#Javert is obviously the Hunt

[secretmellowblog]

It’s fascinating how Jean Valjean is constantly associated with imagery of being buried alive.

His literal near-burial in the coffin outside Petit-Picpus is the most obvious example of that. But it’s in the sewers chapters as well— he has to face the horror of nearly drowning and being buried alive deep underground in the filth beneath the city.

And that imagery a running motif throughout his entire storyline. His imprisonment is constantly compared to as a burial, a living death; being in prison is like being trapped and drowned underneath an enormous weight, unable to move, unable to escape, with everyone around you refusing to acknowledge you are still a living human being.

In his dream before the Champmatheiu trial, Jean Valjean had a nightmare where he’s surrounded by a faceless crowd of indifferent people, who tell him:

‘Do you not know that you have been dead this long time?’

I opened my mouth to reply, and I perceived that there was no one near me.

The core horror of Jean Valjean’s plotline is the horror of being buried alive. It’s the horror of being constantly told that he is dead when he’s still living and suffering and desperately struggling to escape—- but suffering alone while he’s buried in a place so deep that no one can hear him.

[kenobihater]

javert is WRONG: the thesis of les mis is that legality and morality aren't synonymous!

i just found the internet's most unbelieveably dogshit hottake that makes anything woobifying javert written by Die Girlies Auf Tumblr Und Twitter galaxy brained in comparison. rest is below a cut because i got Wordy in my goal of ripping this motherfucker a new one.

The point about “fault” is very important here. Following Rousseau, Hugo believes that the poor become criminals out of necessity. They “fall” (i.e., become poor) and then become morally “degraded.” Therefore, our response to crime should be “charity,” not punishment. This is a classic Romantic view that became the basis for modern liberalism. According to Rousseau, people are basically good and are corrupted by society, committing crime only out of ignorance and desperation; the solution to crime, then, is education and welfare. Christians obviously worry that this view has no place for the doctrine of original sin, and conservatives object to this view because it leaves out personal responsibility for crime.

i know this is a christian publication but the concept of original sin even factoring into criminality and criminal justice genuinely pisses me off. stop forcing your shitty worldview that everyone is popped outta the womb an evil sinner, i beg. the seperation of church and state is a vital part of democracy. also, you can believe people are shaped by society and driven to crime through desperation without taking away personal agency. those two things are not contradictory.

If I am right about the Rousseau subtext, then Javert is not necessarily a villain; he’s just a conservative, albeit a liberal caricature of a conservative. There are two good examples of a liberal bias in Les Mis. First, notice that Valjean’s position in his society is roughly analogous to an illegal immigrant in our society. When he leaves the prison, Valjean can’t get work because he doesn’t have the right papers. He’s an undocumented worker. In a scene from the musical cut from the film, a farmer allows Valjean to work for him, but then only pays him half as much as the other laborers. The farmer reasons, “You broke the law….Why should you get the same as honest men?”

i've never seen anyone, even javert fans, try and argue he isn't a villain. this is breaking new ground here, folks. it's a hell of an assertion, but it's demonstrably false. jean valjean is the main character. we root for him and wish to see him succeed. javert is hunting him for the entire narrative. thus, he is the antagonist. there may be some moral ambiguity on both their parts, but he structurally is the villain and that is a narrative fact.

next, as an american i am fucking BEGGING on my HANDS and KNEES for other americans to learn about the differing political terms for different countries and times if they are speaking about them with any supposed credibility. i'm not asking you to memorize every country's parties and political intricacies, but at least acknowledge that even if there is some overlap between 21st century american conservatism and 19th century french politics, that there is no one-to-one analogy!! modern american christian conservatism is a consequence of hundreds of years of unique geopolitics and religion stewing together, and you can say similar things about french politics of the time! you CANNOT just say shit like "javert is a liberal caricature of a conservative" without sounding like an utter clown because hugo was not an american liberal and javert is not an american conservative. now, if you were to alter your language a bit and say something like "javert is a leftist caricature of an arch-conservative," you'd sound less foolish (hugo's politics are hard to pin down but leftist is i believe the best label for him at the time of LM's publication. and to my understanding javert isn't really a fervent arch-conservative but it is at least a plausible reading bc he's a traditionalist, deeply religious cop and 19th century french arch-conservativism actually existed in 19th century france (shocker, i know!)). but that change in language would require actual intellect and effort to learn about other times, places, and worldviews on the part of the author, and judging by his ignorant politics, something tells me he's lacking that!

then there's the bit about illegal immigration. hoo BOY is this fucking stupid. jean valjean is a white, culturally catholic, working class french male citizen. he's an everyman of the time, his name and story of class struggle couldn't be more generic unless he was named john doe or jean dupont (the french equivalent) from nowheresville, france. hugo had a point here, and that is that as a member of the wretched poor, les misérables, valjean, representing a large swath of the french populace, is so removed from education and self reflection and truly living life that he's more akin to an animal or an object, that he's so beat down by the daily grind that he verges on inhuman. this is only magnified by his time in toulon. i'll stop there, but it is very important in jean valjean's story that he's impoverished, yes, but a french citizen. he is as french as the king, but treated like dirt because of his social status and criminal record. this sets up a dichotomy in the france of 1832 between the wretched poor and those with privilege, which is an important part of the novel.

the issue of "illegal immigration" both in france and america is a modern one. there was still bigotry and xenophobia, obviously, but the discourse around the intersections of border control, the nation state, and citizenship is a very modern one. to say "valjean's position in his society is roughly analogous to an illegal immigrant in our society" is ignorant. yes, both jean valjean and many undocumented immigrants are faced with similar abuses, but that does not mean it's intended by hugo to be a reading of the text or political commentary because let me restate this: 21ST CENTURY AMERICAN POLITICS DIDN'T EXIST IN 19TH CENTURY FRANCE!

also, valjean is the opposite of undocumented. he has his yellow papers, which are quite literally documents that are the root cause of the daily discrimination he faces, hence why him ripping them up is a radical act of freeing himself from the control of an unjust state. i don't even know how you miss this, it's stressed in the movie musical multiple times.

“Men like you can never change,” he tells Valjean. But Javert is not simply being prejudiced here. He knows from his own experience that it is possible for the poor to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Javert, too, was born in poverty. He is “from the gutter,” as he puts it, but he embraced law and made something of himself.

oh, of course the bootstraps ideology rears its ugly head. not even gonna waste my breath on this one other than to call it stupid and wrong. all javert made himself was a class traitor and a bootlicker, and that's honestly tragic.

Consider a second example of liberal bias. The character of Fantine is designed to elicit the viewer’s sympathy for “welfare mothers.” Fantine, a young, unwed mother in Valjean’s factory, faces persecution from her coworkers. The factory foreman expresses a conservative attitude toward charity: “At the end of the day, you get nothing for nothing.”

this part. this part was so unbelievably cruel and so far removed from the empathy that this narrative bleeds that i had to step back from writing this and take a smoke break. firstly, fantine is NOT a stand in for "welfare mothers", which is, once again, a modern conservative strawman! the welfare state did not exist in 19th century france. there was little to no support for mothers in fantine's position, and to my knowledge, none stemming from the state. hugo was writing her character to bring to light the unfairness of her position. she had a lover who left her flat out, with a child to care for and no financial support. she was ostracized, eventually fired, and resorted to survival sex work.

Fantine shouldn’t expect special treatment, but rather should take responsibility for the consequences of her own sexual license.

fuck you, john. where in the text did she ask for "special treatment". where in the text did she do ANYTHING but take responsibility for her child. she sold her hair. she sold her teeth. she sold her body. she got sick because of her living conditions. she died. all out of love for her child. also, framing children as "a consequence" is disgusting, and you should be ashamed of yourself and reflect on why you think that's an alright way to view a living, breathing, human being. if you don't wanna take my word for it, psalm 127:3 clearly states "children are a gift from the lord; they are a reward from him," so your stance is decidedly unbiblical. children aren't punishment.

Likewise, when Fantine turns to prostitution to feed her child, Javert is unmoved by excuses. Valjean’s family was starving, and Fantine’s daughter was sick, but these facts don’t excuse them for breaking the law. Theft and prostitution are wrong, and it is Javert’s duty as police officer to arrest them.

how is theft to feed a starving child immoral. how is sex work to ensure your child lives immoral. give me ONE reason aside from your and javert's religious worldviews that either of those things is wrong. "but the bread didn't belong to valjean!" and would inaction, watching his nephew die simply because a windowpane and empty pockets separated him from a piece of bread be more moral? is watching a child die when you believe you can save them the better option? the whole point of this damn book is that legality is NOT synonymous with morality. javert may have the legal high ground, but he does NOT have the moral high ground, and when he realizes this, the thesis of the book, he fucking kills himself! for an example outside the text to perhaps get it through your thick skull: slavery was legal. biblical, even! does that mean it's morally right? no!

Thus Les Mis is designed to get us to see Javert’s conservatism as cruel and to elicit sympathy for Hugo’s liberal social policies. It should be noted, however, that Les Mis is a caricature of the conservative position. Conservatives agree that we ought to treat the poor with dignity and compassion. They think that compassion programs, however, should be administered by the church instead of the state, and they think true dignity requires personal responsibility and submission to the law.

how can javert both be an exaggerated, cruel conservative caricature and be right? i'd argue he's both an accurate portrayal of the inherent cruelty and misanthropy present in the politics of the political right, and that he's decidedly wrong as proven in the text. jean valjean is a good man, despite it all, but javert couldn't see that because of his worldview and chose to relentlessly hound him until he finally realized his mistake, a realization that overcame him so strongly that his only solution in his mind was to kill himself!

and do conservatives actually agree they should treat the poor with dignity and respect? it's in the bible, sure, which christian conservatives hold as the absolute truth, but in this very article you, a christian conservative, have expressed nothing but contempt and cruelty for undocumented immigrants, for unwed mothers, for thieves and sex workers. for les misérables - the wretched poor. and why shouldn't the state handle "compassion programs" as you call them? the gov't is electable and manageable (in theory), unlike the beast of untraceable wealth and power that is the church. we don't live in a theocracy, so the only reliable way to ensure people get the help they deserve is through the state, which can actually be held accountable for these expectations (again, in theory). that's more than you can say for the church.

