Line #7 YMMV/LoveNeverDies


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Some have proposed that Christine is responsible for Raoul's downward spiral in some way or another. She's apparently spent the entirety of their decade-long marriage pining for Erik; she even [[spoiler:cheated on him with Erik shortly before their wedding and it's implied she would've left Raoul for Erik if he hadn't done a bunk before she woke up]]. Raoul could well have been aware that he wasn't Christine's first choice and may also have been aware on some level that [[spoiler:Gustave was NotActuallyHisChild, which Christine deceived him about]]. Christine's lack of honesty and respect towards Raoul is hardly a great foundation for a happy marriage.
2	* AngstWhatAngst: After watching [[spoiler:his mother die in front of him]] young Gustave is more concerned with reassuring the Phantom and showing he's no longer disturbed by his face.
3	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
4	** Despite the show's many, many flaws, "Till I Hear You Sing" is one of the strongest songs in the show. Given how often it gets reprised (about 5 times in total), clearly Andrew Lloyd Webber knew it as well.
5	** The title song is simply one of the most beautiful numbers Andrew Lloyd Webber has ever composed!
6	** "The Beauty Underneath" is pretty cool, since it's essentially a nod to the [[Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera previous musical's]] title song.
7	** There isn't a specific category for [[DarkReprise Terrifying Music]], but the reprise of "Bathing Beauty" is absolutely eerie.
8	* BadassDecay: The Phantom. Dear ''Lord'', the Phantom.
9	* ContestedSequel: Oooh boy, is it ''ever''. Opinions range from 'hilarious' and 'passable' at best, and variations of 'absolute flaming dumpster fire' at worst ''to begin with.''
10	* DesignatedHero:
11	** The Phantom. We're supposed to feel sorry for him and Christine as StarCrossedLovers, and at the moment it seems they can finally be happy together [[spoiler:Christine dies in his arms]]. However, the Phantom has spent ten years pining for Christine and essentially tricks her into coming to America and performing for him, he shows no appreciation for the Girys in spite of the fact they're the ones who helped him escape France and have been keeping his business afloat, and even threatens the life of Christine's son until [[spoiler:he learns the boy is actually his]]. Not to mention that in the original musical, he killed people, abducted Christine, and was prepared to kill Raoul, too. Exactly why should audiences root for him? [[spoiler:And in the end he comes out a winner anyway, as Gustav accepts him as his father, deformities and all, and Christine and him reaffirm their love before she dies]].
12	** Christine is a lesser example. Her marriage is falling apart, but a major contributing factor to that is that she's been pining for the Phantom all these years despite marrying Raoul and having a child with him, and in some productions it's implied her career is in decline because she doesn't perform much out of missing the Phantom. There's also the fact that [[spoiler:she's lied to Raoul about Gustav being his son when she knows he's truly the Phantom's]]. During the show she does nothing to improve her current circumstances on her own, the Phantom and Raoul plotting behind her back is what moves things along, and she [[spoiler:only performs again to affirm her love for the Phantom, not to save her career or help her family out of their debts.]]
13	* DesignatedVillain:
14	** Raoul. He ''is'' a drunk and a gambler who has squandered his family's money, and he's neglectful to Gustav. But at the least he recognizes he's a failure as a husband and a father who doesn't deserve her love and desperately wishes he could be better for her. Add in Christine pining for the Phantom and the possibility that Raoul secretly knows (or at least suspects) [[spoiler:Gustav isn't really his son]], and it's not hard to understand how he could fall into depression and substance abuse. [[spoiler:And when he finally seems to be ready to try and save their marriage once the Phantom enters the picture, Christine rejects him and chooses the Phantom.]]
15	** Poor Meg. While [[spoiler:kidnapping and threatening Gustav]] was too far, it's very clear that this is a case of MistreatmentInducedBetrayal. After all, she and her mother smuggled him out of France, helped him put together Phantasma, her mother helps run it while she's their leading lady, and she's been convinced by her mother to sleep with people of influence to secure money and legal aid for the sake of keeping Phantasma open. All she wants in return is the Phantom's love, but he harshly rebukes her when she tries to approach him and has never even watched her perform despite constant pleading from her, because he's too hung up on Christine to pay her any mind.
16	* DieForOurShip:
17	** Or, rather, be derailed and become TheAlcoholic for our ship in Raoul's case. [[spoiler:And all for nothing, too...]]
