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lliiraAnita's relationship with Richard is written badly, as everything is written badly in these books. However, it has far more emotion than any other of Anita's relationships. She very clearly does want to be with Richard. All the other penii are smoke and air, easily distilled into a couple traits. JC is a manipulative rapist with bad fashion sense. Nathaniel is a wereorchid. Micah is Anita's yes-man with an average-sized penis that we are supposed to think is huge. Jason is a smutty fuckbuddy. Requiem quotes poetry. The rest of the harem is a cloud of eyes and hair. Richard is the only one with any complexity or inner life. He's the only one whom I can believe keeps existing when Anita's not in the room. He's also the only one whom I believe loves her, or indeed cares for her in any way beyond a wet n'tight place to stick his dick. Actually, that's not quite true; I believe Jean-Claude cares for her as a tool with which he can gain power.
I think Laurell K. Hamilton originally intended to write the triumvurate as JC manipulating Anita and Richard for his own uses. I believe she intended for Anita and Richard to be truly in love while Anita was tempted by the wily, sexy vampire. (Wily and sexy by LKH's standards, which were never really good; JC's fashion sense was always 80s hair band crossed with porn and he liked to play with his own nipples in public.) She moved away from that quickly, deciding JC would get everything he wanted and even be allowed have an opinion on what LKH herself wears. However, she cannot let go of that original seed. Possibly because she IS a writer, or at least was. A bad writer, a hack, but still an actual really truly writer. Anita and Richard being bound to a man they know is evil, if better than the worst, and is manipulating them for his own ends, would make for real conflict.
So, from a meta standpoint, Richard is fighting for character development and plot. While I believe Richard is at least partially a stand-in for LKH's ex-husband, I think he is also screaming for story. For things to HAPPEN. He has a life outside Anita's vagina, and he knows there's a whole world out there to play in. LKH talks about how much it hurts her to have anything bad happen to her characters. But I think it hurts them NOT to have anything bad happen to them. The worst thing for a fictional character to be is boring. They have no life outside that which LKH gives them. Most of them are lifeless husks. Richard refuses to become that. I think that's important as to why she both beats him up and cannot let him go. Asher's like this as well; though less important than Richard, he also has a life outside Anita, and his character pulls toward real character conflict and plot.
I know that paragraph probably sounded kind of nutty. I don't think Richard and Asher have some kind of true astral plane reality. But characters do take on a life of their own. When you push them in a direction that doesn't make sense for them, they resist. If you insist on it anyway, your story breaks. And some characters are more stubborn than others, more insistent, demanding more attention and more stuff to do. I think Richard is one of those characters. He wants attention, damn it, and he will not bend to LKH's horrible morality and stupid "plots". I think this is why, even after LKH sent him off to be brainwashed and he returned supposedly changed, she cannot resist kicking him. She has Anita and some penis insult Richard in Affliction even though he's not in it.
So when Richard fights with Anita, I think he's fighting with Laurell K. Hamilton. Not (entirely) as she imagines her ex-husband might fight with her, either. This is Richard, the character, fighting with his creator. He won't do what she wants. She can't break him. And she won't kill him, because somewhere very deep down, she knows that he is right.
I think Laurell K. Hamilton originally intended to write the triumvurate as JC manipulating Anita and Richard for his own uses. I believe she intended for Anita and Richard to be truly in love while Anita was tempted by the wily, sexy vampire. (Wily and sexy by LKH's standards, which were never really good; JC's fashion sense was always 80s hair band crossed with porn and he liked to play with his own nipples in public.) She moved away from that quickly, deciding JC would get everything he wanted and even be allowed have an opinion on what LKH herself wears. However, she cannot let go of that original seed. Possibly because she IS a writer, or at least was. A bad writer, a hack, but still an actual really truly writer. Anita and Richard being bound to a man they know is evil, if better than the worst, and is manipulating them for his own ends, would make for real conflict.
So, from a meta standpoint, Richard is fighting for character development and plot. While I believe Richard is at least partially a stand-in for LKH's ex-husband, I think he is also screaming for story. For things to HAPPEN. He has a life outside Anita's vagina, and he knows there's a whole world out there to play in. LKH talks about how much it hurts her to have anything bad happen to her characters. But I think it hurts them NOT to have anything bad happen to them. The worst thing for a fictional character to be is boring. They have no life outside that which LKH gives them. Most of them are lifeless husks. Richard refuses to become that. I think that's important as to why she both beats him up and cannot let him go. Asher's like this as well; though less important than Richard, he also has a life outside Anita, and his character pulls toward real character conflict and plot.
I know that paragraph probably sounded kind of nutty. I don't think Richard and Asher have some kind of true astral plane reality. But characters do take on a life of their own. When you push them in a direction that doesn't make sense for them, they resist. If you insist on it anyway, your story breaks. And some characters are more stubborn than others, more insistent, demanding more attention and more stuff to do. I think Richard is one of those characters. He wants attention, damn it, and he will not bend to LKH's horrible morality and stupid "plots". I think this is why, even after LKH sent him off to be brainwashed and he returned supposedly changed, she cannot resist kicking him. She has Anita and some penis insult Richard in Affliction even though he's not in it.
So when Richard fights with Anita, I think he's fighting with Laurell K. Hamilton. Not (entirely) as she imagines her ex-husband might fight with her, either. This is Richard, the character, fighting with his creator. He won't do what she wants. She can't break him. And she won't kill him, because somewhere very deep down, she knows that he is right.
