Due to Adaptation Overdose, unless otherwise indicated, all tropes listed refer to characterizations in the original novel by Gaston Leroux.
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Erik
Erik (a.k.a The Phantom)
A physically deformed and mentally disturbed charismatic genius who was one of the architects who took part in the construction of the opera. He has been extorting money from the Opera's management for many years and enters into a conflict with the new managers once they don't listen to his demands. He falls in love with Christine and begins to tutor her, telling her that he is the Angel of Music of whom her father had spoken.- Above the Influence: Christine (understandably) expects to be raped when he kidnaps her, but he has no intention of doing so and assures her that he will respect her privacy and her person.
- Abusive Parents: His mother couldn't stand to touch or bear the sight of him, so she made him wear his famous mask.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: The stage shows and the 1943 and 2004 movies in particular tone down his deformities and make him appear less frightening. In general, the stage adaptations often restrict his deformities to only one part of his face to allow the actor to show off most of his face.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- The 1989 version is a vile irredeemable murderer.
- The game adaptation of the novel by MazM depicts him as being far more abusive and cruel to Christine, as well as adding a new character, a woman he met and was rejected by in Turkey, that he's revealed to have kidnapped and kept prisoner under the opera house for a decade before the game starts. In this adaptation, his Heel–Face Turn at the end of the novel is replaced with Christine and said woman escaping after giving him a Breaking Speech, and he dies hating her for it.
- Affably Evil: He may be a murdering psychopath, but the guy is nothing but polite to the very end. And, according to Madame Giry, he is a very generous tipper.
- Alas, Poor Villain: It's hard not to feel bad for the poor guy. Towards the end, he even welcomes his fate after Christine says that she'll give up her freedom, and the novel ends with the author suggesting that Erik is to be pitied for the life he lived.
- Ambiguously Human: While his grotesque appearance alone has a number of potential perfectly mundane explanations, there multiple spooky aspects of his that cast doubt on him being completely human. First, there’s the fact he has yellow eyes that can only be seen in the dark and burn like coals. Then there’s the fact he can go for weeks and months without sleeping or eating which should be impossible for a normal human. Some other characters refer to him as a demon, and judging from some of the evidence, they may not be speaking metaphorically.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: He forces Christine with this choice. Either she becomes his bride and stays with him for the rest of her life, or else he will kill Raoul, the Persian and blow up the opera house, killing everyone inside.
- Antagonist Title: He is the titular Phantom.
- Anti-Villain: All he really wanted was to be loved and have his work praised as a masterpiece.
- Beautiful Singing Voice: He has the most beautiful voice of any living person on the face of the earth.
- Beast and Beauty: With Christine, being the horribly deformed Beast to her Beauty.
- Beneath the Mask: Literally and figuratively. Under his mask, he may appear freakish, grotesque and frightening, but underneath it all, he's just a sad, confused man who doesn't know what to do with himself due to his freakish deformity.
- Berserk Button: Looking under his mask.
- Betty and Veronica: The Veronica to Raoul's Betty for Christine's Archie.
- Blackmail: As the opera ghost, Erik arranged for special privileges in the opera and a monthly salary by blackmailing the opera house managers—both by threatening to reveal their secrets (with Poligny in particular being a pleasure-seeker who's implied to have committed indecencies in his off hours) and, in Richard and Moncharmin's case, by threatening to bring harm on the opera if they should refuse.
- Broken Ace: Erik is a genius in music, art, and architecture, and possessing the most beautiful voice any man or woman on the face of the earth could ever possess, but due to his deformities and the way the world had treated him because of them, he cuts himself off from humanity, growing into a psychopathic murderer.
- The Chessmaster: He's always three steps ahead of everyone who dares to interfere in his plans.
- Compelling Voice: His hypnotic voice is what helps Christine become the opera singer she dreams of being and he seduces her with it.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: He does not handle Christine's interest in Raoul well, and she tries to keep Raoul away from him, fearing, with good reason, that he will kill Raoul when given the chance.
- Cultured Badass: He is a genius in art, science, and music and a skilled assassin as well.
- Dramatic Unmask: Every show builds up to how deformed his face is, each varying from the other one.
- Entitled to Have You: Erik sees Christine's love for Raoul as a betrayal since he's done so much for her.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Christine expects the Phantom to rape her during her abductions, but he actually has the decency not to do so. This is after he has murdered a number of innocent people, especially via his penchant for hanging traps, and declared that he owns Christine, among other not-so-nice things.
