That makes me feel angry!

[naomi_jay]

So I'm reading this book (review when I've finished) and I'm liking it, not quite as much as the first in the series, but it's still enjoyable brain candy. Maybe trying a bit too hard on making everyone witty and hilarious, but, you know, nothing's perfect. And it's fine.

AND THEN A FIVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL AND A CENTURY-OLD-VAMPIRE DECIDE THEY'RE SOUL MATES AND EVERYONE'S ALL "HA HA, AS LONG AS THEY WAIT TIL SHE'S SIXTEEN HA HA." AND I'M LIKE "WHAT IS THIS AND WHERE DID IT COME FROM AND WHY IS IT HAPPENING?"

Really? Really? I don't see how this is a good idea at all. She's five. Five. And the author has tried to drop hints that, "oh, she may appear just a child, but maybe she's so much more," but I don't care, because for all intents and purposes, she is five. She's in a five-year-old body wearing five-year-old clothes talking like a five-year-old.

I'm not even going to get into how much the fated-to-mate trope annoys me. I'm sorry. What kind of relationship is that, where a one-hundred-year-old man is just waiting for a five-year-old to hit the legal age? Isn't that, well, grooming? And messed up? This isn't just me, right? I think it's weird and I wouldn't expect this character to be painted as one of the good guys.

It's bothering me so much. It undermines everything I like about the book, because it's just creepy as hell. I'm not a fan of precocious five-year-olds at the best of times, but this is taking the piss. It's really annoying me. And it's not like, "oh, I don't like it because it encourages paedophilia," or whatever, I just think it's a poor, dumb, authorial choice. Am I overreacting?

Comments

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

I agree. Five year olds learn to write and can't wipe their own behinds yet. Love (or lust) does not come into the equation yet. Why aren't the parents filing a restraining order?

This does touch on the ancient child theme my mind has been playing with. One day I want to write a story that includes a character much like Claudia, one of Anne Rice's vampires, a child who has been made immortal somehow. Forever unable to be an adult in many ways, but older and wiser than anyone else. Still, I would make that child at least 8, possibly 10, and the reason that I haven't written this story yet is because treating a child like an adult is tricky and wrong.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

The child vampire does seem to be a perennial favourite. The idea of a knowing adult mind in an innocent child body is definitely creepy to me! But yeah, it's hard to do well, I think.

What irked me most was that everyone, literally all the adults in this scenario do not have a problem as long as the kid waits until she's sixteen for sex. Not one of them stood up and said, "isn't this a bit weird, isn't she too young to be making these kinds of decisions, and shouldn't he know better?" It was just surreal.

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

when I was 16 and dating a 25 year old, my parents said he should have known better. Someone who is over a hundred years old and still sound of mind should definitely know better.

But I guess the writer of the story doesn't know better.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Over here, at least, sixteen/twenty-five wouldn't be breaking any laws, although depending on the people, I might look askance at them... But setting up a toddler and an ancient creature of the night as a future loved-up pair of snugglebunnies... Yeah. No.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're overreacting. It's creepy! Though, depending on the skill of the author, I can sometimes get behind it when it gets acknowledged as creepy. Like, you can wait hundreds of years for 'the one' to break your curse, but life isn't going to merrily pick up where it left off, if reincarnation is involved then the other person won't be exactly the same as their previous life, not to mention there can be >:| over "you manipulated me/my emotions, you creep!" etc.

But the whole "fated to mate" thing completely screws that up, because you're taking away everyone's choice in the matter. And worse if the whole True Love (tm) thing gets used, as I just know that after some trepidation, there'll be orgasms to convince her that This Is True Love! baby, you and me FOREVS, you'll see! I can get you off good! Never mind that he may be a controlling asshole the rest of the time, this is what counts, amirite?

Laughing it off as oh, comedy of errors! just...no, that's skeevy.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

No, this really was just written as, "whatever scrapes will they get into next!" like the kid had bought a frog into the house or whatever.

This is why I hated The Time Traveller's Wife. Showing up and telling a five-year-old, "hey, I'm your future husband! We totes get married one day so let me shape your developing mind with stories of our adult life together, okay?" is fucking creepy. Portraying it as romantic is massively weird to me.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Just think he can help her with her history homework. Oh what crazy shenanigans are next? At least he's not constantly going to high school, too.

But yeah, taking away everyone's choice and overlooking the creepy makes me side-eye so hard. I'm all for having fucked up relationships so long as they know they're fucked up and actually deal with the stuff that comes up with the how fucked up it is, rater than tra la la soulmaaaates *draws sparkly hearts* idk, I guess I just like it when a couple actually works to stay together rather than "so we're in love now!" and that's it, they're irrevocably in love and nothing can possibly come between them, or if it does then a tearful reunion/orgasms will solve that. Maybe I've been wallowing too much in the trashy novels.

[acidamoeba.livejournal.com]

Considering one of my neices just celebrated her fifth birthday, this creeps my out much more. She barely thinks of boys as smelly ickky people, let alone as soulmates.

The rational reaction to having a century old vampire turning up to see/claim his soulmate is a good and thorough staking where bodily remains are never found and have no chance of regenerating.

Also, soulmates = bleurgh. Lack of choice makes me cringe- unless of course one or both of the fated pair take it upon themselves to say "Hell no, bitches- I want that person over there."

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Have you read Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely? I like how she handles it - Ash is destined to be Summer Queen and rule alongside the Summer King (forgot his name...), but she's already in love with someone else and so is he. Marr manages to do a fated-to-mate style storyline without taking away the choices of the people involved, and it works pretty well.

[skarrah.livejournal.com]

Creepy, creepy, CREEPY!

I want to blame Twilight for making it 'alright' again. That whole Jacob/Renesmee thing? Ick! But saying that, Anne Rice and LKH have done the same thing in the past. Weirds me out every time.

[intothenyght.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely. I refuse to read anything involving a child in any sexually oriented way. I just can't.

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

I think if your going to do that than treat it like the grooming it is. THAT at least would be honest, and it DOES happen. Maybe not so much anymore, but once upon a times girls were trained to be wives and that was all they were ever going to do. Young girls were married off to adult men for various reasons all through history too so it's conceivable a really old vamp would have zero problem with that scenario but the kid's parents ought to have something to say.