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a_sporking_ratI was looking through Blood and Gold, another Anne Rice vampire book, for bits about another female vampire I like, who is of course swiftly killed and her girlfriend isn't mad at all and hooks up with one of the protags who does it, and...I knew it was the story of Marius, and told in first-person, like all her novels. What I didn't realize is that, like Blackwood Farm, it's him telling a story to another person. Come to think of it, I think her book Servant of the Bones (not a vampire or witch book, I think it predates them) is as well. She really needs to find a framing device more suited to her style. That said, a friend pointed out that this is a common trope in Gothic fiction, such as Frankenstein. I think I tend to be more critical of things written in the modern era and give older things a pass because they're "classic" in my mind.
I also just want to remind everybody that this story is set in New Orleans, but that only non-white characters are the black staff who work for the wealthy white family of the main character. Who work FOR FREE for this wealthy white family out on their OLD SOUTHERN MANOR just because they enjoy it so much. And do not get to actually live in this manor themselves, but a bungalow on the grounds which is filled with secondhand no-longer-wanted furniture from the manor once the white folks are done with it. And these people are supposedly so "rich" they don't have to work, it's just they LOVE it so much that their entire aspiration in life seems to be serving these white people, to the point they will live on these manor grounds (but again, not in the manor itself with the white family) miles away from anyone else. And they may be "rich" but still use the secondhand furniture and wear secondhand clothing from their white employers.
And this is all presented as being hunky-dory, and that's apparently not something Anne Rice thought was problematic for a second. And this woman, mind you, considers herself an enlightened liberal progressive person.
Oh yeah, and the oldest son/heir of this family is sleeping with one of the staff members sexually, because that sure doesn't conjure up any shitty historical abuses of black slaves and servant women by male masters (though it is iffy on her part too given their age gap, Quinn being a teenager, and the fact she'd have literally helped raise him from infancy) and sleeps literally with an elderly staff member as a sort of stuffed animal or bed warmer (which would be bizarre even without the racial issues, srsly wtf is up with this). This goes on into his teenage years, and is currently still going on at the age of eighteen, and when the elderly woman dies, he tells the next eldest woman on staff to take her place, which she does, because black women are just interchangeable furniture I suppose.
None of this is relevant to the following chapter, I just wanted to note it all again because god it still just blows my mind, and it blows my mind even more I've never seen this discussed or called out EVER.
For the record, I don't think there's any problem writing about bad things, or things you would not want to happen in real life. Heck, I think EVERY story, by nature of the need for conflict, involves something that one wouldn't wish to happen for real, even if it's only an inconvenience. And I also can't support the idea that every protagonist needs to be wholly unproblematic in their views; that's unrealistic and ridiculous for a number of reasons, and I think it actually does more harm than good (promoting the idea that "good" people will just automatically be enlightened and progressive on everything by default) That said, I do think there is a problem when bigoted actions and views are presented utterly uncritically and even positively by the writer, and WHY that is. Like I do not like the idea that the mere presence or acknowledgement of any real-world bigotry or toxicity must be scrubbed from fiction entirely, but I also feel there's got to be a line where you ask "why the fuck are they writing it this way?"
(As a note, this is exempting works like bodice rippers, which are SUPPOSED to be utter fantasies which are largely written BY AND FOR the demographic (women) who would be victimized by those same behaviors in real life. Anyone who knows a thing about the genre knows when they pick it up that this a fantasy made for women who enjoy that, and in no way indicates the writer or reader wants/supports these behaviors in real life. There's just that implicit understanding. I'm talking about works that do not have that implicit understanding, and more like works that, say, would present these dynamics as a realistic healthy real-world romance.)
Anyway, now that I've reminded everybody of the absurd racism going on, we're going to get an entirely DIFFERENT variety of bigoted problematic grossness in...
BLACKWOOD FARM, CHAPTER 32
"It had been some time since Aunt Queen had held Full Court in her bedroom, or boudoir as we called it on such occasions, but when I entered the house I was informed by an exquisitely dressed Jasmine---read slinky black cocktail dress and murderous high heels---that this was a special night."
The guests that this Full Court is being held for (which sounds pretentious from Quinn but eccentric/tongue-in-cheek from Aunt Queen, because I think Queen knows it's OTT whereas Quinn seems like he'd be totes serious about it if it were him) are Nash and a mysterious visitor who has shown up with cases of gorgeous cameos.
Quinn is "solemnly requested" to go freshen up, which is kind of hilarious to me (I'm trying to imagine "go freshen up" delivered in a solemn tone) and we are informed of him putting on his best black Italian suit and handmade English shirt. Quinn welcomes the distraction of "courtly life" (see what I mean?) from how he is "electrified with love and concern for Mona" which would have kept him from sleeping anyway. He tells Goblin "let's do this together" and that they've been apart too much anyway.
Remember how just last chapter/a few hours ago at most, how Quinn shunned him at the Mayfair house from people who would have actually been able to see him, and willing to interact with/acknowledge him? Just saying.
Goblin, wearing exactly what Quinn is but with a sad face, states "Evil, Quinn" and then kisses his cheek and says he loves Quinn, to which Quinn responds he loves him too.
Quinn finds this "very unexpected" and hopes that the night will continue to give him "wonderful things" (hearing there's evil in AQ's room is wonderful?) and that he won't "crash" from having learned of Mona's illness and that she might not survive it, which he believes that she and her family were "trying to tell me" all through the dinner. That makes it sound like they were speaking in code. They really, really weren't. They were all pretty plain.
There's more guests here besides Nash and the cameo-seller; Quinn passes a group at the piano in one room, and another playing cards in another room. I had almost forgotten that the manor was also a B&B, not that they seem to need to the dough.
Quinn enter's AQ's room. She is wearing a "priceless feathered white negligee" while Nash is in "black tie" and stands up when Quinn enters, "as if I merited such a thing, which I did not." Yeah, you're not a woman. Aren't gentlemen only supposed to stand when a lady enters the room? Am I wrong? Cindy, AQ's nurse, is there too, and she's the only one not all fancy, as she's just in her "crisp white uniform" and kisses Quinn's cheeks. Honestly I feel kind of weird about how physically affectionate everyone seems to be with Quinn; I think it's part of the way Rice seems to infantilize her male protagonists as of late, which I've noticed with both Quinn and what's-his-face from The Wolf Gift (who iirc is also a super-rich spoiled little shit who sleeps with an older woman and everyone calls him things like Sunshine Boy or [thing] Boy ) She might have done it with Armand too? I haven't read much with Armand but given how he eternally looks like a teen boy and was a sex slave and all the male vampires are hot for him from what I understand, it kinda seems like something she'd do with him.
Then Quinn gets a look at our mystery guest.
"At first I simply could not identify what I saw. I knew but I did not know. I understood but I did not understand. All was abundantly clear. Nothing was clear at al. Then very gradually my mind absorbed the details, and do let me record them."
Well, it wouldn't be a Rice novel if you didn't!
"That this was the mysterious stranger, I had no doubt."
Oh. Okay then. He got to that a lot faster than I expected. I thought he was going to list all the details first and then his conclusion, which actually would have been more organic in my opinion, because we'd see all the features coming together in his mind.
Anyway, same shoulders, same high square forehead with rounded temples, same black eyebrows even (are those rare?) and long mouth and long black hair and large eyes.
