From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Persian
The Persian
The Persian is a major character from the Gaston Leroux in Christine’s mirror and travel down through the pas-
novel The Phantom of the Opera. In the book he is the one sages under the Opera. Raoul is very confused as to the
who tells most of the background of Erik’s history. He is purpose of the long pistol the Persian has given him, as
referred to by Erik as the "daroga", Persian for "police- he is only instructed to keep his hand as if he were ready
chief", and his memoirs are featured in five chapters of to fire - and that it does not even matter whether he is
the novel. He appears in the Susan Kay fan novel Phan- holding the weapon. The Persian eventually reveals that
tom as a major character. keeping the hand at the level of the eyes is a defense
In the musical, his character and Madame Giry’s are against the Punjab lasso. No matter how expert the
added together, as she shows Raoul where Erik lives, thrower is, the lasso cannot be tightened around a neck
however, unlike the Persian, she does not accompany with a hand blocking its path.
him to Erik’s lair. When they finally reach the back entrance to Erik’s
house, where Joseph Buquet was found hanged, they
Biography drop into what turns out to be Erik’s torture-chamber.
This chamber contains heat-reflecting mirrors that reach
According to his account of himself in the novel, the Per- from floor to ceiling, with an iron tree in a corner, mak-
sian served as the chief of police (daroga) in the court of ing its occupant feel like he or she is in an unending for-
the Shah of Persia during the years that Erik was there. est of trees made of iron. (Buquet had stumbled into this
He refers to these times as "the rosy hours of Mazender- room and used a Punjab lasso hanging from a tree branch
an". Being kindhearted, he helped Erik escape from Per- to kill himself.) The Persian finds a hidden exit that al-
sia when the Shah-in-Shah ordered him executed, a trick lows him and Raoul to drop into a still-lower room filled
that involved presenting a body washed up on the shore with gunpowder; unless Christine agrees to marry Erik,
as Erik’s. When news of the escape spread, the Shah-in- he will blow up the Opera House. She accepts this offer
Shah punished the Persian by stripping him of his prop- and water floods into the powder room, nearly drowning
erty and sending him into exile. He later traveled to Paris Raoul and the Persian.
and took up living in a small, middle-class flat in the The novel concludes some 30 years after these events,
Rue de Rivoli, across the street from the Tuileries, on with the Persian - now old and sick, and still attended by
the modest pension he received from the Persian govern- Darius - telling how he and Raoul were saved from the
ment. He became known as a fixture of the Opera, con- flood by Erik, who allowed all three captives to go free.
sidered an eccentric Persian who was allowed to wan-
der backstage where he pleased. He has a Persian servant
whose name is Darius
Darius.
Apocrypha
He is described in the novel as having an "ebony skin, In Susan Kay’s 1990 novel Phantom, the Persian’s name
with eyes of jade", and he wears a short astrakhan cap Khan.
is given as Nadir Khan Distantly related to the Shah, he
along with normal dress clothes. Gaston Leroux writes is assigned the office of chief of police in Mazenderan,
that he has "a noble and generous heart" and is very con- where the shah and his court spend the summers. He is
cerned for the fate of others. a widower, his wife Rookheeya having died while giving
birth to their son Reza. Out of love for the memory of
Role in the Plot Rookheeya, Nadir has never had any other wife and oc-
casionally avails himself of servant women rather than
The Persian first appears during Christine and Raoul’s get remarried. He is very fond of Reza, who bears a great
mad flight from the rooftops and warns them to go a dif- resemblance to his mother and is dying of Tay-Sachs
ferent way. He next makes himself known after Chris- Disease. Nadir has a great dislike of cats, and they seem
tine’s disappearance when he suddenly appears to Raoul to know it. Unfortunately, the shah owns a number of fa-
and warns him, "ERIK’S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT vorite cats and Nadir considers himself lucky to get off
HIMSELF!" Raoul ignores this warning by telling the com- with imperial displeasure and a deep scratch on the an-
missary the whole story, but the Persian intercepts him kle when he accidentally steps on a cat’s tail. In an earlier
and tells him that it is Erik, not Raoul’s brother Philippe, adapted novel by Theadora Bruns his name is Oded Oded.
who has carried off Christine. He leads Raoul through In Nicholas Meyer’s novel The Canary Trainer, the role
the passages of the Opera House to Christine’s dressing of the Persian is largely taken by an incognito Sherlock
room, where they go through the revolving door hidden Holmes.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Persian
Kim Newman’s short stories "Angels of Music" and ries, Erik is the equivalent of Charlie and the Persian
"The Mark of Kane" from the Tales of the Shadowmen an- takes the role of Bosley.
thology series are a parody of Charlie’s Angels. In the sto-
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Persian&oldid=463667891"
Categories:
• Fictional characters introduced in 1909
• Characters in The Phantom of the Opera
• Fictional Iranian people
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