Why is Cosette the symbol of Les Miserables?

Hello readers! Guess what, it’s that time of year again! If you don’t know what I mean then you’re clearly not as big a Les Mis fan as I am.

It’s Marius and Cosettes 181^st wedding anniversary today! 

Wow, 181 years……. I have no idea what the gift for that would be. My best guess would be copious amounts of alcohol.

I mention this because it brings me neatly around to the title of this post. Why is Cosette the symbol of Les Miserables? It’s a question that I’ve heard a few times since I read Les Miserables, most recently by my favourite online critic Doug Walker Click here for reviewey goodness! who did an epic review of the movie musical recently.

It’s a good question though, I mean think about it, the title of the book and musical is Les Miserables, but is Cosette really the most miserable person in the entire thing? Sure she had a terrible childhood but I think she got a happier ending than most of the other characters. Why is it her face that gets plastered all over the books and musical imagery? Why not Valjean, or Fantine, or Eponine, or even Gavroche? Does Cosette really suffer the most out of all the characters?

Actually, I think she does, and it’s connected to the other point I’ve brought up in this post. I think Cosette suffers the most in Les Mis because for the rest of her life she has to be married to Marius Pontmercy.

And yes I’ve brought up my hatred of Marius before in this blog, and yes I am being kind of facetious when I say this, but I actually do think it would be really hard for Cosette being married to him.

Why do I think this? Well for many reasons, just look at the evidence. First of all I don’t think that boy is mentally stable, remember this is the boy who stalked Cosette for months (possibly even years actually) before he summoned up the balls to talk to her, then when he thought he’d lost her he went all suicidal and tried to blow himself up! Somehow I don’t think a boy like that is going to make a very responsible husband.

There are other reasons too, for starters Marius is guilty of treason and he’s bloody lucky he didn’t get caught at the barricades. That actually doesn’t bother me too much but then there’s also the fact that he’s partly responsible for the death of Cosettes father and I think Cosette just might have a hard time dealing with that when she finds out. In the novel she’s been married to Marius for several months before Valjean dies which I think is actually worse than it is in the musical because Marius knew full well what was going on with Valjean and didn’t tell Cosette anything about where her father was for months on end.

Honestly I think that sucks, I think it would really suck to be married to someone for months and then find out all the things they’d been keeping from you. It’s not like Cosette can even do anything about it either when she finds out, she’s a woman in 1833 it’s not like she can just leave him or even argue with him about all the lies. She’s really screwed actually when you think about it, maybe not forever, but I think she’s gonna be pretty depressed for a while when she realises just what a fuckwit she’s married too.

She has no other family she can turn to either and I’m betting that Marius is probably responsible for all the money her father left her as well. I think her marriage is in a pretty precarious position; every good thing she has is tied to a man who probably hasn’t been honest with her since her wedding night.

And if you’re reading this thinking I’m making too big a deal put of things, well maybe you’re right. I probably am. Cosette is probably going to have a very good life, and it’ll probably be full of love and Marius will probably be very good to her, but I just think when you share your life with someone and you share certain intimacies with someone it can be hard to forgive such betrayals. I think however Cosette has probably got a big enough heart to forgive all the lies she’s been told. She’ll be fine I’m sure, I just feel kind of bad for her.

Honestly I can’t imagine a more insufferable life than spending an eternity with Marius Pontmercy, and that my friends is why I think Cosette deserves to be the symbol of Les Miserables, if she’s spent 181 years with him then I think she’s earned it.

Happy Anniversary!

Les Miserables: Shoujo Cosette

A few posts ago I checked out the “video game” adaptation of Les Miserables, (IT SUCKS!!! DON’T PLAY IT) I bring it up again because I thought back then it was the oddest adaptations of Les Miserables I’d come across so far…..I was wrong, because the Japanese made an anime version of the novel in 2007 called “Les Miserables: Shoujo Cosette”

(That title actually makes no sense in English. The word “Shoujo” in Japanese translates to “Little”, but the name Cosette in French means “little thing”. So the title of this anime really means “Little little thing).

Thanks to a friend and fellow Les Mis fan I was pointed towards a full copy online ready to watch. Unfortunately what my friend failed to mention beforehand was that this version is comprised of 52 25 minute episodes clocking up to 27 hours in total! Oh yes! I just spent the last three days watching one of the most complete versions of Les Miserables ever made, in Japanese! Thankfully it had English subtitles, because I may be mad for Les Mis but I’m not that mad that I’d watch 27 hours of it in Japanese.

