Untamed Chapter 15:
Zoey’s schedule has been totally messed up because of her move to Super Advanced Awesome Vampyre Sociology 1000055555. NOW SHE’S GOING TO BE IN ERIK’S DRAMA CLASS. Damn. Drama class is about see some real drama.
There’s no time to dwell on Erik, though, as Zoey has to head off to meet with Street Cats. Remember, volunteering with stray cats is going to begin the healing process between humans and vampyres.
In the car with Darius and Aphrodite (who are still flirting up a storm), Zoey reveals that Aphrodite is going to be part of the cleansing ritual tomorrow night. Panic overtakes Aphrodite, but Darius is oblivious:
“I’m looking forward to it,” Darius said, smiling warmly at Aphrodite. “The power of your circle is unique.”
Read that line aloud suggestively. I promise you, it’s fun.
“I have never known so many powerfully gifted fledglings,” Darius said.
“Honey, you have no idea how gifted I am,” she said breathily, leaning toward him and laughing softly.
I think the Casts imagine all over-the-top flirting as Samantha’s dialogue from Sex in the City.
Zoey is super stressed about the whole situation.
I pawed around in my purse, looking for the Advil and couldn’t find any—of course, drugs don’t work on fledglings very well, so it probably wouldn’t help my headache anyway. Didn’t look like I was going to get the distraction, either. What it looked like I was going to get was typical for me—more trouble and stress and probably a nice dose of raging diarrhea.
Oh ho ho, that Zoey. So relatable with her real-talk about diarrhea. MY HERO. At this point, Zoey’s diarrhea is more of a developed character than Jack.
When they arrive at Street Cats, there’s a huge fucking twist that no one, least of all Zoey, could have ever anticipated.
“Welcome to Street Cats. Is this your first visit?”
I looked from Aphrodite to the—
Nun?!
What the fuck?! A NUN. A FUCKING NUN! Jesus Christ, I was not prepared.
“Young lady?” she prompted me, her smile not fading.
“Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, yes. This is the first time I’ve been to Street Cats,” I said not brilliantly. My mind was racing. What was a nun doing here?
I don’t know, but she’s clearly up to no good.
Then from my side vision, I glimpsed another black-robed figure flit by and realized there were more nuns in the hallway off the gift shop.
Nuns?
The nuns are preparing for the attack!!!!!!
Zoey is worried that the nuns will be opposed to vampyres working with stray cats. I’m so tired of nuns and vampyres facing off about these stray fucking cats. Can’t we all just get along and save the cats together, guys??
Aphrodite is really aggressive with the friendly nun for some reason:
“I didn’t know the Benedictine sisters were involved with Street Cats,” Aphrodite surprised me by saying.
“Why, yes. We’ve been running Street Cats for the past two years. Cats are very spiritual creatures, don’t you think?”
Aphrodite snorted. “Spiritual? They’ve been killed for being witches’ familiars and in league with the devil. If a black one walks across their path, people think it’s bad luck. Is that what you mean by spiritual?”
If Aphrodite is going to be so passionate about something, I really wish it was a more appropriate social justice issue than cats’ bad PR.
But then everyone acknowledges that being a woman and a cat is hard, so we can all get along?
I wanted to smack her for how disrespectful she sounded, but the nun wasn’t ruffled at all. “Don’t you think that is because cats have always been so closely associated with women? Especially those considered wise women by the general public? So, naturally, in a predominately male-dominated society, a certain type of people would see sinister things in them.”
I felt Aphrodite’s little start of surprise. “Yes, that’s what I think. I’m surprised you think so, too, though,” she said honestly. I noticed Darius had stopped pretending to shop and was listening to their exchange with obvious interest.
Stray cats! Social justice! Gender politics! Darius pretending to shop for cat toys! This chapter has it all.
“Young lady, just because I have a wimple over my head, it doesn’t mean it has kept me from thinkingor having a mind of my own. And I can guarantee you I have had many more run-ins with male domination than have you.” Her smile made her words less harsh than they might have been.
This badass nun is Sister Mary Angela, manager of Street Cats.
Aphrodite reveals her father is the mayor, and Sister Mary Angela puts two and two together and realizes Aphrodite is a vampyre. I guess the mayor’s daughter being a vampyre would probably make the news? Okay, I’ll buy that…but this next part gives me pause:
“Yes, Aphrodite is a fledgling and I’m Zoey Redbird, vampyre fledgling and Leader of the Dark Daughters.”
Why would Sister Mary Angela have any clue who the Dark Daughters are? “Of course I’ve heard of your vampyre sorority! That is definitely the kind of interesting group of people a nun would be interested in.”
Sister Mary Angela is super chill about all this. At one point, Zoey even tries to point out how important she is by again saying, “I’m the Leader of the Dark Daughters,” but luckily Aphrodite cuts her off and talks about the recent murders instead.
They talk a little about religion and how Sister Mary Angela is down with vampyres and thinks that their goddess is “another incarnation of our Blessed Mother, Mary.” Does this make sense? I don’t really understand how Nyx = Jesus’ mom…but as you can all tell from my Left Behind recaps, I’m pretty clueless.
Anyway, Zoey really wants everyone to know she’s the goddamned Leader of the Dark Daughters:
My mind was still having trouble grasping the fact that this nun was so totally okay with vampyres, but I mentally shook myself and focused enough to say, “As the Leader of the Dark Daughters, I thought it would be a good idea if we got involved with a local charity.”
JUST GIVE SOME CONTEXT, DUDE. The Dark Daughters are probably not a universally known thing.
