Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The story and characters alike belong to Victor Hugo.
What is the definition of innocence?
To be pure, untouched, and unblemished by the cruelty of society and mankind?
Yet does that not just make one naïve, inexperienced, and immature?
Does it not create empty shells, with souls as young and as undeveloped as babes?
Innocence does not come by being free from hardship. It does not come from being sheltered, or protected.
Innocence comes from being in the very core of hell and not becoming tainted by the fiery touch of evil.
Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame, one-eyed, hunchbacked, and lame, was the most innocent of that time.
ANATKH, fatum, fate, whatever you wish to call it distorted, deformed, and marked him to a reason.
He was a symbol that was misunderstood by the people of Paris. And for that, he was punished.
He was placed in a body so misshapen that even the most benevolent could not bear to look at him.
Then he was taken in as a foundling by Dom Claude Frollo, a man who had been marked by fate with misfortune and corruption of his own.
A well taught man who could not see the souls of people beyond those of his brother and his foster-son, had lived through his childhood within his books and his own knowledge.
A holy man, who had been working himself to the bone to gain himself and his brother places at Heaven's gates, was destroyed by what he could not prevent or understand.
Powers beyond the comprehension of one who looked at the word through a shielded veil were in play, creating a lesson that none there seemed to have learned.
Sometimes innocence is the cruelest destiny to have.
Deaf and partly blind, the creature that was Quasimodo lived and loved within the cathedral. He spoke with the gargoyles, laughed with the birds, and cherished the bells, and was kept away from all.
Then the being that would condemn them to death crossed their paths, leaving a mark upon them to be struck down.
La Esmeralda, the young gypsy girl with her faithful goat Djali, had become an obsession for them both. A figure that would always dance within their minds, as lightly and as gracefully as she did upon the streets.
The pious yet solemn man that was the Archdeacon sold his soul and all he had worked for to have her as his own.
Yet having a faithful slave such as Quasimodo had spoiled him.
He kidnapped, murdered, and lied for her. His soul, now undoubtedly going to hell, had broken and blackened as the fire of jealousy burned within him.
Yet she wouldn't have him.
Maddened into a frenzied rage, he had gone beyond all means. He had her sent to the gallows the first time, and yet she had escaped.
Rather so, she had been rescued.
Quasimodo only knew the solemn and cold love that came from his bells and from his foster father.
He was unsure what that feeling was; of complete self-sacrifice and utter devotion to another being, this darkling angel who couldn't even abide to look at him.
Yet he didn't mind. He kept her safe within his tower, gave her his meager food and bed, staying content to just know she was nearby.
He was content to love on his own, knowing that he would never receive any in return. And he never did.
At the end of all things, after watching Esmeralda die at the gallows, and seeing his foster father, the man who rescued him from his own terrible fate, laughing in bitter resentment, the gentle being within him realized the true heart that had lied within the only man he had been allowed to know.
In a flash of rage and fear he pushed him over the banister and couldn't bear to look at him as he hung below.
"There is all I ever loved!"
And then he was alone, broken, and weary.
So he entombed himself and died in silence, his grief too much for his now brittle heart to bear.
Paris continued to thrive, neither mourning nor even aware of the loss that had just befallen them.
No one seemed to notice how the cathedral eroded and decayed, like a skeleton in its final resting place, or observe the air, still and quiet without the singing of the bells of Notre Dame.
So fate had failed.
And life went on.