Sodomon - WhoAmI

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The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis / Hannibal, s2ep13 / Judas’ Gift by Adam Phillips / The Kiss of Judas Iscariot by Ignazio Jacometti / Hannibal, s3ep0

love judas coded characters, like yes ahah your role here is to betray the person you love most

It’s interesting how a lot of Les Mis fix-it-fics make “Jean Valjean getting pardoned” the happy ending to his story, when—-being pardoned might actually put Jean Valjean back in a position similar to the one he was in at the beginning of the novel?

A pardon isn’t entirely different from a yellow passport saying that he is free. It’s a notice from the government saying that he did crimes in the past but has proven himself good enough or atoned enough to be “legally forgiven” for them.

To me it seems like a pardon wouldn’t come with all the strict conditions/legal condemnation that a yellow passport brings, but it would come with an increased level of surveillance and scrutiny. A pardon would make Jean Valjean’s past and his crimes “public” in a way they hadn’t been before. The state would know his identity again. Other people would know his identity again, strangers, who could use it to harm him. The government would be aware of exactly who he is and what he has done, and would be able to keep a closer eye on him.

Monsieur Fauchelevent the bourgeois can get away with acting a bit odd and suspicious— Jean Valjean the pardoned convict cannot. If wealthy Monsieur Fauchelevent commits a petty infraction, people might not even notice; if pardoned violent convict Jean Valjean does the same thing, he is a recidivist who can be sent back to prison.

I wonder if that’s part of why Jean Valjean stubbornly rejects Marius’s offer of a pardon, during his confession? He knows what kind of “freedom” the government can offer to convicts, he’s experienced it, he knows the level of surveillance it will put him under — and he has no desire to experience it again.

“The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon.”

He does not trust the kind of freedom the government is capable of offering him, and honestly….even without having the full context of how pardons worked in the 19th century, I think it’s understandable for him to distrust it!

Lil jav I drew while on the road...

I've been traveling all day 😭

just a lill somin that I put to much effort into

[warning it loud]