Face Off: What Werewolf Legend Should Not Be Missed?

So last week we looked at the various vampire stories and how they have deviated away strongly from the legend - and what we consider to be “must haves” of any decent vampire story.

This week we’re going to turn our gaze on the werewolf legends (werewolves, not wereanimals) and seeing what we consider must have for our howling stories!


The Moon and Silver

Ok, there are several legends that don’t involve the moon, but this is such a classic when it comes to werewolves that it has become a must have. The moon must have an effect - it doesn’t matter exactly what it means: maybe they have to change, maybe it’s harder to maintain control, maybe they have to howl, - but when the moon shines it should have some kind of effect. Similarly, silver - maybe it makes them weaker, maybe it burns, maybe it stops them healing - whatever it does, silver has to matter.


Pack Dynamics - less of the Dictatorial Alpha

How many times do we see this? “I am alpha and I rule! Everyone must bow before me!” And then everything the werewolves do is about control and dominance. Every gesture, constant body language, constant aggression. There’s a lot of fighting, constant challenges and battles and even fights to the death. Enough - wild wolves don’t even do this! How could a pack even function when they’re constantly abusing each other?

Fangs for the Fantasy Book of the Week

Every week on the Fangs for the Fantasy podcast (archives here) we read a book and discuss it on the show. The review for the book of the week always goes up on 3:00pm (EST) on a Monday (Monday’s book review).

To give people a chance to read along with us, every Monday we’re also going to include a list of our planned books of the week for the next few shows, so people can get the books, read them and join in the conversation.

9/7-16/7: Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner

16/7-23/7: Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

23/7-30/7: Grave Witch by Kalayna Price

30/7-6/8: God Save the Queen by Kate Locke

6/8-13/8: Chloe Neil: Biting Cold

We will discuss each book on the latter date – so on the 23^rd July, we will discuss Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

We will post a new list every Monday with any changes or new books.

Alphas Season One, Episode Five: Never Let Me Go

 Rachel actually has her first date ever now that she is no longer under her parents control.  They begin to kiss but the sensations quickly overwhelms Rachel and she is forced to ask her date to leave. At the office, Nina tries to get Rachel to talk about her date but she refuses.  Lee gives them all badges for DCIS [defense criminal investigative services] to make it easier for them to investigate.  When Rachel goes into her office to make a phone call, Lee immediately dives head first into her business asking about her date.  Once again, we see that Rachel is denied any kind of privacy or respect.

This episode begins with two teenagers horsing around on a football field. One of their teachers approaches them and collapses in front of them. It turns out that this is the fourth death in a small town in just three weeks. Rachel and Lee head out to investigate the deaths when the CDC is unable to figure out why people are dying.  Rachel can smell the fear in the town and listens in as people in the town speculate on why people are dying.

When they walk into the office and Zelanski, the coach of the local football team is yelling. They learn that the first death was Chris Elkhart in a car accident which Chief Handel believes is unrelated, but Lee wants to exhume the body anyway. They go and see Jessica Elkhart, Chris' mother and Rachel is instantly drawn to her.  As Jessica talks about her loss and the fact that though he tried very hard that Chris did not fit into the small town football culture, Rachel becomes overwhelmed and starts to cry.  She promises Jessica that they will get to the bottom of this.  Though Rachel did apologize for her unprofessional behaviour, Lee takes the opportunity to once again dig into her private business, forcing Rachel to admit that her parents will not return her phone calls and hearing about the loving relationship between Jessica and Chris just showed her how abnormal her relationship with her parents is.

When the return to the police station Rachel immediately smells decay.  Chief Handel is in the back and it is clear that he has become the latest victim.  The next day, the rest of the team arrives.  Lee admits that he is way out of his depth and Bill reminds him that he is FBI and will lead the investigation.  I think it is necessary for Bill to keep bringing up his experience in order for his character not to be overwhelmed by Hicks whose skills are actually perfect for a team leader.

