#meg: a novel of deep terror

[deuterosapiens]

Finished MEG, expected that to be like a one-day read sort of thing, two days max, but of course, I was met with INTERRUPTIONS, because why wouldn't I?

So, I'm a simple man. Does big shark media have Big Shark? Yes? Is good media.

What I find funny is that the Meg's death plays out hilariously exactly like the father's Whale's from Whalefall. Seeing as my love of Whalefall is whale documented (heh), the parallels amused me.

Movie's kind of more fun, though.

Also, I'm no scientist, but does the Meg technically still count as a C. megalodon (ignoring the whole "C. megalodon has been renamed to Otodus megalodon" thing, which is just something I happened to know off hand)? Given the fact that the fish present in the book is explicitly stated to have evolved and adapted to Trench Life (it glows in the dark!), and is therefore fairly different than the prehistoric ones, are they technically the same species?

Eh, big fish, kills lots of people, best not to bring science into the equation.

[heavenboy09]

Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 To A Very Most Elegant Asian Beauty & Highly Regarded Amazing Actress Of Remarkable & Critically Acclaimed Roles In Both National of Her country & International Roles in the US & etc.

She is A Chinese Born Actress & Singer

She was born in Wuchang, Heilongjiang, China. She initially had no intention of becoming an actress and enrolled specifically in a high school for prospective school teachers. However, upon graduation, she discovered her interest in acting and was eventually persuaded by a friend to join the Shanghai Theatre Academy in 1993.

She rose to fame after starring in Zhang Yuan's Seventeen Years (1999), which won her the Best Actress Award in the 1999 Singapore Film Festival. In 2001, She starred in the television series Young Justice Bao, which propelled her to become one of the most famous actresses in China.

She was subsequently labelled as an "action actress" as she starred in a number of wuxia television series, such as Taiji Prodigy and Eight Heroes.

She achieved breakthrough with her performance in Feng Xiaogang's A World Without Thieves. She then starred in Dayyan Eng's romantic comedy film Waiting Alone, for which she received her first Best Actress nomination at the Golden Rooster Awards.

In 2009, She won Best Actress at the 46th Golden Horse Film Awards for her performance in The Message, about Japanese invaders in China who try to ferret out a spy among their Chinese collaborators.

She then starred in Tsui Hark's 2010 action-mystery film Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. She played Shangguan Jing'er, a fictional character based on Shangguan Wan'er, a prestigious politician during the Tang Dynasty. She established her studio in the same year, co-starring and co-producing the film 1911 with Jackie Chan, which was released in September 2011 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution.

Her first-time in an English-language film is Wayne Wang's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, adapted from Lisa See's 2005 novel of the same title. The film premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. She started to gain recognition in Hollywood after starring in Resident Evil: Retribution, playing Ada Wong. The same year, she was cast in action fantasy film 400 Boys, directed by British director Alastair Paton.

In 2013, She attended the 4th Annual US-China Film Summit and received the East-West Talent Award. Hollywood magazine Variety also named her Asian Star of the Year. The following year, She was featured in Transformers: Age of Extinction, the fourth installment of the film franchise. This helped solidify her success overseas.

In 2015, she was cast in 3D science fiction thriller Nest (also known as Guardians of the Tomb), a Chinese-Australian co-production that was finally released in January 2018. The same year, it was announced that She would play China's first female superhero in upcoming film Realm, written by Stan Lee.

In 2018, She starred with Jason Statham in The Meg, an American-Chinese shark film based on Steve Alten's 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror.

Her Best Well Know Role Is In the 2008 Martial Arts Film

Starring Jackie Chan & Jet Li

In

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM

As She Played The Iconic & Infamous China's Villainous Character in Chinese Martial Arts Films.

