Blogflog - Dead Ice: Rafael

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

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

Third in the series leading up to Dead Ice, I almost made it Anita, but in the end I decided we’d go with Rafael, the Rat King.



Raphael, drawn by Bret Booth

Question: When are we going to see Rafael on stage more in the books?

Answer: June 9, 2015 in Dead Ice!

Secrets to Share: Once I decided to have wererats in the first Anita Blake novel, Guilty Pleasures, Rafael just sort of appeared on paper. I don’t remember making notes, or trying to create him. He just walked on stage. He was handsome, Hispanic, a great leader doing his best under difficult circumstances to protect his people.

Question: When are we going to learn more about how Rafael runs the wererats?

Answer: See above, in Dead Ice.

Secrets to Share: Rafael told me how he was running his group. I had to work at figuring out how various other shapeshifter groups were organized, but not the wererats. Rafael was even a good leader in my subconscious. The only thing that I had to “invent” was the crown-shaped brand on his arm as the mark of kingship. That I worked at, but for the rest he’s always been very easy to write.

Question: Are Rafael and Anita a thing/an item?

Answer: If you mean have they had sex together, then yes.

Secrets to Share: No one ever asks if Anita is dating Rafael, they don’t ask if they’re lovers, because that can just imply sex and you all saw them have sex on stage, so that’s a given. But lover can also imply a more emotional involvement, and I don’t think we’re expecting that between them. So, what are Anita and Rafael to each other? Both have risked their safety, even their lives, to help each other. They are allies, and have become friends. He is honored and powerful food for Anita’s arduer. In Dead Ice we learn more details than ever before about how they work that.

Sneak Peek from Dead Ice:

His mouth was buried tight against Rafael, his throat working convulsively as he swallowed. I had a moment to think he was drinking blood from the wound, because that was what it meant when I saw Jean-Claude or Asher swallow like that.

Comments

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

"He is honored and powerful food for Anita’s arduer."

And I think that sums up the problem with most of Anita's relationships: They're not people, they're food. And this is why she's now the villain of her own series, even if the author doesn't realize it.

"His mouth was buried tight against Rafael, his throat working convulsively as he swallowed. I had a moment to think he was drinking blood from the wound, because that was what it meant when I saw Jean-Claude or Asher swallow like that. "

So either Rafael is now bi, or I guess he's comforting someone who is crying on him. Whatever the case, I think it says something that Anita can only see food or sex. But maybe LKH is only writing food or sex.

[wilma howe-bennett (from livejournal.com)]

Correct me if I' wrong here - but didn't whoreNita rape him in one of the earlier books?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

*dons mod hat*

Can you please refrain from referring to Anita as whoreNita? There's no need to use a gendered slur like that.

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

iirc, that particular user has a habit of using that slur, and I'm pretty sure you've warned them before.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of that, though last time I had to give a warning like this was to a different member. So long as they heed the warning, we're all cool.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Also, that art piece is awful. I don't necessarily like the other art pieces, but that's a matter of my taste vs. LKH and the artist's style.

This piece is objectively awful because the perspective is all wrong when you look at the leg. Especially the size of the leg vs. the stomach cavity thing that's going on.

[apep727.livejournal.com]

I thought it was alright, but now that you mention it, the proportions of the thighs are pretty messed up. It's almost Liefeld-ian.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

He is honored and powerful food for Anita’s arduer. In Dead Ice we learn more details than ever before about how they work that.

NGL I recoiled from my screen like a vampire does to a crucifix when I read that. It's bad enough that Anita fed from the entire wererat clan via Rafael, now I'm supposed to believe that this is a regular thing that he does? Also since when? The last time we saw Rafael was most likely one of the books I skipped. I want to say The Harlequin and he then vanished. So I'm guessing this is one of those off-screen developments that would have been really handy to see unfold in the books themselves rather than just have it happen out of left field with some infodumping on the author's say so.

