Anita Blake/Headscratchers


 * What's up with Hamilton's continuous talk in interviews that she thinks of her characters as real people to the point almost buying them Christmas presents, mourning Philip's death as she would a real life friend's, ect.? I can see her saying something like, "I try to envision them reacting as an actual person would," when questioned on how she writes their personalities, but in some blogposts it seems as though she believes these Anita and Jean-Claude to be people in real life, and it's a little creepy.
 * Wolves are monogamous how can a large group of people with a strong link to wolves accept that their queen is...well?
 * Because they're human, too. It'd be the same reason Nikolaos couldn't control the wererats. Also, courtesy of The Other Wiki, "While most breeding pairs are monogamous, there are exceptions."
 * Also, it's been shown repeatedly that Anita and Richard do NOT get along anymore.
 * With the latest book (Bullet) and a brand new Character Derailment on Richard's part, they're chummy again. And by 'chummy,' I mean Richard has finally joined the Cult of Anita, and is now comfortable- after five books of vitriol- with worshiping her and throwing his own emotional (and sexual) needs aside for a grand ol' time of Mary Sue-ish one-way monogamy.
 * Also note the key phrase 'breeding pair'. Generally, animals will stick together for the length of time that it takes to rear a child. After that, they will move on. It is, in effect, serial monogamy.
 * Why has this woman never heard of more long-term birth control? She repeatedly blacks out, gets knocked out, gets kidnapped, or spends time recovering from injuries, yet ties herself to the one method that will become mostly useless if her schedule is disrupted - and claims she DOESN'T want a child?! Get a ring, a patch, a shot, or an implant - all regularly available wherever she gets her pill.
 * Blake's idea of sanitation after magically-induced sex with multiple strangers is a wet nap. How does that get anyone close to clean?
 * IJBM: Jean-Claude is Costume Porn guy. Every time he can, he's dressing as many people up like dolls as possible. It's clear that he likes high quality clothing and knows a lot about it. So why is the lace he picks out constantly refereed to as "scratchy" or "not soft?" One of the marks of high quality lace is that it's soft to the touch and won't abrade skin. It's probably just Did Not Do the Research but it still bugs me.
 * Despite living in a world where the power of faith is literal, meaning that items of faith (crosses, crucifixes, Stars of David, etc.) in the hands of only the faithful repel vampires, Anita constantly bemoans that religion is on the decline due to the end of The Masquerade. Apparently people, when given demonstrable proof that God/gods exist, will decide to disbelieve even more, since vampires can tell them what happens after death, if you become a vampire. And why trolls (which are nothing more than another type of primate) are studied in a paranatural studies course.
 * Actually that's somewhat of a simplification of what's happening. It's not the power of a deity but rather the faith and belief of the person themselves that counts. There is mention in the books of a yuppie warding off a vampire... with his wallet (because he worships/has faith in/whatever the power of the almighty dollar). Moreover, as it's a matter of 'true' faith simply joining a religion would be a meaningless act as far as the power of it was concerned - it's not about lipservice it's about what's inside. It's somewhat of a parallel to magical ability. Moreover, there are many creatures that exist in the universe that predate the rise of any modern religion as well as, you know, coming from various religions. Lastly, it's something the books only lightly touch upon. It's possible that religion is on the decline... because it's pretty darn easy to know who is truly faithful and who is merely paying lip service. Similarly, the book talks about a vampire church - thus some religions may be dying only to be replaced or stand side by side with new ones.
 * Anyone sensitive enough to see one can tell you that the soul exists, and three days after death it becomes inaccessible. On top of that, demons exist and can be repelled only by prayer, including prayer by non-believers. Granted, those both might be hard to prove, but either one should be enough to keep the creation science people in business for years.
 * The fact that the soul disappears three days after death is proof that humans have an immortal soul? And you could pull a Harry Dresden on the latter and say that the demons are allergic to faith.
 * Vampires are repelled by faith regardless of form, demons are held off by Christian prayer, regardless of faith. As for the soul, if you confirmed the existence of a soul separate and apart from the meat activity of the brain, I would think that would help religious arguments, not reduce them.