THE WHITE HAIRED WITCH 🧙‍♀️

She Is A Very Well Know Established Actress In China 🇨🇳 1 of the Many Great Actresses today

& A Charity Ambassador Of The Shanghai World 🌎 Expo & A Goodwill Ambassador Of UNEP

Even though she may not look it. She has aged Very Gracefully & Amazingly over the many years. As A Bad@$$  Action Actress In Wushia

Please Give A Very Well Round of Applause & A Very Happy Birthday Wishes To

The 1

& The Only

MS. LI BINGBING / BING BING LI

HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU MS. BINGBING & Here's To Many More 💖 

[readingforsanity]

Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror | Steve Alten | Published 1997 | *SPOILERS*

On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with the largest and more ferocious predator in the history of the animal kingdom. The sole survivor of the mission, Taylor is haunted by what he’s sure he saw but still can’t prove exists - Carcharodon megalodon, the massive mother of the great white shark. The average prehistoric Meg weighs in a twenty tons and could tear apart a T-rex in seconds. Written off as a crackpot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Taylor refuses to forget the depths that nearly cost him his life. With a Ph.D. in paleontology under his belt, Taylor spends years theorizing, lecturing and writing about the possibility that Meg still feeds at the deepest levels of the sea. But it takes an old friend in need to get him to return to the water, and a hotshot female submarine pilot to dare him back into a high-tech miniature sub. Diving deeper than he ever has before, Taylor will face terror like he’s never imagined, and what he finds could turn the tides bloody red until the end of time. MEG is about to surface. When she does, nothing and no one is going to be safe, and Jonah must face his greatest fear once again. 

Jonas Taylor is first introduced to us within the novel when he is given a lecture. He is questioned ruthlessly by the audience, including that of David Adashek and Terry Tanaka, a young woman who he has been acquainted with for 10 years due to his work with her father in the years past. When his wife interrupts his lecture expecting him to leave to attend an awards ceremony of which she is nominated for an award, he leaves. 

It is here that we begin to notice the changes within his friendship with Bud, the man who is also with them in the limo. It is found that Bud and Jonas’ wife, Maggie, are seeing each other on the side and Jonas cannot take this and exits the celebration after punching Bud in the face. 

Terry follows him, and explains that her father has requested Jonas to come and take a look at a video. Something has been occurring in the Mariana Trench, and though it was meant to be classified, Masao Tanaka knows of Jonas’ previous history with the trench. Years ago, Jonas had manned a crew of three (including himself) into the Mariana Trench. Nobody had ever dived this deep before, except for him and his crew. After glimpsing something terrifying, Jonas ascending too quickly, causing the two men with him to die, and Jonas to leave his job as a sea pilot and begin researching megalodons, the worlds first and most apex predator supposedly extinct for millions of years. 

He reports to the Tanaka Institute where he met with criticism. Nobody believes that Jonas saw something of the sort during his previous dives, and they laugh in his face. Jonas, despite his shortcomings, decides to join Tanaka’s son, DJ, down into the trench to take a look at what could have possibly damaged one of their seismic transmittors. They both enter the trench, seeing an entirely different world than they’re used to. They locate the UNIS, and as they do, they also come face to face with a living, breathing megalodon.

When it attacks DJ’s submerisible, it damages it fatally and DJ is lost in the attack. The attack also causes the meg to get caught up in some wiring that was attached to the submersibles, and when they begin the ascent back through the trench attempting to bring DJ back to the surface unaware of what was occurred, Jonas watches in fright as a second, larger female meg begins attacked the male, ripping him open and exiting the trench into the colder waters. Jonas watches, shaken, as he realizes that despite the freezing cold temperatures, the warm blood from the dead shark encompasses the female allowing her to escape into the open seas above. 

Jonas is able to free himself from the trench and returns to the surface. Everyone aboard the ship is in awe as they haul the massive shark onboard, and begin heading back to land. Jonas is found not to have been crazy and had actually saw the meg several years ago, which also lead to the death of the other two men. While shocked, Jonas is excited over the discovery as his work in paleontology has lead him to this point. But he is also terrified, as nobody believes that the female meg had gotten loose, until she begins a rampage. 

Despite their efforts, many lives are lost, including that of Jonas’ wife Maggie, who was looking for ways to end their marriage, and Bud, the man she was sleeping with. Terry, Tanaka’s daughter, begins to form a relationship with Jonas, and when he is thought to be dead after entering the belly of the beast to try to kill her, it is then that Terry realizes the love she has for him. 

