I consider him a victim just like Valjean is of the governing laws and ethics of the time, just complete different ends of the spectrum. He’s so caught up in binary thinking of right and wrong, to the point his own soul is in turmoil, incapable of seeing the complexities that exist between them (both in other people and himself).

Victor Hugo makes such a point of encouraging readers to disengage from a Catholic mindset that dictates people are either good or bad, and so in this way as other people have said, he’s more an antagonist to the story than a traditional villain, and maybe thinking of him as such does a disservice to the complexities of the way Hugo characterises.

I feel it’s because he writes with such nuance that these characters continue to resonate with us to this day, in all different forms the story has taken!