The House of Night/Headscratchers

• The fact that we only see Aphrodite with two guys (and she's fairly serious about the second one)and almost everyone considers her a ho. Yet we have Zoey: with three boyfriends at one time, losing her virginity to her teacher and the other characters deny she's a ho. Um, what?
  • It's because of blowjobs. Blowjobs are evil. Hallway sex is like House of Night world's equivalent of kicking puppies, apparently.
  • It's also because Aphrodite wears more 'ho-ish' clothes than Zoey does, apparently. (Sadly a Truth in Television attitude too.)
  • She deamands a blowjob from someone who clearly does not want it. that spells ho to me. also her clothes, and some of her actions.
    • Which would be all well and good, but Zoey only bashes Aphrodite for giving the blowjob, and completely ignores the fact that it was clearly unwanted. The way Zoey talks, she seems to think that giving blowjobs is instantly demeaning.

• So can the marks be covered up with make-up or not? Because in the first book Zoey was whining and complaining about the fact that she could do nothing to cover up her mark. Then in the second and later books, she covers up her mark. In fact, fledglings are required to do so every time they go out into the human world. Huh? Do the vampires have special concealing make-up or something? If so, what's so special about it that humans haven't gotten it yet? I can think of some things that a concealer that powerful would be useful for.
  • Actually, yeah, the vampyres DO have extremely good cover-up makeup that they provide to the students. Before she got to the school, Zoey wouldn't have known that or been able to get ahold of it.
• Does Zoey's blatant Mary Sue tendencies piss anybody else off? She's just so awesome and speshul, she's the freaking avatar of an ancient vampyre goddess, guys fall in hordes at her feet, she can't shut up about her 'exotic' Cherokee heritage for more than two sentences...
  • I've only read book one, but i don't see any signs of sue-ness.
  • Oh my god yes, it annoys the f---ing crap out of me. It's why I stopped after the fourth book. Besides being an Author Avatar, she practically has no real "qualities" to herself and she is The Chosen One to a degree of beyond realism. I mean I though Sasuke Uchiha was bad, but this character definitely takes it Up to Eleven.
• Is there any flesh left on Zoey that hasn't gotten magically tatted yet?
  • Her ass?
• The lack of family loyalty. They all seem to abandon their families for vampirisim or romance. Why?
  • IIRC it's because when someone gets marked their family will often end up rejecting them. So, it's not really the "vampyres" rejecting their families, but the other way around.
  • That really bugs me as well. I understand that the Fledging's immune system pretty much eats itself if they're away from adult vamps, but the fact they have to give up their families, loose contact with their friends, and join some crazy hippie dippie cult REALLY bothers me. I guess this goes hand-in-hand with the complaints about the blatant anti-Christianity thingie, but it's really jarring and unrealistic that the Fledglings are all super eager to drop whatever religious practices they have, or if they're not religious, take up new ones. I understand that their goddess is present, but I find it hard to believe that there isn't one Nay Theist who doesn't worship Nyx.
  • What this troper doesn't get is why it's seen as so weird that a vampire's human family would continue to associate them. The book openly states that all vampires grow up to be hot and immortal and are totally normal besides the blood drinking thing and the discomfort from sunlight (both of which aren't the weirdest things families put up with), and that almost all vampires go on to be insanely famous and wealthy. What reason, exactly, would cause human families to hate a child being Marked so much? Granted, the vampires in the series are all pretentious asses, but that's unintentional...

• Zoey kills two people by using wind to blow them in front of a car. The reason? They caught her snacking and getting her perv on with Heath and threatened the two of them. It is never brought up again. Um, what? SHE JUST KILLED TWO PEOPLE!!
  • It's...erm casually mentioned that they most likely survived and were taken to the hospital down the road on time, so Zoey assumes they were alright. Possibly. Still is never resolved. No matter though, she got away with making out with Heath.
• The series jumps time constantly. The book was published in 2007, and it's an unwritten rule that unless you specifically mention the time period or imply it through description of things, that it’s set at the current time the book was published. The date seems to be confirmed when Zoey mentions going to see 300 (released 2007) with her friends. But then they mention Twitter. Twitter, that never got big until about 2009. They also mention True Blood and Glee…the former wasn’t broadcast will 2008, and the latter 2009. That’s a year gap between all these references, and it’s been less than six months in the series since Zoey got marked.
  • The In-Universe timeline is the one thing in this series that consistently makes no sense. In Untamed the date at the end of of the book was midnight New Year's Eve. From Hunted onward you have no idea how many days have passed. At max the In-Universe time-span for Hunted, Tempted and Burned can only be two to three days max. The Authors have also not yet made a cannon timeline available to clear up any of this said confusion.
• The fact that so many potential plot points are just left hanging to make room for the Romantic Plot Tumor (though I think at this point, it's safe to assume that it's now Romantic Plot Cancer... the terminal kind. Okay, I'll stop.), most notably: The subplot about the relationship between Zoey and her mother after the whole Have You Tried Not Being a Monster? and subsequent "Accept me mom or I won't talk to you" conversations (yeah, I know it was mostly used for Author Filibuster with the whole "Religion Extremists Are Evil", but it seemed that Zoey genuinely cared about her mom and hated the way she changed), and Neferet's past and her motivations (from hints in the earlier books, it seemed like Neferet was almost like Zoey in that upon being discovered, humans who supposedly loved and cared about her pulled a Burn the Witch, or something like that. Which would explain why she became a High Priestess- to have power and prove to the humans that wronged her that she could do amazing things; subsequently, she got tempted by the Dark Side at some point. I mean, it sounds cliche, but it gives her some Character Development, kinda makes her sympathetic, and it's still better than the Casts' explanation of "Because she's Evil. Why? Just because. So yeah. EVIL~!"). It just feels like the Casts had a plan for all of this, and somewhere along the way someone screwed up and thought, "Well, who cares about stuff like "characters", "plot development", "well-rounded personalities", and "motivations"? What the people want to really know is WHAT SEXY SUPERNATURAL BOY ZOEY'S GONNA END UP WITH BY THE END OF THE SERIES!" Yeah, that's what I want to read; never mind the whole The End of the World as We Know It plot, all teenage girls care about are boys, regardless of whether or not they're all-powerful messiahs with the fate of the world in their hands!
• At Jack's funeral as Zoey is lighting the pyre, she gets his last name wrong. WTF? I could understand if this was just an every day conversation but it was his freaking funeral!
• Why doesn't anyone care that Aphrodite was basically raping Erik? They call her a slut for trying to give him a blowjob, even though she was basically forcing him into it. Do they ever make this connection?