The fact that Les Mis contradicts evangelical theology does not mean apologists shouldn’t use it—on the contrary. We can help non-Christian fans of the musical see how the vision that draws them toward the story can only be fulfilled in Christ.

his conculsion is LAUGHABLE. personally, the "vision that drew me to the story" at age twelve was my attraction to men. i'm a flaming homosexual, you see, and a transgender one at that. the overwhelming majority of musical theater fans i've encountered are some variety of queer. at age 22, ten years later, i'm drawn to the story still partially because i find these characters attractive and magnetic, but much more so for the literary and socialist political value i find in the narrative. i'm an unrepentant leftist as well, as are literally every other les mis fan i've ever met (besides yourself, of course). i've found more fulfillment through reading les misérables than i have in my exploration of the new testament, and i'm not even done with the book yet!

i don't really know how to conclude this other to point and laugh at john and his publictaion, because somehow i stumbled upon a conservative fan of les mis and the lack of self awareness is more baffling than i could have ever imagined it being

[fiction-podcast-lover]

Since this blog started at being for fiction podcasts and then it ended in me endlessly yapping about les misérables, let's mix it together!

I'm assigning The Magnus Archives entities to Les Misérables characters

Javert - The Hunt (OBVIOUSLY)

Jean Valjean - The Eye

Cosette - The Lonely

Fontine - The Corruption

Eponine - The Lonely

Madame Thénardier - The Web

Monsieur Thénardier - The Hunt

Enjolras - The Slaughter

Grantaire - The Lonely

Gavrosh - The Dark

Marius - The Spiral

If ANYONE asks i WILL go into heavy details about my reasoning

[heart-forge]

what are your favorite tropes or themes to write about?

Oh gosh, where to start. I don't think you can scratch my work without finding tropes (which I guess is true of all work because fanfiction didn't invent character tropes and as much as literary canon likes to pretend that it's above the trappings of genre fiction, I have eyes and can read and inventing your own tropes and passing them around doesn't make them not tropes). They're good jumping off points and fun to invert and play around with.

I've said before that Trigger is "enemies to lovers" which frequently like manifests as "guy who's really mean to you until enough time has passed that it's time to have sex with him" but obviously I'm not going down that route. Valerian is a mafia boss (before it was cool and weird and deeply uncomfortable dfkjhsd) but I like to think I play him as more deeply insecure and out of his depth (not necessarily in his position but in his situation) than they're usually allowed to skew.

From a thematic perspective I think I just write from a place of deep cynicism and mistrust for institutions sdkfjfhsdkj. The Manor Hill angle is a spoiler but also I mean Abeni STARTS having a profound distaste for her sister's position as diplomat and Valerian's entire government structure revolves around the government and the gangs vying for influence. Bad Ritual is pretty obvious when your boss throws you out of the top of a skyscraper to try and force a warlock intervention. Hybrid we haven't quite gotten there yet but you start out in a secret research commune run by a weird bug girl and her dog loving brother (who are twins but not twins), a [REDACTED, YOU DON'T KNOW MARSH'S DEAL YET], two real twins one of which handles odd jobs and fix em up tech, and the other one who's job it is to want to fight you soososososososo bad and also make candy. so it's not a buttoned down government operation fsdkjdsfkjs.

My baby favourite trope that I haven't written yet is knights, which I know turns some people off but I'm talking paladin levels of devotion while I slowly crush them under the philosophical weight of their own choices. Javert levels of "oops that was actually one degree further than my worldview could skew before I lost my shit completely". God I'm so excited to write that one because where I'm going to stop the demo is going to flood my inbox. You're all going to hunt me like starving wolves while I smile and kick my feet.

[wanderinghedgehog]

Okay, so Javert is dead. Time to do a line-by-line commentary/analysis of Javert’s Suicide in the musical with some book comparisons. Yippee!

“Who is this man?

What sort of devil is he?”

I think this line would feel more appropriate right after Valjean frees him at the barricade. This will begin a trend of Javert’s suicide being very focused on Valjean here. Also, in the book, this is the chapter where Javert compares Valjean to an angel, so it’s interesting that he is called a devil here instead.

“To have me caught in a trap

And choose to let me go free?”

This was Valjean’s choice. He didn’t really have much to gain from freeing Javert. In fact, it’s potentially detrimental to him. This is an act that you can’t see for anything but what it is, kindness.

“It was his hour at last

To put a seal on my fate,”

Javert truly believes that Valjean could have killed him. For an audience who is aware of Valjean’s nature, it’s a bit strange to imagine.

“Wipe out the past,

And watch me clean off the slate.”

Valjean literally gives you his address so you can arrest him. I don’t think he’s looking to just get away.

“All it would take was a flick of his knife.

Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life!”

He’s not happy to not be killed. It kinda ruined his day :(

“Damned if I'll live in the debt of a thief”

I don’t know if the musical gives this context really, but I interpret this line as a rejection of his changed opinion of Valjean. At this point in the book, he’s started referring to Valjean more respectfully. But here, he denies any semblance of that.

“Damned if I'll yield at the end of the chase”

This deserves a quote from the book. “Enormities such as this can happen and nobody should be punished? Jean Valjean, stronger than the entire social order, should be free and he, Javert, continue to eat the bread of the government!”

“I am the Law and the Law is not mocked”

This line will be relevant again later.

“I'll spit his pity right back in his face”

The oddest thing about this is Javert is meant to be pitiful. The book literally describes him this way, but in a moment when he is very sure of himself, when he goes to arrest Valjean in M-sur-M. Javert is pitiful because he is horribly wrong and oblivious, not because he is helpless. Valjean helping him when he is in need of help is not the sort of pity you’d expect to be shown to a man like Javert.

“There is nothing on earth that we share”

On the one hand, are you sure about that? On the other hand, this really speaks to how Javert’s worldview allows for two types of people: superiors and inferiors. When Valjean is seen as a criminal, he is nothing like Javert because Javert couldn’t possibly have something in common with a convict. oBvIOusLy. But when Valjean has proven he’s a good man, he is nothing like Javert because he’s better.

“It is either Valjean or Javert!”

I told y’all the “I am the Law” thing would come back. This is Javert’s ultimatum that he’s given himself. He must choose between Valjean (the reality of humanity) and himself (the reality of the law). He doesn’t give himself the option to become something other than the law.

“How can I now allow this man

To hold dominion over me?”

The musical speaks much more of debt than the book. In the book, Javert doesn’t worry about the debt he owes Valjean for saving him because he’s already been repaid. Javert showed him mercy in turn.

“This desperate man that I have hunted”

I think this is an oddly sympathetic way for him to talk about Valjean.

“He gave me my life. He gave me freedom.”

The key word here is “gave.” There was no trade or deal as Javert had initially assumed.

“I should have perished by his hand”

He was too willing to die then. That’s not noble sacrifice, buddy. You just don’t value your own life very much.

“It was his right.”

It was also his right to not kill you.

“It was my right to die as well.”

Time for another book quote. “To have called the other insurgents to his aid against Jean Valjean, to have forced them to shoot him, that would have been better.”

“Instead I live -- but live in hell.”

Yeah, I bet suddenly having to think about things when you’ve gone the rest of your life with your mind as blank as printer paper isn’t exactly a fun time.

“And my thoughts fly apart.”

Same

“Can this man be believed?”

Javert in the musical is much more confused than Javert in the book. In fact, in the book, sudden clarity is arguably part of the issue.

“Shall his sins be forgiven?

Shall his crimes be reprieved?”

I will once again refer you to the line “nearer angels than men.”

“And must I now begin to doubt,

Who never doubted all those years?”

This is my favorite line in the song. It’s similar to my favorite line from this chapter in the book, “to be granite and to doubt.” Both lines really express the scale of this emotion so well.

“My heart is stone and still it trembles.”

This reminds me of a misconception I’ve seen a lot. For whatever reason, some people think that Javert intends to be emotionless. I think that referring to his heart as stone is not to say that he doesn’t feel, but that he is unshakeable. Hence the line “and still it trembles.”

“The world I have known is lost in shadow.”

Well, what exactly is the world he has known? That seems to be a difference between the musical and the book. I’m sure a lot of other people have explained that difference better than I could.

“Is he from heaven or from hell?”

And another quote. “…this monster, this infamous angel, this hideous hero, who made him almost as indignant as astounded.”

“And does he know

That, granting me my life today,

This man has killed me even so?”

I’ve found that this song has trouble really communicating why Javert would want to kill himself, but this line brings up a certain sentiment from the book that I think explains it pretty simply. While it can’t be said that Javert had only one reason for committing suicide, the book does say, “He felt that he was emptied, useless, broken off from his past life, destitute, dissolved. Authority was dead in him. He had no further reason for being.” He kinda thinks of himself as already dead.

“I am reaching but I fall”

Despite the fact that this song already had the same melody as Valjean’s Soliloquy as well as some similar lyrics, this is where I notice this parallel the most, at the moment when the two narratives really begin to differ. In Valjean’s Soliloquy, this verse is where he talks about the death of his former self and how this will allow him to start again. This verse is far more literal in Javert’s Suicide. He does not intend to start again and redeem himself.

“And the stars are black and cold”

Stars callback! Yippee!

“As I stare into the void”

Another line shared with Valjean. It’s really interesting to hear these shared lines sung so differently in the same show.

“Of a world that cannot hold”

I think I like this line for a similar reason as “and must I now begin to doubt.” I’d have trouble explaining it though.

