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Xtanstic posted:*insert White Council Dresden dossier here* Fanfic, but still good. Spoilers obviously https://m.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/2ae1p5/spoilers_all_harrys_warden_file/
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Dec 8, 2015 00:08
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The idea is so good, but the writing is just kind of bad. It detracts from actually reading it.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:09
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Rygar201 posted:The idea is so good, but the writing is just kind of bad. It detracts from actually reading it. Yeah, I'd point to that as an example of *bad* fan-fiction. The format is poo poo for what is supposed to be an intelligence summary, there's enough little details that are flat out incorrect to annoy, and there's stuff in there's zero way the report could include as conjecture let alone state as fact. I was genuinely irritated when I read that, and I think the idea of the Wardens having an open file on Dresden a great idea.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:38
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Don't post that on their hug box though. How many of us have read all the non Harry short stories? Other perspectives on Harry are the best.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:36
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I didn't like Even Hand at all, honestly. Marcone was the same Marcone as always except he had this running monologue of "One day, Dresden! One day!" for no apparent reason, like he's suddenly going to snap and do something heinous enough to draw Dresden down on him. It's the same as Harry's incessant internal monologue about how that guy who always helps him out and never does anything blatantly evil is an irredeemably evil scumbag, and it's just as irritating from his perspective.
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Dec 8, 2015 04:30
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Khizan posted:I didn't like Even Hand at all, honestly. Yeah, at some point Marcone is going to have to do something actually villainous, because Butcher hasn't shown him really do anything terrible in the entire series. Telling us Marcone is bad over and over is a poor substitute.
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Dec 9, 2015 05:31
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flosofl posted:
You guys remember that the "official" one is linked in the OP, right? http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?topic=19774.0
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Dec 9, 2015 15:38
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Potooweet posted:Yeah, at some point Marcone is going to have to do something actually villainous, because Butcher hasn't shown him really do anything terrible in the entire series. Telling us Marcone is bad over and over is a poor substitute. Marcone is lawful evil. A good lawful evil character is not villainous. Sure they'll kill you if you're in their way, but it's all part of their system, and very likely to be a stooge doing the killing. You shall be tallied and discarded. Marcones been shown operating a brothel. Smuggling money. Buying stolen artifacts. Funding said thieves. Hiring and using paramilitary assault squads. And general sicking thugs on people. Butchers told us he's a crime lord and figured we'd fill in the details from the sopranos or whatever our expectations are. Which I'm fine with. Butchers shown enough that we get a good feel that he's a not a good person, and told us to imagine the rest.
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Dec 9, 2015 15:52
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Blasphemeral posted:I was genuinely irritated when I read that, and I think the idea of the Wardens having an open file on Dresden a great idea. You guys remember that the "official" one is linked in the OP, right? http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?topic=19774.0 [/quote] I thought that reddit link was a cp of this. This one is what I was referring to.
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Dec 9, 2015 16:40
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Rygar201 posted:I thought that reddit link was a cp of this. This one is what I was referring to. You messed up your quote blocks. As to the reddit one being a copy of the official one, I have no idea. I just know the official one is in the OP and people were saying the reddit one was bad. I can't get to reddit where I am now to check.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:12
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Yeah the reddit post is a link and copy paste of the one from his official boards.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:15
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That "official" one is just some sperg fantasizing on the Jim Butcher forums.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:22
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The Slithery D posted:That "official" one is just some sperg fantasizing on the Jim Butcher forums. Yeah I know. That's a lot of what goes on there. They make this thread look downright reasonable. They do have a few good posters, though, and some of the posters do the Lord's work in maintaining an exhaustive database of every public and semi public utterance of Jim's that pertains to his works.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:26
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Rygar201 posted:Yeah I know. That's a lot of what goes on there. They make this thread look downright reasonable. They do have a few good posters, though, and some of the posters do the Lord's work in maintaining an exhaustive database of every public and semi public utterance of Jim's that pertains to his works. Yeah, you generally have to take the good with the bad when it comes to fan communities. That's where the obsessive freaks usually gather. It keeps them off of here at any rate (ha! right). As to the dossier, I thought it was "pretty ok" when I read it last. Though, that was a few years ago. Not great by any means, but good at getting the point across.
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Dec 9, 2015 17:34
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The Butcher boards were better before Iago decided they needed to be a Maximum Hugbox. When you could challenge people for posting awfully or without supporting evidence it was a lot more fun
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Dec 9, 2015 17:37
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So I've been doing a re-reading of the Dresden Files, and the other day I finished re-reading Skin Game. Through reading all of it, it occurs to me that Jim Butcher likes to rely on stereotypes; I mean, there's the Murphy "looks like someone's aunt, cute, tiny, and blonde", but there's also the almost offensive stereotypicalness of Listens-to-Wind (especially his nickname, "Injun Joe") and Ancient Mai. I get that he's doing a noir-style series, but considering that he's flipped a bunch of other stereotypes on their head (Sanya, for example), it seems to be unnecessary to have stereotypical characters like that.
