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a_sporking_rat) wrote2013-02-05 01:41 pm
a_sporking_rat) wrote2013-02-05 01:41 pm
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My Problem With Moon Called
As promised, here is a post on Moon Called, the first installment of the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. The protagonist, Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson, is a coyote shifter who was raised in a werewolf pack. Besides werewolves and other types of shifters, her world contains vampires, witches, and various types of fae. Only the fae, however, have been publicly revealed. The worldbuilding and plot is decent to good, and while her versions of supernatural beings are not, just from what I can tell from the first book, the most original takes on them, there are still some unique enough aspects to them. There was sufficient action, the villain did terrible things but for a very understandable reason (both of which I count as good things for a bad guy), and Mercy’s involvement was a choice, she didn’t just get thrown/forced into it, which is also something I always prefer (I mean, she was sort of thrown into it with the body being tossed on her doorstep, but she still chose to get involved in finding the culprit). As far as the romance goes…well, romance is always the part of books I enjoy least just because it interests me the least, but I feel like it’s not just that putting me off the love interests in this novel. I really think they both do suck, both for her and in general. Overall though, it was alright and I found it worth my time to read. There's only one big thing I had a problem with, and, this LJ being the type it is, I am going to wax on that one problem extensively. This is a snark LJ, folks, not a praise LJ. Good things may get mentioned, but only bad things warrant their own posts.
The one thing I really have a problem is the women. It’s not Anita Blake levels of bad, but it’s enough that I noticed and got tired of it. Probably the best part to start is that female werewolves are really rare because far fewer females than males survive the Change and become “moon called”. No reason is ever given for this, and it’s something that I think really needs a reason that isn’t It Just Is. If a reason is given later in the series, I really hope that it isn’t because men are generally physically stronger, as that actually wouldn’t make sense for a lot of reason, both in-universe and in-general. Women who are werewolves cannot have babies; they miscarry due to shape shifting, and human women who are pregnant by a werewolf will miscarry half the time as well because their baby is either a human like them or a werewolf like the father and they can only carry the former. This is why all the women in the pack that Mercy was raised in, both the ones who are werewolves themselves and the ones who are married to the male werewolves, hate Mercy. Yes, all of them, according to her. Every single one. And we don’t meet one who proves her wrong in this. Because Mercy isn’t a werewolf, she’s a walker, so she could successfully carry a baby, even one fathered by a werewolf.
The pack she was raised in is a huge community. There’s SEVENTY werewolves plus their families. Are you seriously telling me that every single woman decided to despise Mercy since childhood because she can have babies and they can’t. I could buy that from one. Maybe even a few. But all of them? ALL OF THEM? Including the human wives, who make up the bulk of the women in the pack, who can have kids they just miscarry half the time? Well, not “just” miscarriage, there’s nothing “just” about a miscarriage, but you know what I mean. They’re hostile to the point that one of them tries to physically hurt her in wolf form just because there’s an opportunity to do so, and it’s implied she’d kill Mercy if she could get away with it. All over her reproductive ability being better than theirs. Do I really need to spell out what’s offensive about that?
No werewolf and/or pack women are important in any way either. None add anything to the story, and none get much more than a moment onscreen, usually in the context of being hostile to Mercy. This holds true for women in general in the book; they’re not all hostile, but they’re all only onscreen once each (except for one, Jesse, and I’ll get to her shortly) and most are either forgettable and inconsequential, or, if important and powerful like the vampire leader or Eliveta the witch, don’t ever actually do anything important or powerful on-screen, we’re just TOLD that they’re big cheeses with major magical mojo, but we never see them in action, and the vampire lady actually ends up being entirely ineffective and is driven off by Mercy’s holy item easily enough.
While she has female enemies, Mercy doesn’t seem to have female friends, unless you count Jesse, but she’s a teenager, not a peer. We get to meet FIVE male friends of Mercy (Stefan, Zee, Warren, Kyle, Tony) as well as her father figure (Bran) and two love interests (Adam and Samuel). After the plot gets rolling, at least one of four men (Adam, Samuel, Stefan, Zee) are always onscreen alongside Mercy and in important roles. The only other female who appears more than once and could truly be called important to the plot is Jesse, Adam’s human fifteen year old daughter from his previous marriage, and that’s because she gets kidnapped. Yup, Jesse shows up long enough for her to have a face and personality for the reader, then spends the rest of the book kidnapped until at the end when Mercy rescues her. There’s even a bunch of creepy sexual vibes towards the helpless tied-up Jesse from the men guarding her that Mercy observes while spying on her captors, because no UF novel is complete without at least the threat of rape.
