- I don't understand why Zoe seems to be so mad at Elliott. Is she really mad at him for being a fat ugly slob, because that's how it comes of. She sees him as an obnoxious Jerkass (??) for not paying attention to class. How does this makes you an "evil" person? I mean, I wouldn't complain about it being unrealistic if Zoey made fun of his looks/his laziness but she treats his laziness as something that makes him a evil and nasty person and seems to be mad at him for that, which I absolutely don't get.
- In Betrayed, Zoey has already seen Neferet letting the undead Elliot drink from her, has heard her go on several rants about how much she hates humans, had a random dream about her and Loren murdering the missing football players, has witnessed Neferet basically telling Aphrodite that God hates her, has been warned countless times by Aphrodite that Neferet is not as good as she seems as well as the fact that Neferet drugs students into forgetting their dead roommates. So when the police come to question Zoey about Heath's disappearance she… Tells them about a dream she had where the Red Fledglings kidnapped him RIGHT IN FRONT OF NEFERET. Why on EARTH would she do something so stupid?
- I usually don't criticize the story until reading it to the end, but this seriously bugs me. I just finished the very first chapter and some of the second in the first book and I was wondering: Why in holy hell did Zoey get marked by a Vampyre? Did I miss anything? Did I skipped a book? It just came out of nowhere and something… happened. Some answers would be very helpful.
- Well maybe you should read the story. In it, humans have special hormones that may activate during adolescence, beginning the Change into vampyres. The vampyre that Marked Zoey was a Tracker, who found the human girl who was about to become a vampyre and Marked her so she could survive it.
- To clarify, Zoey wasn't turned into a vampire as a result of being marked. She was marked because (as is mentioned later) there's a special force of vampires who seek out kids about to transform and marks them with a magical tattoo to let them know to go to the House of Night, or else they'll die from hormonal issues. It probably could have been explained a little more clearly.
- So, it's established that vampyres worship Nyx. But… if you were a Christian or Jew or Muslim or any other religion prior to being marked, would you really just drop your old religion so suddenly to adopt the vampyre one? And if you're an atheist, wouldn't you struggle to drop that lack of religious belief?
- In a well-written story, yes.
- The fact that we only see Aphrodite with two guys (and she's fairly serious about the second one)and almost everyone considers her a ho. Yet we have Zoey: with three boyfriends at one time, losing her virginity to her teacher and the other characters deny she's a ho. Um, what?
- It's because of blowjobs. Blowjobs are evil. Hallway sex is like House of Night world's equivalent of kicking puppies, apparently.
- It's also because Aphrodite wears more 'ho-ish' clothes than Zoey does, apparently. (Sadly a Truth in Television attitude too.)
- She demands a blowjob from someone who clearly does not want it. that spells ho to me. also her clothes, and some of her actions.
- Which would be all well and good, but Zoey only bashes Aphrodite for giving the blowjob, and completely ignores the fact that it was clearly unwanted. The way Zoey talks, she seems to think that giving blowjobs is instantly demeaning.
- She also makes a statement that only 'Those of us with functioning brains know that it is not cool to be used like that.' implying that woman who give their boyfriends a blow job, no matter the reason, are stupid and being used. So by this it would mean that Aphrodite is not only a 'ho' to Zoey, but stupid too and we the reader are supposed to agree
- Not to mention that Aphrodite clearly wasn't being used - she was forcing a motherfucking blowjob on someone. That's like saying that a construction company is being 'used' because they remodel someone's house for free… when the owners of the house didn't want it remodeled.
- With that line, Zoey collectively insults women who consensually give their boyfriends blowjobs, female sexual assault victims, AND male sexual assault victims. I can only conclude that the authors actually believe that giving a blowjob is inherently degrading and you’re a stupid slut for doing so, regardless of the consent of either party!
- So can the marks be covered up with make-up or not? Because in the first book Zoey was whining and complaining about the fact that she could do nothing to cover up her mark. Then in the second and later books, she covers up her mark. In fact, fledglings are required to do so every time they go out into the human world. Huh? Do the vampires have special concealing make-up or something? If so, what's so special about it that humans haven't gotten it yet? I can think of some things that a concealer that powerful would be useful for.
