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* LighterAndSofter: Despite being touted as the saddest musical ever. Most of the BackstoryHorror isn't acknowledged, the Thenardiers become comic relief, Eponine TookALevelInKindness, and the show ends on a more uplifting note.
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* LighterAndSofter: Despite being touted as the saddest musical ever.ever, and make no mistake it ''is'' sad. Most of the BackstoryHorror isn't acknowledged, the Thenardiers become comic relief, Eponine TookALevelInKindness, and the show ends on a more uplifting note.
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* LastNameBasis: Justified as this is the 19th century. It gets jarring when all the students call Marius Pontmercy “Marius”, but refer to any other of their group by last name only.
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* LastNameBasis: Justified as this is the 19th century. It gets jarring when all the students call Amis refer to Marius Pontmercy “Marius”, by his given name, but refer to any other of their group by last name only.
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** The "Waltz of Treachery" has Thenardier remark regarding Cosette, "I let her go for a song!" This is a somewhat archaic but still familiar idiom referring to a small sum of money, but also a playful reference to the story being a musical.
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** The "Waltz of Treachery" has Thenardier remark regarding Cosette, "I let her go for a song!" This is a somewhat archaic but still familiar idiom referring to a small sum of money, but also a playful reference to the story being a musical.
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** The "Waltz of Treachery" has Thenardier remark regarding Cosette, "I let her go for a song!" This is a somewhat archaic but still familiar idiom referring to a small sum of money, but also a playful reference to the story being a musical.
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* HateSink: The Thénardiers. Javert and the system he serves are the main threat to Valjean, always looming over him and thwarting his attempts at living a productive life. But, the same qualities that make Javert such a formidable threat to Valjean would also make him a threat to malicious criminals, and he applies his rigid standards to himself as well, making him as honest a law enforcer as one could ask for. The Thénardiers are just petty criminals who aren't especially threatening, but they are utterly contemptible with no redeeming qualities at all.
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* LoveTriangle: Cosette/Marius/Éponine. It's a [[TriangRelations Type 4]]; Éponine has unrequited feelings for Marius, who does care for her as a dear friend, but nothing more. He's in love with Cosette, who reciprocates.
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* LoveTriangle: Cosette/Marius/Éponine. It's a [[TriangRelations Type 4]]; Éponine has unrequited feelings for Marius, who does care for her as a dear friend, but nothing more. He's in love with Cosette, who reciprocates.
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* LoveTriangle: Cosette/Marius/Éponine. It's a [[TriangRelations Type 4]]; Éponine (A) has unrequited love for Marius (B), who does care for her as a dear friend, but nothing more. He's in love with Cosette (C), who reciprocates.
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* LoveTriangle: Cosette/Marius/Éponine. It's a [[TriangRelations Type 4]]; Éponine (A) has unrequited love feelings for Marius (B), Marius, who does care for her as a dear friend, but nothing more. He's in love with Cosette (C), Cosette, who reciprocates.
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* LoveTriangle: Marius, Cosette, Éponine.
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* LoveTriangle: Marius, Cosette, Éponine.Cosette/Marius/Éponine. It's a [[TriangRelations Type 4]]; Éponine (A) has unrequited love for Marius (B), who does care for her as a dear friend, but nothing more. He's in love with Cosette (C), who reciprocates.
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For the rest:
* LesMiserablesTheatre/TropesAToF
* LesMiserablesTheatre/TropesMToR
* LesMiserablesTheatre/TropesSToZ
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This page is for tropes that have appeared in the musical ''Theatre/LesMiserables''.
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* GardenOfLove: The "A Heart Full of Love" sequence, in which Marius and Cosette romance each other, is set in the garden of her house on Rue Plumet. In the song's second-act reprise, Valjean uses the trope a metaphor as he reflects upon his daughter's blossoming relationship.
--> Love is the garden of the young...
* GoodShepherd: The Bishop of Digne.
* GoodIsNotSoft: Les Amis's response to Javert being a spy is, depending on the production, knocking him out, tying him up, or both. After [[spoiler:Eponine dies]], they are even ''more'' set against the military (and, presumably, Javert), and when Valjean arrives, they essentially force him to help them fight off the First Attack on pain of death.
* GriefSong: "Turning" and "Empty Chairs At Empty Tables". There's also a brief one after "Little Fall of Rain", where Les Amis vows to not let [[spoiler:Eponine]] die in vain.
* GroinAttack: Some stagings of "Master of the House" have Madame Thénardier do this to her husband at the end.
* HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook: Less strong than in the book, but [[spoiler: Valjean]] still makes it rather clear that he wasn’t exactly a criminal before being sent to prison.
* HappilyAdopted: Cosette.
* HappyPlace: Young Cosette's "Castle on a Cloud".
* HarsherInHindsight: {{Invoked}}. "One Day More" is an upbeat, looking-forward type song. Only later do you realize that [[spoiler: one more day is all most of them got]].
* HeartwarmingOrphan: Gavroche may not actually be an orphan, but he still fits.
* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler:Javert's suicide as a result of his cognitive dissonance over Valjean's mercy.]]
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Valjean after being pardoned by the bishop. Javert after Valjean refuses to kill him. Marius has one after he learns Valjean saved his life, though he was never as much of a "heel" in this sense as he was in the book.]]
* HellholePrison: Depending on the staging of the production, this goes a bit into InformedAttribute territory. The lyrics even compare the prison to hell, but at least in the “replica” staging, chains and tools were imaginary…
* HeroAntagonist: InspectorJavert is a subtrope of this…
* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Valjean himself at the end.]]
* HeroWithBadPublicity: Fits Valjean to a T. He may have saved the lives of everyone and their dog, but to those who know his identity, he is still an ex-convict/convict on the run and more often than not treated accordingly.
* HeroVsVillainDuet: "Confrontation" is sung by Jean Valjean and Javert. Both characters start trying to explain their point of view to each other, but soon they start singing at the same time while fighting.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Played mostly straight with Fantine, who resorts to prostitution as her only available way to provide for herself and her daughter. Throughout, she still retains her love for Cosette.
* HornySailors: The number "Lovely Ladies" begins with a bunch of sailors singing about how much they want to have sex. The song in general is about prostitutes who cater to sailors, told from various perspectives.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Played with. At first it seems the Bishop of Digne's Christian kindness was wasted on Valjean as he stole from him. However his faith in the inner goodness of Valjean pays off in the end.
* HypocriticalSinging: In "Master of the House," Monsieur Thernardier sings about what an honest and decent innkeeper he is... all the while constantly cheating and conning everyone in the inn.
%%* IAmBecomingSong: "Valjean's Soliloquy" and "In My Life". '''Administrivia/ZeroContextExample'''
* IAmTheNoun: "I Am the Law" sung by Javert.
* IconicOutfit: Valjean's prison outfit, Cosette's black dress, Éponine's trenchcoat and hat, and the "Red Vest Of Doom" that Enjolras wears from the Act 1 finale onwards.
* IconOfRebellion: The red flag, which was used as a symbol of revolution since 1789.
* IdenticalStranger: Champmathieu, who almost takes the rap for Valjean. Depending on staging that ranges from credible to WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.
* IfICantHaveYou: At least it seems that way with Éponine in "One Day More." Marius is debating to himself whether to follow Cosette to England or fight with the students. Éponine, standing beside him, practically makes the decision for him by grabbing him by the arm and the two of them running off. A minute later, they are next seen with Enjolras and the other students, and Marius tells Enjolras "My place is here, I fight with you."
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Cosette. Also [[spoiler: heartbreakingly {{averted|Trope}} with]] Gavroche.
* IncrediblyLongNote: The last notes of "Who Am I?", "I Dreamed a Dream", "Stars" and "Bring Him Home" as typically performed.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Fantine often coughs in “Lovely Ladies” and/or “Fantine’s Arrest”, though typically nowhere else. The book implies that she's contracted tuberculosis, an often fatal disease then for rich and poor alike, and describes her decaying spirits in depth.
* TheIngenue: Cosette as a grown-up.
* InspectorJavert: The TropeNamer.
* InstitutionalApparel: Typically brown-greyish rags. Sometimes Valjean will be shown coming out of prison with a dehumanizing label on his chest listing him merely as 24601.
* IronicEcho & SoundtrackDissonance:
** Deliberately, as many of the songs are re-used throughout the musical for different people, situations and ''moods''. However, these usually bear some relation to each other and their musical association adds an extra layer of meaning. Good examples are "Do You Hear The People Sing?", later re-used for the revolutionaries' chorus in the finale, with altered text. Another example is the prisoners' "Work Song", which is later re-used for the beggars' "Look Down", once again with altered lyrics (however, the situations are so painfully similar that these tropes are [[JustifiedTrope perfectly justified]]).
** "What Have I Done" and [[spoiler: "Javert's Suicide"]] are also painfully similar, with the same melody, and in some places the same words, but with a different meaning. This seems to be, again, [[JustifiedTrope well-justified]], as they are both sung at times of [[BSODSong great emotional and mental upheaval]] as a result of another person's mercy. The most significant difference is that the first one ends in redemption, and the second one ends in [[spoiler: suicide]].
