Anita Blake: Difference between revisions

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* [[Anti-Hero]]: Anita Type IV. Edward started out as Type V but since acquiring a family seems to be dropping into Type IV as well.

* [[Anti-Villain]]: Jean-Claude, Type 1

* [[Artistic License Biology]]: It becomes an issue in some books that lycanthropes (particularly, but not only, werewolves) don't like to deal with police because police take issue with dominance fights that leave corpses. Fair enough, but the issue is that there's explicit evidence (in terms of {{spoiler|Marmee Noir}} being a were-cave-lion before being turned into a vampire) that the magical virus causing lyncathropes is as old as humanity, or nearly so, and may have co-evolved with us. The issue here is that if you check [[The Other Wiki]]'s article on wolves, it becomes clear that wild wolves mostly mate for life and live in nuclear families, not large polygynous packs, suggesting that this pattern didn't come from a wolf-inspired culture. Also, even those animals which DO have males fighting for dominance, ESPECIALLY those which (like humans) have an s-type breeding strategy (that is, few children with a lot of resources invested in rearing them, and a long lifespan) generally carry out those fights in ways which are less lethal (deer using their antlers to push the other back, rather than gore; cats fighting with sheathed claws). The point here is that the winner gets to breed (with that female, that time around); the loser has an incentive to live to fight again (possibly somewhere else) rather than escalating.

* [[Artistic License: Biology]]: It becomes an issue in some books that lycanthropes (particularly, but not only, werewolves) don't like to deal with police because police take issue with dominance fights that leave corpses. Fair enough, but the issue is that there's explicit evidence (in terms of {{spoiler|Marmee Noir}} being a were-cave-lion before being turned into a vampire) that the magical virus causing lyncathropes is as old as humanity, or nearly so, and may have co-evolved with us. The issue here is that if you check [[The Other Wiki]]'s article on wolves, it becomes clear that wild wolves mostly mate for life and live in nuclear families, not large polygynous packs, suggesting that this pattern didn't come from a wolf-inspired culture. Also, even those animals which DO have males fighting for dominance, ESPECIALLY those which (like humans) have an s-type breeding strategy (that is, few children with a lot of resources invested in rearing them, and a long lifespan) generally carry out those fights in ways which are less lethal (deer using their antlers to push the other back, rather than gore; cats fighting with sheathed claws). The point here is that the winner gets to breed (with that female, that time around); the loser has an incentive to live to fight again (possibly somewhere else) rather than escalating.

* [[Author Appeal]]: Becomes more obvious as the series progresses.

* [[Badass Normal]]: Edward and the RPIT squad.

* [[Becoming the Mask]]: "Ted" started out as just another of Ed's aliases. Not so much anymore.

* [[Bigger Is Better in Bed]]: [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|Let's just say there are a lot of cases of this and leave it at that]].

* [[Black Bra and Panties]]: In "Blue Moon" they are specifically noted to be a matched set.

* [[Broken Bird]]:

** Presumably Anita, with her dead mother and broken engagement, is supposed to be one of these--more obvious in later books. Others have it worse, too.

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* [[Character Development]]:

** In ''Obsidian Butterfly'', Edward's character gets much more attention than in previous books where Anita describes him as Batman (He swoops in, saves your ass, and then disappears). It turns out that the cold-hearted perfect killer has found himself trapped because of his alter-ego, Ted Forrester. Ted had been in a relationship with a woman named Donna: a widow with a little girl named Becca and a teenage boy named Peter. Edward had gotten so caught up in pretending to be Ted that he got engaged to the woman only to realize ''he was engaged to the woman''. However, Anita later discovers that a small part of Edward actually wanted to be part of their family despite knowing better.

** Jason Schulyer has received considerable amounts of development. He starts out as a [[Handsome Lech]] and somewhat of a [[Jerkass]] but as the series continues, he matures and actually becomes a responsible, reliable friend/lover to Anita all while still being genuinely funny and charming.

* [[Chaste Hero]]: Anita, until "The Killing Dance." Then after "Blue Moon" she was having sex with both Jean-Claude and Richard. After that it was [[Unwanted Harem|no longer]] [[Horny Devils|that way]].

* [[A Chat with Satan]]: Anita has a gut-checking chat with the Dark Lord in just about every book. Sometimes he's a conscienceless hitman, sometimes she's a necromancing grandma, but every time they try to hold up the mirror.

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* [[Depraved Dwarf]]: Can you say 'Nicky Bako?'

* [[Deus Sex Machina]]: in later books it's used and abused to no end

* [[Double Standard]]: Anita can have sex with just about anyone to slake the ardeur, but none of the men can have sex with each other, only Anita. This is later changed due to Anita's [[Suddenly Sexuality|sudden bisexual]] feelings and she enjoys watching all the guys in her harem get it on with each other while she watches and has one of them servicing her as well.

* [[Double Standard Rape (Female on Male)]]: Anita's rape tends to get less note than other females being raped.

* [[Dude Looks Like a Lady]]: Micah, Nathaniel and Jean-Claude, among others.