- Actually, yeah, the vampyres DO have extremely good cover-up makeup that they provide to the students. Before she got to the school, Zoey wouldn't have known that or been able to get ahold of it.
- Does Zoey's blatant
Mary Sue tendencies piss anybody else off? She's just so awesome and speshul, she's the freaking avatar of an ancient vampyre goddess, guys fall in hordes at her feet, she can't shut up about her 'exotic' Cherokee heritage for more than two sentences…- I've only read book one, but I don't see any signs of sue-ness.
- Oh my god yes, it annoys the f—-ing crap out of me. It's why I stopped after the fourth book. Besides being an Author Avatar, she practically has no real "qualities" to herself and she is The Chosen One to a degree of beyond realism. I mean I though Sasuke Uchiha was bad, but this character definitely takes it up to eleven.
- Not to mention that she is obviously a shallow, hateful, hypocritical, judgmental, racist, homophobic, misogynistic Designated Hero, with absolutely ZERO redeeming qualities, yet all of the "good" characters (with the exception of Aphrodite and maybe Darius) and some of the bad characters constantly bow down to her to praise her and her uber specialness, no less than 5 guys have thrown themselves at her feet wanting to tap her SUPER SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE ASS, and she has to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to be a hero because Nyx literally holds her hand and does everything for her. Notice also how anyone that Zoey truly likes and deeply cares about (Stevie Rae, Heath, Stark) NEVER stays dead because OH NO WE CAN'T HAVE ZOEY SUE HAVE TO DEAL WITH HER FRIENDS DYING CUZ SHE'LL BE SAD! She is one of the worst Canon Sues I have ever seen, even wors than Bella Swan which says a LOT.
- Exactly. If she had been written as an anti-heroine or someone we're not really supposed to sympathize with but gets the job done anyway, some of this could be ignored. Not all, but some. Unfortunately, she gets all her super-special Sue powers handed to her and everyone loves her despite all this crap she flings every which way. As a guy who regrets ever hearing about this series, I have to ask: is this really the standard of writing that goes into fiction for teenage girls nowadays?
- No, it's not. Most is much better.
- Is there any flesh left on Zoey that hasn't gotten magically tatted yet?
- Her ass?
- Give it time.
- You'd figure all the tattooing would be extremely uncomfortable, as tattoos frequently are when they're first put in place - people who get inked have to apply lotion for a while to get the skin back to it's normal state. Unless this magic just changes the pigment of her skin.
- Her ass?
- The lack of family loyalty. They all seem to abandon their families for vampyrisim or romance. Why?
- IIRC it's because when someone gets marked their family will often end up rejecting them. So, it's not really the "vampyres" rejecting their families, but the other way around.
- That really bugs me as well. I understand that the Fledging's immune system pretty much eats itself if they're away from adult vamps, but the fact they have to give up their families, loose contact with their friends, and join some crazy hippie dippie cult REALLY bothers me. I guess this goes hand-in-hand with the complaints about the blatant anti-Christianity thingie, but it's really jarring and unrealistic that the Fledglings are all super eager to drop whatever religious practices they have, or if they're not religious, take up new ones. I understand that their goddess is present, but I find it hard to believe that there isn't one Nay-Theist who doesn't worship Nyx.
- One thing that always bothered me was the dismissive way that Zoey occasionally refers to her brother. He's never seen "on-screen". Zoey seems to have no emotional attachment to him at all. Hell, do we even ever learn his name?
- Not that I've seen, but considering I read these books because I lost a bet and was trying to avoid a self-induced Eye Scream, I may have missed something.
- Zoey's brother's name is mentioned in passing as Eric. Her sister on the other hand is nameless. Apparently her reason for hating him is because he plays really violent video games. Which begs the question what small hole has Zoey been living in? Plenty of young boys and girls play violent video games, should they? Probably not. Does it make them bad people? No. But I figure that Zoey's real reason for the hatred is because he accepted their evil step-father, even though he doesn't care for them. If Zoey was a more caring or smarter person she'd realize the reason he probably accepted their step-father so easily is because their father abandoned them when they were babies and so he has no emotional attachment to him and as a growing young boy surrounded by only older female presence he'd probably want a strong male role model to look up to, even if said role model cares nothing for him, he's an impressionable teen (around 14 I think)so his accepting the step father is completely understandable. In short Zoey is a whiny self-centered bitch, who thinks that if someone doesn't see her way, they're automatically bad or evil. In the Graphic Novels Zoey is actually closer to her brother and defends him from bullies, so maybe in the series we'll see her grow up.
