#there is also something to be said for the other way that i think valjean comparing himself to the bishop unfavorably is unfair because

[fluentisonus]

I've said this before but valjean's view of the bishop throughout the book gets me so bad because like. he knew him for what, a day maybe? and it absolutely had a vast & profound & positive impact on him. but then he goes on to spend the whole book comparing himself to his idealized vision of the bishop & finding himself wanting & feeling guilty and miserable about every petty or selfish thought that crosses his mind. but it's so fucked up because like we as the readers know the bishop better! we've read the whole first book and we know he came from a privileged & wealthy background, that he was a rake when he was young, it wasn't til he was in his 40s or 50s to have some sort of change of heart & become a priest (a similar age to valjean when he met him!), that he has moments that seriously shake him, that he has some dubious politics left over, that he still has moments of pettiness he has to work through on the page (his initial approach to the member of the convention, e.g.). and also he's just kind of a weird old guy (affectionate). and like this is not to criticize the bishop, I think he's a genuinely really good guy, just that while the bishop has a realistic view of himself & his past ("he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner,"), valjean is not getting any of this except maybe like. what would be mentioned in the newspaper when the bishop died. so his whole view of him is of this one shining moment where he changed his life and he feels he doesn't live up to that. which is sad! because the bishop understood him more than he realized & wouldn't have wanted him to feel that way

[bogusbyron]

I've been thinking about the fuckin paris chase scene the WHOLE DAY to the point i had to draw something, but also went to inspect what the original french text said, because the 3 english translations i cross-referenced had a few glaring differences.

and like..... okay . there have definitely been some translations that made this wayyyyyy gayer, some in different parts than others, but theres a REASON they translated it gayly. let's inspect!

DISCLAIMER! I AM ENGLISH AND NOT NATIVE FRENCH SPEAKER!!!! i also translated this more loose & direct than cohesively, so it's real janky, sorry ...if you want a nicer translation go somewhere else ... im trying to be comprehensive here . ANYWAY!!!!!!!!

Then [Javert] began to play. He had a [ravishing/sensual/ecstatic] and infernal moment: he let his man go ahead of him, knowing that he [had/held] him, but wanting as long as possible to [delay/postpone] the moment of arrest, happy to [feel him caught but to see him free/give him the illusion of freedom], [gazing at/brooding over] him with the [voluptuousness/pleasure/lust] of the spider that lets the fly fly and the cat that lets the mouse run. The claw and the talon have a monstrous sensuality; it is the [unseen/obscure] movement of the beast imprisoned in their pincers. What a [delight/delicacy] this suffocation was! Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of his net were firmly attached. He was sure of success; he didn’t have anything more now than to close his hand. Accompanied like he was, the very idea of resistance was impossible, no matter how energetic, vigorous and desperate Jean Valjean might be.

There's not really... much i can say. It reads a bit queer. One thing i love about french is that you can stretch it and find a gay meaning in ANYTHING.

My favourite example is on "Javert was enjoying himself". The original french is "Javert jouissait." Jouissait, from the verb jouir. Which definitely means to enjoy oneself , but...

Can be in a more literal sense.

Hugo definitely did not mean it to read like this, but with that meaning on the horizon... do what you like with it.

The rest of the words i provided a couple choices as i wasn't sure which worked best or wanted to give you an idea of the general kind of meaning or scope. I'm leaving it up to you to decide!

Additionally i translated it.. fairly literally, whereas some translations i saw gather the idea more than the way hugo wrote it - which makes total sense, " feel him caught but to see him free" makes sense in french but is a mess of a sentence in english, hence the completely different interpretation after it.

feel free to comment/give feedback! i really enjoy doing this kinda thing!!

[alicedrawslesmis]

it seems to me pretty obvious that Tempest Within A Brain and Javert Derailed are mirrors of each other. One thing we notice about Valjean that may consist a flaw is that he's too introspective

These two thoughts [to escape men and to return to God] were so closely intertwined in his mind that they formed but a single one there; both were equally absorbing and imperative and ruled his slightest actions. In general, they conspired to regulate the conduct of his life; they turned him towards the gloom; they rendered him kindly and simple; they counselled him to the same things. Sometimes, however, they conflicted.

while Javert (we'll find this out later so no quotes yet) is a man who has trouble seeing below the surface. He abhors thinking and reflection and more practically in the end, he has trouble literally feeling Marius's pulse and understanding the things that can happen inside of a house? This is a genuinely incredible detail about him and about the concept of buildings in Hugolandia that building interiors sometimes physically manifest people's interiors. Javert does not know what happens inside of a home. Rather tragically I may add, because he never really had a "proper" one.

In Déraillé he is forced to look inwards and see he has a soul and a heart and is capable of kindness and of love and isn't just a pure representative of real world mundane law. He isn't made of stone no matter how much he may want to.

Here's from Fantine's arrest:

Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground, cast athwart this scene like some displaced statue, which is waiting to be put away somewhere.[...] From time to time she paused, and tenderly kissed the police agent’s coat. She would have softened a heart of granite; but a heart of wood cannot be softened.

And here is from Derailed:

Terrible situation! to be moved. To be made of granite, and doubt! To be the statue of punishment cast all of one piece in the mould of the law, and suddenly to perceive that you have under your bronze bosom something absurd and disobedient, which almost resembles a heart!

Now for Valjean: He is faced here with a question impossible to be resolved kindly. Valjean represents divine goodness in the same way Javert represents the law. On the one hand, ignoring Champmathieu means saving the people of the town, maybe even Cosette, on the other, Champathieu will endure the 'artificial hell' in Valjean's place. There is no possible answer that leads to universal good. So Valjean makes the choice to sacrifice himself, suffer a symbolic (and later a false) death by turning himself in and then jumping onto the sea.

Like I said, it's important to understand that Les Mis is interested in symmetries. Beginnings that mirror endings, people who go toward evil and people who go toward good. Miners that work to change society and miners that work to undermine it. Paris above, the sewers below. "justice" and Justice. Hougoumont at Waterloo and the Barricade during the june rebellion.

This also got me thinking that the reason there's a certain kinship between Javert and Éponine is because they form an opposing pair with Valjean-Cosette. Valjean interacting with Montparnasse like Javert interacts with Marius, you know what I mean? It is absolutely no wonder a book full of cycles and mirrors has exactly 365 chapters, starts on a short little paragraph foreword and ends on a poem with the verse "Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va."

