Les Misérables (novel)/YMMV

The book

 * Accidental Innuendo: "I have come to sleep with you," from Marius to Courfeyrac. Also see the Foe Yay quote from Javert in the Main tab.
 * Complete Monster: Thénardier, as opposed to antagonist Javert.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Oodles of 'em. The street urchin Gavroche was especially embraced by the French as a literary and cultural icon.
 * Evil Is Sexy: Montparnasse, described as 'the flower of the underworld,' has a pretty significant fanbase.
 * Fan-Preferred Couple: Marius/Éponine was this, at least at in the early days of the fandom. Not so much anymore; there actually seems to be more Marius/Cosette at Fanfiction.net, for one, than Marius/Éponine.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The book was extremely popular among Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War, who identified with Enjolras' rebels and called themselves "Lee's Miserables."
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: "In Which Is Explained How Javert Lost The Game."
 * Ho Yay:
 * Grantaire is described as being "fanatical" about Enjolras, and is "subjugated" by his character. Grantaire says Enjolras' "chaste, healthy, firm, direct, hard, candid nature charmed him," and his own "soft, wavering, disjointed, diseased, deformed ideas, attached themselves to Enjolras as to a backbone. His moral spine leaned upon that firmness."
 * You can't put nine young-ish revolutionaries in a novel without experiencing at least a little of this. The strongest would be Grantaire towards Enjolras. Grantaire respects, venerates, and loves Enjolras, to the point of offering to black his boots and, though throughout most of the novel Enjolras finds Grantaire to be an irritating drunkard.
 * Moment of Awesome: See Awesome: Les Misérables
 * Narm: A single tear running silently down Enjolras' cheek as he snipes a young artillery officer.
 * Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Many, many good anvils.
 * Tear Jerker:
 * Every death scene.
 * Fantine's descent into prostitution and sickness, amplified by extortion by the Thénardier couple and the cruelty of Montreuil's townsfolk.
 * The story of Mabeuf's growing poverty and despair, and the whole book onwards from 'The Sleepless Night'.
 * Values Dissonance:
 * Being over 150 years old at this point, the book runs into this rather hard in some places.
 * The most notable is the above, with She Is All Grown Up happening to Cosette and Marius becoming infatuated with her. Marius' behavior during all this can strike many readers as profoundly creepy, what with hanging about the places she and Valjean hang out for hours on end (and certainly Valjean gets annoyed with him in-story) and the fact that Marius is 20 while Cosette had just turned 15, but in the 19th century Marius' incredible shyness and his devotion to wanting to see her would have come across as extremely romantic.
 * Very modern readers may have some difficulty feeling sympathy for Valjean's initial plight: "so his sister's children needed bread, just wait to morning; so he gets five years hard time, so what, just wait it out, don't try to escape and make your sentence worse, idiot". Given how "poverty" in almost all Western countries in the 21st century still provides at least some way to eat and is much gentler than in any time in history, modern readers can have difficulty understanding the absolute depths of destitution and lack of learning that Valjean was subjected to as a young man and his subsequent lack of judgment, even when Hugo attempts to point this out himself.
 * A great many modern readers could very well rankle at Hugo's treatment of Gavroche; that is, the way in which he is portrayed as perfectly healthy and happy despite being a street urchin and technically a thief. Given modern attitudes concerning the necessity of children having a loving caregiver, Hugo's apparent tacit message that Gavroche is better off on the streets could shock or disgust many.
 * Cosette herself, though a feminine ideal in the nineteenth century, could strike modern readers as empty-headed and significantly underdeveloped next to many of the other characters -- she doesn't really serve any purpose as an adult other than the female love interest. Interestingly, the same can't necessarily be said for Hugo's other female characters; Fantine and Éponine in particular are given much more realistic personalities (even if they both wind up tortured throughout most of the story).
 * There's a section in the novel where Jean Valjean goes to the Thénardiers' inn and gives Cosette a doll (the first one she's had since she's been with Thénardiers; probably the first one she's ever had, considering how poor Fantine was). Hugo then goes off on a tangent to explain how important it is for a young girl to have a doll, since it is the fate and instinct of every little girl to grow up to be a mother. Although this was a perfectly natural outlook on gender roles in the 1800s, many woman today would be insulted by such a "degrading" gender stereotype.
 * Values Resonance: For 150 years, many issues discussed in Les Miserables are remarkably pertinent today, as we see men persecuted simply for their past reputation, families divided over such petty issues as political fanaticism, and scoundrels who abuse their position of 'caretaker' simply for the money. Victor Hugo's urging that these ills must be faced are every bit as relevant today as they were in post-Revolutionary France.
 * The Woobie: Basically every character who is not one of the Thénardier parents or working for the Thénardier parents qualifies.

