The Persian
Encyclopedia
The Persian is a major character from the Gaston Leroux
novel The Phantom of the Opera
. In the book he is the one who tells most of the background of Erik's history. He is referred to by Erik as the "daroga", Persian for "police-chief", and his memoirs are featured in five chapters of the novel.
He appears in the Susan Kay fan novel Phantom as a major character.
In the musical, his character and Madame Giry
's are added together, as she shows Raoul where Erik lives, however, unlike the Persian, she does not accompany him to Erik's lair.
of Persia during the years that Erik was there. He refers to these times as "the rosy hours of Mazenderan
". Being kindhearted, he helped Erik escape from Persia when the Shah-in-Shah ordered him executed, a trick that involved presenting a body washed up on the shore as Erik's. When news of the escape spread, the Shah-in-Shah punished the Persian by stripping him of his property and sending him into exile. He later traveled to Paris and took up living in a small, middle-class flat in the Rue de Rivoli, across the street from the Tuileries, on the modest pension he received from the Persian government. He became known as a fixture of the Opera, considered an eccentric Persian who was allowed to wander backstage where he pleased. He has a Persian servant whose name is Darius.
He is described in the novel as having an "ebony skin, with eyes of jade", and he wears a short astrakhan cap along with normal dress clothes. Gaston Leroux writes that he has "a noble and generous heart" and is very concerned for the fate of others.
and Raoul's mad flight from the rooftops and warns them to go a different way. He next makes himself known after Christine's disappearance when he suddenly appears to Raoul and warns him, "ERIK'S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT HIMSELF!" Raoul ignores this warning by telling the commissary the whole story, but the Persian intercepts him and tells him that it is Erik, not Raoul's brother Philippe, who has carried off Christine. He leads Raoul through the passages of the Opera House to Christine's dressing room, where they go through the revolving door hidden in Christine's mirror and travel down through the passages under the Opera. Raoul is very confused as to the purpose of the long pistol the Persian has given him, as he is only instructed to keep his hand as if he were ready to fire - and that it does not even matter whether he is holding the weapon. The Persian eventually reveals that keeping the hand at the level of the eyes is a defense against the Punjab lasso
. No matter how expert the thrower is, the lasso cannot be tightened around a neck with a hand blocking its path.
When they finally reach the back entrance to Erik's house, where Joseph Buquet
was found hanged, they drop into what turns out to be Erik's torture-chamber. This chamber contains heat-reflecting mirrors that reach from floor to ceiling, with an iron tree in a corner, making its occupant feel like he or she is in an unending forest of trees made of iron. (Buquet had stumbled into this room and used a Punjab lasso hanging from a tree branch to kill himself.) The Persian finds a hidden exit that allows him and Raoul to drop into a still-lower room filled with gunpowder
; unless Christine agrees to marry Erik, he will blow up the Opera House. She accepts this offer and water floods into the powder room, nearly drowning Raoul and the Persian.
The novel concludes some 30 years after these events, with the Persian - now old and sick, and still attended by Darius - telling how he and Raoul were saved from the flood by Erik, who allowed all three captives to go free.
's 1990 novel Phantom
, the Persian's name is given as Nadir Khan. Distantly related to the Shah, he is assigned the office of chief of police in Mazenderan, where the shah and his court spend the summers. He is a widower, his wife Rookheeya having died while giving birth to their son Reza. Out of love for the memory of Rookheeya, Nadir has never had any other wife and occasionally avails himself of servant women rather than get remarried. He is very fond of Reza, who bears a great resemblance to his mother and is dying of Tay-Sachs Disease
. Nadir has a great dislike of cats, and they seem to know it. Unfortunately, the shah owns a number of favorite cats and Nadir considers himself lucky to get off with imperial displeasure and a deep scratch on the ankle when he accidentally steps on a cat's tail. In an earlier adapted novel by Theadora Bruns his name is Oded.
In Nicholas Meyer
's novel The Canary Trainer
, the role of the Persian is largely taken by an incognito Sherlock Holmes
.
Kim Newman
's short stories "Angels of Music" and "The Mark of Kane" from the Tales of the Shadowmen
anthology series are a parody of Charlie's Angels
. In the stories, Erik is the equivalent of Charlie and the Persian takes the role of Bosley
.
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
novel The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
. In the book he is the one who tells most of the background of Erik's history. He is referred to by Erik as the "daroga", Persian for "police-chief", and his memoirs are featured in five chapters of the novel.
He appears in the Susan Kay fan novel Phantom as a major character.
In the musical, his character and Madame Giry
Madame Giry
Madame Giry is a character in the Gaston Leroux novel, The Phantom of the Opera. She is a fairly intermediate character in the novel, although her role is much increased in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical...
's are added together, as she shows Raoul where Erik lives, however, unlike the Persian, she does not accompany him to Erik's lair.
Biography
According to his account of himself in the novel, the Persian served as the chief of police (daroga) in the court of the ShahShah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
of Persia during the years that Erik was there. He refers to these times as "the rosy hours of Mazenderan
Mazandaran Province
Mazandaran Province is a Caspian province in the north of Iran. Located on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, it is bordered clockwise by the Golestan, Semnan, Tehran, Alborz, Qazvin, and Gilan provinces....
