Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-03-01 04:25 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-03-01 04:25 pm
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So there are a few things that crop up over and over again in Ami-centric LM fic, and they never get disputed and few people ever seem to stray from them and I've been wondering if anyone else is really, really annoyed by them.
The biggest one falls under the same heading of "Javert appears to be the only policeman in Paris"--namely, Les Amis were not in any way in isolation. This tends to come in two varieties:
Folks, the ABC society was not as insular as fanfiction makes it out to be. From what Hugo has shown us, these are for the most part a group of extremely social young men--they go to cafés besides the Musain and the Corinth, they're nodding acquaintances with many of the students and workmen in Paris, we see them going out to the theater and playing dominos and going out to lunch with friends. Furthermore, the ten people we see aren't the only people who are affiliated with the society. They randomly drag Marius in off the street, for god's sake, and Courfeyrac trots him off to a meeting once he finds out he's not a royalist. The first time we get introduced to the general uproar of the Musain's back room, there are several unnamed young men there who are obviously not major members but are there anyway. They're all obviously part of a wider social network, so why doesn't this ever get shown?
The second variety of "lol only Les Amis exist" is the implication that they were in any way acting alone during the revolution. Hell no. Remember those chapters Hugo devotes to the mysterious ripples the republican underground leaves on the surface of Paris? Torn-up lists of men and the arms they posses found lying in the street, intercepted lists of sectionnaires, workingmen concealing weapons under their clothing and talking against the government, bootleg powder-making operations.... it may not have been perfectly organized, but there was definitely organization going on and our friends were definitely a small part of a very large society. Hugo states outright that they were closely tied to the Cougourde; they were probably familiar with the Friends of the People; it's less likely but still possible that they knew or were affiliated with the Society of the Rights of Man. There's no way at all that they were acting in a vacuum, or that they were secretive enough about their sedition not to be in contact with other groups.
On the same note, the meetings in the Musain were probably not just them getting together every now and again to suck one another's ideological dicks. The accepted format for meetings in fic seems to be "they all meet up, Enjolras speechifies grandly about democracy or whatever his soapbox of the week is, and then everything splinters off into small conversations of varying irrelevance." Les Amis' activities probably included, at the very least, exchanging plans and information with other societies, contributing to or even publishing an illegal newspaper, recruiting new members, and gathering arms as best they could with anti-gun laws in place. (Not to protect the citizenry from thugs, you liberal freakazoids, to protect the government from angry young men with Ideas. In 1832 the right to bear arms was in the same general category as the rights of association and free speech. Which were also curtailed. And enforced. Why don't any Amis ever end up in jail and/or on trial for their seditious activities?) At any rate, all this would have been discussed at meetings, in addition to Enjy's soapbox of the week, in addition to any ideological bones anyone wanted to pick with anyone else. These meetings were partly social occasions, yes, or they probably would have been much less frequent, but they had a definite purpose and agenda besides free exchange of ideas.
Oh, and I mostly blame the musical for this one, but this idea that all the revolutionary fervor is brought on by the horrible conditions of the very poor? Nuh-uh. In the 1830s at least, republican sentiment was mainly stirred up by the working classes--who got shafted by the July monarchy--and the students--who were a bunch of idealistic young buggers who didn't like kings too much. The Story So Far is that after Napoleon got his ass pwnz0red, the Bourbon monarchy was restored and France... okay, it didn't exactly go back to the way it was pre-Revolution, but it was an absolute monarchy and a rather despotic one at that. After fifteen years of the Restoration, Paris said "Fuck you guys" and had a revolution. The Bourbons were ousted and our darling liberal ideologues were all ready to set up a republic when voices of Reason, Compromise, and Very Wealthy People spoke up and said that really they ought to keep things stable and a republic was just too muchpower in the hands of the masses work and wouldn't it be nice to set up a constitutional monarchy instead? So Louis-Philippe of the Orléans line got the throne, theoretically representing the people and actually representing the Very Wealthy People who put him there. He made all sorts of promises to keep free speech and association protected and to allow a wider portion of the population to vote and such, and, well.... you know what they say about politicians' promises. Newspapers? Subject to censor. Regular meetings of twenty or more people? Banned without permission. The vote? Property (or was it income? blast my memory) requirements made it such that a large number of people but a very small actual percentage of the population was granted suffrage. In essence, the middle and working classes--who had been the ones to do most of the dirty work in the 1830 revolution--found themselves right back where they were before.
