Yeah, I found this last night. I spent the morning reading the angry Amazon reviews. And then giggling to myself like a little school girl.
I have not been shy to admit, I hate Sookie Stackhouse. I hate her eternal internal monologuing, I hate her inability to commit to a relationship and stand up for herself in the relationships she does have (unless, of course, Standing Up for One's Self is part of the plot, in which case she will do it at the absolute worst time and place possible and manage to nearly get herself and her friends killed. Girls, it is good to have a backbone, but having one doesn't mean you stand up when your roofless double decker bus goes under an overpass. Wait for the danger to pass, THEN get off the bus) (also: having Standing Up for One's Self backfire spectacularly implies that standing up for yourself is wrong. Sookie telling Eric to stuff it in front of his superiors when said superiors are trying to take over Eric and Sookie simultaneously isn't empowering. It's just stupid. DON'T MOUTH OFF TO THE BAD GUYS WHEN YOU DON'T WANT TO FIGHT THEM.) I hate that she manages to be this bizzare combination of independent and doormat and that this is never acknowledged as unhealthy. I think the only thing I don't hate about Sookie is how Anna Pacquin can rock a modified 1940's hairdo.
THAT SAID. I read the last book. The one before this one. And...uh, to say the Sam-is-my-One-True-Love thing was forshadowed is to say that thunder hints at lightning's existence. To sum up the ending of the next-to-last Sookie Stackhouse book, she had a magical fairy thing that would grant a wish for True Love. Eric spent the ENTIRE BOOK trying to get Sookie to use it to save him from having to vampire-marry a vampire Queen (...it's complicated). Sookie refused to do so. Sam, her doggy-shapeshifting male BFF, died of Plot. Sookie did not hesitate to revive Sam with the magical True Love fairy wish right in front of Eric. And then the book was all like "Well, I've fucked up Eric's life and I've revealed to myself that I've had the hots for the only significant supernatural character I haven't fucked yet for God only knows how long, but we're going to save this for the next book because readers are stupid."
And I closed the book because I don't like getting teased with like FIVE different relationships, ALL of which were supposed to be Sookie's One True Wub, only to have the final, sixth relationship shoved in my face.
Also: The eighties called. They want their Very Special Episode plot back.
BONUS ROUND! In having come out of my popular culture rock, I discovered the spoken word...whatever "To JK Rowling from Cho Chang" And while I am not saying that she does not have valid points (...nor am I saying she does have valid points. It's not my issue to say stuff on) I am saying that using "Garcia Sanchez" as an example of a fucked up name might not have been the smartest thing she could do. Yeah, that's a real hispanic name. Maybe not a common one, but at least one person in history has been named "Garcia Sanchez", and given that nationality does not equal ethnicity, it's entirely possible for a french Hispanic dude to be named Garcia Sanchez because I am sure Hispanic people exist in France.
Why do I know this? 80% of the people in my part of the world are hispanic. My first reaction to "You might as well name a french man Garcia Sanchez" was not "That's a valid point on the stupidity of rich white people" but rather "Hey, I think I know that guy."
Try not to use a valid naming pattern to point out an invalid one. Just sayin.
I think the best part of that video is her follow-up to it. She acknowledged that some of the details of her first argument were wrong, and addressed those while sticking to her main point.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is problematic Dumbledore's sexuality wasn't mentioned in the books, except as innuendo from a character we're supposed to hate (I actually like Rita Skeeter). It's even more problematic that the only major Asian character is set up specifically to make her white romantic rival look better by comparison. These are good points and they need to be dealt with.
Of general interest to the Anita Blake series: http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/the-truth-of-wolves-or-the-alpha-problem/
ReplyDelete