Vanessa20
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Song Discussion: I Dreamed a Dream vs. On My OwnI've been posting so much lately. I probably won't for a while after this because I need to catch up on my schoolwork, but I just had to post now because this subject has been weighing on my mind.
Let's not turn this into another discussion of the characters who sing these songs (in particular, the one who sings the second one), or about how they work in the context of the show, but just about the songs themselves.
As songs in and of themselves, I've always liked IDAD and OMO equally well- I may even like IDAD a little better, even though most of the known universe seems to prefer OMO. But unlike most of the known universe, I've never identified with OMO. I'm a college sophomore with Aspberger's Syndrome, who's never been in a real relationship and who's always been able to put her unrequited crushes in perspective and not be miserable about them. The rest of the known universe obviously loves OMO because they identify with it, whereas they probably feel more detached from IDAD because they've never quite experienced the utter abandonment/shame/ruined life that Fantine sings about.
Do any of you think it's possible for a normal human being to like IDAD and OMO equally well? Even if they don't relate to them both equally well?
I hope this isn't totally stupid, but I just wanted to ask some people who are more in touch with emotions than I am.
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lottielou22
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I like I Dreamed A Dream better.
I can't identify with either but I just like it better in general. It makes you want to cry for Fantine, and just cry for her because her life caved in around her, not because you can identify with what she's feeling.
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The Pirate King
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I Dreamed a Dream is about 943240984309x better than On My Own.
It's sad, of course. It's miserable, just like On My Own.
I just find it A) melodically superiour and B) more mature.
I really think IDAD is the best female song in the show.
On My Own is cheese. Pure cheese.
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Quique
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I enjoy both very much, but like OMO a little better due to its superior, thrilling orchestrations.
As far as which provides the better moment in the show, I'd say that highly depends on the person singing and acting it. I've sat through OMO performances that make me want to die and IDAD ones that make me sob (in a good way) and vice versa.
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nycbound
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I think we will almost always love the songs that speak to us on a personal level more than songs that we love because of their musicality. But, that doesn't mean that we can't appreciate both.
I've never been abandoned or in despair like Fantine, but I still think "I Dreamed a Dream" is a beautiful song that I love listening to almost as much as "On My Own," which is a song that I have related to personally.
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sopranodespair
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I like I Dreamed A Dream better. It makes me feel a lot of synpathy for Fantine, but On My Own doesn't do the same thing for me with Eponine.
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SmallTownIngenue
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Since I played Fantine, I by default like I Dreamed a Dream more.  But really, it is a more difficult song to connect to than On My Own, acting wise, especially for a 17 year old, like me. Pretty much all teen girls know what it's like to have an unrequited love, but not all teen girls have been through Fantine's situation, which was hard for me to emotionally connect to at first, but once I went through the song verse by verse, word by word with the director, I really dug deep into my emotions to sing the song, plus the song was also difficult for me because I really had to dig into my low register to hit the low A and G! But I think I did a good job with it.
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music is my life!!!
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on my own doesn't seem to go anywhere but idad has so much more depth, esp since fantine's journey has been so darn sad 
i used to ADORE omo but the idea behind it has gotten too simple for me. plus, alot of eponines seem to have a "disney" voice, and fantine's belt voices.... which imo makes idad sound much better, altho omo is very pretty
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Colle
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I consider myself a normal person and I like both "I Dreamed a Dream" and "On My Own." Both can be emotional and touching. I don't see "On My Own" as chessy, but I can understand why some might, depending on how it is sung.
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Ulkis
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I think emotionally I like "On My Own" better, not because I identify with unrequited love so much but simply because it's a gentler, slighty prettier tune.
But I think I have to say "I Dreamed a Dream" is the technically better-crafted song, because by the time "On My Own" is in the show the tune has already been in "Come to Me" and I think the lyrics in "Dream" are better. I know, I know, "but the tigers come at night/with their voices soft as thunder" makes no sense, but I think the rest of the lyrics are good and I like how it manages to cover Fantine's plight well in 4 minutes.
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Orestes Fasting
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Melodically, I prefer On My Own (and the Air de la Mis�re tune in general); lyrically and thematically, I Dreamed a Dream is better.
I do like the "walking alone at night and living in my head" imagery in OMO, but the unrequited-love motivation is trite. And IDAD feels much more cohesive overall.
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Ulla Dance Again!
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In a sense, the unrequited love is an issue in both songs but "I Dreamed A Dream" has a bit more maturity to it. There was a man that Fantine loved and he left her, for Eponine it's an infatuation with someone who doesn't realise she's there. However, in Fantine's case, she has lived and learned, so to speak. She's had to endure a lot, moreso than Eponine. However, we - as the audience - feel for Eponine because we witness how Marius treats her (not like he's calling her mean names or anything of the like, but how oblivious he is to her feelings and not until "A Little Fall Of Rain" does he realise his mistake).
Overall, while I do like the orchestrations in "On My Own" also, I've always felt closer to "I Dreamed A Dream". The line, But there are dreams that cannot be and there are storms we cannot weather gets to me every time.
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Fantine
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Mistake? No. Does he finally realise that Eponine had other sorts of feelings for him? Yes.
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Ulla Dance Again!
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Poor word choice on my behalf, forgive me. 
What I meant was that he was oblivious and not until her death realises how she truly felt.
Once again, poor word choice, and that is my own fault.
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broadway babii x0
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| Ulla Dance Again! wrote: |
Overall, while I do like the orchestrations in "On My Own" also, I've always felt closer to "I Dreamed A Dream". The line, But there are dreams that cannot be and there are storms we cannot weather gets to me every time. |
ah i tear up whenever i hear that line.
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ilovebway
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| broadway babii x0 wrote: | | Ulla Dance Again! wrote: |
Overall, while I do like the orchestrations in "On My Own" also, I've always felt closer to "I Dreamed A Dream". The line, But there are dreams that cannot be and there are storms we cannot weather gets to me every time. |
ah i tear up whenever i hear that line. |
Same here! "I Dreamed A Dream" is probably one of my favorite songs ever. It really makes me tear up.
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Monsieur D'Arque
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They both pale in comparison to Runaway Cart.
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What Is This Feeling?
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I'd have to say IDAD. I adore the entire show, which includes ONMO, but IDAD just gets me every time. It is probably one of my most favorite Broadway songs, ever. It is less whiny than OMO. It speaks to me. The internal though/ conflict/ reflection of how screwed up your life is. And ultimately, certain things can never be the way you would have hoped for or had before. Don't get me wrong I really like OMO, I do. But I prefer IDAD. Plus, it is the 1st time that particular melody is utilized.
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lesmisloony
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I think my time spent as a single-mother-turned-whore helps me identify more with I Dreamed A Dream. And I have actually been mauled by tigers in the night time, so that helps too.
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EponineMNFF
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| lesmisloony wrote: | | I think my time spent as a single-mother-turned-whore helps me identify more with I Dreamed A Dream. And I have actually been mauled by tigers in the night time, so that helps too. |
My favorite.
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Quique
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| lesmisloony wrote: | | I think my time spent as a single-mother-turned-whore helps me identify more with I Dreamed A Dream. And I have actually been mauled by tigers in the night time, so that helps too. |
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lizavert
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| lesmisloony wrote: | | I think my time spent as a single-mother-turned-whore helps me identify more with I Dreamed A Dream. And I have actually been mauled by tigers in the night time, so that helps too. |
loony, you're brilliant.
Seriously though, I like IDAD better than OMO. But that's really more of a personal preference than an objective critique on either song.
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bigR
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| nycbound wrote: |
"On My Own," which is a song that I have related to personally. |
I know I shouldn't go there AGAIN, but I just can't help it. You mean that you identify with OMO because you've lived in utter misery, you shared a room with a family of criminals who abandoned your brothers, you had no shoes in the middle of the winter, you were a starving half prostitute, and the only tiny light of goodness and hope in your life was a guy who was repulsed and a little bit scared by you? Please, grow up. �ponine is not a wheeny teenager.
Anyway, Loony, with your surrealist post (did it hurt to be mauled by tigers?) you made a really good point. What is this obsession with identification and relating to the songs? Have you heard of something called imagination? Do you really need to have been through a certain experience to live a song?
So, this means that Stars, BHH, ECAET are no one favorite songs, and they never made anyone cry and never gave anyone goosebumps... unless of course, all your friends died in a failed revolution or someone around here is the LAWR, and has been cruelly mocked...
