Q and A #50

Okay, so this is a little different. Lately, I’ve been getting these odd questions on Facebook which I’ve mostly been deleting. Because I assumed the asker was trolling, which let’s face it, happens on the internet on a pretty regular basis. But then I got another one today, and after pressing delete, I thought: wait a minute. What if she’s sincere? What if she’s genuinely confused? So then I felt bad. Which is probably stupid, because she probably IS trolling, but whatever. I’d rather respond and risk looking like an idiot (which happens pretty regularly anyway) than to dismiss a real fan. So, for what it’s worth, here goes.

The question du jour was: Do Mircea’s vampire’s disrespect Cassie because Mircea disrespects her, and they’re taking their cues from him, or what?

Okay, so this is a loaded question making certain assumptions which are open to interpretation. Like, that the vamps do disrespect her, which I would argue isn’t the case. You have to remember that they’re used to thinking of humans as fragile, weak little creatures who haven’t lived very long and don’t know much. They aren’t used to giving any human the respect they would give the average vampire, much less the respect due to a master, so it’s a learning curve. But they are learning.

It’s slow, and comes in fits and starts, and in time of stress they still have a tendency to revert to the old “protect the tiny flimsy creature” mentality. But things are changing. You can see that in how Marco’s conversations with Cassie change over time, how he lets her fight her own battles with the witches in Tempt the Stars, how he is realizing that she will come and go as she likes and he’d better just learn to roll with it, etc. The senate, too, just got a glimpse of what a Pythia can do at the end of Hunt the Moon, which prompted them to sign the alliance treaty Mircea had been working on. So disrespect? Not hardly. But changing minds takes time, and ideas that ingrained aren’t going to completely flip overnight.

The second part of the question was about Mircea. And while there’s a whole sea of things I can’t talk about with Mircea because of the risk of spoilers, I really don’t need to in order to answer this question. What I do need to do is make a point about the difference between the romance you see in romance novels and that which you find in fantasy books. Even fantasy books, like mine, that incorporate romance on a fairly regular basis.

In romance novels, the romance is the plot of the book. It is its own reason for existing. It’s why people are reading: to see these two characters come together, overcome their differences and live happily ever after. In a fantasy novel, the romance may be there in lesser or greater amounts, but there is a big difference: the romance is not the plot, it is there to serve the plot. What do I mean?

Example number one: Lord of the Rings.

In Tolkien’s masterpiece, Arwen and Aragorn’s romance is kind of a big deal. Not because it takes up a lot of room in the book (it doesn’t) but because it provides Aragorn with his reason for doing what he has successfully avoided for most of a century, and go after his birthright. He doesn’t want to be king. He has major issues with putting himself in a position like Isidore’s where, if he screws up, he can take a whole kingdom along with him. He has a serious inferiority complex when the novels start, leading him to assume that the same weakness that destroyed Isidore is lurking in him, waiting for a chance to ruin everything all over again. So he does what you might expect, and runs as fast as possible from any hint of his supposed “destiny.”

At least he does until Arwen.

Aragorn didn’t want the crown, but he did want her. And the only way to get her, as Elrond made clear, was if he became king. So, to win the woman he loves, he risks taking on the leadership role he doesn’t want, wins the war and becomes the king he was always meant to be. There was nothing else that was enough to make him risk that, besides the idea of losing the woman he had loved passionately, hopelessly, and for most of his life if he didn’t. The romance wasn’t a big part of the books in terms of space, but it was huge in providing Aragon’s motivation.

Example number two: Game of Thrones.

Cersei and Jamie’s forbidden, incestuous relationship is one of the major pillars of the work.  If they hadn’t fallen in love, hadn’t gotten involved despite being siblings, hadn’t had three children from their relationship, then the War of the Five Kings would never have happened. There would have been nothing for Ned Stark to find out, nothing for him to write Stannis about, no challenge to the throne if King Robert’s children had actually belonged to him instead of being illegitimate products of incest. Cersei and Jamie’s relationship helped set up the whole series, and was central to almost everything that came after. But was it romance novel material?

Lol, no.

Look, she’s all mad because he lost a hand. Just wait until the sept, Cersei.

My point is that, whether a romance is sigh-inducing, like Aragon and Arwen’s, or cringe-inducing, like the Lannister twins’, all fantasy romance is there for plot related reasons. It is not there for its own sake. It is not there to be some kind of primer on how to have the perfect relationship (although I would argue that getting relationship advice from romance novels is also probably not the way to go). It is not there just for the heck of it. It has a job to do.

So, back to Cassie and her guys. The plot related reasons her relationships exist have, in some cases, already become apparent, others will come out as the books move along. But her relationships all have a reason for existing outside of themselves. They are important, but not in the same way that they would be in that genre I’m not writing in. So can I please stop being asked why the men in the books are acting according to what would make sense for their characters in a fantasy novel, and not like leads in a romance? Can I? Please?

Thank you. Herein ends the rant.