Now, picture this if you will. You are a red-blooded young student with democratic leanings--or, if you prefer, a self-educated fanmaker making a decent but meager living--and the revolution you just fought has been snatched out from under you by the maneuverings of the bourgeoisie. (Not the nobility, dammit. Courfeyrac came from a noble family. Enjolras came from a bourgeois family. There's a difference.) A few silly moderates are trying to point out that at least it's better than the Bourbons, but you're pissed as hell, you're seriously considering socialist leanings now, and you want Louis-Philippe off the damn throne. You don't want there to be a damn throne. What's your precedent for believing that your harebrained schemes have a hope in hell of working?
Well, this brings me to another bit of fanon, the They're All Gonna Die mentality, closely related to the Their Plans Are Never Gonna Work mentality. Now, we, being readers, know they're all gonna die. They don't. They also don't have our nice retrospective view of a long string of aborted revolutions, republics collapsed into despotism, and communist utopias gone wrong. You know what they see? They see the Enlightenment giving birth to the American Revolution, which succeeds in setting up a functional republic. They see the French Revolution succeeding and setting up a slightly less functional republic, which nevertheless brings Democracy to Europe and Light to the Oppressed and A Lot Of People's Heads Cut Off. (Srsly guys, Les Amis are total French Revolution fanboys.) They see the July revolution succeeding and getting commandeered by a wealthy minority, the commandeering bit being why they want to overthrow the government, the succeeding bit being why they think a revolution will work. They probably accept that they might end up martyrs for the cause, but they totally think they're going to win. I mean, hell, all Paris was on their side in 1830, right? Why not again? Whatever they were expecting to do, being part of a mass slaughter on the barricades and then becoming a footnote in history probably wasn't it.
Okay. Enough over-researched rambling. There is some specific Ami fanon I'd like to address here:
Grantaire snarking at Enjolras. It's one of the great mainstays of the fandom, isn't it? Grantaire, the drunken critic, the only one with enough balls to tell Enjolras he was crazy. Well, read your Bricks again, darlings. Grantaire, though prone to long and incoherent rambles about the sad state of the universe, is never shown directly criticizing Les Amis' ideas, aims, or activities. The closest he ever comes is when he's trying to convince Enjolras to let him meet with the men of the Barrière du Maine: "I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand." And while E! probably doesn't take kindly to the suggestion that they're going out to talk inspiring bullshit at potential allies, said suggestion is hardly equal to "You're crazy and your revolution is crazy and your republic is crazy and I must be crazy because I love you anyway. Awwww, you're so cute when you believe in things!" R's attitude towards politics and Les Amis' beliefs seems to be one of apathy fueled by pessimism, not actual dismissal or derision.
Bossuet tripping over his own feet and breaking things all the time. Okay, it's good for a laugh, but the lad's unlucky, not clumsy. Unlucky in the way that causes business speculations to fail and landlords to kick him out, not unlucky in the way that causes him to trip over banana peels. (Also, when M. Hugo noted he was bald, he probably meant a nice big bald spot on top. Not completely hairless à la chemotherapy or a shaved head.)
Jehan wearing stripes with polka dots and other fashion disasters. Since his clothing was mentioned in conjunction with him being a poet, this probably means he styled himself a bohemian and dressed unfashionably on purpose. And "dressing badly" likely meant severely out-of-date clothing (think doublets) and strange colors, not plain old bad fashion sense. It's the sort of thing some young artistes did for a while in school before they got tired of shocking people and went back to dressing normally, a bit like wearing black lipstick and chokers with six-inch spikes to annoy your parents.
Enjolras hating women. Really, he just seems sort of indifferent to them, perhaps annoyed at the more persistent ones. Less "Woe is me, women keep following me around!" and more "Go away, I'm not interested and I don't have time anyway."God, if he were any deeper in the closet he'd be in his neighbor's apartment by now.