Seriously, a little bit of imagination has never hurted anyome. Try using it!
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Ulla Dance Again!
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That just got me thinking about "Empty Chairs..." Even if you haven't experienced a death of a loved one, you can still imagine how horrible it must feel knowing they aren't there and you can no longer talk to them.
And even though we may not have the same obsession of the 'lawr' as our beloved Inspector, we can still imagine how difficult it must be to long after doing what we believe to be right. Same with Valjean, we may not have stolen a loaf of bread to feed our sister's starving child but we have been placed in situations that call for us to act out of character when pushed to a certain limit.
Of course, this could be a non-sensical ramble indused by somewhat of a hangover...
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bigR
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Well, that's precisely what imagination is about, isn't it?. You don't need to live something to understand what it would be like.
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Ulla Dance Again!
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Indeed it is.
When my friend compared me to Eponine once I took offense. Not because I can't imagine what she must feel or think, but because I do not have the life experience of the character therefore I can't truly relate to her.
(Hopefully that made sense...)
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mastachen
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| bigR wrote: | | nycbound wrote: |
"On My Own," which is a song that I have related to personally. |
I know I shouldn't go there AGAIN, but I just can't help it. You mean that you identify with OMO because you've lived in utter misery, you shared a room with a family of criminals who abandoned your brothers, you had no shoes in the middle of the winter, you were a starving half prostitute, and the only tiny light of goodness and hope in your life was a guy who was repulsed and a little bit scared by you? Please, grow up. �ponine is not a wheeny teenager.
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I doubt it that's the reason she identified with the song, considering that's not what the song is about. It's not called On My Own Because My Life Sucks. I mean, really, do you really need to have been through a certain experience to live a song?
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Monsieur D'Arque
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It's a pop song, basically.
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bigR
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| mastachen wrote: | | bigR wrote: | | nycbound wrote: |
"On My Own," which is a song that I have related to personally. |
I know I shouldn't go there AGAIN, but I just can't help it. You mean that you identify with OMO because you've lived in utter misery, you shared a room with a family of criminals who abandoned your brothers, you had no shoes in the middle of the winter, you were a starving half prostitute, and the only tiny light of goodness and hope in your life was a guy who was repulsed and a little bit scared by you? Please, grow up. �ponine is not a wheeny teenager.
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I doubt it that's the reason she identified with the song, considering that's not what the song is about. It's not called On My Own Because My Life Sucks. I mean, really, do you really need to have been through a certain experience to live a song? |
No you don't. It's the original poster who said that she liked the song because she had lived that experience.
And even if you don't know nothing about �ponine or Les Mis the song IS about a girl who has nothing in her life: she has no home, no friends, she has never known happiness and she knows that she never will.
I doubt that anyone here has experienced that.
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mastachen
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While I agree with you that nobody here is probably homeless or friendless, I disagree that the song is about that. I think the song is about the emotions that are conjured up by those experiences, the loneliness and despair and the feeling of rejection by the love of your life who looks at you like you're diseased (because you probably are). Now I can't say I've ever lived the life of Eponine, but there were times when I felt lonely and desperate and dejected and you form scenarios of "what ifs?". Actually, I can count two specific times. So yeah, I think the song is about the emotion that those experiences bring out, and people can relate to those emotions even if they didn't live through the experiences.
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bigR
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Big difference: for �ponine they weren't feelings. They are facts.
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mastachen
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Yes, and I'm not disputing that, but Eponine doesn't have a monopoly on loneliness, despair, and unrequited love. I just happen to think that people can relate to those emotions, which is what the song revolves around. The song isn't about Eponine's lifestyle, but merely an expression of her feelings as a result of her lifestyle, feelings that can be duplicated whether or not you live in the streets of Paris because those are common emotions that people feel. I think in the musical, Eponine's lifestyle, at best, is merely implied. We see her wandering the streets looking like she hasn't showered for days but we never actually see her living in the streets like Gavroche.
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bigR
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Yes of course. But you can apply the same reasoning to other songs, like IDAD, In my Life, castle on a cloud, suicide and even turning. And YET you never have anyone saying that they like those songs because they relate to them.
The experiences of the characters in Les Mis are very extreme. No one here has been through something like the things they live. But the emotions they speak of: love, loneliness, broken dreams, awakening to a new life are human experiences and feeling any one can understand.
The problem arises when a legion of delusional teenagers feel that they have suffered like �ponine because some guy in their classroom doesn't look at them. It's the "I've been in an �ponine like situation" that I can't stand.
I guess they have also discovered the emotions of a first love, then, and YET, no one among them says that she likes In my Live because she can relate to Cosette. Why? Because it's way cooler to be the tragic heroine!
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IndigoMedusa
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"On My Own" is perhaps my least favorite song in the show. It's just so....simpy.
Eponine herself is a pretty unnecessary character, actually. She was barely even in the original story. There was no need to give such a small character a big showstopping number.
The only reason why they plumped up her role was because they felt that the story needed a soapy love triangle. Gahhhhh!!!! That's not what Les Miserables should be about!!!!
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music is my life!!!
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i like what they did with eponine's character better in the musical than in the movie (the one that has a fire at the start) because in that, she seems like an obstacle for Marius and Cosette, and even Valjean to overcome, but all she wants is to be loved
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IndigoMedusa
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I don't see how Eponine gets in the way of anything....all she does is mope around on sidewalks. She dies before causing any trouble in the plot.
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Escalante
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| IndigoMedusa wrote: | "On My Own" is perhaps my least favorite song in the show. It's just so....simpy.
Eponine herself is a pretty unnecessary character, actually. She was barely even in the original story. There was no need to give such a small character a big showstopping number. |
In all fairness, can we really say she is "barely" in the original story when an entire book is named after her? And Hugo uses Eponine as a symbol of the degradation of poor children. After the "Rose in Misery" chapter he writes, "to see the misery of man only is nothing, you must see the misery of woman; to see the misery of woman only is to see nothing, you must see the misery of childhood." Her character, just like Fantine's and young Cosette's, illuminates the theme of "the miserables." She is a tremendous character in the book and (at times) in the musical-when played by a tremendous actress.
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Quique
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I don't mind musical Eponine at all, even if she is heavily adapted from the novel.
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music is my life!!!
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| IndigoMedusa wrote: | | I don't see how Eponine gets in the way of anything....all she does is mope around on sidewalks. She dies before causing any trouble in the plot. |
i mean for Cosette and Marius to marry, although she's not the only factor stopping it from taking place. Something tells me that Marius is slightly relieved when she dies, even though he's distraught. All he has to do is survive thru the barricade
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lesmisloony
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| music is my life!!! wrote: | | IndigoMedusa wrote: | | I don't see how Eponine gets in the way of anything....all she does is mope around on sidewalks. She dies before causing any trouble in the plot. |
i mean for Cosette and Marius to marry, although she's not the only factor stopping it from taking place. Something tells me that Marius is slightly relieved when she dies, even though he's distraught. All he has to do is survive thru the barricade |
Oooh, now that you put it that way, I really have to agree with InigoMedusa. No WAY is Eponine an obstacle to Marius and Cosette's happiness. The only thing she gets in the way of is my ability to enjoy the show from beginning to end.
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EponineBarker
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| lesmisloony wrote: | | music is my life!!! wrote: | | IndigoMedusa wrote: | | I don't see how Eponine gets in the way of anything....all she does is mope around on sidewalks. She dies before causing any trouble in the plot. |
i mean for Cosette and Marius to marry, although she's not the only factor stopping it from taking place. Something tells me that Marius is slightly relieved when she dies, even though he's distraught. All he has to do is survive thru the barricade |
Oooh, now that you put it that way, I really have to agree with InigoMedusa. No WAY is Eponine an obstacle to Marius and Cosette's happiness. The only thing she gets in the way of is my ability to enjoy the show from beginning to end. |
I'd have to agree with music is my life!!!, I think that Eponine does serve as an obstacle to Marius and Cosette's happiness. I mean, (at least in the book) she could've remained selfish even when she was dying and have kept the letter that told where Cosette was. Instead, Eponine gave the letter to Marius, therefore, he once again had a reason for wanting to survive the barricade, instead of throwing himself in harm's way and risking getting killed before Valjean came.
