Hush, Hush Redux: Prologue - Part 2
ZeldaQueen: Time to continue onward, as the mysterious boy becomes infinitely more disturbing!
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
Prologue (Part 2)
ZeldaQueen: Chauncey understandably decides that this guy is flat-out nuts, and demands that he go away. Oh, if only. Instead, the boy decides that it would be a wonderful idea to mind rape and torture Chauncey for a bit.
Ket: Here’s another point: witch hunting began in France during the Wars of Religion, AKA right now in the story. You’d think he’d high-tail it out of here to get a posse to hang the boy.
ZeldaQueen: I can give Chauncey a pass on that, because we’re going to see that like Meyer, Fitzpatrick basically wrote her supernatural monsters as being impossible for humans to actually defend themselves against. We see here just how well Chauncey would be able to leave.
“The ground beneath Chauncey tilted. Bursts of gold and red popped behind his eyes. Hunched with his fingernails grinding into his thighs, he looked up at the boy, blinking and gasping, trying to make sense of what was happening. His mind reeled like it was no longer his to command.
The boy crouched to level their eyes. ‘Listen carefully. I need something from you. I won't leave until I have it. Do you understand?’”
ZeldaQueen: You guys, this is the stuff of villainous behavior. You could put Azula in this place and it would be perfectly in-character. And as we’re going to see soon, this guy is our romantic lead.
Ket: This is just creepy. I’m sorry, this doesn’t make the boy look like a hero--it makes him look like a monster.
ZeldaQueen: He is a monster! We’re going to find out more about this later, so we’ll be discussing it later. But for now, all we’ve seen is that Chauncey has been doing nothing wrong. All we’ve seen him do is have random sex with a peasant woman! He wasn’t raping her, he wasn’t killing or torturing a servant for some slight, he wasn’t extorting money from someone, he wasn’t doing anything usually done to show that a nobleman is corrupt and deserving of some horrific fate! And out of nowhere, this person shows up, laughs at him and his attempt to get him to leave, and starts torturing him. And what can he do about it? He’s entirely powerless here.
JERKASS EXTRAORDINAIRE: 4
Yes, I’d say this goes beyond the realm of jerkassery, but that’s what we have for the count.
“Gritting his teeth, Chauncey shook his head to express his disbelief-his defiance. He tried to spit at the boy, but it trickled down his chin, his tongue refusing to obey him.
The boy clasped his hands around Chauncey's; their heat scorched him and he cried out.
‘I need your oath of fealty," the boy said. "Bend on one knee and swear it.’
Chauncey commanded his throat to laugh harshly, but his throat constricted and he choked on the sound. His right knee buckled as if kicked from behind, though no one was there, and he stumbled forward into the mud.
He bent sideways and retched.
‘Swear it," the boy repeated.’”
Ket: What a fucking prince. Does this strike anyone else as sounding like a deal with the devil, but at gunpoint?
ZeldaQueen: That’s pretty much what it is, except with a deal with the devil, you at least get something out of it! This is just a flat-up supernatural mugging. As for what’s being taken… you’ll find out. But for now, this guy is literally controlling Chauncey’s body. He is putting Chauncey in incredible pain, forcing him to kneel in the mud before him, touching him, and forcing him to enter this stranger’s service, all while Chauncey cries and screams and drools on himself because he can’t even control his own body enough to spit. This is horrific. I’ve seen fanfictions for The Winter Soldier that remind me of this!
JERKASS EXTRAORDINAIRE: 5
ZeldaQueen: You know, were I writing this, Chauncey would have been the protagonist fighting to free himself.
Ket: Were I writing this, I would have had Chauncey fall on his sword to prevent this story from happening.
ZeldaQueen: Point. Poor Chauncey basically realizes that he’s utterly screwed, unless he agrees to this.
“He had no idea how, but the boy was inflicting the nausea and weakness inside him. It would not lift until he took the oath. He would say what he had to, but he swore in his heart he would destroy the boy for this humiliation.”
