All the worst parts about the characters of A Discovery of Witches are back in force in Shadow of Night. Diana is still a special snowflake for no discernible reason, and Matthew is still a controlling asshole. Neither character has any personal growth, and neither learn anything from their behaviour. Matthew is allowed to be an asshole ‘because Vampire’, and Diana is allowed to be devoid of personality or backbone ‘because Mary-Sue’.
Despite being shallow constructs, they were still the only characters with any real depth as the reader is treated to a revolving cast of interchangeable satellite characters who are virtually indistinguishable from one another and who serve no purpose other than being historical name-drops or temporary antagonists. Apparently, Matthew just knew every single influential person in history ever. Something that even Deborah Harkness mentions directly in the text. It made for tough reading as historical name after historical name were just shovelled into the narrative without any real reason or purpose. Matthew is even apparently responsible for building most of the historically significant buildings around Europe, including St. Vitus in Prague. It was just too much and wholly shattered my suspension of disbelief.
“London had well over a hundred thousand residents. Why did Matthew have to know everyone that historians would one day find significant?”The character development of Diana and Matthew seemed to halt completely, and in some cases take a considerable step back. In A Discovery of Witches Diana’s role as a historian was a central part of the plot, however in Shadow of Night Harkness seems to have forgotten entirely the training that Diana would have had to become one.
In one scene we see Diana struggling to follow a discussion between Matthew and his friends in Latin, even though to have made it to fellowship in Oxford with a specialisation in Middle English there is no way that she wouldn’t have a working grasp of the language. She states on numerous occasions that she struggles to keep up with all Matthew’s historically significant friends, even though they’ve gone back in time to a period that was her area of specialisation. She would have had a very detailed knowledge of these people before she ever set foot in that time. There is even a terrible moment when Diana exclaims about the carriages being totally different from those she’d seen in Jane Austen films. I mean, it’s a totally different period in time. She’s a historian! As if she wouldn’t have known that or even be surprised by it!
To add insult to injury, she has to ask Matthew to mansplain Norse mythology to her when her historical nephew by marriage, Gallowglass (and if his constant use of the term ‘Auntie’ doesn’t have you wanting to pull your hair out by the end of this book, then I don’t understand the world anymore), compares them to Odin’s ravens. Even though it’s not her specialisation, there is no way that an Oxford Fellow wouldn’t know at least superficially about Norse mythology. The tale of Odin’s ravens is one of the most well-known, and Norse mythology was essential to the development of British culture through invasion.
“ ‘Among my people it’s a great compliment to be likened to a raven. I’ll be Muninn, and Matthew we’ll call Huginn. Your name will be Göndul, Auntie. You’ll make a fine Valkyrie.’Matthew’s characterisation fares no better. In A Discovery of Witches he was precise and exacting, if somewhat harsh. In Shadow of Night however, he flits between callous disregard for danger or aggressive control. Christopher ‘Kit’ Marlowe is a central antagonist of Shadow of Night and his behaviour threatens Diana’s life constantly. In the first book, Matthew would have killed him for this – we saw him do just that with Gillian Chamberlain – but for some reason, Matthew just laughs off the danger as inconsequential. Diana does the same thing. Despite Kit actively trying to have her outed as a witch, she still chooses to follow him willingly on a moonlight stroll where, surprise, it ends badly! (In one of the most-anticlimactic scenes of tension and self-discovery ever put to page, I might add.)
‘What’s he talking about?’ I asked Matthew blankly.
‘Odin’s ravens. And his daughters.’”
The romance between Diana and Matthew is completely flat and lifeless with some of the most lacklustre sex scenes ever put to page. And a pregnancy sex scene that was just plain icky if you think about the physical logistics of what is being described. Diana just blindly accepts Matthew’s controlling behaviour as part of who he is, and in return, Matthew constantly keeps Diana in the dark about important matters that could influence their relationship.
But the most horrible aspect of their relationship is that Matthew completely admits to raping his dead wife. Take a look at the quotes below:
“When I look back, I wonder if she was abused when she was a child. Not punished – we were all punished, and in ways no modern parent would dream of – but something more. It broke her spirit. My wife had learned to give in to what someone older, stronger, and meaner wanted. I was all of those things, and wanted her to say yes that summer night, so she did.”
