Tear Jerker / Les Misérables

Well, what else would you expect from a story named "The Miserable Ones"?

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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The Novel

• Fantine's reaction when Valjean orders Javert to release her and promises to take care of her and Cosette. Shocked that he's being so kind to her and overjoyed at the prospect of being reunited with her daughter, she starts to sob, falls to her knees, kisses his hand, and faints.
• The scene when Valjean wrestles himself on whether he should turn himself in and let an innocent man go free or continue to be a highly respected mayor and let the man die is heartwrenching enough. One of the issues he brings up is what will happen to Montreuil when he is arrested. It is even more heartbreaking when we discover that he was right. The town, Montreuil, falls to ruin because no one believes that a convicted man could ever be that good and the next leaders don't have Valjean's strong ideals.
• The scene where Cosette is going to get water. There is a lot of build-up, spelling out just how terrible her life is. Her running through the woods from the monsters in her head, only to break down, terrified both of the forest and failing the Thernardiers...Followed by "mysterious stranger" Jean Valjean literally taking the burden of the matter off of her and comforting her. The kicker? She knows immediately that she can trust this man.
• When Valjean sees Mme. Thénardier not letting Cosette play with Éponine and Azelma's doll (and this is after the sisters tell on her), he goes out and comes back with a brand new one, and offers it to Cosette. Cosette asks Valjean if the doll really is for her. Valjean, moved to tears, says it is, and she takes it in her arms and names it "Catherine." ^{Genius Bonus} Saint Catherine of Alexandria was the patron saint of unmarried girls, lawyers and students. Fitting, since Cosette retains her childlike innocence well into adulthood, and eventually marries a law student (later Baron).
• When Valjean first adopts Cosette, she's so used to being beaten that she runs away in confusion when he kisses her hand.
• Cosette's longing for the mother she never knew. At one point, she imagines that her mother's soul passed into Valjean when she died: "When he was seated, she leaned her cheek against his white hair, and dropped a silent tear, saying to herself: 'Perhaps this man is my mother.'"
• Fantine never sees her daughter Cosette grow up. Cosette never knows her mother. Cosette was perfectly happy being raised by Jean Valjean, but in a way that almost makes it worse, considering everything Fantine did for her...
• On his deathbed, Jean Valjean finally reveals the name of Cosette's mother to her. "Think of the name Fantine with reverance..." He also wrote a letter, telling her (presumably) the entire story.
• Colonel Pontmercy's death.
  On the very evening of Marius’ arrival at Vernon, the colonel had had an attack of delirium; he had risen from his bed, in spite of the servant’s efforts to prevent him, crying: ‘My son is not coming! I shall go to meet him!’ Then he ran out of his room and fell prostrate on the floor of the antechamber. He had just expired.
  The doctor had been summoned, and the cure. The doctor had arrived too late. The son had also arrived too late.
  By the dim light of the candle, a large tear could be distinguished on the pale and prostrate colonel’s cheek, where it had trickled from his dead eye. The eye was extinguished, but the tear was not yet dry. That tear was his son’s delay.
• When Gavroche saves his father during his escape from prison, Thénardier completely ignores him and doesn't even acknowledge his presence. For several moments, Gavroche just stands there waiting for any sign that his father still cares for him, and gets nothing. He tries to laugh it off, but you can tell it hurts.
• When Marius, just seconds after finally reconciling with his grandfather, Gillenormand, after a feud that lasted for years, storms out after Gillenormand inadvertently insults Cosette. M. Gillenormand, in his nineties, sits frozen in shock and despair before flinging himself at the open window, yelling for Marius to come back because this time he knows he won't return.
• M. Mabeuf. His fate is absolutely heartwrenching as he slowly descends into absolute poverty, until he has nothing left.
• Gavroche's death.
• Je(h)an Prouvaire, the sweet poet who liked flowers and clouds, dying alone. Even worse, his friends can hear it happen.
  • This got reused in the 1998 film when the remaining Les Amis were killed by firing squad. Though they tried to remain Defiant to the End, they were just so scared.