JERKASS EXTRAORDINAIRE: 6
Ket: Again, I would get a fucking posse together.
ZeldaQueen: Like I said, this fucker is overpowered in a way that makes him a thousand times creepier.
Ket: Yes, but after forcing him!
ZeldaQueen: Oh no, he still can. Spoilers - fallen angels have the ability to completely and utterly fuck with the minds of any human. They say people can learn to see past it, but we never actually see evidence of it.
Ket: *Pulling hair* We’ll get to that all too much later.
ZeldaQueen: Indeed. For now, Chauncey swears the oath and is told “Meet me here at the start of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. During the two weeks between new and full moons, I'll need your service.”
Ket: Cheshvan is the shortened form of “Marcheshvan”, the eighth month in the Hebrew calendar. It’s prefaced with “mar”, which means “bitter”, because there are no holidays or feasts during it. But guess what did happen during the month of Marcheshvan?
16 Marcheshvan - (1938) - Kristallnacht/Pogromnacht
Pogrom considered to be the start of the Holocaust
Ket: Yeah, that’s not awkward at all. To be fair, she probably picked it because it’s also considered to be when The Great Flood happened, but this is still awfully unfortunate.
ZeldaQueen: Eeeeeesh. That, and she did also know about it being the month of no holidays or feasts. But still, it gets even more laiden with unfortunate implications when we learn what this boy wants Chauncey for, during those two weeks.
On a different note, what is the likelihood of a Catholic nobleman in that time period actually knowing when a Hebrew month is?
Ket: Pretty close to zero, considering Jews were expelled from France in 1306, but the boy did say “two weeks”, regardless.
ZeldaQueen: But that’s two weeks during Cheshvan, not between now and the start of it.
Ket: Uh, no, he shouldn’t have a goddamn clue, then.
ILL LOGIC: 7
ZeldaQueen: Well, I have a feeling this asshat will be a-knocking when the time comes. It’s like Christmas for him, as we’ll be seeing.
Ket: I wonder if lamb’s blood on the door keeps away asshole fallen angels, too.
ZeldaQueen: If it did, that would be wonderfully helpful.
Chauncey is rather pissed at the idea of being gone for two whole weeks, reminding the boy that “I am the Duc de Langeais!” Uh, yeah. And? What do you actually do, besides screw random peasant women?
Ket: I couldn’t find a translation, but that looks really close to “the duke of the angels” to me. The French word for angel is simply “ange”.
ZeldaQueen: Knowing Fitzpatrick, it probably is meant to be that. God. *beats head against the wall*
Ket: *Groan* I figured as much.
ZeldaQueen: Anywho, Fitzpatrick loves ruining her own mysteries, so the boy proceeds to tell Chauncey that he’s a Nephil, with a fallen angel as his father. Because yeah, it’s not like that’s something you normally save as a reveal! Mystery? Suspense? WHAT ARE THOSE???
Ket: And Chauncey’s reaction is this:
“Chauncey's tutor's voice drifted up from the recesses of his mind, reading passages from the Bible, telling of a deviant race created when angels cast from heaven mated with mortal women. A fearsome and powerful race. A chill that wasn't entirely revulsion crept through Chauncey. ‘Who are you?’”
Ket: Here’s the problem with that. There are only three passages in the entire bible that are possibly referencing Nephilim, all in the Old Testament. As per the King James version:
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. (Numbers 13:33)
And then a word with similar vowel sounds (gibborim nophlim) is used to refer to dead Philistines in Ezekiel 32:27.
There is arguement among biblical scholars whether this refers to actual Nephilim, or, more likely, referring to a tribe of giants, like the one that Goliath was a part of. Regardless of which is correct, there is nothing in the Bible about an entire group of angels being named the Watchers, let alone them all boning human women. A Watcher is mentioned in the book of Daniel (verses 4:13, 17, 23), but it could well be God himself, rather than an angel. The story of the Watchers was only expounded upon in the first Book of Enoch, and Watchers are mentioned briefly in others such as the Book of Jubilees and the Damascus Document which, being pieces of Apocrypha and also Jewish, I highly doubt a layman in 16th century France would have been taught about.
