Raoul's unpopularity

[betweensunandmoon]

Would Raoul be nearly as unpopular with the fandom if he hadn't ended up with Christine?

Comments

[erimia]

He probably would be less disliked, though I can be so sure of even this. It kinda reminds me of the nurse Chapel who used to be severely disliked in the old Star Trek TOS fandom for pining after fandom's darling Spock even though her feelings were purely one-sided. LND sorta confirms your suggestion, at least in a "receiving less negativity" way, since Raoul "doesn't end up" with Christine and gets less negativity from the fans than POTO Raoul despite being much more a dick, but 1) LND plot is such a trainwreck I'm sure for many fans it's hard to treat seriously any characters from there 2) Raoul hate have become less common around the times the sequel was made (not sure if these two things are related or no) and now people are rather just uninterested in him. :( Would he be more popular in a "having more fans, being more interesting for the fandom" way? Well perhaps more fans would feel sorry for him, this tends to contribute to popularity. But it also would depend on why exactly he didn't up with Christine.

[igenlode]

I think one reason why LND Raoul may get less negativity from the fans than POTO Raoul (does he? I can only judge by the content of the stories in the fanfiction.net archive, and they certainly used to feature a fair amount of Evil Raoul tries to Steal Gustave from his loving True Family) is that the author there is so very evidently out to get him. POTO-Raoul gets described as smug, 'entitled' and taking Christine for granted; in Love Never Dies, Raoul has become the insecure underdog, thus automatically acquiring a measure of audience sympathy.

I think Raoul-hate wearing off may have something to do with the aging of the cohort of teenage girls who were captivated by the 2004 movie; either they are no longer active in fandom, or they're more mature. They may still wish that Christine could have returned the Phantom's affections (or believe firmly that she did), but they're less likely to react by writing long rants about killing Raoul with his favourite hair products, which, frankly, start to sound a bit silly once you're over thirty...

[erimia]

Eh, my impression was that the fandoms in general have matured in 2010s, at least in such areas as ship or character bashing. I can speak mostly for Tumblr/Discord fandom, but there are more than enough teenage fans there who at least try not to act stupid, so instead of hair products jokes it's more like "Raoul is just boring/vanilla/not complex and yes, "not tragic" and "there is no conflict in R/C relationship to make them interesting".

[igenlode]

I suspect the fans would be be even less interested (assuming that you mean that Raoul would simply act as the character out of Christine's past who briefly wins her interest before she realises whom she really loves). At the moment they at least have to get rid of him before being able to promote E/C scenarios (unless, of course, they just write in the popular AU where Christine and the Phantom are fluffily cohabiting under the Opera and Raoul doesn't figure in the story at all).

I think a lot of the hate was due to Raoul's status as an obstacle ("how dare such an unworthy being steal Christine?"); if he were merely a temporary ineffectual diversion, he would probably get the same treatment as Carlotta, i.e. reflex jibes on auto-pilot but generally left in the background. He isn't a major character in the story -- the only two plot-significant scenes he gets are kissing Christine on the roof and having his bright idea about 'trapping' the Phantom (and that one had to be introduced to give the character some vestige of a function in the stage version). So it's not really surprising that most fans don't particularly consider his perspective one way or the other.