- The little brother is named Kevin in the graphic novels, and her older sister remains unnamed (some have given her the fan-name of 'Miranda' or 'Amanda').
- What this troper doesn't get is why it's seen as so weird that a vampire's human family would continue to associate them. The book openly states that all vampires grow up to be hot and immortal and are totally normal besides the blood drinking thing and the discomfort from sunlight (both of which aren't the weirdest things families put up with), and that almost all vampires go on to be insanely famous and wealthy. What reason, exactly, would cause human families to hate a child being Marked so much? Granted, the vampires in the series are all pretentious asses, but that's unintentional…
- At a guess? There was probably a vague attempt to equate vampyr… vampiry… screw it, being a vampire with some other issue that teens have to deal with like the X-Men series did, but it got lost in the rush to give Zoey more special powers.
- In a well-written story, this would have been a (likely LGBT-related or race-related) oppression analogy complete with systematic oppression, wherein vampyre actors have to, "pass," as human in order to get film roles (and have very little if any media representation), where they are assumed to be perpetrators of violent crime while actually being the victims of violent crime (which would have made the deaths of Patricia Nolan and Loren Blake more credible, were there a social context of hate crime), where only a few successful vampyres are openly known as vampyres, where their only option is erecting isolated communities such as their schools as a form of survival. This is not a well-written story.
- Zoey kills two people by using wind to blow them in front of a car. The reason? They caught her snacking and getting her perv on with Heath and threatened the two of them. It is never brought up again. Um, what? SHE JUST KILLED TWO PEOPLE!!
- It's… erm casually mentioned that they most likely survived and were taken to the hospital down the road on time, so Zoey assumes they were alright. Possibly. Still is never resolved. No matter though, she got away with making out with Heath.
- The most bizarre thing about this is that at the end of Revealed she does something similar to two MORE guys, sends herself to jail and tries to commit suicide in penance. I guess the writers forgot about the earlier guys.
- The series jumps time constantly. The book was published in 2007, and it's an unwritten rule that unless you specifically mention the time period or imply it through description of things, that it’s set at the current time the book was published. The date seems to be confirmed when Zoey mentions going to see 300 (released 2007) with her friends. But then they mention Twitter. Twitter, that never got big until about 2009. They also mention True Blood and Glee… the former wasn’t broadcast will 2008, and the latter 2009. That’s a year gap between all these references, and it’s been less than six months in the series since Zoey got marked.
- The In-Universe timeline is the one thing in this series that consistently makes no sense. In Untamed the date at the end of of the book was midnight New Year's Eve. From Hunted onward you have no idea how many days have passed. At max the In-Universe time-span for Hunted, Tempted and Burned can only be two to three days max. The Authors have also not yet made a cannon timeline available to clear up any of this said confusion.
- The fact that so many potential plot points are just left hanging to make room for the Romantic Plot Tumor (though I think at this point, it's safe to assume that it's now Romantic Plot Cancer… the terminal kind. Okay, I'll stop.), most notably: The subplot about the relationship between Zoey and her mother after the whole Have You Tried Not Being a Monster? and subsequent "Accept me mom or I won't talk to you" conversations (yeah, I know it was mostly used for Author Filibuster with the whole "Religious Extremists Are Evil", but it seemed that Zoey genuinely cared about her mom and hated the way she changed), and Neferet's past and her motivations (from hints in the earlier books, it seemed like Neferet was almost like Zoey in that upon being discovered, humans who supposedly loved and cared about her pulled a Burn the Witch!, or something like that. Which would explain why she became a High Priestess- to have power and prove to the humans that wronged her that she could do amazing things; subsequently, she got tempted by the Dark Side at some point. I mean, it sounds cliche, but it gives her some Character Development, kinda makes her sympathetic, and it's still better than the Casts' explanation of "Because she's Evil. Why? Just because. So yeah. EVIL~!"). It just feels like the Casts had a plan for all of this, and somewhere along the way someone screwed up and thought, "Well, who cares about stuff like "characters", "plot development", "well-rounded personalities", and "motivations"? What the people want to really know is WHAT SEXY SUPERNATURAL BOY ZOEY'S GONNA END UP WITH BY THE END OF THE SERIES!" Yeah, that's what I want to read; never mind the whole The End of the World as We Know It plot, all teenage girls care about are boys, regardless of whether or not they're all-powerful messiahs with the fate of the world in their hands!
