I am curious… why not? Let’s examine Christine in the novel:
“Meanwhile, the father died; and, suddenly, [Christine] seemed to have lost, with him, her voice, her soul and her genius. She retained just, but only just, enough of this to enter the CONSERVATOIRE, where she did not distinguish herself at all, attending the classes without enthusiasm and taking a prize only to please old Mamma Valerius, with whom she continued to live.“
So from the beginning, we know that Christine is a character who has suffered and continues to suffer from deep grief due to the loss of her father, to the point where it’s affected her singing. Despite this, she powers on, even going on to conservatory school and getting a position in the opera. After her debut as Margarita, Raoul listens in on her dressing room and hears the Phantom, but upon confronting her, we get these rather famous lines from her:
“I am mistress of my own actions, M. de Chagny: you have no right to control them, and I will beg you to desist henceforth. As to what I have done during the last fortnight, there is only one man in the world who has the right to demand an account of me: my husband! Well, I have no husband and I never mean to marry!“
Here, the readers also realize that this is not a passive wallflower of a girl, nor is she sitting around pining for a man. Yes, she does fall in love with Raoul later and run off with him, but that is after he’s gone through a bit of character growth himself (like stopped eavesdropping so much on her). More importantly, we realize that Christine deeply values her own freedom and agency; in fact, there are a couple of other lines in the book that imply that one thing she fears about the Phantom is that he can entrance her into losing control over parts of herself, such as her voice, which she says almost frightens herself when she sings.
“I felt sure that I had fallen into the hands of a madman.I ran round my little apartment, looking for a way of escape which I could not find. I upbraided myself for my absurd superstition, which had caused me to fall into the trap. I felt inclined to laugh and to cry at the game time. This was the state of mind in which Erik found me… I overwhelmed him with abuse and called upon him to take off his mask, if it covered the face of an honest man. He replied serenely, `You shall never see Erik’s face.’… I was very angry, slammed the door in his face and went to the bath-room….“
Christine’s first reaction to being kidnapped is another good example: there’s little cowering or (as sometimes seems prevalent in FanFiction) swooning over the awesome Phantom and his cool stuff. Christine immediately tries to get out; moreover, she realizes that it was her own naivete that led her to this (”my absurd superstition”); this can imply some sort of growth on her end, where she matures and puts aside some of her more childlike beliefs (one aspect that is more obvious in the musical than in the book). She even goes so far as to try and attack the Phantom, later attempting to tear off the mask.
“`Erik,’ I cried, `show me your face without fear! I swear that you are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again I shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the splendor of your genius!’ Then Erik turned round, for he believed me, and I also had faith in myself. He fell at my feet, with words of love… with words of love in his dead mouth…and the music had ceased… He kissed the hem of my dress and did not see that I closed my eyes. What more can I tell you, dear? You now know the tragedy. It went on for a fortnight–a fortnight during which I lied to him. My lies were as hideous as the monster who inspired them; but they were the price of my liberty. I burned his mask; and I managed so well that, even when he was not singing, he tried to catch my eye, like a dog sitting by its master.”
I think it is here that we see one of the defining traits of Christine: her great compassion, even with everything thrown against her. Despite her kidnapping and great fear of the Phantom, she still manages to feel empathy for the Phantom. Unlike in the musical, she actually burns his mask, and stays with him for two weeks; it is stated later that she even returns to him because of this sympathy. I’ve seen people who will yell “Stockholm Syndrome!” at her, but I don’t see it as such. Christine knows she should get away and wants to, and later makes plans with Raoul to do so. What it reminds me of, actually, was this series of tweets on the new Cinderella movie. Christine is scared, is horrified; you can make a very good argument that she is emotionally and psychologically (and probably even physically) abused, but she does not let that change her or let it hate her abuser; she tries to remain kind and sympathetic to him throughout. That takes an extraordinary amount of strength. And you know what? It works:
I tell you I kissed her just like that, on her forehead…and she did not draw back her forehead from my lips!…Oh, she is a good girl!…As to her being dead, I don’t think so; but it has nothing to do with me….No, no, she is not dead! And no one shall touch a hair of her head! She is a good, honest girl, and she saved your life, daroga, at a moment when I would not have given twopence for your Persian skin.
In the end, Christine chooses to stay with the Phantom to save the opera house and the two silly men she spends an entire chapter trying to save Raoul, and the Persian. Christine then kisses the Phantom on the forehead, which is so overpowering to the him that he releases her; by being compassionate, she breaks through to the Phantom, she helps to humanize him and to redeem himself. And by doing so, she manages to save herself, Raoul, the Persian, and the entire opera house. Honestly, I think that’s pretty badass.
So basically, we have a character here that has already overcome some powerful obstacles in the past, wants to maintain her own freedom of will, actively tried to fight against her stalker, yet remained her kind, compassionate self to the end, and used this aspect of her character to save herself, without the help of anyone else, and saved her own boyfriend and a lot of other people too. No, she did not kick butt in a physical sense, but since when is that needed to be a “strong female character”? Christine in the book is a character in her own right, with her own strengths and flaws, and in the end does more than any of the other characters to save them all. I think that makes her a pretty strong female character!
