Lara Raith

Lara Raith
The Dresden Files character
An artist's conception of Lara Raith
First appearance	Grave Peril
Last appearance	Cold Days
Created by	Jim Butcher
Information
Species	Vampire (White Court)
Gender	Female
Occupation	True leader of the White Court Former "adult" movie star.
Family	Lord Raith (father) Margaret Gwendolyn LeFay](mother, deceased) Thomas Raith (half-sister) Madrigal Raith (cousin, deceased) Madeline Raith (cousin, deceased) Ebenezar McCoy (maternal grandfather) Inari Raith (half sister) Elisa Raith (half sister) Natalia Raith (half sister)
Nationality	American

For an overall list of Succubus related articles, see Succubus (disambiguation).

Lara Raith is a vampire in the contemporary fantasy series The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher/ Her allegiance is to the White Court, and she is a member of House Raith. She also is the daughter of Lord Raith, and half sister to Thomas and Inari Raith. What is not commonly known is that she is the true leader of the White Court in the place of Lord Raith.

Like many in her family, Lara's feeding on lust and passion has earned her the descriptor of a Succubus.

Biography

Prior to the beginning of the series, Lara, like all the daughters of Lord Raith, was bound to his will when he sexually dominated her after Lara's awakening. In Blood Rites, it was revealed that Lord Raith had been cursed to be unable to feed, and was hoarding what little power he had left for over 30 years. Lara took advantage of this and enslaved her father, like he had done her, keeping him as a puppet, thus making her the true but secret leader of House Raith. She has hence become the power behind the throne and is essentially in control of the White Court.

Personality

Lara is described as being incredibly sensual and yet extremely lethal, earning her the comparison to a Succubus. She often took advantage of her vampiric powers, for instance she was a successful porn star for a number of years, retiring only because she risked revealing her nature because she had not visibly aged. Her strong personality and will allowed her to gain power among the White Court. Lara is incredibly ambitious and seeks to further her position.

For the most part, Lara has been able to project a humane face on her vampiric nature, but can be brutally ruthless when the need comes. For an example, after an attack on her mansion that left two of her sisters badly injured and two trusted bodyguards permanently crippled, she ordered the men sent to the rooms of her sisters, giving them the energy to heal and painlessly 'retiring' the bodyguards. Seeing Harry's reaction, she freely describes herself as "A monster. A habitually neat, polite, civil, and efficient monster"

Lara is also very practical, for example replacing her father's decorative guards with very competent ones. In addition, as her brother's lover was recovering from his near fatal feeding, Lara made Justine her personal assistant, knowing that the protection Justine's true love for Thomas granted her immunity from other White Court vampires who might try to bend her to their will.

Assumed to be the eldest daughter of the White King, Lara is described as being "not easily quantifiable" regarding beauty, grace, or art. She's tall, with glossy, curly hair "so dark that its highlights were nearly blue...with eyes of dark gray with hints of violet twilight at their centers." Lara is perhaps the most dangerous of the White Court, a master manipulator, conspirator and seductress.

Above all else her word is always honest; being given safe passage by Lara always ensures she will go to extreme lengths to preserve her word. Since secretly taking over from her father she has ended all threats to his position of power, removing the leaders of the other two houses and beefing up security. While ruthless and practical from her father's lessons (and punishments) she does have a few desires to do the right thing such as helping her younger sister find true love away from the family as opposed to their father's desire to awaken her vampire side and become another pawn of his. Whether this is due to her true feelings, 'rebellion' against her father, fear/respect of Dresden, something else or any combination of the above is open to debate.

She tried to push a peace effort between the Red Court and White Council for unknown reasons, but due to the White Court's nature to be self-serving, backstabbing schemers and traitors, this is unlikely to be for the benefit of either the Council or the Red Court. Any influence or rewards she was hoping to receive from the Red Court were essentially null and voided after Harry and Susan turned an uber spell the Red Court was casting against them.

After the events of Blood Rites, Harry and Lara are currently locked in a stalemate as Harry knows the White King has become a mere figurehead (Lara 'challenged' Daddy to a supremacy duel after finding out his power was blocked) and Lara knows Thomas is Harry's half-brother. Despite the growing hostility between them, there appears to be a great deal of respect as well, in particular from Lara for Dresden's own skills at manipulation and deduction. She might even consider Dresden 'family' somewhat (as Thomas is half her brother and half his) but can't really do much other than 'help' with strings attached for political reasons. She might even like him a little as he helped her younger sister despite his bad relations with the family and lack of reward among other things. On the other hand, it could (partly) be self-preservation on her part to keep her father from 'waking up' and regaining his power since the spell blocking it off is self-sustaining and active only as long as Harry and Thomas live.

In White Night Lara offers Harry a chance to work for her, and Harry once again turns her down. There she also shows the capabilities she has in a fight where she and Thomas single handedly stop cold a group of charging uber-ghouls. She repeats the offer for Harry to join her in Turn Coat and when faced with death from the Council Harry seems to actually consider it.

At the end of Changes, Lara, though not seen directly, re-asserts her power to Harry by somehow making a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier and helicopter available for the extraction of Molly, Mouse, and her brother Thomas. During Cold Days, she again makes her influence known through an emergency credit card given to Thomas; it is valid for 24 hours after first being used and has no limit. She is also helping Murphy and company discretely as a silent partner for unknown reasons after Harry was sniped.

External Links

• The source of this article at Wikipedia