-->'''Valjean''': ''I am reaching, but I fall,''\\
''And the night is closing in,''\\
''As I stare into the Void,''\\
''To the whirlpool of my sin.''\\
''I'll escape now from the world,''\\
''From the world of Jean Valjean.''\\
''[[NoIndoorVoice JEAN VALJEAN IS NOTHING NOW!]]''\\
''[[NoIndoorVoice ANOTHER STORY MUST BEGIN!]]''
-->'''Javert''': ''I am reaching, but I fall,''\\
''And the stars are black and cold,''\\
''As I stare into the Void,''\\
''To a world that cannot hold.''\\
''I'll escape now from the world,''\\
''From the world of Jean Valjean.''\\
''There is nowhere I can turn.''\\
''[[spoiler:There is no way to go [[StockScream OOOOOOOOOOON!]]]]''
** The same melody is also used by Javert breaking up the scene on the street where Thénardier is accosting Valjean, in a completely different tone - depending on the production, it could be righteous anger or nothing more than just another day on the job.
** Bits and pieces of the second theme from "I Dreamed a Dream" show up in all sorts of other places - Valjean's line "Now her mother is with God / Fantine's suffering is over" when speaking to the Thénardiers, for example.
** As a climactic musical number, "One Day More" is [[RepriseMedley cobbled together]] from pieces of "I Dreamed a Dream," "Master of the House," "Do You Hear the People Sing" (appropriately enough), "On My Own," and others.
** Purely an IronicEcho example: Marius warns Eponine, "Get out 'Ponine / you might get shot." And Eponine responds with, "I've got you worried now I have / that shows you like me quite a lot!" Later on, Eponine [[spoiler:does get out fine, but is fatally wounded ''returning'' from Marius' errand, before the fighting even starts]]. Marius, appropriately, [[spoiler:is much more worried than he originally was, when he realizes she's dying]].
** The Bishop of Digne's melody is later heard again as "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." The Bishop survived the first French Revolution, but lost almost all of his friends and family. Marius has survived the student rebellions, but at the cost of all of his friends.
** Javert threw back " You know nothing!" and "Jean Valjean is nothing now!" during "The Confrontation".
** Valjean and Javert's first meeting.
--->'''Javert''': "You will starve again! Unless you learn the meaning of the law."
--->'''Valjean''': "I learned the meaning in those 19 years, a slave of ''the law''."
** "Turning" and "Lovely Ladies" have a similar cynical mood sung by the same women- one about their lives as hookers, [[spoiler: one about all the revolutionaries killed at the barricade and how little their deaths will change.]]
** Played for laughs in "Red And Black".
* {{Irony}}: Of the Situational sort. Fantine is fired from the factory when one of the other workers implies that she sleeps around for extra cash. She does not. Her inability to get any other job leads to her becoming a prostitute.
* ItsAllMyFault: Valjean has a tendency to accept blame even when his involvement was minor at best.
* ItTastesLikeFeet: In "Master of the House", the inn's patrons sing that Thénardier's stew tastes like something he scraped off the street and his wine is like turpentine (even elaborating "must have pressed it with his feet").
* ItWasAGift: Valjean's candlesticks from the Bishop of Digne. He keeps them until the end of his life.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy:
** Valjean, although he didn’t think that maybe his daughter might be happier with him around
** Éponine helps Marius to find Cosette, despite the fact that she’s also in love with him.
* JobSong: "Lovely Ladies" is about some prostitutes trying to pick up clients.
* JustifiedCriminal: When you've got the choice between stealing and starving, few people would hesitate...
* KarmaHoudini: The only reprisal Monsieur Thénardier suffers for all his villainy is a punch in the face from Marius, right before "Beggars at the Feast" (and even that is in or out depending on the production). His wife gets off scot-free. The two of them leave the stage gloating over their ill-gotten riches.
** The woman factory worker who gets Fantine fired by telling lies about her.
* KilledMidSentence:
** Mid-song, in the case of [[spoiler: Gavroche]].
** [[spoiler: Éponine]] also dies mid-song.
** Depending on the production, Valjean can be implied to [[spoiler:die either at Fantine's "Come with me" or at "To love another person is to see the face of God."]]
* KillHimAlready: Justified, because much as the rebels would like to kill Javert, they have a reason for holding him prisoner for an extended length of time: they are conserving their powder and bullets, and consider killing him any way other than shooting him to be reprehensible and beneath them.
