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| The Duchess of Mint |
Eponine: Desperate and Deviant, or Creepy?Dear "Les Miserables" Fans,Someone suggested that Eponine is possibly the creepiest character in musical theatre. So, do you think that Eponine is just a desperate, deviant stalker, or that she's downright creepy? Thanks in advance for your participation in the poll, and for your replies. 
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| lesmisloony |
Erik of POTO is creepier. Somewhat. | ||||||||
| mastachen |
I take it you saw Duchess's other thread.
Welcome back Duchess! I haven't seen you in a while. |
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| The Duchess of Mint |
Thank you...Dear mastachen,Thank you for the "Welcome!"
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| bigR |
well, i dunno... being stalked by a whining teenager who is missing half her teeth and tries to get you shot... it just seems one of the creepiest things I can think about... |
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| lesmisloony |
Creepy, yes... but I'd be more creeped out about being stalked by a trapdoor-lover whose hands smell like death with clammy white skin, burning eyes, and no nose... who has mad lasso skills... and somehow manages to haunt graveyards and throw skulls and people... and keeps popping up everywhere... and is some kind of pocket master... (...umm... I'm referring to the book, by the way. I'm trying to let it eclipse the musical in my mind...) |
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| windbelle |
Well, at least she still protects him from being shot spontaneously, and Marius is not dragged to the barricade by force. |
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| lesmisloony |
Oh glee, more Eponine apologists... |
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| Fantine |
I like to say that she's both. | ||||||||
| mastachen |
I think it depends on who's playing her... for me at least. | ||||||||
| Quique |
She's both of those things in the novel. They heavily adapted her for the musical. Actually, some would say they made her more annoying, lol. But it highly depends on the actress. I'd say 70% of the time, I feel nothing for the character in the musical, but there have been those rare performances that blow me away. | ||||||||
| mastachen |
I think if someone goes in to see the show with a mindset of how they want to see a certain character portrayed, they'll be constantly disappointed.
There's no need to bash people for liking the musical Eponine over the book Eponine, or fans of Eponine for that matter. There's some people here who seems to only like the show because they like the book, and while that's fine, repeatedly bashing the musical or one of its characters because it doesn't fit the book is just as annoying as a Wicked fangirl. |
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| Quique |
Personally, I have no problem at all with the way she was written in the musical, even though it does deviate from the novel.
But most of the time, I've been unfortunate to see actresses who portray her as some bubbly, whiney, perky girl. Those are the times I've felt nothing for the character, except maybe frustrated, lol. I think it's a great role, and really moving when done well. |
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| curlyhairedsoprano91 |
That's why, I've gotta say, Celia Keenan-Bolger is my favorite Ep ... basically ever. | ||||||||
| lesmisloony |
Agreed. |
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| The Duchess of Mint |
Marius is creepy, too...Dear "Les Mis" Fans,If you think about the situation, you begin to see that Marius is creepy, too. I mean, he's essentially stalking Cosette, but he's convincing Eponine to do the dirty work for him; what a rat he is! "Eponine! Do this for me: discover where she lives, but careful how you go. Don't let her father know." Wow; he's obsessed with Cosette, but he's not brave enough to talk to her father, or to try to see Cosette, and yet, he's willing to torture Eponine by making her match him up with Cosette, when she wants him more than anything in the world! Thanks in advance for your replies.
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| Fantine |
Yup, he is a bit of a wuss. In the book it took years for him to finally get the courage to talk to Cosette.
But he didn't know that Eponine was madly in love with him, so he can't be blamed for that. |
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| mastachen |
My roommate was in the exact same situation. He liked a girl for 2 years before he talked to her, and now they're going out! Except my roommate is probably even more of a wuss because he didn't fight in a revolution and almost get killed. lol In an interesting twist, he went out with his "Eponine" for about a year, during that 2 year span. That girl, as far as I know, is still alive. Or currently living on the streets of Tijuana, which would make her more like Eponine. lol I'm not very nice at 4 am. lol |
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| lesmisloony |
Eponine says this: "You pay no heed to me, but I know you, Mr. Marius. I meet you here on the staircase, and then I often see you going to a person named Father Mabeuf who lives in the direction of Austerlitz, sometimes when I have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have your hair tumbled thus." Um, she knows where he goes all the time? Like, specifically? The name of the guy he's visiting? Marius didn't even know Cosette's name, much less where she was going all the time...