Jonas is able to kill the massive shark from the inside out, and eventually surfaces. However, what they think is a smaller great white shark attracted to all the blood shed during her rampage, is actually one of her pups, a smaller, 13-foot-long meg that is captured and is being led back to the Tanaka Institute, where the world’s largest “swimming pool” was made in order to view and research whales. The first capture of its species, the meg is taken to the institute while Jonas is hauled away in an ambulance in order to begin decompression after his quick ascent to the surface. 

On the back cover, this was called the Jurassic Park of the sea, and truthfully it was. I have a weird obsession with sharks, but of course from a distance as I also have a weird, irrational fear of them. The first and only time I ever stepped foot in the ocean, the only thing I could think of was what I couldn’t see, and it was likely sharks. 

Regardless, sharks are amazing creatures and deserve recognition in some way other than shark attacks, which is what we tend to hear about the most. Steve Alten made a real genuine attempt for us to see a different side of the sharks, though this time it ended up being exactly like Jurassic Park. Which is fine by me, as I absolutely love Jurassic Park - both the novel and the films. When The Meg was turned into a feature film starring Jason Stathom, I knew I had to see it. 

Of course, aspects of the novel and the movie are different, though Jonas Taylor is still the lead man, played by Jason Stathom. Maggie is also his ex-wife, and they actually have a fairly decent relationship in the film despite their no longer being together. Many of the characters names are the same as those within the novel, but a lot of big differences as well. 

Either way, I finished this novel in just a few hours. While scientific, it was an easy read, and I thouroughly enjoyed it. I also have the next few installments in the series as well, and have ordered the others to come in as well. I am absolutely thrilled to finish the series and continue reading about Jonas Taylor’s adventures, and his developing relationship with Terry Tanaka. 

[sasha4books]

[horrorhodgepodge]

Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror

“On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with the largest and most ferocious predator in the history of the animal kingdom. The sole survivor of the mission, Taylor is haunted by what he’s sure he saw but still can’t prove exists – Carcharodon megalodon, the massive mother of the great white shark. The average prehistoric Meg weighs in…

[swashbuckler5e]

The Mag 3

The Meg is a 2018 science fiction action film directed by Jon Turteltaub with screenplay by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, loosely based on the 1997 book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten. The film stars Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, and Cliff Curtis. A group of scientists encounters a 75-foot-long (23 m) megalodon shark while on a rescue mission on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

[starzpsychics]

Join Natalie Sist on Wednesday August 30th at 1pm EST when she interviews the World Renowned Best Selling Author Steve Alten - Meg Legacy on Blog Talk Radio!

Steve Alten has written numerous best selling books including:

Heaven’s Lake (Loch, 3) Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror with Meg: Origins The Omega Project The Loch: The Loch Series, Book 1 Undisclosed MEG: Angel of Death: Survival Domain: The Domain Trilogy, Book 1 Sharkman Goliath Grim Reaper: End of Days The Shell Game MEG: The Graphic Novel

https://blogtalkradio.com/starzcast

[tartarughe-ninja-streaming]

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Tartarughe Ninja - Caos mutante (2023) streaming THE MEG 2: THE TRENCH STREAMING ITA Genere : Azione, Fantascienza, Horror Rilasciato: Aug 02, 2023 REGIA: Ben Wheatley ATTORI: Jason Statham, Sienna Guillory, Cliff Curtis, Skyler Samuels, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Jing Wu, Shuya Sophia Cai, Page Kennedy Traduzione: Italian

Tartarughe Ninja - Caos mutante (Meg 2: The Trench) è un film del 2023 diretto da Ben Wheatley. Una squadra di coraggiosi esploratori nelle profondità più recondite dell'oceano. Il loro viaggio si trasformerà in una spirale di caos quando una diabolica operazione mineraria minaccerà la loro missione e li costringerà ad una rischiosa lotta per la sopravvivenza. Messi alle strette da colossali Megalodonti e da implacabili saccheggiatori dell'ambiente, i nostri eroi dovranno superare i loro spietati predatori in una corsa contro il tempo al cardiopalma.