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Ulkis
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| Quote: | | In all fairness, can we really say she is "barely" in the original story when an entire book is named after her? |
Aren't there only 5 books? Fantine, Cosette, Marius, Saint Denis, and Jean Valjean? And Eponine and Javert have like, sections named after them. I don't know.
But in any case, I agree that Eponine is more than barely there. I'd pick Toussaint for someone who is barely in the original story.
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lesmisloony
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Yeah, there's the letter... that's true. And she *did* convince him to go to the barricades in the first place.
I guess I just meant her general happiness didn't affect Marius's general happiness...
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Escalante
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| Ulkis wrote: | | Quote: | | In all fairness, can we really say she is "barely" in the original story when an entire book is named after her? |
Aren't there only 5 books? Fantine, Cosette, Marius, Saint Denis, and Jean Valjean? And Eponine and Javert have like, sections named after them. I don't know.
But in any case, I agree that Eponine is more than barely there. I'd pick Toussaint for someone who is barely in the original story. |
Fantine, Cossette, Marius, Saint Denis, and Jean Valjean are listed as Volumes in my version of the brick. Eponine was book 2 in the volume called Saint Denis. And then each book has a lot of chapters... gotta love it 
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EponineBarker
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| lesmisloony wrote: | Yeah, there's the letter... that's true. And she *did* convince him to go to the barricades in the first place.
I guess I just meant her general happiness didn't affect Marius's general happiness... |
Ah okay, that makes sense. You're right, Eponine's gerneral happiness didn't effect Marius' general happiness, but in terms of his happiness with Cosette, I think Eponine did have an effect on that to a certain degree.
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Ulkis
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| Quote: | | Fantine, Cossette, Marius, Saint Denis, and Jean Valjean are listed as Volumes in my version of the brick. Eponine was book 2 in the volume called Saint Denis. And then each book has a lot of chapters... gotta love it |
Hee. I knew it was something high-falutin' like that.
(Escalante, is that Tori Amos in your avatar?)
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Escalante
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| Ulkis wrote: | | Quote: | | Fantine, Cossette, Marius, Saint Denis, and Jean Valjean are listed as Volumes in my version of the brick. Eponine was book 2 in the volume called Saint Denis. And then each book has a lot of chapters... gotta love it |
Hee. I knew it was something high-falutin' like that.
(Escalante, is that Tori Amos in your avatar?) |
Hell yeah 
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Orestes Fasting
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| Escalante wrote: | | Ulkis wrote: | | Quote: | | In all fairness, can we really say she is "barely" in the original story when an entire book is named after her? |
Aren't there only 5 books? Fantine, Cosette, Marius, Saint Denis, and Jean Valjean? And Eponine and Javert have like, sections named after them. I don't know.
But in any case, I agree that Eponine is more than barely there. I'd pick Toussaint for someone who is barely in the original story. |
Fantine, Cossette, Marius, Saint Denis, and Jean Valjean are listed as Volumes in my version of the brick. Eponine was book 2 in the volume called Saint Denis. And then each book has a lot of chapters... gotta love it |
In all fairness, Champmathieu and M. Gillenormand had entire books named after them too. Yet somehow the fandom doesn't work itself into hysterics over their trials and tribulations, and I doubt many would argue against the deletion of Gillenormand from the musical.
Eponine's role in the plot is negligible--many movie versions have completely or mostly omitted her without twisting the storytelling too much. While she does serve a symbolic role in the book (the degradation of adolescence; the tragedy of thwarted, twisted romantic longing), it's distinctly subordinate to the degradation of motherhood embodied in Fantine and the degradation of childhood embodied in Cosette. Fetishize romantic longing all you want, it doesn't make romantic love the center of the book, and it doesn't make Eponine a major character.
I realize that "not a major character" isn't very specific in a novel with such a huge cast, but I think it's fair to stick Eponine in the same rank of tertiary characters as Gillenormand, Fauchelevent, Enjolras, and Mabeuf. They're not walk-ons; they have personalities and continuing roles in the story, they're important in some way, and Hugo was using them to say something; but all the same, they're not vital and the story wouldn't suffer horribly if they were discreetly cut in an adaptation.
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Escalante
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touch�
I guess she should be cut then. Particularly since all those movie adaptations of Les Mis that cut out "tertiary" characters so brilliantly captured the novel.. 
Seriously, though, I think that her story is much more important than you say. For one thing she reveals what would have happened to Cosette had Valjean not rescued her. She also is a symbol for the redemptive power of love which is a HUGE theme of Les Miserables, and arguably the most important theme of the musical. Whether or not you think she acted nobly, her love for Marius was the only thing keeping the poor wretch from slipping into complete depravity. Although she acted selfishly she did struggle to be more noble in spite of herself.
I also don't agree that she was that heavily adapted in the musical. Different actor interpretations have made her seem whiney and annoying. And the way she has been costumed hasn't really ever fully shown her extreme poverty. But her lines and situations alone are actually very close to the novel. Even "On my Own" is taken from the "sometimes I go away at night.." speech when she is visiting Marius for the first time.
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lesmisloony
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Gah, here I go again...
There's absolutely no way Eponine wasn't "heavily adapted" in the musical we see today. I mean, she even made drastic changes between the OFCA and the OLC, and these changes did NOT bring her closer to the Book (though the OFCA version was imperfect too, she was, as I have often said, awesome). Yes, OMO is similar to that one remark she makes in that one scene, but Book!Eponine was far too sensible to say things like "And I knnnoooow althoooough that he is bliiiiind / Still I sayyyy there's a wayyy for us!" Honestly, of all my problems with musical!Eponine, that line has got to be the absolute most obnoxious to me. Maybe if every time Marius looked the other way she didn't burst out with "Little he knowwwws, little he seeeeeeees" or stuff along those lines she'd be slightly more tolerable. And although she tells him she was "a little bit in love with" him in the Book, I seriously don't get the idea that he was somehow the one good thing in her life or whatever. And no, I'm not trying to suggest that her life had many other bright spots; I'm just trying to get people to realistically look at her realtionship with Marius. I mean, I've often questioned her feelings for him anyway, because she only met him a few times and he was kind of cold to her for most of them. I think that it was infatuation based on his looks and she was too young/batty to be able to distinguish between that and "LET'S DIE TOGETHER."
I know these thoughts probably aren't well-articulated, but I hope I made a point in there somewhere... I go on rants about musical!Eponine pretty often lately, so stop me if you've heard that one.
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curlyhairedsoprano91
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^LOL. Oh Loony.
I totally agree, though, about the "little he knows/little he sees" basically making the character intolerable. And that it wasn't that way in the book at all. I think there was some part in the book, correct me if I'm wrong, where Eponine is talking to Marius and she says something like, "It wouldn't be proper for you to be seen with a woman like me." (Completely paraphrasing, but I think that was the gist of it.) Which is totally not, "Still I say there's a way for us."
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Escalante
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I definitely see what you are saying- But there are lots of lines like that with other characters too. Someone else mentioned in this thread that "I Dreamed a Dream" also has a line that Fantine wouldn't have said as well- "And still I dream he'll come to me" because her heart was cold to him after he abandoned Cosette.
I always took "still I say there's a way for us" as meaning that "I know there is no way for us in reality- I know he is blind, doesn't care about me, he is above me socially etc. But at night I fantasize that there is a way for us" Alternatively, it could also be revealing a little of her stalker-esque insanity
I just realized though that I never answered the original question. Both songs are beautiful. I love OMO for the imagery and orchestrations... but I think that I like IDAD more because of Fantine's story.
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Orestes Fasting
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| Escalante wrote: | touch�
I guess she should be cut then. Particularly since all those movie adaptations of Les Mis that cut out "tertiary" characters so brilliantly captured the novel..
Seriously, though, I think that her story is much more important than you say. |
Actually, I think the '70s adaptation with Richard Jordan and Anthony Perkins did a decent job of abridging the second half of the novel. Not that it should have been so abridged in the first place, considering how much loving detail they spent on the first half, but the changes they made were palatable. (Except the ending. Wtf.) And yes, tertiary characters were cut. Eponine's letter-carrying duty got fobbed off on Gavroche. Big deal. The musical cut minor characters too, but I don't see you whining about how it failed to capture the novel by eliminating Gillenormand and reducing Fauchelevent to a walk-on role with two lines. Even though the musical is practically the only adaptation to get rid of Gillenormand, which is more than can be said for Eponine.
