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zelda_queen) wrote2011-06-02 05:11 pm
zelda_queen) wrote2011-06-02 05:11 pm
Entry tags:
Betrayed: Chapter 16
ZeldaQueen: In which we get a little plot, and then the Cast ladies notice and put an end to such nonsense
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
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Chapter 16
ZeldaQueen: After wangsting about how she has too many boyfriends woe and actually writing down her damned ritual, Zoey leaves the media center to go back to her dorm. Along the way, she continues to angst about the ritual. For some reason, she seems to be under the impression that most of the student body will be annoyed with her being the new Dark Daughter leader instead of Aphrodite, even though between Neferet publicly shaming the girl and all of Aphrodite's friends abandoning her in favor of kissing Zoey's ass, I never really got that impression. We also get a gratuitous mention of how fledglings aren't bothered by the cold, and then Zoey bashes humans
"As a fledgling, I already had quite a bit of an adult vampyre's natural protection against the cold, which used to creep me out. I mean, it made me think of cold, dead creatures who existed by drinking the blood of the living—totally gruesome, even if I was bizarrely drawn to the thought. Now I knew more about what I was becoming, so I understood that my protection against the cold was more about a heightened metabolism than about being undead. Vampyres aren't dead. They're just Changed. It was humans who liked to fuel the scary myth of the walking dead, which I was beginning to find more than slightly annoying"
ZeldaQueen: *taps fingers on desk* You know, I have to wonder how PC and Kristen Cast worked this world out? Because if there have been vampires who are clearly not dead since the times of ancient Greece, how come the same myths and legends are passed around? Because there's a reason people believed that vampires were dead folks up and walking. The stories would generally have that a person would die and then be seen wandering around at night, after everyone knew they were dead and buried. When the vampires were dug up, the bodies would be found with longer nails and hair, perhaps with more blush in their face, and being more bloated. When stabbed with a stake, they'd scream before gushing blood and dying.
Now, let us look at the vampires in this world. They clearly do not "die" at any point. They scream in pain, but that's about it. They do not sleep in graves, they do not get all dirty and bloated and generally look like a decomposing body. Quite the opposite, considering how they get all hot. So how would someone see the vampires of this world and think "They're dead things that are walking".
Even if the Cast ladies argue that people like Bram Stoker deliberately lied about how vampires work (and yes, they pull that later on), that still leaves the facts that (A) none of the vampires match up with traditional mythology because they clearly don't die and (B) the vampires are still very much integrated into the human community, so they ought to be able to just tell the humans how they work! Hell, the first book specifically says that scientists have been studying how people turn into vampires meaning that people know that vampires aren't undead! Are we really supposed to believe that humans are all just so mean and horrid that they continue to say that vampires are undead even though they know better, just because they want to associate vampires with nasty things? Thank you Cast ladies, I feel so flattered that you consider my species to automatically be so bigoted. I can understand if it's supposed to be that there's delicate tension between the humans and the vampires, but the vampires are never in the wrong, even though they constantly hide things from the humans and then get pissy when they aren't trusted!
Also, I have to ask why Zoey is so annoyed. She has been a vampire for a little more than a month. Within that time period, the only humans she has seen are her grandmother, her mother, her stepfather, Stevie Rae's mother, and those two police officers. Of those people, the only one who has been particularly bigoted towards her is her stepfather, and she's used to that. I could understand her attitude if people were constantly going up to her and saying things like "So is your arm going to fall off from decomposing?" or "I bet you have maggots in your brain", but they aren't!
*shakes head* So anyway, Zoey is just contemplating getting some various herbs for the ritual when she sees someone walking across the campus lawn, towards that stretch of wall where she always sees the Red Ghost Vampire-things. Hooo boy. She instantly realizes that there's something suspicious about this person, perhaps because they're out in such nasty weather or maybe because whoever it is is wearing an extremely noticeable Ring Wraith-like black hood and cloak while walking across a blanket of snow. Whatever the case, Zoey's Deus Ex Machina feeling goes off and she instantly feels compelled to follow. You know, I sort of am warming up to that Deus Ex Machina feeling. Without it, we probably wouldn't have any plot at all, given how Zoey is to self-absorbed and stupid to seek it out herself.
