'phantom' vs 'PotO'

for those of you who've read susan kay's phantom as well as leroux's the phantom of the opera, which erik (and raoul and christine) do you like more and why?
besides the obvious melding of PotO with the alw version, what makes kay's version so appealing?

in my opinion, kay's erik (who I'll now refer to as kerik...as opposed to lerik) is more 'manly': he doesn't fall into a sobbing heap at christine's feet, we know he's got urges, he's also polite, and kay gives us his past (he then gets more sympathy than lerik, who's past is virtually unknown) and let's us in on his thoughts. he's not just a genius, he's also a he-man.

lerik, on the other hand, cries... a lot. he also acts erratically and talks in third person occasionally (which really, really frightens me). on the upside, he keeps fine wines, he's traveled the world (okay, so has kerik...), and he can cook some mean chicken and crawfish dinners, not to mention decorate.

basically, though, they have the same body and deformities (although I don't think kerik smells like a corpse)... so is it simply his actions and demeanor that make kerik so much 'sexier' with such a bigger phan following?

or is it just because (spoiler) it ends like every e/c phan wants it to, they have sex and we know for sure that christine loved erik?

one more thing, how many people honestly believe erik went to heaven after he died in either story and why? I believe that, just like faust and marguerite went to heaven and were forgiven for their sins, erik was too.
::and I mean no offense if you don't believe in heaven or hell::

I know this was posted, like, a way long time ago- and I haven't read Kay's and only partially read Leroux's, but still, I'm going to try my hand at replying.

From your description- I like 'lErik' better. I don't care about some guy who's gone through terrible troubles only to come out all stronger from it. From what I've gathered from the various tellings of Erik and his past- I think a detached genius who goes off into his own world and occasionally uses 3rd person would work. And... I don't think Christine would end up loving Erik... Maybe in a way because he taught her to sing and all that stuff, but beyond that I don't think she would.
Besides, the age difference makes it creepy.


I don't think Erik would like it in heaven unless he could get his own private room where he could write songs and hear the angels sing them.
And if he could do that- God would let him in if only to hear the music.

yeesh, I am so glad someone finally responded!

after some serious thought (with a movie phan, no less... the movie wasn't my kind of thing, but it made me think good and hard about what I thought PotO should be...) I like lerik more, too. in fact, I've kind of morphed into a raoul/christine phan who just really, really likes erik. so I'm naturally glad the book (and virtually everything else) ends up that way.

I also like your idea of erik's own private room in heaven. I think heaven is what you want it to be, so I imagined him just being able to play and compose and be. and of course, he'd be loved for himself.

I recommend finishing leroux, if you haven't already.

After reading both, (heh, not long after I post an uneducated opinion...) I have to agree with lErik. And not just because towards the end he started freaking me out, which isn't exactly easy for a book to do. He seemed alot more like I'd picture the Phantom. Much more insane, still human- but not so much we're offended by what he does and think he's evil. Just enough that we can't say that he's definitely a monster.

Also, Kay's struck me hard as a fanfiction. She seemed to be trying to get people to "understand" why Erik was Erik and in doing so- sorta destroyed who he is...
If you ask me, part of Erik's appeal is that he's /insane/. He talks in 3rd person, he's in his own little world, and we have no part in it. We don't know what makes him tick- and Kay was trying to shove that down our throats and sorta turned him into a human being.... made him as close to normal as he could be. And once he's like that, we have a hard time forgiving him- so she had to make everyone he wronged forgive him so we'd feel obligated to.


I agree with you on the movie- it wasn't my thing either. The book is always better, of course, because it can go more in depth. The movie had to work within the realm of it's media which is a lot more restrictive. It's very hard to show that a voice is so powerfully beautiful it has power over people in a movie. In the book you can just slap it into a paragraph and then show how it affects characters. You don't need to actually make the voice gorgeous, the movie does.

I like Leroux!Erik a lot better, because I've never read Susan Kay's Phantom. I have got to get that book somehow!
P.G.7.

I like Kerik. You get a look at what happened before he came to the opera house, and how he became the man, or "opera ghost" that we all know today.