Mercy Thompson: Difference between revisions

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** In ''River Marked'', Uncle Mike decides to report the death of five minor fae (who made the mistake of trying to kill Mercy in front of Adam) as “suicide by werewolf.”

** Hurting/threatening Anna around Charles gets similar results.

* [[Blessed ~~With~~ Suck]]: Being a werewolf, to a large degree. Yeah, you’re nearly indestructible, functionally immortal, and capable of changing into an uber-wolf at will. However, you’re going to outlive every vanilla human you love, the change is agonizing and can take up to a quarter of an hour, and you’ll spend the rest of your life struggling to control the bestial personality sharing space inside your head. Oh, and you can’t swim.

* [[Blessed with Suck]]: Being a werewolf, to a large degree. Yeah, you’re nearly indestructible, functionally immortal, and capable of changing into an uber-wolf at will. However, you’re going to outlive every vanilla human you love, the change is agonizing and can take up to a quarter of an hour, and you’ll spend the rest of your life struggling to control the bestial personality sharing space inside your head. Oh, and you can’t swim.

* [[Brainless Beauty]]: Subverted: Honey, one of Adam’s pack members, seems like this—blond, busty, and not too bright—right up until the point that she clues Mercy into some important points of werewolf politics that had slipped her notice. To boot, Mercy remarks that if she were allowed to hold her own rank in the pack (rather than inheriting her mate’s as all female werewolves do), Honey would be in the top tier.

* [[Break the Cutie]]: Anna’s original pack Alpha, Leo, attempts this in order to keep her from realizing exactly how little hold he has over her. If it wasn’t for Charles, it would have worked, too.

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** Fae/human romances also exist.

** {{spoiler|Sam (werewolf)/Ariana (fae)}}

* [[Jerk ~~With~~ a Heart of Gold]]: Ben is this, full stop. He’s an accused rapist (though Adam says he didn’t do it) and an open misogynist. He also literally puts his life on the line for Mercy at one point, putting himself between an enraged Adam and Mercy to make a point. When someone points out in the second book that he only ever refers to women using slang terms for female genitalia, he makes a concentrated effort to stop.

* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Ben is this, full stop. He’s an accused rapist (though Adam says he didn’t do it) and an open misogynist. He also literally puts his life on the line for Mercy at one point, putting himself between an enraged Adam and Mercy to make a point. When someone points out in the second book that he only ever refers to women using slang terms for female genitalia, he makes a concentrated effort to stop.

** Darryl qualifies sometimes, too—he protects the pack selflessly, but he can be a real asshole about it.

* [[Living Lie Detector]]: Most of the werewolves and Mercy herself can smell if you're lying, though some people can hide it better than others. Vampires can frequently do this as well, as can most fae.

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* [[Older Than They Look]] / [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]: Werewolves and vampires don’t age. Among the wolves, notable examples are Bran and his eldest son Samuel, who are both several centuries old (mention goes to Bran for looking like he hasn’t reached the mid-twenties yet). Among the vampires, Wulfe is noted as looking the youngest, but being actually one of the oldest ones alive.

* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: Werewolves can change shape more or less at will, but are forced to do so under a full moon. They’re also immune to disease, old age, and poisons. Silver is poisonous to them, and more unusually, they can't swim, or only very badly. (They’ve got so much raw muscle mass, they become too dense to float.) The change is agonizing, and changing from wolf to human takes several minutes. They also have minor [[Weirdness Censor]] powers that encourage [[Muggle|Muggles]] to mistake them for dogs, even though they're larger than wolves. It won't fool someone who already knows about werewolves and expects to see one, and an actual angry werewolf is too different and dangerous to fool anyone, but a werewolf that's stuck in wolf form but otherwise in control of himself can blend in just having someone put a collar on him. Last but not least, a single bite won’t Change you--only being savaged to the point where you become a werewolf (and gain super healing) or die.

** Though there is a single instance, in ''Iron Kissed,'' of a werewolf changing into something like Crinos form from [[~~Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Tabletop Game)|~~Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]. It's implied that to get that form, the wolf and the human have to be absolutely united in one purpose and one emotion. {{spoiler|In this case, it's Adam, enraged over Tim's brutalization and rape of Mercy.}}

** Though there is a single instance, in ''Iron Kissed,'' of a werewolf changing into something like Crinos form from [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]. It's implied that to get that form, the wolf and the human have to be absolutely united in one purpose and one emotion. {{spoiler|In this case, it's Adam, enraged over Tim's brutalization and rape of Mercy.}}

* [[Papa Wolf]]: ''Adam'', quite literally. Also, Bran Cornick, the Marrok.

* [[Part-Time Hero]]: No matter what is going on around her, Mercy keeps up her day job as a mechanic. If things get REALLY bad, she'll call Zee and ask him to run her shop.

* [[Post-Modern Magik]]: Any holy symbol can affect a vampire, so long as the wielder believes in it. Mercy uses a lamb (as in "The Lamb of God") due to a distaste for crosses (her first encounter with one as a child was an upclose and personal with a full sized crucifix, complete with dying savior). Otherwise, mostly averted.

* [[Rape As Drama]]: A villain with mind-control magic is not a good thing. Thankfully, treated with the utmost tact and realism.

* [[Rape as Drama]]: A villain with mind-control magic is not a good thing. Thankfully, treated with the utmost tact and realism.

** Anna was also passed around to the males in her first pack, to try and break her.

** Honey mentions that unmated females belong to their alphas, and many are happy to take advantage of this. It's all but stated outright that she's been used in the past.

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* [[Sarcastic Confession]]: Used by Mercy to explain injuries to a friend.

* [[Scenery Porn]]: Not usually Briggs’ stock in trade...but in ''Cry Wolf'' she does a damn good job of painting Montana as a beautiful, if inhospitable, place.

* [[Sealed Evil in A Can]]: {{spoiler|The River Devil, which Coyote trapped in hopes that it would work better than killing her again. It didn’t.}}

* [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]: {{spoiler|The River Devil, which Coyote trapped in hopes that it would work better than killing her again. It didn’t.}}

* [[Silk Hiding Steel]]: Since Mercy can't directly confront stronger male wolves, she works indirectly by smiling and nodding and misdirecting. (Though it might be a ''bit'' of a stretch to call her a “proper lady.”)

** Anna Cornick too. Her silk is made of [[The Empath|empathy.]] Her steel is made of backbone and {{spoiler|the ability to call on Charles’ not-inconsequential power.}}