“I'll escape now from that world”

Often, antagonists are given the chance to redeem themselves through death. Javert does not do this. He doesn’t ignore these revelations and be wrong knowingly, but he certainly doesn’t become a better person outside of his own head. By taking himself out of the equation, he has remained static, something he’s been doing his entire life.

“From the world of Jean Valjean.”

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. This isn’t Valjean’s world. Valjean just lives here.

“There is nowhere I can turn”

Not the line itself, but the music. Maybe the chaos of it does work well for the musical. I don’t know. But I always preferred the quiet of the scene in the book. You get so used to hearing his really noisy thoughts, but then he’s just some guy standing on a bridge in the middle of the night.

“There is no way to go on...”

I want a portrayal of this but that isn’t silly. This isn’t the line’s fault though. “There is no way to go on” had nothing to do with some of the goofy staging I’ve seen.

[thegreatgaygay]

My Unhinged Rant About Stars

In musical theater there is this concept called an "I Want" song. this is the song the (usually main) character sings to communicate with the audience what, exactly, they want. some examples off the top of my head: Part of Your World from the Little Mermaid, My Shot from Hamilton, The Wizard and I from Wicked, and Santa Fe from Newises. They usually come somewhere in the first act of the musical. In Les Miserables, which has a well earned place in the "classic musical theater" canon, there are a few candidates for "I Want" songs. On My Own is certainly one. Red/Black is for sure. Valjean's Soliloquy is one, too. These are all songs that tell us what the character wants for themselves, for their community, for the future. There's another kind of song that's pretty standard to the musical theater canon, often with some modern variation. This is the villain song. Think Be Prepared from the Lion King, Feed Me from Little Shop of Horrors, and, with some variation, Wait For It from Hamilton. These songs range from a two dimensional portrayal of evil to a more complex look at the villain's motivations. This leads to the question: who is the villain of Les Miserables? Technically the villain is society, capitalism, the blindness of justice. And who embodies all of these traits in his stupid little self? That's right, it's your boy, Inspector Javert. Javert had a couple songs in the musical. He sings The Confrontation as a duet with Jean Valjean, he sings in Fantine's Arrest and in the Prologue and has a verse in One Day More, among others. But his main song is Stars. Stars comes towards the end of act one, right before Enjolras has his girl boss moments in Red and Black and Do You Hear the People Sing. Stars is basically Javert laying all his cards on the table, and it is the first look the audience gets into his pysche.

Stars is, on the surface, a villain song. Becasue Javert is the villain and he is telling us his motivations and his skewed perspective on justice and mercy and heaven and hell and what not. But look deeper. My thesis is that Stars is also an "I Want" song. Javert wants a lot of things. Justice, for one. Power, for another. He channels both of these wants into his fixation on hunt Jean Valjean/Mayor Madeline/Prisoner 24601. He sees the world in black and white, with himself as a defender agianst the gray. He is not as 2 dimensional as he appears. In Stars, he gives the audiences his explanaiton for his actions. We come to understand him slightly more. This is resolved when he jumps off the bridge at the end of Act 2, when he experiences as a paralell to Valjean's Solioquy and makes the other choice. The music is the same. It's a reprise basically. but that's another story. So Stars is both an "I Want" song and and a villain song. "But roxy, what about the gay thing?" I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!!!!

Now, the musical theater canon is chock full of love songs. I mean, they're everywhere. I guess I'll give some examples but you barely need them. Suddenly Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors (again, I'm lazy lol), Maria from Westside Story, Helpless from Hamilton (i am a recovering Hamilton kid as you might have guessed let me have this one), etc, etc, etc. In Les Miserables, there are again several love songs. A Heart Full of Love, obviously, and On My Own (another category-bender) are the two main candidates. But I argue that Stars is also a long song. What does Javert love? Justice and being the most autistic motherfucker within 100 miles. Who embodies Javert's drive for justice? Jean Valjean. It is not hard to shape a queer interpretation of their relationship. In Stars, Javert tells us how much he wants to imprison 24601, because that that is how it "must be". He also talks about God a whole bunch. As an aside, I am not convinced that Victor Hugo didn't have priest kink and/or a bunch of religious trauma bc he also wrote the hunchback of notre dame. I can't prove it bc he's been dead for a long time and also was a really interesting guy who I can get into another time. My interpretation of this song is that Javert wants to phyiscally lock away Jean Valjean becasue he is mentally locking away the parts of himself that he thinks are not right.

In conclusion/TL;DR: Stars slaps, I can walk nearly the whole way from the dining hall to my room in the time that it takes Philip Quast (best Javert and I'll go to the mat on that one) to sing it, blah blah blah. It's also both an "I Want" song, a villain song, and a love song to some degree or another. I could talk about this until my tongue fell out/my fingers fell off, but now I'll stop have a good evening xoxo gossip girl

[fremedon]

Brickclub Retrobricking: 1.7.3, “A Tempest in a Skull” and 1.7.4, “Forms That Suffering Takes in Sleep”

Between con planning and fic writing, I fell way off the brickclub wagon. Hoping to get back on it day-to-day with Waterloo, starting next week; meanwhile, this is the start of an extremely scattershot writeup of my margin notes from the last 70-odd pages, organized more thematically than anything else.

(All quotes from Donougher, except for a bunch of the chapter titles because the FMA ones are just engraved in my brain. Also, can I say how excited I am to look ahead and see just how many notes Donougher has for Waterloo? SO MANY NOTES. SO EXCITE. Also excited for CONVENT NOTES.)

Firstly—the entire sequence of the Tempest in a Skull, the trip to Arras, and the trial is just so *good*. Every time through I forget just how good, but it’s some of the most suspenseful writing I’ve ever read, even knowing what’s going to happen next—almost by heart at this point.

Ecce Homo: The chapter starts out by finally telling us, “The reader has no doubt guessed that Monsieur Madeleine is none other than Jean Valjean.” And then, having given him that name, it doesn’t use it for him again until he uses it himself, in the courtroom. For the next 50 pages, he’s just going to be called “the man.” (Or occasionally “the traveller,” which comes to the same thing.) And partly this is a nice piece of identity porn, withholding a name from the protagonist until he decides who he is going to be. But it’s also underscoring from the start the decision he’s going to make—to be *The* Man, Behold The Man, Voila Jean.

He’ll finally shed his name on his tombstone, in another parallel to Napoleon, whose monument has no name because of a protocol disagreement over whether to use his last name. Valjean tries to shed it here—to just be *a* man—and he can’t; he can still be Madeleine, but the moment he drops that specific alias, anonymity just makes him Voila Jean again.

It feels appropriate to that—as well as very believable as a character note—that he keeps making his preparations to go to Arras, to drop his life as Madeleine, automatically, in a sort of fugue state. When he does stop and think, we get the recurring insistence to himself that Champmathieu was probably guilty, that he probably deserved to go to the galleys for something. It’s awful, though believable.

—In the opening paragraphs, there are two Dante references which mostly don’t seem to be followed up on, but which do make me look twice at his remembering, in the courtroom, that his previous trial was 27 years ago. Valjean is 54; his first descent into hell came exactly in the middle of his life to that point, which does call back to Dante’s *media vita.*

—We also get an aside about how noble it would have been had Valjean not hesitated in walking “toward that yawning precipice at the bottom of which lay heaven.” Hugo really, really likes that inverted abyss image; it keeps coming up over and over.

And wow Hugo’s just stopped being subtle at all about the Christ thing. (Okay, the brief mention of his burning the credit notes for money owed to him by small shopkeepers—literally forgiving his debtors—is a little subtle.) But early on, we get the explicit comparison to “another condemned man 2000 years ago,” on the off chance that we hadn’t picked it up yet, and the chapter ends with a longer and quite lovely Gethsemane comparison that also picks up on that inverted abyss image:

“Thus did this poor soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this ill-fated man, the mysterious being in whom are concentrated all the saintliness and all the sufferings of humanity had also refused for a long time the terrible chalice, streaming with darkness and brimming with shadows, that appeared to him in the star-filled depths, while the olive trees shook in the fierce blast of the infinite.”

Petit-Gervais: The shade of Petit-Gervais is all over these chapters—reasonably so, since that is the second offense that has been on Valjean’s record all this time, and that would still send him to the galleys or the guillotine without even needing to consider, say, all the fraud he’s been doing as a matter of course to maintain his identity as Madeleine. (Including the passport he used TO VOTE IN THE ELECTIONS. Because Madeleine is that wealthy.)

And that made me stop and think about how weird it seems, honestly, that an itinerant child chimney sweep would have reported the theft—would have trusted authorities enough not just to think it was worth reporting, but to trust that he wouldn’t draw any hostility, or risk arrest for vagrancy or be accused of any local petty crimes.

And then I wondered whether he reported it because he knew you could trust the authorities in Digne to take it seriously, because the bishop would hear about it. And then I had a sad.

The Dream: The beginning of the dream in 1.7.4 recalls the Petit-Gervais incident, of course, with its empty dust-colored plain and lone rider. But I was also reminded of it by the brief waking dream in 1.7.3: “He felt as if he had just woken from some sort of dream and had found himself sliding down a slope in the middle of the night, standing, shivering, backing away in vain, on the very brink of an abyss. He distinctly perceived in the gloom a man he did not know, a stranger that destiny mistook for him and was pushing into the chasm in his place.” It feels like the missing piece that ties all those abysses and inverted abysses into the P-G scene, with its terrible open space under the sky.

The brother has them take a sunken road, where nothing grows and everything is the color of earth. It’s clearly the grave, and now we know to be afraid when we first read about the sunken road in Waterloo.

Beyond that—I just always love how realistically weird this dream is. It feels like an actual dream—in some places transparent, in some just random (“Why Romainville?”), but mostly very clearly significant in ways that don’t obviously map onto any single reading. Why does Valjean keep walking into empty houses, rooms, streets, and only finding a man in the second one he enters? I would say it’s because the first place is Madeleine, where he is now, and he doesn’t have a self there, but honestly hell if I know. It’s a dream.

