Mayfair Witches: The Books

[Mr. Sparkle]

You are free to discuss the books here. Please note there may be spoilers for upcoming episodes. Please do not discuss the books in the episode threads. 

[anoninrva]

Is it just me, or does it seem like they're combining the characters of Stella and Antha?  I'm also not thrilled with the involvement of the Talamasca first thing.  That is a radical departure from the book, right from the beginning, that I am skeptical will pay off.

[Dream Boy]

22 minutes ago, anoninrva said:

Is it just me, or does it seem like they're combining the characters of Stella and Antha?  I'm also not thrilled with the involvement of the Talamasca first thing.  That is a radical departure from the book, right from the beginning, that I am skeptical will pay off.

It feels a little rushed. And I'm still not sure on the need to merge Michael and Aaron. 

[nodorothyparker]

The first episode did feel like they were maybe fudging the timeline a bit and hoping we wouldn't think too much about it. Hence you get Cortland's party that looked like it could have been from any number of time periods and the visiting doctor who looked like a 1950s ideal of a New Orleans gentleman making housecalls, even though the entire reason the book version of that character doesn't just do what he's told and dutifully pump Dierdre full of thorazine every day is because he's not from there and doesn't have any ingrained respect for the old families. But then they apparently are keeping that Antha "jumped" from the top of the house, so who knows? Stella's entire character is that she's a flapper who likes to play around with black magic but doesn't really know or take any of it too seriously, so in moving the story to the present day she either loses that characterization or there's now a missing generation in there since the three generations preceding Rowan all died so painfully young.

I have no great love for Michael Curry, even before his big I'm so genetically special I just had no choice but to fuck a 13-year-old and father a monster arc of the second book. He and Rowan are tediously dull together painting every last inch of that grand old house beige. But at the same time, the choice to merge him with Aaron Lightner and mix the Talamasca in from the very beginning baffles me. I just can't turn it any way in my mind where I think it works or results in anything satisfying.

I'm still mulling that this version of Rowan doesn't already have a sense of her own power, or that she apparently has no idea that the New Orleans family exists even if she's verboten from ever contacting them for "reasons."

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, nodorothyparker said:

But at the same time, the choice to merge him with Aaron Lightner and mix the Talamasca in from the very beginning baffles me. I just can't turn it any way in my mind where I think it works or results in anything satisfying.

Based on the fact that this is a shared universe and Aaron Lightner and the Talamasca is in both the Vampire & Witch worlds, it seems like they're painting themselves into a corner here. 

[anoninrva]

On 1/9/2023 at 10:13 PM, Dream Boy said:

It feels a little rushed. And I'm still not sure on the need to merge Michael and Aaron. 

I really wasn't feeling the payoff today with creepy detective bit.  Rowan murdering everyone she comes across is also a bit different.

[Proclone]

On 1/9/2023 at 10:13 PM, Dream Boy said:

It feels a little rushed. And I'm still not sure on the need to merge Michael and Aaron. 

 

On 1/16/2023 at 8:43 PM, anoninrva said:

I really wasn't feeling the payoff today with creepy detective bit.  Rowan murdering everyone she comes across is also a bit different.

I agree on both points. After 3 episodes I still don't think I like the merging of Michael and Aaron. Nor do I love Rowan nearly killing everyone that even mildly annoys her, which isn't remotely what happened in the books. In the books it's made pretty evident that Rowan can use her powers to heal or hurt people. I don't think the show is doing a particularly good job at showing the healing part. Yes, she's a good surgeon but I really don't think anyone who isn't familiar with the source material would pick up that she's using her powers as a surgeon too.

And I do think the show is rushed. I really do think a slower burn would have been better. I think it would have been much better to stay closer to the books and have Rowan (who knew she was a Mayfair in the book IIRC) find out she's inherited the Mayfair fortune and feels and feels drawn to New Orleans without really understanding why. If you want to start the show with something exciting keep Michael and Aaron as two characters and show Rowan's rescue of Michael. Which sets her up as kind of being a badass and can also establish her healing abilities (just have a paramedic comment that this guy never should have lived). Time skip a few months and have her adopted mom die and you can even have the incident with pharmaceutical guy (or leave the soapier version where she kills her adopted dad because he's leaving her sick mother). You can still cut back and forth to Diedre and then end the first episode with either Michael showing up wanting to talk to the woman that saved him or with her getting the news about the inheritance or both.

[Anela]

I still can hardly remember what happened in the books. I don't know if I read all of them. I was put off by them. I think I liked the first book. 

[anoninrva]

It's ironic that Aaron was the character who taught Michael how to control his powers, since they're the same person now.  I guess it's understandable that Rowan and Ciprian haven't hooked up yet (although they have to at some point, or the entire plot is thrown out), but that felt like more of Rowan's agency in the book, and here, I'm just not sure that she has as much agency.

Also, Cortland, who still seems to be Rowan's father, still being alive seems like an interesting deviation that may not amount to anything either.

