Seduced by Moonlight and Humble Tigger

I've decided to do the third Merry Gentry book. Why? One, because the next LKH book will be a long awaited (and, most likely IMHO, final) book in that series...and because a lot of people consider Merry to be the "good" series.

Personally, it's the one I prefer, the way you'd prefer being beheaded to being burned at the stake.

I also think the entire Merry Gentry thing is a wonderful train wreck worthy of gawking at while you eat popcorn. I am a terrible person for thinking this, but that is something I am okay with.

If you wonder why I enjoy harping on the LKH books so much...well, one, they're bad. And they're not just poorly written. They're bad. They're an attempt to normalize everything from incest, rape, child abuse, rape, abusive relationships, rape, cult-style mind and thought control, rape, male-oriented dominance--when your main character's constant professional obsession is being as good or better than the men, you're still fucking advocating the idea that men are rightfully the dominant paradigm because of their strength--to, well, rape. The last book of hers I reviewed, I was grateful when the chapters didn't start with something of dubious consent. I've gotten a fuck load of recent blog hits from some lovely reader (Thank you, by the way) pointing out the similarities between the shower rape in Narcissus in Chains and a rape scene in a recent Game of Thrones episode. Probably the only thing I've read lately that even comes close to that level of toxic expression is the Elise Dinsmore Series, and THAT was written over a hundred years ago! (...and is currently being pushed by certain homeschooling associations as a healthy role model for young women, but I'll save that for later).

The last several Merry books, including the current one, have also been unmitigated disasters, both as books and as moments in LKH's career. The last one, Divine Misdemeanors, was turned in six weeks before publication. While that's not an extreme turnaround in the self publishing world, that is fucking unheard of for trade publication, where a year between turning in a manuscript and actual publication is considered the desirable norm. This happened because LKH stopped writing the book that was due and started writing a book for a rival publisher that she wasn't even contracted for. It's a trend that LKH has perpetuated the last several years, turning books in with only six to four months between completion and publication. And by "completion" I mean the first fucking draft of the book. The book coming out in July was due at least two years ago, and many anti-fans, myself included, believe the only reason this book came out at all was because it was part of her contract and the publisher (The Random Penguin) was not willing to substitute Merry for Anita, because Merry sells better.

 And before we go any further, I want to make something damn clear. I've gotten a lot of flack for this in the past, but I do firmly believe that LKH and certain other shitty writers I've blogged about are writing gods compared to me. They are published, I am not, and they do deserve a certain amount of respect for that. It's a hard, awful, tough, competitive business. Some people can hack it, some can't. I can't. But there's a difference between accepting that somebody is better than you, and accepting that, by way of professional publication, it's okay to write a scene where a horrifically abused woman is cuddled back into compliance by her harem of abusers and it is portrayed as a loving act on the part of her abusers. This is never okay.

Why? Well, this is why. In case you don't follow the link (and if you're reading this blog, you ought to) it's a comparison of Twilight, and a Christian movie called Fireproof, which I have not watched but which I have seen posted fucking everywhere for the last several years. It's been touted as the Relationship Movie Made For Christians, By Christians, and it even gets sold with a handy-dandy bible study so you can put its lessons to work in your own life! Wow! How could this be bad?

Well, to quote the blogger, "Samantha,":

When our relationship ended in disaster and I realized not terribly long after that our relationship had been abusive, the connection between Meyer’s books and my relationship hit me square in the face. I’d identified with Bella because she was in love with an abuser. She felt the same way about her abuser that I’d felt about mine. She’d used all the same exact justifications, the same coping mechanisms, everything. Everything was ok, everything was fine– after all, Bella had gone through the same exact thing with Edward, and they were the perfect couple

This is something I've said for years, but up until I read this, it was just a theory. Some kind of pie-in-the-sky thing, that somebody was going to read those shit-tastic books and go "Hey, my relationship can't be bad!" And a lot of people (an AWFUL lot of people) have told me that's bullshit. Nobody would be that stupid. How could ANYBODY look at Bella and Edward and use that fantasy relationship to justify their own abusive patterns?

But there it is in black and white. Not only did someone do that, the patterns of abuse in Twilight were the entire foundation of the book's appeal. She then goes on to point out that Fireproof, the movie that has been pushed off on Christians in troubled marriages FOR YEARS has EXACTLY the same patterns in it, and EXACTLY the same points of reference for her. The ONLY reason she could connect with the main characters was because she was abused, and so were they.

