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cometomecosette · 3 years ago

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Character ask: Cosette

Tagged by @ariel-seagull-wings

Favorite thing about them:

I like her for most of the same reasons I like classic versions of Cinderella or Snow White. She’s innocent, sweet, loving and caring, and she survives an early life of misery to not only find love and happiness herself, but to bring love and happiness to Valjean and later Marius when they most need it. I also like her gentle liveliness and playfulness (qualities that can get lost in the musical compared to the novel, though a good actress can bring them across) and her eagerness to experience life, and in the novel, I love the way she encourages Valjean to take care of himself and not overdo his pious, guilt-based self-denial.

Least favorite thing about them:

The fact that she lets Valjean withdraw from her life after she’s married (novel)/just before she gets married (musical). Of course it’s clear that she still loves him, she doesn’t realize he never intends to come back, and I always try to remind myself of her past trauma too – that because she was an abused child, it’s her instinct to obey and accept things without objection and put on a cheerful mask. But Hugo frames it less in that way and more as “She loves Marius more than she loves her father,” which is less sympathetic, no matter how he tries to present it as “natural.” I do like that the 2012 film of the musical makes her more heartbroken when Valjean leaves and clearly wistful and missing him even at her wedding party.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I have brown hair (yes, in the novel she has brown hair, even though 90% of adaptations portray her as a stereotypical blonde ingenue)

*I had a fairly sheltered upbringing

*I love gardens, music, and making other people happy

Three things I don’t have in common with them:

*I was never abused as a child

*I still haven’t found the right romantic partner

*I dress more for comfort than for fashion

Favorite line:

From the novel:

The lines where she dissuades Valjean from going without a fire in his room and from eating nothing but nasty black bread:

“I shall come here so often that you will be obliged to have a fire” and “Well, if you eat it, I will eat it too.”

Her teasing remark when she walks in on Valjean confessing his identity to Marius but doesn’t hear what’s being said:

“I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me!”

And from the last chapter, when Valjean is dying, but Cosette insists that he’s going to live and come home with her:

“We have a carriage at the door. I shall run away with you. If necessary, I shall employ force.”

From the musical:

All of “Castle on a Cloud.”

From “In My Life”:

“In my life, there are so many questions

And answers that somehow seem wrong.

In my life, there are times when I catch in the silence

The sigh of a faraway song.

And it sings of a world that I long to see,

Out of reach, just a whisper away,

Waiting for me!”

brOTP: Valjean, Fantine if only she could have known her, and Éponine in a different time and place where they could have been friends.

OTP: Marius.

nOTP: Valjean or Javert.

Random headcanon: In the novel, if not the musical, I think she has CPTSD. Maybe it’s a moderate case, since she doesn’t show many symptoms, but it would explain her passive, conflict-avoidant tendencies, and the fact that as a young woman she has barely any memory of her childhood before Valjean adopted her, even though she was eight years old at the time, not a toddler.

Unpopular opinion: In some circles, it would be unpopular to say that I like her at all, and don’t consider her deathly boring or “icky-gooey.” Another one might be that in adaptations, she doesn’t need to be made “feistier” or “more independent” to be interesting.

Song I associate with them:

“Castle on Cloud”