Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

mistaya posted:

Video from Jim's Q&A over in Scottsdale tonight. I was the one who asked about apprentices a little ways in. This was really fun, Jim is hilarious in person (and also a lot shorter than I imagined somehow.)

I'm super happy I won't have to stand in lines for signings at Phoenix Comicon. Did anyone else go tonight or plan to go see him Saturday?

Not a ton of new information, but one thing mentioned I didn't know about, a coming-soon short story about Molly's first job as the Winter Lady, guest starring Ramirez.

e: Oh! I almost forgot. He wants to do a YA spinoff with Maggie and Mouse! I don't think that was a promise, but it's something he sounded excited about. :3:

Thank you for this, but what was the question he was answering at the very start, before talking about the landlady? The video cuts in midway through his response

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Foolie posted:

Given how hard it would be to put Molly into a story with Harry, this seems like a really cool way of continuing that character. Then again, I'd kind of love to see a Dresden Files book where Harry is the supporting cast to someone else's badassery. (Pause to realize that I largely just describe Ghost Stories)

He has said that Molly will be more prominent in Peace Talks. But yeah, stoked for that short story. Los is my favorite secondary character

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
I go with Jonathan Banks for Mac

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

WastedJoker posted:

It's clearly Raymond J Barry as Mac.

See, he's my mental Ebeneezer. I know Ebeneezer is bald, but that "gently caress you" attitude and backwoods accent he brought to Arlo on Justified fits so well with McCoy.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
Harry is Vincent Ventresca

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Tunicate posted:

I wonder if, metaphorically speaking, Michael ended the book with a complimentary bag of peanuts or a copy of Skymall.

Well I mean he did end up with something non-metaphorically speaking, and he didn't even want that, so I don't think he grabbed anything extra. If anything its just that his retirement plan may be better

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ZorajitZorajit posted:

This isn't to defend or apologize for the objectification. But I'd much rather read a story filled with cheesecake than one that spends every line of physical description on character's ugliness. It's not hard to write a description of any given person as attractive or no, and this is pulp after all. Dresden is a pig, that's the point.

Counterpoint: Lancelot in The Once and Future King

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Captain Capacitor posted:

I'd like to put it to a vote. For those that have seen Butcher in person, is his answer of "Huh, that seems like an inconsistency" annoying or funny to you?

I'm with the latter. Wasn't quite smug enough to annoy me.

Funny.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

thespaceinvader posted:

The Knights at least have to be mortal; they're literally the Faerie courts' mortal representatives, is how I understand it.

The Lady/Queen/Hag (though I'd be shocked to see Hags change hands) mantles go to the most faerie-connected person in the vicinity - I assume most such transfers are much more planned than those that have happened recently - and a lot less common...

As for the not wanting it thing... I don't think anybody really does; they seem to come with WAAAY the hell more responsibility than power, and corrupt the gently caress out of what you used to be to turn you into what they are.

It's like politicians, the people who want the mantles are the last people who should get them.


Supposedly Mother Summer has changed once when the previous one abdicated, but Mother Winter is the original.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Raygereio posted:

And to supply a more lighthearted topic: What are peoples' wishlists for Dresden Files shortstories? I'm going with...
An explanation of Lea's absence during Cold Days. Until Butcher says otherwise, I'm sticking to my headcanon that she was still being a good godmother and was covering Harry's duties by dealing with all the warden-paperwork Harry never bothered with and was having a grand time annoying Luccio.
Mouse & Maggie's school adventures.
Buddycop adventures with Butters and Sanya.

Carlos. Always more Carlos. Bad assery + style + learning more about council intrigue = awesome, so 'Los stories are awesome.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
He right about the power though. Power comes with purpose, and going against it has bad consequences. Small scale it is swearing by your power and going against you takes away the power. Writ big, you literally can't do it. The exception being apparently certain very specific ways at very specific places at very specific times, or nemesis

I think the comparison that Jim signed off on is like a train vs a car. You can take your car off the road but it is at greatly decreased performance and will probably wreck it in short order. A train cannot leave its tracks of its own volition and can only change at switching stations.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
I figure ultimately he will do the "consume your magical power" thing of the dark hallow to the prisoners in demo reach. He's far away so no one else will die and he destroys a bunch if evil things to boost himself/replenish the areas energy

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

OptimusWang posted:

I always picture him as the guy who plays Crowley on Supernatural, only using the sleazy delivery he had on Firefly.

