Marked: Chapter 10
ZeldaQueen: Nothing happens in this chapter. I am dead serious
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 10
ZeldaQueen: Still stinging from Aphrodite's...erm scathing retorts, Damien says that he hopes that she'll be brought down by her own hubris. Everyone goes "Dur...what?" and Stevie Rae says that hubris is "having godlike arrogance". I have to ask, have none of these kids had vocabulary tests? Because I'm pretty darned sure that I knew what "hubris" meant when I was in high school.
Zoey comments that she knew about hubris because she read Medea, and I'm shocked that someone has finally made a literary reference that is vaguely relevant. The Casts are one up on Meyer in that score, at least.
Erin and Shaunee contemplate beating the hubris out of Aphrodite, and Stevie Rae implies that the punishment for fighting well outweighs any satisfaction that they'd get. Zoey says that she has no intention of going to the full moon ritual-thing and everyone says um no, she doesn't have a choice. Neferet is her mentor and the High Priestess and is expecting her to go and so she'd damn well better. Stevie Rae also warns that backing out will make it look like Zoey is scared of them. Zoey points out that she is scared of them, and Stevie Rae says that if they find out, it will be worse than if Zoey stood up to them. She then goes all sad puppy over whatever they did to her and Damien pats her hand. She tells Zoey that it ought to be fine, as they won't dare do anything terrible while on campus. I don't have a good feeling about this. Apparently the Dark Daughters go do some unnamed mischief away from the school, which everyone is pissed about. For some reason, Stevie Rae thinks that Zoey might get along with some of them alright. I have no idea why, since all we've been told is that they're selfish bitches who hate humans, and Zoey is not supposed to seem like any of those things. Ah wait, it's a convenient reason for Zoey to look noble and declare that she's nothing like them.
Oh, and there's yet another dig at her stepfather and the other members of that church and "how ironic it was that they seemed to have so much in common with a group of teenagers who called themselves the daughters of a goddess". Um, exactly what are you referring to? The fact that they do rituals of some sort? Every religion I can think of has some sort of ritual. Just because they don't involve dancing around a campfire at midnight doesn't exclude them. Or was it the arrogance and intolerance? Because again, you could look pretty much anywhere and find that, yourself included. Why not add "How ironic it was that they seemed to have so much in common with a bitchy teenager who constantly vilifies groups and people that she doesn't like"?
Incidentally, there's another point about the People's Faith group that I'd like to bring up, but we'll save that for a bit.
Zoey doesn't want to talk about Aphrodite anymore, so she changes the subject.
Click to viewZeldaQueen: She brings up the symbols of the various grades, which she has noticed on the various people, and asks what they mean. And I shall let you read it all at once, before I comment
"'So explain to me about the different symbols you wear here. You told me about ours- Nyx's spiral. Damien has a spiral, too, so that must mean he's a…' I paused to remember what Stevie Rae had called freshmen, 'a third former. But Erin and Shaunee have wings, and Aphrodite had something else.'
'You mean besides that cob stuck straight up her skinny anus?' Erin muttered.
'She means the three Fates,' Damien interjected, beating Shaunee to whatever she was going to add. 'The three Fates are children of Nyx. The sixth formers all wear the emblem of the Fates, with Atropos holding scissors to symbolize the end of school.'
'And for some of us, the end of life,' Erin added gloomily.
That shut everyone up. When I couldn't stand the uncomfortable silence anymore I cleared my throat and said, 'So what about Erin and Shaunee's wings?'
'The wings of Eros, who is the child of Nyx's seed -'
'The love god,' Shaunee said, adding a seated gyration of her hips.
Damien frowned at her and kept talking. "The golden wings of Eros are the fourth formers' symbol.”
"'Cause we're the love class,' Erin sang, raising her arms over her head and shimmying her hips.
'Actually, it's because we're supposed to be reminded of Nyx's capacity to love, and the wings symbolize our continuous movement forward.'
'What's the symbol for fifth formers?' I asked.
'Nyx's golden chariot pulling a trail of stars,' Damien said.
'I think it's the prettiest of the four symbols,' Stevie Rae said. 'Those stars sparkle like crazy.'
'The chariot shows that we continue on Nyx's journey. The stars represent the magic of the two years that have already passed.'"
ZeldaQueen: *rubs eyes* How do I put this to the Cast ladies as respectfully as I can?
NO
So...let's start with the three Fates. Nyx actually was the mother of them, according to Hesiod's poem Theogony. I do find it rather poor taste to use that symbol though, considering that cutting the thread meant death for mortals and these kids are all terrified that they'll die in four years.