Fursona Watch: Valjean himself thinks of Javert as a hunting-dog, possibly for the first time. (Also, I really want to come back to the voice, of God or conscience, that tells Valjean to burn the candlesticks when we get to Derailed; their diction is so similar.)

[selkiewife]

So now that there is definitely no Harlots Season 4 happening (💔) and there is no chance to know what happened to Violet and Amelia, what do we think happened fam? Headcanons? Theories?

I’ve just finished a rewatch of all three seasons. When I originally saw the ending of Season 2, I thought that the plotline between Violet and Amelia had ended on a cliffhanger that would be carried over to Season 3.

To recap, the last scene between Violet and Hunt was him drinking in the tavern because he is having his Javert “the law is a lie and my whole life has been a lie” moment. And Violet is like, “dude, make me your eyes and ears.” And he’s like “I WOULD if I wasn’t just fired from being Chief Justice.”

And then Violet tells him that he gives up too easily. 

The next time we see Violet she is by Amelia and Amelia grabs her hand and asks her “am I still just a dalliance?”

But right at that moment, Hunt comes in and apologizes to Amelia for “being a prig” and calling off their engagement. And Violet leaves them together. We never hear Amelia’s response to his apology.

The last time we see Violet she is looking out at the city with an enigmatic smile on her face. 

I assumed that the story would be continued in some way. I felt like Violet and Amelia couldn’t just end like that. I also thought that there might be something to Violet and Hunt teaming up to fight for justice. And I also thought that Hunt was an interesting character who had a lot of room for more growth. Obviously, the situation they were in was disastrous and seemingly could only end in heartache. But I was interested in seeing how they were going to work that out.

Yet, now, after knowing that they were not in Season 3 at all, I guess this WAS the ending. It seems like when Violet told Hunt “You give up to easily.” She was giving up on him in that moment. And then when Hunt interrupted them, Violet figured it was better not to answer Amelia- but instead to let her think it had just been a dalliance so that she could go on and have a “better” life with Hunt. And perhaps her smiling and looking out at the end was her taking back her freedom. I feel unsatisfied with this ending- but at the same time, I suppose it realistic and does make sense. If Amelia thinks she is just a dalliance, she might marry Hunt and not pursue Violet. It makes me so sad though. 

What do you all think? Did Amelia end up marrying Hunt? Did she run after Violet instead? Did the three of them come up with some sort of arrangement that could benefit all of them? Did Amelia introduce Rasselas to Hunt and was he Hunt’s bisexual awakening? Did Hunt and Amelia marry for safety to cover their relationships with Rasselas and Violet? Did Violet and Hunt ever start their private investigation company? I need answers lmao.

[cometomecosette]

“Lovely Ladies” and “Fantine’s Arrest,” Broadway, August, 2007. Nikki Renee Daniels as Fantine, Robert Hunt as Javert, Dan Bogart as Bamatabois.

Each time I saw this production in person, I was impressed by how good the ensemble was, and here they prove my memories correct.

Let me add that in hindsight, I appreciate more than ever how racially diverse the production was. In the early 2000s this wasn’t a normal sight in Les Mis: at most there would be a token black or Asian Fantine and/or Éponine, but otherwise lily-whiteness. The ‘06-’07 Broadway revival stood out for featuring so many performers of color, both among the leads and in the ensemble.

Nikki’s Fantine makes a solid impression here. She doesn’t create quite the sense of emotional breaking, hardening, or deteriorating health (apart from coughing) as other Fantines; other actresses do more to show the transformation Hugo’s Fantine goes through. But her beautiful, powerful voice never fails her, and she still does justice to the character’s desperation, fear and anger. Her reactions to Bamatabois’s rough handling and her rage when fighting him off are particularly excellent.

I like the touch of her anxiously reading yet another letter from the Thénardiers, obviously full of more lies about Cosette’s health and demanding more money, when the hair-buyer approaches her. I also like the touch of several other ladies trying in vain to defend her from Bamatabois and one trying to help her escape from the police.

Dan Bogart’s Bamatabois is a bit more foppish than predatory, but he turns appropriately vicious and scary when crossed. It’s hard to believe this was the first actor I ever saw as Marius, or that he turned around so easily in this same performance to play a kindly, idealistic Combeferre! I feel slightly torn about the fact that the staging doesn’t have him physically abuse Fantine as much as other productions do. On the one hand, it’s hard not to miss the sheer horror and outrage of seeing her brutalized and almost raped the way she is in other stagings. But on the other hand, Hugo created enough pathos for his Fantine without ever having her graphically beaten or threatened with rape (the original Bamatabois only puts snow down her dress, after all), and maybe too much reduces the scene to crude female torture porn. I’m of two minds.

No complaints whatsoever about Robert’s Javert. He personifies stern, pitiless efficiency, just as he should.

I only wish the video included Valjean’s intervention. I would have liked to see Drew Sarich’s contribution to the scene and Nikki’s “M’sieur don’t mock me now, I pray...’

[jamlocked]

C, J, U, V and X :))

C -  A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Ohhhh, boy. I could go three ways on this really...or maybe two, idk. I feel like my answer will be taken as problematic - - and I’m going for it anyway, because it’s just my opinion. 

The ship I dislike the most is Sherlolly. It’s not because I don’t like Molly - I do, a lot. It’s not because that would make Sherlock straight or bi - the whole argument that used to fly about that Sherlolly = homophobic is fucking gross. It’s just not a ship that does anything for me. I used to think that I just found it boring (and this is NOT me saying that Molly is boring, or het romance is boring, or any of that), but I’ve come to realise it’s mostly because it vibes with the part of Sherlock’s narrative I like the least. The whole, ‘Sherlock was weird and abnormal with no friends, but now we’re going to turn him into a complete human being’, thing. Which, VOMIT. 

Again, I’m not saying that het romance is too ‘normal’ to fit here. Sherlock could have a massive thing with Irene, and that would have a vibe I like far more. The issue I have with Sherlolly is that Sherlock has always been an extreme type of character in whatever canon. Molly, in BBC canon, is this wonderful character Sherlock came to find a great friend in. The notion that he could ‘learn to be normal/complete’ seems to be the arc of the four seasons, complete with the whole ‘I love you’ scene in TFP, where they full dangled the possibility of future!canon!Sherlolly by at least making Sherlock think about it seriously. It seems to equate with ‘the more we teach Sherlock to fit into ‘normal’ society, the more chance he has of having a ‘normal’ relationship, with someone...’ - okay, I’m not going to hold Molly up as a bastion of normality, given she falls for sociopaths and does autopsies, but even if you take that into consideration, it’s still the most ‘normal’ relationship the writers could put him into. A casual viewer would go, ‘he’s got a girlfriend now, he behaves better, he gets on with his family, he’s straight/white/upper middle-class = totally a character I’m easy with’. 

And that’s just not what interests me when it comes to relationships I want to watch. Now, if we’re talking about dark!Molly who’s into Glee and cats, but also runs a black market organ business and wants Sherlock to help sort out the competition - I’m totally here for that. If Molly likes her knitted cardigans and secretly wants to kill Sherlock, while he likes his suits and is madly in love her but also wants to use her to get to her criminal mother who harvests dead bodies and practices necromancy? I’m all ears. 

But ‘Sherlock gets a girlfriend, solves crimes, learns manners and is never obnoxious again, and OH LOOK WE FIXED HIM’ - fuck, no.  ...that was a lot of words, and I didn’t explain it very clearly, but I’ma stop now. 

J -    Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

Tumblr has made me aware of BTS, The Witcher (although I had seen adverts for that on Amazon, but idk anything about it), Hamilton, Moomin, MASH, The Mentalist, Kyo Dir en Grey, Elementary ...oh man, there must be more, but I forget. I’ve been here a few years now. I’d heard of most of these shows/people before Tumblr, of course, but didn’t know much about them. And still don’t on some of them, but am definitely aware of them now. 

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Jim Moriarty, obviously. HE IS SO FUN. And there is such pain under the smirk, and THOSE SUITS, BABY. I am the biggest sucker in the world for obsession, and ...well, see my answer to X in a minute. There’s nothing about him I don’t ove. So much scope to play with in fic as well. 

An old fandom of mine - Les Mis. My fave character is Javert, because of course I love the most awful dick of them all. Again, with him, see X below. And also again, so much to write about. I literally nearly based a PhD proposal around him, and his representation, his place in 19th century France, his attitudes and where they came from. Did you know the character of Sam Gerard in The Fugitive is based on him? He’s relentless, he’s unforgiving, and he collapses at the end in the most spectacular way possible. Total prick, and I fucking love him. :D

I’m really trying to think of character I love who isn’t a total douche, just for the sake of variety. But I can’t, so lets go with Gene Hunt from Life on Mars. 

I expect most people won’t have heard of/seen this show (but omg they might be making a new series, sa;ldfkjsalfksj I CANNOT :D), but if you can watch it, you should. Gene Hunt is awful - a 70s cop with all the faults of the time. Corrupt, mostly alcoholic, sexist, violent, homophobic, racist...but also hilarious, and there’s a really big heart under there. You learn that he might do nothing but call people the worst names in the world, but he always ends up doing his job in. If you watch this four minute video, you’ll get the gist. If you’re a fan of the Discworld series and you like Sam Vimes, you’ll recognise Gene. He’s the arshetype of Copper, and he goes on this great arc from being the stereotypical bad copper of the 70s, to being something quite different. And he really is hilarious, with insane charisma. He and Sam Tyler are the perfect double act. :D

V - Which character do you relate to most?

Jim Moriarty. I may not be a criminal mastermind, but only because I’m not that smart. And don’t have his level of swag, because c’mon. Who does?

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

AHAHA. My bulletproof trope is ‘two sides of the same coin’. Sherlock/Moriarty. Javert/Jean Valjean - who, incidentally, were two characters based off one man; Vidocq. (A man who more films should be made about, incidentally.) These two are literally two sides of one man. Even Gene Hunt represents part of Sam’s psyche in Life on Mars, as well as the more obvious old vs new, forensic vs gut instinct. 

