Anita Blake
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- This article is about the fictional character Anita Blake. For the series of novels about Anita Blake, see Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter (series).
Anita Blake is a fictional character in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.
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[edit] Character introduction
Anita Blake is the series heroine: she is a vampire executioner, an animator, a necromancer and carries four different strains of lycanthropy, while being wanted by most of the men of the series.
[edit] Explanation of the character's name
The principal significance of Anita's name appears to be the latin first name "Anita" together with the Anglo surname "Blake" represent Anita's mixed Mexican/Anglo heritage. Within the novels, this contrast, which also appears in Anita's mix of black hair and china white skin or in her combination of vaundun and Catholic upbringing, is one of Anita's key formative traumas.
Her middle name is Katerine, of Czech origin, taken from her father's favorite aunt.
[edit] Character sketch
[edit] Summary
Anita Blake (in the latest book, Danse Macabre) is a twenty-six year old resident of St. Louis. Born a necromancer with the power to control zombies as well as power over other forms of undead, Anita leads a complicated life. Her main job is as an animator for "Animators, Inc.," a St. Louis-based business that raises the dead for the right price. Anita is also a licensed vampire executioner (known to vampires as "The Executioner") and a consultant for RPIT, the area's police division in charge of supernatural crimes.
[edit] Powers
In almost every book, Anita either discovers new abilities, develops old ones, or both. At this point, she is probably one of the most powerful humans in history.
- Necromancer: Anita is one of the most powerful animators in the world. She is referred to as "a necromancer of old" which was deemed to be killed on sight by vampires, in previous times. She can raise zombies, sense the dead, sense vampires and lycanthropes, estimate their power level, and can resist (at least partially) mental influence from vampires. She can raise zombies that are centuries dead, and can do so without human sacrifice. She is one of the few animators who can act as a "focus" to combine the powers of multiple animators, and is the first person in centuries that can raise vampires (during daylight) as if they were zombies. Her necromancer abilities refer to the ability to control all types of undead, including at times vampires.
- Combat training: Thanks to Manny and Edward, Anita is trained in combat skills, especially handguns and knives. She is also taking classes in a variety of martial arts, and holds at least one black belt. She also works out regularly with her best friend Ronnie "to be able to out run the bad guys" when she needs to.
- Detective training: Anita has been involved with many investigations with RPIT and, in the later books, with the FBI. Her police contact, Rudolph Storr, routinely requires her to engage in independent crime scene reconstruction in order to obtain an analysis -- Anita's reconstructions are almost always correct and frequently include insights that the police have missed. Anita thinks like a cop and a monster, according to some, which is what makes her so insightful. In Cerulean Sins, she was granted Federal Marshal status which allows her to now enter any preternatural crime scene she so desires, or follow a vampire or other non-human crime suspect across state lines.
- Supernatural experience: Anita holds a bachelor's degree in preternatural biology and is a trained vampire executioner. She also has a two-semester background in comparative religion. These courses often told her useful tidbits about other cultures/mythologies, and throughout the series she learns vastly more about vampires, lycanthropes, and other preternatural creatures. RPIT relies on her for information about a wide variety of supernatural entities.
- Human servant: In books 1-3 and 6+, Jean-Claude has marked Anita with three of the four marks necessary to make her his human servant. This grants Anita unusual strength, rapid healing, increased resistance to vampire's abilities, and an almost complete resistance to Jean-Claude's mental influence, as well as a psychic connection to Jean-Claude himself. In books 10+, Anita has given Damian, her vampire servant, the fourth mark. This does not interfere with Jean Claude's marks. It is uncertain if this unconventional fourth mark grants Anita immortality.
- Triumvirate member: Anita is a member of a "triumvirate" with Jean-Claude and Richard Zeeman. Because of Anita's own connection with the dead, as well as Jean-Claude's unusual choice of two other members with power levels similar to his own, their triumvirate is the most powerful seen in any of the novels. As a result, Anita's own psychic powers are strengthened, and she has developed several powers similar to those of vampires and lycanthropes. She also created another triumvirate with Damien and Nathaniel, with herself as the center.
- Vampire powers: The combination of her necromancy and her membership in the triumvirate has caused Anita to develop a series of powers formerly seen only in vampires, including the following.
- Ardeur (Narcissus in Chains). This power has proven in later books to manipulate the personalities of Anita and those around her, as well as to be addictive to some characters (such as London).
- Anita has the ability to copy vampire powers that are used against her - sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently.
- Animal to call - leopards (Narcissus in Chains) and lions (Danse Macabre), and possibly others.
- Psychic blades - the ability to turn a person's aura against them, usually resulting in cuts.
- Power draining: Anita has copied, apparently permanently, Itzpapalotl's ability to drain the life energy from her victims and, if she chooses, to use that energy to heal another.
- Power to bind vampire and animal servants: Anita has the power to bind a vampire servant and an animal servant. She inadvertently used this power to attract a vampire servant, Damien and formed a second triumvirate between them and Nathaniel in (Cerulean Sins), which presumably has increased her power further.
