The Phantom of the Opera
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She should have chosen the phantom
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No, just no. The phantom was a sociopath, an assassin, a criminal. We shouldn't romanticize obsession. Raoul was absolutely the perfect choice for Christine who was just a young, naive girl. Phantom was too broken for love.
as one of those weird Erik fans, having read the book and seen the play, no, she shouldn't have chosen Erik. According to the ending, in the end, Erik did the right thing. He loved Christine and he wanted her to be happy. (well, forcing her to choose the scorpion was kinda not the "dream husband" move, and I am not going to defend him for this) He wanted Christine to be happy. And no matter how selfish readers think he is, he is selfless. He gave up his life, his role, his reputation for her and Raoul to be happy. This was how the story had to end. In the end, Erik did the right thing, but he was so emotionally attached to the girl that he ended up in a terrible state.
Christine should have chosen who she wanted. Which is Raoul in the book and movie. Erik/the Phantom was written to help challenge Christine into growing up rather than staying in her child-like naivety. Unlike him, she never dealt with bullying, being misunderstood from fear, and ostracization. She was beautifully conventional enough to be in society more easily. But Erik was too physically ugly and unconventionally brilliant for society to handle. Sorry, not sorry. But society sucks no matter what era it is. Wise healers are not that common. Madame Giry who saved Erik from his abusers chose compassion over society's fearmongering cruelty against him because of looking physically ugly. Christine's beauty kept her naive from society's cruelty. Erik would only be compatible with her if he became a better man by being cautiously optimistic and compassionate rather than giving into nihilistic darkness that easily. He is in deep need of therapy after dealing with childhood trauma and abuse that turned him into an abuser himself. I doubt he was born an abuser. I'm convinced society's cruelty turned him into one. But alas, the original book and 2004 movie do him dirty with cruel writing to create the drama for entertainment. Despite Christine's time of being alive, she could have chosen to be unmarried even though it would have provoked controversy. It could have sparked the rise of women having power to choose marriage or not. She likely would have been a French Catholic during that era. Despite that, I know about Catholic women who chose to not get married. Either way, I don't care if Christine chooses Raoul, Erik, or neither one. It's her choice. And I would never write this story to make her choose.Erik developed sociopathic traits to protect himself after his childhood trauma and abuse from society's cruelty. He was never a sociopath. But his method of protecting himself could come across as himself being a sociopath. I would argue that he felt the need to outdo people intellectually for his own survival. Which could explain why he could come across as a genius. But it's actually him trying to protect himself by being smarter than everyone else. But Raoul is there to prove that Erik is not touching grass and getting carried away instead.
No se, Erik y Raoul eran bastante grandecitos para ella... supongo que Christine se podría haber quedado con Erik, si no le molestan todos los crímenes que cometió a lo largo del libro... Raoul no me parece una mala elección, pero bastantes prefieren y ven al fantasma sin todas las red flags 😟.
Como personaje Erik me encanta, ya si yo estaría con el es otra cosa...
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I am the biggest Erik/Christine "shipper" out there, and consider them soulmates of the truest, purest kind and wish/fantasize of them reuniting, later in the years, in the afterlife, whatever, but no. Christine made the right choice. Or at least the least worse choice because I will never be truly sure she loves Raoul, in the novel and in every incarnation of it she seems to be using him almost more as an escape than anything else (blame it on bad writting/development, but its true) and someone to hide under from all those weird, confusing, shamefull feelings she had about The Phantom.
But still, Erik was a broken man. Not someone you could have a healthy relationship with. And thats not mentioning her having to live all her life underground. If she tried to save him she would have drowned herself. To me the tragedy is first and foremost Erik's, but also to a lesser extent its the tragedy of 2 soulmates that cant be together because one of them is tragically damaged.
She went with her mind, but tragically, sorrowfully, in this case, it was the right thing.