Solution to Weak Females in Series (My First Post)

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    Hi, I'm new here.  I guess I should mention that there are potentially some spoilers for Bullet sprinkled throughout what I wrote.  That being said, I would argue something the quality of Bullet is really incapable of having 'spoilers' beyond the fact that it was written at all.

      I just migrated to this page from the Bullet threads on the Amazon website.  It's good to see there are plenty of people of thinking critically of what's going on in this series. I'm currently re-reading Circus of the Damned since its the only one I actually own, and after taking in the rest of the series through Bullet, the differences are staggering.  Do I see some seeds for whats to come?  A little.  But all in all, its like reading two entirely different characters.  Anyways, I don't necessarily want to talk about that.  One thing that occured to me the other day is the relatively minor role women play in these books.

        Aside from Anita, there are maybe two capable women in the entire Anitaverse.  Claudia, and then maybe Ronnie (who seems to have disappeared with her wererat boyfriend?). Three, actually, I just remembered Sylvie.  I don't know if that's really any better though because since shes a strong woman, clearly LKH had no choice but to go ahead and make her a somewhat mannish lesbian.   All other females we meet are incredibly weak and cowed.  Wereleopards (which less face it, kind of suck anyway) females are basically just laying around all the time crying for help.  Werelion females are apparently kept locked up somewhere.  In bullet, we meet a young tiger princess (?) who can't even control her own technicolor dreamcats in front of Anita, and Anita forcibly brings her beast (with no median form? Such weakness!) The (theoretically) powerful Tiger Queen Bibbiana can't keep her cats in tow in front of the world's sexiest lady either.

     The vampires? Don't even get me started on the vampires.  Every single vampire female that is brought into the series is either insane, jealous of Anita, or insanely jealous of Anita.   
 
     Bullet only further reinforces this as the ancient black tiger that Anita meets is even smaller than her and cuddles up against her after their impromptu grind session on the floor (and the aforementioned bringing of the beast of the impotent red queen).   If you weren't aware of LKH's gender you could almost accuse the writer of misogyny.  The primary protangonist is the only capable female character brought into the narrative, and even she is (somewhat) made to have sex with EVERY STRONG MALE CHARACTER.  Now granted, without exception she is the best they've ever had as she has bucking, screaming orgasms one after another, but still.  How does no one involved in LKH's writing process think it is unhealthy for her to fantasize about herself to this extent in this type of arena? At this point its not even speculative, it is just truth that LKH sees herself as the girl all the "big boys kiss" and other women pale in comparison.

    I do however, come equipped with constructive criticism.  The werehyenas.  The werehyenas (whom if I'm correct, we have yet to even see in beast form) are a severely underdeveloped animal group in the story for a demographic that is supposedly the third most powerful in the city.  They are also dominated typically by an alpha female.  How great a story would it be if a powerful werehyena alpha female came in and challenged not only Narcissus but was able to resist Asher's call? We'd get to see what I think would be a really interesting animal group more deeply explored, have a real, tangible (on-screen) conflict, and fighting/killing.  Maybe even have some of the old police work too.  Maybe some corny jokes.  Some story development? What do I know though. 


Final note: Does no one else wish there were green tigers? BattleCat anyone?

Comments

[lilian413.livejournal.com]

Does no one else wish there were green tigers? BattleCat anyone?

You win the internet with this comment :DDDD

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

And since hyenas are matriarchal, and LKH prides herself on her OMGBIOLOGY!!! knowledge, it would make a lot of sense to have some strong female werehyenas around. Which is probably why it will never happen. Sigh.

[cryptaknight.livejournal.com]

Women can be misogynists, and I think LKH is. She, and Anita, are so intent on being one of those guys, and they use the fact that they are not like those women to do it. She clearly marks a line on which she and Anita are on one side, and those other icky/weak/jealous/bitchy women are on the other.

[atriums.livejournal.com]

I think one of the only decent wildlife facts I know are that hyenas are a female-dominated species, and it irks me to no ends whenever I see this mentioned in her books. Werehyenas don't appear to have any female member that I can recall off the top of my head.

She calls Narcissus a hermaphrodite, and in one book, they even mention he was pregnant in passing. Unless it was in the book I skipped, I don't think they ever touched base with that and it died. I could have been okay with that if he didn't primarily identify himself as masculine. =\

It makes me wonder if she considers gay men as those weak womenz, too.

So far I think it's along the lines of: Blake/LKH, other women/gay men, then sexy men who share Blake's many beds.

I think she just might be misogynistic after all. ;o

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Also, and I just thought of this. If a female alpha were to take over, it would be the ONLY significant animal group where Anita was NOT the were-leader or whatever. So in actuality, if this did happen it would probably be immediately squashed when, after 600 pages of description Anita summarily inhaled the hyena female into her vagina off-panel and the book ended. There would, of course, be an epilogue letting us know exactly how long Nathaniel's hair was.

[roguetailkinker.livejournal.com]

I agree with you in some things, but I should point out that Elinore is a female vampire and is neither insane nor jealous of Anita. Even Anita had to (grudgingly) admit that Elinore is intelligent, canny, and can be ruthless when she wants to be. It's true that Elinore probably vanished (I haven't read Bullet yet so I don't know if she's in it), but while she was around she was a good character.

It's a shame, though; keeping Elinore around could make things interesting. Her presence forces Anita to view another woman as something other than a rival or a flunky.