I go with an older Bob Hoskins myself (RIP)

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ImpAtom posted:

Except that is what it is. This is stated unarguably in the book. Harry is not making logical decisions he is making primal ones. He tempers them by being logical. Like, literally, in Skin Game, he argues down the Winter Mantel by explaining to it logical reasons why he can't act on the instinctive emotional urge to kill things. The urges Harry feels are not logical in the slightest. They are irrational animal desires and that is stated to be a big part of what Winter is. This also comes with the cold clarity to do something absolutely abhorrent or cruel but that isn't the same as being logical.

Mab is insanely emotional. She literally had to have someone else talk for her because she got so angry she basically was out of control. She is good at keeping it under wraps but "not emotional" is the opposite of what she is. Skin Game was literally a long drawn out and dangerous gambit to get revenge on someone who slighted her. Mab is cold but she isn't unemotional. She is incredibly emotional and that is why she is terrifying. She is more like a barely-retrained force and there are a lot of times we've seen her slip and pretty much every time they do she is borderline animal.

It is also explicitly stated in Cold Days at the Gates scene that Winter is the cold brutal uncaring logic and Summer is the warm gentle caring emotions.

It sets up the thematic contrast of gibbering madness held at bay by logic, and logic is tempered by compassion.


quote:

To be fair, literally every time Harry has sex, something disastrous comes from it or it turns out to be a plot or scheme or betrayal.
Maggie isn't that bad :colbert:

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
Latest laundry book is out, I blew through it already. Pretty good, I'd say a step up from Apocalypse Codex, much tighter.

Jesus Christ that's a huge body count of characters

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
I'll toss one up for Stross and probably similar guys like Watts and Bakker later. There is a name for their style falls under but the name escapes me now, watts mentions it in a talk

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

jivjov posted:

Anyone reading the new War Cry comic? It's pretty good and issue #2 just introduced a plot twist I really didn't see coming... a Shoggoth in the basement!

Yeah but the big news is as powerful as a Shoggoth is they are just the spawn of outsiders rather than the full thing.

Does that make them scions?

Follow up, is "them" even the appropriate pronoun for an eternal maddening horror from a dimension outside our space and time?

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ookiimarukochan posted:

He's mentioned it several times. The next book is told from Mo's point of view and overlaps the end of this book, and then the book after that the POV character is Alex - so we'll have gone from reading the adventures of the BOFH to the adventures of the PFY.


Quite literally, if you read the character introduction. I'm certain that is not an accident, Stross has to be familiar with those stories

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
Re: the Laundry

Will Bob's new code name be TEACUP?

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Bunnita posted:

I'm re-listening to the whole series and Ghost Story is better than I remember. Maybe because I can tune out the Fitz parts or maybe because some of the foreshadowing makes more sense now or something else completely but I'm not looking to fast forward like I have been before.

skin Game spoiler is the Inez statue the parasite? Because if so the conversation about Harry being a monster takes on some new dimensions

I don't think so as a "newborn" she could barely speak without being exhausted, so possessing a statue is probably beyond her. That said it isn't covered in the books or Word of Jim yet


quote:

The scene with Dumorne being very emotionless takes on new meaning also, if Nemesis has him the emotional detachment is in character (Cold Days spoiler)

Isn't being super emotional part of being with the outsiders though? Part of the whole "chaos" thing, plus when Papa Raith was working with them it was always super emotional and personal

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Masonity posted:

It'd be great if they were used as a "see how much I've grown?" moment for Harry in the apocalypse trilogy. They pop out at a crucial time with a big "you thought we were dead?" only for Harry to shrug, blast them to Kingdom come then carry on dealing with the matter at hand. I mean imagine Harry against the FBI wolves now, or even the Loup Garou. Then think where he was when the Eebs were a threat to where he's likely to be when the poo poo hits the fan.