The thing is, I would be totally into this whole "honoured and powerful food" thing if it just embraced how fucked up that sounds rather than however LKH wants to present it. (I'm guessing it'd be Rafael doing what he feels necessary to keep "his people" safe and therefore that extends to keeping Anita well-fed and protected?)

[darkestgrace.livejournal.com]

If I remember rightly, Rafael referred to feeding the ardeur pretty explicitly as prostitution. He was willing to have sex with Anita to secure his power in St Louis. And then she raped all his people through him and put him in a coma, and I don't remember seeing him since then.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking it was just a one time only deal, but wasn't sure if that was Rafael and/or Donovan the wereswan, but like I said it's in one of the books I skipped so I'm relying on fandom osmosis here. But oh god that makes it worse. Specially in the "a great leader doing his best under difficult circumstances to protect his people" context, like I get it with Nikolaos because rats were her animal to call and that mean the wererats were also under her thumb and now he's back in the same situation with Anita.

[darkestgrace.livejournal.com]

Anita is just like Nikolaos to them now, isn't she? I just find it amusing (and by amusing, I mean horrifying and depressing) how LKH can retcon it in her own head from Refael realising that the Leopards, one of the weakest groups, were more powerful than his powerful group of Rats because of Anita, and resolving to do whatever he needed to do to keep his people safe, into Rafael cheerfully helping to support Anita and being best buddies with her.

Also, if Rafael told her how he was running his group, does she mind sharing with the audience? That might actually be interesting.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

She really is. And part of me is so sad that in the hands of another author, having the protagonist go down this path and become the thing that she hated would be a brilliant turn of events. Like this could give rise to people viewing Anita the same way she viewed Nikolaos and Belle Morte, and maybe even hunters trying to take her out because of it. Sadly this remains one of the best examples of protagonist-centred morality so naturally Anita can do no wrong and is a goddamned saint compared to Nikolaos and Belle Morte and everyone will bend over backwards to tell her as much.

I'm going to headcanon that Rafael recognises this situation thanks to being stuck with Nikolaos before and is just doing this as a ploy to gain Anita's trust so she stocks his wererate guards/mercenaries everywhere. Which means he'll have people in place ready for when he takes down Anita and clears out the Circus of vampires because NEVER AGAIN. (I'm guessing that everyone's forgotten about that one time Rafael was skinned alive courtesy of the Council?) Maybe he's secretly working with Richard and some of the werewolves. They can take down Micah.

Pffffft finding out how Rafael runs his group is interesting and therefore we'll probably never know. But at least he told LKH how it works, which is the important part.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

CE Murphy did the anti-hero path with The Queen's Bastard and it was interesting. My main objections there had to do with not building up a rape scene and betrayal enough that it made sense. If LKH had done that with Anita, I would be much more on board.

Anita is definitely just like NIkolaos now, down to having a face scarred vampire and being a threat to anyone she can call (see Joseph the werelion).

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of it all being a plot so Raphael is playing along. I mean he went against Nikolaos and he was her animal to call and he dared make a power play there. I could see him playing along and plotting behind Anita's back. They've all been pod peopled.

IF only LKH could accept that Anita isn't a hero and wrote her as such, these books would actually have a chance to be a good read. As it is it's just a bunch of masturbatory fantasy where no one is in any read danger, intrigue, or mystery. And I can find better on line for free if that's what I want.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Did Nikolaos rape all the wererats? Because if not, I'm thinking Anita's way worse than Nikolaos ever was.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I don't think so, but it wouldn't surprise me if LKH retconned it that Nikolaos did have the rats sexually abused while she was in charge. If not personally, then maybe she pimped them to Raina and Gabriel's snuff movies.

But yeah, Anita is totally worse.

[openidwouldwork.livejournal.com]

Oh, lookie what I just stumbled across on the interwebs...

