Subtle

   Subtle, something delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe, making use of clever and indirect methods to achieve something (Webster). This is a word that I would never use to describe Dead until Dark book series and the horrid TV spin-off True Blood both of which take any subtlety that could be and burns it like Bill at breakfast.

The novel makes a better attempt at subtlety in some places while in other place it derails and crashes. Some of the positive uses of subtlety in the book are by giving hints about Sam being a werewolf/dog, the killer’s identity, and how Vampire blood could be addictive, but that’s about the end of it. Other than these few points the book is pretty on the nose about what means what and how the characters are feeling by having the characters narrate their own feelings. The worst example of the negative subtlety in the novel is when Sookie and Bill have sex in the graveyard after she thought he was dead. (Also am I the only one who thinks sex in a graveyard is both creepy and really disgusting) In most romantic novels a person orgasming is described as the character being transported to another realm of existence, feeling euphoric and understanding what it means to be in love. But in this terrible novel this moment is summed up in just three words “Suddenly I came”, how romantic (Dead Until Dark). You can just feel the author just violently beating you in the head saying “Do you get it”. No matter how I bash the book the show did so much worse.

"You just spent all day submerged in the ground, lets plow!"

The only subtle part of the show True Blood, is the actually catchy and fitting opening song called Bad Things. In the opening the song plays over stock footage of decaying animals, the KKK, images that represent Louisiana, and religion. Now some of you might think that this is not really subtle, showing the main themes of the show before the episode even starts but compared to the rest of this train wreck this is godly. Some examples of this are the “pie scene”, and any scene with Sam. During the scenes with Sam there are many hints that he is a dog from showing a picture of a dog in his office, Tara saying Sam is “Like a dog with a bone”, and Bill calling him a mutt. This and the fact he always showed up in his dog form every time Sookie turns him down or tells him to leave, nice. 

Finally we get to the pie scene, where pie is mistreated just like the audience. The scene has Sookie slowly eating the last pie that Gran had made before she died, to the tune of a southern hymn. This scene is supposed to show Sookie grieving for her grandmother, but comes off as forced and heavy handed and almost comical. (It also quickly transitions from this scene to all of the main characters having sex).  So the both book and the TV spin-off show a lot of southern pride, racism and a lot of unnecessary sex, but little to no subtlety and it clearly shows.  

How we all feel after watching the show.

           

Why the love triangle?

Why is there always a love triangle? Well let me just start off this blog post with the fact that I have no idea so please do not read this thinking I am coming at this as someone who has really studied love triangles because I haven’t, but it is a question that I keep thinking of as they continually come out. Why is the idea of a love triangle (or in Sookie’s case a love hexagon always growing bigger) so appealing for authors? It’s often depicted in movies and the books the movies were originally based off of (because there’s always a book first) - particularly if the main character is a woman or teenage girl.  

It is worth noting that within love triangles, there are often two main roles that the love interests fit into are that of what the main character wants and needs. One person is often the nice guy type who is seemingly perfect for the character, but not quite right for whatever reason and is later found to have a major flaw which kills of the perfect image that they originally presented themselves with. The other character is often “physically attractive but potentially hazardous” (thanks Wikipedia) and therefore imperfect but very endearing and later becomes the more desirable after the first is found to have some flaw.

Originally this design seemed like it shouldn’t fit into the Sookie Stackhouse Series, but upon reevaluation it really fits pretty well in spite of the number of love interests Sookie has by being used over and over. What we’ve seen in class is the first of many love triangles in the series- Sam and Bill. Sam could definitely fit into the boy next door who is seemingly “perfect” (problematic as well but whatever) and Bill is the endearing dangerous character who is later more desirable when Sam is found out to be a shapeshifter (his major flaw). This cycle happens again however with Bill and Eric. Bill is at first seemingly perfect, but it is later revealed that he was looking for Sookie on orders from the Queen/his maker and Eric loses his memory and is basically like a puppy rather than a killer blah blah there’s also Quinn and Alcide and others.

            So why is this appealing? Aside from the fact that it apparently sells, who can really know? In my opinion, it may be because to many people, the idea of being overall fairly normal yet having some special thing inherent to you that makes you desired by multiple people is not exactly an unwanted thing. While certainly being desired is not the ultimate thing to strive for, the idea of being viewed by someone as perfect and special and important is realistically something many people want to feel. And if you have two people who feel that way than you must be particularly great (or in Sookie’s case the most precious thing this world has ever seen). So overall, it is probably a reflection of the desire within ourselves to be wanted and feel special just because of who we are inside.

