Fridge / Kitty Norville

Fridge Horror

• In the first Kitty Norville book, Kitty mentions during a make-out session with Cormac that she hasn't had sex with a normal human since contracting lycanthropy. During a flashback shortly thereafter, it's strongly implied that she was a virgin before Bill raped her, after which she was almost immediately attacked and infected by Zan. As far as other lycanthropes goes, there's exactly one named character that she has a healthy relationship with, and he's a gay man. Her relationship with Carl resembles nothing so much as the attentions of an Abusive Father, and she takes a "close your eyes and wait until it's over" attitude about it. In short, this woman has never had a sexual encounter to which she consented. Worse? Her encounter with Zan in chapter 4 suggests that, practically speaking, anyone in the pack can have her whenever Carl, Meg, and T.J. are absent.
  • Realizing this makes it all the more heartwarming when she ends up in a normal relationship based on mutual love and respect with Ben.
  • As for the pack under Carl, my impression of her attitude wasn't a "close your eyes and wait until it's over" thing so much as Happiness in Slavery, until the events of the first book made her realize she could do better. Also, I don't remember the "anyone can have her" implication; Carl, Meg, and T.J. were quite possibly never all absent, and even if they were, it wouldn't have been pure anarchy until they got back. She would have showed her belly in the submissive wolf sense, but not literally. So overall, yes, she was being abused and very lacking in healthy relationships in her life thus far, but my reading of the first novel wasn't quite as horrifying as yours.
• An in-story example of this from Kitty herself: ever since first learning of the Church of the Pure Faith, and even after the incident with Estelle, she kept wanting to get Elijah Smith on her show for an interview. However, after hearing him testify at the Senate hearing and discovering just how strong his Compelling Voice is, she has a very chilling thought: what would have happened if she had gotten him on her show and broadcast him across the country? Can we say mass Mind Control?
• Also related to Elijah Smith: when Estelle calls Kitty's show for help, she is hiding in a closed Speedy Mart store. Thanks to Goes to War, the reader learns that Harold Franklin has been placing magical sigils somewhere on the property of each Speedy Mart store so as to draw on the Ley Lines they're situated on to summon various weather disasters over the years. Whether or not that particular store had a sigil or had been used in one of Franklin's spells (if so, it must have been to summon a storm somewhere other than Denver), this rather chillingly explains how Elijah Smith was able to find Estelle so easily—as a fey, he could follow the ley line right to her location. If this is true, it does at least absolve Kitty of any blame she gave herself over Estelle's death; whether or not she'd called the show, or given her location to Arturo, Smith would have found her anyway.

---