Popular Culture Review
50
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Several years ago, Congress created the Ronald Wilson Reagan
Fae Reservation (or Fairyland).
• Mercy, werewolf Warren, and Warren’s lover Kyle watch the
vampire movie, Queen o f the Damned (IK 1-2).
• Werewolf Adam’s human daughter Jesse watches An American
Werewolf in London (BB 279).
• When Mac, a newly created werewolf, wants to eat a dead
werewolf, Mercy comments, “Deer not only tastes better, it’s
easier to live with afterwards” (MC 32).
• And when Mercy’s best vampire friend Stefan needs a place to
sleep, he reminds her that he will not need a blanket: “I’m not
going to be sleeping. I’m going to be dead” (BB 32).
So with humor as a backdrop, a description of protagonist Mercedes
(Mercy) Thompson is appropriate. Self-described as a “walker” (in contrast to a
Native American skinwalker, which she is not), Mercy is able to shift almost
effortlessly, or by “pure magic” (MC 13), to a 30-pound coyote with a powerful
sense of smell and vision. By day, college-educated Mercy (with a degree in
history and a working knowledge of German) is a VW auto mechanic with her
own garage which she bought from her former boss Zee, a fae. She lives in a
1970s trailer with a werewolf roommate, and a rival werewolf is her back-door
neighbor. Mercy is the most human of all of the creatures in the novels.
Although she can shape shift, her human traits and emotions are more dominant
than her animal character. In fact, because her human nature does not dissipate
when she shape shifts, she is able to interact with and relate to a constellation of
believable, preternatural creatures who are half human, display human traits, or
are classically undead. For the most part, the other creatures, although
displaying a human side, have more dominant creature selves that significantly
diminish their humanity when they have “changed.” For example, when humans
are moon called and become werewolves, the “wolf alters the human
personality” (MC 11), sometimes creating incredible conflict for the changed
human.
As the series unfolds, we learn about Mercy’s unusual background—her
Native American father, a rodeo rider, left Mercy’s “white bread American”
mother a pregnant teenager. Imagine her mother’s shock when she found Mercy
in the crib as a coyote pup at three months of age! At the advice of her
grandfather, Mercy’s mother arranged for her daughter to be raised by unusual
foster parents—Montana werewolves Bryan and Evelyn. It seems that Mercy’s
great grandfather’s uncle was a werewolf—so normally predatory wolves can
offer fine protection to changeling humans. And with that background, the series
introduces a number of species and creatures which Mercy classifies,
categorizes, and embellishes with each episode. Some of these characters
include:
• Werewolves