Has Anita really changed?

[kerame.livejournal.com]

A lot of posters believe that Anita has undergone a radical change in personality, but I don't really see it.


Feelings of Superiority: Anita used to feel superior to the monsters because of her humanity, now she feels superior to the humans because of her power and monstrousness

Strength:  I never saw her as strong or independent. I saw her as a bully in isolation. Solitary bullies can only do so much damage. As soon as she had power over any man she abused it and the ardeur gives her the excuse to enslave many more men and  one were-group after another.

Sex:  Anita's celibacy wasn't about religion or waiting for true love, it was about control. She used to control her relationships by having sex with no one, then she controlled them by being faithful to no one.

Protection: There was a change here, but it happened way before NIC. Starting with TKD Anita protected people not so they could be free to live their own lives, but because they were "hers". The price for her protection is obedience.


What has changed is the direction of Laurell's focus. She used to direct her attention outward with action and plot. Now all we hear are the musings inside Anita's stupid little head, but I don't think the content of her personality has really changed. 

Absolute power in both Anita's and Laurell's  personal life merely allowed the narcissistic monster within her to grow until it took over both their worlds.

Comments

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Amen.

Remember how she used to say that without being able to shift, she wouldn't win in a fist fight? Now, the only people she seems to not be able to fight that way are the vamps.

Along those lines, there were at least two scenes in DM where she "almost" shifted. It seems that LKH is almost at the point where Anita is going to become a were. Problem is, she's got so many humps and packs and pards and crap that LKH can't decide which one to get rid of, because once Anita shifts, she loses the others, in a roundabout way. So, if she shifts wolf, she can't be Nimir-ra or Regina. Actually, I'd love for her to shift to wolf. It would serve her ass right.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

I had a theory that Laurell was doing a play on the "non-shifter" like she was adding the hermaphroditism of Narcisses. The "non-shifter" is an established real-world legend. There are many stories about people who thought they were "werewolves" and claimed to possess their powers and acted like wild animals, but couldn't actually shift.

The more I read though, the more unlike it is. Non-shifters were insane. Anita's just getting Super Sue abilities without the messy pain of shifting or forcing her to mix with her "kind." Laurell once said that when she started the series she opened herself up to "playing with all the toys" available to her as writing tools. So now we have federal marshal, gun fighter, vampire, necromancer, were-extrodinare Anita Blake.

I'd love it if all that disease she's got swimming around inside of her just killed her, honestly.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

This just reminds me of an episode of Batman Beyond where they defeated the villain by using his own experiments to splice his genes into some kind of fifty-animal-headed-and-limbed chimaera.

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

She's already introduced the theory of the pan-were. If Anita becomes anything, it'll be that. Thing is, she doesn't have all the rare/special predator weres in her yet, so it won't happen for a little while.

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

I think it's not so much that her personality has changed, so much as that her situation has changed to bring out the worst of her personality. For example, Anita used to be "practical" about what she could do and how she could do it, so she didn't do a lot of things that annoy us now, but now that she is super!Mary Sue she can do anything she wants.

I've been wanting to do an experiment for a while where I give someone who knows nothing about ABVH the first three books and DM and have them tell me the differences (besides, obviously, the characters they don't know, etc).

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

I am inclined to agree with you. The tone of the books have changed, but Anita hasn't, at least not much.

I never saw her as strong either. She always seemed to me to be completely ruled by her emotions - incapable of making a choice and sticking to it.

The secondary characters have changed a bit, though. They were always firmly divided into good people (very few), people who are morally inferior but whom Anita tries to care for anyway because she is so good and kind and wonderful (lots and lots) and irredeemable monsters (as many as the plot demands). But the second group used to have at least some dignity. These days, they go on violent rampages or sink into sobbing heaps at the drop of a hat.

[missamii.livejournal.com]

It's true, the seeds of New Coke Anita were definitely in Old Coke Anita. I think the big change is that Old Coke Anita actually had some self-awareness and ability to put things in perspective. As you said, the narcissistic monster within has a run amuck. No one has a life outside of Anita and any problem Anita experiences literally becomes everyone's problem. Where as the old Anita could at least look at herself and realize she wasn't perfect and often not very admirable, whenever New Coke Anita says something like "I am a whore," she's not engaging in self examination. She's waiting for someone to tell her she's not be it one of the characters or the audience.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Sex: Anita's celibacy wasn't about religion or waiting for true love, it was about control. She used to control her relationships by having sex with no one, then she controlled them by being faithful to no one.

