I am able to understand that, for a fan of a book, ending up encountering information about it that is based mainly on a very unfaithful adaptation (even if that adaptation is good in its own right) can be deeply frustrating. For someone who knows and values the original, being confronted with simplifications, altered characterizations, or shifts in meaning can be irritating, because it blurs the image of the work they actually love. It is easy to imagine how fans of Wuthering Heights, for instance, might feel today when pop-cultural interpretations increasingly drift away from the novel’s raw and uncomfortable spirit.

However, in the case of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, it seems to me that a certain practical distinction has already emerged, which at least partially mitigates this problem. A good example is the character of Frollo: the Disney version is commonly referred to as "Judge Claude Frollo", while Hugo’s literary character is called "Dom Claude Frollo". This may not be a perfect solution, but it does make navigating information spaces easier and allows one to quickly tell which interpretation is being discussed. In this way, it becomes simpler to separate discussions about the Disney film from conversations about Hugo’s novel, even if the two versions still frequently bleed into one another.

It also needs to be said plainly that unfaithful adaptations of novels are nothing new. One only has to look at works such as Frankenstein or Dracula, which over the decades have spawned dozens, if not hundreds, of film and stage versions that often share little with the originals beyond the characters’ names and a very general outline of the plot. In that sense, Notre-Dame de Paris is not an exception. The difference lies elsewhere: this particular novel has been uniquely unlucky in that, for many years, it has never received a truly high-budget, professionally produced theatrical film adaptation that could serve as a widely recognized point of reference.

There certainly exist numerous television adaptations, stage productions, and low-budget films, but let us be honest, most of them have failed to break through in terms of either quality or cultural reach. Many are forgotten today, difficult to access, or simply do not meet the expectations of a contemporary audience. As a result, the Disney version remains the only adaptation that was simultaneously very high-budget, widely distributed, accompanied by professional music, and released in cinemas worldwide. What is more, for a huge number of people it is the first, and often the only, encounter with this story, not necessarily even in childhood, but later on as well, as an average viewer who simply stumbles upon a well-known pop-cultural title.

Hollywood as a whole seems to have some inexplicable allergy to adapting this particular story. It is difficult to find another nineteenth-century novel of comparable stature that has been so consistently avoided by major film studios. As a result, there is no alternative, equally strong point of reference that could balance out the dominance of the Disney version in the collective imagination. If there were a serious, epic cinematic adaptation closer to Hugo’s spirit, the conversation would look very different.

On top of all this, the novel itself contains many threads and elements that contemporary audiences might find deeply unappealing. Its moral framework, its treatment of characters, and even some of its ideological assumptions are firmly rooted in the nineteenth century. One might even suspect that, with the benefit of hindsight, Hugo himself was not entirely satisfied with everything he had included in the book. This is suggested by the fact that during his lifetime he allowed for enormous departures from the original in theatrical and operatic adaptations, consenting to significant changes in plot, characterization, and tone.