10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 (for the development meme)
10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?
Street smart? Not at all, considering how sheltered his early life was. He’s trying to learn, but just. No.
Book smart, intelligent, intellectual all packaged together would be a yes. He takes his studies seriously, learned 2 new languages very quickly, and has no trouble as a law student. As a kid he was very interested in his schooling because there was little else of interest for him to do in the house.
Slow-witted… also yes, in a way. Though intelligent, his social skills and sensory processing are a little slow. I’ve kind of talked about this at length, but yeah, social cues are just really hard for Marius. He also doesn’t have problem hearing or anything but in a really stimulating environment it can take a while for him to respond to something, suggesting “slow-wittedness” but not actually caused by it.
20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national or international, events that they experienced?
Though not l witnessed in person exactly, Napoleon has this sort of influence on Marius’s life. He practically worships the guy because of how his father fought for Napoleon. So like, actually he feels like he knows the guy and everything he ever did for France on a personal level.
He met the king once with his grandfather and hated him.
Also though what the ABC Society is doing right now is something that he feels is very important and will bring change to France. So he is drawn to/intrigued by what they are doing even though his political opinions conflict with them.
30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive?
Marius doesn’t think he will ever forgive his grandfather- and his entire family as an extension of that- for lying to him about his father. And he will never forgive himself for believing the lies which caused him to not meet his father until he had already died. His subconscious deals with it by the excessive hero-worshippy way he still regards him.
40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one?
Nobody really understands his sense of humor. All of Marius’s jokes are either puns from other languages or really bad dad jokes. He laughs at his own jokes though which is awkward for everyone around him but luckily he doesn’t care.
50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?
Marius always has a really goofy grin on his face because he’s thinking about something randomly amusing (”Wow! That lettuce I just saw was shaped kind of like Prouvaire’s face!”) or happy (”Cosette is just so pretty!”) and even when he has a bad day, which happens fairly often, he still has a lot of practice with the smile- he heard somewhere that smiling when you’re sad helps to lighten your mood. So that’s what he always tries to do.