[gayelderstourney]

OLD MAN YAOI BRACKET ROUND 1

Propaganda:

Jean Valjean/Javert:

One of the OG enemies to lovers. In the novel and musical, Valjean and Javert have complex, intertwined, and mirrored narratives which make them a fascinating ship to analyze. Also, there is a lot of hot fanfiction about them.

javert chases valjean around for at least 20 years because he broke parole and that's a big plot point. (jvj went to jail for bread theft if it matters.) considering how long that is and how much javert feels the need to do said chasing around that's kinda gay. also at one point javert is employed by valjean (except he doesn't know it's him and knows him as m. madeleine) and then asks madeleine to fire him. because he thought he was valjean and wanted to send him to jail even though he IS valjean. but some other guy got framed instead so it checks out and then WAY later on the barricades javert gets captured by a bunch of college students and valjean sets him free. this causes javert to have an existential crisis because 'OH NO HE'S A CRIMINAL BUT HE'S NICE TO ME' and then he kills himself. (also they have a very awkward carriage ride together. along with the unconscious body of valjean's future son-in-law. after valjean was in the parisian sewers and therefore covered in sewer water.)

what if i was an escaped convict and also the extremely benevolent mayor of a small jet producing town who broke into people's houses to give them money. and you were a furry cop trying to arrest me anyway. and then i save you from execution in the June rebellion and you realise that the police are not a symbol of justice but authority and being a criminal in the eyes of the law is completely separate from being a bad person. and this fucked you up so bad you killed yourself.

fuck those twinks in les mis these are the real finest gay love story victor hugo ever invented. javert literally followed valjean across france for decades because of his psychosexual obsession with recapturing him. valjean had the chance to kill him and spared his life, thus jump-starting javert's entire emotional arc. they're deranged and obsessive and they should kiss on the mouth

javert threw himself off a bridge bcs he was so mad the guy he was obsessively chasing was actually a good person depsite being a criminal theres gay ass old man yuri here

When you build your entire life around the existence of a man you despise is that still gay or do we need to invent something that transcends homosexuality. Asking for a friend.

fellas is it gay to spend your entire life chasing another man to arrest him even though all he did was steal a loaf of bread

Ravenpaw/Barley:

kitties who were outcast from previous groups they were a part of and find and live with each other. they are canonical mates even though theyre both dudes. they grow old together, but ravenpaw gets cancer and dies before barley (he lives to be considered old in warrior cats years). however ravenpaw wanted to be in the same kitty afterlife that barley will go to, so they can be together in kitty afterlife. barley is still alive though as far as we know and might be the oldest living cat in the series now. also i just think its funny to call little kitty cats "old man yaoi"

[television-bodies]

what's your favorite set design for les mis? alternatively, how would you stage it yourself?

oh anon, you have provided me with the dream question! this is about to be a very long answer.

i fell in love with les mis via the west end production in 2014 and have not been normal about it since. i was lucky enough to see said production, with that staging, quite a few times before the theatre was renovated in 2019 (this was when the revolve was removed and the production was updated to have the same staging as (i believe) every other global production of the show). since lockdowns etc ended i have seen the updated production on the west end a few times now too, and let me scream this from the rooftops: I MISS THE OLD ONE EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE

(i never like to assume people’s knowledge so i will continue here as if you’re not familiar with the key changes, and i apologise if i’m telling you things you already know!)

something that i loved about the original production is that there were almost no set pieces. there were always props, and the odd piece of set as in a wall or something e.g. the gate at rue plumet, but the majority of the settings were created through LIGHTING. examples, i hear you cry! i shall provide. my favourite example of this was in the sewers. when valjean is carrying marius, time was shown to pass as they walked around the revolve with a spotlight illuminating them every few seconds. the actors would change carrying positions in the dark gaps between these lights, so that it acted like a time jump. none of this animated scrolling backdrop screen nonsense they do now. if you haven’t already clocked it yes i am salty about this

lighting also played a bigger part in javert’s death — another point in the show at which they now have a backdrop to act sort of in place of this — the swirling water that he falls into used to be created solely through lighting effects and it was MARVELLOUS. real take your breath away type shit.

the other big point to make is about the revolve, my beloved. it was such a central part of the production but the most important use of it (and one that i see the masses on here mourn fairly often) was that at the end of the final battle, the barricade would slowly turn around to show all of the students dead across it. it was heartbreaking and beautiful and the way they have to literally wheel enjolras’ dead body onto the stage in the current production just does not have anything close to the emotional gutpunch of how it used to be staged. :’(

all in all the original production was much more stripped back visually than the show is now, and i think this served to amplify the power of the acting and singing and the PLOT whereas now it gets me down, because as much as i hate to say this, the current production sort of just looks like everything else. les mis used to be the best thing on the west end by a fucking mile, and it seems (to me) that they have lessened that gap. i understand why other productions of the show — particularly touring ones — would have to go without the revolve, but for the one on the west end, which has been in the same theatre for twenty years, i simply do not see why they thought to change it. change it for, in my clearly strong opinion, the worse.

(i will say here — as vaguely as i can — that i do have a modicum of insider knowledge, and that i can blame this change on cameron mackintosh. but that’s hardly a surprise)

this may all be coming off as very ‘old man shouts at cloud’ of me so i feel the need to say that i do still enjoy the new production — if i didn’t, i wouldn’t have been to see it multiple times. at the end of the day (ha) it is still les mis, and les mis is les mis. it’s always brilliant. i just think it used to be more, and it makes me sad that there’s nowhere to see that original staging anymore. i mean, sure, there are bootlegs. but no proshot? *breaks skateboard* alas, we seem doomed to concert versions until the end of time

thank you so much for the ask! i’m sure you can tell that you hit a nerve with this one lmao but i greatly enjoyed answering it

[lawisnotmocked]

Catching up on Les Mis letters for this year so I thought I’d share all my thoughts on the canine imagery from volume 1 book 1 in the same post.

The first instance of canine imagery in book 1 shows up in chapter 1.1.7 when Myriel wishes to cross the mountains to visit a small community of shepherds. The mayor warns him not to leave without an escort because of the threat of bandits but Myriel refuses the escort and tells the mayor he has no reason to fear them.

“But the brigands, Monseigneur?” “Hold,” said the Bishop, “I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God.” “But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves!” “Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of Providence?”

Wolves in Les Mis often represent two things - their position as powerful apex predators is often used to represent that a person has dangerous, malicious or violent intentions, but they’re also contrasted with dogs, a domestic canine with close proximity to human society, to show the ways certain people are prohibited from being part of society, usually because they’re in extreme poverty or are a criminal. Wolves are canines who are not allowed to participate in human society, and dogs are canines who are. Lots of people who are both violent and criminals get assigned wolf imagery, including Thenardier and Montparnasse.

In this case Cravatte and his bandits are wolves because they’re a dangerous group of highway robbers, but Myriel is also the shepherd for a flock of wolves because he’s the kind of bishop who goes out of his way to try and offer help to people who have otherwise been abandoned or cast out by the rest of society, including people like Valjean and Cravatte who had a reputation for being dangerous.

