John Russell

my version of book Erik

without the mask

He's a depressed mess here 😊

At first I wanted him to look as close to the book as possible, but then I just couldn't resist giving him this haircut and changing a few other things because why not.

I plan on drawing other characters and more of Erik too, so hopefully I'll have enough time lol.

I literally have never seen a more beautifully accurate account of this man.

The other day, I was trying to explain to a friend the difference between Erik and Quasimodo from the Hunchback, and I got caught up in this distinction. Erik isn’t a moving character just because he’s a softy misunderstood by society. He’s awful. He’s terrifying. He IS horrific. And it’s the dichotomy within him that makes him so compelling. It’s the fact that he is both Angel AND Phantom. The point of the novel is in the question: “Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him?” It’s a choice that Leroux puts to every reader, having given them evidence and justification for either options. It isn’t sugar-coated; it’s raw and real. It’s life and death. It’s shocking but it’s truth. Just like Christine in the first unmasking scene, we are exposed to it in all its horror; but it is only through this very horror, the full expression of his madness and his grief, that we are able to experience the heights of his innate divinity and, like Christine, finally recognize the truth of his identity: “the most unhappy and sublime of men,” a man acquainted in equal measure with both Heaven and Hell.

We must never forget that our Erik is tragic hero. Uncomfortable and doomed but, because of this, oh so beautiful.

I love the Phantom because he wasn’t “pretty on the inside”.

He was full of hate and disdain for himself and mankind.

And he was beautiful through his gifts and talents. And he was beautiful when he was exposed, when he was unguarded… But he was also ugly. He was more complex than simply being a monster or being ugly ‘on the outside’.

He was still magnificent, but he changed the rules. He changed the game. He changed everything. He wasn’t kind and he wasn’t terribly sincere and he wasn’t patient or helpful but he was still beautiful.

He was beautiful through his obsessions, his knowledge, his struggle and his downfall.

His struggle, his downfall, his destruction and his insecurities were his beauty.

Me defending my favourite fictional character: he's not even that bad (meanwhile he has a literal torture chamber in his house and drops chandelier on people)

One great scene in Phantom of the Opera is in the torture chamber when Raoul and the Daroga hear Erik menacing Christine and first it sounds like she’s crying

- but it’s not her, it’s Erik full-on sobbing while he’s threatening her, and if that doesn’t describe his character perfectly what will

yes all my favorite characters are desperate to be loved. no i don’t think that says anything about me

Whoa

Edna St. Vincent Millay, from a diary entry featured in Rapture & Melancholy; The Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Famous authors talking about Dostoevsky

Wedding day

I noticed this the other day and it made me sad.

At the end of All I Ask Of You, Christine says she must go and is about to leave when Raoul sings "Christine, I love you" and she turns back and goes to him, they end up leaving the scene together all happy and in love.

Phantom tried to do that at the end of Final Lair, his "Christine, I love you" is an attempt at making Christine stay the same way he saw Raoul do in the rooftop :(

*gasp* I love them

“Kissed her bruised and bleeding forehead”