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lliiraCN: Anita Blake book, rape treated as a fine thing for good characters to commit
Duamuteffe had a running count of how much action there was in LKH's supposed action book Affliction. I am going to do something similar: how much sex is there in this supposed sexy book? I'll include foreplay -- what little there is of it. So far we have 5.25 pages of sex, out of 90 pages total. There was also a little bit of smoochery. No consent. Even when Anita made out with Micah and Nathaniel in the first chapter, they did it in front of an appalled onlooker and were obviously getting off on forcing voyeurism on her.
So, the last chapter ended with JC and Anita metaphysically raping everyone connected to Auggie who was also within a certain distance of him. And JC and Anita and everyone bound to them are so happy, aaw, how nice for them. Auggie's human servant Octavius is having "hysterics" (91). Anita is dismissive of him because, after all, he's powerless, and might makes right.
I've written rapist characters, but I don't think I've ever written any as downright cruel and cold and just plain evil as Anita. I'm not saying such extremely simplisticly evil people don't exist, but I don't find them interesting to write or read about. In books I like, if a character like this pops up, they're a speed bump for the protaganists, not a main antagonist. And they certainly are not the protaganist – but Anita is the narrator and we're supposed to adore her! Reading this is like reading a book in which Cruella de Vil is presented as an angel. I would feel more disgusted if I weren't so flabbergasted.
"It took about an hour to get everyone separated to places where they could clean up." What the what now? I can't imagine it taking an hour to disentangle after sex. Then again, I have never been raped. Since a bunch of people just had orgasms forced on them, some of them probably had to be coaxed out of fetal positions and/or were having “hysterics”.
Also, somehow, the living room has been "wrecked". So have Anita's clothes. I suppose a tornado really did tear them off. They're lucky it didn't grab one of her fifty-seven weapons and put someone's eye out with it.
Paragraph two of the chapter starts with the sentence, "Jean-Claude and I lay back in his huge bathtub." Paragraph three starts with the sentence, "Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub, and I lay in his arms, the back of my body cradled against the front of his." I am in awe. How does someone do that even in a first draft?
So there's been a mass rape, but at least everyone has had showers. How nice. But we get to what's really important: JC and Anita talking in the bathtub. Also, we are told in great detail about JC's eyes. They are dark blue and have a double row of eyelashes. "Him and Elizabeth Taylor" (92). Yeah, and me, and let me tell you how pleased I am that LKH seems to have a fetish for eyelashes like mine. Ick. Maybe this is a little bit of what a muscular, good-looking, white, long-haired, big-dicked man with lots of emotional pain would feel on reading these books.
JC has closed the vampire marks and so hasn't been reading Anita's mind. Anita worries about what's on his mind, but then decides she wants to keep the marks closed so he won't know she's worried about being pregnant. This is a healthy relationship all right!
Anita asks why Requiem looks like someone pounded his face into a wall. JC says it's because Meng Die did. So that was not a metaphor. What terrible writing. Instead of noticing that Requiem's face is bruised, and how, Anita somehow knew exactly what had happened to him and told us that. I still don't know why he looks like his face was pounded into a wall. How does that look different from being punched or other injuries to the face? Is he bruised on a cheekbone, is his nose broken, what?
JC praises Anita for sending extra guards, calling her “wise”. I am already very, very sick of Anita being praised, and there are nearly 400 pages left of this book. These aren't the pages with a big font and lots of white space that LKH often uses, either; each page is packed with plenty of words. Yay. I generally don't mind heroines being praised a lot – it's nice wish fulfillment. But I do require that she not be evil. Also that everyone's life does not revolve around worshiping her.
Reqiuem and Meng Die had a huge physical fight over him leaving her. I think she attacked him. JC calls it a “spat” that they let “get so terribly out of hand” (93). I would like for him to drown in the huge bathtub. Can vampires drown in Anita's world? They probably can't. Drat. Asher stepped in to try to stop the fight, but that made things worse because Asher is fucking Anita – JC and Anita say he's her “lover.” Yeah, no, Anita doesn't have lovers. She has rapists and victims.
Half a page is spent on Anita being puzzled and JC trying to get her to ask the “right question”. He has to inform her that Meng Die thinks Anita stole Requiem from her, though she was already told this earlier in the book. Anita did feed the ardeur on Requiem once, and he was fully clothed at the time. It's clear she was not. She says they “didn't have intercourse.” How many people use the word “intercourse” in conversations? And she's blushing, thinking it's starting to sound “worse and worse”. I'm uncomfortable with how uncomfortable she is. I don't think it's cute or hot or liberating to have a heroine who is repeatedly forced into sexual situations she gets embarrassed over.