Eponine's symbolic role in the plot is much larger than her useful role, which is why it's easy to cut her. I love accurate adaptations and I'm not saying she should be eliminated, just that when push comes to shove and you've only got two hours to tell the story, there are probably better things to worry about than preserving what she represents.
This isn't me hating on Eponine; Enjolras is one of my favorite characters, and I consider him to be in the same rank of interesting but ultimately expendable characters. It just annoys me to see Eponine's importance inflated far beyond what it was originally meant to be.
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IndigoMedusa
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| Quote: | | She reveals what would have happened to Cosette had Valjean not rescued her. |
Sure. They could've kept her in but they didn't need to expand upon her role the way they did. She's hardly worthy of her own subplot in such a long show with so much to cover.
| Quote: |
She also is a symbol for the redemptive power of love which is a HUGE theme of Les Miserables, and arguably the most important theme of the musical. |
I agree with Orestes. There is nothing new that Eponine's story brings to the show. Those themes are equally reflective in Fantine and Cosette.
| Quote: | | It just annoys me to see Eponine's importance inflated far beyond what it was originally meant to be |
Amen. I think the only reason why the writers of Les Miz inflated her role was because they thought that audiences might find romantic longing to be appealing.
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Escalante
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: |
The musical cut minor characters too, but I don't see you whining about how it failed to capture the novel by eliminating Gillenormand and reducing Fauchelevent to a walk-on role with two lines. |
I think for the musical purposes, Gillenormand and Fauchelevent would have been much harder to include than Eponine. Eponine was part of the action of the barricades- easy to fit in. While, Gillenormand and Fauchelevent would have delved heavily in to back story territory... I really love those characters- but I still think that Eponine's theme is more important than theirs. It echos Fantine and Valjean. But it is just my opinion. I am not saying she is more important than Fantine, Cosette or Javert but she is a great character, especially in the book. I think that you may have been so abused by adolescent Eponine fans that you are assuming I am trying to make her the most important character in the musical. No. I was merely defending her being in the musical as a supporting role.
And who says I am not whining that Gillenormand and Fauchelevent were cut? By all means make the show ten hours long- I'd watch it ( I'd actually like to point out I was not whining to begin with ) But since you have brought it up, do you think that the students, Enjolras, and Eponine should have been cut in order to add Gillenormand and Fauchelevent? I am asking seriously.
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Orestes Fasting
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The musical is what it is; considering how crappy Gillenormand's one song was on the OFC, I don't think I'd trust B&S to give him a bigger role. If they could've captured what a wonderful cantankerous bastard he is in the book, I would've been happy to cede Eponine's stage time to him--he's much more suitable comic-relief material than the Th�nardiers, that's for sure.
The students, as an entity, are almost impossible to cut, but much as I adore Enjolras, it's not crucial for story purposes that he have a separately-defined character.
Let me elaborate a bit on what I mean by "tertiary characters." If I were to divide up the book's cast by importance, then Jean Valjean, Cosette, Fantine, and Marius--the people the story's about, basically--would come out on top, and then there are the secondary characters who are so iconic or vital to the plot that the book would fall flat on its face without them. Javert, the Bishop of Digne, Th�nardier, Gavroche, the Friends of the ABC collectively: they're not central, but you'd have to be bonkers to leave them out. Eponine is not among their number, and it bothers me that the musical tries to elevate her to that point. She and Gillenormand and Enjolras and M. Mabeuf all play significant roles, they all have character arcs and symbolic importance, but none of them should be sharing a bow with Fantine at curtain call.
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Ulkis
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| Quote: | | I also don't agree that she was that heavily adapted in the musical. |
I'd have to say, I think she was. It's not even the size of her role in the musical, it's the way she was changed into Valjean-lite. When I read the book I was shocked to find out how non-saint like Eponine was, considering I thought the musical did a fair job with the other characters. I don't think it would have killed the creators to have Eponine hide the letter or something. It's funny that the musical gets rid of Eponine's most redeeming moment - putting her hand over the gun that was about to shoot Marius.
I think my problem with Eponine is more I have a problem with the way teenage Cosette's role is made smaller. It ends up that the audience wishes Marius could fall in love with Eponine, which shouldn't be the case. The audience should want Cosette and Marius to be happy as well.
Orestes, I'd stick in Javert with Valjean, Cosette, Fantine, and Marius in the necessary characters group as well. Everyone else, negligable.
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Ulla Dance Again!
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That's exactly my problem, too. It just boggles me how Eponine seems to get more stage time over Cosette. Perhaps it's because the audience is supposed to want Eponine and Marius together, and when's she's killed, they're supposed to feel bad for her. "Oh poor Eppie, she's dying in the arms of the man she can't have."
I don't hate Eponine, not at all, but this is just a slight issue I have with the show.
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bigR
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Damn! So much I want to argue against all of you, and so little time!
But be ready for tomorrow
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Orestes Fasting
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| Ulkis wrote: | | Orestes, I'd stick in Javert with Valjean, Cosette, Fantine, and Marius in the necessary characters group as well. Everyone else, negligable. |
I was mostly going for "people who had entire volumes named after them," but I'm willing to stick my neck out there and claim that Javert has very little story of his own until the very end--he spends nine-tenths of his 'screen time,' so to speak, acting as a foil for Valjean. He's totally necessary and his role is fascinating, but if you split LM up into five 300-page sub-novels, he wouldn't be the main character of any of them. Unlike Marius or Fantine or Cosette.
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lesmisloony
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| Quote: | | It just boggles me how Eponine seems to get more stage time over Cosette. |
That's EXACTLY it. I really adore Cosette, but the poor little thing looks hatable in the musical!
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Ulkis
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| Quote: | | I was mostly going for "people who had entire volumes named after them," but I'm willing to stick my neck out there and claim that Javert has very little story of his own until the very end--he spends nine-tenths of his 'screen time,' so to speak, acting as a foil for Valjean. |
That's true - I was thinking "characters whom I have never seen left out of a Les Mis adaptation" necessary. Of course then I'd have to add the Bishop as well.
| Quote: | | I really adore Cosette, but the poor little thing looks hatable in the musical! |
Here's where I complain about Marius 'stealing' Cosette's stage time as well, for lack of a better word *g*. When they meet in the street why can't they say 'oops pardon me' at the same time? And why give that first line in "One Day More" to Marius instead of Cosette? Or at least, they could both sing it.
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Escalante
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: | | She and Gillenormand and Enjolras and M. Mabeuf all play significant roles, they all have character arcs and symbolic importance, but none of them should be sharing a bow with Fantine at curtain call. |
Okay I agree with you here. Maybe it is just the stage time issue that gets some people down about her character. I still disagree that she is more expendable than some of the other characters you mentioned (Gillenormand, Enjolras, Mabeuf) but it is true that she has been elevated to a starring role. I hadn't really thought of it like that until you mentioned the bows. Which is kind of bizarre. I would definitely be willing to see some of her stage time be given to developing older Cosette's relationship with Valjean more. I would especially like to see more of Valjean's struggle over Cosette marrying Marius- and his confession to Marius seems so rushed in the musical. Valjean losing Cosette was the most tragic part in the novel for me- but it kind of gets glossed over. So hell yeah, her part could be given up for that. But I wouldn't give her part away for Gillenormand- because I agree with what you said about the OFC.
| Ulkis wrote: | | Quote: | | I also don't agree that she was that heavily adapted in the musical. |
I'd have to say, I think she was. It's not even the size of her role in the musical, it's the way she was changed into Valjean-lite. When I read the book I was shocked to find out how non-saint like Eponine was, |
Exactly how is she saint like in the musical? As you said, she didn't even save him in the musical version. I think that her lyrics just taken as they are- do not portray her as a saint. I think the problems have come with fans elevating her to sainthood and with actors and directors interpretations. But the lyrics at face value don't really go against the book. Obviously they don't include all the intricacies of her characters. But it is not impossible to play her much rougher with the lyrics that are already there.
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Escalante
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: | | considering how crappy Gillenormand's one song was on the OFC, I don't think I'd trust B&S to give him a bigger role. If they could've captured what a wonderful cantankerous bastard he is in the book, I would've been happy to cede Eponine's stage time to him--he's much more suitable comic-relief material than the Th�nardiers, that's for sure. |
Sorry for another post but this actually made me remember that I had once read that Mackintosh had asked Alan Jay Lerner to write the English lyrics to Les Miserables, but he turned him down. I bet you he could have captured Gillenormand's character brilliantly. It would have been a very different show in any case...