- He isn't proud of his part in 'the rosy hours of Mazenderan', aka, killing people to amuse the little Sultana and teaching her to kill in turn; he's actually saddened when speaking of them.
- Even the Guys Want Him: Raoul is just as irresistibly enchanted by Erik's voice as Christine is.
- Evil Genius: A true genius who creates Ridiculously Human Robots, builds complex torture chambers and underground houses, built an entire system of passages in the Opera House to let him move about freely, lines the sewers and cellars of the Opera House with his own deadly booby traps, composes full-scale operas, and even invents his own form of electric heating. Leroux even laments that if not for his face, Erik would've been celebrated as one of the greatest geniuses of all time. In the musical, Erik's opera is of a genre that's literally fifty years ahead of its time.
- Evil Laugh: Erik is described by Christine as laughing like a "drunken demon" when he gives her his marriage ultimatum, and earlier laughed when telling the daroga about how the chandelier fell.
- Evil Makes You Ugly: Inverted. He was born ugly, and the world made him out and treated him like he was evil. He eventually became just that.
- Foil: To both Raoul and the Daroga in the roles he tries to present himself as to Christine.
- To Raoul as the role of a lover. Raoul might be a bit weird and clumsy when it comes to protecting Christine and he can get jealous, but he genuinely values her happiness over his own and leaves her be when she desires so. The Phantom has her under constant surveillance and will kill anyone who tries to take her away from him, regardless of how much it traumatizes her. He even says that the only way she's allowed to leave him is if she kills herself before having a change of heart and letting her go to be with Raoul.
- To the Daroga as the role of a father. The Daroga doesn't hesitate to put himself in danger to help Christine and save her. He goes out of his way to try to inform the staff of the opera of the danger she's in, and when he fails to gather a group, he simply rushes in with Raoul. He also seems to be pretty supportive of Christine and Raoul's love. The Phantom forbids Christine to speak to other men and takes her away when she disobeys him.
- Freudian Excuse: When even your own mother can't bear to touch you because of your face and forces you to wear a mask - to say nothing of the rest of an unaccepting, close-minded world - it hardly inspires warm feelings towards your fellow man.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Tragic and unfair his life undoubtedly was, it still doesn't excuse him murdering innocent bystanders and tyrannizing the woman of his affections with sadistic choices - something Christine ultimately realizes and calls him out on.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: His eyes are described as being so dark and sunken-in that you can only see them in the dark, and in the dark they're yellow and glowing, with Raoul almost mistaking them for a cat's eyes at one point.
- He Who Must Not Be Named: Once he starts killing people, everyone in the Opera House becomes frightened of him.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Due to his deformities, he prefers to hide in the shadows and the catwalks, catacombs, and passages behind the Opera's walls. Even when tutoring Christine, he takes great pains not to be seen by her.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: His Motive Rant towards the end of the novel has him repeatedly lamenting how all he wants is to have a happy, monogamous life aboveground like everyone else, with him even inventing a new mask that would make him look normal in preparation for this.
- Invincible Villain: He is the primary antagonist and has an absolutely staggering array of skills. Over the course of his life, Erik managed to pick up the skills of an opera singer, ventriloquist, mechanical engineer, architect, stage magician, and ninja. Indeed no one in the book ever manages to even come close to defeating him.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Towards the end of the novel and the show, he decides to let Christine go. Even though she chooses to stay with him, out of pity and of threat, he decides that she would be happier with Raoul than with him.(To Christine:) I know you love the boy... don't cry anymore!
- I Was Quite a Looker: Many adaptations have Erik start out as a handsome man, but due to some accident, he is left horrifically disfigured, and whatever little amount of sanity he has left vanishes with his good looks.
- Jack of All Trades: As noted in Broken Ace. As a sort of karmic counterweight to his deformity, Erik has a lot of incredible skills; his music skills need no introduction, but he's also a gifted mechanic, ventriloquist, architect, and even covert assassin.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He murders a man, kidnaps Christine, and threatens to kill her beloved Raoul—and, in the original book, blow up the entire opera house—if she doesn't agree to marry him.
- Knows the Ropes: Erik travelled throughout the world after running away from home when young. During his travels, he visited India, where he learned to kill people using the Punjab lasso. The Punjab lasso that Erik wields is "curiously made from catgut"; the only way to escape it is to keep one's hand raised to eye level, thus preventing the loop from closing.
- Large Ham: He is very much a drama king in every adaptation, his behavior often ranging from soft and polite to wildly screaming and raving in large monologues.