Scene from a really archaic translation of the Brick: "Monsieur Marius, you look sad. What is the matter with you?" "With me!" said Marius. "Yes, you." "There is nothing the matter with me." "Yes, there is!" "No." "I tell you there is!" "Let me alone!" Marius gave the door another push, but she retained her hold on it. "Stop," said she, "you are in the wrong. Although you are not rich, you were kind this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat, now tell me what ails you. You are grieved, that is plain. I do not want you to be grieved. What can be done for it? Can I be of any service? Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell them to me, but I may be of use, nevertheless. I may be able to help you, since I help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, to go to houses, to inquire from door to door, to find out an address, to follow any one, I am of service. Well, you may assuredly tell me what is the matter with you, and I will go and speak to the persons; sometimes it is enough if some one speaks to the persons, that suffices to let them understand matters, and everything comes right. Make use of me." An idea flashed across Marius' mind. What branch does one disdain when one feels that one is falling? He drew near to the Jondrette girl. "Listen -- " he said to her. She interrupted him with a gleam of joy in her eyes. "Oh yes, do call me thou! I like that better." "Well," he resumed, "thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his daughter!" "Yes." "Dost thou know their address?" "No." "Find it for me." I definitely say Eponine demanding Marius "make use of her," didn't you? And, considering it was only the second time he'd ever met her, and considering he was in a constant fog, I really doubt he had any clue that she liked him.
Well, he and Cosette had serious eyesex in the Luxembourg garden all the time. From what I understand.  So he knew she liked him back, no? Which is already a little better than Eponine, who was Oh So Tragic and Unrequited.
And... M. Leblanc was giving him some serious stinkeye the whole time. Okay, I have to go, but I may or may not finish making this point. [/Bookslavery] |
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| Fantine |
Eyesecks rules 
Didn't he think that Cosette was an ugly brat back then? Or had his view of her changed by then? I think it's rather shallow only to fall for the girl once she's pretty. |
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| lesmisloony |
Um... yeah, you could definitely look at it that way. But I like to think that Marius never actually looked at Cosette there... and then, once she got pretty, he was staring (as any guy would do) and that's when their eyes met... and they fell in lurrve. | ||||||||
| Fantine |
But I recall that Marius did think something like: 'She had been an ugly child but had now turned into a beautiful young woman,' or something along those lines. | ||||||||
| lesmisloony |
Okay. I found the chapters on me online Brick.
When Marius first saw Cosette pretty, he still ignored her for a while. Seriously. He thought she was Leblanc's other daughters, and he thought she was pretty, but ... well, here: "The second time that Marius approached her, the young girl raised her eyelids; her eyes were of a deep, celestial blue, but in that veiled azure, there was, as yet, nothing but the glance of a child. She looked at Marius indifferently, as she would have stared at the brat running beneath the sycamores, or the marble vase which cast a shadow on the bench, and Marius, on his side, continued his promenade, and thought about something else. He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or six times, but without even turning his eyes in her direction. On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the Luxembourg; as usual, he found there "the father and daughter;" but he paid no further attention to them. He thought no more about the girl now that she was beautiful than he bad when she was homely. He passed very near the bench where she sat, because such was his habit. " (I actually thought I was fanwanking about this--imagine my excitement to learn that I was right!) And then, there's the passage where Cosette has that particular look in her eye some time later, and *that's* when Marius loses it. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Hug3Mis.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=44&division=div2 If you want to read. |
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| Fantine |
Lol, it's okay to fanwank. I guess you're right. Damn, I really need to read the novel again. I'm ashamed now. | ||||||||
| Set_Buildin_Dad |
I didn't realize that the brick was available online. Thanks for the link lesmsiloony! 
On topic: I agree that Eponine was the stalker. I also agree that Marius was a wus. I never figured out what all the girls (Cosette and Eponine) saw in him. |
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| lesmisloony |
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Hug4Mis.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=24&division=div2 
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| Tenalto |
*le sigh* Hugo's writing can seem dense and endless at times, but all is forgotten when he waxes so lyrically philosophic like that. <3 | ||||||||
| lesmisloony |
Agreed.
So. much. agreement. |
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| music is my life!!! |
i voted for the first one cuz i think her tragedy is downplayed if she's portrayed as being creepy, but that's just my opinion....
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| bigR |
I voted "creepy" although I actually like Eponine, both in the book and the musical.