I love the way the imagery of Myriel being the shepherd for a flock of wolves ties in to the Christian symbolism of Jesus as a shepherd too it creates such a perfect mental image for me that represents this part of Myriel’s character so well 👌

Wolf imagery also shows up in the next chapter, 1.1.8, during Myriel’s conversation with the senator.

I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. ’Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf.

The reader is supposed to dislike the senator so him specifically comparing his personal philosophy to the behaviour of wolves might just be another way for Hugo to emphasise that he’s The Wrong One in this conversation. It could also be Hugo trying to make a point that a good society requires people to act with compassion and make sacrifices for each other or we may as well just be wolves instead of men? (violent and dangerous metaphorical wolves at least, not real wolves lol) I feel like parts of this chapter are definitely going over my head because it contains so much of Hugo’s Opinion on contemporary discussions so there might be something I’m missing here too.

[nickernacker]

Hello this is my presentation on what animals Les Mis characters would be except I'm only 500ish pages into the book so it's very short list at the moment

I decided almost IMMEDIATELY that Valjean would be some sort of owl, despite what I believe is the most popular interpretation being him as a lion. I was thinking of that one chapter in the book where he's referred to as an owl (the one called 'a nest for owl and wren' I think??) and decided yes absolutely that is 100% it. So then my first thought was a snowy owl, since they're pretty fucking big and also white (I'm not too bothered for hair colours and what have you in the rest of these but for Valjean it seemed pretty important) but the snowy owl look just wasn't doing it for me!! (something about their look was a little too intense, I guess??) And then! I remembered the barn owl (which is, by the way, probably my favourite owl). And yeah I might be a little biased towards them but they have a sort of gentle look while still being, y'know, owls (notoriously pretty dangerous predators). And of course, owls are nocturnal.

Also, just look at them!! The vibe is perfect, I'm certain of it.

(And!! While most barn owls have that light brown colouring, there have been white ones!! So the hair colour problem is all good)

Javert was a LOT more trouble (which I wasn't anticipating, after the easy pick for Valjean). He HAD to be some sort of wolf/dog-adjacent animal, that was the one and only condition (though I did briefly consider a horse. Just because he has a horse in both the 2018 BBC series and the 2012 movie??). A hyena was my first immediate pick (yeenvert <3) but it wasn't QUITE there and I was struggling desperately for some other idea. AND THEN! I decided, if no horse, why not a vaguely horse-shaped dog? Which led to a short list of hounds (scottish deerhound, irish wolfhound, ibizan hound) which I sort of juggled in my mind for a bit before finally deciding I kind of liked the scruffy deerhound vibe. They're very sweet dogs, as far as I know, so in that respect maybe not so accurate, but they definitely have the capacity to be foreboding in the same way most hounds have. They're also pretty tall!

(And yes I KNOW I said I wasn't fussed for colours but the grey on these guys is actually perfect for my mental image of Javert so! It's a happy accident!)

I knew pretty immediately that the bishop would be some sort of rooster. I have absolutely no reason for this other than the vibe was too perfect to ignore (though I think I might have been inspired by some gif of the bishop an old Les Mis movie where there were chickens in the background). So then I went on Wikipedia and ran through a list of roosters until I found this magnificent little beast, a faverolles rooster. I found on my not-so-extensive research journey that these guys are super gentle and apparently very hilarious, which, yeah, that's absolutely him <3

The bishop's sister (Mademoiselle Baptistine?) also gets a chicken. Because yeah they're related but also I just think it really fits her. Or maybe I'm biased, idk, I do really love chickens. I don't really have much to say about her which I am so so sorry for because I do really like her!! But she's a swedish flower hen

And Madame Magloire was going to be a chicken (before I gave that to the bishop's sister instead) but I later landed on some sort of donkey. Again, I haven't got much reason for this but the vibe is there!! I promise you!! I switched between a bunch of different donkey breeds (all of which I had never heard of before but I absolutely love, by the way. Go check out a provence donkey) and then i found the bourbonnais donkey, which is just perfect to me. If I have ever been certain of anything it's this.

(There's a disappointing amount of donkey photos on the internet. Where are they all!!)

I was going to save Fauchelevent for a different post but i really like him so he's here too. I was pretty sold on him as a sheep at first, and I very nearly left it at that but then!! I learned of a cashmere goat, which was not only a lot closer to how I imagine him but also they look cool as hell!! So I thought, okay, that was easy, but something still wasn't sitting quite right. The goat idea was absolutely perfect, but the cashmere goat was too far in the direction away from the sheep idea (which I'm still very attached to). So instead I went for an angora goat! Which apparently do something pretty close to gardening for a goat (eating/destroying nuisance plants and improving pastures) so it was almost too perfect to pass up. Also their horns are pretty awesome

(It's very funny to me personally that Valjean is an owl while Fauchelevent is a goat. Yes, we are brothers, the bird and the goat. Makes perfect sense)

I was going to give Cosette one in this post too but I'm not 100% sure of hers yet!! So she'll have to wait. I apologise deeply.

[lesmissocials-fuckedup]

Les Mis socials : 2023 hall of shame tournament - Round 2

Rules

Links to the posts and propaganda can be found under the cut !

Propaganda :

The "Who should Marius choose ?" question - source : Twitter - January 29

For many, many years, this fandom has been arguing that neither Cosette nor Eponine could be reduced to simply being love interests for Marius, that we shouldn't call their relationship a rivalry and that the Marius x Eponine relationship was way too toxic to be defined by love. Well, the musical's social media managers seem to disagree, no to mention that the picture is made to make it seem like Eponine is the only thing keeping the two lovers apart. Featuring an uncanny use of emojis you can find in every single one of their posts.

Mother's day post - source : Twitter - March 19

The one thing to be said in favor of this post is that they actually meant it as a joke and understood that Madame Thénardier was not a good mother. On the other hand, why not simply go along with the concept of Mother's Day and post a picture of Fantine, a mother who cared deeply about her child ? But they gave us an abusive mother instead. Again, very uncanny use of the laughing emoji.

The Wimbledon one - source : Twitter - July 15

Have you ever seen a post in which everything is wrong ? well this one is for you. Starting with the words they chose because no, there should not be a Cosette for every occasion. Putting a tennis racket in the hands of a starved and abused child ? To promote rich people's sports ? They also edited her arms to make her look more muscular. Also I know nothing about english sports but there is a strawberry emoji ? And finally, cherry on top of the cake... they messed up the colors of the french flag. Which, let's be honest, is an easy one to get right.

Cosette celebrating Thanksgiving - source : Twitter - November 23

Our only contestant left for the US team ! And... it's a bad one. Without even going into what is wrong with the concept of Thanksgiving itself and promoting it, why would you ever put Cosette in front of a Thanksgiving meal ? The gril who is famous as an icon of starved and abused children ? Not to mention how disturbing it is that there is so little to eat in the pate in front of her. And finally, on a purely cultural level : 1- Thanksgiving became a federal holiday years after Les Misérables was published and 2- most french people could not care less about when Thanksgiving is celebrated.

