#mi talk

[aaronstveit]

today i am thinking about the eight bullets that kill enjolras, and how i always see people saying they represent his eight friends to die at the barricade, but when i first read his death what came to my mind was the eight men to escape the barricade alive: valjean, marius, javert, and the five men who are given the national guard uniforms. i think of those eight bullets being meant for those eight men, and enjolras taking them all. he did not change the world in the way he meant, but he changed the world for eight men, and that has to be enough.

[tinyplanetss]

extremely funny btw. gavroche is like wait this adult is telling me i CAN smash streetlamps??? and valjean is like go wild kid. here's five dollars

[uncharted-constellations]

The entire ALBW team

Links about to become Lorules #1 hytopian fabric exporter

[hater-era]

the quality is 2 pixels but red coat is enj and the other guy is grantaire. t hey kis s

[ronniesart]

[kenchann]

missing him hours

[lesbianmariuspontmercy]

life lately

[lesbianralzarek]

approaching the creche and was reminded that wyll and shadowheart have the best interactions in the goddamn game. the way that wyll talks about his superhero alter ego in 3rd person is the cringiest and most earnest shit. been off on his own for so long hes gotta be his own hype man and by god does he take that job seriously

[secretmellowblog]

Another reason I dislike Les Mis adaptations that make Jean Valjean constantly openly angry/violent is because they miss that Jean Valjean is not allowed to be angry. The fact he is forbidden from expressing anger is, I argue, actually a very important part of his character in the novel!

One of the subtler political messages of the story is that some people are given freedom to express anger, while others are forced to be excessively meek and conciliatory in order to survive.

Wealthy conservatives like Monsieur Gillenormand can “fly into rages” every five minutes and have it treated as an endearing quirk. Poor characters like Fantine or Jean Valjean must be constantly polite and ingratiating to “their superiors” at all times, even in the face of mockery and violence, or else they will be subjected to punishment. If Gillenormand beats his child with a stick, it’s a silly quirk; if Fantine beats a man harassing her, she is sentenced to months in prison.

(Thenardier and Javert are interesting examples of this too. Thenardier acts superficially polite and ingratiating to his wealthy “superiors” while insulting them behind their backs. Javert, meanwhile, is completely earnest in his mindless bootlicking. But I could write an entire other post on this.)

The point is that….Jean Valjean has to be submissive and self-effacing, or he puts himself in danger. He can’t afford to be angry and make scenes, or he will be punished. The only barrier between himself and prison is his ability to be so “courteous” that no one bothers to pry into his past.

Jean Valjean is excessively polite to people, in the way that you’re excessively polite to an armed cop who pulls you over for speeding when you secretly have a few illegal grams of marijuana in the your car trunk. XD It’s politeness built on fear, is what I mean. It’s politeness built on a desperation to make a powerful person avoid looking too closely at you.

It’s politeness at gunpoint.

Jean Valjean has also spent nineteen years living in an environment where any expression of anger could be punished with severe violence. That trauma is reflected in the overly cautious reserved way he often speaks with people (even people who are kind and would never actually hurt him.)

So adaptations that have Jean Valjean boldly having shouting matches with people in public and beating cops half to death without worrying about the repercussions just make go like “???”

Because that’s part of what’s fascinating about Jean Valjean to me? On one hand, he is a genuinely kind compassionate person, who cares deeply about other people and behaves kindly out of altruism. But on the other hand, he was also “beaten into submission” by prison, and forced into adopting conciliatory bootlicking behaviors in order to survive. And it can sometimes be hard to tell when he is being kind vs. when he is being “polite” — when he is speaking and acting out of earnest compassion vs. when he is speaking and acting out of fear.

The TL;DR is that I think it’s important that even though Jean Valjean is very (justifiably) angry about the injustice that was inflicted on him, his anger is harshly policed at all times— by other people, and by himself. He has been told his anger is wrong/selfish so often that he believes it. His anger takes weirder more unhealthy forms because he has no safe outlet for it. His rage at society becomes a possessiveness towards Cosette and silent hatred of Marius, but primarily it becomes useless self-destructive constant hatred of himself. And while I might be phrasing this wrong, I think that’s what’s interesting about Jean Valjean’s relationship with anger— the way his justified fury at his own mistreatment gets warped into more and more unhealthy forms by the way he’s forced to constantly repress it.

[pilferingapples]

Y'know I love Comedically Ineffectual Javert but I feel like. Mayhaps. Not enough emphasis is put on how he is actually dangerous to people on the barricade.

He's a government spy -- "A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, and taken in everything, even when he thought that he was to die; who had played the spy even in his agony, and who, with his elbows leaning on the first step of the sepulchre, had taken notes."

He knows everyone who was there, and a good amount of who did what, who's the leader, etc. He recognizes Marius after the sewers . He took names. He could have given evidence against everyone on the barricades.

Including the five men who escaped.

Including anyone who survived the massacre.

Including the women who worked at the Corinth, who did in fact help set up and prepare the barricade for the fight.

In fact, we don't know that he didn't --we can assume that he had too short an audience with the prefect to give over any detailed info, or that he chose to withhold some things in his Valjean-induced confusion, or even that they threw out his info after his suicide. But it's also possible that five men who thought they'd escaped were rounded up and arrested that week, or that two waitresses were seized as insurgents, or captives were hit with some very specific charges. As Hugo examines in detail in Ninety Three, and hints at even in Les Mis, sometimes showing mercy to one person means condemning many others.

