One of the notes to the theater owners in Phantom of the Opera says “My salary has not been paid”. Why is the Phantom asking for a salary. What is he gonna do with it? How much is he asking for? Is he paying for a tuner for his organ down in the underground lake? Does he walk out with his mask and big ass cloak to buy more candles from the corner store down the street? Is there some poor clerk who just has to sell groceries to a weird guy in a half-mask who makes vague death threats at him and then leaves once a month? These are questions that need satisfactory answers
Okay but there are answers and they’re probably more absurd than you think. He asks for 20,000 francs per month which is, I believe, about 136,000 dollars in US currency today. So that’s what he wanted every month from the managers. In the book, he actually does make trips shopping in Paris, but the mask described for shopping seems like a sort of false nose situation- think Groucho Marx glasses. His deformity is different in the book- one of the main focuses of it is that he has no nose, which makes him look like a skull/corpse. So he is extorting money, and spending at least some of it, but I have no idea what he spends SO MUCH money on. In the book, he has a pretty regular house in the cellars, other than his bedroom, which is an angst cave with a coffin as a bed. My theory is that he just enjoys being a massive inconvenience, and really only spends a fraction of what he demands. It’s not clear in ALW’s version how he gets out and goes shopping, but the salary thing is definitely taken from the original novel. Basically, the Phantom is the embodiment of the “for $8000 a month I will Stop” meme, except it’s $20k.
