Of Crows and Wolves: a review of The Dresden Files and the Mercy Thompson novels

[geri_chan]

Here's a review of a couple of series that I thought might appeal to Harry Potter fans. One is a book and TV series about a wizard, and the other is a series of books that deals heavily with werewolf lore. I should warn that this review will contain a few spoilers, especially for the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs.

A long time ago, iTunes was offering the first episode of The Dresden Files for free, and I thought, "Hmm, that sounds sort of interesting," so I downloaded it onto my iPod and promptly forgot about it. I only recently got around to watching it, and I'm sorry that I waited so long. I immediately went looking for more episodes, and unfortunately discovered that the series had been canceled after only one season, but on the bright side, it had been released on dvd, so I ran out and bought it.

The TV series was based on a series of novels by Jim Butcher, so at least I can keep reading the books after I finish watching the dvd. The main character is a wizard named Harry--no, not that Harry! ;) His last name is Dresden, not Potter, and he's an adult, not a child. He's also the only wizard listed in the Chicago Yellow Pages. In the first episode that got me hooked, a child sees his ad in the phone book and wants to hire him to get rid of the monsters that are following him. At first Harry dismisses it as normal childish fears, but of course there really is something out to get the boy...

The boy is kidnapped by some crow-like men, who turn out to be from the Raven clan, and are actually trying to protect the boy from the person who really is trying to harm him. (I don't want to give away the ending, so I'll let you find out for yourself who the real villain is.) This was a nice hook for me, because as the readers of my Always series know, I love shapeshifters who can turn into animal form, like my tengu, who are based on Japanese folklore. In some legends, they're described as being part-crow, part-man, and in others, they're simply described as "long-nosed goblins". I split the difference and made my tengu creatures who could take either human or crow form, and who have large, beak-shaped noses when they're human. The Ravens are a good deal more spooky-looking than my handsome tengu character Karasu (who is modeled after hunky Japanese actor/musician Takashi Sorimachi), but I still thought they were pretty cool.

Harry is engaging, with an irreverent sense of humor--as you might guess from the fact that he advertises himself as a wizard in the yellow pages. A tragic past is hinted at in the first episode--his mother either died or disappeared (I forget which) under mysterious circumstances, and he probably got his magical powers from her. His dad, ironically, was a stage magician who was very bad at his job, and it's implied that his uncle took Harry by his force from his father when he was a boy, because he wanted to train Harry in his powers, and the father didn't want that. It sounds like Harry eventually killed the uncle in self-defense, and inherited the uncle's ghostly servant Bob. The name "Bob" is humorously ironic, since he carries himself with a haughty, regal air, and he apparently was a powerful wizard in life. I haven't read the books or watched the other episodes yet, so I'm guessing that "Bob" is short for something more dignified, like Lord Robert or Sir Robert of Something-or-Other, since I get the impression that he's hundreds of years old. He acts sarcastic and snarky at times, but he seems to care about Harry deep down, and shows obvious concern when a powerful villain shows up and threatens to kill Harry. I really can't wait to see more of this show!
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Okay, now on to the second review! I had read Patricia Briggs's Hurog fantasy novels and liked them, so when I heard that she had written a novel about werewolves, I knew I had to read it. There are currently 3 books in the Mercy Thompson series: Moon Called, Blood Bound, and Iron Kissed. The main character, Mercy, isn't actually a werewolf. She's a Skinwalker, thanks to magic inherited from her Native American father, although she never knew him (she was the result of a one-night-stand). That means she can take the shape of a coyote at will. However, when her magic began manifesting itself, her mother didn't know what to do, and since the family didn't know any Skinwalkers, but one of her relatives knew a werewolf, she was fostered in a werewolf pack, and not just any pack, but the pack run by the Marrok, who is essentially the overlord of all the werewolves in America.

She eventually moved away and became a mechanic, but she still has ties to the werewolves, since her next door neighbor, Adam, is the leader of the local pack. (Her other neighbor is a vampire, and her former boss is one of the faery folk.) This is an urban fantasy in which the human population is aware, to a certain extent, that magical races exist, somewhat like Laurell K. Hamilton's books, and they live in an uneasy truce. For example, the fae, for the most part live on offcial reservations, and have certain rights under the law. But there are plenty of humans who fear and hate them, and there are plenty of fae who resent being restricted and wish they could go back to the old days when they could kill and eat humans freely.