(This , combined with the then-current attitude towards spies --basically that they were the scummiest of scum, execute immediately-- all makes me wonder not why Enjolras wanted him killed, but why he insisted on letting Javert live so long. Especially after Prouvaire's death, when it's safe to say the idea of any potential hostage negotiation is nixed-- what is the point? They aren't really intent on saving a bullet, given Valjean has the go-ahead to shoot him. And after Five Less One More, there's no chance that, say, they'll win and get to let him go as being actually harmless to them with the new political situation. There's no real explanation given in canon so it's an interesting question!)

At any rate: whether Javert did or didn't actually deliver his info, Enjolras and the other barricade fighters choosing to execute him is a practical move totally in keeping realistic military behavior (and Hugo is trying to establish them as behaving like Honorable Military Men ! Which is a whole other topic ...) . Javert is dangerous to the barricade fighters , as his job is to be dangerous-- and despite how he comes off sometimes (and in some adaptations), Javert is actually very very good at his job.

[lonelyoleander]

CHOOSE YOUR CHAMPION

[gatunalunar]

Les presento a mi compañero de juegos. Es mi mejor amigo. ¿No es una preciosura? 🙈✨

[24601orwhatever]

my favorite insignificant scene in Les mis is the scene where grantaire and javert spend a very brief 2 minutes together and grantaire IMMEDIATELY clocks the homo energy between Valvert . And proceeds to use that newfound knowledge to tease jav

📷: medium-observation

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Another Les Mis musical connection that's making me feral: Jean Valjean uses the same melody with which he sings to Cosette, "Believe me, / Were it within my power, / I'd fill each passing hour-- / How quiet it must be, I can see, / With only me for company"...

When he sings "You are free, / And there are no conditions. / No bargains or petitions! / There's nothing that I blame you for. / You've done your duty--nothing more" to Javert.

In my journey to map out the various leitmotifs in the show, this one really flung me for a loop because what does it meannnn?? This is the only time we hear the melody in the show, and it's applied in two very different circumstances, where the relationship Valjean has to the characters involved could not be more opposite. What connects them?? But I think I have it.

It's a reluctant release. Not of the people, but of his own desires regarding them. Let me explain.

Valjean very distinctly wants things from both Cosette and Javert, which he sings about on the rising part of the melody. With Cosette, he wants to be the center of her life: "Were it within my power, I'd fill each passing hour;" on the other hand, he desperately wants Javert to leave him alone. When he has Javert at his mercy, he absolutely does want to trade lives, which is why he sings it on the rising part: "And there are no conditions, no bargains or petitions." He does want these things--but he's letting them go.

And that's where the falling part of the melody comes in. In both situations, Valjean knows he can't have what he wants. So he gives up that desire. He accepts that Cosette wants someone else, and doesn't blame her for it ("How quiet it must be, I can see, with only me for company,"), the same way he accepts the situation between him and Javert ("There's nothing that I blame you for. You've done your duty, nothing more."). That's why immediately afterwards, he tells Javert his address, and why shortly after that, he prays that Marius be brought home to Cosette.

Cosette is his biggest security, and Javert is the biggest threat to his security. But in this little melody, he sets them free (Cosette metaphorically, and Javert literally). He acknowledges what he wants, and accepts that he can't have it, even though it hurts.

And if that ain't the most Jean Valjean thing, I don't know what is.

[shamedumpster]

Utterly obssessed and in love with goth cosette in your drawing 😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️. May we have more goth cosette please

I have been sitting on this ask because @eposetteweek was coming up! Ask and ye shall recieve! >:)

[aarontveitisonfire]

popcultplanet #EarthAbides star #AaronTveit spoke with me about the magic of movie musicals like #WickedMovie and #LesMiserables 💚🩷🧹🫧

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

Kristen Maldonado: You are one of our fan favourite Fiyeros and I was wondering if you're excited for the Wicked movie and what you hope that people take away from this world that you had previously been a part of and now it's gonna be able to be seen by people all over the world. Aaron Tveit: I'm so excited for the Wicked movie to premiere. I'm very fortunate that I got to be a part of the Les Mis film and I think movie musicals are so special. I think that anytime that there's one that's done at this scale, I think it's just amazing for the genre and amazing for theater. This story in particular, I mean, I did Wicked 15 years ago on Broadway and so to see it finally realized in this way with the people that are in it, it' amazing. I can't wait to see it. I haven't seen it yet. I got invited to a couple screens and I couldn't go, [laugh] so I'm actually dying to see it. It's a really wonderful thing to be a small part of that history and to see it going on to what it's about to go on to. Kristen: Oh absolutely and I love the Les Mis mention. That's another show that's one of my absolute favorites. In the world of Broadway, anybody could take on a role and it changes. When someone's on stage, like one person different, and it's completely a whole different project. Then to see it on screen and be like, wow, we've like encapsulated and we've like captured this moment, is so cool. You will forever be our Enjolras. Aaron: I'm like, wow, one day I'm gonna show that to like my kids or something. Look what I did, right? It's like very, very cool. ✧