whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul - Tumblr blog

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

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.

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

VIOLENTLY reenacting gavroches death and kyle adam's grantaires reaction in a public park in the dead of night... don't look at me like that lady

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

I THINK I AM GOING TO CUT MY HAIR

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

maybe i am constantly fighting to urge to say i love you and what about it

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

sorry but for the les mis fandom on ao3 to still be posting fics but for there to be NO OLYMPIC AUS is a crime.... watch me teach myself to write fanfic to fill that gap

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

"Отверженные" Stage Play (2001)

Imagine leaving ur grandfather's house with literally nothing but a smoking pipe and u can't even handle it.

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

hey why did alfie suck so bad in that concert

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

just saw les mis north american tour. grantaire enj and gav were giving family of enj was an absent father and YES I HAVE EXACT EXAMPLES TO PROVE IT.

ALSO WAS I THE ONLY PERSON WHO SAW SOMETHING BETWEEN FEUILLY AND GRANTAIRE. SORRY DID THEY JUST DIE TOGETHER AT THE BARRICADE. SORRY DID THEY HUG AFTER GRANTAIRES DRINK WITH ME SOLO. AM I GOING INSANE.

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

talking to my grandfather today about and subtly trying to talk about les amis and marius' character in book vs musical without seeming incredibly obsessed with them: impossible edition

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

i hate it when les mis productions cut out certain songs or lines for the sake of cutting the show's length. like no i will sit here for four hours if i have to. say what you must don't leave it there

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

grantaire:

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

saw les mis and enjolras died first at the barricade and then all the students followed, with grantaire last.

i think this actually changes the meaning of les amis death greatly. when enjolras dies last, it shows that les amis were a group destined to fail- it didn’t matter if they did or didn’t have their leader, they were never going to win. enjolras was there to keep them together, but it didn’t matter! but when enjolras dies first, it flips it around. les amis failed because they didn’t have their leader, without him they couldn’t keep it together because before his death, they all survived just fine!!

personally, i don’t like this change. it removes some of the futile nature of les amis fight. while in the book they are destined to fail due to the premature nature of their rebellion (the people still lived in fear and didn’t rise with them), this musical choreography implies that they had a chance, or they could have made some difference. but they didn’t! their sacrifice was never going to matter.

anyways maybe i interpreted this all wrong but that was my take.

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

the removal of all les amis unique personalities in the musical will forever haunt me like what do you MEAN you didn’t cast an actor specifically for bahorel and you just made up two new student names

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

My crush on Artemis Crock holds no bounds, have you seen this woman? She can shoot me with an arrow any time and proceed to fake her death and not tell me, like, damn, can I coparent your niece with you and your brother in law??

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

I feel like I understand people's blorbofication of Javert because I get why someone would really cling onto a complex (male) antagonist with a traumatic past whose entire life is a lie and who kills himself when he reaches that final moment of realization. It is absolutely tragic, and it is easy and natural to cling onto that, we've all been there. But you need to understand that two things are in motion here: the first one is Javert's individual tragedy, and the second one is the broader system he personifies. He's a symbol. His primary function in the narrative is to personify the hateful, bigoted, cruel, inhumane legal system that intervenes after the fact and crushes all those that society has already put down. He, the incarnation of that bourgeois legal system, delivers the final blow. He finishes off what society started, and he does it with joy. When we say that he killed Fantine, it's not even about Javert the individual per se. It's about the entire system he represents. That system killed Fantine and Javert is its flesh and bones. Fantine was a poor girl that was exploited and let down by society in every single way and when she was herself a victim of actual physical violence, the Law, personified by Javert, instead of protecting her treated her like an animal, dehumanized her, humiliated her. The Law was scandalized that a woman like her dared attack the bourgeoisie. The Law was horrified that such a disgusting creature got medical care because she should just drop dead on her street. The Law rejoiced in tearing down her sole protector. The Law prevented her from getting her child back from the con artists that have been stealing her for years because the Law doesn't care about the crimes committed against marginalized people. That's not its function. Its function is to use its discretionary authority in order to dehumanize and punish people that ended up on the wrong side of the street.

So when you come at me with nonsense that Javert "didn't tEchNIcALLy kill Fatnine", "he was just rude", "he was just bitchy", "he just stole her final happy moments", respectfully, you don't know what you're talking about. Javert absolutely killed Fantine. He's not the only one who did but he eagerly and enthusiastically precipitated her execution, and that is the entire point Hugo is trying to make. Your arguments against it are nothing but a mere technicality that stems from the fact that the individual's actions technically do not qualify as manslaughter. It's as if we literally had an individual at court and we were thinking of whether or not to condemn him for manslaughter. It's not about that. It's not about your blorbo and his sadness. Your blorbo has a whole other function in the narrative. You have completely missed the mark of the entire book and you have let your personal emotional attachment for a character prevail over Hugo's main argument about the structural punitive violence that literally kills people. Javert being the product and the embodiment of an entire system that exceeds his individuality does not mean that, as a police officer, he's not responsible for his actions or their consequences. On the contrary, he's precisely entirely responsible for the structural violence committed against Fantine, that's what "embodiment" actually means, that's what we mean when we say that he personifies that system. Absolving Javert of his crimes goes directly against the themes of the book, because while systems operate above individuals by definition, they need those individuals to function. The system needs Javerts. Javerts are everywhere around us, yes even today and it is important to hold them accountable for their crimes. I can't believe I have to explain this tbh.

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

David Tennant pissing off the Prime Minister bc he told government officials to stfu over their anti-trans bigotry and Michael Sheen literally poisoning himself investigating corporations dumping toxic chemicals in underprivileged areas is NOT the energy I expected from 2024 but oh man am I here for it.