Blogflog - Dead Ice: Jean-Claude

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Dead Ice: Jean-Claude
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

In the lead up to Dead Ice hitting the shelves, I’m going to be doing a special blog series. I’ll be answering three of the most common questions I get about a character. I’ll be trying to include something not as commonly known with each answer. Then, you get a sneak peek of that character from Dead Ice. To kick off the blog series, we start with Jean-Claude – of course.



Question: Is Jean-Claude named after Jean-Claude Van Damme?

Answer: No.

Secret to share: In fact, Jean-Claude’s birth name wasn’t Jean-Claude. Vampires only had one name in Old Europe, so if there was already an older vampire with your name, your master could force you to pick a new name or even choose one for you.

Quest: Why is Jean-Claude French?

Answer: Because he refused to be Spanish, the way I planned.

Secret to Share: Jean-Claude was first created in the late 1980’s. That was close enough to my school days that I could still read Spanish and understand it if it was spoken to me – slowly. Please, do not try to speak Spanish to me now, I am too out of practice. My pronunciation must still be good though, because Spanish speakers will still break into rapid Spanish if I answer any question in their native language. As for my knowledge of French, all I can do is apologize for all of it in the early Anita Blake novels because my language “expert” wasn’t nearly as good at French as they told me they were, and well, some phrases are just awful. As my own French has grown marginally better, even I don’t know what one or two phrases were meant to convey. *face palm* It taught me to be more certain that my experts in any field actually were experts. I still pronounce French badly, so much so that I’ve been told by more than one native French speaker that I can learn all the French I want, but I will never speak it as fluently and musically as I do Spanish. In fact, I’ve been told that I speak French as if Spanish was my first language. It was my second, but apparently it has left it’s linguistic mark.

Question: Didn’t I feel that making Jean-Claude French was too much Anne Rice’s territory, because of Interview with the Vampire?

Answer: Yes, I did, which is why I wanted him to be Spanish; but the harder I fought to force him into a nationality that he didn’t want, the more illusive he was on paper. I couldn’t get my main vampire to cooperate on paper until I got out of his way and let him be French. Only then did he show up in his full glory and write smoothly on paper. He showed up in his typical black and white clothing with the frilly shirt, skin tight pants, and great boots. I did not choose his clothes; he did. Though in an effort to keep his clothes up to his standards I would watch the Fashion Channel for the first time and read my first copy of Vogue. I joke that Jean-Claude taught me to walk in high heels; he helped me understand the magic of gliding in heels. I don’t envision ever being as elegant as he is, but writing and living with him in my head for a couple of decades has helped up my grace and poise content. Though he shakes his head over me sometimes, just like he does Anita. He’s been an interesting influence on both her fictional wardrobe and my real life one. People will ask if my husband and I are in a band, or if we’re visiting from New York, as we get off the plane here in St. Louis. I’m not sure exactly what it means that we get asked that so often, but I know that it’s Jean-Claude’s influence, or rather me writing him that’s changed the way I view clothes.

Sneak Peek from Dead Ice:

“Perhaps modern people do not speak of it so bluntly, but it is the age-old game of chase and capture. There is always someone in a relationship who begins the hunt for someone’s heart, and the pursued must decide whether she wishes to be easily caught, or to be a long and difficult hunt.” He smiled when he said it.

I frowned at him. “Have you ever not gotten to sleep with someone you set your sights on?”

He raised the dark, graceful curve of one eyebrow. “You led me on the merriest chase of anyone I had ever met, ma petite.”

Comments

[elialshadowpine.livejournal.com]

I don't get the last name thing, either. I have seen where vampires (or other preter/supernatural creatures) have a clan or caste name only known amongst themselves, but in the time period she's describing, it would be out of character to have no surname. Especially given the predilection (even today) to name children after Biblical figures -- David, Joseph, Nathan, Mary, Sarah, Ruth, Esther, etc. If the character had an unusual name to avoid the issue of "John Smith? John Baker? John Woodsman? Wait, just John?" It would be unusual and stand out (and the character would probably get the nickname of "Just $name"). But, LKH says that the master vampires can rename another vampire, which indicates to me that they would be unusual names, which would draw more attention. If the rest of the town's denizens are Charles and Thomas and Christina, someone named Zenobia is really going to stand out.