Nicknames. Enjolras does not call Grantaire "wine-cask" several times a day. And the "Apollo" thing was a single, vague reference that could have been a code name anyway.
The biggest one falls under the same heading of "Javert appears to be the only policeman in Paris"--namely, Les Amis were not in any way in isolation. This tends to come in two varieties:
Folks, the ABC society was not as insular as fanfiction makes it out to be. From what Hugo has shown us, these are for the most part a group of extremely social young men--they go to cafés besides the Musain and the Corinth, they're nodding acquaintances with many of the students and workmen in Paris, we see them going out to the theater and playing dominos and going out to lunch with friends. Furthermore, the ten people we see aren't the only people who are affiliated with the society. They randomly drag Marius in off the street, for god's sake, and Courfeyrac trots him off to a meeting once he finds out he's not a royalist. The first time we get introduced to the general uproar of the Musain's back room, there are several unnamed young men there who are obviously not major members but are there anyway. They're all obviously part of a wider social network, so why doesn't this ever get shown?
The second variety of "lol only Les Amis exist" is the implication that they were in any way acting alone during the revolution. Hell no. Remember those chapters Hugo devotes to the mysterious ripples the republican underground leaves on the surface of Paris? Torn-up lists of men and the arms they posses found lying in the street, intercepted lists of sectionnaires, workingmen concealing weapons under their clothing and talking against the government, bootleg powder-making operations.... it may not have been perfectly organized, but there was definitely organization going on and our friends were definitely a small part of a very large society. Hugo states outright that they were closely tied to the Cougourde; they were probably familiar with the Friends of the People; it's less likely but still possible that they knew or were affiliated with the Society of the Rights of Man. There's no way at all that they were acting in a vacuum, or that they were secretive enough about their sedition not to be in contact with other groups.
On the same note, the meetings in the Musain were probably not just them getting together every now and again to suck one another's ideological dicks. The accepted format for meetings in fic seems to be "they all meet up, Enjolras speechifies grandly about democracy or whatever his soapbox of the week is, and then everything splinters off into small conversations of varying irrelevance." Les Amis' activities probably included, at the very least, exchanging plans and information with other societies, contributing to or even publishing an illegal newspaper, recruiting new members, and gathering arms as best they could with anti-gun laws in place. (Not to protect the citizenry from thugs, you liberal freakazoids, to protect the government from angry young men with Ideas. In 1832 the right to bear arms was in the same general category as the rights of association and free speech. Which were also curtailed. And enforced. Why don't any Amis ever end up in jail and/or on trial for their seditious activities?) At any rate, all this would have been discussed at meetings, in addition to Enjy's soapbox of the week, in addition to any ideological bones anyone wanted to pick with anyone else. These meetings were partly social occasions, yes, or they probably would have been much less frequent, but they had a definite purpose and agenda besides free exchange of ideas.
Oh, and I mostly blame the musical for this one, but this idea that all the revolutionary fervor is brought on by the horrible conditions of the very poor? Nuh-uh. In the 1830s at least, republican sentiment was mainly stirred up by the working classes--who got shafted by the July monarchy--and the students--who were a bunch of idealistic young buggers who didn't like kings too much. The Story So Far is that after Napoleon got his ass pwnz0red, the Bourbon monarchy was restored and France... okay, it didn't exactly go back to the way it was pre-Revolution, but it was an absolute monarchy and a rather despotic one at that. After fifteen years of the Restoration, Paris said "Fuck you guys" and had a revolution. The Bourbons were ousted and our darling liberal ideologues were all ready to set up a republic when voices of Reason, Compromise, and Very Wealthy People spoke up and said that really they ought to keep things stable and a republic was just too much
Now, picture this if you will. You are a red-blooded young student with democratic leanings--or, if you prefer, a self-educated fanmaker making a decent but meager living--and the revolution you just fought has been snatched out from under you by the maneuverings of the bourgeoisie. (Not the nobility, dammit. Courfeyrac came from a noble family. Enjolras came from a bourgeois family. There's a difference.) A few silly moderates are trying to point out that at least it's better than the Bourbons, but you're pissed as hell, you're seriously considering socialist leanings now, and you want Louis-Philippe off the damn throne. You don't want there to be a damn throne. What's your precedent for believing that your harebrained schemes have a hope in hell of working?
