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i was looking for some pulp poo poo to read on my time off and a guy whose opinion i respect suggested the dresden files. how i wish i had read the op. i read the first two books and harry was loving m'ladying everywhere and each book was like a protracted power rangers episode. book 2 was so bad even though i know it gets much better i'm not sure if i can do it. thanks for reading.
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Jan 29, 2015 11:44
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Marching Powder posted:i was looking for some pulp poo poo to read on my time off and a guy whose opinion i respect suggested the dresden files. how i wish i had read the op. i read the first two books and harry was loving m'ladying everywhere and each book was like a protracted power rangers episode. book 2 was so bad even though i know it gets much better i'm not sure if i can do it. thanks for reading. You should read Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series. It's much better.
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Jan 29, 2015 14:42
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Marching Powder posted:i was looking for some pulp poo poo to read on my time off and a guy whose opinion i respect suggested the dresden files. how i wish i had read the op. i read the first two books and harry was loving m'ladying everywhere and each book was like a protracted power rangers episode. book 2 was so bad even though i know it gets much better i'm not sure if i can do it. thanks for reading. Give it one more book if you can, if you don't find something to like in the 3rd book then it's not for you. The 4th book is fantastic but if you can't get through the 3rd then you won't get hooked.
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Jan 29, 2015 17:06
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Wade Wilson posted:You should read Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series. It's much better.
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Jan 29, 2015 17:42
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Ghetto Prince posted:None of those examples are urban fantasy. The series of books about wizards in a major modern city and their fight against forgotten horrors isn't urban fantasy or the book about vampires in modern cities whose first volume alone sold 8 million copies as of 2008 and was made into a major motion picture isn't urban fantasy and didn't pave the way for your personal fetish series. Gotcha.
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Jan 29, 2015 18:44
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Marching Powder posted:i was looking for some pulp poo poo to read on my time off and a guy whose opinion i respect suggested the dresden files. how i wish i had read the op. i read the first two books and harry was loving m'ladying everywhere and each book was like a protracted power rangers episode. book 2 was so bad even though i know it gets much better i'm not sure if i can do it. thanks for reading. You can do it!! I barely finished the second book but by halfway through the third I was hooked.
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Jan 29, 2015 18:52
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Dietrich posted:You can do it!! I barely finished the second book but by halfway through the third I was hooked.
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Jan 29, 2015 19:27
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It takes a long, long, long time before Harry stops m'ladying though. To give it credit it's an intentional character beat (or at least it is now) but there is a reason everyone thinks he wears a fedora.
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Jan 29, 2015 19:31
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ImpAtom posted:It takes a long, long, long time before Harry stops m'ladying though. To give it credit it's an intentional character beat (or at least it is now) but there is a reason everyone thinks he wears a fedora. Well, even back in Book 1, Murphy gave him a lot of poo poo for it. It's acknowledged in universe that he's a total, to-a-fault chauvinist. He eventually does start getting over it. It's pretty well done character development.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:38
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ImpAtom posted:It takes a long, long, long time before Harry stops m'ladying though. To give it credit it's an intentional character beat (or at least it is now) but there is a reason everyone thinks he wears a fedora. thanks for this. it should have been my question. i'll go read malazan or something. i don't have spare energy to waste worrying about whether or not the author will insert entire the red pill posts seamlessly into the book. i don't give a poo poo about murphy's cute ears, harry, although i look forward to the rothfuss, butcher, star wars episode II crossover.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:40
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Marching Powder posted:thanks for this. it should have been my question. i'll go read malazan or something. i don't have spare energy to waste worrying about whether or not the author will insert entire the red pill posts seamlessly into the book. i don't give a poo poo about murphy's cute ears, harry, although i look forward to the rothfuss, butcher, star wars episode II crossover. I've been talking about Dresden, Butcher, and the gender politics of the series a while now elsewhere, and I think that the worst thing about the series is that it's written from Harry's point of view. Murphy and Thomas are both points of view who are just as awesome while being less obnoxious as Harry can be. Of course, that doesn't explain a certain loving Jedi...