And I just downright sighed and rolled my eyes when we find out in the wrap-up that apparently Adam’s ex-wife is this terrible woman who hurts him on purpose and tries to make him feel like an animal and guilts him with her miscarriages that she suffered from carrying werewolf babies, and also she’s an awful mother to Jesse because she left her all alone at home one time to go to Vegas without telling her where she was going and one of her boyfriends tried to climb into Jesse’s bed with her when she was twelve…which is somehow the ex-wife’s fault, because, as we know, child molesters always announce to a woman on the first date what they are and that their motive for going out with her is to get at her kid. I really, really hate the ‘ex of the love interest is a horrible harpy’ trope, okay?
This, however, is really the only big flaw of the novel for me and is the only thing that really bothered me that wasn’t some small nitpicky thing that was isolated to one page. If you can enjoy the book in spite of this and you liked the basic concept of the Anita Blake books (supernaturals are real, protagonist with supernatural abilities that is still low on the food chain in the supernatural world, mystery and action) I would definitely recommend picking it up. I admittedly don’t plan to read the rest of the series, not because of the gender issues but because Mercy and her world just didn’t engage me enough (I really like what we saw of the vampires, though, they were creepy). However, if you give them a try, you may well find a chord struck with you that didn’t hit for me.
The one thing I really have a problem is the women. It’s not Anita Blake levels of bad, but it’s enough that I noticed and got tired of it. Probably the best part to start is that female werewolves are really rare because far fewer females than males survive the Change and become “moon called”. No reason is ever given for this, and it’s something that I think really needs a reason that isn’t It Just Is. If a reason is given later in the series, I really hope that it isn’t because men are generally physically stronger, as that actually wouldn’t make sense for a lot of reason, both in-universe and in-general. Women who are werewolves cannot have babies; they miscarry due to shape shifting, and human women who are pregnant by a werewolf will miscarry half the time as well because their baby is either a human like them or a werewolf like the father and they can only carry the former. This is why all the women in the pack that Mercy was raised in, both the ones who are werewolves themselves and the ones who are married to the male werewolves, hate Mercy. Yes, all of them, according to her. Every single one. And we don’t meet one who proves her wrong in this. Because Mercy isn’t a werewolf, she’s a walker, so she could successfully carry a baby, even one fathered by a werewolf.
The pack she was raised in is a huge community. There’s SEVENTY werewolves plus their families. Are you seriously telling me that every single woman decided to despise Mercy since childhood because she can have babies and they can’t. I could buy that from one. Maybe even a few. But all of them? ALL OF THEM? Including the human wives, who make up the bulk of the women in the pack, who can have kids they just miscarry half the time? Well, not “just” miscarriage, there’s nothing “just” about a miscarriage, but you know what I mean. They’re hostile to the point that one of them tries to physically hurt her in wolf form just because there’s an opportunity to do so, and it’s implied she’d kill Mercy if she could get away with it. All over her reproductive ability being better than theirs. Do I really need to spell out what’s offensive about that?
No werewolf and/or pack women are important in any way either. None add anything to the story, and none get much more than a moment onscreen, usually in the context of being hostile to Mercy. This holds true for women in general in the book; they’re not all hostile, but they’re all only onscreen once each (except for one, Jesse, and I’ll get to her shortly) and most are either forgettable and inconsequential, or, if important and powerful like the vampire leader or Eliveta the witch, don’t ever actually do anything important or powerful on-screen, we’re just TOLD that they’re big cheeses with major magical mojo, but we never see them in action, and the vampire lady actually ends up being entirely ineffective and is driven off by Mercy’s holy item easily enough.
While she has female enemies, Mercy doesn’t seem to have female friends, unless you count Jesse, but she’s a teenager, not a peer. We get to meet FIVE male friends of Mercy (Stefan, Zee, Warren, Kyle, Tony) as well as her father figure (Bran) and two love interests (Adam and Samuel). After the plot gets rolling, at least one of four men (Adam, Samuel, Stefan, Zee) are always onscreen alongside Mercy and in important roles. The only other female who appears more than once and could truly be called important to the plot is Jesse, Adam’s human fifteen year old daughter from his previous marriage, and that’s because she gets kidnapped. Yup, Jesse shows up long enough for her to have a face and personality for the reader, then spends the rest of the book kidnapped until at the end when Mercy rescues her. There’s even a bunch of creepy sexual vibes towards the helpless tied-up Jesse from the men guarding her that Mercy observes while spying on her captors, because no UF novel is complete without at least the threat of rape.