So Requiem now wants to have sex with Anita because he wants the ardeur, which is just sad. Here is an obvious self-insert whom all the men want to have sex with, but only because the self-insert has been given magical powers. Why can't men want her simply because they want her? Okay, the fact that every single man on the planet wants her wouldn't work, but she could still have an entourage of hot penii on her own merits.
Anita thinks about how she's not comfortable that JC had previously had sex with Auggie. Then she thinks about how, “we'd fucked him in every way possible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing” (94). Auggie agreed to the physically; he did not agree to the metaphysically, at least not to the extent they did it. They raped him, and Anita thinks that was "a-fucking-mazing.".
The bathtub water comes up to Anita's neck even when she's kneeling. She should drown now.
JC and Anita continue their conversation about Meng Die and Requiem for the rest of the chapter. Anita thinks she's fucking enough men. JC says the ardeur needs more, especially after the power up he gave her tonight. He wants her to feed from Requiem. Anita doesn't want to. She says it's because she has enough men, which sounds sensible, but I think she is lying. I think she does not want Requiem because Requiem does want her.
Oh and also, JC is an ignoramus. Anita compares what the ardeur is doing to putting out pheremones. JC doesn't know the word pheremones. He says the ardeur wants powerful “food” (gag), and Auggie and Requiem are powerful. Then JC is worried that Auggie will be a slave to the ardeur, and therefore to him and Anita, and Anita says, “you sound sad”, as if it is not perfectly normal to be sad about accidentally enslaving someone (98). He explains that he's sad because Auggie was his friend, as if accidentally enslaving someone who is not his friend wouldn't bother him in the least, and it probably wouldn't.
JC is scared that other vampires will kill him and his people if they think his ardeur is as strong as Belle's. Anita gets scared, “suddenly realizing that an accidental pregnancy might not be the worst disaster we could have” (98). YOU LIVE WITH VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES. YOU ARE NECK-DEEP IN THEIR POLITICS. YOU ARE SUPPOSEDLY A VAMPIRE EXECUTIONER. YOU WERE JUST ALMOST RAPED MULTIPLE TIMES. HOW ARE YOU SO STUPID, ANITA?
At the end of the chapter, Richard runs in. His “power level” (what are they, Pokemon?) has been raised along with theirs through the mass rape. And he is angry. I hope he drowns them.
This chapter was 8 pages long. 8 pages of Anita and JC yammering, mostly about how Anita needs to have sex with sexy men whether she wants to or not. That's 2.75 pages longer than the only actual sex chapter in this book so far.
Duamuteffe had a running count of how much action there was in LKH's supposed action book Affliction. I am going to do something similar: how much sex is there in this supposed sexy book? I'll include foreplay -- what little there is of it. So far we have 5.25 pages of sex, out of 90 pages total. There was also a little bit of smoochery. No consent. Even when Anita made out with Micah and Nathaniel in the first chapter, they did it in front of an appalled onlooker and were obviously getting off on forcing voyeurism on her.
So, the last chapter ended with JC and Anita metaphysically raping everyone connected to Auggie who was also within a certain distance of him. And JC and Anita and everyone bound to them are so happy, aaw, how nice for them. Auggie's human servant Octavius is having "hysterics" (91). Anita is dismissive of him because, after all, he's powerless, and might makes right.
I've written rapist characters, but I don't think I've ever written any as downright cruel and cold and just plain evil as Anita. I'm not saying such extremely simplisticly evil people don't exist, but I don't find them interesting to write or read about. In books I like, if a character like this pops up, they're a speed bump for the protaganists, not a main antagonist. And they certainly are not the protaganist – but Anita is the narrator and we're supposed to adore her! Reading this is like reading a book in which Cruella de Vil is presented as an angel. I would feel more disgusted if I weren't so flabbergasted.
"It took about an hour to get everyone separated to places where they could clean up." What the what now? I can't imagine it taking an hour to disentangle after sex. Then again, I have never been raped. Since a bunch of people just had orgasms forced on them, some of them probably had to be coaxed out of fetal positions and/or were having “hysterics”.
Also, somehow, the living room has been "wrecked". So have Anita's clothes. I suppose a tornado really did tear them off. They're lucky it didn't grab one of her fifty-seven weapons and put someone's eye out with it.
Paragraph two of the chapter starts with the sentence, "Jean-Claude and I lay back in his huge bathtub." Paragraph three starts with the sentence, "Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub, and I lay in his arms, the back of my body cradled against the front of his." I am in awe. How does someone do that even in a first draft?
So there's been a mass rape, but at least everyone has had showers. How nice. But we get to what's really important: JC and Anita talking in the bathtub. Also, we are told in great detail about JC's eyes. They are dark blue and have a double row of eyelashes. "Him and Elizabeth Taylor" (92). Yeah, and me, and let me tell you how pleased I am that LKH seems to have a fetish for eyelashes like mine. Ick. Maybe this is a little bit of what a muscular, good-looking, white, long-haired, big-dicked man with lots of emotional pain would feel on reading these books.
