Phantom Thoughts pt. 34
Feb. 5th, 2019 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zellephantomThe long-awaited return!
WE'RE BACK! Finally. Sorry for the long wait, but things have been busy and not great lately.
{"Christine! Christine! Something tells me that we are wrong to wait till to-morrow evening and that we ought to fly at once."
"I tell you that, if he does not hear me sing tomorrow, it will cause him infinite pain."
"It is difficult not to cause him pain and yet to escape from him for good."}
I can't believe I'm saying this but.. good point, Raoul. It would definitely hurt Erik more if he knew that Christine was *planning* to leave him and deliberately sang for him one last time than it would if she just vanished, which he could blame on Raoul convincing her to leave on a whim or something because no way would she just leave him by himself ON PURPOSE. No way it could be a planned, premeditated thing. It MUST have been the vicomte!
{ "But then it counts both ways ... for we risk his killing us."
"Does he love you so much?"
"He would commit murder for me."}
I'm pretty sure by 'us', you mean Raoul, Christine. I really cannot see Erik ever bringing himself to kill you. (Would there ever be a circumstance where Erik would outright kill her without also killing himself? None come to mind, except maaaybe in a zombie AU if she was a zombie but idk.)
{"But one can find out where he lives. One can go in search of him. Now that we know that Erik is not a ghost, one can speak to him and force him to answer!"}
Has one considered that there may be traps and that since one already knows he is capable of murder, that those traps might have a lethal effect on one's health?
{"Oh, I hate him!" cried Raoul. "And you, Christine, tell me, do you hate him too?"
"No," said Christine simply.}
WOW. (Also, Raoul, you are neglecting to realize that people can have complicated feelings about people. There is no black and white 'you either love them or hate them'. NUANCE IS A THING.)
{"No, of course not ... Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves," said Raoul bitterly. "The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it... Picture it: a man who lives in a palace underground!" And he gave a leer.}
You- you're practically baiting her at this point, Raoul. Are you deliberately trying to upset her? She's said how she feels. What motivation would she even *have* for lying to you about her feelings for Erik, since your plan is just 'take her away and then leave'? She's not leading you on, since she hasn't made any promises to you regarding a future together. (I mean, there was the engagement thing but that was explicitly fake, even though Raoul's feelings for her were real.)
Also, it's an interesting concept to present: that terror is just unadmitted love, an unspoken love that thrives on adrenaline and danger. I don't think I agree with it, though. IMO, fear and love are not the same thing, sides of the same coin, nor are they opposites. The opposite of love is indifference. The opposite of fear is trust.
(Gaaahhh I can't picture Raoul leering and if I could I'm sure it would be utterly distasteful.)
{"Then you want me to go back there?" said the young girl cruelly. }
Ohhhh that's an excellent retort to what he's really saying, which is something along the lines of: "If you don't hate Erik, then you must love him and not care at all for me." "Why would I want to escape so badly from someone whom you claim I love? And if I do love him and am deceiving you, then wouldn't it be better if I went to go be with him forever?"
{There was an appalling silence between the three of them: the two who spoke and the shadow that listened, behind them.}
IT'S TIME TO PLAY: Guess That Shadowy Interloper!
Is it:
A) Erik
B) the Daroga
C) a cat
or
D) a red herring?
(Well, we already know it's Erik, so I guess that was rather pointless, but I had the thought and just had to put it in here somewhere.)
WE'RE BACK! Finally. Sorry for the long wait, but things have been busy and not great lately.
{"Christine! Christine! Something tells me that we are wrong to wait till to-morrow evening and that we ought to fly at once."
"I tell you that, if he does not hear me sing tomorrow, it will cause him infinite pain."
"It is difficult not to cause him pain and yet to escape from him for good."}
I can't believe I'm saying this but.. good point, Raoul. It would definitely hurt Erik more if he knew that Christine was *planning* to leave him and deliberately sang for him one last time than it would if she just vanished, which he could blame on Raoul convincing her to leave on a whim or something because no way would she just leave him by himself ON PURPOSE. No way it could be a planned, premeditated thing. It MUST have been the vicomte!
{ "But then it counts both ways ... for we risk his killing us."
"Does he love you so much?"
"He would commit murder for me."}
I'm pretty sure by 'us', you mean Raoul, Christine. I really cannot see Erik ever bringing himself to kill you. (Would there ever be a circumstance where Erik would outright kill her without also killing himself? None come to mind, except maaaybe in a zombie AU if she was a zombie but idk.)
{"But one can find out where he lives. One can go in search of him. Now that we know that Erik is not a ghost, one can speak to him and force him to answer!"}
Has one considered that there may be traps and that since one already knows he is capable of murder, that those traps might have a lethal effect on one's health?
{"Oh, I hate him!" cried Raoul. "And you, Christine, tell me, do you hate him too?"
"No," said Christine simply.}
WOW. (Also, Raoul, you are neglecting to realize that people can have complicated feelings about people. There is no black and white 'you either love them or hate them'. NUANCE IS A THING.)
{"No, of course not ... Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves," said Raoul bitterly. "The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it... Picture it: a man who lives in a palace underground!" And he gave a leer.}
You- you're practically baiting her at this point, Raoul. Are you deliberately trying to upset her? She's said how she feels. What motivation would she even *have* for lying to you about her feelings for Erik, since your plan is just 'take her away and then leave'? She's not leading you on, since she hasn't made any promises to you regarding a future together. (I mean, there was the engagement thing but that was explicitly fake, even though Raoul's feelings for her were real.)
Also, it's an interesting concept to present: that terror is just unadmitted love, an unspoken love that thrives on adrenaline and danger. I don't think I agree with it, though. IMO, fear and love are not the same thing, sides of the same coin, nor are they opposites. The opposite of love is indifference. The opposite of fear is trust.
(Gaaahhh I can't picture Raoul leering and if I could I'm sure it would be utterly distasteful.)
{"Then you want me to go back there?" said the young girl cruelly. }
Ohhhh that's an excellent retort to what he's really saying, which is something along the lines of: "If you don't hate Erik, then you must love him and not care at all for me." "Why would I want to escape so badly from someone whom you claim I love? And if I do love him and am deceiving you, then wouldn't it be better if I went to go be with him forever?"
{There was an appalling silence between the three of them: the two who spoke and the shadow that listened, behind them.}
IT'S TIME TO PLAY: Guess That Shadowy Interloper!
Is it:
A) Erik
B) the Daroga
C) a cat
or
D) a red herring?
(Well, we already know it's Erik, so I guess that was rather pointless, but I had the thought and just had to put it in here somewhere.)
no subject
Date: 2020-11-13 04:03 am (UTC)Yes, he might very well kill himself afterwards (and in fact, as we know, he ends up by attempting to force her to kill him in a grand suicide pact). But he is more than capable of killing her if he thinks he is going to lose her, and/or out of sheer jealousy.
And Christine, who has spent protracted periods in the company of someone whose attitude towards her is terrifying her more and more, is all too aware of that.
I don't know where de Mattos gets "And he gave a leer" from: the text is "il ricana", which is an ugly laugh. Leroux uses the same word of Erik when he grabs the bag of keys back from Christine, where de Mattos translates it as "And he chuckled".
Raoul here gives a embittered laugh, as befitting a Gothic hero who has had the scales of illusion ripped from his eyes (or so, for the moment, he envisions himself).