[Proclone]

On 1/23/2023 at 9:33 PM, anoninrva said:

It's ironic that Aaron was the character who taught Michael how to control his powers, since they're the same person now.  I guess it's understandable that Rowan and Ciprian haven't hooked up yet (although they have to at some point, or the entire plot is thrown out), but that felt like more of Rowan's agency in the book, and here, I'm just not sure that she has as much agency.

Also, Cortland, who still seems to be Rowan's father, still being alive seems like an interesting deviation that may not amount to anything either.

I think my biggest issue with this adaptation is how they've changed the character of Rowan. They absolutely have removed almost all her agency. In the books she made decisions, some of them were poor decisions, and some were implied to be supernaturally influenced decisions, but she made them. In this, things just seem to happen to Rowan and she reacts to them. The one decision she seems to have actually made in the show is to go to New Orleans, but shown as almost a spur of the moment thing with no reflection. Also the show Rowan seems to not want to take responsibility for anything. In the book Rowan also suspected she had the power to harm people, but kind of didn't feel bad about it. Of course there were only three people in the book she kills, a child who attacked her (when Rowan was also a child), someone who tried to rape her, and her adopted father (who was not only trying to leave her sick mom, but steal mom's money), instead of everyone who annoys at least getting a minor brain hemorrhage. Is that kind of dark and screwed up that she doesn't feel guilty, maybe, but I also think it's a way more interesting choice than having the main character run around looking like she's on the verge of a panic attack constantly. Making Rowan slightly morally grey makes her both more interesting and more compelling to watch, plus it's closer to the books in tone.

It's funny, I think were supposed to hate her boss at the hospital, but his assessment of Rowan is pretty spot on in the first episode. She does think she's the smartest person in the world, but demonstrates in a very passive aggressive way. She comes off as whiny, super passive aggressive, and kind of intitled, in her interactions with pretty much everyone. I mean did she have to be snippy to the concierge at the hotel because he didn't call her doctor? Her boss is also right that getting a job at a pharmaceutical company to get your mother into a drug trial is wildly unethical. But the way the show frames the interaction, I think it wants us to just see her boss as an asshole, when he's completely right...And really doesn't deserve to nearly die for telling Rowan the truth. Also are we to believe that Rowan made it to being a top neurosurgeon without dealing with asshole doctors, who are rude to her? Did she just accidently kill them all? Does she just leave dead bodies in her wake? I guess the show is implying that her powers have gotten stronger since Lasher was freed, but since they mention the incident when she was a child it muddies the water. Having her reflect to anyone about how she's always felt these sort of things but they feel stronger, would have made that clearer.

By in large I'm not going to blame Alexandra Daddario for how Rowan is being portrayed because it's mostly the writing and I'm sure she's being directed in certain ways as well...But I hate the baby voice she has for the character of Rowan (I haven't seen her in enough stuff to know if it's totally her own voice or it's a little bit of an affectation). She's constantly breathy and sounds like a child. I find it especially annoying since Rowan was described as having deep voice for a woman in the books. I don't expect character to necessarily look or sound like their described in the book...But it's just another thing that sort of infantilizes Rowan and makes her seem like she has less agency, on top of being a big departure from the book.

I get that The Witching Hour is super hard to adapt. Mostly because it's two separate books that are essentially interweaved together. There's Rowan and Michael's story, where they mostly pick out paint chips and fall in love and then there's The Mayfair Witches and Lasher's story. The latter is probably more interesting. I think this show would have benefited from taking a page out the first season of The Witcher in terms of how they adapted it. I don't necessarily mean being cagey about events in different storylines not being concurrent with other events as far as timeline. But I do mean willingness to tell several different stories at once and treat them equally and then show how they ultimately connect. Yes, they've been having flashbacks to Diedre and Suzanne, but they feel very much like standard flashbacks that most shows use to hint and tease. They don't feel like fully fleshed out separate stories. And I think that's they only way to adapt the book(s). Hell, the called the show The Mayfair Witches, tell the story of the Mayfair Witches.

[anoninrva]

To your point, Rowan does fantasize about confessing to Michael because she thinks he may understand her.  The role of the Talamasca here is radically different, and I'm going to be very interested, assuming this show gets a second season, how that's going to work into the Lasher plot later on.  Rowan does seem defanged, and she's arguably the strongest, most independent character in the books.  I get how they just used narrative shorthand with Aaron's apartment being the defacto Talamasca headquarters, but it feels like they're just making more plotholes to either be cleaned up or ignore later.  It did seem lazy in the books that Anne Rice only seems to be aware of a single hotel in New Orleans, but at least it fit into the plot.

[TiffanyNichelle]

Everything I hear about the show makes me want to stay far away. I was annoyed that they merged Michael and Aaron into one character because I actually preferred Michael in the book to Rowan. But I was thinking about checking out the series until I read a recap of the 3rd episode and I realized how much they strayed away from the books that I don't think I'd be able to enjoy it without constantly comparing unfavorably to the book.