Christmas Eve - source : Twitter - December 24

To be honest, this one might by far not be the worst they have done, but it is undeniably very disturbing. And the way the edited the "One day more" quote may be the least uncanny thing here. They also edited snowflakes in the picture, a Christmas tree on the barricade and a Christmas hat on (I think ?) Enjolras's head... knowing that the men on this barricade are throwing a revolution. In which all of them will die painfully. What's more, this revolution canonically and historically takes place at the beginning of June. Which means this picture is the worst thing they could possibly have chose to illustrate the Christmas spirit. Also, as many people have mentionned, this year was the 200th anniversary of Valjean meeting Cosette in the woods, so... perhaps they could have done something about that instead ?

[secretmellowblog]

Valjean is SO FUNNY in the Thenardier/Gorbeau House ambush scene. Thenardier keeps going on these long incoherent rants about revenge while Valjean just stands there calmly and tells Thenardier bald-faced lies with a straight face as he tries to Gaslight his way right out of the whole situation. Valjean is described as tranquil and serene as he continues to politely pretend “I don’t know you :). I’m just a random poor gentleman. :)” And Thenardier tries to act unbothered by this but (as a proud petty man desperate for recognition) he’s clearly losing his mind over it.

Anyway here are some of my Top Favorite Funny Valjean Lying Moments

“So you do not recognize me?”

M. Leblanc looked him full in the face, and replied:—

“No.”

Then Jondrette advanced to the table. He leaned across the candle, crossing his arms, putting his angular and ferocious jaw close to M. Leblanc’s calm face, and advancing as far as possible without forcing M. Leblanc to retreat, and, in this posture of a wild beast who is about to bite, he exclaimed:—

“My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my name is Thénardier. I am the inn-keeper of Montfermeil! Do you understand? Thénardier! Now do you know me?”

An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc’s brow, and he replied with a voice which neither trembled nor rose above its ordinary level, with his accustomed placidity:—

“No more than before.”

10/10

M. Leblanc did not interrupt him, but said to him when he paused:—

“I do not know what you mean to say. You are mistaken in me. I am a very poor man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you. You are mistaking me for some other person.”

“Ah!” roared Thénardier hoarsely, “a pretty lie! You stick to that pleasantry, do you! You’re floundering, my old buck! Ah! You don’t remember! You don’t see who I am?”

“Excuse me, sir,” said M. Leblanc with a politeness of accent, which at that moment seemed peculiarly strange and powerful, “I see that you are a villain!”

I love how he finds a way to insult him “politely.”

“Who?” asked M. Leblanc.

“Parbleu!” cried Thénardier, “the little one, the Lark.”

M. Leblanc replied without the slightest apparent emotion:—

“I do not know what you mean.”

But my absolute favorite small detail is that the false address Valjean gives the Thenardiers takes them to

“Rue Saint-Dominique-D’Enfer, No. 17.”

“Enfer” means “hell”— Valjean found a way to politely tell them all to go to hell XD.

I also love how, throughout the scene, Marius seems to fall for every one of Valjean’s lies; he seems to genuinely think he’s telling the truth when he behaves confused about “The Lark.” What a noodle.

But yeah, it’s fascinating how Valjean uses polite lies as a weapon for self-defense. As I mentioned before, Thenardier wants to have the skills that Valjean has, and one of his most valuable skills is his ability to politely lie his way around violent authority figures. This ability was clearly something he needed to adopt to survive nineteen years in prison, and years on the run; it’s an ability he’s cultivated for a long time. Meanwhile Thenardier also tries to “act polite” and lie in order to manipulate Valjean, but the difference is that Thenardier is generally pretty awful at it. He needs to take notes bc this is what real lying looks like.

[dolphin1812]

@eleancrvances has pointed out the heartbreaking similarities between Georges Pontmercy’s death and Fantine’s, with his last cry reflecting his wish to see his child and him dying as he lost hope. The tear is really devastating. Marius’ reaction, though, is interesting to contrast with Cosette’s. Age is certainly part of it. Cosette’s mother died when she was young, whereas Marius was almost an adult; neither one of them really knew their parents, but Marius’ awkwardness here and his attempt to adhere to some social norm for grief reflects his comparative awareness of these standards as an almost-adult, whereas Cosette simply repeated the fact of her mother’s death to a doll in distress. That being said, what these parents represent to each character is distinct. For one thing, Georges Pontmercy’s death is very physical to Marius in a way that Fantine’s wasn’t to Cosette. Fantine’s death was gruesome, but Cosette wasn’t there. She doesn’t even remember her mother:

“"Then you have not a mother?"

"I do not know," the child answered.

Before the man had time to speak, she continued,—

"I do not think so; other girls have one, but I have not."

And after a silence, she added,—"I believe that I never had one.”“ (LM 2.3.7)

At the same time, the idea of a mother means more to Cosette than it does to Marius. Although Mme Thénardier suggests that Cosette’s mother abandoned her, we don’t see Cosette repeat this idea, focusing instead on her mother being dead (or nonexistent, as seen in the earlier exchange with Jean Valjean above). She seems to believe that she suffers because she has no mother, not because her mother doesn’t love her. Marius explicitly feels abandoned by his father, though, making the relationship between them tense in a way Cosette and Fantine’s isn’t. 

To be fair, Cosette may not have complained of abandonment because of the narrative place in which we learn about her perspective on her mother: when Valjean finds her and adopts her. Hugo stresses that both her and Valjean were searching for someone to love, and that when they found each other, they were both able to express this wish and finally rejoice in caring for someone. Consequently, their love takes precedence over Cosette’s grief and/or confusion. Marius, on the other hand, is still on his own and doesn’t really love anyone. He didn’t love his father because he felt he abandoned him, but he also doesn’t love Gillenormand. Whereas Cosette’s story then was at a place of hope, Marius’ is one of resentment and isolation, allowing us to sit with that feeling of abandonment.

That lack of love is sad given that we know Georges Pontmercy did love his son, but it also allows Marius to figure out that something’s off. The scene he steps into is full of grief:

“Anguish, poignant anguish, was in that chamber. The servant-woman was lamenting in a corner, the curé was praying, and his sobs were audible, the doctor was wiping his eyes; the corpse itself was weeping.”

The dead can weep, but Marius can’t. It’s understandable that he isn’t exactly sad, of course, but it’s notable that Marius sees his father as an ordinary person who failed him here (he’s sad to see a corpse in general), not as the “brigand” his grandfather paints him as. This isn’t to say that Marius has changed his political views (he doesn’t really mourn him afterward), but this scene of death and grief humanizes his father to an extent, allowing Marius to process his lack of grief and his moment of guilt for that. 

