I don’t know about you guys but the combination of Michael McMillian, Skars, and booze is one that never gets old.

It’s been a long time between drinks, but the return of Steve Newlin seems to have reignited the Best Bromance Ever. Not since the heady days of the season 2 hiatus have we seen these two get blind and canoodle for the camera. I miss it so.

You can keep your Bill and Eric roadshow of fail, Alan. Here’s my favourite male coupling, right here.

Have a good night, boys.

Image source (edited by me)

We’re back!

It’s a new year, and it seems I popped my head up to discover that it’s only three months until the release of Deadlocked! How did that happen? At any rate, we’re on the downhill run now, peeps. What better way to open the year than with some tips on making it through until May?

1. A Full Series Re-read

Yeah, yeah – we hear this suggestion every year. But I’m not talking about just any re read here. Take on the series from the beginning with a fresh set of eyes and an open mind. (Yes, I know Dead Until Dark is a chore – but it’s still important, dammit). Who knows? Maybe you’ll hit on the answer to some of the most frustrating and compelling questions in this series. Will Sookie and Eric ever be left alone long enough to complete an entire conversation? Is the Merlotte’s parking lot under some sort of voodoo curse? Will all of that suntanning ever take its toll on Sookie’s fair skin? And of course, the most important question of them all – will Bill Compton EVER fucking die?

Make copious notes and share your observations with us. Please.

2. Convert a Work Colleague

Every addict needs an enabler – yet brow beating your friends and relatives with a copy of Dead to the World, and incessant demands that they “read it! Read it NOW!” is undoubtedly a risky approach. This may annoy them, or worse still have them questioning your sanity – and you have to associate with these people for the rest of your life.

No, a much better option for real life company in your self-made web of shame is the co-worker.  You know them well, but not too well. After a few years you probably won’t see them again. And best of all they – like you – have eight hours a day to kill at work, and a need to look busy for at least seven of them. Discuss the finer points of Eric’s current marital predicament, what Sam could possibly do to make himself more interesting in two books or less, or whether Sookie is evolving or devolving as the series approaches its end. Just be sure to crowd around your monitor with very serious looks on your faces. Or better yet, just discuss the above all day via email. You might even get a promotion for all your hard work!

Getting your fix alone is nowhere near as much fun as getting it with someone who’s been holding out as hard and long as you.

3. Find Yourself a Hot (fictional) One Night Stand

I know your heart belongs to the Viking, but let’s face it – a year is a long time to wait between hot flushes. Luckily, he doesn’t expect you to be faithful.

I have a slightly disturbing tendency towards fixations – books, films, and career paths to name a few – and while I’m in the grip of such fixations, I generally find it difficult to divert my attention elsewhere. So when this approach to the yearly book drought was first suggested to me as a way to mark time after Dead and Gone, I must admit to being a tad…unenthusiastic.

Nevertheless, my fictional boyfriend was MIA for the year and I found myself trodding the well worn path of many a dumpee back to the fantasy fiction dating scene, a broken woman.

And then I met Bones.

Trust me on this one, ladies.  If you have big love for the Viking and you’ve yet to make the acquaintance of Jeaniene Frost’s blond vampire, you must do so immediately. He’s charming to a ridiculous degree, loyal, funny, intelligent, on fire in the sack…and absolutely lethal. Sound like anyone you know?

Of course, if you’re looking for variety (it’s the spice of life, after all) there are plenty of other candidates for you to audition. Try the Black Dagger Brotherhood, the Fever series, or the Chicagoland series by Chloe Neill. When you’re finished, you can squee over your new crush with the rest of us in the book forum.

4. Chew On Some Fanfic

Regular readers here know that while I have nothing against fanfic as a medium, I’m pretty choosy about what and how much of it I read. Confusion between the real deal and the alternate version quickly sets in when I read too much, so I respect my limits.

If you find yourself only able to consume small amounts of fanfic at a time, then I recommend you just cut to the chase and read “Eric”. This fic is a rewrite of the SVM to date from Eric’s point of view, and is written by DeeDee, admin of EricNorthman.net.   In my humble opinion, this fic is flawless.  Her insight into Eric’s motivations and thought processes have caused me think about many familiar book scenes in an entirely different way. DeeDee “gets” Eric’s character in a way second only to Charlaine – in fact, at times you’d swear that it is Charlaine. Yes, she is THAT good.

If you’d rather something with a little humour, here’s one for those of you who think you’ve considered every possible way for Bill to die a miserable death while Sookie has steamy sex with the Viking. Oh No Vampire Bill! is wish fullfilment at its finest.

Or perhaps you’ve wondered what Book Eric might want to do to Alan Ball, given the opportunity? For those of you who still have a True Blood ax to grind, check out “Eric and Alan”.

The sheer volume of Sookie fanfiction makes reading it all a near impossible task, but you can give it your best shot at fanfiction.net.

