#if i was my mother’s ideal child I’d be a perpetual victim. that’s it that’s all. nothing else except perhaps a robot or maid

[locria-writes]

So between Tuk'oer, Vezian, and Valentin, who's the biggest asshole? I feel like these are top 3 amongst the trashmen but I don't know just who is the biggest asshole in the top 3 itself.

i got a wholeass essay on this topic

tl;dr --

valentin -- 7/10 asshole, but a pretty decent guy underneath it all. has his own moral code that he does mostly adhere to, is capable of recognizing his assholery, and is the only one on this list capable of genuine and unselfish love.

tuko'er -- 9/10 asshole, very little redeemable about him, except that he is capable of introspection and self-reflection. had the potential to actually be a great guy, but got too embittered by the world and can't let go of the past. capable of genuine love, but it'll never not be selfish.

vezian -- 10/10 asshole, he doesn't even have the cool tragic backstory the others have to back his shit up. he was never a good guy, not even when he was a protagonist, and not now as an antagonist-figure. i don't really know if he's capable of genuine love.

long essay

Valentin is objectively an asshole. He's a hypocrite when it comes to his treatment of MC, has no qualms about lying/cheating/murdering his way to power, and is just generally unnecessarily blunt, surly, and quarrelsome, but underneath all that, he doesn't just have the potential to be a great guy -- he's actually quite valiant, albeit with some moral liberties and questionable methods, but let's take what we can get, okay?

His whole arc revolves around his pursuit of revenge, at least that's how others see it. But to Valentin, it's a fight to amend his rightfully-perceived injustices. He isn't doing it wholly for himself, in fact, his primary motivation is to seek justice for his mother, and in a broader respect, for all the others who have the same story he does. He doesn't hurt those he perceives as weaker than himself, and he doesn't blame the faultless, most of the time. MC is is the only exception to this because through all the hurt and anger that's been pent-up, Valentin's able to justify to himself why she's an acceptable target, and bend his principles just this once.

Unlike the other two, Valentin's perfectly capable of genuine and unselfish love, and already demonstrates it before MC. If MC were anyone else, he'd absolutely treat her very well, and he wouldn't have any qualms about acknowledging any feelings toward her. MC's only flaw is that she's Burkhard's daughter, and at the very least, Valentin can acknowledge his hypocrisy and deep down, he knows it's unfair to hate and hurt her for reasons far beyond any control.

On a meta-level, is Valentin's character an asshole? Yes, but only in this specific scenario. If his father had been even just 10% less of an asshole, or if he had a strong and non-murderous paternal role model, he wouldn't be a victim of Asshole Syndrome. Would he still be a surly jerk? Absolutely, but he'd be pretty harmless to MC overall, so he's a 7/10 asshole in AAB, but a 5/10 asshole as a character concept, if that makes sense.

Tuko'er, oh this piece of shit, Tuko'er. Undoubtedly an asshole's asshole, he's petty, ruthless, vicious, and completely unhinged. He takes delight in hurting the one he loves, and even more out of just being toxic toward her, and to be totally honest, he just wants to drag her down to his level so he won't be so lonely down there hell. He's an irredeemable abuser who is perpetuating the cycle, but let's take a step back for a second to look at how we got here.

He grew up in a household where power was the only thing that mattered. His father scorned him and set out to purposefully to make him miserable because of his mother is, and his mother was emotionally-unavailable and resented him for being his father's son. His older siblings either ignored and tormented him, and the same went for the servants. Despite all this, he was still very much a noble and magnanimous wide-eyed idealist, though he was internalizing all of this shitty behaviour deep down. Tuko'er craved affection and validation, received neither from his household, and the only person he ever really connected with and felt 'seen' by was Utanzhu. Funny enough, his frustrations over how powerless and useless he was in helping her all culminated to him falling victim to Asshole Syndrome, and becoming everything he didn't want to be. Lo and behold, it worked in his favour, and validated his behaviour.

At one point, before he became an asshole, Tuko'er loved genuinely and unselfishly. He craved affection, but never thought he was entitled to it, but now, after embracing shitty behaviour so long, it's become completely twisted. He treats his consorts and Samazy indifferently -- polite, distant, and doing no more and no less than what's expected, while with Utanzhu, it's an all-consuming, irrational, and distorted love.

Like Valentin, Tuko'er is an asshole, but only under specific scenarios. If he had others he could trust, or if he had been sent away to a different court, he wouldn't have become a poster child for Asshole Syndrome. In fact, he would've probably completely embraced his noble ideals, and become more like Yumaju, to be honest. Or at the very least, closer to what Valentin is, misguided and hurt, and trying to retake control of his life by fighting against those who hurt him. In KoK, he's absolutely a 9/10 asshole with few -- if any -- redeeming qualities left, while he goes from about a 3-7/10 asshole as a character concept.

Now Vezian, my sweet and beloved Asshole Supreme. The OG Trashman, the Prototype Locria-Trashman, the guy who was just as deplorable when he was written to be a protagonist as he is now as an antagonist, an arrogant and pompous character who became a narcissistic psychopath the more I wrote him etc, etc, etc. I can't tell if he's more of a megalomaniac or a psychopath or a narcissist, but I can tell that he's a real piece of work, and desperately needs some therapy (to be honest, they all do though).