This, right here, is why it is VERY important for writers to attempt to maintain a healthy context for their books. Why a rape scene should be written as a goddamned rape scene. Why even if you are purposefully writing about abusive relationships and you have no intention of ending the abuse just yet, the abuse should be called out, pointed out, and vilified. Because somebody will use your writing to justify their own lifestyle choices. They may not do it consciously, but they WILL do it.

A lot of what I've read in LKH's writing is stuff I'm not very familiar with. There are two scenes in her writing, however, that made me see incandescent rage. One was the famous shower scene...specifically how Anita went utterly dead still during the first half of the rape, and how this was pushed by LKH to be a sign of her consent, because that was very close to how my own assault went down and I very fucking much did not consent to it. The other was the cultervention in Danse Macabre, referenced above. Anita is an abuser, do NOT get me wrong, but Anita is also an abuse victim, and like many abuse victims trapped in an abusive household, she has reached for the only tools and lifestyle she can understand ATM--abuse, manipulation, and rape. This is her normal, this is what she understands. It in no way justifies any of the terrible things that she does, but these things were done to her first. And in that moment she has finally, finally, FINALLY broken down to the point that she knows she has to get out...and here come all her abusers. Safe. Contrite. Hurt that she would dare think to leave. Promising that everything would be okay. Demanding that she take care of them. And all of it treated as a loving gesture on their part.

My family calls this "humble-Tigger." It comes from an old Winnie-the-Pooh story where Rabbit, fed up with Tigger's...everything, basically, decides to take Tigger out into the woods and abandon him until Tigger's so scared, he'll stop being boisterous, happy Tigger, and will instead be a humble Tigger that Rabbit can deal with. The happy ending to the Winnie-the-Pooh story is that Rabbit's plan backfires, he gets lost, and he is the one who returns home contrite and humble after Tigger rescues him. We really ought to call it Humble-Rabbit, but that doesn't have the same ring to it.

Abusers are very, very, very good at Humble Tigger. They fuck up, they know they've fucked up, they see that the people around them are broken, so they become more broken than you. Suddenly they're doing nice things, they're taking care of you, they're buying you things, the demands have eased up, and they have so much pain, my darlings, so very much pain that you just have to put your own hurt--you know, the hurt they caused?--aside and nurture them. The problem with Humble-Tigger is that it only lasts as long as they feel their control is at risk. I've had multiple abusers and every single one of them went through a cycle of aggression and control, followed up by Humble Tigger. And I would love to say that we coined the term to mean "superficial humility aimed at undermining your own emotional awakening" but we did not. Rather, it meant "See! We've been such good people, and we were so good at rescuing (abuser of the day) that they're now being humble and contrite!" It was a pat on our own backs. "Humble Tigger", back then, meant that we, the abuse victims, had triumphed, and to celebrate we had to go lick our abuser's wounds.

I've since recycled the term to really mean "Superficial humility aimed at undermining an emotional awakening" because it's such a pervasive, subversive, underhanded thing and it happens ALL THE TIME.

We get a lot of Humble-Tigger in the Anita Blake books. We get it from Nate, from Jean Claude, from Micah (the entire book Micah basically counts as one extended Humble Tigger) and oh my fucking GOD do we get boatloads of Humble Tigger from Anita. And probably my biggest issue with the AB series, and the MG series because it's there too, is how it all reads as an attempt to normalize the abusive cycle as a romantic relationship. Not only that, it attempts to normalize abusive cycles within the context of a BDSM relationship. I mean, my GOD if there is one place where you need to know what abuse looks like it's in a lifestyle where you are voluntarily incapacitated on a regular basis.

So yes. We're going to kill this book. We're going to kill it fucking dead.


(Totally unrelated post-script. Speaking of the Game of Thrones rape scene, the blogger over at No Longer Quivering has written a BEAUTIFUL analysis of why that specific scene is a rape in BOTH the show and the book, and why everybody attached to the show is especially shitty for saying "Oh, no. It wasn't really rape )

City of Bones chapter 14+ Comments on Breaking Dawn

My stepfather has a strong love for the Twilight Saga.

I am not remotely kidding.