Still, understanding Marius’ feelings doesn’t remove the pain of seeing Georges Pontmercy die in despair and then have every trace of his life erased. His garden isn’t just overgrown with weeds; everything in it dies, a final reminder of his isolation.

[piracytheorist]

So I just watched the 2012 version of Les Misérables, and I've got to say, I've never felt so conflicted over crying for a film. Because it's not a fucking good film. It's an adaptation of a stage musical but it looks like there was nearly zero effort to adapt from stage to cinema.

In different mediums, the audience works differently in order to connect with the story and characters. A book doesn't provide visual scenes, but can be detailed enough for one's imagination to do the job. A comic has no movement, but if it's staged well enough the audience can connect point A to point B. Animation doesn't aim for realistic depictions (and Disney can kiss my ass on that) but suspension of disbelief can connect the comical reactions to the equivalent real-life reactions. Theater has excessive makeup and the actors act with bigger movements with placements that may make no sense in real life (as they have to face the audience, sometimes turning their backs on their co-stars during a dialogue) but if it's placed well you're engrossed enough in it that it shouldn't bother you. And also, theater has set changes.

In stage work, musical or not, you stare at the same scene the whole time. How one creates a set design and changes it during the performance is an entire art and section of study when it comes to theater. And two of the results of good set change is that the viewer 1) doesn't lose focus and immersion and 2) gets prepared for the next scene.

And then this film fucking forgot that theater and cinema need different transitions from one to the other. As I was watching it and felt shocked by the sudden changes - like, Valjean starts as a prisoner. Oh now he's free. Now he's on the streets being beaten up. Now he's taken in by the church. NOW HE'S STEALING FROM THEM?? Oh now he's caught by the cops. AM I WATCHING A FUCKING MONTAGE?? - I eventually started thinking how it would be like if these sudden changes were happening on a stage, and I realized that, if they're good enough set changes, I wouldn't have a single issue because hey, there's a reason it's cool to see the set changes. They prepare you. Because when I see Valjean in a prison and then he's on the road then he's on the streets then he's in a church, all within the manner of like, three minutes, it's fucking jarring on a screen, where the changes are radical and sudden.

And it was like that in the entire film. It was especially jarring between the scenes of Marius asking Eponine to go find Cosette and then BAM it's night and we're on the rebel base and Enjolras chastises Marius for choosing love over the rebellion. It's too sudden, man! And I know that the original book is fucking long but that is not an excuse. When you make an adaptation you have to make sure that what you create can stand on its own, that not everyone will have read the book/watched the stage play/seen other films inspired by it in order to like your creation. You're making an adaptation for the screen. Adapt! Improvise overcome etc etc

And another way the adaptation was poor? In stage musicals it's common to have the actors make small reactions to things happening or being said. Things like "It cannot be!" or "Is it true?" or even "Dear Lord!" are small phrases that a character sings/says to draw the audience's attention and show their reaction. Do you know how cinema does that? BY SHOWING THE CHARACTER ON THE SCREEN. On the stage, you have a wide scene, with the actors spread around it, and when they react to something they need to say something so that the audience will turn their eyes to them. On cinema you don't need to "manipulate" the audience's view, because you control it fully via the cameras. If the director wants the audience to notice something, they simply focus the cameras on it. So having both those "small" reactions and focusing on the actors' face during it is redundant and also fucking ridiculous.

That's not even mentioning the atrocious choice of recording the actors live. Whatever you want to say about "realism" in the singing (it's a musical it's not fucking realistic to burst into song irl what the fuck shut up!!) the biggest issue with it is that it has piss poor audio mixing. Long notes that would be belted out and stand out in the stage play or a decent mixing are now lost and covered by the orchestra. It's a waste of their talent!

And since I'm on the topic... what the fuck did they do with Russel Crowe. What the fuck. Because the man can obviously sing. He has some wonderful long notes and vocal control... and then they either coached him completely wrong for Javert's songs, or they made a huge miscast. I cannot judge him as an actor, I think he was good for the acting role, but the singing oh my god it doesn't fit his voice. Javert does that thing where he sings in the same note then jumps to a higher note for emphasis, and Crowe fucking sucked at that it was painful. Why. Why did they do both the character and the actor dirty. Who greenlit this. Who allowed this. Javert is a fucking main character and they made a whole mess of him I am going to crawl up a wall and scream

And then I had the audacity to fucking cry at the end because Hugh Jackman acted his soul out in the final scene and then the ending number pulled at my heartstrings. I hate it here.

[needabetternamelater]

It's not a brick wall to continue to ask you a question you have not yet answered which is: What is the prison abolitionists' proposed solution?

"I ain't seen you since the last time I had to explain to you how the systems set in place in American™ prison complex is because it is a system set up on literal slavery and thus is working quite as intended." I mean, prisons unfortunately do do that. They also seperate murderers and rapists from the general population when they're convicted. Which, yes, having the trial first is a good thing. Obviously. Prisons aren't special to any country; they're older than the earliest known legal code. What is your point? I didn't say prisons were special to America If you told me rape happens in every prison, I'd just ask if you know what the word 'largely' means. Hint: it is not in fact a synonym of uniquely, only, or any of those words. Again, we're just back to 'largely does not mean 'only', 'uniquely' or 'is confined in its totality to'. And back to: . Read what I actually said and stop inserting your bullshit into it. Maybe in type and order but the name comes from penance. As in taking accountability? Which I thought prison abolitionists were all for? And well, do you think a reward is the correct response to someone doing some non-Jean-Valjean crime? I certainly don't. If you go into a prison and are like 'this has a bad effect on the prisoners' then...okay? Maybe some quakers thought it would cause reform in a soul-elevating way or penitatries causing penance or something but for the most part, the idea has always been that the benefits of having prisoners in society accrues to people not in prison. "Asking for 'nicer prisons' is like asking for a ICEE made of molten fucking lava 'but make that cold'." What do you want to do? So far, you still haven't answered the question. And no, it isn't. Like I don't think this is the correct answer because there are other rights to be balanced but if it came to it: stick everyone in Brevvik-style-solitary for the entirety of their sentence is one potential way to avoid intra-prison rape. I'm not a massive fan of this either but I don't know what other solution there could be. "There. I didn't dodge your question even though I'm pretty sure I didn't the first time are you gonna explain to me why you feel like 'harden criminals' don't deserve rehabilitation and do deserve to get raped and suffer a lifetime of emotional trauma?" You still haven't yet explained what you actually want to happen. And stop conflating prison conditions with the existence of prisons. As for rehab, yes, they deserve rehab but not at the expense of victims. I don't think they deserve to get raped. (That would be prison conditions). As for a lifetime of emotional trauma, I don't think they deserve that either. What I do think is that if we're given the choice between them suffering a lifetime of emotional trauma and innocent people suffering a lifetime of emotional trauma....I'll pick the ones causing the problem. They are the ones nominating themselves for the short end of the tradeoff, after all.

