Anita's roomie is basically a wall of muscle. She has big biceps, lots of bulk, and could probably a voice like James Earl Jones. In other words, despite claiming that she and Anita TOTALLY have common physiques because Anota's so CURVY, she's depicted as being sexually undesirable and physically mannish. (As opposed to the PERFECT, IDEAL woman, who is physically feminine and macho only in attitude)
There is another thing to note about her: she's black. I assume LKH's publisher got some negative feedback when Bullet included a black character - one of only a few in the whole SERIES - who is depicted as being attractive because she is practically white. As in, she has pretty much no African-American traits at ALL. So since LKH doesn't bother to mention Marshal Karlton's race at the beginning of the chapter, hopefully this character will depict more racial tolerance and acknowledgement that not all that is beautiful comes with pale skin.
"God, you're tiny. I bet I can put my hands around that little white-girl waist, and you still have boobs and an ass. That is not fair, girlfriend."
Never mind. Apparently she's decided to make this character the token "sassy black woman," while perpetuating the stereotype that all white women are stick insects and all black women are heavy masses of boobs and ass. Hot damn, I hate this series.
She'd taken the I'll-cut-myself-down-and-compliment-you-beforeyou-beat-me-to-it tack. I had the choices of ignoring it, complimenting her in some way, or agreeing that I looked good without complimenting her back.
Note that "being humble" is NOT one of the possibilities, despite Anita playing Bella Swan whenever one of her pretty menz is around.
The last choice would make her dislike me more.
The fact that she even considers it makes ME dislike her more.
She'd already let me know, nicely, that my being a few sizes smaller than her made her predisposed not to like me.
Because of course, all women are insecure, shallow, jealous and bitchy, and if a woman is thinner than you you MUST hate her guts.
One of the good things about working with men was that they didn't do this shit.
BULLSHIT. Men can be every bit as insecure as women are. Oh, but I forgot - in this series, women are all that is bitchy, shallow, weak and stupid, while men are all about strength, intelligence, depth and misogyny.
So Anita randomly comments that she knows men who prefer Karlton's kind of body. Unsurprisingly, since she's covered in muscles like Serena Williams, Karlton doesn't buy that.
"I hang around with a lot of older vampires. They don't like the really thin girls."
Yes, they like women who have large dimpled asses, visible back fat and bulging pooches. It's such a turn-on!
"They like women to look like women, not preadolescent boys with boobs sort of stuck on as an afterthought."
...
"We both look nice and curvy the way God intended grown-up women to look."
- Can you tell that LKH hates thin women because SHE isn't rail-thin?
- Seriously, this is SO fucking offensive to any women who ARE thin. Got that, thin women of the world? Your bodies are UNNATURAL and you look like BOYS! Neener neener! MEN LOVE ME, NOT YOU!
- This is all bullshit. Yes, in times past women's attractiveness varied a lot from what we now consider attractive. Heavier women WERE considered attractive, and still are in some areas of the world. And not because it was "the way God intended" but because it usually either meant that a woman could have healthy babies, or that she was wealthy enough to eat well instead of STARVING.
- I'm pretty sure there is no era of human history where bulging biceps and big slabs of bulky muscle were considered hot on a woman.
- So yeah, either Anita is openly lying to Karlton, or LKH doesn't know the difference between "curves" and "huge bulging muscles."
- And how funny that LKH's Suefied vampires all happen to like HER body type. Yeah, none of them have any personal preferences, none of them have changed their viewpoints through the centuries - they all like exactly the same thing.
- Also, I doubt that some of those vampires - like Asher - are hot for enormous tits and asses. Just a random guess.
- And did God intend for Micah to ALSO have a nice, curvy, womanly body?
- And this whole attitude of Anita's is just annoyingly condescending, given that as of Burnt Offerings Anita weighed a whopping 110 lbs, at the average height of 5'3". So she's skinny... and she has giant tits. Wow, what does THAT sound like?
- So this idiotic conversation insulting all women who don't conform to a specific body type (wow, what does THAT sound like?) placates Karlton, and she and Anita have more racist girl-talk. Yaycakes.