The stranger's hair, however, is not in a ponytail anymore, but in "gorgeous waves and curls" and Quinn can see that they have "large full breasts" under their black satin vest even though "the rest of the black tie ensemble of dinner jacket and trousers indicated a man's body, and indeed the mysterious stranger, despite having glowing skin and rouged lips, was about six feet tall and did have a rather firm jaw. Was this a man? Was this a woman? I had no idea."
Ah yes, because (cis) women never have
1) Glowing skin
2) Lack of lipstick; we always have lipstick and men NEVER do, so lipstick = woman
3) Anything close to a firm jaw
4) A height of anything approaching six feet
5) Any sort of body type that might be top-heavy or lack wide hips or whatever else Quinn means by a man's body
Like, honestly, this is offensive both to cis women and trans women, to be quite honest, in how narrow what he expects a "woman" to look like, and what prompts him to doubt someone's gender. But it's ESPECIALLY awful for trans women, because they do not need total fucking strangers trying to determine what genitalia they were born with because they don't "pass" to this fuckwad's sexist liking. And by "don't need it" I mean that it's deeply hurtful, can cause/increase dysphoria, and result in them being outed, which can result in violence against them or worse.
That said, this is not an uncommon reaction from cis people, and I don't just mean isolated Deep South walking-anachronisms like Quinn. My nice liberal pro-LGBT Yankee mother once asked me, regarding someone who had just passed in front of us, what gender that person was. Because that's her business somehow I guess? And I would somehow fucking know?! Because, idk, I'm gay and I know trans people (guess what you probably do too whether you know it or not) or...I don't know.
My point is a clueless-ass cis person, especially one so young, especially one so isolated and old-fashioned (though conveniently forward-thinking on his own sexuality, as is all his family except of course evil ol' Patsy despite the fact she's the one in the music industry and thus probably meeting more openly LGBT people than her elitist old rich white Southern family, but whatever...) is not surprising. It's not.
But it gets worse in how it's handled, both within this chapter and in the book as a whole. Oh and speaking of the term "it"...
"Whatever it was, it sat there [...] challenging me with its silence, its sly smile"
Oh, I too am being challenged. Admittedly, if Quinn was like super perfectly progressive on this, I would call bullshit, I can't deny it, same as I found the matter of his easily-accepted bisexuality to be contrived. But that doesn't make this any less grating to read. What makes it more grating, as always, is it's not presented as something that Quinn is *wrong* in.
Aunt Queen introduces the stranger as Petronia and says that "she's brought me the most exquisite cameos, and she made them herself."
So Quinn no longer has any call to be thinking of Petronia as an "it" now that he's been handfed a pronoun, and to his credit, he doesn't. She's "she" from here on out.
....admittedly, it might have worked out better for her to be a "he" in a Rice book, but I guess having the big breasts makes that impossible (not that men do not have breasts, gynecomastia and fat men and trans men all exist, but I mean in terms of being Rice wank-bait).What I mean is, I think if a pretty boy like Armand was born with Petronia's "condition" as we shortly learn about (Petronia is intersex), then Rice sure wouldn't make *him* a villain. But then, she would make him a horribly fetishized sex object for more "manly" men (as "manly" as they come in a Rice novel anyway), so, uh, nevermind.
Quinn feels "shock" and "fury" and "delirium" and these are fully justified from the standpoint that he recognizes, or believes he recognizes, the home invader who threatened his life (spoiler, he's correct) Though come to think of it, wasn't he all super chill with the stranger after he found out that "he"---now we know to be she---wanted the same home improvements done on the Hermitage that he did? What happened to that? Still though, she did violently attack him nonetheless, so yeah, justified.
Quinn says the pleasure's all his and that she's very beautiful, which he had never noticed before since he had only seen her "twice or thrice by moonlight". Petronia does not pretend to ask what he means by this (oddly, nor does anyone else), instead returning "how generous of you" and her voice is the same one as the stranger's. She then says that since Quinn has just come from his "red-haired vixen" that one would have thought he would have still been "blinded by her light."
So she clearly knows about Mona, though Aunt Queen could easily have told her that; she might well have asked where Quinn was when AQ told her she had a great great nephew who lived on the estate.
As a note, it doesn't surprise me that no one thinks it's bizarrely coincidental that someone who sells cameos just happened to drop by the house of a woman who is crazy about them; Aunt Queen, unlike Quinn, gets out a lot, and she has a lot of money, so I've no doubt that every jeweler for miles knows who she is, and are probably under her specific instruction to send any qualified cameo-seller her way.
Quinn's face burns and he says "She's not a vixen in any sense. But don't let me be wearisome defending her. It's a pleasure that you and I are properly introduced."
Well, it's nice that Quinn doesn't hold with slut-shaming, I suppose. Not when it's Mona anyway; I reckon he'd be fine if she said that about Patsy or even Terry Sue.
Petronia laughs, tells Aunt Queen that Quinn is "quite the versatile gentleman", then tells Quinn she thought they'd like one another if they "really came to know each other" and "do stop trying to determine if I'm a man or a woman."
Yes, please do, Quinn, cuz DAMN you must have been obvious about it!
Petronia explains that she is "a good deal of both and therefore neither. I was just explaining to your Aunt Queen. I was born endowed with the finest traits of each and I drift this way and that as I choose."
My first reaction when I read this was to be like "who the fuck just says this to people they just met, why would anyone want these gross scrutinizing strangers to know what's typically a very sensitive secret" but then I remember...Petronia has been around since, we find out, Ancient Rome. She has been treated horribly since her birth because of her genitals. She is quite used to worse than Quinn's shit (not that it excuses it) and what's more, she has super-strength and telepathy and all the usual vampiric gifts, and she's an immortal callous capricious monster who likes to play with people (again, spoilers, sorry) Considering all that, it's actually pretty believable to me that she wouldn't give any fucks, and unlike most real-life intersex and transgender people, she can AFFORD not to give any fucks. She doesn't need to worry about being fired from her job or assaulted by some bigot if word gets out about her gender and biology. She can afford to be as open as she likes with whoever she likes, and given what we learn later in the book about her history as a human, that's probably very freeing and cathartic for her.
That said, I also think Anne Rice wanted us to know this about Petronia right away so she could begin playing up the freak factor, which gets done EXTENSIVELY by Quinn for the rest of this chapter.
Petronia, by the way, is why I picked this book up. I was interested in her. So I've read ahead specifically for her parts, hence all these spoilers.
Nash pulls up a chair for Quinn while Jasmine pours him some champagne as he sits across from "this spectacle, this creature"
This? This I fault Quinn for. Even if you are ignorant as fuck about transgender and intersex people, you should know that's an unkind (to say the least) way to refer to ANYBODY. A boy of supposed good upbringing should damn well know that.
Goblin takes hold of his shoulder and tells him to be careful, and Quinn feels "dangerously feverish" and "appalled" and "exhilarated" by what is going on.
Petronia says "So you think of me as a woman. Forgive me for reading your mind, it's a trait I can't seem to keep in harness."
Actually, he has not yet at any point thought of her as a woman. Since learning she's called "she" he has thus far only thought of her as a spectacle and a creature. And the mysterious stranger, of course. Perhaps Petronia is trying to give him a hint, and charitably not embarrass him.
AQ is like oh my you just spontaneously read people's thoughts and Petronia says some more than others, that Quinn's thoughts are "glaringly clear" (YEAH, I'D SAY SHE'S GIVING HIM A HINT) and calls him a "brilliant young man." I'll just assume she's sucking up to AQ by saying that, because I still for the life of me do not see what everyone finds so brilliant about Quinn's dumb ass. A fancy vocabulary does NOT a wise man make, or even a smart boy, of which he is neither.