I sat through BDpt2. They cut most of the stupid out by omitting unnecessary character interactions (a'la Emmett's commentary on Bella's sex life during her post-vamping reunion with Charlie) and Bella's running commentary. Charlie got shafted, but then he got the same in the books too. You got to see Leah's profile once. Renesmee is the creepiest fucking baby in the history of CGI, is just as creepy as a toddler, and is pretty much a prop through the whole movie. Alice saves all the things, of course. Christopher Heyerdahl (AKA Marcus) needs to get a bigger part in a better movie because GOD is he wasted as an actor. Stephenie decided to show everyone who bitched about the book's ending what would really have happened had everyone thrown down (Spoiler: Carslile, Jasper, Seth *sob* Caius, Leah, Jane--VIA ALICE AND WEREWOLF IN SCENE OF SHINING AWESOME. Allowing the strongest actress and character in the movie, respectively, to have a showdown was probably a mistake--Marcus and Aro all die, as do Ed and Bella by implication.) and then undid it because dream/vision ha ha everybody lives isn't this totally better. No, Stephenie. It wasn't. I actually got emotionally involved in the war scene, which the rest of your glittery blood-sucking soap opera failed to do.

Also? One of the Romanian vampires was also Cottontop from Hatfields and McCoys, which I finally watched two days ago. Needless to say after watching that actor play a mentally disabled boy, I was unable to buy Vlad 2 as a scary individual. I kept hearing "They Hornswaggled me with Love!" and experianced the wild urge to curl up sobbing in a corner every time he opened his mouth.

So. City of Bones.

...this is the vampire chapter, isn't it? Fuck.

Now, they're supposed to go to the Hotel Dumort to get their rattified friend Simon back, but Clary and the Murder Trio are at a church instead. A Gothic church.

...in New York City. I am assuming we mean "in the gothic style" and seriously, the vampires are in a gothic church. I'll bet they have a heavy metal mass and everything.

Oh, right, they need holy stuff for fighting the vampires. Well, at least now we'll find out what makes things holy in this book, right? RIGHT?

Jace’s profile in the moonlight was serene. “We’re not going to,” he said, sliding his stele into his pocket. He placed a thin brown hand, marked all over with delicate white scars like a veiling of lace, against the wood of the door, just above the latch. “In the name of the Clave,” he said, “I ask entry to this holy place. In the name of the Battle That Never Ends, I ask the use of your weapons. And in the name of the Angel Raziel, I ask your blessings on my mission against the darkness.”

You know what? I'm actually offended. I made it through Hubbard, Gor, and the last twilight movie, and this is the shit that offends me. THIS. Yo, Cass? I accept that you have to write your book as all enclusive as possible, respecting all religions and yadda yadda yadda. The problem is that they're not going to a Druid grove or a pagan circle. They're going to a church. Churches are sanctified to a very specific deity. This Deity does not like it when you play with His toys outside of their intended use. He does not like it when you do not respect His holy ground, and He sure as horses love hey does not like it when you ask for His blessing in the name of things other than Him. These characters might not be believers--and again, if they aren't they should be SOL in the Christian holy object department--but they sure as hellfire sucks should give the Deity they are invoking the fucking courtesy of naming him.

In. The. Name. Of. Christ. You are using Angels and Demons, holy objects and now you're using a fucking church. In Jesus name. Your book will not burst into flames if you treat religion like something other than your toybox.

Clary has never been in a church before. Jace has to explain what everything is. Then he starts looking for weapons. Because all faiths have demons in them. And all churches/synegogs and whatnot keep weapons for Shadowhunters at the alter.


HEY KIDS! IT'S BIBLE STORY TIME! No, no, sit back down. It won't take more than a second. God chose the Israelites as his people. He told them to build him things like a pretty tent AKA Tabernackle, gold cups and candle holders and the Ark of the Covenant, which could have destroyed the Nazis if Indy hadn't been a pest. Now, eventually they took the tent down and put all the gold stuff into a temple. The rule was, only the preists could handle these things and only on certain days for certain reasons. One day the Babylonians came along and took most of the Hebrews and all of the shiny gold things back to Babylon with them, including God's gold things that no one but his preists were supposed to use. The king at the time respected God, because God wrecked his shit on more than one occasion, but eventually that king died and his son had to prove that he could party longer and harder than the old king ever did. So he threw a big party and gave all his guests God's gold cups to drink out of. That night God's floating hand appears and writes things on the wall. New King sends for Daniel to interprete the writing. Daniel takes one look and says "Boy are you fucked" before explaining that God is going to hand Babylon over to the Persians in the next couple of days. The Persians invade and the new king, and all his party friends, die horribly.

