14: Thronos Should Get the Hell Over Himself: Dark Skye

We are back from vacation and Torture Island is back — surprising no one more than us! It’s Dark Skye week, Lanthe & Thronos are doing some weird stuff with holey-sheets, y’all. We talk about religion and romance, the work this book does in the larger series, and—as always—patriarchy. Friend of the pod, SS Jaxon joins us, too!

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We’ve got an interstitial lined up for next week, then we’re back to the Game Makers in two weeks with Jen’s favorite of the three books, The Master, and one of our favorites, Sophie Jordan! Get ready for chastity belts and string bikinis! Read The Master at Amazon, B&N, Apple Books, Kobo, or from your local Indie.

Show Notes

• Thronos, not Thanos.
• Childhood best friends to lovers to enemies to lovers is one of Sarah's favorite tropes. She wrote one once, and it's only $1.99 in Kindle!
• We mention a lot of adventure movies in this episode, including Groundhog Day, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Time Bandits, Labrynth, and The Matrix.
• We also mention some of classic literature that we think Kresley might be alluding to in Dark Skye, including: Paradise Lost, The Inferno, The Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland, and many Bibilical stories including Jonah and the Whale.
• At one point Jen calls it "classic sci-fi" when she really meant to say fantasy. Ooops!
• In case you're planning to read Ulysses, make sure you have a copy of Ulysses Annotated. But I guess now there's an app for that.
• All about hairshirts. Ouch.
• If you want more about what it would be like on Feverus, maybe check out Robin Lovett's sexplanetseries.
• Welcome S.S. Jaxon! Here's her vagina thread and her one about the IAD cult.
• Are there any people having sex with a sheet with a hole in it?
• The tale of Icarus. If you haven't read it yet, Daedalus makes an appearance in the novel Circe by Madeline Miller, which Jen highly recommends.
• More about Bandherbooks love for fainting couches and the space chaise.
• Munro is in the wind. Someone write us some fanfic.
• Our next episode will be The Master, the second book in The Game Maker series.
• Keanu Reeves is very swoonworthy. Have you seen Always Be My Maybe yet? We have very different opinions about it, but agree that Keanu is the best.

Lost Limb Count

Arms and Hands (8)

1. Conrad cuts off his own hand with a rusty axe so he escape the "witched" chains his brothers locked him in. (Dark Needs at Night's Edge)
2. Cadeon has both of his hands burned off in the same scene where he loses an eye. There's description of what Cade's baby fingers look like as they are re-growing. It's...kinda gross. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
3. Sebastian pulverizes most of his right arm during the Hie. He regenerates. (No Rest For the Wicked)
4. Lucia peels all the skin off from her hand in order to free herself from some handcuffs. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
5. In order to retrieve the ring from La Dorada , Lothaire cuts off her finger. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
6. Lanthe and Carrow cut off Fegley's hand so they can use his thumb to unlock their torques. He's later killed. (Demon from the Dark)
7. After receiving Lothaire's heart in a box, Ellie cuts off her middle finger and sends it to him. (Lothaire)
8. Chloe's shoulder is dislocated in the escape from her auction (MacRieve).

Chest and Torso (7)

1. Omort severs Rydstrom's spine and punches through his torso in a fight. Sabine saves him and enlists Hag to help heal him. (Kiss of a Demon King)
2. Lucia's neck is broken. She regenerates. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
3. On Torture Island, Regin,
4. MacRieve,
5. and Brandr are vivisected. It's pretty terrible. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
6. Declan's skin is peeled off by the Neoptera as a child. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
7. Lothaire rips out his own heart and sends it to Ellie in a box. (Lothaire)

Head, Face, and Eyes (6)

1. Bowen loses an eye and most of his forehead during the Hie. Mariketa has cursed him and he can't heal until he returns to her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
2. Cadeon loses an eye and part of his forehead and hair when fighting. It all regenerates. (Dark Desires After Dusk)
3. During a rugby match, Garreth has his teeth knocked out and swallows them. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
4. Lothaire kicks out La Dorada's remaining eye and throws her over a cliff. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
5. In the Bloodroot Forest, the tree grows over Lothaire's lips and tongue. (Lothaire)
6. After she gains her immortality, Chloe's hair grows, but she cuts it off every morning. (MacRieve)
7. Lanthe agrees to have her tongue cut out to save herself and Thronos, knowing she can still use the power of persuasion telepathically. (Dark Skye)

Horns (2)

1. Cadeon cuts off his own horns to prove to Holly that he is worthy of being her mate. She tells him to let them grow back (Dark Desires After Dusk)
2. Malkolm is captured by his enemies in Oblivion and taken to the city of Ash. The publicly cut off his horns and then intend to kill him, but Carrow saves him. (Demon from the Dark)

Legs and Feet (3)

1. Lachlain tears off his own leg to reach Emma. He regenerates. (A Hunger Like No Other)
2. Mariketa's skull is fractured and her leg is torn from her body. She heals herself after Bowen lays on the ground. Ivy grows over her and heals her. (Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night)
3. Thronos is chasing Melananthe and loses a foot when a portal closes on it. (Kiss of a Demon King)
4. While in Pandamonia, Thronos is trapped in a Groundhog Day like trap, doomed to repeat his worst nightmare over and over again. When he believes that Lanthe is about to die, he repeatedly tears of his legs in order to reach her. He never actually loses a limb, but he was willing, so we're counting it. (Dark Skye)

Beheading as a Romantic Gesture (4)

1. The first time Garreth spies Lucia, it's when she shoots an arrow and beheads a kobold. He notices that it's "a fantastical shot" and he's super into it. Later, he helps her pick up the head because he's a real gentleman like that. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
2. Later in the book, they are under attack from vampires and Lucia asks him to help. Garreth promises to "give her their throats" and beheads two vampires. But she's upset about it because of a previous bad experience with cannibalism. (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
3. Malkolm beheads men that attacked Carrow in Oblvion, and he throws them to prove he's a worthy mate. (Demon from the Dark)
4. Declan fights and beheads several creatures as they escape Torture Island, including squeezing one dude so hard his eyes pop out and then he twists his head off. (Dreams of a Dark Warrior)
5. Thronos beheads several foes during fights, which impresses Lanthe; but he also beheads Felix, a sorcerer who once tricked Lanthe and stole her sorcery. (Dark Skye)

Beheading as a Non-Romantic Gesture

1. Ellie cuts off Lothaire's head, leaving a slender 1/8 of an inch left. It was kind of an accident, but he deserved it. (Lothaire)

Maybe?

1. Does Garreth's losing his connection with his mortal soul count? (Pleasure of a Dark Prince)
2. When Soroya inhabited Ellie's body, she subjected her to a full Brazilian wax. Ellie doesn't realize it's happened until she takes control of her body again. (Lothaire)

The Rest

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