The Phantom of the Opera/YMMV

Leroux's original novel and its fandom contain examples of

• Alas, Poor Villain: Even Christine, the Persian, and the Narrator feel sorry for the homicidal maniac stalker's Death by Despair.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: In the case of the Phantom, it's done on purpose in the Broadway production. However, the original novel is much more straightforward about how we're supposed to interpret that character.
  • On the other hand there is a lot of this concerning Raoul and especially Christine. She has been interpreted as a child-like idiot savant, a young woman suffering from a severe Electra complex, and even a straight-out victim of sexual abuse.
• Non Sequitur Scene: In the original novel, a character known as the "brown man" is introduced, living in the sewers parallel to, and only intersecting momentarily, Erik. It's explained that he's a hermit monk, and that he's just always been there. Erik is understandably more frightened of HIM than he is of Erik. He is never mentioned again.
  • Interestingly, this character is a lot closer to the real figure Erik was loosely based on.
• Die for Our Ship: Raoul, more often than not.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Well, that's a Foregone Conclusion!
• Funny Moments: Now has its own webpage.
• Ho Yay: The Persian and Erik—Raoul doesn't help by comparing the ways the Persian and the smitten Christine swoon over the charismatic Tragic Monster...
• Jerkass Woobie: Erik.
• Macekre: The only English translation available until 1990. It's now in the public domain, so any English edition that does not specifically credit a translator by name is most likely the Macekred version.
• Nightmare Fuel: "The rousy hours of Mazendaran", the time while Erik worked as a Torture Technician for the Shah-in-Shah.
• Possession Sue: Is to Christine what Draco in Leather Pants is to the Phantom and Die for Our Ship is to Raoul.
• The Scrappy: Raoul might be one of the least popular heroes in all of literature.
• Tear Jerker: Several moments qualify.

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The famous musical and myriad other adaptations further contain examples of