They head to the local high school where Gary reads peoples texts. Hicks is irritated with Gary's lack of focus.  Gary learns about all of he bullying going on at the school. In the meantime, Bill and Nina go and talk to the coach who is extremely hostile.  In frustration, Nina has to give him a push so that they can have a conversation with him.  Later talking to Lee, Bill says that the chief is not an alpha.  Gary is wandering the halls by himself when he runs into Dave Burton.  Burton call him a retard and Gary tells him that he should not use that word and that he is autistic and should not use that word. I like that Gary called out the ableist language but once again, we have yet another scene where the disabled person is forced to speak out while the able bodied stay silent.  When Burton gets physical with Gary, Hicks shows up.  They attempt to punch him but he evades Burton's shot as well as those of his teammates. When Burton runs away, Hicks stops him by throwing a book. When they reach Burton it becomes clear that he is not the alpha but a victim.

In the hospital nothing they do for Burton is helping him. By his bedside, Dr. Vanessa Calder takes his hand and this calms him. They realize that Burton is addicted to a person and what he is suffering from is withdrawal. Lee realizes that Burton needs Oxycocin.

Rachel goes back to see Jessica who tells her in detail exactly how bullied her son was. It turns out that Jessica is the Alpha and she uses her power to overtake Jessica.  They get in the car and Jessica says that they have one more stop to make before leaving. In the meantime, Bill and Hitch go to the crime scene where he uses his abilities to discover that Chris' death was no accident.  When they tell Lee that Chris actually committed suicide they realize that the report was doctored and that Jessica tried to help but no one did anything about it.  They realize that Rachel is at Jessica's house.

Lee, Hicks and Bill all move to try and intercept Rachel and Jessica.  When she realizes that the team is getting close, she pulls over and tells Rachel that she does not love her anymore.  This causes Rachel to go into immediate withdrawl.  Lee injects her but it is not working and so he tells Rachel to focus on him and that he loves her like a daughter. Rachel fights and comes back.

The team then heads to Zelanski's house where Jessica has just finished telling him that she wants him to die alone.  Bill puts her in handcuffs. The next day Lee tells Rachel that he told the town that Jessica poisoned her victims and that she is headed for Bingingtam. I am not at all pleased with this considering who knows about the lobotomies that happen there.  It leads me to believe that his conflict with what is happening is very false. 

True Blood Season Five Episode Six: Hopeless

 

I'm not quite sure what to say about this episode.  It certainly has its moments of shock but at the same time, I still don't really feel like the plot is going anywhere and there is still far too much distraction with ancillary characters getting much more airtime than they need.

Terry realises that he is well and truly made a mistake and the irfit is going to hunt him and kill him.  He is saddened because it means that in order to keep them safe, he will have to leave Arlene and the kids behind. When he goes to Merlott's to tell her, Arlene immediately assumes that he is off his medication because of course, curses aren't real.  This really irritated me because it plays upon the idea that PWD cannot be trusted.  Arlene lives in a world of vampires, shifters and was personally put under a spell by a meanad. Last year she saw Lafayette be possessed, watched ghosts rise from the grave and saw a witch cast spells but somehow a curse is impossible and so Terry must be off his meds.  It makes no sense to question Terry's assertions given everything that she has seen and the assumption that he is off his meds, reads as highly ableist to me.

When we last left Tara and Jessica, they were getting into a fight over Hoyt.  When the fight spills into a far more public space in Fangtasia, Pam stops it and yanks Tara out of the room by her hair.  I really dislike the heavy handed nature of the relationship between Pam and Tara, when all she has to do is order her not to do something.  There is absolutely no need to ever lay hands on Tara. For her part, Jessica says that she guesses the whole friendship deal is over.  Alone, Pam tells Tara in no uncertain terms that Fangtasia is hers and that she just works there, but she does tell her that she is proud of the way she fought.  Jessica is older and therefore stronger, but Tara more than held her own.

Lafayette rushes to his mother, played by the amazing Alfre Woodard.  At first he believes that she has died but she quickly ends the ruse.   Lafayette learns that Jesus is being held hostage by his evil uncle, who we met last season.  Ruby Jean makes it absolutely clear that Lafayette must help Jesus.  I am still not pleased with the fact that the writers of True Blood routinely put homophobic slurs into her mouth.

