Hi Cordelia! I recently reread Blood Red and I just noticed the Binding Ceremony required a sexual domination. Didn't the Old Ones kept one of their children to be bound to them? Did they also rape their children?

The first thing I want to address here is that sexual domination and rape are in no way the same thing, which this wording implies. The binding ceremony in Blood Red requires an act of sexual domination. It does not require rape.

I haven’t read BR since I wrote it (in 2012-2013), but I’m pretty sure the binding ritual also requires the person being bound to consent to it. That consent can be coerced, which of course would make the ritual not consensual at all, but the point remains the same: it doesn’t require rape. It literally can’t.

Also, I’m 99.9% sure that the Old Ones didn’t bind their own children to them; they would raise a child specifically to be bound to another sorcerer, like an arranged marriage. Again, it’s been about 5 years since I’ve read the story, so my memory is rusty. But I can’t imagine that I would create a scenario that would encourage incest!