[shadowsong26fic]

An Imperfect Memory

Author: shadowsong26

Rating: PG

Fandom: Les Mis

Characters: Javert, Cosette

Warnings: References to canonical character death (Fantine’s)

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of their respective creators.

Notes: So, my roommate has dragged me (not entirely unwillingly XD) down a Valjean/Javert rabbit hole; and then I wandered off into another corner of the warren that is Javert & Cosette and how that stepparent relationship might work and to stretch this metaphor to the breaking point I got hopelessly lost so I guess I live here now lol.

Anyway, I have this headcanon that Cosette likes to draw/paint; Roommate informed me that in the novel (which I read abridged years ago but only remember so much of), Javert also draws. And that’s where this came from (along with another Super Secret Project I’m working on alongside other things for other fandoms).

This is, obviously, a canon-divergent AU where both Javert and Valjean survive and...again. Rabbit hole, lol. I may continue to tweak this (especially the last couple lines) but it wouldn’t leave my head until I shared it, so here we are.

Javert paused for a moment, hesitating before tapping on the half-open door.

Mme. Pontmercy was just where he’d expected her to be, settled in a chair by the window where the light was good, sketching something he couldn’t see from this angle.

It was that pastime of hers that had made him think of…well. That had brought to mind the purpose for this particular conversation. Once he took that step and began it.

Well. He was here now, and he had committed to this. No sense in delaying.

He raised his hand to knock, but then she looked up, beating him to it.

“Oh!” she said, half-rising. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. Are you looking for papa? I think he’s--”

“He’s out in the garden,” he said. “I know. No, I was…I was actually looking for you.”

She blinked. “For me?”

“Yes,” he said, then hesitated, the folded paper tucked up his sleeve burning against his skin. “May I?”

“Of course,” she said, rising fully and moving over to sit on the couch instead, where he could have her full attention. “Please, come in.”

He inclined his head, and took a step into the room, then another. He remained standing.

A long moment of silence stretched between the two of them.

Damn it. “I…apologize, madame, if I am overstepping,” he began, breaking it. “But I…I am aware that you have…questions. About your mother.”

“Ah,” she said, lowering her eyes. “Yes, I…I still feel like I know so little about her.” She looked up again, tilting her head. “Did you know her, monsieur?”

“I only met her once,” he said. “Very briefly. And I was…unkind.” He closed his eyes for the barest of moments, then locked that--feeling away before continuing on. “In any case, I am sure your father has told you about her, more than I possibly could. But for all his many talents, your father is not…he is not an artist.” He winced a little. “I am not, either, not particularly, but from time to time, I…”

“I didn’t know,” she said, after another long and increasingly awkward silence.

“Yes, well,” he said, then pulled the paper out of his sleeve and offered it to her. “I thought…I thought perhaps you might like to have this.”

She tilted her head again, giving him another of those quiet, questioning looks, and then reached out to take the paper. She unfolded it carefully, and then froze for a moment before looking up at him, eyes wide. “Is…is this…?”

He nodded. “Based on my imperfect memory,” he said, softly. “Yes. That is…to the best of my recollection, that is your mother.”

“Oh,” she breathed, looking back down at the sketch.

He had tried to soften some of the…harsher edges of the circumstances, while still doing the dead woman justice--so to speak. In a way he had been incapable of all those years ago. It had been some time since he had focused so much on a drawing, rather than using it as a tool, or as a way to keep his mind and hands occupied between more important tasks.

But this--this attempt at…amends, perhaps…

Nothing had felt quite so important when he was working at it.

He wasn’t entirely sure how successful he had been. He hadn’t shown the drawing to Valjean, who was the only person who could have judged the likeness. He had considered it, but that had felt…no, this was something for the daughter alone.

And then a very strange thing happened.

Before he even realized she was moving, Mme. Pontmercy had risen from the sofa, taken a few quick steps across the room to him, and--

And flung her arms around him.

He drew in a startled breath and froze, unable to move or think. He could feel something wet on his shoulder--she was crying?

And then her voice, soft, in his ear. “Thank you,” she said, before pulling away.

Yes, her eyes were shining, and she had his drawing clutched tight in her hand.

“I…ah.”

“I cannot tell you how much this means to me, monsieur,” she went on. “Thank you.”

He bowed his head again. “You’re…you’re welcome, madame.”

She smiled at him, brightly, through her tears. “Would you…would you like to join me?” she then asked. “Drawing, I mean. There’s plenty of room at the window, and I think…I would like that, very much.”

“Some…some other time, perhaps,” he said. “But thank you, for the…for the invitation.”

“Some other time,” she agreed, still smiling.

[tookishcombeferre]

Okay. I’m so glad I’m not the only person who thinks of “Suddenly” as like one of the most those two songs on the planet. Because, I absolutely do. It’s so them. The only other song I thought might fit them better is the song “Let Her Be a Child” from the “Tale of Two Cities” Musical - which I found either in a Valjean and Cosette fic title or in a tribute video.

(I shall link a video at the bottom. I believe, plot wise, the song is sung by the French father, who is on death row, to his young daughter before the lawyer who looks like his body double steps in and dies for him - this being the plot of “A Tale of Two Cities.” I know the Dad sings it to his daughter. I just can’t remember where in the plot it falls.)

Anyway, I like the AU! However, if I were to go the route of a Les Miserables AU, I’d love to play it more from the revolution/ barricade angle. I too am a huge Les Miserables fan. And, I love the novel. I read it when I was in high school. And, I think there are some *great* characters who would fill the roles of the revolutionaries in fun ways.

I do think we could have Cedric adopting Sofia in this AU and the two of them trying to just live in relative peace until they sort of get swept up in the crazy that is what is about to happen. I like to think of him and Miranda in sort of a partnership (mostly because I really just can’t kill Miranda off!!)

So, the three of them are trying to evade the, potentially, increasingly oppressive rule of Roland under the assistance of Cordelia (because she’s the Royal Sorcerer in this AU.)

Meanwhile, Carol of the Arrow in this AU is Enjolras. She’s a natural leader. She commands space, and she’s tired. So, she starts riling people up. Following her are a few fed up knights, several villagers, and a handful of others.

I like to think she’s actually managed to amass a few people from other countries/kingdoms as well. She’s making a show of how well this is going to go. (I haven’t thought like explicitly about who all is with her.)

However, over time, her sort of second, the person who grounds her and gives her humanity, is Tilly. My user name is based of (the best) my favorite of the Amis. Combeferre. Who, according to Victor Hugo, really would have rather negotiated than fought. But, also knew how important freedom was. He just loved humanity more than anything and couldn’t see a way other than revolution so he revolts. So, this is the role I see Tilly filling for Carol in the AU.

