YMMV / Mercy Thompson

YMMV Tropes in this work include:

• Awesome Art:
  • All kidding aside, the book covers by Daniel Dos Santos can be pretty awesome. Granted, they are not entirely accurate on Mercy’s appearance such as giving her too many tattoos and giving her some Stripperiffic outfits. But it’s hard to deny how awesome many of the book covers look with so much going on in each covers. Such as Fire Touched, giving us an action fantasy vibe with Mercy looking like an amazonian warrior. Some subtle covers like Frost Burned and Shifting Shadows are pretty fun to look at.
  • Zig-Zagged with the art in the comic books
    • The initial artwork in Homecoming by Francis Tsai is very awesome. Giving the series a very action gothic vibe. Probably his crowning moment is the start of the first issue which features a naked Mercy fighting a dangerous werewolf pack armed with only a wrench. The characters themselves look almost close to their description.
    • Zig-Zagged with Amelia Woo’s art in both the 2nd half of Homecoming and Moon Called graphic novel. While she has some pretty awesome art such as the cover of Issue 3 of Moon Called which Patricia Briggs has actually said it’s one of her favorite covers, some of the characters look completely off and even more inaccurate than the actual book covers. Such as Mercy who looks more like a slender white girl than a half native american with an athletic build as described.
    • Tom Garcia's artwork in Hopecross Jilly is fantastic. With characters looking much closer to their description, along with much brighter colors and dark horrific imagery at the right moments. This comic’s artwork is very appealing to look at.
• Complete Monster: Mercedes "Mercy" Thompson lives in a dark, Unmasqued World of the supernatural. That said, of the various monsters and evils that inhabit it, these are the worst:
  • Blood Bound: Cory Littleton is a psychopathic vampire and practitioner of the dark arts. Even before becoming a vampire, Littleton was already a murderer and discovered a way to symbiotically bond to a demon, allowing him to wreak the death and mayhem he desires. Littleton is a fan of violating the minds of his victims by making them experience his murders and will also torture people to death just for giggles. After being unleashed, Littelton spreads a Hate Plague across the Tri-Cities which causes people to fight each other and increases anger levels, resulting in the deaths of dozens of innocents. Littleton fully intends to continue his killing spree for eternity to satisfy his love of inflicting pain.
  • Frost Burned: The wicked William Frost, the most deadly vampire that Mercy has faced, is a master vampire out to usurp control from other Seethes. With his MO being to foster rebellions, kill humans and take over by killing the Masters, Frost is also a powerful necromancer who keeps his victims' souls bound in horrific pain and torment. When he requires a boost, Frost simply devours their unwilling souls to empower himself. Intending on forming a vampire army, Frost intends to purge humanity and reign over what remains himself.
  • Hopcross Jilly comic: The Fae known as Hopcross Jilly is a Serial Killer who preys on children. As Fae are not allowed to touch the "good" children on pain of death, Jilly abuses the loophole to the point of sheer irrelevance: Targeting children on the basis of any moral transgression, Jilly kills a pair of boys who were skipping school and later murders two girl scouts who simply didn't ask for permission before going to her house to offer her cookies. Upon eating the fingers and toes of her victims, Jilly buries them alive. After seemingly befriending Mercy's stepdaughter Jessie, Jilly later attempts to murder her when her behavior makes Jessie uncomfortable after murdering several other kids as well.
  • Fire Touched: The Widow Queen otherwise known as Neuth the Black Queen, is one of the Gray Lords. A powerful fae who glories in enslaving men to her via seduction, the Widow Queen lures them and all around them to ruin to feed her power. and also for food. Manipulating the broken Aiden into bringing her an artifact to enhance her power, the Widow Queen intends on taking over the fae and wiping out humanity, while also making humanity fall on itself and wipe each other out while she benefits.