[edit] Character
Anita is classic hardboiled: flippant, stubborn, and tough. Like Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski, she has major emotional issues and tends to come across as quite prickly and difficult. Like Spenser and Matthew Scudder, she plays knight errant, championing vulnerable characters who ask for her help.
In discussing the genesis of the character, Hamilton has said:
- I started reading a lot of hardboiled detective fiction — Robert B. Parker in particular — and I read a lot of strong female protagonists. But there was one problem, a difference between the male and female protagonists of the different series — even the strongest of the women did not get to do some of the things the men got to do. The men got to cuss, the women rarely; the men got to kill people and not feel bad about it, if the women killed someone they had to feel really, really bad about it afterward and it had to be an extreme situation; the men got to have sex, often and on stage and very casually, but if the women had sex it had to be offstage, very sanitized. I thought this was unfair. [1]
Anita fits many of the characteristics of a Mary Sue: she bears a close physical resemblance to series author Laurell K. Hamilton, has a similar personality to Ms. Hamilton — both have a fear of flying and both lost their mothers when they were young — becomes dramatically more powerful and important with each novel, and is found sexually attractive by many beautiful men. However, she is acutely uncomfortable with many of these things and possesses many strong faults.
[edit] Biology
During a period of hospitalization at the end of the novella Micah, a doctor states that blood tests reveal that whilst she is not a lycanthrope, she is a carrier of at least four types of lycanthropy virus: wolf, leopard, lion, and one so far unidentified. This is considered unusual because one type of lycanthropy usually provides immunity to the other forms.
[edit] Biographical summary
[edit] Prior story
Anita was born with the talent to be a necromancer.
Anita's formative experiences appear to be a series of traumas. In particular, Anita has never fully recovered from seeing her mother die in a car accident, which occurred when Anita was eight. Her father remarried a few years after. Anita never forgave her father marrying again. Later, she clashed with her stepmother, Judith, particularly over Anita's powers as a necromancer. When not controlled and used, the powers manifested during Anita's adolescence, causing various dead animals to reanimate and visit Anita's home, namely when she raised her dog when she was 13 years old. In order to control her powers, Anita's parents let her study animation with her maternal grandmother, Grandmother Flores, a Vaundun priestess. Flores believed that training a necromancer in vaundun ritual would lead to evil and encouraged Anita to become a Roman Catholic. Later, when the Pope excommunicated all animators, Anita became an Episcopalian.
Anita majored in preternatural biology in college, earning a bachelors degree. While in college, she had another of her formative traumas, when her fiancee's parents convinced him to break their engagement because Anita's mother was Mexican. Anita decided to forego additional sexual experiences until marriage. She also accidentally raised a suicidal teacher in college.
After college, Anita was recruited by Bert Vaughn to join Animators, Inc. as a professional zombie animator. She was also trained by Manny Rodriguez and became a licenced vampire executioner. At some point, she became associated with Edward (it is implied they attempted to kill each other at some point), and she, Manny, and Edward were involved in at least one dicey confrontation with vampires -- a battle against Valentine and his pack in which Anita received a number of severe scars, including a cross shaped brand on her arm, put there by some of the vampires' human thralls. The series begins some time after that confrontation, shortly after the legalization of vampires.
[edit] Story within the novels
The first novel, Guilty Pleasures, introduces Anita and her world. Blackmailed by Nikolaos, the vampire master of the city, into investigating a series of vampire murders. During the course of this investigation, Anita begins her relationship with Jean-Claude, another master vampire, and receives two of the four marks necessary to make her Jean-Claude's "human servant." Ultimately, Anita identifies the murderer, but by that point has sufficiently antagonized Nikolaos and her underlings that she is forced to confront them. Ultimately, with help from Jean-Claude and Edward, a human associate who specializes in assassinating supernatural targets, Anita kills Nikolaos and many of her followers, making Jean-Claude master of the city.
Anita continues to attempt to come to grips with her increasing powers and her relationship with Jean Claude, her would be master, in the novels The Laughing Corpse and Circus of the Damned. This also sees the beginning of the love triangle between Anita, Richard, and Jean Claude; a relationship that becomes increasingly complicated and dangerous in later books. In The Lunatic Cafe she agrees, at least tentatively, to officially date Jean Claude, further marking her acceptance of the supernatural. At the same time, even though she becomes engaged to Richard, severe cracks begin to appear in their relationship.
Bloody Bones sees Anita travel to Branson, Missouri, where she quickly becomes enmeshed in a series of supernatural murders and disappearances. Anita's relationship with Jean-Claude takes a large step forward in this novel. For the first time, Anita requires Jean-Claude's substantial help as more than a source of information. In addition, as Anita sees Jean-Claude "die" with the dawn, gives him blood to save his life, and by spending the book with Jean-Claude but not Richard, Jean-Claude becomes a more substantial rival for Anita's affections. Her role as Larry's mentor is also further developed and she is forced to relive the trauma of her mother's death.
The Killing Dance provides a notable turning point in her relationships with Jean-Claude and Richard. Richard, with his desperate attempts to remain "human" and his powers that originate from life, represents the side of Anita that rebels against the "darker" elements of her nature, while Jean-Claude, who has long accepted his demons and draws his powers from death, represents the part of her that accepts them. Ultimately, Anita realizes that even Richard, the "nice" and "normal" member of their triangle, is sufficiently entangled with the supernatural to place himself and the others in danger, and she runs to Jean-Claude, who is at least able to present his more monsterous aspects discreetly and to protect himself from danger.
