#pc cast

Zoey, as our protagonist, should come first. The last book left us on a cliffhanger where she was being arrested for lashing out with her Seer Stone and killing two men. She's horrified by that - and I thought it was trite and came outta nowhere. The other thing, however, is that it was so obviously going to be overturned. The Old Magic was using Zoey, the Seer Stone did it and not her, and the two guys were creeps anyway. Well, I wasn't wrong, but it was even worse than that! Neferet actually killed them, and confesses as such readily to the police. Zoey doesn't need to be racked with guilt, and the whole thing blows over in a handful of chapters. It's laughable how quickly this gets brushed under the rug. The character arc is meant to be that Zoey grows up into a true High Priestess - that she chooses Light, learns compassion, and ultimately becomes a fair and true leader. The problem, as ever with this series, is twofold. The first is that nothing Zoey ever does has been wrong. Like in this instance; her actually killing those men unjustifiably (or semi-justifiably) would have shown an actual character flaw, but she's exonerated in seconds. If anything, it's used as proof that she's too critical of herself, too good. Her instincts are always right, and she never fails to make the right decision when she listens to them. There's no tension, no growth.

But second is the fact that she doesn't do anything! Most of the ways things are resolved in these books are to do some vague magic, listen to a prophecy, or channel Nyx. This one's in the former category, Zoey needs to cast her circle and channel magic and cast spells (why the fuck are these books not about witches!) in order to save the day, but magic's never been something she's had to work at. It's always come easy to her. All she needs to do is follow her instincts, and she can do magic that other characters will exclaim has never been done before by a fledgeling. She doesn't struggle, she doesn't have to work at anything, she doesn't gain skills. She just stands there and says some prayer rhymes and then the problem is solved. There's no tension, because there's no work being put in. Zoey can just do everything she needs to as soon as she realises that she needs to do it. Oh, and she fully goes through the Change at the end. Which is functionally meaningless, because she already had way fancier tattoos than any adult vampire. It's basically an afterthought.

And then there's the Cherokee thing. Zoey has Cherokee descent, and it's revealed that that's why she was chosen and gifted in the manner that she was. She needs an ancient connection to the land alongside being one of Nyx's chosen vampires in order to channel old magic and become a powerful priestess. Except…the setting of this book is Oklahoma, a place the Cherokee didn't live until they were forcibly evicted from their home in Georgia in the 1830s. Hardly an ancient connection to the land. And furthermore, this is the only way in which Zoey's Cherokee lineage affects her character. What's her opinion on Cherokee customs and legends? We don't know, because the only context in which she will discuss them is her grandmother - it's less respect for a culture and way of life and more love for a single person. The only things Zoey does that reflect her heritage is occasionally smudging as part of her magic practice. She is described the same as the white characters. It feels less an integrated part of her background as a character and more just some 'exotic' flavour that Cast put in to make Zoey more special. And, of course, there's a lot to unpack in the automatic assumption that having Native blook inherently makes one more connected to the land in a magical sense while being largely divorced from any actual Cherokee beliefs and practice, and in fact only bringing up Zoey's Cherokee heritage when she can use it to solve a problem. I may not know much about Cherokee practice, but I'm willing to bet that Cast didn't either.

Also, there's weird worldbuilding stuff going on here. First, linked to the above point, is Zoey the only person with Native heritage to ever be Marked? It's not mentioned that there are any other Native vampires - we see a few black people who are vampires, but no other Native people. How is this possible, demographically? The vampire population is said to be quite small, but it's incredibly vague as to what that means. Secondarily, the humans are weirdly accepting of the fact that magic is real, the vampire goddess is real, and beings like Rephaim and Kalona exist. Sure, they do live in a world where vampires are an accepted part of life, but at the same time the average human is consistently depicted as being largely ignorant of anything to do with vampire culture and history. Many are seen as being dismissive to vampire powers. But here, they're just like 'yep that sounds correct don't let me stop you', and it's jarring.

And there's an overwhelming flavour of copaganda to some of it. After being released, Zoey and co work closely with the police, who are presented as being reasonable and helpful - their leader, Marx, even having the same gut-instinct sixth sense that the main characters share. Zoey's little prison stay is largely forgotten except as a quirky side-note. That, plus the fact that Damien's new reporter boyfriend is from Fox, leads me to strongly suspect some conservative leanings on the part of the Casts. Let's be real, a real-life police department would be literally useless in this situation - and yet, their presence on Zoey's side seems to be legitimising her goodness, as though having the police behind you automatically means you're right. Ugh.

Okay, time to talk Neferet. Or rather, Lynette. See, most of Neferet's part of the story is taken up by her new minion Lynette, an events organiser who pledges herself to Neferet out of self-preservation after Neferet starts possessing and/or murdering people. She has never shown up before, and in a series with this many characters, it's kind of egregious how much time is spent with her rather than literally anyone else. What happened to Neferet's connection with the red fledgelings, where did that go? Anyway, Neferet continues to be femme-fatale evil in a way that is wholly uninteresting. She's flirtatious and sexual, she murders people all the time for no real good reason, and her plans are shaky at best. How exactly she thinks that anything she's doing will make her a goddess is a little weak. And she's one-note the whole way through. Flirty villain, control freak, murder murder murder…her takedown is less satisfying than inevitable, and thoroughly uninteresting at that.

As I've alluded to before, the fact that there were so many plot threads and so many characters established in the earlier books leads to a situation where nothing but the main plot is resolved effectively. Shaylin and Nicole are dating in the background, pointlessly. Aphrodite remembers she has issues from her upbringing for one chapter, wherein those issues are resolved seamlessly. Minor characters like Lenobia are just sort of there. Ex-boyfriend and sidelined character Erik gets like two chapters where he's said to be less of a douche and gets pair-the-spares'd with Shaunee, with uncomfortable remarks made about how she's a black girl dating a white guy. Prophet/poet Kremisha shows up for essentially a cameo. Nobody seems to remember all their dead friends - given how short a timescale this is, they surely deserve more than a token mention? Kalona gets to die heroically and pointlessly. Rephaim…still turns into a bird sometimes. Some of the threads, like the evil red fledgelings or the conflict with humans and specifically the church, are dropped outright. It really feels like Cast didn't have a plan going into this and was just making things up as she went, which doesn't lead to a satisfying narrative overall.

So, that was House of Night. It was bad! It was beyond bad! How this shit ever got published is honestly beyond me. But it's done, it's conquered, and I am never looking back. So long, terrible vampire books. You are exorcised from my life now.