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the_steve posted:Yeah, Marcone's whole thing is being Lawful Evil. It's honestly just Butcher having his cake and eating it too. Marcone is this VERY EVIL and ASSUREDLY VERY DANGEROUS GUYS!!! person, but he's also apparently super noble and trustworthy and worth keeping around at the same time, so he can be both a Cool Cold-Blooded Killer and the guy they gotta keep around and keep associating with. But if they actually ever showed him doing any of the evil and dangerous stuff, it'd make the reader go "Wait, why do we let this evil gently caress do as he please again?"
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Jul 23, 2020 02:17
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the_steve posted:Yeah, Marcone's whole thing is being Lawful Evil. One of the running themes in DF is "Bad vs. Worse." It's not like Marcone's organization, Mab's Winter Fae, the White Court (under Lara Raith) or even the White Council itself are necessarily "good guys." It's that the opposition (Outsiders, the Fomor, the Denarians and gently caress knows what else) is so much worse. Hell consider that at the end of Peace Talks, part of the Accorded Nations' "Army of Light" is made of LaChaise and his flesh-eating ghouls.
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Jul 23, 2020 02:42
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Yeah, Marcone has always been Butcher telling us he’s bad but not showing it. The best we’ve got is Harry soulgazed him and made up his mind based on that. But, again, Butcher never really showed us anything of what Harry saw there. From what we’ve actually seen, he’s actually one of the least bad bad guys that Harry deals with.
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Jul 23, 2020 02:51
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Everyone posted:One of the running themes in DF is "Bad vs. Worse." It's not like Marcone's organization, Mab's Winter Fae, the White Court (under Lara Raith) or even the White Council itself are necessarily "good guys." It's that the opposition (Outsiders, the Fomor, the Denarians and gently caress knows what else) is so much worse. Hell consider that at the end of Peace Talks, part of the Accorded Nations' "Army of Light" is made of LaChaise and his flesh-eating ghouls. It's why my interest in the big story is less than in the individual stories that make it up. In order to justify that almost all of his friends and allies are loving despicable, the bad guys have to be orders of magnitude worse. Why are you friends and allies with rapists? There are worse things. Why are you friends and allies with the guy who runs prostitution, drugs and theft in your town? There are worse things. Why ... and so on. It really seems like sloppy writing getting papered over with new elements as time goes by. His stories are good, very entertaining. The set pieces really roll along. The story overall? Stupid as can be on cursory examination. What are the names of the bad guys Thomas fights in the short story, the ones he is trying to make people forget?
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Jul 23, 2020 03:19
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Where are the Marcone short stories and whatever short story where Dresden fried a bunch of ghouls to be found? Full disclosure: I have never read his short collections.
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Jul 23, 2020 03:25
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hatelull posted:Where are the Marcone short stories and whatever short story where Dresden fried a bunch of ghouls to be found? Full disclosure: I have never read his short collections. I think they're all in Brief Cases, but I also think there's only the one that centers on Marcone.
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Jul 23, 2020 03:50
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Dresden does the ghoul thing at the start of White Night, IIRC, in a flashback to Warden training camp.
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Jul 23, 2020 04:18
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I think it's more important that we've never really met very many actual victims of Marcone's rule over Chicago. Who cares if he personally is doing bad things, he's supposed to be the leader of the chicago mafia. It would be pretty easy to show plenty of the people who have suffered as a result of his empire, instead of making him this guy who does actual good things for little real gain and all of his misdeeds are mythical events that are never tangible in the story.
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Jul 23, 2020 06:33
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Do we really need to be shown that organized crime = bad?
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Jul 23, 2020 08:56
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torgeaux posted:It's why my interest in the big story is less than in the individual stories that make it up. In order to justify that almost all of his friends and allies are loving despicable, the bad guys have to be orders of magnitude worse. Why are you friends and allies with rapists? There are worse things. Why are you friends and allies with the guy who runs prostitution, drugs and theft in your town? There are worse things. Why ... and so on. It really seems like sloppy writing getting papered over with new elements as time goes by. It’s the Oblivion war, but I don’t think that the things they’re trying to get people to forget have a specific group name like the Outsiders.
