Cassie, marks and marriage
Since the topic came up, I might as well write a separate post about all the long mark stuff that wouldn’t fit very well into a series of reblogs. Tl;dr version: C didn’t mind the marks, M didn’t intend to mark her, the marks had positive effects for C, and both of them use the marks in ambiguous ways to cherry-pick which interpretations they are going with, and even so vamp marriage probably wouldn’t be about lovey-dovey matrimony anyway. Longer version below, still, see highlights for a condensed summary.
- Let’s start with the way the marks were made. M, spasming on a bed in geis-induced desire, bit C. C didn’t expect it, but also didn’t fight it, and when she did protest, he stopped. Fast forward, she is now marked, something that is immediately visible to all vamps (will come back to this), who just go with it as they only care about ‘outcome, not intent.’ She doesn’t fuss about the marks too much ever again, though she acknowledges that she wasn’t asked, and isn’t too keen on belonging to anybody (will come back to this).
- Let’s look at the consent of the various parties. Since both were under the effects of the geis at the time, none of them were legally compos mentis - so M didn’t consciously plan it. He does later say he didn’t realize C was really there - and even if we believe that he lied, and that he perhaps coouuld have been lucid enough to plan the marks deliberately as a manipulation (unlikely), if nothing else, the fact that having further entanglements with Cassie reduces the chances of just being able to ask her to save Elena without complications should prove that he didn’t want to mark her any more than he wanted the geis to be changed into a love/desire spell. Moving on to C’s consent, she wasn’t aware beforehand, but she accepted it afterwards explicity. She’s asked if she wishes she had not been marked, and she doesn’t go ‘hell yeah, cause the marks annoy me’; she is also asked if she wishes to break up, and to all of that she says she doesn’t mind, and wants to have a closer relationship instead, and asks for dates.
- Picking up on the marks having alternative potential meanings: belonging can mean as a possession, or belonging together. Same for the bite: on vampires, they signify a marriage of equals who belong together; on humans, they show that a favored magical servant belongs to a vamp family (because mages can’t be added to a vamp family the normal way). So C doesn’t want to be owned by anybody, but she’s cool with belonging together with M, which she wanted to do for years as a crush, in TtD even though she knew they won’t work out, subconsciously in CbS so that the geis responds to her wish to be with M (Pritkin’s assessment not mine btw), and when she reaffirms her post-marks dating wishes in CtD. (((It’s also interesting to note here that all intimacies that M and C are involved in were desired by Cassie, not by Mircea - she had the hots for him first for years while he obv wasn’t interested in a teenager, she wanted to ‘ride him’ while he previously didn’t look at her that way, her Pythian powers controlled the geis to morph into a love/lust loop based on her own emotions, and it’s she who wants to get to know him better and she wants to date. So the Missie relationship wasn’t forced on C, but rather something that predominantly she wanted that was accomodated by coincidences and M just went with it - not saying it was a hardship for him by any means, he seemed to be into her too, just highlighting that neither the geis nor the bite was an ensnarement plan of his making.)))
- So which interpretations is true then? Is C an equal in marriage, or is she a servant with a loyalty badge? Naturally, the vamps are going with the servant interpretation, because a twenty-something slip of a girl is not considered marriage material for an illustrious centuries-old Senator - but she sounds useful, so good job, they’re cool with it. Although ever since the demigoddess-reveal and the Pythia-duels, Cleo is increasingly suspicious that C might be a dedicated ally to M, not just a manipulated mortal, which is ringing her poor paranoid danger-bells. And another thing to note is that the vamps already accepted C as a potential equal - when she was named second, M’s vamps deferred to her, Cleo treated her as an equal, and she gave commands to Jules and Co. on the basis of hey, I’m your master’s second, which all support that the definition of vampire marriage can be applied to a Pythia in a vague enough way to accommodate her in a potential equal function, so it’s not automatically a servant badge. The rest of the magical society either don’t really know about it, or like Jonas interpret it as an unfair favor the Pythia would have towards the vampires, to which C argues that she’s loyal to her vampire family the same way other Pythias are loyal to their families.
- More so than what it means to the magical society however, it’s important to see what it means to them. C makes the valid point that M wants it both ways - a ‘personal’ relationship and a separate ‘professional’ one, which is clearly not working. However, Cassie does the same too, reinterpreting the ‘marriage’ whenever it suits her as well. She tells Mircea that he should tell her things, because they are ‘married’, so she invokes the bond when she’s trying to get access or information, or when she’s trying to boss vampires around. But when it comes to sharing info of her own, or falling in love with her bodyguard or hooking up with him, she conveniently forgets about being ‘married’. So both C and M are trying to juggle this ambiguous term to their own benefit by cherry-picking situations in which it would be beneficial to use the ‘marriage card’ to their advantage and ignore it when inconvenient.
- And as for that, I’ve tried to recall instances in which the marriage card is raised, but there isn’t many of them, especially lately; and from those earlier ones, pretty much all of it was beneficial to Cassie. When EtN-C shifts to TtD-M, it saves her life and provides a reasonable explanation why M would accept her as real. Then in the past, M presumes the mark shows that they are intimate in the future, which C agrees wasn’t against her will, so it gives past-M an excuse to get it on with Cassie, which enables the whole geis-discussion to surface. Then, in CtD, C bosses vampires around and doesn’t get thrown out of restricted med access only due to the marks, and later also has Nicu and the other older vamps treat her more attentively and seriously than they would a random yapping mortal. I genuinely don’t remember any situation in which the marriage is held against her, as in ‘as my wife, you have to make an army’ or ‘as the master’s wife, you need to stay inside when you can’t shift’ as most conflicts reference actual objections and arguments, and the marks aren’t used as an excuse to hinder, command or limit Cassie. Heck, they don’t even prevent her from dating Jonas’ selection of suitors, lol. However, as always, and as I mentioned elsewhere, do please quote the scenes at me if I glance over something of that sort.
- It’s perhaps also interesting to investigate what vampire marriage really means, because it’s clearly not what it means to modern readers, or what it generally represents in romance novels (and this isn’t one anyway). As we see a certain Lucilla being married to Senator Marcellus in Masks, vamp marriage goes back to at least Roman times and thus predates concepts of romanticism, so it can’t be about love and emotional support - it’s far more likely a more traditional marriage of common interests, shared resources and alliances, which would be in line with the pragmatism and collectivism of vampire society that practically requires its members to work on improving their and their family’s position.
So long story short, Cassie may not have been asked about the marks, nor consented to being bitten at the time; but she doesn’t protest or reject them later, and instead opts for an even closer relationship. This is also in line with the other trend in the books, in which intimacy happens due to accidents and circumstances, but generally in accordance with Cassie’s wishes. The marks were also not a malicious manipulative plan by Mircea, because he would not have chosen them consciously as they only complicate things. Furthermore however, they are never even really utilized in a negative way for Cassie, and we see more scenes in which she directly benefits from them being there, enabling her to do things she would not have done otherwise. Ultimately, Mircea doesn’t act like a husband should, and Cassie doesn’t act like a wife should, and I suggest that vamp marriage wouldn’t even be about that due to their mindset and the age of the traditional institution of marriage. So, was the point of the marks just a convenient plot device? So far, pretty much, though KC always insists that she writes everything ‘for the plot’ including the triangle, which so far had no reason to exist either. So perhaps the marks will also play a role in the future...?
