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 Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:52 am
I have read the original novel by Leroux and Susan Kay (yes I know it's not official, but stuck close to the original storyline). I know Erik was born with the birth defect of his face. My question is, was his whole body deformed or was it just his face? He was supposed to be very skeletal, and similiar in apperance to a corpse, but otherwise was the rest of his body normal? I am trying to figure out (because I'm a huge nerd) what type of birth defect Erik had. Yes, I know I am such an obsessed PTO fan (recording myself singing PTO songs). I also know his eyes were sunken in and loopsided. Any help would be great.
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:24 am
I think it's his whole body. 3nodding
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 12:58 pm
~Nobody falls in love anymore~
A skeletal body is not a deformation, it just means you are incredibly skinny. And borrowing from Leroux, who said the Erik did not eat for days at a time when he was working on his music, I would assume that Erik does not eat a very large amount of food.
~They just fall~
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:06 pm
Nobody is sure on this issue. It coud be either. It could be part of his deformity, or it could simply be the fact that he starves himself. The book only says that he looked like a walking corpse, it never says exactly what part was birth defect and what part was self-inflicted. It could, then, technically, be both.
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:13 pm
It depends on your interpretation of 'deformed'. The way I read it, Erik's entire body is discolored and skeletal, it's just most noticable on his face where musculature is necessary for filling out the features. The rest of his body wouldn't seem deformed- just pale, knobby, and thin.
As far as I know, there is no one deformity that Erik's face is based on. We know Leroux was inspired in part by porphyria victims, but the rest seemingly came from his imagination.
...Although now that I think about it, there was a kind of exceptionally rare genetic disorder I read about in health class once that gave an appearance very similar to how Erik was described; sunken eyes, discolored skin, and colorless, wispy hair. But I can't remember the name of it any more.
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:40 pm
His whole body was corpse-like in the books, but I think they could only do his face in the movies/plays.
Could one possibly compare Erik's appearance to that of an ebola victim? Just a thought...
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:59 pm
I think it would be only his face. His body would be skeletal because he does, as mentioned above, starve himself a bit. He may also have had an eating disorter, resulting from low self esteem. Few things kept him clinging to life, so perhaps he remained close to death in case there was nothing more for him to hold on to.
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Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:01 pm
His whole body, I think. I base this on the fact that (In Leroux) when Christine first steps beyond the mirror and Erik puts his hand over her mouth, she describes it as smelling like death.
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:06 am
|Love me|
I wouldn't think scent was related to deformities (though it could be, I'm not positive). Erik is a murderer; that might explain the "smell of death." The yellow tint to his skin may have been part of the deformity, or caused by malnutrition.
|That's all I ask of you|
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:09 pm
I think what Christine was actually smelling was a mix of chloroform that he used to knock her out to get her there and simply the smell of the cellars where mold and such other horrid smells run rampid. That may've been what she thought was death.
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Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:42 am
Utakan I think what Christine was actually smelling was a mix of chloroform that he used to knock her out to get her there and simply the smell of the cellars where mold and such other horrid smells run rampid. That may've been what she thought was death. True. I just figured that while it was a pretty weird word to describe mold, it was a perfect word for Erik.
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Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:53 pm
Elanchana His whole body was corpse-like in the books, but I think they could only do his face in the movies/plays. Could one possibly compare Erik's appearance to that of an ebola victim? Just a thought... No. Ebola does not affect people that way at all. No strain of filovirus does. The progression of ebola is basically like, people get sick with muscle pains, their eyes turn red and they get lethargic, then, later their personality is uncontrollable and they have massive internal bleeding until they basically...explode with their liquefied eviscera. Rarely do people survive Ebola. There's one strain that people are not affected by at all. And the one filovirus that is not ebola is deadly 50% of the time. The other two strains are very deadly, so there is little chance people would survive having those. Also, the first time a European contracted a filovirus was in the 1980's. And Ebola itself was discovered later. Otherwise it just stayed in Africa the whole time. In short, Ebola does not affect a person's outward appearance other than making their eyes red and making them lose the top layer of their tongue (unless you call, say, bleeding from the eyes and ears and so on an aspect of appearance). So Erik's appearance couldn't be equated with Ebola, or any filovirus for that matter.
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Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:13 pm
Thorn Venatrix Elanchana His whole body was corpse-like in the books, but I think they could only do his face in the movies/plays. Could one possibly compare Erik's appearance to that of an ebola victim? Just a thought... No. Ebola does not affect people that way at all. No strain of filovirus does. The progression of ebola is basically like, people get sick with muscle pains, their eyes turn red and they get lethargic, then, later their personality is uncontrollable and they have massive internal bleeding until they basically...explode with their liquefied eviscera. Rarely do people survive Ebola. There's one strain that people are not affected by at all. And the one filovirus that is not ebola is deadly 50% of the time. The other two strains are very deadly, so there is little chance people would survive having those. Also, the first time a European contracted a filovirus was in the 1980's. And Ebola itself was discovered later. Otherwise it just stayed in Africa the whole time. In short, Ebola does not affect a person's outward appearance other than making their eyes red and making them lose the top layer of their tongue (unless you call, say, bleeding from the eyes and ears and so on an aspect of appearance). So Erik's appearance couldn't be equated with Ebola, or any filovirus for that matter. I know he wasn't a victim, I just thought he might look like one. The dead skin part at least. *shudders* We learned about this in disease detectives (SO). The skin is so dead and tender that even if you just barely touch it it breaks and starts to bleed. I thought Erik might look like that minus the bleeding part.
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Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:20 pm
I doubt it. The skin of an Ebola victim seems swollen. Erik's was sunken. Plus his was yellowish.
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Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:20 pm
Thorn Venatrix I doubt it. The skin of an Ebola victim seems swollen. Erik's was sunken. Plus his was yellowish. Oh right. Well, it just reminded me in a way.
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