That's why the ardeur is so ridiculous -- no woman who wants control over people and her relationships is going to just lie back, stick her legs up and think, "Oh well, I don't mind being forced to have sex with all these people by the ardeur. Time for another shag!"

[plum-arden.livejournal.com]

Independent? Anita? HA! She's about as independent as my 2-yr old daughter. The more I think about it, the more I see Anita as a 2-yr old with the "my do it!" attitude. Heaven forbid someone try to help her do anything, she has a tantrum about how she can do it all by herself. Only with my daughter, after she has tantrum, she usually comes over to me, asks for help, then thanks me.

To me, an independent woman/person is someone who *can* do things for themselves, but they know when to ask for help. To me, my mother is an independent woman. She doesn't need a man around for anything, but she knows when there's something she can't do, and seeks out help. That's how she raised me. But darn it, if I can't open a jar, I don't reach for a gun, I hand it to my husband and go on with life. Sheesh.

[sevariusjr.livejournal.com]

OP, you are interrogating this text from the RIGHT perspective.

It's becoming more brutally apparent that Laurell was always this self-absorbed harridan of a writer. It's just that all could be forgiven because the books were fun, fairly well-written, and not full of erotica so bad a 13 year old horny teenager could do better.

[easol.livejournal.com]

And the other characters used to be much more three-dimensional. Right now they come in three flavours:

1) People Anita likes. These are usually all having sex with her.
2) Villains, who may also be having sex with her when they aren't plotting to take over the world or whatever.
3) People Anita is angry at for not totally worshiping her or having sex with her. Some of these have sex with her, some are killed, and some are just ridiculed.

OP, said well. Given the past quality versus the present quality (sort of like comparing a loaf of ordinary bread to a moldy rotted dinner roll), I still wonder how much Gary contributed.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Small addition, I guess it makes sense when you consider when Anita's ego really became monstrous -- the same time LKH ditched the discerning man for someone who would always say yes to whatever she said. Basically, life imitated art.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

The decline and fall of the series can be summed up with these two dedications.

To Gary, who always tells me the truth whether I want to hear it or not (TKD)

To J, Who says yes more than no; who never makes me feel like a freak (CS)

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

To #3 I'd add, "or people who don't speak monosyllabically", because Anita seems these days to instantly hate anyone who says something she doesn't understand. And then they explain it again and she still doesn't understand, and somehow her lack of comprehension is *right*, because people who *do* comprehend it are morally / ethically / factually wrong, through sheer not-agreeing-with-her-ness.

Gods it's difficult to explain her "personality".

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

I really hate how everything has to be broken down into the most simplistic terms because Anita can't seem to understand it otherwise.

It just makes my brain hurt.

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

I think it's not so much that Anita's basic issues changed its how her attitude towards them changed that really bothered me. She continued to act as she had from the beginning but now she's basically turned a 180 on what she sees as her principles/ethics/morals. The superiority was the biggest example of this because there was never a realistic point when she embraced her montrousness - instead she continues to angst over it even while telling herself and everyone else that it makes her superior to the 'normals' but there is no reason for her to start doing this. I guess it could be argued that Raina and mumin were the start of her slide into feeling superior to humans but that doesn't work for me because she has never embraced it - always fighting it to get it to stop or until it's desperate that she use it.

In short it's not her personal issues that have changed without reason so much as her world view of the humans vs. monsters - she jumped sides without any credible reason.

[lannamichaels]

It's funny, because I also picked the munin moment as the exact point the series jumped the shark, and am o.O when people say it was later. The munin was where Anita started doing thing, imho, that Laurell wanted her to do but couldn't get her to do because the character wouldn't let. So LKH let the munin "rape" her, take over and let LKH do what she wanted, without Anita being able to say no.

When the author doesn't have respect for her character, the whole thing suffers.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

The jump the shark moment (in terms of Anita's character) for me, was the moment Anita jumped JC.

In the early books I thought of Anita as a hard-boiled type, but they at least have the quality of loyalty. She betrayed a man who had treated her with honesty and respect for someone who had blackmailed and manipulated her through their entire relationship because she got grossed out. Give me a break. She's the EXECUTIONER. She's seen and done worse.