RELIGION FAIL: 1
ZeldaQueen: Oh man, I predict multiple explosions before this book is through.
Ket: Just keep a broom and dustpan handy. That’s what Gehayi does.
ZeldaQueen: Will do.
Ket: And more fail on top of that: the word Nephilim was used in the Hebrew version, yes, maybe in the Greek too, but being a Catholic, Chauncey would have been familiar with Latin. A French Catholic bible wasn’t available until 1550, and I’m not even sure how widely available that would have been. The first French bible to be widely-accepted by Catholics and Protestants wasn’t until the mid 1600s, I know that. And it still probably didn’t say “Nephilim” in French. So most likely? He’s never heard the word Nephilim.
RELIGION FAIL: 2
ZeldaQueen: And I’d like to introduce another count, while we’re at it. Fitzpatrick does so love to hold our hands and walk us through things, so we’re going to follow along with how often she does that. We’ll kick things off with her just walking us through what Chauncey is, instead of actually having it be a mystery that we figure out.
HAND HOLDING: 1
Ket: I’m guessing she’s like Meyer and thinks her audience is stupid.
ZeldaQueen: Well, it’s poor writing regardless. Considering how much she says she was influenced by Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, you’d think she’d understand that you should wait more than a few pages to spoil everything.
Ket: Psh. Like anyone is here for anything but the romance.
ZeldaQueen: True.
And she goes and does that again!
“The boy turned, walking away, and although Chauncey wanted to go after him, he couldn't command his legs to hold his weight. Kneeling there, blinking up through the rain, he saw two thick scars on the back of the boy's naked torso. They narrowed to form an upside-down V.
‘Are you-fallen?" he called out. "Your wings have been stripped, haven't they?’
The boy-angel-whoever he was did not turn back. Chauncey did not need the confirmation.”
Ket: Back of his torso? Why not just use “back”?
SAY WHAT?: 4
Ket: Also, why would he assume that? That’s a more modern assumption; it says nothing in any Abrahamic lore that I’ve ever read about fallen angels losing their wings, especially since most angels don’t actually HAVE wings, and NONE of them look human, but I’ll get to that later.
RELIGION FAIL: 3
ZeldaQueen: It’s also Fitzpatrick’s fanon coming into play. Her fans once asked if fallen angels kept their wings, like in the Fallen series. She said she couldn’t see how that would work, because if they still had their wings, nothing was stopping them from returning to Heaven.
Ket: She didn’t make that up; it’s an old idea. Also, uh, what about the actual angels? You’re seriously telling me that neither Michael nor Uriel would kick their ass back out?
ZeldaQueen: Uriel and Michael aren’t mentioned. I don’t think they exist. And the angels of this series are the most useless twats I’ve ever read about.
Ket: Well, fuck this book, then!
ZeldaQueen: I wholeheartedly agree! Fortunately, we’re about done. Chauncey tries to find out what he’s supposed to do for the boy, the boy laughs at him…
JERKASS EXTRAORDINAIRE: 7
ZeldaQueen: And that’s it for the prologue! Thoughts?
Ket: This a rock-stupid beginning to an even stupider book.
ZeldaQueen: Indeed it is, and it'll only get worse. Tune in next time, folks, for the first chapter. I think most of you remember how it went.
DID NOT DO THE RESEARCH - 1
SAY WHAT? - 4
ILL LOGIC - 7
JERKASS EXTRAORDINAIRE - 7
RELIGION FAIL - 3
HAND HOLDING - 1
Onward to: Chapter 1 - Part 1
Back to: Prologue - Part 1
Return to: Table of Contents