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*)

[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.

[darksongtrilogy.livejournal.com]

Yet Another Anita Blake Inconsistancy. ;D

[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!

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

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

....WHAT. o.O

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Ah! Good to know. (Yeah, that is a pretty egregious one. Blecch.)

I am being totally unsarcastic when I say, shouldn't someone who loves her characters so much that she sees them in the night and wants to buy them Christmas gifts -- or whatever -- shouldn't someone who takes them that seriously remember sort of basic things like THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? I can overlook Anne Rice forgetting from book to book if Armand's hair was straight or curly, but that one seems pretty big.

Unless maybe she's trying to transcend labels and demonstrate how orientation is simply one attribute of many and not a person's whole self? Yeah, that was a sad attempt to justify... eh, I got nothing.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

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

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

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

[stefflebug.livejournal.com]

She loves her male characters that much, but how long has it been since a female character (other than Belle or MOAD) got mentioned for more than a few pages. Hell, when has she ever mentioned a female character on her blog?

It kinda makes it's own point doesn't it.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

She loves her male characters that much

To (sheepishly) steal a line from "Upstairs Downstairs" --

--that woman has many demons.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. Now I'm going to imagine Jason and the other menz running away from the giant boulder that chases them out of her vagina. DO NOT WANT!

[brightlyiburn.livejournal.com]

Sadly, at this point she could fit several men and a giant boulder in there.

[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.

[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.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

If any of the boys find a snake, spider, bug, and/or rat pit in there...then they need to first escape, and then have a chat with her about personal hygiene as baby wipes really aren't cutting it.

Great, I squicked myself. *brainbleaches*

[brightlyiburn.livejournal.com]

This whole thing is reminding me of an essay I read about the sexual symbolism in Tolkien...