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Jan 29, 2015 22:56
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Mars4523 posted:Harry never goes full on MRA. His chauvinism is more of the low key, insidious kind. That said, he does get proven wrong, and there are a bunch of female characters who are pretty great. Hahahaha, what. I can see where you're coming from with Murphy, even if I think she'd be a poor viewpoint character for a lot of other reasons, but you think the literal incubus who feeds on women would make the books less obnoxious and better about gender politics. The guy who is supernaturally attractive and has women, against their better judgement, throw themselves at him. Yeah, I'm sure that'd be great. Jesus, some people way the gently caress oversell Harry's flaws and minimize other people's. Harry is never the popular goon stereotype MRA. He's an idiot, damaged goods, and has some deeply ingrained attitudes that are annoying. But they're also a legitimate character flaw, one totally believable for someone in Harry's circumstances, and end up loving him over until he gets character growth and is forced to deal with them! Flawed characters are a thing. Having flaws, and either conquering them, or being conquered by them, is basically the basis of dramatic storytelling.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:13
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Mars4523 posted:Harry never goes full on MRA. I don't even think Harry goes half MRA. I think the worst part was when Harry said "Here is something I read" and we get a few pages about women vs men biological stuff. Gender Politics in novels? I don't really understand that.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:16
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I'm pretty sure it's all just Jim being a goofy goober leaking into the character.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:21
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Exmond posted:I don't even think Harry goes half MRA. I think the worst part was when Harry said "Here is something I read" and we get a few pages about women vs men biological stuff. The guy writes fun books, but goddamn can they be cringeworthy at points.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:30
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Mars4523 posted:Harry never goes full on MRA. His chauvinism is more of the low key, insidious kind. That said, he does get proven wrong, and there are a bunch of female characters who are pretty great. I can't really agree with Thomas. Thomas is a rapist and a murderer who we're supposed to find sympathetic instead of horrible because he has a ~tragic love.~ Even when he was on the good side he raped and murdered a woman and justified it with 'she was a bad person!" Thomas is easily the worst part of Dresden.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:34
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Zore posted:Hahahaha, what. I disagree. There is a truly excellent side story written from Murphy's point of view starting from just after Harry gets shot and disappears . I'd be glad to read a few more shorts like that.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:46
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ImpAtom posted:I can't really agree with Thomas. That said, current Thomas has all of his problems solved by threesomes, and his love interest was still barely legal (if not outright underage) when she was introduced. So gently caress that. The last thing I want Butcher to describe in detail is a steady stream of threesomes with a stable of nameless sex slaves.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:48
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Mars4523 posted:Gender (and racial) politics in Jim Butcher novels. Which basically boils down to him having his own point of view and not much empathy for those who are not straight, white, male American Midwesterners. I guess there isn't much diversity in his books (Sanya?) but uh... Dunno how you are reading in the lack of empathy. Are you thinking that Jim himself has no empathy to non americans? Or harry dresden?
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Jan 30, 2015 00:10
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ImpAtom posted:I can't really agree with Thomas. He literally is a monster.
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Jan 30, 2015 00:12
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Right, so, in Grave Peril, Thomas is the one who boots Susan into a crowd of Red Court vampires, presumably with the expectation that they'll eat her, because he believes Bianca will let Justine go if he does (spoilered since Marching Powder's not read it yet), right? I think Harry forgave him too easily for that, to be honest, even before he learned about their relationship. It has, admittedly, been a while since I read the book, but I don't think I even recall it ever being an especially significant point of contention between them. As for Harry's own attitude towards women and whatnot, it didn't actually jump out at me that much until the Murphy viewpoint short story in Side Jobs. It had been about a dozen or so books where Harry is constantly self-deprecating, but then it turns out Murphy thought he was totally hawt and super-cool and everything the whole time. From a narrative point of view, I can understand where it came from, considering the direction their relationship was heading, but at the same time, it sort of rubbed me the wrong way, and if I'm honest I'm not entirely sure why.
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Jan 30, 2015 01:26
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I remember her finding him pretty physically gangly, soft spoken, and fairly socially awkward (including never meeting anyone's eyes for reasons we know). Until he starts throwing magic around and he becomes utterly terrifying, in a "You are no longer the apex predator in this neck of the woods" kind of way. I haven't read Side Jobs in a while though (and I haven't touched the earlier books in ages). Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 01:38
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Mars4523 posted:Gender (and racial) politics in Jim Butcher novels. Which basically boils down to him having his own point of view and not much empathy for those who are not straight, white, male American Midwesterners. I am glad he doesn't do some sort of affirmative action thing where he puts together this multicultural collage of male and female characters who have agency and arks in his novel. Oh wait, he did, it just was a natural evolution of a long series. Honestly, I feel Jim has put forth effort to have a world where people get along well without regard to race or sexuality. That is solid ground work. He's just really bad at portraying it in a not completely awkward way. Plus Harry as POV is a complete goober.
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Jan 30, 2015 01:53
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That's why I dislike the Dresden Files series. By no means do I think that Butcher's issues with minorities, women especially, are borne out of malice. Halon's Razor would show that he's simply thoughtless. But I recognize it because, as a middling writer, I am and have been thoughtless when portraying women and minorities in my stories. In other words, whenever I read Butcher, I see me if I were professional writer. EDIT: No joke, my academic advisor and favorite professor told me that my writing reminded him of Butcher 
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Jan 30, 2015 02:01
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If you look at any of the short stories where the POV character isn't Harry, it immediately becomes obvious that Harry's "gooniness" and "m'ladying"(whatever the gently caress this actually means) is part of a deliberate presentation of the character, and its not representative of Butcher's worldview. Harry is an awkward guy, who grew up with arcane powers, was stuck with an abusive and demon-consorting foster parent, and has an oldfashioned idea of how to treat women. While this thread in particular is pretty good about, I cringe every time a read a criticism that calls Butcher out for being sexist without qualifying it as being a character beat.
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Jan 30, 2015 02:02
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"Sexist" would be a bit strong because that would imply intentionality. Like I said, Dresden (and by extension Butcher) is just thoughtless.
