I'm still formulating my opinion on the book, and I understand where you're coming from, but I have to disagree with you.
I didn't find Harry's reaction to learning of the child irrational at all. Parenthood is a very big deal to a lot of people - the mere concept, whether they know the child or not. I mean, you don't know a baby's personality when s/he is born, but most parents are already devoted and will do anything to protect him or her. As I understand it, even if someone learns of a child years later they often react the same way.
As for the other girl, Harry didn't know that's what would happen to her, and as I recall the possibility didn't really occur to him. Perhaps he should have thought of it, but he wasn't thinking overly clearly in this book, and he didn't deliberately sacrifice another child.
Susan's death is more murky. I don't think he should have kept the knowledge from her, she had as much right to it as he did, but it was still manipulation because he knew what she would do and he knew the stakes.
Overall the book isn't a shining example of ethics, but I didn't feel it was untrue to the character. Rather, everyone has different choices open, different influences at the time of those choices, and this was always a path Harry could have taken, was at times poised to take, so now we can just hope he can walk the line and keep what he'd previously made of his life.
I mean, you don't know a baby's personality when s/he is born, but most parents are already devoted and will do anything to protect him or her.
Yes, but most of them are aware that they're going to have a child and have nine months to get used to the idea. Then, too, many of them want the child.
I think what makes me deeply uncomfortable with this book is that I've been in Maggie's position. My parents were divorced and separated before I was even born. I saw my father three times in my entire life: once when I was four, once when I was eight, and once when I graduated from college. He was very decent about child support checks, I'll give him that. But I was always very unnerved by his insistence on trying to "maintain a relationship" when, as far as I was concerned, we didn't HAVE a relationship. I still had to be nice and amiable, though, and try to say the right things, especially after my mother died--because, as my closest blood relative, it would have been fairly easy for him to demand custody. The custody case over me dragged on for about three-and-a-half years. The judge was not comfortable with my father conceding that someone else should raise his child, and kept pushing "the importance of a parent-child relationship." And never mind that my father was never in a position of discipline or authority over me at all.
So I look at Harry and see my father, with expectations of a relationship that we didn't have. And I had to behave in a friendly way toward a stranger that I didn't know. I found it incredibly creepy.
I would have been perfectly happy if he had just sent the checks and left me alone. Because before I turned eighteen, I never spoke to him without wondering if he was going to change his mind, swoop in and take me away from everything I knew.
If Harry had had anything to do with Maggie up till that point--if he and Susan had raised her, if they'd had joint custody, if he'd seen her on weekends or summers or holidays--fine. Under those circumstances, I wouldn't have any problem. Because Harry would have spent time and effort on Maggie. He would have gotten to know her. She would have been a part of his life, and he would have been a part of hers.
But that's not the situation. HE ISN'T A PARENT. He didn't raise her; he hasn't cared for her; he isn't in any way a part of her life. Two minutes before Susan called, he didn't know the kid existed. He isn't a father, save in the biological sense of the word. And yet Harry hears that Maggie exists, and BAM! Instant and passionate devotion, to the point where he throws away his moral code and his entire personality.
Is there any point in my answering? I do have an answer, but it's quite clear that you and I are never going to agree on this. I don't expect you to be converted to my position, and I know that you will never convince me to see this book as you do.
So I must question whether there is any point to our continuing to discuss the book. Can we just concede that you like the book and I don't and let it go at that?
I thought that I stated the problems quite clearly in the review. I quote:
[The book] was failtastic at consistent characterization, at canon continuity, at presentation of an existing moral code and at granting the female protagonist any agency at all.
It is not likely that you will agree with this assessment, since you have already indicated that you find Harry both morally ambiguous in the series and IC in this book. I see him, in the series so far, as a fundamentally decent man who has made some really lousy choices and is still paying for them, and I feel that his insta-love for a child who is no more than a name to him and his abandonment of his moral code were hopelessly out of character. I also loathe the fact that Susan was manipulated throughout by both Martin and Harry rather than getting to make a conscious choice about her transformation and death. I mentioned in the review several ways that could have been handled better.
Fundamentally, I don't believe the premise of the story. I don't believe that just hearing the name of a kid is enough to inspire deathless devotion. I don't believe that Harry is any more desperate in going up against the Red Court than he's been in a dozen or so similar situations. And I don't believe that Harry would throw himself away like this. I always felt that Harry had integrity. The man in this book doesn't--at least in my eyes.
I can't make it any clearer than this. I don't expect you to agree, but those are my major problems with the book.
how would you expect a person in general/Harry in particular to react when presented with the fact that they have a child they never met who is about to die, other than trying to save her?
I said in my review:
I can understand being worried about the kid, I can understand wanting to save the kid.
But:
...he tries to save people in every goddamned book.
So:
I do not have any objection to Harry trying to save the child. I EXPECT Harry to try to save her, because Harry tries to save people in every single book.