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Dec 9, 2015 21:47
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bowmore posted:It probably is if you don't factor in the Winter Knight mantle he could already feel his legs without the mantle in the most recent book
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Dec 9, 2015 21:58
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Gygaxian posted:So I've been doing a re-reading of the Dresden Files, and the other day I finished re-reading Skin Game. Through reading all of it, it occurs to me that Jim Butcher likes to rely on stereotypes; I mean, there's the Murphy "looks like someone's aunt, cute, tiny, and blonde", but there's also the almost offensive stereotypicalness of Listens-to-Wind (especially his nickname, "Injun Joe") and Ancient Mai. I get that he's doing a noir-style series, but considering that he's flipped a bunch of other stereotypes on their head (Sanya, for example), it seems to be unnecessary to have stereotypical characters like that. At least with Listens-to-Wind and some of the Asian characters there's a thin veil of irony (he's an excellent doctor, and only Ebenezar is allowed to call him Injun Joe). With Latin Americans and Southern Europeans, though, the stereotyping gets really cringeworthy: they're all gangsters, vampires, or nameless peasants being oppressed by vampires.
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Dec 9, 2015 22:00
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Grimson posted:he could already feel his legs without the mantle in the most recent book Not quite. He can feel his legs while nailed in CD too, but he loses feelings when he goes to violate Winter Law. My theory is that if he does so he isn't acting in accordance with his deal with Mab wherein he's the Winter Knight in exchange for his back healed.
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Dec 9, 2015 22:34
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Silver2195 posted:At least with Listens-to-Wind and some of the Asian characters there's a thin veil of irony (he's an excellent doctor, and only Ebenezar is allowed to call him Injun Joe). With Latin Americans and Southern Europeans, though, the stereotyping gets really cringeworthy: they're all gangsters, vampires, or nameless peasants being oppressed by vampires. Don't forget Carlos Ramirez, who is a hotshot ladies man... who happens to be a virgin. At least that twist is funny. But one other thing that bugs me is how many of the female (and some male) characters are blondes. I mean, there's Murphy and her family, most of the Carpenters, pretty much all of the fairies, Anna Valmont, a couple of the werewolves, Uriel I think is described as blonde, two of the Red Court vampires (the Eebs, I think?) and so on and so on. The White Court has the distinction of having black-haired pale people, but that's overdoing it as well. The series is blonder and whiter than Vermont or Utah or whatever (and I live in Utah so I should know). I feel like if you set your series in a diverse place like Chicago, you should at least try to have a sense of cultural sensitivity and diversity.
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Dec 9, 2015 22:35
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Uriel has been blonde, black haired in SG, and a black dude in Small Favor.
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Dec 9, 2015 22:37
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Gygaxian posted:I feel like if you set your series in a diverse place like Chicago, you should at least try to have a sense of cultural sensitivity and diversity. Have you thrown acid on a Swede recently?
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Dec 9, 2015 22:38
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Grimson posted:he could already feel his legs without the mantle in the most recent book
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Dec 9, 2015 22:56
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Gygaxian posted:Don't forget Carlos Ramirez, who is a hotshot ladies man... who happens to be a virgin. At least that twist is funny. This is actually a small subset of the cast, though. I mean, when you list all of them from all of the books in one post it seems like a lot, but it's really not. And family lines should really be counted as one entry, since blonde hair is a genetic trait. Gygaxian posted:...pretty much all of the fairies... The faerie queens are pretty much universally described as having "white" hair, which is not blonde. In general it's a natural effect of old age shared by nearly all humans, and in-specific it's eerie and supernatural. The other faerie creatures have a multitude of strange hair colors. Toot-toot has cotton-candy pink hair, if I remember right.
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Dec 9, 2015 23:12
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The Slithery D posted:Have you thrown acid on a Swede recently? Well, I'm a white Mormon from Utah, so you tell me. But my point is that I feel like Butcher's relying more on stereotypes and less on people who actually live in Chicago (or people who would make up the leadership of the White Council or whatever). And the blonde thing. Like I said, he's got more blondes than Utah.
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Dec 9, 2015 23:14
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Rygar201 posted:Not quite. He can feel his legs while nailed in CD too, but he loses feelings when he goes to violate Winter Law. My theory is that if he does so he isn't acting in accordance with his deal with Mab wherein he's the Winter Knight in exchange for his back healed. I think in that recent Q&A with Jim Butcher, he points out that the effect of getting pierced by iron is completely different than violating winter law, and that Harry might be misunderstanding the relation, and that it's Probably Important (or something along those lines, it's a long video).
