Instigator / Pro
4
1486
rating
10
debates
45.0%
won
Topic
#4642
Les Miserables is better than Phantom of the Opera
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
Sir.Lancelot
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 2
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
7
1587
rating
182
debates
55.77%
won
Description
Les Miserables is more inspiring and has a better message.
Round 1
Claim
Les Miserables is better than Phantom of the Opera
Reasons
1. The moral themes portrayed in Les Miserables are those of compassion, love, and the resilience of the human spirit, and those seen in Phantom of the Opera are understanding, love, and empathy, all of which are strong messages, and it would not be profitable to try and debate which of them are morally better. However, although they are all strong, the ones in Les Miserables inspire the soul to reformation and to strive for greater perfection, while those in Phantom of the Opera at most encourage empathy, and are therefore not as influential.
2. The characters in Les Miserables are more distinct and likable than those in Phantom of the Opera despite that there are more of them.
3. The characters in Les Miserables also experience more development than those in Phantom of the Opera; the whole plot of Les Miserables revolves around Jean Valjean's reformation of character, while the characters in Phantom of the Opera hardly have time to develop due to the play's short time frame.
4. Les Miserables is more informative than the Phantom of the Opera as it accurately portrays life in the 1830s and the political struggles of the time.
Conclusion
Les Miserables is a better musical than Phantom of the Opera because of its inspirational themes and characters.
Phantom of The Opera is a separate kind of novel/musical than Les Miserables that tells a completely different story.
Certainly, the latter tells a very good story about a hero's adventure from escaping and fighting oppression. It represents people and their struggles as a whole.
But Phantom of The Opera's symbolization goes even deeper than that.
POTO is better because it is.:
- An origin story.
- A story about growth, trauma, sadness, misery, isolation, and society's vanity.
Origin Story
People assume POTO is fictional, but the reality is it's a true story.
- The Palais Garnier Opera House is real. https://www.operadeparis.fr/
- There is an artificial lake underneath the building and there once lived a decrepit phantom who was an architect that helped construct the place.
- There was a damsel in distress named Christine.
- Box #5 is famous.
The mysterious phantom that lived in the Opera House frequently used the trap doors he built to access Box #5 when there was a musical performance going on. This seat is now reserved specifically for people who are willing to pay more to use it, but those audience members that do will still frequently report getting chills down their spine that they assume is the ghost of the Original Phantom.
France's Superficiality
There is a vanity in France's culture that the civilians can't escape from. Art and music are significant parts that make it up. The Phantom who was born with a deformity so severe was despised by everyone living in that nation, and so was compelled to hide himself. Because of his insanity, he preyed on Christine and groomed her to be a successful musician. It's this stalker and predatory nature that makes the audience observe with more horror and disgust.
The Phantom's creepier elements reflect the consequence of a country that is just as repulsive on the inside, as the Phantom is on the outside which also invokes sympathy.
Round 2
Con's claim
Phantom of the Opera is better because it contains elements of truth and goes deeper with themes of growth, trauma, sadness, misery, isolation, and society's vanity.
Rebuttal
I agree with con's first statement that Phantom of the Opera tells a completely different story than Les Miserables. Elements of truth, however, do not necessarily make a story better; perhaps they make it more appealing to fans who are interested in history, but also dispel some of the originality of it.
And while the themes in Phantom of the Opera are all good, they do not go deeper than those in Les Miserables. See R1 argument.
Conclusion
Les Miserables is better than Phantom of the Opera because of stronger themes and characters.
Thank you for debating with me
(Congrats, poet. You now have Voting Privileges.)
So Phantom of The Opera tells a story about Vanity & Isolation.
The themes of a person's metaphorical exile speaks layers to the special privileges aristocratic, wealthy, or beautiful people receive and how poorly those at the bottom are. It shows us that deep down, humanity is not as good as it pretends to be.
And that equality exists only in imagination.
This part of the vote got me laughing.:
"And while I'll call BS on the historical angles and talk of a real ghost, said BS set the scene quite well and went unchallenged."
Thanks for the vote!
Got to say, the novel for The Phantom, while it needed a good editor, OMG some of the stuff that went on in it... Raul in his great devotion to Christine, stayed up at night murdering cats... WTF?
Poor girl, I'm team stay single.
The Les Miserables book is so good! It is one of my favorites. I do like the Phantom music, but not as much as that of Les Miserables. I like Joseph as well.
The Phantom novel is so much darker than any of its musical adaptations.
As far as I know, the Phantom is only a musical. Les Mes is a book turned musical. I haven't actually read the book, but listened to audio drama that was 5 CD's long. Really good.
I did enjoy Phantom better than the Les Mes musical though. I like Andrew Llyod Webber's music like Phantom (favorite), Joseph(next favorite), Cats (not as much), Evita (good).
Yes, I haven't read the Phantom of the Opera. Have you read either of the books?
Ooh. This would be a hard one.
Are you only talking about musicals?