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Lyer posted:I recently got into these books and yeah, it's a poo poo ton more fun than it really should be. Do the quality of the books drop later on at all? I'd say it depends on what quality you're looking for. In terms of overarching plotlines, characterization, and world building, they get better. In terms of the mysteries, they get considerably worse. The first half of the series or so, there was a satisfying "A Ha" moment around the climax. I figured out the mystery in the last book a couple hundred pages faster than Harry.
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Oct 18, 2013 08:32
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| # ¿ May 28, 2024 23:37 |
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I just reread Small Favor, and a few things jumped out at me. It is hilarious that Harry figures out who betrayed Marcone but uses that information to no effect. 50/50 chance she's Black Council, and Harry just blusters? Doesn't follow up with his own investigation. Doesn't warn Marcone. Why? Because he's a criminal and that is bad, I guess? Wow Harry can be dumb. I had forgotten there is a moment where Harry is able to perfectly use his burned hand at a critical point to catch a coin. It felt like pretty substantial parasite=Lash evidence. After having read Cold Days, the book feels significantly more sexist and homophobic. There were are so many throwaway gags that kind of rely on gender stuff that I just glazed over before, but they feel meaner now. Odd how reframing affects a reading. I'm spoiling because someone said they just finished book 8. Wittgen fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 08:26
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I suppose that makes sense for point one. I may have been confusing Demeter with another character from Cold Days. It also may have struck me as stupid of Harry because Demeter feels like a way more evil person than Marcone. I am not sure we have ever seen Marcone or Marcone's business actually do anything evil. Demeter has willingly participated in malevolent rituals and she sold out her boss and lover to Satan. As for point two, I disagree. Lash has made Harry's hand work in the past, and I feel that points to Lash way more strongly than the fact that Uriel was already helping a little. Uriel's shtick is subtle long term influence, not something as direct and free will violating as taking over a guy's hand. There's one more piece of evidence. Shortly after the miracle catch, he gets a sharp pain in his head. It seems to be in reaction to a Denarian using hellfire. I'm not sure how that could cause it, though, since I thought the uber pentacle was already made of hellfire. Wounded Lash's efforts giving him a headache make more sense to me.
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Nov 13, 2013 11:21
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MeLKoR posted:Marcone didn't become Chicago's kingpin by selling girlscout cookies. He might be "the lesser evil" when it comes to organized crime but it's a given that his empire was built over a pile of broken kneecaps and severed horse's heads even if we aren't shown. To the first, "we aren't shown" is the core of my point. Every time we meet Marcone, Dresden goes on a righteous internal rant about what scum he is and how he causes a ton of suffering. For the life of me, though, I can't think of any evidence for this besides the fact that he's a crime boss. His M.O. is to do all that is possible to minimize innocents getting hurt. He goes to significant lengths to try and get the shroud to heal a little girl. In Small Favor, he consistently puts a little girl's well being ahead of his own. As a reader, why in the world should I find him less sympathetic than Demeter? To the second, yes it is that reprehensible. More so, really. She did a lot to help the Denarians almost get the Archive. Her actions could easily have paved the way for an age of darkness and suffering for all mankind. What happened to her is tragic and I sympathize with her grief, but grief isn't carte blanche to make literal deals with the devil.
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Nov 13, 2013 15:53
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Fried Chicken posted:We do get shown in Even Hand, and yeah, it is through being a criminal scumbag. So there is a story showing him being horrible. That changes my opinion then. I hope they show it in the main books before they make Marcone an actual antagonist.
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Nov 14, 2013 01:57
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Interesting thing about the red court that I noticed rereading Small Favor. Nicodemus tries to get recruit Harry to help destroy them. You have to think that's going to come up in the next book.
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Nov 16, 2013 00:27
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In Turn Coat, Molly makes an offhand comment about "I should be invincible for another year or two." This is three books/years later, her mortal existence is ended. Probably coincidence, but maybe not. It'd be funny if it was intentional foreshadowing hidden in a conversation about doughnuts and youthful metabolism.
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Nov 18, 2013 05:48
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The Faraday cage reference is in Turn Coat, and it's more of an analogy. He has a set of magical wards that would act like a Faraday cage to short out any magic directed at his safe house.
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Nov 19, 2013 15:10
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Oh God, Harry's going to commit armed robbery in the mortal world? Murphy is going to have an aneurysm.
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Dec 16, 2013 18:19
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I suppose Raith's curse could be lifted. Maybe if he got infected by Nemesis? Also, random thought. Why wasn't Nemesis called He Who Walks Within?
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Dec 22, 2013 04:08
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Ah, I hadn't noted the b as part of a pattern. Interesting. He Who Walks in Brains?
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Dec 22, 2013 06:10
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Probably not anymore. He does have an ultra-wealthy brother, though.
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Jan 10, 2014 15:25
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I kind of assumed he lost his job. He took a sudden leave of absence without warning, hired himself to a rival, and can't perform any of his duties because he has to live on a remote island. What is this 24 hours card? Am I forgetting something.
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Jan 10, 2014 18:04
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Mab won't get infected. She already got infected once and she beat it like a champ.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:13
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I could be misremembering, but I am pretty sure it was both of them. Lea gets the knife and gets infected. Then Mab takes the knife, fixes Lea. Then Mab gets infected and has to fix herself. That's why we see her frozen in Arctis Tor. She was fixing herself.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:24
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The political shifts from the previous book destabilized the Council enough that he felt it was worth the risk? The Merlin is nothing if not conservative and calculated. I don't personally think that the Merlin cast such a spell, but the timing isn't unreasonable.
