Waking Rose Questions *SPOILER ALERT!*

This is just a post to post some further questions about Waking Rose: SPOILER WARNING: You do NOT want to read this post if you haven't read the books already!!!!!

I'll start with Lady Rose's question -- feel free to ask your own questions in the comments boxes (and if I neglected to answer a question you asked before, repeat it here):

Wow, so that was Dr. Murray at the Christening? It seemed a lot more like Dr. Prosser.
Question, so if it wasn't Dr. Prosser who threatened Mr. Brier, why did she than try to kill Rose? How exactly was she involved than, other than being the main doctor at the hospital? I always thought that it was Dr. Prosser who threatened Mr. Brier, especially after she attempted to poison Rose. Dr. Murray just didn't seem like the kind of person who would threaten someone like that, especially since later she wanted to keep Rose alive.

Answer: Dr. Prosser and Dr. Murray were working together closely especially during the early years. But over the years, a certain estrangement set in, mostly because of Dr. Murray's conscience. I see Dr. Murray as someone who basically became a bad person through failing to act, failing to step in. But during those early heady years when they were two feminist doctors bucking the system together, Murray was more aggressive, and it was her who made the threats at the christening, in her usual veiled style.

Here's something I wrote about Murray earlier I'd like to share:

A reader wrote to me: When Prosser appeals to Murray, and Murray seems, for a moment, to hesitate, we kept thinking Murray was going to be redeemed and help Fish. We were disappointed when he didn't.

You know, it didn't feel right for her to redeem herself. Murray was supposed to be the "principaled" villain in the whole affair: she was the one pursuing a pro-choice agenda but for "higher" ideals; unlike Prosser, who is mostly venal, nasty, and self-deceived. But Murray constantly compromised her conscience in the name of the greater good, and this had the effect of weakening her will and draining her of courage.

Hence, when Rose falls off the barn loft, she makes an attempt to catch her, but then is too scared to call 911 or actually report the accident. She goes back to work and about her business: the coward's way out. Bad for the soul.

Then she is asked to examine Rose, and chooses to put her into a medicated coma and then pretend to offer to "help" the family by admitting Rose to her facility. Not exactly pure malignant villainry, but villainry of the cowardly and pathetic kind. But she *still* can't rest: she wakes Rose up periodically to question her, but even when it's clear Rose knows nothing and is no threat to her, Murray can't ever summon the courage to actually let her come out of the coma naturally and go free. (Fortunately, she's not strong enough to actually murder her either.) So, like Herod Antipas with John the Baptist in chains, Murray just leaves Rose in limbo, and probably would have done so indefinitely until circumstances forced her hand. She's kind of the opposite of Rose, who is overflowing with courage: it's clear that Rose fascinates her just as John the Baptist fascinated Antipas, but like Antipas, Murray can't emulate her, and becomes the pawn of the modern-day Herodias, Prosser and the needle of digoxin.

So -- when Murray has an opportunity to save Fish at the barn -- three times at least -- even though she's horribly torn because now his self-sacrifice is obvious to her, she can't muster up the will to do the good thing: to defy Dr. Prosser and call the police, or even simply refuse to help. And when she colludes in what she thinks is the final act of his murder -- throwing Fish back into the fire, after he's just thanked her for saving Rose's life -- it destroys her, mentally and physically.

I think of her as someone who's destroyed by compromise. And I couldn't see her finding any real courage after so much giving in to evil.

It's actually a very sad story. I also wish it had a happier ending.