I am under the impression that most eponine-hate is partly a reaction to the eppie-boppers, but since I did not even knew about them until I came to this forum they did not affect my opinion on the character until now (although I'm already starting to feel something weird everytime I read one of these "I am soooo totally like eponine..." posts!) It is true that the character is richer and more interesting (and creepier) in the book, but my first contact with it was through the musical and I really liked her! O. K, I was a teenage girl by then myself, but it was not as if I was relating to her in a bopper way (I'd never lived on the streets, my parents did not abuse me, i had all my teeth, and weird as it seems to be I had never been in love with a guy who did not see wonderful-me and was going out with another girl...), but I really liked her. Maybe because I did not perceive her as whiny. Yes, she complaints a lot, but only when she is alone or talking to herself, otherwise she always acts tought in front of other people. Also, I never expected her to end up with marius. mainly because it would had been an extreme anachronism. Well-off boys just did not look twice at wenches like Eponine, but also because Marius has always been my least favorite character, so... Actually I really find Eponine more resigned that whiny. She knows that she has no chance at all with Marius, but the poor girl has a dark awful life and the way I see it ,she kind of clings onto him because he is the only bright clean thing in her life, the only thing that does not belong to the gutters. I have the feeling that she would had fallen in love with pretty much any other abc guy if he had been her neighbourg... So, I think that I like her and i like On my own because I don't feel the song as if it was only about teenage unrequited love, but as if marius was the visible face of the nice, normal, bright, pure life that she knows she will never have. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
I think it's more tragic when she's creepy, actually--in the book if not the musical, you're supposed to pity her rather than identify with her. Making her the pure-hearted underdog pining for someone she'll never have just reduces the whole thing to a dime-a-dozen unrequited love subplot; it glosses over all the issues of spiritual degradation and jealousy and redemption that were central to her character in the book. Her tragedy isn't that she loved someone who didn't love her back; it's that a girl who could've grown into a fine young woman was instead reduced to a creepy stalker obsessing over someone hopelessly above her, that the state she was in corrupted even her love--and that when she died, having accomplished virtually nothing other than dragging Marius to his death, it was probably better than anything else that would've happened to her. |
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| lesmisloony |
I fully agree with both of you guys, bigR and Orestes... which may be interesting, as it's possible your points-of-view conflict somewhat.
I actually liked Eponine best when I first saw the show (in sixth grade, okay?) and I thought Cosette was kind of annoying. And the first time I read the Book, I couldn't believe how weird Eponine was. In fact, I remember half-hoping the Jondrettes weren't really the Thenardiers, and that it just happened to be some other couple with daughters called Eponine and Azelma. As time went on, though, I got bored with Eponine. Nowadays I usually only deal with her because of her proximity to--take a guess here--Montparnasse. But it was definitely the boppers who made me just curl my lip every time I hear someone start up their "omg she was such a hero and marius should have pikced her lolol!!1!" chatter. The thing I hate most about 'On My Own' is that it loses the concept that Eponine actually didn't have a chance with Marius. And, as bigR pointed out, I'm pretty sure she was resigned to her fate. With lines like "still I say there's a way for us" they're giving girlies the wrong idea. And, you may argue with me on this, but I use the word "love" pretty carefully (when I'm being serious) and I'm not so convinced Eponine really loved Marius. It was definitely a crush turned infatuation, but, c'mon, she barely even knew the guy! She knew he was pretty and benevolent, and that he loved Cosette... but I think the two of them wouldn't have really gotten along even if they did have a chance at it. And that's my two cents. |
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| bigR |
Well, I don't know if our points of view conflict or not, but I certainly agree with what Orestes said. I was explaining why I liked the character in the musical, but I think too that book creepy �ponine is more tragic. Partly because in the book everyone can clearly see from the begining that she does not stand a chance, while in the musical with all the "we are friends" "�ponine is pretty" "there is a way for us" you actually have to stop and remember yourself of the social situation and the period the story is taking place on to understand why mariud does not look at her twice... Anyway i think that even if �ponine is more likable in the musical it is quite clear in the way marius behaves with her that their " love" is an impossible thing and he does not even "see her", not just as a love intereset, but not even as an equal. You just don't pay a friend or even just an equal to do a little errand for you! True, tthe "friendship" stuff is