#les miserable

[theres-rue-for-you]

The tense relationship between a girl and the unread 1200 page book her favorite musical is based on

[permetutotheworld]

Enjoltaire?

[bougiebutchbinch]

the weak: autistic javert interpretations are ableist

the enlightened: autistic javert interpretations are a much-needed reminder that the absolutist sense of righteousness and justice that we can have does not automatically make us morally correct. It just means we are far more susceptible to black-and-white thinking.

[heartbreakterrorbird]

I also want to say that I think a big part of valvert working is Javert's backstory being revealed. How can Jean Valjean look at Javert with judgement in his heart when he, an adult, almost committed murder due to the trauma of being in prison? How can any of us have compassion for Jean Valjean on the basis of his suffering in prison and NOT reflect on that fact that Javert experienced, no doubt, all of that as a young child: the most vulnerable time in his life and during his earliest development.

We talk all the time about mental health and unpacking traumas garnered from childhood but that is a modern benefit we have from being educated on our own well-being. I doubt that the majority of us could begin to comprehend the trauma of literally being born and raised in a prison during a time period where you are considered almost subhuman by nature of your birth.

Javert stood no chance in life, there was no opportunity for him, he did the best he could to survive psychologically and physically in an intolerable existence of poverty, self-loathing, political and social oppression, and an utter absence of faith. Did he do bad things? Yes, by OUR standards but not by the majority of the people of the time which is why Hugo had him do them so he could put across his point of view on the general consensus.

Javert is a tragic figure, a man genuinely trying to do the right thing, despite being pathetic and wretched in every fashion, and in the end being told it was all for nothing.

[unlikeable-female-character]

Stunning pics of Hugh performing Valjean’s Soliloquy from the weekend. The emotion!

Thanks to JackmansLanding on Instagram etc for such amazing pictures

[sansa-stark-is-me]

Dunk & Egg and Les Misérables are both stories about how power crushes people quietly, not just through villains, how law ≠ justice and how goodness survives despite systems, not because of them.

Dunk is basically a Victor Hugo protagonist dropped into Westeros. He’s big, poor, uneducated, constantly afraid of doing the wrong thing but his moral compass is instinctive. He doesn’t know the law, heraldry, or politics, but he knows when something is wrong, and he acts anyway, even when it costs him everything.

Like Jean Valjean, Dunk is defined by mercy rather than ambition, repeatedly punished for trying to do the right thing and a walking indictment of the system just by existing. And Egg is the revolutionary lens the child who should inherit power but is forced to see what power actually does to people when you’re small and hungry. That’s why Aegon V becomes the only Targaryen who genuinely tries to reform the realm: he lived it.

Just like Hugo, GRRM isn’t romanticizing the poor. The smallfolk aren’t saints. They’re tired, cruel sometimes, kind sometimes, desperate often. But the point is the same: suffering is structural. The villain is not one bad lord it’s the hierarchy itself. That’s why Dunk & Egg feel so different from Fire & Blood or HotD. They’re not about who “deserves” power. They’re about what power does.

[hesmiledlikeaweatherman-art]