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Jul 23, 2020 11:36
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DreamingofRoses posted:It’s the Oblivion war, but I don’t think that the things they’re trying to get people to forget have a specific group name like the Outsiders. IIRC, not giving them a name was deliberate, since if they don't have a name, there's that much less chance of someone looking them up and finding out they exist, since they're some sort of memetic threat.
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Jul 23, 2020 12:12
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DreamingofRoses posted:It’s the Oblivion war, but I don’t think that the things they’re trying to get people to forget have a specific group name like the Outsiders. Yeah, that's the one. I'm just glad that didn't turn into the big bad guy, because as bad as the Outsiders are, that was worse. I'd have liked Dresden just as a series of casebooks. I read lots of detective genre fiction, and Dresden scratched that itch early. Matt Scudder, Elvis Cole, C.W. Sughrue, they don't have some worldwide conspiracy they're fighting, and the books are better off.
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Jul 23, 2020 12:50
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Avalerion posted:Do we really need to be shown that organized crime = bad? If you're trying to tell an interesting story involving an organized crime figure, yes.
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Jul 23, 2020 13:20
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the_steve posted:IIRC, not giving them a name was deliberate, since if they don't have a name, there's that much less chance of someone looking them up and finding out they exist, since they're some sort of memetic threat. The Oblivion War isn't against an organized faction, it's against any threat (old gods mostly, but apparently they've tried to target the fae before, which raises some interesting questions) that's given power by human belief in them.
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Jul 23, 2020 13:22
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Avalerion posted:Do we really need to be shown that organized crime = bad? Depends. Do you SAY, "he's the head of organized crime, and a terrible bad guy," but SHOW him as a regular member of the good guys, and every action you SHOW is him having a heart of gold? Then yeah, you need to show, not tell, why he's a bad guy. It's bad writing.
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Jul 23, 2020 14:05
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I mean, we just had people going on about how the White Court needs to be written out because they're psychic rape monsters, which is a thing that has been shown to an extent in the books. If they hadn't been shown doing their thing, they'd probably be a walking Twilight joke instead and no one would care about them/wonder what the big deal is
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Jul 23, 2020 15:26
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the_steve posted:I mean, we just had people going on about how the White Court needs to be written out because they're psychic rape monsters, which is a thing that has been shown to an extent in the books. I mean, that’s sort of the point though - the white court are psychotic rape monsters who murder on screen, with whom Harry has constant flirtations and banter with. Marcone is a crime boss who Harry constantly antagonizes and threatens who on-screen has done absolutely nothing. It’s really incongruous and silly. You can make him the lawful evil dude, but you need to give us some actual indications of evilness, even if it’s just showing drug users suffering in the streets in Chicago. Instead the portrayal of Marcone is that he’s more likely to set up syringe exchanges and supervised use locations, while profiting from the drug sales. Which, actually, I’d be okay with. Velius fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 23, 2020 15:38
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Velius posted:I mean, that’s sort of the point though - the white court are psychotic rape monsters who murder on screen, with whom Harry has constant flirtations and banter with. Marcone is a crime boss who Harry constantly antagonizes and threatens who on-screen has done absolutely nothing. It’s really incongruous and silly. You can make him the lawful evil dude, but you need to give us some actual indications of evilness, even if it’s just showing drug users suffering in the streets in Chicago. Instead the portrayal of Marcone is that he’s more likely to set up syringe exchanges and supervised use locations, while profiting from the drug sales. Which, actually, I’d be okay with. It was more a response to Avalerion's original question about whether or not we actually needed to see Marcone do crime. Yeah, like you said, it's hard to see him as a criminal when he is very literally doing more for the city of Chicago than it's actual elected officials.
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Jul 23, 2020 15:57
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Is it true that there is a whole murder-investigation sub-plot into Murphy and Dresden that flies completely in the face of the deal made at the end of Skin Game? Are readers supposed to not notice that, either? EDIT: I mean, that was literally the substance of a confrontation between Marcone, Dresden, Mab and Molly near the end of that book.