  • Alpha and Omega offshoot series:
    • Fair Game: Travis Heuter and his nephew, CNTRP agent Les Heuter are a pair of far-right serial killers targeting fae and werewolves, but will in truth target anyone they consider "trash". The two abduct women, rape and torture them, before hunting them for sport, and have been doing so for a long, long time, their victims even including children. During the course of the novel, they abduct Lizzie Beuclaire, daughter of the Gray Lord Alistair, and rape and maim her, intending on murdering her like their other victims, even kidnapping heroine Anna with intent on doing the same to her. Depraved and without any loyalty to one another, Les promptly murders his uncle to claim he was a victim in the affair, spending his entire trial for murder completely amused and unremorseful.
    • Dead Heat: The Doll Collector is an ancient and evil fae who preys on children, and is feared even by other fae. The Doll Collector's MO is to kidnap young girls and dress them up as dolls, keeping them in statis while draining them of life. After A Year and a Day when their life is worn out, the Doll Collector kills them and adds their rotting corpses to her collection; she has done this for centuries. After being de-powered by the Gray Lords, she goes into hiding, only to restart her killing spree after being unleashed in Salt Lake City. Targeting the local Alpha's five-year-old great-great-granddaughter Mackie, the Doll Collector mind-controls Mackie's mother into trying to kill both her and her children but is stopped. After her collection is found, the Doll Collector, in desperation, murders Mackie's mother and kidnaps her to rebuild it, and in the final battle kills Mackie's father, proving herself a monster even to her final breath.
• Continuity Lockout: Though the books do a good job of avoiding this, some readers might get lost if they read the Mercy Thompson series without reading the Alpha and Omega series. Example, readers who finish Moon Called might not learn of the fate of the corrupt pack leader Leo unless they read the first Alpha and Omega short story. In an extreme case, those who finish reading River Marked and jump into Frost Burned might be confused at why the Fae are now at war with humans unless they read Fair Game in between.
• Fridge Brilliance: It always stated that Blue-Jay Woman, Bran’s second wife and Charles’ mother, was the true love of Bran and he was devastated when she died. His relationship with Mercy and hidden romantic feelings for her could come from the fact that Mercy might in fact remind Bran of his late wife because of Mercy’s own native-American heritage. Bran appears much more protective of Mercy than his own sons and seems to open up more often to Mercy as if she was his wife or lover, probably seeing this as some sort of second chance for himself and Blue-Jay Woman.
  • While it doesn’t excuse it, this could also shed more light on Leah’s resentment toward Mercy, Leah also sees Mercy as some kind of representation of Blue-Jay Woman.
• Ho Yay: In Frost Burned...
  (...) [Adam] and Asil disappeared together to take care of the who-was-the-biggest-baddest-wolf issue (...)
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: While the series has no small number of despicable villains, most of them cross into Love to Hate territory and are at least entertaining to read. Christy Hauptman, on the other hand, is the most hated character by readers for being unlikable and self-centered. Being an emotionally abusive ex-wife and neglectful mother would be bad enough, but she also managed to successfully get more than half the Pack to turn on Mercy just because she knew they greatly preferred her over Mercy. You know it’s bad when someone like Tim Milanovich, a sociopathic thief who kidnapped and raped Mercy, is somehow hated less by readers than Christy.
• Jerkass Woobie: Leah Cornick is this big time. Leah is in a loveless marriage with Bran and she knows she will never ever measure up to Charles’ mother who Bran loved very much. Burn Bright pushes it further when Leah always suspected that Bran might have romantic feeling for Mercy since she was 16. It’s easy to feel sorry for her in this regard. That all being said, this doesn’t excuse how unpleasant she is to everyone. The fact that Leah was abusive to a young Mercy and hates Charles because he’s the son of Bran’s former lover further makes her lose her sympathy card. Her Alpha Bitch attitude doesn’t help either. While we may still hate Leah for how she acts, we can at least understand her.
