[Spoilers] The Phantom of the Opera just dissappointed me...

By plasmaolive8

I went into this with pretty high expectations. I was honestly expecting something more romance-y, but it turned out to be totally different. That part didn’t even bother me as much as other things did. I keep wondering if it was the translation I read (it might’ve been bad), or maybe I just missed the point, but I’m still open to the idea that I’m wrong. At the beginning I was really into it. The mystery was handled well, and I liked how the opera stuff was shown—especially the way everyone reacted to the events. Then I started paying more attention to Raoul and… he just got on my nerves. He’s supposed to be shy, has “fair skin” (sorry, I read it in another language so the details might be off), and even brave, but after that it feels like his whole personality is basically just chasing Christine. He mostly cried, screamed, and didn’t do much, at least not in a way that worked for me. Christine was interesting at first too. She felt strong and kind of complex. But around halfway through, all that potential just disappeared for me. She turned into this trembling, naive kid. I ended up caring way more about the side characters—like Giry and the Persian. Their interactions felt more natural than what Raoul and Daae had going on. I do like Erik, but he wasn’t explored as much as I wanted, and once he finally gets revealed I felt like there was less of him than there should’ve been. The parts about the music and his singing were amazing, and I liked the descriptions of the underground areas. But I was also disappointed by the big “he moves along the walls” reveal, because I’d already assumed something like that would be the case. So yeah—what did you all think? Did I completely misunderstand it? Should I read it again and give it another shot? And how did you see the characters?