5. Troll the True Blood Facebook Wall

While I would never condone the practice of trolling – I wouldn’t!! – the True Blood Wall is actually a rather therapeutic way of exorcising your True Blood demons in a relatively unmoderated (read: free for all) environment. Think of it as the virtual equivalent of banging your head to a bloody pulp against a brick wall – eventually even the craziest shit will start to make sense. The wall reminds me of Maryanne’s orgies – no one really has a clue why they’re participating, almost everyone debases themselves in public, and everyone’s house is trashed when it’s all over. But until you’ve spent a wine soaked evening “debating” ad-nauseum Eric’s season two motives for calling Lorena to Dallas, you simply aren’t a bonafide member of this fandom.  Just make sure you have at least three bottles of wine on hand, and believe me when I say that you’re going to be needing every last drop.  You might even end up sucking any spillage out of the carpet.

So with a little over three months left until the release of Deadlocked, how are you coping? Do you have any more suggestions to make the wait bearable for the rest of us?

Let us know in the comments!

From all of us here at Sookieverse, we’d like to wish our wonderful community a safe and happy Christmas.

Who knows what the New Year will bring for our favorite heroine. But no matter how Sookie’s new year shakes out, we’re looking forward to many more hours of feverish speculation with you guys. Your insight, wit and intelligence continues to blow us away, year after year.

Stay classy, and don’t forget to tell the Fat Man you want one of these down your stockings this year….

Image: sanctoerico.tumblr.com

The chapter preview for Deadlocked has gone up like a ninja – but this year we’re skipping the first chapter entirely, and moving on to chapter two. Thankfully, there are no earth shattering revelations, break ups, or bombs in the garden to contend with this year. In fact, I think we can all take a big deep breath and relax for a bit.

Check it out at Charlaine Harris’ site here.

For those who just want to cut to the good bits, here’s the cliff notes (spoilers ahead):

Niall is making his appearance early, and it turns out he’s not responsible for Dermot’s curse after all (thanks Claude). Seems someone in fae is spreading nasty rumours and Great Granddaddy is…well, pissed.

Sookie draws some long overdue lines with Dermot about their sleeping arrangements – and finally addresses head on the fairy squick that’s been the elephant in the room since he and Claude moved into her house two books back.

Eric’s day man Mustapha shows up with a warning for Sookie (and we all know what happens when someone shows up to Sookie’s house to warn her about something – I bet her bash-free streak is about to come to an abrupt end). Pam wants to see what Sookie’s made of, and it appears Jannalynn is about to become a VERY big problem.

I’m moving Jannalynn to the top of my list of suspects for Sookie’s new enemy and the party responsible for the body in Eric’s front yard:

With Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), in town, it’s the worst possible time for a body to show up in Eric Northman’s front yard — especially the body of a woman whose blood he just drank….Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.

Oh, did I mention that Sookie and Eric are still together? Like most relationships, it needs some work – but Sookie openly acknowledges this, along with the fact that she loves him.

We could well be missing something big in Chapter 1 (this reminds me of the DITF chapter, which was heavily edited to make it look as though Sookie and Eric were Splitsville when in fact the chapter continued with Sookie planting herself firmly on Eric’s side). Or it could simply be that not much happens in the first chapter, and the second was deemed more interesting – Niall’s reappearance, and the mention of Felipe (neither of whom have been seen for three and four books respectively), certainly make this an intriguing chapter for long time followers of the series. After all, the point of releasing these preview chapters is to keep us hooked for another six months.

Bring on May.

Happy reading!

Welcome back to Part II of our post examining the relationship between Eric and Niall.  My apologies for taking a few days longer than I should have to get this up, real life and all that crap.

If you haven’t already, make sure you read Part I, which addresses some key questions relating to when and how Eric and Niall joined forces in relation to Sookie, and what information was shared between them. Part I established that Eric and Niall were conducting surveillance on Sookie (via Terry and then Claudine) since at least Book 3.  Continuing on from where we left off in the last post – if Eric and Niall were playing track the telepath at least as far back as Club Dead (3),  it raises some reasonable questions.

• Did Eric know that Sookie was a fairy as far back as book 3?
• Did he know that Niall was her great grandfather?
• How could Eric know that Niall was a fairy prince, yet NOT suspect that Niall’s interest indicated some sort of connection?
• What was Eric’s payoff for helping Niall?  (We all know there had to be something).

HOW LONG DID ERIC KNOW THAT SOOKIE WAS A FAIRY?

In Definitely Dead (6), Sookie discovers she has fairy blood thanks to Andre, who according to Sophie-Anne has a particular “nose” for identifying fairies through their blood. This implies that while all vampires can “smell” fairy scent, they don’t all have the ability to identify race based on sampling the blood. According to Sookie in Dead and Gone(9):

“The trace of fairy blood I carried made me more attractive to supes, at least to some vampires. Not all of them could detect the little trace of fairy in my genes, but they tended to at least be interested in me, though occasionally that had negative results.”

While there are a number of references from DUD (1) through CD (3) to Eric noting Sookie smells or tastes different to other humans, and multiple references in later books to him smelling fairies on her by association (after she’s been with Niall or Claudine), there is nothing that I can find to indicate that Eric was able to identify that Sookie was a fairy by the taste of her blood alone.

“Not all of them could detect the little trace of fairy in my genes”.

