To those of you interested, I invite you to join me down a rabbit hole of my own making. You see, it all started when I made the following joke about Leroux!Erik to my boyfriend, who is the absolute love of my life and is also the biggest cutie on this website:
(Side note: I was driving at the time and I had to use Siri to make the messages, so forgive the typos.)
My dear followers, what started as an innocent joke and off-handed observation turned into a conspiracy that- as far as I’ve seen- no one else has brought up yet. In the joke, I made mention about Erik being a parallel of Hades, specifically in relation to the myth of Hades and Persephone. But the parallel makes sense with everything that happened in the story and numerous fanfic writers have made the parallel in their stories.
But as I was driving home and listening to Hadestown, it got me thinking: while Erik being the parallel for Hades makes sense, wouldn’t he be a better parallel for Orpheus? Both characters are well known for having impressive (borderline supernatural) musical gifts that are used to draw others in, and both characters fall in love very easily in their respective stories. But the more I thought about it…the more Erik’s story began to make sense. So here’s the theory: what if…Erik is a reincarnated version of Orpheus that was physically deformed by the original Orpheus’ journey into The Underworld and has been so effected by his loneliness (since the OG Orpheus was never able to bring back Eurydice) that he crumpled under the mental strain?
• Both Orpheus and Leroux!Erik are known for singing so beautifully that it can make others weep just by hearing it.
• Both Orpheus and Leroux!Erik fall in love very quickly, straight up ‘love at first sight’ for both cases.
• Leroux!Erik is obsessed with making Christine his ‘living wife’, and is terrified that she’d drop dead upon him kissing her. This would make sense if he was a reincarnated Orpheus since he lost Eurydice (his wife) on their wedding day.
• Outside of his deformity, the reason behind Erik’s immense doubt in Christine could be because Orpheus doubted Eurydice was behind him, and he would’ve never learned his lesson.
• Erik hides upon the roof while Christine confesses to Raoul all that’s happened to her. Where did he hide? And what instrument is Orpheus known for playing better than his own father? And what’s the very chapter called? Apollo’s Lyre.
• This one is, I admit, a bit of a stretch since it’s not a consistent part of the myth, but Orpheus is the son of one of Apollo’s Muses. And in some versions, it’s described that she abandons him since she’s a Muse. And does Erik’s mother do to him? Abandons him by selling him.
I feel like I’m unraveling a major conspiracy, like so many things about Erik’s character line up with him possibly being a parallel to Orpheus or even him being another version of the character. Maybe you see it, maybe you don’t; just thought y’all would want to witness me collapse like a dumpster fire as I attempt to put pieces of a theory that literally no one asked for together.