And I just downright sighed and rolled my eyes when we find out in the wrap-up that apparently Adam’s ex-wife is this terrible woman who hurts him on purpose and tries to make him feel like an animal and guilts him with her miscarriages that she suffered from carrying werewolf babies, and also she’s an awful mother to Jesse because she left her all alone at home one time to go to Vegas without telling her where she was going and one of her boyfriends tried to climb into Jesse’s bed with her when she was twelve…which is somehow the ex-wife’s fault, because, as we know, child molesters always announce to a woman on the first date what they are and that their motive for going out with her is to get at her kid. I really, really hate the ‘ex of the love interest is a horrible harpy’ trope, okay?
This, however, is really the only big flaw of the novel for me and is the only thing that really bothered me that wasn’t some small nitpicky thing that was isolated to one page. If you can enjoy the book in spite of this and you liked the basic concept of the Anita Blake books (supernaturals are real, protagonist with supernatural abilities that is still low on the food chain in the supernatural world, mystery and action) I would definitely recommend picking it up. I admittedly don’t plan to read the rest of the series, not because of the gender issues but because Mercy and her world just didn’t engage me enough (I really like what we saw of the vampires, though, they were creepy). However, if you give them a try, you may well find a chord struck with you that didn’t hit for me.
no subject
1.) It does come out that most of Mercy's "all the women hate me" is mostly because she felt like a freak in the pack, and even if Bran did what he could to help with that (and in effect, Samuel, too), the rest of the werewolves only could after Mercy accepted their dominance. (Because wolf > coyote in the wild, bigger.)
That sounds & smells like a ret-con to me. Like someone told the author "Hey, this ALL women hate Marcy thing is Just Not On. Also, it's offensive. Also, you'll lose readers if you keep it up. So mitigate it, somehow."
And she did via the It Was All In Her Head trope. Which is a near cousin to the She Dream It All trope. It's a quick, easy way to fix a corner that you've written yourself into.
2.) The only female I remember legitimately hating on Mercy is Bran's mate, Leah. But that's because Leah pretty much has tons of issues and hates all females?
...Yeah, that's not an evil stepmother stereotype, at all. *is studiously not looking at the Wicked Witch in every fairytale ever or Adam's ex*
3.) Bran's original mate was a Salish woman (Charles' mother) who died giving birth to him. And after several hundred years (or something) his wolf decided he needed a new mate, but Bran doesn't want one. So Leah is the wolf's mate, and technically Bran's wife, but Bran doesn't love her. He just respects her. So she's got issues.
How does this possibly work with your who wolf & human soul must come together and be one thing later on?
And did Leah get a say in this mating crap? I mean, is this dub-con like Dragon Riders of Pern series or non-con as in, what Leah wants doesn't matter because the Wolves Made Them Do It. Can she even say no? And how does forcing a woman to marry you, have sex with you, raise your adoptive kid (and maybe your real one?) somehow equate to 'respecting her'?
And if Leah DID give some form of consent to the 'marriage' did she know going in that Bran subscribed to the One True Love model of relationships? Did he tell her up front that his dick needs a hole and his kids need a maternal figure and that's all she'll ever be to him?
Either way, that sounds offensive as hell. I hope she eats him.
4.) The only think I really solidly remember about the book I read was that there seemed to be a love quadrilateral in play. That spells 'romance' to me. (But yeah, the fade-to-black approach is one that I can firmly stand behind.)
no subject
We'll never know for sure if it is or not, I suppose. But at least Briggs is an author that will acknowledge her writing mistakes and correct them, unlike other authors who just blatantly ignore constructive criticism and carry on with the ALL WOMEN ARE JEALOUS HATERZ thing.
...Yeah, that's not an evil stepmother stereotype, at all. *is studiously not looking at the Wicked Witch in every fairytale ever or Adam's ex*
Actually, it's not. Leah pretty much hates every female she can't use her Alpha Female role to command submission on them. And since Mercy wasn't pack, that was mostly Mercy. (And I suppose, to an extent, the human females in the pack were just afraid of Leah that they submitted because they didn't want to risk her losing control and fursploding. Leah isn't really the focus on the books so they don't focus on her as much.)
How does this possibly work with your who wolf & human soul must come together and be one thing later on?