Pam and Maxwell Lee’s conversation at the end of Dead and Gone (9) would seem to indicate that a vampire getting hold of a fairy is a rare event (at least when the vampire doesn’t have a part-fairy girlfriend giving them reason to be in direct contact with fairies – a situation that is far from the norm):

“It will be too bad if they leave this world,” Pam said. “I love them so much. They’re so hard to catch.”
Maxwell Lee said, “I never had a fairy.”
Dead and Gone (9)

We know that Eric was actually told for certain that Sookie was part fairy by Sookie herself in Definitely Dead (6):

“You have fairy blood,” Eric said, as if his own lightbulb had just lit up. “That explains a lot.”
Eric, Definitely Dead (6)

As is often her habit when it comes to Eric, Sookie launches into a full rant over his daring to say to her face that if it weren’t for her “special” blood he wouldn’t be interested in her. In fact, Eric isn’t looking for an explanation for his interest in Sookie at all, and it would seem that his “lightbulb” moment was actually the beginnings of his putting together an explanation for why this secretive fairy prince was keeping tabs on his Number One Crush. By the time Sookie confirms her fairy blood to Eric in Definitely Dead (6), Niall has been in contact with him for at least three or four books. So why didn’t the interest of a fairy prince cause Eric to at least suspect that Sookie may have been part fae before this?

Legitimate question is legit, right?

It stands to reason that he most probably did suspect it.  Eric is not stupid, and anyone of reasonable intelligence would be wondering what on earth a fairy prince could possibly want with this human girl living in the backwoods of the South.  There is simply no way that Eric could have NOT suspected, if his communication with Niall about Sookie goes back to the beginning of the series, and in fact, Eric’s curiosity about this is most likely one of the reasons he agreed to help Niall in the first place.  But Niall wasn’t ready or willing to tell Eric anything of importance just yet (“I had to know him better first”), so Eric’s suspicions about Sookie remained just that until Sookie confirmed them in Definitely Dead.

Yet that still doesn’t allow us to confirm Niall’s assertion that Eric only found out he and Sookie were related in Book 8.  Can we find proof of that in Book 8 that doesn’t require taking Niall’s word for it?

HOW LONG DID ERIC KNOW THAT SOOKIE WAS RELATED TO NIALL?

Sookie herself seemed concerned about what Eric knew and when he knew it in From Dead to Worse, when she asked Niall how long Eric had known of their family tie:

“Has he known I was your kin for very long?” I held my breath, waiting for the answer. Niall had turned to go. Now he turned back a little, so I saw his face in profile.
“No,” he said. “I had to know him better, first. I told him only before he brought you to meet me. He wouldn’t help me until I told him why I wanted you.”
Niall to Sookie (and Sam) – From Dead to Worse (8)

So it would appear that all Eric knew for sure in Book 8 was that Sookie was a fairy who had a fairy prince tailing her.   You have to think that red lights have turned into screaming sirens for him at this point – but he’s still missing something to put the pieces of Sookie’s background together.   At least, he’s missing something until the time came that Niall needed assistance that only Eric could provide – an introduction to his great-granddaughter.

The fact that Eric had to drive a bargain with Niall in the first place – refusing to help until Niall spilled the beans – establishes that as of book 8, Eric did not have the full picture, as Niall has claimed. If Eric already knew Sookie and Niall’s connection, he would have no reason to use leverage against Niall at all. Niall needed an “in” with Sookie, and he identified Eric as the supe she would be most likely to trust, most likely due to their bond.  But Niall required Eric’s co operation, and this presented a golden opportunity for Eric to get to the bottom of the Sookie/fairy connection once and for all. Never one to miss an opportunity, he milked it for all it was worth.

While it would also be reasonable to question Niall’s version of events given his often “odd” behavior, we know from Claude that “fairies can’t lie”. This little quirk is common to fairy mythology even outside the world of the SVM, as is their penchant for being creative with the truth (as Sookie observes in Dead Reckoning).

Creative truth telling? That has a familiar ring! Which brings us to Mr “I might not tell you everything I know, but what I tell you, it’s true”.

SO WHAT’S THE PAYOFF FOR ERIC?

The million dollar question! Does his motivation even matter? After all motivation, coercion, or any other reason mattered not a dolt when we crucified Bill for lying by omission to Sookie under orders of the queen. Lies by omission are, after all, still lies. And this would hardly be the first time Eric’s been selective with the truth where Sookie was concerned. I love him as much as anyone but the fact remains that good reasons notwithstanding, he has more than once sat on information that Sookie probably would have preferred to know.  Eric is pragmatic, he can be self serving, and his motivation to act is most often multi-layered. Yet we also know that that he’s genuinely fallen in love against his better judgement and that according to Pam, his feelings over ride his self-interest with increasing frequency:

“He is male enough to want to look strong in front of you, Sookie. Truly, Eric’s a great vampire, and very practical. But he isn’t practical nowadays—not when it comes to you.”

Pam – Dead in the Family (10)

While it’s tempting to view Eric’s long association with Niall in terms of what we know of his character and his feelings for Sookie in later books – and to consequently believe that there’s a whole lot of rewriting going on – that would be to overlook a long established fact that Eric hasn’t always been able (or wanted to) to put Sookie’s interests or feelings before his own. That tendency is a very recent development for his character, and one that still isn’t an automatic response. He is learning – his willingness to stare down Victor over Sookie in DAG – a move that earned him a powerful enemy but one that he made regardless of the consequences – is evidence of this.  But there’s still a certain amount of truth in the adage about teaching an old dog new tricks. In examining Eric’s motivation for establishing an arrangement that was clearly in place from early in the series, we need to be mindful of the fact that his inclination to put anyone before himself has been a long road, and a concession he was only able to make once he was deeply involved and even then, only under certain circumstances and after much angst.