One if my favorite moments along those lines was in Changes when he storms into a building, a vamp sees him, screams... And runs away shrieking in terror, warning the others to get the gently caress out NOW. In Storm Front and Grave Peril 1 red court vamp vs him is pretty much a grain feed death sentence for Harry unless he has a pre setup protection. By Changes he's grown so much as special ops teams of them runs the hell away

ImpAtom posted:

If they show up again they're probably going to get some substantial power boost. "We're the last of the Red Court and so their displaced power flowed into us and now we're the Red King and Queen" or something like that.

Basically there's no chance Harry is going to be up against an enemy who won't kick his rear end five ways to Sunday and require him to barely pull off a win. That isn't how Harry Dresden works.
well firstly I doubt that, the power of the Elder Council of the Black Court didn't flow to the survivors when they got wiped out. If it had the White Court plan would have made no sense, as it would have concentrated the threat even more.

Secondly that would work if Red King was a mantle, but even then mantles get their power through things like debts, obligations, and faith, all of which would have taken a significant kick to the jimmies by the action in Changes. I mean sure, they survive, but the army of loyal retainers, the billions of dollars, the lackey politicians, the favors owed by other supernatural beings... All those are gone. And whatever purpose that power existed for has gone unfulfilled for a while (both by the King being nuts and then everyone being dead), so they will need to spend time doing that stuff to unbreak those vows (like what Molly is doing now).

After a long time they may have more raw magical power, but they won't have the experience to use it proficiently and they will lack all the stuff that made the red court previously a threat. They'd be more like suicide bombers than a Marva style operator or the intelligence agents they were when the red court was around.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Wade Wilson posted:

How did Wil Wheaton become "mister internet", exactly? His cameos on The Big Bang Theory or something?

A series of smart self marketing decisions going back to the AOL days. He got really good at handling the fans who disliked him, rolled that to offering "insider" commentary on Star Trek stuff which he expanded to interviewing and talking with other insiders on "nerd stuff", which rolled general opinions on pop culture stuff, and managed to grab each new thing on the net (livejournal, then blogging, then podcasts, then social media) a bit ahead if the curve and managed to do it fairly well.

He's Mister Internet the same was Howard Stern is Mister Shock Jock or John Stewart is Mister Comedic Reporter. He got there early and did it better than the others.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Russad posted:

Uh, Doesn't Stallings become her partner after that? And then when she's demoted and he becomes head of SI, she gets Rawlings?

Not until White Night so several years

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
Butters is a little more of a Mary Sue when you remember he's like 20 years older than "supermodel hot" Andi

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

Unless, you know, God protects him.

Shiro sacrificed himself because he was dying of cancer with less than a month to live, remember?

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Rumda posted:

The Gruffs never attempted to enter the house. Mortal property law extends to grounds and gardens. Magical power concerns itself with the building.

No, the magical demarcation is the white picket fence surrounding the property. Hence the completely badass line Michael gets in Skin Game

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Blasphemeral posted:

Remember, though, that Nemesis changes peoples nature. This drastic change in political interest could be the biggest clue to McCoy's infection. He'd also be perfectly placed as a target, since he's so high up, and people would assume he's taking the position altruistically since he's turned it down before; a'la Senator Palpatine wanting to appear uninterested in supreme power.

The "change in political interests" was saving Harry's skin. He didn't even go for the position until he learned Simon was dead, remember? The original plan was convince the 3 of them in the parking lot. It wasn't a change since he'd already done so before when he defended harry at his trial, and it stands apart from any need to invoke nemesis.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Rygar201 posted:

Yeah and the Circle are the minions in this plane

My theory is that the Circle/Black Council don't really know what they are playing with. From what we can tell of it they are a bunch of diaspora types who have banded together under some sort of "over throw the establishment, let strength determine your role not treaties, enforced restrictions and accidents of history". Magic Unchained basically. And one of the big restrictions is " no outsiders", but breaking that rule gives them a ton of power. So they are invoking the outsiders and their abilities, but I don't think they realize the outsiders have their own plans as well. The consensus is that outsiders are mindless and mad, not "crazy like a fox" and their arrogance isn't going to engender a lot of self reflection that they are getting played by what they think is a mindless daemon. Plus it wouldn't make much sense to be trying to both become the king of your faction and unmake reality at the same time.

