just how much Fantine loved her. (needless to say, they’re both overcome with love and all the happy emotions)

Cosette doesn’t meet Tholomyès because he is in hell.

Bonus: They survived to see the third republic, and Marius gets to gush to Courfeyrac about it (who may already know about it, but pretends not to). Courfeyrac being happy to see that Marius got to grow old; even happier that he got to grow old with such a wonderful wife at his side.

[musingsbydrea]

Brick!Club 3.2.1 Hey he's not a nice man BUT he has all his teeth!

The title of the chapter is an odd reference. I guess considering the era having all your teeth would be impressive but it still seems like an odd accomplishment.

Are we supposed to like Monsiur Gillernormand? Cause I don't. I will say I normally like older people who still are active despite their age but this is a bit different. He beats people... that's not nice. And all that anger can't be good for his blood pressure; I'm surprised he's so healthy.

I find it interesting that he is, in essence, a relic. He represents a different era. Yet, for all the fact that he's essentially alone he doesn't allow that to define him; he still has pretensions to being a lady killer; it's not age that defines him but money. He still has his vitality. He ruins any appreciation of that vitality by what he does with it.

I have no idea what "By the big slippers of big slipperdom!" means but I've decided that if it doesn't mean anything too untoward I want to try using that in normal conversation. :-) What? In frustration I've randomly cried out "Dragons and Dramonine" I think "By the big slippers..." seems somewhat more normal.

[pilferingapples]

mlle gillernormand keeps finding him because she has the superpower of "moms always knowing where things are"

Marius refuses to take his grandfather's money but he relies on his aunt's regular visits to find out where his socks/ spare pens/ keys are every time

[alicedrawslesmis]

Book I: The Grand Bourgeois

Sketching Chapter 3.2.1 - Over Ninety Years Old With Thirty-Two Teeth

I did Not remember Gillernormand being this awful? This is all I'll say about this chapter.

I still think Hugo should have written a smoother transition between the gamin digression and Gavroche to Marius but still this is thematically consistent: what does Hugo want here? It is supposed to be a parallel between Gavroche and Marius, right? I think so.

So their lives, despite the obvious economic difference, are similar and entwined together in a way I hadn't even considered! Both were raised by Awful men, both their fathers were in the Waterloo battlefield and that historical moment was majorly significant in their lives. Gillenormand and Thénardier lost their economic good graces (tho for different reasons, Marius is more of a child of the rise and fall of Napoleon, while Gavroche is a child of the rise of the restoration. Plus Georges lost his prestige in Waterloo and Thénardier arguably has never been better than right after the battle but I digress), Marius and Gavroche cut ties with their families and they have the house number 50-52 (the Gorbeau House) in common! Their lives cross each other at many points without them even realizing.

Gav and Marius are both people of Paris. In a way Marius, with his leaving his house to fend for himself, is like a gamin in the sense that Hugo was trying to define in the earlier chapters. He is too old to be a gamin obviously, but his sort of free existence in the streets and his "Parisian" education, his lack of family and his dressing in borrowed clothes, his persistance in being aware of the happenings of Paris being a mix of onlooker and active participant. Not knowing exactly what is going on politically but having his own experience of political happenings. All this brings him closer to what a gamin is. And both Marius and Gavroche are destined to be on that barticade together.

It's weird but it had Never even crossed my mind how the two of them are so important to each other's narrative despite how they never even meet properly. Blew my mind here!

[alicedrawslesmis]

me, googling absentmindedly the meaning of jecur: hmm jecur, latin word, neutral noun... liver. It just means liver. Ok. Cool.

Chapter 5.6.4 - Immortal Liver

(ok no, jecur is also defined as "the seat of the soul" but to be fair to me, you try googling the use of the expression "the seat of the soul" which also happens to be the name of a very bad and popular christian book about the definition of the soul. You won't find anything else.)

Jean Valjean is tired. He lived his new life (actually his whole life tbh) fighting darkness, fighting the urge to give in and be happy at the expense of doing good, in deprivation and in total denial of the self for others. And here he is, with a choice harder than he ever had in his life

But this time he's already done several of these and he's more prepared, and ugly crying for a while helped. He's considering his possibilities: Cosette technically no longer needs him. He can leave her, legally and financially she's free of him. His obligations to Fantine are done, Cosette is happy and has a future. He can let her go, and his chains and past will no longer affect or endanger her, she'l be happy without the weight of him being near her. Does he have the right to intrude his problems and conditions upon her life now?

He hates this. He wants to be with her, they have a room for him at Gillernormand's. She wants him near. But being near them put in jeopardy all her money and her life and happiness. At this point Jean Valjean is just tired.

(but ok, imho, he's Cosette's fucking dad and she has a RIGHT TO CHOSE TO BE WITH YOU, VALJEAN. GO BACK TO HER YA DICK)

Sketching Les Mis Chapter 5.6.4 - Immortal Jecur