I Made A Venn Diagram

"spam like = blocked" if you spam like me i am going to cast 1000 protection spells on you so nothing bad happens to you ever

What I had left here I just held it tight So someone with your eyes Might come in time

Elisabeth das Musical Textposts pt. 3

Der Tod: Uwe Kröger, Kronprinz Rudolf: Andreas Bieber (1992)

Kronprinz Rudolf: Dolhai Attila, Der Tod: Szabó P. Szilveszter (2004)

Kronprinz Rudolf: Andreas Bieber (1992)

Kaiserin Elisabeth: Annemieke van Dam, Der Tod: Mark Seibert (2012)

Der Tod: Uwe Kröger, Kronprinz Rudolf: Andreas Bieber (1992)

the funniest part about Love Never Dies is the implications it has for the canon of the ALW Phantom of the Opera. because what do you mean Raoul turned into an alcoholic gambler, lost all of his money, found out Gustave wasn't his son, watched Meg shoot Christine, and STILL had the funds and energy to go back to the Paris Opera House to purchase that silly monkey like 12 years later.

why would you torture yourself like that

the actual reason I consume mediocre media is because I have bad taste. the deeper secret pretentious reason is because I think there’s something very revealing about bad media that you don’t get with good media. when you watch a poorly executed plot point unfold, you see the machinery behind it. you see the gap between what’s actually on screen and the true goal the author is striving for. if it’s particularly awful, you can even measure just how poorly mismatched the author’s skills are with the story they’re trying to tell you. watching a poorly executed narrative play out feels like you’re discovering something, because you see all the wiring and guts underneath that better authors hide from you, in the same way that movies hide boom mics and books make you forget you’re turning the pages. if a story is good and executed well you just see the story. but I want to see the guts and wires!

A word on Benedetto’s father figures

Because I’ve been thinking about it all week. Have some parallels and contrasts, my friends:

Villefort:

Starts off Benedetto’s story extremely strongly by literally burying him alive within minutes of his birth. No one has ever failed their son harder.

Might have been onto something when he said crime spread around him and from him like a disease. Seriously, look at this family! It’s so dysfunctional in so many ways!!! If you’re a nature-over-nurture person, it’s not that far-fetched to suppose Benedetto got the Criminal Gene™ from him.

Literally changed his name to hide his compromising origins (as much as humanly possible in the spheres he frequents).

Burnt Edmond’s denunciation letter. Guess who else likes to burn things?

Is brought down by the literal unearthing of his biggest secret, which in turn concludes Benedetto’s arc.

Bertuccio:

Is, literally, the one who gave Benedetto life, and the emissary of Providence™ who shows up to bestow blessings upon him at semi-regular intervals.

Unfortunately, those gifts are always cursed. Surprise salvation from the grave in the garden? Only happens because Bertuccio tried to murder the kid’s father first, and results in what is functionally a kidnapping. Surprise adoption? Results in Benedetto being raised by a literal criminal, who is #shocked when his protege starts hanging out with ill-intentioned older boys and disciplines him with what we can reasonably assume from the unreliable narration is the good old belt. Surprise life-changing information about his origins that Bertuccio held onto all these years? Only revealed to cement Benedetto’s status as Monte-Cristo’s puppet.

Crumbled the second Benedetto questioned his ascendance, therefore drawing a clear link between authority and paternity and reinforcing the kid’s desire to defy both.

“Major Cavalcanti”:

Is just Some Guy™.

And yet, they have so much in common: both are impostors trapped in Monte-Cristo’s web, both are passionate about scamming rich people. There’s a quasi-instantaneous recognition between the two and, because they share the same goal, they develop a strangely wholesome understanding…? It’s forced coexistence as much as it is respect, but it’s not deprived of a weird sort of warmth, and Monte-Cristo himself comments on how much it looks like actual familial love. The contrast with Caderousse could not be harsher.

In virtue of his fake wealth and fake fatherhood, the Major becomes the Ultimate Authority™ ‘Andrea’ name-drops every time he wants to advance in society.