18	** Meg, popular among fans to pair with Erik, is also derailed to become [[spoiler:an unhinged admirer of the Phantom who stands in the way of Erik and Christine's "true love" and kills Christine in the end.]]
19	** Those who see the Phantom and Christine as Andrew Lloyd Webber's stand-ins for himself and Music/SarahBrightman might definitely take this view.
20	* DracoInLeatherPants: The show is pretty much written around this and RonTheDeathEater with the characterizations of The Phantom and Raoul respectively. Notably the fact that the Phantom is guilty of multiple murders is never so much as mentioned, and when listing reasons Christine will never choose him Raoul only brings up that he is ugly.
21	* EsotericHappyEnding: The audience is supposed to be touched by the finale, in which [[spoiler:Christine dies in the Phantom's arms, and Gustave accepts him as his father]], but a mess of unanswered questions and questionable fates for the characters derails it.
22	* FanonDiscontinuity: Due to the above ContestedSequel trope. Even Michael Crawford, the original Phantom, prefers to ignore this musical.
23	* FauxSymbolism: The Australian production has Christine perform the title song in a blue dress, with peacock feathers arranged in a tail on a stage behind her.
24	* FranchiseOriginalSin: In a lot of respects, the most common criticisms of ''Love Never Dies'' were all around in the original musical. It's just that these issues weren't quite as significant as they would become. The Phantom, for instance, went from having his existing sympathetic elements aspects played up while still mostly remaining a TragicMonster, to being basically lionized as a long-suffering martyr who deserves the world even as he ruins the lives of everyone around him.
25	* GeniusBonus: To those familiar with the [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera2004 2004 movie]] or have heard his name mentioned briefly in a few performances of the musical, Christine's father was named 'Gustave', [[DeadGuyJunior hence the name of her son]].
26	* HoYay:
27	** Christine and Meg. Even more so.
28	** The first instance of Devil Take the Hindmost is incredibly homoerotic. The relationship between Raoul and the Phantom could be considered the true love story of this play. Or at least the true hate sex story of this play.
29	** Twice during the song, Raoul and the Phantom get ''really'' up close and personal with each other, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgE5z1aXcV0 especially from 2:50 to 3:10 here]].
30	* ItWasHisSled: Come on, everybody knows that Phantom is [[spoiler:Gustave's father]].
31	* MemeticMolester: This musical's version of the Phantom has this reputation, largely due to him singing the very sexual-sounding song "The Beauty Underneath" to a ten-year-old boy.
32	* MemeticMutation:
33	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTXDb_uA7uE TEN YEARS OOOOOOOOLD!]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]The Phantom's response to realising Gustave's birth ten years ago coincides with the night he spent with Christine, in the form of a long sung note while the music swells.[[/labelnote]]
34	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEMNaf2nLEY Give me the gun]], [[spoiler:Meg]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]Seasoned kidnapper the Phantom of the Opera finds himself having to sing this when he ends up on the opposite side of a hostage crisis after Meg kidnaps Gustave and prepares to commit suicide.[[/labelnote]]
35	* {{Narm}}:
36	** "Beneath A Moonless Sky" can be this for a lot of people — the sheer seriousness borders on ridiculous (not least because, underneath all the bombast, the song is basically "Hey, remember that time we totally had sex?"). And it goes on like this for ''seven minutes''.
37	** The Phantom figures out that [[spoiler: Guatave is his son]] based on nothing more than his age and the fact that he can write and play a basic tune on a piano. It becomes more ridiculous when you factor in that [[spoiler: Guatave grew up being exposed to music and the theater, and that two generations of his maternal lineage have been musically inclined; there's no reason he couldn't have inherited his talents from (or had them fostered by) Christine]].
38	** "The Beauty Underneath" can suffer from this as well, particularly the version that's on the cast recording. It's largely thanks to the fact that between the vagueness of the lyrics, the intensity of the Phantom's vocals and the way the boy playing Gustave gets increasingly excited every time he gives a BigYes, the song sounds ''incredibly'' sexual when taken out of context (and not much better even ''in'' context).
39	*** Also, Gustave's over-the-top scream of terror after the Phantom takes off his mask. This is the same boy who came face to face with circus freaks, [[MonsterClown creepy clowns]], and skeletal centaurs out of Creator/TimBurton's nightmares and declared them "beautiful", but apparently a man with half a disfigured face is too much for him to handle.
40	* NoYay: The Phantom and Gustave during "The Beauty Underneath". [[spoiler:Especially since it's revealed that the Phantom is Gustave's father.]]