"Ain't that the truth. But that booty is not white-girl booty."
Because of course NO white women have asses. They're all snotty blond debutantes who are probably bulimic!
"I'm told I look like my mother, except paler. She was Hispanic."
"I was saved from the horror of having non-white skin, so I can have halfbreed angst AND pass for white. Why are you taking out your gun?"
"That explains it. I knew you were too round in the right places to be white bread."
- "White bread" does not refer to a person's ethnic makeup. It refers to a lifestyle or outlook. Like "So and so is so boring and middle class; they're so white bread."
- So... STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT "WHITE BREAD." You obviously don't fucking know what this means.
- And stop pretending that all women of a given ethnicity have the exact same body type. I know LKH writes everyone as a fucking stereotype, but I'm SICK OF IT. There are plenty of black women with thin bodies, plenty of white women with curves, etc.
- Since LKH is HERSELF lily-white and has curves, this whole "oh, I have them cuz I'm half-Latina! Only 'ethnic' women have curves!" thing is doubly fucking stupid.
- Making Karlton as racist as Anita is does not make her a well-rounded black character. It makes her an offensive depiction of an "ethnic" woman who is jealous of a white woman's beauty. That is DISGUSTING.
- And yes, this is racist. This character despises Anita for her skinny-yet-curvaceous "white" body rather than acting in a professional manner, and only decides she likes Anita when she finds out that Anita is only HALF-white (giving her excuses to be curvaceous).
"What do you mean, 'told you' you look like your mother?"
"She died when I was eight."
For the love of fuckery! I can remember what my mom looked like when I was eight! Why can't she? Does she have amnesia?
And yes, this is the mother who was SO perfect and SO beloved that her death ruined Anita's life, made her an outcast in her own family and left her unable to trust or love ever again. And Anita can't even remember what she fucking looks like. Yes, because I have a deep emotional attachment to relatives who I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER.
Then again, Anita always seems to be whining about her mother's death, but she never seems to say anything about her mother when she was ALIVE. Wow, could it be that our protagonist just wants a justification for her bad behavior?
"I can't give you any emotional connection, Long-haired Big-donged Bishie! My mom died when I was small, and this left me unable to trust anyone!"
"I am bitchy and resentful of everyone else! It's because my mom died when I was small, and this made me a rebel!"
"I drove fifty miles above the speed limit. I hate car laws, because my mom died in a car crash!"
We're also informed that Anita's father is German-American, and he's fine with her becoming a marshal. But of course, her demonized stepmother Judith - who travels to visit her in the hospital, gives her expensive gifts and tries to bond with her - does not like it. So Karlton and Anita bond over how ridiculously manly they are and how much their girly mothers HATE IT.
"I'm an executioner and I'm okay/I fuck all night and I fuck all day..."
I must have smiled because Laila laughed, a deep, throaty laugh. It was dark, and sensual like Guinness in a glass.
... are we headed for another lesbian scene?
"Oh, yeah, I've been my mom's despair since I could walk. My dad's a football coach and I just wanted to be like my brothers and my dad."
"I too dreamed of having an enormous penis."
"Me too!"
"Because after all, women who aren't more macho than Wolverine can't handle any kind of IMPORTANT jobs!"
"They can all be secretaries and hairdressers! Haha!"
"One and she's the girl."
There's always a designated girl, only one per family. Any other girls must pretend to be men.
"Yeah, I've got a stepsister; she was the girl. I went hunting with my dad."
"Or maybe she's my half sister. The author's a little unclear on the difference."
"One half brother, but he's a little too gentle for hunting. I was my dad's only boy." I made quote marks in the air with my fingers.
Delightful. So you only count as a "boy" or a "man" if you like killing things for sport. Your manliness level is directly connected to murder. What fucking century are we in?
So the two of them commiserate about their families and how crazy-short they are (of course, Anita is way shorter and ALWAYS HAS BEEN). And since black people in this series are all stereotypes, all Karlton's male relatives are enormous football playing hulks. Now that we've gotten the manly-woman bonding out of the way, it's time to glorify Anita! Because she's a legend and stuff!
