@sanzenxsekai said: Nobunaga arrives, and suddenly holds up one of her chocolate skulls for the Phantom. "Heya, singing boy! I thought I'd offer you one of my chocolate skulls for Valentines today. I mean, if you'd like to have one. Here, please feel free to take it. I hope you like it."
“Hmm?” The Phantom’s head turned ever so slightly towards Nobunaga, his visible eye narrowing as though he could discern her reasons for approaching such a being as him.
When the chocolate skull was held up, the eye that had narrowed suddenly widened, and as she spoke it was taken from her and subjected to the intent gaze of the Phantom. Nobunaga’s words became but vague noise as he turned the gift around, examining every inch and edge of the skull. It... it was a well-made skull... even if it was a chocolate one. But what he could do with...?
Ah. Ahhhhhh yes he could put it--yes he could! And as it slowly melted it would provide an eerier and eerier image! What a wondrous, morbid gift it was! What a perfect image of chocolate-covered death for a man such as him! It could have improved, perhaps, with spots of red to make the slow dissolution of the skull more frightening but--!
In his thoughtful state, the Phantom had turned and drifted away from his gift-giver, and it was only the realization that he had yet to truly acknowledge the warlord that made him turn back towards Nobunaga, the skull still cradled in his hands.
“... This suits me admirably well. Yes. For the time it will last me it will prove suitably disturbing decor.” Because that was why it was given to him. There was no other reason. There was no special occasion to prompt this. “I believe I will very much enjoy it, mademoiselle.”
“But you’re crying! You’re afraid of me! And yet, deep down, I am not a bad man. Love me and you’ll see! To be good, all I ever needed was to be loved for myself. If you loved me, I would be as gentle as a lamb, and you could do with me as you pleased.” ( page 235 )
As to be expected from a novel that many have described as a kind of Beauty and the Beast story, and from one of literature’s big time obsessives, the Phantom of the Opera has a lot to do with love. Namely, the very dark, very obsessive love Phantom/Erik has for Christine Daae. But aside from his, however badly he may go about expressing it, genuine love for Christine, there’s another, very important aspect of love for Phantom.
Namely that he childishly believes that if he is merely loved than his sins shall be absolved, his flaws wiped away, and he shall become like an ordinary human.
Aside from the quote above, Phantom also talks to the Persian about how he has become a changed man since he became “loved for himself” (in reference to Christine and how he, at the time, believed she loved him despite his deformity) and there is also, of course, how he describes his marriage to Christine:
One of the things mentioned when Phantom is describing the kind of isolated, loveless life he lived was, well, just how loveless it was.
“Oh, how good it is, Daroga, to kiss someone! You would not understand! My own poor, unhappy mother, Daroga, never let me kiss her--she recoiled from me and made me cover my face--nor did any other woman!” ( page 272 )
It needs to be understood that prior to the events surrounding the ending of the Phantom of the Opera, Phantom had never experienced any real form of affection. There was the Persian’s rescuing him from death, but aside from that? Nothing. He never truly experienced a mother’s love, a father’s love, a genuine friendship (because despite the Persian being the closest thing he has to a friend, near the end he does treat him awfully), and least of all a fulfilling romantic relationship. So, with zero personal knowledge of how love is, certain ideas about it took root in Phantom’s head.
Phantom mentions repeatedly when he’s trying to convince Christine to marry him (or else he blows up the opera house) that if she just loved him, he would be a good man. And that’s all he needs for his numerous character flaws to vanish and for him to become “good.” Except this entire idea is completely childish and wrong. Love may fix other Beasts and their hideousness, both inside and out, but love is not what takes even a step towards making Phantom a better man in this story.
But love isn’t just the magical balm to cure him of his evil, love is also the gateway to living the ordinary life Phantom always dreamed of living:
“I just can’t go on living like this, buried like a mole under the ground! Don Juan triomphant is finally finished and now I want to lead a normal life. I want to have a wife like any normal man and take her out on Sundays. I have made a new mask that makes me inconspicuous. [...] You will be the happiest of women. We shall sing for ourselves and no one else, in rapturous bliss!” ( page 235 )
His thinking is very simple. He loves Christine. Ordinary men without deformities such as his also love and then take these people they love as a spouse. They do (what he believes to be) typical activities for a married couple. They walk on Sundays, the husband amuses and makes his wife happy (as Phantom desperately offers, almost in apology for wanting Christine wed to a corpse that could not satisfy her in any other way other than music and his tricks), and all is well and normal. If he loves, and is loved in return, then he shall be a step closer to living a normal life instead of the strange, freakish life he led.