* KillMeNowOrForeverStayYourHand: Javert to Valjean. [[spoiler:[[DrivenToSuicide Javert does not take it well.]]]]
* KnightTemplar: Javert.
* LaResistance: Les Amis de l'ABC.
* LastNameBasis: Justified as this is the 19th century. It gets jarring when all the students call Marius Pontmercy “Marius”, but refer to any other of their group by last name only.
* LastStand: Les Amis at the barricade.
* LaughablyEvil: Thénardier and Mme. Thenardier, though both have their moments of genuine menace -- Thenardier during "Dog Eat Dog," and Mme. when she's yelling and abusing Cosette.
* LawfulStupid: Javert is single-mindedly devoted to law and order and sees them as the only legitimate expression of goodness and considers lawbreakers to be evil by default, so much so that he believes that AllCrimesAreEqual and ends up [[spoiler: killing himself when Valjean, a convict, proves himself to be a virtuous man.]]
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** Valjean gets a moment in the Prologue, where he describes the evening with the bishop. He might be talking to himself, but addresses the audience in most stagings.
** When Marius walks into the meeting of the Friends of ABC, going on about how starstruck he is after seeing Cosette for the first time, Grantaire responds, among other witty remarks ("We talk of battles to be won/And here he comes like Don Juan!"), that Marius' display is "better than an opera!"
** Gavroche addresses the audience directly in 'Look Down,' presenting himself as the audience's guide to the slums.
--->'''Gavroche''': "How do you do? My name's Gavroche
--->These are my people, here's my patch
--->Not much to look at, nothing posh
--->Nothing that you'd call up to scratch
--->This is my school, my high society
--->Here in the slums of Saint Michel
--->We live on crumbs of humble piety
--->Tough on the teeth, but what the hell
--->Think you're poor, think you're free
--->Follow me, follow me!
** In some versions, he later does the same at the end of 'Stars' to show he knows everything that Javert is up to, and even throws in some implied MediumAwareness:
--->That inspector thinks he's something
--->But it's me who runs this town!
--->And my theater never closes
--->And the curtain's never down
--->Trust Gavroche, have no fear
--->Don't you worry, auntie dear,
--->You can always find me here!
* LightDarknessJuxtaposition:
** "Red and Black": As the students debate passion through the "colours of the world", RebelLeader Enjolras compares red to "a world about to dawn" and black as "the night that ends at last" in succeeding lyrics.
** "Stars" sees Javert refer to Valjean as a "fugitive in the night" and extol stars as symbols of order and light in the dark night sky.
* LighterAndSofter: Despite being touted as the saddest musical ever. Most of the BackstoryHorror isn't acknowledged, the Thenardiers become comic relief, Eponine TookALevelInKindness, and the show ends on a more uplifting note.
* LoadBearingHero: Valjean, when he lifts a toppled wagon off its fallen driver. This costs him dearly, for Javert witnesses the rescue and is immediately reminded of a certain muscular fugitive.
* LogicBomb: Javert's breakdown is sometimes seen as this, but it's played with: Javert ''expects'' that Valjean will demand his own freedom as a condition of sparing his life, which would create a conflict of interest in Javert, but would also confirm his image of Valjean as a criminal opportunist (who merely draws the line at murder). Javert wouldn't really struggle with such a dilemma, as he'd choose the law over his own honour every time. When Valjean spares his life ''without condition'', that goes out the window: Javert has only one course of action under the law, and what drives him crazy is realising that for the first time in his life, he doesn't want to obey that law.
* LonelyRichKid: Cosette spent a good size of her life alone. The song "In My Life" illustrates that Marius is a wake up call to the fact that there's a whole world outside of her garden.
* LongHairIsFeminine: Fantine in Act I. Her hair is usually waist or hip-length, worn loose during "I Dreamed a Dream" (even if [[CompressedHair it was covered up earlier]]), and in particular it confers on her a ''dignity'' that she lacks after her TraumaticHaircut.
* LongRunner: It's been running for ''37 years'' in London and ran for 16 years on Broadway. Had it not closed in 2003, ''it'' would be the longest-running show in Broadway history rather than ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera''.
* LongingLook: Marius and Cosette exchange a very significant one.
* LoveableRogue: This version of the Thénardiers touches on the trope. (Now read the book.) Zigzagged with Monsieur (but only Monsieur) in "Plumet Attack" and "Dog Eats Dog", which are a very creepy contrast with "Master of the House" and its reprise. Monsieur Thénardier's vampiric croon to the harvest moon above him, in which he literally sings that "God is dead", comes across as extremely dark.
