The Darkest Kiss, by Gena Showalter
First of all, The Darkest Kiss is really quite a bad book, but it doesn't suffer from the stereotypical problems of normal romance novels. The heroine is more free of the classic I Am Not A Slut complex than most (with one or two incredibly annoying and notable exceptions, but I'll get to that.) The hero isn't full of rape and ravishment threats, doesn't stalk the heroine, invade her personal space and call it love.... And yet all this doesn't stop it from being really quite an annoying book.
The Chronicler is that most of The Darkest Kiss' readers probably don't care about the metaphysics of its fictional universe and exactly how it all operates. Given that it's the second book in the series, perhaps it should not be expected to lay down the setting with introductory simplicity. And yet it makes no effort to advertise it's Not-the-First-Book status.* That said, the Chronicler really doubts her problems with the setting are answered in the previous book.
The setting is riddled with sweeping statements and loopholes. For example, the origin story is mind-boggling:
Once upon a time, there was Pandora's Box (aka dimOuniak) and in it were lots of demons. These warriors, led by one who felt insulted he didn't get to guard it (?!), opened the box. As punishment, they were made into living prisons for the demons.
Now, this story seems simple. Or at least. Showalter thinks so. But it's not. She's vague as to how much our version applies. Was the pre-box-opening free from Death, Pain, Promiscuity, Lies and all that? Are these simply demons of the concepts as in they are the physical embodiment of them, free from personality and scheming or are they more sophisticated? Were they physical, as in, after release, did the demons personally kill/rape/torture/lie to everyone in their way or did they just possess people and make them do so?
The Chronicler really wants answers because it's actually relevant to the plot. Galen, the Keeper of Hope... wait, Hope is a good thing, right? It was in the original. So why was the demon of it imprisoned in the box along with the other demons? Was the pre-box-opening world also free from hope? And if it's a good thing, should he be allowed to go about and do his work, keeping people's spirits up despite all the death, promiscuity, lies, doubt, defeat (etc) that is happening all over the place?... Sorry, derailed myself there. Galen, who has demon of Hope imprisoned inside him, is running around being the leader of an organisation that busies itself tracking down the imprisoned demons** and killing them all, because the blame the demons for all the shitty things that happen.
The main characters are justified in not knowing what would happen if the imprisoned demons are killed, but they seem phenomenally uncurious about the effects of their death. Baden, Keeper of Distrust, has died and the world doesn't seem to be devoid of distrust, but you can't really fault the hopeful warriors of Galen to keep trying. I'm really okay with them being selfish about their own death versus the world being painless forever, but can they not at least consider the possibilities? What would answer my question is a description about the pre-box-opening world, but Showalter just doesn't want to share.
But then we get to other metaphysical problems. The Greek deities are real. Fair enough. And they differ somewhat from legend, which is again, fair enough. Though it would be better if Showalter actually acknowledges these differences and addressed them, since of all the pantheons the average person would have heard of Greek is quite high on the list. But the immediate question that follows is: Are any other pagan pantheons real? They certainly aren't geographically confined to their original continent, so where is everyone else? They don't have to exist, but it's just really odd because there is a Christian heaven and hell, where some select souls get to go after death (very select, I'll come to that), and yet there are no other gods. Showalter doesn't even feel the need to say, "I know the ancient Greeks believed in an underworld that's different, but that's because they're wrong and were off their tits on mushrooms." Most books employing an existing mythology in its world-building puts in a line or two, the standard: "What a silly superstition you humans have about garlic and vampires. We fear it not."
The Anthropologist suggests perhaps that Showalter simply doesn't realise that other religions have a different vision of heaven and hell. But then she does as she mentions Hades later, but it doesn't seem to feature in any great way.
It's just weird to try to fuse the two.
Lucien, Incarnation of Death
He scrubbed a hand over his face, the scars so puckered they abraded his palm. Had they scratched Anya?
Lucien's insecurities are ridiculous. He obsesses about how Anya is perfect and how he is so scarred all her attraction must be feigned... but what is most annoying is that he possesses the ability to see emotions with his damned SpirtEye. He saw her passion. But after this one use of his magic power, he doesn't really use it again in the book. He doesn't even use it to see if Anya's faking it. Seriously.
In this spiritual realm, Anya’s passion appeared a blazing pink. Real. Not faked, as a part of him had assumed. That pink trail glittered with a dazzle unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Lucien, Keeper of Death
But that's not really the bone I want to pick when it comes to Lucien and his job of soul-ferrying. He insists he hates his job and that he finds the taking of innocents distasteful, but he never really articulates this hatred as anything other than (as Azrael puts it) the hatred one has for an exceptionally dull desk job. If he believed that his own death would stop death forever in the world and if his existence was really that joyless... wouldn't he try to end it? Why doesn't he have some sort of philosophical stance on the necessity of death, if only to justify to himself his existence and not feel like a bastard?