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Dec 9, 2015 23:54
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Random speculation on Ebenezar and the "Injun Joe" nickname. McCoy fought in the French and Indian War, according to a wiki thing I just read about him, which puts him at being born no later than ~1730. Given his age, McCoy could have established his farm in the Ozarks in the 1700s after the French and Indian War and been present for the Trail of Tears, which included Cherokee people being forced through southern Missouri (ie where a lot of the Ozarks lie). I think the entire "Injun Joe" thing is a centuries old, truly bitter inside "joke" between McCoy and Listens-to-Wind. More of a quiet, angry reminder to never stand by and let evil happen again. We know from the end of the Nagloshii fight that Listens-to-Wind was a leader among his people and chose not to use his powers to stop what was happening (probably something along the lines of "wizards do not interfere in the affairs of mortals" or something). Presumably McCoy did the same, and my guess is both of them wish they could go back and throw around their magical might to do more. Also thinking about the age of Wizards really makes me think that an actual Wizards' Council like in Dresden files would be filled with terrifying amounts of racism. I totally get why Butcher hasn't written anything like that in, but I would expect "we should go back to the good old days before Lincoln freed the slaves" levels of 
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Dec 10, 2015 00:09
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Magres posted:Also thinking about the age of Wizards really makes me think that an actual Wizards' Council like in Dresden files would be filled with terrifying amounts of racism. I totally get why Butcher hasn't written anything like that in, but I would expect "we should go back to the good old days before Lincoln freed the slaves" levels of Fortunately, as Harry Potter has shown, uniting all wizards is their burning racism against muggles.
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Dec 10, 2015 00:23
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Tunicate posted:Fortunately, as Harry Potter has shown, uniting all wizards is their burning racism against muggles. In the Dresden Files it seems to be the mutual need for defence against hostile Others, like the rest of the Supernaturals
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Dec 10, 2015 00:29
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Magres posted:Random speculation on Ebenezar and the "Injun Joe" nickname. McCoy fought in the French and Indian War, according to a wiki thing I just read about him, which puts him at being born no later than ~1730. Given his age, McCoy could have established his farm in the Ozarks in the 1700s after the French and Indian War and been present for the Trail of Tears, which included Cherokee people being forced through southern Missouri (ie where a lot of the Ozarks lie). That would make sense. I suppose I still don't like the "stoic mystical Indian" archetype character, but the fact that Listens-to-Wind isn't completely the stereotype (but still somewhat presented as such) makes it a little better. Good point on the fact that the wizards should be really, really backwards. Perhaps the fact that practioners can be of any race mitigates it somewhat? And of course, we haven't seen a lot of Martha Liberty, who presumably is a former slave.
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Dec 10, 2015 01:31
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It's perfectly plausible that any racist wizards file other wizards under the "one of the good ones" exception. Of course it's also plausible that plenty of wizards are distrustful of Rashid because he's a Mohammedan.
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Dec 10, 2015 02:59
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It's also possible that they're distrustful of him because he's the loving super-secretive Gatekeeper.
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Dec 10, 2015 03:04
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It's possible that Butcher is scared of a character he wrote because he's a moslem, too.
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Dec 10, 2015 03:17
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peace talks: rashid is a member of isis and they cant talk peace with this muslim wizard
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Dec 10, 2015 04:11
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Gygaxian posted:That would make sense. I suppose I still don't like the "stoic mystical Indian" archetype character, but the fact that Listens-to-Wind isn't completely the stereotype (but still somewhat presented as such) makes it a little better. Considering it some more, I suppose that it probably matters when you live in a world where code duello is taken pretty seriously. Being a bigoted idiot is a lot harder when it means that if someone from the group you hate winds up being better at combat magic than you and you really piss them off, they can murder you. There are probably plenty of (dead) bigoted wizards. Also I now really want to reread the whole series (or at least everything involving McCoy and Listens-to-Wind) with my theory in mind and see what I think. If I'm right and it's actually something that's just quietly really dark and kind of lurks in the corner without calling attention to itself, my opinion of Butcher's writing will have gone up pretty considerably. He's a fun writer but I've never really thought of him as being at all subtle with basically anything. I'm probably reading too much into it (because Butcher doesn't really do subtle) but I want to believe.
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Dec 10, 2015 04:12
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Is this some weird joke I don't get or is Butcher one of the "terrified of the Muslims" types?
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Dec 10, 2015 04:14
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FordPRefectLL posted:peace talks: rashid is a member of isis and they cant talk peace with this muslim wizard He would be put to death because his weird hosed up eye and really all magic is probably haraam.
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Dec 10, 2015 04:26
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Khizan posted:It's also possible that they're distrustful of him because he's the loving super-secretive Gatekeeper. Nah it's because he got his eye by beating a kid in a children's card game.
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Dec 10, 2015 08:05
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ImpAtom posted:Is this some weird joke I don't get or is Butcher one of the "terrified of the Muslims" types? Some of the people of this thread are subtly expressing their frustration at the current state of society by suggesting anyone could be one of the paranoid freaks. ... some of the other people of this thread are subtly expressing that they're paranoid freaks. None of it has anything to do with Butcher who, as far as I'm aware, is a pretty chill dude. Blasphemeral fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 15:58
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I think the only thing I've ever heard Butcher say about Islam is that it doesn't show up in the Dresden Files because he's not familiar enough with it to be comfortable writing it.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:17
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