Zoey follows this mysterious person across the the lawn, pelting us with Dead Herrings as he keeps insisting that it's surely just a teacher checking on the grounds. Yes, that's it! Nothing mysterious or strange going on here! Still, she keeps following until they get to the wall, specifically next to the trap door from Marked. There, she hides herself and gets a good look at what's going on. There are two figures, and zoinks! One of them is Neferet! THIS HAS COME AS A COMPLETE SURPRISE TO ME!
Zoey moves a little closer, and can get bits and pieces of the conversation. Apparently Neferet is pissed at the second cloaked figure, as whoever-it-is has been careless about whatever they have been doing. Oh, and Zoey catches the scent of something moldy and nasty. You know, like how Elliot and Elizabeth from Marked smelled. Uh huh.
Zoey moves a little closer so she can here even more and now the second figure speaks in an animal-like voice, saying that Neferet promised him something. Zoey finally gets a good look and realizes that the second figure is...drumroll please...Elliot. You know, if Zoey didn't forget things quicker than water drains from a sieve, she might have remembered Elliot's ghost and been less shocked by this.
Anyway, Neferet apparently doesn't care if someone catches her, because she starts screaming about how Elliot is not to question her and the time is not right for whatever they're doing. She then starts talking about how he doesn't want to invoke the wrath of a goddess. Elliot refers to Neferet as "Goddess", which reveals that apparently she's got some cult leader thing going. I suppose were supposed to be horrified or disgusted that Neferet is presuming herself to be a goddess, when we all know that Nyx is real. False idols, and all that noise. It would work a lot better if Zoey wasn't constantly going around with how she has Super Special Goddess Powers and was clearly chosen for great things.
Neferet meanwhile says that she doesn't want to be angry with her "children" And then, we get this
"Revolted, I watched as Neferet moved forward and caressed Elliott's face. His eyes began to glow the color of old blood, and even from a distance I could see that his entire body was trembling. Elliott had been a short, pudgy, unattractive kid with too white skin and carrot red hair that was habitually frizzed out. He was still all those things, but now his pale cheeks were gaunt and his body was hunched, as if it had curled in on itself. So Neferet had to bend down to kiss his lips. Totally grossed out, I heard Elliott moan in pleasure. She straightened and laughed. It was a dark, seductive sound.
'Please, Goddess!' Elliott whimpered.
'You know you don't deserve it.'
'Please, Goddess!' he repeated. His body was shivering violently.
'Very well, but remember. What a goddess gives, she can also take away.'
Unable to stop watching, I saw Neferet lift her arm and brush back her sleeve. Then she ran her fingernail up her forearm, leaving a slender scarlet line that immediately began to bead with blood. I felt the draw of her blood. When she held out her arm, offering it to Elliott, I pressed against the rough bark of the tree, forcing myself to stay still and hidden as he fell to his knees before her and, while he made feral grunts and moans, began to suck Neferet's blood. I tore my eyes from him to look at Neferet. She'd thrown her head back and her lips were parted as if having the grotesque Elliott creature suck the blood from her arm was a sexual experience"
ZeldaQueen: Several things.
First of all, I realize that having someone come back from the dead being creepier and inhuman is a common trope. If the Cast ladies didn't use this Elliot kid as such a punching bag, I could imagine that that's what they were going for. The way it is though, it just sounds like Zoey's saying "He was butt-ugly before, and dying didn't do him any favors".
Second of all, regarding Elliot drinking from Neferet, I could see it being played as something animal-like and gross EXCEPT that those are all pretty much the same terms used whenever Zoey drinks from someone (first Heath and we'll see another example in Chosen). In those cases though, her blood drinking is described as being really pleasurable and fantastic and while she was freaked out by drinking Heath's blood, we later see that it's a testimate to how they're soulmates with a bond or some such nonsense. Here, we see Elliot drinking Neferets blood like it's some primal, disgusting thing. This really leads to two unfortunate implications.
The first is that a woman providing blood for a man to drink - and by extension, a woman seducing a man - is unnatural and nasty, seeing as how there's no problem at all with Heath offering his blood to Zoey or ...erm another guy doing the same (spoilers, and I will not elaborate).
The second is that it's disgusting that an ugly person like Elliot would enjoy blood drinking (or, by extension again, sex) and that Neferet enjoying blood drinking/sex with someone ugly is just as gross. After all, whenever Zoey drank blood from Heath (and again...another person) both of them are oh-so-hot and it's all sexy.
