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Firstly, I'd like to say that a piece of LKH's writing advice has actually helped me. In the afterward of Flirt, she said that when she gets stuck on something, usually that means there's another project in her head that she needs to get out, and the solution is to take a little break from the main project to try this other one. This is what resulted, she said, in the novelettes Micah and Flirt. Which, as we all know, are total shit, but the advice does seem to be valid. I was stuck on Sue vs Sue lately. I hadn't really made any progress on it since the last update. On Saturday, I started a silly little side-story meant to sort of go with it (though not necessarily fit seamlessly into the continuity) and by the end of the night I had inspiration for the next installment of Sue versus Sue, which hopefully should come soon!
Secondly, I'd like to raise a question for discussion:
Why is it that the Anitaverse vampires, including sadistic rapists like Belle Morte, seem to be revolted by pedophiles as they are? Belle Morte called Valentina's maker a "monster" and said that they kill pedophiles/don't allow pedophile vampires. So murder, rape, and torture of the most horrible types are amusement to her, but child molestation is monstrous? If this were just her own quirk, I'd assume it were something personal to just her, but if I recall right we are given the impression that it's the norm for vampires. Given the way that vampires as a whole and their culture are portrayed, it seems odd to me that they as a group would have any limits that are moral rather than pragmatic. There does seem to be a pragmatic aspect to it, yes, because apparently the vampire children who were molested by Valentina's maker all went mad and that's why they were killed along with him, while she was spared because he'd only just made her and hadn't abused her yet, but that practical part was played as secondary to the visceral revulsion expressed Belle Morte, JC, and (again, if I'm recalling right) other vampires.
So, why is pedophilia and child sexual abuse so awful to people whose culture revolves around dominance, power, and abusing or manipulating others for one's own pleasures and gains? I'm not saying it's not an awful thing, but why is it the one single awful thing that the vampires almost all, even the evil ones, see as awful? Is it because children are involved? I don't really see that as being enough for a lot of vampires though. Yes, many cold people in real life make exceptions for children, but as cold and depraved as vampires are, I just don't think the victims being kids is enough to explain it for someone like Belle Morte. Do you have any theories, or is this just, as I suspect it is, LKH projecting her own opinions on to people who probably shouldn't have them because she thinks child sexual abuse is going too far and therefore can't imagine that even evil sadistic rapists wouldn't agree?
And speaking of the practical side again, Valentina is described by JC as being "disturbed" because "the few children that survive for centuries are twisted things. It cannot be otherwise." But I don't see what's so twisted about Valentina compared to other vampires? Yes, she's a sadist and a torture expert, but considering that pretty much every vampire not in Anita's harem is a horrible sadist, I really don't see how she stands out, especially among the Council and its associates--Belle Morte, Yvette, Musette, Padma, Fernando, all of them perverse sadists and sexual predators. How exactly is Valentina somehow worse than any of them? I can see her being subjectively more creepy because she looks like a little girl, but speaking objectively she's actually LESS terrible than those other characters (and Anita) just by virtue of not being a rapist.
Oh yeah, and despite the ban on pedophile vampires, we've seen two so far: Valentine (not to be confused with Valentina!) and Xavier, though it's possible they slipped under the radar and/or their particular Masters, Nikolaos and Seraphina, didn't care...and this brings us to the matter of Nikky, who *was* a child vampire herself too, so if she didn't care, again, why do the rest of the otherwise-super-evil vampires give a shit? And while Nikky was definitely cruel, was she more "twisted" than the other evil vampires we've seen? Maybe it's that all child vampires become cruel and twisted while only some adult vampires do? But cruelty is rewarded and encouraged in vampire society, so I don't see why child-vamps would therefore be seen as anomalous and as needing to be eliminated even if that were the case.
There are a lot of good reasons why child vampires in general would likely be A Bad Thing, which many of you have already discussed in the chapter about Valentina, such as brain structure and child psychology, etc. However, in the Anitaverse specifically, LKH is just not successfully selling them (for me, at least) as A Bad Thing, or at least A Worse Thing as compared to the other vampires. How about you? Agree? Disagree? Why? What do you think she could do to improve it? What would you like to see instead?
Secondly, I'd like to raise a question for discussion:
Why is it that the Anitaverse vampires, including sadistic rapists like Belle Morte, seem to be revolted by pedophiles as they are? Belle Morte called Valentina's maker a "monster" and said that they kill pedophiles/don't allow pedophile vampires. So murder, rape, and torture of the most horrible types are amusement to her, but child molestation is monstrous? If this were just her own quirk, I'd assume it were something personal to just her, but if I recall right we are given the impression that it's the norm for vampires. Given the way that vampires as a whole and their culture are portrayed, it seems odd to me that they as a group would have any limits that are moral rather than pragmatic. There does seem to be a pragmatic aspect to it, yes, because apparently the vampire children who were molested by Valentina's maker all went mad and that's why they were killed along with him, while she was spared because he'd only just made her and hadn't abused her yet, but that practical part was played as secondary to the visceral revulsion expressed Belle Morte, JC, and (again, if I'm recalling right) other vampires.
So, why is pedophilia and child sexual abuse so awful to people whose culture revolves around dominance, power, and abusing or manipulating others for one's own pleasures and gains? I'm not saying it's not an awful thing, but why is it the one single awful thing that the vampires almost all, even the evil ones, see as awful? Is it because children are involved? I don't really see that as being enough for a lot of vampires though. Yes, many cold people in real life make exceptions for children, but as cold and depraved as vampires are, I just don't think the victims being kids is enough to explain it for someone like Belle Morte. Do you have any theories, or is this just, as I suspect it is, LKH projecting her own opinions on to people who probably shouldn't have them because she thinks child sexual abuse is going too far and therefore can't imagine that even evil sadistic rapists wouldn't agree?
And speaking of the practical side again, Valentina is described by JC as being "disturbed" because "the few children that survive for centuries are twisted things. It cannot be otherwise." But I don't see what's so twisted about Valentina compared to other vampires? Yes, she's a sadist and a torture expert, but considering that pretty much every vampire not in Anita's harem is a horrible sadist, I really don't see how she stands out, especially among the Council and its associates--Belle Morte, Yvette, Musette, Padma, Fernando, all of them perverse sadists and sexual predators. How exactly is Valentina somehow worse than any of them? I can see her being subjectively more creepy because she looks like a little girl, but speaking objectively she's actually LESS terrible than those other characters (and Anita) just by virtue of not being a rapist.
Oh yeah, and despite the ban on pedophile vampires, we've seen two so far: Valentine (not to be confused with Valentina!) and Xavier, though it's possible they slipped under the radar and/or their particular Masters, Nikolaos and Seraphina, didn't care...and this brings us to the matter of Nikky, who *was* a child vampire herself too, so if she didn't care, again, why do the rest of the otherwise-super-evil vampires give a shit? And while Nikky was definitely cruel, was she more "twisted" than the other evil vampires we've seen? Maybe it's that all child vampires become cruel and twisted while only some adult vampires do? But cruelty is rewarded and encouraged in vampire society, so I don't see why child-vamps would therefore be seen as anomalous and as needing to be eliminated even if that were the case.
There are a lot of good reasons why child vampires in general would likely be A Bad Thing, which many of you have already discussed in the chapter about Valentina, such as brain structure and child psychology, etc. However, in the Anitaverse specifically, LKH is just not successfully selling them (for me, at least) as A Bad Thing, or at least A Worse Thing as compared to the other vampires. How about you? Agree? Disagree? Why? What do you think she could do to improve it? What would you like to see instead?
