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The Devil's Child

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No matter how many times I read Susan Kay's Phantom, the part about Erik being imprisoned by the gypsy fair as a child and being forced to perform as a sideshow freak makes me incredibly depressed for weeks. Because at this early stage in his life, I get the impression that he's still innocent. Certainly, he inherited his fair bit of...um...crazy...from his dear old mum, but he's still just a child who cannot for the life of him understand why he is so reviled. He just wants to make music and create beautiful things. But from the second he was born, he had this stigma thrust upon him, and no matter what he does in his life, no matter how desperately he strives to transcend his appearance, he cannot escape from it. And he does try to escape from it. Very valiantly in many cases, if you ask me. He throws himself wholeheartedly into composing brilliant works, designing mind-bogglingly beautiful buildings, perfecting his craft as a master illusionist and all-around Renaissance man, using humor to deflect his constant sorrow, but in the end, it's all to no avail. He's a genius in every sense of the word, and, at his core, a beautiful artistic soul, but he's never seen as such. He strives to build, but no one--up until Christine, at least--believes him to be capable of anything other than destruction. And what's worse, absolutely exhausted by his quest to prove himself worthy of praise, he eventually gives into that destruction, channeling it and reveling in it until it consumes him. All because of lingering mommy issues and a traveling fair with absolutely no respect for non-existent child labor laws.

TELL me that's not the most depressing thing in the history of ever.

In any case, I wanted to show Erik at the tail-end of his tenure at the traveling fair, when he'd be in his early teens, maybe. Sort of that gawky stage in between childhood and teenager...dom. Although Erik is just sort of gawky by default. And I've always pictured him being unusually tall for his age, which really makes no sense at all, considering the fact that he was nearly starved to death at this point, which logically should have stunted his growth, but I'm totally ignoring biological growth patterns here because apparently science has no place in my 14th-century mindset.

"'TIS THE PLAGUE! MAKE HASTE AND SHIELD THY NOSES LEST YOU CONTRACT THE DISEASE VIA GRATUITOUS STINK!"

I think I have ADHD.

ANYway, so this is Erik right before he escapes the gypsy fair, and I wanted him to look sort of numb by this point. Just hollow and deadened and done. Hence the relatively calm expression despite the fact that he's, you know...in a cage.

Also, I noticed when I was drawing this that it's fairly similar to this piece: [link] , at least pose-wise. I didn't do that on purpose, but I suppose it works nicely in the symbolic sense. Here, we have a young Erik who's completely at the mercy of his captors, broken, defeated and utterly powerless. But in the other piece, he's older, and though he's still very much a prisoner of the shah's whims (and of his appearance), he's found a source of power and a sense of confidence in that power, however warped it may be.

Oliver Twist had nothing on Erik's childhood. I mean, for Pete's sake. Someone figure out a way to get child welfare into that book and get the Cleavers to adopt this kid.

Stock image: [link]
Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux.
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acla13's avatar
Those eyes say a lot. Typical expression of a pained innocence, humiliated, treated so meanly without knowing why... :sad: rvmp 
Who's the monster? Not him, beyond dispute.