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It’s clear that a major theme of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels and True Blood is north versus south, but the geographical rivalry doesn’t begin with the Civil War or even in the United States. It goes back to England with name Compton, which is a place name associated with the south* and the name Stackhouse, which is a place name tied to the northern part of Yorkshire, which is itself in the north of England.

When Vikings invaded Northumbria and made York their capital, the first ruling dynasty was founded by Eric of Norway, also known as Eric Bloodaxe. On True Blood when Bill finds Eric soaking in his tub, the song that is playing,  Sancto Erico, was created for the show. The lyrics were taken from the sagas that recounts the life of Eric Bloodax, the Eric Norse man, who ruled over Stackhouses in Northumbria a thousand years ago. This shared heritage explains why even today about fifty percent of Northumbrians are fair and is one of the reasons Eric and Sookie’s similar coloring is repeatedly mentioned in the novels.

While slavery wasn’t an issue in England like it was in the United States, some of the regional cultural differences between north and south are shared between the the two countries. Elizabeth Gaskell’s British novel North and South is a Victorian Pride and Prejudice that explores these regional differences. One of its major themes is the contrast between the industrious north and the indolent but wealthy south. The romantic hero of the story is Mr. Thornton, a mill owner in a northern city. In true Pride and Prejudice fashion, the heroine initially thinks Mr. Thornton is unfeeling and cruel for the way he treats his workers. In fact, her view parallels the way Sookie views Eric after she discovers Lafayette in the basement.

Another direct connection with the novel is the name Thornton, another place name associate with northern Yorkshire. In the name Tara Thornton, the literary Southern icon, Tara is married with the literary iconic Northern name, Thornton. We see the tension that is in her name in her character. The easy life is such a temptation for Tara that she allows others to take care of her and take over her life. True Blood and Book Tara both learned their lesson about that. True Blood Tara has yet to learn the northern values of hard work and independence, but that is coming, if she follows the development of Book Tara. Tara’s mother Lettie Mae is Alan Ball’s nod to Gaskell’s opinionated and outspoken Mrs. Thornton.

What Tara’s name encapsulates, plays out between the Comptons and Stackhouses. Many book readers have the impression that the two families were in similar economic circumstances, but this false impression is due to Sookie’s limited point of view and Bill’s misleading information. Compare the original Stackhouse farm to the Compton place. Sookie tells us that her living room encompasses the original farmhouse, which would have been a one room cabin. The first thing the Stackhouses would have done when they had the time, money, and manpower would have been to build an identical cabin for cooking and connect them with a covered breezeway turning their cabin into the ubiquitous southern dogtrot house.

Dogtrot

Dogtrot

From there the Stackhouses would have added on to the house willy-nilly as needed just as Sookie describes and the name Stackhouse implies, for not only is her name’s northern provenance significant, it implies industry, a Stackhouse characteristic that keeps Sookie serving beers at Merlotte’s in Dead and Gone instead of letting Eric provide for her as he offers to do.

Now look at Bill’s house. Sookie describes it as once elegant and tells us that this house was never added to. This is the original Compton house. Chairlaine Harris even said that Alan Ball got both Sookie and Bill’s homes right on the show. Compare the two houses, the people who would have lived in them, the people who would have built them, the lifestyles associated with each, and the income it would have taken to sustain them.

Greek Revival


The Stackhouses would have been what is described as “plain folk“  who farmed for the purpose of putting food on the table and selling whatever was excess they could muster. Just farming their own land classified the Stackhouses as middle class. Book Bill tells us that they had two slaves, one to help in the house and one to help in the yard. When he says this, he implies that his family’s circumstances were similar. Sookie buys this. Should we? Do you believe that the Compton’s had the craftsmanship skills that were necessary to construct a home of this caliber? Do you believe that the Compton’s built this house themselves after seeing the product of the industrious Stackhouses? Do you believe Bill’s mother and sisters ran this house themselves with the help of one servant? Do you believe that the wealth this family obviously had was produced from subsistence farming with the aid of one field slave like their neighbors the Stackhouses? Obviously not. It is clear that the Comptons were planters who produced a cash crop, making the Compton place, not a farm, but a plantation. In northern Louisiana the cash crop was cotton and would have needed a large work force. Who do you think built the Compton Plantation, ran the house, and worked the fields while the Comptons socialized with the cream of Bon Temps society, the Bellefluers?

It is clear that the Comptons–whose name suggests complacency and comfort — lived comparatively easy lives in the South because they relied on slave labor. The Compton’s leisurely lifestyle stretches back to their origins in southern England, the area that breeds soft, indolent people, and forward to Bill who lived off his parents before becoming a grifter with Lorena, who never wanted the responsibility of making a vampire, and whose full time job seems to be securing Sookie for the queen. Bill’s human life was built on the backs of slaves and his vampire life was built on the blood of victims he murdered and robbed.

(If you’re looking for the bit about Eric that Gigi and I discuss in the comments, it has been moved to this link.)

*Thanks to It’s All Too Much who started  me down this road with the origins of the Compton name.