- Love at First Note: Towards Christine. Especially mentioned in the lines "He was bound to love you when he heard you sing."
- Love Makes You Crazy: While the constant isolation and rejection from society didn't do Erik any favors, he's noted as going "mad" with his love for Christine, which makes him even worse than before to a point that he's willing to blow up the whole opera house and everyone inside just to get her to marry him. His obsessive stalking of Christine and his increasing violence utterly terrifies her.
- Love Redeems: When Christine shows him affection, it being the first time he gets it from anyone in his life, he realizes the weight of his actions and how cruel he has been to the woman he claimed he loved and thus lets her be with the man she wants.
- Mad Artist: A psychotic murderer, but nonetheless a virtuoso of music.
- Mad Scientist: Subverted. He built a Robotic Torture Device / Death Trap and a Deceptively Human Robot in the middle of the 19th century, but his tragedy, as the Character Narrator lampshades in the Epilogue, is that he is so ugly he could never become a scientist, but rather a toyman or Stage Magician.
- Masking the Deformity: The original Phantom. Probably closest to the Lon Chaney example, Erik was born with a full-body deformity that left him looking corpselike; it's been suggested to have been congenital syphilis, which would also explain his erratic behaviour (syphilis damages the brain). In the book, he wears a black full-face mask to hide this, and in a scene replicated by most adaptations, has it pulled off by the girl he's kidnapped, Christine.Erik: Look at me! I AM DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!note
- May–December Romance: We never learn Erik's actual age, but at the very least he's old enough to be Christine's father.
- Mood-Swinger: He can switch from polite and soft-spoken to screaming and raving (or vice versa) at the drop of a hat.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: He'll happily kill Raoul if it will make Christine love him.
- Nice to the Waiter: If Madame Giry is to be believed, he is a generous tipper.
- No Name Given: In the novel, he implies that "Erik" is a name he just took by chance and it's never revealed what his birth name is, or if it differed; most adaptations don't even refer to him as Erik. Interestingly, while Webber's play just refers to him as "The Phantom", the play Phantom developed at around the same time refers to Erik by name.
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Especially clear in the book, Erik was by no means an inherently evil person, just a genuinely troubled man who poorly handled the cards that life and society had dealt him.
- Only One Name: Mostly. One adaptation did give him the last name "Destler" though, and as a result, he is often referred to as Erik Destler in many Alternate Universe Fan Fic.
- Professional Killer: His skill with the Punjab lasso made him a favorite of the Shah of Persia, who would have him kill with this technique for the entertainment of the court.
- Psychopathic Manchild: The Persian and Erik himself lampshade Erik's attitude as childish despite his multiple talents, such as how he starts boasting about his skills whenever prompted like a proud kid. He is also not interested in sex but in having a beautiful wife and a life like any other guy. It's only when he actually triumphs that he realizes how impractical those dreams are.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: His masquerade attire as the Red Death uses a red and black color scheme.
- Redemption Equals Death: Dies pretty quickly after he lets Christine and Raoul go.
- Revenge: When the opera refuses his demands that they make Christine the Prima Donna of "Faust", choosing La Carlotta instead, he causes Carlotta to croak in the middle of her performance, drops the Chandelier on the audience and makes off with Christine in the chaos.
- Scarpia Ultimatum: Threatens to blow up the opera house if Christine doesn't marry him and then threatens to drown Raoul if she doesn't promise him she won't kill herself. When Christine shows him affection, the first one he ever received in his life, the Phantom snaps out of it and cancels the ultimatum.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Christine-sexual, oh so much.
- Stalker with a Crush: He has eyes on Christine pretty much every second she's in the opera house, with or without her knowledge. He even presented himself as a literal angel to get her to let her guard down.
- Theatre Phantom: The Trope Maker unsurprisingly; the success of the film adaptation sparked a great many versions and references of this character for years in other media.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Being born ugly and deformed caused his mother and society to treat him like a monster. All the abuse and torment caused him to despise the world and eventually become a murderous, stalking, and vengeful villain.
- Third-Person Person: He will occasionally refer to himself in the third person, most often when he seems to be in a bad mood.
- Together in Death: Originally planned to do this with Christine. He changed his mind later on and decided he wanted to be with his living wife.
- Tom the Dark Lord: He's known as "The Phantom of the Opera" or "Opera Ghost" to the people he terrorizes, but his real name is simply "Erik".
- Torture Technician: He built his own torture room in his underground lair that nearly kills Raoul and the Persian, and he honed his craft working for the Shah of Persia as a torturer.