But yeah, in literally any fandom, you show me a protagonist and an antagonist that are more or less the same person, and I’m there. Cannot get enough of it. 

[bbclesmis]

To the last I grapple with thee: Finding the obsessive heart of Les Miserables

In literature, few rivalries are as brutal and self-destructive as that of Inspector Javert and the criminal Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo's classic story of poverty, rebellion and revenge, Les Miserables.

The original story frames their clash as one of class: both men are born into poverty but it is the criminal Valjean, and not the policeman Javert, who truly escapes it.

But actor Dominic West, who plays Valjean in the new BBC adaptation of Les Miserables, has a different take.

"I think there's a sexual answer ... which I liked, but our director Tom Shankland didn't," West says. "Why is Javert so obsessed with this guy and why does Valjean keep going back and surrendering to him?

"I think Javert is obsessed with him because he's in love with him. Whatever his motive, I think he wants Valjean for himself and he wants him being whipped in chains, so it's kind of kinky."

The 49-year-old English actor says Hugo could never have explored such themes because the book, which was published in 1862, and the storytelling  are shaped by the social conventions of the time.

The scripts, from the king of book-to-screen adaptations Andrew Davies, while not addressing  that theme directly, do not waste time getting to the point, West adds.

"What [Andrew] does very brilliantly, because obviously you have to condense an enormous amount, is get very quickly to the nub of things," West says.

"And the nub of things is usually to do with sex and love. They're really the biggest things that motivate all of us.

"Valjean runs up the side of houses to rescue children and up the masts of ships to rescue drowning sailors, he does all the superhero, Spiderman stuff," West says. "But his greatest heroism really is in battling his own demons and his own sense of self worth or lack of self worth," West says.

In the story, Valjean leaves a life in prison and recreates himself as the wealthy, philanthropic Monsieur Madeleine but Javert, repulsed by Valjean's unbreakable spirit, sets out spitefully to break him.

Along the way there is much love lost and happiness found, mostly for Valjean's adopted daughter Cosette and the young lawyer Marius Pontmercy, though in this iteration, at least, no one sings.

Actor David Oyowelo, who plays Javert in the series, says the longer form of television draws the two central characters out of the very rigidly defined roles they have played in previous adaptations.

"That's what's brilliant to me about the story, and certainly this adaptation of it, is that at no point do you go, oh, I get this character," Oyowelo says.

"They are constantly evolving. It covers a huge amount of time and their behaviour evolves over time in relation to each other."

"So to have Jean Valjean, this criminal, someone who can be in his mind quite rightly designated as that and purely that, to have this man have any thread of grace and redemptive qualities throws off not only Javert's perception of the world, but the perception of himself," Oyowelo says.

Davies, with many masterpieces such as Vanity Fair, Middlemarch, War and Peace and 1995's Pride and Prejudice to his name, is a writer of great economy, Oyowelo says.

"This is going to sound incredibly disrespectful to Victor Hugo, but Andrew Davies doesn't ramble anywhere near as much," Oyowelo says. "As wonderful as the novel is, it does go down these cul-de-sacs and these rabbit holes of descriptive [detail].

"That's very satisfying to read, set in your comfy chair, but in terms of a visual depiction of this time and these characters, you really want to be distilling that stuff down to a clean, clear, propulsive narrative."

That propulsive narrative sets up one of the great dénouements of storytelling: the self-destruction of a man whose obsessive hunt ultimately consumes him.

"It's Moby Dick, it's Othello, it's Les Miserables – these are all primal stories that go to the core of who we are," Oyowelo says.

"I think within us we have both Othello and Iago, we have both Jean Valjean and Javert," he says. "We can, at different points, identify with both characters. That's why that story, these types of stories, are timeless."

WHAT Les Miserables

WHEN BBC First, Sunday, 8.30pm.

(x)

[secretmellowblog]

I feel like Javert never really left prison, he just rose through the ranks.

He began life as a child born behind bars, which is as helpless/powerless under the criminal justice system as you can get. When he was obedient enough, he was promoted to prison guard. And when he was obedient enough at that, he was promoted to a police inspector. Being a police inspector meant he was kept on a longer leash, and didn’t have to stay in prison anymore, but he was never free of it; he’s described as never allowing himself to have anything outside his work.

Hapgood translates Javert’s introduction as:

“His name was Javert, and he belonged to the police.”

And I love that translation because it has such a great double meaning....Javert “belonged to the police,” because he was in the police force. But he also “belonged to the police” because from the moment he was born he was a ward of the state, his life wasn’t his own, and from that point on his entire life was one long unending stream of police violence-- either as the victim or the (vicious violent terrifying!) perpetrator of it.

Javert is terrible because he’s like a prison guard. He’s allowed to attack people who are legally already “wrong,” already “prisoners,” like Fantine or Valjean. But he’s not allowed to attack people who are “outside prison,” who aren’t legally already prisoners.....

…..and he’s certainly never allowed to attack the people who *run* the prison.

Javert is frequently described as a dog that the police own. He’s  a “domesticated animal” who is only tolerated because he hunts the “wild animals” like Valjean. Javert enthusiastically obeys the orders of his handlers, but they’d “put him down” if ever tried to attack them, or even if he just became inconvenient. (like the way he’s just left to die when he gets captured at the barricades— the national guard has an opportunity to exchange Jehan’s life for his, and they don’t.)

And Javert sees himself that way too? In his inner monologue in Javert Derailed, he repeatedly describes himself as a dog, a beast, and his hands as claws. He does not see himself as human. Javert being a furry is symbolically important and tragic!

And I feel like this is the big difference between him and Valjean? Valjean spends all the decades of his life trying to escape prison. At every opportunity, every time he sees an opening, even if it means faking his death or burying himself alive or doing all kinds of impossible feats, Valjean always tries to escape.

But Javert never does.

Valjean desperately tries to leave prison behind; Javert digs his heels into the ground and stays.

Javert gets obsessed with gaining the approval of the criminal justice system’s authorities instead, and is granted more power the more he complies with their orders and viciously enthusiastically hurts other people like him. He refuses to leave when it’s cruel and destructive, he refuses to leave when the things he’s doing are so obviously wrong he can’t do them without shutting his brain off, he refuses to leave when staying means destroying himself.

When he’s shown a way out, he can’t bring himself to take it.

[kainosite]

Les Misérables 2018, Episode 3

Les Mis fandom: Andrew Davies is a scoundrel.  What is he?

Me: ... Scoundwel.

The Good:

• I can’t believe the BBC actually filmed the “Now the people of this town can see you for what you really are” scene of a thousand Valvert fanfics.  They know what the people want.

• The Thénardiers are still fantastic.  Somehow the BBC has achieved the impossible feat of portraying them as loathsome abusers whom you hate with every fiber of your being, while simultaneously making them the fun comic relief you’re sort of rooting for in their capacity as the wacky crime duo.  On Christmas Eve I wanted the Seargeant of Waterloo to burn to the ground with everyone inside it, except for Cosette who was out getting water, Éponine and Azelma who were playing on the swings and Gavroche who was out back playing with Chou Chou or something.  I still grinned when Madame Thénardier cheerily reminded her husband to bring the pistol the next morning.  Striking this balance is a truly impressive achievement that I’ve only seen equalled by the Dallas production of the musical.

Their family dynamics are also coming across very well, sometimes through very subtle touches.  The differential treatment of Éponine and Azelma vs. Cosette and the way the Thénardier girls have been trained by all the adults around them to see Cosette’s abuse as a hilarious game, Gavroche being conscripted to fill Cosette’s role as household drudge once Valjean takes her, Mme. T slipping a bill out of Thénardier’s stash once he goes after Valjean – it’s all really good.

Their reactions to Valjean were good too.  Mme. Thénardier was thoroughly unimpressed with this roughly dressed man she’d decided was a hobo and only reacted with hostility when he was kind to her little whipping girl, but Thénardier as the criminal mastermind of the outfit decided the moment he noticed Valjean paying inordinate attention to Cosette that he must be a pedophile and they’d stumbled upon a lucrative financial opportunity.  I know some people don’t like this change, but honestly it makes a ton of sense.  Valjean’s interest in Cosette is strange, and considering the usual clientele of the inn cheer whenever Mme. T hits the kid with the strap, the Thénardiers aren’t used to seeing other people regard her plight with compassion.  Unlike in the Brick, this Cosette is a very pretty child, something discernible even beneath the dirt.  And it’s Thénardier, so of course he thinks the worst.  Valjean doesn’t volunteer that he’s representing Fantine (perhaps in this universe where he knows Javert is so fixated on him, he’s worried that would make him too easy to trace?), so really, what else is Thénardier meant to think?

• There are some priceless interactions between the protagonists and Thénardier: when he’s trying to haggle and Valjean keeps ignoring him and just repeating “How much?”; Javert’s baffled “Nothing!” when he asks Javert what Javert is planning to do for him.

• Javert and Gavroche’s preliminary encounter over the coffee cup was a nice, subtle touch.

• A+ hair analogy between Fantine last week and Valjean this week.  A+ removal of the godawful ponytail.  That prison barber in Toulon deserves the Légion d'Honneur.

• I’m enjoying Javert’s meteoric rise at the Prefecture and I love Rivette.  “But Kainosite, you love every long-suffering lieutenant.”  Yes, what’s your point?  Javert deserves a long-suffering lieutenant and so do I.  Although it’s hilarious how much Oyelowovert is Fanfic Javert, in his relationship with his subordinates as much as in everything else.

I also enjoyed Javert’s phrenology skull, which I hope he sometimes monologues at Hamlet-style.  A black Javert might hesitate a little before going all-in on phrenology, but I do appreciate his commitment to cutting-edge criminology research.

• LMAO at Javert’s fanart commission.

