#victurnien needs to stay in her own lane

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

I entirely agree, and I was referring moreso on a surface-level to her being the catalyst to Fantine's doom and how we don't discuss her--I'd never even heard of her until BBC Les Mis came out, and even then only in passing.

Still, I read your conclusion and wonder: what would the best course of action for Valjean have been? We have observed that he gave far more than he kept and pressured other wealthy members (eg Fouché) into investing more money into the community. He paid for new schools to be built and paid the schoolteachers from his own pocket (imo the most valuable thing: the children are learning skills, and it's daycare for working adults; access to good education and childcare has been proven time and time again to be the key indicator in future success); he paid for a house of refuge and created a fund for pension and medical leave; he taught the people in the community better and more efficient ways to live. Providing and education and teaching skills (eg new ways to use nettle) remains long after he leaves. You mention that it made him look good--which it undoubtedly did--but he didn't do it for status or vanity, and he did create some systematic changes that benefitted the community.

Ultimately, I feel Valjean did basically the best he could have without calling for revolution--and I suppose maybe that is the point? Trickle-down economics doesn't work even with the most selfless and goodwilled in command of the fortune and with the most power possible bestowed upon him (someone dig Reagan up and tell him). Unfortunately, I have only read up to Fantine being arrested, so in this battle of wits I am woefully unarmed, but without an entire system overhaul it seems to me nearly impossible that Valjean could have done too much more than he did. I mean, even with the position of mayor, he only accepted because he had been forced to consider the increased amount if good he could do in a government position...and this still came to pass.

And the argument could be made that he could have come to Montreuil-sur-Mer and done nothing. Taken Camus's approach, minimalized his impact and interaction on and with everyone. Then, technically, he could be absolved of sin...except that, as we saw earlier, he knew he could do greater good with the freedom and new start that Myriel had purchased him.

Let's then consider the Bishop of Digne, who is (to my knowledge) hailed as the end-all be-all of good in the novel. We know his opinions on wealth ("There's Monsieur Géborand, buying a pennyworth of paradise" might be my favorite sass of his entire book) and sin ("To commit the least possible sin is the law for man . . . Everything on this earth is subject to sin. Sin is like gravity."). Something I've been wondering since all of his platitudes on living meanly (much like Valjean did) is what happened after he passed? To the best of my knowledge, it's never said, but I would wager that because he never took on an underling, someone from elsewhere who did not practice the gospel of Monseigneur Bienvenu ultimately took over and rapidly undid the years of work he did there, too.

(And there's an interesting parallel to be found there too--both Myriel and Madeleine are said to live in solitude, so when they do leave their posts they fall back into the ruin in which they were found; Cosette, then, could be said to be the break in that cycle? Unless she's just Valjean's Baptistine, which she very well could be. Again, Fantine's just been arrested.)

The point to all of this being, then, that it seems that there is no ethical way to live in society as it currently is (just as ethical consumption under capitalism is a myth). (And Myriel's one flaw is said to be that he's a royalist.) They call for personal revolutions, yes, but not on a grander scale, and in this way perhaps Valjean's true transformation could onky fully come about with his participation at the barricades?

To summarize my ramble:

Yes, if one person were to be blamed systemically for Fantine's fall, Valjean would be the face of it, I absolutely agree. But I also feel that, regardless of what he did, because of the pre-existing government institution, he was doomed to fail regardless of what he did, and as such Thicctor's ultimate goal for the novel is to call for an institutional revolution as well as a cultural revolution.

Edit:

So I'm still thinking about this as I read 1.5.13 (Fantine is sentenced and saved by Valjean), and I just wanted to add this quote:

[Javert] had seen, there in the street, society, represented by s property-holding voter, insulted and attacked by a creature who was an outlaw and an outcast.

And again soon after, when Fantine bursts out laughing and spits in Valjean's face:

To see a prostitute spit in the face of a mayor was so monstrous that, in [Javert's] wildest conjecture, even to imagine it would have seemed sacrilege.

(translation: it is the most literal manifestation he could imagine of outlaws/outcasts insulting society)

Javert is the protector of "society" as it currently stands; however, Huge-hoe's point in the novel is to demonstrate over and over how "society" is broken and doesn't deserve to be defended. Even when Valjean tries the role on for a couple of years, it's ultimately proven that there is no "right way" to twist society as it currently stands to make it work.