I love Mercy, who is a strong, independent female character, but what I really love about the series is the very detailed picture of werewolf culture and politics. The werewolves must change during the full moon, but unlike HP werewolves, they can also transform during other times voluntarily, although the process is very painful. And clothing does not change with the person, so they usually undress first or their clothes get shredded. They retain their intelligence in wolf form, but they are subject to their wolfish instincts and emotions, and some werewolves can be brutally violent.

Werewolves cannot be made with a single bite; a person must be savaged nearly unto death by another werewolf, and if they survive, they become a werewolf as well. Some are made by accident; some voluntarily wish to be turned, for example, a human spouse of a werewolf who wishes to join the pack, and in one case, a werewolf urged his human father to be turned because he was terminally ill. Werewolves have perfect health (they don't get sick) and do not age, but this does not necessarily translate into immortality, since because of their violent natures, they often die untimely deaths. Some werewolves find they cannot control their violent natures, and if they cannot learn control, they will eventually be put to death under werewolf law. In the first book, the werewolves have been keeping their existence hidden from the human world, but the Marrok eventually decides that they will "come out" in public like the fae--which makes it even more important that humans do not consider them a threat to be eliminated.

Werewolf society is a bit--no, a lot--sexist. Most wolves live in packs, but a male werewolf can choose to live alone as a "lone wolf" if he wishes. Females must belong to a pack; no exceptions. This is in part because there are fewer females than males, as most of them do not survive the savaging that creates a werewolf. A female werewolf takes her rank in the pack from her mate; one werewolf in Adam's pack is low-ranked because her husband is, even though she is stronger than her husband, and would have been ranked much higher if she were being judged by her own strength. A pack leader can do as he wishes with the unmated females in his pack, although the Marrok and Adam are remarkably controlled and enlightened by werewolf standards, and do not abuse their authority. Male werewolves are very protective of their mates, and Adam is insufferably so of Mercy, whom he has acknowledged as his mate, somewhat to her dismay. She is very attracted to Adam and does care for him, but she can't stand being controlled by anyone.

A romantic triangle is set up when Samuel, the Marrok's son and Mercy's first love, shows up and tries to win her back. And from him, we learn that female werewolves cannot bring a child to term; they miscarry when they transform. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, as it's been awhile since I read Moon Called, but I believe that human woman have trouble bearing a werewolf's children safely to term. So Samuel believes that Mercy, as a shapeshifter who doesn't suffer from the same drawbacks that werewolves do, can safely give him children.

 I came across an essay on metafandom called "Alpha male or stalker?" that discusses the trope of "alpha heroes" in the romance genre who essentially force their will on the heroine. This thread uses Adam as a negative example of this stereotype. I can understand why the poster feels that way about him, but I do not agree. True, he is at times overbearingly controlling and chauvinistic, in part because of his werewolf nature, and in part because he was raised in the 50s, though he looks much younger, and still sticks to the more rigid gender roles of that time.

However, if he were the perfect enlightened male hero that author of the essay considers acceptable, there would be no romantic conflict in the story. And Mercy does not submit tamely to him. They fight and butt heads, and Mercy knows exactly how to push his buttons to set off his admittedly hot temper, and often does so deliberately just to annoy him, and this is something that no one but she would be able to get away with. And gradually, I think he comes to respect her and to understand that he cannot control or compel her, and it is clear by the end of the third book that he would never force her to be with him against her will. And I would wager that he wouldn't be interested in her if she were a nice, meek, submissive little girl wolf. It's probably her stubborn, independent nature that attracts him, even as it drives him up the wall at the same time.

It's never going to be a perfect relationship. He's always going to be a little overprotective, and at times he'll do dumb things like the incident described in the thread, where he installs a security system at Mercy's workplace without asking her permission first. I'm sure they'll continue to quarrel often over such things. But I think that they respect each other enough to learn to compromise and work things out.

However, the third book, Iron Kissed, does contain a controversial plot element that I should warn about, but it is a major spoiler, so stop now if you don't want to be spoiled.