- At Jack's funeral as Zoey is lighting the pyre, she gets his last name wrong. WTF? I could understand if this was just an every day conversation but it was his freaking funeral!
- Jack was Retconned into having a different surname?
- Why doesn't anyone care that Aphrodite was basically raping Erik? They call her a slut for trying to give him a blowjob, even though she was basically forcing him into it. Do they ever make this connection?
- No, they don't. And they also act like Erik is a controlling jerk for wanting his girlfriend to not have multiple boyfriends while dating him. The poor guy never really gets a break.
- The love interests in this series ARE ALL TERRIBLE. I don't care how hot they're supposed to be, in many ways, these guys are worse that Edward Cullen when it comes to creepiness.
- Heath: He takes advantage of Zoey's blood lust, essentially giving her a date rape drug and justifying it to himself by saying that, "she wanted it." He's essentially a rapist, despite how much he, "loves," Zoey. And she believes that bullshit.
- Erik: He was actually fairly decent until Derailing Love Interests kicked in and he turned into a possessive jerk. Despite knowing that Neferet is evil, he refuses to side with Zoey because she's, "a freak." Luckily, he never re-emerged as a love interest for her.
- Loren: He's one of those creepy high school teachers who get arrested for statutory rape, enough said. Fortunately, he's dead and he'll never come back.
- Stark: Zoey has no reason to be in love with him. All he does is force himself on multiple girls, kill his mentor in an archery contest, and whine about his own evilness. And yet Zoey seems to fall for him for no reason. Stark proclaims he loves her for saving him from his own douchbagness, but tends to treat her as a sex object most of the time.
- … Perhaps she sees a lot of herself in him?
- Kalona: He's a serial rapist, enough said. Unfortunately, Draco in Leather Pants kicks affects him in and out of universe. Zoey seemed to realize that he was not a good person, but as of Destined, she's backsliding.
- Not just Zoey either… but some of the other couples just make you go "WHY???"
- Shaymin and Nicole: Seriously… this one came out of nowhere. It was "Shaymin meets Nicole. Next moment they're a couple. Ah… what?"
- Erik and Shaunee: "Oh, I'll watch over you and all while you're channeling your element… and wow, we make a good couple"
- Damien and Jack: "I'm gay. Are you gay? Awesome, lets go out!"
- Also applies to Damien and Adam
- I know this is just a case of straight women who think they love gay guys writing the books, but Damien is introduced as a 'not a fluttery gay' then spends the entire series shopping, giggling, gushing and crying. What was the point of pretending he wasn't going to be a walking stereotype the whole time?
open/close all folders
Destined
SPOILERS AHEAD
- The alluded sex scene between Rephaim and Stevie Rae
- The readers are shown when Zoey loses her virginity to Loren Blake and when she has sex with Stark for the first time on Skye. The readers are also shown that Zoey and Stark are now having sex regularly. The readers are even shown sex scenes involving Neferet. The entire book of Awakened has Neferet running around naked and sleeping around with Kalona and various Sons of Erebus Warriors AND A GIANT WHITE BULL. But when it comes to Rephaim and Stevie Rae, especially after them having to go through all different kinds of drama for them to be together, the reader is shown… Nothing. The whole thing is glossed over. What the hell Writers!? It's especially bad as it would have been Stevie Rae's first time as well.
- Either they're trying to tone down the sex, they were aiming for more of a Did They or Didn't They? type of scene, or they had some other idea that I can't guess at.
- The readers are shown when Zoey loses her virginity to Loren Blake and when she has sex with Stark for the first time on Skye. The readers are also shown that Zoey and Stark are now having sex regularly. The readers are even shown sex scenes involving Neferet. The entire book of Awakened has Neferet running around naked and sleeping around with Kalona and various Sons of Erebus Warriors AND A GIANT WHITE BULL. But when it comes to Rephaim and Stevie Rae, especially after them having to go through all different kinds of drama for them to be together, the reader is shown… Nothing. The whole thing is glossed over. What the hell Writers!? It's especially bad as it would have been Stevie Rae's first time as well.