They aren't one. They're always separate, but they have to understand each other and work together. It's complicated, and better described in the books, but there's always the "wolf" looking out through the human's eyes when there's a power/emotional play, and then sometimes the human can look out through the wolf's eyes when the wolf is out. However, in extreme cases, in the beginning, the human can't get the upper hand and the wolf rules over the human. (Granted it's been a while since I read the explanations of what happens for the first changes. It's a power-play thing. The souls have to form a sort of harmony, without it they're a danger to themselves and everyone else.)
no subject
So... it's still only Mercy that she's hateful to. Because Mercy is unique and odd and... dominance issues, not authorial bias. So... evil step-mom stereotype with window trappings of it could be anyone.
The wolf-in-your-body thing, while interesting, still doesn't account for the gender discrepancies re surviving the initial infection.
no subject
No? But the fact men just don't turn females as often does. You can be all feminist rights about it if you want, but in Briggs' world the werewolves go back to Beowulf at the very least, when women were thought to be the weaker sex. It makes perfect sense to me that the men wouldn't want to risk losing their mates when it's unnecessary to risk putting them in that mental turmoil of finding that harmony, and dealing with every painful change thereafter (because it hurts a lot every time no matter what). And it's not like it doesn't happen at all, because there obviously are women werewolves.
Basically, gender has nothing to do with surviving it. The mostly male werewolves just are reluctant to Change their female mates, and I guess a lot of females are not willing to give up the fertility that comes with becoming a werewolf.
no subject
1. Yeah, it was her decision. Keep in mind that Bran probably tried in the beginning to love her. This didn't end up like this right away. The wolves were like "mate" and Leah was probably like "um, alright" and Bran would court her a little. I'm not sure, they don't really go into it. But Bran does say (when his sons or Mercy point out how horrible his relationship with Leah is) that he tried everything he could to give her what she wants.
2. He didn't force her to marry him, or have sex with him. Stop assuming Leah is all in this innocently. In werewolf-terms, Bran as the Marrock gives Leah as his mate pretty much the Queen Bitch in Charge powers over all other werewolves. The wolf-aspect of them is still very much animalistic and used to fighting for dominance, so that was a huge bonus for her, even before she knew about the fact he wouldn't ever love her. On top of that, Bran is ancient. (It comes out in later books he's Grendel, yeah, that Grendel.) He has a lot of money, so in that way so does she. Leah is not the innocent woman in this.
3. Samuel and Charles were full-grown adults when Leah came into the picture. There was no raising of kids (or having real ones).
4. He respects her, in that he respects her way of running things in the pack. He doesn't question what she does with the females, and definitely doesn't allow his sons to talk negatively about her (there's an almost-fight in one of the books about this).
And if Leah DID give some form of consent to the 'marriage' did she know going in that Bran subscribed to the One True Love model of relationships? Did he tell her up front that his dick needs a hole and his kids need a maternal figure and that's all she'll ever be to him?
Um, no? Because werewolf mates have nothing to do with sex. It's a soul-companionship. If Bran just wanted sex, he could've just slept with a hooker or something. There was probably decades, if not a good century, between the death of his Salish mate and the wolf focusing on Leah as the new mate. So Bran didn't really "subscribe" to that either. His kids didn't need a maternal figure, either. Now, I'm not saying that sex has nothing to do with it. Part of the bonding process involves sex, but it wasn't at all that he needed a hole for his dick.
no subject
It doesn't sound like it since you go on to say that the wolves chose for both of them. If Bran didn't have a choice about marrying her because of the wolf, then she didn't have a choice about marrying him, again because of her wolf. (Or vice-versa.)
Bran does say (when his sons or Mercy point out how horrible his relationship with Leah is) that he tried everything he could to give her what she wants.
Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. If I'm supposed to believe that Mercy's an unreliable narrator (which I really don't, by the way, but for argument's sake) then I can believe that Bran is too. So maybe he wasn't an awesome or particularly accommodating as a hubby.
Stop assuming Leah is all in this innocently.
Why shouldn't I cut her some slack since the narrative isn't going to? The author clearly doesn't want the reader to like her which, conversely, tends to make me be less hard on that particular character.
Bran as the Marrock gives Leah as his mate pretty much the Queen Bitch in Charge powers over all other werewolves
This is problematic. Leah should have her own power and authority.
The wolf-aspect of them is still very much animalistic and used to fighting for dominance, so that was a huge bonus for her, even before she knew about the fact he wouldn't ever love her.
I admit, I'm not an expert on wolves but as I understand it, they're family units in the wild. This sounds more like that zoo experiment with a pack of wolves who didn't know each other all thrown into a small living space.