- Tragic Villain: He was born with a disfigured face and was rejected by just about everyone he encountered. It's the constant fear and rejection that plunged him into a villainous life.
- Two-Faced: The 1943 film with Claude Rains opted to depict him this way, and the subsequent stage musicals followed suit. The original Erik had a completely disfigured face.
- Villainous Breakdown: Among the most iconic examples in fiction. He drags Christine to his lair while ranting and raving about her perceived betrayal of him, spewing death threats between manic laughter, then forces her into a wedding dress and threatens her into marrying him, potentially killing Raoul if she refuses. In the book, he plans to blow up the Opera House and everyone inside. In the musical, he threatens to hang Raoul.
- White Mask of Doom: In the novel, the mask is actually black, but most adaptations make it white beginning with the film. (Possibly because it was easier to see in black and white.)
- Wicked Cultured: He has a taste for the finer things in life and is incredibly well-mannered and well-read, despite his tendencies to go into a mad rage and murder people when they get in his or Christine's way.
- Yandere: For Christine. He developed an unhealthy obsession with her and donated his time and life towards being with her. In the climax, he forces her to choose between being with him for the rest of her life or refusing him. Unfortunately, refusing him would result in the Opera House being blown up, killing everyone in there. His musical counterpart doesn't go that far, but he does threaten to kill Raoul if she doesn't choose him.
Christine
Christine Daaé
A young Swedish soprano who becomes torn between her loyalty to her mentor, Erik, and her love for her childhood friend Raoul de Chagny.- Adaptation Dye-Job: She's blonde in the book, but most musicals usually cast a brunette actress as Christine.
- All-Loving Heroine: Christine sincerely loves everyone, even Erik. Even after everything he's done, including kidnapping Raoul and The Persian, and threatening to blow up the Opera House, killing everyone unless she marries him, she cries with him out of genuine sympathy and compassion when he breaks down in front of her. This act alone redeems Erik, seeing what true human kindness is, releasing her, Raoul and the Persian and letting her live her life without his interference ever again.
- Bad Liar: She tries to distract Erik from killing Raoul and the daroga by asking him questions about the house, which, of course, doesn't work, and she is never quite able to convince Erik that nothing is going on between her and her "friend" Raoul. The MazM game adaptation even pokes fun at this by pointing out that while she is a good singer, her acting skills in the opera are highly criticized.
- Beautiful Singing Voice: Other characters note that her singing wasn't anything special before her lessons with the "Angel of Music", but after three months of Erik's tutelage she's almost supernaturally skilled at singing.
- Beast and Beauty: With Erik in one of the most enduring examples of this trope in Gothic literature, being the Beauty to his Beast.
- Beware the Nice Ones: During her first abduction, Christine becomes infuriated when she learns her "angel" was a regular person tricking her and briefly attacks him. Her capacity to anger is even more pronounced in the musical, when she finally gets fed up with Erik's shit and snarls at him that she hates him and that, yes, his life sucked, but she has no more sympathy for him after what he's done. Erik himself looks taken aback at this. Which makes it all the more powerful when she still has the compassion in her heart to kiss him.
- Childhood Friend Romance: With Raoul. They first met when Raoul jumped into the sea to retrieve her scarf.
- The Cutie: Christine is kind to everyone and utterly adorable at times. Her seeming innocence is one of her most attractive qualities - including to Erik.
- Damsel in Distress: She spends most of the novel under Erik's power and helpless to act against him for fear that he'll hurt either her or someone else in the opera house. Taken to its full conclusion when Christine is kidnapped by Erik in the final act, requiring Raoul and the daroga to come to her rescue—though in a twist, she ultimately ends up freeing all of them with her compassion.
- Driven to Suicide: When Erik prepares to force her to marry him, she attempts to kill herself to escape the phantom by banging her head against a wall. She doesn't succeed.
- Grew a Spine: In the musical, she starts off as rather naïve, passive, and trusting, but once she catches on to what sort of person her "angel" really is, she's willing to tell him off and only agrees to marry him when he threatens the lives of others. Averted in the book, where she's quickly revealed to have a massive spine.The tears I might have shed for your dark fate
Grow cold, and turn to tears of hate! - Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: In the novel, as a kind and compassionate girl with blonde hair. Most productions of the musical make her brunette, like Sarah Brightman, who originated the role. However, some productions go back to her original blonde hair.
- Happily Adopted: By Madame Valerius after her father died.
