Underdressed Christine
Jul. 15th, 2018 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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vicomte_de_chagnyIt's just occurred to me that Raoul's response to finding Christine in her dressing-room wearing little more than a dressing-gown over her underwear is "you need to get changed if we're going out"; the Phantom's response in the same situation is "come to me" :-p
I feel that this tells us something about the amount of respect they have for her... although the fandom would probably say that it shows who is the 'real' man!
I feel that this tells us something about the amount of respect they have for her... although the fandom would probably say that it shows who is the 'real' man!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-15 11:48 am (UTC)On the topic of respect, it's interesting to note that Raoul's duet with Christine in the musical is about love, whereas the Phantom's two duets with her are respectively about control and lust. Raoul is the one who respects Christine as a person, not the Phantom.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 01:53 am (UTC)I know they proverbially say you shouldn't read the comments on YouTube, but my jaw dropped when I came across the comment chain in response to Kyla Hint (Christine actually did fall in love with him at one point and all he wanted was to live a normal life with the woman he loved. If you've never read the book I highly suggest you do cause it puts a whole new perspective on the characters)
When someone points out that in fact the book Christine does NOT fall in love with the Phantom, it turns out that the gospel being quoted here for the 'true' Erik is Susan Kay (and even so the commenter hasn't actually read anything other than the E/C fangirling section at the end of that book "because it hurt my heart so much for him").
And then we get flabbergasting comments like Which is why many of us believe that at some point she came to her senses as to who the real man was... After all this time, I suspect there are more people who believe Christine wound up with Erik and, if she did not love him immediately, grew to love him (e.g. fans prefer to ignore all versions of canon and mutually agree on a new ending) and (in response to the complaint that Erik is NOT 'the real man' in that relationship) LOL - you need to read some fan fiction. Erik redeems himself.
I think "LOL you need to read some fan fiction" as a rebuttal to people who are citing canon facts is one of the most bizarre arguments I've ever seen...
(I checked out her story: she starts off by rewriting the Final Lair so that Christine tells the Phantom she is in love with him, then goes on to state that she had told Raoul on the roof of the Opera House that she would never marry him, and then assure Raoul "You are the murderer in your heart". I can see why she prefers the fanfiction version of the story :p)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 11:29 am (UTC)I've never even read Kay's book and now I hate it.
LOL - you need to read some fan fiction. Erik redeems himself.
No, you need to read Leroux. Erik redeems himself...by letting Christine go.
I think "LOL you need to read some fan fiction" as a rebuttal to people who are citing canon facts is one of the most bizarre arguments I've ever seen...
Oh, come on! Don't you know that if your ship isn't canon, it means canon must be wrong? /sarcasm
(I checked out her story: she starts off by rewriting the Final Lair so that Christine tells the Phantom she is in love with him, then goes on to state that she had told Raoul on the roof of the Opera House that she would never marry him, and then assure Raoul "You are the murderer in your heart". I can see why she prefers the fanfiction version of the story :p)
...When did Raoul commit murder? Or attempt it?
To summarize, I don't know whether to be enraged on Raoul's behalf or laugh at how deep in denial this person is.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 01:45 pm (UTC)I do have a certain sneaking sympathy for that, since I skim through E/C fics (or at least the ones that label themselves 'Raoul-friendly') skipping all the scenes with Erik in and looking for the Raoul material... at least up until the point where the author decides to dump him conveniently out of the story. It must be masochism.
(I'm still faintly persevering with Solo for the Living, which is one of the few stories where the author credibly depicts a Christine who does love Raoul, but "not like that" -- and like the Raoul in that story, I'm prepared to cling on for those scraps, because what she hasn't done is show a Raoul who conveniently decides not to love Christine...)
Another E/C fangirl complained on one of these videos (though I failed to find it again) that "Love Never Dies" wasn't good enough for her because Christine didn't appreciate Mr Y's kisses and devotion and gave the impression that she kept wanting to run off with Raoul. Which was ironic, because if even people who don't want to see C/R in the sequel can't help seeing it, then the canon in that case isn't terribly convincing...
According to her fanfic, Raoul was plotting to kill the Phantom and only Christine's brave actions on the stage (i.e. ripping off the mask) saved the victim's life, at the cost of humiliating the poor dear. "All he wanted was to give me back the ring I had so carelessly lost"...
