The Phantom of the Opera: Difference between revisions

* [[Building of Adventure]]: The Paris Opera.

* [[Career Killers]]: According to the Persian, [[Backstory|Erik did this as part of his work for the Sha-in-Sha]]:

* [[Cassandra Truth]]: After Christine is abducted from on-stage, Raoul quickly gains a solid reputation as a madman when he begs anyone who will listen to believe that she's been kidnapped by the phantom of the opera who lives in the cellars under the building.

** The Persian confessed everything to the Judge. The [[Agent Scully|Judge doesn't believe a word]].

* [[Compelling Voice]]: Yes, this ''does'' come across all too well in a literary medium.

* [[Corrupt the Cutie]]: Long time before even meeting Christine, [[Backstory|Erik did work for the Sha-in-Sha]]: the little sultana, the favorite of the Shah-in-Shah, was boring herself to death. Erik built a [[Hall of Mirrors]] for her. When she bored of that, Erik transformed it into a [[Robotic Torture Device]] aptly named “the chamber of horrors”, used to [[Driven to Suicide|execute people sentenced to death]]. He also teach her how to strangle people efficiently. The little sultana [[Moral Event Horizon|soon applied that knowledge to simple peasants and her own friends]].

"Yes," he replied, in a sadder tone, "I prefer to forget them. I used to make the little sultana laugh, though!" }}

* [[Crazy Jealous Guy]]: Erik turns more and more vicious and threatening towards Christine as his jealousy of Raoul grows.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Mifroid.

* [[Dead Guy on Display]]: The final line of the novel is a plea for giving Erik's body this treatment. Oddly enough, It seems to be a Type 1, when the person was an honored figure (despite the fact that Erik was a [[Psychotic Man Child]] unrepentant killer), and his body would be preserved as a relic/object of reverence:

* [[Death by Childbirth]]: Raoul's mother.

* [[Death Trap]]: The Phantom installed one as the first room beyond the back entrance to his lair to intercept trespassers. When Raoul and the Persian fall into it, it starts as a [[Sauna of Death]] and ends as a [[Drowning Pit]], although its greatest torture is psychological.

* [[It's All About Me]]: Arguably, everyone except Christine, the Persian and Madam Valerious:

** Raoul: After Christine murmurs: “Poor Erik!”

** Erik, After his [[Love Redeems]] scene, meets the Daroga, who asks him (repeatedly) about the murder of Count Philippe:

** Mme. Giry:

This was said in so rough and solemn a tone that, for a moment, M. Richard was impressed. He looked at Mme. Giry, in her faded shawl, her worn shoes, her old taffeta dress and dingy bonnet. It was quite evident from the manager's attitude, that he either did not know or could not remember having met Mme. Giry, nor even little Giry, nor even "little Meg!" [[Small Name, Big Ego|But Mme. Giry's pride was so great that the celebrated box-keeper imagined that everybody knew her]] }}

** Moncharmin: Excerpt from the (exceptionally long) ''"Memories of a Manager"'':

* [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy]]: The Phantom, at the end.

* [[I Was Just Joking]]: Raoul wonders aloud how Erik knows how to work all the trap doors and navigate the secret passages. What, did he build them? The Persian explains, yes, he did.

* [[Mad Artist]]: The Phantom composes beautiful music. And, you know, kills people.

** Besides the music, [[Career Killers|Erik's]] [[Blackmail|many]] [[Sticky Fingers|talents]] include being a great [[Bizarrchitecture|architect]], the world’s best [[Ventriloquism|ventriloquist]] and [[Torture Technician]].

"Yes, [[Ironic Echo|a great artist]], [[Torture Technician|in my own line]]." }}

* [[Mad Scientist]]: Subverted by Erik: He built a [[Robotic Torture Device]] / [[Death Trap]] and a [[Deceptively Human Robot]] at the middle of the 19th century, but his tragedy, as the [[Narrator]] lampshades in the Epilogue, is that he is so ugly he could never become a scientist, but rather a toyman or stage magician:

* [[Mailer Daemon]]: The Phantom's M.O. for seducing Christine is particularly [[Hilarious in Hindsight]], considering it pre-dates the Internet by almost a century!

* [[Masquerade Ball]]

* [[Shoot the Messenger]]: The standard method of solving any problem by [[Pointy-Haired Boss|Pointy-Haired Bosses]] Richard and Moncharmin is to fire those employees involved in it. Only those with [[Screw the Rules, I Have Connections|enough influence can escape]].

* [[Single-Target Sexuality]]: The Phantom for Christine, oh so much.

* [[Small Name, Big Ego]]: [[In-Universe]]: [[Pointy-Haired Boss|Pointy-Haired Bosses]] Richard and Moncharmin and [[The Prima Donna]] Carlotta. Madam Giry is lampshaded like this (see [[It's All About Me]]), a humble usher who thinks of herself as an equal to the Opera’s administrators… just moments before they fire her. But [[Fridge Brilliance]] show us is subverted: In Parisian society, [[Screw the Rules, I Have Connections|it’s not what you do, it’s who you know]]. Madam Giry ''knows the Phantom and he is happy with her work''. Therefore, ''she is more important that Richard and Moncharmin''. She gets his job back

* [[Stalker with a Crush]]: Erik to a T.

* [["I Am Becoming" Song]]: "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again", Christine recognizes how hard she's been trying to hold on the past and tries to move on.

* [[The Ingenue]]: Christine is the epitome of this, except in 1943, where she's a well-adjusted, career-minded girl. Carlotta even [[Lampshades]] Christine's ingenue status right before "Prima Donna":

*** Signora, no, the world wants ''YOU!!!''

* [[In Name Only]]: Subverted with the 1989 slasher reimagining starring [[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Robert Englund]] as the title character. Many often mistake it for this given its nature as a gory slasher -- but in actuality, it is much closer to the original novel than the famous musical (which itself at times borders on the trope), maintaining the sadism of Leroux's Erik which many adaptations tend to downplay.

* [[Knight in Shining Armor]]: Raoul, ''obviously''.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: From "Prima Donna":

in fact, a perfect opera! }}

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: If you're talking about the Lloyd Webber version as opposed to Leroux, there's always the TheaterWorks USA adaptation, which was expressly written to out-Light-and-Softness the Lloyd Webber version itself. (And in all honesty, the Lloyd Webber version comes off far, ''far'' darker onstage than it does in the film version.) The Theaterworks version does away with the love triangle altogether, makes Erik into Madame Giry's long-lost son who was burned in a fire in the opera house a few years previously, and has Christine coax him in the end into using his gift to open a music school in order to relieve his bitterness at being unable to perform. All of the denizens of the opera happily approve, and it ends with a song about accepting people who may look different from you. I ''wish'' I were making this up.