Raoul's unpopularity

[betweensunandmoon]

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

Comments

[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something to do with the aging of the cohort of teenage girls who were captivated by the 2004 movie; either they are no longer active in fandom, or they're more mature.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".