Well, this brings me to another bit of fanon, the They're All Gonna Die mentality, closely related to the Their Plans Are Never Gonna Work mentality. Now, we, being readers, know they're all gonna die. They don't. They also don't have our nice retrospective view of a long string of aborted revolutions, republics collapsed into despotism, and communist utopias gone wrong. You know what they see? They see the Enlightenment giving birth to the American Revolution, which succeeds in setting up a functional republic. They see the French Revolution succeeding and setting up a slightly less functional republic, which nevertheless brings Democracy to Europe and Light to the Oppressed and A Lot Of People's Heads Cut Off. (Srsly guys, Les Amis are total French Revolution fanboys.) They see the July revolution succeeding and getting commandeered by a wealthy minority, the commandeering bit being why they want to overthrow the government, the succeeding bit being why they think a revolution will work. They probably accept that they might end up martyrs for the cause, but they totally think they're going to win. I mean, hell, all Paris was on their side in 1830, right? Why not again? Whatever they were expecting to do, being part of a mass slaughter on the barricades and then becoming a footnote in history probably wasn't it.
Okay. Enough over-researched rambling. There is some specific Ami fanon I'd like to address here:
Grantaire snarking at Enjolras. It's one of the great mainstays of the fandom, isn't it? Grantaire, the drunken critic, the only one with enough balls to tell Enjolras he was crazy. Well, read your Bricks again, darlings. Grantaire, though prone to long and incoherent rambles about the sad state of the universe, is never shown directly criticizing Les Amis' ideas, aims, or activities. The closest he ever comes is when he's trying to convince Enjolras to let him meet with the men of the Barrière du Maine: "I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand." And while E! probably doesn't take kindly to the suggestion that they're going out to talk inspiring bullshit at potential allies, said suggestion is hardly equal to "You're crazy and your revolution is crazy and your republic is crazy and I must be crazy because I love you anyway. Awwww, you're so cute when you believe in things!" R's attitude towards politics and Les Amis' beliefs seems to be one of apathy fueled by pessimism, not actual dismissal or derision.
Bossuet tripping over his own feet and breaking things all the time. Okay, it's good for a laugh, but the lad's unlucky, not clumsy. Unlucky in the way that causes business speculations to fail and landlords to kick him out, not unlucky in the way that causes him to trip over banana peels. (Also, when M. Hugo noted he was bald, he probably meant a nice big bald spot on top. Not completely hairless à la chemotherapy or a shaved head.)
Jehan wearing stripes with polka dots and other fashion disasters. Since his clothing was mentioned in conjunction with him being a poet, this probably means he styled himself a bohemian and dressed unfashionably on purpose. And "dressing badly" likely meant severely out-of-date clothing (think doublets) and strange colors, not plain old bad fashion sense. It's the sort of thing some young artistes did for a while in school before they got tired of shocking people and went back to dressing normally, a bit like wearing black lipstick and chokers with six-inch spikes to annoy your parents.
Enjolras hating women. Really, he just seems sort of indifferent to them, perhaps annoyed at the more persistent ones. Less "Woe is me, women keep following me around!" and more "Go away, I'm not interested and I don't have time anyway."
Nicknames. Enjolras does not call Grantaire "wine-cask" several times a day. And the "Apollo" thing was a single, vague reference that could have been a code name anyway.
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I can’t even begin to describe how annoying that is. It’s either that or one of the amis changing his mind at the last second and deciding that Violence Is Not the Answer. I think people may be looking at things from too much of a modern/personal perspective, or something.
I never got the ‘Enjolras hating women’ thing either.
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THANK YOU.
Word on the whole thing, really. Especially klutz!Bossuet. (This is why I like Soujin's, because while he does that, he does it on purpose.)
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My mental image of Jehan resembles one of those Renaissance faire junkies. All overdone in anachronic dress, as opposed to colour and pattern blindness.
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God, if he were any deeper in the closet he'd be in his neighbor's apartment by now.I think I died a little. Ahahahahaha.
Grantaire wouldn't snark at Enjolras. "I'll black your boots" -- ring a bell?
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