WMG / Les Misérables

Javert planned on escaping through the sewers

Javert was pretty quick to figure out how Valjean escaped and knew exactly where he would come out. Javert is crazy prepared and likely had planned on escaping through the sewers before the first attack if he wasn't able to convince the revolutionaries to send him out again to "scout" and no easier escape routs presented themselves. In the first attack the soldiers only fired a single volley from far away and then advanced to fight hand to hand because they didn't know if Javert had escaped yet, which is also why the only one to get shot was a petite female who clearly did not match his description. Since he wasn't spotted among the revolutionaries before they were forced to retreat, the French commanders assumed that Javert had either escaped into the sewers or been discovered and captured by the revolutionaries, allowing subsequent attacks to be more intense.

• The movie adds an attack by snipers on the rooftops, which could be interpreted as an attempt to rescue Javert, or at least confirm he's not still on the barricades before the final assault.

Gavroche is female.

The lack of capable female characters in Les Mis has bugged me for some time, so I propose we insert one. It's plausible that Hugo wouldn't catch on to the proper gender of an outspoken prepubescent, or would ignore it if he did know, since in the world of Les Mis all small girls are supposed to play with dolls as children so that they can stay home and take care of children when they get married.

• *SNERK* Ahem, the above troper may be interested in this: This troper's father, a longtime fan of the musical, insists that the cast is tight, in a pinch a petite young woman is recruited to play Gavroche. This troper doesn't buy it, partially because seeing a very tall boy as Gavroche already breaks suspension of disbelief on that account. However, it is stated in the books that Madame Thénardier lavishes all her love on her girl children and hates her boys for no real reason, just 'cause. (For the Evulz.) Unless Madame doesn't fancy tomboys, or unless there was very bad lighting in the Thénardier's inn...
  • The above troper's father was correct. This troper was a cast member in her high school production of Les Mis and both casts used small girls as Gavroche (we were lucky to get enough boys to cover the all male parts like the students, bishop, guards, and leads). But yes, in the book it was pretty clear that Madame Thénardier didn't like her sons at all and it was apparent that her dislike of Gavroche began at infancy (when Cosette is a child at the inn, the book describes Gavroche crying from his cradle and no one going to check him), so the tomboy factor wouldn't even matter.
  • Professional productions also have female Gavroches if all the normal boy actors are unavailable. It can take some time to realise that the person singing is actually female if you aren't right up against the stage.
• That said, I actually like this theory.
  • This troper does too. But in a pinch, if we really needed girls, I'd do the proper Self-Insert thing and make one of the Amis a girl. Probably Jean Prouvaire.
    • Alternatively, Enjolras is either trans or a cis woman in disguise.
• Speaking from the standpoint of a girl who has played Gavroche and read the book, I believe that he's a he. I got the role because the other boy's voices were too low and I can play male. It really all depends on who you can choose from.
• It's mentioned that the Thenardiers mistreat their male children. Why would "she" give up a life of ease to be a street urchin?
• Though this tropper usually doesn't like the "since this media lacks of more representation that isn't posible because of the time were it was published I would take anyone that I please and give they another interpretation that isn't posible for the time were it was first published in order to give more representation, also maybe the author didn't knew their true gender if they're HIS/HERS creation" way of thinking I have a posible point to support the tropper's theory.
  • First of all, when Cosette leaved the Thenardier's, they were almost in bankrupcy and when she saws them later (as the Jondrette Family), they had several years being impoverished. So empoverished that it's established that Thenardier was the pimp of his own daughters Azelma and Eponine.
  • Second, being Gavroche around eight years younger that his/her older sisters (who were on their late teens at least), s/he noticed how bad was the life for them and maybe though something about the men who went to see her (it's not necessary if Gavroche knew about sex anyway, just to know that they didn't liked that). Noticing how the other Thenardier kids (the ones s/he helped before joining Barricade Boys) had, if an unloving, easier life, maybe it was easy for her -if that's the case that Gavroche was a girl- to crossdress in order to avoid that. Or maybe Mama Thenardier didn't wanted another daughter having to be prostituted and did it herself. And decided to keep the masquerade through the years because it was easier for a boy to survive on the streets than it was for a girl. Alternatively, if it wasn't Mama Thenardier's idea, anyway she gave Gavroche the cold shoulder because of how tomboys were seen and it was such deviant behaviour to be gay or transsexual at that time, so having she been discovered, the Asylum awaited for her.
  • Also, I declare myself to be fan of the theory of one of the Barricade boys being actually a woman in disguise. But I think we need more proof of one of them being exceptionally interested in women's rights (that could be our clue). Can someone remind me if someone had that ideas?

