[moviemaniac]

That's how I feel. That's the main problem I have with Les Miz. Their death didn't really accoplish anything with the storytelling. Whereas Tony's death in West Side Story ends the feud between the Jets and the Sharks and teaches them an important lesson about what hate can do to people. Does anyone have any thoughts whether or not the barricade people died in vain and why?

[Eppie-Sue]

Oh dear, the old "Turning"/"Where's that new world now the fighting's done?" problem.
First off - are we talking about the impression you get from the musical or from the book here?

... and do you seriously feel that every failed revolution for freedom, for human rights, for democracy, etc. was in vain? Even though the musical does a rather bad way of portraying the background of the June 1832 uprising and Hugo's view on it, it still conveys the message of "some day, some people are going to succeed doing what we were trying to achieve." Every failed revolution paved the way for that one revolution that succeeded - at last.

I'm not really in the mood to go on about the message and the problems with the musical and all, and I think there will be some people on here who can explain what I'm trying to say. But I have to quote that one line: "Citizens, whatever happens to-day, through our defeat as well as through our victory, it is a revolution that we are about to create." (Enjolras) because I think it stands for all the attempts, all the sacrifices that had to be made in order to change something and to make way for those that changed it. In that regard, they lost that one "battle", but at least they tried to win and they tried to overcome the hardships - and in the end, the "war" was won.

[Orestes Fasting]

I am so incredibly sick of explaining this that I'm not even going to go into it as deep as Eppie-Sue did. Yes, the musical handles it badly; yes, they included a lot of wailing about the futility of revolt and undermined their own message; yes, it is a complete misrepresentation of what actually happened in the book. But on some level, if you can't understand why people would sacrifice their lives to fight for freedom even if it doesn't accomplish anything immediate, simply because they can't sit back and do nothing in the face of injustice... if you can't, on some level, understand that that is not in vain, you probably won't ever understand it.

Some people might think it's cheap to take the words of somebody who's less than a month in her grave and use them in defense of a Broadway musical, but Les Mis is not just about France in 1832, and it's not just about monarchy, and it's not just about barricades. The struggle depicted there is not just a struggle of the past.

[Ulkis]

Aside from Eppie's and Orestes' explanations, there's also the thing where the deaths don't have to mean anything in the musical. They can just be there to make you sad.

[Vanessa20]

This reminds me of some differences in acting from production to production that change the whole meaning of the Final Battle scene, or at least a significant part of it.

I think it's always been common for Grantaire to silently express anger at Gavroche's death. But in the old days of the 3rd National Tour and London in the early 2000s (not that I know for sure how common this was - I really only saw it a few times), I felt like he typically directed his anger at Enjolras, blaming him for the boy's death, and Enjy's unspoken response seemed like 'You were right all along... we're all gonna die in vain... But at least we'll die heroically!!... etc.'

But in the revival, Michael Minarik made the moment feel totally different by saluting Enjolras with Gav's flag. He was just as angry as those past Grantaires I saw, but (rightfully) at the enemy, not at Enjy. It seemed like seeing Gavroche's death finally motivated him to join in the fight: he was the one transformed, not Enjolras. (Once again, though, I may be totally misinterpreting it - plenty of people here probably saw him more times than I did) That may not be any more true to Hugo than the first way, but I liked it - at least it felt more right in terms of the story's overall message.

Has anyone else ever noticed or given any thought to those different ways of playing the scene?