Lessons from Le Mis: Relentless Goodness & Knowledge as Power

I’ve never seen the musical on stage but the soundtrack is decent and the story is good so i’ll be seeing the new version in theaters, especially since its an excuse to take my mom who would otherwise be unwilling to drag my dad to go see it with her despite wanting to.

I only know the story from having Netflixed (as a mail-in DVD around 2002) the 1998 non-musical film with Liam Nieson as Jean ValJean and Jeffery Rush as Javert and I liked the lessons it had to teach.

On the surface the story is about crappy situations life puts us in. If you look deeper, its actually about our choices in what direction to go in such situations. This takes form in government oppression and revolution, crime and punishment, love and family and other smaller instances but the 2 male leads are the most interesting competing interests to me.

The story shows a dichotomy of the law and morality. ValJean is on the right side of morality but the wrong side of the law. Javert is on the wrong side of morality but the right side of the law. These 2 competing interests cannot reconcile. Either the law or goodness must relent. But neither of these 2 men are willing to do so. Neither will compromise their intention. ValJean will do what is right regardless of the circumstances or consequences. Javert will execute the law regardless of the circumstances or consequences.

ValJean is not inherently good. He is not a saint. He is a survivor who only becomes good and a performer of saintly work after being given the chance and more importantly – a reason – to do so. He carries guilt from his deeds and lives a life to make amends for them. He was mistreated and abused and acted accordingly but after being shown compassion and having been gifted to tools to reform, he promptly chose to do so.

Javert is not inherently bad. He is not evil. He is an authority who comes to wield his power wickedly only through intent to purge the wickedness that is so rife in his surroundings. He carries the guilt of having come from “the gutter”, from a prostitute mother and seeks to live a life in penance for that birth from sin.

Those are the theme-lessons from the movie. The biggest single-lesson and takeaway I got from the film was the importance of knowledge and how knowledge really is power. Javert can think and feel he’s doing the right thing all he wants but wouldnt be able to achieve any of what he thinks is right without thorough research, investigation, calculation, strategy and understanding of the people and city he is dealing with. Likewise, ValJean can think and feel Javert or anyone else is acting inappropriately all he wants but without a similar intellectual arsenal, he is helpless to make any of the change he desires.

This is on fantastic display when Javert is harshly penalizing Fantine, following the letter of the law with no compassion or mercy which he sees as nothing but counterproductive weakness contributing to the problem it is his duty to rectify. ValJean, as Mayor has the power to pardon Fantine but it is only through his precise knowledge of the law that he is able to achieve his goal.

In the future I intend to examine this jail scene in a video. In the mean time, I was unable to find it clipped online, but this other scene demonstrating the battle of knowledge with competing interests is a close 2nd: