Sunday, April 21, 2013

Cerulean Sins--Chapter 33

So Anita is now all shaky and upset because somebody has called her on her shit.

A note to writers: Characters need to be called on their shit on a regular basis. It's good for character building, and it will frequently justify what a reader feels about said character and then put the reader squarely back on said character's side. We've gotten the fact that the main character is, in some respects, an obnoxious shit. The way to have the main character react, however, is to have them begin taking steps, either consious or unconsious, to rectify the fact that they are an obnoxious shit. See: Mockingjay and the behavioral switch when Peeta told Katniss she was basically a fuck up by the numbers, and he didn't see what other people saw in her anymore. Prior to that moment, she was dodging any responsibility that did not involve (Spoiler Redacted)'s Propaganda. After Peeta tells her off? She starts doing responsible things and manages to get her shit back together in time for the grand finale.

Having your main character react with more of the same? It pisses the readers off. No, author, the character is not right. They need to take the blow and then fix the things that are broken.

Nathanial finds her like this and tells her that the dudes who were following them have switched cars, and are now camping out in the Circus of the Damned's parking lot.

Dudes, I've stood up for you up until now, but if you're going to do that? Just ring the fucking doorbell. You clearly do not want Anita to know she's under survaliance, so either back off and stick a resiliant dude on a park bench or something, or just go overt and see what that does.

Anita decides to go out with her gun, even though she's psychicly blind thanks to the number of things that have invaded her head tonight. (And, it is implied, because Asher told her to drop dead). Because the gun is good? No, that can't be it, because the rest of that quote is "The penis is evil" and LKH has shown full acceptance of the penis.

Nathanial wants to go too. Anita says no.

“No, Nathaniel. I taught you about guns so you wouldn’t hurt yourself, and so in an emergency you could defend yourself. This isn’t an emergency. I want you to stay inside out of the line of fire.”
Yes. Because it's not like Nathanial can shape shift into a man-eating cat or anything. Nope. The designated victim is always helpless. Even though he's a man eating cat that knows how to shoot a gun. He's utterly helpless.

Anita says "Please just do what I say," which is like the siren call of every abusive monster ever, and Nathanial backs down.

And then Anita goes out to battle with the burly were-rat Bobby Lee instead. Chapter ends with nonsense about love making you stupid and selfish. 

Right. Hey, Anita, you know how you were blabbing about God and protections and him actually being there? So about that "love makes you selfish" thing:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Yeah. I don't think love is the issue here.

And yeah, that was basically the chapter :"ANITA THE RANDOM FOLLOW-Y PEOPLE ARE HERE" "OH GOODNESS I MUST GET MY GUN STAY HERE DESIGNATED VICTIM AND BE VICTIMY I MUST GO OUT WITH BIGGER BURLY MANLY MAN AND GO SHOOT THINGS THAT ARE NOT PROVEN TO BE A THREAT BECAUSE LOVE MAKES YOU SELFISH END CHAPTER."

Laurel K. Hamilton gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to write this stuff. Hundreds. Of Thousands. Of Dollars.

No comments:

Post a Comment