"They talk about you in the training. Anita Blake, the first female vampire executioner. You still have the highest kill count of any marshal."
"Of course, they're including video game kills in that. And, uh, the number of chocolate rabbits you've bitten the heads off of."
"I've been doing it longer," I said.
I assume all the others have lapsed into comas, because that is the ONLY way someone as lazy and unmotivated as Anita could ever maintain anything other than "most times porked by a crowd" count.
"There's only eight of you from the early days," she said.
"Most of them are in padded cells."
"There were more of us than that," I said.
"But I got tired of having to share the limelight, so they all had 'accidents.'"
"They either retired early like your friend Manny Rodriguez, or they..."
"... got arrested for being a bunch of maniacs."
No, the implication is that all but the absolute best retired or died. Which doesn't seem to make sense to me because, uh, the "early days" were just the vampires' early days of LEGALITY. There should have been vampire hunters for CENTURIES, even MILLENNIA. Why is it that the only ones who got recruited were Anita and a handful of other noobs?
"It's okay, Karlton," I said. "I know the mortality rate was high when the vampire executioners first started serving warrants."
"But the risk is worth it, since now I get to brutally kill people all the time. It's so much fun!"
Aaaaannnnd now it's BORING LECTURE TIME! Karlton asks why the mortality rate for executioners went up after the warrant system came into existence, which seems like something you should have asked your teacher when you were TRAINING. So why is it? Because those stupid courts make them DEFEND their kills, which means they hesitate before brutally killing a sentient being! Tchah! Putting an obstacle in the way of cold-blooded murder!
"It made some of us hesitate to kill. Hesitation will get you killed."
"And that's why I always cut in line at the grocery store. Hesitation will get you killed!"
"Yeah, and officially we're cops, but make no mistake, Karlton, we are still executioners."
Then you're NOT cops. Because cops don't execute people, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS.
"A policeman's main job is to prevent harm to others."
... no, a policeman's main job is to apprehend criminals and prevent/detect crime. FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
"Most of them go twenty years and never draw their gun in the line of duty, not matter what you see on television."
"I, on the other hand, draw my gun if someone doesn't knock before entering. Guess how many relatives I've shot!"
"Our main job is to kill people; that's not what cops do."
"We don't kill people, we kill monsters."
... and why isn't Anita bristling and going on about what a racist Karlton is, since one of the reasons we're expected to hate Raborn? I assume it's because she's black.
I smiled, but knew it was bitter. "Pretty to think so."
"What does that mean?"
"It means, pretty to think so, for I am jaded and know more than you."
"No, seriously, what does it mean? I don't know what those words mean." "It means the author has a ladyboner for Hemingway."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-four, why?"
I smiled, and it still didn't feel happy. "When I was your age I believed they were monsters, too."
"But then I banged them all and got all sorts of magical superpowers from that, so now I'm totally on their side. Humans suck."
"... okay, I think I know what the monster is."
"See? I've changed your mind already!"
Karlton points out that Anita is only six years older than her, which means Anita has finally reached the dreaded age of THIRTY. So Anita starts insisting that "Cop years are like dog years, Karlton, multiply by seven." Yeah, because Anita's a REAL cop and has done federal marshal work full time. Oh wait, she's NOT a cop, and she only does the marshal work when she doesn't have anything better to do.
"I may only be six years older than you chronologically, but in dog years I'm forty-two years older."
Yeah, I'm not going to believe this shit from a woman who depicts all cops as prudish racists with penis envy. I'll believe the "dog years" thing when I hear it from a COP, not a wannabe.
"What the hell is that even supposed to mean?"
It means, "Shut up and be impressed by how awesome and experienced I am."
What Anita actually means is asking how many vampires Karlton has executed. The answer is four, and Anita starts sneering, "Hunted them down and killed them, or morgue stakings where they're chained to a gurney and unconscious while you do it?" Yo, LKH, we still haven't forgotten that shitty-ass comic book, where Anita's only successful staking WAS when the vampire was chained to a gurney. When she tried to hint them down and kill them, she got her ass handed to her and her partner almost died. And in the Guilty Pleasures comic, we see Anita hunting down a vampire in flashback... and getting her ass handed to her AGAIN.