In the hospital, Luna and Sam have clearly been hurt and at first they are worried because her daughter is missing.  They don't have to worry long because Martha shows up with her in tow.  After much angsting, Luna decides to allow her daughter to stay with Martha until they can figure out who is responsible for the attacks.  Sam is determined to get to the bottom of it and approaches Andy.  Sam feels that it's a hate crime because the shifters are being attacked for who they are. I understand why Sam made that point because the only four shifters in Bon Temps have been targeted; however, I reject its usage outright.  True Blood does not have a good record on social justice issues, or marginalized people for that matter.  

Sam volunteers to help Andy with the case, claiming that because of his ability to shift that he can get to places that Andy cannot.  When Andy does not agree, Sam tells him that he does not know what it is to be hated for what he is.  This line coming from a truly marginalised person would not be a problem but once again they have taken on the experiences of truly historically oppressed people. Why couldn't they give someone like Lafayette or Tara the opportunity to say something like this?

Dark Angel Season 1, Episode 3: Flushed

This episode we confirm what has been often hinted at before – Max, as a heavily genetically modified super soldier, was made as much as she was born. And since she was made, human error kicked in, leaving her with problems to match her super abilities. In particular, severe seizures  and weakness that are only prevented by taking tryptophan; which supplements the serotonin her brain isn’t making.

We see this with Max dropping in on Logan for lunch, as the power goes out. They share “where were you when the pulse hit” stories (Max was in an abusive foster home, trying to fit in as a normal child even though her foster father was violent to her and her foster sister, and left when the pulse hit).  Before her shaking draws Logan’s attention to Max having a rough spot with her seizures.

Back at her home, Walter is waiting for his usual bribe to ignore them squatting. But Max has already taken the money and spent it on her medicine; he’s early and she didn’t have chance to replace it yet – she stares him down and promises payment the next day. Kendra, however, is less easily brushed off, but Max snaps at her as well.

She arrives at work, late, poking Normal (which they all do anyway because poking Normal is fun), but Original Cindy is also not pleased – Max arranged to meet with her the night before and didn’t show up or call. She also has no money to lend Max to help make up the shortfall. Again, Max is snappish and angry.

She does find some money out on the street though – in corrupt and dystopian Seattle, Max finds some men running a protection racket with a very shiny car – which she promptly steals after beating up the driver and takes it to sell – though she won’t get the money until the next morning.

Before that she has to deal with her friends – Kendra and Original Cindy are concerned with her behaviour and assume she’s doing drugs – so they’ve set up an intervention for her. Worse, they’ve flushed her pills. In desperation Max returns to her supplier to get more pills on credit –but even she’s out. With threats, Max convinces her to spill her supply – an orderly in a hospital supplies her.

So to the hospital it is. Normally robbing a hospital and getting away untouched would be easy – but normally Max isn’t shaking and weak from her seizures, security brings her down and she’s shipped off to be processed in the police station where she makes a friend (Break, who is several kinds of fun – and, despite being a repeat offender for protesting which is strictly illegal, has his own in with the guards) and the corrupt cops who think she’s an addict rob her. She’s showved into holding cells – which is really just all the cells left open with the cell block sealed, without even an attempt at any kind of facilities.

Max decides it’s time to leave, bolstered by some milk (which contains tryptophan) rustled up by Break, she plans to escape, using Break as a diversion – by singing opera (it is my eternal regret that Break did not become a regular character). Yet again, her seizures and weakness prevent her from escaping and she ends up back in the guard’s hands – this time in the hands of the warder who notices how beautiful she is.

She wakes in the warden’s house to find Maria – orphaned, her mother died in the prison and she was taken in by the warden and his wife to cook and clean for them. And to be molested by the warden – which wakes Max’s memories of the abusive foster home she was in, her regrets for not saving her foster-sister, especially as she begins to hallucinate as her seizures get worse.

