Things that actually happen in hunchback of notre dame, in no particular order
The book mostly is told from the POV of Pierre, a self-insert who is failed author and, I cannot stress this enough, utterly pathetic
Quasimodo damaged his hearing as a teenager from years of bell ringing and now uses sign language whenever he can
There is a scene where Quasimodo and a fellow deaf guy have to have a conversation without using sign language because they’re in a courtroom and the jury doesn’t know sign. It goes about as well as you’d expect
Frollo has a little brother, Jehan, who he raised after their parents died. Jehan is now a frat bro in college whose hobbies consist of getting drunk and being mean to Quasimodo. In his first scene Jehan complains about college DEI because an Italian guy got a scholarship he wanted.
Esmeralda is accused of witchcraft because she taught her pet goat Djali how to do math
Djali may or may not be sapient. He can and does imitate human mannerisms to make fun of people on purpose. He does this while on trial.
Yes. They tried the goat for witchcraft, too.
Pierre writes a whole play riding on the pun of dolphin/Dauphin. Nobody likes it.
Frollo is an alchemist and has a secret mad science lab where he writes on the walls
Jehan literally pulls a “buy my silence” and frollo gives him money to make him shut up
There’s a trio of catty girls who bully Esmeralda like it’s Mean Girls
Quasimodo and Frollo literally have Cryptid Status— Parisians circulate rumors that Quasimodo is either a familiar, a homunculus, or the result of demonic mpreg, and that Frollo is a wizard with wizard powers and/or a ghost
There is a little old woman who lives in a hole and shouts slurs at people. She has a tragic backstory.
There is a homicidal con man/king of thieves named Clopin Troillefou (surname translation: The Fool of Fear) who deserves tumblr sexymanhood.
Pierre learns how to carry chairs with his teeth
There’s an entire chapter dedicated to the layout of the streets of Paris in painstaking detail
There’s another chapter that is a rant about interior design
Esmeralda and Pierre get platonically married due to Clopin’s murderous shenanigans. Pierre tries to make a move in her but ends up being more emotionally attached to Djali the goat than to her. I think that should be grounds for divorce
There is a scene where Pierre has to choose between helping Esmeralda escape or helping Djali. He picks Djali.
Frollo hides from his own brother by laying face down in mud and playing dead. Somehow this works
There is a Plot Significant Tiny Shoe. A Tiny Shoe Chekhov’s Gun. And Victor Hugo will not stop telling you just how Tiny this shoe is.
There’s a soap opera style plot twist that involves a false accusation of cannibalism and the woman in the hole who shouts slurs
Quasimodo makes up a stupid little song that doesn’t even rhyme to confess his love to Esmeralda, who remains oblivious
He then attempts to demonstrate his affection via convoluted metaphors that involve props. She doesn’t get it. Boy please say what you mean
Frollo pulls the classic discord groomer tactic of threatening self-harm if Esmeralda doesn’t give in.
Jehan rolls up to a party/rescue mission scheming session in Clopin’s secret hideout in full plate armor (how did he get that???), drunk off his ass, and acts like he owns the place. Everyone finds this so ridiculous that they just let him
Hugo goes on and on about how innocent and naive Esmeralda is but then casually reveals that Esmeralda carries a dagger on her person at all times to fend off assault. When Frollo attacks her and Quasi intervenes, she takes Quasi’s knife and almost kills Frollo (fair!) but he flees. She contains multitudes?
Frollo has a psychotic breakdown in the middle of a field surrounded by chickens and hallucinates skeletons everywhere
For the first half of the book Esmeralda is like 70% sure Frollo is a ghost, not helped by his aforementioned Cryptid Status
Jehan eats a moldy piece of cheese off the ground
Frollo tries to send Pierre on a suicide mission in drag. Pierre objects to the suicide part but not the drag part
Clopin’s preferred weapon is a scythe, he’s very good at using it, and he sings when he fights. Again: sexyman potential.
Victor Hugo has a foot fetish. I initially dismissed it as Frollo having a foot fetish until Victor Hugo included a foot fetish torture scene without any Frollo in it. So I can only conclude that the foot fetish is authorial in nature. Unfortunately the foot scenes are important to the plot.
Frollo is canonically 36, he just aged like shit and is bald. The narrator will not stop telling you just how bald he is.
Despite being in full plate armor, Jehan gets splatted like a bug
Almost every named character dies. Djali the goat lives.
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