5 Things You'd Change About Anita Blake
A friend asked me this, and these were the first things off the top of my head! So I thought it would be fun to post them and invite you all to do the same!
1) Less rape. A lot less rape. What rape there is has to be portrayed as rape and something that only the bad guys do, for god’s sake
2) When a species is introduced, they have to be given consistent attention from that point on. You can’t just be like “oh fairies exist. oh naga exist. oh djinn exist. oh werefoxes exist.” and then never ever come back to them.
3) The werecreatures need to have much more sensible ways of establishing leadership. Someone being a leader because they’re the leaders girlfriend does not work, that doesn’t qualify them in any way. Someone being a leader because they killed and ate the other leader not only is in no way a demonstration of actually having any leadership skills, it’s also a great way to get the cops looking into your crew in a missing person investigation, and that’s not something you want, especially not given how police seem to really dislike supernaturals. And someone just being a “born” leader because magical predestination…on a meta level, I don’t like that trope, I hate someone being the best/the leader/etc Because Destiny Says So and everyone just accepting it. And I don’t think people would just accept it. I think at least one person, every time, would say, ok, but what qualities and qualifications do you ACTUALLY have?
I get that the werecreature societies are brutal, so power and fighting would still be a part of what gains a person status in the pack/pride/etc, you want a guy who can stand up against other groups and/or invasive newcomers trying to take over, but that doesn’t mean that’s all she/he has to be. Just focusing on brute power is NOT a sensible strategy. They should also be politically-minded, able to negotiate and get things done without NEEDING to fight, able to manage things during peace time as well as times of conflict (like allocation resources, helping newbies control their beast, etc.) and be pretty well-liked by their group (because otherwise they’ll get booted), probably elected/chosen by the group members because these are human beings with human brains and will think of all this, not to mention the story is set in America so they’ll probably be most inclined towards a democratic vote since that’s what we’re used to using for choosing our real leaders.
4) The werecreatures should act both more and less like real animals. What I mean is, LKH will write them doing things that are absolutely illogical for animals, but claim it mirrors real-life animal behavior when it doesn’t. For instance, I mentioned that leaders should be able to manage things without resorting to a fight first thing. In the wild, most conflict between animals over food, mating, territories, etc., is all display. Regardless of species, most animals will not actually fight, or at least not seriously, unless they really, REALLY have to. It’s just not worth the risk of injury. There are exceptions, there are some species that will fight to the death, but I am pretty sure the animals she’s writing about (wolves, tigers, etc.) don’t do that. Likewise, writing tigers and leopards are group animals that crave each other’s company, or swans as helpless prey. They’re not. Tigers and leopards are solitary creatures, and swans are terrifying hellbeasts (a lot of prey animals in real life are, actually, because THEY HAVE TO FIGHT PREDATORS) And this woman brags about having “realistic” monsters because of her research and biology degree, pfft!
But on the odd occasion she gets animal behavior right, it still makes no sense when you consider these are still human beings with human brains living in a human world. For instance, the whole “when a new werelion Rex (king/leader) comes in, he rapes the women and kills their children!” Ok, so, what, and the Pride just lets this happen? And why bother killing the children, they’re not werelions since it’s not one of the heritable strains, they’d just be murdering ordinary human kids. And the cops would get involved in that! Big-time! Even if this new guy had a crew big enough that the Pride couldn’t stop the rape and murder, there’s still the aftermath to consider. I can see some werecreatures not wanting to call the police on bad stuff in their group because it’s still their group and they don’t want the police in on it. But you’re gonna tell me not a single mother or their human family members wants justice for a murdered child? And again, these are murdered HUMAN children, the police WILL care. Come the hell on, there is no way anybody is getting away with this shit, it’s a stupid thing shoved in either for shock value or because LKH didn’t think it through, probably both. There’s a LOT of stuff like that.
5) More research IN GENERAL please. About animals, about law, about how anything at all works period (SEE: “DIAMOND PIPING” IN HER CORSET). Not only does she fail at this, she BRAGS on her blogs and social media about how thoroughly she researches everything and she just obviously DOESN’T. And it’s really, really detrimental to the story. Though when she has researched something she makes these massive tangential info-dumps which are ALSO really distracting and irrelevant and, frankly, have a pretty smug vibe to them. Just fucking know your shit and work it in organically where needed, is that too much to ask?!
