Look Down, Look Down!

In a forum one member breifly went by the name of Javert, the Jean Valjean's nemesis in Les Miserables. I've looked round and been really shocked at the lack of subtelty of understanding out there. Javert doggedly persues what he sees a s a fugitive from justice.

In doing this Javert is blinkered and unmerciful, but he is not, as some have described, a bad person. He is an honourable and good man and simply trying to do the right thing with a sense of honour and duty. It just so happens that he is misguided and mistaken about what the right thing is. There is no malice or sadism about the way he performs this. I don't see how this is a difficult concept.

Javert is a slave to the law. Valjean's mercy shows to him how mistaken he was, and how unmerciful his law is, and after a dilemma over being in debt to a criminal, and having spend 20 years persuing a lie, ends it all.