“She wouldn’t say no, but her eyes always held some reluctance when we made love”Let’s take a moment to think about those words. Essentially Matthew is admitting that he knew that his ex-wife had been likely sexually abused and he took advantage of that to get the woman that he wanted. Bearing in mind that he did this before he was a vampire. He did this as a human, without the coldness and control that supposedly comes with being a vampire. He took advantage of an abused woman, admitted to knowing that she didn’t want to have sex, but made her do it anyway. I don’t care how you slice it, that is absolutely horrific. But Diana’s reaction is no better.
“It hurt to know that Matthew was still so deeply attached to his dead wife and son.”It hurt Diana to know that he was still attached to his dead wife and son (which in itself is odd, because any person with a heart would be), but it doesn’t hurt her to be explicitly told that her husband is a rapist – or at the very least took advantage of an emotionally vulnerable, severely abused woman. This destroyed the series for me. There is very little that Harkness can do to claw her way back from that.
But, if we ignore the plot and characterisation that I don’t agree with and look just at the construction of the book, even this was poor. Harkness spends so long dwelling on the minutiae of Matthew and Diana’s life that she makes absolutely terrible mistakes that should have been picked up in editing. Shadow of Night is written primarily in first-person, and yet Harkness occasionally slips into third-person. While there are a few moments of this, the most glaringly obvious was right at the end of the book.
“’Hurry, then,’ I said, scarcely able to control myself. Despite my entreaties, the speedometer stayed exactly where it was. I groaned with impatience. ‘We should have stuck with Marcus’s car.’If it’s written in first-person then there is no way we can be told what Matthew is thinking – especially since this literally switches from first-person Diana to first-person Matthew. There are a few chapters in Shadow of Night that were written in third-person, and in my opinion, these are Harkness’ strongest chapters. They have the most subtle characterisation and the most development in the shortest space of time, but it was still a stylistic choice to have the novel written from Diana’s point of view – if that choice is made then stick with it. Or simply write the story in third-person! This really grated, especially given that so much happened to so many characters that never made it to the pages of Shadow of Night. To break into third-person for something so utterly trivial as the speed of a car made the whole thing even more insulting.
‘Patience. We’re almost there.’ And there’s no chance of my going any faster, Matthew thought as he downshifted again.”
This brings me to the part of Shadow of Night that was the most nonsensical. The entire premise of time travel. Harkness took no time to really flesh out or develop her theory of it, and as such, it left far too many questions unanswered and far too many inconsistencies to be believable. We are meant to believe that by travelling back in time, the Matthew from that time simply disappears and will reappear when they leave again. There is no way that this would work. And if past-Matthew returned after a year’s absence with no knowledge of what had happened, then this would have been a memory that present-Matthew possessed. He would have remembered a blank year in his own personal history. Gallowglass, for instance, remembers meeting Diana and Matthew, which means that time continued on linearly. Therefore, Matthew’s own past and memories would have been altered simply by him being there.
The more time they spend in the past, the more historical anomalies appear in the present. Even this makes very little sense, as the past has already happened, those anomalies would already have existed and not have been any different to recorded history. If they do change history, then no one would have noticed these changes as it would essentially have been an alternate timeline, in which only the people making the changes would have known them – to anyone from the present, it would have just been history. Time travel is a minefield for a writer, but Harkness makes absolutely no attempt to make sense of the internal logic of the way she uses it. Even the fact that they only travel to one time is barely explained. They are hiding and trying to find Diana a teacher. There was no need for them to try and live and fit in – really they should have just jumped from time to time until they found what they needed. There was minimal attempt to explain why Diana couldn’t do this except that it was deemed necessary for the plot. If it’s necessary, explain it!
Honestly Shadow of Night was really difficult to get through. Written in third-person and experiencing what was happening to the characters left in the present would have made a far more compelling read than the historical name-dropping and lacklustre characterisation of the Elizabethan Era that we got. Honestly, it reads like poorly constructed Twilight fan-fiction written in an attempt to be more academic and, quite frankly, failing. I simply do not understand how this trilogy has gotten quite the acclaim it has.