• Valjean and little Cosette are adorable together, and I really appreciate how much time Davies devoted to just depicting them interacting and letting the relationship breathe.  The strength of their bond is going to be very important later on, especially to Valjean, so it’s worthwhile to establish it now.  And they were suuuuper cute.  This adaptation tends to cut out Hugo’s humor sections, so it was nice to get a bit of relief from the grimness with endearing family time.

• I rather like Cosette calling people “nosy bitches”.  I mean, who socialized this kid?  The Thénardiers, that’s who.  It makes her seem more like a real child and less like a perfect little doll designed to reward first Valjean and then Marius for fulfilling their roles as protagonists.

It’s also an early hint at Valjean and Cosette’s unhealthy isolation and codependency.  The principal tenant is actually fulfilling her duty of care here in a society without any proper system for child safeguarding.  Cosette never seems to leave the apartment, certainly not to attend school or to learn a trade.  There’s no family resemblance between herself and her guardian.  (Incidentally, I’m impressed by how much Mailow Defoy really does look like the child of Lily Collins and Johnny Flynn.  All the matching between the kids and their “parents” has been superb.)  They give inconsistent stories about their relationship.  And Cosette is, as previously mentioned, an exceptionally pretty child.  The principal tenant should be worried - she doesn’t want Hector Hulot taking up residence in her building, and this pair are deeply suspicious.  But they can’t perceive her attention as legitimate concern, just as an unwarranted and unwanted intrusion into their little idyl.

• Similarly, Valjean’s early worries that he’s isolating Cosette too much by denying her all contact with the outside world or other children her own age are a nice piece of foreshadowing, as is her blithe answer that the only friends she needs are Valjean and Catherine.  Of course she’s content: she has food and warmth and security and the undivided attention of a loving adult.  To a child whose previous experience of the world has been so traumatic, their isolation must seem like paradise.  But this isn’t healthy and it isn’t sustainable, and the show is flagging that up early.  In many adaptations Valjean’s Cosette Issues seem to come out of nowhere, so it��s great that they’re laying the groundwork here.

• The whole “For a dark hunt, a silent pack” sequence is very well done.  There’s a nice piece of foreshadowing with the lamplighter hoisting up a candle as Valjean and Cosette are coming into Paris.  (Most of the Parisian lamps are nice flickery ones, although you do occasionally see those peculiar white ones we saw in Montreuil.)

I also appreciate Davies cutting Valjean’s canonical “Be quiet or Mme. Thénardier will catch you and take you back” line to Cosette from the Brick, which was an awful thing to say to a traumatized child.

• Things continue to look right.  The courtroom setup was really quite good.

The Meh:

• After watching the episode twice I think I finally understand what was going on with Javert at the trial.

His plan to entrap Valjean is no less incredibly stupid and risky than it was last week, but at least Javert has finally realized this.  He looks increasingly worried as each convict gives his testimony and identifies Champmathieu because they’re getting closer and closer to the end of the trial and Valjean still hasn’t acted.  Unlike Étienne in the 1952 movie, Oyelowovert has already testified and perjured himself, so he has no failsafe – if Valjean refuses to take the bait then Champmathieu is condemned in his place, the real Valjean is protected from legal pursuit forever, Javert’s perjury has real, long-term, perverse consequences, and Javert needs to find a new career.  The shock we see on his face when Valjean finally confesses is relief and the shock of seeing a scenario he must have played out a hundred times in his dreams becoming a reality before his eyes, or possibly a consequence of him coming in his pants, not shock at the revelation that Madeleine is Valjean.

But there are few members of the audience who are keener observers of Javert’s face than I am.  Most of those people are probably in the Valvert Discord chat, and none of them could figure out this scene on their first viewing either.  We should not have to analyze Javert’s microexpressions to determine the answer to a question as fundamental as “Did Javert sincerely believe Champmathieu was Valjean?”

• On the whole the trial was bad but I did appreciate Brevet just yanking out his suspender to show the court.  Although @prudencepaccard​ is gonna be mad it wasn’t checkered.

• The amount of time it takes Valjean to escape from Toulon is really of no great importance to anything.  Maybe this Javert gave them specific instructions to search him with care so his files kept getting confiscated and it took him longer to file through his chains.  We know the Orion incident never happened in this universe, so maybe it took two years for Valjean to spot a good escape opportunity.  Who knows?  Who cares?  It has zero impact on the plot.

People concerned about the extra time Cosette was left languishing with the Thénardiers should direct their complaints to Brick Valjean, who faffed around in Montreuil for a month while her mother lay on her deathbed constantly asking for her, and only decided to go pick her up once he was under arrest and it would obviously be impossible.  Davies’ sins pale in comparison to Hugo’s in this regard.  At least Westjean tried to send someone to retrieve her.

• ‘Rosalie’?  Okay, fine, but I’m not sure why this adaptation feels compelled to give everyone first and last names.  Thénardier could just call her ‘Darling’.

• I know they also abandon Catherine in the Brick, but in the Brick Valjean doesn’t pause in their flight to pack the candlesticks, the objects that are precious to him, and Cosette doesn’t specifically ask about bringing her.  Put the pillow under the blankets to fake out Javert like a normal person and let your child keep the one toy she’s ever had, what the fuck is wrong with you, Valjean?

On the other hand, the doll is made of dead people and it may be possessed, so perhaps this was just responsible parenting.  I’m calling it a draw.

• It’s not that I have any great objections to giving Simplice more screen time or letting the Mother Superior of the Petit-Picpus convent decide to shelter a convict, but there was no particular reason not to use Fauchelevent for the Fauchelevent plotline.  It’s a small instance of a good deed being paid forward that underlines the main theme of the book, as does Simplice’s act of self-sacrifice in lying to Javert to protect Valjean.  All of that has been lost and nothing has been gained in its place.  (Also is Cosette just... “Cosette Valjean” in this adaptation?  “Cosette Thibault”?)

The Bad:

• If Javert perjures himself to trap Valjean that is an incredibly big deal and we should see it.  I accept that this Javert might do it: Oyelowovert cares about his career and about ruining the lives of criminals, not about the rules.  If he can trap Valjean, superb.  If Champmathieu ends up in the galleys because of it, well, he’s a filthy apple thief and he deserves it.  Javert is subverting the course of justice in the service of a greater social justice.  But this monumental deviation from his Brick characterization, this enormously consequential lie, should not occur off-camera, for fuck’s sake!

Also it’s not clear what reason a Javert who is happy to lie under oath would ever have to throw himself into the Seine.

• Why the hell was Valjean so hostile to the other convicts?  He assumes they’ve been paid off, but... by whom, and to what purpose?  By Javert, to entrap him?  We the viewers at least know that can’t be true – Javert only found out about Champmathieu from the Prefecture, after Champmathieu had already been identified as Valjean.  By the public prosecutor at Arras, who is desperate to close the case of a minor highway robbery that happened almost a decade ago on the other side of the country completely outside his jurisdiction?  By the many enemies of Champmathieu the random hobo, who really want to see him go down for a felony?  It makes absolutely no sense.

Possibilities that make more sense: a) the convicts are sincerely mistaken about the appearance of a guy they’ve not seen in eight years, b) they just wanted to get out of Toulon for a month and they’re willing to say anything to do it because Toulon is a hellhole, as the first episode made exceedingly clear, c) they know perfectly well Champmathieu is not Valjean and they’re lying to protect the liberty of their old comrade by condemning a stranger in his place.  The whole dynamic of this scene – Madeleine, the respected mayor and factory owner, who’s been clean and well-fed and safe for years, yelling at these filthy men in their convict uniforms, Chenildieu with some kind of open wound across his forehead, quite possibly a lash mark – is deeply unpleasant.  It makes Valjean look like a complete asshole and sets a sour tone for the whole episode.

• The entire trial is just off.  Valjean’s off-putting and inexplicable hostility to his fellow convicts, Javert’s mystifying facial expressions, the audience who keep laughing at unfunny lines – the scene just doesn’t work, it doesn’t come together.  It was at something of a disadvantage because I came into it having just watched the 1952 trial scene for the previous episode’s review post, which is the best ever adaptation of the Champmathieu trial, and any other version was likely to pale by comparison.  But this one was particularly poor.

• I said last week we’d have to see what the series made of Valjean’s externalization of his emotions.  Well, what it has made is an awful lot of shouting at everyone, starting with the poor convicts and continuing from there, and also an excess of violence.  Valjean charges into the soldiers in Montreuil-sur-Mer and bowls them over, he threatens to knock Thénardier down and then to blow his head off, he gets Thénardier into a headlock and grapples with him.  Even when Westjean is coming into the convent he has to practically break down the doors.  Everything is violent action with him.  It’s OOC to the point where it’s becoming a problem rather than merely a different interpretation of the character.

All this aggression isn’t even effective at making him seem dangerous!  The thing he does in 1978 where he gently removes Javert’s hand from his collar is vastly more intimidating because it showcases his superhuman strength.  He should have just plucked the gun out of Thénardier’s hand like he was taking it away from a child instead of all this undignified scuffling.

• Tumblr, a humble reviewer has failed in accuracy, and I have come to bring this matter to your attention, as is my duty.

I argued last week that Westjean is not a misogynist: he yells at everyone in his vicinity regardless of gender.  Well, you were right and I was wrong.  That menacing lunge he takes towards Victurnien while screaming at her, calling Mme. Thénardier “woman” and shouting at her to bring his supper, the way he bursts in on the nuns at the end – it all adds up to something pretty unpleasant.

• I have never in my life seen an adaptation that makes Fantine’s death so much about Jean Valjean’s manpain.