Alphas Season One, Episode Four, Rosetta

 

This episode opens with team rushing in because Gary picked up a cell phone signal to what they believe is the leader of the red flag.  They don't know what the leaders power is and when they rush in the house, the men escape by turning out all of the lights on the block, leaving behind a woman named Anna who Lee believes is a low functioning autistic.  Rachel asks what they should do with her, but Lee has no answers.

Back at the office, Lee plays a video and it seems that it is a mission statement from Red Flag asserting that Alphas are actually better than so-called normal people.  He quickly stops the tape, and when Hicks asks to see more, Lee cuts him off saying that it is simple propaganda and that Red Flag is about hurting its enemies.

Back at the house, Anna is trying to communicate with Gary.  She manages to tell Gary that she can help them find them. Anna was used by Red Flag to encode their messages.  It turns out that though Lee immediately assumed that Anna could not understand him, Anna actually understands every language. He tests this by talking to her in several languages.  He realizes that she is a virtual rosetta stone.  It turns out that she has Apraxia.  Anna took all the sounds that she is able to make and created her own unique language.  

When Lee brings Gary home his mother is very upset because he is off his routine.  For someone who is autistic, routine is extremely important.  Lee tells her that Gary met Anna and that he has never seen Gary take to someone so quickly.  She is happy with this news and Lee promises no more late nights for Gary. 

The next day, Garry and Anna set to work decoding the encrypted emails on the tablet. The tablet works  as a translator for Anna and they start to really communicate. Gary sends the translation for the emails and  Bill recognizes a routing number for a petroleum fuel truck. Okay, I don't know about you but this really feels like a bit of a stretch for me, even if Bill is FBI. Hicks realizes that the rogue alpha is going to blow up a fuel truck.

The two Alphas take the truck at truck stop. Kathy, Hicks, and Bill take off after the truck and the wrong truck to stop. When Bill checks the fuel he recognizes that it is empty.  In the meantime, the two Alphas are on the New Jersey Turnpike. Kathy suggests that maybe Milos changes his mine but Lee says that he is an idealist and they have to get one step ahead of him.

Rachel tries to get Gary to go back to the office but Gary yells and says that he is not leaving.  She gets frustrated but he digs in his heels.  This has me thinking about all of the flattery that Anna has been using on Gary.  She has been encouraging him to rebel against authority even as she stokes his ego.  Perhaps, Anna is not nearly as compliant as the team assumes that she is.  She tells him that she is glad that he stood up for himself and that she really likes him, but Gary is no longer buying it. He knows that she lied to him about the code and he has figured out that she gave him the wrong code for the truck. He figures out that Red Flag wasn't making her do anything because she is working for them, but Anna corrects him and says that they were working for him.

Back at the office, Hicks is having a coffee out of Rachel's cup and Bill points out that Rachel is going to know what he did because she will smell it.  How is it that Bill is suddenly so concerned about Rachel's space when just a few episodes ago he was putting his hands in her food without asking? Bill figures out that they should be looking at the northbound trucks.

Back at the house, Anna tells him that she doesn't just write the messages and that Milos trusts her.  She tries to recruit Gary telling him that they would trust him if he joined them and never treat him like a child. He says that he can figure out the real number and that he doesn't want anyone to get hurt but that she needs to tell him.  She tells him about a drug that prevents birth defects at that women who take this drug will not give birth to anymore Alphas. Anna says that society cannot deal with people like them and that they need to send a message that they are not a problem to be fixed. She tells him to make a choice for himself and that all he has to do is say nothing.

Gary tells her that he never made his own friends and he questions whether she is really his friend or pretending so that he would send the wrong information.  She says that she is his friend but he responds that he has done something sneaky that he believes that she will not like. At the office Lee is upset with Rachel that she didn't bring Gary back and she tells him that he should have told him that.  It seems that Gary sent the location to the office and tells them Anna is responsible for the original mix up.  Rachel realizes that Gary is still with Anna and he and Rachel rush back to the office. 