Caderousse:

Outwardly, he adopts all the attributes of a good father. He taught Benedetto most of his tricks! He feeds him! He talks of all the hardships they’ve been through together, like a family would!

But, of course, what he’s really doing is blackmailing Benedetto. Caderousse wants money, and it’s taken him a while to actually get his hands dirty, but he’s finally graduating to murder! And his silly young friend should help him if he doesn’t want his blood spilled on Place de Grève.

Anyway Benedetto stabs that guy real bad. I thought it was hilarious of him.

Danglars:

As Andrea’s future father-in-law, Danglars is his ticket towards the life of luxury without effort he has always wanted.

Of course, Danglars is using Andrea for the same reason Caderousse uses Benedetto: for money. Both of them lie about what they own, ergo about who they are, to get their hands on what they think the other has. This is especially interesting when put in perspective with the brutal honesty Danglars employs when talking to Eugénie, who he treats like a son and almost business partner rather than like a daughter (Transmasc Eugénie Truthers, rise up!).

… But of course, he still wants people to think of he and Andrea as family to strengthen his own nobility: if his son (in-law) is a prince, a title Danglars repeats ad nauseam, doesn’t that make him a king?

All things considered, despite losing their freedom (temporarily in Danglars’ case), money and status, both of them get a relatively happy ending compared to most of the cast.

Monte-Cristo:

BUCKLE UP THIS IS THE MOST INTERESTING.

Twice Benedetto raises the possibility of Monte-Cristo being his biological father, a perfectly logical conclusion in light of what he has done for him; in turn, Monte-Cristo recognises Benedetto as one of God’s punishers, a title he otherwise only attributes to himself.

Both of them went through a symbolic rebirth after being buried alive.

Both of them were wrongly accused of being evil incarnate, but eventually graduated to Full-On Criminals. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies.

Escape Artists™

Both had to completely reinvent themselves, down to their names and origins, to achieve their ambitions.

Ruined engagement ceremony!!! This also draws parallels to Villefort and, interestingly, to Valentine and Franz.

THIS:

🇫🇷 « Ce calme, cette parfaite aisance firent comprendre à Andrea qu’il était pour le moment étreint par une main plus musculeuse que la sienne, et que l’étreinte n’en pouvait être facilement brisée. »

🇬🇧 « This calm, this perfect poise told Andrea that he was presently held by a hand far stronger than his, whose grip could not be escaped easily. »

Both Edmond and Benedetto know they are prisoners of people more powerful than they are, of the narrative, of a superior power that wields them like knives; both Monte-Cristo and Andrea accept their role as knives in the hope of eventually slicing through their ties. Whether or not they succeeded in the end is up to the reader’s interpretation.

rip to everyone who has to read the count of monte cristo in english and is missing the nuances of when people use the formal vs informal you

Propaganda:

Elisabeth: It’s about the Austrian empress Elisabeth, and her romance(?) with literally Death himself. It is INCREDIBLY gothic in just about every version, from the more historically dark German productions to the more romantic Takarazuka productions.

Jonathan Harker In College vibes

It really is nice how obviously fond Elphaba is of Glinda right off the bat in the movie, with What Is This Feeling showcasing how much Elphaba enjoys their little feud. For the first time in her life, someone's judging her for her, rather than her skin or her magic. Glinda doesn't give a shit that she's green, she's mad that Elphaba's taste in clothes and decor clash so severely with her own! She doesn't care that Elphaba could accidentally kill her if she got too angry, she's too busy being upset that Elphaba keeps minorly inconveniencing her! How refreshing that would be, to meet the most annoying person in the world and discover that her own narcissism has caused her to be the only person who sees you for who you really are. Of course Elphaba would take the hat seriously as a gift -- has anyone other than Dulciebear ever gifted her anything? Of course she would gamble her own self-confidence at the Ozdust -- at worst, Glinda's ego is so massive that she would never allow her mortal enemy to be the butt of someone else's joke. And in the best case, well, Glinda recognizes how important she is to the one person that she knows has no one. The only one who gets her, the only one who has ever understood her, standoffish and rude the way a stray cat is before it finally follows you indoors.

It's a real shame this story couldn't be anything other than a tragedy, huh?