The adaptations
"There is a room that's full of toys,
 * Accidental Innuendo: "Let's give them a screwing they'll never forget!"
 * Adaptation Displacement: The musical.
 * Awesome Music
 * Complete Monster: The Thénardiers are arguably more monsterous in the musical than in the book. In the musical, you get a deeper glimpse into Thénardier's mental state, as he loots Les Amis' bodies (in the book, he did not do this, but he looted his share of corpses, prior). Also, shortly after, despite their daughter's and (perhaps) their son's death, at the barricade, they are completely unphased, and laugh it off. The fact that most of their numbers are humorous might just make it worse.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Thénardier got an uptick in likability thanks to his comic relief song in the musical.
 * Ear Worm:
 * "Master of The House" is infamous for its use in other works.
 * Do you hear the people sing....
 * Ensemble Darkhorse:
 * Oodles of 'em.
 * A parody of Les Mis featured Éponine lampshading her extreme popularity by singing about how she's the true star.
 * Estrogen Brigade: Enjolras. Marius. Jean Valjean. Javert. Grantaire. In fact, pick a male character, and there is probably a sizeable group of fans who swoon at the mere mention of his name. Specific actors can also get this: notably, Michael Maguire (Enjolras) and Michael Ball (Marius) are probably responsible for quite a bit of the show's initial female fanbase.
 * Foe Yay: Javert's song about his obsession with finding Valjean and bringing him to justice sounds, well, almost exactly like a love song actually.
 * Some of Javert's lines in ''Confrontation ("There is no place for you to hide. Wherever you may hide away, I swear..") can come of as somewhat Stalker with a Crush-y, and the song ends with both Valjean and Javert singing "I swear to you - I will be there!". Valjean's line is actually directed at Fantine, since he is promising to save her daughter, but a lot of actors have him stare at Javert anyway.
 * And don't forget right before that, Javert's entering line is "Valjean, and last, we see each other plain..."
 * Hilarious in Hindsight:
 * A twofer: Nick Jonas playing Marius instantly makes Éponine the original Jonas Brother fangirl. Nick Jonas playing Marius when he also originally played Gavroche means Éponine has the hots for her brother.
 * There are multiple cases of actors playing different roles in Les Mis so you get this a lot. For example, Hugh Panaro has played both Valjean and Marius, Hans Peter Janssens as Valjean and Javert, Lea Salonga as Éponine and Fantine etc.
 * Not to mention Drew Sarich, who managed to play Grantaire, Enjolras, Javert, AND Valjean... all in a single run of the musical!
 * This video after the casting for the 2012 film was finalized.
 * Memetic Mutation:
 * "You know NOTHING of Javert!!"
 * Moe:
 * Cosette. In the Anime at least.
 * Cosette is pretty much the definition of Moe in the original story. The animes just crank it Up to Eleven.
 * Painful Rhyme:
 * "Castle on a Cloud" has a painful non-rhyme (that is, the line isn't supposed to rhyme, but manages to sound as if it was supposed to and didn't):

There are a hundred boys and girls."

"Little dear, cost us dear
 * Also, depending on pronunciation, this rhyme can be quite painful:

Medicines are expensive, M'sieur"


 * Justified Trope by the Thénardiers being -- well, the Thénardiers, they're basically allowed to mangle the French language as the actors see fit.
 * Romantic Plot Tumour: "A Heart Full Of Love" is arguably the weakest song in the entire musical. This may be at least partly due to the weaker lyrics in English compared to the original French.
 * Ron the Death Eater: Look at any bad Les Mis fan fiction. There is a fifty fifty chance that it involves Marius realizing Cosette is a "preppy bitch" and dumping her for Éponine, who got better.
 * So Cool It's Awesome: Arm Joe: a game based on the musical. It features Enjolras attacking people by building a barricade on top of them, Cosette throwing Valjean as a weapon, an evil robot clone of Jean Valjean, and Javert shoots firebolts from his fingers.
 * Straw Man Has a Point: While Javert's belief that a criminal can never truly change is extreme, he does have valid reasons to not trust Valjean, who he knows has broken his parole before.
 * The Woobie:
 * Éponine, Fantine, Marius, Cosette and Valjean all have moments.
 * Hell, the entire cast, bar Monsieur and Madame Thénardier. There's a reason you're sobbing by the end.
 * World of Woobie