I had the same issue with A Discovery of Witches that I dropped after the first season. For some reason when tv shows adapt books with strong female main characters from chapter 1, the shows like to have them grow into that instead of just presenting them fully formed the way they are in the books. I rarely see a show where the main male character has to grow and evolve over a season  into the person he is from page 1, chapter 1 in a book. But with women they always have to be lead into that. I wasn't a fan of Rowan in the books but from the start she was a capable woman who knew her worth and her abilities. She was confident in her medical abilities, she could captain a boat out in the sea alone, and she loved hooking up with her blue collar men. No one leads her anywhere, she does the leading. She gets it all her trouble with Lasher because she believes she's the only one who knows how to handle him.  And everything I see about the show seems to be the opposite.

But I'll keep checking the forums in case they right the ship, so to speak. Or at least focus more on the other 13 witches. Their history was my favorite part of the book.

[Proclone]

3 minutes ago, TiffanyNichelle said:

Everything I hear about the show makes me want to stay far away. I was annoyed that they merged Michael and Aaron into one character because I actually preferred Michael in the book to Rowan. But I was thinking about checking out the series until I read a recap of the 3rd episode and I realized how much they strayed away from the books that I don't think I'd be able to enjoy it without constantly comparing unfavorably to the book.

I had the same issue with A Discovery of Witches that I dropped after the first season. For some reason when tv shows adapt books with strong female main characters from chapter 1, the shows like to have them grow into that instead of just presenting them fully formed the way they are in the books. I rarely see a show where the main male character has to grow and evolve over a season  into the person he is from page 1, chapter 1 in a book. But with women they always have to be lead into that. I wasn't a fan of Rowan in the books but from the start she was a capable woman who knew her worth and her abilities. She was confident in her medical abilities, she could captain a boat out in the sea alone, and she loved hooking up with her blue collar men. No one leads her anywhere, she does the leading. She gets it all her trouble with Lasher because she believes she's the only one who knows how to handle him.  And everything I see about the show seems to be the opposite.

But I'll keep checking the forums in case they right the ship, so to speak. Or at least focus more on the other 13 witches. Their history was my favorite part of the book.

The way they paint Rowan's liaisons with men also kind of annoy me in this. They sort of paint it an extension of her mommy issues or at least her issues with being adopted. And it seems almost compulsive behavior in the show. Just let her be a woman who likes picking up men from bars and screwing them! It's still this Madonna/whore dichotomy. If a woman is promiscuous it must be because of deep seated trauma. It can't possible be just because she likes sex. I think it's okay to show that Rowan has sex with anonymous guys as a byproduct of her disconnection from people in general. But I think it's important that the distinction is made her hesitancy to form real connections is the problem, not necessarily her sex drive (she and Michael go at like bunnies IIRC). And I don't think they needed to make it seem as pathologic as the show depicts it.  If it was a male character I think they might hint that having random hookups wasn't the healthiest choice but I doubt they would have depicted it the way they showed it with Rowan. Show her confidently picking up men. Not basically begging her friend with benefits to sleep with her and then moving on to another random guy when he turns her down. She comes across as needy and desperate in that scene.  

[AuntieMame]

On 1/19/2023 at 2:26 PM, Proclone said:

 

I agree on both points. After 3 episodes I still don't think I like the merging of Michael and Aaron. Nor do I love Rowan nearly killing everyone that even mildly annoys her, which isn't remotely what happened in the books. In the books it's made pretty evident that Rowan can use her powers to heal or hurt people. I don't think the show is doing a particularly good job at showing the healing part. Yes, she's a good surgeon but I really don't think anyone who isn't familiar with the source material would pick up that she's using her powers as a surgeon too.

And I do think the show is rushed. I really do think a slower burn would have been better. I think it would have been much better to stay closer to the books and have Rowan (who knew she was a Mayfair in the book IIRC) find out she's inherited the Mayfair fortune and feels and feels drawn to New Orleans without really understanding why. If you want to start the show with something exciting keep Michael and Aaron as two characters and show Rowan's rescue of Michael. Which sets her up as kind of being a badass and can also establish her healing abilities (just have a paramedic comment that this guy never should have lived). Time skip a few months and have her adopted mom die and you can even have the incident with pharmaceutical guy (or leave the soapier version where she kills her adopted dad because he's leaving her sick mother). You can still cut back and forth to Diedre and then end the first episode with either Michael showing up wanting to talk to the woman that saved him or with her getting the news about the inheritance or both.

Losing Michael and the Michael rescue also makes the sailboat a useless plot appendage. Without pulling Michael from the sea, there’s no reason for the boat. 
 
Rowan continues to be annoying, useless, babyish and altogether too stupid to live much less be an exceptional neurosurgeon. Not to mention incredibly powerful telekinetic witch. Uh huh. The actress is so bad that she should really investigate a career in bookkeeping or something. 
 
The writers and show runners should look for alternative employment as well because this is just plain bad. Yes, difficult material to adapt but there are ways to do it. For example, use the current Rowan and not-Michael storyline as the frame story for telling the history of the Mayfair witches. Or better yet return Michael and Aaron as characters. Don’t jump back and forth so often. The first episode to episode and a half, tightly written, could have established Rowan, the rescue of Michael and the move to New Orleans as a setting with Dierdre’s death. The Talamasca could have been introduced because Aaron touches all of these storylines. If I was adding material, I would show more of the Talamasca. Rice always hinted that they had a hidden agenda that we never saw.
 
