#new POTO headcannon?

[likeateacup]

I was in a bit of a depressive state so put on one of @lasagnatrades wonderful POTO recordings and ended up with a gif that has taken me so far out of my depression and in to a fit of giggles that I may not recover for some time

[hawkeye221b]

Hi, im going to ramble about my oldest, most special of interests and its going to be long so i'll be hiding it under a cut but just know i have been enabled by internet strangers and the fact that tumblr (to my knowledge) does not have a word limit. and if it does, i will be finding it.

So i'll try to organize the ramblings?? maybe?? we'll see how organized it is but honestly i just want to talk about Phantom of the Opera.

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So to start my ramblings i will be talking about the musical and book; mostly because i think about the differences almost all the time (it is my roman empire)

For example; to my understanding there are those who don't like the book because they think it says she's 15 which.. isn't true. it came from the line of 'she was as pure as that of a 15 yr old' but if she was that old during the events of the book, then the childhood friendship with Raoul would be impossible since he'd be 5 yrs older than her- an 10yr old and a 5 yr old basically if the 15 thing was right.

Another example is the shifting roles.. if memory serves me right, Madame Giry didn't have much of an impactful or big role in the book, but the musical pretty much just cut out the Daroga and split his roles between her and the music box. and even then it changes- in the 2005 movie version, there;s the flashback to show madame Giry as a little girl, helping the Phantom (my mans Erik) escape- but in the 25th anniversary recording, she says that he vanished (presumably without her help)

(Complete side note but why did we even have Daroga erasure in the musical?? justice for the man who put up with Erik's shit for so long..)

------------------- Another thing i wanna kinda ramble on is how Erik is almost always being exploited or used and its fascinating to analyze cause like.. i mean:

he was born with a deformity; he was shunned for it and cast aside and mocked openly

but he was a prodigy. mastermind in many different ways

and yet people took advantage of him- of his desperation as he grew cause no one wanted to be near or associated with what they considered a freak

they benefited and he was used because what else was there for him?

in the 2005 edition he kills because he was pushed to it!! to protect himself!! he was a child then!! a child shown as a freak and abused for people to laugh at!! ofc he was gonna snap! and since no one taught him right and wrong ofc he'd fall back on that defense mechanism whenever he wanted or needed something. its the safest thing he has!!

and in the other variations, its still similar. iirc he was highly under paid and unaccredited for his work. cause no one wanted to admit he was behind the success they benefited from.

and then he finds an orphan girl, come to live in the opera house. a soul broken as he was. and she longs for guidance, and he longs to teach someone. so they find solace in one another.

in my mind they both have delusions and dissonance with one another. he mistakes her friendship for love because no one told him the difference. and she mistakes him as the ghost of her father. its unhealthy yeah but they're both unhealthy people.

and then Raoul comes into her life once more. a reminder of the good in her childhood and the phantom panics cause hes about to lose something he hasn't had before. so he begins to lash out because he doesn't know better

and then.. and then!! because she goes to Raoul, its a betrayal all over again

even if she doesn't mean it the way he sees, she's still benefiting from his work. benefiting from his time in teaching her without credit. without praise or recognition.

in leaving him behind, she's become like the rest of them in his eyes- exploiting him for his talents while rejecting him for how he looks

Honestly i have more thoughts but i think this is really long already and the brain is wanting to over brain so like.. yeah. i love this story and i want to blorb about it all the damn time this is my roman empire

[madiamazing]

Nadir LOVES to prank Erik, but he always goes way too small with it. Like Erik could just be minding his own business, reaches into his pocket for a pen and finds something totally random like a fork and Nadir just watches in the background like: