Inspector Javert

Javert is the main antagonist of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and the subsequent musical and film adaptations, even including an anime. He is a French police inspector who devotes himself completely to the law and follows it blindly. He was born in prison to vagabond parents and this experience caused him to develop an extremely black and white view of the world centered around the law. Like the French law that he enforces, Javert is cruel, unforgiving and merciless.

Javert spends the book pursuing the protagonist, Jean Valijean, who had previously spent nineteen years in prison under Javert's just for stealing bread out of desperation for his family (the initial sentence was five years, but it was extended because he tried to escape). After finally being released, Valijean carelessly steals a silver coin from a bishop out of habit, and Javert starts to tenaciously pursue him for an additional nineteen years. In the process of fleeing from Javert, Valijean becomes a great altruistic man who touches upon many lives, such as being the mayor of a town.

Towards the end of the book, Valijean saves Javert's life, and the inspector cannot comprehend how the person he had been out to get for so many years could possibly show him mercy. He also finds himself unable to decide whether to arrest him now, and he is thus at a complete loss and cannot reconcile with himself. As a result Javert commits suicide by jumping into a river.

"Inspector Javert" is also the name of a TV Tropes trope that is about characters similar to Javert; that is, misguided law enforcers who are against the protagonists.