Romeo and Juliet is a classic example of exactly how I'm cursed. My favorite characters are doomed to die.
Paris. The only character in the entire play that I actually like. Well, I sort of like Mercrutio, but not as a person. IRL, I'd hate him.
BUT PARIS. Paris breaks my heart.
The rest of them, especially Romeo and Juliet, are pricks. Juliet is a little attention-monger slut who can't do a thing her parents say and abuses her nurse as well as everyone around her, and Romeo is a prissy little prat that throws a tantrum every time he doesn't get his way, and only thinks of what he wants right at that moment. I hate them all. No one in that play follows the law, and all of them fall to ruin. And that's the point, really. Juliet doesn't follow her parent's law, the houses don't follow the prince's law, etc. Drives me insane.
. . . I just came back from writing an essay-test on Romeo and Juliet's theme of "Thoughtless, selfish actions lead to the demise of everyone." >[
To like Phantom you really have to enjoy Byronic heroes. You know, the gallant hero with a dark secret, or the imperfect, stormy hero. Rochester, in Jane Eyre, is similar. You also sort of have to be a teenage girl. And that, you see, I am. Phantom is intensely romantic. In the old way, not in the Meg Ryan way. In the tragic, painful way. And therefore, it is very difficult to do correctly, as society today does not see Phantom as romantic in the way it should be. It should, in fact, be creepy. It should be a little bit disturbing. He is, in fact, a stalker.
But it's a musical, so we're willing to suspend disbelief for a few hours.
The sanitized, wooed and gallant versions I've recently seen are not so great.
I need to turn off the essay switch now. Bluhhh.