 * It just bugs me that I can't keep all of the (human/vampire/animal) (master/servant) triumvirates straight.
 * If memory serves, as of book 15 there were four triumvirates (written here in vamp-necro-were order): (1) Jean-Claude - Anita - Richard; (2) Damien - Anita - Nathaniel; (3) Padma (the Beastmaster Council guy) - Carswell - Gideon; (4) (deceased) Sabin (the half-rotted vamp) - Dominic - Cassandra. Now master/servant relations... these are complicated indeed :)
 * In Bullet, Anita mentions that the werelions are going to be bringing a couple of young werelions for her...young enough that she thinks they're virgins. Her thought on this is "I was so not going to be his first." This Troper is male, and understands that women do think differently on the whole subject of virginity than men do (for good reasons, as well as cultural conditioning) but---what would be her objection to being someone's first partner? Is she still that insecure about her charms, or her skills? Does she think that he'll be turned off to sex forever after one night in her arms? What goes on here? * puzzled*
 * This troper can only guess because Anita's Character Derailment is ridiculous, but it could be because she finds it morally wrong to take the virginity of someone she's not in love with, though it's not like her moral compass points North any more. I like to think she didn't want to because he won't give her the hair-tearingly awesome sex she's apparently used to from every man in her one-way harem. But that's just me.
 * This Troper thinks it's the ardeur. Think about it. Master vampires with centuries of sexual experience, like Requiem, can be addicted to it. Most of the werelions aren't that powerful; there's a very good chance that if Anita feeds the ardeur off them, they'd become addicted, which is something she generally tries to avoid.
 * This Troper has a theory that someone's said something to Hamilton about the fact that her Self Insert has had sex with a sixteen year old boy, and she may be halfheartedly attempting damage control. In a recent appearance on a panel in Chicago, she, somewhat out-of-nowhere, insisted that she would never write YA because she's "not a pedophile." Wot? What does that have to do with YA Fiction? Charmingly, she then followed this up with a dig at the Twilight series- I can't even stand Twilight, but even I think it was uncalled for and petty.
 * How serious did she sound? She's commented that she finds it nigh impossible to write without dark aspects and sex, so it may have been a little Self Deprecating Humor there. To the latter...dunno what she was making a dig at.
 * Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/jondgreen . She's prty srs. (I am using internet slang to sound cool.)
 * "I couldn't help myself; I apologize for that one," after a 'jab' that was noting that, yeah, she's not the only one to get inspiration from a dream, and knows what a good number of the audience was thinking. Also, upon watching that...she said she's not a pedophile as a very clear message for her agent to give to people who wanted her to write tween books (10-11 by their definition), and then suggesting that the 10- and 11-year-olds would move on to Anita Blake, or Merry Gentry. She didn't want to expose little kids to sex.
 * It's not a woman thing. It's an Anita thing. She said way back in the series that men are like ducklings and they imprint on their first lover. That's why Richard likes it rough, because he impressed on Raina (? The first lupa of the werewolves). Hamilton's views on sex and sexuality are hardly indicative of women as a whole.
 * ...Because having sex for the first time actually is important? Honestly, would you have any trouble understanding if Anita said she didn't want to be a guy's First Kiss without any feeling?
 * Maybe it's their prowess she's worried about?
 * So how about that jerkass Rex of the werelions? He wants to share power among the pride and remain faithful to his wife. God, what a dick! Anita should threaten to use her Magical Rufies to rape him and then invite Chicago werelions to murder his family. That'll fix his ass.
 * Remember, the faithfulness part is there he declines sex/ardeur feeding with Anita. Sounds OK... except that the situation at the time called for urgent magical boost from head honcho of weres, or else all the Jean-Claude's vampires, Jean-Claude himself included, would snuff it. Werelions and wereswans were the only options available. Seen in that light, it does look like a pretty dick move on the head lion part. YMMV, of course.
 * Out of curiosity, how much mileage-varying does it take for you to consider the supposed hero of a book having someone's innocent family killed to be fitting retribution for anything? Because I've got to say, most people who aren't sociopaths would think someone had crossed the line even if it was just eye-for-an-eye on the whole family-murdering thing, let alone putting a handful of blood-sucking fiends the hero personally rather liked at risk.
 * Notice that the question was whether the lions' Rex is a dick, not whether Anita's actions were justified. That said, let's consider the sequence of events. (1) The Rex withholds his help in a life-or-death (or, well, undeath-or-death) situation, thus breaking his promise to the weres' coalition. (2) Subsequently the coalition kicks lions out, which means no help for lions in the future. (3) Anita engages in a magical orgy and blacks out. (4) When she comes to, she learns that Asher, Jean-Claude's lieutenant, have invited lions from Chicago to replace current lions' rulers. Now, granted, Anita could do the noble thing and say "OK, this Charlie Foxtrott was brought by one of ours, so let's help the lions one last time". She chose instead just to negotiate the lives of all the lions except the ruling family (IIRC, the Rex, his Regina, and Rex's brother). Not nice at all... but hardly heinous, I think.
 * It was the last straw for this troper. That was the point when Anita became just another exploitative, domineering supernatural ruler who only helps those she rules to the extent it benefits her.
 * In Guilty Pleasures, Anita is basically told that Jean-Claude has permanently magically altered her very being in a way that vampires use to make someone there slaves, and she's not even a little upset about it.
 * If we go at it logically, he had just saved her life, so technically she shouldn't complain too loudly. Given that it's Anita, whom that wouldn't exactly bother, I'd say it was because she didn't fully understand. Once she figures out it allows him in her head--which, given she was surprised he got in her dreams, hadn't registered yet--she hits him at the next reasonable opportunity. She then tells him, in no uncertain terms, to back off. Anita was very upset about it.
 * Yeah, keep in mind, this was pre-NIC Anita, who still behaved with a semblance of rationality, and pre-Character Derailment Jean-Claude, who was still the Manipulative Bastard we knew and had PSL for loved.
 * Hamilton constantly puts her menfolk in little booty shorts. Men have body hair. It's just how it is. This is never even mentioned in passing, though- NO ONE seems to have any. Anita herself never even mentions shaving her legs. Is everyone in the Anitaverse going in for full-body electrolosis, or is this just another one of those Mary/Gary Stu-ish details?
 * I think that falls under the law of conservative detail.
 * It seems off though that every other physical aspect is described in lavish detail, down to eyelashes and the stitching on clothing, and like this has been forgotten. Especially since most of the men are shapeshifters- as in fur-bearing.
 * They're occasionally referred to as "bare," which I always took to mean hairless. For the females and those of Belle Morte's line, shaving makes sense, and for the werecreatures...well, I've always figured that goop was sticky. In other words, "Ow...ow...ow. Screw it, I'm getting rid of this stuff."
 * Fair enough. And also, ew.
 * EW! I never thought of that! Thanks for the Fridge Horror. :/
 * Hamilton apparently likes her men as they appear on the covers of romance novels, and isn't going to let a little thing like realism get in her way. ... Normally that last bit wouldn't come out so snarky, but y'know... it's Laurell Hamilton.
 * It's strange, but I have a brunette male friend who has arm and leg hari but no chest hair beyond a treasure trail, so maybe it can happen?
