A small mystery solved
A little background: Years and years ago, a very long time indeed by internet standards, I read the book Les Miserables and frequented a message board (remember those?) for fans of the book. I never saw the musical because I lived way out in the middle of nowhere until such as I had moved onto other fandoms. I remember there being a great deal "they're so dumb and we're so superior" attitude toward fans of "Eppie Sue"-- that is, musical-first and musical-only fans who over-identified with Eponine and used her as their self-insert in fan fiction. So I was aware that rabid Eponine fangirls and Eponine/Marius shippers existed, but I didn't understand why anyone would form that particular fannish fixation. I didn't get into griping about them too much unless they crossed the line into Cosette-bashing, but their preferences made no sense to me. I mean, why would anyone want to be Eponine? People who had seen the musical told me that musical!Eponine and musical!Marius were actually friends instead of a stalker and a guy who pities her a little and is slightly creeped out by her when he bothers to notice her at all. But still, who would want to be Eponine or think Marius was such a great catch?
Now that I've seen the movie, it's not so baffling anymore, mainly because Marius is not a giant tool there like he is in the book. Also, this version of Eponine seems a lot less beaten down than book!Eponine. Obviously, she's still poor and her parents are still awful, but she's more spirited and less resigned to a life of misery. I think I can understand why a teenager with a crush on a friend who likes someone richer/more popular/generally luckier would get invested in Eponine now, especially if they happened to see a production with a handsome actor playing Marius.
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Now that I've seen the movie, it's not so baffling anymore, mainly because Marius is not a giant tool there like he is in the book. Also, this version of Eponine seems a lot less beaten down than book!Eponine. Obviously, she's still poor and her parents are still awful, but she's more spirited and less resigned to a life of misery. I think I can understand why a teenager with a crush on a friend who likes someone richer/more popular/generally luckier would get invested in Eponine now, especially if they happened to see a production with a handsome actor playing Marius.
This entry was originally posted at http://gryphonsegg.dreamwidth.org/78247.html. Please comment there using OpenID.