Anita Blake/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Author's Saving Throw:
    • The change in Richard's character is eventually explained as the result of Anita's magic going out of control, and he reverts to his older characterization when the issue is solved.
      • Then averted when his personality being supposedly fixed also includes altering his sexuality and turning him into a "proper" member of Anita's harem, perfectly okay with one-way monogamy (except when he's having sex with other men for her viewing pleasure).
    • Hit List, like Obsidian Butterfly before it, features very little of slut!Anita, a focus on a U.S. Marshall case, Edward being awesome, Anita dealing with the ardeur in a calm, rational manner with little wangst, and Anita dealing a nice blow to Mommie Darkest by leveling in badass and using her soul-eating power she gained in Obsidian Butterfly.
  • Bile Fascination: Essentially the reason for the series' continued success after Narcissus in Chains was this, seeing that many will continually complain and yet continue to read them.
  • Broken Base:
    • Many fans jumped the ship after "Narcissus in Chains", another bunch stayed around waiting for it to get better or just to enjoy hating it, while another segment of the fan population likes to read porn, and some people genuinely still enjoy the books.
    • There's even a new Youtube mini-series where Kyoko does dramatic readings of the books after the series Jumped the Shark... with humor, of course.
    • Also this "loving" parody.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Edward, though Anita does note even in the first book that if he says he's not going to kill her, he won't. He has no reason to lie about it.
    • In fact, he's so impressed by some of the jobs they do together in the early books, he tells her someday he will come to fight to the death, just for kicks, to see who'll win. And he'll tell her when that's going to happen.
    • Edward is a monster, no doubt, but as of Obsidian Butterfly, the "complete" part is more debatable considering the attachment he develops to Donna, Becca, Peter, and even Anita during the course of the novel.
    • Olaf. Serial killer, enjoys blood, carnage, and torture... let's spare the details.
    • Chimera the panwere. Even several books after his demise, Anita shudders at the memory of him.
  • God Mode Sue:
    • Anita, who can do anything if you have sex with her. She even has her own religion now. A vampire church has been blood-oathed to her, and they seem as interested in worshiping her as she does.
    • In one book, she reveals that she, unlike any other were-creature, can turn into any of a huge selection of animals (most weres only get one form). She then goes on to exposit that there is no real way that she should be able to do that, but she can. She doesn't offer any explanation beyond "I just can."
    • Micah comes off as a bit of a Purity Sue, himself. Not only is he exceedingly well endowed, he's first in Anita's harem--despite several others being more devoted to her and having done more/sacrificed more for her--he always knows just what to say to please her or make her feel better, he works for a charity to help lycanthropes who are being persecuted by society, etc. He's supposed to be so wonderful and dreamy that it's likely he'd be a Creator's Pet even if the circumstances of his introduction were better.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight / Harsher in Hindsight: At one point in Narcissus in Chains, Anita is talking to Jean Claude about the effects of the ardeur and quips: "Please, tell me I'm not going to turn into Slutgirl." Depending upon your views, this quote either makes you want to laugh or cry hysterically.
  • Hollywood Homely
    • Anita insists she is this because she isn't a tall willowy blonde, despite the depiction of her as a curly-haired Lara Croft. Mostly later books, beforehand she mostly said she was just more muscular than current standards allow.
    • Asher is a partial example, since he is genuinely attractive, but also used to be much more attractive before the holy water (think acid) scars on almost exactly half his body.
  • Ho Yay:
  • Jumping the Shark:
    • Depends. Could be when she became an Emotion Eater, could be when she started having sex with strangers to feed that. There's even a facebook group called "I Liked Anita Blake Before She Became a Super Slut".
    • Generally, the points where the series jumps is considered either shortly after Book 6, shortly after Book 10, or sometime after.
  • Les Yay:
    • There are hardly any women left in the series anymore, but Anita has bucketloads of Les Yay with the interchangeable Mother of All Darkness and Belle Morte. Both of whom, interestingly, look just like her.
