SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Chapters Read: 11-15

These chapters were a lot more interesting than the first half of the book overall I feel. These chapters were just way more intriguing in general.

Steve's deception is very cleverly constructed in general. In re-reads, noticing certain patterns the second or third time around is often very easy. Like, it's usually easy to say characters should have seen certain things coming, the signs are usually a bit more obvious from a reader's perspective.

But honestly, Steve is really executing this plan pretty excellently. The only obvious thing I feel the gang should have seriously questioned was the fact that Steve is wearing gloves and that the medicinal herbs and whatnot are concealing his scent. Steve's excuse here is pretty great though, he says that he's basically prone to illness from Mr. Crepsley tasting his blood all those years ago.

Otherwise, Steve is acting really well at playing this sort of anti-hero role for now.

In fact, I am actually putting a lot of blame on Mr. Crepsley here. Well, I suppose it's ultimately Mr. Tiny. But to avoid a much bigger conversation, I'll be hopefully more specific. The gang overall is at fault as well, but I think most importantly this is on Mr. Crepsley.

Ok, so what do I mean? I mean Mr. Crepsley's arrogance and slight lack of compassion really hurt the situation here. Only slightly on the compassion part.

Ok so, Mr. Crepsley vehemently swears that Steve's blood is quite evil. Honestly, fair enough I'm not at all doubting that. But Mr. Crepsley should have either pressed and convinced the gang more to tell them not to trust Steve, or simply thought a bit deeper about Steve's abrupt arrival and taken matters into his own hands kind of. I say this because, if Mr. Crepsley truly thinks Steve's blood was that bad, his arrival all of a sudden should probably have blown his mind. Steve swore many years ago he'd kill Mr. Crepsley and Darren.

With everything going on with this war, I believe Steve's arrival should have been a massive gigantic red flag. Mr. Crepsley has the most unique perspective about Steve over anyone in that room.

The gang, including Vancha and Darren, do a good job at sort of calmly telling off/convincing Mr. Crepsley to chill since Steve has apparently 'helped' the cause and 'saved' Darren and has turned a new leaf. So it's not all arrogance for Mr. Crepsley.

But a lot of it is arrogance, I believe. Mr. Crepsley probably not only still sees Steve as an angry child but, for whatever reason I feel that Mr. Crepsley doesn't think Steve is a real genuine threat. I mean, if Steve didn't randomly arrive during a huge war with the vampaneze, perhaps there'd be less reason to be so paranoid or worried about Steve. But these are far from ordinary circumstances whatsoever. Mr. Crepsley himself seems particularly enamored with Mr. Tiny and his capabilities! At this point, if you're Mr. Crepsley, mental dominoes have to be tumbling I feel! I'm unsure if Mr. Crepsley would literally think Steve is the Vampaneze Lord, but I feel like something bigger should have crossed his mind.

I think that again, Mr. Crepsley dismisses humans as a real threat and well, Steve is a human in the eyes of everyone of course at this point in time. Mr. Crepsley should have had perhaps a layer of grudging respect, rather than sort of perceiving Steve as some random evil nuisance. This is such a surprising fumble by Mr. Crepsley. Also, The Lord of the Vampaneze has been a legend in the vampire world for hundreds of years, you gotta think a being like that is gonna be clever or whatnot.

Now, Mr. Crepsley is outranked by Vancha and Darren here, so there's that. And Vancha brings up the point that just because Mr. Crepsley tasted evil, doesn't mean the individual must do evil, and on that point Mr. Crepsley agrees.

To an extent, I suppose it's also the gangs fault for not respecting Mr. Crepsley's word. So, there's that too. The gang should respect Mr. Crepsley a bit more!

The best moment I have to give Mr. Crepsley credit for, was when he challenged Vancha to test Steve's blood. That would have been an absolute checkmate! That would have instantly proved Steve is not just evil but half-vampaneze! I just know Steve was sweating! Man! Vancha doesn't because he basically claims he trusts Darren and Harkat.

Finally, and this is perhaps the most speculative aspect of my whole rant here, I wonder how this ENTIRE thing, this whole story, would have gone down if Mr. Crepsley didn't just blatantly show disgust and hostility when he tasted Steve's evil blood. Perhaps if Mr. Crepsley showed a smidge of remorse or like, caring or something remotely similar, maybe Steve wouldn't have been quite as vengeful or quite as evil?

But Mr. Crepsley does claim that Steve's blood was pretty much abnormally filled with evil. Like, not just some or traces. So maybe the taste was so great that, Mr. Crepsley couldn't even justify showing anything but disgust.

Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Crepsley sealed Steve's fate that very night. Steve may have always been a jerk, or a criminal, or something who knows, but maybe Mr. Crepsley really pushed Steve over the edge.

Or maybe Mr. Crepsley didn't have anything to do with it, and Steve's evil path was inevitable. I really don't know.

Steve himself says something quite interesting when he said to Mr. Crepsley himself that Mr. Crepsley's rejection tore him apart and that it almost drove him to evil. Obviously this was a lie but it is slightly interesting. I wonder if, in a roundabout way, there was some truth to that.

Fnally, and this is really pushing it, I wonder if anything would have changed in this very moment when Steve and Mr. Crepsley met once again. What if Mr. Crepsley himself had a change of tone or something towards Steve after all tose years? Like, to be blunt, in an imaginary scenario, what if Mr. Crepsley offered some genuine whole hearted apology, even if he did or didn't believe it was fully justified? Would Steve have maybe acted differently after a moment like that?

Steve grew up without a father, and some mythical vampire man just refuses to accept him. As a kid, hearing that must have hurt, regardless of what anyone thinks. Of course Mr. Crepsley had no obligation to just take in a child as an assistant, but he did take in Darren who had a very good, well balanced family, pretty much out of pure random pettiness. I can actually see why Steve is upset more than I did before. Nobody can just say Steve, as a kid, should have known better. I don't know, something to think about. Maybe this very moment is where Mr. Crepsley could have turned the fate of the war.

I'm not going to say that someone without a father figure is gonna be some awful individual, but I do believe that society acts like not having a dad is 'no biggie'. Funny enough, many times men are constantly blamed for not being there or being deadbeats which is wildly assumption based and simplistic but, even if I grant that, those same people bashing men for not being there can't also say that not having a dad isn't a big deal. Like those viewpoints are completely, insanely contradictory. I'm not saying absent, bad fathers don't exist, but I'm just sick of the lazy takes.

There's a lot of moving parts I feel with all of this. Maybe it's not as deep as I'm making it seem but, eh I'm just having fun with it. Saying my opinion. I like this series, and it's fun to speculate and ramble. Sue me.

Maybe Mr. Crepsley should have had more of a respect/wariness of what Steve could be capable of.

"You have to respect your enemy. Never, ever underestimate them. The second you do, they'll squash you. Be smart about them. Respect their abilities, even if they don't respect yours." — James Patterson

Maybe the gang should have trusted Mr. Crepsley a lot more. Steve is just a random dude at this point to most of the people in that room, while Mr. Crepsley is one of the most respected vampires ever. Yikes, that's a tough look for the gang too.

I don't know, I could contemplate so many things! All this mess sort of explains life to an extent!

Last portion of book eight now, let's go!