Bossuet: Why are you being so nice to Enjolras?
Grantaire: Because I’m a good person, and I’m polite and nice to everyone.
Bossuet: … You’re in love with him, aren’t you?
Grantaire: … Yeah.
OH MY DUDE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH FOR SENDING ME THIS I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS!!!!
Enjolras realizes he’s trans because he was going through his father’s clothes to try and find something to make him look masculine so he would be more respected. He ends up frequently wearing male clothes and is just accustomed to being recognized as a man. He doesn’t realize that he’s male tho. He just thinks he’s a really good actor.
Finally, someone at a protest realizes he’s female and calls him out on it. He automatically yells “CITIZEN I BELIEVE YOU ARE MISTAKEN, FOR I AM AS MUCH OF A MAN AS YOU ARE A HUMAN!” He only realizes later that what he said was facts. He begins to take away all traditionally feminine clothes from his wardrobe and replaces it with clothes his father doesn’t want. He does keep around a few dresses to keep up the act for his parents.
Courfeyrac and Combeferre are a bit weary when they find out. They are supportive, but they just don’t understand. Their friend group is very different from anyone else and they just don’t understand. Enjolras tries his best to explain but he’s not the best with emotions and it’s hard to say “I feel like a man.”
It’s finally Jehan who is like, “I am not a man, nor a woman, yet you all seem to understand. I know you think it’s because I am a poet, someone who observes the world around them, yet does not participate, but no. I am not a man nor woman, for I am just me. You must understand that our dear friend Enjolras is as man as Adam. He was born as Eve but no, the universe has made a mistake, and now he is correcting it.”
Everything cleared up after that. When it comes to his relationship with Grantaire, it’s complicated. He never denies the man anything, for he truly loves him, but he is unsure if he can provide for what Grantaire is looking for. It’s only when Grantaire wants to die along side him does he realize that physical form is not what Grantaire was looking for. He was looking for Enjolras. In his last moments he prays that in whatever comes after life, his spirit, the whole being of Enjolras, can be alongside Grantaire.
(I love it whenever you come into my ask/interact with my blog, bc it’s amazing. I hope this satisfies your needs 🙂 )
If you want me to correct the writing in the pic, then it’s:
– Tu n’as envie de rien
– J’ai envie de toi.
Else, @theshiwolf’s traduction of the comment is correct.
This post is honestly a blessing?
I mean.. between the french people freaking out about how grammatically wrong it is, les Mis fans laughing sweetly, the aesthetic accounts reblogging this without any doubt it is a love declaration, and that one person just above me who has basically read:
here’s the third gif from the set that i posted last night, of george singing the last line of “drink with me.”
i didn’t make it then, but i wanted to post it now, because you can really see — even in this shitty quality — how great george’s acting is. like, even from this angle, it’s absolutely clear that his grantaire is singing that line to enjolras: watch the way his eyes stick to a single point beyond the frame, even as his body begins to turn. then, as he finally looks away from enjolras, he puts the bottle to his mouth, as if to say, “fuck it.” when aaron talks about this scene, he describes enjolras as being unique in realizing that they’re all about to die, but i think it’s crystal clear here that grantaire knows it too.
and what makes it so fucking brutal — and different from the stage versions i’ve seen — is that grantaire walks away. we see it, right here; he takes one last, longing look at enjolras, and then makes the decision to leave the barricade. not because he’s afraid, or because he’s abandoning them, but because he cannot bear to watch enjolras — or any of them, but especially enjolras — die. so he takes that long look that you see in the previous frames:
and goes into the café.
i guess some people might call this cowardice, or abandonment (and maybe that’s how enjolras sees it), but i think it’s intensely human. grantaire wants his last image of enjolras to be as the valiant leader; he wants that to be the memory that he carries of him. not what will inevitably follow. so he drinks his fill of enjolras, so that he’ll always remember him that way, and then he literally drinks, so that he won’t remember anything that comes after. if everyone else is doomed, enjolras deserves to have even one person carry the memory of him as a hero.
this whole moment makes their last interaction so much more poignant, too. because now we know that enjolras saw grantaire leave the barricade; he knew grantaire had gone, that grantaire hadn’t fallen when the barricade did and that he was somewhere alive. how did he feel about that? was he glad to see him go? did he feel betrayed, like i said above?
also, note the sway in grantaire’s steps as he walks away. to me, that’s very reminiscent of the way he drunkenly walks to stand beside enjolras in front of the national guard. there’s a common physicality, an almost balletic movement. it’s nice foreshadowing, for me.
speaking of foreshadowing, as much as i’d love to see this full song (please please please let me get what i want), i’d also love to see the full “one day more,” because there’s a third moment to add to this mix, a third place where grantaire is called upon to stand with enjolras:
think about how that might play out onscreen. it’s the same staircase that grantaire is in front of when he comes to stand with enjolras at the very end. when grantaire wakes up, and sees enjolras about to die alone, that becomes his last image of him. and rather than let it happen, he joins him — this time, without even being asked. he willingly takes his place beside enjolras, completing the character arc we’ve seen develop (or, i guess, we haven’t seen, thanks to edits).
That just made me cry.
grantaire : admires, loves, and venerates Enjolras
grantaire : is ready to black Enjolras’ boots
grantaire : looks intently at Enjolras and whispers “be easy” in his ear
literary critics : this is the most heterosexual display i have ever witnessed.
low key wish there were more exr fics where it’s enjolras who falls in love fast, who meets this guy in the library with paint stained hands and a pile of old paperbacks and a loud laugh, and enjolras doesn’t care about talking too loud and pissing off the librarian because grantaire has so many amazing stories (most of which can’t be true but that doesn’t matter) and he gestures wildly with his hands and can quote huge passages from his favourite books as though it’s no big deal. and enjolras is just sitting there and has a big “oh shit I wanna high key date this guy” moment and panics whilst grantaire is totally oblivious to the effect he’s having on this poor guy.
listen i love fanon Hot Mess grantaire as much as the person next to me but i can’t help but feel that if you actually met modern au grantaire, he would be more like that lad kind of guy who’s in a different study program but sits in your class because he still lacks 2.5 credit points for graduation, but he just needs to pass, not a good grade, so he constantly raises his hand to ask semi-nonsensical questions that he hopes will make the professor interrupt her lecture and go on a tangent and when she doesn’t immediately gives him his turn he repeatedly shouts “um excuse me?? i have a short question” and then phrases it in the most unnecessarily lengthy way just to annoy everyone, so there’s an immediate, collective groan whenever his hand goes up, and you’re like, goddamnit it’s eight in the morning and i just want this to be Done, and when you happen to sit next to him he won’t shut up about the latest discourse in the flat earth discord he’s following ironically, and then he adds you on facebook and you find out he once wore a “make america great again” snapback to uni every day for three weeks “to troll people and see what their reactions would be” and then published a thinkpiece post about it on his wall
“Marius’ amours!” exclaimed Grantaire. “I see them now. Marius is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the poets’ race. He who says poet says fool. Tymbraeus Apollo. Marius and his Mary, or his Maria, or his Marietta, or his Marion, they must make odd lovers. I can imagine how it is. Ecstasies where they forgot to kiss. Chaste on Earth, but coupling in the infinite. They are souls that have senses. They sleep together in the stars. [volume xv, book xii]
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