Simplicity is often the core of heroism. Meg Giry seldom stopped to wonder if she could accomplish the things she did in her life. She simply did them.
Compassion, observation, and curiosity were traits that quickly proved dominant in her, cultivated in large part by her mother's behavior and the strange happenings around the opera house, her home.
That's not to say Madame Giry encouraged any of these traits; in fact, quite the opposite: she did all she could to hamper her daughter's wild inquisitive nature, her perhaps over-soft-heartedness when it came to her fellow dancers. But like many parents discover too late, marked discouragement often leads to that same undesired behavior, even in the most obedient child.
And Meg did struggle to be obedient. However, her success depended on how strongly her personal convictions conflicted with her mother's commands.
Madame Giry was a good and loving mother, though it must be said her behavior and attitudes toward Meg mimicked those of a father in that day and age, not what society particularly associated with a doting mother.
She was protective of Meg and strict; Meg never danced a role she wasn't qualified for. Giry was more concerned that Meg's basic vital needs were met rather than coo over her accomplishments, teach her ladylike habits, or gossip with her about the male species. As long as Meg was well-fed, chaste, respectable, and—of course she cared about this—overall happy with her lot, Madame Giry did not concern herself overtly about the subtler aspects that make up a personality. Therefore, though Meg loved and respected her mother, she looked to herself to nurture her own native qualities of kindness and a bravery she herself was not aware she possessed until much later.
Madame Giry is not to be blamed for any unconscious neglect of Meg's internal life, for what choice did the widowed mother have? With no second income, and one of the most famous ballets in the world solely in her hands—along with the various duties assigned her by the Opera Ghost and surviving Prussia's siege of Paris when Meg was only about six years old—Giry simply did not have the time to cultivate the tenderness and gentleness girls look for in their mothers. Luckily for Madame Giry, Meg never felt the lack: she held those traits within herself. She did not remember much of the shelling near Paris or the gnawing hunger when Prussia tried to starve out Paris's resistance, but there was in her makeup the traits of a survivor, a fighter.
Despite her preoccupation with her duties, it did not escape the girl's mother how like her father young Meg grew. It wasn't only his coloring she inherited. She lacked the bitter cynicism thrust on Julien through his experiences in the French court, but she did inherit his intrepid, adventurous spirit. The same impulse which led Julien to the trapdoor outside the palace that night passed to his daughter, who in her time would descend through trapdoors into unknown domains without giving it a second thought.
Meg's childhood in the opera house mirrored that of Alice's experiences in Wonderland. A matter-of-fact and level-headed girl, Meg soaked in the high drama, hectic pace, and grand spectacle of the world around her with straightforward logic as her companion. She was there at age nine when the lead baritone for Don Giovanni showed up drunk ten minutes before the curtain rose, she was there at age seven when the former prima ballerina wailed for her wayward lover and threatened to throw herself from the rooftop if he never returned, and she was there at age twelve when an unlucky stagehand accidentally set a backdrop on fire.
She quickly became adept at handling matters of emergency, though she could fly into hysterics as quickly as the next ballet girl. She was a very reactive person, far too guileless to obscure her emotions when not onstage. Yet cowardice was unknown to her. In effect, she was the first to scream when spotting a mouse in the dressing room, but the first to corner it with a chair, corralling the other girls behind her.
Heroes don't often come in the shape we expect them to. We are trained to think of heroes as physically strong and stalwart with a magnetic, powerful presence. Meg, meanwhile, with her petite frame and girlish earnestness, possessed in person a presence "no more pervasive than a kitten," as Thomas Hardy wrote of his own heroine in A Pair of Blue Eyes.
Like her mother, Meg had the ability to blend so well into the background she could be called a wallflower for all her pretty looks. She apparently adhered to the adage that young ladies should be seen and not heard—except on multiple occasions. For in an instant she would command all eyes onto her graceful figure when onstage, or speak up when she felt an injustice was served.
She'd practically been born performing, and without any strenuous effort on her part, she became a master of disguise, of slipping easily into another identity. Perhaps that's what helped her develop such an acute empathy for others. Either way, what took years for dedicated actors to master was simply a way of life for her, a blink of an eye to enter another skin.
Her early and constant training was evident in her movements, too. There was perhaps never a more physically graceful individual. She stood in the ballet fourth position even in repose. Yet she never appeared mannered or unnatural. She simply gave the impression of a quiet, ethereal fairy with a wide-eyed look of curiosity on that charming face.
So ingrained was dance in her that she seldom consciously thought of it as her calling. Her instinct to dance went deeper than a mere calling. It was who she was. She danced almost more than she walked. She loved it surely, but it was the inborn love one has for breathing clean air, for the ability to think and feel.