@shitpostingfromthebarricade I’ve been taking these last few days to think about madame Victurnien and while I understand why you’ve been ranting about her and her role in getting Fantine fired (and I agree that she *is* sadistic and canonically gets off on hurting Fantine) here’s why I don’t think Victurnien is a villain in Fantine’s story

- I’m posting this publicly so people can join in the discussion if they want! -

The “villain” of les mis is the society that produces poverty and misery, right? So the villain of that part of Fantine’s story is not the gossiping widow who outs her to the superintendent (specially since we know Victurnien is a) not the only gossip in town interested in Fantine so she’d get outed eventually and b) unlike the factory workers who bully Fantine to tears more than once, Victurnien doesn’t really interact with Fantine at all, for her Fantine is just another source of intrigue)

No, the villain of that chapter of Fantine’s story is not Victurnien, it’s Jean Valjean. For creating a rule of Honesty that made Fantine somehow into bad company for her co-workers because she is a single mother for a child she provides for.

Valjean instates that rule, delegates and abandons his workers to the superintendent who does nothing but her job when firing Fantine. He is the man behind an arbitrary social rule who literally profits off of the image of a “good man” he is known for in town and eventually in the rest of the country.

Valjean is not doing this from evil but from a misguided benevolence. But by being the literal source of power in Fantine’s situation, and being deaf to the actual happenings of his factory, Monsieur Madelaine becomes the face of institutionalised violence against Fantine.

He is a factory owner and righteous benefactor. He means well but in the end the rule he made up in good faith causes misery and distrust among the people below him. Victurnien isn’t to blame because if there was no rule of honesty she could’ve outed Fantine but she’d still keep a stable income and a secure job and maybe she could even bring Cosette to live with her now that her secret was discovered.

Victor Hugo, when talking about the July Monarchy, makes a point to explain that the monarch himself can be a good person, but the monarchy can’t ever be justified because it is intrinsically unjust. The same, to a lesser degree, with Madelaine’s ownership of the factory. Madelaine’s benevolence is noble but ultimately unjust because he holds power over everyone else. And when he leaves the town his benevolence proves fruitless because it changed nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Victurnien is just an incidental antagonist in a larger sistem of power relations. In fact, she gains nothing from Fantine being fired except a sense of satisfaction. You know who gets rewarded for this? Valjean’s reputation as a man of high morals.

(and you know who else gets off on getting vulnerable people back “in their place”? Javert. But we in the fandom don’t call him a villain either, so)

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

Shitposting through Les Mis

V1 Book 5

I: a man who is totes not Valjean revolutionized how to make black beads and made Montreuil-sur-mer boom from it

II: not-Valjean wins the hearts of the village and is selected and supported as Mayor

III: not-Valjean supports the community in less conventional ways too

IV: Monseignour Bienvenu is mourned

V: Javert is introduced

VI: not-Valjean saves a man stuck under his cart

VII: the situation with the guy under the cart is handled generously

VIII: Victurnien's jealousy and nosiness costs Fantine her job

IX: Fantine lives in poverty but manages

X: Fantine sells her hair, teeth, and self for Cosette

XI: Digression on how Fantine has nothing now

XII: Bamatabois is a scoundrel

XIII: not-Valjean squares off with Javert for Fantine's freedom

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

I actually messaged @alicedrawslesmis shortly after making this post to determine if the forewoman and Victurnien were the same person and never updated my tags to reflect the finsings, so that was my reader-error. ^^; Thank you for clearing it up.

But yeah, it's such an interesting change to make!! And it's wild to me because until this point I have actually been amazed at exactly how true to the events of the novel the musical has been. It makes sense that Valjean would have foreseen that having a man overseeing the women work might have led to exactly the problems of the musical, though.

I spoke with a friend once who hadn't read the novel who said he liked the events of the 2012 movie adaptation better than the musical because Valjean always came off as a little flippant in letting the foreman handle the situation in the musical, whereas in the movie he obviously is anxious about Javert being there. And then to see that, in the novel, he was utterly unaware that any of this had come to pass at all! And evidence that he 1) probably would have gladly acted as judge canonically and presided over the issue (since he was often sought out to act as a sort of judge in disputes) and 2) almost definitely would have been fine with it had he only been told? I get that it's not as punchy, but it really is such an interesting creative decision that got made...

So technically the real villain of Les Mis is a society that allows people to fall through the cracks and doesn’t care, yadda yadda, whatever.

But why don’t we ever talk about Madame Victurnien?????

Literally ruined Fantine’s life and potentially the life of her daughter just for the sake of gossip and drama.

The true villain of Les Mis tbh.