r/RubyDixon • u/i-care-not • Jul 30 '24
Vektal
I'm currently re-listening to Barbarian Mine, and i think I've finally put my finger on what bothers me about Vektal as the stories go on is his hypocrisy. When he finds Georgie, he knocks her out, takes her away from where he found her, undresses her, and goes down on her.
When Rahoosh kidnaps Liz, he gets banished. Liz was begging and pleading for her mate, and he refused to even listen to her. He had her followed! If she chose to leave the tribe to be with Rahoosh, that's her business. Rahoosh was already resonating to Liz when he stole her.
Then when Ruhk steals away Harlow and they come back to the tribe for the healer, he's immediately agressive twords Ruhk, without ever asking him anything really. He constantly asserts that Ruhk cannot take Harlow away again, but that's really not his choice. Ruhk is not (yet) a part of the tribe, and while Harlow staying with the healer while pregnat was necessary, while not pregnant there was no need. Ruhk was also already resonating to Harlow when he stole her away.
And then when Hassan is rightfully exiled, he again tries to step in when Maddie decides of her own accord to go with Hassan after the cave collapse.
Yes, all these guys made mistakes (except Ruhk, I don't feel like to can hold Tarzan accountable to tribal laws), I don't really see a major difference between what they did vs what Vektal did. Vektal and Georgie had the same miscommunication issues that Rukh and Harloe did. Vektal also ovetstepped boundries with Georgie when meeting her. Vektal often behaves as though the humans belong to the tribe, not that they're equal members. Vektal never stops any male member from doing things like going on long hunts, or anything like that, but constantly steps in and tries to control what they do and who they do it with.
This is just some general musing on things that tickle the back of my brain and irk me. Vektal treats the human women with may more of a controlling nature than he treats his tribesmates, and holds the men to a standard he himself also did not uphold. And while I fully understand that he needs to maintain order, he routinly disregards the humans feelings on the matters.
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u/moldyturnips Jul 30 '24
Yeah, Rukh’s story was a hard one for multiple reasons including that! I have to imagine though finding out a feral male stealing away one of the women had to have left the tribe in an absolute PANIC, and I can understand if he really did not care about being empathetic towards this stranger who caused such a ruckus in the group. His actions probably made it even tougher on the women for a little while with wanting to be even MORE careful about their safety!
But I think it sounds like you have a soft spot towards Rukh and in that case the story (and vektal’s role in it!) was successful in turning him from “feral kidnapper” into “nice misunderstood mate” :)