Anna is upset and says that she  does not need Lee's help. She does something to her computer which does something to the radiowaves, causing Gary to fall to the ground in pain. Milos makes it to the factory with the team hot on his heels. Milos causes the cars to short out which stops Hicks from making a clean shot at the wheels of the truck. After a high action packed scene, Milos climbs under the truck and uses his abilities to blow it up. 

At the house Nina, Rachel and Lee find Gary on the ground.  Anna has taken off. When Lee drops Gary off he tells Lee that he is not one of them.  Lee says that Red Flag is just a small group of people and that he does not make distinctions.  Gary enters the house saying that he sent Lee and email. While he is brushing his teeth he gets a message from Anna saying that she is sorry and hopes that she is still his friend.

Back at the office, Lee and Anna watch a recording from Red Flag detailing the days explosion, stating that they cannot stop true neuro diversity. Lee admits that he underestimated Anna and the strength of her argument as well. Lee realizes that Red Flag is more than a criminal enterprise and that it is a movement. On a map of the U.S. there are tons of red dots indicating the various cells.

I am not sure that agree with neuro diversity being used as a rally point or Red Flag.  I like that Lee continues to be conflicted about what he is doing though.  There really isn't a right or wrong here because Alphas do have the potential do a lot of harm as we have seen and so the fear is legitimate but at the same time, their humanity should never be questioned.  I think Anna raised some very important issues about how Gary is being treated by the team. They don't ask, they simply tell him what to do and assume that he will be compliant.  It's true that he is treated like a child and it will be interesting to see if Lee can acknowledge the ableism in this. 

 

Hex, Season 2, Episode 3: Spiral.

Last week, Cassie died to Ella’s magical knife which was Not the Plan which is quite a shift for any television programme.

Awesome Headmaster David makes one of his brief appearances to hold a school assembly about Cassie – who has not been seen for several weeks (obviously). And Leon, Roxanne and the mean folks are rather tastelessly taking odds on what has happened to Cassie(dead in a ditch, etc etc) – with Ella playing banter with them, while Thelma looks on in a Most Displeased fashion. With so many weeks with no news, the headmaster is returning the college to normal – no more ground’s restrictions etc. Earnest preacher, Jez throws in his own, religiously slanted, words which the headmaster handles adroitly.

Ella chases Thelma after the assembly, chiding her for being too sad for too long and wanting her to move past it (after a few weeks, yes Ella is not the most pleasant of people) and throwing in a lecture about how Cassie should have listened to her (Ella – some career advice – do not become a grief counsellor).  Their conflict is put aside when a Seraph appears – near invisible predator-style spirit creature that eats souls – and causes massive fires. Fires which apparently make Ella severely freak out and freeze – requiring Thelma to chivvy her into running and hiding.

So, brief Seraph resume – they eat souls and only become visible just before they kill. But they like pure souls – the souls of virgins, which means Ella needs to use a virgin as bait. They have their eyes on Leon.  This leads to Ella inviting Leon for a drink during judo class (yes, this college has an interesting curriculum), during which Jez, the therapist/priest/judo teacher notices the scars on Ella’s wrists.

While preparing for her date with Leon, Ella tells Thelma why she’s not worried about Azazeal – after their last battle Azazeal left behind his large amber necklace he let Malachai play with – it’s the stone of Belial, inscribed with Angelic script and allows one to bend the laws of space and time. Handy little gizmo, and Azazeal will probably return to get it back. We get some past of Ella – she’s the daughter of John Dee and Azazeal killed him.

Ella takes Leon on their date and flirts with him and drops lots of hints of sex later, but at the end of the date he’s too nervous to push on for more. But she continues the next day, flirting (much to the surprise of Roxanne, Tom and their group). Thelma wonders what the chances are of Leon ending up dead, Ella seems fairly indifferent.

More flirting over Jenga, more swapping personal stories and being sweet and luvvie, Leon actually acting human. Which eventually ends up back at the room half naked, getting hot and heavy – until Elle suddenly stops him, asking him to take it slow. Leon, confused and a little angry, slopes off. This leads to Ella doubting herself, how ruthless she can be and whether her personal feelings – both for Leon and in the past when she was late in arriving to kill Cassie, are signs of weakness and leading her astray. Resolved, she sends Leon an apology and arranges to meet him again. The problem is, as Thelma spots, that Ella is beginning to care for Leon which makes it hard to use him as bait.