If you look a 1978, an adaptation that gives if possible negative fucks about Fantine, it still manages to make the confrontation over her deathbed a conversation between three people, in which she has agency and reacts to what people are saying and is present in some capacity other than that of an object to make Valjean sad.  Someone compared Collinstine to a substitute Coin of Shame, and I think that’s really apt: Valjean is distressed and guilty because he’s failed to rescue Cosette, so he goes to Fantine’s bedside to sear the image of her despairing face onto his retinas in the same way he seared the imprint of Petit Gervais’s forty sous onto his palm.  He’s punishing himself by deliberately upsetting her.  For both Valjean and the camera, this scene is all about Valjean’s feelings and not about Fantine’s.

The person in this room with the biggest problems is not Jean Valjean, for pity’s sake.  I like to see the man cry as much as the next fangirl, but this was vile.

• Valjean’s visit to Fantine on her deathbed is a stupid, irresponsible thing to do and a direct cause of her unhappy death in the Brick and in every adaptation where she survives long enough for Javert to turn up. Valjean knows he has no good news to give her, he knows that the criminal justice system will be after him sooner or later, he knows that having Fantine and Javert together in the same room is a phenomenally bad idea, and he has urgent business in Montfermeil, or if he’s resolved to stay in Montreuil-sur-Mer to await arrest then he urgently needs to designate some representative to go and pick up Cosette in his place.  Instead he loiters by a sick woman’s bedside until Javert shows up and predictably traumatizes her to death.  As a result, Fantine dies in misery and Cosette suffers under the Thénardiers for another year.

But in the Brick it was at least not an insane thing to do.  When he left Arras he was not being pursued, and he reached Montreuil well ahead of the news about the trial.  The magistrates in Arras were in two minds about how to handle the situation.  Given Madeleine’s status, the widespread affection and admiration for him in the region, and the fact that he turned himself in, it’s not inconceivable that had it not been for his little Bonapartist slip in the courtroom, they wouldn’t have issued a warrant for his arrest at all and would simply have sent him a summons to appear at the Var Assizes to stand trial, or directed him to surrender himself at the prison in Montreuil rather than sending Javert after him.  I’m not sure it’s likely, given that he’s a known flight risk and parole violator illegally occupying a public office and they seem keen to get their hands on his fortune, but it’s not inconceivable.

In this adaptation Valjean breaks away from the police in the street and leads them straight to Fantine’s deathbed.  There is no fucking excuse for this.  NONE.  Brick Valjean was a fool to come at all and a bigger fool to stage a massive confrontation with Javert while he was still in the infirmary, but his mistakes were those of a man under immense stress who never bothered to think about Javert long enough to construct a working psychological profile of him.  Westjean’s mistakes were the mistakes of a selfish asshole too caught up in his own feelings of guilt and shame to have any regard for the people he allegedly cares about and wants to help.  Valjean is an extreme deontologist and his actions are always self-absorbed to a certain degree, because they’re fundamentally more about whether he can feel he’s done the right thing than about the actual effects of his actions on other people.  (He and Brickvert have that in common.)  But it should never get to the point where he’s actively harming people to this extent.

• Brickvert doesn’t seem to care for firearms much, and Oyelowovert looks like a jackass waving his two giant pistols around, but he’s a different character and if he’s decided they make him look cool then fine, I guess.  But in that case he should not be intimidated by Valjean’s strength in the infirmary.  You have guns, idiot!  If he threatens you just shoot him in the leg!

Guns completely change the dynamics of this scene, as the Dallas staging of the musical conveys very well.  The BBC handed Javert some pistols and then forgot he had them.

• In 1862 people would probably have found the implication that Catherine has Fantine’s hair to be sweet and charming, because the Victorians loved toting bits of their dead relatives around and hair mementos were so common that no one would have considered it weird.  In 2019 it is CREEPY AND GROSS.  I know there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism but we did not need to know that Cosette’s doll was made from the body parts of desperately impoverished and now dead women, really.

• Oh, so we’re flipping over beds when we fail to catch our favorite fugitive convict now, are we?  Great, now everyone is yelling.  FFS, Javert, I thought you were supposed to be the emotionally continent one.

• Where was Marius this week???  If Davies was happy to cut that leg of the stool out of whole episodes then why the fuck not just let Georges die when he’s supposed to and let Marius have a coherent character arc?  It makes no sense whatsoever.

I’ve got to be honest, I was not a fan of this episode.  But it did get Valjean and Cosette’s relationship right, and that is the most important relationship in the story.

[hellenhighwater]

Can I ask how Valjean hides his wings (love your sketches and this concept so much I need a huge fic or manga style thing of this Soo bad)

I actually don’t know that he does hide them. I’m not settled on a headcanon for him, though I do love the angel-statue vibe. When I draw him with wings, it’s as a stone angel come to life. In my head, that’s JVJ’s cryptid thing–he’s literally made of rock. He just looks like flesh. That’s why the first time I drew him (the one with the black pants and shackles) he’s sorta…shredded. He’s meant to literally be carved from marble. Whether or not that involves wings depends on my mood when I draw him. Either way, his cryptid-self is the Man of Mercy. My Javert is the embodiment of the Long Hunt. We’ve had long talks about this; you can join the discord server to read them.

 One of the things I’ve talked about as an option for him on the discord server is that he was carved out of stone and came to life in Faverolles, and his wings were gilded at that point. When his sister’s (his sculptor would be her dead husband) children were starving, he looked at the hungry kids, at his gold wings….and there was really only one choice from there. By the time he was desperate enough to steal, he didn’t have wings anymore. 

There’s also a possibility that he lost them in Toulon, or cut them off himself when he decided to break parole. They’re too distinctive.

Another option is that in the CryptidAU there are varying levels of “passing.” Javert doesn’t pass well at all–he’s pretty obviously Not A Human. Part of that is the fact that he doesn’t want to pass--he sees himself as outside society. (But he may have some sort of low level perception filter going on where most people have a strong urge to Not Bring Up The Dog Head Thing.) JVJ, on the other hand, might be able to make people not see his wings at all. He’s hiding; he’s trying to fit in to society. Javert, as another cryptid, may be immune to this power. (But there’s more than one winged cryptid in the world, so he’d still be able to have some doubts about M. Madeline.)

He may also just be able to tuck them away and stuff them under his shirt. He’d look bulky and awkward and kind of hunchbacked, but not too obvious. His yellow coat is so ugly that it distracts from how lumpy he looks.

Or it’s Magic. Magic is always an option.

I don’t actually think he can fly. That’s part of what factors into his decisions to cut them off (in the headcanons where he does cut them off). He’s made of rock–he’s too heavy to fly. 

As you can see, I’m still very much exploring this headcanon! It’s fun, and I love hearing other people’s take on it. 

I would love to do a short comic for this–maybe you guys can throw me suggestions on what scene (canon or not) you’d like to see.

[maraki-of-the-fandoms]

Thoughts on les miserables bbc episode 5

Not the worst but a large part was fights so there wasn't enough dialoge to mess up....they still mess it up

Thernadier escapes with no help of gavroche and the patrominate and a suspensfull plan

He pretends to die for cholera....which is stupied....my first though was they didn't check for pulse

Some point out that they didn't know about pulse but even back then they knew to check for heartbeat and breath

And cholera is a very messy disease with messy obviouse symptomes...difficult to fake

They trie to robe rue plumet and half the gang is missing

And they have the part with eponine trying to stop them but here is useless!!

She just screams a little and stops when they threat her with a knife and they leave because of dogs....so thats a strong intresting character...not like the boring females in the book where she curse them tells them to die and scares them and force them to leave

And an other strong character who faints when she meets the love of her life...i have seen patriarchy sexist movies for the 60-70 with the same fainting women but that was worst....not like that boring book where she expecting him and the kiss

And in here the keep kissing a lot of time because there is no reason to talk and get to know it's other...not like that boring book where they meet for weeks and talk and they don't kiss because they respect it's other and they care for personality

And we don't how long they see it's other here but it's not long...propable it's only the (2) times we see

Marius tries to ask his grandfathers permision to marry and it's quite good scene

Although we don't know how long he was gone

Or how much gillenormand missed him

Or that Marius needs permision because he is basically a minor(he will be adult by the law at 25)

And we see gillenormand chase after marius but in the book he was to late because he is old and slow and marius didn't listen becase he was already gone and the poor grandfather lost all hope

And we don't have the all conversation to see that the grandfather has a point to worry about the marriage because marius is penniless at this point and looks the poor part...and in this version he doesn't no cosette long enough

So the revolution begans and i don't care about anyone at the baricade which is a shame

Gavroche is ok and cute and acts like a gamin for the most part...

...but when he has a gun acts like a gigling murderous psycho!!

The amis are some pansies and kinda cowards

The amis (or what they left of them) need support to follow the revolution?! They need to persuade from a worker to follow(who is not Feuilly for some reason)because it's not like they where one of the main organizer revolutionary groups

They just shit and drink must of the time

And when the revolution begins we see them at the funeral full of fear which is stupied because they just began the fights and in the book they are prepared and it's not they're first revolotion...they were part of the 1830 jule revolution

They are lots of people in the funeral who openly carry guns!!! What the hell?! Where is the police?! They see them and they just stare when they expect a revolt....just take some safety measuremants you fools(but can you blame them when their boss only carres about valjean?)

