Personality: While my decision to pick up Grantaire was more inspired by the recent movie adaptation of the musical than anything else it’s necessary to draw upon what I know of the original novel to give any sort of in-depth explanation of Grantaire’s personality and motivations. In terms of what canon will be followed in game I'm going to do as Grantaire would and follow someone else's lead. I believe an Enjolras will be apping into the game soon and if they are allowed in I'll talk such matters over with them and refer to whichever canon they want to play from since it doesn't really matter all that much to me. If Grantaire ends up being alone I will follow book canon (though if I agree upon a canon with the player of Enjolras and he is later dropped, I will of course stick to what we decided, just to be clear).
Victor Hugo describes Grantaire as a man who only exists in relation to someone else, in this case Enjolras. He doesn’t have a defined sense of self, and no set beliefs. He hates and reviles most of humanity and regards lofty ideals like justice and freedom with sneering skepticism. He is a broken man who seeks refuge in drink to escape from the world he seems unable to stand living in.
Paradoxically, he is still very capable of affection. His heart needs friendship, as it says in the book, and what little true joy he experiences seems to come from being around the friends of the ABC, even if many of them seem to merely tolerate him without really returning his affection.
It’s no surprise that it is that way for him, because he seems to make a sport of making himself absolutely impossible, sitting in a corner and holding drunken monologues on various topics that nobody cares to hear about and being a general let-down.
His sense of humor seems to prefer to take a rather mocking turn, and jokes are made at the expense of people or ideals in an often bitter sort of fashion. He can probably at times come off as incredibly attention-seeking, but it is at the same time clear that he doesn’t really know what to do with said attention if and when he gets it. When asked to take responsibility, to lead, he can have an honest intention to do it but in the end he is likely to falter because he just has no idea where to go after he’s been asked to live up to his brash boasting.
He is, underneath it all, a very well educated man who would be just as capable as any of the other young men to quote famous authors and discuss philosophy until he was blue in the face, but he sees no point in it and prefers to commit himself to more earthly pleasures. Drinking, fighting and most likely the occasional romp with prostitutes, it is presented as rather unlikely that anyone would want to share his bed without compensation.
Part of him seems to want to change, if nothing else so that he might be looked upon with something other than disdain by the man he worships, but he never seems to be able to quite manage it. Even when given chances he tends to mess it up, playing domino rather than convincing people to join the revolution and such things. In the end, not even Enjolras can make him believe that the whole thing is anything but a waste of time.
In his own way, he is just as commited to his beliefs that any of the other students, it is just that his are exactly opposite to theirs. He needs opposition to exist. He needs to be the counter-argument, the dark side. It is the only way he knows how to live, and that is why he can’t free himself from neither his destructive habits, nor his hopeless longing for Enjolras’ affection.
At least in the musical he acts as the voice of opposition, the one who speaks what some of the others might perhaps think but will not say. He gives a voice to the fear that perhaps the whole attempt at a revolution was just an exercise in futility that will come to nothing at all, and their deaths will be empty. In being the one who holds Enjolras in the most fanatically high regard he is in a sense also the one least intimidated by him. He speaks up to him, fights with him, disappoints him. He is a rebel among revolutionaries in his own drunken sort of way. He doesn’t care what system governs society since he will pay equally little heed to them all.
He is a man not complete without someone to attach himself to, he defines himself by what he is not rather than what he is. He is a study in negatives, a bitter cynic with a tender heart somewhere inside that wants to be loved but at the same time does everything he can to make himself utterly unlovable. A paradox of a man, and a tragedy.
In the end all he really wants is to be allowed to watch those he loves be successful, even if he can’t seem to help getting in their way as much as he possibly can. He wants to be with his idealistic friends and he wishes for all of their dreams to come true, he just doesn’t believe that they can. Much as he seems to be constantly attempting to pull those around him down into his darkness, what he truly wants is for them to soar above him. He is compelled to share with the world his opinion that everything is bound to end badly, and that all things are more or less worthless, but he really, really wants to be wrong.
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Victor Hugo describes Grantaire as a man who only exists in relation to someone else, in this case Enjolras. He doesn’t have a defined sense of self, and no set beliefs. He hates and reviles most of humanity and regards lofty ideals like justice and freedom with sneering skepticism. He is a broken man who seeks refuge in drink to escape from the world he seems unable to stand living in.
Paradoxically, he is still very capable of affection. His heart needs friendship, as it says in the book, and what little true joy he experiences seems to come from being around the friends of the ABC, even if many of them seem to merely tolerate him without really returning his affection.
It’s no surprise that it is that way for him, because he seems to make a sport of making himself absolutely impossible, sitting in a corner and holding drunken monologues on various topics that nobody cares to hear about and being a general let-down.
His sense of humor seems to prefer to take a rather mocking turn, and jokes are made at the expense of people or ideals in an often bitter sort of fashion. He can probably at times come off as incredibly attention-seeking, but it is at the same time clear that he doesn’t really know what to do with said attention if and when he gets it. When asked to take responsibility, to lead, he can have an honest intention to do it but in the end he is likely to falter because he just has no idea where to go after he’s been asked to live up to his brash boasting.
He is, underneath it all, a very well educated man who would be just as capable as any of the other young men to quote famous authors and discuss philosophy until he was blue in the face, but he sees no point in it and prefers to commit himself to more earthly pleasures. Drinking, fighting and most likely the occasional romp with prostitutes, it is presented as rather unlikely that anyone would want to share his bed without compensation.
Part of him seems to want to change, if nothing else so that he might be looked upon with something other than disdain by the man he worships, but he never seems to be able to quite manage it. Even when given chances he tends to mess it up, playing domino rather than convincing people to join the revolution and such things. In the end, not even Enjolras can make him believe that the whole thing is anything but a waste of time.
In his own way, he is just as commited to his beliefs that any of the other students, it is just that his are exactly opposite to theirs. He needs opposition to exist. He needs to be the counter-argument, the dark side. It is the only way he knows how to live, and that is why he can’t free himself from neither his destructive habits, nor his hopeless longing for Enjolras’ affection.
At least in the musical he acts as the voice of opposition, the one who speaks what some of the others might perhaps think but will not say. He gives a voice to the fear that perhaps the whole attempt at a revolution was just an exercise in futility that will come to nothing at all, and their deaths will be empty. In being the one who holds Enjolras in the most fanatically high regard he is in a sense also the one least intimidated by him. He speaks up to him, fights with him, disappoints him. He is a rebel among revolutionaries in his own drunken sort of way. He doesn’t care what system governs society since he will pay equally little heed to them all.
He is a man not complete without someone to attach himself to, he defines himself by what he is not rather than what he is. He is a study in negatives, a bitter cynic with a tender heart somewhere inside that wants to be loved but at the same time does everything he can to make himself utterly unlovable. A paradox of a man, and a tragedy.
In the end all he really wants is to be allowed to watch those he loves be successful, even if he can’t seem to help getting in their way as much as he possibly can. He wants to be with his idealistic friends and he wishes for all of their dreams to come true, he just doesn’t believe that they can. Much as he seems to be constantly attempting to pull those around him down into his darkness, what he truly wants is for them to soar above him. He is compelled to share with the world his opinion that everything is bound to end badly, and that all things are more or less worthless, but he really, really wants to be wrong.