" Female Bad Guys

Not all bad guys are male. Characteristics of the female bad guy include:

Being a brunette
Being a stepmother
Acting in a seductive or sexually assertive manner
Wearing inappropriately tight clothing or heels in a situation where it doesn't really make sense for you to do so."

Hmmmm... *cough*

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Pfft, that's a short list. I've been reading certain romance novels I don't like lately for... reasons, and you have to add:

Has big boobs
Likes sex in a non-Pure way
Uses sex to get something else (including in times and places when women had very few options)
Is not a virgin when she meets the hero (the hero has had sex with about 5 dozen women, of course)
Wants the same man the heroine wants
Has sex with more than one man, even if those men know and are fine with it
Seeks out sex
*at all
**meaning AT ALL, meaning the only way it is appropriate for a woman to get sex is to be "seduced" beyond her reason
Is pretty
Is blonde
*Seriously only redheads are free from being decreed teh evil because of haircolor
Flirting
*No see flirting is the wost
**If you're a woman who flirts you are completely stupid and worthless
Talking about how attractive you find a man
Showing copious cleavage -- a subset of "has big boobs", but having big boobs is SO EVIL that it can never be emphasized enough
But through it all, the most important mark of Completely Irredeemable Evil in a female character is this:

Doesn't Like The Heroine

The hero can start out angry with, and utterly cruel to, the heroine. He can sexually assault her (though these days the trend is to insist the hero would never ever ever assault a woman, even while what he's doing to the heroine is definitely not consensual.) His male friends can treat her with disdain and still be the heroes of the next books in the series. But if a woman does not like the heroine -- whatever the reason -- she is a spawn of Satan. Conversely, if she does like the heroine, and keep liking her no matter what shit the heroine pulls, and goes out of her way to help the heroine though the heroine's done nothing for her, then she might be good enough to get her own book in the series too. Especially if she doesn't have big boobs.

And these books were all written after 2010. Happily, there are plenty of romance novels not like this these days, but plenty still are.

At the same time, at least in these books there usually are "good" women besides the heroine. She has female friends and family, and they protect each other.

By the way, the mark of an Evil Male Character is:

Has a weak chin

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Shudder. I do remember Evil Redheads in 70s romance novels. They had all the characteristics you list, but frequently had red hair - and were not always all THAT evil. They were rivals but usually once the hero had admitted his true passion was for the mousy girl he'd entered a loveless marriage with and raped into sexual awakening, she was no longer a threat so she was expected to step back and let the nice people have a life while she went off philandering elsewhere. Or something. And sometimes she was actually the hero's slutty friend who he occasionally screwed in the past, but for whom he had no feelings. Because HE had no feelings for her, she didn't matter really.

I also recall that Evil Men could be detected early on by being blond, pleasant and reasonable. Men like that are always going to be the murderer. You want to stick with the brooding black-haired arsehole who talks to you like you're an idiot and occasionally nearly rapes you.He's the good guy, no really.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

That's interesting about "evil" men. That seems to have changed more than anything else, at least in what I've seen of the genre. In the kind of novels I've been reading, the other mark of evil men besides "weak chin is" that they ogle the heroine and she's not attracted to them. The hero ogles -- and non-consensually gropes -- the heroine more than anyone, but that's okay because he's hot. Bad Men are also often older, fat, balding, etc. But in what I've read, "weak chin" is more important, and shows up all the time even in romance novels that don't have the other problems.

And sometimes she was actually the hero's slutty friend who he occasionally screwed in the past, but for whom he had no feelings. Because HE had no feelings for her, she didn't matter really.

This also keeps happening, and again, even in some romance novels I otherwise like. The hero screwed around all over the place and that's perfectly okay. But the very women he screwed are disgusting because they did exactly the same as him, or less, and with far more danger to themselves. (Historical romance.) He fucked them without emotion, and that's good because it means the heroine is The First To Touch His Heart. But if a woman in the past felt emotion for him and thinks maybe his fucking her meant something and still wants him -- pfft, she's not the heroine, so time to crap all over her!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there was definitely a tendency in older romance novels to present the heroine with a choice between a tempestuous tosspot to whom they were already bound on some level, and a seemingly nice sunny open normal man. When I got older and read Jane Eyre I came to realise this is the Rochester vs St John model.