Honestly, I’m not really a fan of anime, or Japanese culture in general so I was really sceptical about this version, I wasn’t expecting very much from it. I was seriously wrong though, this was one of the best adaptations I’ve seen so far! I thought it was brilliant. It may even be the best one in my opinion, and if not the best then it’s definitely the most complete, and that’s something that’s always lacking in any adaptation I’ve seen. There’s always too much taken out of the book to be completely faithful.
For instance this adaptation focused a lot on Cosettes childhood with the Thenardiers, and then a lot more of her convent years which is usually cut out from the many adaptations I’ve seen. It had that stupid stupid graveyard scene though….you know the one; I had a huge rant on it back in the early days of this blog!
 

The biggest thing was that they included the plotline about Monsieur Mabauef and his books, which I was really pleased about, he’s never included in any adaptations! I was so glad they put him in it! And the two young boys who are Gavroches brothers are in it as well, they’re always cut out too. They got a happy ending which is something that was left ambiguous in the book, which kind of sucks because I just knew in the book they were most likely going to starve to death in the streets. I was kind of glad actually that those two boys got a proper ending.

I’m going to provide the link to part one of the series for you because I urge you to see this if you are a true Les mis fan, you won’t regret it! Shoujo Cosette Part 1

I won’t spend this entire post gushing over it though, it wasn’t completely perfect. One of the main stumbling blocks I came across when I began watching it was that I found this to be a very odd clash of cultures at times. The story is still the same as the book so it’s still set in Paris and all the characters are animated to look vaguely European yet they’re all speaking Japanese and I was watching it with English subtitles. At times it was hard to really get into the story with those three things going on at once but the more I watched of it the more I got used to it.

They also made some big changes to the story. (Spoiler alert!) I think this was made for kids, so Fantines prostitution storyline was cut out which I can understand to an extent as that’s probably a bit heavy for kids. Gavroche doesn’t die either, nor does Javert kill himself which was the biggest change. I kind of understand the need to cut out suicide and child murder, but the thing is though they still included the deaths of all the students so I don’t really understand where the line is….. Young students being executed by a firing squad is fine for kids to see, but suicide isn’t?

Also the animation bothered me at times, I’ve never really liked Japanese cartoons, the eyes on everyone are always so big and they never make realistic facial expressions. This wasn’t so bad on most of the characters in this but it made Marius just even more dislikeable for me, his dead eyed blank expression throughout the entire thing just made me want to slap him repeatedly. Also I felt the blank expression of Jean Valjean affected his character too, he’s supposed to be a loving father to Cosette, but he never smiled at all during the entire 27 hours. I suppose one could argue that it’s just part of his character not to smile, but to be honest I just felt it made him seem distant and unemotional. 

Some of the characters were really creepy looking as well, Javert in particular is so weird to look at I found it really off putting, and Thenardier just looks vile…..although he kind of does in every adaptation, so I shouldn’t really complain about that.

Sometimes just the sheer length of this was too much as well, about 6 hours of this was just focused on Cosettes childhood with the Thenardiers, which I know is important to the story but there’s only so many times you can see a child being abused before it starts to get old, and a little disturbing. See again I don’t get where the line is, child abuse is OK for an anime, but not suicide or prostitution! What is your logic Japan!!!

Another small criticism I have is that Cosettes voice doesn’t change from when she’s a child to when she’s an adult, so it was a little creepy having the teenaged Cosette talking about being in love with Marius when she still had the voice of an 8 year old girl, I really don’t see how that would have been hard to change, it would have improved the show significantly as well.

Apart from those small gripes, and the few changes they made to the story I really think this was one of the best adaptations I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot! If you have 27 hours to spare I can’t recommend this enough, I don’t think I have enough words to describe just how good this adaptation is, I think this may now be my second favourite adaptation after the 2013 movie.

I can’t believe the Japanese made this, I’m not trying to sound patronising or racist I’m just genuinely surprised. Seriously, who would have thought the Japanese would make the best adaptation of Les Miserables? Not the British, not the Americans, not even the French, but the Japanese!