Line #12 Fridge/LoveNeverDies


1	!!FridgeBrilliance:
2	* In the very first scene, Fleck calls Mme Giry not the proper French "Madame," but "Madam". This could be just her accent, but considering that [[Literature/EastOfEden in the slang of the time,]] a "madam" was a woman who owned a brothel...
3	** Maybe it was a subtle hint to how they managed to raise the money for the sideshow?
4	* Remember the name of the ship that Christine comes to Coney Island on? The ''Persephone.'' Now, why does this seem strangely fitting? Time for a quick mythology lesson: Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. One day, she was kidnapped by Hades, who had become obsessed with her beauty and desired to make her his bride. Demeter was so distraught by the loss of her daughter that she made the earth grow cold and the plants die. Eventually, the gods made Hades return Persephone, but not before he got her to eat six pomegranate seeds--dooming her to have to return to the underworld for six months of each year, during which her lonely mother causes the world to be cold again. Now let's look at ''Love Never Dies.'' Phantasma is the underworld (full of darkness and freaks/monsters), the Phantom is Hades, and Christine is Persephone. In ''Phantom of the Opera'', Christine was kidnapped by the Phantom, who wanted to make her his bride, and was obsessed with her beauty. This is still the case in ''Love Never Dies''. The aria that the Phantom wants Christine to sing are the pomegranate seeds--if Christine "eats them" (sings), she has to stay. She does "eat," but the Phantom's actions removed the warmth from the world (think the beginning, when we see that everything was ruined by the actions in the musical), and he doesn't get to keep her entirely, but he gets Gustave, a "half year" of beauty.
5	* Considering that the Phantom's teachings made Christine an internationally celebrated singer, one should consider that Meg loves him in the hopes that he'll make her as famous.
6	* In the Australian recording, Raoul has a line right before ''Devil Take the Hindmost''; "He's not Mephistopheles!" right before the Phantom jumps up through a trapdoor at the bar to scare him and propose his wager for Christine. In the classic opera ''Faust'' (which is prominently featured in the Gaston Leroux novel that inspired ''Phantom of the Opera''), the demon Mephistopheles appears to the washed up Faust...you guessed it, through a trapdoor on the stage and offers Faust the love of...that's right, a woman, in return for his soul. Faust agrees, even though it's pretty clear Mephistopheles will win...[[spoiler:just like the Phantom will win the bet]].
7	* The descent of Raoul's character from his KnightInShiningArmour status in the original musical to being an [[RonTheDeathEater alcoholic habitual gambler]] in this is actually not that surprising if you stop to consider events from his point of view. In short, problem gambling and alcoholism have often been linked to low self-esteem and the desire to (at least pretend to) hold control over something - hence why many addicts claim that they can quit whenever they want to (even when it's blatantly untrue). Now, let's consider the fact that Christine obviously hasn't been doing much good hiding the fact that she's been pining for the Phantom for 10 years, and that Gustave is a musical prodigy (and Raoul clearly feels no parental connection to the boy whatsoever), suddenly Raoul turning to destructive behaviours doesn't seem so random. (And yes, we're giving ALW the benefit of the doubt on this one and assume that he thought it through to this extent).
8
9	!!FridgeLogic:
10	* [[spoiler: Gustave's conception.]] The book has Christine [[spoiler: actively seeking Erik out ''the night before her wedding''!!!]] Even worse, [[spoiler: he, in a fit of morning-after guilt, ''abandons'' Christine without so much as a word of explanation, leaving her alone and ultimately pregnant. Considering what might have happened to her if anyone found out about this -- Fantine in ''Les Miserables'', anyone? -- that was highly irresponsible.]]
11	** [[spoiler: Making the rape interpretation of "Music of the Night" canon would have been somewhat logical, but then she probably would have given birth before the end of the first show.]]
12	* Christine to the Phantom: "Forgive me, I beg you, if you can/I've brought you nothing but woe." [[BigWhat WHAT?]] To refresh your memory: she is talking to the man who [[StalkerWithACrush stalked her]], [[LoveMakesYouEvil deceived and manipulated her]], [[LoveMakesYouCrazy terrorized and murdered her colleagues]], kidnapped her, and nearly forced her into a ScarpiaUltimatum marriage. ''Then'' he [[spoiler: slept with her, only to run away like a thief in the night leaving her alone and pregnant]], decided ten years later that he ''still'' wasn't ready to let her go, took advantage of her family's precarious financial situation to drag her across the ocean so he could mess in her life again, and behaved in a frankly sinister manner to her son [[spoiler: before learning that it was ''his'' son, too]]. And ''she's'' apologizing to ''him''? Talk about KarmaHoudini!
13	** If you think about it, however, this is a common reaction of victims of abusive relationships: blaming themselves for causing their abusers to, well, abuse them. Considering it's pretty well accepted that Christine has a major case of Stockholm Syndrome with regards to Erik, it's not out of the question that she still (wrongly) blames herself for causing him pain. Messed up, but not inaccurate.
