Daily Entertainment: Travel Edition!

[damncompass]

Good Morning, Milliways!

It's a terrible day here in the wilds of Connecticut, so I give you today's DE:

Travel! Is your character well-travelled? If so, where have they been? If not, would they like to be? What's preventing them, or do they just not care?

Comments

[road_to_calvary]

Gene - no. And no.

In the 70s, air travel and package holidays were just starting to open up as a Thing in Britain. Gene hasn't quite got there yet; there's an early draft of 1x01 of Life on Mars that states he goes to Lytham-St-Anne's on holiday every year. Which is about 45 minutes away from Manchester. But there is a beach! Anyway, that's normal for him. He's discovered Spain by the 80s, and likes it, probably because it's just like England only with sun and clean oceans, etc. He has been further afield - Germany and the Far East - when he was doing National Service, and I don't think he was bothered either way. Travel abroad is just not something that's really become normal for him yet.

Bruce Wayne - yes. And he's been to many places.

Bruce Banner - yes, relatively. Pre-Hulk, I imagine he was just like any other middle-aged, comfortably off scientist with regard holidays/trips abroad for conferences etc. Post-Hulk, he gets about a bit. Canada, Brazil and India are specifically stated, but I imagine there were other destinations en route to those places. He moves around to avoid SHIELD catching him, after all.

Javert & Jean Valjean - have never left France. But they might be considered, for their time, to be fairly well-travelled, having both started in the south of France, moved north, then south again to Paris. A lot of peasants wouldn't have migrated that far in those times, though a certain amount of following the work would have been common.

But by any modern standard, they are the least well-travelled of all of mine. Neither of them care. Valjean is rich enough that he can go anywhere, but chooses not to (though, really, I've always wondered why leaving the country never seemed to occur to him until Cosette was grown up, and he talked about running from Paris to England. Why not leave with her when she was young? OK, he knew he was presumed dead, but if he wanted to be really safe there are any number of places he could have gone. Bizarre. I suppose he's just not interested in leaving France).

And it would never occur to Javert to leave France, except for perhaps briefly considering joining the army when he was very young, where it would be inevitable. Also, he would never take a holiday.

[genarti]

(I guess we're supposed to assume that Valjean wants to stay close to his buried financial resources... but I dunno, that's kind of thin, given how easily he acquires them when he needs to. The fact that neither of them speaks anything but French? I dunno. I'd have to agree with you that he's probably just not interested in it, and/or not interested in being an immigrant who doesn't speak the language, so that it doesn't much occur to him as an option.)

[road_to_calvary]

For sure! But then, he can just go and get them and take them with him. I'd have to assume a) language, and b) narrative convenience. But language may be plausible on its own, considering he didn't learn to read until he was forty. Perhaps he thinks he can't learn in a different language.

...and as I write this, I remember it's canon that most of the books in his house - at least at one point - were travel books. So maybe he thought about it, or researched it, or just dreamed of different places but never managed to take the step. *pats him*

[genarti]

Oh man, I had 100% forgotten that. Now I'm sad again. (Things that make me sad about Jean Valjean: ALMOST EVERYTHING ABOUT HIS LIFE OH GOD.)

Maybe someday he can do some Milliways travel? Or something. I do enjoy how pretty much all of the Les Mis characters can answer this question with NOPE.

[road_to_calvary]

HIS LIFE SUCKS THE BIG ONE. I am constantly sad about it. And him. He's so adorable, and so so broken.

And for sure, I hope so! I mean, he's not the kind of guy who'll go just anywhere, and he'd probably need convincing, but if the chance arises he might go for it. We'll have to see.

Heh, I'm trying to think of any well-travelled Mis folks. So far coming up blank. Georges Pontmercy, having travelled in the army? Thenardier? Idk. All their lives suck, man.

[1stwitness]

Gavroche - born in Montfermeil, ends up in Paris and that's about it. Post-death Milliways stuff doesn't count.

[road_to_calvary]

I'm going through all of them in my head - I don't know much about most of the Amis, so I can't speak to them. But Eponine and Cosette aren't much different from Gavroche, Marius is France-bound also, IIRC; ...so yeah, basically they all suck at travelling.

[genarti]

It's okay, Hugo doesn't tell us much about most of the Amis! *facepalming*

I could list off what we know that's relevant about them, book-verse, but it's really just that some of them are rich (not necessarily all), all of them are university students of some sort (except Feuilly, who's definitely not rich), they're all from the unspecific south of France (except Bossuet, who's from near Paris), and Prouvaire at least speaks a bunch of languages well enough to read apocalyptic social commentary poetry in them. AND THAT'S IT. So... who even knows!

(Edit: and if we're talking musicalverse, there's REALLY no backstory at all for any of them, of course, so that's entirely up for grabs.)

[genarti]

Favourite had been to England! If we're getting into exceedingly minor, book-only characters, but that's about all I got. Uh. Georges Pontmercy and Thenardier were in the army, yes, and didn't the Bishop travel back during the Revolution or something? And some of the Amis might have done some traveling, pre-canon, especially maybe Prouvaire; I just can't see Enjolras being one of them.

You would think there would be more in a cast this large, and yet. Everyone seems to basically go from their hometown to a) Paris or b) nowhere... and die.

[road_to_calvary]

*cacklesnort* Yes. Well. HEY! THEY ALL TRAVEL TO THE AFTERLIFE.


Except Javert.



*sob*

[genarti]

IT'S A MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR. Or something.

Also in the movie there are those National Guardsmen who look to still be dead in the afterlife, which is... awkward... *laughing* But OH WELL.

[dreamed_a_dream]

*puts Fantine solidly in the 'nowhere to die' category* ... although, she did come from Paris, I think.

[genarti]

Poor Fantine. :-/ She's definitely in the "what makes me sad about this character? EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS CHARACTER'S LIFE OH GOD" category.

(So is at least half the cast, but Fantine is high on the list. Oh, Fantine.)

[1nv1nc1ble]

Well, it's not called Las Joyeuses, you know. :)

[ceitfianna]

He is always welcome to come visit with William and in time, Charles as both of them want him to be happy.

[never_shall_yield]

Will definitely take you up on that offer at some point, thank you! Or rather, I'm completely up for it. VJ might take a bit more convincing, but I'll prod him until he gives in.