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Karen Chance Fans discussion
This topic is about
Hunt the Moon
The Cassie Books
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Hunt the Moon (Cassandra Palmer #5)
I can understand that it's easy to panic after 500 years of security and suddenly bam, here's someone he can't keep safe and it's probably dredging up all sorts of unpleasant memories. But it isn't an excuse.
Lannister wrote: "God, that couch scene, I keep forgetting about it! Try to imagine being with a guy who chained you to his couch, because he thought you would be 'safer' there. We put people in jail for that kind of behaviour and call them crazy, obsessive stalkers and abusers!! But Mircea gets away with it. WTF? "LOL TV/Movie/book heroes get away with so much. Think about the guy who is sooooo in love with his woman, and would do anything for her. We think that's romantic until we put it in real life. Then he becomes a stalker.
I can understand why someone wants to do everything they can to keep their loved ones safe. A parent can restrict a child, for instance, as the child is too young to comprehend the dangers in the world. And this is exactly how Mircea treats Cassie. He frequently tells her that there are numerous attempts on her life that he shields her from, but he doesn't want to scare her with specifics. A parent may warn a child about the dangers of talking to strangers, but obviously won't go into specifics about what a stranger might do to them, for fear of alarming the child.But, young as she may seem to Mircea, Cassie is not a child and currently holds one of the most powerful positions in the supernatural community. Her position puts her on the same level as The Consuls, the Demon Council and the head of the Silver Circle. So why does Mircea think he can coddle her like a five year old? He's either disrespecting her position by thinking she can't handle the knowledge that her life might be in danger, or he's using it a means to assert control over her. Either result is not nice.
(Yay, I seem to have got over my Fury's Kiss weirdness and I'm back to distrusting everything Mircea the Manipulator does LOL!)
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“But you were Mine. My child. And I would not give you up.”
Oh, Mircea... *swoons*
Hahahaha!
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That's one thing I love so much. That we don't really know what their agenda is!
Sarah ♥ Vutch forever ♥ wrote: "But remember that scene, Lannister!“But you were Mine. My child. And I would not give you up.”
Oh, Mircea... *swoons*
Hahahaha!"
Hmmph, that's just Mircea being a crazy, obsessive, possessive control freak again! :P
Sarah ♥ Vutch forever ♥ wrote: "But remember that scene, Lannister!“But you were Mine. My child. And I would not give you up.”
Oh, Mircea... *swoons*
Hahahaha!"
That scene just does it for me.
For all Mircea's faults in dealing with Cassie, I don't doubt for a second that he loves Dory.
Yeah I totally agree; I just find it weird that he treats his girlfriend more like a child than he treats his daughter...
mm she is several hundred years younger than Dory though
plus she is human, soft and breakable. Dory is a dhampir, a lot more physically durable.
Being treated like a fragile child by my boyfriend would drive me nuts. (Well, OK, maybe once in a while if I were ill or down or something, but not everyday!)
It would be interesting to see how Mircea would treat Cassie if he wasn't always afraid for her safety. I think part of it is what Cassie said in the diner in HtM: Cassie's a human, and humans have never been considered equals. So Mircea's fighting against his natural instinct to see Cassie as prey.However, given Mircea's impressive self-control, he could be doing a better job.
I think a lot of Mircea's problems come from habit, basically. What I mean by that is that Mircea is super powerful. He answers only to one person, The Consul, and maybe before the events of the books, with the war and so on, they probably had a fairly pleasant, respectful relationship. So he's used to doing his own thing and he's in charge of a large family. He makes the rules and his word is law.Along comes Cassie, a fragile mortal. He can't help but see her like how we might look at a toddler. The world is full of dangers that she's unaware of and he needs to protect her.
I can completely understand his reasoning here. He's so used to making decisions without having to answer to anyone, that it's second nature for him to do it again when it comes to Cassie's well-being.
