Beyond the Barricade

First, a useful link: the complete text of the novel can be found here, under Victor Hugo (each volume is linked separately on this page).

And now, the more personal canon info! To begin, a rather long quote whence comes the subject heading of this entry, where Combeferre talks about the cannon of the National Guard, whom they are fighting:

"It's a bronze eight-pounder, new model," added Combeferre. "Those pieces, if they exceed even slightly the proportion of ten parts of tin to a hundred of copper, may burst. The excess of tin makes them too tender. In that case they have hollows and chambers in the vent. To avoid this danger, and to be able to force out the load, it might be necessary to return to the process of the fourteenth century, hooping, and strengthening the piece on the exterior by a succession of unsoldered steel rings, from the breech to the trunnion. In the meantime, they remedy the defect as they can; they find out where the holes and the hollows in the bore of a cannon are by means of a searcher. But there's a better way, that's the movable star of Gribeauval."

"In the sixteenth century," observed Bossuet, "they rifled their cannon."

"Yes," answered Combeferre, "that increases the ballistic power, but diminishes the accuracy of the aim. Beyond that, over a short range, the trajectory does not have the desired regidity, the parabola is exaggerated, the path of the projectile is not direct enough to premit it to hit the intermediate objects, a necessity of combat, however, whose importance increases with the proximity of the enemy and the rapidity of the firing. This lack of tension in the curve of the projectile in the rifled cannon of the sixteenth century is due to the weakness of the charge; weak charges, for this kind of weapon, are required by the necessities of ballistics, such as, for instance, the preservation of cartridges. On the whole, artillery, that great despot, cannot do all it would like; strength is a great weakness. A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thouand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."

"Reload arms," said Enjolras.

[Volume V, Book I, Chapter VII ]

In conclusion, Combeferre is a geek, but Enjolras puts up with him because Combeferre might very well be the only sane one here he loooooves him, as proved by the overwhelming evidence that he has no reason not to he's learned to just ignore his friends' quirks.

Canon provides a solid amount of exposition on the students, but a lot of the particulars of their relationships with each other are not detailed. This really isn't a problem, until you make them your main characters; then, there needs to be a good amount of speculation. I'm going to try to break my Les Mis fandom habits of speculating without limit, but I'll put down my thoughts here, since it is likely that Enjolras will be talking/thinking about these guys quite a bit.

So! Some rambling about Enjolras and his friends.

( Enjolras: The crusading angel, the marble statue, the pretty-boy with the severe messiah complex. )

Regarding my playing of him...

( Read more... )

As mentioned, Enjolras leads the Friends of the ABC (Les Amis de l'ABC), as much as such a group can have a leader -- I suspect it is more along the lines of him just having an authoritative personality than there being any actual structure to the group. The name of the group is a pun. In French, "ABC" is pronounced the same as the word for "abased," so they are the Friends of the Abased -- in other words, the friends of the oppressed people. (I suspect Jehan of creating the name, personally.)

The members of the group are Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgles and Joly. Marius Pontmercy is a main character in the novel, a peripheral member of the group and a good friend of Courfeyrac. Grantaire is more of an institution of the Friends of the ABC than a member.

In my humble opinion, this bunch of dudes are ready made for their own anime series. Just saying.

( Combeferre: Because reasonable, moderate geek boys are hot. )

( Jean Prouvaire: The amazingly heterosexual Romantic poet )

( Feuilly: Yeah, this is the Poland dude. )

( Courefyrac: The Kudoh Yohji of Les Amis )

( Bahorel: The one they left out of the musical because the musical was not big enough to handle him and his daringly waistcoated greatness. )

( Lesgles or Legle or L'Aigle or Bossuet: They all refer to the bald guy who just slipped on the banana peel. )

( Joly: Does my tounge feel funny to you? ...look funny. I meant 'look'. )

( Bossuet and Joly: The odd couple. )

( Marius Pontmercy: Were he born 300 years in the animated future, he would be a gundam pilot. )

Marius really should have been listed last, as he isn’t really a core member of Les Amis de l’ABC. But one must close with a bang, and for that, we have the incomparable R, who really is as much about Enjolras as himself.

( Grantaire: I’m here because of Enjolras. No, really. )

Enjolras is the idealist, the priest of the Revolution; Grantaire is the cynic, the nihilist, the useless drunk. Enjolras treats Grantaire like shit, and Grantaire won’t leave him alone. There is reconciliation in the end -- approximately two minutes before they’re shot. They just share a lovely relationship like that.

( An example of what a nice guy Enjolras is. )

And because you cannot comprehend Grantaire without witnessing his drunken ranting, here I give you one of his rants, no cuts -- it’s to exhibit impressive length more than anything. If you think reading it makes your brain hurt, imagine having to listen to it.

( And there he goes... )

Impressive, I say.

And this post is most long, but I wanted to have all of this info nice and neatly in one place. A lot of Les Amis’ scenes are really about the group dynamic, the way that the different personalities appear relative to each other. Personally, understanding one Ami helps me to understand another.