"You could just as easily say that Bahorel could have been a monster, but found it more satisfying to subdue them."
YES EXACTLY, what a wonderful summary!
One of my favorite lines about Guelemer, especially for what I think is this fairly obvious character comparison, is that "He was an assassin through coolness." (or, in Wilbour: through 'nonchalance'.) Guelemer's not a criminal out of some deep rage, or any unvocalized urge to get back at society, or even because he couldn't find a way to make it legally; maybe he could! But he just can't be bothered, he doesn't care. He's strong and he can Violence and crime is EASY for him, so Why Not.
Which means that in the argument over the church notice, when Enjolras tells Bahorel to hold back, to NOT SPEND HIS EMOTIONS, whatever the legitimacy of Enjolras' argument on Movement grounds, he is really DANGEROUSLY wrong about Bahorel's mode of engagement (and Bahorel is, unsurprisingly, very very self-aware). Bahorel is specifically on the side of the angels BECAUSE, at some point, he got fired up and stayed that way; he's engaged and active and wants to mess with EVERYTHING, because he's actually excited about what might come next. (Whatever the specifics of his educations, it's clearly worked as a counter to stagnation, which wow, I really need to put some thought into discussing that for the book in general.) Enjolras may actually need to reign in his extremism to be useful to the cause; if Bahorel cools down, he loses the fire that's smelting all his dross into good material, and what's left is...Not A Good, as my more standard blogging platform holds.
(And that reminds me of discussions I've heard about how a policy argument can be 1000 percent logical and factual and still not stir anyone up if it doesn't hit them in the emotions because so many people forget statistics and remember stories. But now I AM digressing, and I've had this tab open for two days as-is, so :P)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-04-12 07:02 am (UTC)YES EXACTLY, what a wonderful summary!
One of my favorite lines about Guelemer, especially for what I think is this fairly obvious character comparison, is that "He was an assassin through coolness." (or, in Wilbour: through 'nonchalance'.) Guelemer's not a criminal out of some deep rage, or any unvocalized urge to get back at society, or even because he couldn't find a way to make it legally; maybe he could! But he just can't be bothered, he doesn't care. He's strong and he can Violence and crime is EASY for him, so Why Not.
Which means that in the argument over the church notice, when Enjolras tells Bahorel to hold back, to NOT SPEND HIS EMOTIONS, whatever the legitimacy of Enjolras' argument on Movement grounds, he is really DANGEROUSLY wrong about Bahorel's mode of engagement (and Bahorel is, unsurprisingly, very very self-aware). Bahorel is specifically on the side of the angels BECAUSE, at some point, he got fired up and stayed that way; he's engaged and active and wants to mess with EVERYTHING, because he's actually excited about what might come next. (Whatever the specifics of his educations, it's clearly worked as a counter to stagnation, which wow, I really need to put some thought into discussing that for the book in general.) Enjolras may actually need to reign in his extremism to be useful to the cause; if Bahorel cools down, he loses the fire that's smelting all his dross into good material, and what's left is...Not A Good, as my more standard blogging platform holds.
(And that reminds me of discussions I've heard about how a policy argument can be 1000 percent logical and factual and still not stir anyone up if it doesn't hit them in the emotions because so many people forget statistics and remember stories. But now I AM digressing, and I've had this tab open for two days as-is, so :P)