Javert Logic:

He added, after a pause: “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”

Les Misérables, Volume I / Book V / Chapter III, trans. Hapgood

“…Progress has no time to lose.”

Post Seine

would anyone like for me to ramble about how enjolras and grantaire are performing masculinity in opposite ways, with enjolras being a stereotypical "pretty boy" while grantaire is the more rugged, masculine, drunk type of typical man.

that could hint at their upbringing, with enjolras's being very obviously bourgeois, while grantaire's allows more leeway. a strong, ugly alcoholic can be found in all social classes with varying amounts, but beautiful intellectuals are usually a higher class staple.

and, to say more on the performance of masculinity thing, i would argue that both enjolras and grantaire subvert their respective stereotypes in their own ways.

enjolras rejects his wealth and works for the people, but even more importantly (in discussing gender roles), he is very much not interested in women. and not in a marius way, a way virginal and messy, but still generally heterosexual. no, enjolras devotes himself to his patria, trampling over societal expectations in the process.

i will not be touching on things such as enjolras shedding a tear over killing the artillery officer or other ways he expresses emotions, as 19th century france is still a time in which emotions were yet to be a taboo for men. and they're maybe-possibly a saint just reference.

grantaire's biggest act of defying gender roles and his stereotype is, quite clearly, his adoration of enjolras. even, if one argues against it being love (and i do believe grantaire loves enjolras, as unhealthy at most points in the brick that love is), there is no denying that such deep infatuation with a man, and not his ideals or anything, is not standard in 19th century france.

plus, to mark a thought, grantaire also makes quite a lousy nihilist. in his brick introduction, he is specifically stated not to care for ideas or himself, but to care for his friends. "his mind could live without ideals, but his heart could not live without friendship". so even presenting as a guy that does not believe in anything, grantaire fails, because he loves his friends and believes in enjolras.

Why does Enj look like a father scolding his kid ??? 😭😭

Damn, Marius, you said you would study for your math exam!! Where you playing Minecraft instead??!! 😠

les mis enjoltaire fans will find the worst, grainiest, blinded by stage lights, most corrupted 30 seconds of bootleg on the world wide web and go "THEY HELD HANDS HEREEE"

father daughter nose boops part 2 🥲

🎥 @medium-observation

eponine thenardier they could never make me hate you

ok, little rant about a use of a leitmotif in les mis that i think has slipped under most people's radars!

so you the know the police leitmotif? the "tell me quickly what's the story/who saw what and why and where/let him give a full description/let him answer to javert!" tune that appears whenever somebody gets arrested?

now turn your ear to javert's suicide, specifically the "i am reaching but i fall/and the stars are black and cold" part. it took me a while to notice, but this whole section of the song is just a snippet of the arrest leitmotif:

but he never completes it. the snippet repeats and repeats. try as he might, he finds himself unable to sing the same old song of Justice and Law and Righteousness and Order. he's like a jammed cassette player spitting out the same second of music over and over and over and over again, unable to follow his old ways, but unable to let them go. he's stuck, but he will keep throwing himself against the walls of the cage.

javert is desperately trying to run on his old tracks of thought, but, as vicky h puts it, he experiences "the derailment of a soul, the shattering of an integrity irresistibly propelled in a straight line and dashed against God".

: )

the big three questions of media analysis: what the author wanted to say, what they actually said, and what they didn’t know they were saying