“One of the most wonderful, and the most appalling, things about Eric loving me was that he didn‘t give a shit about anyone else.”
Sookie, Dead Reckoning (11)

He never has, and he most likely never will. So I think it’s fair to say in books 1 and 2 at least, Sookie would have counted amongst the vast majority of people Eric really “didn’t give a shit about.” Sure, she was interesting to him but she was also valuable for other reasons – reasons he probably didn’t mind sharing with Niall if doing so greased the wheels of the existing “business relationship” they already shared. Eric’s interest in Sookie was clear in Dead Until Dark (1) and Living Dead in Dallas (2) and straight forward at first – a combination of her abilities, her fiesty nature and a sense of humor he intuitively recognised to be not unlike his own, and an intoxicating quality he couldn’t quite pin down is probably the best explanation for his initial pursuit of her.  While not quite in love yet, Eric was most certainly intrigued by Sookie in the early books.  It’s hardly surprising that a pragmatic vampire would view Niall’s proposal as a good opportunity to satiate his own curiosity, while possibly finding out more about Sookie than he could on his own. Having a fairy prince owing him a favor certainly couldn’t hurt, either.

As time went on and Eric’s initial curiosity about the telepath deepened into emotional investment, keeping the truth to himself obviously became a little less morally black and white. While I can think of a number reasons for his choice to do this – keeping Niall away until he knew he was trustworthy, keeping Sookie in the dark because she would have almost certainly forced the issue, and the likelihood of some sort of threat hanging over his head from Niall to name a few – it must also be acknowledged that there were perks for Eric too.  His knowledge of her day to day life via Terry was far more intimate than it would have been  from the fringes in Shreveport.   And of course, he was courting the favor of a very powerful supernatural figure who happened to be related to his girlfriend. The benefits for Eric to this end are pretty clear.

According to Dermot:

“I suppose he [Eric] thought that he would get Niall‘s goodwill as kind of a finder‘s fee.” Dermot shrugged. “That seems to have worked for Eric. Vampires are all venal and selfish.”

Dermot, on Eric bringing Sookie to meet Niall – Dead Reckoning (11)

Providing assistance in exchange for Niall’s goodwill certainly seems to have “worked” for Eric:

“The vampire is not a bad man, and he loves you.”
Niall to Sookie, Dead and Gone (9)

I’d say that’s about as close to a ringing endorsement from a fairy that any vampire is likely to get.

THE BOTTOM LINE

1. Eric found out for certain that Sookie had fairy blood in Definitely Dead (6) – nothing in Dead Reckoning contradicts this previously established plot point.

2. Eric did not get confirmation of Sookie’s relationship to Niall until Niall requested his help in From Dead to Worse (8).  Nothing in Dead Reckoning contradicts this already established plot point.

3. Eric knew that a fairy prince was interested in Sookie well before Book 8, and even though it should have given him reason to suspect that Sookie was in some way connected to the fae, he kept his suspicions to himself.

4. We don’t know for sure Eric’s reasons for not coming clean with Sookie, but we can reasonably assume from his motivations for similar actions in the past that they most likely involve a combination of self interest, protecting Sookie, and appeasing Niall.

The bottom line on Eric’s handling of this situation is not whether it’s better or worse than anything any other suitor has or has not done. They’ve all done some shitty things, Eric included. The bottom line for me is how Sookie feels about it, and how it impacted on her life.

And really, it didn’t.

Niall’s goal was to get closer to Sookie, and Eric’s was to keep her safe. The method they used to attain those goals isn’t exactly upstanding, but then, Sookie isn’t above choosing the “weakest tool” when it suits her purposes either.  Witness her use of an unwitting Bubba in her plan to finish off Victor in Dead Reckoning.  Bubba was her tool and it mattered squat to Sookie that he was upset and agitated by Victor and his crew. Not a single fuck was given that day by Sookie, yet Harris has taken great care to nuture a sense of trust between Sookie and Bubba since the earliest books.  In fact, it could certainly be argued that Sookie’s trust in Bubba to keep her ass out of trouble is second only to her trust in Eric or Bill. And Bubba certainly trusts Sookie more than Terry ever trusted Eric.  There are no sacred cows in the SVM.

Sookie’s own ruthlessness doesn’t give Eric a free pass – but I think it goes some way towards explaining why Sookie only gave Eric the obligatory, half assed lecture over Terry rather than completely tearing strips off him as some readers felt would be more in character.   That, and the fact that she’d known since forever that he was tailing her anyway. Sookie lived, loved, fought and killed as she would have always done. Nothing changed in her life, and no one toyed with her emotions as a result of this to achieve their own ends. Eric didn’t need to manipulate her to fall in love with him to execute this task – she continued to live her life, first with Bill and then with Quinn while Eric held her at a distance and then fell in love with her in spite of himself. Winning her heart was never a means to an end – which is why this isn’t the dealbreaker for Sookie that Bill’s betrayal was.

