my favorite pics from the couple that got posted about the upcoming london Frankenstein exhibit
Loving the focus on greens and reds here 🥰
also I'm hiding this one behind the readmore since it's a full on front view of the Creature's face in the artic fit for those that don't want to be spoiled
Dude this fit is crazy
using this shot and that other one from back then you see the extent of the damage the dynamite from the trailer did to him oml
Victor Frankenstein syndrome aka you spent nights over nights crying and bleeding over this work and now that it's finally done you're just like "nvm. it's trash" and go to bed
Lies of P, Phantom of the Opera, and Beauty and the Beast
I have finally finished Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, and overall, there was a lot of chaos and confusion in it. At least, more chaos than I would have expected compared to other Victorian novels like Picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, and Masque of the Red Death; but perhaps it was the particular voices that Leroux used. Where Wilde was very romantic and beautiful or Shelley was very meticulous or Poe was phrenetic and depressed, Leroux is stupefied and fantastic. Either way, it was a fun read and very elucidating when it comes to Romeo.
At this point in time, I have only read the novel and will be watching the 2004 movie in a few weeks.
Note: This will contain major spoilers for Lies of P Overture. This isn't a post meant for discussion as much as I just wanted to write it down.
With The Adventures of Pinocchio and Frankenstein providing the basis of Lies of P, there is another story that supports one of the most beloved characters in the game: Romeo. Phantom of the Opera is another extremely popular Victorian story, and after someone pointed out the swinging blazing chandelier, I decided to read with the specific intention of understanding Romeo past Lampwick in Pinocchio.
But before I get into Romeo, I think it's interesting to take a look at Rosa Isabelle Street leading up to the Estella Opera House.
Trouble in Paradise
It's very obvious that Rosa Isabelle Street is Pleasure Island (aka Island of Toys aka Paradise Island) in Pinocchio. Gemini describes it as Krat's prestigious entertainment district with operas, operettas, and live music and shows being performed 24/7. There is a specific sign viewable from the overpass over the street that says "Now showing PARADISE".
The pièce de résistance of Rosa Isabelle Street is the Estella Opera House. Sponsored by Antonia Cerasani for the arts and with a statue dedicated to Geppetto's late wife Camille, the Estella Opera House is the stronghold of the King of Puppets.
The Estella Opera House is a microcosm of Rosa Isabelle Street with layers that go over and under the ground. Estella Opera House, specifically, is very contained, folding on itself almost like a puzzle. Below is a map done from memory, so it's more or less what the layout looks like:
Where the grey parts are basement level, the white parts are ground level, and the yellow parts are the second floor.
Estella Opera House was created similar to the Paris Opera House in Phantom of the Opera (as much as I could understand. Descriptions in this book felt very "You Had to Be There".) There are upper floors and rafters, and more importantly there is an intricate network of underground tunnels where the trap-door lovers move and open and close the trap doors of the opera house. Of course, the Estella Opera House is the latter half of Rosa Isabelle Street so it wouldn't be as intricate as five chambers all with their own branches, and each level takes no more than about two hours to fully explore.
Curiously, the Trinity Room is hidden in the basement level, but more on this later on. Directly above the area where the player can find the Trinity Room is the swinging flaming chandelier. Many people have called this direct reference to Phantom of the Opera, when M. Richard is killed when it fell on him. This damn thing can hurt you and make you have to go into the optional part of the Estella Opera House.
And it's very curious that an extremely important journal is in an optional part.
Collectibles & Side Quest
The collectibles in the Estella Opera House are laid out in a certain way. With the exception of the Trinity Room, equipment items are on the critical path (Technique Amulet, Exploding Pickaxe, various consumables/upgrade materials). The player can go look for Adelina Corday if they please, but her quest is optional. From her quest, P gets a better idea of who the King of Riddles might be as well as lore related to Phantom of the Opera coming up shortly. The items procured from her corpse are the Red Actress Locket to match Patricia's White Actress Locket and the record "Fascination".
For now, the contents of Notes from an Experiment will be skipped over. The thing to notice is that this particular document is hidden the east wing before the player can get a Krat Supply Box. If the player doesn't really care to explore the entire opera house, they won't get this document and a hint at Geppetto's relationship to Romeo.