Since Harry worries about people in every single book, I have no problem with his being worried about the kid, either. Especially as, as I also said in the review, women and children in danger are a Berserk Button for him.
What I object to is:
1) the book's presumption that all that it takes to create deep and passionate parental love is knowledge that the child exists.
I could see Harry being extra worried. I could see him being nervous about being a father and wondering how things would work out afterwards, assuming there was an afterwards.
But:
2) Harry didn't react as if--assuming they both survived--he was at the start of a possible relationship with his daughter.
He behaved as if the relationship already existed and had for eight years--as if Maggie was someone he knew, had raised and adored and who had been stolen out from under his nose.
I object very strongly to Harry not only jumping to this conclusion at the start of the novel, but to his clinging to this notion for the remainder of the book.
3) Trying to make sense of Harry's reaction doesn't work for me.
For example, I think that in many ways, Harry ends up projecting his own issues onto Maggie, reacting as if she's his orphaned six-year-old self and he's his own father, coming to save wee Harry from danger. And based on what few references to his father that there have been in the series, I can see Harry trying to do for Maggie what he thinks/wishes that Malcolm could have done for him.
The problem with this theory--and it does make sense to me that Harry would love the idea of being a heroic parent--is that Harry's reactions of "She's my daughter, I love her more than life and I will damn myself to save her" are never presented as neurotic and based in childhood trauma, but as perfectly reasonable and exactly how any parent would react.
4) I object to the fact that no one else in the story, no matter how snarky and no matter how canonically uninterested in having kids, ever finds Harry's reaction to be a trifle extreme.
No one ever calls him on it.
No one ever reminds him that while he may be worried about the kid, and he should certainly save her...he doesn't actually know her. No one ever points out that Maggie is a stranger who happens to be related to him by blood. Not unlike his brother when they first met--and he certainly wasn't overwhelmed with fraternal feelings when he first learned that.
5) I am not, in any way, a fan of love at first sight. I don't see love as instantaneous. I see it like being a professional dancer; with practice, you can make it look beautiful and effortless, but it takes a great deal of time, effort and hard work. You have to want it more than anything, yeah--but then you have to put the work in. And it doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Harry's passionate and insane devotion to his daughter happens in a vacuum. There is no basis for it; it just appears. Why? Because she's connected to him by blood. Based on what I've read of abusive parents and siblings and family feuds, not to mention personal experience with numerous hateful relatives, this is not a credible basis for Harry's instant love.
So--how would I expect Harry to react to a kid being in danger? Worry. Panic. Rage. Determination to kick vampiric ass. Blaming himself for her being in danger. Wondering what the kid is like. Being furious that her parents were murdered. Hoping that he'll get to know her when this is all over. Wondering if she'll have magic when she gets older. Wishing he could comfort her and tell her it would all be okay.
I didn't find Harry's reaction to learning of the child irrational at all. Parenthood is a very big deal to a lot of people - the mere concept, whether they know the child or not. I mean, you don't know a baby's personality when s/he is born, but most parents are already devoted and will do anything to protect him or her. As I understand it, even if someone learns of a child years later they often react the same way.
As for the other girl, Harry didn't know that's what would happen to her, and as I recall the possibility didn't really occur to him. Perhaps he should have thought of it, but he wasn't thinking overly clearly in this book, and he didn't deliberately sacrifice another child.
Susan's death is more murky. I don't think he should have kept the knowledge from her, she had as much right to it as he did, but it was still manipulation because he knew what she would do and he knew the stakes.
Overall the book isn't a shining example of ethics, but I didn't feel it was untrue to the character. Rather, everyone has different choices open, different influences at the time of those choices, and this was always a path Harry could have taken, was at times poised to take, so now we can just hope he can walk the line and keep what he'd previously made of his life.
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Yes, but most of them are aware that they're going to have a child and have nine months to get used to the idea. Then, too, many of them want the child.
I think what makes me deeply uncomfortable with this book is that I've been in Maggie's position. My parents were divorced and separated before I was even born. I saw my father three times in my entire life: once when I was four, once when I was eight, and once when I graduated from college. He was very decent about child support checks, I'll give him that. But I was always very unnerved by his insistence on trying to "maintain a relationship" when, as far as I was concerned, we didn't HAVE a relationship. I still had to be nice and amiable, though, and try to say the right things, especially after my mother died--because, as my closest blood relative, it would have been fairly easy for him to demand custody. The custody case over me dragged on for about three-and-a-half years. The judge was not comfortable with my father conceding that someone else should raise his child, and kept pushing "the importance of a parent-child relationship." And never mind that my father was never in a position of discipline or authority over me at all.
So I look at Harry and see my father, with expectations of a relationship that we didn't have. And I had to behave in a friendly way toward a stranger that I didn't know. I found it incredibly creepy.
I would have been perfectly happy if he had just sent the checks and left me alone. Because before I turned eighteen, I never spoke to him without wondering if he was going to change his mind, swoop in and take me away from everything I knew.