But ... he's failing to take her powerful position into account. This could be unintentional (his desire to protect overrules his judgement) or it could be downright manipulative (we don't want her to be a strong, assertive Pythia, as then we won't have control over her). But either way, he never stops to consider what she might want, because he's so used to being the Big Boss and doesn't have to explain his reasons to anyone.
I think he's possibly trying to meet Cassie in the middle and find a balance, but maybe he could be trying harder? I guess it all comes down to how much autonomy the vamps want Cassie to have, and in their ideal world, she wouldn't have any. Cassie will have to fight for every inch of freedom, I think.
He did see her as a proverbial toddler (11 for vamp years). So that probably also plays into it. so not only was she a child, but she was a weak human child, unlike his daughter, who went off on killing rampages as a kid LOL
LOL, yeah talk about Night and Day, when it comes to Dory and Cassie. At aged nine, Cassie was learning how to be a lady from governess Eugenie. Dory was off trying to assassinate her uncle. What a contrast!
Well Cassie's childhood wasn't that innocent, she was having the worst of the worst visions.
Ah, good point, I'd forgotten about those. And I don't suppose life at Tony's was a bowl of cherries either. But I think these things gave Cassie an aversion to violence, whereas Dory seems to have embraced it at every turn.
Yeah I think their natural personalities too. Dory is a predator's daughter. Cassie is a goddesses daughter ;) lol
LOL, excellent point!
Odd, considering that Artemis was goddess of the hunt...oh well. I think Mircea's trying, but not as hard as he could. He still thinks he knows what's best for her. I don't think Mircea wants Cassie to be a puppet, but he definitely wants her to be amenable to the Senate's interests.
I'd like to think the more Cassie stands up to Mircea, the more he'll come to respect her. Probably won't stop him trying to manipulate her, but at least he'll have to try harder!
Well as violent as the greeks were... Maybe Cassie should be more blood thirsty! LOL
I have a thought...I wonder if part of the reason Mircea IS so protective and tries to shelter Cassie is BECAUSE of Dory...I mean Cassie is a lot easier to kill than Dory and he's seen Dory pretty beat up so maybe he's afraid if he doesn't try to keep her safe she'll die?? I mean...just a thought...but it feels like he's trying to combine issues he has with Dory and Cassie into one, like making up for not protecting her enough maybe?? Who knows...food for thought though!!
That's a good point. The beatings Dory takes as a target would kill Cassie.
Yeah that's a good point. Dory won't let him protect her most of the time and so Mircea focuses his protective intincts on Cassie instead.
At least Mircea's protective tendencies over Dory are justified, since she's his child.
Claire wrote: "Odd, considering that Artemis was goddess of the hunt...oh well. I think Mircea's trying, but not as hard as he could. He still thinks he knows what's best for her. I don't think Mircea wants Cas..."
agreed the gods are not exactly portrayed as benign in Cassie's world and her dad was umm 'resourceful'.
Cassie has a backbone hidden under all those curls
I was looking at the cover a couple of days ago and the penny dropped with the title: Hunt the Moon. As in Artemis. Her mother. Duuh
We start the reread of Hunt the Moon tomorrow!! I'm leading the discussion! get ready for some Grueling questions! ;) lol j/k
...continued from CtD thread regarding Mircea's previous girlfriends. It was interesting that you guys thought Mircea might prefer the more powerful women so as not to be used for his status, but when Marco talks to Cassie about them, it doesn't seem that way:"And most of them thought this would be a vacation. Free trip to Vegas, stay in a luxury hotel, and all they gotta do is watch over the master's girlfriend. I mean, most of the time that means carrying her shopping bags and being asked which color shoes goes best with her purse, you know?"
Now I know just because a woman is high-powered, it doesn't automatically mean that she doesn't like shopping but it doesn't sound like Ming-de? Most of the high-powered women wouldn't even need to go shopping, they probably have designers etc. Plus, they wouldn't even need protection, they would have their own. So who are these girlfriends? To be honest, they don't even sound like vamps.