Review: Halo of the Damned by Dina Rae

The fallen angel Amaros has come down to Earth in the guise of the human Andel, working at the bidding of his master, Satan, he is recruiting more souls for his lord’s armies. And he’s perfectly placed to do so – as the head of several major advertising firms, he and his people have become a master of corrupting souls around the world, making him one of Satan’s most effective generals.

But there’s precious little gratitude in Hell, and Amaros’ mistakes have been noticed, in particular he has been siring children – nephilim – an activity strictly forbidden by both Heaven and Hell. Even worse, a branch of his descendants have gone further, through inbreeding and further summoning, concentrating angelic blood in their offspring in their own insular religion.

The prideful Amaros has been given his orders to return to Hell – but as Satan chafed under god’s rule, so too does Amaros under Satan’s.

And we have Joanna, newly released from prison for cocaine use, she’s starting to build her new life. But her first job out of prison puts her in Amaros’s company and any attempts for normality quickly fade as she and her sister Kim are faced with their own hidden family history, their grandmother’s agenda, what really killed their mother, Lydia – and the legacy she left behind. Along with Lydia’s lover, Sean, they piece together to puzzle of what exactly happened, what their family history truly is and the forces that are at stake.

This book is extremely dark and gritty. And I’ll warn for this from the very beginning. This isn’t a happy  angel story where a fallen angel finds a mortal woman and then falls in romantic true love and they have lots of sweet, joyful living. No, these are fallen angels. They’re evil, deadly creatures out to reap souls for Satan – or themselves. This means these books are grim, people die, people are eaten, people are raped, there are serial killers, incest and torturers. It’s grim and dark and leaves no shadow of a doubt that this is evil.

Which is, in some ways, refreshing. There was no romanticising of evil, no sympathising of it. We didn’t see the darkly tortured angsty creatures we’re so used to and we didn’t, in any way, make the evil murdering monsters seem sexy, even when they were sexually attractive. Even people who had fallen into Andel’s thrall fell there beause of his charisma and out of worship and greed after deliberate manipulation on his part – there  was none of the very typical “oh he’s so gorgeous so I’ll forget he was a serial killer” we’ve come to know and loathe

I can’t say it was a story with a lot of surprises. There were some twists – Tony was a twist and the exact nature of the scroll was a twist, but most of the story was heavily foreshadowed throughout (the author also has an interesting habit of briefly recapping what’s happened repeatedly, which really prevents any surprises since the plot’s very laid out from there). That didn’t mean the story was boring however, and while I could see the shape of what was coming, it was interesting to see how it developed especially since, while the plot wasn’t difficult to predict, the world and story was original.

The idea of vampire-like creatures being creations of the fallen angels was an interesting twist; I also really liked the real world consequences to the murders, especially with Marcus. In a lot of these stories we see vampires leaving a trail of bodies in their wake and it never seems to catch up with them. There are no police, no grieving loved ones, no manuhunt, no attempt to find the perpetrators of their crimes – but not here. One of the interesting side-plots of the book is Marcus’s increasingly inept attempts to try and escape from the trail of evidence he’s left behind.

After so many demonic forces used in fiction, I think I’m surprised that this is the first time I’ve come across a demonic advertising industry (though it does make a lot of sense and really fit). How the advertising campaigns were designed and how extremely exploitative language and disturbing behaviour fit into the businesses practices as standard really stood out and meshed seamlessly with Andel’s own demonic nature. In fact, one of the powerful undertones is not so much the overt power of the fallen angels and their demonic vampires – but their insidious influence. The wealth and power Andel has, the power their followers have through their church, their reach and their immunity. And all of this becomes even more exciting and tense when that power begins to unravel, when the veil of secrecy begins to fade and all that insidious influence is shown to be so very hollow.