Anita Blake Finale

[mariadeangeles.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this last night because some friends who were Lost fans got into a debate after doing a marathon. Some of them ranted that the writing went bad after season three and felt cheated by the ending while the others defended the show with diehard loyalty.
The divide in the fans reminded me of the split between Anita followers and the us, especially since the loyal Lost fans accused the disillusioned ones of being "close-minded" for not accepting the mediocre explanations the writers came up with for the island's mysteries. much like we're accused of being narrow minded for not accepting Anita's sexuality.

My question is: What would be the all time perfect Finale Book to the Anita Series that you feel would redeem the entire journey of the series for you?

For me it would be that Anita snaps/gets a hold of herself and realizes her harem is out of control and their powers are a threat to humanity so she kills them off to get her old self back.

Comments

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I'm kinda torn - I really want Edward to be teaming up with her just so he can take out all the competition, because nobody gets to kill Anita but him. She'll never see it coming, which is why it'll be so awesome.

But I also want to see Anita stripped of her magical powers and have to actually fight to survive. Bonus if she has to kill someone she loves -- I really want it to be Nathaniel -- in the process. Double bonus if there's consequences of not just having to live with that, but the police etc..

Barring all that, I'll settle for the Council to show up and reduce St Louis to a smouldering crater. It'd be nice to have the vampires actually do something badass rather than phone it in across the astral plane.

Yes

[mariadeangeles.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE it if Nathaniel died. He is so obnoxious. I'd be okay with the council finishing off St. Louis as long as there's plenty of action and struggle, not like they just come in and everyone dies with the flick of a hand or some simple magic that kills them off in a heartbeat.
It definitely be cool if Edward killed Anita too but since its a first person narrative from her POV, it would kind of suck to miss out on Edward's plot to kill her, the execution and the aftermath of her death. I'm guessing the story just ends after the narrator's death unless she tells us what she sees as a ghost or something

Re: Yes

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Ugh, yes, I am tired of hearing about Nathaniel's divine buttocks and super long hair. But mostly, I want Anita to have to deal with it and how she's incredibly fucked up.

The other alternative is Anita being raised as a zombie and her soul stuffed back in there so she doens't rot, and she's trapped inside her own corpse and can do nothing but reflect upon her condition. Edward's smart enough to go to a witch to get charms and blessings when he's going after something powerful, he could totally arrange something like this.

I am really mean to fictional characters. :P

[unseelie.livejournal.com]

i can imagine a scene of her waking up from a coma shortly after the events of book 8, and telling her friends about this really weird/horrid sex dream nightmare she was having....

[neriah.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see them all set free or the whole thing blown to hell withe everyone done.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

I want Anita's mom to come back -- she's not dead at all, just had to go into hiding because she knew she and her daughter were doomed to kill each other. Anita's fulfilled her part of the prohecy by becoming a great evil, and now her mother really does have to destroy her.

[sankaku-atama.livejournal.com]

The sticky note with that marked down on it probably fell behind the computer.

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

I would *ADORE* this! Not least becuase it meant Anita's Mommy!Issues were going somewhere.

[fadeinthewash.livejournal.com]

I think this is my new favorite imaginary ending.

[zombiemonkey.livejournal.com]

1. It was all the dream of an autistic child.
2. PETA and the Humane Society team up and perma-arrest Anita for beastiality/animal cruelty.
3. EVIL TWIN!! The real Anita has been trapped in a cave with basic cable and knitting all along! the series can continue with real Anita solving knitting-related mysteries.

[estllechauvelin.livejournal.com]

You beat me to #1, although I was also considering Anita waking up, finding Richard in the shower, and telling him about the crazy dream she had.

[staringiscaring.livejournal.com]

I would read it if it turned out that Jean-Claude had been a putter master from the start and got her hooked on the arduer simply to leech off her power and enslave her and it was revealed. Anita finds a way to beat the spell before having to kill her lovers and take down Jean-Claude.

[phoenix-san.livejournal.com]

I've had an idea that could either be an ending or serve as kind of a fresh start to the series. It's a little long and sorry if it sounds overly silly or confusing. I also haven't read the newer books past Danse Macabre, so forgive me if my details are a bit off.

It is somehow revealed that when Obsidan Butterfly gave Anita some of her power, she also did something to her to make her more suspectable to Jean-Claude's influence and the ardeur by extension. By doing so, she's managed to strengthen Jean Claude's power base-which was one of her intentions. He had been aware that something has been affecting Anita's behavior, but as it seemed to be to both of their benefits, he kept that fact to himself.

Obsidian Butterfly's endgame was to garner enough power to actually take on and possibly replace the Mother of All Darkness and strengthening and subtly manipulating Anita into becoming a proverbial walking power source was all a part of it.

Micah is revealed to have been a plant of Obsidian Butterfly's from the start. He approached her about Chimera and she set him upon Anita as a distraction for her and a means to weaken her bonds with Richard and the triumvirate as a whole.