My hunch is that Nemesis is tripping up the Circle just as much as it is the other factions, working around and using them as useful idiots to weaken the rest and summon the outsiders into the world, not that the Circle is a knowing party to the Outsiders plans

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

MadDogMike posted:

At this point I rather suspect there is no "Circle" per se, just Nemesis-infected people and a lot of recruited dupes. Assuming Dresden's correct about the role of Nemesis being just pure saboteur to get the gates open for the rest of the Outsiders, then there's no reason there has to be some clever "change the wizard world to our way of thinking" plan going on at higher levels. Nemesis is just finding whatever levers it can among people who are dissatisfied with the status quo and pulling every single one it can. It's not like the Outsiders would especially care who won in a Red Court/White Council war or the current Fomori conflicts, all they want is the enemies most likely to oppose them divided and weakened by other conflicts. Spread stories about changing the rules or getting things back to the golden days when their kind ruled the world to people and send them off to wreck things; Nemesis doesn't really CARE which side wins since even its current pawns will be in the way of any invasion eventually. There doesn't have to be any clever plan to exploit chaos being run by people in the background when the chaos itself is the goal. "Nemesis" by its very name mean "arch-enemy", so it's likely the Big Bad of the series after all.

Well a few points
First, there does appear to be a formal structure to the Circle greater than " all puppets of the same entity". They have defined contact protocols, a definite hierarchy, they run black market funding operations (which in turn necessitates a way to "launder" the funds to get resources), they infiltrate organizations through mundane ways of bribery, threats, and blackmail rather than just infection, and they have their own symbols. You don't need all that to get your hand to do something, but you do as a way to coordinate a bunch of individuals with their own agenda.

Second the "Magic Unchained" philosophy is Harry's read of their symbols in Small Favor. An underlying common ideology would explain so many disparate groups linking up, such as the fomor and the ghouls. Nemesis may be pulling at any lever it can, but it needs something to get the levers in place first, and an organization with an underlying philosophy that aligns with the goal of "free the outsiders" works for that.

Third they do need a way to get mortals on board with breaking the rules in a major way. Per Proven Guilty only mortal magic can call forth outsiders.

Three b (since this is a weak point) the circle operates with a great deal of modern sophistication. Not to say that Nemesis couldn't understand international finance, supernatural politics, and best practices for an intelligence organization, but between being locked away for timeless aeons and "old monsters don't adapt well", and parsimony I find it suggestive that the Circle is highly independent of Nemesis just because they'd know this stuff. Yeah Nemesis would gain access to their memories and understanding but even then it would need some context. Like I said, this is a weak one, bit I'm skeptical given the themes and rest of the evidence.

Fourth we get into the problem of it being Nemesis running the show and a few dupes instead of a whole organization being rolled by either a small number of infections or their tools playing them, namely the use of outsiders. Basically, if Papa Wraith or the like were infected, why would they need to call forth other outsiders instead of using their power? The fact that they are using rituals to call forth outsiders is further suggestive - if it is so easy to infect someone and then start summoning like with Wraith, why play all subtle to throw the gates open instead of infect and start summoning, and let exponential growth do its thing? Basically Nemesis needs to be really limited, or this conflict should have ended 20 years ago. To rephrase since I'm rather sleep deprived now, if Nemesis could easily spread and then summon it would have won. We know it's agents can summon, ergo the difficultly must be in spreading. This implies Nemesis is much more limited compared to any pro outsider organization - between it not being mortal and the logic of exponential growth the infected are very unlikely to be able to call up outsiders themselves, and that's a MO of the Circle so it wouldn't be a significant part of it.

