phantom a physco???

it has been discussed on many forums that the phantom was a loony. i know! i love erik as much as everyone, maybe more who knows... anywhoo the phantom basically stalked chrsitne, he was emotionally absusive, and he was a murderer. would you really want to be with some one like that??? but he has a few redeeming qualities thrown in, that could change ur mind... wat do you think??????

I think that, due to his tragic past and constant torment that he was forced to face, he grew up emotionally repressed and cut off fro the world. He found Christine attractive, wanted her, and decided the only way to have her was to lie to her, saying he was an Angel of Music.
He murdered because he found those he killed exasperating and opposing to his plans. He had such a pitiful life, I don't think that there was any other path for him to go down.

Yes. I think if it had not been for his deformity, or maybe if people had not reacted the way they did to him, he would be nothing more than a genious.

Agreed.

Hmm... no, I wouldn't say he was a "loony" though he was certainly mentally ill near the end of the book and musical. Erik, who has basically sealed his own fate by allowing Christine to engage Raoul. An arrangement which would hurt no one, so Erik believed. He didn't exactly look through the possibilities that Raoul might just stay.
Having to compete with Raoul to win Christine started to have it's toll with the Opera ghost and he became pretty much "mad" with love. He even did harm on Christine and threatened to blow up the Garnier Opera house, making completely irrational choices.
I'd say he was sane before the whole fight over Christine. Desperate, eccentric but sane.
I supose he had many strange beliefs, believeing maybe a virigin might make him purer and innocent. You can see why he goes "crazy" when Raoul and Christine share a kiss.

le_mort_vivant wrote:I'd say he was sane before the whole fight over Christine. Desperate, eccentric but sane.

It depends on the source you are looking at. Since Erik was not a "real" person, and has no actual written records of his feelings, we can not say for sure what his state of mind was before or after the Christine incident.
I mostly look to Kay's Phantom when thinking about Erik's life, because it is definitive and very close to my idea of what he may have had to endure.
I think that anyone who derives pleasure from watching people die slowly and painfully in a catoptric cistula they themselves constructed for just such a purpose has issues. He killed many times in Mazanderan, and then some more if you count the suicides in the torture chamber, and Bouquet. He was a sick sick man, and I believe he was like that before he ever met Christine. She only added fuel to the obsession burning in his mind.

I think that he wasn't so mad, but when he has meet Christine he was!

LittleWanderingChild wrote:I think that he wasn't so mad, but when he has meet Christine he was!

I think thats a very good point!

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days (I really need to get a life don't I?). It depends on the actor a lot as to how crazy he is, but, yes, the Phantom is crazy. I don't think Gerard Butler's Phantom is that insane compared to stage Phantoms like Earl Carpenter and JOJ. I seem to remember Hugh Panaro's Phantom being very childlike in the Final Lair, almost funny in fact!
I'd say that the Phantom is very simple minded, like a child. He sees something he wants and if he can't have it he gets mad.
As LittleWanderingChild said, maybe before he met Christine, he was only a little simple minded, but harmless, and meeting her pushed him over the edge into total insanity.

Perhaps. I do think he was touched before he met her though.

Wow, some of the points brought to surface in this thread are ones I never really thought about. I definately agree that the Phantom must have been simple minded like a child. Well...he saw things through a child's eyes but when it came to getting or doing those things, he used his genius mind. It sort of reminds me of something my dog did when we first had her (bare with me here, hee hee). Loujah always got into the cat food which isn't good for her, so when she was loose we would put the bowl of cat food on top of this container next to our porch stairs. But not knowing any better, she did all she could to find a way to get the cat food. She climed up the stairs, squeezed through the bars and jumped onto the container, thus getting to the cat food. She was foolish in going after it, but smart (for a dog) in figuring out how to get it.

So, I've just compared what I believe to be Erik's way of thinking...to my dog's way of thinking. But I thought it was an okay example to see if that's what any of you were getting at.

Hmm... if Erik was a child he probably would have been extremely complex. His mother, was obviously frightened of her own son and did all she could to keep her husband from seeing the "disapointment" of a son. At a young age this must have effected Erik greatly. Possibly he looked to hurting animals and people in a means to take out his pain on others. At an early age he runs away. He feels he is a burden to his parents, wanting to protect them.
From an early age Erik has to learn to look after himself and become independent. This must have had a great impact on his mind. Of course, you can murder and still be sane. What we might consider "sick" might have been Erik's joys in life.
After a life time of blood shed Erik eventually craves to live like a normal man and have a normal wife and house. In Christine he finds this "virgin" untouched and pure in his eyes. In his belief, if he can have Christine he can be redeemed through her innocence.
All very complicated.
Remember Kay is simply a fan fiction. In Leroux if you dig deep you can find quite alot of ties to his past and childhood.

Leroux created Erik, but he was by no means real. Therefore, every member on here has a right to cite any novel concerning him, since there is no definitive text of him. As I've said, Leroux's is confused. I think he through the Epilogue together, with Erik's past, just to make Erik seem more realistic.
Throughout Leroux's novel, he never hints that Erik tortured animals or anything like that. That's a personal inference.