Far in the future, Paris will become the center of the world's most popular sport with motorcycles and a magical card game, where a Generation Xerox will appear.

Jean Valjean is Napoleon

He was born in 1769. His "prison" sentence begins in 1796, the same year Napoleon commands his first army. He is released from "prison" in 1815 right after Waterloo. While a body double is sent to St.Helena, Napoleon meets up with one of the Bishops he appointed who helps him assume a new identity. Napoleon's secret double agents allow him to gain a fortune quickly and become Mayor.

Javert goes mad after falsely accusing Mayor Madeleine and imagines the rest of Les Mis

Jean Valjean is just a petty criminal. He assumes the false name Champ and is arrested for stealing apples. HE dies while trying to save a prisoner fallen from the galley ship. Javert falsely accuses Mayor Madeline of being Valjean due to superficial similarities. The arrest of the real Valjean, and his treason against an authority figure drive Javert mad with guilt. HE imagines Valjean/Madeleine into a demigod that he wrongly pursues. His suicide is the result of Mayor Madeleine forgiving him for his betrayal, which he imagines as an epic battle. Javert transfers out of M- and continues to pursue his imaginary Jean Valjean even after his death. After a random revolutionary spares his life, Javert imagines that Valjean/Madeleine has spared him again.

On My Own is being sung to Cosette.

Éponine usually imagines Marius when she's alone, but since she knows she'll be seeing Marius soon, she imagines admitting her love for him to Cosette. She reassures Cosette that she knows it's "only in [her] mind" and "only on [her] own". She really was in love with Marius and not just an idealized version of him, but couldn't admit it to him or Cosette without upsetting them.

Suddenly is going to be about Cosette and Valjean's first meeting in the woods

Take a look at the trailer; there are a couple of shots of young!Cosette in the woods and Valjean meeting her, talking to her, and walking her out. If I recall correctly, this happened in the book but not any stage productions. Putting two and two together, it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to put that in. Also, it would be absolutely adorable.

• Jossed, sort of. It happens on the ride back from the woods.

The film will switch the order of the songs "I Dreamed A Dream" and "Lovely Ladies".

In the trailer, Fantine is singing "I Dreamed a Dream" with shorn hair and dressed a little on the trampy side. Usually, she sings this number before "Lovely Ladies", but they will be reversed for the film. "The Lovely Ladies" number will be performed at least mostly intact since the prostitutes in the trailer look more like they're performing a musical number than randomly prowling the streets for Johns.

• If this happens it will make an already tear-jerkery song all the more tragic...
  • Confirmed.

Javert's first name is Valentine or something similar.

It would give a nice symmetry to his hunt for Valjean (Jean Valjean - Valentine Javert), and also explain why his first name is never brought up in a book which spends so much time on small, seemingly unimportant details. Presumably the 'real' Javert never used it and did his utmost to cover it up out of embarrassment.

Valjean and Wolverine are related.

Not a direct descendant, of course, seeing as how Valjean's only child was adopted. In the film of the musical, Valjean is shown visiting a grave just after his release from prison. If both his sister and nephew were dead, there would be two graves. In the nineteen years Valjean was in prison, his sister died and the nephew got a job as a cabin boy on a ship bound for Canada. Eventually, he settled in Canada and made a new life for himself, eventually becoming the ancestor of James Logan, AKA Wolverine. Incidentally, Valjean himself was a mutant which would explain his super strength.

• Valjean has no idea what happened to his sister's family except that, four years after being locked up, his sister and her youngest child (she has seven) were in Paris by themselves.
• Well, that would surely explain this.

Valjean and Conan are related.

Valjean possesses superhuman strength and uncanny climbing abilities, both traits associated with Cimmerians. Also, Conan was king of Aquilonia, which was located in roughly the same geographic location as France. Valjean's ancestors could be the result of one of King Conan's many conquests.

Eponine would have ended up like Fantine, had she survived the barricades.

This arises from the musical similarity between "Fantine's Death" and "On My Own." This troper didn't realize that the two songs were essentially the same melodic line until she looked at the sheet music for both. Musicals tend to reuse melodic lines, but Boublil and Schoenberg have already proven that they like reusing melodies to show similarities between characters ("What Have I Done?" and "Javert's Suicide," anyone?). "Fantine's Death" being the same melody as "On My Own" subtly hints that Eponine would have had a similar story to Fantine if she hadn't given her life for Marius.