Unlike Valentin and Tuko'er, he actually had a very good childhood. Sure, there were some snide remarks about his status and his mother, but overall, his mother loved him dearly, his father was at the very least, not overtly-abusive, his siblings, the Empress, and the other consorts were all either civil, or just distant to him, and the servants charged with caring for him all treated him well. Sure, he was always an arrogant little brat, but in a way, it was justified since he was very intelligent and talented, it's just too bad he's completely embraced the Asshole Syndrome. Nobody who really matters puts him down, but Vezian's internalized those whispers he used to hear about himself as a child, and has now convinced himself that everyone sees him that way, and that Launcelin, is out to get him.

Can he love genuinely and unselfishly? At the moment, it's a tentative yes, since he does love his mother and Doradeira, but other than them, I don't know if he's capable of forming that kind of bond with anyone else, even if he does fall in love with MC. In 10+ years of writing him, I've always flip-flopped on this aspect because I'd like to believe in the best for Vezian, and that he can eventually learn to be less selfish, more open-minded, but the older I get, the less it seems likely because he doesn't think he needs help/change, and how can one grow and mature if they refuse to believe they need to in the first place?

So Vezian's absolutely an asshole in ABEA, 10/10 the others wish they could be as irredeemable as him, but on a meta level, I don't really know? I feel like he could become a regular harmless douchecanoe if he ever got the help he needed, but do I think he'd ever accept help, or even acknowledge that he needs it? He's still such a difficult character to grasp, even though I've been writing him the longest in this list.

#an absinthian ballad #king of kings #a broken ever after #aab valentin #kok tuko'er #abea vezian #i'm still surprised by how my feelings for vezian change so much #like i know him very well at this point but i still can't grasp this part of his personality #val and tuko i've written and ruminated over less but i feel i know them better #i'm just very fond of mc and the 3 male leads in abea i feel like i grew up with them lol #also i can't believe 12 y/o me accidentally wrote a genuine psychopath/narcissist as a hot male lead that's a yikes #i don't think i usually speak so fondly of vezian lol

[nvzblgrrl]

Hi. I'm a (assigned boy at birth) kid. I'm fat and when i was waiting for the school bus not too long ago, a female student saw my school shirt was wet and sticking to my chest in the rain and told me i needed a bra. Sometimes the Great Hereafter seems a better option than Earth...

That sounds like a rough experience and I can’t say that I think much of your classmate for saying that. Like the hell are you supposed to do in that circumstance? Summon the recommended clothing from the aether? Magic away the weight she’s complaining about?

No. You’re stuck sitting there and taking the insult while she has herself a giggle, an insult that you still remember now and that she probably forgot about within hours because it didn’t mean anything but a moment of entertainment for her. And even if that specific moment is the only one you shared, I know from my own experience as a bullied kid that it’s never just the one time or just the one person. It’s an ongoing parade of bullshit from a whole bunch of different people, some of whom like to adopt the excuse that they’re ‘helping’ somehow.

Yeah, because making someone feel like shit for acting or looking different from the set concept of ‘normal’ is going to inspire them to ‘fix’ that, even if that’s not how those things work.

Sorry. Got a little angry there. It’s a sensitive topic for me.

This is going to get a little long and I’m probably going to end up talking about myself and my experiences for 90% of it because that’s how I connect and process my feelings on the subject, so that’s why there’s going to be a readmore right here.

I have strong feelings and opinions about suicide. Mostly because I’ve lost a lot of people in my life to it (comparatively speaking) and have had many suicidal thoughts myself.

My mother killed herself because my father subjected her to four years of continuous harassment, character assassination, and legal bullshit over the fact that he didn’t want to pay child support. She died in front of me and, thanks to that and the fact that I was only just barely four years old at the time, the only memories I have of what she looked and sounded like are from photographs and a video of her wedding in which she only is audible for three sentences, only one of which wasn’t part of the wedding script.

My mother, for her part, was a well loved nurse in her community. She was known for being kind and gentle with her patients and her friends, going all the way back to when she was a child. She also loved horses and kept them almost continuously through her life until a few months before she died.

The other person I lost to it was a teenage boy bullied in part because he had a speech impediment which continued to be a ‘meme’ at the school district several years after his death.

He was brilliant. He loved talking about mechanics and had a notebook full of technical drawings of pistons and engines that he was constantly filling up. I can’t remember his name or most of his face thanks to the stress I was under at that time obliterating my mental capacity to process things, but I remember how his smile could light up a room when I asked him to talk more about the subject he loved so much.

That boy is never going to smile again. My mother will never ride another horse.

Because they’re both dead. Because those bastards who never had a care for anything more than themselves and how they were inconvenienced by these people decided that driving them to the edge for things they could not change - the fact that her child had a father and the fact that he had a verbal tic - was the ‘right’ thing to do.

And there was no-one there to pull them back from from the edge, leaving them with the choice to either do so themselves or to jump.

They both jumped.

(Figuratively. I know both of the how and the where they both chose. But that’s not part of this conversation.)

