#ldecourfeyrac

[grahamarthurchapman]

ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: If I didn’t spend roughly half of my waking life...

Have intense internal-monologue discussions with fictional characters, maybe? xD

kaiserbund replied to your post: If I didn’t spend roughly half of my waking life...

Have intense, one-sided internal monologues with your original characters? That way you can feel narcissistic at the same time! (I should know, I do it all the time.)

...you have no idea how much it pleases me that the two of you basically said the same thing but rest assured that it really does.

(I have of late been going to extreme lengths to avoid conversations with my Eveline, because ugh haven't I written enough about hysterical hard-drinking Victorians it's been four years Eveline we performed the play twice I wrote fanfiction of my own work good Lord, but conversations with the characters in the novel that as of yesterday I've apparently been intending to write for a year might count as productivity somehow? Fabulous.)

[laissezferre]

ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: i ought to complain that they didn’t let iwan...

You picture Bahorel bald? That’s interesting. I see him with a load of thick hair, that really coarse sort of hair.

I know. It ought to be Bossuet who's bald, but wanton troublemakers = bald for me.

[grahamarthurchapman]

Seb!! You got in!!! I KNEW YOU WOULD THOUGH! (Because, you know, I am clairvoyant and all). But seriously, congratulations! I am so very, very happy for you!

You and your clairvoyance, Sophie, darling. Agnes's talents could never hope to rival yours in that respect. xD Thank you so very much, my love! <3

[lemeute]

ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: alouettesque...

I am sort of pleased with myself that you remember that. But, it really would be tragic. Jehan would definitely be affected by it on a deeper level than some of the others, were he to be the only survivor.

I think you wrote it when you had a list of prompts, and I was the one who asked for Jehan to go with that particular one, whichever it was? But in any case, yes, I remember it well.

I think it's simply part of a poetic nature, really.

[lemeute]

ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: alouettesque replied to your post that is...

Yes, that. Though at the same time, if he'd been the only survivor a la Marius, that would've been almost as heart-crushing. I wrote a oneshot about that a while ago, and realised that if Jehan were the only survivor, he'd never, ever find a way to truly get over it. I mean, I think he’d try. I just don’t think he’d be altogether successful.

I remember that oneshot. It was tragic. I'd never want him to be the only survivor, because that wouldn't be life for him.

[lemeute]

alouettesque replied to your post

that is literally the best description of that feeling.

If the world can kill someone like Jehan, and make him so afraid...what sort of a place is it? Why would I want to look at it?

ldecourfeyrac replied to your post

I was literally just having that exact same moment. Oh gosh, Jehan. I just… of all the Amis, he’s the one I most want to *protect*, you know?

Yes. I know. --Somewhere in my tags, I don't know when or why, I used "Jehan Prouvaire/life" and it prompts me with that every time I tag his name. And I just--oh, how desperately I always want him to live, and live happy. Every single time.

notquitelostnotquitefound replied to your post

I am NEVER going to be over that. It’s going to haunt me forever.

Me too...

[lemeute]

ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: ldecourfeyrac...

That speech… it reminds you that all Combeferre wanted; the whole reason why he was fighting in the first place, was for the peace that would follow. Somewhere in that speech, it’s almost as though he realised that was futile. And you don’t really realise it until much later, but when you do, it’s just… excruciatingly painful. And, bizarrely, it bothers me that you never get to know about the others’ last moments. I feel like there’s no resolution to their stories; their personal journeys.

No, I don't think he ever got a sense of futility while giving that speech. Yes, he paints a bleak picture. But he doesn't want to go. He wants to fight and to change things. He outright says, "I know well that it takes courage to leave, it's difficult; but the more difficult it is, the more praiseworthy." Indicating, I would say, that it would be utterly difficult for him to leave. I'm rereading the text...and I just don't see a realization of futility anywhere. They know they're going to die, of course, but nothing in his words indicates that he thinks that death would be useless.

Although sadly, the peace didn't come for a long time, and he certainly didn't ever get to see it.

And yes, I hate that we don't get proper resolution for all of them! We have the deaths of Bahorel, Jehan, Combeferre, Enjolras, and Grantaire described, but the other four--Bossuet, Joly, Courfeyrac, and Feuilly--all get wiped away in a sentence. It reflects the chaos and brutality of it all well, but it would still be good to know.

[lemeute]

ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: ldecourfeyrac replied to your post: ldecourfeyrac...

Yes! Combeferre’s death is heartbreaking in a different way to Jehan’s, for me. In my first reading of Les Mis, I was more shocked by Jehan’s death, and it always gives me that little pang of awful surprise even now, when I know it’s coming. But Combeferre’s death just made me feel… I don’t know, melancholy, maybe? It was touched on only so briefly, and I almost felt as though Hugo “left him behind” and moved on to describing other things too soon.

I agree that it's a different feeling--but I do think you only get the full impact if you take it in context of his extended speech convincing the fathers/supporters of families to leave the barricade. Trying to keep others from the less-than-sublime aspects of their martyrdom. And he's just so passionate about it that you can tell he bears this deep-seated hatred for death itself. It's such a doctor thing, and so is his last action. It's as if in dying, he's still fighting death itself.

Hugo did move on very fast sigh--only half a sentence, but it's at least more than others get.