She possessed the natural heroic traits of courage, perseverance, and kindness, but true heroes also lack one or two weaknesses common to the human race. Meg did of course have flaws, including impulsiveness, untempered curiosity, a compulsion toward living too vicariously through others, and a tendency therefore to play the busy-body. Yet one flaw she lacked which was particularly peculiar in the theatrical world in which she moved was jealousy, both personally and professionally.
It is probable that her very upbringing in the highly emotional opera house weeded out envy in her. She instinctively learned that there would always be a dancer who could do different things better than her—for example, La Sorelli with her tall, flexible body contorted herself into angles and positions Meg could not easily master, and was also better able to take the longer leaps that were becoming more fashionable in contemporary ballet. Yet Meg was cognizant of the fact her smaller, quicker body handled the subtler gestures of swift turns and pirouettes better than Sorelli could, and she was a better actress, too. Instead of sneering with envy at her competitors, Meg learned to simply play up her own strengths, never to imitate.
People felt this within her, and as she was not perceived as a conscious threat, Meg quickly became many performers' confidants. This applied especially to her fellow dancers. Thanks to Madame Giry's unusually rigid surveillance and Meg's generosity of spirit, the corps de ballet in the almost twenty years Madame Giry taught were uniquely close and friendly, with very little catty backstabbing.
If Madame Giry stepped into the role of the conventional strict father figure to both her daughter and the ballet girls, Meg stepped into the role of den mother. She was such a mixture of the outwardly childlike and inwardly mature that the girls depended on her for moral strength and gossiped with her with equal abandon.
One of the first girls to gain the benefit of Meg's unofficial sponsorship was Cecile Jammes. A young, lovely girl of African descent, she showed up to the yearly audition for the ballet at age thirteen, shivering with fright as she took in the pale white skin of the majority of the dancers gathered to try out. Looking down at her own dark skin, she nevertheless steeled herself and approached a group of dancers near a stage manager, and in a voice she hoped was steady inquired where she was to join for inspection. She was greeted by open mouths of silence. Then the stage manager told her curtly she might as well face the fact there would probably be no room for her and the girls looked away, barely attempting to stifle their giggles.
Only one, who was already a prominent member of the corps, did not laugh or smile. This one followed Jammes as with eyes burning with tears she quickly turned away and headed for the exit.
"Wait!" The young girl grabbed Cecile's arm. She turned to see Meg's friendly, sympathetic face. "Listen," Meg whispered. "Do you really want to audition? Then come along! I'll take you directly to Madame Giry. She's my mother, and very understanding."
Cecile couldn't help the slight glee combating with anxiety in her breast as the girls who'd just stared at her with such disdain gaped as Madame Giry's daughter escorted her directly to her mother.
After Jammes's solo audition in front of Madame Giry, the austere ballet mistress told her that while she needed to work extra hard to transform her dancing from that of a calf in a field to that of a gliding swan, she was glad to welcome her to the ballet chorus. As if in a dream, Jammes walked back to the stage manager with Meg, who whispered that she'd never heard her mother give a new dancer such praise.
Very few of the girls from the original audition made the ballet. Still, although Cecile and Meg became close friends, since that day Cecile put up a bit of a boundary between them. As much as she appreciated Meg's efforts on her behalf, the memory was not entirely a good one. Cecile did not want a hero, certainly not a white one. She loved Meg, but more than anything, Cecile Jammes wanted to save herself.
Yet others were more receptive to Meg's sometimes over-eager attempts to help. When despite Madame Giry's precautions a quiet girl named Elodie Moncharmin became pregnant with a married count's baby, it was Meg who visited her at her flat each week, bringing sewing she could work on for fair pay. Meg would sit and drink tea with the single mother, chatting as though nothing were different. She always brought a new rag doll for Elodie's little girl.
Even La Sorelli, the principal dancer of the ballet who felt unending insecurities about her age, her younger fellow dancers, and her career in general, could harbor little ill will toward 'little Meg'. Sorelli would quite often use Meg as an audience for airing her grievances, bemoaning her various idiotic suitors, her sick mother always demanding money, and the incompetence of the staff. Yet despite this display of camaraderie, it must be said Sorelli still kept a close eye on the Giry girl the more and more talented her dancing became.
There was only one aspect of the opera house that filled Meg with a true sense of terror and disquiet. That was the menacing figure of the Phantom of the Opera.