41	* PanderingToTheBase: Specifically, to Phantom/Christine shippers by reviving the possibility of their becoming the OfficialCouple.
42	* RonTheDeathEater: Raoul and [[spoiler:Meg]], ''canonically''!
43	* {{Sequelitis}}: ''The Phantom of the Opera'' is one of the most famous and beloved musicals of all time, with hordes of fans. In contrast, ''Love Never Dies'' is both far less well-known (to the point some people are surprised to learn there ''was'' a sequel) and received a ''far'' more mixed response, to put it mildly. Even some hardcore Eric/Christine shippers don't much care for it [[spoiler:despite the plot making them a couple]]. This may or may not have to do with the fact that Lloyd Webber is the ''only'' significant member of the original's creative team involved in this one. WordOfGod is that he was suffering from cancer while constructing it; a mixture of this, twenty years between installments when a writer's creativity is sure to change, PanderingToTheBase, and a whole bunch of other shit... Something's bound to go down.
44	* ShippingBedDeath: [[spoiler:A lot of Erik/Christine shippers were turned off by the improbable circumstances under which the two got together, the fact that previously heroic or at least sympathetic characters like Raoul, Madame Giry and Meg were inexplicably turned into assholes to make the couple look better, and Christine and Eric both coming off as unsympathetic (e.g. Erik kidnaps Christine's son to force her to sing for him and only treats the boy well when he realizes he's ''his'' son, while Christine cheated on Raoul the night before their wedding with the man who tried to kill him and lied that Gustave was Raoul's child. And to top it all off, they don't even get a happy ending because Christine dies]].
45	* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: Not strictly a 'sequel', but the revised Australian version of the show is considered a huge improvement.
46	* TaintedByThePreview: [[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/article7050528.ece Especially]] after the preview performances started in London and plot details came out...
47	* TearJerker: The ending is still emotional, in particular Gustav's scream of despair when [[spoiler:his mother dies]] and the Phantom's frantic sobbing, holding her whilst the music soars around him.
48	** The title song, performed by Christine near the end, is beautiful enough to leave barely a dry eye.
49	** "Till I Hear You Sing", in the right hands, has this effect.
50	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
51	** There are people who say Erik starting a twisted amusement park full of freaks would make for an interesting story, and could be very touching if done right. However, the audience doesn't get to see this happen, with the park already being well-established and popular by the time the story begins.
52	** Christine never finds out about Erik and Raoul making a wager over her, with both of them simply assuming she'll go along with the winner. One imagines she'd have some choice words over it and dump both their asses, but no.
53	** Darn it, Webber! If you wanted a character to go through SanitySlippage be driven to kill Christine, then you should've gone with Carlotta. Think about it; in the original musical, she is upstaged by Christine, humiliated by the Phantom on stage, and loses her lover, Piangi. All because of Erik and Christine. Anyone would go mad with vengeance in her shoes!
54	** Let's face it, the Phantom getting a {{Yandere}} of his own had all sorts of potential. This could have lead to a [[HeelRealization further perspective]] about his actions in the previous show, or been a much more prominent threat overall. Instead [[spoiler:the Phantom and Meg only appear onstage together at the very end as part of a SuddenDownerEnding.]]
55	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: The London production offered free tickets to children at one point. Hmm, let's see. Alcoholism, stripping, [[spoiler:infidelity which allegedly produced a son]], a song with arguably pedophilic undertones, and [[spoiler:murder]]. Yep, this is definitely for kids.
56	* WhyWouldAnyoneTakeHimBack: In addition to what he put her through in the original show the Phantom abandoned Christine due to his insecurities after their night together, leaving her [[spoiler:to raise a child]] in a loveless marriage for ten years without so much as a word. When they meet again he proceeds to threaten the life of her son, yet she still ignores multiple opportunities to escape the situation and stays with him.
57	* TheWoobie:
58	** [[spoiler:Meg Giry]] is possibly one of the few sympathetic characters in the show, in love with a man who cares nothing for her while being forced into prostitution by her own mother, which results in her [[spoiler:attempting suicide]]. She also qualifies as a mild example of a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds after [[spoiler:she kidnaps Gustave and then unintentionally murders Christine]].
59	** If you feel especially sympathetic for Raoul, he could also qualify, driven into alcoholism with a distant wife and [[spoiler:a son who isn't his]].

Context YMMV / LoveNeverDies