Valjean

Was Neel supposed to be a sort of Jean Valjean pastiche? He's a criminal who has a dormant good heart, is very strong, uses said strength to save someone's life, and becomes almost saintly in the end. Valjean never killed anyone, of course, but he is supposed to have a soul hardened into brutality after 19 years in the bagne, almost irredeemable, and nearly capable of murder. Hugo was even mentioned; I know in the context of the film, the governor couldn't possibly have been alluding to anything in Les Misérables, since it wasn't published yet--rather, he was probably referring to Hugo's anti-death penalty ideas when he told the captain "Hugo, whose ideas you probably admire..."--but still, I feel as though the Victor Hugo namedrop might have been an oblique way of making us think of Valjean. What do you think?