hopsjollyhigh:

goodphantomoftheoperaposts:

Look man, maybe it’s just my inner-14 yr old Erik stan speaking, but like???? Does it bother anyone else that Erik is so much more physically violent in the stage production now????

One of the reasons I love his character so much us that he’s not your typical “I’m evil because I’m craaazy~” villain. He is the way he is due to enviornmental factors. Because of that, he’s so much more easy to sympathize with and even more realistic. He’s one of the very few mentally ill villains who isn’t presented in a way that pushes a stigma against actual mentally ill people.

His relationship with Christine isn’t healthy per say, but he truly does love her with every inch of his being. I can understand him using some physical force to keep her near him while he’s in a blind panic, unintentionally hurting her in the process. But things that seem more malicious suc as hair-pulling and choking? It just… really rubs me the wrong way. Things like that imply that he’s not totally in a blind rage or having a severe panic attack. It implies that he’s fully self-aware that he’s hurting her. There’s a part of him that actually wants to cause her pain.

Now, I’m not saying that abusers never actually love the people they hurt, or that mental illness is can’t influence abusive behavoir, but Erik intentionally yanking Christine’s hair, choking her, forcefully throwing her to the ground, does not read as “love” or “severely mentally ill person having a meltdown” to me. What it ACTUALLY says to me, is that Erik never truly loved her, he was just obsessed with controlling her. Now that may actually be interesting in a completely differen’t adaptation, but since the musical clearly tries to put more emphasis on the more romantic side of Erik and Christine’s relationship, this change is… not very good.

It not only feels out of character to me, but it turns Erik into just another abusive mentally ill villain.

I don’t mind him being angry, or accidentally hurting Christine during a huge rageful meltdown, but violent actions that intentionally target Chrissy make him seem more like one of those abusive men who beat their ex girlfriend out of revenge, rather than a traumatized man with no social skills or support system having a huge panic attack while desperately trying to cling on to the only person in his life that actually matters to him, even if it means taking drastic measures.

I mean, Erik is very physically abusive. In Leroux, we have him throwing her to the ground, forcing her to dig her nails into his face, tying her up in a chair tightly enough that she’s in pain, and like, there’s definitely more- that’s just off the top of my head. He’s extremely methodical about inflicting physical and mental damage. The tour’s failing is that it doesn’t address this at all, and utterly forgives him for it while trying to romanticize him at the same time.