#louison

The girls of les mis are honestly so dear to me so I just had to show my designs for them all

Ignore the awful quality but my tablet literally decided to purge like all my art and this survived so i figured it was a sign I should actually start posting

I get this sense that in the les mis Fandom there's this weird refusal to examine sexism on the parts of les amis (apart from Grantaire but I'll get to that). and this is my instinct as well because chauvinism isn't a... Pleasant quality to imagine your heroes with but this "whitewashing" does bother me slightly so I'm going to talk about it.

First Les Amis as a whole are very deliberately a male only organisation. This is a choice they all made even Combeferre, the same Combeferre who made that beautiful barricade speech. We can't get away from that.

Now Grantaire, oh, Grantaire: the only Amis who is inarguably sexist. He's slut shames, objectifies, harasses and just at one point he just straight up calls women evil(although it being Grantaire I'm less inclined to think any of this is a specific hatred for women. He turns his bitterness at life on everyone including himself and his sexism is by no means an outlier given the time period so it is not surprising his negativity towards women is couched in misogynistic terms). On the flipside to this he also can be very sympathetic to women although this is expressed in that paternalistic way that is in of itself sexist. People are usually pretty good at acknowledging this which I appreciate but are things that I don't see talked about in relation to Grantaires more overt sexism.

First off they way his friends treat his sexism: they don't. Grantaire's sexism does not exist in a vacuum. There is this idea that his friends disapprove of his more negative qualities with the assumption that sexism is included in this. And sure maybe they do but they never actually challenge him on this. You could argue(and I've seen it argued) that Bossuet and Courfeyrac attempt to defend women from Grantaire, thereby being anti-sexist, to which I say, um, kinda? You could argue that, but it's not textual, Bossuet wants to concentrate on his lawyer discourse and tells Grantaire to shut it but he does not admonish Grantaire grabbing/reaching for Louison at all. Only the placement of Bossuets rebuke implies this but none of the focus is on Louison. Then with later Courfeyrac a near identical thing happens: Grantaire is told off for being noisy and disturbing the atmosphere of the barricade, not for his treatment of women.

Why wouldn't they say anything if they thought it was a problem? Are his friends moral cowards? Well... Given that they're prepared to die for their beliefs I wouldn't say so. The somewhat unfortunate implication of this is that none of Grantaire's friends see anything particularly wrong with his behaviour towards women. If they did they would have put a stop it or simply dropped Grantaire.

It's not enough for men to just personally be nice to women if they cultivate an environment where sexism is normalised. To point out Grantaire as the one "bad guy who is sexist" whilst ignoring that fact that his friends are at the very least complicit in his behaviour really only serves to appease our modern views.

We could take the stance that Grantaire in general doesn't behave that badly towards women and that point of view is supported to an extent because we know that he has at least one female friend who is comfortable enough with him to tell him about her fling with a banker immediately after meeting Grantaire on the street. This makes his friends indifference less awful. It is also my opinion, Grantaire is self-absorbed not hateful. However this does not mean either Grantaire or the rest of Les Amis are not sexist. They are.

After all Courfeyrac judged and then dismissed a then 14 year old Cosette, not on the basis of her age but because of her looks. Initially women are almost completely unimportant in Enjolras worldview.

Grantaire's sexism is easy to confront because he is intended as a deeply flawed character; his friends less so.

(Another note on Grantaires harassment of women. Hugo doesn't give them a reaction to his harassment. This both makes it very difficult to judge the severity of his actions and is also absolutely baffling because earlier we were shown the full negative effect that a man harassing a women who is just going about her day can have ie. Fantine's harassment/arrest. Louison literally disappears after Bossuet starts talking come on Hugo you have shown you can do better than this)

Suzanne Valadon (Française, 1865-1938), Louison et Raminou, 1920

Huile sur toile, 61x 50,5 cm

Louison was waiting for Jehan in the living room. She had her eyes lost on the horizon outside the main window, deep into the woods. 

“Do you feel anything strange today?” He asked her while pouring some tea in a cup for her. 

Louison’s particular kind of emphatic powers meant that she was the guardian of the Musain’s Covenant’s territories. Her duties were to keep the borders safe and to grant access to whomever the Covenant thought was worthy of it. If someone had entered the forest without their permission she was the one who could find out.

“The dead talked to me last night. They told me to be careful because danger was coming from the north,” she answered thoughtfully accepting the cup of tea her friend was offering her. 

“Well, this is not reassuring. There is something strange wandering around the woods today, all the forest is talking about it. I can even hear the wind whispering which is not a good sign as you know.”  

At those words, Louison’s eyes suddenly moved towards Jehan, she had an almost offended expression on her face.

“Are you suggesting that someone had entered the Musain’s territory without my permission? No one would even dare to do something like that, it would go against every existing witches’ rule.” 

“I’m not saying that. I was just noticing that there is something weird going on and that, maybe, you could be so kind as to check on that, to reassure me, you know,” Jehan explained with an innocent look and took a sip from his cup.

“You are ridiculous,” Louison commented with an unimpressed expression. “It’ll probably be just a storm brewing, those trees of yours always get so nervous every time there is one.”  