    • And "Skin Trade" includes Anita flirting with, locking eyes with and "holding fingertips" with a sexy stripper who's attempting to put Anita in her act.
    • Taken to new heights in Bullet, where she has sex with a woman. Because Anita is now apparently bisexual.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Jean-Claude usually gets whatever he wants, sooner or later.
  • Never Live It Down: Hey, Anita, remember that time you threw up on a corpse at a crime scene?
  • Nightmare Fuel: Every time Anita goes to a crime scene and finds all kinds of ripped-up corpses.
  • No Yay: There's a scene in "The Harlequin" where Anita and Edward are forced to share a bed. Normally, this would be pretty damn funny, but it comes across as forced, as if the author is trying to convince us there's nothing between them even though this has been established ad nauseum in the previous novels.
  • Purple Prose: Hamilton slips into this on occasion both before and after the aforementioned shark jumping. The results are either incredibly funny (on accident) or exceedingly painful to read through.
  • The Scrappy: Micah.
    • A large portion of the fanbase has also bestowed the title on Richard--somewhere between The Killing Dance and Narcissus in Chains. Though, to be fair, it wasn't his fault but rather the author's as his character was based on her first husband. One divorce later and suddenly Richard is an unbearable asshat.
  • Snark Bait:
  • So Cool Its Awesome: Most of the fandom seems to agree that Obsidian Butterfly is one of the best books in the series, if not the best itself.
  • Squick:
    • On oh-so many accounts. One of the most noticeable ones is when Anita has sex with Jason in werewolf form in Incubus Dreams. Anita recalls that Olaf, the psychotic killer from Obsidian Butterfly who also returned in The Harlequin, allegedly masturbated in front of her with his hands covered in the blood of a dead vampire. Also when Anita gives oral sex to a random poor guy as torture and then goes crawling toward the Big Bad with her breasts hanging out covered in semen.
    • THIS.
    • The constant descriptions of how the characters have sex as vampires and werecreatures, along with the IKEA Erotica.
  • Suetiful All Along:
    • Anita thinks she's nothing special when it comes to looks, but only the gayest of supernaturals doesn't want in her pants. Even then, the gayest of supernaturals want in her pants, when those supernaturals are female.
    • There's also the visible representation of Anita in the comic book series, who'd have trouble passing for Comic Book Average instead of Comic Book Hot.
  • Tear Jerker: Surprisingly, there are examples of this both before and after Jumping the Shark: the ending scene of Bloody Bones when Serafina burns to death and Anita relives the death of her mother and Jason's reaction after confronting his father in Blood Noir.
  • Wangst: Anita is the poster girl for this trope. Her backstory is relatively sad--dead mother, father remarried a somewhat cold woman, her fiancee dumped her in one of those crushing scenes, and the first guy she seriously liked after him got murdered--but she seems to think that her problems are the worst that ever existed despite the fact that most of her harem have far worse lives than hers. Therefore, her constant whining comes across as major Wangst that gets worse with each book.
  • The Woobie:
    • Asher. Poor guy has been disfigured, tortured and revenge-obsessed for centuries, and now that he's finally made up with his ex-lover, said ex-lover has pledged himself to one-way monogamy with someone else. To make matters worse, his only request is that he have someone to love him exclusively... and he doesn't get it. You just wanna hug him.
    • The in-universe woobie, Nathaniel: Nathan basically has had nothing else to do but be people's boy toy sex toy and Nathan's such the super-sub he can't say no so everyone has to protect him from being taken advantage of by well... everyone. Nathaniel has been pimped out to people who sliced him up with no care for his survival--bad enough to nearly kill him, a shapeshifter. Plus, as mentioned above, mindfucked by the previous leader until he was incapable of saying no.
    • Depending on the book, a lot of the male characters become this. Before Richard descends into Jerkass territory, he had a few moments, Jason becomes this a couple times, Philip definitely had his share of moments, so it really depends on the plot.
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