Does this belief carry over after his death? Most likely. However it’s possible due to how his wondrous life and horrifying nature was overemphasized with how people saw him, he just chases after the idea of making whoever he believes Christine is his spouse, without understanding why that’s so very important (other than him taking the love he had for the actual Christine and temporarily applying it to them) to becoming normal.
There’s then how Phantom reacts to even the slightest morsel of love and affection. When Christine manages to trick him into thinking she’s accepted him, deformity and all, in her first kidnapping:
“Then he turned round, for he believed me, and I too, alas, had faith in myself. He raised his skeletal hands to the heavens in a gesture of thanks and fell at my feet, with words of love... words of love in his dead mouth. The music had stopped. He kissed the hem of my dress and did not notice that my eyes were closed.” ( pages 149-150 )
And then when he manages to give Christine a very innocent kiss on the forehead and the two cry together:
“Listen, Daroga, listen to me! While I lay at her feet, I heard her say, ‘Poor, poor unhappy Erik!’ and she took my hand! From then on, I was ready to die for her, like a faithful hound, Daroga! [...] I replied that, where she was concerned, I was merely a faithful hound, ready to die for her. She could marry the young man whenever she pleased, because she had granted me her tears!” ( page 272-273 )
Due to how absolutely deprived Phantom has been his entire life, the most innocent of affectionate gestures become grand and meaningful and life-changing. When moments before, Phantom was wanting to keep Christine with him in his simulation of a normal life forever, he finds himself moved and willing to let her go and be with Raoul.
Despite this, however, I say it was not love that had started to change Phantom for the better. He could have received that affectionate gesture and still kept Christine forever. It was the fact that he chose to let her be free (though with the request to come back when he is about to die) and go marry the man she loved rather than carry out his own selfish desires that put him on the path to become a better man.
Of course, as a Servant, this growth has become completely reversed. He may remember that forehead kiss, he may remember letting Christine go, but his selfishness and childish has returned full-force because that’s what people remember about him. Even if he’s still a faithful hound to whoever Christine may be at the moment, he is also still the insanely jealous and possessive man that almost killed Raoul and the Persian, and cared not about the deaths he caused of others if they were not important to him.
Anyone else may have given him pity. They may have left him alone, not wishing to overstep, but that was impossible for the Berserker to do. While she allowed him the time to explain, her expression never once wavered. ❝ …I do not understand. You say that you are not healthy, and yet you try to convince me that treatment is unnecessary? You would deny it? ❞
If he wished to scare her away, or make her back down, his statements only served to fuel the urge to cure him. ❝ You speak and speak and speak. I do not care what others think of you. They would fear you only because they do not understand you are injured. Is there not one part of you that wishes to be cured? Are you content with such a life? ❞
“... Ahhhhh, that is my other affliction, is it not? I am doomed to eternally talk in circles and say nothing. Perhaps I can get my feelings across one last time.” The hand that had been stroking his mask moved and formed a fist, from which the Phantom raised one finger.
“I am... sick. I cannot be cured by you. The means to relieve me of this loathsome burden is beyond you. The only one who can... she is...” The Phantom blinked away the sudden far-away look. Another finger came up. “I can never be content! Yet I still must exist in this state.” And then another. “I believe only I know why I am feared and loathed, mademoiselle! If only it were a mere misunderstanding! Ahhhh, is the leper pitied or is the leper locked away? Is the corpse allowed to walk among the living or is he consigned to the grave?”
A long breath came from the Phantom as the mad spark in his eyes died, and was replaced with dull anger.
“Shall you leave the incurable alone now? It is no good to chase after something unchangeable...”
@gotllieb asked: ❛ Blood!…Blood!… That’s a good thing! ❜
the phantom of the opera (novel). — accepting.
Blood, blood, blood, blood. Ah. He had lived a life soaked in blood, hadn’t he? There had been red spilled for whatever ruler wished to be amused by him, red spilled by those that intruded where they shouldn’t have, red spilled so that he and his beloved Songstress could be together forever. His life was nothing but freakish horror and endless pools of crimson.