That’s the first part of why I’m against it. These people, fully realized human beings that had loves and dreams and all the facets of what make people wonderful, don’t exist anymore. If I want to visit my mother, I go to a grave. If I want to visit that boy, all I have is my memory because I don’t even have his name or where they buried him.

The second part is because I’ve never seen the people who were the direct cause of driving those victims to the edge ever pay for it. A glimmer of guilt for a passing second, maybe, because they ‘didn’t mean to get a reaction like that’, but then they get over it and then start making more excuses so they don’t have to acknowledge their culpability in the situation.

(Yes, I know that some places have legal consequences for bullying. But the enforcement is poor and by the time any school I went to ever thought to address the issue, it was little better than a joke because they should have given us that speech in kindergarten instead of our junior year of high school.)

None of the people who ever hurt me during those times ever apologized - I think the closest any of them got was a girl who took the time to find out my phone number for the sake of harassing me at home in elementary school forgetting what she’d done to me before assuming that my absolute lack of reaction to her in social scenarios meant we were friendly.

We weren’t. I’d simply learned early on that I couldn’t so much as grumble in her direction without a teacher putting me in detention and that behavior happened to linger on all the way to high school.

I considered hurting and killing myself several times as a child and teenager, because it seemed like the only way to make the pain stop. The first few times, it was because I had relatives who were still suffering from the recent suicide of my mother and I didn’t want to hurt them further.

Later, when that promise wasn’t as fresh and life’s bullshit quotient had gone up significantly (let’s leave it at ‘had a near death experience in a semi-public place and nobody in my immediate family gave a damn’ was part of over ten distinct issues in play as a way of communicating the level of stress going on), I started thinking about it again.

By which I mean I got pushed so far that I lost all conscious control over my mind and body and could have done just about anything because Rationality just wasn’t part of the package anymore.

I got lucky, in the end, because my frenzied brain came to a moment of enlightenment during that event that I can still only label ‘a psychotic break’ even thirteen years later.

That enlightenment was ‘They want me dead. If I kill myself, they win. I hate them. Why would I want them to win?’

‘They’ were my abusers, at home and at school, and honestly, looking back at it, they didn’t so much want me dead as they wanted a free punching bag that couldn’t hit back. But that thought was my lifeline back then. It gave me a reason to continue living, even if that reason was pure spite and hatred for everything they stood for and represented.

Even now, there’s an element of that in my reasons to continue living. I intend to survive - and not just survive. I intend to take back my power. I will learn to love my body, love my mind, and make myself into a better person than they ever dreamed of being.

Their names will become nothing more than meaningless noise to my ears. They will never make me fold into myself again, nor will they take advantage of me. The damage will never fully leave, but I will clean those wounds and let them heal as cleanly as they can. I will not perpetuate their cycle.

I will scrub their filthy fingerprints from my soul and I will turn my scars into gold. 

-

Stepping back from the personal anecdotes and beliefs for a moment, I think that the best thing you can do is find something or someone that, while not perhaps ‘worth living for’, that you can give your attention and love to and, ideally, be loved by in turn.

I’m also an advocate of therapy, though I add the creveat that therapy only works when you have a good therapist, because I’ve had some that, while not awful people, failed to recognize the fact that I was being abused at home despite the number of signs present during our sessions and sometimes recommended tactics and techniques that didn’t do me much good with my circumstances at that time. Yes, I learned from them, but they didn’t help me as much as they could have if they had thought to remove my father from the sessions and ask me more questions instead of letting him do the talking.

But my biggest advice is to remember that your bullies are foolish, short-sighted assholes. They’re not right nor are they trying to be helpful, even if they dress themselves up as being that to justify themselves to the person in the mirror and everyone around them. They are stepping on you because they want to, either so they can feel strong and secure in their place as the ‘not-victim’. They have nothing good to give you, only their own hateful brand of poison.

#abuse / #bullying / #suicide / #suicide mention / #long post #i hope that i was able to help you even a little bit here #but i know that it's not always helpful to get words at a distance #instead of action where you need it #e-v-e-n-i-n-g-e-l-v-i-s-b-u-d

[darklygophilia]

Phantom of the Opera: a tale as old as...

(This is gonna be long...)

Recently I’ve re-discovered my love for “Phantom of the Opera.” It started after I saw the 2017 rendition of the tale that’s as old as time “Beauty & the Beast,” which lead to my re-reading of favorite childhood novels, “Beauty” & “Rose Daughter” by Robin McKinley. Low & behold, right next to them on my book shelf was one of my all time favorites, Gaston Leroux’s “Phantom of the Opera.” It had been a while since I’d read any of them & in re-reading them with a slightly more wise, adult POV, & a bit more life experience, I was overjoyed that the experience felt much like the 1st in the fact that I realized many details in the stories that I’d missed when I was younger. It’s nice, leaving a favored stories behind for a while & then taking it back in with a fresher perspective. 

Throughout this vast re-read, I had also at the time been doing research in Greek Mythology (for another project) & also happened to be reacquainting myself with the Hades/Persephone tale. The thing about mythology is that the stories alter in certain details over time. It’s not so different from books like “Phantom of the Opera” that have so many adaptations that they all get jumbled together in their influence over our interpretations of them. When it came to Hades/Persephone what irked me in my research was discovering that Zeus was lauded throughout history. In too many interpretations/re-tellings Zeus is seen as the caring father-figure, the loving grandfatherly-figure (if we’re talking about Disney’s animated Hercules), or the seductive all power God-King. He’s someone to respect. Right? Not really!