• From the book, Éponine's last words: "And then, do you know, Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you." Then she dies, in the middle of trying to smile.
  • When Marius kisses her forehead after she dies, because it was Éponine's final request.
• When Enjolras and Grantaire die: Grantaire had been asleep the entire battle, and maybe could have hid through the end and gotten away, but woke up just as Enjolras was about to be executed. He stops them, walks up to Enjolras, and then declares, in front of the National Guard and Enjolras, his belief in the Republic - which he has disdained for the entirety of the novel. Quote from book: "Enjolras took his hand and smiled." And then they are shot.
  • Even in death, Enjolras is standing up against the wall, while Grantaire is curled about his ankles.
  • Just Grantaire in general. He gave his life and death to a revolution he didn't believe in so a man - who it seemed couldn't care less about him, and insulted him frequently - wouldn't die alone. His devotion to his Apollo (or Orestes, pick whichever allusion you like) was just as tragic (if not more so) as Éponine's to Marius. The hints at his self loathing and its source are heartbreaking—he mentions, almost casually, that he has no head for numbers, which led to hatred from his family. He was one of the few among the Amis who knew they had no chance of survival, and begged his friends not to go through with it, but they were committed, and so he watched them effectively lay their own funeral pyre. He's supposed to be the cynic, but romantic, idealistic tendencies keep shining through—he says of Marius and Cosette that they "sleep among the stars", talking of the purity of their love for each other. You can almost hear him comparing it to his own love for Enjolras.
  • A moment that beautifully proves the above in a mixture of Tear Jerker and Heartwarming Moments, is when the Amis need someone to go to a certain group to convince them to join. Grantaire volunteers as everyone else has other work to do. Enjorlas scoffs at him, asking why would Grantaire go, after all, "You don't believe in anything." Grantaire's answer? "I believe in you."
• Everything that leads up to Javert's suicide. He gets back from the barricade, where he was captured, sentenced to death and tied up standing for a sleepless night alongside corpses, only to be freed by Valjean, the last person he expected to show him kindness; after this ordeal, he returns to the police station only to be immediately put back on duty; he runs into Valjean again, and, bewildered, helps him save Marius and then just lets him go. It's extra-heartbreaking to think that the consequent storm of an epiphany that follows - which basically boils down to, "There is more to morality than law, and sometimes they are mutually exclusive things, and I don't know how to do the right thing any more" - might not have been fatal if the man had just had a chance to rest.
• Chapter 1 of Book 7 of Volume 5 (in which Jean Valjean decides to tell Marius the truth about his past) is heartrending. After 'The Sleepless Night' there isn't really that much breathing space for non tear-jerker moments. And there's still 100 or so pages to go.
  • When Jean Valjean is in the Rue de l'Homme Arme laying out the eight year old Cosette's clothes.
  • After Valjean confesses his identity to Marius, he begins to distance himself from Cosette, insisting that they call each other "Madame" and "Monsieur Jean". Cosette is hurt by this and asks if Valjean is angry with her because she's happy. Valjean then says to himself, "Her happiness was the object of my life. Now God may sign my dismissal. Cosette, thou art happy; my day is over."
  • When Jean Valjean keeps on trying to make the journey to see Cosette and can't quite do it, and then the journeys get shorter and shorter.
• The moment it sinks in for you that the only character who gets an unambiguously happy ending in any faithful adaptation of this story is Thenardier. That's right, the one character who gets everything he wants in this story is the villain. It makes you think about how truly unfair the world can be.
• Valjean's death. The whole chapter.
  "No doubt, in the gloom, some immense angel stood erect with wings outspread, awaiting the soul." ^note  Even sadder, some editions of the book end it at this point
  • Especially when he's asked if he wants a priest and he points upwards and says "I have one". The book heavily implies that the Bishop is indeed waiting for him and the 2012 movie and the Broadway show revival refer to this by having the Bishop be the first to greet him as he walks into heaven.
• Among Valjean's final requests is that he be buried as "a poor man", asking that his resting place be as unremarkable as possible, to the point of not even bearing his name. In the book's haunting epilogue, we see that Cosette and Marius complied with his request:
  • "In the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, in the vicinity of the common grave, far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner, beside an old wall, beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid dandelions and mosses, there lies a stone. That stone is no more exempt than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and from the defilement of the birds. The water turns it green, the air blackens it. It is not near any path, and people are not fond of walking in that direction, because the grass is high and their feet are immediately wet. When there is a little sunshine, the lizards come thither. All around there is a quivering of weeds. In the spring, linnets warble in the trees. This stone is perfectly plain. In cutting it the only thought was the requirements of the tomb, and no other care was taken than to make the stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man.
    • No name is to be read there. ^note  Even more haunting, some versions of the book end it at this point.
  • Only, many years ago, a hand wrote upon it in pencil these four lines, which have become gradually illegible beneath the rain and the dust, and which are, today, probably effaced:
  "Il dort. Quoique le sort fut pour lui bien etrange, Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange. La chose simplement d'elle-meme arriva, Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va".(He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply, of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.)"
• Marius's fever dream as he recovers from his barricade wounds, where he sees the ghosts of his friends rise up around him, then vanish. Probably the inspiration for the "Empty Chairs At Empty Tables" sequence mentioned below.

The Musical

• Any part where the Bishop sings fits both this and Heartwarming Moments. His kindness in the face of the grimness of the rest of the musical, and especially to Valjean, who has only known hate, is absolutely gutwrenching.
  • The Broadway show revival has him as the first to greet Valjean as he enters heaven.
• "On My Own". "Without me, his world will go on turning..."
  • This trailer for the film shows a clip of Marius's wedding to Cosette during that line. It is devastating. Lea Salonga's version delivers that line with an absolutely perfect amount of bitterness.
  • The saddest part is the fact that Eponine realizes that she's not in love with Marius, she's in love with the idea of him. And worse still, she still pursues him because she knows that he's the only thing that makes her life worth living. There's nothing else left for her, so she holds onto the one good thing left in her life.
  • And I know it's only in my mind. That I'm talking to myself and not to him. And although I know that he is blind. Still I say there's a way for us.
• Five words: "A Little Fall of Rain" "You would live a hundred years if I could show you how: I won't desert you now..."
  • The French lyrics: Mais tu vas vivre, 'Ponine, regarde-moi!: But you are going to live, Eponine, look at me! Somehow "look at me" is more poignant than "dear God above," as if she's slipping away before his very eyes.
  • "I'll sleep in your embrace at last."
  • And the ending of that song:
    Éponine: "And rain..."
    Marius: "And rain..."
    Éponine: "Will make the flowers..."
    Marius: "Will make the flowers..."
    <Beat>
    Marius: "... grow."
  • In the revival, the ending is so heartbreaking, because Éponine goes in for a kiss, and dies just before she reaches Marius' lips.
  • Marius's horrified "Oh God, it's everywhere!" as he realizes she's covered in her blood.
  • "Hush-a-bye, dear Eponine, you won't feel any pain...I will stay with you til you are sleeping..."
  • In one production, Marius whispers, "No...No..." and desperately tries to stop the bleeding as Eponine starts the song, and his voice is audibly shaking as he sings. When Eponine dies, he breaks down crying and cradles her body to his chest.
  • Gavroche's reaction to her death in the 2014 revival considering she is his older sister. He freezes when he realizes it is her and then runs to her as she is carried away and is stopped and comforted by Courfeyrac.
  • "Just hold me now, and let it be"
• And four more: "My friends, my friends..."
  • "Here they sang about tomorrow... and tomorrow never came..."
  • This song is often performed as a tribute to AIDS victims. Which makes it even more wrenching.
  • Phantom faces at the window / Phantom shadows on the floor / Empty chairs at empty tables / Now my friends will meet no more.
  • When the ghosts of Enjolras and the other students come out to stand around Marius as he sings "Oh my friends, my friends, forgive me...", and when they leave and Enjolras gives Marius (and the audience) one last look before departing.
  • "Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me/What your sacrifice was for..." and the accompanying crescendo... He can't face that they may have died for nothing.