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Jan 30, 2015 02:04
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Benny the Snake posted:"Sexist" would be a bit strong because that would imply intentionality. Like I said, Dresden (and by extension Butcher) is just thoughtless.
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Jan 30, 2015 02:15
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awesmoe posted:Then why does butcher stop being thoughtless when he writes from the pov of a different character?
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Jan 30, 2015 02:17
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Benny the Snake posted:...I'll bet back to you on that. What story was it again? There's a Molly POV short, a Murphy POV short, and a Thomas one. Its obvious that Harry's attitudes are deliberate, maybe Butcher is just doing too good of a job presenting them?
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Jan 30, 2015 02:19
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Benny the Snake posted:"Sexist" would be a bit strong because that would imply intentionality. Like I said, Dresden (and by extension Butcher) is just thoughtless. I get that Butcher is intentionally writing Harry as goony as he is. But nobody is putting a gun to Butcher's head and forcing him to write that way. We're 15 books into the series, and Harry has had plenty of time and room to grow out of his chauvinism even slightly. You know, that thing called character development. And nobody Butcher to do what he did in Skin Game, taking a capable female character and making her fail, humiliating her, beating her into submission, and having the men later stand around and comment on just how she screwed up before reducing her to a love interest for the rest of the book. (Going back a little, Anastasia Luccio was the famed commander of the wardens and a ferocious combatant, and then she got depowered, put in a younger, prettier, weaker body while her male subordinate assumed her role leading the Wardens into battle, and then made the hero's love interest and raped.) And just in terms of being a person who is reading these books, it's getting pretty drat tiresome how Harry views the women around him, and especially how he apparently (since the framing device is that these are his case files) writes down those observations for posterity. I mean, his former apprentice could read this stuff, and what would she think?
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Jan 30, 2015 02:21
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Has the "case file" "framing device" ever been implied to be an in-universe thing? I mean, yeah there's that bit with the journals, but there's no prologue or anything setting up that Harry is writing this all down.
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Jan 30, 2015 02:28
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jivjov posted:Has the "case file" "framing device" ever been implied to be an in-universe thing? I mean, yeah there's that bit with the journals, but there's no prologue or anything setting up that Harry is writing this all down. Not that I'm aware of, no. I have a feeling that's going to be part of the ending scene in the series. As for the other stuff, I think it's pretty clear that Harry's issues are not Jim Butcher's issues (and writing Harry as a sexist in no way suggests that Butcher is a sexist) but also that Butcher is not without some baggage of his own. I would not begrudge anyone being bothered by it all.
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Jan 30, 2015 03:00
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jivjov posted:Has the "case file" "framing device" ever been implied to be an in-universe thing? I mean, yeah there's that bit with the journals, but there's no prologue or anything setting up that Harry is writing this all down. It's explicit in a couple of the other things, like the RPG.
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Jan 30, 2015 04:51
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Tunicate posted:It's explicit in a couple of the other things, like the RPG. Well the RPG is a different beast; with in-universe Billy collecting information to make an in-universe RPG supplement to help educate people about the paranormal. I don't think it's implied that Harry has been documenting things journal-style.
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Jan 30, 2015 05:22
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the writing has improved immeasurably over the course of the series but cringe worthy? never. mra? never. any flaws the characters have are there to highlight growth and understanding and maturity, you all seem to be seeing personal grievances in the characters / writing just chill and enjoy the books for what they are, light entertainment ment to distract us from the world around us a little bit and hopefully help us deal with it better. just chill.
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Jan 30, 2015 06:30
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Mars4523 posted:I remember her finding him pretty physically gangly, soft spoken, and fairly socially awkward (including never meeting anyone's eyes for reasons we know). Until he starts throwing magic around and he becomes utterly terrifying, in a "You are no longer the apex predator in this neck of the woods" kind of way. Is it? I can't completely remember myself! If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that's how I thought it went. 
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Jan 30, 2015 09:54
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Metal Loaf posted:Is it? I can't completely remember myself! If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that's how I thought it went. No, she describes him as a giant, awkward dude who most people think is autistic. He refuses to make eye contact, looks at things that aren't there, is constantly mumbling to himself and pulling out crayons and poo poo to mark things. Oh and he wears a long leather overcoat regardless of weather. She does mention some stuff about how he's terrifying when he lets loose, but throwing fire and force around with reckless abandon can count for some scary points.
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Jan 30, 2015 10:01
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I hate you all.
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Jan 30, 2015 10:09
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Zore posted:No, she describes him as a giant, awkward dude who most people think is autistic. He refuses to make eye contact, looks at things that aren't there, is constantly mumbling to himself and pulling out crayons and poo poo to mark things. Oh and he wears a long leather overcoat regardless of weather. Righto. I'll have to read it again.
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Jan 30, 2015 10:33
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Here you go.Butcher, Jim (2010-10-26). Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files (pp. 351-353). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition. posted:Most of an hour later, I hadn’t learned anything else, and I figured out my main problem: I wasn’t Harry Dresden.
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Jan 30, 2015 14:29
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