Fic: Second Chances

[osprey_archer]

Fic: Second Chances
Fandom: Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: hc_bingo, free space, for the prompt "learning to be loved"
Sequel to Requiem, though I don't think you need to read the first to understand the second

Comments

[asakiyume]

First I wasn't going to read this fic, for complicated reasons relating to my complicated feelings about Les Mis, but then I thought, I like so many of your fics; I really should read it, and then as I started I was like, but oh no, too much new information about the story! Not that I mind spoilers: I don't--but sometimes new information takes digesting. And then the interesting side-effect was that I found myself maybe recommitting to trying to finish the book, when I'd pretty much decided maybe I *wouldn't*, back when you were reading it.

... So I have ended up only just dipping into the fic. But it looks good. But I think I will not-read it--because I think I want to finish Les Mis.

[osprey_archer]

Aw, drat. I was wondering what you would think of it. It's an AU, so I don't think it spoils anything exactly, but at the same time if you aren't familiar with the canon (which IIRC is farther than you got in Les Mis - you got to the "Let's introduce the Amis!" bit, right?) it probably is very much a "All the new material! What is this??" sort of story.

However, if I have inspired you to finish Les Mis, at least that's something. And the Amis bit - I also bogged down at the Amis - ends up being relatively short. Um, for the Hugovian value of short.

[asakiyume]

For a Hugovian value of short :-P

Weirdly, my friend sovay just posted about Les Mis too, and her post revealed something for me that made Eponine suddenly way more interesting to me--that she's the Thenardiers' daughter

[osprey_archer]

She is the Thenardier's daughter! I don't believe she has a relationship with any of the Amis, but the book is so big that it's possible.

[asakiyume]

Oh--it was lovely. I wonder if Hugo's Eponine can live up to your Eponine.

And what a moving, and complicated (but only because the topic is complicated; it's not that you're obfuscating anything; on the contrary, you're exploring the corners and intricacies) look at what it means to be kind, and the implications of penance. I really like the last line--it's perfect.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, dear, I'll get a swelled head...

Hugo's Eponine is interesting because, unusually for Hugo - possibly unusually for 19th century literature (maybe unusual for literature today, too?) she's neither good nor bad. She does some terrible things, and the narrative doesn't absolve her, but it does sympathize with her motivations.

However, she's very much a side character in Hugo; it's only in the movie and the musical that Eponine becomes a central character.

I think it is often very complicated to be kind - particularly when we've wronged someone. Often an apology doesn't cover it.

[asakiyume]

It's complicated to be kind when you've wronged someone because of the issue of motivations (or at least that plays into it)--but thinking that makes me realize that all behavior (kindness, etc.) occurs in a context, and there's *always* one's history of previous actions--if you haven't wronged someone, perhaps you've been clueless or oblivious to something (which in some schools counts as a sin of omission), but if neither of those, then there's your very lack of experience that can, in the eyes of some, detract from the kindness, just as much as the perceived tainted motive that you have if you've wronged something.

It ends up coming down to everything being complicated all the time :-\