Post by |ADMIN LEFFIE| on Feb 7, 2012 20:22:14 GMT -5
A Guide to Phantom of the Opera!
This guide is for future players who would like to know the story of the Phantom of the Opera a little better in order to enrich their roleplaying experience. Enjoy!
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux was published first in 1909 as a serialization, and then in turn published in French and American novel form in 1910 and 1911, respectively. The author was already semi-famous for his journalism, covering important court cases of the day, and was an avid traveler himself, just as our Opera Ghost was. Though he was also famous at the time for writing widely popular French detective novels, he is truly only remembered outside of France now as the author of the horror/romance novel, The Phantom of the Opera, or rather Le Fantôme de l’Opera, as it is in the French.
In truth, it is really a detective novel, told from Leroux’s detective type point of view, then later on narrated by the mysterious “Persian” man, who will be explained more in depth later. It is set up like a real detective novel, in fact, stating evidence in the beginning that the events in the novel truly happened (“The Opera Ghost really existed”), as well as stating the narrator’s research on the subject, such as in depth searches into national archives as well as face to face interviews with people who were there during the events, such as the police chief M.Faure, little Meg Giry, who in later life became a Baroness, and hinting at his contact with the Persian. As the novel progresses, we see the fruits of the narrator’s labor unfold as we follow a brave royal named Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, the hero that is in love with the Phantom’s true love, young singer Christine Daaé, as he tries to figure out who the Phantom is and what he wants with the woman in question.
In a nutshell, the novel, as stated before, is about a young beautiful singer named Christine Daaé, an orphan in the chorus of the Paris Opera House, the daughter of a violinist still grieving for her late father, who also believes that he would send her the Angel of Music, a figure from stories of her childhood, to watch over her and teach her how to live and breathe music. She is indeed visited by this Angel, but what she doesn’t know that he is really a hideously deformed musical (among other things) genius named Erik, living under the bowels of the Opera House in seclusion. He heard her voice and fell in love with its seraphic qualities, and vowed to be her instructor. But Erik had many social disabilities from being shunned and an outcast in a perfect faced world, and did not know how to go about teaching someone with a face like his. He became her Angel of Music and tricked her into believing his pleas of undying heavenly love, all the while also haunting the Opera House as its resident ghost, scaring ballerinas into a frenzy and exciting all sorts of rumors from the company. On the night of Christine’s triumphant debut as Marguerite in a part of Gounod’s Faust, Christine’s childhood sweetheart, Raoul de Chagny reenters her life, and incites jealousy from the Phantom. Erik later takes her away to his lair, after the dreaded chandelier crash after Carlotta’s disastrous performance, for a few weeks, where she unmasks him and has to deal with his fury and undeniable, complete love for her until she is released.
The rest of the novel chronicles Raoul’s journey from learning of Christine’s troubles to investigating the matter on his own, and when Christine is kidnapped by the Phantom during a final performance of Faust where the Phantom was to be captured, he enlists the help of the mysterious Persian, who had been snooping around the Opera House for the longest time. He is revealed to be a person from Erik’s past, and knows the madman well. He leads Raoul to Erik’s underground lair as a sort of guide, and this part of the novel is told from his point of view. Finally, Erik forces Christine to choose between marrying him or letting the entire Opera House blow up (he’d placed kegs upon kegs of gunpowder under his lair and set up a switch in the form of a switch in the shape of a grasshopper, which Christine would turn instead of a safer scorpion if she wanted to choose this option). She chooses the scorpion, fearful for people’s lives and the life of her love Raoul, who is trapped with the Persian in Erik’s torture chamber, drowning. While the Persian and Raoul have fainted, Christine kisses Erik, his first kiss in his life, and he feels such compassion from her, such love, and at the same time such pity, that he decides to let her go, finally learning the lesson of sacrifice. In the final chapter, it is revealed that he later visits the Persian, telling him of this and that he will die soon. He does indeed, three weeks later, of a broken heart.