So she didn't know it was a real marriage before she was in too deep to get out? Poor Leah. And, if this isn't a marriage between equals, there's no guarantee that she has access to his cash. She might be on an allowance or something equally restrictive.
Samuel and Charles were full-grown adults when Leah came into the picture. There was no raising of kids (or having real ones).
But you said somewhere that Leah's evil lack of love for Mercy marked Mercy and prevented her from ever making female friends, or some such. While I strongly disagree with this general premise, that implies that Leah had to raise at least one child - Mercy - whether she wanted to or not.
Now, I'm not saying that sex has nothing to do with it. Part of the bonding process involves sex, but it wasn't at all that he needed a hole for his dick.
...This doesn't exactly answer my question regarding whether or not Leah consented, or even continues to consent, to sex with Bran. He has other options, I won't disagree with that because everyone does, but that doesn't mean that he's exercising them. And that doesn't mean that she was initially consent... or that she is still consent.
....And yes, despite not knowing anything about this Leah character, I'm totally going to side with her. Partially because I refuse to hate her on the grounds of Authorial Bias. And partially because, well, Devil's Advocate, so why not?
no subject
It isn't like if the wolves pick mates, that the humans have to blindly follow them. Samuel's wolf picked Mercy as a mate, but he ignored it for years, until it was too late. Since Briggs doesn't go into the Bran & Leah love story, or background, there's no way we can know for sure just how they went. But Leah doesn't hate Bran.
I never said that? I just said that Mercy has abandonment issues, and that, on top of the fact her would-be step-mother had issues with not only her but other females in the pack, would have influenced her relationship with females. I don't remember how old Mercy was when she was dropped off, but for some reason I think she was a teenager.
I personally find it rather disgusting that you assume that Bran rapes his wife/mate? Briggs doesn't shy around the issues of rape in her books (Anna, as mentioned in another comment, is gangraped by her pack to break her spirit). However, Bran is so enraged at the very idea of rape that he almost loses control of his wolf at one point. I don't think he rapes his own wife.
no subject
Here's the thing. You and other people further down thread give me the impression of a bunch of guys who are only concerned with THEIR opinions/needs/feelings. I'm told that werewolf society is Old-Fashioned and that's why the men get to decide for themselves, among themselves, whether or not a woman should be allow to decide if SHE can do this changing thing. Never mind that personal autonomy is a thing apparently granted to all males. You yourself SAY that werewolves go back to at least Beowulf's time when 'women were thought to be the weaker sex.'
(An assessment of history that I don't entirely agree with. Also, you keep mentioning that it would hurt the menz folks to have their mate die during the change... which she's going to do anyway in the fullness of time. So, either she dies trying or she dies of old age. Not a great choice, but one that SHE should make since this is a society set in modern times where, I assume, women have the vote, are held accountable for their violent crimes, and are capable of holding jobs in more traditionally male job fields. Frankly, this OH NO! SHE WILL DIE! thing sounds like cheap angst fuel to me. At least in Highlander, the explanation was one that I could stomach.)
But then you get upset and disgusted when I impute ancient opinions and standards of behavior, especially regarding rape, to this ancient Bran character. Either he's an old-fashioned chauvinist or he's not. If he's not, he has no excuse for letting the men folk decide whether or not a woman can be changed. And he's got no excuse for not thinking that women are just as intelligent, capable, and durable as men. If he IS an old-fashioned chauvinist, then it's not unfair of me to assume that he has a different standard of behavior regarding modern social issues, including spousal rape. (There are also questions regarding why the author would want to set up these particular magical rules but that isn't the point of this post.)
And, honestly, I've been giving him a break since someone down thread pointed out that, apparently, werewolf women without mates gets raped, as standard operating procedure. And that werewolf men have ABSOLUTE CONTROL over their werewolf mates as per some magical geas crap. So really, I could assume MUCH worse things about Bran's relationship with the hapless Leah.
Samuel's wolf picked Mercy as a mate, but he ignored it for years, until it was too late. --> This implies that the relationship they had, or the lack of one, was all of Samuel's choice. I don't particularly like Mercy as a character but relationships are generally chosen by BOTH people involved, save for groups which consider women as property or stalkers and the like. Additionally, you're the one who keeps banging on about how 'wolfish' the werewolves are. If this Samuel-guy's wolf is so authentically wolf-like, I don't think it'd choose a were-coyote. But, regardless of the circumstances, Mercy is probably lucky that the relationship ended as un-traumatically as it seems to have ended.