[ SECRET POST #5680 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5680 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 26 secrets from Secret Submission Post #813.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Favorite Redemption arcs

[(Anonymous)]

Erik --{-(@

Re: Favorite Redemption arcs

[(Anonymous)]

Lensherr?

I mean, I'm definitely team "Magneto was right", but what redemption arc are you referring to?

Re: Favorite Redemption arcs

[(Anonymous)]

I'm guessing Phantom of the Opera. I know absolutely nothing about Phantom fandom, but I got a kick out of that tell-tale emoji rose.

I don't remember him having a redemption arc in the book? Have I just forgotten it, or is this one of those things where fandom and/or film adaptations take the character and run with him?

Re: Favorite Redemption arcs

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

It does make more sense!

No, no redemption arc as far as I remember. Not even in Love Never Dies in which he is less of a dick than Raoul, which doesn't mean much.

Re: Favorite Redemption arcs

[(Anonymous)]

Not the comment OP, but as a massive Phantom fan from way back, there's no redemption arc to speak of, because imo that requires more time. He's not quite at redemption via death, but in the book he dies without doing much of anything to atone for his actions, and in the musical he vanishes after doing the bare minimum of not forcing his kidnapped student to marry him by strangling her boyfriend and instead letting them both go.

In the book he spent some time as an architect, construction contractor, stage magician, musician, inventor, and revolutionary (the backstory is barebones, tacked on in an epilogue, and maybe two pages long) but mostly as a professional arena fighter who killed via breaking necks and strangulation, torturer, and killer before retiring to a life of squatting in the opera house he helped build and extorting its managers via blackmail. He kills (or lets cook in a torture chamber that opens off his hidden cellar house for reasons) a stagehand who sees his deformed face and finds an entrance to his house.

Then he falls in lust with and lies to a young singer, Christine, by saying he was an angel sent by her deceased father to teach her before kidnapping her and threatening her to make sure she returned to him. He sabotages a rival diva's voice and career and yes, drops a chandelier on the audience.

He stalks her outside the Opera and eventually kidnaps her again. He tries to cook and then drown his only sort of friend (who was his minder back when he tortured people to death to entertain a noble audience) alongside Christine's boyfriend Raoul when they try to rescue her.

He threatens to blow up the Opera house audience and all if Christine won't marry him. At some point in there he may or may not have drowned Raoul's older brother who tried to rescue him.

Then she agrees to marry him, lets him kiss her on the forehead, she kisses him on the forehead, he starts crying, she starts crying and takes his hand, and he goes and fishes his friend and Raoul out of a flooded cellar.

Then presumably turns them upside down and whacks them on their backs until they cough the water out, dumps his friend on his friend's front stoop, rings the doorbell for his friend's servant to come get him, gives Christine a ring and makes her promise to return it when he dies, and lets them go.

A few weeks later, he dies, having returned some of the money he stole in the meantime.

The ALW musical ditches his friend, Raoul's brother, the torture chamber, and the threat to blow up the opera, keeps the extortion, murder, lies, and kidnapping, and dials up the romance by having Christine kiss him on the lips twice, with a common staging that the first kiss was to show she agreed to marry him but the second was, basically, "Oh. Oh shit I liked kissing him."

Then he stops strangling Raoul and tells them to run for it before the obligatory torch and pitchfork mob (an invention of the musical) shows up to kill him, but he stage magics himself offstage before they can try.

So more romantic than the book, and maybe less to forgive overall since it's not clear if musical Erik (who is never named) was ever a professional torturer. But he also does less to make up for what he did do. So idk.

The epilogue to the book explicitly lays out that if it weren't for his horrific deformity and the way he was treated by the world, he would've been a great man and good person. From memory the quote is "he had a heart that could've held the empire of the world, but in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Surely we must pity the opera ghost." But it's the epitome of "cool motive, still murder."

There is a horrendous ALW musical sequel in which it's clear he's not dead and was in no way redeemed from his life of being a total shithead. So I like the book and first ALW musical about equally and pretend the sequel (which does Christine's friend Meg, and also Raoul, zero favors) doesn't exist.

Re: Favorite Redemption arcs

[(Anonymous)]

I know Love Never Dies is pretty bad (I was one of the first people to see it in London and I couldn't believe my eyes) but you have at least to admit that the music is pretty good, right?

Re: Favorite Redemption arcs

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT--No, actually. Maybe as instrumental tracks, but the lyrics are shit.