 * Anita's Power Copying of abilities. Has it been said WHY she keeps stealing abilities from people? I mean, as far we know, she's specifically a Black Magician Girl necromancer. This was not only her greatest power but also her species for Christ's sake. Her gaining a vampire servant? Okaay, I chalked that up to rare, but hey she IS a necromancer, and What's His Face is dead. It seemed semi-logical. Draining the life out of a vampire? Technically, raising the dead requires her to put life/magic into corpses anyway so it was reasonable enough. Hell, as creepy as it was/is, her developing and feeding the ardeur through vampires (instead of every man everything breathing Anything That Moves) made sense even if it was weird on several levels. But healing folks through sex, calling jaguars, leopards, lions, tigers and men (oh my!) and effectively mind raping people? Where is that covered in necromancy and why has NO ONE ELSE in over FOUR MILLION YEARS figured out how to do all of those things and more? Besides the fact that she can now do practically everything under the sun and necromancy most definitely isn't everything under the sun (nor is it really under the sun), there's also her physical parameters. To my knowledge, Anita is Jean-Claude's human servant with three marks in her. While the final one will make her more or less immortal, shouldn't the other three have made her proof against pretty much ALL diseases including lycanthropy? Hell, if she gained the ability to call animals thanks to Richard and Jean-Claude, shouldn't she have been calling wolves, dogs, bears and other types of canines? Which brings me to something else that just occurred to me: if a necromancer's greatest power is over the dead, then why do people still refer to Anita as one? At this point, she's closer to a witch or enchantress.
 * In order: What you said about taking life force actually is a viable explanation for the first few. Healing is putting energy into the person (usually), and sex is a close connection--that idea's been around for a while. Stronger the bond, easier to move. Mind rape works because life energy has the taste of the person to it, which is how I interpret the scenes where Anita magically senses her lovers. At the bottom of Anita's life energy is a frikkin' ocean of rage. She's just putting a few cups--or gallons, not like anyone would notice what's missing from the ocean--of that into her attacks. No one else had figured it out because crazy shit happens on a quantum level or something . I don't recall three marks=no diseases ever being stated, but if it were, lycanthropy is an exception to the rule of no-diseases because it's useful/supernatural. No, because Richard's wereanimal and Jean-Claude's animal to call is specifically a wolf (presumably canis lupus), not any canine (which would be a family, and include way too many species). She's still a necromancer because that's what she was born, the rest is training and gaining. And anyway, that's what she's famous for. Oh, and what she's been thinking of herself as for years.
 * One minor point about the healing. IIRC, sexual healing is specifically Raina's ability, and, Raina being dead and part of the munin, necromantic access to her personality and abilities seems at least somewhat logical.
 * It's a ridiculous God Mode Sue power, but as of Bullet, it seems to be explained. If I understand correctly (1) Anita is an exceptionally powerful necromancer; (2) the vampires have said many times that you must never never bring a necromancer into a triumvirate or make one a human servant, or they will gain terrible powers; (3) part of that seems to be Power Copying; (4) Anita's beast powers are a result of her Power Copying the Master of Beasts, a super-vamp who has power over all weres. Apparently, his powers work about the same as hers.
 * She's got so many different sources of power at this point, it's hard to keep them straight. First, there's her "own" powers, the stuff she gets from the necromancy, the zombie animation, and the basic level of witch training she's recently had. Also, at least by the current book, Anita seems to basically be a lynchothrope, and a pan-ware at that ever since being scratched by a pan-ware; she doesn't actually change, although she's come close a few times, but she carries many strains of it, and has many of the characteristics of it (fast healing, requires heat to heal, craves flesh, ect) and she gets some of those mystical abilities. It's mentioned she's not the only person to be a carrier without actually turning, although it's very rare. She's also the human servant of a vampire, and so she has a lot of his powers, and she gets powers from being linked to Richard (she started showing some warewolf-ish powers even before she was infected because of that). And she gets control of whatever vampire powers are used on her. And she has other sources of power that derive from those; the munin came from her link with Richard and her control of the undead, but now that's become a whole separate source of power itself; the ardor came from her human servant stuff, but the power she drains from that feeds into all of her other powers and makes them stronger. Take all that, mix and match, and add a good dose of heroic willpower, and she can basically do anything.
 * The best thing Anita could do for St. Louis is leave, or kill herself. Apparently, as a necromancer, she is incredibly attractive to the dead, to the extent that they come to St. Louis to be near her and terrorise everyone once they are there.
 * Initial situation, Nikolaos is in charge, the wererats are holding her at bay, the werewolves are run by Raina and Marcus, who are abusive, Gabriel and Elizabeth abuse the wereleopards. Werehyenas and lions were (presumably) quite happy, swanmanes were subject to sexual abuse.