All of these novels tend towards "the first one the heroine has will be the only one he has ever truly loved and therefore they should be together". I've often wondered if they were intended, subconsciously or not, to make women happier with their unhappy marriages. In the 70s the heroines were inevitably virgins, and in bodice rippers, the heroines can end up having many lovers but ONLY ONE - the first - counts. Plus they only have the other lovers because they think the other guy's dead and they have to do it with these other men. In some books, like Forever Amber and all the Angelique novels (which are considerably older, and of course the Angelique novels are French) the heroines totally enjoy sex with their secondary lovers, which is nice. Angelique of course believes her husband is dead for several books, and a lot of her relationships are contingent. You get that with Scarlett O'Hara too... she's unusual in that she has no real feelings for her first two husbands, and she really only falls for Rhett when he gives her a Rape Orgasm (those happen a lot, with the hero only.)

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

On the one hand, in my experience a lot of men who are extremely charming, magnetic, and attractive from word one really are untrustworthy. So there's that. Otoh, men who are assholes from the start aren't exactly trustworthy either. And St. John was incredibly intense, one of the few people Jane met (besides Rochester) who was as intense as she was. Also, he was Lawful Good to the nth power, which was one reason she veered away from him -- she knew she'd fall hard for him and he wouldn't feel the same for her. Whereas Rochester was much more human. So if those novels were trying to emulate Jane Eyre at all, they failed pretty badly.

There is still a huge trend toward virgin heroines, but the thing I have yet to escape from is incredibly young heroines. I have read maybe one novel in the genre I'm writing in which the heroine is at least 25 years old. I think the excuse is supposed to be that women always married young in this era? But that's a myth, so it's driving me up the wall. Also I am deathly sick of dukes.

Ugh, Gone With the Wind. Such a horrible influence in so many ways.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

There aren't any recurring characters in these books Anita doesn't have a sexual relationship with any longer, are there? (I say "sexual" but I mean "rapetastic".) It honestly frightens me. It would be one thing if they were honest porn -- they'd still be extremely bad porn, but at least I'd know the author realizes what she's writing. As is, I'm suspecting LKH can't conceive of any non-sexual relationships. Though she can't really conceive of sexual relationships either, because I wouldn't say Anita has a "relationship" of any kind with anyone. They're just dildos to her.

[apep727.livejournal.com]

Question: When are we going to see Rafael on stage more in the books?

Answer: June 9, 2015 in Dead Ice!

#ShamelessPlug

Once I decided to have wererats in the first Anita Blake novel, Guilty Pleasures, Rafael just sort of appeared on paper. I don’t remember making notes, or trying to create him. He just walked on stage.

That I can actually believe. Sometimes with writing characters seemingly just appear fully-formed from nowhere.

He was handsome, Hispanic,

And how much of that Hispanic-ness has actually been displayed? And I mean other than skin-tone.

The only thing that I had to “invent” was the crown-shaped brand on his arm as the mark of kingship.

Yeah, except that rat kings are a real thing, and it has nothing to do with leadership.

Rafael told me how he was running his group.

And now we're back into Lala's usual brand of crazy.

Personally, I like to think that he's only de facto leader or chosen by election, because I'm fairly certain that real rats don't have any kind of hierarchical group structure. But then, I don't have a degree in Biology [/sarcasm].

I had to work at figuring out how various other shapeshifter groups were organized,

By which you mean took one example based on animals in captivity and then applied it to every single were-animal group.

He is honored and powerful food for Anita’s arduer.

The fact that she doesn't see this as kinda fucked up says a lot about Hamilton, I think, and none of it good. But I guess we already knew that.