• This troper thought the similarity wasn't necessarily due to similar storylines but that both of them gave away everything for love. Which kind of explains why she appeared with Fantine at the "Epilogue" - both of them were thanking Valjean for saving the ones they loved the most (Marius and Cosette).
  • OP here. That might also be part of it, but I think it also adds another layer to the story if Eponine and Fantine have similar stories, connected primarily by Cosette. "Fantine's Death" and "On My Own" are both about Cosette in a way. It's pretty obvious in "Fantine's Death," but "On My Own" is performed after Eponine delivers Marius's letter to Valjean, signifying that she's 'giving Marius up' to Cosette in a way.

There will be an adaptation where Jean Valjean is gender-flipped.

Les Miserables is already Adaptation Overdosed and gender flips aren't unheard of in adaptations of works, so why not?

• There already is! It’s a telenovela set in the modern day, and the Valjean figure is a woman so as to have a romantic subplot with the Javert figure. Google “Les Mis telenovela” if you don’t believe me

Marius was fated by God to die with the others at the barricade, but Valjean traded his life for his own.

I always thought it was a bit odd how, at the very end, Valjean dies from...seemingly nothing. He was a bit old at that point, but he didn't seem sick or feeble at all. Plus, it's a little too dramatically convenient how he dies as soon as Marius and Cosette get married, so they get to make the big rush and get to him just in the nick of time. My thought is that Marius was meant to die just like the rest of the barricade boys, but Valjean's prayer in "Bring Him Home" legitimately changed God's mind. So, the Lord spared Marius and kept Valjean alive just long enough to get Marius home and see him married, then took Valjean's life in place of Marius'.

• In the Polish translation of "Bring Him Home" it seems so even more. One line is something like "If you have to take, take me".

Jean Valjean is a Ridiculously Average Guy / The Nondescript

• Javert has trouble identifying him, only recognizing him for his strength, and fingering another person as Prisoner 24601. And Marius, according to an explanation on this very wiki, knows that Valjean was at the barricade but "as time passes he has a difficult time believing that it was actually Valjean and not just some random guy who looked like him."

• Valjean’s name pretty much confirms that this was Hugo’s intention. Jean is an extremely common name in French-speaking countries (just as John is in Anglophone countries), and “val” suggests “is worth.” Put together, his name means “John is worth John” - the ultimate Everyman name.
  • Two other names Hugo considered using were Jean Tréjean (“John Veryjohn”), and Jean Vlajean (“Vlajean” suggesting “Voilà Jean” - so the name would mean “John Here’sjohn”).

The page mentioned in the line "On this page, I write my last confession" contains the entirety of the book version of Les Miserables.

• Valjean just has really small handwriting.
  • The page mentioned in the song could be the last page of the Brick before Valjean dies, and the parts after his death are written in by Marius/Cosette. This is now part of my headcanon.

Valjean’s nephew (the one he stole the bread for) is the in-universe author of the novel, and is the one who wrote the epitaph on his grave.

• Book canon confirms that the nephew is alive and living with his mother at least during the fourth year of Valjean’s imprisonment. What if, upon growing up, the nephew went to find out what happened to his uncle, and after discovering the grave, in the end decided the best way to honour him would be to write the Brick?

Javert's first name is Inspector.

Gavroche said his name was Inspector Javert.

• Gavroche is also a little kid with little to no education, so he might not understand the difference between a title like "Inspector" and someone's name. Though that would be pretty funny.

The Thénardiers put human meat in the sausages.

Would you really put it past them?

• And since Monsieur Thénardier moved to America, Azelma taught her children this practice, and Azelma's descendants are the bosses from The Jungle.
• AND Mme. Thénardier in the 2012 movie and Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd (the cannibalism musical) are played by the same actress (Helena Bonham Carter). If you ever time travel to 1800s, don't eat any meat in Europe...

Inspector Javert is a distant ancestor of Katniss Everdeen.

Who else would be so fixated over a loaf of bread?

• Intriguing. They definitely have personality similarities: unforgiving, resilient, doesn't take well to having their lives saved, slightly sadistic, icy on the outside but emotional on the inside, and they even have similar canon colorings (dark hair, tawny skin, and bright eyes.). Only hitch (but it's a big one) is that Javert (apparently) dies a virgin.

Would that mean (Disney)'s Aladdin is either a)their ancestor or b)their descendant? Since another character who is fixated on a loaf of bread?

