An odd late night thought

[ellarien]

Apropos of nothing in particular, it strikes me that there are certain similarities between Aras in karentraviss's City of Pearl and Constantine in Robin McKinley's Sunshine. They're both inhuman but at least somewhat human-friendly compared to others of their kind, powerful and scary and graceful and possessed of long, violent pasts, and form some kind of bond with the female, human protagonist. For that matter, they both have incurable, communicable conditions that make them effectively immortal, though Con was human to start with and has become less so, while alien Aras has moved closer to humanity. On the other hand, Aras would presumably be horrified by Con's obligate diet!

karentraviss, would you care to comment? Might there be vampires somewhere in c'naatat's story-ancestry, or am I completely off-base? Please feel free to ignore me if you'd rather not discuss it.

Comments

[jamesgilmer.livejournal.com]

Not to answer for Karen, but she's stated that she reads little fiction, so I doubt she was actively making a connection. Thematically there may be one there though.

Personally, while I found Aras move towards humanity intersting, I think that his actions at the end of Crossing the Line pretty much make it clear that he is still largely alien to the humans around him.

[ellarien]

Crossing the Line is a treat I still have in store -- in my Amazon shopping cart, to be exact. I certainly wasn't under the illusion that Aras is anything like 'safe', even at the end of City of Pearl. Neither is Con; they're both, in their different ways, essentially alien and dangerous, which is what makes them such fascinating characters.