Here we go.  Discuss!

...Wait, I wanted this to be started, didn't I. Ummm...

Who else finds the ogre relationship dynamic fundamentally disturbing?

Yeah, I love it when she stands up for herself.

I mean the whole ogre thing where each and every partnership is on an ascending hierarchy. Their relationships are naturally very powerplay orientated, out of an innate contempt held for their submissive partner.

Seems rather more squicky then a human d/s relationship. I mean, if a girlfriend wanted to introduce ME to her boy, and opened the proposal with ''Act respectful, defer to his authority, don't initiate eye contact or make any sudden movements'' Id be all ''dude, wtf'' just like Mack.

Gee, OGRE, I wonder why that is!

I have to wonder if the Viktor/Mack meeting isn't going to bring something to light about Steff that s/he is afraid to reveal. 

I really want to know more about other half demons. I mean, I get that demons of the full blooded variety are a real, ever-present and ever-dangerous threat, and several people know someone who had a family member eaten by one, etc. But nevertheless, Mack is a half demon, and has not showed any innate inclination towards being especially hateful and evil, so it's not like a D&D half-fiend or tieflings the-blood-makes-you-bad kinda deal. Mack isn't the only half demon in the world, and we have had no sign to show that she's radically different from all other half demons. So we can deduce that half-demons are as morally complex as any other sentient race, and not any more innately predispositioned towards being jerks then anyone else.

That being the case, why does everyone in the whole freaking world assume that every half demon they meet is going to eat them? Ignorance, sure, that and Khersian bigotry, but even the most cursory knowledge would tell them that ''half demons are not even in the same league as regular demons, and they're so radically different that it's totally irrelevent to even attempt to categorise them together.'' Plus, most half demons are likely to be rape-babies, so there's bound to be some kind of public sympathy for them, even if they ARE a super-tiny minority.

The way I read it is that the mouth-breathers aren't listening to the "half" part of "half-demon," any more than any other lynch mob worries about the aspects of their victim that they don't feel entitled to hate.  ToMU is as much about being a minority as it is about the sex, if not more so.  The Harlowe Harlots are as segregated as the law allows and encouraged to scuttle from classroom to dorm, separate but equal.  (Does anyone really believe that one?)  Even among the residents of the dorm, there is a hierarchy of acceptability, with the decorative or respectable non-humans at the top of the heap like Sooni and Steff and the social dregs like Two and Mack at the bottom.  It's very reminiscent of an old sketch from the early days of SNL about the supposed inferiority of the black being based on the "fact" that darker African-Americans were inferior to their lighter-skinned brethren.  It also tends to explain Puddy's bullying as she tries to claw her way off the bottom of the heap at the expense of those she can dominate.

There is also the very high probability that Mack is a phoenix, the first and only half-demon that folks will ever meet.  Given the reaction of Khersians to demons in general, I have to assume that the relationship that spawned her was a highly unusual one, like interracial couples were rare when I was a child.  Mack could be the first half-demon conceived voluntarily, brought to term, allowed to grow to maturity and sent to university.

Honestly, I started reading ToMU for the sex, but I am continuing to read it for the other content.  The only false note I have found there was the unexplained spiteful behaviour of Professor Ariadne, which might have some personal anima based on Mack's relationship with Steff.  Hmmm...  I think I want to post that idea on AE's forum.

I don't think that Ariadne's bitchfest has anything to do with prejudice, because if she was that kind of bigot, she'd have gone after Dee and perhaps some of the other Harlowe folks, and because word gets around if someone is a raving bigot on campus.  I think it was personal, and it goes beyond Mack making a bad first impression.

Ariadne is an elf, for Khersis' sake, which means that she could probably hear Steff whispering to Mack back when.  She knew who caused Mack's distraction.  Add to this her omission of an honourific for Steff when calling the roll on the first day of class.  Mack thought of it as a rather shocking discourtesy, but I think it was caused by the casual interface of close family members.  This is speculation, of course, but I think Ariadne is very closely related to Steff and disapproves of Steff's lifestyle and trashy friends.  Mack caught the flak as a pawn in a game between the two elves.

Well, I think Mack was pissed about Ariadne not using an honorific when addressing Steff ... I.E. Ms. or Mr. ... because Ariadne, being an elf, realized immediately that Steff was MALE but wanted to be FEMALE ... so she just discarded using an honorific that would be, to her, incorrect no matter which way she went.  Steff is not a Mr. or a Ms., to an elf, since he's way too butch to be a femme tranny on the elf side of the fence and way too femme to be anything else on our side.

I, too, was blindsided by the Ariadne thing, which, to be perfectly honest?  Just something that an editor would catch if this were a published book of the traditional sense.  I imagine AE thought she was being horribly obvious that Ariadne was bigoted against Mack, while the readership seems to have chalked it up to Mack being disruptive in class.  Most of their interactions were Mack trying not to cum her pants soggy from Ariadne just looking at her, since she's a dominant and bitchy female of the attractive and femme variety and that's what kicks Mack's motor over. 

Mack has a thing for the nasty (personality-wise) cheerleader queen bee type.

... I do too, really, but in an opposite way.  I'm trying to stay very still and quiet so I don't grab them by the hair and put them on their knees. 

>.>

<.<

*cough*

Anyway.  She (AE) is being relatively heavy-handed with the parallels between the non-human student population and racial tension in America, but it's still poignant. 

... though there should be more ogres.

--fje

Having gone back to Book Two and reread the second History class, I have to say that Ariadne's rant at Mack was foreshadowed there.  The exercise in which Mack was hauled to the front of the class and immobilized as a visual aid to the recitation of a poem was pure theatrical S&M.  With thousands of years of elf history to cover, the professor takes time to recite the death scene from Romeo & Juliet as written by Longfellow on an off day?  Where is the historical context for including this incident in her lecture?  The poem was the garnish on putting Mack in the pillory, not vice versa.