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Ulkis
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| Quote: | | Exactly how is she saint like in the musical? |
Because she just pretty much does everything she can to help Marius and Cosette. She doesn't save him in the musical but risks her life just so she can tell him that Valjean got his letter for Cosette.
But that's not just an Eponine problem - like you point out here:
| Quote: | | I would especially like to see more of Valjean's struggle over Cosette marrying Marius- and his confession to Marius seems so rushed in the musical. |
Valjean and Marius' insta-relationship makes them a little too good as well. I guess that's the nature of most musicals though.
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music is my life!!!
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The bit where i absolutely DESPISE cosette is when she goes "That was my cry you heard papa" I feel like screaming at her at that point - what a little lyer!
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lesmisloony
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...I don't understand your complaint. She was trying to protect Marius and her newfound relationship with him. How exactly would saying "it was some strange emo girl outside" help matters?
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music is my life!!!
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it just seems lifke a bit of a bratty thing to do, when she knows that she's not the one who screamed.
How does JVJ believe her anyway? He's never heard her scream before 
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Catherine
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| music is my life!!! wrote: | it just seems lifke a bit of a bratty thing to do, when she knows that she's not the one who screamed.
How does JVJ believe her anyway? He's never heard her scream before |
I don't think it seems bratty at all... I agree with Loony. =/
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Orestes Fasting
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| music is my life!!! wrote: | it just seems lifke a bit of a bratty thing to do, when she knows that she's not the one who screamed.
How does JVJ believe her anyway? He's never heard her scream before |
Um, what would you have preferred? "Oh, don't worry Papa, it's just that skeevy-looking urchin chick we saw this afternoon--she scared off the guys who tried to rob you and who just came back looking to break in. What do you mean, what's she doing here? She just kinda turned up with my brand-new lover when they sneaked into the garden!"
Yeah, that would've gone over real well.
It's the time-honored technique of Covering Your Boyfriend's Butt; I don't see how it's bratty at all. What did you think she was trying to do, steal Eponine's glory by taking the rap for her?
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What you own
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Yes I agree it does boggle my mind the fact that Cosette gets so little of a part while Eponine gets so huge of a part and a very annoying fan cult to go with it. I don't mind Eponine it�s the fans that makes me go insane. But I could have been an Eppie Bopper myself. Since On My Own was one of the 1st songs I heard form Les Mies. And at 1st I did not even hear the words to it. I just heard the instrumental. Which is of course so pretty. But being the reader I am I did research on the book and am I the process of reading it. Which of course changes just a few things about her.
But one of the most annoying things to me in the musical is in the scene when Marius and Eponine first see each other. (Just a TINY bit different from the book) It looks like Marius is trying to flirt with her. When he was disgusted by her. (I would to if some ugly guy was stalking me. Oh wait I have had an ugly creepy guy stalking me. I named him Stephen stalker, and he even followed me to the GIRLS BATHROOM!! Really creepy. I'm still weary of going around him to this day)
The musical leaves all of Eponines good traits and none of the bad. I mean it makes her look like she had a shot with Marius. That�s one of the things that bothers me about the show. The way her and Marius are friends. But that could have been done to tone down Marius chacter (I think I spelled that wrong) since he was at times just a bit cold to Eponine. (It sad how after Eponine has led him to Cosette and she find him the streets that he is mean to her... that doesn't sadden me so much as the fact that after he is so mean to her how she loses her courage to speak to him. For some strange reason I do feel bad for Eponine there. )
In the Musical she does not lead Marius to the barricades. So that he can DIE! Both of them. Eponine does seem a bit suicidal in the book. She even has that one line when she say mentions about when ever she thought about drowning her self in the river she said no it is to cold. Of course that is in the paragraph that I read some where they got the inspiration for OMO from. She talks about going around Paris and how nice every thing looks and the river and the lights looking like candles and everything. Of course she then mentions how she hears voices and she starts to think that people are throwing stones at her. All this to get some money off of Marius. And then eating his moldy bread ("It is good! It is hard! It breaks my teeth!")
It seems as if Eponine is not driven by jealousy and the fact that she is insane is completely left out of the musical. Not that I don't like Eponine I really do. As I said before it�s just the fans that drive me mad.
But I love both songs. Why do I have to choose? Does that mean if I like one I can't like another? It�s like the Cosette Vs. Eponine debate. Or the Lea Salonga vs. Frances Rufalle. Or Rosario Dawson Vs Daphene Rubin -Vega. OR Twilight Vs.Harry Potter. Why is it one or the other? I like both.
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lesmisloony
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| Quote: | | She talks about going around Paris and how nice every thing looks and the river and the lights looking like candles and everything. Of course she then mentions how she hears voices and she starts to think that people are throwing stones at her. |
I lol'd when I read that. It may be my new favourite Book v. musical argument ever.
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What you own
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| Quote: | "Um, what would you have preferred? "Oh, don't worry Papa, it's just that skeevy-looking urchin chick we saw this afternoon--she scared off the guys who tried to rob you and who just came back looking to break in. What do you mean, what's she doing here? She just kinda turned up with my brand-new lover when they sneaked into the garden!"
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Lol so true.
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Eponine23
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| bigR wrote: |
I guess they have also discovered the emotions of a first love, then, and YET, no one among them says that she likes In my Live because she can relate to Cosette. Why? Because it's way cooler to be the tragic heroine! |
Well, actually, when I first saw Les Mis, back in August, I thought that my guy friend who I like liked me back, so I felt that I related to Cosette and the song In my Life, but then I found out he liked my best friend, I felt more like I related to On my Own, which I had liked the first time I saw the musical because I'd seen friends in a similar situation to Eponine, and now that I'm in a simliar, unrequitted love situation, I still like the song as much I did before, but now I relate to it more than In my Life, and I really wish I still related more to In my Life because I don't want to be the tragic heroine, because when I was growing up, I pretty much didn't have any friends since I was afraid of my family...And I'm not just being angsty, I'm just saying that I had a pretty screwed up childhood as far as a modern, middle class family goes.
And as far as the original topic goes, I love both songs a ton, especially since both are in my vocal range. But On my Own is a bit harder to sing for me, so I enjoy singing it more because I like the challenge.
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bigR
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Mmmm� they are a lot of things I�ve been willing to answer to for days and I finally have time, so, let�s try:
1-Yes musical!�ponine has been heavily adapted in the musical. But my main complaint is not about her personality but her looks. Why did they have to make her look cool? It�s smalls things like, why does she always have clean hair? Couldn�t they have give her a dirty wig? And the hat. In the book she ties her hair with a �ficelle�, why did they give her a man�s hat in the musical? And of course, the clothes she wears are designed to make her look hot. What kind of 19th century gartment is that spaghetti strap shirt she wears? Even for an undergarment it is way too revealing.
And her personality has been changed of course. For the worse. Because she is fascinating in the book, while in the musical she�s been through several changes to make her more sympathetic to the audiences, yes. But Marius is far more unrecognizable than her. Come one, the musical!marius keeps little more than the name from the original book character. Why doesn�t he get on your nerves the same way �ponine does? Oh, yes, sometimes people complain than ECAET is not in character, but that�s all. But if you hate OMO and �ponine, ECAET should make you feel as if you wanted to throw yourself through a window. Marius should be sulky, and boring, and she should mistreat �ponine, and he shouldn�t care about the revolution, and she should be suicidal, and he should ignore his friend�s deaths, and he should be harsh with Valjean� but I don�t see any of those things. And there is not a instutionalized marius-hate.
2- I don�t totally agree with Orestes distinction of main, secondary and tertiary characters. Because if the main characters are the people the story is about then, the main character is Valjean, and that's all. He shouldn�t share his status with anyone. The story is about Valjean and his road to redemption, not about Fantine, Marius or Cosette. Is Valjean journey we follow when we read Les Mis. In a second level, I�d put the people who, as you put it, are vital to the plot: Javert, Th�nardier, Fantine, Marius, Cosette and the Bishop. But never Gavroche. I don�t see how the plot would fall flat on its face without Gavroche or how does he fill a different role than �ponine. If �ponine is expendable in a movie adaptation, so is Gavroche. He doesn�t add anything to the plot. My point is, I really don�t think that in a book like Les Mis the importance of a character should be defined but how his interventions are vital to the developement of the plot.