She could scarcely remember a time when he was not the dark twilight zone of danger on the typically sunny horizon of her life. He decided to make his presence universally felt soon after she arrived at age three, heckling from the rafters, casting his shadow from behind backdrops, and allowing glimpses of his cape swoop past corners, and letting the thud of closing trap doors resound behind him. He took to sending letters not only to Lefevre and Madame Giry, but also to Reyer who soon took over as artistic director, and also to prominent cast members who earned his ire with their incompetence.
Meg, of course, did not know that her utter innocence as she grew older was thanks in large part to this figure that terrified her. Although she possessed a level-headed nature and Madame Giry's hawk eyes watching over her, she seldom was forced to use her own wits to evade lecherous suitors. They simply never came near her.
Madame Giry never inquired into what methods Erik used to procure the absence of men in Meg's life. The mother simply took it as a matter of course.
Giry's already naturally taciturn personality became increasingly aloof and gloomy the longer she worked for the opera house and its unofficial owner. She'd seen peoples' careers end in an instant over a minor mistake, and more often than not she'd been the one carrying the letter spelling their doom. She watched as Lefevre's hair turned completely gray as the Opera Ghost demanded an ever-growing salary. She'd seen Joseph Buquet turn into a raving drunk after stumbling back from the cellar, seeing what no man wants to encounter in the dark, alone and unarmed.
Throughout this endless abyss of intrigue, Meg remained the only ray of light in the twisted labyrinth that was her mother's life.
Meg knew her mother had some sort of connection to the ghost and it left the young girl baffled. She'd tried pressing once or twice, but it wasn't until her fourteenth year, when Joseph Buquet claimed to have seen the ghost, that her mother took her aside. "You are a smart girl, Meg, and you are no doubt aware there is someone here who goes by the name of the Phantom of the Opera. No, it is not an invention of Lefevre's or the press. He is real and he is dangerous. I can't tell you how I know or any more than that, just remember: if, for whatever reason, you find yourself in one of the cellars underground (which you'd better never do, young lady), put your hand to the level of your eyes."
This was so completely unexpected that Meg blinked for a moment, rattled. "My hand...?"
"To the level of your eyes. The Punjab Lasso. Now enough. Go and rehearse." And her mother disappeared into the shadows backstage, leaving her daughter dumbstruck.
"My hand to the level of my eyes? The Punjab Lasso?" She looked cautiously around her, shaking with fear. Then straightening her back and with her native courage in her eyes, she followed her mother to the dance studio, chanting inside her head: "Hand to the level of my eyes. Hand to the level of my eyes."
She followed instruction well when she wanted to.
Girls who entered the theater from the outside were always initially dazzled by the so-called splendor within. For Meg, who grew up with the splendor and therefore considered it the norm, she found her mystery and danger in contemplating the Phantom. She collected all the rumors she could about this weird figure, trying to work out which were likely true and which were utter fabrication. So far, every story had these same ingredients, that the Phantom bore a face so hideous it needed a mask, and he possessed the power to kill with a magical lasso. Although not superstitious by nature, the combination of her mother's words and the evidence all around her made Meg the leading believer of the Phantom.
Of the greater mystery surrounding her mother and her past, Meg was completely ignorant. She knew what she was told: her father had been an accountant who died when a carriage hit him, and her mother a dance teacher who took to the stage to make ends meet before coming here. Meg knew little else about her father. There was a portrait of him, grainy and indistinct, that her mother kept hidden in a cupboard.
Once or twice Meg had tiptoed out in the night and watched from behind her partly open door as her mother lit candles and sat down at the cupboard, staring dry-eyed and motionless at the handsome blurred face in the frame.
For all her courage, Meg never was able to ask her mother much about Jules Giry.
Otherwise, Meg continued to dance, continued to grow. Her potential was obvious. Everyone there knew her at least by sight. She was part of the opera house's subconscious, its best and its most fantastical and its most unseen elements. She had even become an unnoticed but intrinsic part of the hidden figure's soul who watched from Box 5. Her dancing was imprinted on him as much as the very columns and stage he himself had crafted.
A/N: I know my format might be a little jarring right now, since it seems primarily like a series of character vignettes. I'm going to keep that up a little longer before delving into the events of the show. Then I promise an actual plot will develop, I swear!
There's a theory I ascribe to that ALW!Meg shares the physical characteristics of Leroux!Jammes. So in my universe, ALW!Jammes shares some of Leroux!Meg's physical characterstics (only much prettier). There's a popular idea that Leroux!Meg was a person of color, so that's why I decided to make Jammes of African heritage. Even though I'm not entirely convinced a poc Meg was Leroux's intention, I certainly like the idea.
I borrowed the idea for "wallflower" and other little details about Meg's character from stuff the great Brianne Kelly Morgan said about the character on her blog. So a lot of credit belongs to her.