Marius should have ended up with Eponine-not Cosette!!!

Hello again, my opponent, and yes, I hope people actually bother to vote on this debate! "...why do you think Eponine was better for Marius rather than Cosette? What makes here [sic] so much more special?" First of all, the "love triangle" between Marius, Cosette, and Eponine is one of the few parts of Les Miserables that I dislike. Marius and Cosette fall in love the moment they glance each other; a ridiculous trope that belongs only in Disney movies. Heck, even Disney has moved on from this cliche, parodying it in movies like Frozen, but the most recent Les Mis adaptation, the 2012 film, plays it with utter seriousness. To answer your question, Cosette was never an interesting character, even in the original Hugo story. If she has a personality, it's never shown or explained. In spite of her dark, twisted, horrible childhood, she turned out to be a pretty bland, average teenage girl. Eponine, on the other hand, is immensely intriguing. Despite being raised with Cosette as her foster sibling, her life was the total opposite. She was spoiled and pampered as a child; given anything she asked for. But in her teenage years, she was plunged into poverty and wretchedness. She became a tragic and pathetic figure, and we identify with her struggle to survive. And as I will explain later, her love for Marius developed over time, rather than popping out of nowhere like Cosette's. Con has already admitted that Eponine was the more interesting character, which seems to contradict her questioning of why she was more special. She then states: "If Marius ended up with Eponine, he would have been scoffed and looked down upon by society..." This is a legitimate point, and true to history. However, it's merely a pragmatic reason why Marius would choose Cosette, and doesn't relate to why they would work better as a couple. Marius obsesses over Cosette before he discovers anything about her, so wealth wasn't his motive for loving her. Even if he had married her for the money, that would be all the more reason why the romance between them is poor. Besides, he joins a revolutionary group bent on overthrowing the current monarchy, so he likely doesn't care much what the French aristocracy thinks of him. "Second off is because I just think that Eponine and Marius were better off as just friends. They have more of a friendship than a boyfriend/girlfriend...bond." You're half right. The bond between Eponine and Marius starts out as mutual friendship, as most romances do in real life. While Eponine first visits her neighbor Marius simply to beg for money, she gradually falls in love with him as they talk and get to know each other, though this love is tragically one-sided. Not the greatest romance ever written, but leagues better than the one written for Marius and Cosette. Obviously, they have more of a boyfriend/girlfriend bond, since Victor Hugo decided that they should be together. But from a storytelling perspective, a Marius/Eponine relationship would have been more satisfying, because we want so badly to see the Thenardier girl get a happy ending, and many of us couldn't care less about Cosette. "Marius did not love Eponine. Why should he be with someone he does not love? He obviously saw something in Cosette that he loved that he did not find in Eponine..." Your logic is flawed here. We are debating what should have happened, not which was more likely to happen. While Marius did love Cosette in the story, his love is contrived, unrealistic, and makes no sense. It would have been far more interesting to see him go for the girl that had actual character. You mention that he "saw something in Cosette that he loved". What do you think that something was? For me and many other Les Mis fans, there is no reason for Marius and Cosette to be in love, and Eponine was far more deserving of the love that she so desperately wanted. Thank you for a good opening argument, Con. I now await your rebuttal and final thoughts next round.