Zoey, of course, makes it All About Her again, by bringing up how the smell of blood is enough to make her want tojoin in for a threesome drink blood herself. And the chapter ends with her running away, wangsting about her bloodlust. Noticeably absent are her thoughts that a kid is back from the freaking dead and is apparently being all kinky with Neferet. Yeah
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Onward to: Chapter 17
Back to: Chapter 15
Back to: Table of Contents
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
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Chapter 16
ZeldaQueen: After wangsting about how she has too many boyfriends woe and actually writing down her damned ritual, Zoey leaves the media center to go back to her dorm. Along the way, she continues to angst about the ritual. For some reason, she seems to be under the impression that most of the student body will be annoyed with her being the new Dark Daughter leader instead of Aphrodite, even though between Neferet publicly shaming the girl and all of Aphrodite's friends abandoning her in favor of kissing Zoey's ass, I never really got that impression. We also get a gratuitous mention of how fledglings aren't bothered by the cold, and then Zoey bashes humans
"As a fledgling, I already had quite a bit of an adult vampyre's natural protection against the cold, which used to creep me out. I mean, it made me think of cold, dead creatures who existed by drinking the blood of the living—totally gruesome, even if I was bizarrely drawn to the thought. Now I knew more about what I was becoming, so I understood that my protection against the cold was more about a heightened metabolism than about being undead. Vampyres aren't dead. They're just Changed. It was humans who liked to fuel the scary myth of the walking dead, which I was beginning to find more than slightly annoying"
ZeldaQueen: *taps fingers on desk* You know, I have to wonder how PC and Kristen Cast worked this world out? Because if there have been vampires who are clearly not dead since the times of ancient Greece, how come the same myths and legends are passed around? Because there's a reason people believed that vampires were dead folks up and walking. The stories would generally have that a person would die and then be seen wandering around at night, after everyone knew they were dead and buried. When the vampires were dug up, the bodies would be found with longer nails and hair, perhaps with more blush in their face, and being more bloated. When stabbed with a stake, they'd scream before gushing blood and dying.
Now, let us look at the vampires in this world. They clearly do not "die" at any point. They scream in pain, but that's about it. They do not sleep in graves, they do not get all dirty and bloated and generally look like a decomposing body. Quite the opposite, considering how they get all hot. So how would someone see the vampires of this world and think "They're dead things that are walking".
Even if the Cast ladies argue that people like Bram Stoker deliberately lied about how vampires work (and yes, they pull that later on), that still leaves the facts that (A) none of the vampires match up with traditional mythology because they clearly don't die and (B) the vampires are still very much integrated into the human community, so they ought to be able to just tell the humans how they work! Hell, the first book specifically says that scientists have been studying how people turn into vampires meaning that people know that vampires aren't undead! Are we really supposed to believe that humans are all just so mean and horrid that they continue to say that vampires are undead even though they know better, just because they want to associate vampires with nasty things? Thank you Cast ladies, I feel so flattered that you consider my species to automatically be so bigoted. I can understand if it's supposed to be that there's delicate tension between the humans and the vampires, but the vampires are never in the wrong, even though they constantly hide things from the humans and then get pissy when they aren't trusted!
Also, I have to ask why Zoey is so annoyed. She has been a vampire for a little more than a month. Within that time period, the only humans she has seen are her grandmother, her mother, her stepfather, Stevie Rae's mother, and those two police officers. Of those people, the only one who has been particularly bigoted towards her is her stepfather, and she's used to that. I could understand her attitude if people were constantly going up to her and saying things like "So is your arm going to fall off from decomposing?" or "I bet you have maggots in your brain", but they aren't!
*shakes head* So anyway, Zoey is just contemplating getting some various herbs for the ritual when she sees someone walking across the campus lawn, towards that stretch of wall where she always sees the Red Ghost Vampire-things. Hooo boy. She instantly realizes that there's something suspicious about this person, perhaps because they're out in such nasty weather or maybe because whoever it is is wearing an extremely noticeable Ring Wraith-like black hood and cloak while walking across a blanket of snow. Whatever the case, Zoey's Deus Ex Machina feeling goes off and she instantly feels compelled to follow. You know, I sort of am warming up to that Deus Ex Machina feeling. Without it, we probably wouldn't have any plot at all, given how Zoey is to self-absorbed and stupid to seek it out herself.
