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after all the man "lived in a palace underground".

Me too! I also used to be a teratophobe but it has somehow turned into teratophilia over the years...It's interesting...

Anyway, as for Erik's smell...That's a whole different story. I think I'd actually have to, um...smell him first before I knew whether or not I could handle it... sweatdrop

There are a few theories on whether or not Erik actually did smell of "death" as Christine insisted.

One of them is that because he lives in a basement where there's mildew, stagnant air, dead rats, etc., Christine just might have been smelling the mustiness in his clothing. As she is terrified out of her mind at that point, she automatically assumes this scary figure absconding with her person smells of death.

Another theory is that Erik really does smell of death, the smell lingering on him after killing so many people in Persia and across his travels. There's enough of a fantastic element in Leroux novel that this is entirely possible.

There was another interesting theory I came across a while ago where he indeed did smell of bonafide death because of rotting and decaying parts of his skin much like leprosy due to a disease that is the reason why he looks the way he is. (It's been a long time and I can't remember everything, probably recounted a few things wrong.)

Yet another theory claims that Christine was making the whole thing up and making these sorts of claims to Raoul in order to seal his pity for her and rally him into protecting her from Erik.

My personal theory tends to lean towards the first: that Christine was simply exaggerating the musty smell in his clothing out of fear. He probably smells like an old basement, not actual death.

*puts in two cents*

I used to be a big proponent of Manipulative!Christine, but I can't remember what all my evidence for it was. It's something that really leap out at me when I was reading Leroux a while back and I wish I had all my notes on that as it was a fun little entertaining theory...

I don't think it's so much a pity card as it is a "save me from Erik" card, I suppose is what I meant to say.

That's quite a possibility as well.

And I'm a great cynic, but I never honestly picked up on her beating around the bush on her answer. I suppose I wasn't interested in the romance aspect the first couple times I read it before I saw ALW's musical. Because honestly if you think about it, Leroux doesn't really go that far with any romance concerned in that novel. There's talk of love and such, but no major snogging or "omg i luv u"s in there.

So that might add to that, in some way.

Yay debating! *claps hands and jumps up and down girlishly*

Baka makes a point. Christine is the cliche damsel in distress with so much innocence, her blood could be white. I don't ever know where people come up with Christine having the mindset or personality of a manipulative whore. Perhaps it's ALW's Christine? I mean come on. She gets taken down to "The Lair" in stocking, a robe, and a corset. XD

Yeah, besides that bit. Which really does answer the question. I'm not sure if a woman's virtue was valued then, but Christine seemed to have the good girl card in her. I'm not too sure about Catholicism, though. With her Father taken away from her and all, I wonder if she even kept her faith or unnanouncingly turned Agnostic. Because who wouldn't question their God when stuff like that happens? But that's beside the point a bit.

Very true. Screw that he was ugly, that came later. But she had believed for those long months that she really had been visited by her angel--perhaps even her father. Her faith was renewed and she had a reason to live again. Her childhood stories were not in vain and her father had at last made good on his dying words.

But then waking (I am convinced he drugged her) to find her Angel, the one thing that gave life meaning anymore, was infact nothing more than mortal? That would fill her with a range of emotions and ultimately spark fear or hatred, though I've no honest thought why the former.

And I think I quote her in saying, "There is no Angel of Music... there is only Erik!" She knew. Whether or not she shifted between denial or pity is argueable. But she knew and she chose to continue going back and seeing it through.

THANKyougloryhallelujahhomgetc... I want to beat people over the head with that section too. She's much more traumatised, and rightly so, upon finding out that what she thought was a divine presence was actually a regular man who'd been lying to her and manipulating her for six months than she was on finding out that said man just happens to be quite fugly. I mean, really... What would you find more serious? Arguments on whether of not she's manipulative aside, Christine isn't a shallow twit. If anything, his face helped her to stay with him because then she realized why he approached her the way he did and pitied him for it.


I'm thinking the fear was because she had realized how completely and easily he had tricked her into believing that he was an angel. If he could do that so effortlessly, what else could he make her believe? Not to mention the fact that she realized she'd just been kidnapped by a psychopath... and they had creepy murdering rapists in that time period too.
I love the Leroux for that, because her initial fears seem very realistic. If you had just been drugged and dragged home by some guy you knew nothing about except that he smelled like death and wouldn't let you see his face, what would you think was going to happen to you?

Um... [/tangent]