Between Tooth and Claw: The Vampire/Werewolf choice for Strong Independent Women
How did this become a thing? Enough of a thing that tvtropes has page devoted to it . I'd love to blame Twilight, but Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake predates those (Guilty Pleasures premiered in 1993). If you haven't read them, I highly recommend the first four or five books.
In any case, Anita Blake is a strong, independent necromancer, who works with the police. She has two love interests and (spoiler alert) one of them is a werewolf and the other is a vampire.
Why these two creatures of all the supernatural beings? Why does every hardboiled paranormal woman find herself torn? I hadn't thought about it much until I picked up the Mercy Thompson series by Patrica Briggs (awesome braincandy) and found a tough female mechanic that I really liked. And while the vampire in those books isn't posed as equal to the werewolf love interest, he's still there in the background. Being....distracting.
Do these two archetypal monsters represent some kind of quintessential female choice? Certainly both vampires and werewolves suffer from uncontrollable urges that are beyond their control. That's a label we have long ascribed to men's sex drives, an idea that has proven toxic to all genders.
The implication is generally that vampires are somehow more comfortable with those urges, embracing their nature and use it to seduce while werewolves fight the change and are reduced to a mindless state.
Why are these our fearless heroines only choices? Where is the mortal dude who takes on support staff instead of jumping in front of the bullets? Male action heroes seem to prefer that kind of mate, hanging back being all mortal and appealing to all enemies.
Instead, women are given these borderline abusive mates (he can't help it! He's supernatural!) with their mind control powers, thrall and mating instincts that make sex an uncomfortable dance of consent issues. The only benefit seems to be that these hyper-masculine dudes can rush in to save the day when the heroine gets in over her pretty head.
I'd love to read a series where the woman is a kickass warrior and her partner is a useless cheerleader, who keeps getting kidnapped, but never flags in his devotion to her cause. He could even be a stay at home dad, watching their adorable fangy children, who often wind up protecting him from mom's enemies. Maybe he makes awesome muffins.
In any case, Anita Blake is a strong, independent necromancer, who works with the police. She has two love interests and (spoiler alert) one of them is a werewolf and the other is a vampire.
Why these two creatures of all the supernatural beings? Why does every hardboiled paranormal woman find herself torn? I hadn't thought about it much until I picked up the Mercy Thompson series by Patrica Briggs (awesome braincandy) and found a tough female mechanic that I really liked. And while the vampire in those books isn't posed as equal to the werewolf love interest, he's still there in the background. Being....distracting.
Do these two archetypal monsters represent some kind of quintessential female choice? Certainly both vampires and werewolves suffer from uncontrollable urges that are beyond their control. That's a label we have long ascribed to men's sex drives, an idea that has proven toxic to all genders.
The implication is generally that vampires are somehow more comfortable with those urges, embracing their nature and use it to seduce while werewolves fight the change and are reduced to a mindless state.
Why are these our fearless heroines only choices? Where is the mortal dude who takes on support staff instead of jumping in front of the bullets? Male action heroes seem to prefer that kind of mate, hanging back being all mortal and appealing to all enemies.
Instead, women are given these borderline abusive mates (he can't help it! He's supernatural!) with their mind control powers, thrall and mating instincts that make sex an uncomfortable dance of consent issues. The only benefit seems to be that these hyper-masculine dudes can rush in to save the day when the heroine gets in over her pretty head.
I'd love to read a series where the woman is a kickass warrior and her partner is a useless cheerleader, who keeps getting kidnapped, but never flags in his devotion to her cause. He could even be a stay at home dad, watching their adorable fangy children, who often wind up protecting him from mom's enemies. Maybe he makes awesome muffins.
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Erika wrote: "Great post! I totally agree with you btw, but I think we are in the minority here. I stopped reading most urban fantasy with female protagonists exactly for the reasons you talked about. The mos..."I haven't read Bitten! It's definitely on my list now. I guess for some readers books like that satisfy a rescue fantasy, but I might seriously consider that book! Once I finish the dozens of other ideas rattling around in my In Progress folder...
By the way, I thought Stories Beneath Our Skin was really well done. Thank you so much for writing about a brown skinned character that was just a regular dude. His skin color was secondary and there were no stereotypical behaviors or descriptions, and I thought that was so great.
Erika wrote: "By the way, I thought Stories Beneath Our Skin was really well done. Thank you so much for writing about a brown skinned character that was just a regular dude. His skin color was secondary and th..."I'm so glad you liked it! Goose was a hell of a lot of fun to write and he'll probably pop again in my work.
Have you read the Sookie (True Blood) books? The first few are quirky before she becomes every beings ideal! (view spoiler)I liked early Anita and Mercy.
Recommend Bitten - while he's definitely all alpha and controlling, she's still the more powerful (view spoiler), she's shown vulnerable but fighting and holding her own. In fact the series is known as 'women of the otherworld' and all of them are strong without emasculating the men.
You know that stay-at-home dad sounds like a great blurb - and you happen to be an author!!!!!! ;):D
Hi! I bumped into this blog thanks to Meep:-).When I read "kick-ass warrior", I just had to recommend an UF series to you Dead Witch Walking, The Hollows.
Rachel is a witch who works as a bounty hunter. She has 2 partners, a female vampire and a pixie male. In this case, the male is considerably weaker physically than the ladies;-).
The only ones doing the rescuing here usually have stilettos.
Rachel really develops throughout the series, and compared to Sookie and Anita, this series actually gets better with each book, even though there are 12 books (!) in the series as of now.
Romance comes on second place in the beginning of this series...(well, don't want to reveal too much;-), but what you write about the man behind the woman is getting more and more relevant in later books)
Therese wrote: "Hi! I bumped into this blog thanks to Meep:-).When I read "kick-ass warrior", I just had to recommend an UF series to you Dead Witch Walking, The Hollows.
Rachel is a witch who wor..."
Awesome! Thank you so much for the recommendation! I'll definitely have to check it out.
Have you read Kelley Armstrong's Bitten? The woman in it is a werewolf who is stronger than most of the male werewolves. I noticed that in the reviews a lot of people hated it because she's stronger and there's none of that "Let me save you because I'm an alpha male" crap. If I remember correctly, (view spoiler)[her mate is the one that ends up taking care of the kids, (hide spoiler)] which I thought was excellent because you never see that in most female-centric fiction.
Hey, if you ever decide to write a book where the woman is more badass than her nerdy love who needs saving all the time, let me know! I'd totally buy that.