Zeus is a man who often came down to Earth to consort with human women (those who denied him its hinted that he raped them) & was NEVER faithful to any of his wives. What, you thought Hera was his only wife? The Greeks viewed him in a traditional Patriarchal sense & that has extended throughout each new adaptation of his character. However, after reading up on Zeus, he actually had a lot in common with his father Cronus, the tyrant Titan King (Cronus may have swallowed his own children, but guess what, so did Zeus - i.e. Athena). Throughout history, literature, & Hollywood he’s portrayed as a hero, an authority figure to be lauded (& perhaps that’s our own Patriarchal society influencing us). Zeus, is in reality, extremely unfaithful, hinted as being a seducer of women & a rapist, had much in common with a former tyrant (his father), etc. Hades is typically chosen as the epitome bad guy. I mean, he had to be bad, since he ruled the Underworld (a job he never even wanted)! Right? It was actually Hades’ power, strength, natural leadership & strategy skills during the 5 yr. war between the Olympians/Titans, the Titanomachy, that enabled the Olympians to win - it was also what caused Zeus to fear Hades & trick him into ruling the Underworld (which inevitably made people wary of Hades & eventually vilified him).

When Hades meets Persephone, falling madly in love with her, he’s unsure how to proceed. Hades actually goes to Zeus, telling his brother that he’s found a potential bride but is essentially uncertain how to proceed.  “I’ll just ask my womanizing big brother, Zeus, he knows how to woo women.” (I’m paraphrasing, obviously, but you get the gist.) It is actually Zeus who suggests that Hades should kidnap Persephone. Which in itself, says more about Zeus than it does Hades, IMO!

Hades takes his brother’s advice & does as Zeus suggests, kidnapping Persephone. What’s interesting is the fact that while this 1st half of the story remains pretty consistent throughout the fogginess of history (myths do like to alter throughout time with each new interpretation of them) the 2nd half is open to much interpretation due the latter half being unclear of certain events. It’s a toss-of-the coin, a 50/50 chance; many philosophers & historians believe Persephone was taken against her will, while just as many of them suggest that Persephone saw Hades taking her to the Underworld as rescuing her from her overbearing, controlling mother, Demeter. Demeter also threatens to leave the world in a perpetual state of winter, essentially driving all of humanity into starvation,  The same speculate as to whether Persephone knew what would happen if she ate those famed pomegranate seeds.

For any story that leaves room for speculation, I’ve found that it’s what people theorize that’s far more telling of THEM as people than it is of the actual story! When people theorize that Persephone was a victim, that she was tricked, that says more about the theorist than it does Persephone, b/c the theorist is the one that is turning Persephone into the victim, not necessarily the actual story. When theorists interprets/speculates that Persephone had an intelligence that enabled her to know what she was doing, that she made her own choices, it lends Persephone the agency she deserves as a person rather than choosing to victimize her! The story also hints that Hades truly loved Persephone given that he was pretty much the only Olympian who was faithful to his wife!

Moving forward, as I re-read “Phantom of the Opera” (as well as reading “Phantom” by Susan Kay for the first time) I began noticing parallels not just with stories like “Beauty & the Beast” but also Hades/Persephone.

The most obvious parallels being: in comparison to “Beauty & the Beast” an ugly (cursed) man seeking the companionship of a woman who can love him in spite of his ugliness; in comparison to Hades/Persephone, when the Phantom absconds with Christine, taking her down to his lair to make her his bride. The latter parallel also reminds me of the french epic poem “Eloa” who is an agel that falls in love with a disguised Satan - he takes her to hell, not believing she could truly love him now that she knows the truth, but instead she chooses to stay with him regardless.

In particular the parallel to Hades/Persephone seemed to fit considering this particular quote from Leroux’s novel, “You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, & it is a corpse who loves you & adores you & will never, never leave you!” Hades was often referred as Lord of Death since people feared speaking his actual name.

My foray into the various “Phantom of the Opera” adaptations also enlightened me to other aspects of parallelism & details that, as a child, I had not thought of until now with an adult perspective.

Fantasy vs. Reality...

In “Beauty & the Beast”, the ultimate reward for Belle in loving the Beast for who he is (not what he is) in the end, is that he transforms back into his handsome Princely self. As a children’s story B&B gets the message across; that beauty is more than just skin deep, teaches lessons of seeing beyond the obvious, acceptance & tolerance. But the ending is the real fantasy, the lie as it were, b/c in the real world the Beast would not become a Prince again. The real reward for Belle in reality would simply be the Beast’s love, not an alteration in his physicality. These fundamental changes in childhood stories are true within the concept of tales like “Beauty & the Beast” in comparison to whether we’re looking at the story with a child’s gaze or through an adult’s POV. There’s the fantasy we interpret as children, then there’s the reality we see as adults! This comparison is reflective between various adaptations of “Phantom of the Opera” & “Beauty & the Beast.” The fantasy being B&B where the beauty is rewarded for loving such a creature by him transforming into a handsome Prince, while the Phantom stays as he is.