The Meg 2: The Trench, film diretto da Ben Wheatley, è il sequel di Shark - Il primo squalo (2018), basato sul romanzo Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997) di Steve Alten, primo di una serie di 8 libri sugli squali. Al momento non ci sono ulteriori dettagli sulla trama. L'esperto di salvataggi subacquei Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) questa volta è accompagnato da una squadra di coraggiosi esploratori, con i quali si immerge in una fossa oceanica, che ha mantenuto intatto al suo interno un antico ecosistema, che non ha subito alcun intervento umano. A complicare la missione non sarà soltanto la presenza di colossali bestie, come i preistorici Megalodonti, ma anche un'operazione mineraria, che li porterà a lottare per la propria sopravvivenza. Riusciranno a contrastare gli spietati predatori delle profondità oceaniche e gli implacabili saccheggiatori dell'ambiente, prima che sia troppo tardi?

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[pavementpodcast]

Caudal Fins All the Way Down (The Meg)

Caudal Fins All the Way Down (The Meg)

It’s summer, and Shark Week, so the guys take on Steve Alten’s 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror and its 2018 action movie spectacle starring Jason Statham. Rankings! Colin: Movie/Book James: Audiobook/Movie Seth: Movie/Book

[shark2-labisso]

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Shark 2 - L'Abisso (2023) streaming THE MEG 2: THE TRENCH STREAMING ITA Genere : Azione, Fantascienza, Horror Rilasciato: Aug 02, 2023 REGIA: Ben Wheatley ATTORI: Jason Statham, Sienna Guillory, Cliff Curtis, Skyler Samuels, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Jing Wu, Shuya Sophia Cai, Page Kennedy Traduzione: Italian

Shark 2 - L'abisso (Meg 2: The Trench) è un film del 2023 diretto da Ben Wheatley. Una squadra di coraggiosi esploratori nelle profondità più recondite dell'oceano. Il loro viaggio si trasformerà in una spirale di caos quando una diabolica operazione mineraria minaccerà la loro missione e li costringerà ad una rischiosa lotta per la sopravvivenza. Messi alle strette da colossali Megalodonti e da implacabili saccheggiatori dell'ambiente, i nostri eroi dovranno superare i loro spietati predatori in una corsa contro il tempo al cardiopalma.

The Meg 2: The Trench, film diretto da Ben Wheatley, è il sequel di Shark - Il primo squalo (2018), basato sul romanzo Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997) di Steve Alten, primo di una serie di 8 libri sugli squali. Al momento non ci sono ulteriori dettagli sulla trama. L'esperto di salvataggi subacquei Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) questa volta è accompagnato da una squadra di coraggiosi esploratori, con i quali si immerge in una fossa oceanica, che ha mantenuto intatto al suo interno un antico ecosistema, che non ha subito alcun intervento umano. A complicare la missione non sarà soltanto la presenza di colossali bestie, come i preistorici Megalodonti, ma anche un'operazione mineraria, che li porterà a lottare per la propria sopravvivenza. Riusciranno a contrastare gli spietati predatori delle profondità oceaniche e gli implacabili saccheggiatori dell'ambiente, prima che sia troppo tardi?

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[deuterosapiens]

I've decided that The Shining does not count as my first October since I started it in September. So, in light of that, I've picked up a nice bit of what I hope will be fun reading, to kick off October.

Would have preferred an edition that was more pocketable, but ĝi estas ke ĝi estas.

[halfatadpole]

'If there's a prize for rotten judgement, I think I've already won that'

- The Meg

[bookwormreads]

I loved The Meg movie. I thought it was fun, even if silly at times, and it had a pretty great cast. I didn’t know going into the movie that it was based on a book so once I found out I was super excited. Especially since the original cover has the meg eating a T-Rex. Um, yes please! Sadly the meg/dino showdown is only in the prologue and was quickly over. 