However, this is not the end of the relationship between Richard and Anita, and in Burnt Offerings and Blue Moon the complicated love life continues. Anita's increasing powers and comfort with the 'monsters' is also demonstrated. In Burnt Offerings we see Anita be drawn further into the world of the vampires when she has to help Jean-Claude fend off a challenge from the Vampire Council, whilst Blue Moon shows her learning more about the ways of the werewolves.
It is these increasing complications that Anita is attempting to sort out in Obsidian Butterfly when she travels to New Mexico to help Edward investigate a series of supernatural attacks, and it is with the intention of working on these relationships that she returns to St Louis in Narcissus in Chains. There she discovers that her lengthy separation has caused significant damage to several of her friends and allies, both emotionally and also in terms of their supernatural powers. A number of complications to her attempts to repair this damage arise however:
- First, Anita finds herself developing the ardeur, a rare power seen only in vampires of Jean-Claude's bloodline. Although this power allows Anita to draw energy from lust, it also requires her to have sex multiple times per day, at least in its early stages.
- Second, in Anita's absence, Damian, a vampire linked to her after she raised him from true death, has become a feral killing machine, and Richard has attempted to substitute democracy for the strictly hierarchical nature of the local werewolf pack, threatening to destroy the pack. A new werewolf in town, Jacob seeks to take advantage of this chaos by planning to kill first Sylvie, then Richard.
- Third, a new alpha wereleopard, Micah has arrived with his pard of wereleopards, and seeks to merge groups with Anita and become her Nimir-Raj and mate.
Anita helps Damian to regain his sanity, assuming her position as Damian's master and rendering him the first "vampire servant" in centuries. She also comes close to reconciling with Richard, but Richard ultimately leaves her after she uses the ardeur to feed on him, declaring that, like Anita herself, he will not allow himself to be used as food. Anita accepts Micah as her lover and Nimir-Raj. Micah, who appears willing to accommodate any desire of Anita's, becomes part of a menage a trois with Jean-Claude, allowing Jean-Claude to feed on him.
Anita mourns Richard's leaving, but believes that their romantic relationship is finally over. She is still the lupa of the Thronos Rokke clan, but has also become its bolverk. She is not herself a wereleopard, but her affinity with the leopards apparently means that they are her animal to call as if she were herself a master vampire. Anita and Micah are happily leading their wereleopards, and she, Micah and Jean-Claude are a happy threesome, but, being Anita, she doubts that happiness can last long.
The themes of complex relationships and increasing power are continued in subsequent books in the series. In Cerulean Sins she and Jean-Claude outmaneuver Belle-Morte by taking Asher to their bed in a menage a trois, making Asher their lover and therefore immune to most of Belle Morte's advances. More alarmingly, Anita begins to believe that Belle Morte is planning a war against the Mother of Darkness, the oldest and most powerful of the world's vampires. Although Anita and Jean Claude do their best to avoid that conflict, the Mother of Darkness is beginning to awaken from a centuries-long sleep, and seems interested in Anita.
In Incubus Dreams Anita makes considerable progress with her metaphysical problems as she learns that she can partially control the ardeur by drawing power from others' lust and by ensuring that her other desires, such as physical hunger, do not go unfullfilled. Anita's personal life also resolves in a number of ways. She accepts Nathaniel as the fourth of her concurrent lovers, and she and Richard also agree to renew their relationship. (Although Nathaniel and Micah appear to accept or want Anita as their only lover, Anita reluctantly agrees to accept Richard's decision to date other people, and allows Jean Claude to begin feeding his lust from others, at least psychically). The major unresolved issues in Anita's personal life appear to be her relationship with Damian, who she attempts to offer more independence but who also wants to be one of her lovers, and her role as a law enforcement officer, which is becoming more and more difficult as she continues to identify with the "monsters."
Her relationship with Micah is focused on specifically in the novella of the same name. Anita also continues to wrestle with her recent increase in power, first attempting to deal with the ardeur, a metaphysical effect that causes Anita to need to have sex every few hours, and second, wrestling with the vast increase in her own powers as a necromancer, which are now so powerful that her attempt to raise a single person threatens to raise every corpse in the cemetery.
Danse Macabre sees a possible pregnancy threatening to force her to change her already unstable relationship with her several lovers. Anita accepts that the ardeur may have shaped Micah's, Nathaniel's, and her personalities to make them more compatible partners for one another. Anita also seems only momentarily concerned by the discoveries that she may be a shape-shifter or that her roles as a succubus and as Regina of the local were-lion pride may require her to take on several new lovers. In her personal life, while she continues to resist the idea of permitting her lovers (other than Richard) to take female lovers in addition to her, Anita begins to accept the idea of her lovers taking other male lovers, particularly in the case of Jean-Claude and Asher.
[edit] Appearances
(See individual novel pages for a discussion of Anitas's role in each novel in which she appears).
