fixing things that aren't broken: les miserables

like everyone else, i love les mis. the book, the play, even the hugh jackman movie. but i do have some ~~issues~~ with it, especially as a non-believer in the abrahamic god. but i’ll get to that in a minute.

but first, why do we insist on everyone using british accents? sure, in the original production, it made sense for gavroche to be a cockney little oliver twisty lad, but if we’re shooting for cultural equivalence, shouldn’t his american cousin at least sound like he’s from brooklyn or something?

but more importantly. “who am i” is one of the most emotional, moving moments in the play. it’s jean valjean reckoning with the ghost of his past (even though he didn’t actually do anything wrong) and deciding what kind of man he’s going to be. it’s an epic battle between self-interest and moral rightness.

except it isn’t.

in the song, he explicitly reasons, “if i speak, i am condemned. if i stay silent, i am damned.” textually, he’s a committed christian. “my soul belongs to god” and such.

which means that what he’s really choosing between is one punishment - the punishment of man, of javert, of prison and hard labor (and another opportunity to get really, superhuman buff) - and another, the punishment of god, which will presumably be even worse and last a hell (lol) of a lot longer than anything javert can throw at him.

jean valjean’s got none of, say, hamlet’s doubt after the afterlife.

so his epic struggle isn’t really one. it’s simple math. rational self-interest forces him to turn himself in.

but there are a few lines in the song-soliloquy thing that i always wished got more attention.

“i am the master of hundreds of workers, they all look to me / can i abandon them / how would they live, if i am not free?”

yep, jean valjean’s also a capitalist i guess? but a good, benevolent, santa-claus type capitalist. as well as a mayor. he’s been busy.

he pays lip service to this social-good argument, but then seems to dismiss it. it never really plays a role in his decision making. but in my new, altered version of victor hugo’s masterpiece, which i randomly thought of on the bus this morning and am now writing in lieu of doing actual work at my actual job - it does! “who am i” has serious stakes and consequences now! hear me out. in my version:

• valjean still decides to turn himself in, but we take god out of it. instead, we dwell on the “how can i ever face myself again” self-respect, conscience, kantian do-gooding argument

• because he turns himself in, “the foreman” takes over as head of the factory. probably valjean knows or suspects this will happen, and the negative effect it will have upon the workers, since “the foreman” (who we probably ought to give a name) is a bad, exploity capitalist

• the foreman then has the power to fire fantine for all the nonsense in “at the end of the day” and send her down her tragic path to ruin 

all this really does is move a few events around (and toss out the centerpiece of hugo’s entire worldview and that of billions of people around the world), but i think it has a huge effect on the story. now valjean’s sense of responsibility for fantine and cosette makes more sense. he doesn’t just allow fantine to be fired out of - what? apathy? indifference? - but actively causes a sequence of events that lead to her misfortune and ultimate death.

doing the right thing sometimes has consequences. and so being a moral person requires not only doing it, not only accepting those consequences, but also taking responsibility for them and working to make them right again.

oh, also, we don’t need the stupid cart accident, valjean-is-strongest-boy subplot, which i’ve always hated, too.

and let's have eponine realize she's too good for marius right before she dies because, obviously.