There have been many versions since then, most included in the canon list. If you have any questions about the different versions, feel free to pm a member of that canon asking them about it (members, you can receive euros for this!!!
), or post a question in this thread!
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux was published first in 1909 as a serialization, and then in turn published in French and American novel form in 1910 and 1911, respectively. The author was already semi-famous for his journalism, covering important court cases of the day, and was an avid traveler himself, just as our Opera Ghost was. Though he was also famous at the time for writing widely popular French detective novels, he is truly only remembered outside of France now as the author of the horror/romance novel, The Phantom of the Opera, or rather Le Fantôme de l’Opera, as it is in the French.
In truth, it is really a detective novel, told from Leroux’s detective type point of view, then later on narrated by the mysterious “Persian” man, who will be explained more in depth later. It is set up like a real detective novel, in fact, stating evidence in the beginning that the events in the novel truly happened (“The Opera Ghost really existed”), as well as stating the narrator’s research on the subject, such as in depth searches into national archives as well as face to face interviews with people who were there during the events, such as the police chief M.Faure, little Meg Giry, who in later life became a Baroness, and hinting at his contact with the Persian. As the novel progresses, we see the fruits of the narrator’s labor unfold as we follow a brave royal named Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, the hero that is in love with the Phantom’s true love, young singer Christine Daaé, as he tries to figure out who the Phantom is and what he wants with the woman in question.
In a nutshell, the novel, as stated before, is about a young beautiful singer named Christine Daaé, an orphan in the chorus of the Paris Opera House, the daughter of a violinist still grieving for her late father, who also believes that he would send her the Angel of Music, a figure from stories of her childhood, to watch over her and teach her how to live and breathe music. She is indeed visited by this Angel, but what she doesn’t know that he is really a hideously deformed musical (among other things) genius named Erik, living under the bowels of the Opera House in seclusion. He heard her voice and fell in love with its seraphic qualities, and vowed to be her instructor. But Erik had many social disabilities from being shunned and an outcast in a perfect faced world, and did not know how to go about teaching someone with a face like his. He became her Angel of Music and tricked her into believing his pleas of undying heavenly love, all the while also haunting the Opera House as its resident ghost, scaring ballerinas into a frenzy and exciting all sorts of rumors from the company. On the night of Christine’s triumphant debut as Marguerite in a part of Gounod’s Faust, Christine’s childhood sweetheart, Raoul de Chagny reenters her life, and incites jealousy from the Phantom. Erik later takes her away to his lair, after the dreaded chandelier crash after Carlotta’s disastrous performance, for a few weeks, where she unmasks him and has to deal with his fury and undeniable, complete love for her until she is released.
The rest of the novel chronicles Raoul’s journey from learning of Christine’s troubles to investigating the matter on his own, and when Christine is kidnapped by the Phantom during a final performance of Faust where the Phantom was to be captured, he enlists the help of the mysterious Persian, who had been snooping around the Opera House for the longest time. He is revealed to be a person from Erik’s past, and knows the madman well. He leads Raoul to Erik’s underground lair as a sort of guide, and this part of the novel is told from his point of view. Finally, Erik forces Christine to choose between marrying him or letting the entire Opera House blow up (he’d placed kegs upon kegs of gunpowder under his lair and set up a switch in the form of a switch in the shape of a grasshopper, which Christine would turn instead of a safer scorpion if she wanted to choose this option). She chooses the scorpion, fearful for people’s lives and the life of her love Raoul, who is trapped with the Persian in Erik’s torture chamber, drowning. While the Persian and Raoul have fainted, Christine kisses Erik, his first kiss in his life, and he feels such compassion from her, such love, and at the same time such pity, that he decides to let her go, finally learning the lesson of sacrifice. In the final chapter, it is revealed that he later visits the Persian, telling him of this and that he will die soon. He does indeed, three weeks later, of a broken heart.
There have been many versions since then, most included in the canon list. If you have any questions about the different versions, feel free to pm a member of that canon asking them about it (members, you can receive euros for this!!!
), or post a question in this thread!