So why the hell should I buy her bullshit about hunting them down when she can't manage it? Hey, LKH, if you show her as an inept bumbler but claim she's SO badass, people are not gonna buy what you say.
"Talk to me after you've killed some of them awake, while they're begging for their lives."
WHY WOULD THEY BEG FOR THEIR LIVES? They have superstrength, superspeed, and mind-controlling powers. If they WERE somehow cornered by a tiny clumsy bitch with a piece of wood, why couldn't they just ESCAPE? Or break her neck?!
"Not always; sometimes they're scared and they beg, just like anybody else."
"But they're vampires, they're monsters."
FOR FUCK'S SAKE. This world has had vampires for MILLIONS of years, and EVERYONE has known about their existence for that entire time! They are not new to the human population! THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE.
Are we seriously supposed to believe that NOBODY knew that vampires have human emotions in all those MILLIONS OF YEARS? That nobody noticed vampires begging for mercy? That NOBODY before Anita Fucking Blake noticed ANY factual information about vampires, and bothered to pass it on to other people? Of course not! Everyone in all the millennia before this were just fucking idiots! Nobody even NOTICED the vampires for all those centuries, and they never learned ANYTHING about them. They only noticed the vampires once Anita became an executioner!
FUCK THIS SERIES. FUCK IT WITH A POWER DRILL!!!!!!!!!
"According to the law we uphold they're legal citizens of this country, not monsters."
- ... and you regularly murder those legal citizens of this country, you hypocritical bitchybutt.
- I'm not talking about legal executions, but all the vampires she kills OUTSIDE the law.
- And again, they are NOT CITIZENS. Citizens of the United States - or any other country - have a set list of rights and regulations. Vampires do not get most of those rights. Therefore, they are no more citizens of the US than a litter of puppies.
- Actually, the puppies might get better treatment, since puppies are adorable and people will try to save them. Not so with sleazy fanged Frenchmen who wear Jerry Seinfeld's pirate shirt.
She studied my face. I don't know what she saw there, or wanted to see, but she finally frowned. I think a blank face wasn't what she'd been hoping to see.
Probably not, because then you just look brain-dead....er.
"So you really do believe that they're people."
I nodded.
"You believe they're people, but you still kill them."
I nodded again.
"So you're admitting that you kill people, but you don't have any kind of moral qualms about it."
"Yup."
"I'm switching rooms. You can stay with the crazy guy who eats glue."
Karlton is skeeved out by the idea, because it would be like killing a regular human if you thought of vampires as people. This strikes me as a perfectly normal and logical reaction - if I worked in a slaughterhouse and thought of cows as sentient beings on the same level as human beings, I sure as hell couldn't kill them, and I wouldn't want any part of it.
"It does seem a conflict of interest," I said.
... but of course, Anita doesn't have ANY problem with it. She just thinks about where to put her weapons, not about the moral and ethical implications of killing citizens - some of whom have only committed misdemeanors - whom she thinks of as being people. Why? Because she doesn't give a shit, as long as none of her boytoys get in trouble for shoplifting.
Yo, LKH, having another character react in a TOTALLY NORMAL WAY to this idea, and having Anita just shrug it off because apparently MURDER doesn't bother her does not make Anita look complex. It makes her look like a fucking psycho. Which she is. She makes Norman Bates look psychologically healthy.
Then they spend half a page dancing around Karlton wanting to ask something.
"We had some of the other vampire executioners come and give lectures. One of them said you'd been one of the best before you got seduced by the master vampire of your city."
"Now he says you just lie around with your legs in the air, whining and having power struggles nobody cares about."
"He says that women are more likely to be seduced by vampires than men, and you're proof of that."
Right, the US marshal system would TOTALLY let someone saying this work for them.