Now he was charged with the responsibility of collecting human souls and escorting them to their final resting place. Even if he opposed the idea. He did not like taking innocents from their families, found no joy in delivering the wicked to their damnation, but he did both without question or hesitation
One isn't really sure how free will and the gods (keepers?) interact. Is he personally responsible for the deaths of his victims or not? He didn't chose to have the demon of death stuck inside him, but then if he believes what he's doing is truly Evil. He mysteriously thinks he is, but he arrives at the scene and sees the mangled bodies of the soon-to-be dead. (The Anthropologist notes a quick comparison thing to Death of the Pratchett's books, who sees his job as a necessity but doesn't see any reason to make it any worse for the people concerned.) Lucien thrusts his arm into the chests of the dying, retrieves their soul, teleports to the gates of either heaven or hell and tosses them in, all rather unceremoniously. I understand he's on a tight schedule, but really, it can't be pleasant. Nor does it seem very Greek since they have ideas about Charon, the ferryman of Hades.
He was still at a loss as the pearled gates opened wide, revealing golden streets and bejeweled, arched lampposts hanging like diamond-studded clouds. White-clothed angels lined the sides, singing a melodious welcome, their feathered white wings gliding gracefully behind them.
I can't get over how Christian heaven and hell are. Pearly gates with golden streets is very specifically Christian. It's straight out of The Book of Revelations, "The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate being made from a single pearl." There is nothing of this in Greek mythology and it is jarring. But that isn't what is getting to me.
“Lots of people die. Every minute. Every hour. Why don’t you have to escort all of them?”
“Some remain to wander Earth, some are reborn and get the chance to start anew. Some, I think, are escorted by angels.”
That practically makes him redundant. I know that he can't be too tied up with this whole soul-ferrying business since he needs to have time for being with Anya and hanging around with his heterosexual friends, but it really diminishes the character when we find out he doesn't deal with all death, that he's just one soul-collector amongst many.
HE WAS KNOWN AS THE Dark One. Malach ha-Maet. Yama. Azreal. Shadow Walker. Mairya. King of the Dead. He was all of those things and more, for he was a Lord of the Underworld...
The other odd thing is what qualifies as evil enough to land a soul in hell.
The man’s sins suddenly flickered through the demon’s awareness and in turn through Lucien’s. As the man had already proven, he had considered himself above the law, slaying anyone who got in his way—men, women, children—all in the name of a better world.
Bastard.
Maintaining a strong grip on the protesting spirit, he flashed to the entrance of hell. Not Hades—that gloomy underworld was reserved for those who did not deserve either the tortures of hell or the glories of heaven. This man deserved the flames. Though the gates to the fire pit were closed, Lucien could feel the intense heat radiating, could hear the symphony of tormented screams inside, the demonic laughter. The jeers. The stifling scent of sulfur permeated the entire area, enough to make a man gag.
Firstly, as the Anthropologist points out, considering himself above the law isn't really more than what Anya is doing in her daily life. Given how many legal systems Lucien must have lived through, it seems odd that he would attach that much significance to any actual law code.
But more importantly, this man wasn't just working for a better world. He was working for a world that is devoid of pain, suffering, death, war, lies... He is working for paradise on earth. I'm not saying that I feel this means he deserves heaven, I'm just saying that in his paradigm, it's justified and I'm uncomfortable with the idea that this man deserves eternal torment. I'm uncomfortable with the adamance with which the hero thinks this. I'm not saying that I personally believe that the ends justifies the means every time, but there are many things that have been done in the name of the Greater Good and these things do include the American War of Independence (picking an example that most Americans would like to think of as a Good Thing) and the French Revolution and the Cultural Revolution.***** Perhaps again it is that Showalter doesn't think that the audience may disagree on this point, that her reader won't read that and feel uncomfortable. It's that the Universe judges it so with Absolute Morality, not simply the hero's personal morality.
Two bodies lay on the floor, a man and a woman. The man, Lucien instantly knew thanks to his demon, had wrongly suspected the woman of cheating on him, had shot her and then turned the gun on himself.
Bastard, he thought, then stilled.
Now, I'm not saying that killing your girlfriend for cheating on you is morally right. But again, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that it deserves eternal torment in hell. Eternal is a very long time, like seriously. And he did kill himself afterwards. I'm not saying that I like him or that he deserves heaven, but eternity in hell?
Furthermore, what did that woman do to deserve heaven. Again, I'm not saying she necessarily doesn't, but what differentiates her so very much from everyone else since this is a setting where only a select few get into heaven.
She [the dead spirt] saw him and gasped. “Naked,” she said, staring at him. “Am I in…heaven?”
Should have dressed first. “Not yet.”
Can you really respect Death who goes to work naked?
Anya, Minor Goddess of Anarchy
Yes, minor.