14	* Even more glaring is the issue of how Chirstine can even [[spoiler: be so sure whose kid Gustave even is. Paternity tests weren't available back then, so how can she know? It implies she and Raoul hadn't consummated their marriage, in which case he'd logically suspect infidelity]]. But if such were the case, [[spoiler: why is Raoul so surprised when the Phantom suggests Gustave might not be his?]] Makes too little sense.
15	** The Phantom's logic for [[spoiler: concluding that Gustave is his son]] is pretty shaky too: the only evidence is [[spoiler: Gustave's musical ability and his fascination with the macabre. The former could have come from his mother and maternal grandfather, and the latter is hardly extraordinary in a ten year old boy.]]
16	*** Maybe the fact that Gustave [[spoiler: has no younger siblings]] plays into Christine and the Phantom's conviction that [[spoiler: Raoul isn't Gustave's father. They might figure that, since there are no children of a ten-year marriage, Raoul is sterile.]]
17	*** It can be very difficult [[spoiler: to have children]] sometimes. Just look at how many disasters happened because [[spoiler: royal couples had trouble producing a child]].
18	*** This may be a case of AdaptationExplanationExtrication. The stage show draws a lot of plot elements from ''Literature/ThePhantomOfManhattan'', but crucially, it ditches [[spoiler: Raoul's infertility/impotence due to a GroinAttack in his backstory. With that in play, Christine's certainty that Erik is the father makes perfect sense--there's literally nobody else it could be. (Book!Raoul also knows and loves the boy as his own, because in the book they are HappilyMarried.)]]
19	** The Phantom's wrong: [[spoiler: Gustave ''can't'' be his son!]] The first musical takes place in 1881, and the second in 1907. That's not ten years. The only person who says it's been ten years is the Phantom, who also claims to have been counting the days "till I hear you sing once more." He's probably been counting the tenth year for a long time now in his delusion that she'll come back to him. [[spoiler: Gustave is ten, which just so happens to fit the Phantom's delusion. And since Christine just submits whenever the Phantom is around, she played along, even though there is no possible way that it could be!]]
20	*** Word of God has stated that this story takes place ten years after the events of Phantom, despite the chronological errors made. As stated on the main page, WritersCannotDoMath. Assuming this is the case, [[spoiler: the Phantom can be the father]]. The likelihood of that, however, has already been debated above.
21	*** To be fair, the years in which either story takes place aren't ever explicitly stated within the musicals, and the few clues that are given are vague enough to narrow it down to, let's say, a 5-year radius. It's really only supplementary materials that produce the date issue.
22	* Why would a burlesque dancer and a world-renowned opera diva be performing in the same show?
23	** [[SarcasmMode Clearly Erik's programming genius, much like his music, was just way too ahead of its time to be understood by the masses...]] Seriously though, it wasn't actually as uncommon as you might think to have high and low brow entertainment being mixed like that, especially in a carnival setting.
24	** It's basically the same reason why multi-day music festivals nowadays will have world famous acts listed as well as little-known indie bands. It's basically trying to appeal to as many people as possible. Not everyone would be interested in an opera singer, but with a burlesque show thrown in as well? Suddenly you've pretty much doubled your audience.
25	** The most famous of this genre was the original run of the Muppet Show, which certainly did have world famous opera stars sharing the stage with puppets falling over banana peels.
26	* Christine and the Phantom [[spoiler: sleeping with each other the night before Christine married Raoul]] has some logistical issues in the first place. Presumably it happened before the Phantom fled to America, but it seemed implied that he got out of France right away? So theoretically at the time [[spoiler: Gustav was conceived]], Christine would have been in Paris and the Phantom would have been in New York.
27	** Eh, it's only implied that he got out of France straight away. It would likely take time for the Girys to find transport out of France. This isn't so much FridgeLogic as just a good old-fashioned unexplained plot convenience. (You still have to wonder what the Phantom was still doing in Paris after having been chased by a rampaging mob, though...)
28	* The Phantom has no legal claim to [[spoiler: Gustave. Before the invention of paternity tests, the law stated that any child born into a marriage was legally the husband's child, even if the wife was proven to have been unfaithful. Raoul may have run off, but unless Erik fakes a whole new identity for Gustave (which would be in-character for him, but isn't likely to do wonders for the kid's mental state), he can't adopt him, and either Raoul or the law can take the boy away at any time.]]
29	** The Phantom might not have any ''legal'' claim, but to suggest that anything might actually happen because of that is still to just assume that despite all that's happened, [[spoiler: Raoul actually even ''cares'' enough about any legal paternal claim he might have to Gustave to step in at all. Throughout the entire show, Raoul is nothing but cold and emotionally distant to Gustave and clearly has never felt any kind of parental connection to him whatsoever. Plus, he now knows that Gustave is basically the living embodiment of the fact that his late wife loved the man who tried multiple times to kill him more than she loved him. Honestly, this troper wouldn't blame Raoul at all for just preferring to let Erik have the boy rather than continuing to make all three of them miserable by having the law step in and keep Gustave as his own son. Besides, it's not like Erik can live out in the open anyway so there isn't exactly going to be a huge number of people wondering where he found this random 10-year-old he's now claiming to be his son and I doubt many people would be willing to question Raoul if he were to explain Gustave's absence to those in ''his'' social circle as him having drowned off that pier]].

Context Fridge / LoveNeverDies