#lm enjolras
One important thing about Les Mis that I feel a lot of people miss is that…… Javert is not the novel’s symbol of justice. Enjolrasis.
Javert represents authority, which is often cruel and unjust. Enjolras represents actual justice, social justice, he represents the laws of conscience/love that are superior to the flawed and bigoted laws of mankind (which is why he’s literally compared to Themis, the goddess of justice.)
Lots of adaptations write Javert as someone who cares about making society better and protecting the innocent, but he isn’t and he doesn’t??? Javert cares about authority.His entire personality is built on “respect for authority and hatred of rebellion.”
Javert doesn’t care about “having compassion or making tough decisions to protect people;” he cares about submitting to authority at all times. The government is right because it is the government. Any crime or rebellion is wrong because it is against the government. Anyone who is treated badly by the government deserves to be treated badly, because authority is always right. Rich people are always morally superior to poor people, and the outcasts of society deserve to be beaten down because they are outcasts – and the thing that’s tragic about his horrible violent mentality is that he is a part of the same class of outcasts he’s beating down, and doesn’t value the lives of other people because he doesn’t value his own.
If mercy is kindness you don’t deserve, while justice is the treatment you do deserve– then Javert isn’t just merciless, he’s unjust.He can’t be a symbol of justice because all he cares about is blindly obeying authority and calling that “justice.” Sending Valjean to prison for stealing a loaf of bread and a coin isn’t just merciless, it’s unjust. Tormenting Fantine until her death for acting in self-defense isn’t just merciless, it’s unjust. They didn’t deserve what he did to them, and the only reason he can believe it’s right is because he canonically Refuses to Think about it– because he’s literally so Brainwashed by authority as a result of his tragic past that he believes any independent thought is a form of rebellion that must be suppressed.
Thought was something to which he was unused, and which was peculiarly painful. In thought there always exists a certain amount of internal rebellion; and it irritated him to have that within him.Enjolras, meanwhile, actually cares about helping people and creating a better world. Enjolras cares about uplifting the people around him, he cares about giving people the help and the support that they deserve. He wants the world to be free. The goal of the rebels is to replace the monarchy, a dictatorship, with a republic where people can vote for their leaders. They want to eliminate poverty, fight for universal education, and give people the dignity they’re entitled to.
Meanwhile Javert is a tragically brainwashed authoritarian whose only goal is to punish anyone who doesn’t keep their head low enough– including punishing himself. He’s motivated entirely by fear and hatred; the hatred of people like Valjean and Fantine, and the fear that he’ll become like them. (Javert cares so little about protecting people that it’s a plot point multiple times that he’s so busy Punishing the perpetrator of a crime that he doesn’t talk to the victim at all. He respects authority, but he doesn’t love it, and doesn’t care about protecting people. He only cares about punishing the people who the government has told him to hate.)
I guess the thing is: adaptations are in love with the idea that Valjean represents mercy while Javert represents justice. But I feel like Enjolras is a much better counterpoint to Valjean’s philosophy than Javert.
Valjean and Enjolras are like:
Valjean: I think that it’s important to focus on mercy above justice.Enjolras: But we can’t have forgiveness until we’ve had accountability. I agonize over every decision I make, but sometimes there is absolutely no way to create a better world without causing harm to the people who are currently abusing their power to hurt us. True justice can only come when the people in power are making reparations.While Valjean and Javert are like:
Valjean:I think that it’s important to focus on mercy above justice
Javert: You THINK about things??? Even when the government hasn’t ORDERED you to think????Valjean: uhJavert: *rocking back and forth in the fetal position covering his ears with his hands* The government does all the thinking for us, so we don’t have to!! Anyone who has their own thoughts is a rebel who should be shot. The State says that poor people are bad and deserve to suffer! Disagreeing with the government makes you a rebel!!!!!! Having thoughts of your own makes you a rebel! Any “kindness” that goes against the orders of the state is FALSE KINDNESS that will turn the world inside out!!!!!!! Supporting poor people against rich people, the people who are low in the world against the people who are high– that is FALSE KINDNESS!!!!! Real justice is when you shut off your brain, accept your place, and blindly obey the government without thinking!!!Valjean: hmm
Fifth and final (for now) sequel ficlet to All Shall Return to Light, my AU fic in which Enjolras is a girl and a vampire slayer and Combeferre is her Watcher. Links to the first four below:
i.Farouche (in which they encounter Werewolf!Fantine)
ii.Turning (in which Fantine learns they know Cosette)
iii.Reunion (in which Fantine and Cosette reunite)
iv.Planning the Storm (in which they plan their attack on the person who was holding Fantine prisoner)
v. Purity
The unicorn was the difficulty.
Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Bahorel had smoothly liberated Gilbert’s prisoners as soon as he was alone in his house. They had subdued him and freed the werewolf, the fairy, and the talking raven. They’d staked the vampire, who had tried to eat Courfeyrac upon his release from the cage. Combeferre had appropriated all the curious magical plants with unconcealed glee, putting them into a large leather bag.
But the unicorn was flaring his nostrils, and lowering his head to point his horn directly at the chests of the four friends. They couldn’t let him out without getting gored.
“How do we soothe a unicorn?” Courfeyrac hissed, at Combeferre. “Aren’t you the expert on these things?”
“What things? Unicorns and how to soothe them? Why would you think that?”
“You talk like you’re the expert on everything. Why not unicorns?”
“They’re supposed to be tamable by virgins,” Bahorel said, with a glance at Enjolras. “Medieval stories are full of virgins betraying the poor trusting beasts to packs of hunters.”
“I could try,” Enjolras said, with a total lack of self-consciousness. She approached the unicorn and stretched a tentative hand into the cage. The unicorn snarled and snapped his teeth. Enjolras hastily withdrew her hand.
“Either someone has been up to mischief, in which case she needs to tell us all about it—” Here Bahorel punched Enjolras lightly on the shoulder. “—or else the virgin theory is a bust. What now?”
“The myth about the virgin is, at its core, about purity,” said Combeferre, musing aloud. “Perhaps the reality isn’t about sexual innocence but about some inner purity, a purity of the soul. Perhaps it’s an absence of moral compromise.”
Bahorel shrugged. “I don’t feel compromised. Perhaps I will be the medieval virgin.” He sauntered up to the unicorn and attempted to pet him; the unicorn’s flashing teeth made him desist immediately. “Well, so much for that.” Courfeyrac and Combeferre tried in turn and were promptly rejected as well.
“Cosette!” Suddenly, Combeferre knew how they would manage this. “What could be more innocent than a child? Courfeyrac, can you run back to their apartment and have Fantine bring her here?”
It took Courfeyrac nearly an hour to go to Valjean’s apartment and come back. It was a tense wait for Combeferre, who eyed the unicorn vigilantly the entire time. Enjolras, for her part, seemed entirely serene. Bahorel stretched out on Gilbert’s comfortable velvet sofa and helped himself to their reluctant (and restrained) host’s supply of bonbons.
When Courfeyrac rushed in, trailing Cosette, it was Valjean and not Fantine who accompanied her. “Fantine was at the market,” Courfeyrac explained.
Cosette hung back from the unicorn, fearful, despite Enjolras’s and Combeferre’s best reasoning and Courfeyrac’s best cajoling. Bahorel elected to try making funny faces at her. This appeared successful. Cosette began to giggle. “Good girl,” Bahorel said, grinning. “Now, you see, there’s no reason to be scared of a nice horsie just because it has a silly horn on its head—” He broke off at the sensation of Enjolras’s hand on his shoulder.
Valjean was staring at the unicorn, transfixed. The unicorn, for its part, had gone utterly still and was staring back. Slowly, as if under a spell, Valjean approached the unicorn and stretched out a hand. The unicorn didn’t snarl, or back away, but instead nuzzled Valjean’s hand. He opened the cage. The unicorn followed him out like a duckling following its mother, and he led it onto the street. “I will bring it to the countryside,” he said. “I think it will be happy in the forest. Take Cosette home, if you please?” And then he was gone.
“Innocence,” Combeferre murmured. “Purity of soul.” What could be purer than a souled vampire, who had sworn never to do anyone any harm? Not the purity of one who had never been tainted, but the stronger, more solid purity of one who had been tainted and cleansed.
“Come,” said Bahorel. “Combeferre, why don’t you bring Cosette back to her mother? And then, Enjolras and Courfeyrac, we can decide what to do about Gilbert.” A decision that could not be pure, whatever else it was. Gilbert’s eyes widened in fear, and despite his gag he began to make protesting sounds. Combeferre nodded and, taking Cosette by the hand and hefting his bag full of plants, left his friends to their necessary task.
