The Bad Guys

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I remember one of the things I liked about the Anita Blake books was the bad guys. To me, they were always cool, even the lame ones. Who were your favorites, and why? I only read up to NiC, but here are the ones I liked.


Nikolaos: I had yet to read anything by Anne Rice, so the concept of a child vampire was new to me. I like her, and I remember being struck, for some reason, by how she took breath mints to hide the scent of blood. That little thing, to me, seemed a hint of trying to hang on to humanity even after all her years…or maybe she was just enhancing her cute little girl image. Also, calling rats and being able to fly are totally powers I would want. I saw scans of her amazingly 80s-look from the comics, and fell in love with her HUGE FREAKING BOW.

Valentine: I liked the gold mask, okay? And did anyone else get the impression that he was pedophile? I don’t know why, but pedophile characters always intrigue me, perhaps because they’re so under explored and difficult to make sympathetic. Or because I’m a Nabokov nut.

Dominga Salvador: She was awesome, hands-down. And I loved that freaky zombie-chimera she had.

Melanie: I LOVE Melanie. She was, as another lasher put it, “the original she-bitch with a harem”, and unlike with Anita, there was no attempt to paint her any other way. That’s what made her cool. I am still waiting for her to get her revenge. Why have we not seen more of her?!?! Oh, right she’s a woman.

Raina: I LOVE Raina. Much for the same reasons as Mel. Yes, she was a horrible person, but she was a bad guy, and she clearly acknowledged and loved being horrible, versus Anita. Now her poor ghost gets used as yet another excuse for Anita to have sexing’ she “doesn’t really” want.

Raw Head and Bloody Bones: One of my favorite folklore critters, he rarely shows up in media, so I was pleased to see him!

Seraphina: I’ve yet to see another old lady vampire, so I give her points for originality, and the thing with Anita’s mom was a neat thing too.

Xavier: Again, I find pedophiles to be a neat brand of bad guy. *shrug* Dunno why.

Red Woman's Husband: I loved his taste in accessories! Plus, calling the dragon was mad cool. I liked the glimpses gained into his personality as someone who had been deluded for so long.

Chimera: I just liked the concept of a panwere, and I like to think he’s a warning of what Anita could easily become.

Comments

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

Laurell's villainous women made more of an impression on me that I realized before this post.

I had read Anne Rice. Claudia and Jean-Claude were so obviously inspired-by that I didn't credit Laurell much with a good villain set up there. Now I thought the necromancer killing the vamps was a good twist. I was more impressed with that idea.

Other than Claudia I must say I LOVED Melanie, Raina, Dominga and Obsidian Butterfly (OB was not really a villain but I think she was supposed to be suspect). Seraphina was good too, but I liked the others more.

I don't much remember much about Raw Head & Bloody Bones, Xavier or Valentine to be honest.

Red Woman's Husband was intersting.

Chimera I didn't care for because he was obsessed with Anita and I was sick of that concept by then. Plus that book went to hell and took any coolness he had with it.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really liked OB too! I've got a post brewing regarding the ladies of the Anitaverse BESIDES Anita, and she has a spot in it!

[kd-lalala.livejournal.com]

I liked her too, when that book rolled along I was looking forward to finding out more about her. A vampire who styles herself as a goddess? That even the vampires on the COUNCIL are so freaked out by they don't mess with her? Bring it on, man, this chick is AWESOME!

As the books are now, however, I wish her to say in New Mexico, safe from the clutches of the Mighty Doomcrotch. I wish her awesomeness to stay intact!

[longtail.livejournal.com]

I liked Mr. Oliver. Just the idea of a vampire of a species that pre-dated homo sapiens was seriously COOL. I really wish that more had been done with him, he was supposedly able to cause earthquakes but he never got to show off that power. Plus, he died very quickly and stupidly at the hands of Anita. It just didn't make any sense and pissed me off.

