The whole "Raoul doesn't understand/hates music" theme in fanfiction (and LND) doesn't make a lot of sense. In the original novel, Raoul is explicitly described as responding to music on an artistic level -- "il était poète et aimait la musique dans ce qu'elle a de plus ailé" -- and in fact he is twice caught up in the same response to Erik's music as Christine, its intended target: once in the graveyard and once in her dressing-room during the masquerade. (Erik very nearly lures Raoul in unintentionally through the mirror along with Christine, which would have been highly awkward for all concerned!) Indeed, they initially meet as children *not* because of her red scarf, but because the young Raoul was so attracted by Christine's singing that he insisted on dragging his governess on a long detour because he couldn't tear himself away :-p And when he is an adult, it is of course the sound of her Erik-inspired singing -- when she finally reveals in public what she can do -- that causes him to admit to himself that he loves her, after trying to suppress it because he knows they won't be allowed to marry.
That's canon for the musical version as well: "He was bound to love you/When he heard you sing" -- even the Phantom admits it :-D
So the idea that Christine's music is a horrible noise that makes Raoul's head hurt, and that he tries to sabotage it is... weird. You could justify it by all sorts of character development, e.g. Raoul now associates music with the traumatic events at the Opera, or Raoul feels that Christine's voice is the Phantom speaking through her, but -- as with most things Raoul-related in LND -- no attempt at explanation is even made. It's just generic "we need to make Raoul look like a bad choice in order to make adultery with the Phantom look even vaguely appealing".
The reason for "why tell this story at all" appears to be "in order to make the Phantom into a tragic romantic hero" (or "so that the author can have his cake and eat it": he can have the Phantom 'win' Christine without having to deal with the consequences). The idea is to make people sorry for the Phantom, while using minor characters like Raoul and Meg whom nobody much cares about in the original as a mechanism to achieve this aim.
I'm not sure I can call to mind many 'whump' fics where authors want Raoul to suffer beautifully (a phrase that always makes me think of Ivor Novello, whose screen roles specialised in it!) I can think of just one that involved a third party kidnapping and torturing Raoul over many chapters for some kind of complicated dynastic reasons, but as it's not in my favourites I can't trace it ;-)
(I suppose you could categorise a couple of mine under that heading...)
So far as I remember, Gaston Leroux wasn't born wealthy; he inherited a large sum as a young man and spent it all very quickly!
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In the original novel, Raoul is explicitly described as responding to music on an artistic level -- "il était poète et aimait la musique dans ce qu'elle a de plus ailé" -- and in fact he is twice caught up in the same response to Erik's music as Christine, its intended target: once in the graveyard and once in her dressing-room during the masquerade. (Erik very nearly lures Raoul in unintentionally through the mirror along with Christine, which would have been highly awkward for all concerned!)
Indeed, they initially meet as children *not* because of her red scarf, but because the young Raoul was so attracted by Christine's singing that he insisted on dragging his governess on a long detour because he couldn't tear himself away :-p
And when he is an adult, it is of course the sound of her Erik-inspired singing -- when she finally reveals in public what she can do -- that causes him to admit to himself that he loves her, after trying to suppress it because he knows they won't be allowed to marry.
That's canon for the musical version as well: "He was bound to love you/When he heard you sing" -- even the Phantom admits it :-D
So the idea that Christine's music is a horrible noise that makes Raoul's head hurt, and that he tries to sabotage it is... weird.
You could justify it by all sorts of character development, e.g. Raoul now associates music with the traumatic events at the Opera, or Raoul feels that Christine's voice is the Phantom speaking through her, but -- as with most things Raoul-related in LND -- no attempt at explanation is even made. It's just generic "we need to make Raoul look like a bad choice in order to make adultery with the Phantom look even vaguely appealing".
The reason for "why tell this story at all" appears to be "in order to make the Phantom into a tragic romantic hero" (or "so that the author can have his cake and eat it": he can have the Phantom 'win' Christine without having to deal with the consequences). The idea is to make people sorry for the Phantom, while using minor characters like Raoul and Meg whom nobody much cares about in the original as a mechanism to achieve this aim.
I'm not sure I can call to mind many 'whump' fics where authors want Raoul to suffer beautifully (a phrase that always makes me think of Ivor Novello, whose screen roles specialised in it!)
I can think of just one that involved a third party kidnapping and torturing Raoul over many chapters for some kind of complicated dynastic reasons, but as it's not in my favourites I can't trace it ;-)
(I suppose you could categorise a couple of mine under that heading...)
So far as I remember, Gaston Leroux wasn't born wealthy; he inherited a large sum as a young man and spent it all very quickly!