It would also seem that Sookie’s expectations of vampires have become more realistic as the series has progressed, and that she views surveillance, selective versions of the truth, and general high handed meddling with a less judgemental eye than she would have even five books ago.  Is this a good thing for Sookie?  I guess time will tell, but she certainly seems to have decided for now that taking a realistic view of vampire behaviour is far less frustrating than trying to impose a human moral framework on someone who is no longer human. Sookie struggled with the problem of finding a moral compass in Eric over and over in Dead Reckoning, but that’s another post.

I don’t think we’re anywhere near done with Niall, and given what we already know about Deadlocked, I wouldn’t be surprised to see even more of Eric and Niall’s background shake out in the next book.   And of course, just how much shit ends up sticking to Eric at the end of this depends almost entirely on the as yet unknown nature of Niall’s agenda (you know he has one).   If Niall’s motives turn out to be nefarious, Eric’s involvement in combination with the QOK situation, and the general dramas he and Sookie are having could easily combine to bring it all undone.

I don’t think it will – but you know already that I’m the eternal optimist.  Let us know what you think in the comments!

Image Credit

Depending on your point of view, Dead Reckoning is either a “getting close to the end”,  expositional book that begins the process of tidying up loose ends – or the harbinger of a Viking-sized character assassination, rooted in blind panic and designed to kill off the rampant worship of a character whose popularity has somehow unintentionally eclipsed that of others in the series.

There are at least three key Eric-related incidents in book eleven that have generated quite the ruckus – Eric’s collaboration with Niall to keep tabs on Sookie, a collaboration which apparently goes back to the beginnings of the SVM; his physical brawling with Pam; and “Bitegate” (as Eric’s bite at the end of the novel has come to be known in these parts)….also known as The Really Big BAD.

I don’t have a crystal ball.  Nor do I proclaim to know Harris’ plans for Sookie, for Eric, or for the two of them as a couple – and I’m absolutely not here to tell anyone that their reading of the books is wrong. But I will openly admit that I don’t understand why so many people seem to find Dead Reckoning so discouraging, or why they believe Harris is trying to retcon her story in order to hose down some uncontained and purely accidental explosion in Eric’s popularity. I know only what makes sense to me given Sookie’s narrative and Eric’s character development over the course of almost twelve books, and it’s from that perspective that I’d like to take a closer look at one of the bombs mentioned above:  the nature of the relationship between Eric and Niall.  Specifically, whether this relationship casts Eric in a deceptive light, and whether evidence exists in earlier books to support the background of this relationship as it was laid out in Dead Reckoning.

I hope that by the end of this two part post we’ll have a clearer idea of how this partnership evolved based solely on details provided in Dead Reckoning and the ten books preceding it. This means putting aside preconceptions about the impact of True Blood on the direction of the novels (and since nine of the eleven were completed before the show even aired, that shouldn’t be too hard); the author’s notoriously twisty interview soundbites on Eric, and anything else that is not spelt out between the covers of these books. When we reach the end of this series, all that will matter is what is written in black and white.  So for the purpose of this post, that’s all I could really give a shit about.

As Sookie’s narration can at times be unreliable (ie. she can only relate what she believes to be true at the time), I’ve tried to only include Sookie’s take where it can be verified by other characters or subsequent events.

So are you still with me? Good.

Dead Reckoning raised the following questions:

• What did Eric tell Niall about Sookie?
• When did Eric and Niall have Terry start watching Sookie?
• How long did Eric know Sookie was a fairy?
• How long did Eric know Sookie was related to Niall?
• Why would Eric feed Niall information? What was in it for him?

So let’s dive in, head first. And what better place to begin than at the very beginning.

CARELESS WHISPERS – WHAT DID ERIC TELL NIALL?

Eric and Niall have a history spanning many years; at least back to Sookie’s youth and probably even before she was born:

“I have known Eric Northman for a long time. I thought you would come if he asked you to.”
Niall to Sookie at their first meeting, From Dead to Worse (8)

“He [Eric] has been useful to me in the past, but he can’t second-guess me with you.”
Niall to Sookie, From Dead to Worse (8)

In Dead Reckoning, Sookie was given a brief history of her great grandfather’s involvement in her life from Claude and Dermot:

[Niall] assumed you would be the same as Jason . . . essentially a normal human.”
“But then he heard you weren‘t,” Dermot said.
“Heard? From who? Whom?”…
“From Eric.”
Sookie, Dermot and Claude – Dead Reckoning (11)

Cue Horrified Reaction from entire book fandom  - “HOLYSHIT!  WHUTTHEFUCKINGHELLNOW??”

What’s the deal, Eric? Have you taken up stalking babies? Did you somehow find out Sookie was a fairy and just decide to keep that all to yourself? Did you pull a Sophie-Anne and screw information about her telepathy out of Hadley? Shit, were you watching from the shrubbery when Sookie got beaten up? (“Move ovah Eric….this is MAH bush!!”)

What exactly did you tell Niall, Northman? And more to the point, what business was it of yours to be telling him anything?