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* [[First-Person Smartass]]: Anita, who seems to think that inner thoughts are the best place to show what a witty badass you are. In the early books she makes fun of it herself sometimes; "If I was less secure I'd think I just wasn't funny...nah."

* [[Fur Against Fang]]: Vampires and weres don't always get along so well especially as many vampires can control weres.

* [[Gratuitous French]]: Jean-Claude and Asher are terribly guilty of this, as is Anita with the addition of the [[Horny Devils|Ardeur]].

* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: Anita is queen of all the "were" groups, including wolf, leopard, tiger and she's clearly gearing up for lion queendom. She's also the human servant for the vampire master of St. Louis, whom she commands because she has necromancy powers. Unfortunately Anita rules by sexing the various male leaders into submission, as well as rape, physical infighting, illegal threats, and cold-blooded murder if you get in wrong with her.

* [[Good Ol' Boy]]: Edward plays this in one of his oft-used disguises. {{spoiler|...And is [[Becoming the Mask]]}}.

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* [[Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?]]: Anita is always having to assert her straight-edge iron straightness...until [[Everyone Is Bi|she's not]].

* [[Hell-Bent for Leather]]:

** Everybody wears leather. Lots of leather. They were leather fedoras, miniskirts, boots, trenchcoats, fetish harnesses, etc.

** Not to mention leather tuxedos and pants it makes you question if there are any cows left in the anitaverse

* [[Hemo-Erotic]]

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: During ''Blue Moon'', Anita and some of Richard's wolves torture a man for information, and end up in this. Jason snaps her out of it by reminding her that it doesn't matter if she becomes "one of the monsters" as long as she can protect [[True Companions|the people she loves]] and that he would do the same.

* [[Horny Devils]]: The ardeur forces Anita to have to feed on sex the way [[Emotion Eater|certain vampires do]], even though technically she isn't one.

* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: Strangely enough, Anita is spared from this. Richard is the poster boy for this trope. It starts off pretty reasonable, but then he decides to dump her a ''second'' time in ''Narcissus in Chains'' because he "doesn't want to be with someone more at home with the monsters than I am."

* [[I Love You, Vampire Son]]: Has Belle Morte turned you? Congratulations.

* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: Books are frequently named after businesses in the universe.

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** Anita's assorted rapes are considered okay because the ardeur intoxicates/overwhelms her victims. Though, not always by her.

** Anita ''herself''. The times she actually wants to have sex with the people the ''ardeur'' forces her to have sex with could probably be counted on one hand.

* [[Jerkass]]: This list could go on ''forever''. Both before and after [[Jumping the Shark]].

* [[Kiss of the Vampire]]

* [[Knife Nut]]: Anita isn't exactly nutty over her knives, but she sure likes them. She usually wears two silver-and-steel-alloy knives in shoulder sheaths, even with evening gowns; in later books she adds a machete-like weapon on her back.

* [[Lad-ette]]: Anita, especially earlier in the series, is a more hygienic version of this. She makes it very clear to anyone that will listen that's she's [[One of the Boys]].

* [[The Lancer]]: Edward and Ronnie seem to be Anita's human lancers. Jason seems to be her non-human one.

* [[Lesbian Vampire|Lesbian/Bisexual Vampire]]: Belle Morte, who has lesbian vampire dream-sex with Anita. Also Mother of All Darkness.

* [[Level Up At Intimacy 5]]: A rare non-video-game example. A triumvirate of a vampire, a lycanthrope, and a necromancer has much more power combined than the sum of their individual powers. But for it to work, all three have to be very fond of each other. A triumvirate doesn't have to be ''menage a trois'' (although, it implied, it often is), theoretically the triumvirs could just be very close friends.

* [[Licensed Sexist]]: Anita

* [[Life Isn't Fair]]:

{{quote|No, life isn't fair, but I try to be.

Try harder, honey. }}

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* [[Mutilation Interrogation]]

* [[My Girl Is a Slut]]: Anita, after "Narcissus In Chains." In fact, if Anita goes for a few pages without sex, her boyfriends start [[Incredibly Lame Pun|chastising]] her and reminding her to let more guys bang her. In fact, saying no is now verboten. If she tries to insist that she doesn't want to have sex with X, Y or Z, then the guys start telling her that she's ruining their lives and must have sex with them to ensure their happiness. The whole risking-death of herself and other people may have something to do with it.

* [[New Powers as the Plot Demands]]: Anita, even in early books--she was and is still growing. In the most recent novels this is [[Handwaved]] as an explicit power of Anita's that [[Mega Manning|allows her to duplicate supernatural powers which have been used upon her]] if they were used on her during the right set of circumstances. (These circumstances seem to be "when it happens in the course of a novel".)

* [[One of the Boys]]: Particularly early Anita, aggressively so--so much so that it might reveal some troubling [[Author Avatar]] issues. One apt reader points out how Anita's gun is like a substitute penis. I.e, the only way she feels she can ever get respect is by having it with her at all times. She also insists that no one call her "girl" or "ma'am" and is actually ''happy'' when someone calls her a guy or a "son of a bitch." To even begin unpeeling the problems with this mentality would take years.