* LoveAtFirstSight: Cosette and Marius. Depending on the chemistry of the actors involved, this can range from genuinely sweet and believable to absolutely ridiculous. Michael Ball and Rebecca Caine, of the 1985 original London cast, were notable for their chemistry onstage, but some other productions haven't been so lucky.
* LoveTheme: "A Heart Full of Love" is most commonly associated with Marius and Cosette, but isn't a fully fledged love theme since it doesn't accompany all of their romantic moments.
* LoveTriangle: Marius, Cosette, Éponine.
* LovingAShadow: Éponine's song "On My Own" ends with her having a revelation that she's not really in love with Marius, she's only in love with the ''idea'' of Marius, and even after this realization, she still clings to the delusions because it is literally the only thing she has to look forward to.
* LyricalDissonance:
** "Lovely Ladies", an upbeat number about the dehumanizing life of a seaside hooker. That the song occurs in the company of Fantine being accosted by an old crone asking to buy Fantine's ''hair'', a request that she succumbs to while also being disgusted by, just adds to the jarring feelings.
** "I Dreamed a Dream" has the melody and sound of a romantic ballad you might hear at a wedding. The lyrics describe Fantine's happy past (''decidedly'' in the past) and her misery at her current life.
** "Stars" - Javert's oath to pursue criminals without mercy is set to a lovely, dreamy tune.
** Also, "Beggar at the Feast". Sure, the upbeat melody works for the wedding and the characters... then you realize they got here after robbing from the dead, and that their daughter and, it's implied, [[spoiler: son (Gavroche),]] have both died. "Clear away the barricades and we're still there" sounds a lot worse afterwards.
** "At the End of the Day", an upbeat little song about how the life of the poor just keeps getting worse.
----
----
* GardenOfLove: The "A Heart Full of Love" sequence, in which Marius and Cosette romance each other, is set in the garden of her house on Rue Plumet. In the song's second-act reprise, Valjean uses the trope a metaphor as he reflects upon his daughter's blossoming relationship.
--> Love is the garden of the young...
* GoodShepherd: The Bishop of Digne.
* GoodIsNotSoft: Les Amis's response to Javert being a spy is, depending on the production, knocking him out, tying him up, or both. After [[spoiler:Eponine dies]], they are even ''more'' set against the military (and, presumably, Javert), and when Valjean arrives, they essentially force him to help them fight off the First Attack on pain of death.
* GriefSong: "Turning" and "Empty Chairs At Empty Tables". There's also a brief one after "Little Fall of Rain", where Les Amis vows to not let [[spoiler:Eponine]] die in vain.
* GroinAttack: Some stagings of "Master of the House" have Madame Thénardier do this to her husband at the end.
* HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook: Less strong than in the book, but [[spoiler: Valjean]] still makes it rather clear that he wasn’t exactly a criminal before being sent to prison.
* HappilyAdopted: Cosette.
* HappyPlace: Young Cosette's "Castle on a Cloud".
* HarsherInHindsight: {{Invoked}}. "One Day More" is an upbeat, looking-forward type song. Only later do you realize that [[spoiler: one more day is all most of them got]].
* HeartwarmingOrphan: Gavroche may not actually be an orphan, but he still fits.
* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler:Javert's suicide as a result of his cognitive dissonance over Valjean's mercy.]]
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Valjean after being pardoned by the bishop. Javert after Valjean refuses to kill him. Marius has one after he learns Valjean saved his life, though he was never as much of a "heel" in this sense as he was in the book.]]
* HellholePrison: Depending on the staging of the production, this goes a bit into InformedAttribute territory. The lyrics even compare the prison to hell, but at least in the “replica” staging, chains and tools were imaginary…
* HeroAntagonist: InspectorJavert is a subtrope of this…
* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Valjean himself at the end.]]
* HeroWithBadPublicity: Fits Valjean to a T. He may have saved the lives of everyone and their dog, but to those who know his identity, he is still an ex-convict/convict on the run and more often than not treated accordingly.
* HeroVsVillainDuet: "Confrontation" is sung by Jean Valjean and Javert. Both characters start trying to explain their point of view to each other, but soon they start singing at the same time while fighting.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Played mostly straight with Fantine, who resorts to prostitution as her only available way to provide for herself and her daughter. Throughout, she still retains her love for Cosette.
* HornySailors: The number "Lovely Ladies" begins with a bunch of sailors singing about how much they want to have sex. The song in general is about prostitutes who cater to sailors, told from various perspectives.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Played with. At first it seems the Bishop of Digne's Christian kindness was wasted on Valjean as he stole from him. However his faith in the inner goodness of Valjean pays off in the end.
