it really annoys me when people write a courfeyrac who just has no interest in political causes what so ever
courf was one of the big three aka one of enjolras’ main followers
he was interested
but modern! courf is always ‘yolo fuck enjolras lets wear bow ties and get drunk and have sex lol swag’
Exactly! Like, Courfeyrac may be a dandy and a ladies’ man but he’s also very serious about the cause. Hell, on the day they’re building the Barricade he shouts at Grantaire for not taking things seriously, basically.
Courfeyrac has passions outside the bedroom, Courfeyrac is political and Courfeyrac is very much capable of getting angry and fed up. He’s compared to the sun; sure he’s bright and radiant, but he can also burn you up.
i feel like a lot of people forget that all the amis are first and foremost political activists, like, the reason they’re fRIENDS is because they’re SUPER INTO SOCIAL JUSTICE AND REFORM AND ALSO REVOLUTION. bahorel was in revolutions independent of the amis! politics are important to the amis!!
YES THIS?? JEEZ COURF’S BFFs ARE LOGIC OF THE REVOLUTION ENJOLRAS AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE REVOLUTION COMBEFERRE. courfeyrac is the ENERGY AND THE VERVE AND THE WARMTH OF THE REVOLUTION, you can’t separate him (or any of the amis) from his politics. (except grantaire obvs bc what politics? does enjolras count as a political ideology?)
les amis de l’abc is actually a radical revolutionary group; these guys aren’t just meeting up for funsies (though obviously they also have funsies bc they’re all v good friends). this is also why it gets to me when any of the amis is characterized as rolling their eyes at enjolras being “”“too serious”“” about politics and that amis is usually courfeyrac and i just. no. (this isn’t to say that courf doesn’t bring the fun but there’s a balance there that’s too often missing in the way fandom deals with him)
Actually, even R is quite socially aware, or at least very philosophical. He’s well aware of great social injustices like poverty (particularly concerning children) and shows contempt for the way society is structured; the major difference between R and the others isn’t that he doesn’t aspire to the same ideals (his ranting makes it clear that despite what he says, he cares a lot), but rather he doesn’t believe anybody is going to make a difference as history always repeats itself and existence is fundamentally flawed.
R has ideals and spends a lot of time fantasising about what the world would be like it if were different (e.g: if he had money, if he were born somewhere else, etc) and criticising injustices (complaining of how people are starving in London when it’s such a place of excess, complaining about slavery in America, etc) but whereas the other Amis feel that they’re making some small difference to the course of the future at least, Grantaire is convinced things will never change no matter how much he or anybody else wants it to. When you compare R to some of the other sceptics in the Brick (that asshole from the first book that was complaining to Bishop Myriel and Tholomyés) R is actually quite the bleeding heart.
Tl;dr: Grantaire’s biggest distinction to the others is that he’s comparable in his beliefs to what we’d now call a nihilist whereas the others are idealists. He was probably once as idealistic and faithful as the others, but life left him jaded.