Éponine can't sing

The book says alcohol wrecked her voice. What the audience hears in the play is what Eponine thinks she sounds like.

• This Troper agrees. I never liked her anyway.

Enjolras knew Javert was a spy all along.

It always struck me as odd that Les Amis were all over Javert in an instant on the word of a child, no matter how clever and precocious said child is. It also struck me as odd that Javert, a rather notorious policeman with a very distinct appearance, went unrecognized as long as he did. So what if...he wasn't? Think about it. Enjolras sees Javert, quickly recognizes him and realizes it's unlikely that the squarest inspector in Paris had a sudden change of heart, and correctly assumes he is a spy. But he realizes if they capture Javert then, the military will just send more spies, and hey, they need all the help they can get building the barricade! So he keeps a close eye on Javert and he and his buddies make sure to not let him get any actual information, and feed him false info instead to screw with the enemy and benefit their cause even more. So they send Javert off with a bunch of fake plans, and then when Javert returns, they wait until Javert is surrounded by them and confident of their trust, then they have Gavroche 'reveal' him just as rehearsed. Then they take him hostage to use him as leverage against their enemy.

Éponine has tuberculosis.

We learn that when the Thénardiers lied that Cosette had miliary fever as a child, it was actually Éponine and Azelma who had it. "Miliary fever" could refer to a number of diseases, but most often to a form of TB. As a teenager, Éponine's voice is raspy, which Hugo attributes to alcohol but could also be partly caused by the illness, and during her speech defending the Rue Plumet house from her father and the gang, she has a brief coughing fit and her breath "wheezed from her sickly chest like a death rattle." Hugo may have implied this to draw a subtle parallel between Éponine and the book's other tragic female, Fantine, who dies of TB. Besides her unrequited love and the misery of her life in general, part of the reason why she chooses death at the barricade might be that she knows she's going to die soon anyway and would rather die quickly by bullet than slowly by the disease.

Marius has Asperger's Syndrome.

He's an introvert. He's socially awkward. He's a deep and intelligent thinker, but he can be all too clueless and Innocently Insensitive to others (e.g. Éponine). He tends to be cold and rude when he's upset, and under strong emotional stress his thoughts are sometimes completely irrational (e.g. spending three days angry with Cosette because a man might have seen her ankle when the wind lifted her skirt, or assuming she must not love him and must want him to die after she seemingly leaves for England with no farewell). Of course much of this stems from his dysfunctional upbringing by his grandfather, but it also feels valid to suspect that he's neuroatypical.

Eponine suffers from Hanahaki's Disease.

She's been in love with Marius for a long time, and knows it could never be. This makes her experience with the disease incredibly hard. "On My Own" is her accepting the fact that she is going to die. So she goes to the barricades (where she knows she won't survive) instead of having to suffocate to death. This is why she sings of flowers in "A Little Fall Of Rain".

---

The falsely accused ‘Valjean’ was a Batman Gambit by Javert.

It’s meant to be a fairly small town, what are the chances they found somebody they thought was Jean Valjean in the same hole that the real one was hiding in? Javert saw the mayor and recognised him immediately, but also knew the townspeople wouldn’t take kindly to somebody accusing their mayor and knew he had to engineer a confession.

• Coming back to this, it may be nonsense. Did Javert’s police arrest the fake Valjean or did he just hear about it happening somewhere else?
• Jossed in the novel. Champmathieu, the falsely accused Valjean, is arrested in a different town, and Javert has nothing to do with it, he only hears about it.

Javert is Cosette’s biological father.

Unlikely, but would be really cool and would add a lot of depth within the story.

• Jossed in the novel. Cosette's biological father's name was Félix Tholomyés. But the musical leaves it open to interpretation...

Towards the end, Jean Valjean has some mental illness that causes him to sabotage himself to be unhappy.

Its symptoms start when he reads Cosette's letter to Marius (in the novel) and decides to go to the barricade instead of leaving the country. Then, he risks his own life to save Marius despite hating him. While these things can be explained by his good nature and don't have to mean anything yet, what happens later is truly puzzling. He tells Marius of his past (only the bad things and in such a way that leaves him free to imagine Valjean having committed much more serious crimes than stealing bread) and then doesn't protest or clarify anything when Marius keeps him from visiting Cosette. This ultimately leads to his death. He could have just made up an excuse as to why he could not live with or meet Cosette and Marius often and then come and see Cosette from time to time and everyone would have been happy.