Montparnasse being the foil of Enjolras makes me so emotional. Like, its pretty obvious that that’s how Hugo intended it, based on how he worded things (i.e. a charming young man capable of being terrible vs. a terrible young man capable of being charming). But it just gets me when I realize that the principle difference isn’t background or history, its hope. They see the world the same, so full of pain and suffering, but Enjolras is a staunch believer that it will get better, whilst Montparnasse is basically resigned to the wretchedness which is actually very depressing. Idk it just gives me so many feels.
in french you dont say “i love you” you say “permets-tu” which is closer to “do you permit it?” i love that. “do you permit it” you are hot and blond and we are going to die. you are like a statue or a god or an angel. i am really gay for you.
wtf we don’t say “permets-tu”????????????
wtf we don’t say “permets-tu” we say “je t’aime” you dumbass
french people who dont get les miserables jokes
Grantaire:
Permets-tu?
Enjolras: wtf
we don’t say “permets-tu” we say “je t’aime” you dumbass
(argument
ensues)
Soldiers: *look
one another in confusion* *slowly lower their arms* Maybe… we should give
them a minute?
My favourite Enjolras is the Enjolras who adores his friends. The Enjolras who confuses everyone who isn’t in the group because from the outside it looks like he is dating all of the les Amis.
Enjolras who never stops talking about how great Feuilly is, both in front of Feuilly and behind his back. Enjolras who jumps into EVERY fight bahorel gets in around him, like Enjolras is tiny but he bites like a motherfucker.
Enjolras who will spend hours with Courfeyrac talking and will go to every single event he plans without complaint because he knows courfeyrac loves these things. Enjolras who fake dates Marius with the sole purpose of pissing off his grandfather because he is the only one who isn’t terrified of that man. And when Combeferre adopts a cat Enjolras keeps his allergy secret and has to sneak tons of medicine to keep from sneezing constantly.
Enjolras being the first person joly bossuet and Musichetta come to with their relationship because they know he will not only accept them without question but also be at their side for every other time they tell people and he has a strangely comforting presence. And every time Eponine or Montparnasse need somewhere to crash for the night his couch is open and he always buys breakfast for them in the morning.
And when jehan has a poetry reading Enjolras is always at the middle front seat getting way too into it and making jehan blush afterwards with all the compliments. Enjolras who showers his friends with compliments, thanking them for every contribution they make and getting this earnest face on as he tells them how much their dedication means to him.
Enjolras not being the best to come to with personal problems, but he will always listen, just don’t ask for advice. I mean just picture Enjolras with his serious face on looking Cosette in the eye and nodding along as she tells him all the fluffy details about her date with Marius. That’s a great mental picture okay?
I want to see more of Enjolras who knows all of his friends coffee orders and will buy them one whenever he has a chance, or Enjolras who will see something in a store and absolutely light up because it reminds him of one of his friends and immediately he buys it. Enjolras just being the most affectionate person, sometimes inconveniently so, calling his friends at three thirty in the morning to tell them how important they are to him, or pressing kisses to their cheeks and hugging them tightly every time he sees them as if they had been parted for years while it’s really been moments. And this often leads to people thinking he is dating multiple, if not all the members of the Les amis, this assumption is not refuted by the way he will sometimes find a friend and just hold their face and tell them how amazing he thinks they are.
Also in assemblies Enjolras is that annoying person yelling over everyone to find his friends so they can all sit together, and reserving a whole row with his books, bags, jacket, scarf and anything else so they wont be separated.
And when Enjolras actually starts dating Grantaire people find out that he was actually being somewhat reserved before.
I once told @ragnar-rock i’d tell her about this scene and I feel like I might burst
Remember that Grantaire could have gotten out of this alive. He could have stayed hidden, sobering up in a corner for days on end but the silence awoke him. The café was such a lively, noisy place that the silence is deafening. We have a word for it in French : un silence de mort. And it literally is a silence of death.
And as other people pointed out, he doesn’t even spare a glance to the guards, it’s no use, it’s already over. He only has eyes for Enjolras, etherally beautiful in all his glory and tragedy, the flamboyant ideal of the revolution embodied in a single man. And if Enjolras is the allegory of an ideal, Grantaire is the allegory of Paris and France itself. “The people too must rise”, right? Well guess what, the people, embodied by Grantaire, DID RISE. The cynic, the one who took great care in beliving in nothing rose and marched to his death because he believed in Enjolras, aka the Revolution.
I love his little stumble, it’s almost like he can’t wait to reach Enjolras, he’s drawn to him like a moth towards the light. Because it’s what Enjolras is, the light in the darkness, the promise of better days. And Grantaire chooses to die because life would be meaningless without Enjolras, without the marble lover of liberty. “La liberté sinon rien” : liberty or nothing.
Grantaire didn’t stumble to his death. Grantaire held salvation by the hand and looked at death right in the eyes, defiant until the very end. France and Liberty, so indissociable, dying together rather than being apart.
I had always been on the “Enjolras is tall” train, until I imagined Enj standing on a counter in his apartment screaming about something and R just scooping his tiny angry boyfriend off the table
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 