JC has closed the vampire marks and so hasn't been reading Anita's mind. Anita worries about what's on his mind, but then decides she wants to keep the marks closed so he won't know she's worried about being pregnant. This is a healthy relationship all right!
Anita asks why Requiem looks like someone pounded his face into a wall. JC says it's because Meng Die did. So that was not a metaphor. What terrible writing. Instead of noticing that Requiem's face is bruised, and how, Anita somehow knew exactly what had happened to him and told us that. I still don't know why he looks like his face was pounded into a wall. How does that look different from being punched or other injuries to the face? Is he bruised on a cheekbone, is his nose broken, what?
JC praises Anita for sending extra guards, calling her “wise”. I am already very, very sick of Anita being praised, and there are nearly 400 pages left of this book. These aren't the pages with a big font and lots of white space that LKH often uses, either; each page is packed with plenty of words. Yay. I generally don't mind heroines being praised a lot – it's nice wish fulfillment. But I do require that she not be evil. Also that everyone's life does not revolve around worshiping her.
Reqiuem and Meng Die had a huge physical fight over him leaving her. I think she attacked him. JC calls it a “spat” that they let “get so terribly out of hand” (93). I would like for him to drown in the huge bathtub. Can vampires drown in Anita's world? They probably can't. Drat. Asher stepped in to try to stop the fight, but that made things worse because Asher is fucking Anita – JC and Anita say he's her “lover.” Yeah, no, Anita doesn't have lovers. She has rapists and victims.
Half a page is spent on Anita being puzzled and JC trying to get her to ask the “right question”. He has to inform her that Meng Die thinks Anita stole Requiem from her, though she was already told this earlier in the book. Anita did feed the ardeur on Requiem once, and he was fully clothed at the time. It's clear she was not. She says they “didn't have intercourse.” How many people use the word “intercourse” in conversations? And she's blushing, thinking it's starting to sound “worse and worse”. I'm uncomfortable with how uncomfortable she is. I don't think it's cute or hot or liberating to have a heroine who is repeatedly forced into sexual situations she gets embarrassed over.
So Requiem now wants to have sex with Anita because he wants the ardeur, which is just sad. Here is an obvious self-insert whom all the men want to have sex with, but only because the self-insert has been given magical powers. Why can't men want her simply because they want her? Okay, the fact that every single man on the planet wants her wouldn't work, but she could still have an entourage of hot penii on her own merits.
Anita thinks about how she's not comfortable that JC had previously had sex with Auggie. Then she thinks about how, “we'd fucked him in every way possible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing” (94). Auggie agreed to the physically; he did not agree to the metaphysically, at least not to the extent they did it. They raped him, and Anita thinks that was "a-fucking-mazing.".
The bathtub water comes up to Anita's neck even when she's kneeling. She should drown now.
JC and Anita continue their conversation about Meng Die and Requiem for the rest of the chapter. Anita thinks she's fucking enough men. JC says the ardeur needs more, especially after the power up he gave her tonight. He wants her to feed from Requiem. Anita doesn't want to. She says it's because she has enough men, which sounds sensible, but I think she is lying. I think she does not want Requiem because Requiem does want her.
Oh and also, JC is an ignoramus. Anita compares what the ardeur is doing to putting out pheremones. JC doesn't know the word pheremones. He says the ardeur wants powerful “food” (gag), and Auggie and Requiem are powerful. Then JC is worried that Auggie will be a slave to the ardeur, and therefore to him and Anita, and Anita says, “you sound sad”, as if it is not perfectly normal to be sad about accidentally enslaving someone (98). He explains that he's sad because Auggie was his friend, as if accidentally enslaving someone who is not his friend wouldn't bother him in the least, and it probably wouldn't.
JC is scared that other vampires will kill him and his people if they think his ardeur is as strong as Belle's. Anita gets scared, “suddenly realizing that an accidental pregnancy might not be the worst disaster we could have” (98). YOU LIVE WITH VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES. YOU ARE NECK-DEEP IN THEIR POLITICS. YOU ARE SUPPOSEDLY A VAMPIRE EXECUTIONER. YOU WERE JUST ALMOST RAPED MULTIPLE TIMES. HOW ARE YOU SO STUPID, ANITA?
At the end of the chapter, Richard runs in. His “power level” (what are they, Pokemon?) has been raised along with theirs through the mass rape. And he is angry. I hope he drowns them.
This chapter was 8 pages long. 8 pages of Anita and JC yammering, mostly about how Anita needs to have sex with sexy men whether she wants to or not. That's 2.75 pages longer than the only actual sex chapter in this book so far.
