Gah!

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

One of the things that drives me insane about LKH is her inability to keep facts straight. Is is really that damn hard? I don't write, so I don't know, but it seems to me that if you had this big universe going, and it was hard to keep track of all your characters, you would have an encyclopedia of the facts to refer to.
From chapter 26 of The Whoreliquin:


Jason: I am your wolf in case your beast decides to rise.

Anita: I thought Sylvie..........

Sylvie: With the ardeur raised in the room, I'm not staying. Nothing personal, Anita, I mean you're cute but I don't do women.

(Big sidebar: IIRC, I could have sworn that Jason said in an earlier book that Sylvie liked girls. And when Padma's son raped her, it was even more evil because Sylvie was suppose to be gay. Am I crazy or am I thinking about someone else?)

Sylvie: With you this weak, Anita and JC out of it, I don't want to take the chance of the ardeur spreading throughout the room. The wolves will do everything they can to get you all through this.

Dammit, Sylvie is gay! This is one of the few facts we do know about Sylvie. Since she's written so little about this character, is it that difficult to remember this one thing? I'm so tired of her YABBI's and her sorry excuses 'oh, sorry, it's so hard to keep track of the details of so many characters - oops!' *smacks her*

From here, chapter26, at the boards.

Comments

[bleedingsand.livejournal.com]

Wait.

She made this big ass deal about Sylvie liking women. We even got her girlfriend, Gwen, and didn't Sylvie hit on Anita, a little, in an earlier book? And now she's suddenly not a lesbian?

[stefflebug.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

YAABI ho!

Ok, now I'm over my Thundercats moment, I think I can try and find some words for this.

Words like stupid, hairbrained, moronic, incompetant post-it user!

Make some damn character profiles woman. Then you won't mess them up and you might actually keep some fans who aren't troos (who probably couldn't care less if she messes up). Also it means that you might not have such badly written and badly spelled books, since you might be able to keep things like people's name spellings and plots straight.

I know she is just a minor (and female) character who isn't connected to the crotch-o-doom, but for all that is holy please get her character right.

/rant.

The worse thing is it doesn't even surprise me anymore. I've come to expect this sort of thing from her, hell I'd be surprised if she didn't screw something like this up.

And Slyvie was one of my fave characters too. One I was hoping was going to be safely hidden somewhere away from the clusterduck these books have become.

Finally, anyone notice that she's starting to bring 'old' characters back into the books. Maybe she's been listening to someone's complaints.

[shadowbloodwing.livejournal.com]

Try pulling a JKR and skimming your work for facts lady. Or better yet, check the internet, because we tend to know what we're talking about. Unlike you, who never knows what you're talking about.


Ahk.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I wish she'd check a lovely little thing known as the Anita Blake Compendium: In it we are reminded that yes, indeed, Sylvie is a lesbian. (http://halo-productions.com/anita/info/s/sylvie.htm)

If volunteers can pull this info together because they *want* to, the woman should be able to get her characters straight because she's being paid.

[iamtheeviltwin.livejournal.com]

Actually...I think I can explain this fairly easily.

Would you want to sleep with Anita?

Sylvie's just nice enough not to say it to her face, and assumes she's so crazy from supernatural sexbombs going off in her skull every six hours that she'll just take it at face value.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

(What's a YABBI? *sheepish*)

[darksongtrilogy.livejournal.com]

Yet Another Anita Blake Inconsistancy. ;D

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

Ummm... wait. Wasn't it because Sylvie is a lesbian the reason she isn't Richard's lupa?? How can she mess up something like that?

I'd like to listen to her explain this one away like she did Asher's smoking on her podcast.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

Um. I thought this was going to be one of those little mistakes like "character drops his hat fleeing Chapter Three yet at the beginning of Chapter Four pulls his hat down over his eyes". Forgetting a character's sexual preference, especially in a series as fixated on sexuality as the AB books--a series where sexual contact is, in fact, a plot point--is a major oversight.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

Wow, Anita found teh cure for teh gay! If you don't wanna be gay, go hunt out the Crotch of Doom! You'll never go back!

Hell, the idea of doing Anita makes me wanna be celebate too. Neeerrgh. *facepalms* Keep a database of facts, woman!

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

It's aversion therapy! Better than electroshock...

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

But Sylvie makes Anita uncomfortable because she's a lesbian, and lesbians are EVIL.

....WHAT. o.O

[hellfire82.livejournal.com]

Maybe the ardeur (you know, it took me several tries to spell that, and I'm still not sure it's right), that has oh so magically given Anita what she wants in every other instance, has made Sylvie not-gay because it was so bothersome to Anita's world view.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

I think the reason is obvious. LKH dosen't want her precious baby Sue having sex with another woman.