While it’s easy to jump to all sorts of heinous conclusions and read this as a nuclear bomb going off, I’m pretty happy to leave that to those who have turned jumping to heinous conclusions about Eric into an Olympic sport. Instead I’m going to do something outrageously sensible, and look at this in the wider context of previous books to see if we can’t make some sense.

There’s no implication whatsoever here that Eric had any knowledge of who or what Sookie was before she met him in Dead Until Dark, or that their meeting in Fangtasia all those moons ago was not the first time Eric had heard of Sookie Stackhouse.

Does this passage say that Niall heard from Eric that Sookie was a fairy?
Though it might be an almost automatic leap to this conclusion since Fairy Prince Niall is on the receiving end of the information, it actually says nothing of the sort.

What it does say is that Niall heard from Eric that Sookie wasn’t a “normal human”.

So what exactly did Niall hear from Eric?

Given the fact that there’s zero evidence in previous books to support an argument that Eric knew Sookie was a fairy before his association with Niall and before Sookie herself told him – and that it’s a well established fact that he knew she was a telepath from the night they met – what Eric most likely told Niall was that this “non normal human” was a telepath.

Not particularly earth shattering in the overall scheme of things, considering every man and his three legged dog in Bon Temps knew that Sookie could read minds anyway.

Yet, now we’re left wondering why Niall would ever give a crap about some random telepath in Bon Temps. We know from Dead Reckoning that Niall visited Jason as a newborn to determine whether he had the essential spark. Upon learning that he didn’t, Niall lost interest in the Stackhouse children and when Sookie was born, assumed that she too was a normal human and didn’t bother to check on her. But he knew about her. He knew she lived in Bon Temps, he knew her name and her age and most importantly, he knew her genealogy – specifically her direct descent from Fintan, half fairy and dear friend of the telepathic demon, Cataliades.

“I’ve known about your family for the past sixty years, give or take. But my son Fintan forbade me seeing any of you.”
Niall, first meeting, From Dead to Worse (8)

It’s the essential spark, not the telepathy, that interests Niall.  But for the telepathy gift to manifest in the Stackhouse line in the first place, the spark must already be present. So when Eric told Niall he’d met a telepath from Bon Temps (and perhaps even told him who she was, though the theory still holds even if he didn’t give Niall her name), how many dots does Niall need to connect to work out that it’s probably Sookie, that she has the spark after all, and that she’s suddenly worthy of his interest?

Given what he knew of the Stackhouses already, not many dots at all.

EVERY STEP YOU TAKE – WHEN DID TERRY START WATCHING SOOKIE?

“Niall thought to ask Eric to alert him to events in your life. Eric would tell Niall from time to time what you were up to. “
Claude to Sookie, Dead Reckoning (11)

“Sookie? You knew they wanted me to watch out for you? They come to my trailer at night, for months, that big blond one and then the shining one. They always wanted to know about you..”
”Sure,” I said, thinking, What?
”They wanted to know how you were doing and who was you hanging with, and who hated you and who loved you…”
”That’s okay,” I said. “It was okay to tell them.”
Terry and Sookie, Dead Reckoning (11)

Sookie then thinks to herself:

“I’d known Eric had had someone watching me while I dated Bill and while I was on my own later. I’d guessed that my great-grandfather had had some source of knowledge, too.”
Sookie, Dead Reckoning (11)

OH, REALLY? Sookie knew someone had been watching her? More retcon, obviously!   Since when did Sookie know she was being stalked by someone besides her creepy woods-dwelling ex – and if she knew this to be fact all along, why didn’t she mention it before?

Well, actually…she did.

Dead Reckoning is set in May 2006, but as far back as Dead as a Doornail (set in late January, 2005) Sookie knew that someone was “informing” on her to Eric, and she expressed it in no uncertain terms:

After a moment’s silence, [Eric] said, “I wish I knew who’s trying to kill you. And I hear you had a visit from some private detectives. What did they want of you?”
“Who told you that?”
Now I had something else to worry about. Someone was informing on me. I could feel my blood pressure rise. “
Sookie and Eric, Dead as a Doornail (5)

Naturally, Sookie wonders if the informant is Charles Twining – a relative stranger and employee of Eric’s who is working at Merlotte’s and has recently started staying with her. But as she left work earlier that day, having just spoken with Lily and Jack Leeds (the private investigators Eric mentions above), she randomly notes:

Charles Twining was due to relieve Terry at full dark.
Sookie, Dead as a Doornail (5)

Terry…the self-confessed snitch.

WELL, FANCY THAT.

So in book 5, we learned: that Terry was working the same shift as Sookie when the Leed’s visited her at Merlotte’s, that Eric knew about the Leed’s visit before Sookie told him herself, and that Sookie suspected that someone was informing on her to Eric.

We now have solid evidence that Eric and Niall had Terry running surveillance back in Dead as a Doornail (5). Can we trace Niall and Eric’s arrangement back even further than that?

Let’s find out.