- When Rephaim spoke to his brothers
- When Rephaim was speaking to his brother Nosroc (page 45 of Destined) he said "When I harmed others, when I killed and raped and took whatever I wished simply because I could - that was wrong." This statement offers contradictory evidence to many of Rephaim's behaviors and characteristics that have been shown over Tempted, Burned and Awakened. For Example:
- In Burned, when Stevie Rae was with Dallas and Rephaim could feel her emotions, he was confused by the feelings of desire, Rephaim didn't even recognise it at first. If Rephaim had raped before, wouldn't he have recognised the feeling of desire instantly?
- He could be confused by genuine love instead of lust.
- Rape really has nothing to do with desire or lust. It's about the rapist's need to feel powerful - powerful enough to control someone else and violate them in the most intimate and degrading way possible.
- In Awakened, Rephaim thinks of mortals as "poor earthbound creatures" and "the rest of the unwinged, pathetic horde" (page 121 of Awakened). The only exception is Stevie Rae. So it's fairly obvious that he finds the majority of mortals to be disgusting and contemptible. Why would he rape someone he finds digusting? Wouldn't it be more logical for Rephaim to think of mortals as unworthy of his notice/attention?
- Does Rephiam say the rape was done because he was genuinely attracted to the victims? For all we know, he could have done it because he was bored. Or perhaps there are no female Raven Mockers, so if he's in the mood he either has to settle for a mortal or masturbating.
- The majority of Fledglings and Vampyres at the Tulsa House of Night are completely fooled by Kalona's ability to brainwash people and make people love him and see him how he wants to see them. So it's fair to assume that Humans are just as effected (or even more so given this series stance on how Vampyres are so much better than Humans). So, why would Rephaim want to rape a woman who wanted his father or would compare him to his father?
- Who says he went for women his father fancied? Just because Kalona has that effect on people doesn't mean he responds to every reaction they have. There's bound to be some women that Kalona wasn't interested in.
- When Rephaim was speaking to his brother Nosroc (page 45 of Destined) he said "When I harmed others, when I killed and raped and took whatever I wished simply because I could - that was wrong." This statement offers contradictory evidence to many of Rephaim's behaviors and characteristics that have been shown over Tempted, Burned and Awakened. For Example:
- The Kalona Deus Ex Machina Problem
- Why did Kalona have to reclaim Rephaim as his son to heal him? Why didn't Stevie Rae just summon her element Earth and heal Rephaim like she did in Burned? Why were they all just standing around and talking?
- I interpreted it as he was too far gone for Stevie Rae to help him. Didn't Thanatos say that Death wasn't going to let him go? It seemed to me like Kalona's plea was one of his minor redeeming moments, enough to cause Nix to intervene. She's done it before with the dead after all.
- If Kalona becomes the next Sword Master/Leader of the Sons of Erebus Warriors, what's going to happen to the other Raven Mockers? Is he just going to abandon them all over again?
- I would assume this is something that will be addressed in the next book.
- Why did Kalona have to reclaim Rephaim as his son to heal him? Why didn't Stevie Rae just summon her element Earth and heal Rephaim like she did in Burned? Why were they all just standing around and talking?
- Damian being retconed into being a Fourth Former
- In the book Marked, Damian is a third former, just like Zoey and Stevie Rae, while Shaunee and Erin are fourth formers. It's why Zoey and Damian and Stevie Rae have the majority of their classes together. Now, the total possible time-span from Untamed (which specifically end on New Years Eve) to Destined is three months. The evidence to support this is that in the Northern hemisphere the season of winter spans from December to February. In Destined, while they don't outright state the name of the current month, it's mentioned that Winter is passing and it's now Spring, which means it's now March. So, how did Damian graduate a year in the span of three months? Did he apply to be boosted up a year because he's so smart?
- Well, I'm not so sure that a House of Night school year would work the same as a normal school year. In a normal school, everyone starts the year at the same time, and thus moves up a grade together. But in this series, a fledgling starts their school year when they arrive at whichever House of Night they will be attending. And there is not a specific day when all the new fledglings-to-be get Marked all at once. For proof of that, we have the fact that Shawnee and Erin got Marked on the same day and it contributed to their friendship. Thus it seems likely to me that each fledgling's school year starts when they arrive. I don't believe we've found out exactly when Damian was Marked, but if he started his third former year sometime last winter then it's possible it was simply time for his promotion to fourth former.