Fifth I agree that Nemesis has no reason to care who wins because the fight and weakening is its goal. I've made the argument that the first 12 books at least can be read as a win win situation for the sabotaging party. The thing is that also applies to the entities we know are part of the hostile organization, like the fomor and lesser vamps - it doesn't matter who wins so long as both sides are weaker for their return or coup.

I think this all points to a tightly run organization doing most of the wetwork. If Nemesis were operating on a large scale like we know the Circle is and able to summon outsiders directly like we see circle members do, it begs the question why it needs to open the gates instead of just summoning itself. This suggests the organization largely isn't Nemesis infected. This begs the question "what's in it for them?" Since "Free the outsiders" as an explicit goal is unlikely to rally anyone that isn't suicidal, but "cast off your shackles and defy the laws of magic" is a good rallying cry that implicitly includes "free the outsiders" in it. Particularly when the casting off of said shackles weakens the defenses against outsiders and often involves summoning them into the world to do so.

Like I said, I basically think you have a group that rabidly wants power (the Circle) and started grabbing anything they could. Which included using Outsiders. Except the Outsiders, rather than being mindless gibbering horrors from beyond space time, have their own agenda of devouring the souls of the living and unmaking reality. Nemesis got in either because they thought it would be really useful and didn't realize it had its own agenda, or because it snuck its way into getting called up because it has an agenda. Now an unknown nu!Ber of entities within and without the Circle are infected, but the rest of the Circle keeps calling up outsiders without realizing how badly this will go for them.

Basically the rear end in a top hat cavemen got run out of the tribe, started throwing rocks to get revenge, and haven't clued in that some of what they picked up were hunks of plutonium. And it is about to go really bad for everyone when the hot rocks go boom

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Oroborus posted:

So if butchers steampunk book comes out in September I guess it would be fair to say next August for Peace talks?

Yeah. He put out the first sentence to Peace Talks on Feb 3rd, if you want an estimate to when he started on it

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
so I'm not sure if it really counts as urban fantasy since it is set in the 1300s instead of modern times, but I want to drop a plug for Son of the Morning by Mark Alder (http://www.amazon.com/Son-of-the-Morning/dp/0575115157)

You get dropped in England and France at the start of the 100 years war, with from what I can tell painstaking attention to detail to the realities of life at the time. The magic side of it is that God is real, Satan is real, and Lucifer is real - Lucifer is an egalitarian, God is an authoritarian. God, through his angels, manifestly supports the divine right of kings and the "you feed us, we fight for you in war and pray for you in peace" mythos the nobility used. Catherdals house angels, the relics of saints work, and rituals and prayers get results. Lucifer is some sort of democratic communist and supports peasant revolts and wants to end the feudal system and God's dominion over the earth and man. Demons slip loose (or are summoned) from hell and agitate the commoners, battle angles, and provide weapons to the oppressed. Satan is hell's jailer and has his own agenda. The AntiChrist has been born at a time when Edward III is making war on Phillip VI, and there is a whole lot of political skullduggery going on as at least 12 human factions and 6 divine factions are all scrambling for various relics, artifacts, and weapons to bring their side into ascendance.

Prose is a little run on, dialogue reminds me of A Knight's Tale - more movie funnies and one liners than you'd expect but it keeps it punchy. But overall it is a lot of fun so far. It's pretty long too - the book had been building towards a denouement, both in pacing and narrative threads, and when that was done I looked and was on'y 55% of the way through.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Masonity posted:

I think half a king was YA because it was much shorter, tighter and more focused on a very small cast than Abercrombie usually is, and had the violence toned down significantly. It's not all training swords and flowers but there aren't a ton of graphic torture scenes. And yeah, coming of age story about a young adult.

It still felt like an Abercrombie book though. Just a shorter, faster paced one with less gore.

There was also a lot of plotting jumps and coincidences that you get away with in YA and kids fiction that don't fly with editors for adult fiction. It's a function of the length cap and the fact so many YA / kids lit have them that they are almost a trope themselves now.