Erik Divided, Other References to Christine & Raoul
Phantom of the Opera focuses on the relationship and events that transpire because of it of three characters: the talented Christine, the romantic Raoul, and the obsessive psychopath Erik. While it might be very easy to relate Christine to Carlo/P, Romeo is actually a mixture of Raoul and Erik...except not in the way one might think.
So, the easiest connection is that Carlo/P fits the role of Christine. He is the one sought after by Romeo and by Geppetto. P exemplifies proficiency on par with the Legendary Stalker, and Carlo was extremely skilled at piano under Antonia's tutelage. Where Christine bargains is fooled by Erik into thinking that he's the Angel of Music and trapped in an arrangement with him, P is being manipulated by Geppetto to kill Romeo.
Romeo is most definitely Raoul. A romantic with a mission to undo the chaos the Alchemists have wrought on Krat, Romeo wants to save Krat. It's when he realizes Geppetto's nefarious plan that he makes it a priority to tell P what his Creator is really doing. Raoul is the same--after learning that Christine is communicating with Erik, who has twisted her dreams of meeting the Angel of Music into a horrible lie, he stops at nothing to save her. That's why Romeo's damaged appearance in Phase 2 is so...interesting.
Romeo's face shatters similar to how Erik's mask hides his face (and I think I got this reference quicker than the chandelier prior to reading). Romeo is associated with red roses (but wait, what about Lea? Yes, Lea is surrounded by red roses, but she's associated with white roses upon completing Overture).
Erik's mask hides his truth--the disfigured part of his face. Romeo's face reveals what ultimately happened to him: being turned into a puppet of his own volition. Romeo's arms were severed and he was in the process of behind hung in the final battle of Overture; who could blame him for wanting to being turned into a puppet? Especially when of him and Carlo, he seemed to have a better opinion of Geppetto. But this is the only way that Romeo related to Erik, only in appearance.
Geppetto capitulates on Erik's obsessiveness. I've talked about Geppetto's disgust in other posts, but this time, I mean to underscore why he singles out the King of Puppets (and never calls Romeo by name, because Romeo is only a means to an end) and not the Alchemists or even Simon alone.
In Madman's Journal, Geppetto is consumed with grief to the point of insanity. He's lost Camille, and he becomes obsessed with getting Carlo back to fulfill her wish when she awakened in the maid puppet. By this point, Carlo is dead, and he comes to terms that he will need to desecrate Carlo's body to bring back the son he abandoned. In Notes from an Experiment, of which the location determines that the document is about Romeo, Geppetto and Romeo came to a Faustian deal. Though malicious compliance, Geppetto agrees to turn the tortured and dying Romeo into a puppet but with a catch. Awakening Romeo's memories of Carlo and pushing him to seek revenge against the Alchemists before forcing the Grand Covenant on Romeo and using him as the scapegoat for the Puppet Frenzy, Geppetto had perfectly orchestrated a plan that would kill multiple birds with a single stone. Romeo is set free with the desire to save Krat via the Puppet Frenzy, orders all his puppets to kill those infected with Petrification Disease (which accidentally includes carriers and asymptomatic people), and inadvertently becomes the Big Bad destroying Krat. Geppetto sits back and lets P go through all this torture knowing that at the very end of this arc, he will awaken as Carlo and be his good, perfect, unconditionally obedient son. Like Erik, Geppetto's obsession with setting all the pieces correct to bring a perfect Carlo led to the death of Romeo.
But if Geppetto is obsession, where is the murderer part?
Enter Arlecchino. This detail is straightforward because the base game reveals that he's a serial killer. But the specific detail that underlines Arlecchino taking aspects of Erik is that he is a torture-murderer. After all, Arlecchino is a mixture of a few characters: the Riddler (Batman), the Joker (Batman), Jack the Ripper (the real serial killer), Salvador Dalí (a real artist, La Memoria), and Erik (Phantom of the Opera).
The Persian tells the reader about Erik's past in India and the surrounding region. Erik had found himself in the company of a young sultana, and he taught her how to torture people. Normally, she killed criminals, but she tried the methods Erik had taught her on innocents every now and again for entertainment. The Persian specifies a particular method called the Punjab Lasso. This torture method goes like this: a noose is swung around like a lasso. The noose is thrown then quickly pulled so that it catches the person around the neck then is pulled so that the person is lifted off the ground to hang. While Arlecchino doesn't overtly perform every step, he did hang Romeo at some point:
Romeo's neck is severely bruised by the collar, indicative of hanging trauma. This injury would also prevent him from speaking and singing, another reason to become a puppet.