  • And it gets worse (yes, worse) in the German-language production, where Marius will say their names to the empty air in turn as he limps around the café. It reaches its tearjerking peak when Marius screams Enjolras' name and throws a bottle to the floor in the Magdeburg staging.
  • The 2014 Broadway revival uses a really simple idea to lovely effect: Marius begins the song sitting alone on the floor, surrounded by candles. As he sings, the ghosts of his friends slowly emerge, pick up the candles, and blow them out.
• "Did you see them lying where they died? Someone used to cradle them and kiss them when they cried. Did you see them lying side by side?"
  • "Where's that new world, now the fighting's done?"
  • "Nothing changes, nothing ever will."
  • "What's the use of praying when there's nobody who'll hear?"
  • "Same old story, what's the use of tears?" The worst part is that almost all of those women are old enough to be the students' mothers. And some of them might be...
• In Every Day (A Heart Full of Love), as Cosette sings about how it gets better, Andy Mientus' Marius shakes his head. A reminder that even though Marius is now reunited with his grandfather, and has his beloved by his side, the psychological damage from the barricades will never go away.
• "To love another person is to see the face of God."
  • "Yes, Cosette, forbid me now to die... I'll obey... I will try..."
  • On that note, Cosette's desperate plea for Valjean to live just before that. Poor thing...
  Cosette: You will live, papa you're going to live! It's too soon...too soon to say goodbye...
  • In the Dutch translation, Valjean's line isn't that he'll try, but that he hopes she's right; it somehow makes it even more tragic that he no longer even has the energy to try.
  • The final scene begins with Valjean singing about Dying Alone.
• "My place is here. I fight with you!" "ONE DAY MORE!"
  • Made even worse by the fact that most of the characters who sang the song only had one day more to live.
• "Do You Hear the People Sing", especially this verse:
  Do you hear the people sing? Lost in the valley of the night
  It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light
  For the wretched of the Earth, there is a flame that never dies
  Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
  • Particularly because it's the ghosts of the dead singing it. Really elevated in the film, where this number is in an afterlife consisting of the Paris they all dreamed of.
  • The first time the song is heard, it's as an upbeat march...but for people who have seen the show/read the book, it's an emotional gut punch because nothing came as a result of this. The change they so desperately sought never came.
• I Dreamed a Dream is the quintessential Tear Jerker in the show, really, with On My Own as a close second.
  "He slept a summer by my side
  He filled my days with endless wonder
  He took my childhood in his stride
  But he was gone when Autumn came..."
  • "Now life has killed the dream... I dreamed."
  • The kicker?
  "And still I dream he'll come to me
  That we will live the years together
  But there are dreams that cannot be
  And there are storms we cannot weather."
  • Other gut punches from the lyrics include "There was a time when men were kind" and "I dreamed that God would be forgiving" which help emphasize Fantine's black current state.
  • Anne Hathaway's rendition of the song, even when abridged for the trailers, somehow fills it with more raw anguish and despair. Most renditions end up with the singer showing off her voice — and let's face it, it's a fantastic song for that — but Anne Hathaway just sounds straight up broken.
• Javert's death.
  "The world that I have known is lost in shadow..."
  • The worst part is hearing the orchestra during that final "Onnnnn!"- It's the only reprise "Stars" gets in the show. And that sung-scream last note doesn't go away, because it's the sound of pure heartbreak. Combined with the dark irony of the dogmatic, confident, brilliant "Stars", being played as he kills himself to escape the inescapable pain of realizing his beliefs were wrong (and being speared by Morton's Fork- let him go, you're doing the wrong thing, arrest him, you're doing the wrong thing, either way you've condemned yourself) it's high tragedy at its most moving. And just to see him lying in the water, broken-hearted, with a haunted look in his eyes.
  • Norm Lewis's version in the 25th anniversary concert is particularly heart-wrenching. His performance doubles as mild Nightmare Fuel seeing as the last few lines make him sound as though he's teetering on the edge of madness.
  • "I am reaching, but I fall... and the stars are black and cold..."