Given who wrote it I'm 100% confident it was intentional, but that kind of stuff is a hallmark of the genre rather than adult works.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Masonity posted:

In half a king he ends up being fished out of the water by the one man who can tell him who really killed daddy, then ends up on the exact same slave boat as his uncle, only to also randomly end up re captured by the only person who could provide the distraction needed for his plot.

I'd guess that's what he means.

That's exactly what I meant. The protagonist winds up surrounded by the exact people he needs to resolve every plot thread in turn with minimal effort just by chance. This is a common setup in children's books, like how Ron and Hermione just happen to have the exact skills to beat Dumbledore's defenses to get to the sorcerer's stone. Or any of the Bruce Coville books where the ordinary person around town that the protagonist was nice to has exactly what is needed to resolve the plot.

Contrast it with, say, the first law trilogy where the merry band of adventurers didn't all just luck together, they were all studied in depth long before things kicked off, were specifically picked and summoned, appointed, bribed, blackmailed, or manipulated to get them on that team, and all had back ups in case they said no. Or the Dresden files where the backup team is often without any useful skills for the situation at all. Or the Laundry stories where well laid out plans are disrupted by random chance and then it is a mad scrabble to see who will least lose rather than who will win.

Either as a function of length and simpler plotting, or as a trope, those kinds if coincidences are a hallmark of children's lit/ YA books. You don't see them (as much) in (well written) adult books

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ImpAtom posted:

Harry, by and large, doesn't actually do many very bad things. He feels guilty about every mistake he makes but he is by and large a selfless and self-sacrificing hero who fears that he could be worse, and everyone who is out to get him tends to be a bad person who brought whatever Harry gave them onto themselves.

Alex is the guy who Dresden fears being.

Harry does a poo poo load of bad stuff. He feels bad about it, doesn't do it for personal gain, and goes out of his way to help people, but that doesn't change the fact that said help invariably involves him climbing over a mountain of freshly made corpses leaving a trail of wanton destruction. Violence is his first course of action; until Turn Coat it is his only course of action. Dude is quick to anger, casually lethal, cruel, and has a poo poo load of power he does not hesitate to use. He threatens, extorts, and assaults people, he tortures, he slaughters thinking, reasoning beings who are themselves fully realized people to their own even if Harry doesn't see it that way.

It is the catch-22 that a "hero" that kills so freely isn't much of a hero, but a hero has to do bad things and be scary to be a hero in the first place - after all, if the regular people aren't afraid of your hero, why would the villain fear them? And if the villain could be reasoned with and talked down, why do they need a hero? Butcher is well aware of that dynamic as well, which is why he calls that out in the text - everyone is terrified of Harry, when we get exposed to other points of view we see how frightening it is. But he balances it and makes Harry a good guy who does a lot of very bad things through two tricks. Firstly he uses first person POV to make what Harry does seems softer to us than it is. We see things as harry does, and see his justification, reasoning, intent, shock, horror, regret, and pain. He is able to stand in for the reader, and address the issue by having one of his long running doubts be how can he be the good guy when he is doing all this stuff he knows is wrong. Secondly, he adopts a CS Lewis intentionalist stance in how magic works in his universe, and the morality of it. That allows Harry be the equivalent of a human wrecking ball, but still be ethically right within the narrative because it wasn't his intent to cause all that mayhem, he just did it on the way of trying to do something else. Like Michael says, what goes around comes around and Harry is what comes around (and later he is explicitly the toll of divine justice)

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ImpAtom posted:

Harry kills a lot of people but by and large his actions are presented in such an ethically right way that he has literal divine angels and ni-flawless paladins on his side. He is presented as terrifying in his power but it is pretty hard to argue the vast majority of what he does are 'bad things' as the universe out-and-out supports them. He worries about how he acts but in the long run Harry's ethics are rarely given a serious push and almost every time they are there's enough plausible deniability that it doesn't really have the same impact. There are a couple of times (the baseball bat scene) where he's presented as terrifying but by and large the book just isn't really willing to stick to it. Butcher writes with too light a touch and it shows. He waggles his hands at Harry being morally ambiguous but the books never really manage to get close to it, although there are some attempts. (The fire in book 3, the baseball bat scene again, mostly stuff early on.)

