Let's all be miserable together!

Yes, I'm uncomfortable with the "choosing to be poor" description for all the reasons you say here. I think Marius is meant to be deeply affected by his background and a lot of his questionable behaviors come from that, not from general 19th-century dudeness. Some of it is from Being A Boy, I agree. But the amount of value he places on being like his father must be because of Gillenormand's horrible behavior, and the way in which he's been set up as this pawn in a larger contest between Gillenormand and his dad's memory.

(also, thanks for digging up the Tumblr link)