  • Just what brought him to the bridge is pure Tear Jerker. The full list of reasons: not being able to resolve the cognitive dissonance of Jean Valjean being both a good man and a criminal, guilt and remorse from realizing that his actions have been the same evil he was trying to fight, having his entire worldview shattered and his heart broken as a result, losing all purpose in life, being faced with a moral dilemma from HELL that is quite honestly unresolvable; all of which cause pain beyond measure he feels he can only escape through death; deciding that he is a wicked man and a failure and deciding he should be punished and thus executing himself, and deciding that he deserves to be dammed; a feeling of confusion caused by the actions of Jean Valjean, anger turned inwards, and self-loathing as a result of his impossibly high standards. It's even more painful when you realize that he can never find rest, not even in death.
  • Javert's suicide is especially tragic when you look at the heavenly reunion of the dead (The Bishop, Fantine, Eponine, the Barricade Brigade, and Jean Valjean) and he's not there. It arguably gives the impression that Javert's in Hell.
• The reprise of "Drink With Me," where all the students are now fully aware that none of them are gonna live to see the next day. They solemnly raise the bottles and have one last drink together, and then get ready to fight until the end.
  • In the original concept album, that song, "Souviens-Toi (Remember)," combines with a soft instrumental reprise of "Castle on a Cloud", just the first eight notes. The connection to childhood and nostalgia and lost wishes is painful.
  • Grantaire's verse of "Drink With Me" is especially heartbreaking. "Will the world remember you when you fall?/Can it be your death means nothing at all?," directed at Enjolras. Grantaire couldn't care less about his own life, or even the Revolution, really. It's the thought of Enjolras dying for no reason and no one remembering that he fears.
  • And Marius's lyrics?
  "Do I care that I should die? Now she goes across the sea.
  Life without Cosette means nothing at all.
  Would you weep, Cosette, should Marius fall?
  Will you weep, Cosette, for me?"
• The little-known Dark Reprise of "Who Am I," also known as "Valjean's Confession," which appeared in the 25th Anniversary and several other productions, when Valjean decides he must leave Cosette behind. It was heart-wrenching enough in the book, but when set to beautiful music...
• "What Have I Done", in which Valjean has a slight mental breakdown over how low he has fallen (having just actually stole something for his own good (the Bishop's candlesticks) for the first time and then having experienced the Bishop's goodness). The song first chronicles Valjean's shame and self-loathing over his behavior and then continues on to show his transformation into the awesome, benevolent man we all know and love. When done right, lines like "He told me that I have a soul,/How does he know?" can move an audience to tears.
  • The same melody returns near the end of the show in the form of another character's BSoD Song, "Javert's Suicide", which mirrors "What Have I Done?" throughout. Javert's last stanza begins "I am reaching, but I fall, and the stars are black and cold/As I stare into the void of a world that cannot hold"; Valjean's parallel line is "I am reaching, but I fall, and the night is closing in/And I stare into the void to the whirlpool of my sin". The inspector's whole world view - that criminals can never be redeemed and can never do good - is being destroyed. Valjean has been taught the same thing, so the Bishop of Digne's trust in him and his undoubtedly belief of a convict becoming a good man is quite jarring for him.
  • Take an eye for an eye / Turn your heart into stone / This is all I have lived for / This is all I have known!
• And then there's "Bring Him Home"...
• "Castle on a Cloud". It seems like this really innocent, sweet, childlike song about a daydream. Then you realise what it says about Cosette's life — people shouting at her, being used as a servant girl, being made to cry, etc. — and how that's all she knows.
  • The line: "Cosette, I love you very much."
• Fantine's death.
  "And tell Cosette I love her - and I'll see her when I wake..."
  • Doubly sad when you realize that she thinks her daughter is there (a result of her fever) although we know she's elsewhere. Mother and daughter never see each other again.
    • Even worse? The only reason Fantine has worked herself into an early grave is purely so she thinks Cosette will have medicine...in reality she was being used by the Thenadiers for easy money. She died for nothing.
  • This line:
  "Good monsieur, you come from God in Heaven..."
