Meanwhile, Cosette is falling in love with Marius. She complains that Valjean still sees her as a child and won't tell her the full truth about her past. Valjean tells her that she'll learn in time and leaves. Eponine brings Marius to Cosette's house, which he is deeply grateful for; Eponine is privately upset that he's in love with Cosette and not with her. Cosette and Marius sing about how much they love each other, while Eponine continues to be sad.

Thénardier and the rest of his gang arrive and threaten to rob Valjean and Cosette's house, out of some sort of unclear vengeance against Valjean for not paying them enough for Cosette. Eponine objects. Her father tries to threaten her, but she screams to warn the residents about the attack. The gang threatens to torture her but is successfully driven off for the time being. Valjean returns, having heard the scream; Cosette attempts to cover for what had actually happened by claiming she had screamed. Valjean concludes that it had been Javert trying to attack the house, believing that Javert has tracked him down once again, and declares that tomorrow he and Cosette will leave the city and probably the country behind. (They are apparently going to take a ship across the sea, which is sort of confusing given the Galt-analogy, at least if you know any geography.)

Valjean, Cosette, Marius, Eponine, Javert, the Thénardiers, and miscellaneous student revolutionaries sing about their plans for the next day, weaving in several plot threads.

The curtain falls on the first act! It's now intermission. (By the grace of Nethys and Shelyn, anyone who tries to use intermission to have unrelated political conversations will find themselves back in their seat at the start of Act 2 with zero subjective time having passed.)

(You don't need a name and a face! You need a name or a face or status as a delegate, any one is sufficient.)

(Good to know. Big fan of your work, by the way.)

Mattin was willing to tolerate bad writing and bad action so far, but this goes too far. An opera doesn't get to threaten torture and then close the curtain before anyone gets actually tortured. Even if it is just for the intermission between acts. If he weren't here by magical force, he would walk out in protest.

Valjean paid a lot for Cosette! She was almost unbelievably expensive and she was an unskilled ?seven?-year-old! What the hell kind of motive is that??

The part with the revolutionaries is way more fun than the stupid lovey-dovey bits.

It's very stupid for Cosette to treat this as any kind of basis for a serious relationship, but maybe that will turn out to be the point.

Blai really really wishes he knew what the actual policies or actions they're revolting against. The official religion or at least the one Mme. Thenardier ironically professed is "Christian"? Is that the same religion as the generous priest in the first bit or a different one? Is the presumed context one where actually there are lots of random extrajudicial horrors happening constantly or are people really having a revolution because they're poor? Or, not even them, these are students - because someone else is poor????

The lead looks awfully like Felip, and he seems more intently focused on this strange opera than any they've gone to before. What is happening, here?

Is the reason none of these people have discernible relatives because they're rootless teenagers or is it because they responsibly got all their families out of the city under assumed names before starting shit?

Okay, she's starting to enjoy this story. The complicated threads behind their histories, the naive revolutionaries, and the romance connecting them. Shelyn would approve, she thinks.

Eponine is way cooler than Cosette, she's not sure why Marius is so interested in dating Cosette instead. Maybe once the revolutionaries overthrow the Evil nobles he'll realize that actually Eponine is braver and smarter and cares way more about justice?

The revolutionaries build a barricade in the middle of the city. Javert, in disguise as a revolutionary, offers to go spy on the opposing forces. Eponine, dressed as a boy, shows up at the barricades. Marius tells her to get out for her own safety, which she seems reluctant to do. He then asks her to bring a letter to Cosette, which she agrees to do. She brings it to Cosette's house, where she is met by Valjean, who promises to deliver the letter to Cosette the next day. He then reads it aloud, revealing to him that Cosette and Marius are in love and that Marius is fighting at the barricades. Eponine walks through the rainy streets alone and sings about her unrequited love for Marius.

Meanwhile, the revolutionaries have finished constructing their barricade, and declare their intention to fight. An army officer, offstage, tells them that no one is coming to help them and that they need to either surrender or die; they defiantly declare that the army officer is lying and the people will rise up. Javert returns, and delivers a "report" on the army's plans and capabilities. Gavroche reveals Javert's true identity and declares that people shouldn't underestimate children. The revolutionaries arrest Javert, with plans to have the people of France decide what will happen to him; Javert rejects the idea that this could possibly have any legitimacy and calls for them all to die.

Eponine returns and climbs over the barricade, as people from the French army... cast some sort of loud, ranged spell requiring a large stick as a focus? Marius is upset about her returning. She tells him that she delivered the letter to Cosette's house, then collapses. Marius tries to figure out what's wrong; when he removes part of her coat, he reveals a large, bleeding chest wound. She tells him not to worry and that she's content to die in his arms, as Marius initially tries to tell her that he'll live and that he would save her if he could, before eventually telling her that he'll stay with her until she's dead. Eponine dies in his arms.

Perhaps the archmage is hoping to demonstrate to the Convention that treason will just get you killed and damned to the Abyss, but given the overall attitude of this musical towards the very concept of enforcing the laws Jonatan is not feeling very optimistic.

...He would really have expected at least one of these people to have Infernal Healing prepared. The government's armies will surely have clerics, certainly with healing and perhaps even with channels, and trying to fight them without any healing whatsoever sounds obviously doomed.

It's really convenient how Valjean and Cosette were already planning to flee the country, so he doesn't need to come up with another way to shut down this ridiculous attempt at courtship.

—no—

—they have to win, they have to, they have to kill the person who murdered Eponine and free their city and put a stop to the Evil nobles—

—if Victòria were here she could have saved her—

If you're going to have wizards killing each other with their wizard powers you should be a bit flashier about it. The sounds are nice but maybe consider some illusions, some summoned animals, that sort of thing.

On My Own is a stunning song and Laia is focusing pretty damn hard on memorizing the tune; she'll try to finagle Chelish lyrics for it later but the tune, that key change....

She likes Gavroche, too, and knows she would be more enthusiastic about him if he'd had his cool moment before that song, but.

"Give up your guns or die". And the revolutionaries say they're lying, but it sounds like they think they're lying about the revolution not getting additional reinforcements? Not about surviving having started an insurrection if they surrender?

They must be REALLY pissed that they weren't allowed to go to the opera. Raimon prefers a strategy of backing the offending government's geopolitical enemies, but he guesses this is valid, he just isn't super into it personally.

Run away with your daughter somewhere safe, Valjean, this place is a shithole.

He hasn't followed the plot at all since before the intermission.

Could it be he's some old jailbird
That the tide now washes in?
Heard my name and started running
Had the brand upon his skin

What was that sound? How would you even do that?

(He's been noticing the odd keyboards -- organs of some kind, perhaps? -- since the start of the performance, but they haven't grabbed his attention in the same way. You might play your favorite keyboard concerto on the strange organ, but the -- living guitar? -- someone ought to write a new concerto for that.)

Revolutions are bad, actually.

Even when you're rebelling against Hell.