Continuity lapse
7 October 2021 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeHaving finally laboured through Chapter Nine (in which Hertha unexpectedly (to the author at least) breaks down and walks out on Raoul, after having been 'the sensible one' throughout the rest of the story -- which does at least have the advantage of placing her even further from the centre of the action so far as avoiding a straight Phantom retelling is concerned, I suppose, but which I'm not convinced was nearly such a good idea as it initially seemed), I was planning to place Chapter Ten in the graveyard, with Christine bolting out of the managers' office in tears after Raoul tries to persuade her to sing in the Phantom's opera, and running straight into Hertha.
Only it turns out that "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" does *not* follow immediately after Christine's distressed exit. There is an entire rehearsal scene first, which Christine attends apparently willingly and apparently in a sufficiently calm state to try to help Piangi with his part...
I can't even blame this mental lapse of mine on the story's having been planned out as a movie-fic, because of course in the movie Raoul sleeps outside the door of the 'ballet dormitories' in order to guard Christine, and she runs off at dawn and gets into a coach driven by the Phantom instead ;-(
One of the knock-on effects of Raoul's marriage was originally supposed to be that he would be at home in bed instead of sleeping on guard, and would therefore feel guilty about *not* having prevented Christine's escapade... little knowing that she would have slipped out anyway in canon :-p But of course I had to ditch that -- along with the Phantom ventriloquising malice into Hertha's ears after Raoul jumps down the mirror-hole in the floor, and Raoul succumbing to his wounds and being conveniently unconscious for the final scene (I still don't know what I'm going to do about that one....) -- at the point when I realised that ALW had very annoyingly inserted an explicit three-month time lapse between acts instead of the six-month one that the pregnancy element of my plot absolutely required, and that the whole thing would need to be switched to stage-canon instead of the movie-canon that for some reason it really wanted to be :-(
So, despite the fact that it seems objectively obvious that Christine would run straight out of the Opera to her father's grave to agonise over whether she should take the part or not, in fact she didn't -- in any version. And realistically speaking I think that in real life that 'magic piano' rehearsal scene (represented on stage as emerging directly out of the confrontation in the managers' office, itself implied to be the morning after the masquerade) would have taken place several days later, when all the cast members and Monsieur Reyer have had time to receive copies of their parts and make a start at learning them; they wouldn't start rehearsals that same afternoon. (Although Carlotta for one has clearly been looking over her part before storming into the meeting...!)
Of course this story is already an AU, so theoretically speaking I could simply go ahead and 'fix' Lloyd Webber's 'mistake' by having Christine bolt straight for the graveyard in my version :-p
But I don't really want to make gratuitous changes that don't arise out of Hertha's presence. I suppose you could argue that it's Raoul's marriage that puts Christine under additional stress here (because presumably he isn't holding her and trying to comfort her -- and I've already planted the suggestion that the idea of trying to trap the Phantom via Christine is initially *Hertha's* advice, since she is feeling less than charitable towards the girl at that juncture!), but since I never actually got as far as writing the scene in question there isn't any great temptation to try to justify it rather than change my plans...
Besides, once I'd got over complaining at the unfairness of canon it did dawn on me that a gap of a few days to get rehearsals going would fit in better with my new timeline for Hertha. I was already having trouble with the idea that she would have to confront Raoul in the morning, have him go off to see the managers that afternoon, and then ferry Christine off to the graveyard before she, Hertha, had even finished moving out of the Hotel Chagny :-p
So I need to find some reason for Hertha to be in town and passing/calling at the Opera at that point -- other than, as originally planned, trying to get hold of Raoul as he leaves the meeting to which she was not invited. (I'm currently thinking that she is heading for her dressmaker's to get some suitable clothes for the final months of pregnancy, presumably with generous seam allowances or hidden lacing to give scope for expansion.)