Oh, and according to this defender, Erik hasn't killed anybody since Persia, because Leroux moved the chandelier crash from 20 years later, and he, ALW and Kay all 'blamed it' on poor innocent Erik :-p Having a replica torture chamber in your house that kills passing stage-hands is a mere accident that could happen to anyone; hanging Buquet and breaking Piangi's neck in the musical doesn't count, because that was all Lloyd Webber's invention (as was the Final Lair kiss and "Point of No Return", but I notice she isn't deleting those from the record!)
I wonder what happens in her canon to all the 'other women' in Leroux who have insisted on seeing behind Erik's mask and who now 'belong to him for always' ("quand une femme m'a vu, comme toi, elle est à moi. Elle m'aime pour toujours!")... It's not a definite admission of murder, but it's pretty creepy :-(
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 06:18 pm (UTC)Sounds like it. I understand, though--there's no such thing as too much Raoul. ;)
Another E/C fangirl complained on one of these videos (though I failed to find it again) that "Love Never Dies" wasn't good enough for her because Christine didn't appreciate Mr Y's kisses and devotion and gave the impression that she kept wanting to run off with Raoul. Which was ironic, because if even people who don't want to see C/R in the sequel can't help seeing it, then the canon in that case isn't terribly convincing...
That amuses me. It really does.
Oh, and according to this defender, Erik hasn't killed anybody since Persia, because Leroux moved the chandelier crash from 20 years later, and he, ALW and Kay all 'blamed it' on poor innocent Erik :-p
*headdesk*
Time to put my French classes to use...
"When a woman saw me, like you, she was mine. She loves me for always!"
...Erik sounds like a serial killer. O.o
(Did I translate that correctly?)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 10:23 pm (UTC)Pretty much -- my own prior comment on that passage was that he comes across as "more Ted Bundy than Don Juan" :-(
"When a woman has seen me, as you have, she is mine. She will love me forever!"
(And remember that in the preceding passage, when they are singing the duet from "Othello", she believes that Erik is so caught up in his part that he is going to kill her for real in her role as Desdemona, and she is so hypnotised that she actually welcomes that fate; that is why she unmasks him in Leroux, because she wants to see his face before she dies...)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 10:46 pm (UTC)I'd forgotten that part. D:
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-01 10:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-03 02:20 pm (UTC)O.o That's quite a poke in the eye for E/C shippers...
bits of characterisation/backstory for people like Raoul and Carlotta
Like what?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-07 03:17 am (UTC)Not really, as Erik proves himself honourable by not attempting the intrusion -- she just doesn't trust him at the start, unsurprisingly...
For example, in Chapter 8 (or 7, in the public domain translation), there is a description of Carlotta receiving a threatening anonymous letter, concluding in a paragraph saying that if anyone was being persecuted it was Carlotta who was persecuting Christine and not vice versa. In the original text there follow three further paragraphs describing how technically flawless Carlotta's voice was, summarising her somewhat sleazy career history from her start as a Spanish night-club dancer and saying that other women had come up from low origins and had been purified by their art and it must be her soul that was lacking, and then complaining in a first-person authorial insert about how badly Christine was being treated at her instigation. All of which is summarised in the English version as "the celebrated, but heartless and soulless diva" -- about one word per paragraph :-p
Later on in the same chapter, literally a page and a half of description about how wonderful Carlotta's voice was (and an occasion in "Don Juan" where she had to sing the high notes for a fellow-performer who couldn't manage them) and the consequent shock and horror of the 'toad' -- and how even Carolus Fonta, her co-star found himself staring at her mouth in disbelief -- has all been cut, and replaced by the brief statement "Carlotta croaked like a toad". The overall effect is to downplay Carlotta's unquestioned vocal talents and omit her backstory (singing in the salons of her lovers, etc.)
In the same chapter, a couple of sentences of Raoul/Philippe relationship have inexplicably been cut (Philippe blames Christine for making Raoul unhappy and above all Raoul for daring to be unhappy on her account, and blames himself for ever having pleaded her cause with the managers).
In the Perros-Guirec chapter, there are several little asides by the landlady about Raoul that get omitted (again, possibly in the name of streamlining the story, but the effect is to downplay his embarrassment and sense of inadequacy in this return to his childhood haunts). Raoul's fevered speculations while he tries to get to sleep in the inn are cut. And notably, the entire description of Raoul's journey from Lannion and descent at the inn, and of Christine's return from church, is left out altogether, to be replaced by the summary "Perros was reached at last". Big chunks -- apparently pointless little chunks here and there -- as soon as you start doing a direct comparison of the texts in parallel you discover that the English version has been quite extensively abridged, and an awful lot of what is missing turns out to be background character detail. I strongly suspect that's why I found Raoul a much more interesting character when I reread the book in a fresh translation :-(