Zoey follows this mysterious person across the the lawn, pelting us with Dead Herrings as he keeps insisting that it's surely just a teacher checking on the grounds. Yes, that's it! Nothing mysterious or strange going on here! Still, she keeps following until they get to the wall, specifically next to the trap door from Marked. There, she hides herself and gets a good look at what's going on. There are two figures, and zoinks! One of them is Neferet! THIS HAS COME AS A COMPLETE SURPRISE TO ME!
Zoey moves a little closer, and can get bits and pieces of the conversation. Apparently Neferet is pissed at the second cloaked figure, as whoever-it-is has been careless about whatever they have been doing. Oh, and Zoey catches the scent of something moldy and nasty. You know, like how Elliot and Elizabeth from Marked smelled. Uh huh.
Zoey moves a little closer so she can here even more and now the second figure speaks in an animal-like voice, saying that Neferet promised him something. Zoey finally gets a good look and realizes that the second figure is...drumroll please...Elliot. You know, if Zoey didn't forget things quicker than water drains from a sieve, she might have remembered Elliot's ghost and been less shocked by this.
Anyway, Neferet apparently doesn't care if someone catches her, because she starts screaming about how Elliot is not to question her and the time is not right for whatever they're doing. She then starts talking about how he doesn't want to invoke the wrath of a goddess. Elliot refers to Neferet as "Goddess", which reveals that apparently she's got some cult leader thing going. I suppose were supposed to be horrified or disgusted that Neferet is presuming herself to be a goddess, when we all know that Nyx is real. False idols, and all that noise. It would work a lot better if Zoey wasn't constantly going around with how she has Super Special Goddess Powers and was clearly chosen for great things.
Neferet meanwhile says that she doesn't want to be angry with her "children" And then, we get this
"Revolted, I watched as Neferet moved forward and caressed Elliott's face. His eyes began to glow the color of old blood, and even from a distance I could see that his entire body was trembling. Elliott had been a short, pudgy, unattractive kid with too white skin and carrot red hair that was habitually frizzed out. He was still all those things, but now his pale cheeks were gaunt and his body was hunched, as if it had curled in on itself. So Neferet had to bend down to kiss his lips. Totally grossed out, I heard Elliott moan in pleasure. She straightened and laughed. It was a dark, seductive sound.
'Please, Goddess!' Elliott whimpered.
'You know you don't deserve it.'
'Please, Goddess!' he repeated. His body was shivering violently.
'Very well, but remember. What a goddess gives, she can also take away.'
Unable to stop watching, I saw Neferet lift her arm and brush back her sleeve. Then she ran her fingernail up her forearm, leaving a slender scarlet line that immediately began to bead with blood. I felt the draw of her blood. When she held out her arm, offering it to Elliott, I pressed against the rough bark of the tree, forcing myself to stay still and hidden as he fell to his knees before her and, while he made feral grunts and moans, began to suck Neferet's blood. I tore my eyes from him to look at Neferet. She'd thrown her head back and her lips were parted as if having the grotesque Elliott creature suck the blood from her arm was a sexual experience"
ZeldaQueen: Several things.
First of all, I realize that having someone come back from the dead being creepier and inhuman is a common trope. If the Cast ladies didn't use this Elliot kid as such a punching bag, I could imagine that that's what they were going for. The way it is though, it just sounds like Zoey's saying "He was butt-ugly before, and dying didn't do him any favors".
Second of all, regarding Elliot drinking from Neferet, I could see it being played as something animal-like and gross EXCEPT that those are all pretty much the same terms used whenever Zoey drinks from someone (first Heath and we'll see another example in Chosen). In those cases though, her blood drinking is described as being really pleasurable and fantastic and while she was freaked out by drinking Heath's blood, we later see that it's a testimate to how they're soulmates with a bond or some such nonsense. Here, we see Elliot drinking Neferets blood like it's some primal, disgusting thing. This really leads to two unfortunate implications.
The first is that a woman providing blood for a man to drink - and by extension, a woman seducing a man - is unnatural and nasty, seeing as how there's no problem at all with Heath offering his blood to Zoey or ...erm another guy doing the same (spoilers, and I will not elaborate).
The second is that it's disgusting that an ugly person like Elliot would enjoy blood drinking (or, by extension again, sex) and that Neferet enjoying blood drinking/sex with someone ugly is just as gross. After all, whenever Zoey drank blood from Heath (and again...another person) both of them are oh-so-hot and it's all sexy.