Also, it doesn't surprise me that Aunt Queen doesn't at all question Petronia's claim to read minds, given that she herself can see ghosts. Quinn, having just met a man who can read minds, probably has no reason to think otherwise either. Nash, Jasmine, and Cindy, being staff, are just probably choosing not to be rude.
Quinn asks Petronia why the mausoleum on Sugar Devil Island has Petronia's name on it, and Aunt Queen explains that Petronia has told her it was her great-great-grandmother, that Petronia is a great believer of reincarnation and says it happens over and over in her (Petronia's) family. She says they've been discussing it, and how Petronia has strange dreams of ancient Pompeii.
At these words "a terrible sense of foreboding" comes over Quinn, and Goblin squeezes his hand. He begins to see the end of Pompeii himself, people running through the streets, the earth moving, the rain of ash, Mount Vesuvius. Petronia is staring at him and "we were there and we were here." Understandably, he is dizzy.
Nash asks Petronia about her Pompeii dreams. Petronia says they are "truly tragic", that she sees herself as having been a slave girl (note that she specifically says slave GIRL) who was a worker of cameos, "the chief among a shop of such craftsmen", and her master has warned them all of the coming eruption, and she runs through the streets trying to warn others to get out of the city and escape the disaster, but they don't listen to her.
Quinn sees it in his head, "her, with her long full black hair, yet in a male's tunic" running through the streets and banging on doors and telling everyone to get out. And even now, he cannot stop talking about her like some kind of freak, describing her in these visions as "a curious tall monstrous beauty." Given the history of intersex people being considered monsters, even exhibited in freak shows, and of transgender people, especially transgender women and other transfeminine folk, depicted in monstrous ways in media (the serial killer stock type, for instance) I really, truly do not think this is coincidental language. "Monstrous beauty" might apply to any vampire, sure, but I can't help but notice that the one it actually *gets* applied to is the genderfluid intersex vampire with she/her pronouns.
Anyway, no one listens, she takes the slaves from the workbenches, they run to the shore with some other citizens and pile into a boat to get away, where she cries for those who wouldn't listen, for the lost city, for its lost treasures of cameos left behind, and in the vision Quinn "held her trembling hand"
He then cries out "I'm not there!" and tries to pull himself out of the vision, and he can't, "but then came the electric shock of Goblin's hand" and he opens his eyes and he's back in the real world again.
Petronia tells Aunt Queen that these dreams lead her to believe that she lived in Ancient Pompeii, knew the people who suffered and died, and that, just as in this life, she was "part male, part female" and a maker of cameos, that she loves nothing so much as that and doesn't know how people who don't share such a fascination manage to even live. Well, I guess she's barking up the right tree in terms of who to say that to! What's most funny to me is that though one would think she's just saying the stuff about cameos to cozy up to Aunt Queen, since she would know about from having watched the Blackwoods as she told Quinn she does, she's actually telling the truth I think. She really does make them, in any case, and wears them a lot.
Quinn's heart beats wildly, and he sees that Nash's eyes are "filmed over" and Aunt Queen looks "dazed and wide-eyed" as she looks at Petronia. Oh, I mean at "this tall big-breasted creature."
Seriously, has Quinn referred to anyone else like this? No, I think not. And I don't think he does again. And again, I get why he would be this gross. That just doesn't make it any less disgusting for me to read. And I repeat, I think Anne Rice had "btw I'm intersex and genderfluid" be the first damn thing Petronia told him for the specific purpose of getting write Quinn's reaction to it, of getting to play it up as this exoticized freak show for the reader as being the most notable thing about her despite the fact she's clearly got a lot more going on. Like, I admit that us immediately knowing her past via a random telepathic vision info-dump is normally a Ricean trope that bugs me, but at least we know she's got character besides "the hermaphrodite"
Quinn is determined to shake off this "spell" and so he "did the most impulsive thing." He reaches out to Petronia with Goblin's hand clasped over his own. Petronia accepts his outstretched hand, and, in doing so, she touches Goblin, then draws back "as sharply as if she'd been stung by a bee" from Goblin's touch. Goblin laughs and again tells Quinn "Evil, Quinn. Evil!"
"Petronia's eyes searched for him, but she couldn't see him." So being a vampire might make you psychic, but not the kind that can see ghosts. Interesting. Quinn sees that Goblin looks afraid, he tells Quinn "Not alive."
Quinn doesn't know what to make of this, but I'm sure you all do.
Quinn may not understand Goblin's words, but he feels "a spirit thing like Goblin, electric, powerful, ready to form a current" and then "the rage came back to me. How dare this being play with me? How dare he play with us all?"
That is not a typo on my part, he thinks of Petronia as "he" here, probably because up until now he thought of the mysterious stranger as a man.
Petronia, meanwhile, talks to the others about how she took up making cameos since she loves them so much, and she came here since she knew of Aunt Queen's love for them (she doesn't say how) and how the story of how her great-great-great-grandmother wanting to be buried here was handed down to her "though it never did come to pass" (I suppose that's so she has an advance explanation for if the tomb is ever opened at night and found to be empty)
Finally, Quinn speaks up, saying that she put him in a chokehold outside last night and told him what she wanted done with the Hermitage, and that she's the one who broke into his room and dragged him from his bed before that!
"I stood up, comfortably towering over her, as she looked up at me smiling"
He continues his accusations, saying he saw her dumping bodies, that he knows she did it, "and you come here to be received by the person dearest to me in all the world!"
Aunt Queen understandably cries out, "Quinn, darling, have you lost your mind!"
Indeed, it probably looks extra crazy that he waited until the middle of a conversation to do this rather than the moment he saw her. Emphasis on LOOKS extra crazy. I actually find a bit more realistic that he has a delayed reaction, though. It's understandable he'd be stunned, taken aback, confused on what to do and what do say, if he should say anything at all, etc. I would be. But to an outsider like Aunt Queen, it looks like he just had a conversation with Petronia until suddenly, at seeming random, bursting out with this.
Quinn says this is the mysterious stranger, Nash gets on his feet and tries to take him by the shoulders and "Petronia rose to her full height of over six feet, and with every inch over six feet grew out of femininity and into manhood" looking at him with a gloating smile.
1) I thought she was six feet even?
2) Anybody over six feet is a man, got it. If you're a woman and over six feet, those additional inches are male.
Aunt Queen is frantic, Nash is begging him to be quiet, while Quinn challenges Petronia "Deny it, I dare you. Say you didn't come into my very room and drag me from my bed."
Petronia, now referred to as "he" by Quinn in the narrative once more, tells Aunt Queen exactly this, "I did not come into this house at any time before tonight."
For some reason, Quinn decides this is a good time to quote Ophelia from Hamlet ("My honored Lord, you know right well you did") because, again, Hamlet is just a theme in this book for no real reason and in the most hamhanded of ways. He repeats his accusations, claiming that Petronia is tormenting him as a game for her own amusement (which, from what I've read ahead of her personality, is probably true)
"Quinn, silence!" Aunt Queen declared. Never had I heard such a cry from her, such a total command. "I won't have it," she said. She was shaking."
On the one hand, I'm glad to see her yell at the spoiled little shit at last. On the other, I'm not sure I can support is as much as I'd like, given the circumstances. Assuming she believes he's simply doing this because he's insane, not to be a troublemaker for no reason, then that's...not really how one should handle that situation. But then, I see no reason that an old Southern grande dame would ever be taught how to handle a mentally unstable teen having a paranoid episode in front of guests, and speaking of guests, her being an old Southern grande dame does mean that appearances and hospitality are probably of HUGE importance for her. So she's doing the "wrong" thing but in a way that makes utter sense for her, so I approve writing-wise even if I can't applaud the way I would *like* to applaud Quinn being told to shut up for once.