3- �ponine is not crazy (or at least she is not crazier than any of the other characters of a book where Courfeyrac is probably the only sane and normal human being). Yes, she walks alone at night and she imagines things. But is not because she is crazy. But because she is HUNGRY. Yes, she sends Marius to the barricades, but I don�t get the impression that she has a clear agenda. She is not an evil mastermind. And she certainly is not clearly thinking �if I can�t have you, nobody will�. For god�s sake, she takes him to the girl he likes, and she risks her live protecting her garden. But she doesn�t it because she is saintly good, either She is not. She just acts on instinct. She doesn�t understand what is going through her, and she probably doesn�t even understand that she is jealous. She is confused, and lonely, and she is hurting, and she drags him to the barricade in a moment of despair, but then, she can�t stand the idea of him dying and she throws herself in front of the bullet. Is she crazy because she is suicidal? But then, what about Marius, and Mabeuf, and Grantaire, and Javert? Aren�t they all as suicidal as her?
I don�t mean that she is a saint or anything. But she certainly is not a negative character. She is someone who�s lost in a ghostly place between good and evil, but finally love redeems her, and gives her the definite push to the good side.
4- And if there is something that I really hate it�s when �ponine�s love for Marius is dismissed as teenage infatuation (yes, Loony, it is you ) Yes, she only met him a few times, yes, they didn�t even have a real conversation, yes, she doesn�t really know him. But �ponine�s love for Marius is not more �unreal� than Marius� love for Cosette? So, we have to believe that Marius and Cosette look one day at each other in a park and there's a stars junction and she can�t live anymore without her even if they haven�t even exchanged a word? And that�s not teenage infatuation??
Well, actually it is not. Because inside the romantic universe of Les Mis, love at first sight trully exists and it is an overwhelming and powerful thing. And if it works this way for Marius it works the same way for �ponine.
You don�t believe in love at first sight? Well, then you�d better never open any novel from the romantic period, because they are all crowded with crazy people committing suicide for the beautiful eyes of a woman they can't have. And by the way, it wasn�t just a literary trend. During the early 1800�s there was a real life wave of suicides among romantic and fashionable young people all around Europe, triggered by the publication of Goethe�s Werther.
The problem with Les Mis, is that its romanticism was already old-fashioned when it went to print. Hugo was a survivor of the romantic period. And you couldn�t keep on writing about romantic and pure Love at first sight in the 60�s. Not after Madame Bovary (but he did, because he was Hugo, and he was God) But before it� even totally cynical writers like Balzac tell stories about women of dubious virtue who fell in love at first sight with a handsome man and give their lives for them�
5. I agree that �ponine doesn�t have a lot of �screen time� in the book. But she totally steals the show every time she is in it. Her defense of the gate of the rue Plumet is electrifying, and the way she plays down her feelings for Marius with the �je crois que j��tais un peu amoureuse de vous� is so delicate and beautiful�.
6. One more thing: is Marius the only good thing on her life? Well, from a prosaic point of view he maybe isn�t (although Hugo titled her death chapter: The agony of death after the agony of life, which kinds of seems an answer to my question). She probably has a good relationship with Azelma and she gets to do Montparnasse . But in the symbolic world of Les Mis�rables he certainly is the only good thing in her live. Because everything around her is shadow (even Montparnasse), and Marius is light.
7- I don�t want grown-up Cosette to have a longer role in the musical. She is cute, and lively, and nice, and everything you want, but she is not interesting. Luckily for her, she�s become nothing but a normal girl.
8. Loony, do you really like OFC �ponine? With that sugary �deux anges qui se d�couvrent� and the could it be more OOC �in face of such an otherworldly happiness jealousy disappears� lyrics? Puajj!!
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lesmisloony
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| Quote: | | ome one, the musical!marius keeps little more than the name from the original book character. Why doesn’t he get on your nerves the same way �ponine does? |
Very true, but you don't see fangirls squealing about how great Marius is and making icons of him and all the stuff that happens to musical!Eponine. If everybody was obsessing over Marius's butchered character in the musical, I would definitely learn to hate him. And I've seen a couple Marius...es onstage who I thought were able to at least make the character recognisable, too (ECAET notwithstanding).
| Quote: | | And if there is something that I really hate it’s when �ponine’s love for Marius is dismissed as teenage infatuation (yes, Loony, it is you ) Yes, she only met him a few times, yes, they didn’t even have a real conversation, yes, she doesn’t really know him. But �ponine’s love for Marius is not more “unreal” than Marius’ love for Cosette? So, we have to believe that Marius and Cosette look one day at each other in a park and there's a stars junction and she can’t live anymore without her even if they haven’t even exchanged a word? |
Another good point! I dunno, maybe I'm so bitter on Eponine that I can't give her that much credit. In my mind, Marius and Cosette are just kind of... the same type of person. Like, extremely, extremely compatable. And I think Marius is so into being a SERIOUS POET that yeah, he fully believes himself capable of falling in love with Cosette just because of the eyesex. As for Cosette, she seems slightly more rational (even moving on to Theodule after a while) but I can totally understand a sheltered convent girl who suddenly finds a really attractive man following her around like a puppy deciding that they're probably in love. And good for them it worked out! I also wouldn't have been surprised if they ended up being annoyed with each other after a few months of marriage, by the way, even though I love the pairing and all. As for Eponine, I just don't see her entertaining such fluffy notions of soulmate stuff, you know? I can picture her seeing the life Marius represents and being in love with *that*, but I just have no way of accepting that she's in "love" with him the way he's in love with Cosette because--and try not to fall out of your chair when you see I've typed this--her understand of reality seems slightly less fuzzy than his.
I have no idea if I've made my point or not, but I did try. You gotta give me that much credit.
| Quote: | | 8. Loony, do you really like OFC �ponine? With that sugary “deux anges qui se d�couvrent� and the could it be more OOC �in face of such an otherworldly happiness jealousy disappears” lyrics? Puajj!! |
I think my love of OFCA Eponine is just shock at how much cooler she is than the one we have now. She's mature about the whole thing. And I really, really hate the whole concept of "still I say there's a way for us!" Didn't Book!Eponine tell Marius not to walk by her side so that no one would think he was with her? The musical!Eponine we're given would probably try to hold hands with him and everything in such a situation-- I just realised WHILE TYPING THIS that at the end of DYHTPS she usually DOES run in and grab his hand. Yep. And despite it's tenuous relationship to canon!Eponine, I'm a sucker for Eponines like that redhead in the Gabin movie. Weirdly happy Eponines who don't whinge all the time about how lame their woeful lives are.
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bigR
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| Quote: | | Very true, but you don't see fangirls squealing about how great Marius is and making icons of him and all the stuff that happens to musical! |
ha, ha, ha, exactly my point, see???  As heavily adapted as she is �ponine isn't so annoying by herself. It's all because of the eppy-boppers!
| Quote: | | Another good point! I dunno, maybe I'm so bitter on Eponine that I can't give her that much credit. In my mind, Marius and Cosette are just kind of... the same type of person. Like, extremely, extremely compatable. |
Agreed. But it doesn't mean that you can't be madly in love at first sight (if you are a character out of a romantic novel, I mean) with someone who isn't compatable with you. You just won't have a happy ending.
Cosette seems to be the more sensible of the three by far. Just out of the convent, falls for the first hansome guy who looks at her with adoring eyes, but moves on and forgets about him when she's gone a few weeks without seeing him.
Now, Marius and �ponine... I don't know... it seems to me that they share a similar level of craziness...
| Quote: | | I just have no way of accepting that she's in "love" with him the way he's in love with Cosette because--and try not to fall out of your chair when you see I've typed this--her understand of reality seems slightly less fuzzy than his. |
you're right! but I don't think that book!�ponine entertains any delusions about Marius... she just seems to act in an instictive way. Doesn't she compare herself with a she-wolf?
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Ulkis
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| Quote: | | and she gets to do Montparnasse |
What? Where in the book is this? (I'm not doubting, just curious. I haven't read the whole thing in about 6 years.)
I think Eponine is truely in love with Marius, however you want to define 'true'. Genuine, what have you. Eponine's story would be disatissfying for me if a) it was only puppy love or b) Marius had any spark of feeling for her. It's about how there ISN'T someone for everyone, and it how that, to put it crudely, sucks.