Anyway, like I said, I have a really hard time killing my anyone off because I like them all too much. So, let’s just say the revolution is successful because they use something non lethal to make everyone slow down long enough to negotiate with them. The end! Everyone is happy! Yay!! The everyone lives nobody dies AU we all loved and wanted. XD

So, I'm a huge fan of Les Miserables, and I've always adored the father-daughter relationship between Jean Valjean and Cosette after he adopted her.

In some ways, it reminds me of the relationship between Cedric and Sofia. Both men had lives full of demons, trauma, being treated unjustly and misunderstood, and bitterness/hate for the world as a result. But then this sweet girl comes into their lives, changing them for the better and bringing much-needed light and joy into their lives, and they realize how deeply they care about the child and that they would do anything for her.

I keep thinking about a Les Mis au of StF I'd love to write with Cedric as Jean Valjean and Sofia as Cosette. And Miranda as Fantine (Cosette's dead mother who sacrificed everything for her child, inspiring Jean Valjean to take care of Cosette for her), Roland as Inspector Javert (who always thought the absolute worst of Jean just like Roland always had a narrow-minded view of Cedric, and Javert's one lyric to Jean "Men like you can never change / A man such as you!" reminds me of when Roland had a hard time trusting Cedric after he betrayed him), and Amber as Eponine (the girl who grew up with Cosette).

The song "Suddenly" (which isn't from the musical, but was made specifically for the 2012 film adaptation) reminds me of how Cedric feels about Sofia:

@cedric-my-beloved @moonypears-blog @bettathanyou @fantadym @sweetmariihs2 @crucifiedclergyman @tookishcombeferre

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 5.4.1 “Javert Derailed”

I’m going to resort to bullet points, because I don’t know how to tackle this chapter as a whole.

- We come to this book’s last mention of Napoleon, as Javert, who has up till now folded his arms like Napoleon confident, now holds his hands behind his back like Napoleon uncertain. It feels significant that Napoleon never comes up again after this, but I don’t know what it means. We seem to be at another Waterloo in some sense, but mostly in a sense of combining a reckoning with a senseless waste of life.

- Javert experiences himself as a crystal suddenly becoming cloudy, which feels true of him, but also as damning as the rest of this. We’ve seen his cruelty and his corruption and the blind eye he turns on his coworkers’ corruption. The fact that he thought all that was a limpid pool is... like I said, not surprising, but it’s pretty awful.

- There are no stars or moon because of the cloudy sky. That means this chapter is conducted entirely by the light of streetlamps, which seems deeply unfortunate. Streetlamps are the eyes and the point of view of Authority, and they’re the light Javert has always operated by. Javert can see clearly enough to know he needs to leave this place, but there’s no other light to guide him. Valjean in his first upheaval after the bishop found a desolate place with a whole lot of creepy natural lighting effects--but the light he saw by was God’s.

- Javert is caught between a dog and a wolf, which we know means evening. Evening might have been a dubiously good sign for Valjean a few chapters ago, but it doesn’t seem auspicious here.

- The narrator is very close to Javert’s pov in a certain sense--we have someone to explain in great detail the feelings Javert has but doesn’t understand; the narrator understands much more about this than Javert possibly can. It’s also a pretty biting narration, though--there’s a real thread of sarcasm and mockery running through all this, maybe not undeservedly, that’s going, “Oh, so you’re noticing the world is maybe a smidge complicated NOW, huh?”

Which, you know. Fair. But it’s interesting being asked to understand this deeply while being subtly warded away from sympathizing.

- I love the line about “internal rebellion in thought.” We know from his intro that one of Javert’s big things is hatred of rebellion. I take it from this that the reason he hates thinking is that the thoughts he would have if he had thoughts would be rebellious ones, and he knows it. He’s been crushing all his instincts beyond the basic “search for criminal, arrest criminal” for decades, and that’s the towering mass of cognitive dissonance that’s been piling up over his head for years.

- God, there is something so sad about this marginalized person being horrified by the idea that there might be a narrative about the world that isn’t Authority’s narrative, or that his own experience and point of view could matter.

- I do really get why the Valvert contingent is the kinky side of the fandom. Just saying.

- Just like with Valjean’s revelatory moment, this would all go much better if he could see the person who overturned his worldview as a person, not some kind of impossible saint--which in both cases would go better if people had conversations and relationships instead of Big Dramatic Moments Of Apotheosis and then running away. It’s worse here, though, since Javert’s failure to see people’s basic humanity is one of his biggest problems. We are not in any way leaving behind his black and white thinking, we’re just messing with which is which.

- God, Enjolras and Grantaire seem so functional by comparison.

- It’s hard to pin down where Valjean fell off the road to Calvary tonight. I don’t think the answer is Javert’s refusal to play Pontius Pilate. Like, that’s a good thing, and the thing that went wrong for Valjean feels a lot more wrong than that.

- Javert wishing he’d thought to yell for Enjolras et al to come kill him because Valjean was failing to do his job right is absurd, and perfect.

- His reaction to recognizing the existence of kindness is genuinely so sad. There’s so much there, in the fact that he thinks he was “depraved” for being kind, in the fact that he can recognize all this as kindness, in the way that recognizing that the world has contained kindness in it all along is a uniformly bad feeling for him. It makes me wonder exactly which things he’s trying not to think about hard enough to regret.

- Man, that “Javert’s ideal [...] was to be irreproachable.” I can’t relate to his authoritarianism at all, but I was the kind of autistic kid who wanted to know what the rules were so I could do things “right.” There’s something really heartbreaking about somebody reaching 52 years old--and a whole lot of harm done to people and the world--before they 1) encounter any of the limits of that mindset or 2) encounter the idea that there might be something better to hope for and work for in life than not making Authority mad at you.

- For all that he hates what’s happening right now, I love the implication that hatred isn’t what’s at issue here. This is about having a heart, in spite of not believing in having hearts, and it’s about humanity’s indelible contact with the numinous, no matter how much he always tried to ignore and avoid it. I fight with Hugo’s optimism a lot, but I appreciate it here--Javert tried to crush his own humanity and, in spite of all the inhumane harm he’s done, all the cruelty, the pointlessly mean death of Fantine and all the other deaths he’s no doubt caused, he failed: he’s still human, he still has a heart. He still has a soul, and that’s what’s hurting him so much.

- All he can see of this is anarchy. Which feels like it’s exactly the streetlight thing: the only light he can see this by is the light of authority, and so the only outcome he can see of this is a destruction of authority. The higher truths are making themselves apparent to him by force, but they don’t really show up in the light he’s seeing by.

- His little note is so sad, it’s so nothing. He’s spent so long ignoring these petty cruelties and indignities and thefts, and people have suffered for it. And he’s all, “Hey, Authority, please, could you maybe just, if it’s not too much trouble....” This is the great firing of Javert’s soul towards Justice at last, and... iIt’s not very good. And hey, it’s a first try! There’s a lot he could learn if he lived and stayed on this route! But.... you know.