And that's fine. Butcher knows the tone he is going for and he hits it.

Gotta disagree, straight up in the text we are shown again and again that he does really bad poo poo and people are terrified of him. 5-9 there was the whole plot arc of "was he corrupted by Lash?" that highlighted on his moral ambiguity and his actions sending everyone else running for cover. 7-12 its a recurring thing that he does overtly evil things that scares the crap out of other wizards, like torturing the ghoul in front of all the wardens. Post Changes the reason Chicago is in such a state is that prior to his "death" all goons of the universe were staying clear because his reputation scared them - remember the vampire screaming and running when it saw him in Changes?

That Harry is a very evil bastard to everyone else is a core point of multiple arcs of the series. We just get a softer edge to it because we know what he is going through and are assured he isn't all that bad.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ImpAtom posted:

People are scared of Harry because they have misinformation about him or misunderstand what he is doing. The bulk of his moral nasty actions are conveniently attributable to outside sources like the Winter Mantle, Lash, mental manipulation or whatnot. Harry absolutely has a darkness hidden inside of him and his enemies absolutely end up dead, but not in a way that actually significantly impacts him on a moral level.

Harry could be bad news but he isn't. This is stated onscreen by a literal angel. He has an absurd and inflated reputation for a variety of reasons. (And it's somewhat justified too, he Harry is doing horrific things, but not for personal gainhas done some absurd stuff.)

That the bad stuff can't be attributed to the mantle or Lash and belongs on Harry's choices is a point repeatedly and explicitly made clear. They can't make him, he has free will, he has to choose to do it.

I think we are agreeing but talking past each other. That doing these bad things doesn't make him a bad person is explicitly stated as well, yes (though by Michael, not Uriel), but again, that goes back to the series morality being based on the intentional stance. Harry is doing absolutely horrific things, but it isn't for personal gain. Therefore, within the cosmic moral setup crafted from the series, he gets a pass. This is drawing from the stance of morality CS Lewis put in his books (here The Last Battle), where it is perfectly fine to serve evil (Tash) and so long as your intent is to do right by your friends and family you will really be acting in the service of and be saved by good (Aslan). In Butcher's use of it it serves both as an homage to another great fantasy author, likely serves as a reflection of some of his own thoughts on the matter (Lewis being very instrumental in conveying and shaping theological ideas), and serves as a method to soften Harry to the reader.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
So at Dysprosium (Eastercon 2015, the 66th British National Science Fiction Convention), Jim Butcher will be giving an interview. They just announced who will be conducting the interview - Charles Stross

This promises to be really interesting. Either it will involve them going head to head over like/seething hatred of steampunk, or it is going to be really deep about urban fantasy. Either way it will be interesting as hell

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Anias posted:

Humor lets us talk about horrific things in a way that playing them straight does not.

It wasn't using humor to talk about something horrific, it was used for laughs.

At an absolute most generous reading of the white court powers would be like slipping ecstasy to someone before propositioning them - their sex drive is kicked into high speed, their judgement is impaired, but they can, in theory, still consent. Even under that generous interpretation that is "borderline indistinguishable from date rape", as Charles Stross put it. It is completely an attack on the person.

This is explicitly acknowledged in the text as well. At the start of Turn Coat one of the cousins isn't trying to control the effects of their power, and Thomas points out that it is straight up assault, that Harry would be justified in killing her and the courts and council would view it as self defense, not an act of war.

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Mars4523 posted:

Speaking of which, it just goes to show you how Jim Butcher treats sexuality. Mhari isn't exactly a sympathetic character, but it still takes a fairly modern woman (vampire) to recognize the whammy for what it is.
Eh, that scene has all the women in the room upset at the story, but non vocal about it. Oscar as the one who calls it out and forbids it, with their approval to his response. Lot of layered sexual politics in that scene, it's more about power and control than the sexuality of it, but the power and control stuff was a running theme in that book.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Fried Chicken
Jan 9, 2011

Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!
On that note* the new covers for the next Laundry book are up at Stross' site





*see what I did there?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply