Bookshelf Battle

Hey 3.5 Readers.

BQB here.

Earlier this week, I wrote Chapter 92.

Lot of stuff jammed into that one.

• Slade, Gunther and the natives fight until they realize the town’s been overrun with zombies. Blythe’s werewolf herdsmen have finally reached Highwater after driving the zombies across the West by whipping them like cattle. Ha. Zombie cattle.

• Standing Eagle dies. Sigh. Main characters biting the dust.  “Kill your darlings” as writers say.  Joe Freeman died earlier. Now the Chief. It’s getting depressing.

• In the original version, we’re introduced to a character, “Molly Harper” a Werewolf Queen.

• Like the Buchanan Boys, the werewolves have become interchangeable. They all more or less look alike so they just eventually all become dopey henchmen for the heroes to fight.

• Every character has an arc in this story, something they need to overcome by the end. For Miles, it’s that he is an “amateur werewolf.” Young, hasn’t really had much practice at were wolfing, he’s got a conscience that weighs heavily on him so he doesn’t want to use his powers to kill people. So by the end of the book he needs to overcome that.

• I liked the Molly Harper she-wolf character because at least she was different. Set apart and distinguished from the other wolves.  To me, she was a good character as she came to life for me in my mind, riding in on her horse, sniffing Slade to get his two females’ scent, going after them, etc.

• But call me old fashioned, if Miles needs a showdown with a wolf by the end of this thing, it just seems wrong to me to ask the reader to cheer for him killing a woman.  Is that sexist? If women are allowed to rise through the ranks of evil-dom and equality demands that they be deemed just as cunning, ruthless and evil as men, then shouldn’t we cheer a hero for taking out a woman who thanks to equal rights is just as evil as a man?

• Eh I dunno.  So I put the book aside a few days and thought about it.  Then I thought about how werewolves would most likely choose their leaders. I have to assume they choose them just as real wolves do. They scratch and claw each other in a fight and whoever comes out on top is the “alpha.”

• Then it dawned on me it could be a humorous story line that Molly had clawed her way into becoming a rare female werewolf boss but…I don’t know. My mind just goes back to this character needing to be a foil for Miles, someone for him to beat to prove his werewolfiness and him beating a woman didn’t sit well with me.

• Deadpool had this same issue.  He fights a bunch of ninja women and he’s like, “I don’t know what to do here. Your a woman and I don’t want to shoot you but is it sexist if I don’t shoot you?”

• In short, I liked Molly’s character better but Zeke will be more in keeping with what Miles has to do.

• Tell me what you think though, 3.5. If you can convince me to leave Molly be we aren’t so forgone that that can’t happen.