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Jan 22, 2014 18:45
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If Harry knew all about his island during Small Favor, things would have gone really, really badly for the Denarians.
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Feb 1, 2014 02:48
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At the end of the very first book where he's acting as a winter knight, a god tells him it's totally possible to stop being the winter knight. There's no way this isn't set up. It might take a while, but I think he'll get out of it eventually. Four years for a hand, eh? So maybe 7-8 for the spine? That would line up with the end of the series pretty nicely.
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Feb 7, 2014 09:31
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There was that time in an early book he gave a demon the third of his four names, and he made a big deal out of how it was dangerous to do so. That made it kind of surprising when he just yelled out his full name at an outsider spur of the moment like. Probably was worth it since he got the thing's name in return, but that's gonna have to come back and bite him in the rear end.
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Feb 10, 2014 07:29
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Well, we know Harry is starborn and that it gives him some key advantage against outsiders. Naming could be it. It would certainly be more interesting than the Harry just having the property "Protection from Outsiders." Harry throws around a lot of flashy magic, but I feel like the stuff that actually helps him the most tends to be summoning. That goes hand in hand with naming.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:57
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Could that have been an oblique reference to the Red's Nemesis connnections? They clearly have some, given a Red party served as the infection vector for Leah and, presumably, Maeve. Poor Ferovax, or however you spell his name. Wittgen fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 01:24
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That sounds like something that would have to happen if Dresden is ever going to actually meet Maggie.
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Feb 13, 2014 16:28
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In the Song of Ice and Fire books a couple of pretty unlikable characters died in a heavily foreshadowed way. It was a big event somehow.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:46
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That was really good. Just a couple more weeks, yeah?
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Feb 25, 2014 09:48
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Ah, drat. I though it was coming out in March for some reason. But it's May. Crap.
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Feb 25, 2014 13:19
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Encasing himself in something that causes him enormous amounts of pain is a pretty Dresden move.
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Feb 27, 2014 07:17
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Rhymenoserous posted:an angry dog and an angry cop (Who is less important thant he dog). This made me laugh. Poor Murphy.
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Mar 8, 2014 00:23
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blastron posted:Do a lot of other big authors keep falling back on the same words and phrases? Could I interest you in Robert Jordan?
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Mar 10, 2014 01:00
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Where is it implied that there are other fairy courts? I hope we never see the jade court. I can only imagine Kindred of the East levels of orientalism.
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Mar 14, 2014 04:37
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I kind of hope she is that old and the only thing that happens is she gets with Dresden. Having an action fantasy series primary romantic interest be 60 would be awesome. That mocked up warden's file on Dresden was great.
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Mar 17, 2014 17:23
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My impression was that Foo Dogs generally tap into latent magical energies of a threshold. Harry has a weak threshold but strong personal magic, so Mouse was cheating by tapping directly into Harry's magic.
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Mar 18, 2014 19:15
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If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first draw a pentagram.
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Mar 26, 2014 13:39
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I can see your point, but hasn't the series always had a mix of serious and light hearted scenes? The very first book ended with Harry over dramatizing his rage while deciding not to murder a guy. The latest book involved punching Santa and a little fairy getting a crush on another little fairy.
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Apr 1, 2014 05:26
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Vateke posted:From how I understood it, The Halloween rule only applies to faerie creatures. Also, the way it was explained, the self destruct doesn't even kill the prisoners. It just hurts them enough that they need time to recuperate and thus gives the rest of the world a chance to prepare. This is wrong. It applies to all immortals. It was mentioned that Cowl had to perform his necromancy ritual on Halloween because that's the time he would be able to go from mortal to immortal. It's not just a fairy thing. I think it's possible it would have killed many of the prisoners permanently, but some would be so powerful that they'd only be injured.
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Apr 6, 2014 05:37
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That mention of Cassius' curse is interesting. Are you saying that maybe the power of the death curse is slowly forcing the parasite out of Harry's head? Hence the headaches? He certainly couldn't die alone if there was another person in his head. May is taking far too long to get here.
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Apr 7, 2014 15:36
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I feel bad for Ferrovax. Given what happened to the other powerful magical creature that got a gift at that party...
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Apr 16, 2014 08:59
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Harry and Mab are both unreasonably hostile and uncommunicative with each other. It's kind of understandable with Mab because she's hard coded that way and can't act against her nature. Harry is just that stupidly stubborn.
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May 7, 2014 09:13
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Where exactly did we find out that the blackstaff wasn't Mother Winter's walking stick? That seems like such a slam dunk connection.
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May 11, 2014 08:58
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I know it isn't confirmed in the positive. Fried Chicken said it was confirmed in the negative. That is to say, we know it's a red herring. I'm curious where that's coming from.
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May 11, 2014 09:24
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| # ¿ May 28, 2024 23:37 |
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Huh. Cool information. It's definitely possible that the staff was stolen from Mother Winter 1000 years ago and passed on since. I wouldn't put it past Butcher to give such a clever misdirection at a signing, and fairies definitely have a Celtic influence in general. Interesting that the staff in the myth both gives and takes life. That kind of fits the summer/winter duality.
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May 11, 2014 15:14
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