Reader Questions, And Some Potter Fun!
Good morning, everyone. It’s Monday, and today’s Reader Questions are brought to you by Reader Priscilla in a recent email. Good morning, Priscilla!
In the scene where all the members of the team take a drink and give a quote. What does Japh’s quote “A tai, hetairae A’nankimel’in. Diriin.” translate as?
I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you now, although it is explained in To Hell And Back, I think.
The quote means, “Here I stand, hedaira, as your Fallen. It is done.”
Eck. Now that I write that I’m unsure if it got into the final drafts of the last two books, or died the death of a thousand cuts. That’s the trouble with publishing stuff–after the rough draft, two rounds of revisions, copyedits, and final proofing, the book in paper is not at all the book in my head. Closer, sometimes, but not always.
*sigh* Anyway, that’s the gist of it. That’s what Japhrimel is saying. it’s part of the old ceremonial language used before the fall of the White-Walled City.
Why did Japh seem so ashamed to let Danny see him feed?
You know, that surprised me too. Demons are okay with sex and with the ingestion of normal food; doing both in public (sometimes to excess.) True feeding, however, is something private, not the least because it represents a vulnerability.
Plus, I suppose the sheer quantity of blood/energy Japh needs to power his engines, especially during the metabolic changes of becoming A’nankhimel, might be…disturbing…to Dante. And he was very uncertain, very much not wanting to frighten her.
Japh’s behaviour and actions became more human over the course of the book. Was this just a consequence of spending time around humans or due to Japhrimel becoming A’nankimel?
More the latter than the former. Japh has human vassals, of course, families where service to a demon or to Hellesvront are passed down through generations. But he never wanted to understand a human in order to make him or her happy before Danny. He was just satisfied if they served his purpose.
Part of the process of Falling is becoming more human, which is a dreadfully embarrassing and profoundly wrenching experience for a demon. I hadn’t noticed him growing more human until he made his sacrifice at the end of the book (another scene that had to die, unfortunately) where he returned the Egg to Lucifer and suffered a punishment in Danny’s place. She still doesn’t know he died the first time to keep Lucifer from killing her, because Danny knew about Eve now and had actually touched her.
Thanks, Priscilla! Great questions.
And now for the Potter fun. I did finish The Deadly Hallows this weekend. I read it in six hours, which finishes my unbroken streak of reading each Harry Potter book in a whole chunk the first time. No, I’m not looking to spoil anyone, but just to be safe for all you tender young thangs, I’ll put my thoughts below a cut.
I loved it. I laughed out loud, I cried, I had a wonderful time. Two paragraphs in I called the Selkie and breathlessly exclaimed, “Rowling’s got an EDITOR again!” Which I suppose is bad-tempered of me, but book 5 did seem to go on and on so.
I think Rowling did a good job of bringing all the plot lines together. I was wholly satisfied by the themes of self-sacrifice and bravery playing out to their logical end.
Apparently the Snape/Hermione fanbots are not so happy, but I say, “Why don’t you just write some Snape/Lily and get it over with?” BTW, Snape’s lifelong unfulfilled love? Hawt.
But seriously, people. There’s been a lot of furor about Rowling ending the book in a way not approved of by fanbots. Jeez. Get over yourselves, people. They’re her books. She wrote them. You don’t like the ending? Here’s a news flash: write your own instead of bitching. Eh.
It just drives me nuts when people who have No Idea start jumping on an author for Not Finishing A Book The Way I Think They Should. Now, that might be a little justified when an author punks out and turns her character into a seeping Mary Sue, etc. But Rowling remained true to her characters and didn’t punk out on the ending. It took guts for her to have Snape meet an ignominious end.
Actually, I agree with Crab Caution that I want to read the unwritten book of Neville Longbottom and the other students resisting the Gestapo regime of the Dark Arts twins. I want to see Snape trying to protect the students as best he can in the aftermath of doing Dumbledore’s will. I’d love a Neville icon with “I’m In Ur Sekrit Passages, Resisting Ur Regime” on it. Heh.
And pretty much everyone who I thought was going to die, died. Although I will admit I expected Harry to end up with Luna, because she took absolutely no sh!te off any Death Eaters at all; she also went her own way. “You don’t believe in the Crumple-Horned whatever? Eff you. I believe. So there.” I think that would have been much more satisfying.
But each of the Harry books held my interest until the very end. That’s some damn fine storytelling right there. It says something when I can settle down and say goodbye to my life for six to eight hours to swallow a book whole, and Rowling consistently produced such books. They have been wonderful, and I thank her for them. I only hope she has something else up her sleeve now.
Yes, I’m terrible. I want more. I don’t care what the woman writes as long as I get to read it. Oh, and as long as she has a decent editor. Because the only book that was slightly less enjoyable was book 5, and I really think it was an editorial change.
But that’s just me.
As for thoughts on the ending of the whole dem series, I will hand you over to johnnysardonic, who describes my feelings better than I ever could.
School is indeed out for the last time, Mr. Potter. I raise my hat to you.
Note: It is gray, sticky, muggy, and hot here today, like the South has been transplanted to the Northwest. If I sound cranky, that’s why.
Related posts:
