This is related (though I’ll be working out exactly how) to theme of names—“who am I? Jean Valjean/24601” Other people’s identification and naming of Valjean/each other is easy to work out, but Valjean’s self-identifying is harder https://twitter.com/a_fellow_of/status/1194894008859922432?s=21 …https://twitter.com/a_fellow_of/status/1194894008859922432 …
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Let’s start at the top of script: first line? “Look down, look down”, as a statement of fear That’ll be a motif throughout, and its meaning changes—look down in fear, mercy, disgust, compassion (also during this scene you get this great shot)pic.twitter.com/bpIB2vYUiF
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Valjean gets his papers—au nom du roi, appropriately—setting off a theme: will people see him or the paper? The next few scenes are filled with people demanding to “see his papers”, rather than simply seeing himpic.twitter.com/7gxIyMmslf
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Valjean’s sight is also twisted: he says “and now let’s see what this new world will do for me”; vision as selfishpic.twitter.com/rFPaJmIAba
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But then! The priest! God, the priest He’s the first one to see Valjean, and he sees like God His help is framed as sacrament, I just realized: bread and winepic.twitter.com/UVTUyH5Dlw
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Poor Yorick Retweeted Poor Yorick
The priest’s redemption of Valjean is framed in darkness->light imagery, which is about vision twice over—light allows you to be seen and to see. And both are happening here: the priest’s true vision of Valjean gives Valjean new vision. This is a recurring themehttps://twitter.com/a_fellow_of/status/1187158257690927104 …
Poor Yorick added,
Poor Yorick @a_fellow_ofI have a theory that things like this can be framed in terms of someone’s True Name, fantasy-book-style. If you begin to comprehend who a person really is, your compliments can reflect the goodness of that back to them—most people are insecure about whether who they are is good https://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1186475560622379009 …Show this thread1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
Moving quicker now, let’s talk about Fantine and then Javert. Fantine falls through the cracks of Valjean’s sight, and this is explicitly what he thinks puts him in her debt; a failure of sight is a failure of virtuepic.twitter.com/qs3amRTfYc
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Fantine is constantly an image of the unseen, who slip through the cracks of the world’s systems (authorities turn a blind eye toward her), and Valjean is driven to atone for sharing in that system’s blindness; he is the good king (roi) who looks to the downtroddenpic.twitter.com/JxhtbWi9qy
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Javert is paradoxical; he is characteristically sharp-sighted, sees through Valjean’s guise, is not taken in by the Thenardier’s. But he regularly fails to see the victimization of the weak. But he sees just clearly enough for it to be his downfall when what he sees breaks himpic.twitter.com/QxKJiCHIjo
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Switching to the romantic subplot, love is also cast in terms of vision here: Eponine only has eyes for Marius, but he doesn’t see her until she is dying The romantic parts of Les Mis are the parts that get me least, but Eponine’s songs are all incrediblepic.twitter.com/Z7ldXuDS84
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on my own just wrecks me.pic.twitter.com/BYILFT0NEd
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