“Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous.”

“Combeferre was as gentle as Enjolras was severe, through natural whiteness. He loved the word citizen, but he preferred the word man.”

“Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide, Courfeyrac was the centre. The others gave more light, he shed more warmth; the truth is, that he possessed all the qualities of a centre, roundness and radiance “

omg , I’m so glad you tagged me in to talk about Gavroche!

Short answer: 

Yeah, the stage musical these days gives Gavroche a close relationship with Grantaire, for whatever reason;  I know that’s a *somewhat* new thing, in the sense that the show is several decades strong and it wasn’t there right at first, but I also know it’s been going for several years at least!  ( @cometomecosette , @laughingmistress, you know a lot more about the Musical History; do you know when this kicked in?) 

The 2012 movie definitely has Gavroche being closest to Courfeyrac!  A very reasonable change. 

…and yeah, way more relevant to the book’s portrayal of them both than having Gavroche hang around with Grantaire, which…I have no idea where or when that got made a thing?  But like the robbery in the square, it’s musical-exclusive. 

Book-wise (if that’s relevant; it’s not, really, if you’re just checking musical versions) , Gavroche has his main interactions with  (in no particular order) Courfeyrac, Marius (post-powder-barrel stunt), quite a lot with Enjolras, and with Bahorel, who he adopts as his Favorite Adult (and I hope you appreciate the Willpower I am deploying now in not going On about that XD).   Grantaire never even meets him, as far as we’re told in the novel. 

Now I am hoping more musical-focused bloggers will volunteer some stage history!

I’m not quite sure when the Gavroche/Grantaire bond became a thing onstage. It’s been a trend for as long as I’ve known the show, which is 19 years. (Hey, I’ve been a Les Mis fan exactly as long as Valjean spends in Toulon!)

It’s always been standard blocking for Grantaire to stand with comforting hands on Gavroche’s shoulders while the whole barricade is watching Éponine die. The classic Michael Ball/Frances Ruffelle “A Little Fall of Rain” photo shows Clive Carter’s Grantaire doing just that in the background. 

Whether the staging has always had them as buddies throughout, or whether that one bit of blocking grew into something more in future actors’ hands, I don’t know. As for why it’s Grantaire… well, maybe it’s just because he’s the most prominent of all the Amis in the musical. Or maybe they wanted to show him as clearly having a lot of “heart” to make up for his lack of idealism and a strong bond with the little boy was an easy way to do it.

We need as much furniture as you can throw down!

Craig Pinder the original Courfeyrac in Les Misérables who succeeded Dave Willetts as Jean Valjean backstage

Unless I’m mistaken, he’s the convict in the TAC who sings “The sun is strong, it’s hot as hell below!” I’m sure his bravura delivery of that line has instantly captured the attention of thousands of Les Mis newbies over the years.

Another question about Marius

Could someone remind me if Hugo’s Marius shows any signs of PTSD after the barricades?

I don’t have time at the moment to reread and analyze all the relevant Brick chapters.

Of course in the musical, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables makes a PTSD diagnosis easy to infer: his irrational survivor’s guilt, his hallucinating his dead friends, etc. But I don’t remember him showing similar symptoms in the novel. The only possible example I can think of is the description of how  his friends would sometimes “appear” before him and he would relive all the barricade experiences. I always assumed that passage was just describing memories, but I suppose it could also be describing flashbacks. That’s a debatable example, though, and I don’t remember him showing any other textbook symptoms at all.

Yet the idea that he has PTSD tends to be accepted as more-or-less canon by fans of both the musical and the Brick. I’ve read exclusively novel-based metas that casually mention Marius’s “severe PTSD” post-barricades. Are those people projecting Empty Chairs at Empty Tables onto the Brick? Or does Hugo’s Marius display any symptoms that I’m forgetting?

Thank you for making this post. I’ve always wanted to write a post on this matter but just never figured out how to word my thoughts. I was introduced into this fandom by the 2012 movie. ECAET was really a powerful song and Eddie’s acting was amazing. Naturally, when I read the novel several months later, I was nervously expecting Marius’ heartbreaking post-barricade trauma. But NOTHING HAPPENED. I’m not sure if you remember this conversation between Gillenormand and Marius where Gillenormand asks Marius where his friend (Courfeyrac) is and Marius is like “oh well he’s dead”. I…I couldn’t believe what I read. I always have the impression that in the book Marius isn’t really close to Les Amis, so it totally makes sense that there isn’t a full chapter of his ECAET-ing, but for god’s sake this is Courfeyrac he’s talking about? He’s one of Marius’ only two friends in the world, who lets him live in his apartment without even knowing him and takes care of him after he’s kicked out from his family. How can he be so calm, so indifferent to the death of a friend as if he were talking about some random stranger he read about in the news? 

Hmm... Well, some people do deal with grief by not wanting to talk or even think about the people they’ve lost. We certainly see that with Valjean, in the way he puts his biological family out of his mind once it’s clear he’ll never reunite with them. I suppose that could even be another PTSD symptom, since they say it’s common for the sufferer to be unable to talk or even consciously think much about the traumatic event.

Alternately, Hugo could have just thought it was more moving to be understated at that point. To let the readers fill in the blanks and imagine all the emotions that must lie behind Marius’s simple “He’s dead.” He used similar understatement to great effect with Éponine, after all; by mainly describing her from others’ points of view, having her hide her misery behind a laughing, babbling, street-tough facade, and only hinting at her pain with a somber expression here, a brief loss for words there, etc. With all due respect to the musical, it’s definitely more fascinating and in a way more poignant to portray her that way on the page than if there were long emotional passages voicing her inner angst. He may have been aiming for a similar effect with Marius regarding Courfeyrac’s death.

So I just realized that every time a writer gives Enjolras a short fuse with a big explosion, they’re mistaking him with Courfeyrac.

Because even though he is capable of being terrible, he is actually overwhelmingly charming. Le Cabuc was a powerful scene not just because it was swift and merciless, but because it came suddenly. Les Amis didn’t expect it.

But Courfeyrac flips his shit and throws their copy of the Charter into the fire while having a friendly debate.

He knows Combeferre is playing the Devil’s Advocate. He doesn’t give a fuck. Monarchies are wrong.

He is their sanguine, passionate core.

guys i’m rly tired and can’t remember…in the les mis movie, which dude is it with the black curly hair??? like the barricade dude who gets super extra wrecked when gavroche dies…not the actor’s name, the actual character, there’s like a dozen different barricade bros and i can’t think…idek if he has any individual sung lines but obvis it’s not enjolras and i’m almost positive it’s not grantaire…i’m so sleepy pls help

Courfeyrac, played by Fra Fee.

He has a few individual lines, but not many. In the novel he’s Marius’s best friend and the one who introduces him to the other barricade boys, but like all the rest, his role is smaller in the musical.

I believe this has been my most reblogged post in 2013 so I decided to make the second version I always wanted to do and never got around to before the year ended Cosette has some serious echo in her room