All because they drank out of God's gold cups. Because these cups, like the eucharist and holy water and concecrated ground (You know, the same shit Jace is depending on to protect the institute?) are all concecrated and dedicated to the use of Yheweh, aka YHVH, aka the God who has a history of wrecking your shit if you disrespect something dedicated to him.

I would CONSIDER giving Cass a pass on this, but there are angels and demons and they are depending heavily on blessed/holy objects, and she just disrespected God so hard I think if I set my bible on top of my hardcopy of this book the covers would start to smoke. You CANNOT have it both ways. If the objects in a religion have power, it is because there is a Deity behind them. If there is a Deity behind that power, that Deity will expect you to follow His/Her/Its rules. If you do not follow those rules, then the best you can hope for is that these objects you need will fail you when you need them most. The worst? Honey, God can be very creative when he is pissed off at you.

What does Jace find under the alter?

“Vials of holy water, blessed knives, steel and silver blades,” Jace said, piling the weapons on the floor beside him, “electrum wire— not much use at the moment, but it’s always good to have spare— silver bullets, charms of protection, crucifixes, stars of David—”

And it turns out that Jace is an athiest.  I have nothing against athiests as people who have gone through a long soul searching and found themselves unable to reconcile the concept of deity with the universe as they understand it. However, if you are an athiest raiding a church for the protection of a God you do not believe in?

...Oh, but his DAD believes in God.

Knowing how this book ends, my level of PISSED THE FUCK OFF just went through the roof.

Jace goes on a long monologue:

“My father believed in a righteous God. Deus volt, that was his motto—‘ because God wills it.’ It was the Crusaders’ motto, and they went out to battle and were slaughtered, just like my father. And when I saw him lying dead in a pool of his own blood, I knew then that I hadn’t stopped believing in God. I’d just stopped believing God cared. There might be a God, Clary, and there might not, but I don’t think it matters. Either way, we’re on our own.”

You know, I could go off on this one paragraph for hours. I could explain how this character is pretty obviously Cassandra Clare's mouthpiece. I could go on about how I fucking well know what Clare's opinion of Christianity is, given shit she's said online that somehow made it back to internet drama sites. I could explain why this "all religions are one but we need CATHOLIC HOLY WATER to fight vampires with" bullshit is offensive to every fucking religion on the face of the planet. I could go on about how Jace is the most infantile sociopath to stalk the universe since they electrocuted Ted Bundy. But I won't. I'm going to counter just the bolded part of that paragraph. Cassandra Clare, meet C.S. Lewis:

Not many years ago when I was an atheist, if anyone had asked me, ‘Why do you not believe in God?’ my reply would have run something like this: ‘Look at the universe we live in...The race is doomed. Every race that comes into being in any part of the universe is doomed...All stories will come to nothing: all life will turn out in the end to have been a transitory and senseless contortion upon the idiotic face of infinite matter. If you ask me to believe that this is the work of a benevolent and omnipotent spirit, I reply that all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Either there is no spirit behind the universe, or else a spirit indifferent to good and evil, or else an evil spirit.’

There was one question which I never dreamed of raising... If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that. The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief. The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must always have been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held.

That's from The Problem of Pain, and if you have any interest in Christian theology I REALLY recommend that book.

So after addressing the concept of religion in the most offensive way possible (GOD doesn't matter, just his toys!) we go on to the Hotel Dumort. It's abandoned and boarded up, so the kids break in. But only after paragraph on paragraph of the kids digging through garbage and making cutsy quips. They also collect a random Hispanic boy, because if you're in a bad neighborhood all you're gonna find are people of color and street kids.Of course, the kid is a vampire, which Jace figured out a long time ago, even though he's been muttering about how much he hates mundanes since they picked up the idiot.

The other vampires show up, they use Random Vamp Boy as a hostage to get Simon back. Jace balks at making an oath, though, because oaths are important to Shadowhunters.

And concecrated religious artifacts aren't. Right. Jace? Seriously? Go die in a fire.

And then Clary blows her own negotiations to get Simon back, right when Jace was about to swear that oath. We're approaching Strawchick level stupid here, kids.

So they're running around the ballroom, trying to escape the pissed of vampires who have been interrupted, stabbed and chewed on by rat-boy, when suddenly WEREWOLVES!

They break through the windows. And the chapter ends.

Vampires and werewolves in the same chapter I review the night I watch Twilight.

Yep, I'm gonna go get a drink now.

Next chapter: WE TALK ABOUT THINGS SOME MORE!