Because of him, I wanna know more about the MOAD. She is supposed to be the "first" vampire, so is she also not homo sapiens? She'd have to be, since Oliver was around 1,000,000 years old, it means he's roughly from the Pleiocene Era and an Australopithecine so she'd have to be at LEAST that.

She's got guards from the Cenozoic Era (era where sabertooth cats, wooly mammoths, and dire wolves lived).

*sigh* Ok, my dinosaur geekiness is showing and I'm rambling, but I liked Mr. Oliver. And knowing LKH, she's going to seriously fuck up her own canon again and make the MOAD a human. >.< .

[othellia.livejournal.com]

And knowing LKH, she's going to seriously fuck up her own canon again and make the MOAD a human.

Well, that could actually work... if the MOAD was a human that became a vampire and lived until very far in the future, and then took a time machine back to even before humans and became, chronologically, the first vampire, thus making vampirism the result of an ontological paradox.

But that's just me, and I'm a fangirl of ontological paradoxes. LKH is just a fan of raping biology and adding men to her fictional harem.

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

OT: Icon love.

Got to agree with the interest in ontological paradoxes. The trouble is LKH isn't that smart.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I had my last default icon for two months, so I figured it needed a change. I really admire the people who are able to keep the same icon for years and make it synonymous with their username. And... that got a little bit rambly for a simple icon love comment. XD

But as for ontological paradoxes, you don't need to be smart. You just need to be plan ahead and be consistent... oh wait. Never mind.

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

You just need to be plan ahead and be consistent... oh wait. Never mind.

Yeah, the trouble is she's fallen way too in love with her universe. She has no objectivity. She has no discipline as a writer.

OT:I loved the Dr. Horrible quote. V. funny. oh, look at my wrist. I gotta go.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Yes, Mr.Oliver intrigued me for the same reason! I really wish more had been done with him as well, or at least that he got to use his power more.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

Count me in on the Oliver love. He definately deserved a better death. In fact I think it was a mistake to kill him. He should still be around.

[pandaemonaeum.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[deadroman.livejournal.com]

I gotta give it to LKH: she's great at depicting psychopathic villains. (I wonder why?) ;)

I liked the early early Jean-Claude. When he was still manipulative and mysterious and taunting. When you didn't know what exactly his motives were. Those early scenes were pretty suspenseful. ^^

[gillywoo.livejournal.com]

I loved - early Jean-Claude, Dominga Salvadore, Obsidian Butterfly, Mr Oliver and Raina.

[pandaemonaeum.livejournal.com]

I think I liked Dominga and Seraphina the best, although I like nearly all the villains you've named :) I liked the faeries (Bouviers?) in Bloody Bones, too.

All the villains now just seem a bit pants compared to the earlier ones :/

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Bouviers. I liked Magnus and Dorcas pretty well myself. The concept of a fairy drinking the blood of a monster was just awesome to me. Go Magnus!

[genchaos.livejournal.com]

I just hope Dorcas stays in Southern Missouri far, far away from the Doomcrotch and spends her life blissfully unaware of the sexual black hole in St. Louis. Woman took enough crap as was.

[tartful-dodger.livejournal.com]

My favourites were Gabriel and Narcissus. I liked how utterly perverse Gabriel was, and how ammoral rather than immoral. He always seemed to me that he's what would happen if you told a sadomasochistic sociopath to treat other people as you'd like to be treated yourself.

Narcissus I loved because of his calm, his style, his combination of business sense and utter decadence, and his ability to use his sexuality as a weapon without ever having to resort to force. I love and embrace the idea of using queerness as a means of keeping small minded people on edge, given how much the straight world is usually the oppressive one, and how much of that is based on uncomfortability. Also I really admired him for being one of the few alphas who seems to be doing as decent enough job.

[entheogeneric.livejournal.com]

oh man. Raina was the shit, as was OB. I dug Red Woman's Husband (and the whole aztec thing going on there, she totally could have expanded that)

I even miss Gabriel. jeez.