* [[One-Hour Work Week]]: After Jumping the Shark, Anita almost never goes to work at her supposed job at Animators, Inc. In the books prior to "Narcissus in Chains," she regularly went to work and got in fights with her mostly unethical boss Burt, but after [[Ni C]], she pretty much just shows up once in a blue moon to argue with potential clients. In true form with the trope, we're told her zombie raising skills earn her bucket loads of cash so that's why she never has any money problems.

* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]:

** Vampires grow in power the longer they've been dead, up to a certain limit which is different for each vampire. If they become powerful enough they attain the status of "Master Vampire" which:

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* [[Squick]] [[In-Universe]]:

** Anita is in love with Richard, Richard is in love with Anita...the final stumbling block before they agree to engagement is to see him shapeshift, since the effect of his inhumanity spooks her a bit (understandable since she's first hit in the face with it by him getting turned on to the point of breaking up a bathroom after watching a horrifying snuff film.) Shapeshifting is apparently pretty gruesome, and gushes noxious bodily fluids, bits of flesh and a mysterious clear goop everywhere. So clearly, Richard, the solution is the pin her down, change right on top of her, and then eat someone in front of her. Anita, understandably, is freaked out, especially since as Richard is in her head, she can psychically feel not only his desire to eat someone, but the entire pack's desire to eat ''her''. It leads to a breakup when she bolts, traumatized, and Jean-Claude steps in to seduce her while she's huddled in shock in a bathtub; she sleeps with him - regretting it in the morning, and it's probably worth considering her state of mind at the time of the sex - and the split is forever more blamed on Anita.

** What "state of mind"? The first thing she did to JC was blow him. ''The first thing.'' Clearly she wasn't ''that'' sickened or traumatized by what happened with Richard if she could stuff a cold, dead penis into her mouth lickity-split afterwards. All because after incessantly badgering him through the entire book, Richard finally did ''exactly what she kept pushing him to do.'' Gee, why would the split possibly be blamed on her?

** She fucks Jean Claude she's sitting in the tub where the washed off goo is. This lack of personal hygiene is an evolving squick that should be mentioned, particularly after [[Jumping the Shark]] when a wet wipe is the best Anita can routinely manage to stay fresh.

** In ''The Harlequin'', Anita has to cut out the heart of a powerful human servant, but she is very weak and cannot grab it properly. Olaf helps her by thrusting his hand in the open wound, taking her hand and grabbing the heart together, and caresses her hand in the process. Anita gets the heart out and vomits immediately after.

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* [[Stuffed in A Fridge]]: A rare male version - the very first love interest Anita has in the books ends up getting eviscerated (and his throat cut) by the second book. Richard's resemblance to Phillip makes her hesitant towards a relationship with Richard.

* [[Suddenly Sexuality]]:

** Richard Zeeman is straight as an arrow, to the point of borderline homophobic, and originally, it was an issue that he tried to learn to deal with as he ascended in the pack. After his [[Character Development]], he suddenly decided he was bisexual and was perfectly fine engaging in four ways as long as Anita was present to get her rocks off.

** And of course Anita herself {{spoiler|having sex with a woman}} in ''Bullet''.

* [[Talking in Your Dreams]]: It's a human servant thing.

* [[Tenchi Solution]]: Kind of a moot point since half her harem would die without her [[Life Energy]]--and vice versa, eventually--but Anita claims to love them all.

* [[There Are No Therapists]]: So much of the recurring cast could use some couch time, especially Anita, who admits [[Hair-Trigger Temper|she's not happy if she's not pissed about something]], Nathaniel, [[The Load|who has no real will of his own]] and Asher who still bears physical, mental and emotional scars from [[Cosmic Plaything|pretty much everything]].

* [[Three-Way Sex]]: that's practically the minimum.

* [[Time Abyss]]: Mr Oliver is at least a ''million-years-old'' vampire. Anita pegs him as a ''Homo Erectus''.

* [[Too Many Love Interests]]: Let's see, there's Jean Claude, Richard, Jason, Nathaniel, Micah...

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* [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]]: most vampire masters get one kind of animal to control (with limited control over respective lycanthropes): rats, wolves, snakes... When Warrick becomes a vampire master, he gets butterflies. Subverted in that Warrick is overjoyed: he is [[The Atoner]] and considers his butterflies as a sign that God has forgiven him.

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Anita will occasionally get called on some of her bullshit, and she'll even, very rarely, acknowledge the validity of these criticisms. [[Aesop Amnesia|And then, by the next book, it's like the conversation never happened]].

* [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?]]: Anita often wonders about this trope in regard to Edward, who has shown up with derringers, tiny throwing knives, flamethrowers, homemade vampire killing bullets, etc. The question is answered initially because his legal alter ego is Ted Forrester, a bounty hunter, but Anita still maintains that Edward is just secretly Batman but with lethal force.

* [[Wolverine Publicity]]: As shown in that page's image, one issue of the comic book featured [[Wolverine]] on the cover, despite the fact that the comic isn't set in the [[Marvel Universe]].

* [[Writer on Board]]