grantaire and eponine share a floor mattress like scott pilgrim and wallace

So, Les Misérables and the powerful image of wolves. I am a little taken aback by the tendency in some Valvert fanfics to refer to Javert as a “wolf” in a kind of positive, affectionate way. It would be nothing less than an offence and dishonour to him. Javert has wolfish origins (his parents had a criminal background), but he broke away from that to become a dog whose duty is to fight wolves. (The same thing applies to Éponine—it's one of the many parallels between her and Javert, but that's another story).

Hugo is very clear in associating wolves with criminals, and he had good reason for this. I can imagine that a contemporary (early twenty-first-century) person might have a different image of this animal—noble, beautiful, a proud night creature with good parenting and social skills (or whatever). But in the nineteenth-century context, wolves could not be associated with anything positive. They were dangerous, menacing beasts, threatening the lives and well-being of the majority of the French population living in forest and mountain areas. They were attacking people and domestic animals well into the 1880s. Yes, their population was shrinking, as Eugen Weber states:

In 1883, 1,316 wolves were killed in France or, rather, official bounties were paid for that many heads; in 1890, 461 were killed, in 1900 only 115… But the tales told over winter evenings and the persistence of the increasingly vague but still menacing image of the wolf show better than mere statistics the grip the animal had on the popular imagination. Evil-omened spots were linked with wolves, like the notorious Carroi de Marlou or Mareloup in Sancerrois, where witches' sabbats were rumoured into the twentieth century; and so were the activities of the terrifying meneurs de loups, who could set the beasts on one. For city dwellers the wolf was a storybook character... But for people over great portions of France he was a howling in the night, a disquieting presence not far off, a hazard or even an interdiction of certain winter paths, and worst of all, a source of the dreaded rabies.

And let’s not forget that in the original story of Red Riding Hood, the girl and her grandmother were eaten by the wolf and no one saved them. This was the sad and terrible reality of the seventeenth and also the nineteenth centuries.

So, if you do not intend to hurt Javert, do not call him or compare him to a wolf.

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It's too bad that the musical of Les Mis downplays the parallels between Fantine and Enjolras and between Javert and Éponine. They're so unexpected and easy to miss the first time you read the novel, because the characters occupy such different worlds, but once you realize them, they're so striking!

And in the novel, both of these pairs of characters do seem to "trade" deaths.

Most obviously, Javert expects to die at the barricade, while Éponine contemplates drowning herself in the Seine, but the reverse happens.

More subtly, Fantine's last months seem to be leading toward Valjean reuniting her with Cosette. Even if we think her death is inevitable, we have reason to hope that at least she'll die happy, having seen her daughter, knowing she'll be cared for, and knowing her own sacrifices weren't in vain. But instead she dies in despair, thinking all is lost for herself, Valjean, and Cosette. Later, Enjolras is set up to die bravely but in total defeat and despair. But then Grantaire comes to his side, so he dies with a smile, knowing that at least one person, who once seemed to embody all the cynicism and apathy of Paris, was transformed by his ideals, which undoubtedly gives him hope that those ideals will live on after him and lead to change.

Jean Valjean pls bring Les amis home too🥺

The REAL reason Les Mis is a great book is because it has the duality of you being able to randomly open it to any page and find the most beautiful-soul-crushing-poetic-timeless-eye-opening sentence ever

but also Victor Hugo consciously chose to make every single character is the lamest most socially inept mess and awkward crazy dork you've ever seen and it's great.

Victor Hugo was really out here introducing 1000 new characters in the back half of the brick and saying "oops sorry guys, here are some new little dudes you're gonna be obsessed with, yeah they're all just kids, yeah, you're gonna love them all, oh yeah also, they're all gonna die, in the same chapter yeah, sorry.."

Today, let me offer you two Éponine sketches...

Which is also the perfect occasion for me to give all of you a big THANK YOU. I had never posted Les Misérables content before, well, a week or so ago, and the feedback is so heartwarming already..! It really motivates me to draw more, both in a way to quench my buzzing hyperfixation, as well as to pay tribute to such a wonderful work of literature and the people who still enjoy it today. So, really, du fond du cœur, merci <3

thinking about eponine saying “i’m the devil but it’s all the same to me” like how did victor hugo casually just write about a deeply traumatized girl believing that so deeply that she is unworthy of most things and evil but still performing small acts of kindness despite her shitty life (watering the flowers) and not become absolutely obsessed w her

mentally I'm in 2012 rn

somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see? | store

wasn't expecting this to become a full work out of that sketch

its crazy to me that in “empty chairs at empty tables” eponine doesnt come out. I know its about the students but she also died at the barricade. I feel like she would stand behind him and try to comfort him to no avail. She tried to comfort marius while she is DYING whats to stop her from doing it in death. Ghosts are canon!!

Happy National Women's Day🥖🌹