Zoey, of course, makes it All About Her again, by bringing up how the smell of blood is enough to make her want to
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Onward to: Chapter 17
Back to: Chapter 15
Back to: Table of Contents
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Okay, please tell me Nef notices an extra set of footprints. Because I'm sorry, if you're trying to be stealthy and are following someone across snow, the person being followed will realize you were there, even if you run off.
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Because Zoey, even FRESH snow makes noise when you walk in it.
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I heard there is a ninth book coming out. I still don't understand how this weak plot can last for nine-plus books.
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Question: how can someone be pudgy and gaunt at the same time? I'm pretty sure those are contradictory descriptions. Also, describing how weird and animalistic and whatnot the ghost vampires are could have been a legit piece of horror writing if they'd actually gone into that instead of having Zoey harp on how ugly he was before. Then again, given how shallow and judgmental this character is about everything, throwing in another description, even a really good, horrific one, might not have helped much. These books are so over-saturated with description already that the Casts might have to find some other way to show that these ghosts are serious business. I kind of doubt that they will, though.
This is also another place where the authors' limited vocabulary hurts the books. If they wanted to emphasize how different this incident of blood-drinking was from the ones Zoey has partaken in, they should have used entirely different words to set the tone. As it is, by using similar descriptors, they fail to create the atmosphere they probably meant to, and they make their main character look like a hypocrite.
And I'm sad to see that this story line looks like it's still taking its sweet time to even be properly recognized as a source of conflict. Coming out of the first book, this was the one plot element I thought might have some promise if the authors ever decided to run with it, so it's disappointing that they're continuing to tease it without really integrating it into the main story.
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-_- It is the main story. Really.
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And I love how Zoey thinks that it's gross that Neferet is kissing Elliot, but is fine with Loren Blake asking her to take off her shirt for him. Yeah, I know it's supposed to be because Elliot is dead, but still. Double standard, much?
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You...um, you don't know the half of it. Suffice to say that before the series is over, Zoey has no grounds at all to condemn a teacher for making out with a student.
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God, she's only been a 'vampyre' for one whole month and already humanity is like, sooooo icky! What also irritates me is the common trope in teen lit nowadays that the leading girl doesn't feel she was ever meant to be human and instead of becoming better, ends up becoming an abhorred creature with an even more abhorrent attitude.
God, even when he's dead Elliot can't catch a break. Nice sociopathic/narcissistic attitude you've got there, Zoey, you don't worry that the guy is obviously not acting like himself and participating in something rather disturbing, but it's all about 'God, why does he have to look so, y'know, dead and stuff, it's gross!'
It's unbelievable, but Deus Ex Machina is the only thing keeping this story together!
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Well dur! XP Elliot's pale and pudgy and ugly and thus is an obnoxious jerk.
If it weren't for the Deus Ex Machina feeling, nothing would happen, I swear to God >_<
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I'm not stupid! I can remember what the charcater is supposed to look like, you've told us his read hair is icky enough times!
Nef and Elliot
(Anonymous) 2012-02-28 05:50 am (UTC)(link)Ranty again
(Anonymous) 2014-05-27 05:56 am (UTC)(link)The YAY: The Vampire ghosts get a reappearence AND EXPLANATION! Well, explantion is a stretch.
The nay…: that… blood sucking part with Elliot made me REALLY uncomfortable. I guess it's because since blood sucking is basically a thinly-veiled metaphor for sex, plus I just kinda saw Elliot as that annoying kid a grade yonger than you. And when I say that, I basically am saying… he's young. Rather… young. Which… adds a whole new distrubing spin on that part, and I am sorry for putting that in your head. Truely, from the bottom of my heart, sorry.
And something I have been waiting to bring up: I kinda assumed that the vamps have been around since ancient times, which meant that society would have figured out how to deal with them? I mean, there are probably things in RL society that we haven't figured out to deal with, but the vamps are supposed to be all sorts of important and famous figures. Wouldn't people… I dunno, praise the concept of Vampirism or something since ‘Look how talented and amazing that person is!! If being a vam
pirepyre makes you that cool, then I wanna be one too’. I mean, contary to Vampyre belief, humans aren't that ignorant.Also, why does this get marketed as a young adult novel? There's way too much sex, it's making mom scared.