Fantasy Love...

In “Phantom of the Opera” Raoul is referred to as “foppish boy,” that “insolent boy” but a boy all the same! His youth, education, title & wealth are the very things that most women think of in an ideal man. His overall role in Christine Daae’s life represents the sweetness of childhood. Raoul is, at 1st, presented in a very real aspect: his brief history with Christine, his lac of mystery making him seem normal; there’s no supernatural element to his character. However, as Raoul become a Love Interest to Christine, he’s rendered a sort of fairy-tale quality. The reality being that a man of Raoul’s social standing would likely not be able to/or even think to marry someone of Christine’s much lower social standing (he’s a Vicomte, she’s a mere chorus girl). That particular element gives their “love” a Cinderella” feel rendering Raoul as a sort-of Prince Charming. Erik, the Phantom, is flawed & referred to as the man of the story - he’s older, wiser, more experienced (even if those experiences have made him bitter). Leroux even calls Erik, “The man’s voice.” Raoul become less of a reality & more of a fantasy love, akin to a Prince Charming in a fairy-talewhile Erik, becomes less of a fantasy throughout the story & something far more tangible; he’s brutal & honestly flawed, an ugly reality of the world.

Each adaptation that I’ve come across seems to present Erik/Raoul to the reader as polar opposites. You have Raoul who Christine sees quite obviously as a real person (he’s not an Angel of Music, he’s not some Opera Ghost), he’s real flesh & blood, a youthful young man. They have some history together which solidifies Raoul’s presence as a normal guy in Christine’s life. There is no air of mystery. Yet, they come from completely different classes of society. Not unlike how Darcy, in reality, would never marry someone of such low social standing as Elizabeth Bennett (”Pride & Prejudice”). That’s the fantasy - the Prince Charming, Cinderella effect of the Raoul/Christine relationship. Where as there is no real social separation between Erik & Christine. Any expectations society gives for Christine to choose Raoul are the very things that make him a fantasy love: wealth, title, handsome, youth, etc. The fantasy itself is the very thing that lends an illusion of realism to Raoul as Christine’s love interest! He’s a fantasy that exists completely under an illusion of realism, IMO!

Christine: Growing Up...

This is where the jumbled various adaptations of a story become harder to separate, in this regard I’m essentially taking in a bit of every adaptation (this reminds me of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” where in the original novel he’s not as handsome as Dracula is later perceived in later adaptations). In Leroux’s novel Christine has only known Erik, her Angel of Music for a few months (though at times it seemed like she’d known him much longer) whereas other adaptations show Erik being in Christine’s life much longer. As a child Christine looks upon Erik with a child’s gaze. 1st as her Angel of Music, seeing him as a literal Angel. Quickly morphing into the guidance of a teacher, & while he still remains her “mon ange” (my angel), he has also become her Maestro. At the same time he’s become the Opera Ghost. With each stage of Christine’s psyche, the illusion of Erik melts away; from Angel, to Maestro, to Phantom, until he is just a flesh & blood man. Where as Raoul remains a representation of Christine’s childhood & their “love” eludes to that youthful mindset - a childhood infatuation that’s as fleeting as the emotions experienced by other teenagers. Not unlike the comparative romantic relationship in “Gone with the Wind” (Scarlet clings to Ashley who represents life before the war, the last part of her childhood, of a time long gone; while ignoring her very real feelings for Rhett which represent something far more lasting & mature. You have Ashley, the idealist & Rhett, the realist). Raoul represents Christine’s past, her childhood idealism; Erik represents Christine’s growth b/c he’s seemingly a part of every phase of her life.

Christine’s Early Childhood - Raoul (varies with each adaptation)

Christine’s Later Childhood - Erik as her Angel of Music.

Christine’s Teen Yrs. - Erik as he Angel but also now taking on the role of Maestro, her teacher, while also being the mysterious Opera Ghost (something darker, more mysterious than the purity of an Angel).

Christine’s Adult Yrs. (moving into womanhood) - Erik, the illusions have fallen away & he’s now just a flesh & blood man!

The role Raoul seems to chiefly represent in Christine’s life is her past, there’s not much growth in their relationship beyond Raul wooing her. B/c her relationship with Erik changed over the yrs. it represents real growth in character & personality for Christine which is the reality of growing up. By choosing Raoul, Christine chose the illusion of living her life through her childhood & is therefore stuck in the past. Raul essential hinders Christine’s growth as a character, IMO.

Sexuality...

Erik (the Phantom) is a lot like Severus Snape - an unlikely sex symbol of the story! He’s also acts as a sort of metaphor for Christine Daae’s evolution in discovering her sexuality.