IIRC, and it's been awhile since I read the books, so I could be confusing this with a different series, vampires and other preternatural creatures didn't come into the open until some 20-50 years before the first book start. That's why they're having the political rivalries over what rights the undead have. So, vampires would not have been openly known in the Middle Ages. Assuming LKH hasn't ret-conned it, which is entirely possible; I'm several books behind. One of these days, I'm going to binge read the series... I kept saying I'd wait for it to end, but since that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon...

As far as the character not cooperating, this is the only time that I've seen her claim this that actually was believable to me. I had a very thoroughly outlined novel, with a romantic subplot, but when it came to the romance, the characters were not cooperating. The hero and heroine hated each other, and the heroine's girlfriend insisted on monogamy. Sure, I could have pushed it, but instead I just ripped out the romance, decided to start at the beginning (my premise is a fantasy steampunk CSI; initially, I had started after the organization had formed), and hooked the guy up with the heroine of this book instead. Sparks ahoy! And I'll get to introduce the relationship between the two women from the beginning. It's way better than if I had stubbornly pushed through because outline.

However, I have never been inclined to buy gifts for my characters. If LKH talked just about situations like she did here, I'd have less of an issue. But she goes straight to WTF realms with her attachments to her characters. (NO. You don't promise your character that you'll never do anything to hurt her! That negates just about ANY stakes in a given book, not to mention stagnation of the various characters and plots. You're supposed to torture your characters, not invite them in for a cup of tea and some fancy sandwiches.)

[apep727.livejournal.com]

First, your book sounds awesome.

I guess you're right about the supernatural having come out relatively recently, but exactly how long they've been out is a bit weird - long enough for Anita to get a degree in Supernatural Biology, and have a job (allegedly, at this point) reanimating the dead, and yet Anita's also constantly correcting people on stuff that they should know. And that still doesn't explain why vampires in Europe only go by one name.

And honestly, it wouldn't be the first time LKH ret-coned something - look at her break-up with Richard. When it happened, it was Anita who ran off. Then it became "mutual". Later, it was all Richard's fault.

And I'm so with you on the "promising to never hurt people Anita cares about" thing. Personally, I prefer Jim Butcher's approach. According to him, he doesn't like torturing his characters - he likes torturing his readers.

[elialshadowpine.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

Someone below mentions that apparently it's been established they've always been about and open, but that's not how I remember the first few books going... so either I'm misremembering (which is entirely possible; it's been years since I read the books, and I've had memory-altering medication since then), or LKH re-conned at some point. I don't feel particularly inclined to start a re-read just to find out. But even as far as I made it (book 11? and part of 12? I think?) I noticed there were discrepancies. I swear, makes me want to start a wiki for my own work so I can put every little minute detail of worldbuilding and characterization down... except then I'd probably never write.

Hah! I hadn't heard the Butcher quote, but that's awesome.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

In the Anita books, vampires and werewolves and etc. have actually been known to exist since forever. Her worldbuilding would make a little bit of sense if they have only been open and acknowledged for about fifty years, but that's not the way of it.

[darkestgrace.livejournal.com]

I can't remember where, but I read somewhere that her original idea was 'what if you woke up tomorrow and vampires and werewolves had suddenly always existed', which explains some of the very confusing worldbuilding.

[apep727.livejournal.com]

See my previous quote from a comic book version of Carl Sagan.

[elialshadowpine.livejournal.com]

Damn, I could have sworn in one of the early books it was stated that they'd only been out for a relatively short period of time. I'm not sure if that's something that got ret-conned later, or if I'm just misremembering... I don't feel like reading through the series to find out, though.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

In regards to the name, she's also overlooking the whole Jean-Claude thing in the first place since that's two names. Yes, I know the French have hyphenate names. But they developed over time because there's only so many Jeans and Maries you can have before you have to distinguish them somehow.

There's also the matter of last names in general. In that they developed organically and weren't originally considered "last names." Lots of them were place names. In one branch of my family, we're Haights, which basically means that at some point my ancestors had a home on a hill (haight). Tom of the Haight was a "unique" name as different from Tom of the Vale. It doesn't matter that they're both Tom.