Once Rowan is in NOLA, the history could have been introduced like it was in the book or via a different frame (Carlotta either giving Rowan Julien’s “lost” autobiography combined with the Talamasca information or Carlotta meanly telling the story.)

Once the frames were established, each episode could start and end in the current Rowan timeline with most of the episode dealing with a significant portion of the history. Since another poster pointed out that a lot of the mid-book Rowan story involves beige paint chips and house restoration, falling in love and growing closer to the Mayfair family, this would be enough space. Tension built by waiting for Lasher. 
 
Some parts of the history might need more than one episode. Lasher’s agenda over the centuries could be explicated wven more while telling the history. For example Petyr van Abel and all of the Julien history would need more than one episode since they overlap more than one witch.
 
Ok, pretty standard narrative devices, but a non book reader would be able to follow this. It seems to me that the writers mistook the modern storyline for the main storyline and the history for a set piece. For television these should have been flipped with the modern storyline coming to the fore once Lasher bested Rowan. 
 
@TiffanyNichelle - You make a lot of great points but I really loved the idea that Lasher took Rowan down because of Rowan’s hubris and arrogance and the fact that she hasn’t experienced any type of failure. The murders aren’t a good thing but they certainly aren’t a failure. I always found Rowan a bit too perfect to be true, even in the books. Wise and exceptional people are wise and exceptional not only due to talent but because they’ve grappled with the harder parts of life - like coming back from a failure. 
 
Complete fail on the adaptation which disappoints me so much. 
 

[anoninrva]

I would counter that the This Old House parts of the book were some of the most interesting to me, particularly having lived in Louisiana, and seen many dilapidated old houses there.  But that was a central part of Michael's character, showing him building a career out of house restoration, so without that character element, like the boat, I can see how it wouldn't fit with the condensed story.  I think we agree that the epistolic frame would be difficult (but not impossible) to adapt to a TV show.  I did feel that the Peter bits dragged on for a bit, and while I was reading the first book, didn't like how heavy-handedly it separated Michael from the action, but I guess it kind of paid off in the end.  I got the idea that Anne Rice had a plan for the events and wrote backwards to support them.  I guess a lot of writers follow that method.  I could be wrong.

[TiffanyNichelle]

3 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

If I was adding material, I would show more of the Talamasca. Rice always hinted that they had a hidden agenda that we never saw.

The one thing I always wanted from Anne Rice was a full on Talamasca book. They were up to something and it would have been so good.

 

Quote

You make a lot of great points but I really loved the idea that Lasher took Rowan down because of Rowan’s hubris and arrogance and the fact that she hasn’t experienced any type of failure.

Exactly. She thought she alone could handle anything because she always did. She was at the top of her career, had that huge house, the boat, she could be with all those "rough and tumble" guys without any fear of them hurting her, so of course she could handle this ghost deal because she grew up outside of the whole Mayfair/Lasher mythos. And no, she could not.

Edited January 27, 2023 by TiffanyNichelle

[Eeksquire]

Quote

I rarely see a show where the main male character has to grow and evolve over a season  into the person he is from page 1, chapter 1 in a book. But with women they always have to be lead into that.

This! I keep trying to put my finger on what bothers me about this show so much (aside from the fact that it bears a very shallow resemblance to the source material), but I think it's that the showrunners are so focused on making sure that we LIKE Rowan, that they've totally missed the fact that she's not really likable for most of the book series AND THAT'S THE POINT. She's an antihero.  Lean into that!

[Proclone]

1 hour ago, Eeksquire said:

This! I keep trying to put my finger on what bothers me about this show so much (aside from the fact that it bears a very shallow resemblance to the source material), but I think it's that the showrunners are so focused on making sure that we LIKE Rowan, that they've totally missed the fact that she's not really likable for most of the book series AND THAT'S THE POINT. She's an antihero.  Lean into that!

I think this is a problem a lot of shows have with female main characters. They don't understand there's a difference between likable and compelling. A character doesn't have to likable to be compelling (it's funny that they almost never seem to forget this with men). Nice doesn't automatically mean they aren't compelling, but a character should be compelling first and foremost. This isn't real life. I'll watch a show about a really unlikable person if they're compelling even though I would never associate with them IRL.

A smart, capable, arrogant, surgeon, who gets over her head with supernatural because she thinks she's smarter than everyone else, could be a really compelling story. But I don't think they wanted to tell a story about a woman who had power and was comfortable with it. In an attempt to make Rowan more likable or at least more palatable to a general audience they turned into a meek, whinny woman with no agency. Which to me is neither likable nor compelling. 

[Ohiopirate02]

52 minutes ago, Proclone said:

A smart, capable, arrogant, surgeon, who gets over her head with supernatural because she thinks she's smarter than everyone else, could be a really compelling story. But I don't think they wanted to tell a story about a woman who had power and was comfortable with it. In an attempt to make Rowan more likable or at least more palatable to a general audience they turned into a meek, whinny woman with no agency. Which to me is neither likable nor compelling. 