Next, the labyrinth and the chariot. Yeah, those things? Nyx never had any of them, near as I can tell. The only labyrinth I've ever heard of in Greek mythology was the labyrinth of the Minotaur, which Theseus navigated and which, near as I've ever heard, Nyx had nothing to do with. The only golden chariot I've heard of (and indeed, pretty much the only chariot that is prominent in pop culture) is Apollo's chariot. That was the chariot that carried the sun across the sky. From what I gathered from mythology, the gods stuck the stars up themselves. But alright, we can figure that maybe Nyx had those things and we just never heard about them.
Last, Eros. This surprised me, but there is something to back the claim that Eros was Nyx's son - in the opening choir of Aristophanes' The Birds, Nyx is the mother of Eros. However, that is the ONLY thing that I have found that would support that claim. Pretty much everything else has him as the son of Aphrodite. If the Casts wanted to reach that far, they might as well have used Isaiah as a symbol of how Nyx defends the common people because hey, there's a Paris psaulter that depicts the two standing together. What makes it even weirder is that Nyx does have a child named Philotes, who is the goddess of affection and friendship. If they wanted to show a nicer side to Nyx, why not use that?
In sort, the Cast ladies are really reaching there, but I guess they're in the ballpark more than Meyer, like that takes effort.
So yeah, the girls go on about how smart Damien is and he tells them that they'd be just as smart if they didn't write notes in class and stare at cute guys. They reply that he's really "prudey", "[e]specially for a gay boy". Dear lord, make it stop! Damien gets his "revenge" by commenting how Erin seems to be getting split ends. She freaks out - no trace of irony or sarcasm at all - and Shaunee starts to "puff up like a mocha-colored blowfish". Stevie Rae quickly excuses herself and Zoey and the two run off.
They head off for their dorm and pause to stop Erin and Shaunee's gray cat, Beezlebub, from attacking Damien's tabby, Cammy. This prompts Stevie Rae to start talking about how sweet Damien is, and how he's just been so put-upon because of his gayness, and strap in for a bumpy ride, ladies and gents.
Apparently Damien had some trouble with his first roommate, in that said roommate was a homophobe and told Neferet he refused to room with him. I do have to wonder how Neferet could pick out perfectly-fitting uniforms for the new students, but can't take a moment to figure out if something like that can happen. Oh, and the homophobic roommate's name was Thor, and that's also held up as a sign of how how horrible he was. Anyway, Neferet didn't like Thor's attitude, so she let Damien go have a room to himself. In other words, in the entirety of the vast student body of this school, apparently there wasn't a single other guy who was willing to room with him?
Zoey asks if there are any other homosexual students (...why are they having this conversation when they could be having a plot?) and Stevie Rae says that there's a few lesbians who mostly keep to themselves and apparently really are involved with Nyx's temple and for some reason, she then brings up the girls who pretend to be lesbians to get guys interested. The two go on for way too long about how whorish it is to pretend to be a lesbian just to get a boyfriend, and while it's a noble (if odd) moral, I do have to wonder WHY WE ARE SPENDING SO MUCH TIME ON THIS INSTEAD OF HAVING SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPEN.
I'm sorry.
Oh, and apparently there are other gay guys, but they're "mostly too weird and girly for him". So from what I'm getting, every gay guy in this place is a Rupaul knock-off or something similar
ZeldaQueen: Stevie Rae also says that his parents never write to him and that they apparently were secretly relieved he was Marked, because they didn't know what to do with a gay son. When Zoey asks her to specify, we find out that Damien lived in Dallas and his father is a minister for the People of Faith and fuckracquet, here we go again.
I have to ask, is this some parallel universe where there's only one form of Christian church in the entire Midwest region? Because that's all we've gotten thus far. I mean, someone could argue that they were meant to be representative of extreme groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, which are so nutty that they're pretty much alone in their viewpoints, except that we're given nothing different to go off of. I guess you could also argue that they're like the groups in True Blood, that they're only gaining momentum because of the vampires or what have you, but it still feels lazy, especially since there are plenty of valid reasons for them to dislike or distrust vampires.
I'm sorry, I lost track of myself.
So yeah, they have now reached the dorm and Stevie Rae takes Zoey off to this little kitchen room, which is all stocked with drinks and fruits and vegetables and lean meat. Stevie Rae explains that the vampires want the fledgelings to eat pretty healthily, so they don't give them junk food. Yet they allow them to drink pop. Interesting. Oh, and they also have expensive chocolate, since the vampires thing that chocolate in moderation is healthy. This leads to a line from Zoey which is actually pretty funny - "Okay, so who the hell wants to eat chocolate in moderation?" And I have to admit, there is a good reason for this. When fledglings start to reject the change, they get weak or sick or fat (...really?) and so the adult vampires want to remove dietary variables so that if they see kids like that, they know what's up.
And...that's it. Nothing happens in this chapter! Criminey, by this point in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, we had a fight with a mountain troll. A MOUNTAIN TROLL.
I hate this book
Onward to: Chapter 11
Back to: Chapter 9
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