And you know what? As depicted in this series, all the female vampires are psychotic bitches no guy would ever actually want to be with, and all the males are hypersexualized and bishie-pretty.
So it turns out it's some guy called Gerald Mallory, who thinks Anita is "the whore of Babylon because I'm sleeping with vampires." As opposed to being the whore of Babylon because she's basically a giant all-devouring vagina who wants to swallow up the entire world and take all power for herself. That's just fine.
"He might forgive shapeshifters, but he hates vampires with a depth and breadth of hate that's frightening."
"Frightening?" She made it a question with a upward lilt of her voice.
... as opposed to making a question with a QUESTION MARK and an inquiry!
Also, I really smack my head at how apparently Karlton has to be TOLD how hate can be frightening. I mean, no FEDERAL MARSHAL could possibly know that hate could be FRIGHTENING. Nobody except Anita knows THAT.
"I've seen him kill. He gets off on it."
So? Anita gets off on killing too.
"He's like a racist who has permission to hate and kill."
Okay, you obviously need permission to kill. But nobody can give you permission to HATE. Hate is an emotion, and as such it can't be policed. Although I'm sure the government is getting on that.
"You say race because I'm black."
Because the only people who suffer any form of racism are black. I mean, Anita couldn't compare him to a fucking Nazi or anything.
... DID YOU NOTICE KARLTON IS BLACK? DID YOU? DID YOU NOTICE?
"No, I say racist because it's the closest thing I can imagine to his attitude toward vampires. I'm not joking when I say after seeing him stake vampires that he scares me. He hates them so much, Karlton. He hates them without reason, or thought, or any room in his mind for a reason not to hate them. It consumes him, and people consumed by hate are crazy. It blinds them to the truth, and makes them hate anyone who doesn't agree with them."
- That's right, once again LKH tries to notify us that someone is "bad" by making them a mindless bigot with no motivation or explanation beyond "they're bigots."
- This is almost as bad Christopher Paolini handwaving ALL the stupid crazy shit his villain does with "he's crazy!"
- Here's a shocking idea: try making a bigoted character who isn't just a big walking "he's a bigot!" sign. Try giving him motivations. Try making him changeable and capable of evolution. Try giving him GOOD points as well as bad points.
- In other words, TRY WRITING A FUCKING 3-D CHARACTER.
- And again, this is pretty rich from Anita, given that at the series' beginning, she was a huge bigot herself. Okay, she wasn't CONSUMED by her hatred for vampires, but she definitely hated them without reason, thought or motive.
- She's got plenty of bigotry herself towards the human species. Note her hatred of female blond Caucasians. Note her hate of all Mexicans. Note her casual use of racial slurs like "dago." Note her classifying people according to externals like RACE rather than who they are or what they do. Note her contempt for the human species. Note her hate of women.
- As a comparison, note the character of Sanya from the Dresden Files. Santa is black. He is also Russian. His race plays into his backstory and how he was once one of the Denarians, but it's not even CLOSE to being a defining trait. People around him can SEE he's black, but they don't give a damn. Him being Russian, agnostic, a knight, an honorable and noble man are all things that people pay more attention to.
Karlton is obviously ignoring everything Anita says, because then they have a boring conversation about the proper tools and procedure for killing a vampire. No, LKH doesn't think it's creepy or freaky for Anita to chitchat casually about making the brains leak out of a thinking feeling sentient PERSON. It's just a sign of how practical she is!
"If I see daylight through the chest and the heart is completely destroyed, you're probably okay, but if I have time I destroy the brain, too,"
"I regularly jam the vampires up against the window to see if I can see daylight through their bleeding torn-up chests. But I like to repeatedly whack their dead bodies with an ax. It shows how practical I am! And it's so FUN!"
It turns out Karlton has never been on a vampire hunt before. Yes, this seems likely - they'd react to multiple killings all across the nation by sending untested noobs with nobody to oversee them and no actual information. In a well-written series, this would be foreshadowing to it turning out the Harlequin has infiltrated the government and is making things difficult for the protagonist. But.... this is the Anita Blake universe, where the government undermines its own investigations because otherwise, people other than Anita would get the glory.
