Inspector Javert is canonically a furry (not joking, not clickbait)
Inspector Javert from Les Miserables is canonically a furry and I’m not joking even a little. His fursona is extremely symbolically important, and you need to understand it to understand the book. I’m serious, let me explain. (You can also view this post in Video Essay format at this link.)
In the novel, Javert is always compared to a dog– but specifically, a dog who is the son of wolves. I’ll explain why in a minute. But the important thing is that Victor Hugo emphasizes this dog metaphor literally every time Javert is on page. I can’t overstate how much Hugo compares Javert to a dog at literally every single opportunity.
It’s the first thing we learn about him when he’s introduced;
he’s described as looking like a dog:
other characters compare him to a dog,
there are chapter-long extended metaphors comparing the way Javert hunts criminals to the way hunting dogs pursue their prey.
His sideburns are described as whiskers, his hands are described as claws, he’s always barking, snarling, and growling. Any time Hugo sees an opportunity to compare Javert to a dog, or to have Javert act dog-like: he takes it.
Javert:
Let’s look at Javert’s first appearance in the novel. So when Victor Hugo first introduces Javert in Volume 1, he’s literally like “so this guy name was Javert and– wait, back up, I need to explain the concept of fursonas.”
Then Hugo interrupts Javert’s introduction with a multi-paragraph digression about how everyone has an animal that symbolizes their soul. And that animal is unique for each person. Sometimes people just are an anthropomorphic animal.
It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal creation; and we could easily recognize this truth, hardly perceived by the thinker, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the tiger, all animals exist in man, and that each one of them is in a man. (...)
And he goes on for a while, but if you know what a furry is, you already understand what he’s getting at. After explaining furries, Hugo goes on to explain Javert’s symbolically important fursona. Quote:
“Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us to say what there was in Police Officer Javert.
The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as he grew up, he would devour the other little ones.
Give to this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be Javert.”
So Javert is a dog who is the son of wolves. He is a wolf that has become domesticated– and is now a hunting dog, serving humans, devouring his wild wolf siblings. (That’s an edgy emo DeviantArt sparkledog backstory if I’ve ever heard one.)
But what does that symbolic backstory mean? It means that Javert is what the kids call “a class traitor.”
In the next part of his introduction, Hugo elaborates that Javert was born inside of a jail, the son of an imprisoned mother and a galley slave father. He was born into the same traumatizing poverty, stigma, and intense criminalization as characters like Jean Valjean. In fact, Jean Valjean himself is often compared to a “wolf”-- because in the novel, wolves are often used to symbolize criminals, outcasts, and the people who society oppresses and treats like monsters.
But unlike Jean Valjean, Javert turns his back on his ‘wolf siblings.” He turns his back on people from his class. He domesticates himself– by becoming a lowranking police officer, and enforcing the same system that imprisoned his family and destroyed his life.
He rigorously defends a hierarchy that he is at the bottom of. He serves an authority that views him as subhuman, like a dog defending its masters. Society will never treat him as an equal, and Javert knows this–- but society tolerates him because he is useful, because he hunts down the wolves. Javert would arrest his entire family to please authority, and he would do it with no other feeling except for the pleasure of obedience. He’s a dog, happy to devour his criminal wolf siblings.
And the reason Victor Hugo goes so overboard with the canine imagery is to emphasize how much the metaphor is the key to his entire character and how he interacts with other people from his own class.
And recognizing that metaphor really deepens your understanding of the novel. For example, it’s one of the many ways that Javert parallels Eponine– another character who describes herself as a dog from a family of wolves.
The dog imagery also has layers of meaning that change over time. For example: in the original book, Javert is not obsessed with Jean Valjean. The idea that “Javert makes it his life goal to catch Jean Valjean and spends all his time pursuing him out a personal revenge quest” is actually something that adaptations invented– largely as a way to avoid engaging with Victor Hugo’s systemic criticisms of the police. [rant redacted.] In the original book, Javert follows up on Jean Valjean whenever he coincidentally happens to pick up his scent– and yes it’s described that way, as picking up his scent, because he’s a dog. Otherwise Jean Valjean isn’t really a person to him, he’s just an extremely difficult piece of prey. There's nuance, there are things that specifically stick out to him and frustrate him in a unique way, mainly the way that Jean Valjean is able to camouflage himself so well as a bourgeois. But overall-- no, he's not making a Sacred Promise to dedicate his life to finding him. Quote:
But after Jean Valjean saves his life, that changes. Javert suddenly develops deep intense wildly overcomplicated emotions for him, emotions that are described using the metaphors of dogs and wolves. The scene after they reunite, when Javert lets Jean Valjean go, is described like this:
“He felt something between a wolf that has found its prey and a dog that has found its master again.” (...)
“To be the watch-dog, and to lick the intruder's hand!” (....)
“He was tempted to fling himself upon Jean Valjean, seize him, and devour him– that is, to say, arrest him.”
{insert vore joke.]
In a previous chapter he boasted about how his hands were claws:
In this chapter, he views his clawed hands with disgust and self-loathing.
But here’s the thing: it’s more than just a symbolic metaphor in the narration. The characters in the novel often seem to be aware that Javert is a dog. Like, Jean Valjean has that whole inner monologue about how Javert is quote a “frightful hunting dog.” Javert describes his own hands as claws and thinks about himself in dog metaphors. When he’s being executed at the barricades, the rebels tie a rope around his neck to use as a leash. There's a bit where Javert's eyes are described as having "the feline phosphoresence of birds of the night," as if he literally has tapeta lucidum. Javert also canonically wears a leather collar with a buckle— which I don’t think is supposed to be related to the dog thing, but it FEELS related. And I’m gonna be honest: I don’t know what to do with that. But Ao3 does.
And in a very different way: so does Takahiro Arai, the creator of a recent Les Mis manga adaptation. Arai draws Javert’s soul as a massive frightening wolfdog, that emerges to symbolize his emotional state in critical parts of the story. And it shows how understanding the deeper meaning of this imagery leads to a more complete understanding of Javert’s character.
Thank you for reading! I feel like Javert being a furry is a Known Thing on Tumblr, but it’s gotten to the point where everybody takes it for granted. And so: a post was necessary, to archive the lore.
[But if you want even more furry Javert content, I recommend joining the @lesmisletters readalong! Les Mis has 365 chapters, and this email subscription sends you one chapter a day for a year. We also have a discord server linked in the pinned post on our tumblr blog! It’s never too late to join. ]
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