Dear Missy, will you please answer Maya M. since Meljean won't?
Dear Missy,
About two and a half months ago, Maya M. of Apprentice Writer asked a few questions about DEMON ANGEL and DEMON MOON in the comments of this blog post, and Meljean said she’d get back to her on them ASAP. Meljean’s an asshole. Where are the answers?
Sincerely,
Tired of Incompetent Twits
Dear TIT,
I feel your pain. I’ve been stuck here in the closet for almost three freaking years now! She’s always saying, “I’ll get to you, I promise!” but then I look around and she’s doing belly-flops in the hall or trying to burn off her hair. She’s a total freaking loser (even worse, she’s not a virgin, which means she’s probably the sophisticated-other-woman-slut who’s going to try to steal away someone’s hero!)
But I hunted her down, shot her through the shoulders with a crossbow, pinning her to the floor, and jumped on her head until she gave it up. Here are those answers:
SPOILERS FOR DEMON ANGEL AND DEMON MOON FOLLOW!
In Google Reader, the cut doesn’t hide the rest of this post. Don’t go any farther if you don’t want to be spoiled for DEMON ANGEL and DEMON MOON.
Maya M asks:
Q1. Lucifer strips away L’s demonness bit by bit. I thought she was coolest when she had wings and perched all over the place. ‘Angel’ doesn’t have space for any rumination on what she misses about being a full-fleged (halfling) demon. I don’t remember right now if she thinks about this in ‘Moon’ or ‘Night’ (still havent’ started ‘Bound’ yet, waiting on my night table) – but I wonder: doesn’t she miss flight? Perching on things?
Yes, she misses it like crazy. When Sir Pup first brings her back and Hugh puts her into the bath and she says, “I hate this. I can’t be this.” — She’s talking about being human again, and that’s about all she says about how much she hates the idea of living without her powers.
The reason for that is twofold: One, she’s a survivor, so although she absolutely hates what Lucifer did, she’s going to take what she has and just try to stay alive with it. Lilith can’t brood, or she’s dead. She’s never been able to float around in her own misery (Lucifer would have killed her for it, because misery is too self-centered, and she should be serving him.) After two thousand years plus, she’s in the habit of not dwelling on what she doesn’t have, and what hurts her.
The second reason was that Hugh was broody enough, and to have both of them brooding would have dragged on the narrative more than it could handle.
But does she still miss it? Definitely. And I try to put her in perching positions as much as the blocking of a scene allows — like when she comes to Savi’s little hidey-hole to blackmail her into joining SI, or later when she’s perching on Colin’s chest — just to keep that image of the demon that she was (and still is.) In later books, however, we see her primarily behind her desk at SI; rarely is there anything that she can perch on without running into ridiculous posturing, so she sits on the edges of desks and the arms of chairs quite a bit.
As for “seeing” how much she misses her demon powers in later books, the problem I run into there is that she’s not a POV character anymore, and Lilith would never show how much she feels that loss to anyone but Hugh.
Q2. In ‘Moon’, C & S are periodically menaced by wyrmwolves. If they escaped from Chaos – why only one or two at a time, if they live in packs there? And if the wyrmwolves can find a way out – why don’t the Nosferatu follow them?
This is one of those situations where I run into something that I can’t explain in the book simply because the characters don’t know it, so there’s no one to offer the info to the reader. And so Savi and Colin eventually realize that when her shields are down and the wyrmwolves start ripping into each other, they are creating a portal — what they don’t know is that it’s a fragile one, like a little rip between the realms. The nosferatu don’t come through because they don’t notice it right away (the wyrmwolves are always running around and tearing at each other); and only one or two wyrmwolves come through because a) it doesn’t stay open if Colin can’t feel Savi’s psychic scent and b) once a wyrmwolf goes through, it uses up the power that opened it and so the portal seals behind it…until more blood comes and Savi’s shields are open again, and another rips through. So the night the story opens (when she makes him come in his pants), her shields were just down because of the fever, and one came through. The night at Auntie’s, she opened, closed, opened again — that was the time with two. Then when he had to run across the city — another time when she was just holding open.
Now, at the very end, when Colin writes the symbols on the wall and creates another portal — that one would stay open if Savi didn’t have her psychic shields up, and the nosferatu and wyrmwolves could pour through if they wanted to. That portal isn’t a rip, but more like a speculum — it’s going to stay open until someone closes it, and it’s a true portal (almost like a Gate).
…and, that will come up again in the next book.
