Mayfair Witches: The Books

[Glade]

The show is a bad adaptation, but I agree that there needed to be changes made to a lot of the problematic and frankly tasteless aspects of these books; I would not want to watch book Michael, the racist, toxicly masculine, alcoholic pedophile 80's romance novel stereotype on-screen, nor am I disappointed that the 13 year old girl he was going to rape is also MIA. Though I do find it funny that AR gave basically the same hundreds of pages of rambly character development centered on "in their youth they found the library and fell in love with books and then became an alcoholic" background to both Michael and Merrick. 

[Art Of Noiz]

On 2/24/2023 at 6:03 PM, Glade said:

The show is a bad adaptation, but I agree that there needed to be changes made to a lot of the problematic and frankly tasteless aspects of these books; I would not want to watch book Michael, the racist, toxicly masculine, alcoholic pedophile 80's romance novel stereotype on-screen, nor am I disappointed that the 13 year old girl he was going to rape is also MIA. Though I do find it funny that AR gave basically the same hundreds of pages of rambly character development centered on "in their youth they found the library and fell in love with books and then became an alcoholic" background to both Michael and Merrick. 

Is she telling on herself? 

[Art Of Noiz]

I'm now almost at the end of Taltos. For anyone that hasn't read the books, I would recommend reading all 3. 

The Witching Hour was a teaser. Lasher was about Rowan's abduction, giving birth to the walkin babies, Julien's story. Taltos delves deeper into Donnelaith, the origins of Lasher, and finding other beings like him.

That the Talamasca is woven throughout all 3 is masterful, suspense building..

 

[anoninrva]

This is completely irrelevant to the show, since Michael and Mona don't seem to exist, but in Blood Canticle, Mona refers to Michael as her Uncle.  Isn't she closer to being his aunt, being closer to Julian (her grandfather (and great-great-grandfather via Cortland) IIRC, his great-grandfather).

[AuntieMame]

On 2/6/2023 at 7:40 AM, 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.

Thank you for working out the multiple  degrees of relation that happen when multiple generations commit incest. I’ve read the Mayfair history set piece several times and love it, but I’ve always shied away from figuring out just how many multiples there are in this family. This will help my next reread some years down the line. 

On 2/14/2023 at 10:14 AM, Ohiopirate02 said:

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.  

I wish the show runners had kept the 90s time period for Rowan. This is after all a fantasy universe. I’m sure the thinking was that the 18 to 35 demographic couldn’t cope if the main storyline wasn’t absolutely contemporary, but I’m thinking their efforts would have been better spent on a coherent storyline. 

On 2/14/2023 at 7:46 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.  

Thank you as well for helping sort out the genealogy. What a tangled web incest weaves. Talk about wishful thinking. Lasher was more than lucky that thirteen generations of incest produced Rowan instead of dying out generations before as the recessives gave people mental and physical congenital deformities. 
 
The only other time I’ve seen such wishful thinking in an author was George RR Martin and his super tough army of castrati. Because that isn’t what happens when you castrate men. Worse Martin knew it as evidenced by the characters of Theon and Varys. 

Edited March 21, 2023 by AuntieMame