I think part of the problem here is the show deciding that Rowan is the audience's entry into this strange new world instead of Michael.  So she's dumbed down to fit a role Anne Rice never intended.  

[AuntieMame]

17 hours ago, anoninrva said:

I would counter that the This Old House parts of the book were some of the most interesting to me, particularly having lived in Louisiana, and seen many dilapidated old houses there.  But that was a central part of Michael's character, showing him building a career out of house restoration, so without that character element, like the boat, I can see how it wouldn't fit with the condensed story.  I think we agree that the epistolic frame would be difficult (but not impossible) to adapt to a TV show.  I did feel that the Peter bits dragged on for a bit, and while I was reading the first book, didn't like how heavy-handedly it separated Michael from the action, but I guess it kind of paid off in the end.  I got the idea that Anne Rice had a plan for the events and wrote backwards to support them.  I guess a lot of writers follow that method.  I could be wrong.

I personally liked the house restoration stuff too and this could easily be covered in the Rowan frame story. But I love DIY and old houses. All viewers might not feel the same. 
 

11 hours ago, Proclone said:

I think this is a problem a lot of shows have with female main characters. They don't understand there's a difference between likable and compelling. A character doesn't have to likable to be compelling (it's funny that they almost never seem to forget this with men). Nice doesn't automatically mean they aren't compelling, but a character should be compelling first and foremost. This isn't real life. I'll watch a show about a really unlikable person if they're compelling even though I would never associate with them IRL.

A smart, capable, arrogant, surgeon, who gets over her head with supernatural because she thinks she's smarter than everyone else, could be a really compelling story. But I don't think they wanted to tell a story about a woman who had power and was comfortable with it. In an attempt to make Rowan more likable or at least more palatable to a general audience they turned into a meek, whinny woman with no agency. Which to me is neither likable nor compelling. 

Agreed a hundred percent. The writers could also stress Rowan’s self-reliance and loneliness, that for a lot of reasons she doesn’t know how to accept help from other people. She’s been really isolated all of her life. 
 
Show Rowan is definitely neither likable or compelling. As a society we don’t value “unfeminine” qualities in women. Nobody actually fits these stereotypes but we keep pushing them anyway. I guess one of the most disappointing things is that women are writing this mess. Even though Rice used some genre cliches in her writing, she was sincere and she tried to subvert some of those tropes. This adaptation dropped her sincerity and her subversion. 
 
Watching a character undone by hubris would be fabulous; it is after all a classic theme. Big sigh. 

[Nmissi]

That's it, I'm out. Three and a half episodes in and I'm thoroughly disgusted. I think of all the scenes Rice crafted so beautifully, the way she built the tension and the horror and the palpable sense of dread... even when I saw what was coming vis a vis Lasher in the flesh...i couldn't look away.

Damn this show, and its writers. I can't recognise a single character in this muddled mess.The scenes that have stuck with me for decades...like Rowan walking up the aisle at the funeral home...wrenched out of all recognition. Stripped of all emotion, symbolism, and purpose. 

This is not the Mayfair Witches story. It's just crap wearing the name.

[nodorothyparker]

I said in the episode thread, the whole sequence of Rowan finally connecting with her biological family through the funeral of the birth mother she never got to meet to really encountering Carlotta and the house is some of my favorite writing in the first book. It's so dark and lush and gothic with the body in the rug and the ancient jars of magic gone wrong in the attic and Carlotta basically provoking Rowan into using her powers to strike her down. Like everything else, the show whiffed on that too for some gauzy midday cocktail party where no one seemed to have any ulterior motives at all that eventually led into religious nonsense and trying to burn the whole thing down. This show wouldn't know real gothic if it bit it in the ass.

I like the observation that Rowan isn't exactly supposed to be likeable. She's a superrich smarter than everybody overachiever who has some really frightening powers she doesn't fully understand. And she's so very alone and cut off from everything that she really has nobody to bounce it off of.  But she's not a passive incompetent who can't do much but make big bug eyes every time she encounters something off as the show would have you believe. Book Rowan would be offended by the very idea that she couldn't handle herself or manage the supernatural stuff she's mucking around in like any other scientific endeavor.

[Ohiopirate02]

I watched episode 5 last night, and I just do not understand what the writers are trying to do here.  Lasher's motivations in the show do not match what they are in the books when it comes to Michael/Ciprian.  Why is he trying to kill Sip before Sip can knock Rowan up?  

[Scarlett45]

On 2/3/2023 at 8:28 AM, Ohiopirate02 said:

I watched episode 5 last night, and I just do not understand what the writers are trying to do here.  Lasher's motivations in the show do not match what they are in the books when it comes to Michael/Ciprian.  Why is he trying to kill Sip before Sip can knock Rowan up?  

I think because Rowan may have actual feelings for Sip. Lasher needs Rowan breeding, not in love with another man. Also maybe he can’t possess Sip because of his powers like he could the young man at the party that impregnated Diedre?