Obsidian Butterfly then comes to St. Louis with her vampires and weres, pretty much drains all of Anita's excess special abilities and takes the ardeur with her-as she does feed from power-and the only thing that keeps her from killing Anita is Edward's timely interference.

Micah and his leopards help tear apart Anita's allies, casualties possibly being Nathaniel, Asher Jason and Damien to start. Jean-Claude might manage to get away, as self-preservation is what he does best. Richard and his pack are relatively unscathed, given his distance from the Circus.

Anita is left shell-shocked and-mostly-human again. Finally in true control of herself for the first time in months(?) she's horrified by the things she's done and the people she has mistreated and pushed away. She also has Jean-Claude and Micah's individual betrayals to deal with.

Edward has no interest in coddling her either. Having dealt with a witch on one of more recent jobs, he found out that Anita's power has somehow been influencing his own behavior as well and came to St. Louis to end her. But now, he has a whole lot of monsters that need to be dealt with and if Anita's up to it, he's putting the flamethrower aside and going with the bazooka.

Whew.

[chubling.livejournal.com]

I like this if Asher doesn't die. He just stops sucking and him and Jean-Claude get together.

And Richard stops being INSANE and weird |:

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I would read the hell out of this.

[unrund.livejournal.com]

This I would actually buy and put on my bookshelves.

[mariadeangeles.livejournal.com]

I'd read it too. You should write it and let us know about it. Maybe we can make a site with our own versions of the endings.

[terratheelf.livejournal.com]

The only sane ending: Rocks fall, everyone dies.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

No! Rocks fall, THEY HAVE SEX, everyone dies.

Can't fic writers EVER stay true to canon???

[sevariusjr.livejournal.com]

My question is: What would be the all time perfect Finale Book to the Anita Series that you feel would redeem the entire journey of the series for you?


Edward shows up and kills her harem.

Then all of the people she's been a cunt too over the last several years show up and talk about, well, what a raging cunt she is.

Then Edward shoots her in the face.

BTW, is Edward even still around? I gave up on this series many, MANY books ago.

[mariadeangeles.livejournal.com]

ROFL I love how you specify he shoots her "in the face". Yes he's still around, she posted a preview to the latest book and he was in the very first chapter at a crime scene with her.

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Gotta go with it either being a fantastic dream of Jean Claude's, or a nightmare of Anita's.

[booksketeer.livejournal.com]

Um, true to cannon? I can't really think of a way I'd start reading again- maybe if Anita becomes the Mother of all Darkness (isn't it already heading this way? I think the last book I read was Narcissis in Chains, and that was only because my husband was so proud of himself for buying it for me...) and then gets locked up all alone, with nobody to contaminate-err, have sex with; all she can do is look on as everyone lives happily ever after without her.

Although, I would so love to read the mother vs. daughter plot polymexina mentioned! Now that would kick ass!

But wait- didn't one of the first books say that there was a church who thought all necromancers and animators were evil? So, maybe new Anita is just proving them right.

[gorgoneion.livejournal.com]

I think the series is beyond help. But if I could create the finale....

First, no "everybody dies" scenarios. I do understand wanting to see everyone dead. There isn't one character left in the series who hasn't become wretched or annoying. There isn't one character who has remained consistent. But wholesale slaughter is just too simplistic. It's satisfying in a fan fic, but it would be a letdown in a novel.

I'd like to see an ending that went in either of these directions:

1) Anita realizes that she's become a power-mad, sadistic monster. And she wallows in it. The book would have her doing the kind of stuff she's been doing for the last few books, but instead of angsting about it or rationalizing it, she'd fully admit to being a horrible person. Or, alternately, she'd do a more convincing job of rationalizing than we've seen so far, and really become the unreliable narrator that she sometimes appears to be. In other words, Anita has become so vile that it's sometimes difficult to believe that she's not being written as a villain. I'd like Hamilton to wake up and realize that Anita has, in fact, become villainous, and run with that newly found knowledge.


2) Anita achieving some kind of moment of clarity where she realizes that "doing anything to protect her people" is morally reprehensible when protecting your people means torture, mind rape, enslaving people, or metaphysical rape. No idea how this revelation would come about, but I think other readers' desires to see Anita stripped of most of her power would be key. And a few choice deaths would be necessary - not all her boys need to go, but a couple of people that she's emotionally close to should be killed off. Anita needs to suffer a bit to achieve any kind of redemption. In a sense, we'd have a return to the "old" Anita, but a more shell-shocked, wiser, more emotionally battered Anita than the series began with. An Anita who knows she has to make some huge changes in her life and massive reparations for what she's done to people. I want to see Anita broken with guilt and remorse.

[queenmeow.livejournal.com]

I love that everyone came up with really good ideas but it makes me so sad that the author can't come up with one new one herself.