  • Not just for the rise on Fantine's voice and in the music, but the fact that it's sung with the elation of someone who has had the world against them for some time, and has finally found that one person to show them kindness and compassion. Except now it's too late. Also the fact that Fantine hung onto her faith in God all this time.
• The Death of Gavroche: Him reprising his chipper song as he gets shot, trying to convince himself of what he said earlier as the reality of Little People comes crashing down.
  • The other soldiers desperately calling for him to return. They were keeping him out of the fight because they knew he was too young. He didn't listen.
  • There's an alternate song for Gavroche's death called 'Ten Little Bullets' which fits the character almost better and still manages to be absolutely soul-crushing. The tune is the same one that's used for Gavroche's lines in 'Look Down, and the lyrics are as follows:
  "Ten little bullets in my hand,
  ten little snipers neat and clean.
  One for the king of this great land,
  two for the aristocracy.
  Three for the bishops and the clergymen,
  four for the prefect of police.
  Give me the chance, I'll take the lot of them,
  ten little chances to be free.
  Trust Gavroche, count to ten-!"
• Valjean's part during the reprise of "A Heart Full of Love" where he gives Cosette away to Marius:
  "She was never mine to keep"
  "She is youthful, she is free"
• Fantine to Valjean when he stops her arrest and offers to help her:
  Monsieur, don't mock me now, I pray
  It's hard enough I've lost my pride
  You let your foreman send me away
  Yes, you were there, and turned aside
  • Along with Valjean's reaction: "Is it true what I've done?/To an innocent soul?"
• "Lovely Ladies." It's a high energy number about prostitution, with the actresses over-exaggerating their movements and voices, seemingly having the time of their lives despite their unfortunate circumstances. The music switches to a slow, ballad type after the prostitutes practically scream out "All it takes is money in your hand!" The final verse, sung by Fantine after selling herself into prostitution is absolutely heartbreaking.
  Come on, Captain, you can wear your shoes
  Don't it make a change to have a girl who can't refuse?
  Easy money, lying on a bed
  Just as well they never see the hate that's in your head
  Don't they know they're making love to one already dead?
  • The last line is usually sung almost as a scream, to really punctuate Fantine's despair. But props to Lea Salonga in the 25th Anniversary performance, possibly channeling Kim from Miss Saigon, as she sings most of the lines in a sing-song tone that teeters from mocking to utterly unhinged before just dropping it all for an utterly futile expression of fury.
• The instrumental version of "Bring Him Home" after the final battle, culminating with the swell of music as the barricade spins around to reveal Enjolras's body hanging on top of the flag.
  • Even worse is that the music that plays matches with the lyrics: "The summers die, one by one/ how soon they fly, on and on..."
  • The revival staging (which lacks a turntable) instead has Enjolras being carried off in the back of a cart in the same position, and Javert, of all people, gives some Due to the Dead. Javert is also visibly upset to see Gavroche's body and mourns him as well.
• "Bring Him Home" is a Tear Jerker as it is, but the story of Dudu Fisher, who originated the role of Valjean in the Israeli production, and later played the role on Broadway and the West End, is even more heart-touching. Fisher saw the show in London with a friend. After "Bring Him Home", he turned to his friend and said "When this comes to Israel, I will play this role." There was, as it happens, a Hebrew version of the show in the works, and Fisher managed to get the role, despite never having acted in his life (he is a trained singer and cantor). During this whole series of events, Fisher's son was serving in the IDF, so "Bring Him Home" had an intensely personal note to him. In concerts, he has said that when he sings the song on stage, for him, it is as if he is singing the prayers in the synagogue.
  • It was also Jim Henson's favorite song from the show, and his friend Louise Gold sang it at his memorial service. Her rendition can be found here.
• The opening song, "Look Down". The song's a red flag showing that this whole experience is not going to be fun. And while Valijean gets paroled right then, there's others who have years left to go, and little to look forward to once their free men again (as Valijean's experiences show).
  Prisoner: I've done no wrong, sweet Jesus hear my prayer!
  Chorus: Look down, look down. Sweet Jesus doesn't care.
  Prisoner: I know she'll wait! I know that she'll be true!