“You are the minor goddess of Anarchy.”
“There’s nothing minor about me.” Minor meant unimportant, and she was just as important as the other, “higher” beings, damn it.
No, minor means she wasn't widely worshipped, which she wasn't. She doesn't have a cult, let alone a widespread one. She has no temples or shrines dedicated to her. She's minor and none of her quibbling is going to change that. Her petulant, foot-stomping tantrums come across like a six-year-old insisting that they're all grown up, because being a child is unimportant. She doesn't hold power in the divine courts of the Greeks, uninvolved in godly politics. She seems to serve no function in the everyday running of the world. I'm not sure you can get more minor than that.
When she’d first come to earth, she hadn’t known how to control her rebellious nature. Gods had been able to protect themselves from it, humans hadn’t. Besides that, she’d been almost…feral from her years in prison. A simple comment from her—you aren’t going to let your brother talk to you like that, are you?—and bloody feuds erupted between clans. An appearance at court—perhaps laughing at the rulers and their policies—and loyal knights attempted to assassinate their king.
Showalter has no idea what anarchy means. When Showalter describes Anya's deep need for anarchy, she describes pyromania and kleptomania. Anya controls her instincts to anarchy and disobedience by stealing, and whilst that is anarchic on a personal level in that she is disobeying the law that tells her not to steal... kleptomania just isn't anarchy. Neither is doodling moustaches on the original Mona Lisa. And really, it's quite unremarkable and dull.
Eventually she’d learned that if she fed her need for disorder with little things—petty theft, white lies and the occasional street fight—huge disasters could be averted.
What immediately came to mind as something she could be doing is feeding her desire for anarchy by inciting rebellion against tyrannical leaders across the world. She would justify to herself that many of the riots she incites may not succeed, but that freedom is a cause worth dying for. She would tell herself that she has a need to incite rebellion so she should at least do it in a place where she knows there is an unjust dictator. She could work ferrying equipment to guerrilla fighters and pass messages. She probably won't get personally invested in any cause too much, but she'd hang around salons and bitch about dictators, though she wouldn't put much store in political idealism. Would that cut a little close to home for escapism? Perhaps, but it would make her so very much more interesting. That heroine is one I can root for... pit she only exists in my head.
“Once I attended a masked ball and dressed as the devil. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but the year was eighteen-nineteen and I created quite a stir, let me tell you. When I asked Baron something-or-other to sell me his soul, he tried to stab me with a butter knife.”
It was great when Showalter finally decided to tell us a little of what Anya was doing for the last few millennia, but why she doesn't talk nostalgically about past rebellions? I disbelieve she wasn't there for the French Revolution, wasn't involved in the English Civil War or the Glorious Revolution, didn't care about the leaderless state of medieval Iceland.****
Showalter's blindspot really cripples Anya's potential as a character. She seems so very petty when compared with what she could be doing. Self absorbed and really... well, what claim has she in being a goddess when she isn't doing anything to affect the world? She's hardly the embodiment of a force if she isn't involved in places where anarchy is at its zenith. Surely not all rulers deserve their thrones? And not all laws are just?
The Goddess of Lawlessness and Sexual Sin
Dysnomia is really obscure a figure, usually coming in lists of personifications. She is named daughter of Eris...
"But abhorred Strife [Eris] bore painful Toil [Ponos] and Forgetfulness [Lethe] and Famine [Limos] and tearful Sorrows [Algea], Fightings [Hysminai] also, Battles [Machai], Murders [Phonoi], Manslaughters [Androctasiai], Quarrels [Neikea], Lying Words [Pseudea], Disputes [Amphillogiai], Lawlessness [Dysnomia] and Ruin [Ate], all of one nature, and Oath [Horkos] who most troubles men upon earth when anyone willfully swears a false oath." (Hesiod, Theogony 226; as quoted on Greek Mythology Link).
Now, in the context of that list, it is quite easy to see that Dysnomia is not associated with promiscuity. She is lawlessness in the sense of chaos and anarchy. She is lawlessness as in the world turned upside down. The opposite of ordered, stratified Greek society. She is by no means an important figure, but the reduction of her to some slutty goddess (which isn't really true in Hesiod, at least) who sleeps her way around Olympus seems a bit of a slap.
Her kiss had been sinful. Delightfully so. But the woman he’d held in his arms had not seemed evil. Sweet, yes. Amusing, absolutely. And, shockingly enough, vulnerable and wonderfully needy. Of him.
The whole novel is firmly set in the moral framework that views sex as sinful (the standard of romance novels) and it's really quite jarring. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Greek pantheon would know that they hardly adhere to our sexual standards. A classicist would be able to describe all the nuances of Greek sexuality, but suffice to say it is hardly identical like our own. Read Thornton's Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality, for example. No, we don't know what it was like exactly and there is hardly critical consensus, but they are not exactly like us. If they were, it would be really dull. These are immortal warriors from the dawn of time, can't they at least think a little differently?
