kids these days who are fans of fall out boy and can just read the lyrics on spotify or whatever. do you know how lucky you are. when i was a lad you listened to an illegally burnt cd, heard a nonsensical string of syllables, and listened to it 100 times until you thought you know what was said. and then you got ahold of an album sleeve with lyrics and read the lyrics. and realise you were absolutely nowhere close.
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physical instrument: this definitely isnt gay to notice but he looks like he works out like he’s got the devil on his back
im posting on a new twitter btw
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@breadvidence recently wrote a great bit of Les Mis meta where they pointed out how Jean Valjean’s “compliments” to Javert in Montreuil-sur-Mer really are just..... conciliatory flattery, and don't reflect his real feelings about Javert at all. And that's a great point, and something I wish more people explored!
Lines like "you are a good man and I esteem you" aren't Jean Valjean's earnest feelings towards Javert. Instead they’re examples of the way Jean Valjean often retreats into excessive deferential politeness to authority as a survival strategy. As I mentioned in another recent post— Jean Valjean is a genuinely kind person, but he’s also someone who often has literally no choice but to act overly polite to authorities/the police, because if he’s not polite enough they might start to find him suspicious. If he doesn't lick their boots enough, they might start investigating him. He's instinctively deferential out of fear of violence. He's flattering out of fear. He's polite "at gunpoint." He's polite to cops the way you're polite to an armed police officer who pulls you over.
And Jean Valjean's polite tranquil behavior towards Javert during Javert's "resignation"— saying things like “you are a good man and I esteem you, I want you to keep your job” and etc etc— is later explicitly confirmed to be at least somewhat of a calculated tactical decision Jean Valjean made out of terror:
He was carried away, at first, by the instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in haste, stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert’s presence, that great danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror, shook off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a warrior picks up his buckler.
I love the phrase "he resumed his calmness as a warrior picks up his buckler"-- it's such a great way of summarizing how Jean Valjean's ability to have polite conversations even when he's breaking down internally has been such a useful defense mechanism for him.
I also love the contrast between the excessively polite way Jean Valjean talks to Javert when he’s acting out of terror/self-preservation….vs the more honest way he talks about Javert when he’s alone during Tempest in a Skull:
“That Javert, who has been annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined me, which had divined me—good God! and which followed me everywhere; that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail: henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has his Jean Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I count for nothing in it!”
It's just extremely funny. The contrast between “you are a good man and I esteem you” vs “that Javert, who has been annoying me so long” <3
The contrast between “you are an honest man” vs “that frightful hunting dog” <3
The contrast between “I want you to keep your job” vs Jean Valjean fantasizing enthusiastically about how hopefully Javert will leave town and never ever annoy him again. <3
It makes the “Punish Me, Monsieur le Maire” stuff even funnier. Jean Valjean is dissociating out of panic and saying whatever polite platitudes he thinks will flatter Javert....but those polite platitudes keep making Javert spiral further into long-winded deranged rants about how he dESPISES this kindness and it enRAGES him, as Jean Valjean just sits there very politely & quietly losing his mind. It’s peak comedy really.
I feel like Jean Valjean’s deeply weird thing with Javert often gets flattened in different directions, when people interpret it. Either Jean Valjean is an all-forgiving all-loving angel who thinks Javert did nothing wrong, and all of his flattery is sincere expressions of admiration—- or Jean Valjean is (like in the BBC version) the kind of violent pitiless person who would angrily order Javert to kill himself. It's rare for writers to get anything resembling the hilariously baffling ambiguous Weirdness of his relationship with Javert in the book.
I think it's because adaptations often don't grasp the idea that a genuinely kind compassionate character can also (underneath it all) still be deeply tormented, broken, and angry-- and that their anger doesn't mean they're any less kind, or any less capable of pity and mercy.
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Where are my Taylor Swift × AFTG fans?
Have we heard Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?
Are we fucking FERAL yet because I am?
The way it made me think of Kevin. Of Neil. Of Jean?!
"You caged me and then you called me crazy
I am what I am 'cause you trained me"?!?!
I'm dead, deceased, gone.
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