Or they might have expected that cause they were sent to guard a human.
I think Mircea has dated a lot of women over the years. I don't know why Cassie squeaks the idea of twenty when asking after them from Marco- He's 500, right? I mean, one girlfriend every decade for age 50 onwards would make for 45 odd girlfriends. And I think he's had muuuch more than that, because he's not the long term commitment type. [Heck, if he only slept with different women every two years, thats 250 odd women. Even without STDs and stuff, that kinda thing is icky to me. Vamps are a bit of a turn off really.] Anyway, back to his women- there were probably powerful Vamps like Ming-De, and then loads of less powerful Vamp-socialte women.
Yeah it really isn't unreasonable to think that Mircea has dated a crapton of women in his time. I don't know what Cassie expected.
Yeah good points. I was really surprised when she freaked out at 20 too - I mean I probably know people IRL that have had more girl/boyfriends than that.We're definitely into triple figures. He likes women! He thinks they're "God's finest creations" LOL! I wonder how long each of his gfs last? Since I imagine he's the one to break it off, I would love to watch Mircea in action - he'd probably end up persuading the girl that she's the one breaking it off - no tears!
He probably manipulates them into breaking it off with him- in some sort of clean and amicable way that means he could call on a favour in the future.I mean, Ming-De's hardly the jaded ex, what with the birthday presents.
True that, Lia! It's not just that Ming-de gives them to him, it's that he wears them ALL the time!
So is his avoiding Cassie his way of manipulating her into initiating a break-up?
I don't think Mircea COULD date anyone (in the carnal sense) after the Geis was put on him at the theatre in London...I mean I'm not 100% positive, but that was the feeling I got because of Cassie and her trouble with it...sooooo...does he love women?? Yes, of course he does. But I have a feeling he has actually been in a lot less relationships because so many women were after his power or title or the political aspect he could bring, than the man himself. I mean in EtN he talks about it, so I thin he actually hasn't dated a ton...
I'm not so certain about the geis stopping Mircea sleeping with people. I think this because 1) it says in the books it lay dormant until he met Cassie again in present time, and 2) because it was Mircea who initiated the whole thing, I think it works under different parameters for him. If Mircea had been suffering blinding pain when he tried to have sex - for over one hundred years! - I think he would have had investigated it and we'd have heard about it. He's not going to ignore that for a century. And I don't think he would have approached Cassie in Touch the Dark if he thought the geis might flare, or he'd be suffering pain.
On that comment about 20 girlfriends from Cassie in Hunt the Moon, I thought it was really quite naive on her part. Perhaps it's just hard, even for Cassie, to get your head around what five centuries of living actually entails?
Do you think Mircea has flings with the women who provide blood for him and his family? Once he bites them, he has a degree of control over them, so maybe once he was ready to move on, he could send out subtle influences making the girl happy enough to end it? That's kinda sleazy though.
Lannister wrote: "If Mircea had been suffering blinding pain when he tried to have sex - for over one hundred years! - I think he would have had investigated it ..."No kidding!
Cassie has only ever had sex with 2 or 3 or 4 people (depending on whether you define sex as penetrative and whether you count out-of-body possession experiences) so she doesn't really have a great grasp of what it means to be sexually active for CENTURIES. Yeah the 20 girlfriends comment is strikingly naive from a person who otherwise seems to have remarkably few hang-ups about sex (I mean, for someone who was a virgin when the series began).
If she stopped to think about the fact that, using expansive/ inclusive definitions of sex, she's had sex with 4 people in a year, maybe she'd cut Mircea some slack!
But then maybe I'm conflating having a girlfriend with having sex. Maybe Cassie is more tolerant of the latter but has more hang-ups about the former. That's not so surprising; in relationships people usually want to feel like they're special, they're The One, and it would be hard to feel that way if you knew you were #21, or #578, or whatever.
Lannister wrote: "Do you think Mircea has flings with the women who provide blood for him and his family?..."
