There's a lot more to Christine than they like to show in the musical, unfortunately. ALW has a weakness for dumbing things down, because he feels audiences can't understand complex characters, which is why Starlight Express ended up with their fricking fabulous villain getting cut when they reformatted the show.
Since I'm a sucker for the character, I've read any Phantom related-stuff and the best one I've come across is Phantom by Susan Kay, who writes the story from the POVs of half a dozen characters, including Erik, Christine and Raoul and Christine in it is amazingly strong-willed. The quiet relationship that the writer created below the surface of what's shown in the musical was beautiful. And oh, the hand-fetishing that went on! Erik sitting in front of a fire, telling Christine -sitting on a cushion in front of him - stories and practically weeping for joy when her hair brushes against his hand.
Mind you, the writer gave him mother-issues by the bucketload and went with the all-too-common Christine-lookin-like-dead-wife/mother/cousin/one-time friend thing.
*coughs* Should stop babbling now, else this might lead into a crit of the book as a whole.
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Date: 2006-02-06 11:47 am (UTC)Since I'm a sucker for the character, I've read any Phantom related-stuff and the best one I've come across is Phantom by Susan Kay, who writes the story from the POVs of half a dozen characters, including Erik, Christine and Raoul and Christine in it is amazingly strong-willed. The quiet relationship that the writer created below the surface of what's shown in the musical was beautiful. And oh, the hand-fetishing that went on! Erik sitting in front of a fire, telling Christine -sitting on a cushion in front of him - stories and practically weeping for joy when her hair brushes against his hand.
Mind you, the writer gave him mother-issues by the bucketload and went with the all-too-common Christine-lookin-like-dead-wife/mother/cousin/one-time friend thing.
*coughs* Should stop babbling now, else this might lead into a crit of the book as a whole.