Then we end up with a confrontation in which it is Hertha and not Raoul who finds herself facing down the Phantom - possibly simply on the grounds that killing her and her unborn child is not going to make him look good in front of Christine. I'm not sure whether Raoul will turn up on the scene or not; it isn't really explained in canon why he does arrive in the nick of time, since he isn't present at the rehearsal to see Christine leave (another reason why I'd assumed he had simply followed her after she fled from him earlier..!)
Only it turns out that "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" does *not* follow immediately after Christine's distressed exit. There is an entire rehearsal scene first, which Christine attends apparently willingly and apparently in a sufficiently calm state to try to help Piangi with his part...
I can't even blame this mental lapse of mine on the story's having been planned out as a movie-fic, because of course in the movie Raoul sleeps outside the door of the 'ballet dormitories' in order to guard Christine, and she runs off at dawn and gets into a coach driven by the Phantom instead ;-(
One of the knock-on effects of Raoul's marriage was originally supposed to be that he would be at home in bed instead of sleeping on guard, and would therefore feel guilty about *not* having prevented Christine's escapade... little knowing that she would have slipped out anyway in canon :-p But of course I had to ditch that -- along with the Phantom ventriloquising malice into Hertha's ears after Raoul jumps down the mirror-hole in the floor, and Raoul succumbing to his wounds and being conveniently unconscious for the final scene (I still don't know what I'm going to do about that one....) -- at the point when I realised that ALW had very annoyingly inserted an explicit three-month time lapse between acts instead of the six-month one that the pregnancy element of my plot absolutely required, and that the whole thing would need to be switched to stage-canon instead of the movie-canon that for some reason it really wanted to be :-(
So, despite the fact that it seems objectively obvious that Christine would run straight out of the Opera to her father's grave to agonise over whether she should take the part or not, in fact she didn't -- in any version. And realistically speaking I think that in real life that 'magic piano' rehearsal scene (represented on stage as emerging directly out of the confrontation in the managers' office, itself implied to be the morning after the masquerade) would have taken place several days later, when all the cast members and Monsieur Reyer have had time to receive copies of their parts and make a start at learning them; they wouldn't start rehearsals that same afternoon. (Although Carlotta for one has clearly been looking over her part before storming into the meeting...!)
Of course this story is already an AU, so theoretically speaking I could simply go ahead and 'fix' Lloyd Webber's 'mistake' by having Christine bolt straight for the graveyard in my version :-p
But I don't really want to make gratuitous changes that don't arise out of Hertha's presence. I suppose you could argue that it's Raoul's marriage that puts Christine under additional stress here (because presumably he isn't holding her and trying to comfort her -- and I've already planted the suggestion that the idea of trying to trap the Phantom via Christine is initially *Hertha's* advice, since she is feeling less than charitable towards the girl at that juncture!), but since I never actually got as far as writing the scene in question there isn't any great temptation to try to justify it rather than change my plans...
Besides, once I'd got over complaining at the unfairness of canon it did dawn on me that a gap of a few days to get rehearsals going would fit in better with my new timeline for Hertha. I was already having trouble with the idea that she would have to confront Raoul in the morning, have him go off to see the managers that afternoon, and then ferry Christine off to the graveyard before she, Hertha, had even finished moving out of the Hotel Chagny :-p
So I need to find some reason for Hertha to be in town and passing/calling at the Opera at that point -- other than, as originally planned, trying to get hold of Raoul as he leaves the meeting to which she was not invited. (I'm currently thinking that she is heading for her dressmaker's to get some suitable clothes for the final months of pregnancy, presumably with generous seam allowances or hidden lacing to give scope for expansion.)
Then we end up with a confrontation in which it is Hertha and not Raoul who finds herself facing down the Phantom - possibly simply on the grounds that killing her and her unborn child is not going to make him look good in front of Christine. I'm not sure whether Raoul will turn up on the scene or not; it isn't really explained in canon why he does arrive in the nick of time, since he isn't present at the rehearsal to see Christine leave (another reason why I'd assumed he had simply followed her after she fled from him earlier..!)