Anita acts very condescending towards Karlton, and basically orders her to sign over her warrant because this isn't something the noob can do without getting killed. You know, the noob who actually has had TRAINING for this, unlike your worthless ham-ass.
"I can't. I'm the girl, and if I back down on this the other marshals will never trust me again."
Yup, we'd gone for a whole few pages without the "cops don't trust gurls!" spiel. We were about due.
And way to imply that there is only ONE female marshal in the whole service.
"It's not about being a girl, Karlton, it's about being new and inexperienced."
- No, I'd say it's about being a girl. That's the only reason Anita is talking to Karlton.
- As we later see, Anita doesn't harass MALE noobs the way she does Karlton. Just the woman.
- And why the fuck is Karlton being forced to defend her own decisions to ANITA? Karlton has been trained as a FEDERAL MARSHAL. That's a little more impressive than "Durrr, I iz big vampire killer, so they give me honorary badge! I iz kewl!"
There was no more girl talk after that.
Yes, talking about being killed and slaughtering people is "girl talk."
So they get ready for bed. Guess what kind of jammies Nathaniel packed her!
No, I'm not kidding. He packed her a skin-tight lace cami and matching shorts for her pajamas; I'm surprised he didn't also pack assless chaps and nipple pasties for daily wear. Then again, he probably figures that she's going to fuck at least one total stranger (like she does EVERY time she leaves St. Louis), and must wear sexy lingerie so they'll be dazzled by her ginormous boobies. He would be right.
There was enough lift to the fabric that the camisole actually supported my breasts enough for it to fit right.
Because stretchy lace is known for holding up giant tatas.
The skimpy pj's looked great on me, but were so not appropriate marshal jammies.
... and what are "marshal jammies"? Do they have a nighttime dress code? Do they give you "marshal jammies" when you join up?
I think we all know why this is going on: once again, LKH wants her heroine to be seen as rough and tough, but she also wants Anita to be sexy and have her boobies hanging out. So Nathaniel randomly packs porn pajamas so Anita can protest too much.
When I came out, Karlton said, "Nice pajamas. Sorry to disappoint that you're not bunking with the boys."
"Oh, that's okay. I have sex with women now too! Admire my gorgeous figure again, masculine black woman!"
"My boyfriend packed my clothes while I packed the weapons."
"Because I'm manly, you see. I can't be seen packing CLOTHES, hygiene products or any other unimportant non-weapon stuff. I leave that to my effeminate boytoys."
"You let a man pack your clothes?"
"Tchah! Nathaniel's not a MAN, he's a 50s housewife! I'M the man!"
"He's usually pretty good at it, but I think he picked the pajamas for what he wanted to see."
She snorted. "That's a man."
Yes, because when a man's girlfriend is going out of town and he won't be with her, he packs sexy revealing PJs so OTHER people can see her goodies. Makes perfect sense. Does he also pack condoms, sex toys and the Kama Sutra, since those are what he'd like to use?
I sighed. "I guess so."
"I mean, he has a penis, so I guess technically he IS a man."
The oversized T-shirt she was wearing had someone I didn't recognize singing into a microphone stand.
Why did you even bother MENTIONING the T-shirt if its ONLY distinguishing characteristic is something you can't even identify?
Anita lies in bed whining about how the sheets are cheap, and she misses the expensive ones at home. Sorry LKH, don't give a shit if Anita is a diva now. Oh, and she's wearing her weapons in bed, because her life is filled with such danger.
"Do you always sleep with that many weapons?"
"What, these? I'm practically naked! I don't have my holster on a belly-band, my spine sheath with a sword, my silver knives wedged in my enormous ass, my sneakers that spray Mace..."
"Never mind. Forget I asked."
"... my cleavage holster which nobody notices because of my enormous breasts, my teeny-tiny gun hidden in my right nostril..."
I always slept with a gun close at hand,
Just in case, you know, somebody wanders casually by the multiple shapeshifters and the vampire in the basement.