[Ohiopirate02]

8 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

I think because Rowan may have actual feelings for Sip. Lasher needs Rowan breeding, not in love with another man. Also maybe he can’t possess Sip because of his powers like he could the young man at the party that impregnated Diedre?

In the first book, when Lasher is a spirit he cannot impregnate anyone.  Diedre is not raped by Lasher, but by someone else.  And Michael has his own story from childhood with Lasher and the Mayfair family (though he doesn't know it until he meets Rowan as an adult.) And then there's Anne Rice deciding to take the tropes of gothic fiction to their most extreme throughout the books.  It's incest all the way down through 11 generations of Mayfairs with a daughter raping her father, to multiple brothers and sisters procreating to produce the next refinement of witch to one male member spreading his seed far and wide as part of the grand Mayfair witch plan.  Michael has a preordained role in this plan, and if Ciprien is Michael then Lasher needs him.  

[Scarlett45]

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

In the first book, when Lasher is a spirit he cannot impregnate anyone.  Diedre is not raped by Lasher, but by someone else.  And Michael has his own story from childhood with Lasher and the Mayfair family (though he doesn't know it until he meets Rowan as an adult.) And then there's Anne Rice deciding to take the tropes of gothic fiction to their most extreme throughout the books.  It's incest all the way down through 11 generations of Mayfairs with a daughter raping her father, to multiple brothers and sisters procreating to produce the next refinement of witch to one male member spreading his seed far and wide as part of the grand Mayfair witch plan.  Michael has a preordained role in this plan, and if Ciprien is Michael then Lasher needs him.  

Thanks- I have not read this series but I do not mind being spoiled. I figured Lasher couldn't impregnate anyone (he doesnt have a body) so he needs Mayfair witches conceived the old fashioned way and the bloodline to continue, I just thought he did it by possessing human men and then disposing of them after the women were impregnated. From the scenes in the show, there are a significant number of black Mayfairs, I figured some Mayfair man raped enslaved women and other black women, and those descendants are recognized as Mayfairs because they also have the gifts.

[Ohiopirate02]

6 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

Thanks- I have not read this series but I do not mind being spoiled. I figured Lasher couldn't impregnate anyone (he doesnt have a body) so he needs Mayfair witches conceived the old fashioned way and the bloodline to continue, I just thought he did it by possessing human men and then disposing of them after the women were impregnated. From the scenes in the show, there are a significant number of black Mayfairs, I figured some Mayfair man raped enslaved women and other black women, and those descendants are recognized as Mayfairs because they also have the gifts.

If the show keeps to the books, that was not Lasher possessing the random guest at Courtland's party.  It was Uncle Courtland.  I get the feeling that the show is giving Courtland the powers shown in the book that his father Julien had.  Julien could change his appearance, and delighted in it.  Julien was to put it mildly a manwhore who had a mission to impregnate as many women as possible during his long life while also being bisexual.  In the books, Julien is one of Michael's great-grandfathers, and one of Rowan's two.  Uncle Courtland is Rowan's father, grandfather, and her other great-grandfather.  Lasher is fine with all of this as long as Julien's and then Courtland's agendas match his own because in this world multiple generations of inbreeding results in creating a very powerful witch in Rowan instead of King Carlos II of Spain.

[Scarlett45]

13 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

If the show keeps to the books, that was not Lasher possessing the random guest at Courtland's party.  It was Uncle Courtland.  I get the feeling that the show is giving Courtland the powers shown in the book that his father Julien had.  Julien could change his appearance, and delighted in it.  Julien was to put it mildly a manwhore who had a mission to impregnate as many women as possible during his long life while also being bisexual.  In the books, Julien is one of Michael's great-grandfathers, and one of Rowan's two.  Uncle Courtland is Rowan's father, grandfather, and her other great-grandfather.  Lasher is fine with all of this as long as Julien's and then Courtland's agendas match his own because in this world multiple generations of inbreeding results in creating a very powerful witch in Rowan instead of King Carlos II of Spain.

Gotcha. How long do Mayfairs live? A typical human lifespan or a bit longer or a lot longer?

[Eeksquire]

Quote

From the scenes in the show, there are a significant number of black Mayfairs

This was one of the most interesting parts of the book series (to me), which is the different family branches. In the books, there were black Mayfairs, but in the book universe, they do not mix with the white Mayfairs. In addition, there is a branch of the family that is poor (well... "poor" by Mayfair standards), who come from the branch of the family that owns Fontevrault plantation, which is literally sinking into the swamps.  

Dealing with the inherent complexity involved in the racial/economic part of the family backstory is obviously WAY BEYOND these showrunners' capabilities, so I can live with the idea that they're all together in this version and everyone is rich. That's the least of our issues with this adaptation.

[Ohiopirate02]

7 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

Gotcha. How long do Mayfairs live? A typical human lifespan or a bit longer or a lot longer?

Most Mayfairs live well into their 80s or longer.  Rowan's grandmother Antha and her grandmother Stella were the only two main Mayfairs to die before 30.

[Scarlett45]

11 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Most Mayfairs live well into their 80s or longer.  Rowan's grandmother Antha and her grandmother Stella were the only two main Mayfairs to die before 30.

