[ SECRET POST #2232 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2232 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 070 secrets from Secret Submission Post #319.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. http://oi47.tinypic.com/2uswea0.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Adaptations =/= random fanon.

It's okay to like a particular version, even if it isn't the first possible iteration of a thing.

OTOH, you sound like kind of a snob about this, so feel free to keep being conflicted and miserable about it.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought it was basically established that the musical is an entity in itself, apart from the book. It certainly plays fast and loose with enough of the book's, well, everything.

[(Anonymous)]

How was it inaccurate? I've only ever seen the recent film so I'm curious.

[(Anonymous)]

In the book, she's slightly crazy and tells Marius to go to the barricade because she wants them to die together (though she still takes the bullet for him). The musical makes her more heroic and selfless (and MUCH more attractive).

[tenlittlebullets]

In the book, Eponine is sort of an illustration of all the ways that poverty, malnutrition, awful parents, etc. can make for an incredibly stunted and miserable adolescence. She latches onto Marius because he's pretty much the one and only decent person in her life, and is kind of a skeevy stalker about it. Also her motives are much more conflicted; Marius only ends up at the barricade because Eponine goes into a desperate "if I can't have him, no one will!" snit, withholds his letters, and banks on him being quasi-suicidal when he finds Cosette's house empty. (Later, when she's dying, she changes her mind and hands over the letter after revealing what she's done.)

Basically, in the book, the love triangle isn't central to Eponine's character; the class difference is so huge that there isn't even any question of Marius reciprocating. It's more about the parallel to Cosette: the differences in their fates have very little to do with their actions and everything to do with the fact that Cosette grew up in love and comfort and Eponine grew up in grinding poverty.

Edit: Possibly the best illustration of the difference: the passage in the book that inspired "On My Own" is Eponine monologuing disjointedly at Marius about walking the streets while homeless, imagining the walls of the buildings are the river and the stars are lamps and horses are blowing in her ears, and basically describing the way her head spins while she's hallucinating from hunger.

[arcadiaego]

Bloody hell I'm only at the randomly detailed description of climbing up Paris walls with Cosette at the moment. It's going to get worse isn't it. *cries*

[(Anonymous)]

Having seen no Les Mis related material except the Liam Neeson movie, what's the difference?

[(Anonymous)]

http://fandomsecrets.dreamwidth.org/755877.html?thread=627901605#cmt627901605?

[type_wild]

Adaptations cut elements and add others because good storytelling in novels =/= good storytelling in film =/= good storytelling on stage =/= good storytelling in a four episode TV special.

I really did not like how the film cut so much of Eponine's part in the musical, but I'm guessing that isn't what you're talking about here.

[tenlittlebullets]

Can't tell if trolling or just internalized the backlash against Eppie-boppers a little too hard.

If in earnest: OP. Breathe. You like what you like. Knowing that Eponine's character served a very different purpose in the book and the musical doesn't mean you have to like musical!Eponine less. In fact, musical!Eponine was designed to be a big ol' likeable woobie whom everyone either identifies with or wants to scoop up out of her crappy life and shower with affection and square meals.

[intrigueing]

*snort* A+ description :D I was musing about how to word pretty much this exact comment, but yours is a lot more articulate and less obnoxious than mine.

[(Anonymous)]

I was so distracted by her inhumanly-small waist that I couldn't concentrate on much else, when she was on screen. Do corsets alone really do that? Did they CG her to make her look starving (but forget to do her arms?) How did she sing that way? Did they let her out of it when she stopped to eat? No wonder women were keeling over like fainting goats all the time. Etc.

[deadtree]

hahahahaha me too! Her waist was so distracting.

[lovelycudy]

That was all I could think about, her incredibly small waist.

[nyxelestia]

Probably the waistband. Making her that skinny with the waistband conveys that she is starving from poverty without having to resort to CG or actually starving her.

(Also, when you are hungry/starving, tightening something around your stomach is a good way to lessen the effect/sensation of hunger, making it at least a little less unbearable; Éponine may have simply tightened it that far because she was so hungry).

[(Anonymous)]

It doesn't convey that, though, and that's why it looks so freaky. She doesn't look overly thin or starving at all aside from a waist that is just randomly smaller than her head.

[visp]

"I like Muscial!Eponine but think that Book!Eponine is a pretty fucked-up character." See? Easy.

No it's not, not really.

[nyxelestia]

Fanon is when someone makes up a completely random fact or trait and everyone likes it and thus treats it as canon.

This is an adaptation. If it's easier to think of it as a separate piece of narrative art from the book and the stage play, do so. But book!Éponine =/= movie!Éponine, and you don't have to feel bad about acknowledging that and, in turn, liking one character over the other, or liking them both even though they are no the same.

Don't let book purists get to you. Just because something is different doesn't mean it's less. :)

[truxillogical]

There's really nothing wrong with it. She's a different character in the musical, and that happens to be one you like. That's fine.

Heck, I'd even say there's nothing really wrong with liking a fandom interpretation of a character. Sometimes they can become legitimate characters of their own, take on personality traits that aren't canon, but are plenty enjoyable.

TF2 fandom, I'm looking at you...

(I guess so long as you don't start fooling yourself into thinking that Draco wears leather pants in the books and then start pitching a fit when he acts "out of character" in canon.)

[arcadiaego]

Sometimes fandon is a hell of a lot *better* than the source material.

[arcadiaego]

Fanon. I don't know what fandon is but I'm going to make something up to fit it now.

[(Anonymous)]

(lol did people actually do that?)

[charming_stranger]

... You're not doing anything wrong. You're liking a character in a work of fiction. How can that possibly be a bad thing?

Besides, how can her portrayal be "inaccurate"? AFAIK, the character wasn't based on a real person, so the musical version of her is as true or as accurate as the book version.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're one of those elitists who talk about how dumb people who like fanon versions aren't doing fandom right, I hope you enjoy a taste of your own medicine and stop doing that.