The fundamental growth of Christine moving away from her childhood & into a woman is connective to how Erik encompasses various phases of her life. When Christine looks upon Erik as an Angel it represents the purity of a child’s mind. He’s her friend, her companion of comfort that get’s her through the loneliness after her father’s death (the Musical & 2004 film). When he grows into her Maestro - her teacher - he becomes her confidant, a source of wisdom (this is especially prevalent in the Charles Dance mini series). As she grows into her teen yrs. & Erik becomes the Opera Ghost, he represents something darker, more mysterious in nature; he’s no longer the pure Angel. By the time Christine sees Erik, the flesh & blood man, he’s fallen in love with her which shows his representation of Christine moving her mindset from the fantastical (Angel/Phantom) to something more real (a man). This development, I feel, is the opposite of Raoul. Raoul starts off seeming realistic & morphs into the fantasy of a sort-of Prince Charming, showing that Christine looks upon Raoul the way she would as a child, as a fairy-tale ending. Whereas Erik starts out as something unreal/otherworldly (Angel/Phantom) later becoming something tangible & real. It shows how with Raoul, Christine moves backward but with Erik she moves forward into adulthood - womanhood (though, that’s just my interpretation).

That moment of adulthood is when Erik reveals himself to being a real man & takes Christine down to his lair for the first time. (Leroux) “The moment she took his offered hand she was no longer a child.” In the musical, this is shown in the song “Music of the Night” in it’s purely sensual nature & tone of the song where we see Erik caress & holding Christine repeatedly throughout the scene. Many speculate that this strongly hinted that Christine & Erik were actually lovers in the most intimate sense, given that during that time period what differentiated between being a girl & being a woman was the marriage bed. Both the quote & song hint at a deeper connection between the 2.

This is reflective throughout much of Christine’s relationship with Erik. In the musical, the songs become more sensual in nature & far less metaphorical. One theory I found was the speculation that “Music of the Night” was metaphorical to Christine loosing her virginity. Interesting.

The song “Past the Point of No Return” is a bit more blatant in its lyrics if still a bit poetic in how it addresses the concept of physical/sexual pleasure. The fact that it’s a duet between Erik/Christine further shows a more sexual nature to their relationship. It’s the opposite of the duet shared between Raoul/Christine “Say you need me...” which is far more innocent in nature & tone. Where as the songs/scenes between Erik/Christine radiate passion! In “Love Never Dies” adaptation, the song “Beneath a Moonless Sky” is downright blatantly descriptive of the sexual intimacy between Erik/Christine (no longer metaphorical).

As little girls we’re fed stories, fairy-tales of gentle love. Even books like Twilight capitalize on the interpretation of young love as something pure where the teenage male is (rather unrealistically) a perfect gentleman & other books where the man is the only one perceived as having a sexual nature. “Phantom of the Opera” in its own way shows that women are sexual creatures, too. By representing the innocence of her childhood, Raoul is in a way repressive of Christine’s sexuality while Erik enables her to embrace certain desires.

What furthers the sexualization of Erik - whether it’s when he’s Christine’s Angel...

her Maestro...

the Opera Ghost...

or just the ostracized, scarred, tormented, isolated flesh & blood man, Erik...

- is the fact that throughout various adaptations of the story there is a great deal that appeals to popular erotic fantasy.

There’s the eroticism of the Phantom’s aesthetic in adaptations like: Webber’s Musical, the Charles Dance Mini Series, the 2004 film, even the poetic prose of Susan Kay’s novel lends a romanticized interpretation of the character: He’s tall, dark, mysterious with an edge of danger. And in terms of physicality, the Phantom is far different from that of Raoul. While Raoul would likely be a handsome athletic man for the time period, he is also what was considered the typical handsome, the typical athlete. Males in society within Raoul’s social class were physical in that they likely had formal hunting parties (ever watched Downton Abbey?) & knew how to fence. But his wealthy likely meant he never had to do any form of real physical labor. In the Charles Dance mini series, ‘04 film, Webber’s Musical, & a novel by Fredrick Forsyth, the Phantom is decidedly more physical: from building & adjusting the Opera House’s architecture, roaming around the Opera House in unlikely places (climbing onto the rafters), not to mention how he moves large pieces of furniture like an organ all the way down to his lair; the Phantom’s backstory as an assassin in Persia! He is very much an active man who’s dealt with physical labor & hardships his whole life & therefore has a sense of strength that Raoul’s luxurious lifestyle would probably NOT enable him to have.

Let’s not forget that enigmatic mask of his!

Not to mention the cape!

And of course the sexualization of the student/teacher-protege/mentor relationship!

Yet, despite all the illusions, the many faces Erik wears, he is far more tangible & real than Raoul. Raoul, who’s personality floats somewhere between entitled brat to nonexistent; Raul, whose entire character is defined by his wealth, his good looks & his past with Christine. Where as Erik, the Phantom has a backstory, a tortured life that makes him the man he is now. Erik who is ever changing & complex in personality & character no matter how enigmatic he’s portrayed feels far more real. Even down to how people treat him & the cruelties he’s endured simply b/c of what he looks like is a reality of our world!

As for the love Erik has for Christine - in Leroux’s novel Erik seems consumed with loneliness & desperate for companionship which makes his feeling for Christine appear obsessive in nature. Though, even at the end they are both moved to tears & Christine shows him great compassion. It’s possible that the lack of human contact that Leroux’s Erik has endured is parallel to that of extreme isolation which can psychological alter a person’s sanity. So, is it the abuse he’s faced throughout his life, the horrors he witnessed in Persia, or his isolation that has made insane? Perhaps all three in Leroux’s novel.