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(The comment has been removed)
But that's not the situation. HE ISN'T A PARENT. He didn't raise her; he hasn't cared for her; he isn't in any way a part of her life. Two minutes before Susan called, he didn't know the kid existed. He isn't a father, save in the biological sense of the word. And yet Harry hears that Maggie exists, and BAM! Instant and passionate devotion, to the point where he throws away his moral code and his entire personality.
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(The comment has been removed)
Is there any point in my answering? I do have an answer, but it's quite clear that you and I are never going to agree on this. I don't expect you to be converted to my position, and I know that you will never convince me to see this book as you do.
So I must question whether there is any point to our continuing to discuss the book. Can we just concede that you like the book and I don't and let it go at that?
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
[The book] was failtastic at consistent characterization, at canon continuity, at presentation of an existing moral code and at granting the female protagonist any agency at all.
It is not likely that you will agree with this assessment, since you have already indicated that you find Harry both morally ambiguous in the series and IC in this book. I see him, in the series so far, as a fundamentally decent man who has made some really lousy choices and is still paying for them, and I feel that his insta-love for a child who is no more than a name to him and his abandonment of his moral code were hopelessly out of character. I also loathe the fact that Susan was manipulated throughout by both Martin and Harry rather than getting to make a conscious choice about her transformation and death. I mentioned in the review several ways that could have been handled better.
Fundamentally, I don't believe the premise of the story. I don't believe that just hearing the name of a kid is enough to inspire deathless devotion. I don't believe that Harry is any more desperate in going up against the Red Court than he's been in a dozen or so similar situations. And I don't believe that Harry would throw himself away like this. I always felt that Harry had integrity. The man in this book doesn't--at least in my eyes.
I can't make it any clearer than this. I don't expect you to agree, but those are my major problems with the book.
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(The comment has been removed)
I said in my review:
I can understand being worried about the kid, I can understand wanting to save the kid.
But:
...he tries to save people in every goddamned book.
So:
I do not have any objection to Harry trying to save the child. I EXPECT Harry to try to save her, because Harry tries to save people in every single book.
Since Harry worries about people in every single book, I have no problem with his being worried about the kid, either. Especially as, as I also said in the review, women and children in danger are a Berserk Button for him.
What I object to is:
1) the book's presumption that all that it takes to create deep and passionate parental love is knowledge that the child exists.
I could see Harry being extra worried. I could see him being nervous about being a father and wondering how things would work out afterwards, assuming there was an afterwards.
But:
2) Harry didn't react as if--assuming they both survived--he was at the start of a possible relationship with his daughter.
He behaved as if the relationship already existed and had for eight years--as if Maggie was someone he knew, had raised and adored and who had been stolen out from under his nose.
I object very strongly to Harry not only jumping to this conclusion at the start of the novel, but to his clinging to this notion for the remainder of the book.
3) Trying to make sense of Harry's reaction doesn't work for me.
For example, I think that in many ways, Harry ends up projecting his own issues onto Maggie, reacting as if she's his orphaned six-year-old self and he's his own father, coming to save wee Harry from danger. And based on what few references to his father that there have been in the series, I can see Harry trying to do for Maggie what he thinks/wishes that Malcolm could have done for him.
The problem with this theory--and it does make sense to me that Harry would love the idea of being a heroic parent--is that Harry's reactions of "She's my daughter, I love her more than life and I will damn myself to save her" are never presented as neurotic and based in childhood trauma, but as perfectly reasonable and exactly how any parent would react.
4) I object to the fact that no one else in the story, no matter how snarky and no matter how canonically uninterested in having kids, ever finds Harry's reaction to be a trifle extreme.
No one ever calls him on it.
No one ever reminds him that while he may be worried about the kid, and he should certainly save her...he doesn't actually know her. No one ever points out that Maggie is a stranger who happens to be related to him by blood. Not unlike his brother when they first met--and he certainly wasn't overwhelmed with fraternal feelings when he first learned that.
5) I am not, in any way, a fan of love at first sight. I don't see love as instantaneous. I see it like being a professional dancer; with practice, you can make it look beautiful and effortless, but it takes a great deal of time, effort and hard work. You have to want it more than anything, yeah--but then you have to put the work in. And it doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Harry's passionate and insane devotion to his daughter happens in a vacuum. There is no basis for it; it just appears. Why? Because she's connected to him by blood. Based on what I've read of abusive parents and siblings and family feuds, not to mention personal experience with numerous hateful relatives, this is not a credible basis for Harry's instant love.
So--how would I expect Harry to react to a kid being in danger? Worry. Panic. Rage. Determination to kick vampiric ass. Blaming himself for her being in danger. Wondering what the kid is like. Being furious that her parents were murdered. Hoping that he'll get to know her when this is all over. Wondering if she'll have magic when she gets older. Wishing he could comfort her and tell her it would all be okay.
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