- The Heart: She's regarded as the kindest and most loving character in the whole novel.
- I Gave My Word: She keeps true to her promise to Erik. After hearing of his death, she returns to his lair and returns his ring to him, while also giving him a proper burial.
- The Ingenue: One of the most iconic examples in fiction, an innocent and kind young woman thrust into stardom. Carlotta even calls her as such in the musical:Would you rather have your precious little ingenue?!
- Innocent Soprano: Christine is an operatic soprano — she goes up to a high E at the end of the title song. She is the lovely young woman at the center of the story, who blindly trusts the phantom and has a sweet romance with Raoul.
- Interrupted Suicide: After her abduction at the climax, The Phantom stops her from killing herself by dashing her head on the wall and ties her to a chair.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Part of her attraction to The Phantom is that he reminds her of her father.
- Love Martyr: Lampshaded with No Matter How Much I Beg, her immense sympathy for Erik and the fact that he usually acts so respectfully towards her while she's with him leads her to care about him and she can't bring herself to hate him, though she also notes he still inspires her with horror.
- May–December Romance: Erik is at least old enough to be Christine's father.
- Neutral Female: Inverted; despite fitting the image of this trope over the course of the work, Erik gives her agency over Raoul in The Climax, when he imposes a Scarpia Ultimatum on her. Raoul, meanwhile, is completely helpless and at the mercy of Erik.
- Nice Girl: She is a deeply compassionate and kind young woman.
- No Matter How Much I Beg: Christine eventually tells Raoul to take her out of the country away from Erik no matter how much she protests later.
- Plucky Girl: Christine is a Swedish peasant girl trying to make her way in the world and a name for herself with her singing, not to mention all the physical, mental, and emotional torture she has to endure, mostly on her own unless she's trying to protect her boyfriend as well.
- The Protagonist: The musical focuses more on her perspective as the story's protagonist, in contrast to the novel which jumps around to various other character's perspectives in order to better preserve the mystery of who the phantom is.
- Redundant Rescue: Raoul's and the Persian's rescue mission ends with Christine being forced to save them from the Phantom's Death Trap.
- Sexy Scandinavian: While "sexy" isn't the exact word, she is a very beautiful Dude Magnet, Swedish and blonde-haired in the novel.
- She Is All Grown Up: Before their reunion at the Paris Opera as young adults in their twenties, Raoul and Christine were Childhood Friends and last met on the verge of adolescence and strange new feelings that they couldn't understand.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Once she gets a glimpse of his face behind the mask, she feels sorry for him and understands his situation.
- Tender Tears: She sheds them for Erik after he starts crying in front of her, which is what ultimately convinces him to let her go.
- Vocal Evolution: Under Erik's tutelage, she goes from a light soubrette to a dark soprano of almost divine quality.
- Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Christine never lets Raoul push her around and has no problem telling him to mind his own business, this despite him being of much higher status than her.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Given her deeply pious nature, she initially believes Erik to be the Angel of Music, sent by God after her father requested that He send him to teach her how to sing, which her father promised he would do for her while on his death bed. It takes a while for her to realize that Erik is not the Angel he had claimed to be during their music lessons, but a violent Stalker with a Crush.
Raoul
Viscount Raoul de Chagny
Christine's childhood friend and love interest.- Adaptational Heroism: While still not as clever as the Phantom,note he's far more chivalrous, kind-hearted and heroic in most adaptions than his initial useless, bratty, near Manchild personification in the novel.
- Betty and Veronica: The Betty to Erik's Veronica for Christine's Archie.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Stated to be the youngest of four.
- Childhood Friend Romance: With Christine.
- Distressed Dude: The climax features him (and the Persian in the novel) being in danger.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Just happened to be outside Christine's door as she was speaking with the phantom.
- If Jesus, Then Aliens: Subverted. When Inspector Mifroid examined Raoul and asked if he was superstitious, Raoul declined on the grounds of being a practicing Catholic.
- Knight in Shining Armor: Offers to whisk Christine away from the phantom and keep her safe. When she's kidnapped, he rushes to her rescue... and is captured and has to be saved by her.
- The Load: To the Persian. Fortunately averted in the musical adaptation.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Not to the phantom's degree, god no, but he does get a bit obsessive when he finds out someone else loves Christine. Fortunately for him, that someone is a man Christine would like to get away from.
- Not So Above It All: He is just as enthralled by Erik's voice as Christine.