Petronia says she'll take her leave, Aunt Queen apologizes to her, and Petronia says in a "feminized voice" that "You've been very gracious to me. I'll never forget it."
"He turned his pretty face to me, and I saw the woman in him, and then he was gone, with straight shoulders and big long strides , gorgeous hair flying"
Quinn. Petronia has been explicitly clear she's not a woman or a man. And while she herself did not say she uses she/her pronouns, she seems to have been fine with Aunt Queen using them for her (I get the feeling Petronia would most certainly speak up if she objected) so she's a SHE until she tells you otherwises. Again though, I guess I can't expect Quinn to know better, it's just...cringey to read.
Everyone is shocked and Aunt Queen is looking at Quinn not just with disappointment, which I'd especially expect, but, to my surprise, "blazing anger" which seems...a bit much. She asks if Quinn honestly expects anyone to believe the things he is saying, and now I'm wondering if Petronia mind-whammied her in some way.
Quinn replies:
“It's all true. How in the world could you believe her instead of me? What did she tell you—that she was man and woman, so much of each that she was neither one? You believe that? And that she believes in reincarnation? You believe that? That she made the cameos she gave you? You believe that? And that the mausoleum on the island was made for her great-great-great-grandmother? You believe that? I'm telling you, she came at me. Or he came to me. And he has the strength of a man, that I can vouch for. And he does read minds and that's dangerous. And all the rest I've said—all along---is true.”
Well, what's so unbelievable about all those things? What is unbelievable about her biology or gender identity, or someone believing in reincarnation, or someone making cameos? The only one even slightly suspect to me would be the mausoleum thing, but if she knew about it (which no one except the Blackwood folks would) and knew the name and all, yeah, I'd buy it if I were Aunt Queen. It's a lot more believable than the truth, certainly (which I'm sure you all have guessed at this point, that it's her mausoleum, her daytime resting place)
Also, yes, someone who can read minds is dangerous, but I notice Quinn only says it's dangerous now, when it's someone he doesn't like doing it, than when Michael did it. An understandable and in-character bit of hypocrisy, since Michael just used it to fetch him some cocoa and isn't someone who has tried to hurt Quinn before like Petronia has, I'm just noting it. But unlike almost everything else in this chapter, I don't hold it against Quinn or find it wrong. It just occurred to me when he said that, is all, it's the first thing I thought of.
Aunt Queen can't look at him, and asks where he was tonight.
Quinn said he had dinner with the Mayfairs and then that he met "the ghost of Julien Mayfair and he told me he had conjugal knowledge of Grandfather William's wife, and I'm descended from him."
Very understandably, Aunt Queen says that he is "stark raving mad." Maybe not as understandably as if she didn't know ghosts were real, but still, this isn't a great time for Quinn to say that.
Quinn returns he's not raving, just "a bit heated, yes, at the effrontery of that creature" but not raving, not really. Aunt Queen asks "What do I do?" Quinn says to let him call Stirling Oliver, that he sees Goblin and will help Aunt Queen understand, that Quinn doesn't feel safe from that "creature" and doesn't think anyone is. Aunt Queen is like, you think I'm the one who needs understanding, and we get this gem from Quinn:
“I want to kill that creature, that's all I can say. And there's something very vile and very awful about the being. It isn't merely that it's a hermaphrodite, that I could well endure and find fascinating.”
I...just...wow, you know what, I don't even need to break down why this is gross, I'm just gonna let it stand on its own.
“It's something else. Goblin sense it. Goblin calls it evil. I tell you the creature frightens me. You must understand, at least that I believe what I am saying even if you do not.”
Again, Aunt Queen won't look at him. He goes to the bathroom and gets sick. He comes back, apologizes to everyone but says they "have to see it from my point of view" how it feels to come back and see "him" (Petronia) with Aunt Queen. I mean, yes, I agree, but something about his delivery just feels so pompous and entitled and...Quinn.
Nash suggests Quinn go to bed and Quinn agrees "but I couldn't let it go without stating the stranger, alias Petronia, was no great respecter of my being in or out of bed." Well, he does sound like a teenager here at least.
He kisses Aunt Queen and she's "as loving as ever" and she says they will call Stirling Oliver. He says he loves her and wants to tell her about Mona, she says tomorrow.
Quinn duly goes upstairs and goes to bed with Big Ramona. I am never getting over how weird that is. I wonder what Mona would think if she knew her Prince Tarquin of Blackwood needs to sleep with an old woman like a stuffed teddy or security blanket? Thoughts of talking to Nash run through his mind, and I wonder if Rice meant to type Stirling. Occasionally, he wakes with a start due to dreams of "strange, evil Petronia, bent on hurting me, bent on destroying me" but they are indeed only dreams.
And that's the end of this chapter.
Something I'd like to note is that not only are both Petronia and Narcissus (from LKH's Anita Blake series) both intersex (how interesting the only intersex people in each casts are BOTH bad guys!), they're both the only members of the cast to be cast as in any way gender-fluid, non-binary, etc. And even if they were not villains, I would find this an inherently cissexist idea. Because it seems to hinge on their physical biology, as if being physically "in-between" sexes is the only way to account for an in-between gender identity and presentation. As if being physically intersex would of course beget that, that gender identity and expression follow physical biology. Which is entirely the kind of mindset that dictates "penis = male = acts like this, vagina = female = acts like this." If the only way these writers can conceive of someone to have an identity outside the male/female binary is for them to have a body naturally born outside of that binary, well, that speaks a lot to their POV regardless how progressive they might think themselves (again, to say nothing of the fact both are bad guys, and, spoiler, do bad things in a way specifically related to their sexuality and genitalia)
As a note, I take the same issue with how a lot of people in the X-Men fandom seem to think that "shapeshifters = innately genderqueer because they can physically change their junk" because I find that line of thinking to be just as transphobic/cissexist? Because again, it hinges identity on genitalia. I can see how a shapeshifter might look at gender differently, but at the end of the day I think it's a fuck ton more trans-positive that Mystique is ALWAYS a woman regardless of what kind of flesh suit she's wearing at the moment. She of all people would understand that it's NOT what's on the outside that counts.
That said, take this all with a grain of salt since I'm cis.
I also just want to remind everybody that this story is set in New Orleans, but that only non-white characters are the black staff who work for the wealthy white family of the main character. Who work FOR FREE for this wealthy white family out on their OLD SOUTHERN MANOR just because they enjoy it so much. And do not get to actually live in this manor themselves, but a bungalow on the grounds which is filled with secondhand no-longer-wanted furniture from the manor once the white folks are done with it. And these people are supposedly so "rich" they don't have to work, it's just they LOVE it so much that their entire aspiration in life seems to be serving these white people, to the point they will live on these manor grounds (but again, not in the manor itself with the white family) miles away from anyone else. And they may be "rich" but still use the secondhand furniture and wear secondhand clothing from their white employers.
And this is all presented as being hunky-dory, and that's apparently not something Anne Rice thought was problematic for a second. And this woman, mind you, considers herself an enlightened liberal progressive person.