Sookie Stackhouse: Bad Character, or Underated Badass?

Since starting True Blood and observing everyone’s reaction to it, I have come to the conclusion that everyone’s most hated character is the lead, Sookie Stackhouse. Most of the common complaints I have heard tend to consist of how she seems so willing to give up her independence to men, her all about me attitude, and how she constantly makes dumb decisions. Many would also seem to cite her as an example of the continuing problems that male writers have when it comes to female characters, making them obsessed with men and having them constantly failing the Bechdel Test by bringing conversations back to the men in their lives. With all of these in mind, I have to ask, why is it that nobody likes her? Honestly, she probably fits plenty of the definitions of feminists, only in a strange, roundabout way that requires looking at some of her actions and how a normal person would react in the situations that she gets into. The most notable way that she screams feminist power fantasy to me is in, ironically, her relationship to Bill. As a vampire, Bill is hated by the rest of the town, with the exception of Sookie and her grandmother. Literally everyone, from Sookie’s brother Jason to her boss Sam to her best friend Tara, thinks that getting involved with Bill is a terrible idea. Despite this, Sookie ignores all of their comments and continues her relationship with Bill. The reason why this screams feminist power fantasy to me is because it’s Sookie’s choice to remain with Bill. When it comes down to it, things would probably be easier for Sookie if she, metaphorically speaking, rolled over and acquiesced to the wishes of the people in town, most of whom are male. Instead, Sookie stands by her decision to be with Bill, despite the disapproval she receives. Sookie makes her own choices and stands by them, until she sees evidence staring directly at her that she is wrong. Ultimately, that is what I believe that the core goal of feminism is, to be able to make your own choices and stand by them until proven wrong. As to Sookie’s tendency to be somewhat deferential to the men in her life, most of the men in her life that she interacts with on a regular basis have some way of threatening her. The most obvious are Bill and Eric, who are both ancient vampires with superhuman speed, strength, hypnosis, immunity to conventional weapons, and possibly magical powers that haven’t been revealed yet, powers that include, based on traditional vampire lore, weather control, transformations into a bat, wolf, or mist, the power to control the foul things of the night like rats, bats, and wolves, various magic spells, and a whole host of potentially deadly abilities if modern vampire lore is to be believed. So naturally, a twenty-something bar waitress who has a rather unathletic build and can’t use her signature mind reading ability to help her totally stands a chance against hundred year old immortals who can turn a mobile home into what looks like the aftermath of tornado. Really, it’s a wonder Sookie can get away with saying some of the things she does, particularly toward Eric, a much older vampire than any we have seen so far who is used to getting his way and not having to deal with back talk. Honestly, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would say that they would react any differently than Sookie would if they were in the situations that she gets into. Overall, while I do see some problems with Sookie, I honestly don’t get the extreme amount of hatred toward her. Maybe it’s just me, but to me, Sookie is a decent character who deserves more credit than she gets.

Sookie Stackhouse: Best at Being the Worst

                What makes a good character? Some would say that they would need to be believable; others would say that their words and actions should be justified. Whatever your definition of a “good character” is, I think we can all agree that a show needs good, solid characters, especially main characters. So then, where does Miss Sookie Stackhouse fall on the list? I think you already know.

                I hate Sookie. Like honestly, she is a terrible character, and normally this wouldn’t be awful, except for the fact that she is one of the mains. But why do I hate her you might ask. Good question. I hate her, first of all, because the story makes her almost completely unlikeable. Now, to be fair, the book did a better job at making the reader kind of sympathize with her, for example, when it talks about her telepathy and the emotional and psychological problems that arise because of it.  But in the show, however, they chose to ignore anything that might make the viewer sympathize with her in favor of Jason sex scenes,

                So why is she so unlikeable? The problem stems from her decision-making skills and her sour attitude. Throughout the book and the show alike, we see Sookie make dumb and irresponsible decisions, against the wise words of her friends, and then get pissed off at them for expressing concern. “Don’t try to start a relationship with a vampire.” Probably a good piece of advice that Sookie just blatantly ignores and berates her friends for suggesting. And by the time she starts complaining about the downsides of dating a vampire, I can’t even pretend to care because, yeah, that’s what your friends were telling you!

