Rudolf’s Hairstyle In The Elisabeth 2005 Revival Pro-shoot:

A lot of tcomc adaptations I've seen have ended the story by having Edmond get his revenge and then happily reunite with Mercédés and leave the story like that, and here's why that does NOT fly with me.

The Count of Monte Cristo is NOT a love story about Edmond and Mercédés, though it starts that way. A lot of adaptations tend to do this, as in zero in on the romance (and leave Haydée out if the plot, wtf???) But the romance, although an accessory of the tragedy, is NOT central to the tragedy! Mondego, Danglars, Caderousse, and Villefort didn't JUST steal Edmond away from Mercédés, they also a) left his father to starve to death, b) took advantage of Mercédés' misery to marry her when she had no one left, c) abandoned Edmond to suffer in prison presumably for the rest of his life, and d) did all of that other insane shit that didn't affect Edmond personally.

But the point of the original ending is that there is too much time lost between Edmond and Mercédés, too much loneliness between them, and they have changed too much apart from each other for things to go back to how they were. Although Mercédés can see past the Counts callousness to find his old humanity, Edmond HAS changed, he's not the same bright-eyed young man who had so much in life to do. Mercédés isn't the same untroubled, poor woman Edmond fell for, and that's okay! They still love each other, though they have different paths in life and different responsibilities! It just seems, maybe cheap is the right word, to give Edmond the traditional "happy ending" by having him "get the girl back" in the end, as if that were the point of his efforts. They've earned their peace!

les miserables high school au: not an au where the characters are in high school, but the actual plot of les miserables transferred into a high school setting with a ridiculously low-stakes and high-stakes plot somehow simultaneously.

9th grader jean valjean steals a loaf of bread from the cafeteria because he and his sister forgot to eat breakfast that day and were hungry, but he gets caught by the student hall monitors and put in detention for a week. he tries to sneak out to see his sister four times so it gets extended for the entire semester. (he can't hang out with his sister after school anymore). after the semester ends, everyone thinks he's a delinquent and won't talk to him but local nice guy myriel eats lunch with him, valjean tries to steal his sandwich again but myriel just lets him so valjean is like Friendship??? i'm going to be Nice to people now.

in 10th grade, he becomes the student council president but javert, one of the hall monitors, is suspicious of him and thinks he's covering up something (you are not allowed to be in stuco if you've had detention before). valjean has made friends with the stuco and eats lunch with them now. he meets fantine, whose boyfriend and entire friend group broke up with her so she's eating lunch alone constantly. fantine currently has incredibly bad grades and fails her classes but she makes valjean promise her he'll be friends with cosette, who is her sister/friend (?), when she comes up from middle school. when javert accuses the wrong person of bread theft-induced detention, valjean reveals that it was actually him and is drummed out in shame from the student council.

valjean no longer eats lunch at the student council table so he eats behind the bleachers with cosette throughout 11th grade. they hung around with plant nerd fauchelevent for a while but he graduated, so she is his only friend now. the next year, when valjean is in his senior year (12th) and cosette is in 10th, she starts dating an 11th-grader named marius. valjean is terrified that cosette will stop eating lunch with him and increasingly despairs over this relationship. (also note that literally everything that happens between marius and cosette happens beat by beat, including the handkerchief incident).

marius hangs around one of those 9-person friend groups where everyone seems to be super close and have inside jokes that's impossible to penetrate. this is les amis, if you haven't guessed. enjolras is very angry over the cafeteria's disgusting food and the group is constantly talking of some sort of reform. the thenardiers, who were cosette's former toxic friend group, decides to rob valjean of his lunch money (?); marius overhears this and tells hall monitor javert about it. valjean successfully beats the shit out of patron-minette & the thenardiers and runs away just before javert shows up and puts them all in detention. eponine, one of the thenardier friends, realizes she has a crush on marius.

valjean thinks that cosette is going to completely replace him with marius (les amis eat lunch in the space that's right beside the bleachers, where valjean and cosette eat, that's how she met marius in the first place) so he wants to move lunch spots. cosette cries and marius bangs his head on a tree. enjolras begins the cafeteria walk-out protest (grantaire, joly, and bossuet were eating shitty seafood salad there when it started). valjean is in class when eponine passes him a note saying that marius is skipping class to attend the walk-out, and both of them discreetly leave class separately to go find marius.

javert goes to the walk-out to write down people's names but gets captured instead. they just surround him and won't let him leave. valjean shows up and javert thinks he'll take revenge for kicking him out of student council back in 10th grade, but valjean just makes everyone let javert go. javert realizes that he's been wrong for his entire high school years and immediately hands in his hall monitor resignation form. the principal and faculty show up, the rebellion is instantly crushed and everyone, including eponine who was just looking for marius, instantly gets out-of-school suspension. for some reason, a mysterious person talks to the principal and somehow gets marius out of suspension. he has no idea who this could be.

everything is peaceful now, except for the fact that marius' entire friend group got suspended. for a while it looks like marius, cosette, and valjean will all eat lunch together, but valjean feels guilty and confesses to marius that he once got detention for an entire semester, without telling him the reason. marius thinks valjean must've committed some horrible crime and starts subtly excluding him from lunch. after a while, valjean stops showing up to lunch at all.

the day before valjean's graduation from high school, thenardier approaches marius and reveals that it was valjean who talked the principal out of marius' suspension. he shows him old school newspaper articles of valjean being stuco president (and a really good one, too) and tells him how he used this to his advantage to the principal. marius is shocked and tries to find valjean, but he's nowhere to be seen (he's actually at home chilling because why would you show up to school on the second to last day). on the very day of the graduation & last day of school, marius and cosette finally make up with valjean and they hug one last time before valjean steps out of the high school building once and for all. the end.

NOTES:

- I mean “prefer” in terms of being in the show, from a plot and thematic perspective, not how much you like the song in general.

- Some of these were implemented elsewhere before their Vienna run, but I wrote those dates to simplify it.

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