the first time I saw masquerade, madame giry handed me the rope right before learn to be lonely, and I was like “ok I will hold this prop and be a very reliable audience member” so when the phantom held out his hand for it I immediately handed it over bc like yes good this is a prop for actors I do not want it. And then I Realized what the next scene was going to be and audibly said “oh” which got scattered laughs from my fellow audience members. and that kids is the story of the time I became an accomplice to the murder of joseph buquet
I think one of the biggest failures/missing bits about the poto musical is that we don’t get to see christine trying to convince erik she loves him so that she’s allowed to fucking leave- I think the complexity of this playacting on top of her mixed feelings towards him as the Voice is such an interesting thing to analyze. like she says she thought she was a good enough person to look past his deformity but that she cant. “… and throughout that time I deceived him. My lies were as hideous as the monster that had inspired them; but they were the price I had to pay to regain my freedom.” and she still cant decide what she feels for him during her kidnapping. “… I swayed from extreme pity and enthusiasm to utter despair and horror…” she is reaching new emotional highs and lows every goddamn day and she has to do that for two weeks in a dark underground house with a man who she mostly knows as 1) a liar and b) ugly. maybe she tried to convince herself she really did love him or maybe she broke out in a cold sweat every time he reached for her. idk man idk there are just so many layers of facades built between erik and christine and its fun to talk about
#like how could she ever figure out her real feelings about erik without the looming threat of his despair? #christine daae is the most interesting character ever #wish more adaptations acknowledged that
↑ Say this louder!
In the situation, Erik definitely hasn't shown a pattern of caring what Christine genuinely thinks or feels as long as she behaves (with some chaotic exceptions: she was already going to Not interact with Raoul but Erik got oddly invasive about how like “if he were really only a friend then you wouldn't have avoided him” our girl just can't win! She would've just gotten scapegoated every time this guy felt jealous.) And then there's Fictional Character Gaston Leroux piecing together what happened from imagination, police interrogation records, and testimonies from anybody but Christine Daaé herself.
My interpretation of Christine as a character is that she's conflicted but genuine. For a parallel there's a bit in Northanger Abbey about how this one particular Austen leading-man reciprocated his affection for Catherine Morland because of the gratitude he felt that she was lavishing him with that sort of attention and affection first, and I think modern-day readers can side-eye how genuine that can be when it sounds transactional or even opportunistic.
Many people would benefit from being able to separate attraction from: being manipulated by pity, threatened by somebody else getting into a snit, or even their own hidden motives (like does Erik make Christine feel closer to her deceased father in more ways than Raoul could, maybe that unresolved grief is playing into Christine's admiration for this musical genius Erik shunned by a cruel world, like she knows the best violinist in Europe was stuck fiddling on street corners for passerby's spare change.)
But I think when Christine says her heart is divided between Erik and Raoul, I believe that it's genuine even if the situation is full of lies and powerplays (of which Raoul is not innocent “to think I'd give my name to a common girl” get thine neck in line at the guillotine, boy.) I think her monumental gesture of compassion and dedication at the end was genuine, despite that being the most we-don't-negotiate-with-terrorists moment to do that. Both early on that “I love your face because it's attached to a genius” and later on that “pitiful creature of darkness, what sort of life have you known?” are genuinely her, just with complexity and growth. Whether either or any of those guys deserved that genuine compassion (because they needed it, or whether they could recognize it, or what they did to this poor girl to get to that point) is a different debate probably better left to fandom clapback tussles.
I’ve been thinking about this response for days and it has really made me consider the ways in which my personal life experience has heavily influenced the way i see Christine’s characterization. I have several times in my life had either “secret admirers” or people who wanted to move our relationship from friendship to romance, where i did not reciprocate, and it has often left me feeling frustrated and worried that i somehow led them on, so that is mostly how i conceptualize christine’s feelings towards erik. But i think your interpretation also makes a lot of sense in ways I’ve never considered, and i also see their relationship as one that cant really be defined by existing labels. so thank you for your thoughtful commentary :)
What are some of the craziest hidden plot theories?
I’m afraid I’m not the best source of Hidden Plot info! I was around vaguely at the time, but I didn’t get as into reading all of that as some folks did, and while I am always tickled by it, I don’t have a lot of it archived or anything.
I bet someone else around here might have some suggestions, though…
I think a lot of it was on the PGN.net (Phantomgerry.net) forum which is probably long gone. Unless it’s archived somewhere else, I don’t know where to find it these days. But holy crap…I remember getting into many a heated debate with those people. I think the scariest thing was that you couldn’t even agree to disagree. Either you believed the Hidden Plot was real or you weren’t welcome.
The Hidden Plot crew have set up a new home at PhantomLND.net! The entire theory can be read there—along with expansions for LND and the RAH, among other things.
(My personal favourite bizarre Hidden Plot theory is that Raoul is symbolic of shoes.)
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