WHAT YOU'RE MISSING IF YOU DON'T READ LES MISÉRABLES BY VICTOR HUGO
2nd MARIUS PONTMERCY IS A MOOD
That is actually a really interesting point for one simple reason: the Marius of the mayority of the adaptations (including the musical) is not the same character of the book. AT ALL. Whereas in the adaptations he looked like a young revolutionary who was super invested in social justice and had a super cute unbalanced friendship with Éponine Thénadier, in the book he was a very peculiar lad who was not any of what was said before.
Marius was brought up by his ultra-conservative grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand. That’s not actually a revelation as it is said in most of the adaptations, even in the film of the musical where they just included a mini-scene in the middle of a random demostration. However, Marius wasn’t a liberal boy who believed in the French Revolution (cue to Enjolras shouting “French Revolution!” as an answer to “Who’s there?”) he supported Napoleon. In his first meeting with Les Amis de l'ABC, he was extremely keen on everthing that the Emperor had done. It was actually unconfortable and I pictured all les amis looking at an imaginary camera (as in The Office) asking to themselves what was going on, trying to refrain from laughing or just staring at Courfeyrac like “Why the hell did you bring him here?”
Nevertheless, the situation was repaired by a magnificent Combeferre that replied to Marius, after his speech about how great was the nation of France with Napoleon, that there was a greater thing than conquests, the Empire or the army, “to be free”. Bazinga!!
Leaving aside that embarassing Marius’s moment which proves that he was barely part of the group of Les Amis de l'ABC -that he was there basically because Courfeyrac pulled strings to convince the other members not to kill him everytime he said something-, his character in the book is hillarious. He is very very very stupid and you can’t help but laughing at everything he does. When Marius discovered that his father had been in possesion of a tittle, he wrote up a pile of cards with the words Baron Marius Pontmercy, just because he was that level of extra. What was the purpose of those cards? He didn’t use them during the whole novel, but maybe he thought that one day they might be important, that’s why he ALWAYS carried at least two thousand copies with him. He was also wearing scrappy clothes since he didn’t mind to look like a begar and accepted a work as a translator of German without speaking German.
Marius is usually extra and funny, but when he fell in love with Cosette was even funnier. The way Marius fell in love with Cosette is extraordinary indeed. In the musical they seem to fall in love at first sight. That also happens in the book, but it’s way cringier than in the musical. Marius, who was used to walk and philosophise about life in general around the Luxenbourg Garden, spotted Cossette. He fell head over heels the moment she got careless and let Marius contemplate her garter. That was the turning point of his relationship with Cosette, although at first he believed that her name was Ursula as it was a really exotic and sexual name. He even got obssesed with one of the handkerchief of Monsieur Leblanc (aka Jean Valjean) thinking it was from Ursula. And he bought new clothes too, which was actually good.
Thank God he ended up meeting Cosette since he would have exploded of feelings otherwise. But the fate is a bitch and his beloved Cosette was forced to ship to England with his father, breaking his reationship with Marius -which in the book takes its time, in contrast to their realtionship of the musical- consecuently. The goodbye was horrible, mainly because Cosette was crying her heart out and Marius slamming his head against a tree FOR MORE THAN TWO HOURS.
After that it was time to think, and Marius reached the only possible solution for his problems: he would go to the barricade to die. Excactly!! He didn’t participate for a noble cause like friendship or freedom, he did it to die! Luckily, he changed his mind in the last minute for the letter of Cosette that Eponine handed him in which Cosette revealed her location. That’s another thing, his realtionship with Eponine. While in the adaptations, mainly in the musical, it looked like the two were friends for years and that Cosette stole Marius from Eponine, in the book it was just when Eponine confessed her feelings to Marius that he found out her intentions. He never showed any kind of love for her.
Marius was essentially good but sometimes he was just a dick. I have two proves. The fisrt one is Eponine’s death. Eponine died at the barricade but first, she gave Marius a letter from Cossette and then confessed her feelings. That moment was meant to be sad as fuck, but what happened was that Marius took the letter and forgot about Eponine. I literally see him taking the letter and letting Eponine’s dying body fall into the ground while screaming “Oh my beloved Cossette, get away from me, Eponine!”. The second one is the absolute dick move he did when Jean Valjean told him the thruth about himself and his former life as a convict. As Marius wasn’t completely confortable with the idea of an ex-convict visiting HIS wife every day at HIS house, he left subtle innuendos such as taking out furniture of the room where they used to talk. After some time Jean Valjean connected the dots and went to die to his house, completely alone. Fortunately, Marius realised that Jean Valjean was truly a good man and that he even saved his life, but by the time he tried to rectify his mistake, Monsieur Leblanc aka Monsieur Madeleine aka Jean Valjean was at the verge of dying and All out of love was playing on the background.
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