So Anita starts whining about how she's wearing these uncomfortable wrist sheaths with silver blades, which sounds like it would be more dangerous to sleep in because the knives might slip OUT. And she's got her little sword next to her bed and a gun under her pillow. Guess how many of these will actually be effectively used against the bad guys!
The door led directly out into the night.
There wasn't a parking lot or a sidewalk or anything... just NIGHT NIGHT NIGHT.
Vampires couldn't come into the room without permission,
Right, because a hotel room should be JUST like a home, magically speaking. Do they need permission to enter anyplace that has a bed in it?
I was less than happy with the room, but it was cheap and I'd learned that if you were traveling on the government's dime they pinched their dimes; pennies didn't even figure into the equation.
- Call Washington D.C.! Wake the president! The mighty Whorenita is dissatisfied with her hotel room! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DOOOOOOO?
- When people travel on government money, the government usually gives them some money for things like hotels, food and shit.
- And I'm pretty sure they don't get bottom-of-the-barrel motels like this one. They don't rent rooms at the Ritz, but they don't get places that are nasty.
"Is Gerald Mallory right – are women more likely to be seduced by vampires than men?"
"No."
YES. Because women are more likely than men to write self-insert vampire shit like this series, so their Sues can bonk Lestat clones.
"Then why are you the only marshal who's living with them?"
Because Anita isn't honest or moral enough to hand in her badge when her loyalties are compromised.
And this is a really stupid question. So ONE marshal is living with a vampire, and that marshal happens to be a woman, so people assume that therefore women are just dumb sluts ruled by their hormones. LOGIC!
But since Anita hates women anyway, she doesn't bother pointing out the logical flaws.
No, they have a boring little conversation about "love" and how you can't control it or whatever. Anita doesn't mention the magical roofie from her power-dispensing vagina that molds people into whatever she wants, of course.
"I get it. I have seen pictures of your Master of the City; he's pretty if you like white boys."
"Which I don't, of course! Because I'm a black stereotype."
Karlton also asks Anita to call her Laila, because "all the guys call me Karlton. I'd like to hear my name sometimes." So why doesn't she ask the guys to call her Laila? Oh wait, because she has to keep up the manly distant facade instead of being FRIENDS with them.
So Anita lies in bed thinking about how she and Edward will try to take over the hunt themselves, because they've basically screwed over everyone else by keeping vital information for themselves. But of course, they're doing it to save the other marshals, because Anita cares SO much. It's not because she wants to be in charge, or that this is the only way she can hog the glory. No, it's because she CARES.
The trouble was, the only way it got reassigned was if one of the other marshals was too injured, or too dead, to finish the hunt.
And of course, it would NEVER be reassigned to anyone other than Edward and Anita!
I lay awake in the dark, and thought, Please, God, don't let her get killed.
"She's just so alluring! If only I could add her to my harem!"
And yes, I know this entire scene is LKH trying to establish that Anita does not hate all other successful heterosexual women, and that she's capable of forming friendships with other people with vaginas. I will give her credit for at least TRYING to make a black character who isn't so white she could pass for a Cullen.
BUT SHE DOES THIS ALL WRONG. There is just SO much about this scene that sucks.
- Another chapter with nothing but two people talking.
- The token black woman is still pretty damn cliched.
- LKH pays lip service to her being attractive and a "real woman." The actual DESCRIPTIONS (note no mentions of breasts, waist or whatever) make her sound so macho she probably pisses testosterone. IE, she's not any kind of sexual competition for Anita.
- That also makes her heterosexuality irrelevant, since she's too mannish for any guy to find her desirable.
- The token black woman is also sidelined by an injury, meaning she spends the whole book lying in bed moping while the white woman gets all the glory. Think about the implications of that.
- The token black woman is an insecure mess who is immediately intimidated by the white woman's beauty.
- And Karlton basically has lite versions of Anita's early attitudes about the sexes, vampires, being tough and shit like that. As in, she has no actual opinions of her own.
- And finally, LKH introduces an actual African-American female character.... and makes her a racist. Think about that.
- Did I mention this is the FOURTH chapter of two people talking?
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