That was my first five (of course I could go on ) what are YOURS?
1) Less rape. A lot less rape. What rape there is has to be portrayed as rape and something that only the bad guys do, for god’s sake
2) When a species is introduced, they have to be given consistent attention from that point on. You can’t just be like “oh fairies exist. oh naga exist. oh djinn exist. oh werefoxes exist.” and then never ever come back to them.
3) The werecreatures need to have much more sensible ways of establishing leadership. Someone being a leader because they’re the leaders girlfriend does not work, that doesn’t qualify them in any way. Someone being a leader because they killed and ate the other leader not only is in no way a demonstration of actually having any leadership skills, it’s also a great way to get the cops looking into your crew in a missing person investigation, and that’s not something you want, especially not given how police seem to really dislike supernaturals. And someone just being a “born” leader because magical predestination…on a meta level, I don’t like that trope, I hate someone being the best/the leader/etc Because Destiny Says So and everyone just accepting it. And I don’t think people would just accept it. I think at least one person, every time, would say, ok, but what qualities and qualifications do you ACTUALLY have?
I get that the werecreature societies are brutal, so power and fighting would still be a part of what gains a person status in the pack/pride/etc, you want a guy who can stand up against other groups and/or invasive newcomers trying to take over, but that doesn’t mean that’s all she/he has to be. Just focusing on brute power is NOT a sensible strategy. They should also be politically-minded, able to negotiate and get things done without NEEDING to fight, able to manage things during peace time as well as times of conflict (like allocation resources, helping newbies control their beast, etc.) and be pretty well-liked by their group (because otherwise they’ll get booted), probably elected/chosen by the group members because these are human beings with human brains and will think of all this, not to mention the story is set in America so they’ll probably be most inclined towards a democratic vote since that’s what we’re used to using for choosing our real leaders.
4) The werecreatures should act both more and less like real animals. What I mean is, LKH will write them doing things that are absolutely illogical for animals, but claim it mirrors real-life animal behavior when it doesn’t. For instance, I mentioned that leaders should be able to manage things without resorting to a fight first thing. In the wild, most conflict between animals over food, mating, territories, etc., is all display. Regardless of species, most animals will not actually fight, or at least not seriously, unless they really, REALLY have to. It’s just not worth the risk of injury. There are exceptions, there are some species that will fight to the death, but I am pretty sure the animals she’s writing about (wolves, tigers, etc.) don’t do that. Likewise, writing tigers and leopards are group animals that crave each other’s company, or swans as helpless prey. They’re not. Tigers and leopards are solitary creatures, and swans are terrifying hellbeasts (a lot of prey animals in real life are, actually, because THEY HAVE TO FIGHT PREDATORS) And this woman brags about having “realistic” monsters because of her research and biology degree, pfft!
But on the odd occasion she gets animal behavior right, it still makes no sense when you consider these are still human beings with human brains living in a human world. For instance, the whole “when a new werelion Rex (king/leader) comes in, he rapes the women and kills their children!” Ok, so, what, and the Pride just lets this happen? And why bother killing the children, they’re not werelions since it’s not one of the heritable strains, they’d just be murdering ordinary human kids. And the cops would get involved in that! Big-time! Even if this new guy had a crew big enough that the Pride couldn’t stop the rape and murder, there’s still the aftermath to consider. I can see some werecreatures not wanting to call the police on bad stuff in their group because it’s still their group and they don’t want the police in on it. But you’re gonna tell me not a single mother or their human family members wants justice for a murdered child? And again, these are murdered HUMAN children, the police WILL care. Come the hell on, there is no way anybody is getting away with this shit, it’s a stupid thing shoved in either for shock value or because LKH didn’t think it through, probably both. There’s a LOT of stuff like that.
5) More research IN GENERAL please. About animals, about law, about how anything at all works period (SEE: “DIAMOND PIPING” IN HER CORSET). Not only does she fail at this, she BRAGS on her blogs and social media about how thoroughly she researches everything and she just obviously DOESN’T. And it’s really, really detrimental to the story. Though when she has researched something she makes these massive tangential info-dumps which are ALSO really distracting and irrelevant and, frankly, have a pretty smug vibe to them. Just fucking know your shit and work it in organically where needed, is that too much to ask?!
That was my first five (of course I could go on ) what are YOURS?