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This made me wish that published books came with the same kinds of warnings that fanfic does--in this case, non-con. Mercy is raped by the villain of the novel towards the end of the book. The act itself is not graphically described; in fact, it's so vaguely described that at first I wasn't sure what was happening. But eventually it's made clear what happened to her, and just the idea of it squicks me. I don't believe that it was done gratuitously, but I still found it very disturbing since I was totally not expecting it.

To be fair, her pain is not glossed over, and while I'm no expert on the subject, her feelings of shame and helplessness seem to be realistically portrayed, enhanced by the fact that she had been under an enchantment at the time, which made her feel partially complicit in the rape, although her extreme force of will allowed her to break free enough from the magic to give the bastard what was coming to him. (He also gets ripped to pieces post-mortem by an enraged werewolf, which made me feel slightly better, although to be honest, I kind of wish he'd still been alive at the time, although it would have caused legal problems later for Adam and his pack.)

The saving grace in all this is Adam and Ben, who is a minor supporting character and one of the wolves in Adam's pack. In the first book, Mercy thinks he's a violent scumbag, though she eventually discovers that he's a decent guy, though still violent and with a rather unpleasant personality. Still, they strike up a strange, rather adversarial kind of friendship. And much to her surprise, it's Ben who understands exactly what she's been through and how she feels--right down to the irrational feeling that she's somehow partially responsible for her own rape. And it's Ben who stands up to his pack leader--an act that could normally get a werewolf killed--and makes Adam get his head out of his arse, shakes him out of his self-pity, and makes him understand how Mercy feels. (For reasons that are a bit too complicated to explain here, Adam thinks that it's himself that Mercy fears, when she's really still suffering from guilt and self-loathing.) Ben is just awesome in the way he stands up for Mercy and tells Adam what's what. It also gives his character a lot more complexity, because it turns out that he was abused himself when he was a child, which is why he understands so well what Mercy is going through. And it also ties in to the mistaken first impression that Mercy had of him in the first book: he was suspected of a being a rapist and murderer back in England, which is why he had to flee to the US and join Adam's pack. It turned out that he hunted down and killed the real rapist, which is why the crimes stopped once he left the country.

I always liked Ben, but I like him so much more after this, and at the risk of being trivial in the midst of such a serious subject, I kind of want to write some fanfic about him now, maybe slash him with another wolf, although Mercy seems to think that he's straight. But he doesn't have a mate or girlfriend in the books, so he's still open to interpretation.

Getting back on track, Adam responds with all the understanding and compassion that one could wish the ideal male described in the essay to have. His sole concern is all for Mercy and assuring her that he still loves her and that she did nothing wrong--not that his mate was defiled by another man, which would be the concern of the alpha-stalker-sexist-male. He's still going to be possessive and protective, but he makes it clear that he believes her to be his equal and that she's strong enough to stand up to him and overcome what he describes as "any advantage that being an Alpha gives me".

I do understand the OP's objection to the stereotype of the alpha dominant werewolf, which Briggs certainly makes use of, but in the context of the story, I believe that Adam is a well-rounded character, and a good match for Mercy.

Whew! I didn't mean for this to turn into meta when I was only planning to write a simple review, but that Metafandom essay made me want to delve a little deeper and give my own perspective on the matter.

Okay, getting back to the review--on a lighter, more squee-worthy note, there actually is a gay werewolf in the story: Warren, who is Mercy's friend and the third-ranking werewolf in the pack. Werewolves, as you may have noticed, tend to be rather conservative and rigid in their beliefs--most of them are homophobic as well as sexist, and Warren does not have an easy time of it in the pack. But Adam respects him, and isn't bothered by his sexual preferences, so the rest of the pack grudgingly accepts him. He has a human boyfriend, a very handsome and wealthy lawyer, who gets a big shock when he finds out about Warren's true nature.

I do encourage any Snape/Lupin fanfic writers to check out this series. Skip the third book if the rape scene really squicks you; the first two cover most of the werewolf politics and lore, which are fascinating and provide plenty of ideas for building a werewolf society. It reminds me a bit of White Wolf's Werewolf roleplaying game, which a friend of mine used to play. Some of the elements are similar, like the werewolves being able to transform at will, though others are different, like the severity of violence required to turn someone.