But I desperately want to know the story of how possiblefuture!Johannes got turned into a woman and apparently decided she was fine with it.
Important questions that must be answered
1. HOW?
2. Why?
3. When on earth did Cabal become comfortable with being called ‘darling’?
4. When on earth did Cabal start USING the word ‘darling’?
5. When on earth did Cabal learn to FLIRT?Important things we now know
1. Cabal is so vain that he will admit (at least to own mind) that he fancies himself. Or is that herself?In fact I’m pretty sure that’s the only time we’ve ever seen Cabal actually describe himself as finding someone attractive.
#the ultimate trash ship? #johannes/his ego #IT’S NO LIE
I buy it more than him and that dead lady in a box he’s supposedly doing EVERYTHING for. What bullshit is that. Gimme my aro ace villain protagonist please.
He reads so ace to me it’s like Howard sat me down in an interview and took notes on how to fail-date your way toward discovering your orientation.
I might have devoured the first book so fast that I missed stuff, but are we SURE that Basement Lady is actually a romantic interest? I mean, I’m pretty sure he’d do the same for Horst…
I read him as ace through the whole first book, then WHAM, that last chapter it’s like “ALL FOR A LAAAAADDDYYY THAT HE LOOOOOOOVES” like wtf is that bullshit. He’s ace, Mr. Howard, he’s probably aro ace. WTF is that bullshit with his Lost Lenore archetype. Johannes Cabal is many things but he is NOT Mr. Freeze for fuck’s sake.
Mr. Freeze. Oh god, it’s true.
(When Johannes Cabal suddenly decides to build a freeze ray, we know we need to worry and probably check that Mr Howard has not been usurperd by Mr. Schumacher)
Now, see I’ve had this conversion with a few people regarding Cabal’s romantic inclination, and I know I lot of pepole love this character for his ace/aro tendancies. And a lot of people find the bit with lady in the fridge comes out of no where. But really if you go back and read it carefully, it is all there, but burried pretty deep, because Cabal has burried it burried it pretty deep. its his closest guarded secret, that he manages to hide from the devil and even Nyarlathotep. It’s his greatest, probably only weakness. And yes, it is following the gothic lost Lenore archetype, but i think that’s kind of great, because Howard is weaving together all his favourite bits of gothic horror and lovecraftian scifi into something new. Without Her, Cabal would probably be just another Herbert West wanna be. But with Her he suddenly developes a lot of a very interesting layers and “what if’s”? So I for one, love Her as part of the story and history, and She is very much one of reasons I continue to follow the series.
However, I am 100% for the ‘lets not turn this into some hetro normative romance novel’, and I am very confident it wont turn out that way. It’s not what Howard does.
Also, the thought i keep coming back to is this : “so what if once upon a time Johannes was a happy hetrosexual in love with a girl. Stuff happened. Now he’s a necromancer with a mind only for science and getting shit done and being a bit of a bastard along the way. What happens when achieves his goal? Do we really believe he’ll go back to being that same happy hetrosexual in love with that same girl?” Nooooo……. I dont think he will…..
Oh no, I’m not seeing crazed descents into normalcy and happily ever afters here. I think we have only to compare Johannes’ other acquaintances to get a sense of how Johannes’ relationship with any decent, non-monster lady is likely to go. I mean, just look at the ups and downs of his relationship with his decent monster brother who’s already used to his shit… Or perhaps even more pertinent, look at Leonie, who seems to resemble Her in more than looks and whose opinion of Johannes can probably best be expressed as “!?!??!!”
Honestly She is more of a mcguffin. Johannes is prepared to do anything it takes to bring her back, but he’s also the first to admit he’ll probably die (one way or another) before he ever manages it. Her existence powers the story and provides a framework for everything, and of COURSE Johannes needs some kind of romantic moonlit beam shone on him or what kind of gothic send-up would this be? But from where the reader and writer sit, it would be counter-productive for her to be brought back. That would be the end of the story. Which, mind you, we’ve already gotten to see, so now that’s conveniently out of the way and we’re left with the space for an entire lifetime of thinly associated necromantic adventures!
I even feel like there’s a sort of fun being poked here, because it’s just SO tropey and hopeless and kind of fossilized into the narrative, and characters in the know even sometimes timidly suggest that Johannes might, you know, try getting over it as an alternative to the Frankenstein approach? (No he won’t and HOW DARE.) It’s obsessive to the point of hipster irony and Johannes is the only one who won’t admit it.
I also don’t think Johannes was ever a happy heterosexual man. By which I mean I’m pretty sure he was never happy. Loving someone and losing them might be enough to make a guy determined to discover the secrets of resurrection, but that doesn’t explain the part about being a sociopathic human icebox who keeps a romp room for when ghouls visit and develops hives at the idea of ‘fun.’
But also, what I meant by “are we SURE that Basement Lady is actually a romantic interest?” was that having a lady in your basement you’re devoted to bringing back from the dead doesn’t necessarily preclude ace/aro. There are a lot of kinds of creepy, fanatically devoted love in the world.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1OO9p3N