I agree with RedDeath. Even though in Leroux's eoilgoue, I THINK, it states that Erik had an abusive father, I think having no father figure as in Kay's novel would be more disappointing.
I love Kay's novel by far more than Leroux's. To be honest, Leroux's was badly written. I did not like it at all.
And, le_mort_vivant, that thing about what we think is sick are Erik's joys--that doesn't make them tolerable. It's still murder and mental derangement.
As RedDeath's said, Erik never was real, so, who can say how Leroux planned for him to function? This topic can only be answered by Leroux, who, sadly, is dead.

Ok I can't see him "crazy", heavly obsessed with love and will stop in this case kill anyone willing to get in the way. It wasnt really that way at the start. It was until Raoul came in. Its all his fault. If he never came Erik would of never went obsessed about getting Christine back.

I doubt that. I believe that Erik would have tried to take her one time or another, even if Raoul never did appear. However, Raoul's impression on Christine did push him over the edge.

I think he was slightly touched, but not totally crazy. Not crazy, but, a little insane.

hmmm.... RedDeath said before that the phantom was probably not a "real" person, but there is evidence that suggest so. in the orignal novel by GL he claimed that everything was true. of courae that only goes as much as you believe him, but the chandelier really did fall in the Paris opera house on May 20, 1896. Of course we could believe the news papers that it was old and uncared for chains, or maybe it was that sumone let it fly when the mangers failed to comply with orders given by our ghost. also there really was a christine singing at the opera around the time of the chandelier falling. As we all know there really are 5 cellars beneath the opera house and there really is a accessible rooftop and countless accounts of sightings dating back over 100 years. GL claimed his book to be truth and last names were changed, there was never a de Changey ever recored in Paris and there were certianly no Daaes, but the christine from the opera house last name was Nilson or sumthin like that. as far as erik goes without a last name it make him impossible to track down, but gL claimed he knew who he was and that he had met with the original christine and raoul or sumone connected with them. even with this evidence Erik to this day is just a story in our minds, but really all he wanted was to be remembered and he wanted love, and i guess in a way he did, but without solid proof of his exsistance he still remains a phantom...

In MY opinion, there was no real Erik or Phantom of the Opera. The chandelier did indeed fall, there are several cellars and a lake, there most likely were Christines, and a singer did go missing, but eventually returned.
I could write a story and say it is true without it being. Anyone could, and that's what Leroux did. He borrowed a LOT of the story line from Trilby, a story with a cadaver-like villain who haunts a courtesean and eventually makes her a prima donna in an opera house. leroux also may have pieced together the odd events that took place at the Opera house and combine them with Trilby elements to create his story.
Anyone can think what they wish, but, I will never be convinced without seeing actual documentation rather than hear-say.
Annnd, this is a thread about Erik's mental state, not his authenticity. Please take these discussions elsewhere.

I think Red Death is right. Its just like the, sorry for going of topic, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There really was a killer and he did weird stuff with the bodies like using them for dresses and furniture but the whole point is that in the movie he killed people with a chainsaw, not in real life he didnt. Well what im trying to say is that people will bend the truth to tell a story.

Not once on this thread have I stated that Erik was real so I would be wise to not bring in other topics from other threads and beliefs into this one.
I was simply saying the first idea is ussually the one which people look back to as the correct idea as it was the first created. Who knows, maybe there are a few papers out there concering a childhood for Erik by Leroux.
As for what others believe is not acceptable it all boils down to your background and culture and what is seen as tabboo in many countries is not in others. Who are we to judge?
"Phantom" by Susan Kay is simply a published fan fiction, someone who has taken on an idea and developed it. By stating this by no means am I saying it's not sutiable to have your own opinion but I was simply stating it. People are jumping to conclusions too touchy on this subject if we are indeed treating "Erik" as a character.
I agree with L'ange_de_la_musique. Now we are going completely off topic.
Now this is a discussion as well as debate but it is not right for any of us to wrong anyone for their opinions or try and convince them that their own his correct.

le_mort_vivant wrote:Not once on this thread have I stated that Erik was real...

You stated you believed he was, in the portal's chatbox.
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Now, back on topic everyone.
I've been far too tolerant of these off-topic discussions.

Edited by RedDeath, 7/3/07 @ 12:18pm

Wikipedia definition on Psychopathy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathic

Having looked into it I can see why Erik could be classed as a Psychopath though the only things which might change such a belief is that Erik does indeed feel remorse for his actions nearing the end of the Leroux and Kay book and actually does something "right" from his point of view by letting his captive go. Other than that Erik clearly doesn't believe in keeping "promises" though he does now and again and strongly wants to be "loved". However, he does show some signs of irrational thinking nearing the end of the Kay and Leroux books.

Off Topic::
No one was attacking you, le_mort_vivant. You said something earlier in this thread that I replied to, and the topic simply molded around what I said. Your "beliefs" are fine with us.
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The point is I didn't even mention anything to do with "my beliefs" thus the shouldn't have been brought into the subject in the first place.

Anyway... back on topic.

So would it go about correctly in classing Erik as a physco?

Okay, listen:: Let. It. Go. On the first page you mentioned something about his authenticity, or so we interpreted it, and since then, we've been discussing that. Enough. End of story. Case closed.
To everyone else: Make a new topic if you wish to discuss Erik's possible realness.
I'll start deleting/editing posts if I must.
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And no, I do not believe Erik was a homicidal psycho entirely. He was a bit of a manic, but, not a full-fledged psychopath. I think this topic's author used 'psycho' for lack of a better word.