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Jul 23, 2020 16:01
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The deal was that Marcone won’t go after them for breaking into the vault, the murder investigation is about the guy they needed fingerprints or w/e from that got killed while Harry and co were there.
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Jul 23, 2020 16:18
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Is it true that there is a whole murder-investigation sub-plot into Murphy and Dresden that flies completely in the face of the deal made at the end of Skin Game? Are readers supposed to not notice that, either? No, Marcone isn't going after them for breaking into the vaults and that has been covered up. The murder investigation is the cops going after Harry and Murphy for murdering the dude who got killed to get them access to the vaults because they have video etc and a gruesome dead body.
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Jul 23, 2020 16:45
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Zore posted:No, Marcone isn't going after them for breaking into the vaults and that has been covered up. Someone else that also worked for Marcone. Yeah, so Dresden forgot to offer weregild for that guy. Still, it's a dumb thing.
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Jul 23, 2020 16:50
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Marcone isn’t going after them, the cops are. Weregill has nothing to do with whether there would be a mortal affairs investigation when there’s a body.
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Jul 23, 2020 16:54
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Yeah, so Dresden forgot to offer weregild for that guy. He literally gave him a box of diamonds at the end of Skin Game
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Jul 23, 2020 17:00
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Like, to be clear, the deal with Marcone was that he wouldn't go after them and they gave him weregild for the dead guy. And as far as we know Marcone has done literally nothing to Harry or Murphy since. The cops have nothing to do with the deal at all. Especially since the investigation is helmed by someone who has a grudge against Murphy.
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Jul 23, 2020 17:03
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Rygar201 posted:He literally gave him a box of diamonds at the end of Skin Game For the loving vault security guy, not the accountant guy. Pay attention.
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Jul 23, 2020 17:13
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Zore posted:Like, to be clear, the deal with Marcone was that he wouldn't go after them and they gave him weregild for the dead guy. And as far as we know Marcone has done literally nothing to Harry or Murphy since. The spoilers I've read elsewhere say that Dresden and Murphy think Marcone is behind the investigation being given to Rudolph. Somebody fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 23, 2020 17:14
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biracial bear for uncut posted:The spoilers I've read elsewhere say that Dresden and Murphy think Marcone is behind the investigation being given to Rudolph. As I understand it, weregild means that Marcone won't "officially" target them with his soldiers via attempted hits and the like. It doesn't really do anything in terms of hard feelings and "unofficial" reprisals. It's also completely possible that Murphy and Dresden are wrong about Marcone's involvement and this is either personal via the cop or just coming from somewhere else. As far as Marcone goes, I'm completely fine recognizing him as a bad guy who is an ally due to worse guys. I don't need to see his victims onscreen because I know enough about organized crime to envision them. I terms of the White Court, we kind of did need to see their victims onscreen to recognize what they were. Note that we don't see much of the victims of the Red or Black Court victims either because they were/are more traditional vampires and we know how traditional vampires work. I suspect that Book 17 will close down the Fomor threat and that Books 18, 19 and 20 will give us some degree of closure regarding various other situations (the Denarians, the Fae, the White Court/Council, etc) before the super-Outsider threat drops for the final trilogy (or quadrilogy or however long that story will take to tell).
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Jul 23, 2020 17:49
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biracial bear for uncut posted:The spoilers I've read elsewhere say that Dresden and Murphy think Marcone is behind the investigation being given to Rudolph. Negative. Harry muses to himself that he thought Rudolph was in Marcone's pocket, but is beginning to suspect otherwise.
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Jul 23, 2020 17:56
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biracial bear for uncut posted:The spoilers I've read elsewhere say that Dresden and Murphy think Marcone is behind the investigation being given to Rudolph. The book I actually read myself does not establish that to be the case.