Okay, I wasnt sure if they had some witchy magic that could extend their life a bit. I assumed they could die in accidents etc like everyone else. Thanks!

[Ohiopirate02]

43 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

Okay, I wasnt sure if they had some witchy magic that could extend their life a bit. I assumed they could die in accidents etc like everyone else. Thanks!

Their witchiness helped them live long healthy lives in Haiti and later New Orleans while maintaining their wealth.  They knew when to leave Haiti and settle in Louisiana, also when to diversify their holdings during the 19th century.  They were able to prosper while other Southern families were devastated in the 1860s, and still be a leading society family.  They also were immune to the various infections that plagued a pre-antibiotics society.  

[Scarlett45]

Just now, Ohiopirate02 said:

Their witchiness helped them live long healthy lives in Haiti and later New Orleans while maintaining their wealth.  They knew when to leave Haiti and settle in Louisiana, also when to diversify their holdings during the 19th century.  They were able to prosper while other Southern families were devastated in the 1860s, and still be a leading society family.  They also were immune to the various infections that plagued a pre-antibiotics society.  

That makes sense to me. Thank you. I figured the magic helped them socially/financially prosperous as well as fertile. Yes all families are old, some just keep better records than others!(lol) but some families are more fertile than others; not only the number of live births, but the number of children that survive to adulthood before modern medicine. 

[TiffanyNichelle]

3 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Their witchiness helped them live long healthy lives in Haiti and later New Orleans while maintaining their wealth.  They knew when to leave Haiti and settle in Louisiana, also when to diversify their holdings during the 19th century.  They were able to prosper while other Southern families were devastated in the 1860s, and still be a leading society family.  They also were immune to the various infections that plagued a pre-antibiotics society.  

And in the books Lasher would bring the main witch jewels and gold from far away places, at least he did in the beginning.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 minute ago, TiffanyNichelle said:

And in the books Lasher would bring the main witch jewels and gold from far away places, at least he did in the beginning.

He did for Deborah in the beginning, and she used those jewels and coins to land herself a French nobleman and finance plantations in the Caribbean.  Later witches get a silk purse that auto-replenishes with rare coins.  The earlier generations in Haiti and Louisiana did use Lasher to keep the slaves in line, but their upwards trajectory was due to them using their powers to suss things out.  From knowing when to GTFO of Haiti in the 1790s to when to pivot from slave labor to industry in the 1850s to also knowing when to buy land in states like California for cheap and also when to both buy stocks and to sell them.  

[kathyk24]

I've tried to like this show but there are too many changes from the books. Michael Curry and Mona Mayfair are vital characters and shouldn't be left out of the series. I have no idea how the show will include the Taltos.

[CarpeFelis]

Just finished The Witching Hour today. Wow. If the showrunners want to completely confuse anyone who actually read the books, they’re doing a bangup job of that. No clue where the hell they’re taking this.

[anoninrva]

On 2/6/2023 at 9:54 AM, Scarlett45 said:

Gotcha. How long do Mayfairs live? A typical human lifespan or a bit longer or a lot longer?

It isn't so much that they're long lived, so much as they have children (to their fathers or grandfathers, no less) at like 13. So there are many generations alive at the same time.

On 2/8/2023 at 3:06 AM, kathyk24 said:

I've tried to like this show but there are too many changes from the books. Michael Curry and Mona Mayfair are vital characters and shouldn't be left out of the series. I have no idea how the show will include the Taltos.

I think the last episode completely derails the Taltos storyline.  Granted, I still think that Tessa is Mona, since she plays the same role here, although having Courtland still alive, not having Michael, not having the Talamasca know anything about the family history, Suzanne being burned before she has Deborah, etc, etc all impact the series of events in the books.  I liked the St. Ashlar backstory.  It looks like that's completely out.

[anoninrva]

DId anyone else notice that Mayfair Medical went from Rowan's novel idea of how to spend her insane wealth to do something novel and useful to just being a wing of the local hospital?  I feel like this stole a lot (more) of her character's agency.

[Ohiopirate02]

7 minutes ago, anoninrva said:

I think the last episode completely derails the Taltos storyline.  Granted, I still think that Tessa is Mona, since she plays the same role here, although having Courtland still alive, not having Michael, not having the Talamasca know anything about the family history, Suzanne being burned before she has Deborah, etc, etc all impact the series of events in the books.  I liked the St. Ashlar backstory.  It looks like that's completely out.

I got the feeling that the show has decided to combine some of the various storylines from each generation into very specific ones while still keeping it to 12 witches before Rowan.  I think the show is combining Suzanne and Deborah into one person and we will see Suzanne flee the Scottish village and meet up with the show's version of Peter.  She will still have Deborah, and Deborah will do her thing in France, followed by her daughter in Haiti. Which will probably make the show's version of Peter Deborah's father and the father of Charlotte. I think this has to do with the show trying to reconcile the 40 year gap between book Rowan and show Rowan.  

[anoninrva]

Another niggling point here is that Julian was never the designee.  The designee is needed to produce a woman who will eventually birth Lasher, so it makes sense it was matrilineal.