- If this is the case, and it is possible, why was Rephaim and Damian tending classes alongside Zoey and not Shawnee and Erin. As Erin and Shaunee are both fourth formers (due to no evidence to the contrary) you would expect them to at least share one class together.
- In the book Marked, Damian is a third former, just like Zoey and Stevie Rae, while Shaunee and Erin are fourth formers. It's why Zoey and Damian and Stevie Rae have the majority of their classes together. Now, the total possible time-span from Untamed (which specifically end on New Years Eve) to Destined is three months. The evidence to support this is that in the Northern hemisphere the season of winter spans from December to February. In Destined, while they don't outright state the name of the current month, it's mentioned that Winter is passing and it's now Spring, which means it's now March. So, how did Damian graduate a year in the span of three months? Did he apply to be boosted up a year because he's so smart?
- This goes hand in hand with the, "no family loyalties," headscratcher above. It's stated in book one that Zoey had siblings, but she hates them for really petty reasons. Apparently her little brother plays violent video games and her sisters a cheerleader. Err, okay Zoey, since those are absolutely horrible things that no nice person would do, you have every right to hate them. Since they aren't mentioned for, like, six more books, I could accept that Zoey was retconned into being an only child, but no, they're mentioned again in Awakened. Why are the mentioned? So Zoey's mom can say that she loves Zoey more than them. What. Then in the next book they're completely forgotten once again. Do you know what that means? Zoey's mom dies and they're locked completely out of the loop. They have no clue what really happened to their mom, their grandmother is too busy cleansing her lavender farm to bother to think of her grand kids who aren't named Zoey, their father hasn't been in contact with them in years. Who is taking care of them during this time? The Steploser, who has shown that he does not give a shit about them? Does Zoey even think about telling her siblings what happened? Did she even think about contacting them after changing into a vampyre? I have siblings myself and even if I don't get along with them all the time, I wouldn't completely forget about them if I changed into a vampyre!
- It's possible the Cast women realized this and retconned it in the graphic novel (or at least whoever wrote the graphic novel thought to do so). In it, Zoey actually does care about her brother, getting angry when her stepfather brings him to a People of Faith protest, defending him from bullies after school, and having a talk with him about how she's still the same sister she always was, even if she's now a vampire. The sister on the other hand… yeah. Absolutely no mention of her.
- According to Word of God, Zoey's sister went to college and her brother stayed with their Stepdad because he didn't care about what was going on with Zoey and that "neither of them cared because they would have come back into the story if they did." Zoey drifted apart from her brother and sister after getting Marked.
- Why does everyone conveniently forget that Kalona is a serial rapist, in the fandom and in the book. Do they think that, since he's so hot, he couldn't have possibly raped anyone? Unfortunate Implications much?
- Very unfortunate implications. Apparently becoming a vampyre drops your IQ about thirty points, minimum.
- Considering that the vampires' supernatural beauty is mentioned AT LEAST once a book (multiple times in the first book, just to really establish it), vampires could very well be an entire race of brainless beauties.
- Very unfortunate implications. Apparently becoming a vampyre drops your IQ about thirty points, minimum.
- Where did Shaunee's daddy problems come from? They were never even hinted at in other books so the whole revelation came out of nowhere. Of course, at this point I don't expect good writing from P.C and daughter, but it's ass pulls like this that have me convinced that they're just making up the story as the go along.
- In a way, it's quite brilliant, actually. Personal theory: The Casts realized that Erin and Shaunee had like no character development, no history, and started to reveal something about Shaunee's past, which hadn't been foreshadowed because there was never a point where it NEEDED to be foreshadowed.
Designated Heroes
- How come Zoey shames girls for being sluts and hos, yet has a harem of about 5 or 6 boys, not to mention that she's being unfaithful by not informing them?
- She's a hypocrite
- So at the beginning Aphrodite and Venus were besties. Then after Aphrodite joins the Zoeycult she acts like Venus is the biggest bitch ever. WTF.
- What did Kayla do wrong again? Or is Zoey being mean to her for no reason?
