You...probably chose a really great time to throw away the books, because it kinda gets creepier from NiC on out. Specially in ID, where Nathaniel is way more aggressive and fed up with Anita treating him with kid-gloves and has decided that he wants her as his girlfriend proper instead of just food for her ardeur.
While I can say, "yay!" for a character putting their foot down for not wanting to be munched upon so wantonly and then set aside without a second thought, I have to take away the minor happy points for the creepy, "I want Anita as my girlfriend!" thing. I never agreed with LKH's portrayal of relationships in the first place -- specially the whole, "I have a boyfriend! I'm a real girl now!" and all the wangst that went with it, I nearly hit the roof when she introduced the concept of "American sex" vs "European sex" -- to then have Nathaniel turn around and demand that Anita finally have proper intercourse with him just...grated so damned hard against everything that he'd initially set up to be.
And then to have Anita agree to it just...no freaking words
I probably would have been more interested if LKH had taken the route that you suggested, with helping Nathaniel figure himself out and grow as an actual person – it would have shown way more respect to both the character and the readers, but...well, we all know how much she respects her readership.
And never mind the rest of the pard that she has responsibility for, man. They're totally ignored, despite many of them being in the same boat as Nathaniel.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 03:59 pm (UTC)While I can say, "yay!" for a character putting their foot down for not wanting to be munched upon so wantonly and then set aside without a second thought, I have to take away the minor happy points for the creepy, "I want Anita as my girlfriend!" thing. I never agreed with LKH's portrayal of relationships in the first place -- specially the whole, "I have a boyfriend! I'm a real girl now!" and all the wangst that went with it, I nearly hit the roof when she introduced the concept of "American sex" vs "European sex" -- to then have Nathaniel turn around and demand that Anita finally have proper intercourse with him just...grated so damned hard against everything that he'd initially set up to be.
And then to have Anita agree to it just...no freaking words
I probably would have been more interested if LKH had taken the route that you suggested, with helping Nathaniel figure himself out and grow as an actual person – it would have shown way more respect to both the character and the readers, but...well, we all know how much she respects her readership.
And never mind the rest of the pard that she has responsibility for, man. They're totally ignored, despite many of them being in the same boat as Nathaniel.