Oh yeah, and the oldest son/heir of this family is sleeping with one of the staff members sexually, because that sure doesn't conjure up any shitty historical abuses of black slaves and servant women by male masters (though it is iffy on her part too given their age gap, Quinn being a teenager, and the fact she'd have literally helped raise him from infancy) and sleeps literally with an elderly staff member as a sort of stuffed animal or bed warmer (which would be bizarre even without the racial issues, srsly wtf is up with this). This goes on into his teenage years, and is currently still going on at the age of eighteen, and when the elderly woman dies, he tells the next eldest woman on staff to take her place, which she does, because black women are just interchangeable furniture I suppose.
None of this is relevant to the following chapter, I just wanted to note it all again because god it still just blows my mind, and it blows my mind even more I've never seen this discussed or called out EVER.
For the record, I don't think there's any problem writing about bad things, or things you would not want to happen in real life. Heck, I think EVERY story, by nature of the need for conflict, involves something that one wouldn't wish to happen for real, even if it's only an inconvenience. And I also can't support the idea that every protagonist needs to be wholly unproblematic in their views; that's unrealistic and ridiculous for a number of reasons, and I think it actually does more harm than good (promoting the idea that "good" people will just automatically be enlightened and progressive on everything by default) That said, I do think there is a problem when bigoted actions and views are presented utterly uncritically and even positively by the writer, and WHY that is. Like I do not like the idea that the mere presence or acknowledgement of any real-world bigotry or toxicity must be scrubbed from fiction entirely, but I also feel there's got to be a line where you ask "why the fuck are they writing it this way?"
(As a note, this is exempting works like bodice rippers, which are SUPPOSED to be utter fantasies which are largely written BY AND FOR the demographic (women) who would be victimized by those same behaviors in real life. Anyone who knows a thing about the genre knows when they pick it up that this a fantasy made for women who enjoy that, and in no way indicates the writer or reader wants/supports these behaviors in real life. There's just that implicit understanding. I'm talking about works that do not have that implicit understanding, and more like works that, say, would present these dynamics as a realistic healthy real-world romance.)
Anyway, now that I've reminded everybody of the absurd racism going on, we're going to get an entirely DIFFERENT variety of bigoted problematic grossness in...
BLACKWOOD FARM, CHAPTER 32
"It had been some time since Aunt Queen had held Full Court in her bedroom, or boudoir as we called it on such occasions, but when I entered the house I was informed by an exquisitely dressed Jasmine---read slinky black cocktail dress and murderous high heels---that this was a special night."
The guests that this Full Court is being held for (which sounds pretentious from Quinn but eccentric/tongue-in-cheek from Aunt Queen, because I think Queen knows it's OTT whereas Quinn seems like he'd be totes serious about it if it were him) are Nash and a mysterious visitor who has shown up with cases of gorgeous cameos.
Quinn is "solemnly requested" to go freshen up, which is kind of hilarious to me (I'm trying to imagine "go freshen up" delivered in a solemn tone) and we are informed of him putting on his best black Italian suit and handmade English shirt. Quinn welcomes the distraction of "courtly life" (see what I mean?) from how he is "electrified with love and concern for Mona" which would have kept him from sleeping anyway. He tells Goblin "let's do this together" and that they've been apart too much anyway.
Remember how just last chapter/a few hours ago at most, how Quinn shunned him at the Mayfair house from people who would have actually been able to see him, and willing to interact with/acknowledge him? Just saying.
Goblin, wearing exactly what Quinn is but with a sad face, states "Evil, Quinn" and then kisses his cheek and says he loves Quinn, to which Quinn responds he loves him too.
Quinn finds this "very unexpected" and hopes that the night will continue to give him "wonderful things" (hearing there's evil in AQ's room is wonderful?) and that he won't "crash" from having learned of Mona's illness and that she might not survive it, which he believes that she and her family were "trying to tell me" all through the dinner. That makes it sound like they were speaking in code. They really, really weren't. They were all pretty plain.
There's more guests here besides Nash and the cameo-seller; Quinn passes a group at the piano in one room, and another playing cards in another room. I had almost forgotten that the manor was also a B&B, not that they seem to need to the dough.
Quinn enter's AQ's room. She is wearing a "priceless feathered white negligee" while Nash is in "black tie" and stands up when Quinn enters, "as if I merited such a thing, which I did not." Yeah, you're not a woman. Aren't gentlemen only supposed to stand when a lady enters the room? Am I wrong? Cindy, AQ's nurse, is there too, and she's the only one not all fancy, as she's just in her "crisp white uniform" and kisses Quinn's cheeks. Honestly I feel kind of weird about how physically affectionate everyone seems to be with Quinn; I think it's part of the way Rice seems to infantilize her male protagonists as of late, which I've noticed with both Quinn and what's-his-face from The Wolf Gift (who iirc is also a super-rich spoiled little shit who sleeps with an older woman and everyone calls him things like Sunshine Boy or [thing] Boy ) She might have done it with Armand too? I haven't read much with Armand but given how he eternally looks like a teen boy and was a sex slave and all the male vampires are hot for him from what I understand, it kinda seems like something she'd do with him.
Then Quinn gets a look at our mystery guest.
"At first I simply could not identify what I saw. I knew but I did not know. I understood but I did not understand. All was abundantly clear. Nothing was clear at al. Then very gradually my mind absorbed the details, and do let me record them."
Well, it wouldn't be a Rice novel if you didn't!
"That this was the mysterious stranger, I had no doubt."
Oh. Okay then. He got to that a lot faster than I expected. I thought he was going to list all the details first and then his conclusion, which actually would have been more organic in my opinion, because we'd see all the features coming together in his mind.
Anyway, same shoulders, same high square forehead with rounded temples, same black eyebrows even (are those rare?) and long mouth and long black hair and large eyes.
The stranger's hair, however, is not in a ponytail anymore, but in "gorgeous waves and curls" and Quinn can see that they have "large full breasts" under their black satin vest even though "the rest of the black tie ensemble of dinner jacket and trousers indicated a man's body, and indeed the mysterious stranger, despite having glowing skin and rouged lips, was about six feet tall and did have a rather firm jaw. Was this a man? Was this a woman? I had no idea."
Ah yes, because (cis) women never have
1) Glowing skin
2) Lack of lipstick; we always have lipstick and men NEVER do, so lipstick = woman
3) Anything close to a firm jaw
4) A height of anything approaching six feet
5) Any sort of body type that might be top-heavy or lack wide hips or whatever else Quinn means by a man's body
Like, honestly, this is offensive both to cis women and trans women, to be quite honest, in how narrow what he expects a "woman" to look like, and what prompts him to doubt someone's gender. But it's ESPECIALLY awful for trans women, because they do not need total fucking strangers trying to determine what genitalia they were born with because they don't "pass" to this fuckwad's sexist liking. And by "don't need it" I mean that it's deeply hurtful, can cause/increase dysphoria, and result in them being outed, which can result in violence against them or worse.
That said, this is not an uncommon reaction from cis people, and I don't just mean isolated Deep South walking-anachronisms like Quinn. My nice liberal pro-LGBT Yankee mother once asked me, regarding someone who had just passed in front of us, what gender that person was. Because that's her business somehow I guess? And I would somehow fucking know?! Because, idk, I'm gay and I know trans people (guess what you probably do too whether you know it or not) or...I don't know.
My point is a clueless-ass cis person, especially one so young, especially one so isolated and old-fashioned (though conveniently forward-thinking on his own sexuality, as is all his family except of course evil ol' Patsy despite the fact she's the one in the music industry and thus probably meeting more openly LGBT people than her elitist old rich white Southern family, but whatever...) is not surprising. It's not.