The fights are good and they try...but half the time it copies the 2012 movie with out the epicness of the music...the music tries to make it suspensfull but there is no epic and drama in it and it's out of place half the time(generally the fight is good and tries more than the whole script)

I thing they are to many people...not so in the funeral but later in the baricades...makes me wonder why they fail

Marius threatens to blow the baricade!!(yeeeee) ...when his not on the baricade and I think his closer to his friends than his soldiers(nitpicking here but it's kinda funny) and start hunt the soldiers away while screamming like a bear(whyyyyy) because aparently we must have at list one bear scream per episode and at this point I'm to scared to ask why

They had the flag and mabeuf and somehow they didn't make it work....why didn't even know why he was there...we didn't had him became friend with marius, try to make his project work,to try to share his knowledge and passion and end bankrupt,to try to survive,to get him stay unnotice from the goverment who said they would help him,to get him find a purse full of money and retarn it to the police will he could ise it to buy food,sell everything he loved to aford food and hope he would die before he sell everything...when he went to the baricade he had sell his last thing(to help his sick servent) and he knew he would die for starvation...he decided to go to fight for something better because he had lost everything and had nothink else to lose...he decided to die heroicle...when they ask a volunteer for the flag everyone knew it was a suicide mission...but he still went and chose his one death instead of the slow one chosen by the society and died will saying basically the most epic screw you to the wrong society...he couldn't kill anyone in the baricade because he was too peacefull for that so he decided to be the first martyr instead for somone young...that was mabeuf in the book and we never see him

Eponine dies and the change her last words which is a discreace to the character and the intresting build up hugo did for her

Valjean hasn't appear yet....instend we have someone who drags his daughter and locks her inside...he grabs gavroche and forsefully take(basically steals) the letter...he doesn't care that the kid is going to a fight!!! He doesn't try to give him money to help it....he doesn't see a kid breaking lambs and says to it "cool break as many you want" he just scares it and than reads his daughter letter gets angry for the man whose gone take here and decides to grab a knife(they focus on that) and goes to the baricade...if i didn't read the book i would guess his going for a good old murder!!! And we didn't see the conflic to "let marius die it's an idiot who is gone take away my only happiness or it's a boy it's not right to think like and be happy about that his death and cosette would be sad... gona try and still hope for his death but at least it would not be my fault"....honestly valjean in book is the swetty but awesome grandpa we all want and need who has a habit to feel guilt and insecure over everything(just like half the people I know including me)

Javert still missing...and OMG his worst even for geoffrey rush version(not the actor....he was actually the only thing that make enjoyable)!!! He is the must borring flat oneminded obsess over valjean version of all and it' ironic because "this is a book accoured version who does justice to the book unlike the awfull musical" and the book!javert is the least obsess of all and the most intresting funny sarcastic human version.....here he has so much power that he has do deal with the preparation and the plans to stop the revolt and he doesn't care about that he cares about valjean!! How he even achive the promotion with this focus!! Really everything it happens it's valjeans fault!! I'm sure he blames valjean even for the rain or the cholera!! Can't he focus?!?!?! He goes to the baricade because he things valjean is the leader and it's his fault(a bloody revolution!!!) And when his men try to stop him from going he insist to go because he is the only he can deal with valjean....he goes to the baricade and ask for valjean!! He is caught and arrested and the baricades and he still ask for valjean and still thinks he is the leader!!!! In book he was a really low member of the police with little power little money outside of society but he believed in law and order...he was just follow orders from his bosses when his at the baricades and from the law when it's about valjean....when he gets arrest he is calm fearless and full of sarcasm and it's so admirable...in the bbc version I dislike him and want him died just to sut up and stop being such a pain in the ass and feel sorry for his officers who have to listen to his whine and it's horrible because he is my favourite character in the brick and one of my favourite fiction character generally

Not the worst episode but they messed already most of things so they didn't have much to screw up...But they have messed so much that I hate to watch the scenes with my favourite book characters(valjean javert)and not only and want them to live the screen because they are annoying and horible people( almost everyone is in this version expept for 3-4)...at this point I care most for the poor officers who have to deal for javert!! Can't wait to see them destroy the derailed

[maraschinocheri]

Best of 2017 Countdown #1 :: Him, brought home. [ 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

What could I possibly say that I haven’t said already, and multiple times? Maybe this: that Killian Donnelly’s return to Les Miserables to play Jean Valjean six years and a day after he took his last bows as Enjolras seemed like an only half-possible dream, one I imagined might come true in another five years if we were lucky, but then just—did, here and now.

Investment can be defined as an act of devoting time, effort, talent, or emotional energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result. To say that Killian is invested in Les Mis, and vice versa, would be a colossal understatement, but let’s go with it anyway. In an ideal world, an actor retains more than just respectful memory of a good first professional job, especially if said actor has walked into that job through the side door, utterly without training beyond amateur dramatics, but with one hell of a rich voice, a rough presence, and enough self-deprecatory cheer to knock over jaded producers. That Killian takes every chance possible to credit Les Mis for everything it’s given him since all the way back in 2008—for the education and experience and friendships and the rounding off of his many physical and vocal edges as he progressed from Swing to Enjolras in 2010/2011—is a testament to his love for the show, and good god, does it ever love him back. If I remember correctly, the only male roles he’s not played in the show are Marius and Thenardier, and he’s found something to bring to every other.

Still, Valjean is no bone-throw of a gift to an actor, even one so deeply part of the Les Mis family. It is an investment in an actor and his gifts both as actor and as man, a mutual commitment between show and actor to carry this monster on that actor’s shoulders and back, sometimes somewhat literally. He may have been surprised by the call to audition for Valjean—I say may because I don’t entirely believe that, whatever enthusiastic bright-eyed and bubbling noises he’s made to that effect in interviews—but he should not have been. No one in a position to influence or be influenced could have missed the trajectory Killian had taken over the last few years, and the timing was good for both the show and Killian himself. The trust implied in allowing Killian to step in with what was essentially fewer than ten good days of rehearsal after he’d left New York speaks volumes; it means a great deal more than just thinking he’d remember how to deal with the revolve.

So, the casting. After an early spring of going over and over it again in my head and weighing several things that had happened around and with Killian in NYC over the weeks before and one offhand conversation, I woke up on Thursday 27 April thinking this is it, this has to be it; if it’s going to happen, make it today. Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail typically releases casting news and/or gossip on Twitter late on Thursday nights in the UK/early Thursday evenings in the US, so I had one screen open with that while another showed something that … might have been work, if I hadn’t been so distracted. Then the news came, and it’s rather pointless for me to even pretend I didn’t tear up and feel that old fanfic trope, that release of breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. (There was also some light screaming.) The rehearsal period was going to be so short and brutal, and Killian would be coming straight off an (albeit joyously, finally) emotional run in Kinky Boots on Broadway, but it would be so worth it.

The West End Live performance was a ride. Killian’s Bring Him Home had me rather nervous, and I didn’t love every choice he made, but One Day More was perfection—it was so wonderful to hear Valjean carry the song, and to hear that glorious voice ring out every single One day more! through the crashing wildness at the end of it. I knew at that point that all would be well, that even so soon into the run he’d found something to act as foundation and that he’d continue to grow in the role—and he has. The photo above of him onstage in Trafalgar Square, alone, looking out into the crowd that day made my cold, blackened heart fill with warmth and an absolutely ridiculous, unearned pride that hasn’t abated yet.

Is Killian’s Valjean perfect? No; this year’s resident direction has rushed the production to a point where emotional impact suffers, costing Killian in terms of getting some of Valjean’s truly strong moments across; and he’s occasionally still just as baffled by the end of Who Am I? as he was when he was covering the role. Is his Valjean truly his own? For the most part; there is little to point to in his take that one can say ‘belongs’ to other Valjeans, certainly not to the ones with whom he worked from 08–11. Is it worth the time and effort and the emotional energy—the investment of the show and of Killian himself? Indisputably.

No matter how many words I throw at this screen, I can’t put across how much it is. That beautiful clear bell of a voice that both carried the most gorgeous version of Bring Him Home I’ve ever heard is not what you hear now; it has matured, obviously, as has Killian. But the years between then and now have not harmed much, and in terms of acting, he can go to the most haunted (and hunted) places now, in ways that never rang completely true before, and as I suspected would happen, in the one-on-one scenes, everything he’s learned over the past few years—most especially in Memphis—has made him an incredibly generous actor, tender and careful in one moment, and challenging and thrillingly baton-passing in the next.

(And given that it is me writing this, a moment in the shallow end of the pool: he looks fucking incredible from Monsieur Madeleine until the finale; it’s as if costumes and makeup and wigs have been waiting for this Valjean their whole lives. I confess to making terribly obscene noises at the first appearance of M. Madeleine in Jeremy Secomb’s scarecam video, and the production photography had me half off my chair. No one is surprised, either by that admission or that I gave that photo precedence above.)

Killian has said that when covering Valjean, the show seemed to fly by in an emotional and physical rush; I imagine both that he’s learned the pacing now but still gets caught up in it, and that while he’s not entirely comfortable in the role of Show Dad the way some Valjeans have been, his leadership is in place and his love and respect for his castmates is genuine. He offers advice when asked (and is down for the Yoda comparison) and strongly encourages the work of the Swings and ensemble. For the beginning of the run, Killian was able to share the stage with his very good mate Jeremy Secomb—a nice way to get his feet back under him again, especially with such a compacted rehearsal time, and a few months they both deeply appreciated. His relationship with Hayden Tee is obviously different, but still massively good fun. Both Javerts have challenged and welcomed and worked with him so well.

And come 22 January, everything levels up another notch and possibly to infinity with the return of David Thaxton as Javert. This was my greatest wish for Killian-as-Valjean: to have this remarkable foil in Thaxton, to allow their intense rapport to translate to these two roles. (For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I’ve redacted a short essay on the loss of their potential Enjolras & Grantaire double-act, which never properly materialized after Killian chose not to accept the role of Grantaire in 2009.) I’d hoped for it for a very long time, knowing that that the possibility required Killian to mature on several levels and Thaxton to not grow bored or bitter. Having talked about the possibilities involved there quite a lot before, I won’t go further into them now (though I certainly could, given Killian’s take on Valjean as it stands at the moment), but I will say that I cannot wait to see what they bring to and out of each other again. (And to catch Killian watching Stars from the wings again, losing it on a whole new level.) As a fan of the show itself, of each actor, and of the combination of all three, I will put on the table right now that the next six months of Les Miserables in the West End are going to be for the books. As the song says, and all our debts are paid.

If you’ve made it this far, I hope you understand a bit why I can’t—and have no intention to—shake that ridiculous, unearned pride in Killian, for returning to the Queens, for bringing with him glorious perspective and maturity and joy and responsibility, for coming back—home.