Julian!

and for my favorite character: failed suicide attempt and erectile dysfunction

marius is so “oh no! anyway” about eponine confessing her love and then immediately dying that 1862 girlies could have started using “and by the way, monsieur marius, i believe that i was a little bit in love with you” as a preface to announce major geopolitical events

"Write character relationships that are normal" WRONG ☝ CODEPENDENCY BEAM 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

the thing about javert in the book is he’s a coen bros character

like I’m realizing no adaptation has effectively captured what a bizarre creature this man truly is.

every time this man gets sufficiently motivated by something the sinnerman break starts playing and his eyes get a little bit wider. he probably has a weird run. victor hugo just didn’t mention it bc it’s so self-evident.

imagine you’re a generally regular person who has to talk to him. like oh yeah here comes this incredibly imposing guy with the strangest facial hair/regular hair combo you’ve seen in a hot minute with a really stony, intense expression through most of the conversation but then he laughs partway through and he suddenly looks like he’s about to eat you. this lasts about three seconds. you suspect he’s gay. just kind of an ambient feeling. if he’s in a good mood he snorts tobacco off the back of his hand mid-conversation.

i forgot how funny lm 3.8.14 is. javert never referring to marius as monsieur. marius realizing about halfway through the conversation and going >:o . the fact that javert just gives this random guy two guns. the fact that javert is like "oh you didn't happen to see any of these particular guys there, right?" and lists out the most fascinating character descriptions for random guys you could have randomly seen and when marius goes "wait what did i see who?" javert goes "oh nothing haha forget i said anything" . the fact javert waits until the last line to name drop. the weird sexual undertone. the part where javert burns his coat. truly a chapter of all time

That’s because no one sees Marius and thinks “wow! What a competent member of society!”

for real though 💀 javert was so right for that but the immediate disrespect cracks me up

Javert was too busy planning the line he says about his hat

100% true. I eat up every time you get a little spark of humor from either Valjean or Javert - Valjean with the coffin line, Javert with the hat line. A glimpse of who they could have been in a better life

I'm fine, just Victor Hugo parallelling Javert refusing to bend his rigid moral code that the law upholds justice and goodness in his pursuit of Jean Valjean with Sister Simplice actually upholding justice and goodness by willingly sacrificing her moral code of never telling a lie in order to save Jean Valjean- his demonstration that personal values, no matter how well-intended, must sometimes be sacrificed in the name of helping others because every situation is nuanced and requires compassion and consideration for more than your own personal feelings on a matter- his suggestion that following a strict moral code that dichotomizes good and evil into clear and easy categories will inevitably twist you into a weapon against goodness but a willingness to revisit your moral code and adjust it as necessary to individual circumstances will make you a shield against evil- it got to me, ok.