The book definitely wasn’t as good as the movie. Jonas is actually a Professor of paleontology who studies megs, a profession he began after a diving incident in which he believed he saw a meg and freaked out. A similar start to his story, but not the same end results. Jonas is also married in the books, to a journalist who is a terrible person and is trying to prove her husband is crazy so she has a good reason to divorce him. When she realizes he isn’t crazy, she suddenly gets all supportive and wants to use the meg as a way to further her career. Thankfully she gets eaten. And they aren’t the only characters who are different from their movie counterparts, whose movie counterparts are also way better people.

There are two megs in the book, and the second is a pregnant female. She eats the male meg, she eats whales, she eats the runt of her three offspring. She kind of sucks, which is also kind of the point. I get why she was pregnant, so she could be killed but one of the offspring (also a female) could survive and allow for other books to be written. 

I think that The Meg took the idea of Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror and significantly improved it. It took the characters and made them actually likeable. It left it open for maybe a sequel but didn’t force it. And the movie didn’t focus on the bloody kill; the book got kind of graphic in places when the meg was eating people or animals. It was an ok book, and I’m glad it was written if only because it led to The Meg, which was much better.

[terrorama]

Autor Revela Que Filme do Megalodon da Warner 'Meg' Será Assustador

O temível Megalodon de Meg só chega no ano que vêm, mas o pessoal do iHorror conseguiu conversar com autor Steve Alten a respeito do que podemos esperar da adaptação da Warner e se depender do entusiasmo do cara, vêm coisa boa por aí: "As filmagens foram concluídas na Nova Zelândia e na China em

Veja mais: http://trror.net/tFp18

[thephantomessoftheopera]

Notes on Gaston Leroux‘s „The Phantom of the Opera“ - Epilogue

<< Previous chapter “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known”

-Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

As we are coming to the end of the story, Leroux ties up a few more loose ends in the epilogue.

As for Raoul and Christine, their possible happy ending is only implied by what Erik told the Persian - that they had “taken a northbound train” and were planning to get married in secret. They have disappeared from the world, and Christine never appeared again on stage anywhere. According to Leroux, they might have finally settled in Norway together with Mama Valerius. At first, I thought Leroux might have been confusing Sweden and Norway, but when I did a little research on the name „Daae“, it turns out that the name is actually most prevalent in Norway, with almost no occurrences in Sweden. It is also implied that even if they took that “northbound” train before, Christine took a train back to Paris a few weeks later to return to Erik, because she had the wedding ring on her when she left, and it was finally found on Erik‘s finger.

As Philippe‘s death was deemed to be the consequence of the fight between the two brothers over Raoul’s supposed engagement to Christine, Raoul was a murder suspect - but as his previous testimony had already made him appear a lunatic in the eyes of the Commissary, Philippe‘s death was ultimately pronounced accidental. However, as Parisian society had taken less than kindly to the news of the engagement, I think that the couple would have had a very difficult standing if they had officially married and assumed the now vacant titles of the Count and Countess de Chagny. It is therefore likely that Raoul, having officially disappeared, never claimed his titles and inheritance, and chose the more simple lifestyle that Christine was accustomed to. Leroux concludes the story of Raoul and Christine with the statement that one day, he too might „hear the solitary echoes of the Northland repeat the singing of the woman who knew the Angel of Music''. In the epilogue, the boundaries between the „false“ and the „real“ Angel of Music become blurred, as Leroux repeatedly speaks of Erik as the “Angel of Music” - indicating that maybe, just maybe, Erik truly was the Angel of Music.

After following up on Raoul and Christine, Leroux relates how he obtained proof of Erik‘s existence from the Persian, mostly through the letters written by Christine that Erik had sent to him, but also through the testimonies of Meg Giry and La Sorelli. He supposedly placed all the proof he had gathered in the archives of the Paris Opera.

