The idea of Kid being called a punk, damned punk, etc. as a child because he was indeed a little orphan punk who probably got into fights for survival purposes (or because he just likes to fight), stole things because he was homeless/poor, and had a loud overly confident personality due to the fact that he survived in a hostile environment is probably why he decided to make punk his whole brand. What once was an insult became a right of passage into the person he is today. Which is why accepts himself in his entirety no matter what. It’s why he wants so desperately for those he cares about to feel the same way about themselves. Kid was never the boy and now man who got what he wanted. He was never the person who thought life was about nothing but pleasures and joy. He knows it rough but he accepts it. He accepted the pain that people threw at him and decided to swallow it down as the truth. But just because he can be defined as a punk doesn’t mean he is less. Kid himself can give the word punk a new definition, a new meaning. Which to him probably means being fearlessly unique and unwavering to those that defile you in this difficult life. So I wish to anyone who likes Kid as character to feel the same way about themselves. If others judge you for who you are, lean into yourself without shame. Change the meanings of the words that haunt you. Fight battles not because you are too weak to dodge them but because you deserve the privilege of letting yourself believe you can win. Be a damned punk and be a good one.
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So @faintingheroine said that Javert is more of a class traitor than Ηeathcliff because at least Heathcliff directs his cruelty towards upper class people. I think that, technically speaking, Javert's class traitor traits are indeed worse. I mean his life purpose is literally to extinguish people that have a background similar to his, which is the very definition of a class traitor. The peak of his brutality and inhumanity is the way he targeted a famished, sick prostitute, the way he treated her like an animal, terrorized her, prevented her from finally getting her daughter back and gloated while tearing down her last anchor in life. This deliberate, senseless cruelty against a person as weak, as helpless, as innocuous as Fantine is truly something that technically exceeds even Heathcliff's evil deeds. Heathcliff too targeted people who were weaker than him (Isabella, the children) but at the very least these people belonged to the privileged upper class and he still deep down felt inferior to them, so you can at least give him that.
And yet I feel Heathcliff is more "morally reprehensible" than Javert. Heathcliff's motivations are purely individualistic, he's a very selfish human being and above all, he wants revenge. Javert may be a textbook class traitor but he does have his principles, bigoted principles but principles nonetheless. He has a specific mission and he does his duty, following a specific set of rules. When he fails at his duty and violates this set of rules, he immediately applies to himself the exact same cruelty he applied to others, and this happens twice. The first time, when he thought that he had accused an innocent man and questioned an authority (double vice), he immediately demands his removal from the police. The second time, when he realizes he fucked up, he kills himself. Hugo is particularly respectful of his blind devotion to duty, even in Javert's most hateful moments. Ironically that can also be used against him because it gives him this inhumane, robotic quality. Heathcliff being a classic, egotistical villain who's after revenge gives his evil deeds a much more "relatable" vibe. We can all relate to the desire for revenge, whereas Javert's sterilized, distorted view of the world is particularly eery. But in my opinion this is precisely why he's a level above Heathcliff. Or at the very least their brand of antagonist is quite different.
Receipts:
"I have often been severe in the course of my life towards others. That is just. I have done well. Now, if I were not severe towards myself, all the justice that I have done would become injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No! What! I should be good for nothing but to chastise others, and not myself! Why, I should be a blackguard! Those who say, ‘That blackguard of a Javert!’ would be in the right. [...] Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would treat any other man. When I have subdued malefactors, when I have proceeded with vigor against rascals, I have often said to myself, ‘If you flinch, if I ever catch you in fault, you may rest at your ease!’ I have flinched, I have caught myself in a fault. So much the worse! Come, discharged, cashiered, expelled! [...] Mr. Mayor, the good of the service demands an example. I simply require the discharge of Inspector Javert.”
All this was uttered in a proud, humble, despairing, yet convinced tone, which lent indescribable grandeur to this singular, honest man.
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“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his hand to a police spy.”
He added between his teeth:—
“A police spy, yes; from the moment when I have misused the police. I am no more than a police spy.”
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Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand: their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues which have one vice,—error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face, wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the good.
He's still a piece of shit though, just to clarify.
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