Worse than that was the fact that Anita never paid any consequences for her betrayal. She didn't lose Richard's love or even the title of lupa. This was the beginning of Mary-Sueism for me.

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

I never understood why Richard kept her around as Lupa. I also don't understand why she is Bolverk.

What was the reasoning for that? And the reasoning for having that term anyway? It was said in another book (Blue Moon I want to say) that Jamil and Shang-Da were Richards second and third (there were names for them, but I don't recall them at the moment...Skoll and Hati? Something like that...) and now all of a sudden there is a new second position and it's Bolverk and it's Anita....for whatever reason.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

Because werewolves aren't comfortable with violence and dealing out harsh justice. *nods vigorously*

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

I just give up.



By the way, that icon is just FABULOUS, hahahahahaha!

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

I do love it.

[sevariusjr.livejournal.com]

The jump the shark moment (in terms of Anita's character) for me, was the moment Anita jumped JC.

I don't quite know if I would put the moment there, but it did start the long trend to what we have now.

It's all part of just how much Laurell sold out her own character. At the beginning of the series, Anita is supposed to be this feared monster-slayer, who will kill evil beasties for the pain and destruction they cause humans. Fast forward a few books into the series, and it's Anita who's spending all of her time defending the monsters (most of whom really ARE vicious and fairly socio[if not psycho]pathic) from the humans.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

In one of the earliest books, Anita said she hunted monsters because she enjoyed killing what she feared. So it's always been about Anita's personal desires.

Instead of the fight or flight response, Anita has the kill or fuck response.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

The phony "angst" is Laurell's lame attempt to imitate a conscience. Anita has never really felt guilt or regret for anything she's done.

As for switching sides, that was decided by the omnipotent, omniscient WonderCrotch.

It decided vampires weren't evil, when it had sex with one
It decided werewolves weren't disgusting, when it had sex with one
It decided no didn't mean no, when it wanted to have sex with Micah
It decided Nate wasn't the helpless virtual child Anita's brain said he was, when it wanted s&m with him

[lannamichaels]

The big difference is, for me, her complete 180 on sex. It's one thing to have control issues, it's another thing to go from No Sex Ever Because I Said So to All Sex All The Time Because I Can't Control It.

[leggomylegolas.livejournal.com]

Laurl has the same attitude towards sex that an 11 year old who has been raised by very Christian parents would. It's "omg, naughty!" and, she enjoys it BECAUSE she thinks it's so naughty. I think the entire thing with Anita being against sex was just a big set up to her being forced to give that up. It was foreplay.

It's ironic that the filthiest parts of the books are also the most childish (not that the rest of it isn't childish and strongly reminiscent of shit I wrote when I was 12, except I could spell better).

[kerame.livejournal.com]

If the early sex scenes were descriptions of sex with Gary and the latter ones of sex with Jon, she seems to be over-compensating in every way. Or

Maybe she's simply outsourced the writing of the sex scenes to Jon.
Maybe that's why Anita,

Never needs foreplay
Is obsessed with deep-throating
Orgasms every time
Ejaculates like a man

[leggomylegolas.livejournal.com]

Oh, no question in my mind - Anita has those qualities because that means she's better than all those other women who don't like having their cervix bumped into and can't handle elephantine were-peni. She's so speshul! And speshul in a way that makes her EXTRA attractive to men, because we all know that man approval is the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, because Laurel has Daddy Issues.

Anita is always mentioning how she's not like other women, and it's always in ways that could be seen as positive from a steriotypical male POV, and then she says they're bad qualities. Because she's not an uppity bitch, either! Not like all the other women on the planet!

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

LKH/Anita can't tell the difference between a woman being independant and a man being emasculated. Anita is the worst kind of unreliable narrator. The kind who's so mind-blowing wrong in their approach to events there's no possibility of suspending your disbelief.

[gweneth-syeira.livejournal.com]

*stares at icon*

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

I know!

[swgmigraines.livejournal.com]

When they come for me, I'll tell them that your icon made me do it.

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

*does the finger pyramid of evil* Good... Good...

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with some comments here too. It's not so much Anita's personality changing as her conception of herself that annoys me. It's inconsistent with everything she believes about herself in the first books.