 * Current situation. Jean Claude is in charge, wererats were slightly better off, until Anita figured out that she could rape their king and suck their power. Also, several visiting vampires with power over rats have come to town including the Master of Beasts, who nearly killed the Ratking.
 * Swanmanes are addicted to BDSM sex so no change there but their King now has to tithe power to Anita. Werehyenas took over 50 casualties in a battle against Chimera, who was in town to 'court' Anita and bought the wereleopards with him and also brought traitorous werewolves into the pack.
 * Anita killed Gabriel and ran Elizabeth off, the wereleopard now have two new very submissive females, two apathetic 'alphas' and two enthusiastic rapists added to the Pard. There is no suggestion that Anita protects the female leopards from sexual assault, she hardly notices them. Certainly when she conspired to kill the Lions' Rex, she asked the new Rex-to-be not to kill the lions who had jobs as it would cost money. She did not stand up for the lionesses even after being explicitly told that it is standard for them to be raped during a takeover.
 * Incidentally, in the werelions first appearance they are explicity said to be a member of a group composed of very small groups of animals who have moved to St. Louis because there are so few of their kind there. Anita demands a lion to feed from, the Rex gives her several choices, which Anita rejects for being too weak. The Regina is not strong and the Rex rules in conjunction with his brother, which is somewhat indicative that he is not either. So, they moved to St. Louis and deliberately started a small, low powered pack to live in peace and quiet. Anita invites vicious Mob enforcers to take over their pack instead of protecting them.
 * The werewolf pack no has a slutty lupa who is slowly driving the Ulfric insane and getting him into fights which aren't his. Little to no change. Richard has banned vengeance for crimes before his tenure as Ulfric, so all the female werewolves have to be one big happy family with the abusive male werewolves, except for the two that Anita killed, plus the remaining leopards, who used to rape the female leopards as punishment. They are now allied with the vampires and get called on to provide security everytime Jean Claude has visitors. And they have to volunteer to work a hotline for all the weres who are too useless to look after themselves. Maybe slightly improved conditions for the pack as a whole.
 * The vampires do have more protection from internal threats with no Nikolaos, but older stronger vampires are constatly attacking the city with accompanying deaths. Jean Claude is really the only beneficiary. When Nikolaos was in charge, he was the one performing sexual favors on demand, now Anita does that and he reaps the benefits.
 * So...Anita should go off herself (because moving would just move the problem). Do you really think it would be in-character for her to do so? More likely she'd BSOD and repress, methinks. Also, it would have a chance of hurting/killing Jean-Claude or Richard, so call it a gender-flipped Always Save the Girl. Or she hasn't thought of it in those terms, because a master of planning she is not.
 * It wouldn't be in character at all. I was more commenting on how LKH's attempt to make Anita even more of a Mary Sue than she was has shifted her from 'Not Terribly Effective Hero" to Nice Job Breaking It Hero. She probably doesn't realise this.
 * Shouldn't the local and federal government be at least a bit disturbed by Anita's actions? Admittedly this is only working with knowledge of the books going up to Danse Macabre but Anita should still be a U.S Marshal and yet she has gotten herself heavily involved in supernatural politics, can be considered an accessory to at least a few murders and is on very good terms with an assassin. You would think that she would realize that the Justice Department might be a bit uneasy if they ever found out.
 * She does. She stays away from anyone who could report her as much as possible, and whenever something comes up that could out her, she tends to try hide, one way or another. If that fails, such as when she almost shifted in front of a bunch of cops (maybe), she feels like breaking down the walls to get somewhere safer. ...Huh. Just realized her claustrophobia probably had a hand in that.