  Chorus: Look down, look down. They've all forgotten you.
  • "How long, O Lord, before you let me die?"
• "Red And Black" ends with the resounding "They will come when we call!". "They" (the people of Paris), didn't.
• Depending on how good the actress is, Eponine's part on "In My Life" and "A Heart Full of Love" can be this.
• Not part of the show proper, but George Blagden (Grantaire in the 2012 movie) did a cover of "I'll Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie, rewriting the second verse to make it explicitly from Grantaire's point of view. An already sad song made absolutely devastating, especially since he sings it at a faster, almost happier-sounding melody than the original.
  In revolutionary school, as vicious as Musain rule,
  I got my feelings bruised by the leader in red
  And I propped to the bar, as he told me
  “R, you're good for nothing, fool”
  and I hear every word that he said.
• The death of Kyle Jean-Baptiste on August 28, 2015, an understudy in the 2014 Broadway revival company who made history at the July 23rd performance as both the youngest person (21) and the first African-American actor to play Jean Valjean. At the matinee performance on August 29, Ramin Karimloo (who himself just completed a much-lauded run as Valjean) used the curtain call to speak very highly and kindly of him, and asked the audience to give him a standing ovation—"because I guarantee you, it was going to happen many more times for him."
  • At that same performance, Ramin changed one of the lines in "Bring Him Home," singing "He was young, he was only a boy."
  • At his last curtain call, Karimloo wore a black band around his arm and made a point of tapping it, obviously seeking to give Jean-Baptiste one final tribute.
• The 2014 revival has taken some cues from the 2012 film — Javert looking genuinely saddened at Gavroche's death, the Bishop being the first of the spirits to greet Valjean.
• One production updated the setting to be in the modern day and making most of the main characters black, with the ABC being evocative of the leaders of the #BlackLivesMatter movement in America. With everything you see about police brutality in the news, and the killing of (often very young) black people, suddenly the image of university students fighting for what's right, only to be horribly slaughtered by the government, is even worse. Values Resonance has never been so gutwrenching.
• In the 2020 concert version of the show, the first time the Army officer addresses the students, his voice is harsh and unforgiving. The second time, he's pleading with them to surrender. He knows what's about to happen—they're all going to be killed—and despite his duty, he's still trying to stop it.
  Officer: [offscreen] You at the barricade listen to this!
  The people of Paris sleep in their beds!
  You have no chance, no chance at all!
  Why throw your lives away?
• The way character deaths are depicted during these concerts. They still get the white backlight, but now they slowly walk off stage as the light fades. It's especially wrenching during the final battle scene, where each actor's body jerks as if they've been shot and their spotlight immediately shuts off.
• In both the 25th and 35th concerts, as Fantine exits the stage and Cosette enters, Fantine, dressed in all white, pauses at the doorway and gives Cosette a backward Longing Look before continuing into the light. Then, in the very next song, Cosette sings of a lady all in white, who is kind to her and says "Cosette, I love you very much". This can be interpreted as Cosette's lingering memories of Fantine (but still not enough to recognize that Fantine was her mother and that she did have a mother), or Fantine making nightly visits to comfort her daughter in her dreams. Either way, cue the tears.
• Cosette standing petrified in absolute terror as Madame berates her.
• In the 25th concert, after singing his verse in Drink With Me (about whether he's going to die senselessly and whether his life has been a lie), Grantaire tries to leave. Enjolras grabs his arm. Grantaire furiously snatches it away, and Enjolras speaks to him for a moment. Grantaire then cradles Enjolras' cheek, then the two exits together. This moment manages to be sad foreshadowing, Ho Yay, heartwarming, and tearjerking all at once.
• "Who Am I?" is a classic What You Are in the Dark song. Valjean learns from Javert that "Valjean" has been arrested for breaking parole and is about to go back to prison. Thing is...this man is totally innocent. Valjean debates with himself about what he should do. If he says anything he is the one who goes back to jail and the town is going to suffer without his leadership. If he doesn't say anything, he'll have sent an innocent man to suffer. Talk about Morton's Fork.

  Valjean: If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned...

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