I don't get the impression that Mircea strongly associates sex and blood drinking. How many times has he drank from Cassie? There's the one time in TtD when it's a demonstration for Pritkin, another time in the 3rd book when he's going out of his mind and doesn't realise what he's doing, but was there any other time? I can't remember if he has a taste in HtM... I remember him talking about how intoxicating her blood is but did he actually drink her blood then or was he just comparing his memory of her blood with his experience of the effect of drinking from the Spartoi?
Anyway, he doesn't typically drink from Cassie when they're having sex -- in fact I don't think he ever has, except when he was out of his mind -- and this always struck me because in many vampire books the two are conflated, where drinking blood becomes an extended metaphor for sex.
I could imagine Mircea having 20 girlfriends that actually meant something to him, and many different lovers that were a lot more casual.
I was totally wrong before, btw, about Mircea not drinking from Cassie during sex. I was just re-reading HtM and when Mircea gets drunk from draining the Spartoi, when they're first chasing Cassie's mom, he drinks from Cassie when they're fooling around in the limo, back in the 1970s. That's when he compares the taste of their blood with Cassie's (a really strong hint of what they'll soon find out about her). I can't remember any other times he drinks from her, besides the ones I've listed, but maybe I've forgotten some?
He does seem to only drink her blood when he's slightly incapacitated in one way or another. Except for that time that they do it as a demonstration for Pritkin in TtD.
OK, another observation as I re-read HtM. In this book, Mircea consistently responds to things that Cassie thinks but doesn't say.She thinks to herself (p.155):
Who the hell knew that a heel could be an erogenous zone?Earlier (p.78 in my copy):
"Anything can be, if you never get a chance to see it," he murmured.
Mircea is right, I thought blankly. She was beautiful. And delicate and fragile and poised.It happens a couple of other times in this book, too. Does it happen in any of the other books?
She looked nothing at all like me.
"I don't agree," he murmured. A warm finger trailed down my cheekbone, tracing the track of a tear I couldn't remember shedding. "There's a similarity in the bone structure, in the shape of the eyes, the contour of the lips..."
She doesn't act surprised any of the times that it happens here, even though he's not just responding to her feelings (which she's used to; she makes some comment about him being able to play her like a violin) but actually hearing thoughts.
Hm I noticed that. But then I thought maybe it was possible that she was doing that thing where they think something, but they actually say it instead? Or could it be the side effect of their bond? After Cassie is attacked in the bath, Mircea senses from far away (New York I think) that something was wrong and he couldn't 'feel her'.
OMG that is one of the things I caught in CtD, cause he reads her thoughts then too. When she was worried about Rafe. Maybe it's a side effect of the bite?I'm starting my reread now, but as soon as I read a good chunk I'll post some thoughs and questions.
The funny thing is that even though I just reread all of these books a few weeks ago, I already can't remember if Cassie knows the exact way Mircea's special abilities as a master vampire express themselves. Does she know that his abilities are mental related? She knows he's really good at giving her suggestions, but unlike with other vampires, she's actually affected by them, more so when she lets herself be.
When she's only the table in HtM, glass being pulled out her ass by Marco, an on the phone to Mircea- he interrupts her mental rant about him never listening by murmuring "I listen." [Haven't started my reread yet, so I don't know the exact quote] I might have brushed it off as him knowing what she was probably thinking, but he does it too may times for just that. He totally reads certain thoughts from her- and it's not even restricted by distance, cause this is over the phone. Although, he still doesn't know what Pritkin is [ or what Pritkin and Cassie get up to], so I don't know how the mind reading works. Maybe it's only personal thoughts.
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God, that couch scene, I keep forgetting about it! Try to imagine being with a guy who chained you to his couch, because he thought you would be 'safer' there. We put people in ja..."
Yeah! You can't just lock someone away and say 'look now I know you might be pissed off at me, but think of it this way you'll be so much safer here' Yes that all very well but I'm still locked in a freking room!!