“Niall thought to ask Eric to alert him to events in your life. Eric would tell Niall from time to time what you were up to. There came a time when Eric thought you needed the protection of your great-grandfather, and of course you were withering.”
…
“So Grandfather sent Claudine, and then when she grew worried she couldn‘t take care of you, he decided to meet you himself.”
Sookie, Claude and Dermot – Dead Reckoning (11)

Exactly when did Eric begin to think that Sookie required Niall’s protection? Well, Claudine first lands in Sookie’s life early in Dead to the World (4), just after Eric was cursed. Since Dermot maintains that it was at Eric’s insistence that Niall sent Claudine – and Eric was amnesiac and staying with Sookie from the opening pages of DTTW – it must be the case that Eric’s request for Niall’s protection came during the events of Club Dead (3), at the latest.

What happened during Club Dead that left Sookie vulnerable enough in Eric’s eyes that he started to think she needed additional protection? Sookie dumped Bill – and found herself alone and unattached to a vampire for the first time since entering the supernatural world. A rather precarious position to be in when powerful vampires as far away as Dallas and New Orleans already know about your neat little party trick, or have witnessed it firsthand.

Eric was almost definitely conferring with Niall throughout Club Dead. We can reasonably extrapolate from here that their initial conversation about Sookie occured even earlier – in Living Dead in Dallas (2), or possibly even Dead Until Dark (1), since we know that some time elapsed between Eric first telling Niall about Sookie, and his request for Niall’s protection.

We also have Eric’s rather succinct defense in Dead Reckoning, when Sookie called him out on the way he got her to marry him, and about his deal with Terry:

“But that happened before I knew you, Sookie”.
Eric, Dead Reckoning (11)

Since he was obviously quite well acquainted with Sookie by the time he married her in Dead and Gone (9), these manipulations happened when he didn’t “know” her in the sense that he “knows” her now – they weren’t as emotionally connected.  His mention of the marriage is what actually clarifies this.   This line has been used to argue that Eric hired Terry or was conspiring with Niall before he met Sookie. It’s pretty clear when you actually read it in context with what comes before and after it, that is not what he means at all.

THE BOTTOM LINE

That’s a truckload of dry and tedious shit I’ve made you wade through up there, and we’re still only two questions into the five at the beginning of this post. Let’s condense the key points down into a tight little summary, just to make sure we have everything straight.

1. Eric told Niall that Sookie was a telepath, and this conversation definitely occurred before Dead as a Doornail (5).

2. Niall deduced from this information and his prior knowledge of the Stackhouses that Sookie probably possessed the essential spark and therefore warranted further investigation.

3. Niall asked Eric to keep him informed of Sookie’s business, and Eric coerced her co-worker, Terry, to do this on a day to day basis. This deal was clearly already operating by Book 5 so it must have been struck prior to this.

4. Eric requested protection for Sookie from Niall, which Niall sent in the form of Claudine. The timing of Claudine’s arrival indicates that Eric made this request before he was cursed in the opening pages of Dead to the World (4), most likely during Club Dead (3).

Whoa, I think a need a drink.  Now that we have a timeframe for when Eric and Niall started watching Sookie, the last few questions on our list can be tackled.

How long did Eric know that Sookie was a fairy?
How long did Eric know Sookie was related to Niall?

And the elephant in the room: what was in this arrangement for Eric?

Is his association with Niall comparable to Bill’s association with Sophie-Anne? After all, both vampires made deals with a more powerful supe who wanted to get closer to Sookie….didn’t they?

Stay tuned for part 2 in the next day or two, where I’ll take a look at these questions a little more closely.

Image: sallynevermore

Raannt.com have a new interview with Charlaine – frankly, they had me with the title: “True Blood Would Not Exist Without Charlaine Harris!”. A sentiment worth repeating.

Charlaine was asked about a variety of subjects both show and book related, and the interview includes probably the most diplomatic dodge I’ve ever seen her do in response to a question about whether Anna Paquin is a suitable Sookie.

Raannt also asked about the sex scenes in the books:

To me, a good sex scene depends on a good relationship between the people involved. I don’t find clinical sex a turn-on. I think a sense of humor has to be part of it, too, and trust. And I also think the sex has to happen naturally as part of the development of the course of the book; does that make sense? I don’t have sex scenes in books if the scene doesn’t explain something about the characters or about their relationship.

Since I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time poring over the sex scenes in the books in an attempt to gain some insight into Sookie’s relationships with Bill and Eric (for shame – read these posts if you haven’t already), confirmation from Charlaine that she does intend for the reader to view these scenes within the wider context of the story – and not just as lady porn – is kind of a relief.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Image source

Fearnet.com have posted a new interview with Charlaine Harris in which she teases a little more for Sookie 12.

You can read the full interview over at their site, but here’s some of the good stuff.

Q: I’m sure you’ve been asked this before, but could you talk about what the twelfth novel will involve?
A: It’s called Deadlocked. It’s another extension of her adventures, moving a step forward to resolve many of the issues that are brought up in previous books. She gets kidnapped – you know, the usual mayhem. She gets kidnapped, she has to get out of it. The Fey entry into her life is pretty much wrapped up. She learns a lot more about everything really. She learns a lot in this book, the truth. So it was a challenging book to write, and I tried to keep it on track more as a mystery.