And this is the night of the day the barricade fell: we know what good, true, right, glorious, loving rebellion for the sake of alleviating suffering looks like. This note is how far Javert is able to get down the road of rebellion, and wow is it not very far.

- He’s writing all this in the police station in the Place du Châtelet. Underneath him are the now defunct dungeons where prisoners stood in the mud and their own excrement for months chained by the neck, waiting to be shipped off to the bagne if they didn’t strangle or starve or die of disease first. I think it’s underlining how utterly insufficient Javert’s “rebellion” really is.

- It’s really striking me this time the degree to which in the last section he literally can’t see? There’s no light from heaven, there’s no light from houses or passersby--that is, from men. The only light left to him is that horrible, horrible streetlight, and it’s skewing his view of everything. When he looks down or up or even at the city, he can’t perceive anything properly.

It really feels like he died of the void that was left when authority vanished from above him, and that if some other light, any other light, had come, he wouldn’t have concluded there was nothing left.

We saw Providence come for Valjean time after time tonight, but nothing and nobody came for Javert.

[secretmellowblog]

Valjean + 7 & 8 (game ask)

For this ask meme: #7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like? And #8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Thanks for the ask!!

#7: a thing fandom does with this character that you like:

I love fix-its (I just want him to live!) it’s great when Jean Valjean gets to have a happier ending than his bleak passive suicide.  

Fics that explore Jean Valjean interacting with Other Characters (outside of Cosette) are also  great. He has such a narrow social circle in canon — he has basically no friends outside of his daughter— so playing him off other characters is really fun. It’s especially fun if (as is canonically accurate) he struggles very hard to interact with people and comes across as deeply weird. Jean Valjean tends to get “trapped in his own head” a lot, and exploring the relationships he could have with other characters– or just how other characters would be utterly baffled by him, while viewing him from the outside– is always great.

I also love fandom stuff that acknowledges how deeply strange he is. Any fandom stuff that features Jean Valjean breaking into people’s houses to give them money is always chefs kiss.

#8: A thing fandom does with this character that you despise:

I  was originally going to answer this with a whole passionate overlong essay about fandom tropes around Jean Valjean that bother me, but…I’ll keep it short lol because it's not really a big deal, haha. Like, I don’t want to be mean or unfair, and I like being in a fandom so large I can afford to be picky about characterization. I don’t like holding fanfic  to a higher moral standard than big “professional” media properties that are doing far worse. The most popular Les Mis fanfic on ao3 has maybe a couple thousand readers; BBC 2019, which is an utterly vile horrible conservative take on Les Mis and on Jean Valjean in particular, had millions of viewers. Fanfic writers have no budget and often no editors, so we don’t deserve to be held to the same level of scrutiny as massive projects like a tv show . Like I don’t want to overstate harm– fanfic is fine! Les mis fanfic is a tiny niche of a niche, and so small no one’s really being hurt by it. If I don’t like something, I don’t read it, and all that. I'm not here to be the fandom police XD.

And I really don’t like ever positioning myself as an “authority” on these characters or the person who does them “correctly,” because I’m not. 

That being said, if I were to be petty and summarize my personal Problems with the way Jean Valjean is often handled in fandom really briefly–

My core "pain" is that I feel like a lot of fans miss that the police are the villains of Les Mis. The police are the villains of Jean Valjean’s story and they’re the villains of Javert’s. Prison is evil. The carceral system is cruel and unjust, as a system. It is not a problem of Javert “not being nice enough to Valjean,” the entire system is fundamentally violent and vile and needs to be burned to the ground.  acab, and all.

I think part of why that gets missed is that many fans are laser-focused only on Javert–  and often on a highly specific musical-inspired fanon reading of Javert where he Did Nothing Wrong. (I'm not throwing shade, this was kinda also me when I was 13 lolllll.) And then they don’t analyze Jean Valjean anywhere near as deeply, if they analyze him at all, and don't pick up on the larger themes of the novel. And that's a shame, because Javert’s characterization will also suffer if you don’t have that wider context! I think the “problem” is just that if you acknowledge the complexity of Jean Valjean's character and his trauma, if you recognize how deeply Jean Valjean was ripped apart by prison,  how he has not recovered from his imprisonment and never will, and how he doesn’t view the criminal justice system with ‘total forgiveness’ but actually does have complicated overwrought repressed useless grief and rage over the system that abused him and the injustices he’s undergone, how he actually doesn’t like Javert on a personal level and only saved his life out of the same pity he would’ve shown to any other person in Javert's position–  it is much harder to see Javert as a Good Person and the police as a Good Institution. So as a result fanfic!Jean Valjean often  kinda has to be written as a bland saint patiently agreeing that Cops Are Great and Prison is Fine and Javert Did Nothing Wrong...because if he isn’t, the author has to acknowledge Javert has hurt Jean Valjean in ways he will never heal from, and question the morality of both  Javert and the police. 

 I think lots of people take the line “there’s nothing that I blame you for/you’ve done your duty nothing more” from the musical, interpret it as a sincere compliment, and then graft that interpretation onto the book— to the point of making it the entire core of Jean Valjean’s character. But Jean Valjean complimenting Javert with the Nuremberg defense (“it was all fine because you were doing your job”), and this being portrayed as Correct and Wise, is just not a compelling take on the character to me XD. I do not like it all. So I just don’t read fics that head in that direction. I'm not gonna content-police people, I just don't read it, haha.

I’ve been recommended multiple fics where Jean Valjean becomes Javert’s cop partner, or enthusiastically encourages him to return to the police, and it’s always a big “He Would Not Say That.” XD Jean Valjean, the most well-known victim of police brutality in the history of fiction, the character whose entire personality is built on the trauma of surviving incarceration and attempting to save others from his hellish fate, would never enthusiastically participate in incarcerating people–not even if they were  ‘bad’ people! It’s literally the core of his whole weird little Deal. it’s his whole schtick. 

And it's not that I hate Valvert either. I actually think Valvert can be very compelling-- and also funny, which is the most important thing. But part of the reason I’ve often stayed away from the valvert  fandom despite enjoying the Funky Weird Little Relationship is that I’ve had lots of trouble finding fic that gives Jean Valjean an actual life or character outside of Javert, or that also acknowledges the anti-police anti-prison themes of the novel.  But! There are a tiny handful of people who do it occasionally! And that's enough.

And again, this isn’t like the biggest deal or anything! I’m not a fandom cop trying to police what people write, especially because most people are just extrapolating from the musical/lots of people change their minds on characterizations over time/it’s hard to write without a team of editors to help you navigate things. These are just some fandom trends I personally don’t like, that I personally avoid,  and that I hope change over time….so that I have more fanfic to read that lines up with my own feelings on the characters XD.

But yeah those are my (abbreviated) years of spicy fanon Jean Valjean hot takes!!!