- Snipe Hunt: Defied. Raoul nearly goes on one by Inspector Mifroid, who claims Count Philippe de Chagny took Christine away and is headed to Brussels. However, he bumps into the Persian, who tells him that Christine is actually in the Phantom's captivity.
- Stalker with a Crush: Christine is not at all impressed when she finds out about him listening at her door. And then he goes and hides in her closet, as well as later secretly following her during her visit to her father's grave.
The Persian
The Persian
A mysterious man from Erik's past. He is known as a fixture of the Opera, considered an eccentric Persian who was allowed to wander backstage where he pleased.- Adapted Out: Despite being a very important character in the book, the Persian gets this treatment in nearly every adaptation of the story, along with most of Erik's backstory.
- All-Loving Hero: He's a good-hearted man who wants nothing more than to help people. He doesn't even hesitate to help Raoul save Christine when he realizes what kind of danger she's in.
- Blue Blood: He's a very minor member of the Royal Family of Persia, which is why even though he was banished he still receives a pension from the government.
- Bystander Syndrome: By the time the novel takes place, Erik has been killing for a while but the Persian let him get away most of the time with a lecture. Erik's second kidnapping of Christine finally convinces the Daroga that Erik needs to be stopped (Likely helped by the fact that it's pretty clear this time it's permanent)
- Cool Old Guy: He's most likely in his late fifties or early sixties by the time the novel takes place.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's only known as "The Persian" or by his old title of "daroga," with even Erik calling him that. The game by MazM explains it as him not wanting to draw his countrymen's attention to the fact that he's living in Paris after being banished, so he avoids going by his real name.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Serves as one to Raoul and saves him more than once throughout the story.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He saved Erik from being executed by the Shah of Persia, and for his troubles, he was banished, and Erik repaid his kindness by committing murders.
- No Name Given: He is only called "the Persian", or "daroga", which is his former job description — a title of the members of the Shah's secret police. He's called Nadir Kahn in the Susan Kay novel, and this tends to be the name that fans go with in fan works. The game adaptation of the novel by MazM gives him the name Hatim.
- Only Sane Man: Because he's the only one who knows who and what Erik truly is, he's the most levelheaded and rational about dealing with him, between the operagoers and Christine, who fear him, and Raoul, who is blinded by rage. He also serves as a voice of reason for Erik as well, Christine only being able to leave the first time she was abducted because of him.
- Race-Name Basis: The Framing Device of a journalist piecing together a Scrapbook Story justifies this, as the journalist wants to protect this guy's identity.
- Save the Villain: He rescued Erik from being executed by the Shah for knowing too much, which allowed Erik to travel until he eventually settled in Paris. This led to him feeling responsible for his later evil deeds, however. He tries to use this fact as leverage to keep Erik from doing him harm.
- Snipe Hunt: He defies the trope by intercepting Raoul as he is about to head to Brussels to find Christine. He then informs Raoul that Christine is, in reality, in the Phantom's captivity.
- Token Minority: He's notably the only one in the novel (aside from his servant Darius, a minor character) that isn't white. Justified, given his backstory of being banished from his home country.
Richard & Moncharmin
Richard and Moncharmin
The new managers of the opera house. They believe "The Phantom" is just a rumor and don't listen to his demands, which causes a great conflict with Erik.- Agent Scully: They believe that the Phantom of the Opera is a hoax and do not listen to his demands.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Richard (Red) is often loud and the first to raise his voice, while Moncharmin (Blue) is the calm one who advises him.
- Those Two Guys: They're mainly comic relief and provide witty banter.
- Unwitting Pawn: The Phantom dupes them into obeying his demands anyway by causing disasters they can't anticipate and, in the books, even stealing their money for two straight chapters.
Madame Giry
Madame Giry
The caretaker for Box Five, which is reserved by Erik. She knows Erik and is on good terms with him. She is fired when she tries to tell Richard and Moncharmin about "The Phantom". She's the choreographer and ballet teacher in the musical and her relationship with Erik is more ambiguous.- Adaptational Job Change: In the book, she's a concierge who looks after patrons of the Opera. In the musical, she's a ballet choreographer and teacher.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- In the book, it's never mentioned that she knows Christine. In the musical, she's Christine's ballet teacher who suggests her for the main role.
- In the book, she was just one of Erik's pawns whom he treated with considerably more kindness than he did the managers, thanks to her serving him so well as the concierge. In the Webber musical, she's the only one who knows about who he is and where he came from instead of the Persian, and she is responsible for him ending up in the opera house to begin with.
