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BLACKWOOD FARM, CHAPTER EIGHT, PART THREE
May. 27th, 2015 02:34 pmIt occurred to me that there's one big reason that Anita will never come out as trans despite how much of a guy she says she is: A girl who is "one of the boys" and "thinks like a guy" is special. A guy who does is not.
Speaking of AB, what is it with fucking vampire novels?! Or movies, in this case:
http://morethanprinceofcats.tumblr.com/post/119405087654/forthegothicheroine-in-haunted-castle
http://morethanprinceofcats.tumblr.com/post/119408733859/forthegothicheroine-morethanprinceofcats-said
Remember how I've been mentioning that Anne Rice, unlike LKH, does understand the concept of different POVs for different characters and how a character, even a protagonist, can be wrong? It just hit me---the instances I was thinking of were only ever used to exonerate her favorites. See, in Interview, the protagonist Louis spins us a tale of fabulous villain Lestat and how delightfully awful he is, and fans fell in love with him, and I think Anne Rice did too...so when she wrote the sequel, from Lestat's POV, he tells us how that's all a bunch of bunk and he's not so bad, really. Taking these two things on their own, it's just two conflicting narratives of the same story, which is, in my opinion, a pretty good thing, with the reader left to figure out who they believe, or if the truth lies somewhere in-between.
But taken in the context of all her works afterwards, it's the beginning of her descent into Lestat-worship, where she wants him to be considered the biggest and baddest vampire ever but also not ever do anything wrong or have anyone mad at him.
Another villain in Interview that would later become a protagonist with his own book is Armand, the beautiful eternal teenager with long auburn hair who skeeves me right the fuck out in concept alone, and who basically gets used for Anne Rice's fetish fuel from what I know. In Interview, Armand facilitated the execution of Claudia, a truly dreadful deed, just to get Louis for himself. But according to The Vampire Armand, oh no, that's not what happened, instead it was that Claudia herself asked him to give her an adult body, and in return she would leave Louis willingly. So, with Claudia's agreement, he tried to transplant her head on to the body of another female vampire, believing that the healing abilities of vampires would allow her to survive this. But it didn't work, and he put her in the sun with Madeleine (the woman turned to be her caretaker and companion) because she was dying anyway. So not only is Armand not so bad, look, poor Claudia's tragic murder was in fact not a murder, it was a botched surgery she wanted and thus is her own fault! So don't be mad at poor widdle pretty Armand, everybody!
Again, this could be interesting, if not for the fact that, again, it's ONLY used for the ones who become her FAVORITES, and really, in my opinion, for the most shallow fangirly of reasons. I have read less VC than many of you, so I welcome correction if I'm wrong here, but I don't know of an instance where Armand or Lestat or one of her other darlings gets egg thrown in THEIR face by a big reveal like this, or where one of the characters we're supposed to DISLIKE---not dashing villains like Lestat, who even at his most wicked was still meant to be a Magnificent Bastard, but unsympathetic sorts like the reviled Patsy that the author clearly has no fondness for---is shown to be in the right about something? Especially at the expense of an Author's Darling?
Oh yeah, and speaking of exonerating her darlings---I looked ahead, the bride that Quinn kills is a nameless "tart" who just randomly tries to have sex with him on her wedding night and that's how he ends up killing her. His maker reprimands him for killing her when there was "a sea of killers" he could have fed on at the wedding instead, but let's be real, what seems to be real evil in this book: Being a sexual woman or being a man who is a murderer (especially of sexual women)? Of course precious Quinn would never kill someone who didn't DESERVE it like those awful awful slutty women!
God, this makes me so mad.
I also looked ahead and found out why Patsy hates Quinn---because it turns out he's right, she does hate him, because god forbid he be wrong---and without saying WHY because I don't want to spoil it....while she's wrong for it, I feel that she is, as I've said before, very human and while I might not like her as a person in this regard, I do feel for her and find her complex, both of which is more than I can thus far say for Quinn. For instance, when I disagree with what she does and how she feels, I at least GET it, I understand it, and while it is an awful thing, it doesn't feel like something you'd have to be an awful person to feel, just a human being with flawed human logic. And I'm not asked to see it as NOT being awful either. Whereas when Quinn does awful things, I don't connect empathetically with him or his reasons at all, I think you indeed would have to be an awful person to do it, and on top of all that I'm asked to not view it as awful.