“A good thing...” the Phantom echoed. A soft, musical hum escaped him, and his rusty claws clicked. “Ahhhh your entire class prides itself on violence. Should I be surprised that such a thing excites you...?” Red dripped from him, and the dreamy look vanished from his face. “I do hope this show was to your taste, monsieur. I do hope it was proof of my anger. I am very good at making this entertaining!”
BOOK STARTERS VOL.27 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA GASTON LEROUX
❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜
❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜
❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜
❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜
❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜
❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜
❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜
❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜
❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? — Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜
❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜
❛ Blood!…Blood!… That’s a good thing! ❜
❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜
❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜
❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜
❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That’s how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜
❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜
❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜
❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜
❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜
❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜
❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜
❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜
❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜
❛ If I don’t save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜
❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜
❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜
❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜
❛ You must never ask me that. ❜
❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜
❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜
His words simply cause her expression to sour, eyes narrowing as she stares at the subject before her. ❝ You know you are sick, yet you deny treatment? You would call yourself a corpse? You are not dead. A dead man does not have the freedom to worry. He does not have the freedom to talk back to nurses. ❞ A gloved finger points at the mask upon the Assassin’s face. ❝ Is this not a way to soothe your pain? And yet, you would label yourself dead. ❞
“Ah-ah! Living Corpse! Yes, that’s what I was called! Those without my curse were usually amused by how I walked and talked despite having rotted! You cannot hope to cure my affliction, mental or otherwise. The cure is unavailable.”
Automatically, the Phantom tensed at the finger pointed at his mask, and the words that followed caused his expression to darken even further.
“Soothe. Soothe.” A short, harsh, bark of a laugh came from the Phantom. “I find no comfort in the mask. I still know what terrible defection it hides. It is there for the protection of others!” A hand came up to stroke the mask as he spoke. “All who gaze upon my face know horror... it prevents others from being pained and horrified. I cannot join the ranks of those that can imagine something gentle is underneath it.”
“... Valentine’s... that day is approaching. Yes, the day those fortunate enough to carelessly give away affection do just that. How very fortunate. How very lucky. There is no poison to ruin that day. No blemish to sicken affection. How very lucky.”
The Phantom may or may not simply lock himself away on that particular holiday. He didn’t even truly care about the chocolates and the exchanging of gifts going on with those fortunate ones.
❝ Cannot be fixed? Do not give me excuses. If need be I shall keep trying and trying and trying. I cannot bring those who have passed back, but that will not stop me. One day I shall cure even death, so none shall suffer anymore. However it appears you require necessary treatment — your mind and soul are sick. ❞
“My mind and soul...? Sick...? You are very good at stating the obvious immutable facts, mademoiselle! You can offer nothing to treat this! You cannot cure a corpse!” The Phantom’s breathes came out in quick, sharp bursts and his visible eye glinted. “You know nothing of my sickness, perhaps you should treat those with faces that did not prematurely rot!”
“a man hiding behind his mask, how cowardice can it get?” defences raising up, mouth curving down in displeasure. to insult her ways of work like this, it’s clear her dislike towards this man has settled and grown further the more he talks. “you speak so proudly as if you achieved many more, to have a vast array of experience under your belt.” eyes narrow, though oddly curious still. “what do you believe they had deserved, if not my poison?”
Ah. Did the Sultan speak like this? Did the Shah’s distrust stem not just from the mind that contained every secret to his trap-laden palace, but the mask hiding hideousness? He cannot remember. It doesn’t matter anyway, this is here and now, and now the Phantom can’t help but frown and have his visible eye narrow.
“... You are asking about my experience with atrocities, mademoiselle? Do you wish for a list of every misdeed that this gargoyle has done? Half of it was done just to please a ruler. I thought those with royal power would always prefer more exacting and horrible... torture. Utterly depraved torture performed by the corpse that makes them laugh. Is poison not a more impersonal death?”
“A poisoner...? Surely a ruler should have more depraved means of destroying their enemies!” Even if the Phantom was the reason those depraved means were so readily accessible for certain rulers.
romaincrisis
dededos
germansingergirl
janainaart
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