• Magnificent Bastard (Moon Call): Gerry Wallace, a member of Aspen Creek pack and one of Bran Cornick's most trusted agents, seeks to save his beloved, doomed father by tricking Bran into killing Gerry himself. Manipulating werewolf concerns over Bran's intentions to unveil them to the world and built a small army through his connections, Gerry also experiments on forcibly turned wolves and is able to invent a Werewolf tranquiliser. Getting his followers into a panic, Gerry had them attack Adam Hauptman under the pretence of intending to force Adam to challenge Bran, ensuring most will die. Thus, upon Adam's death, Bran would be convinced of his guilt, whilst his father would be convinced of his innocence and challenge Bran to a duel for this perceived betrayal, forcing the necessary union. Using the tranquilisers as a distraction, so no one would notice the witch Gerry hired to rig the fight for his father and when finally beaten only requests his father not learn of his crimes.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Leo, the Chicago pack alpha, crossed it way before the events of Moon Called by kidnapping innocent people and turning them into werewolves against their will. Anna and Alan Fraser among the many victims. If that wasn’t bad enough, he sold many of them like Human Trafficking. If that wasn’t enough as well, he encouraged his own pack to brutalize Anna while trying to break her spirt.
  • Cory Littleton crosses it when he murders a helpless hotel maid in the beginning of Blood Bound as well as spreading a hate plague around town.
    • Andre crossed it when it’s revealed that he in fact turned Littleton into a vampire. Andre also captured two innocent people to feed on later.
  • In Mercy’s eyes, Stefan crossed it when he kills the two innocent victims Andre had captured in order to cover up any evidence that Mercy killed Andre.
  • O’Donnell’s killer Tim Milanovich reached the point of no return when he brutalized and raped Mercy. Though you can argue he crossed it when he reveals he murdered his best friend Austin earlier.
  • James Blackwood reaches this when he killed Amber, Chad’s mother, and turned her into a zombie slave. It also counts that he held Chad and his stepfather Corban hostage.
  • The River Devil reached this point when it has two innocent children drowned after giving Mercy a very Sadistic Choice.
• Shipping Bed Death: Averted. Briggs does an excellent job of keeping Adam and Mercy's marriage interesting, by showcasing that even if you love each other, it doesn't mean that you don't argue or have to work things out.
• The Scrappy:
  • Mary Jo veered into this in Silver Borne. It’s bad enough that she is revealed to be a Green-Eyed Monster as she wanted to be Adam’s mate and is jealous of Mercy. But what really earned her the reader’s hate is when she deliberately allowed some fae to blow up Mercy’s home, which was after Mercy saved Mary Jo’s life in Bone Crossed. Even Mercy brings this up to Mary Jo, who just brushes it off. In every book since Silver Borne, Mary Jo always takes the side that will ridicule or blame Mercy for the Pack’s situations. For example, Mary Jo was one of the first pack members to side with Christy Hauptman during her stay in Night Broken.
    • Made continuously worse as she believes Adam needs another "Christy" in spite of the fact that she was well aware how Adam's ex destroyed him emotionally before and after his divorce from her, and even admits that Christy played on his insecurities. This is all in spite of the fact that she has an unrequited crush on him.
  • Christy Hauptman, Adam's ex-wife and Jesse's mother. While she may not have been well liked after hearing Jesse's story of how much of an irresponsible mother she is and how she blamed Adam for Jesse's kidnapping in Moon Called, she became wildly hated in Night Broken when she stayed at Mercy and Adam's house. In that time, she tried to cause a rift between Mercy and Adam and managed to get more than half of the pack to turn on Mercy. To make matters worse for her, she led the book's Big Bad to the Tri-Cities all because she was trying to hide from him after a one night stand.
    • Not to mention Christy suffers from a severe case of Never My Fault unless she can swing it her way by Playing the Victim Card. Note, this is actively one of the reasons Mercy hates her as this tactic was used to exploit Adam's sense of guilt and belief that he's a monster, which she explicitly tries to encourage him to work through.
  • Auriele Zao. Though she is one of the first among the pack to harshly critique Mary Jo's complicity in the events of Silver Borne she's also quick to join the Pro-Christy camp, and micromanages Jessie's, Adam's daughter, relationship with her mother. In spite of it being publicly known how awful of a wife and mother Adam's ex wife was; Auriele routinely preferences Christy's feelings over that of her alpha, his daughter, and his current wife.
• The Woobie: Anna, especially at first, when she's freshly brutalized by her first Alpha. By the third Alpha and Omega book, however, the trait is nearly gone.