It’s a day that ends in Y so whatya know, it’s time to talk about my Grantaire Feels. It’s hard to summarise them this time around because it sounds like I’m attacking him and I’d never want to do that, he’s one of my Five Fictional Characters I Would Fight Someone Over…
Buuut, in modern AUs especially, I’ve noticed he often…has the edges taken off him. (This blog being a nifty exception.) Cos, we know what R is really like, we know how much he loves Enjolras and how much he cares for his friends, but he doesn’t always act like the good person he is underneath. Although I don’t think he ever truly hurt anyone as much as he hurt himself, he could definitely be Kind Of A Dick- he calls the waitresses at the Corinthe ugly, calls most people he talks about ugly, calls Matelote ugly to her face (admittedly he does it in such a way that I think he may have actually been trying to complement her in a stupid drunken sense, but still), grabs Louison the dishwasher for some reason, etc. I think, in a modern AU, there’s no way he’d be the hot tortured artist type, he’d be that guy left over at the end of the party who’s really drunk and he mumbles stuff at you that you honestly have no idea is lecherous or not and eventually you leave him on the sofa and go home. I’m pretty sure I knew a Grantaire at university, I’m pretty sure everyone’s met him at least once…
Anyway, somewhere in there is a point and the point is, I like that Grantaire had all these moments of being really quite horrible and yet he’s held up, eventually, as a shining example of selfless love. Because I really want to believe that no-one’s ever as bad as their lowest moments. (Luckily, the novel agrees.)