But it gets worse in how it's handled, both within this chapter and in the book as a whole. Oh and speaking of the term "it"...
"Whatever it was, it sat there [...] challenging me with its silence, its sly smile"
Oh, I too am being challenged. Admittedly, if Quinn was like super perfectly progressive on this, I would call bullshit, I can't deny it, same as I found the matter of his easily-accepted bisexuality to be contrived. But that doesn't make this any less grating to read. What makes it more grating, as always, is it's not presented as something that Quinn is *wrong* in.
Aunt Queen introduces the stranger as Petronia and says that "she's brought me the most exquisite cameos, and she made them herself."
So Quinn no longer has any call to be thinking of Petronia as an "it" now that he's been handfed a pronoun, and to his credit, he doesn't. She's "she" from here on out.
....admittedly, it might have worked out better for her to be a "he" in a Rice book, but I guess having the big breasts makes that impossible (not that men do not have breasts, gynecomastia and fat men and trans men all exist, but I mean in terms of being Rice wank-bait).What I mean is, I think if a pretty boy like Armand was born with Petronia's "condition" as we shortly learn about (Petronia is intersex), then Rice sure wouldn't make *him* a villain. But then, she would make him a horribly fetishized sex object for more "manly" men (as "manly" as they come in a Rice novel anyway), so, uh, nevermind.
Quinn feels "shock" and "fury" and "delirium" and these are fully justified from the standpoint that he recognizes, or believes he recognizes, the home invader who threatened his life (spoiler, he's correct) Though come to think of it, wasn't he all super chill with the stranger after he found out that "he"---now we know to be she---wanted the same home improvements done on the Hermitage that he did? What happened to that? Still though, she did violently attack him nonetheless, so yeah, justified.
Quinn says the pleasure's all his and that she's very beautiful, which he had never noticed before since he had only seen her "twice or thrice by moonlight". Petronia does not pretend to ask what he means by this (oddly, nor does anyone else), instead returning "how generous of you" and her voice is the same one as the stranger's. She then says that since Quinn has just come from his "red-haired vixen" that one would have thought he would have still been "blinded by her light."
So she clearly knows about Mona, though Aunt Queen could easily have told her that; she might well have asked where Quinn was when AQ told her she had a great great nephew who lived on the estate.
As a note, it doesn't surprise me that no one thinks it's bizarrely coincidental that someone who sells cameos just happened to drop by the house of a woman who is crazy about them; Aunt Queen, unlike Quinn, gets out a lot, and she has a lot of money, so I've no doubt that every jeweler for miles knows who she is, and are probably under her specific instruction to send any qualified cameo-seller her way.
Quinn's face burns and he says "She's not a vixen in any sense. But don't let me be wearisome defending her. It's a pleasure that you and I are properly introduced."
Well, it's nice that Quinn doesn't hold with slut-shaming, I suppose. Not when it's Mona anyway; I reckon he'd be fine if she said that about Patsy or even Terry Sue.
Petronia laughs, tells Aunt Queen that Quinn is "quite the versatile gentleman", then tells Quinn she thought they'd like one another if they "really came to know each other" and "do stop trying to determine if I'm a man or a woman."
Yes, please do, Quinn, cuz DAMN you must have been obvious about it!
Petronia explains that she is "a good deal of both and therefore neither. I was just explaining to your Aunt Queen. I was born endowed with the finest traits of each and I drift this way and that as I choose."
My first reaction when I read this was to be like "who the fuck just says this to people they just met, why would anyone want these gross scrutinizing strangers to know what's typically a very sensitive secret" but then I remember...Petronia has been around since, we find out, Ancient Rome. She has been treated horribly since her birth because of her genitals. She is quite used to worse than Quinn's shit (not that it excuses it) and what's more, she has super-strength and telepathy and all the usual vampiric gifts, and she's an immortal callous capricious monster who likes to play with people (again, spoilers, sorry) Considering all that, it's actually pretty believable to me that she wouldn't give any fucks, and unlike most real-life intersex and transgender people, she can AFFORD not to give any fucks. She doesn't need to worry about being fired from her job or assaulted by some bigot if word gets out about her gender and biology. She can afford to be as open as she likes with whoever she likes, and given what we learn later in the book about her history as a human, that's probably very freeing and cathartic for her.
That said, I also think Anne Rice wanted us to know this about Petronia right away so she could begin playing up the freak factor, which gets done EXTENSIVELY by Quinn for the rest of this chapter.
Petronia, by the way, is why I picked this book up. I was interested in her. So I've read ahead specifically for her parts, hence all these spoilers.
Nash pulls up a chair for Quinn while Jasmine pours him some champagne as he sits across from "this spectacle, this creature"
This? This I fault Quinn for. Even if you are ignorant as fuck about transgender and intersex people, you should know that's an unkind (to say the least) way to refer to ANYBODY. A boy of supposed good upbringing should damn well know that.
Goblin takes hold of his shoulder and tells him to be careful, and Quinn feels "dangerously feverish" and "appalled" and "exhilarated" by what is going on.
Petronia says "So you think of me as a woman. Forgive me for reading your mind, it's a trait I can't seem to keep in harness."
Actually, he has not yet at any point thought of her as a woman. Since learning she's called "she" he has thus far only thought of her as a spectacle and a creature. And the mysterious stranger, of course. Perhaps Petronia is trying to give him a hint, and charitably not embarrass him.
AQ is like oh my you just spontaneously read people's thoughts and Petronia says some more than others, that Quinn's thoughts are "glaringly clear" (YEAH, I'D SAY SHE'S GIVING HIM A HINT) and calls him a "brilliant young man." I'll just assume she's sucking up to AQ by saying that, because I still for the life of me do not see what everyone finds so brilliant about Quinn's dumb ass. A fancy vocabulary does NOT a wise man make, or even a smart boy, of which he is neither.
Also, it doesn't surprise me that Aunt Queen doesn't at all question Petronia's claim to read minds, given that she herself can see ghosts. Quinn, having just met a man who can read minds, probably has no reason to think otherwise either. Nash, Jasmine, and Cindy, being staff, are just probably choosing not to be rude.
Quinn asks Petronia why the mausoleum on Sugar Devil Island has Petronia's name on it, and Aunt Queen explains that Petronia has told her it was her great-great-grandmother, that Petronia is a great believer of reincarnation and says it happens over and over in her (Petronia's) family. She says they've been discussing it, and how Petronia has strange dreams of ancient Pompeii.
At these words "a terrible sense of foreboding" comes over Quinn, and Goblin squeezes his hand. He begins to see the end of Pompeii himself, people running through the streets, the earth moving, the rain of ash, Mount Vesuvius. Petronia is staring at him and "we were there and we were here." Understandably, he is dizzy.
Nash asks Petronia about her Pompeii dreams. Petronia says they are "truly tragic", that she sees herself as having been a slave girl (note that she specifically says slave GIRL) who was a worker of cameos, "the chief among a shop of such craftsmen", and her master has warned them all of the coming eruption, and she runs through the streets trying to warn others to get out of the city and escape the disaster, but they don't listen to her.
Quinn sees it in his head, "her, with her long full black hair, yet in a male's tunic" running through the streets and banging on doors and telling everyone to get out. And even now, he cannot stop talking about her like some kind of freak, describing her in these visions as "a curious tall monstrous beauty." Given the history of intersex people being considered monsters, even exhibited in freak shows, and of transgender people, especially transgender women and other transfeminine folk, depicted in monstrous ways in media (the serial killer stock type, for instance) I really, truly do not think this is coincidental language. "Monstrous beauty" might apply to any vampire, sure, but I can't help but notice that the one it actually *gets* applied to is the genderfluid intersex vampire with she/her pronouns.
