ok so one of my fav lines in the musical from a purely aesthetic perspective has always been cosette’s “every day you walk with stronger step / you walk with longer step / the worst is over” part at the start of every day/a heart full of love (reprise) – honestly i just find the melody really lovely and the longer/stronger internal rhyme is #nice.
but then i actually thought about that line, and how marius has a hell of a lot more than physical injuries to recover from.
and now i’m thinking about cosette, with her incredible capacity for love and tenderness, supporting marius through every step of his grief: sitting up in bed with him for hours talking about nothing in particular when the awful nightmares stop sleep from coming; holding him tight when he has flashbacks, grounding him and reminding him that he’s safe; reassuring him over and over that it’s not his fault, that he doesn’t have to feel guilty for still being alive when his friends are not
and imagine her pride as he grows stronger and day by day his panic attacks grow a little less frequent, his sleep a little more restful, and eventually he’s able to leave the house again – just for the briefest of walks at first, but steadily longer each time. and then one day she catches him absent mindedly humming to himself as he makes a cup of tea, and its almost cheerful. and he starts talking about the future – things he’d like to do, places he’d like to go – instead of being trapped in the past, back in the barricade or the empty shell of the cafe musain. and of course they both know this kind of loss isn’t something you ever fully recover from, not really, but at last it looks like the worst might just be over
so now this is what i think about when i hear that line and it always makes me want to cry
So, this is kind of Les Mis fridge horror. (I spend way too much time on TV Tropes.)
But you know how in the musical, Fantine tells Javert her daughter’s going to die, and Javert’s says, “I have heard such protestations every day for twenty years.”?
Well, how many single parents do you think Javert put in jail for committing some petty crime to support their child? How many kids do you think have either starved to death or been forced to live on the streets or sell themselves as a prostitute or something equally terrifying because Javert put their parents in jail?
imo to see the full horror here you have to carry it the final step: How many children were ‘born inside a jail’ because their mothers, once arrested, had no choice (as fantine and valjean had no choice) but to keep on that path in order to survive? How many of those children grew up seeing that society provided only two paths for them? How many new Javerts were made in those 20 years by his own actions in enforcing the law that made him who he is? it’s a self-perpetuating cycle of oppression and injustice that can’t be broken without revolution and love.