Zoey explains why they want to volunteer at Street Cats, and she and Darius talk about how awesome their cats are…but Aphrodite is sad because no cat has ever chosen her. Can you see where this is going? Yes, Aphrodite is 100% going to find a cat at Street Cats BECUZ NYX WUZ GUIDING HER HERE ALL ALONG.
Everyone starts pitching in to help save the cats, and Stevie Rae shows up. She is as shocked about the nuns as everyone else, but is relieved to know they are harmless and plotting no attacks…yet.
No, it makes no sense, and honestly pisses me off a bit (but then, it would). Equating a literal pagan goddess with Mary is incredibly disrespectful, and the fact that they had a fucking nun do this makes my blood boil. I get that for most of you this doesn’t make any sense and sounds crazy, but…the Casts clearly have had bad run-ins with Christians, is what I’m saying. And subtlety is not something they’re known for. They like anvils more.
To help you guys understand, think of having a feminist say “And really, I’m totally okay with rape if the woman is asking for it.” It’s not only loathsome in itself, it’s doubly loathsome that the person writing that apparently wants you to think that this represents an actual feminist point of view. This is kind of how I feel about that scene with the nun.
I am almost afraid to know how you’ll react when you find out who Sister Mary Angela really is later on in the series.
If it makes you feel any better about the Casts going “Nyx = Virgin Mary, like, duh“, I was pretty irritated and incredulous when I read in the first book that Nyx equates herself with Guanyin. Preteen AJ knew jack shit about Buddhism (I’m an atheist, born and raised), but holy hell was I floored by that comparison. Post-college AJ is now slightly better educated in Buddhism thanks to academic courses, and I have only one thing to say to the Casts about Nyx as Guanyin: uhm, what the hell, Guanyin isn’t just some female deity with a more-or-less consistent gender in all their regional forms.
I’d love to accept neutrois!Nyx as my new headcanon. Or maybe trans* Nyx? Or heck, maybe neutral-gender!Nyx? I vote Neutrois Nyx for alliterative allure.
I understand this is fiction and all but when you’re portraying deities and religious figures from actual, other religions I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a baseline level of…logic? Education? Both?
I dunno, I’m not saying “ban the book”. I’m just saying, wow, they’re kind of dicks.
Yeah, I have no idea what they’re thinking. I feel like they somehow thought this translated into open mindedness or feminism or being super creative but it just was a hard fail. Also, I don’t think I’ve read far enough to find out who Sister Mary Angela is…is she Nyx? SPOIL IT FOR ME.
What it looked like I was going to get was typical for me—
More boyfriends? At the cat shelter? Heavens …
The comment about Nyx = Mary could be interesting if the Casts had any sense for historical thinking and could write interesting stuff. Were vampyres around 2000 years ago and saw what this Jesus-guy was doing? Was Jesus something completely different from vampyres (Nyx: “Wtf? O.O”) or was he in fact the most special vampyre ever? How could christianity become so influental when apparently vampyres are the main architects of human culture by being the most celebrated artists, cultural heroes, writers and so on … except of course if the vampyres want christianity to become so powerful for some reason. There should be soome reflection of vampyres about their switch from their pre-fledgling religion to Nyxism. Ok, sure, Zoey is not really the introspective person who might do that, but maybe there should be one or two chapters about vampyre sociology class where this stuff is explained. Worldbuilding worked in Harry Potter in that way too, after all.
I liked how Lukyanenko solved exactly this problem of religion vs. supernatural events in his Nightwatch series: In a world of millenia old magicians and sorceresses nobody of them has really understood what has happened back then and the supernatural people more or less agree that Light itself wandered the world 2000 years ago – which should be impossible but is the only explanation that makes sense. It takes just a couple of sentences to describe that in the book, but the amount of mystery and possibility it creates is awesome.
The Casts should have written a book about cats. They love cats, and the shelter they are talking about is a real one in their hometown, so they shoehorned it into a story where it makes no sense. The conflict is between vampyres and humans, so if the vampyres want to get rid of the distrust, they should volunteer at an organization that helps humans. Maybe volunteer at a soup kitchen or patrol the streets at night to keep homeless people from getting attacked while they sleep. I can’t believe this story was actually workshopped.
I still don’t understand how they are planning to improve the relationship between humans and vampyres. Are they going to call the local paper or are they simply hoping that the people who are adopting the cats will recognize them as nice vampyres? They don’t seem to openly show that they are vampyres or the nun would have seen that immediately. Maybe they will start wearing name-tags with “Hi, I’m a vampyre” on it.
Also, considering how special Zoey is I have no doubt that very soon the president or the pope will walk in to adopt a cat, what of course will make the news, and the rest of the book will be about Zoey being invited for interviews and how she has to deal with the stress of being famous.
Are the Casts possibly confusing nuns with ninjas? I mean, I guess they both wear a lot of black. What kind of attacks are the nuns expected to precipitate? They’ve been sharpening their rulers to go after all those pesky vampyre’s knuckles? I didn’t think it was possible for them to come off any more ignorant. Should I consider it a point in their favor that they continue to surprise me? Even if it is never ever ever in a positive way?
I feel like this chapter was crying out for a well-placed dramatic gopher GIF.
NUNS?!
MORE NUNS?!?!?!
So let me get this straight:
Nyx = Native American goddess/Virgin Mary??? Y’know I really hate it when books do the “our true god is all the other gods, but under a different name.” Not only is it disrespectful to people who follow that religion, but it’s also lazy as hell.