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

Except for the fact that in chapter 23 (http://forum.laurellkhamilton.org/showpost.php?p=831004&postcount=1208") this happens:
Her hand was firm on my face, keeping me turned toward her. She leaned in for a kiss. I spoke before our mouths touched. "A win, win situation for you." (BM) "Oh yes!" she whispered against my lips, then kissed me. But not just kissed me, but opened the ardeur between us. Belle Morte bit me on one breast and placed her bloody mouth to mine. (sidebar: Lots more unmentionables between Anita, Belle Morte and the insatiable ardeur).
So she has some kind of supernatural, Belle's-not-there-yet-she-is sexual encounter with Belle, so she is with another woman.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

By having Sylvie give the "I don't do women" speech, see, LKH doesn't have to have Anita make it. So the homophobia accusation doesn't get leveled at Anita Sue. If she wrote Sylvie as gay, Sylvie might not leave--and then ANITA would have to display her discomfort with the possibility.

We can't have THAT. Anita is perfect and a politically correct Anita would never say (or even feel) uncomfortable about lesbianism. QED, Sylvie has to be the one who raises an objection. You can't expect a little thing like consistency to stop LKH.

[amamelina.livejournal.com]

Sylvie was gay! In BO, after her rape, it's her girlfriend Gwen who helps her get better, along with the bones of her rapists.

[dinsedaledarby.livejournal.com]

jeez, maybe this should be a sign for her to get her damn act together. If she can't remember these details about her characters, shouldn't she throw a few out or make an encyclopedia or something?

Also, wtf with edward being so nice at the end of the chapter? *once again laments the ruin of edward*

[saucyirishlass.livejournal.com]

I don't have the courage to go on the actual board, so could someone clarify for me - is this still the ARC version of events? I know it's too much to hope for, but occasionally, things change between the ARC and the final release. Maybe it got pointed out and changed.....? *hopes until eyes bleed*

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

It's not from an ARC, someone found the audio/CD version of it for sale early and is transcribing each chapter.

[dan-lian.livejournal.com]

OK... at this point, I'm ready to write LKH a letter and say "LOok. Here are all the sections in your books (photocopies with publishing date enclosed) that say Sylvie does, in fact, like women. Please, before publication, evaluate the need for that statement; otherwise, remove it or please elucidate to your readers why you've done it."

If she does something as big as this, I realy think a flood of letters might at least point SOMETHING out to her.

Then again, I'm very optimistic.

[dan-lian.livejournal.com]

I'm writing her one. I'll find an address somehow, and mail her. I just can't sit idly by on this one.

[gray-ghost.livejournal.com]

Oh man....I bet she 'forgot' about it because it would mean she might have to write a sex scene between two females....and so she had a squeeish moment.

[ladymina.livejournal.com]

Silvie is gay and with Gwen - duh
I mean there was all this about the scenes with the actions of Padma's son being worse because of it, and Pam also raping her and stuff -

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

I actually write and am beginning to get published. I also hold a full time job that is a minimum of 50 hours a week. This week it's a 90 hour week. I'm also on deadline for an anthology.

So trust me, it's easy to screw up secondary characters.

BUT I have a friend who reads everything I write. He points out the continuity errors and I make the changes. I also pay a copywriter to proof my novels before I send them out. He does a fantastic job and charges between $150 and $250 per book depending on length.

It's called professionalism. LKH should check it out.

[randomsome1.livejournal.com]

I have character sheets. When I finally buckle down on the serious novel, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have character posterboards.

[jeannette.livejournal.com]

I believe I speak for all the lesbians when I say we'll take as much distance from the books as I can get.

Or I speak for noone. But still.

[stefflebug.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

...

and yet...I'm not terribly surprised.

Sigh.

[roguetailkinker.livejournal.com]

WHAT?!?

Sylvie, with the girlfriend named Gwen? WTF?!?

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

I've wondered myself if someone wasn't extensively cowriting the series and that someone is no longer doing so. Perhaps the cowriter did the majority of the plotting? It wouldn't be the first time a successful fantasy series had an uncredited cowriter: see Eddings.

[ayako.livejournal.com]

Wow that is one big whoops on LKH's part. O_O

Or maybe LKH's inner homophobe is showing. In the same way she forgot Asher smokes because she does not like smoking she"forgot" Sylvie is a lesbian....

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

If they are such terrific fans of the series, shouldn't they know that Slvie is gay?