Philip de Chagny
While looking for his brother Raoul, How did Philip find his way underground, and find the gondola too? What was the purpose of the mirror, if Philip and the mob, were able to find the Phantom's lair without it?
shareI don't think the purpose of the mirror was to enable people to find the Phantom's lair :-)The mirror gives the Phantom a way to communicate with Christine's dressing-room (and so far as we know it's a complete coincidence that it happens to lead to *hers*; if she had happened to be assigned a different room things might have been very different!)But the Phantom's lair is accessible from the lower levels of the opera house in general. In the novel, Raoul's brother finds his abandoned hat (and possibly his boots, which he leaves behind lower down), learns that Raoul was attempting to get down into the basement earlier on, and plunges down there himself in pursuit. He finds his way to the shores of the lake, but doesn't find the secret entrance that the Persian shows to Raoul: thus he drowns instead of ending up in the torture chamber Gather round, lads and lasses, gather round...
shareCorrect Plus, it would seem from the movie that the only people who knew of the mirror-entrance to the cellars were Christine, Raoul, The Persian / Ledoux, and of course the Phantom himself.
However, Igenlode, I sorta doubt it was just "coincidence" that Christine happened to get a dressing room with a secret passageway mirror... I'd guess that our clever Erik might just have constructed it himself TO communicate with his beloved Christine. ;-)
"Think slow, act fast." --Buster Keaton
On re-reading I noticed that in the book Raoul isn't allowed down into the basement when he wants to chase after Christine (voilà que les escaliers qui permettent de descendre sous la scène sont interdits à tout le monde: see, the stairs that lead below-stage are prohibited from use), which is why he is only able to penetrate down there after the Persian succeeds in opening Christine's mirror.Philippe, on the other hand, is presumably not able to get through the mirror and so was evidently permitted to use the stairs: the difference between being a twenty-year-old Vicomte babbling about angels and ghosts and a forty-year-old Comte trying to restrain a delinquent brother, presumably I hadn't (for some reason) thought that Erik might have substituted a moving mirror for the original fitting in the dressing-room; in the book the Persian rather suggests that he built the device during his days working on the construction of the Opera, but we are told explicitly that Erik did not build the passage leading up to the mirror, which was created in the days of the Paris Commune in order to lead down to the basement for use as a dungeon. Presumably in those days Christine's room was not a dressing-room at all and the passage had a reasonably normal entrance -- I can't picture the Communards fiddling around with a magic mirror in order to imprison their captured opponents! ~~Igenlode https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10689729/1/Count-Philippe-Takes-a-Hand
shareWow; great answer! I obviously need to go back and read the book; it HAS been awhile.
"Think slow, act fast." --Buster Keaton
It was originally a film question, and to be honest I haven't seen the film nearly recently enough to be able to make a guess at how Philippe managed to find his way underground based on that actual version ~~Igenlodehttps://www.fanfiction.net/s/10689729/1/Count-Philippe-Takes-a-Hand
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