“Could you just check for me, Louise?” Jehan insisted with pleading eyes and Louison sighed but complied: she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, Jehan could feel her soul expanding and occupying the room, then the house, then the garden and then the whole forest, it was inebriating witnessing that kind of magic and Jehan would have never felt tired of it.

Louison had gone for a handful of seconds before her soul shrank back inside her body, he could pinpoint the exact moment it happened. 

“So?” He pressed expectantly. 

She remained silent for a couple more moments before sighing again and looking him in the eyes.

“I hate when you’re right,” she simply said and Jehan felt the blood leaving his face. 

Part three of my magic!AU where all the Les Amis (plus some friends) have different kinds of magic.

Delicatessen (1991) - dir.  Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Students.

I thought about this a lot, and this is how I think the sorting hat would sort the young generation of the Les Miserables characters.

Slytherin

Enjolras

Grantaire

Montparnasse

Éponine Thenardier

Azelma Thenardier

I wanted to create a toxic atmosphere at Slytherin (not hating, I’m also a Slytherin, but it fits well with what was given in the HP books), and Enjolras being the lost soul there, spending most of his free time alone, thinking about ways he could change the world, while pretty-boy/bad-boy Montparnasse flirts with Éponine, who doesn’t really enjoy it, but had an abusive childhood, so she can’t reject his advances. I like to imagine that the Thénardier family is a long line of pure-blood Slytherins, that’s why Azelma is here. Enjolras, Montparnasse and Éponine are usually depicted as Slytherins by the fandom so I don’t think I have to point out why. Grantaire, on the other hand, from what I’ve seen is frequently put into Ravenclaw by fellow fans, but I feel like he belongs here, as Ravenclaws like learning new things, but R only cares for his own, already stable opinion. Also Ravenclaws are (according to Pottermore) sharp and individual, and R is not that sharp (I mean his rants are a bit out-there), nor is he an individual, as he cares so much for what Enjolras does and he goes along with it beyond reason (at least beyond his own reasoning). Instead he is prideful (takes it very seriously when he’s being overlooked) and determined (”You’ll see!”) as a Slytherin should be. Bonus points for this that he is in the same house as Enjolras and he probably wants to know his plans all the time, and won’t stop bothering him. :)

Ravenclaw

Combeferre

Joly

Feuilly

Musichetta

Louison

Combeferre is the Guide and a bookworm, it’s a given he’s here. A fan of medical studies such as Joly doesn’t really need explaining, Feuilly absolutely loves learning, he self-taught himself how to read! Musichetta, I wanted her to be in the same house as Joly, and also seems like she fits the sharp individual type, even if she’s artistic, a bit like Luna Lovegood. Finally, Louison was like the only woman in the book who listened to politics, she deserves this spot.

Hufflepuff

Courfeyrac

Lesgles

Marius Pontmercy

Chowder

Fricassée

Courfeyrac and Lesgles are the two funnest persons to be around, absolute jokesters, and they are clearly honest, hard-working and accepting, so that fits the Hufflepuff ideal. Marius is one I’ve seen everywhere (except maybe Slytherin) but him in Gryffindor just doesn’t make sense, remember how he didn’t have the guts to talk to Cosette, and he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed either. He’s good qualities include being all about fair-play, being patient and loyal, and that’s what the Hufflepuff spirit is about. Bonus points for him being in the same house as Courfeyrac and Bossuet, his best friend and his first friend in the brick. Chowder seems like being able to take a joke and positively accept her fate, like Bossuet and Courfeyrac, and Fricassée is kind of a shrinking violet who will need her friends’ help to get out of her shell, a lot like Marius.

Gryffindor

Cosette Fauchelevent

Bahorel

Jean Prouvaire

Gavroche Thenardier

Floréal

Irma Boissy

Cosette is like the Harry Potter equivalent, the distaff counterpart of the boy who lived, Floréal is the perfect foil for her, as she is that spoiled alpha b.tch (who deep down actually has a heart of gold) (like Rose from the Cursed Child) to round out Cosette’s innocent personality. All we really learn from the book about Irma is that she’s sassy, but that’s enough for us, since Gryffindor is the house of sass, as evidenced by all characters who were Gryffindors. Gavroche is a bit like Sirius, coming from a family of Slytherins, expecting to be there too, and than everyone is surprised. He doesn’t mind, he’s all for adventures and he kinda likes that his big sisters can’t monitor him all the time. Jehan is kinda the Neville of this story (Yeah, I noticed this section has a lot of HP comparisons, just roll with it), a wimp who seems like he’s a bit timid, but when given the chance, he shows how brave he really is, when opposing great threats. Bahorel low-key has my favorite story of all of them. He’s a heroic popular jock athlete, who thinks everyone at Gryffindor will be just like him, and is very excited to get sorted into the house of his dreams, only to find out that his housemates are either self-centered and self-righteous or weaklings who write poems. Disappointed at first, but then decides that it’s his job to see and bring out the best in everyone, so he keeps on showing off his sportsmanship and team-spirit to influence them, and as they develop, Bahorel couldn’t be happier. Especially about Jehan, whom he successfully gets into the Quidditch team, and a bromance like no other forms between them.