* HypocriticalSinging: In "Master of the House," Monsieur Thernardier sings about what an honest and decent innkeeper he is... all the while constantly cheating and conning everyone in the inn.
%%* IAmBecomingSong: "Valjean's Soliloquy" and "In My Life". '''Administrivia/ZeroContextExample'''
* IAmTheNoun: "I Am the Law" sung by Javert.
* IconicOutfit: Valjean's prison outfit, Cosette's black dress, Éponine's trenchcoat and hat, and the "Red Vest Of Doom" that Enjolras wears from the Act 1 finale onwards.
* IconOfRebellion: The red flag, which was used as a symbol of revolution since 1789.
* IdenticalStranger: Champmathieu, who almost takes the rap for Valjean. Depending on staging that ranges from credible to WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.
* IfICantHaveYou: At least it seems that way with Éponine in "One Day More." Marius is debating to himself whether to follow Cosette to England or fight with the students. Éponine, standing beside him, practically makes the decision for him by grabbing him by the arm and the two of them running off. A minute later, they are next seen with Enjolras and the other students, and Marius tells Enjolras "My place is here, I fight with you."
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Cosette. Also [[spoiler: heartbreakingly {{averted|Trope}} with]] Gavroche.
* IncrediblyLongNote: The last notes of "Who Am I?", "I Dreamed a Dream", "Stars" and "Bring Him Home" as typically performed.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Fantine often coughs in “Lovely Ladies” and/or “Fantine’s Arrest”, though typically nowhere else. The book implies that she's contracted tuberculosis, an often fatal disease then for rich and poor alike, and describes her decaying spirits in depth.
* TheIngenue: Cosette as a grown-up.
* InspectorJavert: The TropeNamer.
* InstitutionalApparel: Typically brown-greyish rags. Sometimes Valjean will be shown coming out of prison with a dehumanizing label on his chest listing him merely as 24601.
* IronicEcho & SoundtrackDissonance:
** Deliberately, as many of the songs are re-used throughout the musical for different people, situations and ''moods''. However, these usually bear some relation to each other and their musical association adds an extra layer of meaning. Good examples are "Do You Hear The People Sing?", later re-used for the revolutionaries' chorus in the finale, with altered text. Another example is the prisoners' "Work Song", which is later re-used for the beggars' "Look Down", once again with altered lyrics (however, the situations are so painfully similar that these tropes are [[JustifiedTrope perfectly justified]]).
** "What Have I Done" and [[spoiler: "Javert's Suicide"]] are also painfully similar, with the same melody, and in some places the same words, but with a different meaning. This seems to be, again, [[JustifiedTrope well-justified]], as they are both sung at times of [[BSODSong great emotional and mental upheaval]] as a result of another person's mercy. The most significant difference is that the first one ends in redemption, and the second one ends in [[spoiler: suicide]].
-->'''Valjean''': ''I am reaching, but I fall,''\\
''And the night is closing in,''\\
''As I stare into the Void,''\\
''To the whirlpool of my sin.''\\
''I'll escape now from the world,''\\
''From the world of Jean Valjean.''\\
''[[NoIndoorVoice JEAN VALJEAN IS NOTHING NOW!]]''\\
''[[NoIndoorVoice ANOTHER STORY MUST BEGIN!]]''
-->'''Javert''': ''I am reaching, but I fall,''\\
''And the stars are black and cold,''\\
''As I stare into the Void,''\\
''To a world that cannot hold.''\\
''I'll escape now from the world,''\\
''From the world of Jean Valjean.''\\
''There is nowhere I can turn.''\\
''[[spoiler:There is no way to go [[StockScream OOOOOOOOOOON!]]]]''
** The same melody is also used by Javert breaking up the scene on the street where Thénardier is accosting Valjean, in a completely different tone - depending on the production, it could be righteous anger or nothing more than just another day on the job.
** Bits and pieces of the second theme from "I Dreamed a Dream" show up in all sorts of other places - Valjean's line "Now her mother is with God / Fantine's suffering is over" when speaking to the Thénardiers, for example.
** As a climactic musical number, "One Day More" is [[RepriseMedley cobbled together]] from pieces of "I Dreamed a Dream," "Master of the House," "Do You Hear the People Sing" (appropriately enough), "On My Own," and others.