Anyway, no one listens, she takes the slaves from the workbenches, they run to the shore with some other citizens and pile into a boat to get away, where she cries for those who wouldn't listen, for the lost city, for its lost treasures of cameos left behind, and in the vision Quinn "held her trembling hand"
He then cries out "I'm not there!" and tries to pull himself out of the vision, and he can't, "but then came the electric shock of Goblin's hand" and he opens his eyes and he's back in the real world again.
Petronia tells Aunt Queen that these dreams lead her to believe that she lived in Ancient Pompeii, knew the people who suffered and died, and that, just as in this life, she was "part male, part female" and a maker of cameos, that she loves nothing so much as that and doesn't know how people who don't share such a fascination manage to even live. Well, I guess she's barking up the right tree in terms of who to say that to! What's most funny to me is that though one would think she's just saying the stuff about cameos to cozy up to Aunt Queen, since she would know about from having watched the Blackwoods as she told Quinn she does, she's actually telling the truth I think. She really does make them, in any case, and wears them a lot.
Quinn's heart beats wildly, and he sees that Nash's eyes are "filmed over" and Aunt Queen looks "dazed and wide-eyed" as she looks at Petronia. Oh, I mean at "this tall big-breasted creature."
Seriously, has Quinn referred to anyone else like this? No, I think not. And I don't think he does again. And again, I get why he would be this gross. That just doesn't make it any less disgusting for me to read. And I repeat, I think Anne Rice had "btw I'm intersex and genderfluid" be the first damn thing Petronia told him for the specific purpose of getting write Quinn's reaction to it, of getting to play it up as this exoticized freak show for the reader as being the most notable thing about her despite the fact she's clearly got a lot more going on. Like, I admit that us immediately knowing her past via a random telepathic vision info-dump is normally a Ricean trope that bugs me, but at least we know she's got character besides "the hermaphrodite"
Quinn is determined to shake off this "spell" and so he "did the most impulsive thing." He reaches out to Petronia with Goblin's hand clasped over his own. Petronia accepts his outstretched hand, and, in doing so, she touches Goblin, then draws back "as sharply as if she'd been stung by a bee" from Goblin's touch. Goblin laughs and again tells Quinn "Evil, Quinn. Evil!"
"Petronia's eyes searched for him, but she couldn't see him." So being a vampire might make you psychic, but not the kind that can see ghosts. Interesting. Quinn sees that Goblin looks afraid, he tells Quinn "Not alive."
Quinn doesn't know what to make of this, but I'm sure you all do.
Quinn may not understand Goblin's words, but he feels "a spirit thing like Goblin, electric, powerful, ready to form a current" and then "the rage came back to me. How dare this being play with me? How dare he play with us all?"
That is not a typo on my part, he thinks of Petronia as "he" here, probably because up until now he thought of the mysterious stranger as a man.
Petronia, meanwhile, talks to the others about how she took up making cameos since she loves them so much, and she came here since she knew of Aunt Queen's love for them (she doesn't say how) and how the story of how her great-great-great-grandmother wanting to be buried here was handed down to her "though it never did come to pass" (I suppose that's so she has an advance explanation for if the tomb is ever opened at night and found to be empty)
Finally, Quinn speaks up, saying that she put him in a chokehold outside last night and told him what she wanted done with the Hermitage, and that she's the one who broke into his room and dragged him from his bed before that!
"I stood up, comfortably towering over her, as she looked up at me smiling"
He continues his accusations, saying he saw her dumping bodies, that he knows she did it, "and you come here to be received by the person dearest to me in all the world!"
Aunt Queen understandably cries out, "Quinn, darling, have you lost your mind!"
Indeed, it probably looks extra crazy that he waited until the middle of a conversation to do this rather than the moment he saw her. Emphasis on LOOKS extra crazy. I actually find a bit more realistic that he has a delayed reaction, though. It's understandable he'd be stunned, taken aback, confused on what to do and what do say, if he should say anything at all, etc. I would be. But to an outsider like Aunt Queen, it looks like he just had a conversation with Petronia until suddenly, at seeming random, bursting out with this.
Quinn says this is the mysterious stranger, Nash gets on his feet and tries to take him by the shoulders and "Petronia rose to her full height of over six feet, and with every inch over six feet grew out of femininity and into manhood" looking at him with a gloating smile.
1) I thought she was six feet even?
2) Anybody over six feet is a man, got it. If you're a woman and over six feet, those additional inches are male.
Aunt Queen is frantic, Nash is begging him to be quiet, while Quinn challenges Petronia "Deny it, I dare you. Say you didn't come into my very room and drag me from my bed."
Petronia, now referred to as "he" by Quinn in the narrative once more, tells Aunt Queen exactly this, "I did not come into this house at any time before tonight."
For some reason, Quinn decides this is a good time to quote Ophelia from Hamlet ("My honored Lord, you know right well you did") because, again, Hamlet is just a theme in this book for no real reason and in the most hamhanded of ways. He repeats his accusations, claiming that Petronia is tormenting him as a game for her own amusement (which, from what I've read ahead of her personality, is probably true)
"Quinn, silence!" Aunt Queen declared. Never had I heard such a cry from her, such a total command. "I won't have it," she said. She was shaking."
On the one hand, I'm glad to see her yell at the spoiled little shit at last. On the other, I'm not sure I can support is as much as I'd like, given the circumstances. Assuming she believes he's simply doing this because he's insane, not to be a troublemaker for no reason, then that's...not really how one should handle that situation. But then, I see no reason that an old Southern grande dame would ever be taught how to handle a mentally unstable teen having a paranoid episode in front of guests, and speaking of guests, her being an old Southern grande dame does mean that appearances and hospitality are probably of HUGE importance for her. So she's doing the "wrong" thing but in a way that makes utter sense for her, so I approve writing-wise even if I can't applaud the way I would *like* to applaud Quinn being told to shut up for once.
Petronia says she'll take her leave, Aunt Queen apologizes to her, and Petronia says in a "feminized voice" that "You've been very gracious to me. I'll never forget it."
"He turned his pretty face to me, and I saw the woman in him, and then he was gone, with straight shoulders and big long strides , gorgeous hair flying"
Quinn. Petronia has been explicitly clear she's not a woman or a man. And while she herself did not say she uses she/her pronouns, she seems to have been fine with Aunt Queen using them for her (I get the feeling Petronia would most certainly speak up if she objected) so she's a SHE until she tells you otherwises. Again though, I guess I can't expect Quinn to know better, it's just...cringey to read.
Everyone is shocked and Aunt Queen is looking at Quinn not just with disappointment, which I'd especially expect, but, to my surprise, "blazing anger" which seems...a bit much. She asks if Quinn honestly expects anyone to believe the things he is saying, and now I'm wondering if Petronia mind-whammied her in some way.
Quinn replies:
“It's all true. How in the world could you believe her instead of me? What did she tell you—that she was man and woman, so much of each that she was neither one? You believe that? And that she believes in reincarnation? You believe that? That she made the cameos she gave you? You believe that? And that the mausoleum on the island was made for her great-great-great-grandmother? You believe that? I'm telling you, she came at me. Or he came to me. And he has the strength of a man, that I can vouch for. And he does read minds and that's dangerous. And all the rest I've said—all along---is true.”