 * Ok, so back in Killing Dance. After spending the entire book berating Richard to give in to his beast and be as vicious as she is, he finally does it. Yes he got icky, smelly, nauseating shapeshifter goop all over her in the process. Alright, I can understand how that would gross a girl out. He unintentionally conveyed cannibalistic urges to her. Fine, I can understand how that would freak a girl out too. What this troper can not understand is why if you're so freaked out, sickened, and repulsed by nauseating shapeshifter goop and unwanted cannibalistic urges, your very first impulse is to go run to a vampire and stuff his penis into your mouth. That's the first sexual act Anita performs for JC. Call me nutty, but that just never made a whole lot of sense to me. And to this day people still defend her, like somehow it was Richard's fault that Anita betrayed him and went to slobber down Jean-Claude's pole(amongst other things) after he finally did what she was constantly badgering him to do. Keep in mind, that Jean-Claude is for all practical intents and purposes a walking corpse. So she ran off to fellate cold, dead penis. Clearly she couldn't have been too sickened/traumatized/repulsed by the experience with Richard could she? And then adding insult to injury, when Richard is very understandably is angry about her betrayal she has the nerve to point her gun at him and go into 'I'm a stonecold killer and i'll even kill you and sleep like a baby afterwards' mode on him. For mercy's sake, you just finished blowing(amongst other things) another man, and you can't even let Richard vent a little on the furniture? What the hell, hero? It used to upset me, but after Richard's epic Character Derailment, it doesn't even matter anymore.
 * Early in the series it is established that while Vampires "roll" humans with their eyes for a second to create the illusion of moving so fast that they appear to blink from place to place, Werewolves actually move so fast they appear to blink from place to place. Even if they only moved so fast that they leave a visible blur this suddenly transforms EVERY single last occasion of Anita making a Werewolf back down at gunpoint into complete hogwash. Even if we assume that the Shifter can not dodge the bullet once it has left the chamber...which is within the realm of possibility even with Blur-Speed, and should be childishly easy with Blink-And-You-Missed-It speed...they could effortlessly move faster than Anita could track them with her gun, never being within her line of fire. Hell, it's conceivable that even if she managed to pull the trigger that in the fraction of a second it would take for the hammer-action of her gun to eject the bullet, the Shifter she's facing could sprint behind her and rip her spine out as if she were made of paper-mache. This is doubly true for were-felines who are explicitly stated to be even faster than the already nightmarishly-fast Werewolves.
 * I don't recall weres being given blink speed. They're faster than humans, granted, but I don't think we've ever seen them "blink" in the way vampires can.
 * If memory serves, they discuss the relative quickness in Skin Trade. It's like this: most vampires are a bit faster than humans, but not by that much; they cheat by using mind tricks to appear moving at blink-speed. Weres are quite a bit faster. The most powerful weres (and vamps of a certain almost extinct lineage; practically just Wicked and Truth remain) can achieve blink-speed. So, if I understand correctly, a trained human can shoot vamps and (with luck) common-level weres. It's the high-level weres that could "blink" behind the shooter in the time needed for the hammer to fall; but I bet Edward could somehow surprise even them :)
 * After reading the first couple of books in this series, one might come away wondering what the hell any of the members of Anita's Male Harem see in her. She's morose bordering on clinically depressed and appears to be married to her job to the point of not having a life, and does not appear to have even a hint of a sense of humor. One is left to assume that she must be hot beyond words, but this doesn't really come across in the text. One gets the impression that Anita is intended to be an Author Avatar living out Hamilton's own fantasies, and not meant to appeal to anyone else.
 * The series is awful, but that particular quirk is over-justified, if anything. Sleeping with Anita is a power up for supernaturals, plus she has the magic power of making people fall in love with her, plus she has large breasts. Yes, she's a pain in the rear, but I could see a bunch of people deciding to hold their nose and go for it and/or being sucked into her Mary Sue magic. (In the first few books, Jean Claude is running a game on her at least at first, and Richard, well, who can explain love?).
 * I think this is another firm case of YMMV--in the novels preceding Narcissus in Chains, I could understand Anita's appeal. She's funny (to me, at least, but then again I like Deadpan Snarker characters), beautiful (if the comic books are any indication), and tough as nails. It makes sense that Jean Claude likes her because he's got the "you're the only woman who ever resisted me angle", but when he actually does fall in love with her...I can see what you're saying. I can tell you why Richard loves Anita--because they are actually compatible since they like many of the same things and he can put up with her hot temper--but not Jean Claude. Then again, I think he said at some point that he loves her because of how flawed she is and BOY does that make sense because she certainly has problems. After Narcissus in Chains...yeah, there is no explanation for why all these people love Anita. That is indeed Hamilton using her Author Avatar to heal whatever personal problems she has, which is probably many considering what a twatwaffle she (allegedly) is.