Interesting to see that the fae story will be finished – perhaps Niall, Claude et al will return to fae leaving Sookie behind and probably close the portal forever (maybe this is how Sookie uses the cluveil dor? Making it so that it can never be reopened? Remembering that she can’t use it for selfish reasons or to change any fundamental aspect of her character). This would certainly tie in with the huge emphasis Mr C put on using it wisely: “Think once, and twice, and three times before you expend its energy. You can change the world, you know.” (DR).

Q: Even though Sookie is a mature woman, do you view the entire series, on one level, as a coming-of-age story?
A: The growth of her character is definitely a major part of the novels, but I wouldn’t call it coming-of-age. She’s a twenty-six year-old woman. But she certainly becomes worldlier, more aware of the other worlds around her. She’s always known what human nature was like, because she’s telepathic. Which is kind of a bitter pill to swallow. But she learns how to live with a lot of things, and what she can’t live with.

I’m not touching that last comment with a 10ft pole. I have to admire Charlaine’s ability to sound like she’s giving something away when she’s really telling us nothing at all!

This one caught me on the back foot! An unofficial synopsis has surfaced for Deadlocked, thanks to risingshadow.net:

With Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), in town, it’s the worst possible time for a body to show up in Eric Northman’s front yard — especially the body of a woman whose blood he just drank.

Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.

DON’T PANIC.

I’ll address the elephant in the room first, which, of course is this:

Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder.

I’ve been reading around today and already there’s a sense of hopelessness and rising panic at the suggestion of more Bill in this book. I get that. The collective outrage over True Blood (a wound that is still very raw for many), and the fact that so many book Eric fans feel insulted and ripped-off and completely BILL’D TO THE GILLS from the show – it’s little wonder that any mention of Bill teaming up with Sookie in these final books is bound to have us reaching for the vodka and imbibing it undiluted, and in liberal quantities.

But I see nothing here that makes this book any different to any other – Sookie is always teaming up with someone to fix something for another one of her suitors. That’s part of the basic roadmap of this series, at least in the last three books. In Dead in the Family, Sookie teams up with Jason to help Alcide, going so far as to take a drug against her better judgement…and she also goes well out of her way to help Bill. In Small Town Wedding, she teams up with Sam to help solve some big problems at his brother’s wedding. In Dead Reckoning, she teamed up with Sam again – Eric’s main rival at this point - to solve his firebug problem. We haven’t forgotten this, have we?

With her knack for being in trouble’s way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte’s, the bar where she works. Since Sam Merlotte is now known to be two-natured, suspicion falls immediately on the anti-shifters in the area. But Sookie suspects otherwise and she and Sam work together to uncover the culprit – and the twisted motive for the attack.

I seem to recall the general consensus this time last year being that this excerpt from the Dead Reckoning synopsis could well be the dreaded set up for a Sam HEA. As it turned out, Sookie placed Sam in the box clearly marked “Dear Friend” in Dead Reckoning and we all survived another book. So let’s all back away from the cliff…at least for now.

Bill is not going to swoop in at the last minute, people. He’s not. Though I completely get that most of us are so completely and utterly over him thanks to True Blood that the mere mention of his name in the context of the books is now enough to get hackles raised. This is a shame, I think, because I still see Bill’s involvement in the books as being at an appropriate level for a character who’s had his shot, but who remains a strong influence in Sookie’s life.

My gut feeling remains as it always has – what we’re seeing in DR and the next book is the set up of multiple obstacles to a Sookie/Eric pairing, obstacles which are necessary for the characters to grow enough to make a vampire/human HEA workable. At this late stage in the series, I fail to see any other point to continuing a relationship which, if it was not planned to be endgame, could have been neatly and conveniently snuffed with the breaking of the blood bond.

Source

Anyway, moving on to more important stuff. Important, blonde, Viking stuff.

I am absolutely THRILLED to bits to see Felipe FINALLY making his first appearance since From Dead to Worse. It’s no secret that I love this character so I’m dying to know why he’s visiting – obviously this is to do with Eric’s disposal of Victor, an act that I don’t see Felipe being too upset about after Victor caused him so much grief. So if Felipe isn’t coming to punish Eric for Victor, I think we’re left with a couple of possibilities – his visit is related to the messy Freyda business, or else he is coming to make Eric a proposal of his own. Felipe’s territory is now very large (even the synopsis goes to pains to point this out, see above) and I’m still sticking by my oft-repeated prediction that Eric will unwittingly find himself in contention for more power after proving to Felipe that he can take care of business.

Speaking of Freyda it’s probably safe to say that she’s Sookie’s new enemy, and the party responsible for Eric being set up with a dead body in his yard at the most inopportune time. It looks like Freyda’s about to play hardball with Eric; but it wouldn’t be the SVM if everyone got what they wanted without a bit of bullying and arm twisting along the way. Sookie and Eric will deal with her, probably with Felipe’s help because Eric always wins…eventually.

Name me one time when he hasn’t.

I think that’s enough of my first impressions – now let’s hear yours!

The cover art for the 12th book, DeadLocked, due out May 1st, has been released!

Looks like Sookie is going to use the Cluviel Dor in next installment of the Southern Vampire Mysteries, but for what? And what exactly is in her hot little hands? A letter.. from Niall perhaps?

Thanks to J-9 for finding the cover, the image courtesy of Wickedscribes.

Let the speculation begin!