Interesting, going back to the original topic, if you type in "I Dreamed a Dream" and "On My Own" into i-tunes search, about 100+ "Dreams" pop up, and probably less then 50 "On My Owns" (that are the Les Mis version). So in general, it seems singers tend to gravitate towards "Dream".
| Quote: | | But if you hate OMO and �ponine, ECAET should make you feel as if you wanted to throw yourself through a window. Marius should be sulky, and boring, and she should mistreat �ponine, and he shouldn�t care about the revolution, and she should be suicidal, and he should ignore his friend�s deaths, and he should be harsh with Valjean� |
ETA: I disagree with about everyone that "Chairs" is out of character. It's about 6 months compressed into one song. I don't see where he doesn't care about his friends' deaths. However, I do agree that "Valjean's confession" and the "Shall I join my brothers there!" and "Then it's true/then I'm right/Jean Valjean was my savior that night!" is out of character. Also, in the case of the last line, non-sensical. There is no evidence that Marius thinks Valjean saved him at all. Otherwise why let the guy go off somewhere "a long way away"? But I digress! Anyway, the only songs I hate for out-of-character-ness is "Little Fall of Rain" and "Bring Him Home".
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Vanessa20
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| Ulkis wrote: | | Also, in the case of the last line, non-sensical. There is no evidence that Marius thinks Valjean saved him at all. Otherwise why let the guy go off somewhere "a long way away"? |
I don't necessarily think that line means that Marius suspected before the wedding that Valjean saved him. I've always assumed that he first gets the idea when he sees the ring, and then when Thenardier tells him it was the night the barricades fell, that confirms it. That's all I think he means by "Then it's true/then I'm right."
Just my own personal opinion.
God, this topic has strayed. I specifically said that I didn't want this to turn into another Eponine discussion, but I guess that's asking too much.
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bigR
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| Ulkis wrote: | | Quote: | | and she gets to do Montparnasse |
What? Where in the book is this? |
"Montparnasse lui-m�me, qui �tait peut-�tre un peu le gendre de Th�nardier"
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Ulkis
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| Quote: | | I don't necessarily think that line means that Marius suspected before the wedding that Valjean saved him. I've always assumed that he first gets the idea when he sees the ring, and then when Thenardier tells him it was the night the barricades fell, that confirms it. That's all I think he means by "Then it's true/then I'm right." |
That sounds good. I'll go with that.
Thanks, bigR!
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Orestes Fasting
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And there's also the part where Montparnasse and Eponine are supposed to be standing watch for the Gorbeau robbery, but he leads her off to play Romeo. (Or Nemorin, I think was the allusion Hugo used.)
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What you own
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(Or Nemorin, I think was the allusion Hugo used.)[/quote]
Yup it was Nemorin I remember since when I first saw that word i had no clue what it ment. And I looked for it in the dictionary. And I remeber being very annoyed when I found out that it was not there.
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Orestes Fasting
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It's a reference to Estelle and Nemorin, a pastoral poem by Florian that Berlioz made into an opera.
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Disney-Bway27
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I believe that both begin with a double-reed instrument; IDAD begins with an oboe, OMO begins with, I believe thought I could be incorrect, an English horn.
Another thing...this could just be hot gas, but I see OMO as a bit of a death song. Its melody mainly appears three times throughout the course of the show, two of those times being sung on a deathbed (Come to Me and the Finale), and the one time it isn't sung on a deathbed, it's sung by a character who eventually dies (Eponine). IDAD is Fantine's theme, as mentioned before.
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bigR
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Well, if you are a melody from Les Mis you have a LOT of chances to be sang by a character who ends up dying.
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Disney-Bway27
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| bigR wrote: | | Well, if you are a melody from Les Mis you have a LOT of chances to be sang by a character who ends up dying. |
Touche.
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Orestes Fasting
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Okay, finally responding to bigR's post of doom.
| bigR wrote: | | And of course, the clothes she wears are designed to make her look hot. What kind of 19th century gartment is that spaghetti strap shirt she wears? Even for an undergarment it is way too revealing. |
Well, even Hugo said in the book that her blouse was a worthless rag that barely covered anything and kept falling down. I do think it's kind of amusing that in the musical, this morphed into a beat-up tank top that shows 20th-century-appropriate amounts of skin without actually (gasp!) letting the audience see her tits. But it's not like her clothing met 19th century modesty standards.
| Quote: | | And her personality has been changed of course. For the worse. Because she is fascinating in the book, while in the musical she�s been through several changes to make her more sympathetic to the audiences, yes. But Marius is far more unrecognizable than her. Come one, the musical!marius keeps little more than the name from the original book character. Why doesn�t he get on your nerves the same way �ponine does? Oh, yes, sometimes people complain than ECAET is not in character, but that�s all. But if you hate OMO and �ponine, ECAET should make you feel as if you wanted to throw yourself through a window. Marius should be sulky, and boring, and she should mistreat �ponine, and he shouldn�t care about the revolution, and she should be suicidal, and he should ignore his friend�s deaths, and he should be harsh with Valjean� but I don�t see any of those things. And there is not a instutionalized marius-hate. |
ECAET does make me want to throw myself through a window. It's a very good song, but totally not appropriate to the plot or the character.
And I think the difference is that while Eponine is glorified and gets blatant ploys for the audience's sympathy, Marius becomes a nonentity. He's just this ordinary boy who's torn between loyalty to his friends and loyalty to his love, who expresses appropriate amounts of grief over the deaths of Eponine and his friends, and doesn't really do much or have much of a personality. His flaws and idiosyncracies get erased, but the musical doesn't practically demand that the audience love him. He's just... there.
| Quote: | | 2- I don�t totally agree with Orestes distinction of main, secondary and tertiary characters. Because if the main characters are the people the story is about then, the main character is Valjean, and that's all. He shouldn�t share his status with anyone. The story is about Valjean and his road to redemption, not about Fantine, Marius or Cosette. Is Valjean journey we follow when we read Les Mis. In a second level, I�d put the people who, as you put it, are vital to the plot: Javert, Th�nardier, Fantine, Marius, Cosette and the Bishop. But never Gavroche. I don�t see how the plot would fall flat on its face without Gavroche or how does he fill a different role than �ponine. If �ponine is expendable in a movie adaptation, so is Gavroche. He doesn�t add anything to the plot. My point is, I really don�t think that in a book like Les Mis the importance of a character should be defined but how his interventions are vital to the developement of the plot. |
Well yeah of course Valjean is the one, main, indispensible character. But since the book is so neatly divided into five volumes, and Hugo named them thus for a reason, it makes sense that he should share billing with Fantine, Cosette, and Marius.
Gavroche might not drive huge parts of the plot, but he's such a huge part of the mythos of Les Mis that it would be insane to take him out. And unlike Eponine, whose popularity is almost entirely due to the musical, he's represented Les Mis in the popular imagination almost since it was first published. Ask a Frenchman to name some characters from Les Mis and he'd say Jean Valjean, Cosette, Gavroche, Th�nardier, Fantine, Javert...
One could almost as easily tell the story without Fantine (and it has been done by prudes who don't want any prostitution in their good wholesome literature), but it wouldn't be the same. Because the characters' importance isn't necessarily tied to how much they push the plot along, but by their symbolic role.
| Quote: | | Yes, she sends Marius to the barricades, but I don�t get the impression that she has a clear agenda. She is not an evil mastermind. And she certainly is not clearly thinking �if I can�t have you, nobody will�. For god�s sake, she takes him to the girl he likes, and she risks her live protecting her garden. But she doesn�t it because she is saintly good, either She is not. She just acts on instinct. She doesn�t understand what is going through her, and she probably doesn�t even understand that she is jealous. She is confused, and lonely, and she is hurting, and she drags him to the barricade in a moment of despair, but then, she can�t stand the idea of him dying and she throws herself in front of the bullet. Is she crazy because she is suicidal? |
Thank you and I agree 100%. Eponine is not a saint, or a villain, or a crazy manipulative stalker, but a confused and debased soul groping in the dark for redemption.
I admit to having made the "teenage infatuation" claims, which don't really hold water in a world of sweeping Romantic love affairs. But those claims are mostly made against the mindset that Eponine's love for Marius was great and selfless and pure and redemptive and elevates her into a great tragic figure because nothing was her fault etc. etc. etc. Usually in the context of trivializing Marius' love for Cosette, or claiming that Eponine somehow 'deserved' him out of sheer force of passion. When actually, she was desperate and obsessed with him and her actions caused almost as much harm as good.
