Another plot hole emerges
13 July 2020 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeJust discovered a massive canon discrepancy in "The Writing on the Wall" (which I did think was struggling to an end; I just need to get Raoul convinced that Erik really is going to bestow his hand upon Christine instead of murdering him quietly in the dark en route, which isn't all that easy for him to credit under the circumstances).
I've written the whole thing, from the moment that Raoul awakes from drowning, depicting Erik as unmasked and hideous. But looking back at the relevant chapters of the novel makes it clear that, contrary to musical-canon, Leroux-Erik retains his mask throughout the climax, removing it only when Christine's tears fall upon his masked face after she allows him to kiss her forehead. Erik must have had his face blank and covered during everything that preceded that event, including reviving Raoul, taking him down to the cells, and chaining him up.
But because I've written it on the contrary assumption, it's going to be beastly difficult to remove all the allusions that are intrinsically woven into the action :-(
The entire revival scene doesn't work:
If he can't see Erik's face, I can't use the remembered comparison to the ship's surgeon to establish Erik's disinterested actions, nor the image of expecting to die and finding oneself confronted by the vision of the Grim Reaper, and most of the scene as written falls apart :-(
And that's not the only section...
I've written the whole thing, from the moment that Raoul awakes from drowning, depicting Erik as unmasked and hideous. But looking back at the relevant chapters of the novel makes it clear that, contrary to musical-canon, Leroux-Erik retains his mask throughout the climax, removing it only when Christine's tears fall upon his masked face after she allows him to kiss her forehead. Erik must have had his face blank and covered during everything that preceded that event, including reviving Raoul, taking him down to the cells, and chaining him up.
But because I've written it on the contrary assumption, it's going to be beastly difficult to remove all the allusions that are intrinsically woven into the action :-(
The entire revival scene doesn't work:
Arms raised and flung wide, compelling his ribcage to rise; clamped back against his chest to expel involuntary breath. He'd seen artificial respiration performed before, on a sailor who'd survived a fall from the yard-arm. Bent over him now, for all its rotting horror, Erik's face held all the surgeon's detached, focused intent.
Too drained for fear, Raoul turned his head and managed a weak protest [...]
But he'd expected death, after all. And here was Death, just as Christine had described him; reeking death from head to foot.
He was overwhelmed with a sudden hysterical desire to laugh; felt a faint giggle force its way up against his will, and saw Erik recoil. Raoul found himself released, abruptly, conscious for the first time of the rough handling he had received and the hard floor on which he lay.
If he can't see Erik's face, I can't use the remembered comparison to the ship's surgeon to establish Erik's disinterested actions, nor the image of expecting to die and finding oneself confronted by the vision of the Grim Reaper, and most of the scene as written falls apart :-(
And that's not the only section...
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Date: 2020-07-13 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-14 11:41 am (UTC)That was my thought -- after all, he has presumably just gone into the water to retrieve two drowning men, a scenario where you really don't want a wet cloth mask flapping over your face and basically waterboarding you -- except that I then remembered that we are told explicitly by the dialogue that he is wearing a mask immediately after his full-body immersion in the lake to kill Philippe, the inopportune visitor.
He returns, apologises for his appearance (presumably dripping all over the floor; he certainly hasn't had time to change) -- Je te demande pardon de te montrer un visage pareil! je suis dans un bel état, n'est-ce pas ? C'est de la faute de l'autre ! Pourquoi a-t-il sonné ? Est-ce que je demande à ceux qui passent l'heure qu'il est ? Il ne demandera plus l'heure à personne -- and rushes off at once to take this opportunity to perform his Burial Mass ;-p Then he comes back unexpectedly to catch Christine with the key to the torture chamber, and delivers his little speech about promenades on Sundays while incidentally making it quite clear that he has his mask on at this point: Autrefois, tu ne pouvais pas regarder mon masque à cause que tu savais ce qu'il y a derrière... Et maintenant, tu veux bien le regarder et tu oublies ce qu'il y a derrière, et tu veux bien ne plus me repousser!
So even if he means "un visage pareil" quite literally (i.e. he is apologising for daring to show her 'such a face' rather than for his general appearance), he definitely has a mask on a few minutes later, despite having no reason to don one in order to play the organ in complete solitude ;-p
(Also, for the purposes of my story, I've tried to make it clear that Erik is performing old-fashioned artificial respiration by manipulating the limbs, not mouth-to-mouth -- he doesn't need to remove his mask in order to do that. And to be honest, he probably isn't diving fully-immersed into a small vertical chamber full of water to retrieve the bodies of Raoul and the Persian; that would be suicidally difficult, when he can presumably simply let the water out of the room and pick them up off the floor!)
The other element, since he is interacting with Christine during the artificial respiration scene, is whether he would be comfortable walking around in the same room with her without a mask; the fact that he takes care either to retain one while jumping in the lake or to put one on before returning to her, coupled to the fact that he is definitely wearing a mask when he returns to her and kisses her after imprisoning Raoul (and expresses amazement that she doesn't die when he takes it off!) made me assume that he will go to any lengths to keep his face shielded from her. But then I subsequently remembered that during her original kidnapping by Erik, Christine had gone to the lengths of burning his mask to persuade him that she no longer feared his face, so that he would let her go. So he has clearly spent many days in her company in the past without wearing one, and therefore has no reason whatsoever to do so after snatching her off the stage for what he assumes to be the beginning of their life together, or else their mutual death.
I can only assume he's doing it because the author considers the mask to be the character's trademark. Basically, canon is a mess :-(
Unfortunately, amid this mess, we have two moments when Erik clearly is stated to be wearing a mask, and they are immediately before the torture chamber is set into action, and immediately after reviving and imprisoning Raoul...