lkh_lashouts | Oh How The Mighty Have Fallen... (Reply)

One of the things I enjoyed about the early Anita Blake books was how LKH handled the consequences of the supernatural being out and about in the real world. At one point LKH did paint a pretty realistic picture of what would happen if werewolves and vampires turned out to be real in our world. The panic, the laws and court cases, the way people tried to deal with and contain the threat of these monsters. I really enjoyed it, ah those good ole' days when I actually looked forward to an Anita Blake book.

But not anymore...

There is one instance that comes to mind when thinking about how LKH showed us what would happen if supernatural creatures came out of the closet. Remember Cherry? Wereleopard, cute and blond, unfortunately not-fuckable by Anita's standards so eventually she disappeared. She was a nurse for a time, but when it was revealed that she was a were-leopard she lost her job. Lycanthropy was, and appears to still be, treated as a blood disease. Which it is, it's transmitted by blood and LKH even has cited a few instances when blood transfusions of tainted blood has turned people furry. Cherry couldn't keep her job as a nurse with an infectious blood disease. Even Richard worries about losing his job as a teacher, which would be a distinct possibility if he is outed.

So why does Anita still have her job?

I'm almost positive LKH was aware that if she actually had Anita go furry all the way, she would have to deal with the consequences. But LKH found a loophole and with a glee-filled cackle she proceeded to make the leopard Anita's 'animal to call' in NiC. But a leopard wasn't enough and soon Anita wound up as a "metaphysical miracle" with four types of lycanthropy that she carries in her blood. Let me repeat this, Anita carries four different strains of lycanthropy in her blood, yet isn't technically a lycanthrope since she hasn't shapeshifted.

And this doesn't work with the rules LKH established earlier in the series. Cherry lost her job for having an infectious blood disease. One that Anita shares. The only difference here is that Cherry is actually infected (furry), while Anita is simply a carrier. Anita is the supernatural equivalent of Typhoid Mary. She carries four different strains of lycanthropy without actually being infected, so that one can't tell that she is infected unless told. And Anita wouldn't be keeping her job if this was known, both as zombie-raiser and Executioner. I'm surprised that the doctors Anita has seen haven't raised a fuss about this, because in the real world and early Anita Blake books there would have been trouble for Anita. There have been attempts made in the early Anita Blake books to minimize the spread of lycanthorpy, yet now in the later books no one seems to care that a prominent figure in the vampire-hunter community, one who routinely works with the police and ends up in hospitals with bleeding wounds, is now wandering around merrily as a carrier of this infectious disease without actually being infected.

I know the answer already: SUE. A supernatural Typhoid Mary Sue.

Anywho, just had to get that off my chest. Here's a fun fact after the rant. I notice that a lot of those Troos claim to like the Merry series because it's a veritable fountain of accurate knowledge when it comes to old Celtic myths, Irish stuff and whatnot. Some of the stuff in the Merry books is interesting, when they aren't sexing it up, but I wouldn't call the series an authority on Celtic lore. I noticed that LKH continuously refers to all old languages of the British Isles as 'some sort of Gaelic', it didn't bother me so much until I started to learn Irish. I also learned that the one time she attempted to put an Irish word in her book, she failed. In KoS one of the hags calls Merry a 'corr' which according to LKH means 'slut.' In old Irish 'corr' means 'heron' or 'crane.' In modern Irish dictionaries corr is also given the meanings of 'eccentric' or 'odd.' I'm not sure where she got slut with this one. I know this might be something of a nitpick, but seriously a minute or two on google could have cleared it up for her.