** Purely an IronicEcho example: Marius warns Eponine, "Get out 'Ponine / you might get shot." And Eponine responds with, "I've got you worried now I have / that shows you like me quite a lot!" Later on, Eponine [[spoiler:does get out fine, but is fatally wounded ''returning'' from Marius' errand, before the fighting even starts]]. Marius, appropriately, [[spoiler:is much more worried than he originally was, when he realizes she's dying]].
** The Bishop of Digne's melody is later heard again as "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." The Bishop survived the first French Revolution, but lost almost all of his friends and family. Marius has survived the student rebellions, but at the cost of all of his friends.
** Javert threw back " You know nothing!" and "Jean Valjean is nothing now!" during "The Confrontation".
** Valjean and Javert's first meeting.
--->'''Javert''': "You will starve again! Unless you learn the meaning of the law."
--->'''Valjean''': "I learned the meaning in those 19 years, a slave of ''the law''."
** "Turning" and "Lovely Ladies" have a similar cynical mood sung by the same women- one about their lives as hookers, [[spoiler: one about all the revolutionaries killed at the barricade and how little their deaths will change.]]
** Played for laughs in "Red And Black".
* {{Irony}}: Of the Situational sort. Fantine is fired from the factory when one of the other workers implies that she sleeps around for extra cash. She does not. Her inability to get any other job leads to her becoming a prostitute.
* ItsAllMyFault: Valjean has a tendency to accept blame even when his involvement was minor at best.
* ItTastesLikeFeet: In "Master of the House", the inn's patrons sing that Thénardier's stew tastes like something he scraped off the street and his wine is like turpentine (even elaborating "must have pressed it with his feet").
* ItWasAGift: Valjean's candlesticks from the Bishop of Digne. He keeps them until the end of his life.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy:
** Valjean, although he didn’t think that maybe his daughter might be happier with him around
** Éponine helps Marius to find Cosette, despite the fact that she’s also in love with him.
* JobSong: "Lovely Ladies" is about some prostitutes trying to pick up clients.
* JustifiedCriminal: When you've got the choice between stealing and starving, few people would hesitate...
* KarmaHoudini: The only reprisal Monsieur Thénardier suffers for all his villainy is a punch in the face from Marius, right before "Beggars at the Feast" (and even that is in or out depending on the production). His wife gets off scot-free. The two of them leave the stage gloating over their ill-gotten riches.
** The woman factory worker who gets Fantine fired by telling lies about her.
* KilledMidSentence:
** Mid-song, in the case of [[spoiler: Gavroche]].
** [[spoiler: Éponine]] also dies mid-song.
** Depending on the production, Valjean can be implied to [[spoiler:die either at Fantine's "Come with me" or at "To love another person is to see the face of God."]]
* KillHimAlready: Justified, because much as the rebels would like to kill Javert, they have a reason for holding him prisoner for an extended length of time: they are conserving their powder and bullets, and consider killing him any way other than shooting him to be reprehensible and beneath them.
* KillMeNowOrForeverStayYourHand: Javert to Valjean. [[spoiler:[[DrivenToSuicide Javert does not take it well.]]]]
* KnightTemplar: Javert.
* LaResistance: Les Amis de l'ABC.
* LastNameBasis: Justified as this is the 19th century. It gets jarring when all the students call Marius Pontmercy “Marius”, but refer to any other of their group by last name only.
* LastStand: Les Amis at the barricade.
* LaughablyEvil: Thénardier and Mme. Thenardier, though both have their moments of genuine menace -- Thenardier during "Dog Eat Dog," and Mme. when she's yelling and abusing Cosette.
* LawfulStupid: Javert is single-mindedly devoted to law and order and sees them as the only legitimate expression of goodness and considers lawbreakers to be evil by default, so much so that he believes that AllCrimesAreEqual and ends up [[spoiler: killing himself when Valjean, a convict, proves himself to be a virtuous man.]]
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** Valjean gets a moment in the Prologue, where he describes the evening with the bishop. He might be talking to himself, but addresses the audience in most stagings.
** When Marius walks into the meeting of the Friends of ABC, going on about how starstruck he is after seeing Cosette for the first time, Grantaire responds, among other witty remarks ("We talk of battles to be won/And here he comes like Don Juan!"), that Marius' display is "better than an opera!"
** Gavroche addresses the audience directly in 'Look Down,' presenting himself as the audience's guide to the slums.
--->'''Gavroche''': "How do you do? My name's Gavroche
--->These are my people, here's my patch
--->Not much to look at, nothing posh
--->Nothing that you'd call up to scratch
--->This is my school, my high society
--->Here in the slums of Saint Michel
--->We live on crumbs of humble piety
--->Tough on the teeth, but what the hell
--->Think you're poor, think you're free
--->Follow me, follow me!
