Fans of Vicomte Raoul de Chagny

One weird thing about the characterisation of LND-Raoul -- he *knows* he is behaving badly, he despises himself for doing it, and yet it is *because* he despises himself that he does it; he is trapped in a very recognisably human vicious circle -- is that it is actually an echo of the original Raoul from Leroux's novel, who is a very different character, but shares this trait of finding himself behaving hurtfully towards Christine (usually out of his own wounded feelings), being painfully conscious of this and regretting it even as he is doing it, and yet being seemingly unable to stop.

This is almost certainly a complete coincidence, but maybe it's one reason why I didn't find the character entirely unrelatable...

It has just occurred to me that I don't *think* there is actually anything in musical canon to say that Andrew Lloyd Webber's Christine doesn't have a living mother -- just as musical-Raoul can perfectly well have both parents still alive (and in fact movie-Raoul apparently does!) ;-)

It's implied that Christine doesn't have a mother by the fact that only her father is ever mentioned in their childhood reminiscences, and of course it was almost certainly intended that her mother died when she was young because that section is clearly based on Leroux. But I'm not sure that there is any ALW dialogue that would contradict the possibility that Christine in the musical has a dead father to whom she is devoted, but a surviving mother out there somewhere.

(I think the fact that her mother doesn't turn up in the managers' office à la Carlotta and make a fuss when she first goes missing overnight does tend to prove that she isn't *living* with either parent at this point; likewise the fact that she goes to her father's grave when she is in trouble rather than seeking advice from her mother. Unless her mother is as eccentric as Madame Valerius, I think she probably doesn't know what is going on, which implies that she is either shut away in some institution -- an asylum, sanitorium, convent or even a jail -- or else is living overseas or otherwise estranged from her daughter. So from a practical fic-writing perspective it probably isn't all that useful as a plot suggestion...)

It's just dawned on me that Raoul in the musical is definitely the son of a Vicomte rather than of a Comte -- when we see him in old age at the auction, the auctioneer calls out the name of the Vicomte de Chagny, and whether or not he has inherited his father's title at the time of the main action, he will certainly have inherited it by this point.

(Unless, of course, he does have an off-stage elder brother who in this version is not killed by Erik and peacefully continues the line of Comtes :-p)

The Phantom of the Opera: A Case Study of Severe Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Features - no, not the Phantom, but Christine! In this medical study, the Phantom is presented as a hallucinatory response to the stress of Christine's bereavement and her feelings for Raoul, which 'ground her' and combat her suicidal ideation -- "The candle flame which earlier represented her father's hold on Christine now becomes a means of breaking that pathological bond. Her ability to make her father's soul take flight allows Christine to give herself to Raoul" ;-D

Blogposts from a Raoul enthusiast:

https://www.christine-eyre-writer.com/2016/08/07/a-few-notes-about-raoul/
https://www.christine-eyre-writer.com/2016/08/13/a-few-notes-about-raoul-part-two/
https://www.christine-eyre-writer.com/2016/10/29/a-few-notes-about-movie-raoul/

(I did try to leave a couple of comments, but either they need to be approved by the author or they didn't post.)

It'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!