In other adaptations Erik’s love is portrayed as something far more pure. He loves Christine for her talents (singing, ballet, artistry) & not her physical beauty like Raoul. As a woman, I can’t tell you how annoying it is when people, men in general, comment on my looks. When someone tells you you’re pretty/beautiful, your looks aren’t something you really have control over (genetics), therefore the compliment falls flat a lot of the time. Where as if you compliment someone for their accomplishments, something they’ve worked hard for, it’s far more meaningful. The relationship between Erik/Christine in various adaptations appears to be built on companionship, trust, respect, the love of friends, the love of student/teacher, romantic love, the appreciation they have for each other’s talents, & at times their own mutual loneliness (Erik in his solitude & Christine in the sadness of her father’s death). The Raoul/Christine relationship many times focuses on how beautiful Raoul thinks Christine is. In the 1990s TV mini series adaptation starring Charles Dance, the Phantom tells Christine that Raoul is not worthy of her b/c, “He comes to the opera for the wrong reasons. He come for the sake of pretty faces rather than the music.” In a way, much like in “Beauty & the Beast” Belle/Christine at times deal with body image issues. Where as the Beast in B&B, & Erik in “Phantom of the Opera” are both judged for how they look, so are the characters Belle/Christine - both women are seen for their looks by their love interests Gaston/Raoul. Where as in the Musical, for example, Erik seems to focus mostly on Christine's talents which he later becomes attracted to.

This was essentially my interpretation of “The Phantom of the Opera” in it’s entirety, including the influence of its various adaptations. I theorize with the more sympathetic, romanticized versions of the story mostly b/c my 1st exposure to it was the 2004 film & later Webber’s Musical. I read the book after that & so my mental via of the Phantom was decidedly different to that of what Leroux likely originally intended. To me the film, musical, mini series, & Susan Kay’s novel are the ones that are most influential of how I view the story/characters compared to someone who started out reading Leroux’s book 1st. Which was an entirely new experience for me in terms of how I usually analyze/interpret things b/c I almost always read the original novel before any other adaptation.

#Phantom of the Opera #Phantom #Meta #Beauty & the Beast #Hades & Persephone #Character Analysis #Writing #Gaston Leroux #Susan Kay

[gaiatheorist]

“Hot Girls.”

(I don’t know, it’s some TV series, and, despite the ‘Girl Power’ angle, I’m unlikely to watch it.)

I’m deflecting, because I don’t want to be unsettled by the bile being spewed on comments-threads about the footballer saying he ‘wishes he had raped the girl.’ Pure linear-logical, there’s a man going to prison for committing an offence, and he feels the sentence to be disproportionate. It’s ‘may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb’ mentality, but disgustingly reversed, because this is a child we’re talking about, not livestock. 

I clicked on the ‘Hot Girls’ article because it had a sub-heading about pornography not being dark or taboo any more. I thought I might find some humour in there, you know, 1970′s bushes, awful keyboard backing tracks, and unrealistic expectations of how quickly you can get a plumber. No, I didn’t finish reading the piece, because, surprisingly enough, there was a slant on ‘women getting sex’, and I’d already caught myself tutting at the dating-service banner on the newspaper, and the way Fakebook keeps throwing a ‘meet men in your area’ advert into my news-feed. Sex sells, and if we’re not ALL having amazing sexual relations 2.54 times a week, there must be something dysfunctional about us. I’ll take my seat in dysfunctional corner, and I’ll do it openly, my sexual orientation might be vague, but I’m fully ‘out’ as a weirdo.

(Not ‘Man caught with extreme dog and horse-porn’ weird, by the way, the lack of punctuation in that news headline had me laughing about what an ‘extreme dog’ might be for ages.)

Sexual relations, between consenting adults, where the desire is evenly matched. What an utterly magnificent experience. Being prodded with an erection you have no desire to interact with less so. Being coerced or forced into sexual activity, that’s hideous. I speak from experience. It’s fine, I’ve only just turned 40, I assume the Fakebook “Hot singles in your area!” rubbish will evolve into cats and ironing boards before long.

I’m all over the place on this, and very well aware that I am making assumptions about the comments-I-won’t-read. Which make assumptions about a child. No, angry man from wherever, she shouldn’t have gotten into the car, but she is a child, or she was, until the adult holding the power in this situation coerced her into engaging in adult acts. I had to step away from the keyboard, there, because my “Bloody men!” switch was flipped, and my particular slant on this is pretty Freudian.

My mother had reasons of her own for hating men, and I can back-pick all I want on her skewed attempts to get me to swear-off men, that serves no purpose, because I’m not her, and have no understanding of her thought processes. I don’t ‘hate men’, I’m just the unfortunate product of an entirely dysfunctional upbringing, thank the Gods there wasn’t any internet back then, or my assumed-worth as a commodity would have been exponentially increased. Neat digression back to my original thought process on this one.