** In some versions, he later does the same at the end of 'Stars' to show he knows everything that Javert is up to, and even throws in some implied MediumAwareness:
--->That inspector thinks he's something
--->But it's me who runs this town!
--->And my theater never closes
--->And the curtain's never down
--->Trust Gavroche, have no fear
--->Don't you worry, auntie dear,
--->You can always find me here!
* LightDarknessJuxtaposition:
** "Red and Black": As the students debate passion through the "colours of the world", RebelLeader Enjolras compares red to "a world about to dawn" and black as "the night that ends at last" in succeeding lyrics.
** "Stars" sees Javert refer to Valjean as a "fugitive in the night" and extol stars as symbols of order and light in the dark night sky.
* LighterAndSofter: Despite being touted as the saddest musical ever. Most of the BackstoryHorror isn't acknowledged, the Thenardiers become comic relief, Eponine TookALevelInKindness, and the show ends on a more uplifting note.
* LoadBearingHero: Valjean, when he lifts a toppled wagon off its fallen driver. This costs him dearly, for Javert witnesses the rescue and is immediately reminded of a certain muscular fugitive.
* LogicBomb: Javert's breakdown is sometimes seen as this, but it's played with: Javert ''expects'' that Valjean will demand his own freedom as a condition of sparing his life, which would create a conflict of interest in Javert, but would also confirm his image of Valjean as a criminal opportunist (who merely draws the line at murder). Javert wouldn't really struggle with such a dilemma, as he'd choose the law over his own honour every time. When Valjean spares his life ''without condition'', that goes out the window: Javert has only one course of action under the law, and what drives him crazy is realising that for the first time in his life, he doesn't want to obey that law.
* LonelyRichKid: Cosette spent a good size of her life alone. The song "In My Life" illustrates that Marius is a wake up call to the fact that there's a whole world outside of her garden.
* LongHairIsFeminine: Fantine in Act I. Her hair is usually waist or hip-length, worn loose during "I Dreamed a Dream" (even if [[CompressedHair it was covered up earlier]]), and in particular it confers on her a ''dignity'' that she lacks after her TraumaticHaircut.
* LongRunner: It's been running for ''37 years'' in London and ran for 16 years on Broadway. Had it not closed in 2003, ''it'' would be the longest-running show in Broadway history rather than ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera''.
* LongingLook: Marius and Cosette exchange a very significant one.
* LoveableRogue: This version of the Thénardiers touches on the trope. (Now read the book.) Zigzagged with Monsieur (but only Monsieur) in "Plumet Attack" and "Dog Eats Dog", which are a very creepy contrast with "Master of the House" and its reprise. Monsieur Thénardier's vampiric croon to the harvest moon above him, in which he literally sings that "God is dead", comes across as extremely dark.
* LoveAtFirstSight: Cosette and Marius. Depending on the chemistry of the actors involved, this can range from genuinely sweet and believable to absolutely ridiculous. Michael Ball and Rebecca Caine, of the 1985 original London cast, were notable for their chemistry onstage, but some other productions haven't been so lucky.
* LoveTheme: "A Heart Full of Love" is most commonly associated with Marius and Cosette, but isn't a fully fledged love theme since it doesn't accompany all of their romantic moments.
* LoveTriangle: Marius, Cosette, Éponine.
* LovingAShadow: Éponine's song "On My Own" ends with her having a revelation that she's not really in love with Marius, she's only in love with the ''idea'' of Marius, and even after this realization, she still clings to the delusions because it is literally the only thing she has to look forward to.
* LyricalDissonance:
** "Lovely Ladies", an upbeat number about the dehumanizing life of a seaside hooker. That the song occurs in the company of Fantine being accosted by an old crone asking to buy Fantine's ''hair'', a request that she succumbs to while also being disgusted by, just adds to the jarring feelings.
** "I Dreamed a Dream" has the melody and sound of a romantic ballad you might hear at a wedding. The lyrics describe Fantine's happy past (''decidedly'' in the past) and her misery at her current life.
** "Stars" - Javert's oath to pursue criminals without mercy is set to a lovely, dreamy tune.
** Also, "Beggar at the Feast". Sure, the upbeat melody works for the wedding and the characters... then you realize they got here after robbing from the dead, and that their daughter and, it's implied, [[spoiler: son (Gavroche),]] have both died. "Clear away the barricades and we're still there" sounds a lot worse afterwards.
** "At the End of the Day", an upbeat little song about how the life of the poor just keeps getting worse.
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