- Age Lift: She's usually portrayed slightly younger in the musical than in the book.
- Brutal Honesty: In the musical. While she does give praise where she sees fit, Madame Giry doesn't mince words when the dancers don't live up to her standard.
- Bystander Syndrome: Just like the Persian in the book, Madame Giry doesn't do much to stop the Phantom, even when he's killing people, until Erik's second kidnapping of Christine.
- Composite Character: In the musical, she is this for herself and the Persian. She becomes Erik's Secret-Keeper with knowledge of his origin story and boobytraps and also takes on the role of aiding Raoul at the climax. She also takes on Madame Valerius's maternal attitude towards Christine.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: In the musical. She is a stern but fair ballet teacher and easily commands respect of even the likes of Carlotta.
- Team Mom: She has a somewhat maternal attitude towards Christine, looking out for her well-being and advocating for her to sing for Carlotta's part. Of the authority figures of the theatre she also acts with the most concern for the performers safety. She's also a literal mother to Meg Giry.
La Carlotta
La Carlotta
A brilliant but arrogant and spoiled prima donna, the lead soprano of the Paris opera house and Christine's rival. She is threatened by Erik that if she performs at the Opera House instead of Christine "a great misfortune will strike". She shrugs the warning off and performs anyway. When she does, however, croaking noises come out of her mouth and the chandelier comes crashing down. Ashamed, she hides from the public view for a few weeks, before making a return to the opera house.- Adaptational Nationality: Spanish in the book, Italian in the musical.
- Big Beautiful Woman: In the 25th Anniversary show, she's heavy-set, curvy, and utterly gorgeous; she's also portrayed this way in the MazM adaptation, which depicts her in a vibrant red dress and flattering makeup while being big enough to dwarf Christine.
- The Bully: In the novel, she already has a reputation for being a brilliant but 'heartless and soulless' soprano, who at the first opportunity resolves to smother Christine's career by all means possible. She persuades powerful friends to flatter the managers into denying Christine opportunities for any career advancement, forces newspapers to stop publishing anything positive about Christine, spreads malicious rumors about Christine, and goes out of her way to make everyday life in the Opera House difficult for Christine. She even weaponizes her devoted fanbase to fill the audience for the night's performance and 'silence' Christine's conspirators (fans) if they show up. It does nothing to stop Christine's popularity.
- Death by Adaptation: Many adaptations have Erik kill Carlotta, usually to get her out of the way of Christine's success or as vengeance for cruelty against Christine.
- Fiery Redhead: In the movie and the 25th Anniversary show.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Sees Christine as the one great threat to her status and career. In the novel, her hate of Christine is so bad that it automatically cures her of bronchitis and ends her current sulking against the new management. This is especially egregious as Christine is her understudy and her responsibility.
- Jerkass Has a Point: She's a bit of a bitch, but considering how hard and how long she's worked to become the lead soprano and how good she is at her job, it's hard to fault her for being pissed off that some young little thing is coming out of the left field to replace her; plus in the musical, the Phantom has apparently been causing accidents and sabotaging her for some time and nearly takes her out with a falling backdrop that could have seriously injured her. Also, while we know Christine wants no part in the Phantom's plot and isn't to blame, it's not hard to see how Carlotta came to the conclusion that she was in on it, given the limited information she had.
- Pet the Dog:
- Depends on the actress, but in "Notes II," after Christine's breakdown, Carlotta comments, "She's mad!" Many Carlottas deliver the line with sympathy, showing that Carlotta does genuinely feel sorry for "the little ingenue" when she realizes how much strain she is under.
- Her relationship with Piangi is genuinely sweet and mutually affectionate.
- The Prima Donna: Both in occupation and personality. She even gets her own song in the musical called "Prima Donna" where the new theatre owners suck up to her and assure her that they won't let the Phantom dictate how she's treated.
- The Rival: To Christine.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Suffers from a bad case of this in the book, where she has massive self-importance. She assumes that Christine is the head of a conspiracy trying to destroy her fame and fortune just because she's La Carlotta, head soprano:She thought herself, at that time, the victim of a thousand jealous attempts and went about saying that she had a secret enemy who had sworn to ruin her. She pretended that a wicked plot was being hatched against her, a cabal which would come to a head one of those days; but she added that she was not the woman to be intimidated.
- Technician Versus Performer: With Christine; her singing voice is technically perfect and professional, but lacks Christine's emotion and passion.