And in the musical, we have entered a world where most of the audience thinks 'Romanticism' means giving your girlfriend roses on Valentine's day, and where the whole dynamic between Eponine and Marius has been greatly changed. And in that arena, I think charges of teenage infatuation are fair game.
| Quote: | | 7- I don�t want grown-up Cosette to have a longer role in the musical. She is cute, and lively, and nice, and everything you want, but she is not interesting. Luckily for her, she�s become nothing but a normal girl. |
One could say the same about her in the book, but Hugo gives her plenty of screen time. I don't find her that interesting for her own sake, except for her resilience and chameleon-like adaptation to whatever situation she's in, but I don't think she's supposed to be interesting for her own sake. She's interesting as she relates to the other characters, and how she changes depending on whose care she's in, and the fierce attachments other characters have to her. And I think that would have been worth exploring in the musical. Valjean's love for Cosette really gets short shrift; the ending could have been so much more poignant if the audience got a better sense of how much it hurt him to relinquish his only worldly happiness to a self-absorbed twat like Marius. And that in turn would have given more depth to Marius and Cosette's romance.
| Quote: | | 8. Loony, do you really like OFC �ponine? With that sugary �deux anges qui se d�couvrent� and the could it be more OOC �in face of such an otherworldly happiness jealousy disappears� lyrics? Puajj!! |
Heh, I agree that part of the point of Eponine's character is that she's not exactly a paragon of maturity. Quite the opposite, in fact; she's almost feral, and acts on instinct most of the time.
On the other hand at least OFC Eponine doesn't entertain delusions of having a chance with Marius, which are probably the reason Eppie-boppers exist. B&S just didn't seem to understand, in the OFC, that she can have absolutely no hope of ever winning Marius' heart and still be motivated by irrational jealousy.
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Escalante
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| bigR wrote: | | And her personality has been changed of course. For the worse. Because she is fascinating in the book, while in the musical she�s been through several changes to make her more sympathetic to the audiences, yes. But Marius is far more unrecognizable than her. Come one, the musical!marius keeps little more than the name from the original book character. Why doesn�t he get on your nerves the same way �ponine does? Oh, yes, sometimes people complain than ECAET is not in character, but that�s all. But if you hate OMO and �ponine, ECAET should make you feel as if you wanted to throw yourself through a window. Marius should be sulky, and boring, and she should mistreat �ponine, and he shouldn�t care about the revolution, and she should be suicidal, and he should ignore his friend�s deaths, and he should be harsh with Valjean� but I don�t see any of those things. And there is not a instutionalized marius-hate. |
 I agree with a lot of the other things you said but this comment most of all.
I still think that it IS possible with the current script/libretto to portray Eponine the way she is written in the novel. I know some lines suck- but if the actress thinks outside the box it can work. "Little he knows, little he sees" doesn't HAVE to be all about him not seeing that Eponine's in love with him for example. It could be about his hypocracy or his naivete about the way things really are for the poor... echoing her mother's "These bloody students on our streets here they come slumming once again." And if you costumed her appropriately, etc. You could get an interpretation that is close to the original character in the novel with what is there.
But it is nearly impossible to do that with Marius
Although: (Allow me to contradict myself here ) I just went to a High School production and the Marius shocked me. During Jean Valjean's confession scene when he said "You're Jean Valjean!" He said it with extreme distaste. And then- when he was saying:
"What can I do
That will turn you from this?
Monsieur, you cannot leave
Whatever I tell my beloved Cosette
She will never believe!"
He managed to make it seem like he was just grasping at straws- like not even talking to Valjean here but trying to work it out in his brain.
And then! Valjean put his arm on Marius shoulder and desperately said "Promise me M'sieur Cosette will never know" and Marius literally recoiled from his touch and shrugged his hand off when he said "for the sake of Cosette it must be so." And he really enunciated Cosette here- as if saying, I am only going along with this because of Cosette. I'd never seen that interpretation in the musical..
It was great too- because then at the end when he is begging Valjean for forgiveness he really had something to beg forgiveness for. I was pretty shocked that that kid made that work. Yay High School Marius!
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Ulla Dance Again!
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| Escalante wrote: |
I still think that it IS possible with the current script/libretto to portray Eponine the way she is written in the novel. I know some lines suck- but if the actress thinks outside the box it can work. "Little he knows, little he sees" doesn't HAVE to be all about him not seeing that Eponine's in love with him for example. It could be about his hypocracy or his naivete about the way things really are for the poor... echoing her mother's "These bloody students on our streets here they come slumming once again." And if you costumed her appropriately, etc. You could get an interpretation that is close to the original character in the novel with what is there.
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That's actually an interesting way of looking at that particular verse, because there's a good deal of Eponines who play it embittered. (Although I would be a liar if I said I didn't like embittered Eponine. )
And agreed about the costume. If I could redesign the show, I'd get rid of the spaghetti strap tank top... although there are some productions who do stray from the original costuming yet still capture the esscence of it. (kinda like what Quebec did with Enjolras).
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Eponine23
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In the production of Les Mis I saw--Tuacahn--Eponine was wearing a blue blouse with tattered sleeves that went almost to her elbows. And she also seemed to be a bit more true to the book than other Eponines. Her voice sounded kind of like it was described in the book, too. (And I saw the same girl in another show, and she had a less gruff voice, so she gets brownie points from me for that.)
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Disney-Bway27
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Reviving this. It's a fun thread.
MY OPINION.
I Dreamed a Dream by a longshot. It's one of my favorite MT songs.
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jackrussell
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| Disney-Bway27 wrote: | Reviving this. It's a fun thread.
MY OPINION.
I Dreamed a Dream by a longshot. It's one of my favorite MT songs. |
I love both songs so don't take the comments below as an attack...
Musically, I think On My Own has a more memorable melody. The verse melody of IDAD is very simple and has a "almost anybody could have written that" feel to it. That said, it is effective for much the same reasons. OMO is more distinctive. The bridge is very good in both songs, Schonberg can always be relied upon to provide an interesting minor-key bridge with a strong modulation back to the major key for the verse.
Lyrically, OMO is a bit of a hotchpotch of ideas from no fewer than five credited lyricists. It's nicely done but it does all boil down to "the man I want doesn't want me and I feel sad about it", something we can all relate to but which does look like a bit of a minor thing to worry about in the context of everything that's going on around her.
As for IDAD's lyrics, the title could hardly be any more cliched if they'd tried. However, ignoring the cliches, the lyrics are powerful, more so than OMO, because Fantine has a stronger narrative.
So, to sum up, I will sit on the fence and say they're both great songs.
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Monsieur D'Arque
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On my own would have been a perfect Sixties Phil Spector-girl group pop song.
IDAD wins by a thin margin, simply because OMO doesn't have tigers in it.
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Quique
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| jackrussell wrote: |
Lyrically, OMO is a bit of a hotchpotch of ideas from no fewer than five credited lyricists. It's nicely done but it does all boil down to "the man I want doesn't want me and I feel sad about it", something we can all relate to but which does look like a bit of a minor thing to worry about in the context of everything that's going on around her. |
Actually listening to the lyrics will reveal that it's about coming to terms with reality, being strong, and moving on no matter how painful the situation. People probably interpret it as some big, 4 minute whinefest because that's how it's sung by most stage actresses, unfortunately.
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Disney-Bway27
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*cough* Like a certain FRANCES RUFFELLE... *cough*
I really enjoy OMO, I really do. I just think IDAD is much better...it's much deeper in my opinion, and Fantine's story is much sadder than Eponine's. The way I see it, at least.
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Disney-Bway27
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*cough* Like a certain FRANCES RUFFELLE... *cough*
I really enjoy OMO, I really do. I just think IDAD is much better...it's much deeper in my opinion, and Fantine's story is much sadder than Eponine's. The way I see it, at least.
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EponineBarker
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| Disney-Bway27 wrote: | | *cough* Like a certain FRANCES RUFFELLE... *cough* |
*looks around* Wow...I must be the only person here who doesn't hate her. *hides*
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Disney-Bway27
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Ugh, I can't stand her. Her voice makes me want to claw my eyes out...but that wouldn't do any good because I could still hear her! 
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jackrussell
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| EponineBarker wrote: | | Disney-Bway27 wrote: | | *cough* Like a certain FRANCES RUFFELLE... *cough* |
*looks around* Wow...I must be the only person here who doesn't hate her. *hides* |
I don't hate her
*hides too*
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