[kathyk24]

2 minutes ago, anoninrva said:

Another niggling point here is that Julian was never the designee.  The designee is needed to produce a woman who will eventually birth Lasher, so it makes sense it was matrilineal.

In the Witching Hour Lasher favored Julian over Katherine who was one of the designees. I don't know how they can ignore the Taltos when Rowan and Mona each gave birth to one.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, kathyk24 said:

In the Witching Hour Lasher favored Julian over Katherine who was one of the designees.

Lasher favored all of the Mayfairs who were willing to assist in his main objective of acquiring a new more permanent body.  And Julien did that in spades by sleeping with just about every ovulating woman he met in the hopes of producing the right witch to bear Lasher into the world.  From his sister Katherine to their daughter Mary Beth twice to the Irish maid who was Michael's great-grandmother, Julien was committed to the cause.  He also instructed Courtland on what to do to keep the project going.  

[Art Of Noiz]

On 2/6/2023 at 6:16 AM, Ohiopirate02 said:

In the first book, when Lasher is a spirit he cannot impregnate anyone.  Diedre is not raped by Lasher, but by someone else.  And Michael has his own story from childhood with Lasher and the Mayfair family (though he doesn't know it until he meets Rowan as an adult.) And then there's Anne Rice deciding to take the tropes of gothic fiction to their most extreme throughout the books.  It's incest all the way down through 11 generations of Mayfairs with a daughter raping her father, to multiple brothers and sisters procreating to produce the next refinement of witch to one male member spreading his seed far and wide as part of the grand Mayfair witch plan.  Michael has a preordained role in this plan, and if Ciprien is Michael then Lasher needs him.  

I have been so disappointed in the series, I ordered the books to reread. Im reading Lasher now, so this is fairly fresh. 

Angelique had Remy, Katherine and Julien. Katherine wasn't a strong witch, but Julien was. J let Lasher work through him, and  impregnated her. His daughter was Mary Beth. Julien impregnated his daughter, who had Stella. He impregnated his gdaughter, who had Antha. Julien's son Cortland did Antha, (technically his sister), then through her, sired  Deirde. Cortland raped Deirde, who had Rowan.

Julien raped Sister Bridget. The Michael line comes from her.  

Edited February 15, 2023 by Art Of Noiz
Add to

[Scarlett45]

On 2/14/2023 at 8:46 PM, Art Of Noiz said:

I have been so disappointed in the series, I ordered the books to reread. Im reading Lasher now, so this is fairly fresh. 

Angelique had Remy, Katherine and Julien. Katherine wasn't a strong witch, but Julien was. J let Lasher work through him, and  impregnated her. His daughter was Mary Beth. Julien impregnated his daughter, who had Stella. He impregnated his gdaughter, who had Antha. Julien's son Cortland did Antha, (technically his sister), then through her, sired  Deirde. Cortland raped Deirde, who had Rowan.

Julien raped Sister Bridget. The Michael line comes from her.  

Damn. (The plot line not you)

[Eeksquire]

I just ordered a new copy of the book, because the show is so terrible I need a palate cleanser.  I am curious to read it as an adult (instead of a teenager) and what - 25 years? - later, to see how it strikes me here in 2023. At least I'm guaranteed a better experience than watching the show!

[Art Of Noiz]

4 hours ago, Eeksquire said:

I just ordered a new copy of the book, because the show is so terrible I need a palate cleanser.  I am curious to read it as an adult (instead of a teenager) and what - 25 years? - later, to see how it strikes me here in 2023. At least I'm guaranteed a better experience than watching the show!

Have you read Merrick,  Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle? 

Merrick is a mixed race Mayfair witch. 

BF and BC are crossover continuations of vampire and witch series. Spoooky.

[Eeksquire]

Quote

Have you read Merrick,  Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle? 

I read all of them and they are among my favorites of the whole vampire series! Which... is why the lack of Mona in this show is deeply depressing.

[anoninrva]

So Tessa's mother is "Leesh", which I'm assuming is Alicia.  Her "what are you doing here" scene in the beginning did seem exactly like Mona's drunk useless mother, but she didn't have a sister, and the rest of the show had very different dynamics.  I'm still thinking they never showed Rowan and Ciprian in a romantic setting outside of dream sequences, but making Ciprian Peter Van Able too is more than enough to completely derail the book plot.

On 2/17/2023 at 9:45 PM, Art Of Noiz said:

Have you read Merrick,  Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle? 

Merrick is a mixed race Mayfair witch. 

BF and BC are crossover continuations of vampire and witch series. Spoooky.

I am about halfway through Blackwood Farm now.  I started the Mayfair witches when they announced the show a couple of months ago.  I still think you could stop at the first book and be more satisfied.  Maybe Blood Canticle would redeem itself, but I doubt it.  Lestat is particularly cringey in Blackwood Farm.

[Art Of Noiz]

On 2/19/2023 at 6:33 PM, Eeksquire said:

I read all of them and they are among my favorites of the whole vampire series! Which... is why the lack of Mona in this show is deeply depressing.

I agree. They can't do BF &BC as sequels. Major eff up, imo.