Another reason I dislike Les Mis adaptations that make Jean Valjean constantly openly angry/violent is because they miss that Jean Valjean is not allowed to be angry. The fact he is forbidden from expressing anger is, I argue, actually a very important part of his character in the novel!

One of the subtler political messages of the story is that some people are given freedom to express anger, while others are forced to be excessively meek and conciliatory in order to survive.

Wealthy conservatives like Monsieur Gillenormand can “fly into rages” every five minutes and have it treated as an endearing quirk. Poor characters like Fantine or Jean Valjean must be constantly polite and ingratiating to “their superiors” at all times, even in the face of mockery and violence, or else they will be subjected to punishment. If Gillenormand beats his child with a stick, it’s a silly quirk; if Fantine beats a man harassing her, she is sentenced to months in prison.

(Thenardier and Javert are interesting examples of this too. Thenardier acts superficially polite and ingratiating to his wealthy “superiors” while insulting them behind their backs. Javert, meanwhile, is completely earnest in his mindless bootlicking. But I could write an entire other post on this.)

The point is that….Jean Valjean has to be submissive and self-effacing, or he puts himself in danger. He can’t afford to be angry and make scenes, or he will be punished. The only barrier between himself and prison is his ability to be so “courteous” that no one bothers to pry into his past.

Jean Valjean is excessively polite to people, in the way that you’re excessively polite to an armed cop who pulls you over for speeding when you secretly have a few illegal grams of marijuana in the your car trunk. XD It’s politeness built on fear, is what I mean. It’s politeness built on a desperation to make a powerful person avoid looking too closely at you.

It’s politeness at gunpoint.

Jean Valjean has also spent nineteen years living in an environment where any expression of anger could be punished with severe violence. That trauma is reflected in the overly cautious reserved way he often speaks with people (even people who are kind and would never actually hurt him.)

So adaptations that have Jean Valjean boldly having shouting matches with people in public and beating cops half to death without worrying about the repercussions just make go like “???”

Because that’s part of what’s fascinating about Jean Valjean to me? On one hand, he is a genuinely kind compassionate person, who cares deeply about other people and behaves kindly out of altruism. But on the other hand, he was also “beaten into submission” by prison, and forced into adopting conciliatory bootlicking behaviors in order to survive. And it can sometimes be hard to tell when he is being kind vs. when he is being “polite” — when he is speaking and acting out of earnest compassion vs. when he is speaking and acting out of fear.

The TL;DR is that I think it’s important that even though Jean Valjean is very (justifiably) angry about the injustice that was inflicted on him, his anger is harshly policed at all times— by other people, and by himself. He has been told his anger is wrong/selfish so often that he believes it. His anger takes weirder more unhealthy forms because he has no safe outlet for it. His rage at society becomes a possessiveness towards Cosette and silent hatred of Marius, but primarily it becomes useless self-destructive constant hatred of himself. And while I might be phrasing this wrong, I think that’s what’s interesting about Jean Valjean’s relationship with anger— the way his justified fury at his own mistreatment gets warped into more and more unhealthy forms by the way he’s forced to constantly repress it.

two sides of the same coin

techno <3

- maybe you’re going to change the world

— i think she already has

- she’s certainly changed ours

[8/7] his day ♡

The capricious pharaoh drives away his servants, while a delinquent soldier, who's never served in the palace, is sent to him to the mercy. The mistake with a hand fan could really cost Cross his life, but Shattered finds it so amusing that he spares him :'D

Shattered Dream from shattereddreamsau by galacii-gallery / galacii || Dream by jokublog

Cross from xtaleunderverse by jakei95

17th century gloves are. very good.

Whatever helps you sleep at night man

do u think beel does the evil hands before he eats

Were starving for Barnaby x Howdy father...were starving for it/hj

here is some food child.... you're safe now....

The thing about the "fridged" trope is that obviously you can't have a female love interest dying as a defining moment for a male character because that's not feminist, but you also can't have a male love interest dying as a defining moment for a female character because then she's just going to have an arc revolving around her relationship with a man and that's also not feminist, and you also can't kill off a love interest from a gay relationship or a relationship involving a nonbinary person because that's burying your queers, which is at least as bad as misogyny if not even worse, and now suddenly you can't kill off romantic partners at all in stories because no matter the demographics, it's going to be problematic somehow, which is... a pretty ridiculous limitation to impose on storytelling.

And, like, it would be satisfying to have a solution other than "it depends on context if not straight-up vibes, and it's usually very reasonable for audience members to have a range of opinions on the execution of one specific instance," but. Yeah, you do kind of have to just vibe check it in a deeply subjective manner sometimes.

how do you survive as a toh artist

who said anything about surviving

I think Alfred deserves to be 5'6

This is now my evidence. His feet are BARELY touching the ground

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage - The World Within

I think people sleep on this moment in the Odyssey...

If I'm wrong, not getting full context, or see something that isn't there, feel free to give evidence to explain why.

Here he crept under a pair of bushes, one an olive, the other a wild olive, which grew from the same stem with their branches so closely intertwined that when the winds blew moist not a breath could get inside, nor could the rain soak right through to the earth.

(Book 5, Rieu)

I think this is about Penelope and him.

Obviously, their marriage bed is made from an Olive tree. If it's just about Athena then why are there two mentioned? Why did Homer mention two when he could've just said he took refuge under one? Or a completely different type of tree? Why mention them being intertwined?

One an olive: Penelope, who has been with society and "safe" in Ithaca ("Safe" because of the suitors)

One wild: Odysseus, who has dealt with literal monsters and immortals and has just escaped from Calypso. Literally naked and filthy, a "wild man".

"which grew from the same stem with their branches": Them both being together at first, before being separated.

"so closely intertwined that when the winds blew moist not a breath could get inside, nor could the rain soak right through to the earth.": Despite being separated, they are still "intertwined". Whether you want to think of it as them being likeminded or simply connected, even though they are apart, nothing could get in between them. 🥺

I don't know what else Homer could be referring to other than them.

Oh my god. I just realized why forever potion!Zane had that weird flirty moment with Lucinda out of nowhere.

It was a fucking MCD reference.

In MCD, Lucinda and Zane were (at some point) being arranged to be married, but then Zane fucked it up (unspecified) and it was called off.

I cant believe this