 * IJBM that in one of the post-Shark-Jumping novels, Jean Claude has to ask Anita for permission to have sex with Asher. Let me say that again: permission. Mind you, this is a 400 year old vampire asking permission to sleep with someone he has been in love with for longer than Anita has been alive. Now, granted, it makes sense that he would have a discussion with her about taking another lover because that's what a polygamous couple should be doing--being honest. But permission? I find that incredibly insulting for Jean Claude, even if he himself doesn't see it that way. I hate that he stopped being a Manipulative Bastard and turned into Anita's booty-on-the-side when she's not boinking every other thing with a penis-- Jean Claude is a grown damn vampire and he should not have had to grovel at her feet to ask to be in a relationship that existed way before her sarcastic ass came in the picture. And furthermore, it's ridiculous considering Anita has so many partners at this point in the series that I literally cannot name them all and Jean Claude doesn't even sleep around so taking Asher to bed with him is far more reasonable than what Anita does on a daily (and sometimes, hourly) basis.
 * Isn't Asher the vamp that more-or-less lost his free will because he's now Anita-powered? The one who can't hardly feed or dress himself without asking for permission? I've not touched the series since Obsidian Butterfly came out in paperback, so I may be misremembering, but if that's the vampire, then it's less that Jean-Claude needs permission than Asher the half-burned doll needs permission.
 * Yes, I think you've got it right. A lot of Asher's bitchification happened in Cerulean Sins where he became little more than a scarred up, European version of Nathaniel. At least Asher's just Anita's bitch rather than everyone's bitch like Nathaniel.
 * IMHO, you're thinking of Damien. IIRC, Asher rolls Anita and almost kills her, so he's as close as the series has to an independent male.
 * One thing that's bothered me is, wouldn't Anita be having a lot less problems with the ardeur if she would just let Jean-Claude feed the ardeur properly on someone other then her? They've made really clear that if any member of the triumvirate gets power, they all do, and that one member can "feed" to support the other members. I know Jean-Claude can feed the ardeur from a distance at the strip club, but that's not supposed to be much of a feeding. Are all of Anita's problems caused by her forcing Jean-Claude to basically be monogamous?
 * There's a lot she could do to solve her problems, but it wouldn't feed Hamilton's borderline-rape fetish and enable Anita's "It's not really my fault, I'm not a slut, I HAD to fuck him!" justifications. So Anita just complains and never actually does anything because it's exactly how both she and her writer actually want things.
 * [dr] Have you ever noticed that when Anita is travelling around alone, nobody who is outside the list of main characters, except for bad guys notice her? So she is walking around and everybody SHOULD know her face, but most do not stop and watch her walk by. It really gets on my nerves because she is a big-shot celebrity and nobody really gives her the attention she deserves... and I guess people noticing her is overshadowed by "The author over-amplifying the details of characters". So nobody stops and stares at her, while she is staring at somebody else to see every damn detail. This includes the Harlequin, where they are at the theatre. Nobody crowds her. And after the movie, a couple come to Anita and Nathaniel, but do not notice Anita as Marshal Anita Blake, just some girl.
 * So in this universe where dozens of people can reanimate the dead...why has there never been mention of amazing unsolved cases being overturned? In cases where there are bodies, wouldn't it be a great idea to have the dead come back and reveal what happened to bring peace to their loved ones? Granted, the age of the corpse determines if it can be used, but Anita never once mentions this being done and I find that hard to believe. Then again, if it doesn't have to do with her vagina, she's probably not interested in it.
 * Why have we never seen Anita's father? Pre-Shark Jumping, she had mentioned him once or twice but we're about 20 books in and he's still The Ghost. She never indicates if they just fell out after he remarried or if she just doesn't like her relatives.