And then there’s her attitude. Oh man, her attitude. On top of ignoring her friends and being irresponsible, I’ve already mentioned that she constantly tries to interject with her own idiotic opinions that really have no basis and just flat out abuses her friends for trying to help her.  An example of Sookie’s poor attitude in the show comes from a scene between her BEST FRIEND Tara and her. Tara bursts into the room, excited and happy that her mom is finally being the mother that she always wanted, basically pouring her heart out the Sookie, and Sookie snaps back and basically says “stop being happy, my grandmother is dead, talk about me instead of you.” Like jeez, just be happy for your friend for once, it doesn’t have to be all about you MISS STACKHOUSE.

It’s just…I can’t empathize with her at all. She’s reckless and irresponsible, she’s rude to her friends and expects everyone to care all about her, and she thinks she’s justified in all her actions. But she’s not.  And I hate her. #worstcharacter2012

Modern Vampires and Racism? Does True Blood go too far or not far enough?

In true blood, there is much symbolism and references between the criticisms and persecution that vampires face in “Today’s” world and the plight of an African American during the civil rights movement. The TV show has heavy symbolism and images that it uses to push this seemingly plausible agenda of making vampires suffer like African American’s during the civil rights movement. There is also a lot of connections made between the vampires and homosexuality, phrases like coming out of the coffin are obvious throwbacks o coming out of the closet etc. and though initially, the show tries to play up the necessity for equality and the rights issues for vampires, it falls short of really tackling the symbolism and comparison. The show teases the audience of being about a racial issue, but at the end of the day or in this case episode, this is still about Sookie and Bill.

The plight of the vampires is making a pretty large leap to compare itself to the plight of an African American during the civil rights movement. The struggles were much harder and dangerous to overcome than it is for vampires. For one thing, vampires can pass for human if they need to, an African American cannot pass for white to escape persecution. For another, when Vampires publicly came forward, they did so in a time where things like the civil rights movement already happened, and society already has laws in place to prevent such things like that form reoccurring. This is not to minimize the persecutions of vampires in the series, but to compare it to the civil rights movement is unfair. Its like comparing apples to oranges, both of them are fruit but neither are the same.

This is probably why HBO never jumps in to these similarities head first, it just isn’t the same struggle for vampires as it was and is for African Americans. The show is still about a love story at the end of the day and making it a civil rights issue, although it would be interesting, it would take away from the story. People watch True Blood because it’s a raunchy adult romance story with vampires, and to make it into a show about race and rights would be to make it into a different show. I think the show doesn’t delve enough into the race and civil rights issues, but I think it does so out of knowledge that, although those are serious issues, its not what the core of the show is about, and to change that would be to take away from the work of the author who wrote the series. True Blood is about vampires who fall in love with humans, and that’s why the show doesn’t stray too far from the plot of the novels.

930 Words on Tara and Lafayette

"True Blood" has become old news in the TV world. The HBO series was popular with the younger generations and became a household name from 2008 to 2014, but may be fading into obscurity now. The show, as some people know, is based off the "Sookie Stackhouse" series. The first season follows the books rather well and only strays away to add in another character (because it was very odd that Sookie didn’t have any good friends other than Bill Compton). It only removes part of the plot because it draws too much attention away from Bill and Sookie’s romance (even though it would offer quite an interesting discussion or characterization). In my limited experience watching the series (I’m on Episode 8 right now), there have been quite a few characters that have irked me.

One of the characters they added is named Tara Thornton. Tara is the epitome of the “sassy black friend,” except her type of sass is just "bitchy" and she has quite a chip on her shoulder with the rest of the world. The chip comes from her mother, an alcoholic and a druggie who spends her time verbally abusing Tara and saying she’s doing all of this in the name of God. Tara’s purpose is to give Sookie someone to talk to about her "undead bae" and probably included to add a more diverse character pool to the series.

One of the original characters is named Lafayette, a black man; however, he has a stark difference from Tara. Lafayette is a good ol’ Southern queen. He wears eyeshadow and fake eyelashes, has more of a swish in his walk than most women, and tries to seduce “the straightest man at a party.” 
Lafayette is, again, the epitome of a gay man from the South. Not only that, but he sells all kinds of illegal substances and even dabbles in prostitution. Not only are they caricatures of themselves, but the two are related.

There are really few uses that I can think of for either in their original contexts. Tara seems to exist only as Sookie’s best friend who has fallen madly in love with her older brother. The only other possible reasoning behind creating her would be that she is a voice of reason -- Sookie’s smarter half. But we already have one of those: Sam is reasonable and we often see him trying to talk Sookie out of things that are just plain mad. And Lafayette is portrayed accurately in the television series when compared to the novel. Of course he would need a more detailed background story, as he isn’t mentioned much in the book -- but why does his background story have to include him dealing drugs? Yes, doing this brings us closer to Jason, shows us just how powerful V (vampire blood) really can be, and provides us with comic relief.