That girl, and a huge number of other girls have an additional layer of vulnerability that my generation didn’t have to factor-in, namely the sexualised saturation in society. Dress the girls up pretty, and encourage the boys to be heroes, I’ll be over here, banging my head on the wall. Western society, or the media element thereof, encouraged housewives to burn their bras, then it encouraged bra-wearers to do the whole “Hello boys!” thing, then it glamourised boob-implants, then it decided boob-implants were hideous. I’m supposedly intelligent and liberated, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing with my tits for Spring 2017, I’ll just leave them where they are. ‘Back in my day’, if you wanted to bore yourself to death with which-shade-of-lipstick, or “Next season’s look! Leave the coat-hanger in your blouse!” you had to leave the house, and buy a magazine, now, we have all-of-everything in our pockets at all times. Fair enough, I am as entranced as a goldfish-watching-cat by those short food-videos on Fakebook, but I don’t click on “One weird tip!”, and I try not to fall for click-bait. 

(Oh, look, she’s ‘blaming the internet’ again.)

Sex sells, so there’s a lot of sexual content online, this generation of kids have been exposed to it all of their lives, and it’s made them strange, even by my non-standard standards. Fat lot of good the bra-burning did these poor little buggers, because they’re STILL getting the me-Tarzan-you-Jane, and how-to-please-your-man crap flung at them. From as soon as they’re able to read. SOME of the parents are unwittingly doing a watered-down version of what my parents did to me, dressing their princesses up all pretty, and telling their little men they can have whatever they want. I know it’s only extreme cases that end up like the girl and the football player, but it’s the unrelenting undertone that’s the real issue.

SOME of the parents up in arms about the Sex and Relationships curriculum now being compulsory are getting the wrong end of the stick altogether. “It’s too soon!” isn’t an argument, your five-year-old isn’t going to be bringing home a Kama Sutra inspired painting for you to stick on the fridge. We’ve effectively ‘missed’ far too many kids out of compulsory SRE, and some of those kids are parented by deeply confused individuals who throw out the “Asking for it.” message. (Side rant about the type of parent that obsesses about their own physical appearance to such an extent that their children view that as normal.) In an ideal world, parents would be clued-up enough to start the process themselves, but that comes with the risk of some misconceptions being passed down, it falls on the school to provide the clear and consistent messages that the parents’ generation didn’t get.

“Don’t rape.” is a very clear message, but perception of rape, sexual assault, and any kind of unwanted sexual attention are not clear. The issue I’m having an internal argument with myself about right now loops back to what I was trying to avoid looking at in the first place. For generations, girls have been ‘taught’ how to reduce their risk of being raped or assaulted. (There’s work to be done on ensuring boys are afforded similar ‘protection.’) Nobody thought to give the boys the message not-to-rape until very recently. It’s all a bit icky, isn’t it. We women KNOW we’re not supposed to get drunk and then walk down a dark alley wearing a short skirt. If we do those things, we are not ‘asking’ to be raped, any more than any individual ever ‘asks’ to be maimed or killed by a drunk driver. (The stranger-in-an-alley, like the old-man-in-dirty-raincoat is statistically the least likely perpetrator. Not ‘impossible’, just less-probable.) 

The ‘asking for it’ contingent have a lot to answer for. The girl in question was 15? The age of consent is 16. A person under the age of 16 cannot consent to sexual activity, their consent is invalid. It would be a poor salesman who gave the keys to a car to a 15-year-old, and not even the shadiest of pay-day lenders would authorise a mortgage to a 15-year-old. There you go, kids aren’t even allowed to have tattoos until they’re 18. (Don’t come at me with the 16-with-parental-consent bullshit.) That’s a head-spin, that a girl could get pregnant on her 16th birthday, but wouldn’t be allowed to marry the father without parental consent, and the offspring would be a year old before she could legally have its name tattooed on her OWN body. A child cannot consent to sexual activity, and your career may be repossessed if you do not read the terms and conditions, like, you know, checking they are an adult and not a child. “She said she was x-age!” (I don’t know if that one is pertinent to the case in question, but it does get bandied about a lot.) Really? Well, I could claim to be 21, couldn’t I? 

“Be beautiful so you can attract a partner!” (Don’t be so beautiful that you attract a rapist, though, it’s your own fault if you do that!)

“Everyone’s having loads of sex, you MUST have sex!” (Everyone’s not having loads of sex, who’d run the tills in Tesco if everyone was busy combining nuts and guts all the time? You don’t have to have sex, bits don’t drop off or heal up if they’re not used.)

“Get out there and be a gender-appropriate predator!” (That’s a weird one to phrase, but us girls are meant to assertively demand the type of sex we want, and the poor men are STILL meant to prove their manliness, in the face of these confusing creatures.) (Side giggle, about my son pointing out that man-razors have stupidly ‘macho’ names, but are essentially “To make your face more like a girl’s.”) 

What a mess, we’re no further forward in real terms than we were when I was a teenager, and those of us who care about kids/the world are mightily confused. There was the “Is this OK?” phenomenon years ago, but it never really caught on. (Checking with your partner every time you turn up the sexy-dial, in principle it makes sense, but it would sort-of ruin the flow...) Anastasia and Christian Grey drew up an actual contract of expectations. People vulnerable to sexual exploitation don’t generally have time to do that, though. Nobody is ‘entitled’ to sexual activity, very few people would walk into Tesco and bite a baguette because they were hungry. (Except toddlers, but they’re not-people-yet.) We have generations that still perpetuate the victim-blaming, generations that know that’s not-OK, but don’t know how to change it, and generations that are sexualised before they’re ready to deal with the wider implications of the acts themselves.