Erik fools Christine into thinking his the Angel of Music, which is revealed to be a metal angel. Arlecchino's replacing Romeo's arms with the metals frames of puppet arms and a metal mask reminiscent of the giant mech he will eventually command speak to the metal part. And the angel part?
Linked to the video of the fly-around
Which also kind of looks like an Emmy
This goes back to Romeo's only reference to Erik being his appearance, including the lie that Erik tells Christine. Additionally, Arlecchino is characterized by (red) candles and wax. Both Romeo and Arlecchino are associated with fire.
And to touch on the Trinity Room location, which Arlecchino grants the keys to, in the Estella Opera House: it's in the basement or in the "underneath" of the opera house. Erik lived and moved around as the Opera Ghost by way of the passageways beneath the opera house in his story.
The Alchemists also refer to a "metal angel" in Trinity Room at Krat Central Station, and as everything does, it goes back to Gnosticism and its roots in several ancient religious texts and esoterica. To summarize, the human Enoch becomes the metal angel Metatron, which is what happens to Romeo--the metamorphosis from human to puppet.
And as a final link of a character to Phantom of the Opera, Adelina is a mixture of references: Rose-red (from Snow-white and Rose-red), Irene Adler (from Sherlock Holmes), and Carlotta (Phantom of the Opera).
If Arlecchino is the psychopath in Erik, then naturally Adelina is Carlotta. Arlecchino tricks Adelina into taking refuge in the Estella Opera House after she's unable to rendezvous with the Owl Doctor (who is the reference to Sherlock Holmes). Adelina becomes infected with Petrification Disease in her throat. At first, it feels like a nice comeuppance for what she did to Patricia. Adelina, however, is ruined the same way Carlotta is ruined. Her throat is damaged, and she loses her ability to sing. This is also a callback to Romeo losing his ability to sing thanks to the hanging as well as underscoring that Romeo was a big fan of Adelina.
On Love, Beauty & the Beast, the Sandman, Frankenstein
I do plan to write another sizeable post on everything pointing to Romeo and Carlo's romantic and intimate relationship, but there are a few things to point out here.
Erik explains to the Persian before he leaves to go die that he was born with his deformity. His father was a mason, who was disgusted by his appearance. Without the love he craved from his family, he ran away and developed his twisted ideas of love and marriage. This was reminiscent of the Creature's plight in Frankenstein, from running away from the house of the Blind Old Man he thought he could trust to returning to Victor and demanding him to make him a bride just to have someone love him for who he was.
The Sandman is a short story from Tales of Hoffman that I have not read yet but in reading a post on the specific "Shall We Dance?" motion that Romeo has his mech do after his puppet show, I did a little digging. The Sandman is what the ballet "Coppelia" is based on, of a man falling in love with an automaton. Along Rosa Isabelle Street, P comes across Julian the Gentleman, the eccentric that fell in love with the puppet named Melody. After Romeo's death, we get the reverse of Polendina asking if a puppet could love a human. These two questions seemingly book-end the discussion of Romeo...
Except no! Rescuing Belle in the Grand Exhibition opens up the small Beauty and the Beast reference. Belle and Atkinson were lovers before being deployed to Krat. While Belle remained a "beauty", Atkinson succumbed to the Petrification Disease and turned into a Carcass. Even still, Atkinson held onto the love he felt in his memories with Belle.
This is a quiet refrain to both Raoul whose so deeply loved Christine for over a decade and would eventually elope with her and Romeo, whose gigantic mech hid the handsome puppet inside that loved Carlo more than anyone and hoped to remind P of that love. And he can finally express those deep feelings via King of Puppets' Message and in the acquisition of "Fascination" from the record player in the Estella Opera House.
Conclusion
Phantom of the Opera was a fun read, and now knowing that story makes Romeo's part in Lies of P feel so much more intentional and intricate. The final bosses in both the base game (Nameless Puppet/Geppetto) and Overture (Arlecchino) having the darker characteristics of Erik to parallel the innocence that Romeo/Raoul and P/Christine embody just feels poetic!
Made an OC for a new Pathfinder: WotR playthrough. For character background, I wanted an angsty lord with severe anger issues, cursed with a demon heart transplanted in his chest.
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