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Jul 23, 2020 21:37
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docbeard posted:The book I actually read myself does not establish that to be the case. Another thing to consider is that Harry has said on multiple occasions that calling in mortal authorities is the "nuclear option" among supernaturals. While Marcone certainly has cops on his payroll, at this point he's a Baron under the Unseelie Accords. Even though he's mortal, he has a shitload to lose if all this supernatural stuff gets dragged into the public eye. Beyond that, my take on Skin Game was that Mab, Marcone and a few other interested parties got together in a concerted effort to gently caress Nicodemus to death - or at least seriously weaken him. Marcone had previously been held captive by Nico and his band of Satanic psychotics, so he knew exactly what he was dealing with. So, more than likely he accepted the weregild for the loss of his people as collateral damage during Operation gently caress Over the Denarians. Any hard feelings he had over their loss isn't something he'd take up with Harry - it's something he'd take up with Mab. Or, eventually, with Nicodemus himself.
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Jul 24, 2020 02:44
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Marcone accepted the weregild from the Winter Knight in front of Mab herself. I don't think he'd do that and then gently caress with them over it.
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Jul 24, 2020 03:04
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I'd just like to remind everyone that this book has an honest to god 'Yer a wizard Harry' reference in TYOOL 2020. Overall, fairly disappointing. Feels like Butcher had writers block so for long that he ended up putting out a first draft, after cutting it in half because of money problems. Some rather disjointed moments and the whole ridiculous inability to give simple, deescalating explanations feels like a poor setup for a later 'oh I was being affected by the Mantle/Fomor mind magic/Moon disease' reveal later on. So, 9/10.
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Jul 24, 2020 15:15
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With "10" on this scale being "only useful as last-resort toilet paper"?
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Jul 24, 2020 16:35
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biracial bear for uncut posted:With "10" on this scale being "only useful as last-resort toilet paper"? Ah, it wasn't that bad. It's very much half a book, and the duller half at that. It could also have used a slightly keener editor's eye, what with the various repetitions. Sometimes repetitions can be effective. I liked this bit from All the Plagues of Hell: quote:"Tastes horrible!" But the ones here were just.. awkward. It was still okay, but I'm very much looking forward to Battle Ground when poo poo really starts coming down.
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Jul 24, 2020 17:35
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The reviews in here have made me decide to wait for the rest of the book to come out, maybe even skip this one entirely. I'm a little pissed the plot points in some cases rely on short stories. At least give a brief summary on those things.
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Jul 24, 2020 17:54
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torgeaux posted:The reviews in here have made me decide to wait for the rest of the book to come out, maybe even skip this one entirely. If I had it to do over again, I'd wait til the next one and read them both at once, and that's what I would advise for anyone who hasn't read Peace Talks yet and wants to. I suspect that will be a far more satisfying experience. I'm annoyed by all the short story tie-ins too, though at least they're all published in collected volumes at this point instead of scattered across twenty thousand anthologies. To be fair though none of the elements from the short stories that I can think of were actually major plot points so much as things that added nuance. Like, I haven't read most of the stories and I followed the main action just fine.
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Jul 24, 2020 18:23
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The only things that came up from the short stories was River Shoulders right? And he completely explains his whole deal through context and exposition. I guess there's also the Carlos/Molly thing, but the details of that are completely irrelevant beyond the fact they had some kind of awkward falling out which the text communicates Am I forgetting any?
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Jul 24, 2020 18:28
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Zore posted:The only things that came up from the short stories was River Shoulders right? And he completely explains his whole deal through context and exposition. I think people alluded to something happening in Bombshells that gave some insight into Justine but I read that story (admittedly a while ago) and I don't remember anything. I feel like there's one other thing I'm forgetting, but again, it gave some nuance to a situation where the general events were already pretty clear. A lot of the development of the Fomor (such as there has been) was in the short stories too, but they're officially the Mysterious Enemy That No One Knows Much About so that's fine.
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Jul 24, 2020 18:45
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Peace Talks is really good, if a bit truncated. Coming here to read impressions before deciding to read it is probably a bad idea given the general atmosphere. There are a lot of references to short stories but it hardly matters if you don't know them, and anyway it's been ages since the last book how the heck haven't you read side jobs and brief cases yet. It's not like they're hard to find or difficult to get through. I'm really looking forward to the next.
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Jul 24, 2020 18:52
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