- Villainy-Free Villain: It's easy to miss on a first viewing of the musical since she's a spoiled and bad-tempered bully, but Carlotta doesn't really do anything wrong. She just wants to continue to do the job she loves and isn't happy that the Opera Ghost has decided to replace her with threats and sabotage. In the novel, she's much more villainous but ultimately a minor annoyance compared with the Phantom.
Philippe
Count Philippe de Chagny
Raoul's elder brother.- Adapted Out: He's nowhere to be seen in the musical.
- Beta Couple: With La Sorelli.
- Parental Substitute: He serves as a father figure for Raoul, as their parents died when the latter was young, which leads to him trying to censure his behavior as a parent would.
- Undignified Death: He drowns in the underground lake, either at the Phantom's hands or falling out of the boat by accident.
La Sorelli
La Sorelli
The lead ballerina of the opera.- Adapted Out: She's not seen in the musical or any of the movies, unless she's one of the unnamed ballerinas.
- Beta Couple: With Philippe.
- Brainless Beauty: For all her beauty, she is described as rather lacking in brains due to being fiercely superstitious, not that anyone held it against her - she was a fantastic ballerina and very good at her job. She was still talented enough to be tasked with making a good speech for the managers' retirement, which she delivered well.
- Cold Iron: A firm believer in its power. She has a horseshoe hung up for good luck that everyone is required to touch upon leaving her dressing room.
- Crazy-Prepared: Always carries a dagger with her. She's ready to stab the Phantom with it if he's lurking outside her dressing room.
- Decoy Protagonist: A tall and confident ballerina who is prepared to stab a ghost. Then, she turns out to be a minor character, and we're introduced to Christine in the second chapter.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Very beautiful, with striking eyes and a wonderful figure, and won the attention of Philippe de Chagny.
- Mama Bear: To the ballet rats. She is ready to stab what she thinks is a literal ghost so the girls can sleep in peace, and they look to her for guidance.
- Statuesque Stunner: Described as very tall for a ballerina and a renowned beauty. In some translations, she's described as having a waist supple as a willow branch.
- What Beautiful Eyes!: Her striking eyes are the most prominent part of her beauty.
Meg Giry
Meg Giry
Madame Giry’s oldest daughter.- Adaptational Attractiveness: Meg is described as having “eyes black as sloes, hair black as ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin stretched over poor little bones" in the book. Most of the actresses playing her in the musical don't fit this description in the slightest.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Black-haired and black-eyed in the book, but most musicals cast a blonde actress with blue eyes to play her.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In the book, she's rather dismissive of Christine's ability to sing. In the musical, she's the one who volunteers Christine as the main role of Hannibal once Carlotta leaves. The MazM game adaptation also makes her the sweetest and most considerate of Christine's friends.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: She's never stated to be friends with Christine in the novel. In the musical and the MazM game adaptation, she's Christine's closest friend.
- Ascended Extra: In the original novel Meg Giry only shows up briefly in the first three chapters of the book and never interacts with any of the main characters; she's even rather dismissive of Christine's singing ability. In the show, although she's definitely a secondary character, she's aged up and promoted to being Christine's best friend.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: In the book, she's described as having pale skin with hair as black as blackthorns and eyes as black as coal.
- Nightmare Fetishist: In Susan Kay's novel, Meg cheerily tells Christine of even more ghastly sights in the Opera House that the Opera Ghost is supposedly responsible for. Erik is many things, but he can't make disembodied hands crawl across the stage or flood the dressing rooms with blood on a regular basis, and he remarks that Meg should be writing Gothic novels instead of dancing. There are shades of this trope in the original book, where Meg reacts rather casually to Buquet's death.
- Rags to Royalty: Erik predicts that she'll become a Baroness, to the delight of her mother. By the opening of the book, Meg has become the Baroness de Castelot-Barbezac.
- Spoiled Sweet: In the book, she adores attention and having things done her way. She's also considered the most charming of the ballet girls and is unafraid to speak her mind enough that Leroux refers to her as a brat affectionately. Additionally, she's still held to Madame Giry's high standards like the rest of the chorus girls.
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Leroux
No, not the actual author but his in-universe avatar, who narrates the story through his journalistic reports.- Author Avatar: Based on the author himself, who was also a journalist before becoming a novelist.
- Character Narrator: Narrates the story through his inquiries and articles.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Concludes the story by letting the readers know his belief that Erik may have been a monster, not only of his own volition but also due to how society treated him. He also makes it clear that had the world not shunned Erik the way they did because of his deformities, he most certainly could have been one of the great celebrated minds of the century.
