(no subject)

[skygiants]

So I keep wondering why Enjolras expects Marius to show up and be helpful in the Barriere du Maine scene; after all, we're told that after the Great Napoleon Debacle, Marius essentially storms off in a huff and never goes back to revolutionland again. Also, he is Marius. Myself, I can think of about four reasons:

1. Unreliable/ambiguous narrator: Marius had been hanging out with the gang before Napoleongate way more than the text implies.

2. Marius has not been hanging out with the gang, but Courfeyrac trusts him enough that he asks him to run errands sometimes when it would be useful to have an unfamiliar face show up, which he does because of the debt he feels he owes Courfeyrac, and Enjolras interprets this as Marius being way more interested in revolution than he actually is. This would actually be an interesting fic-premise -- Marius Pontmercies his way through a revolutionary errand he knows nothing about; hijinks ensue!

3. Enjolras really is JUST THAT DESPERATE. Maybe all the redshirt revolutionaries have gone home for the summer holidays. Or are dying of cholera.

4. Enjolras is not actually talking about our Marius at all, but about a friend of his named Jean or Pierre or Guifford Marius. Jean Marius has been very lax about showing up to meetings recently and we are VERY DISAPPOINTED in him.

Comments

[elsane]

So I just came across this bit from 3.5.5: "It was during one of his strolls that he had hit upon the Gorbeau house, and, tempted by its isolation and its cheapness, had taken up his abode there. He was known there only under the name of M. Marius." So maybe he is trying to avoid the "Pontmercy"? But, why? His father's name is still engraved in his heart, why would he shed it when it's such a key part of his sensitive construction of identity? I don't get the sense from him that he is ashamed of living in the Gorbeau house or of making his own way in the world, so it's hard for me to argue that he is worried about sullying the name? I feel like I'm missing some important piece of character logic here...

Interesting point about how growing up as the only child in adult circles might be playing into this.