Why did he have to look so sexy standing there? The sun was acting like his lover, caressing him, weaving an angelic halo around his dark head. Yes, angelic. He was a fallen angel just then, causing her pulse points to throb and her stomach to quiver.
Even more perplexing is the constant reference to angels. At first the Chronicler simply thought it was metaphorical (which is odd since they don't exist in Greek Mythology) but then references to real angels happened. The reader is never told how they fit into the hierarchy. Presumably with the existence of demons there are also angels, but who are they working for? What purpose do they serve?
Anya the Warrior Princess
Showalter allow Anya to fight competently when it comes to the various combat sequences, but why does she dress her in the literary equivalent of cheesecake? I know she's busy bucking trends and expectations, I know she doesn't really need mobility since she can teleport but...
"Despite what you seem to think, I am a powerful being, and I choose whether or not to endanger myself." [...]
Finally, he looked at her—and immediately regretted it. She wore a white gossamer gown with gold threaded throughout, and was even lovelier than he remembered. With the golden glow of moonlight crowning her and emerald plants framing her, she was an ancient queen straight out of a storybook.
The top layers of her pale hair were piled on her head, the rest tumbling down and begging for his touch.
Firstly, he was there in the ancient times and he hardly has time for storybooks, so maybe she should be "an ancient queen like that one he saw in Sparta" or something.
Secondly, her comment that she is a powerful being is really rather undermined with the gossamer gown. Maybe mortal armour is useless for her and she likes the way it looks but Showalter never justifies Anya's battle wear, especially since she doesn't blast them with her lasers, she actually enters the melee.
The Canonical Characters were Mean to Me
The Darkest Kiss, as the Anthropologist pointed out, is a lot like Knight of Darkness in that the author is writing about a setting she seems to despise. Kenyon dramatically recast the Arthurian setting to conform to her ideas of manliness and relationships and ideal worlds, keeping almost none of the original concepts.*** Sandra Hill did the same to the Viking era and Showalter is doing the same now with Greek mythology. She uses so very little of the classical Greek religion, the big names of the pantheon barely make an appearance. Her use of Christian heaven and hell points to a world setting badly thought out. When gods from classical myth do turn up, it's only be mean to Anya and call her names in goddess-training-school. Showalter just doesn't seem to care about her source material.
Inexplicable Pop Culture References
The Anthropologist wondered about the pop culture references and the tendency for these books to feel dated really quickly. It doesn't make Anya any more connectable. Or likable. Where did she pick up all that slang anyway? Surely hanging around valley girls and chavs is hardly feeding her anarchic desires.
Shortly after, he’d found her a second time and threatened her with the Lords. Now here she and Lucien were, about to go Halo 3 on each other. Score one for Team Cronus.
What does "about to go Halo 3 on each other" even mean? Does it just mean "perpetrate some sort of violence"? Or is the hero going to be permanently stuck in some suit of power armour and aliens will descend from space? It's a shooter game and most of the violence in The Darkest Kiss is even gun violence....
To be continued... on the subject of The Darkest Kiss...
How Not to Write Sexual Tension
Distancing the Reader: Revelations of Backstory
Romance Novel Curses
The Other Keepers
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* Perhaps it's publishers wishing to appeal to readers who shy away from reading books out of order, but this decision to not imprint a large number on the spine really does impair one's ability to understand the world setting and actually get into the book. MrsGiggles has complained on many an occasion about the false advertising of non-standalone books. And every dedicated Harry Potter reader is well sick of Rowling's insistence on reiterating the plot of the previous books in her first few chapters.... So, a compromise is need. This the Chronicler well understands. But the point is: two pages of things-you-should-know situated just before the beginning of the story really can't be that much effort to produce. Or maybe they feel it'd scare away readers who want to just leap into the romance and feel uncomfortable with needing to acquire prior knowledge.
But that is the crux of the problem: pretending the book can stand alone when it can't.
** Why are they called "Lords of the Underworld" anyway? They don't possess an underworld, which presumably is Hades, but this setting has a curiously Christian afterlife. There's a heaven, complete with pearly gates and a sulphurous hell. What is the Underworld, in that case? And why does being a walking prison make them lords of it?
*** To be fair, every era does this, but the Chronicler is often annoyed when a thing goes from being interesting to boring and nonsensical.
**** Some anarchists hold that medieval Iceland is the closest thing to a realised ideal system in their book. A government where there is only one paid official (the lawspeaker) and regular gatherings to settle issues. Minimalist government, eh?
***** I'm not happy about the things that happened in the Cultural Revolution. It was horrific. Thinking about it makes my uncomfortable. But I'm not going to say I believe that everyone who participated in it was evil with a capital "E" and deserving of hell.
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