misgiving, but I kind of forgive the authors. They had to stablish a relationship between marius and �ponine in like 5 seconds before cosette appears and they are already too many things for the audience to take on during "look down" . Also, when I first saw an actress doing it, I did not like when �ponine tried to kiss marius at the end of ALFR. I still don't like it when she gets to kiss him, but I have seen some videos where he pulls back, and she dies without getting to kiss him, and although I don't see �ponine trying to kiss marius while she is dying, i do like the way it defines their relationship and the way marius looks at her. I mean, the girl is nearly dead and not even then can he give her a kiss, whether it is because he thinks it would be a treason to cosette or, because even as he is holding her, he is still a bit repulsed and pulling back is an instintive movement... |
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| curlyhairedsoprano91 |
In response to Loony and probably everyone else:
As you guys probably know, I am totally not thrilled with musical!Eponine as a character. However ... back during my freshman year, before I knew the show, I did know the song "On My Own." And yes, there was a guy I liked a lot, who was going off to college, and I had my phase of "I'm just like this song ... 'without him the world around me changes' yadda yadda yadda" for about 5 seconds. Or like 5 minutes, or 5 days, or something. Then, last year, my best friend was kind of obsessed with Les Mis, and she was telling me about the characters. Basically, this is how I was introduced to the show: "Eponine is amazing. Cosette's kind of a spoiled bitch." And I was like, "Okay, cool. Let's listen." Much to my friend's chagrin, I immediately did. Not. Like. Eponine. I figured that, since she [my friend] and others sang the character's praises so devoutly, there would be something deep and interesting there. I didn't really find it. By the time she sings, "On My Own," I was thinking, "Okay, we get it. You love Marius. He has a girlfriend. And by the way, even if he didn't, he wouldn't like you. We've all been there. Get over it." As many have said ... she's kind of reduced to a caricature of unrequited love. Book!Eppie, on the other hand ... as has been stated here, stalkerish+creepy=pitiable. She's a character. She's basically longing for not only a boy she can't have, but a life she can't have, out of the gutter. She's interesting. I like that. Eppie-boppers, I think, really really destroy the character. Any self-respecting Les Miserables fan is going to bristle (I think) at least a little when some 13-year-old says, "Marius is stupid for not marrying Eponine! She's way cooler and way prettier than Cosette!" Okay, guys. Lea Salonga is pretty. Eponine ... read the book. She's a pretty cool character in her own right. But let's not go overboard. Sorry for the essay ... haha ... 
Love, Cosette |
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| Orestes Fasting |
YES EXACTLY If you make the whole thing be about love, it denies all the most interesting and saddest things about her. |
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| lesmisloony |
That's another thing. In the musical, they make it look like Eponine has some kind of chance with Marius, so when he's not biting, it's suddenly Marius's fault for being a big jerk meanie who only likes rich girls.
I've actually seen it done where Marius suddenly starts making out with Eponine just before she dies. I've also seen Marius kiss her on the forehead after she dies (squee Bookaccuracy!), seen Eponine reach up and make out with Marius, and... seen her try and fail to get in a kiss before she dies. Every time I see a new show I'm interested (and terrified) to see how they'll pull that moment off.
 SOPRANO. You have driven Orestes to capslock! That's quite an achievement.
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| curlyhairedsoprano91 |
Thank you, thank you. I do find it a refreshing and wonderful change to discuss Eponine's character with people who actually think about it instead of minor-league Eppie-boppers. |
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| postmodern-mango-salsa |
Dear 13 year old girl: Umm... because Cossette is a generally more important character as far as things go (well... more central sounds better) she gets what she wants, that's the way of it. If Eponine got Marius, then you'd be left in your seat going "wait... why is Cossette important, then?" It's just SUPPOSED to be. Eponine doesn't get what she wants because she's NORMAL (and also the daughter of satan incarnate, if I remember correctly, she WAS a Thenardier, right? sorry, been a while since I saw it ><) and therefore must suffer. In order to have a happy ending (i.e., the main characters are happy) sometimes the most lovable people and even the ones we feel for most have to NOT get what they want. "that's [tragedy], that's theatre, that's life" |
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| bigR |
eponine and normal in the same sentence
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| lesmisloony |
Uhhh... first off, it's spelt "Cosette" with one S. Second... ... ... ...have you even read the other posts on this thread? Like, at all? "the most lovable people"? Meaning Eponine? ...Really? (this post has been brought to you by ellipses of disbelief) |
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| curlyhairedsoprano91 |
*dittos Loony*
Umm. Yeah. ... No. |