While Anne Rice does have real talent, I do wonder if her popularity and acclaim isn't, like LKH, due in a good deal by simply having been very early on this scene and thus everyone's fave simply by default, because otherwise I don't see how the hell she's considered as good a writer as she is.
( Read more )
Speaking of AB, what is it with fucking vampire novels?! Or movies, in this case:
http://morethanprinceofcats.tumblr.com/post/119405087654/forthegothicheroine-in-haunted-castle
http://morethanprinceofcats.tumblr.com/post/119408733859/forthegothicheroine-morethanprinceofcats-said
Remember how I've been mentioning that Anne Rice, unlike LKH, does understand the concept of different POVs for different characters and how a character, even a protagonist, can be wrong? It just hit me---the instances I was thinking of were only ever used to exonerate her favorites. See, in Interview, the protagonist Louis spins us a tale of fabulous villain Lestat and how delightfully awful he is, and fans fell in love with him, and I think Anne Rice did too...so when she wrote the sequel, from Lestat's POV, he tells us how that's all a bunch of bunk and he's not so bad, really. Taking these two things on their own, it's just two conflicting narratives of the same story, which is, in my opinion, a pretty good thing, with the reader left to figure out who they believe, or if the truth lies somewhere in-between.
But taken in the context of all her works afterwards, it's the beginning of her descent into Lestat-worship, where she wants him to be considered the biggest and baddest vampire ever but also not ever do anything wrong or have anyone mad at him.
Another villain in Interview that would later become a protagonist with his own book is Armand, the beautiful eternal teenager with long auburn hair who skeeves me right the fuck out in concept alone, and who basically gets used for Anne Rice's fetish fuel from what I know. In Interview, Armand facilitated the execution of Claudia, a truly dreadful deed, just to get Louis for himself. But according to The Vampire Armand, oh no, that's not what happened, instead it was that Claudia herself asked him to give her an adult body, and in return she would leave Louis willingly. So, with Claudia's agreement, he tried to transplant her head on to the body of another female vampire, believing that the healing abilities of vampires would allow her to survive this. But it didn't work, and he put her in the sun with Madeleine (the woman turned to be her caretaker and companion) because she was dying anyway. So not only is Armand not so bad, look, poor Claudia's tragic murder was in fact not a murder, it was a botched surgery she wanted and thus is her own fault! So don't be mad at poor widdle pretty Armand, everybody!
Again, this could be interesting, if not for the fact that, again, it's ONLY used for the ones who become her FAVORITES, and really, in my opinion, for the most shallow fangirly of reasons. I have read less VC than many of you, so I welcome correction if I'm wrong here, but I don't know of an instance where Armand or Lestat or one of her other darlings gets egg thrown in THEIR face by a big reveal like this, or where one of the characters we're supposed to DISLIKE---not dashing villains like Lestat, who even at his most wicked was still meant to be a Magnificent Bastard, but unsympathetic sorts like the reviled Patsy that the author clearly has no fondness for---is shown to be in the right about something? Especially at the expense of an Author's Darling?
Oh yeah, and speaking of exonerating her darlings---I looked ahead, the bride that Quinn kills is a nameless "tart" who just randomly tries to have sex with him on her wedding night and that's how he ends up killing her. His maker reprimands him for killing her when there was "a sea of killers" he could have fed on at the wedding instead, but let's be real, what seems to be real evil in this book: Being a sexual woman or being a man who is a murderer (especially of sexual women)? Of course precious Quinn would never kill someone who didn't DESERVE it like those awful awful slutty women!
God, this makes me so mad.
I also looked ahead and found out why Patsy hates Quinn---because it turns out he's right, she does hate him, because god forbid he be wrong---and without saying WHY because I don't want to spoil it....while she's wrong for it, I feel that she is, as I've said before, very human and while I might not like her as a person in this regard, I do feel for her and find her complex, both of which is more than I can thus far say for Quinn. For instance, when I disagree with what she does and how she feels, I at least GET it, I understand it, and while it is an awful thing, it doesn't feel like something you'd have to be an awful person to feel, just a human being with flawed human logic. And I'm not asked to see it as NOT being awful either. Whereas when Quinn does awful things, I don't connect empathetically with him or his reasons at all, I think you indeed would have to be an awful person to do it, and on top of all that I'm asked to not view it as awful.
While Anne Rice does have real talent, I do wonder if her popularity and acclaim isn't, like LKH, due in a good deal by simply having been very early on this scene and thus everyone's fave simply by default, because otherwise I don't see how the hell she's considered as good a writer as she is.
( Read more )
