zellephantom: Belle from Beauty and the Beast showing an open book to a sheep (Default)
[personal profile] zellephantom
Hello everyone. Long time no Phantom posts. It's good to see me again, isn't it?

No need to respond- that was rhetorical.

{"Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I asked leave to look at it and read, 'Don Juan Triumphant.' 'Yes,' he said, 'I compose sometimes.' I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.' 'You must work at it as seldom as you can,' I said. He replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a time.' }

Isn't red ink so much hard to see on white paper?? Why does Erik like to use it so much??

Also, exaggerating to impress your crush much, Erik? Unless you're genuinely supernatural, which you've admitted you aren't, you can't be a generally productive person and work for FOURTEEN DAYS STRAIGHT WITHOUT FOOD, WATER, OR SLEEP. And, unless there's some weird Sleeping Beauty type shenanagins going on, or are in a coma somehow, YOU CAN'T SLEEP FOR YEARS AT A TIME. (Unless he means that after his creative efforts are spent, he lives for years just going through the motions mechanically, without any spark of inspiration or interest in anything.)

I find it interesting that he started work on DJT 20 years ago- in ALW you (or at least me) get the impression that it's more of a recent passion project that's bordering on self-insert fanfic. But in Leroux, what prompted him to start composing? It's much less of a major facet of his character skills than it is in ALW.

It's kinda nice of Christine to basically say "If you're going to die after you finish this, then you *really* shouldn't work on it. Make as little progress as possible. Live."

(But isn't the point of composing to eventually get your work performed?? So why plan to not live to see your work performed or even have ANYONE ELSE BUT YOU FIND OR SEE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE??? I'm so confused by the quote above and I just had to try and unpack everything. Moving on!)


{"What did you do?"

"I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words. We at once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us.}

Yeah, if it took me this long to process my thoughts about what he just said, I can't imagine having to react in the moment to this *incredibly weird* declaration.

(And if the catastrophe is your singing, I'm sure it can't be that bad.)

{I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed before. As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul at every note. Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowing cries. Erik's black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice. He was Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to see beneath the mask. I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a movement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore away the mask. Oh, horror, horror, horror!"}


While I do appreciate Shakespeare and have some general knowledge about all of his plays (which might not apply, since this is clearly some sort of opera), I probably need a refresher on Othello in order to really comment on how this applies to the situation.

The whole Christine being 'unable to control' herself from tearing off his mask thing has me curious. Was she just overcome by curiosity and had a Psyche moment? Or was this a moment like Erik doing his ambigously hypnotic control thing like in ALW with "I am your angel of music/Come to me, angel of music ... Sing for me!"?

And if it was the latter, why would he self-sabotage like that?

{Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her, while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now thrice moaned the cry: "Horror! ... Horror! ... Horror!"}

You're not being sneaky, Erik. This whole "echoes in the night" thing isn't fooling me.

{Raoul said: "Strange, Christine, that this calm, soft night should be so full of plaintive sounds. One would think that it was sorrowing with us."

"When you know the secret, Raoul, your ears, like mine, will be full of lamentations."}

Yes, it's strange, Raoul. Almost like someone is spying on you. Maybe you should, I don't know, CHECK BEHIND THE BIG STATUE??

(Also, if I didn't know better, I'd almost think Christine knows Erik is there and is covering for him.)

{"Yes, if I lived to be a hundred, I should always hear the superhuman cry of grief and rage which he uttered when the terrible sight appeared before my eyes ...}

Worst superpower ever: being able to scream ridiculously loudly and emotionally to an inhuman degree. It may freak people out, but it certainly wouldn't get you on the avengers.

{But imagine, if you can, Red Death's mask suddenly coming to life in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes, its nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon; AND NOT A RAY OF LIGHT FROM THE SOCKETS, for, as I learned later, you can not see his blazing eyes except in the dark.}

I take that back- glow-in-the-dark eyes are the worse superpower. Especially if they don't come with night vision abilities. You can't sneak up on anyone at night, but I guess you could freak them out?? Maybe lurk beside country roads at night and pretend to be deer whenever a car drives by??

{he hissed mad, incoherent words and curses at me. Leaning over me, he cried, 'Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face!'}

CURSE YOU, YOU LITTLE LYING DELILAH! YOU LITTLE PRYING PANDORAAAA!

{Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a very good-looking fellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me for ever. I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!'}

Points for snark, but the sexism definitely cancels it out.

{And, when I turned away my head and begged for mercy, he drew it to him, brutally, twisting his dead fingers into my hair.}

Minus a million points for hurting her. Maybe try to be a decent person for once in your life, Erik???

{"Enough! Enough!" cried Raoul. "I will kill him. In Heaven's name, Christine, tell me where the dining-room on the lake is! I must kill him!"}

The sentiment is relatable right now, Raoul, but you must be dreaming if you're even thinking of fighting Erik, let alone winning.

The Dining Room on the Lake sounds like a delightful fancy restaurant, though.

{"Then he hissed at me. 'Ah, I frighten you, do I? ... I dare say! ... Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this ... this ... my head is a mask? Well,' he roared, 'tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Give me your hands!' And he seized my hands and dug them into his awful face. He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh with my nails!}

This is. Messed. Up. Erik using Christine as a vehicle for self-harm and projecting his own self-loathing onto while also terrifying and hurting her. Just messed up.

{'Know,' he shouted, while his throat throbbed and panted like a furnace, 'know that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!}

In a different context, this statement would be kind of romantic?? But here? NOPE.

{As long as you thought me handsome, you could have come back, I know you would have come back ... but, now that you know my hideousness, you would run away for good...}

You're making shallow generalizations about women, Erik. Maybe your ugliness wouldn't scare her away, but the yelling and hurting her? Definitely would.

{'When my own father never saw me and when my mother, so as not to see me, made me a present of my first mask!'}

So does he even know who his father is? Was it that he was illegitimate, that Mom hid the baby away him/ran away from him, or what?

{And then he crawled away like a snake}

Hilarious mental image, that.
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zellephantom: Belle from Beauty and the Beast showing an open book to a sheep (Default)
zellephantom

May 2021

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