I feel as though our discussion of
And I Darken by Kiersten White may have missed something important: that while the novel is forcing us to reexamine Vlad the Impaler, it's also forcing us to reconsider
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
Full disclosure: if you follow us on Twitter, you'll know that Nate and I have never actually read
Twilight. This leaves me open to completely valid criticism, so if you disagree, please tell me. On the other hand,
Twilight was also an inescapable cultural phenomenon, so I think I have the basics down.
Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but Bella falls for a vampire who continually protects her. She falls into a kind of love triangle with Jacob and Edward. She frequently seems to have less agency than those around her (she's saved by Edward, saved by Jacob, told that she must become a vampire, and eventually turned by Edward).
And I Darken performs a pretty elegant subterfuge. It alludes to dragons and vampires, but also shows us that those things aren't real. Vlad the Impaler was not a vampire. The west's transformation of him into one can be read as a means of discrediting him. Readers of
And I Darken are likely to want a vampire. But we don't get one.
Granted this trilogy isn't over, but here are some pretty sharp contrasts to the land of sparkly vampires.
1) Lada rejects love and the potential of a love triangle (or quadrangle or octagon: Mehmed has many concubines).
2) Lada's agency is never in question: she is the one doing and acting. And it's always on her own terms.
3) Lada avoids sex with Mehmed (no chance of a potentially immortal baby here).
4) Lada is not a vampire and presumably never will be. She becomes Dracul at the story's end, but that's a position that feels even more powerful than a vampire.
There's probably a lot more, and I'd love to hear details you have that corroborate my theory or that completely reject it.
Also get reading: Episode 005: Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard is due out on February 27th.