He also obtained the testimony of M. Poligny, the previous manager of the Opera. The „Opera Ghost“ affair was the final straw that made him resign his post, which again indicates that Erik‘s reign as „O.G.“ was rather short and caused by Erik falling in love (since he had been living in the Opera House presumably since the early 1870s). He also quotes from the fictional „Memoirs of a Manager“ by Armand Moncharmin, where Moncharmin relates that a few days after Christine‘s abduction, Erik returned all of the forty thousand francs he had extracted to the managers, no longer having any need for the money as he had given up his plan to marry Christine. The mystery of the safety-pin is also finally resolved, as Leroux was supposedly able to locate a small trapdoor in the floor of the managers’ office, through which a dexterous magician like Erik could easily have reached up and retrieved the envelope from Richard‘s coattail pocket as it was hanging down from his chair.

Leroux also notes that the marble pillar next to Box 5 sounds hollow and would offer ample space for Erik to hide inside it. According to Gérard Fontaine’s research, the pillars being hollow applies to all the pillars in the auditorium of the Palais Garnier. Whether that proves or disproves anything is up to you... Leroux’s plan of having the lake drained in order to obtain the ultimate proof of Erik‘s existence - finding the entrance to the house by the lake - did not go through, but Leroux still sustains his hope of one day finding the score of „Don Juan Triumphant“ there (that is, if Christine had not taken it with her when she came to bury him).

Leroux then gives a summary of Erik’s life according to the Persian. Erik was born near Rouen in France and ran away from his parents as a young boy, as they were afraid and horrified by how he looked. After being exhibited as a “living corpse” at fairs, he became a singing sensation and garnered a reputation that reached as far as Persia. The daroga of Mazenderan was sent to bring Erik to Persia as entertainment for the “little sultana”. Erik, who also worked there as an assassin, is described here as amoral, “not knowing the difference between right and wrong”. Even though he does not have an evil heart, his life up until this point has left him completely without a moral compass of any kind.

After building an ingenious palace for the shah, Erik’s execution was ordered so that he could not divulge its secrets to anyone. The daroga was supposed to carry it out, but as he owed Erik favours (and was the one who brough Erik to Persia in the first place), he helped him escape instead. He was punished for this and went into exile to Paris. Erik took a detour to Asia Minor and Constantinople before he ended up in Paris as well. It is also mentioned that Erik could make lifelike automata, which is reflected in the musical in the form of the monkey music box and also the “mirror bride”, a physical representation of Erik’s dream of a loving wife.

Once in Paris, Erik decided that he finally wanted to live a normal life, and placed a successful bid to work as a contractor on the Opera House. Wishing to hide his face from the world forever, he built his comfortable home into the foundations of the Opera. Erik’s plan to live out the rest of his life in peaceful tranquillity went well - until he crossed paths with Christine Daae and lost his heart to her completely. And the rest is history…

Leroux here gives his own view of Erik: “He had a heart great enough to hold the empire of the world, and in the end he had to be content with a cellar.” With a normal face, Erik, with his brilliant mind and extraordinary talents, could have had the world at his feet. And even though no one had ever loved him, he still had a heart capable of feeling deep, pure love, which is pretty remarkable. His beautiful voice is a reflection of the beauty he carries inside his soul - which was sadly eclipsed by his ugliness, which did not allow him to live “like everyone else”. The great tragedy of his life was his face, which kept others from treating him as a human being and recognizing his full potential. He is therefore clearly worthy of pity, instead of being cursed and condemned as evil.

Leroux had already mentioned in the Prologue that he believed the skeleton found in the cellars of the Opera was Erik’s. Now he finally reveals why he was so certain of that: because Erik’s skeleton wore the gold wedding ring on his finger, which Leroux believes Christine had placed there. Even though Erik had set her free and given her the ring, she later came back to him, and this time it was certainly not out of terror. With Erik dead, none of his threats would hold any more sway over her - and yet, she still returned to him to keep her promise. She not only buried him with the wedding ring, but she slipped it onto his finger, ultimately fulfilling her promise to accept him as her husband. In a sense, she buried him with her love, and that is truly a bittersweet and beautiful ending. After everything he had to endure, Erik’s life ends with a kiss and a ring on his finger, put there by the woman he loved more than his own life, and with Leroux praying for his salvation. That may not be a traditional happy ending, but it‘s very powerful. And it’s definitely not a villain’s ending.

As „Faust“ is the most strongly referenced work in „Phantom“, it is also worth comparing how the endings are different. In the final act of Gounod‘s opera, Faust and Marguerite first swear their love to each other, but when Marguerite sees Mephistopheles and realizes who Faust really is, she turns away from him and chooses death instead, while Faust is dragged into the fires of hell. Her famous last words to him are „You horrify me!“ In „Phantom“, the progression is almost the other way round - Christine is horrified at first, but then accepts Erik and chooses life instead of death.

It should also be noted that the ending in the novel is so vague that it also allows a lot of room for the reader’s imagination. Was Erik really dead when Christine returned? He himself was announcing his death, so it would not even be so very unlikely. But as this is Leroux’s story, the official reading would of course be how he himself imagined the ending: Erik dying and Christine coming back to bury him. This might be my favourite line from the novel:

“The skeleton lay near the little fountain, where the Angel of Music first held the unconscious Christine Daae in his trembling arms after taking her into the cellars of the Opera.”

As if the return of the ring was not enough poetic closure, he also asked to be buried in the very spot where he held the love of his life for the first time...

Symbolism and Metaphors

Now that we have concluded the epilogue, I would like to add a few more notes on the general themes which are present throughout the novel and still influence how we feel about it today.

To understand the extent of symbolism employed in  „The Phantom of the Opera“, it is necessary to understand the cultural mindset and environment in which it was written. At the turn of the century, the arts (and sciences, as evidenced by the slowly emerging works of Sigmund Freud) were rather obsessed with the fateful connection between Eros and Thanatos - love as the life-bringing force, and death as the destructive force. Both were often seen as intertwined and mirrored in the other.

Erik is the personification of Eros and Thanatos. He unites both forces in him to a degree unparalleled by any other character in the story. The death symbolism that is also clearly reflected in how he is described, would be both perceived as horrifying - and yet not without a strangely seductive fascination inherent in it. Death is intricately tied to darker feelings of passion and desire.The “Eros” and the “Thanatos” part of his character are intertwined, but his character also oscillates between the two sides in the course of the story.

Music in „Phantom“ also serves as a metaphor for romantic love, not only in the spiritual but also in the physical sense, as it is connotated with “passion”, “fire”, “ecstasy” and “rapture” throughout the story. Erik’s teaching awakens “an ardent, voracious and sublime life” in Christine, symbolizing the burgeoning romantic feelings in the young woman. She is terrified with the changes going on in her, which is also in line with how „Eros“ was originally viewed: as a frightening loss of control. Erik says in “Apollo’s Lyre” that “some music is so formidable that it consumes everyone who approaches it”, and Christine states that “Music has the power to abolish everything in the outside world except its sounds, which go straight to the heart”. In both sentences, the word “music” can easily be replaced with “love” - especially in Christine’s example, it would be the musical equivalent of “love is blind”.

Like in other (gothic) romances - “Wuthering Heights” being perhaps the prime example - the two rivals in the principal love triangle represent two very different types of love: one is intense and passionate, but also consuming, terrifying and potentially destructive, and the other is safer, but also somewhat chaste and lifeless. Erik and Raoul each represent one of the two extremes. This contrast is exemplified in the scene at the Masked Ball: Raoul wears white, the colour of innocence, while Erik wears red, the colour of passion, but also of danger and blood.

It is suggested in the novel that Erik and Christine were chained together by fate (“La destinée m’enchaîne à toi sans retour”), and I believe they were destined to save each other. Erik saved Christine from her grief in the wake of her father’s death and brought her back to life, and Christine saved his soul by being the first person in his life to accept him and grant him true happiness. „Phantom“ may be a tragic love story, but it is also a hopeful one, as love proves stronger than death. Christine’s choice, Erik‘s sacrifice and the skeleton’s wedding ring are all symbols of love triumphing over death.