Were groups in general
Aug. 2nd, 2010 01:53 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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lkh_lashoutsI know I'm still new here, so let me know if I'm putting up too much stuff at once, but there was another point I wanted to make after my initial post last week. After a couple of years of stewing about this author it's cathartic to finally have a place to post these things. My bone to pick du jour is about the animal groups residing in the Lou. While you could probably go on ad infinitum about how there are now far too many, my main concern is how they advance the plot (if at all).
The wererats, though underutilized now, fill a great niche in intelligence gathering and mercenary work. The wolves work because how are you going to have vampires and not werewolves? After this, the relevance of the groups begins to dissolve. It seems more and more (see a recent blog entry where she discusses cougars, I don't remember which) that LKH gets a passing interest in an animal and in the next installment Anita is boffing that particular beast and we're stuck with it forever mucking up the Anitaverse continuity. To some extent the problem is just the same as it is in the rest of her writing in that she allows everything to become bloated and never thins the herd as it were, but that doesn't make it any more irritating. I mentioned the werehyenas in my last post. Where are they? They show up, posture, disappear again. Their alpha NEVER shows up. How many other groups are like that? This particularly gets under my skin because I considered the hyenas to be a really interesting idea until nothing came of them.
The most persistent and blatant offenders however, are the wereleopards. How can of the world's deadliest big cats become so flaccid and stupid in one woman's hands? Without exception (besides Merle and some new guy) they are sniveling children who can't move until Anita tells them to. They do nothing to advance the plot (Nathaniel and Micah, in my opinion, are literally the worst characters created in modern fiction), and accomplish nothing in the narrative other than making you feel like you could probably beat up a wereleopard. I know Gabriel was a pretty horrendous guy, but he was scary as hell, too. I think LKH needs to drastically reduce the amount of shifters in her stories, or at least the ones that come onto centerstage, and focus on building those characters into something respectable. Pathos is a wonderful thing, but at the end of the day these ARE supposed to be monsters, aren't they?
Anyways, i was basically wondering what everyone else here thought about the various lycanthropy groups (leopards in particular) , which ones could YOU do without? What do you want to see more of?
The wererats, though underutilized now, fill a great niche in intelligence gathering and mercenary work. The wolves work because how are you going to have vampires and not werewolves? After this, the relevance of the groups begins to dissolve. It seems more and more (see a recent blog entry where she discusses cougars, I don't remember which) that LKH gets a passing interest in an animal and in the next installment Anita is boffing that particular beast and we're stuck with it forever mucking up the Anitaverse continuity. To some extent the problem is just the same as it is in the rest of her writing in that she allows everything to become bloated and never thins the herd as it were, but that doesn't make it any more irritating. I mentioned the werehyenas in my last post. Where are they? They show up, posture, disappear again. Their alpha NEVER shows up. How many other groups are like that? This particularly gets under my skin because I considered the hyenas to be a really interesting idea until nothing came of them.
The most persistent and blatant offenders however, are the wereleopards. How can of the world's deadliest big cats become so flaccid and stupid in one woman's hands? Without exception (besides Merle and some new guy) they are sniveling children who can't move until Anita tells them to. They do nothing to advance the plot (Nathaniel and Micah, in my opinion, are literally the worst characters created in modern fiction), and accomplish nothing in the narrative other than making you feel like you could probably beat up a wereleopard. I know Gabriel was a pretty horrendous guy, but he was scary as hell, too. I think LKH needs to drastically reduce the amount of shifters in her stories, or at least the ones that come onto centerstage, and focus on building those characters into something respectable. Pathos is a wonderful thing, but at the end of the day these ARE supposed to be monsters, aren't they?
Anyways, i was basically wondering what everyone else here thought about the various lycanthropy groups (leopards in particular) , which ones could YOU do without? What do you want to see more of?
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 12:32 am (UTC)Having a Hyena boss hermaphrodite who presented as male was a total cop-out - a way to avoid a strong FEMALE character to deflect attention from Anita. I swear, if her ego gets any larger, it will develop its own gravity well and invert the galaxy!
Leopards are solitary, like tigers, so the pard should have all gone their seperate ways when Gabriel died.
Everything you all have said upthread is so very much on target. The rigid group structures, the way so much goes against nature and instinct - her weres are just humans with a furry little problem, and woobies only Anita's cootch can fix.
I have a half written fic where Jean Claud is meeting a group of unknown shifters who want a vampire to create a Triumverate with, and they find that Asher is a good match. Anita goes ballistic, as her opposite number is a female Shaman and fully trained Medicine Woman, partnered to the Alpha shifter, and can whoop her angsty ass with one hand tied behind her back.
I have her dissing the Doom Crotch about her lack of basic magical, vampiric and were knowledge, about her ethics of "raping for the greater good", her refusal to face, mend and/or dismantle her own fucked triumverate, her refusal to deal with the Ardeur and blood magic issue etc etc.
The more I plotted it out, the more I realized just how much I loathed Anita and her menz, her behaviour, her missing morals and ethics. As a practicing Celtic Shaman myself, LKH's blithering incompetence and ignorance as the creator of this drivel made my head hurt.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 04:00 am (UTC)Cept the MotC is a female and rules her city closer to how Lex Luthor or a Mafia Don does it. Her Human Servant is a few centries old gunslinger, and her Wolfpack to Call is more like an elite Military Strike team.
Logic is that JC's powergrab hasn't gone un-noted by some MotCs and are prepped for War one way or the other. I do believe the phrase "Keep your whore on a leash or leave her outside till she learns to behave" was used at least once...
Thats what gets me...by all accounts Anita and her Zoo should be seen as an abomination by the Supernatural Community as a whole, Anita should be dodging highly calculated assassination attacks every other day, other Cities should be sending female or guys who for whatever reason cannot be flipped by the Doomcrotch to do business with JC, sure to GOD there are other MotCs out there who want no part of JC's little pissing match with the council and would be MORE than happy to nuke St Louis to keep the Council from invading the states.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 05:15 am (UTC)Like in your fic, my weres are all trained soldiers, infiltrators and assassins. As an isolated community, in rural Germany, they've needed to see to their own survival.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-04 03:29 am (UTC)The whole 'Urban Warfare' came about as a need for survival, afterall the MotC wants her weres able to effectively protect herself, her people and her city from both para and normal threats, how I saw Rapheal and his Wererats before they got neutered.
Hell I never understood what being a MotC MEANT in Anitaverse other than "The Leader", Leader of just the vamps...or is the MotC responsible for ALL the Paranormal in his or her domain? If Packs/Pards/Flocks/Kisses were bickering would the MotC be expected to step in before it got violent? Stuff like that is rarely covered in the books other than to Let Anita Screw It.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 12:18 pm (UTC)And this is even before the Council gets involved. *weeps* In my head, the Council smackdown is a thing of beauty.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-04 03:36 am (UTC)Yeah its shocking that nobody other MotCs or the Council has done more and sooner to knock JC down and put a new MotC in his place.
I imagine that the Council...rather than get directly involved...has made quiet offers to other MotC, anything to put JC and the St Louis Zoo down.
Lord I would LOVE to drop Lara Raith (Dresden Files) in there, she'd have JC killed in about a day (if that long) and then have Anita for desert...
no subject
Date: 2010-08-04 04:40 am (UTC)~chuckle~ That was a major plotline in my first Anita Blake fic. :-D
no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 07:45 pm (UTC)put it down my pantsread it!no subject
Date: 2010-08-04 03:36 am (UTC)