". Being kindhearted, he helped Erik escape from Persia when the Shah-in-Shah ordered him executed, a trick that involved presenting a body washed up on the shore as Erik's. When news of the escape spread, the Shah-in-Shah punished the Persian by stripping him of his property and sending him into exile. He later traveled to Paris and took up living in a small, middle-class flat in the Rue de Rivoli, across the street from the Tuileries, on the modest pension he received from the Persian government. He became known as a fixture of the Opera, considered an eccentric Persian who was allowed to wander backstage where he pleased. He has a Persian servant whose name is Darius.
He is described in the novel as having an "ebony skin, with eyes of jade", and he wears a short astrakhan cap along with normal dress clothes. Gaston Leroux writes that he has "a noble and generous heart" and is very concerned for the fate of others.
Role in the Plot
The Persian first appears during ChristineChristine Daaé
Christine Daaé is the main female character in Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera , the young singer with whom the main character Erik, the Phantom of the Opera falls in love.- Character history :...
and Raoul's mad flight from the rooftops and warns them to go a different way. He next makes himself known after Christine's disappearance when he suddenly appears to Raoul and warns him, "ERIK'S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT HIMSELF!" Raoul ignores this warning by telling the commissary the whole story, but the Persian intercepts him and tells him that it is Erik, not Raoul's brother Philippe, who has carried off Christine. He leads Raoul through the passages of the Opera House to Christine's dressing room, where they go through the revolving door hidden in Christine's mirror and travel down through the passages under the Opera. Raoul is very confused as to the purpose of the long pistol the Persian has given him, as he is only instructed to keep his hand as if he were ready to fire - and that it does not even matter whether he is holding the weapon. The Persian eventually reveals that keeping the hand at the level of the eyes is a defense against the Punjab lasso
Punjab lasso
The Punjab lasso is a type of weapon referred to in Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera. It is described as a noose but employed like a garotte to strangle victims...
. No matter how expert the thrower is, the lasso cannot be tightened around a neck with a hand blocking its path.
When they finally reach the back entrance to Erik's house, where Joseph Buquet
Joseph Buquet
Joseph Buquet is a fictional character in The Phantom of the Opera.He is the chief stagehand for the theatre who claims to have seen the Opera Ghost. He is the one to first describe Erik, saying, "He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame. His eyes are so deep that...
was found hanged, they drop into what turns out to be Erik's torture-chamber. This chamber contains heat-reflecting mirrors that reach from floor to ceiling, with an iron tree in a corner, making its occupant feel like he or she is in an unending forest of trees made of iron. (Buquet had stumbled into this room and used a Punjab lasso hanging from a tree branch to kill himself.) The Persian finds a hidden exit that allows him and Raoul to drop into a still-lower room filled with gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
; unless Christine agrees to marry Erik, he will blow up the Opera House. She accepts this offer and water floods into the powder room, nearly drowning Raoul and the Persian.
The novel concludes some 30 years after these events, with the Persian - now old and sick, and still attended by Darius - telling how he and Raoul were saved from the flood by Erik, who allowed all three captives to go free.
Apocrypha
In Susan KaySusan Kay
Susan Kay is a writer.She is most known for her book, Phantom, which expands upon the history of Erik, the hideous, brilliant character from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, in an episodic format of seven chapters from different characters' points of view - first Erik's mother,...
's 1990 novel Phantom
Phantom (novel)
Phantom is a 1990 novel by Susan Kay, based on the Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera.-Plot summary:The Phantom is born as Erik in Boscherville, a small town not far from Rouen, in the summer of 1831. His father is a well-known stonemason and dies in a construction accident a few months...
, the Persian's name is given as Nadir Khan. Distantly related to the Shah, he is assigned the office of chief of police in Mazenderan, where the shah and his court spend the summers. He is a widower, his wife Rookheeya having died while giving birth to their son Reza. Out of love for the memory of Rookheeya, Nadir has never had any other wife and occasionally avails himself of servant women rather than get remarried. He is very fond of Reza, who bears a great resemblance to his mother and is dying of Tay-Sachs Disease
Tay-Sachs disease
Tay–Sachs disease is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder...
. Nadir has a great dislike of cats, and they seem to know it. Unfortunately, the shah owns a number of favorite cats and Nadir considers himself lucky to get off with imperial displeasure and a deep scratch on the ankle when he accidentally steps on a cat's tail. In an earlier adapted novel by Theadora Bruns his name is Oded.
In Nicholas Meyer
Nicholas Meyer
Nicholas Meyer is an American screenwriter, producer, director and novelist, known best for his best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and for directing the films Time After Time, two of the Star Trek feature film series, and the 1983 television movie The Day After.Meyer graduated from...
's novel The Canary Trainer
The Canary Trainer
The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson is a 1993 Sherlock Holmes pastiche by Nicholas Meyer. Like The Seven Percent Solution and The West End Horror, The Canary Trainer was published as a "lost manuscript" of the late Dr. John H. Watson...
, the role of the Persian is largely taken by an incognito Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
.
Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
's short stories "Angels of Music" and "The Mark of Kane" from the Tales of the Shadowmen
Tales of the Shadowmen
Tales of the Shadowmen is an annual anthology of short stories edited by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier, published by . As of 2010, seven volumes have been released, with a eighth slated for late 2011...
anthology series are a parody of Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...
. In the stories, Erik is the equivalent of Charlie and the Persian takes the role of Bosley
John Bosley (fictional detective)
John Bosley is a fictional character in the 1976-1981 television series Charlie's Angels. He was portrayed by David Doyle.He, along with Kelly Garrett , is the only character who stayed with the Townsend Agency for the show's entire five-season run.The character of John Bosley also appeared -...
.