Well, what's so unbelievable about all those things? What is unbelievable about her biology or gender identity, or someone believing in reincarnation, or someone making cameos? The only one even slightly suspect to me would be the mausoleum thing, but if she knew about it (which no one except the Blackwood folks would) and knew the name and all, yeah, I'd buy it if I were Aunt Queen. It's a lot more believable than the truth, certainly (which I'm sure you all have guessed at this point, that it's her mausoleum, her daytime resting place)
Also, yes, someone who can read minds is dangerous, but I notice Quinn only says it's dangerous now, when it's someone he doesn't like doing it, than when Michael did it. An understandable and in-character bit of hypocrisy, since Michael just used it to fetch him some cocoa and isn't someone who has tried to hurt Quinn before like Petronia has, I'm just noting it. But unlike almost everything else in this chapter, I don't hold it against Quinn or find it wrong. It just occurred to me when he said that, is all, it's the first thing I thought of.
Aunt Queen can't look at him, and asks where he was tonight.
Quinn said he had dinner with the Mayfairs and then that he met "the ghost of Julien Mayfair and he told me he had conjugal knowledge of Grandfather William's wife, and I'm descended from him."
Very understandably, Aunt Queen says that he is "stark raving mad." Maybe not as understandably as if she didn't know ghosts were real, but still, this isn't a great time for Quinn to say that.
Quinn returns he's not raving, just "a bit heated, yes, at the effrontery of that creature" but not raving, not really. Aunt Queen asks "What do I do?" Quinn says to let him call Stirling Oliver, that he sees Goblin and will help Aunt Queen understand, that Quinn doesn't feel safe from that "creature" and doesn't think anyone is. Aunt Queen is like, you think I'm the one who needs understanding, and we get this gem from Quinn:
“I want to kill that creature, that's all I can say. And there's something very vile and very awful about the being. It isn't merely that it's a hermaphrodite, that I could well endure and find fascinating.”
I...just...wow, you know what, I don't even need to break down why this is gross, I'm just gonna let it stand on its own.
“It's something else. Goblin sense it. Goblin calls it evil. I tell you the creature frightens me. You must understand, at least that I believe what I am saying even if you do not.”
Again, Aunt Queen won't look at him. He goes to the bathroom and gets sick. He comes back, apologizes to everyone but says they "have to see it from my point of view" how it feels to come back and see "him" (Petronia) with Aunt Queen. I mean, yes, I agree, but something about his delivery just feels so pompous and entitled and...Quinn.
Nash suggests Quinn go to bed and Quinn agrees "but I couldn't let it go without stating the stranger, alias Petronia, was no great respecter of my being in or out of bed." Well, he does sound like a teenager here at least.
He kisses Aunt Queen and she's "as loving as ever" and she says they will call Stirling Oliver. He says he loves her and wants to tell her about Mona, she says tomorrow.
Quinn duly goes upstairs and goes to bed with Big Ramona. I am never getting over how weird that is. I wonder what Mona would think if she knew her Prince Tarquin of Blackwood needs to sleep with an old woman like a stuffed teddy or security blanket? Thoughts of talking to Nash run through his mind, and I wonder if Rice meant to type Stirling. Occasionally, he wakes with a start due to dreams of "strange, evil Petronia, bent on hurting me, bent on destroying me" but they are indeed only dreams.
And that's the end of this chapter.
Something I'd like to note is that not only are both Petronia and Narcissus (from LKH's Anita Blake series) both intersex (how interesting the only intersex people in each casts are BOTH bad guys!), they're both the only members of the cast to be cast as in any way gender-fluid, non-binary, etc. And even if they were not villains, I would find this an inherently cissexist idea. Because it seems to hinge on their physical biology, as if being physically "in-between" sexes is the only way to account for an in-between gender identity and presentation. As if being physically intersex would of course beget that, that gender identity and expression follow physical biology. Which is entirely the kind of mindset that dictates "penis = male = acts like this, vagina = female = acts like this." If the only way these writers can conceive of someone to have an identity outside the male/female binary is for them to have a body naturally born outside of that binary, well, that speaks a lot to their POV regardless how progressive they might think themselves (again, to say nothing of the fact both are bad guys, and, spoiler, do bad things in a way specifically related to their sexuality and genitalia)
As a note, I take the same issue with how a lot of people in the X-Men fandom seem to think that "shapeshifters = innately genderqueer because they can physically change their junk" because I find that line of thinking to be just as transphobic/cissexist? Because again, it hinges identity on genitalia. I can see how a shapeshifter might look at gender differently, but at the end of the day I think it's a fuck ton more trans-positive that Mystique is ALWAYS a woman regardless of what kind of flesh suit she's wearing at the moment. She of all people would understand that it's NOT what's on the outside that counts.
That said, take this all with a grain of salt since I'm cis.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-14 03:10 pm (UTC)I've seen stories in which servants of whatever race stay with their now-relatively impoverished employers out of the goodness of their hearts, but in those said servants are always living in the house, so it's not like they're getting nothing material out of it. I've seen stories of various types in which servants sleep with their employers (really happened often too, and often it was pure exploitation but it wasn't rare for women to experiment with a guy they knew would be able to afford supporting a bastard child). But never where everything was so cavalier -- like yep, she's a dick-warmer, and she's happy to be. And then the bed warmers, which what? I keep expecting Quinn to tell Lestat about the time he stood on a street corner to wait for Godot.
As for the rest, yech. I've noticed that people have gotten far more gender essentialist in the past couple decades than they were when I was growing up in the 90s. Maybe it's the internet. But I'm glad I didn't grow up with it.
Also I still have no idea what the plot of this book is. Why are we meeting ANY other character now? From a story standpoint, I don't care about Petronia. I don't care about Mona. What happened to Rebecca? It's not like any of them are likely to matter, considering. It'd be nice if this book were about Goblin and Quinn and Aunt Queen. Instead it's a gigantic waste of the reader's time.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-15 02:30 am (UTC)Yeah, the story is easily 2/3 done or more. This chapter ended on page 446, the book ends on page 626. So we've only got 220 pages to wrap this up. Which is a lot, granted, but there's been so much pointless filler that I feel like this is gonna end LKH-style, with a whole lot of meandering around and then everything smushed together at the end, possibly with a deus ex machina.
Petronia does matter in that she makes Quinn into a vampire (spoiler: it's by raping him because of-fucking-course -.- )
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Date: 2017-08-17 12:46 am (UTC)shapeshifters
Date: 2017-08-20 08:07 am (UTC)On the sexual labeling of shapeshifters. For a lot of mythical shapeshifters, especially tricksters, it was the whole point that they could cross any cultural borders at will.
I don’t know if mystique being forced to return to a female base form is better than saying she only has a gender of convenience. I mostly get this from the movie, X-Men First Class, where we saw her as a kid her transformations takes effort to maintain, and are therefore basically temporary. I think it would be more meaningful if she did not have a base form she cannot get rid of.
the labeling system doesn’t really cope very well with the reality of people who can painlessly change their gender at will. Like the question, if a shapeshifter who changes their gender all the time is only attracted to men are they straight, gay or bi?
But I think unless they are uncomfortable with their shapeshifting, most shapeshifters would likely try out another gender at least once. probably in a “okay, what’s so fun about dicks?” way, instead of an “I’m just gonna go out in town as a guy and see what it’s like” way.
I think someone who is not “married” to a physical gender is going to look at the whole thing a lot differently to someone who has to deal with the cards they were dealt at birth. – Sort of like someone who could afford every console as a child so they don't really give a shit about the console wars, playing all the exclusive titles and whatever they enjoy most.