Reading progress - Marked Ch. 12-14
We finally got some world-building, sort of. It’s the structure of vampire society: it’s a matriarchy, with women in charge and men serving as protectors and consorts (their words, not mine). To me, a matriarchy is just as sexist as a patriarchy, just with the genders reversed. I don’t have a problem with female-orientated society, but there needs to be some form of balance so that it doesn’t come off as a misandrist culture. Here, men only have two jobs, bodyguard and boyfriend, and if a vampire man doesn’t measure up, he fails at life, as one teacher (unprofessionally) tells one boy (who is given so many negative qualities in Zoey’s eyes that he comes off as someone the writers didn’t like in real life).
Based on comments made by the characters so far and Zoey’s own behavior, it seems that a vampire man’s physical appearance is the most important thing. One of the worst examples of this is how Zoey and her friends talk about resident hot guy and designated love interest Erik Night. Erik’s personality and likes aren’t important, it’s his hotness that’s in the forefront. Zoey and her friends seriously objectify him by only talking about his body, how nice his butt is and how he might have a big…asset. The only reason why Zoey’s friends want her and Erik to get together is that he’s hot; Erik is nothing more than a trophy boyfriend to them. I doubt they would be gossiping about him if he wasn’t so attractive.
And this brings me to Aphrodite attempting to rape Erik. I know the writers didn’t intend to write it as rape, but considering that he’s verbally and physically saying no, I’m inclined to think of this as attempted rape. Now why am I bringing this up if this is about vampire culture? Think about it: Erik is a vampire man, living in a society that tells him that his only role is protecting and being a consort for vampire women. Aphrodite has a higher station than him, both gender-wise and job-wise as she is the high-priestess-in-training, giving her a significant edge over him. She’s probably had her position and the power it brings drilled into her head, and coupled with how vampire society tells her she’s more important than him, Aphrodite might see nothing wrong with having sexy time with Erik in spite of his protest; after all, Erik is her consort so how could he refuse her?
Is this what the writers were thinking? Most definitely not. It was just to show how much of a skank Aphrodite was compared to Zoey, but in much more serious hands, this could’ve shown a dark underbelly of the vampire world, something Zoey would have to face and change as the series went on.
Based on comments made by the characters so far and Zoey’s own behavior, it seems that a vampire man’s physical appearance is the most important thing. One of the worst examples of this is how Zoey and her friends talk about resident hot guy and designated love interest Erik Night. Erik’s personality and likes aren’t important, it’s his hotness that’s in the forefront. Zoey and her friends seriously objectify him by only talking about his body, how nice his butt is and how he might have a big…asset. The only reason why Zoey’s friends want her and Erik to get together is that he’s hot; Erik is nothing more than a trophy boyfriend to them. I doubt they would be gossiping about him if he wasn’t so attractive.
And this brings me to Aphrodite attempting to rape Erik. I know the writers didn’t intend to write it as rape, but considering that he’s verbally and physically saying no, I’m inclined to think of this as attempted rape. Now why am I bringing this up if this is about vampire culture? Think about it: Erik is a vampire man, living in a society that tells him that his only role is protecting and being a consort for vampire women. Aphrodite has a higher station than him, both gender-wise and job-wise as she is the high-priestess-in-training, giving her a significant edge over him. She’s probably had her position and the power it brings drilled into her head, and coupled with how vampire society tells her she’s more important than him, Aphrodite might see nothing wrong with having sexy time with Erik in spite of his protest; after all, Erik is her consort so how could he refuse her?
Is this what the writers were thinking? Most definitely not. It was just to show how much of a skank Aphrodite was compared to Zoey, but in much more serious hands, this could’ve shown a dark underbelly of the vampire world, something Zoey would have to face and change as the series went on.