• Alternative Character Interpretation: And how! Erik has become more or less the poster-child for woobiedom. Try to find a fic where he ends up miserable and alone. The fan base is quite split over this, but a strong majority finds Erik to be by far the most sympathetic character in the book/play/film. And how you feel about this will make a difference on what you think of Love Never Dies. Fan works aside, there's been a lot of different interpretations of who Erik actually is—he's been portrayed as everything from a doomed romantic who just got pushed a little too far (Kopit/Yeston version) to a slasher-style killer who sold his soul to the devil and flays the skin from his victims (1989 film starring Robert Englund, yes, Robert Englund).
  • Christine. Is she genuinely in love with Raoul, or is she unconsciously attracted to him simply because he can save her from her Stalker with a Crush? Notice on the rooftop scene, after Raoul declares his love for her, Christine immediately says, 'Order your fine horses, be with them at the door...'
    • When she kisses The Phantom at the end, is it because she really loves and/or pities him or because she's trying to save Raoul?
    • It's interesting to note in the stage production that while both Raoul and The Phantom explicitly say they love Christine and make that declaration to her, she never says it back to either of them, not even in song (there is a lot of dancing around it in "All I ask of you," though).
    • She DOES mouth "I Love You" to Raoul before she kisses the phantom in the 2004 movie.
• Awesome Music: The Overture/title theme, "Music of the Night," "Masquerade," and the final scene, among others. Really, the whole score can qualify.
• Broken Base: The 2004 movie sharply divided fans of the show over plot changes and cast quality issues.
• Critical Research Failure: See Did Not Do the Research on the main article for the 2004 film.
• Draco in Leather Pants: The fans have always done this to the Phantom to some extent, but it really skyrocketed once the movie came out thanks in part to Hollywood Homely. To be fair, the scar was downplayed in the film because Joel wanted to play up the fact that Erik's scar wasn't really that bad...which was a case of the director not doing the research.
• Ear Worm: DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, DA DA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, DA DA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
  • The "Wandering Child" trio. Good thing it's gorgeous.
  • "Masquerade", in all of its iterations.
    • "The PHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANTOM OF THE OPERA IS HERE...INSIDE YOUR MIND!" Damn right it is.
  • It could be said that nearly every song is an Ear Worm
  • Oh, Lord, it's been 26 years since I first heard "Music of the Night" and the damn thing still won't go away.
• Fan Hater: Plenty, who believe the show is nothing but style (and gooey romance) over substance. Interestingly, though, liking the book too is a good way to find redemption with the hatedom... so long as you say the book is better.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Most fanfictions have Christine ending up with Erik.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A lot of fans would like to forget The Phantom of Manhattan, a novel by Frederick Forsyth that was based on the original plans for a sequel to the musical in the late 1990s, ever happened. Love Never Dies appears to be heading in the same direction.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While the 2005 film wasn't much successful either critically and financially, it was HUGE in Japan - one of the biggest grosses of the year.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The fact that the 1989 film starring Robert Englund, which many people take for just another forgetable 80's gore fest that has nothing to do with the novel, is, along with the 1925 silent film, one of the closest to the source material.
  • Minnie Driver plays the legendary bad singer La Carlotta in the 2004 movie; just nine years before, she played the even worse nightclub singer in GoldenEye. Whatever Erik would have made of that one!
• Hollywood Homely: In the movie, at least. Yes, Gerard Butler is supposed to be hideous just because he has a really bad sunburn. Some Phantom fans (or "phans") say that the stage makeup is also a cop-out, as it's still only over one half of his face, but let's be honest—a man who's good-looking on one side and like a rotting steak with an eye on the other alongside a partially exposed cranium and about as much hair as the average healthy person cleans out of their brush at the end of the month is still deformed enough to be believably outcast from Victorian society, even if he's not the "living corpse" Leroux described. (And with those conditions, being handsome on the other side tends to only make the deformity look worse.) Word of God says the half-mask was created because it was very difficult for Michael Crawford to sing properly through a full-face mask, and both Crawford and Andrew Lloyd Webber have said that it just took too long to apply make-up all over his face. Lloyd Webber was apparently worried no actor would play the role for very long if it required five-plus hours in make-up. Even with a half-mask, it takes time; by the end of Crawford's tenure, the make-up application was down to two hours, and that's about how long it takes for his successors.
  • Let's not forget that during "The Point of No Return," Butler's mask barely conceals more than his eyes and we see no deformity whatsoever - even over the parts of his face which, when exposed later, are deformed. The filmmakers attempted to Hand Wave this by showing some makeup on the Phantom's dressing table.
  • And in the Takarazuka Revue productions of the Arthur Kopit/Maury Yeston musical, both Wao Youka and Haruno Surime were WAY too pretty for their own good. Bizarrely, they both managed to make it work regardless.
• Ho Yay: Andre and Firmin seem... unusually friendly in the film version.
  • Becomes a Les Yay with Christine and Meg.
• Internet Backdraft: The following topics will cause your Phantom message board to explode: Michael Crawford, Gerard Butler (especially vs. each other), Sarah Brightman, Emmy Rossum (ditto), the movie in general, or Love Never Dies.
• Magnum Opus: The most well-known and acclaimed work of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
• Nightmare Fuel: While the unmasking scene in the 1925 film is considered Narm these days, it was absolutely terrifying to audiences at the time.
  • Here's a challenge: show the movie to a group of people who are only acquainted with the 2005 movie and/or musical and know nothing of the 1925 film. Chances are high there will be screaming.
• Take That, Scrappy!: The Phantom dishes out a handful of insults to Raoul every time he mentions him.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Lon Chaney's legendary makeup job, which reportedly caused many audience members to faint.
• The Woobie: Erik gets this treatment in some versions, while in others he causes at least as much grief as he gets.
  • The ultimate in Woobie!Phantoms is "Erique Claudin" in the 1943 version, who's actually Christine's father (so it's not that kind of interest in her career, but rather an attempt at making up for the time he didn't get with her in her childhood), and in rapid succession loses his job, is revealed to be broke, gets disfigured by acid, has to live in a cellar and eventually dies.
• What the Hell, Casting Agency?: In addition to Crawford's celebrated Playing Against Type turn, the title character in the musical has been played by Paul Stanley (of KISS fame) and Robert Guillaume (as of 2010, in 25 years, the only black actor to play the Phantom).
  • [[[KISS]] Paul Stanley]] really did a nice job. See it here
  • The same with Robert Guillaume.
• The movie. To a lesser extent, the musical itself.

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