Destined

SPOILERS AHEAD

• The alluded sex scene between Rephaim and Stevie Rae
  • The readers are shown when Zoey loses her virginity to Loren Blake and when she has sex with Stark for the first time on Skye. The readers are also shown that Zoey and Stark are now having sex regularly. The readers are even shown sex scenes involving Neferet. The entire book of Awakened has Neferet running around naked and sleeping around with Kalona and various Sons of Erebus Warriors AND A GIANT WHITE BULL. But when it comes to Rephaim and Stevie Rae, especially after them having to go through all different kinds of drama for them to be together, the reader is shown... Nothing. The whole thing is glossed over. What the hell Writers!? It's especially bad as it would have been Stevie Rae's first time as well.
    • Either they're trying to tone down the sex, they were aiming for more of a Did They or Didn't They? type of scene, or they had some other idea that I can't guess at.
• When Rephaim spoke to his brothers
  • When Rephaim was speaking to his brother Nosroc (page 45 of Destined) he said "When I harmed others, when I killed and raped and took whatever I wished simply because I could - that was wrong." This statement offers contradictory evidence to many of Rephaim's behaviors and characteristics that have been shown over Tempted, Burned and Awakened. For Example:
    • In Burned, when Stevie Rae was with Dallas and Rephaim could feel her emotions, he was confused by the feelings of desire, Rephaim didn't even recognise it at first. If Rephaim had raped before, wouldn't he have recognised the feeling of desire instantly?
      • He could be confused by genuine love instead of lust.
    • In Awakened, Rephaim thinks of mortals as "poor earthbound creatures" and "the rest of the unwinged, pathetic horde" (page 121 of Awakened). The only exception is Stevie Rae. So it's fairly obvious that he finds the majority of mortals to be disgusting and contemptible. Why would he rape someone he finds digusting? Wouldn't it be more logical for Rephaim to think of mortals as unworthy of his notice/attention?
      • Does Rephiam say the rape was done because he was genuinely attracted to the victims? For all we know, he could have done it because he was bored. Or perhaps there are no female Raven Mockers, so if he's in the mood he either has to settle for a mortal or make A Date with Rosie Palms.
    • The majority of Fledglings and Vampyres at the Tulsa House of Night are completely fooled by Kalona's ability to brainwash people and make people love him and see him how he wants to see them. So it's fair to assume that Humans are just as effected (or even more so given this series stance on how Vampyres are so much better than Humans). So, why would Rephaim want to rape a woman who wanted his father or would compare him to his father?
      • Who says he went for women his father fancied? Just because Kalona has that effect on people doesn't mean he responds to every reaction they have. There's bound to be some women that Kalona wasn't interested in.
• The Kalona Deus Ex Machina Problem
  • Why did Kalona have to reclaim Rephaim as his son to heal him? Why didn't Stevie Rae just summon her element Earth and heal Rephaim like she did in Burned? Why were they all just standing around and talking?
    • I interpreted it as he was too far gone for Stevie Rae to help him. Didn't Thanatos say that Death wasn't going to let him go? It seemed to me like Kalona's plea was one of his minor redeeming moments, enough to cause Nix to intervene. She's done it before with the dead after all.
  • If Kalona becomes the next Sword Master/Leader of the Sons of Erebus Warriors, what's going to happen to the other Raven Mockers? Is he just going to abandon them all over again?
    • I would assume this is something that will be addressed in the next book.
• Damian being retconed into being a Fourth Former
  • In the book Marked, Damian is a thrid former, just like Zoey and Stevie Rae, while Shaunee and Erin are fourth formers. It's why Zoey and Damian and Stevie Rae have the majority of their classes together. Now, the total possible time-span from Untamed (which specifically end on New Years Eve) to Destined is three months. The evidence to support this is that in the Northern hemisphere the season of winter spans from December to Feburary. In Destined, while they don't outright state the name of the current month, it's mentioned that Winter is passing and it's now Spring, which means it's now March. So, how did Damian graduate a year in the span of three months? Did he apply to be boosted up a year because he's so smart?
    • Well, I'm not so sure that a House of Night school year would work the same as a normal school year. In a normal school, everyone starts the year at the same time, and thus moves up a grade together. But in this series, a fledgling starts their school year when they arrive at whichever House of Night they will be attending. And there is not a specific day when all the new fledglings-to-be get Marked all at once. For proof of that, we have the fact that Shawnee and Erin got Marked on the same day and it contributed to their friendship. Thus it seems likely to me that each fledgling's school year starts when they arrive. I don't believe we've found out exactly when Damian was Marked, but if he started his third former year sometime last winter then it's possible it was simply time for his promotion to fourth former.
    • If this is the case, and it is possible, why was Rephaim and Damian tending classes alongside Zoey and not Shawnee and Erin. As Erin and Shaunee are both fourth formers (due to no evidence to the contrary) you would expect them to at least share one class together.