But why are they stereotypes and caricatures? I find it odd -- and rather offensive -- that the two African-American characters aren’t normal people, but rather overdramatized versions of what they could be. The show -- and books -- seem to have these characters to add diversity. Really, that is one of the only reasons I can imagine for this. The main cast remains predominately white for all seven seasons, and in all the main cast pictures, Lafayette and Tara are the only two shown that are not white. And later, Tara “comes out of the closet” as a lesbian, making her and Lafayette two of the homosexual characters as well. And in a series where quite a few plot lines involving sexuality seem to be cut out, why add this one?

The series has tried to correct wrongs in the book; it wants to expand the characters to be more diverse both sexually and racially, but it handled both of these the wrong way. Not only has it made the three African-American characters (including Tara’s alcoholic mother) stereotypes, two of those three characters were also homosexual. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with characters of various sexualities and races - in fact, there’s everything rightwith such a thing - but what isn’t right is that the writers thought it would be a good idea to clump everything together. It’s not accurate and doesn’t paint a great picture of the African-American community in any region -- especially small-town Louisiana.

The "Sookie Stackhouse" novels definitely have their faults -- as does "True Blood" the series. One of the biggest is how it has portrayed its more diverse characters. Rather than try to handle race, it has just thrust three characters into generally bad stereotypes and given two of them the majority of the diversity in the show. In trying to fix the problems that the book had, the show has instead magnified them and made them worse.

Adele Hale Stackhouse x Bill Compton fanfic

“And now, if you’ll excuse Adele and me, maybe we’ll take a walk and see what else I remember from the War. It’s a lovely night” Bill reached over and took Adele’s hand. The backs of her hands had been tendered with age, mottled with spots and lines. The clumpy veins and heavy wrinkles texturing her hands spanned out as if to map her long life. As they stepped onto the porch, a couple of strands of her thick white hair were picked up by the wind, obscuring her face like a light snow flurry. Bill had to see her eyes so he brushed the strands off her face and hooked them behind her ear. His touch brought a roseate tint to her cheeks.

“I’m sorry I normally have my hair braided” she said bashfully. There was something about her soft southern accent that soothed Bill. Perhaps it was that she sounded so much like the long dead family and friends he yearned to hear again.

His hand had drifted from behind her ear to settle on the curve of her neck. He could feel her heart thundering. His thumb stroked the turkey neck hanging from her chin.

“Oh Adele” Bill breathed as he rested his forehead on hers.

Bill did not know how to make her fathom how she made him feel. His old age had made him weary. He didn’t have the same desires as he had had long ago as a young man. He didn’t want some young dollop anymore. He had already had a wife and children; he already had his romp in the hay. He just wanted a companion, someone to share and commiserate with. Bill wanted a real woman. A real woman like Adele. He had nothing in common with the millennials all around him. His old confederate soul had wandered all across the United States until he finally found a home here in Bon Temps, here in Adele.

“Bill-Bill stop. Bill look at me” She gently yet firmly grabbed his face and made him look at her. Her hands shook, whether with age or nerves or a combination of both he couldn’t tell.

“Bill I’m old. I’m not like Sookie or Jason.” Her voice wavered and dropped down into an unsteady whisper. “I can’t keep up with a strong man like you and we both know I won’t be here on this earth for nearly as long.”

Bill couldn’t wait any longer. There was only one way he could make her feel the depth of his emotions. He swooped in and pressed his lips against hers. For a couple of seconds that felt like an eternity they just stood there. Lips gently pressed together. Adele seemed to shake off any reservations and opened her mouth to breath in shakily against his lips. As soon as her lips opened his tongue entered and they were locked in an erotic tangle of tongues and dripping saliva. Bill was overwhelmed by desire and pressed her hard against the side of the house. It wasn’t until his hands had slipped up her night gown that Adele turned her head to regain the breath she had lost. As his fangs grazed down her neck, Bill felt her reach up towards her face. She looked him in the eyes, her pupils dilated, she breathed heavily as she slowly pulled out the dentures from her mouth. They fell to the ground with a heavy plop and wet saliva spattered onto his dress shoes.

“Now there is nothing holding me back” Adele said with a coy lisp.

Bill leaned in a licked up the trail of drool that had run down her neck. It was better than any blood he had ever tasted.

“and you thought you wouldn’t be able to keep up” Bill said with a smirk.