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One of the things I liked about the Alex Varus books is that Alex isn't an asskicker; he can't block bullets, he can't throw fireballs, and he's not going to be able to Dresden his way out of a fight. That's one of the things I thought I would like about the Iron Druid books, when I read the first one. Atticus isn't a mage, doesn't throw fireballs, can't block bullets with his mind, etc. I liked the idea of an urban fantasy book where the primary character -wasn't- a magical badass. It, of course, did not work out that way and he's a magical badass who just bulls his way through problems, with the caveat that he uses a magical sword and not fireballs. I do think the Iron Druid books are worth mentioning, though; they're a notable series in the genre, albeit one that is notably mediocre. I saw questions asking about them in the old thread several times and I think a "These exist, they're not very good" note is warranted.
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May 22, 2014 12:26
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This is my new favorite book in the series, by an awful lot. End of book spoilers:I guessed the Jedi Butters thing, but not very far in advance; I figured it out when he took Harry's Really liked the twist with Gray. Really liked everything. This book is just the BEST. Also, gently caress yes more Michael. Also also, gently caress yes less Murphy. Hopefully she'll be mostly out of commission as a sidekick and sit out the next few books, at least. Khizan fucked around with this message at 09:19 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 09:17
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cbservo posted:
Regarding Gray: I guessed naagloshii fairly early on, because he's a shapeshifter and he's enough of a badass to sit at that table and just not give a gently caress about anybody else there; the naagloshii is the only thing we've seen so far that fits those two criteria, and Harry already has a history with them. I'd almost be willing to take it a step farther and say that the father that Gray talked about is Shagnasty, the one Dresden has a personal grudge against.
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May 27, 2014 10:30
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I was really happy to see Binder show up again, too. He was one of my favorite characters in Turn Coat. I hope he shows up again, I like the whole frenemies thing he has going with Dresden.
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May 27, 2014 11:07
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ImpAtom posted:The feeling I get from it is basically a quiet retcon of its abilities to justify Dresden giving it up without significant power loss in the near future. It really doesn't mesh with everything that was described up until now. Firstly, Harry was a lot less capable back in Summer Knight, so of course the knights seemed like terrifying badasses. He was at the level of power where fighting a Knight was an "oh poo poo" moment; now he is at the level of power where fighting a Knight is pretty meh. The other thing is that we only have Butter's speculation that that is how the Mantles work, based on his observations of Harry's healing. Back in Cold Days, Fix does a ~37 foot wire-fu leaping sword attack from a standing start, and he does it effortlessly; Harry's sure he could have gone further. In comparison, the record for a standing long jump is something like 12 feet. You don't get that kind of power by just removing the governor on the human physique. What I think it might be is that Harry's not using the full potential of the mantle. This could be because Harry puts so much effort into keeping Winter down and under control, while Fix is far more in tune with his inner Summer. If this is the case, maybe part of the reason Mab wanted Harry as a Knight so badly is to have a Knight who can fight at those levels of power without having to give into it. Khizan fucked around with this message at 01:08 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 01:03
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Mars4523 posted:Honestly I want to just see Butters fail utterly at being a Knight and get killed or crippled after a mission or two. The guy became a Knight pretty much on pluck alone, but let's face it, he's completely in over his head. Even if Michael, who is crippled, Sanya, who is constantly busy, or Murphy, who will need months of PT to return to form, manage to train him on a few sword techniques, there is no way at Butters' age (middle) and level of fitness (poor) he will acquire a reasonable level of skill needed to go up against the beasties Knights face off against. And given how busy Knights are, I doubt he'd be able to sit out the multiple years he'd need to develop those skills from scratch. Butters' thing is almost certainly going to be the fact that he's really pretty loving smart about how he goes about things. He's got Bob as an advisor and a sidekick, and he's turned into a pretty capable magical artificer. When Dresden saw Butters' skateboard for the first time his reaction was something like "goddamnit, why didn't I think of that?" and then like 30 seconds later he's like "Oh, huh. Butters figured out how to make that memory gas poo poo, too." His biggest weakness is going to be Bob's inability to go out during the daylight, but I wouldn't be surprised if he comes up with a way around that, too. As far as sword techniques, dude's got a lightsaber and I expect him to be pretty clever about how he exploits that kind of thing. He's also got all kinds of possible trainers. Charity was Michael's sparring partner, so she's got to be pretty loving good. The Brighter Future Society has a gym full of Vikings with centuries of experience. Mostly, though, I just don't expect him to be primarily a physical asskicker. He's got a Batman vest for a reason. ImpAtom posted:That doesn't make sense though. The Winter Knight is big mojo. That's the entire point of the Winter Knight. To go from that to "oh, well, it isn't really THAT important" doesn't make sense with the fact that the Winter Knight is a tremendously big deal. If that is what we're supposed to take away from it then it's pretty dumb. It being a retcon is a lot more likely. The Knights are big mojo, yes... but so is Harry. He was a big deal even before he was the Winter Knight. He raised a zombie dinosaur, rode it through a storm of dark magic, and defeated two necromancers. He mastered Demonreach and became the Warden. He took on a naagloshii and came fairly close to soloing something that Morgan had to use a nuclear weapon to get rid of. He bested Nicodemus and the Denarians twice. He stormed Arctis Tor and took down Eldest Fetch. We're seeing the world through Harry's eyes, and Harry is on a level of power where the Knights just aren't as impressive as they used to be because Dresden's personal power has increased.
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May 28, 2014 04:13
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Pattern: Yeah, I noticed that. I was disappointed when it turned out that Mavra wasn't the reason behind the disappearing livestock, after all. Though I guess as a Black Court Vampire, she's probably not going to sign up for getting the Holy Grail. Murphy: Thinking more about it, I am pretty happy with how Murphy turned out. The problem with Murphy is that her previous role is rapidly becoming irrelevant. Her usefulness as an interface with the Chicago PD is basically non-existant now, and, as a vanilla mortal, she's utterly outclassed as a combatant now. The only real way for her to transcend this is with one of the Swords, because, of all the things we've seen in the books so far, the Swords and the Knight mantles are the only things that can bump a mortal up a power level without having to take a walk on the dark side, and the mantles are already claimed. So that just leaves the Swords. The problem with them is that Murphy pretty clearly is not cut out to be a Knight. Oh, sure. She can take a Sword up just fine for something like Chichen Itza. That's a straight up no-questions-no-quarter fight against a clear and obvious evil. She's got that poo poo on lockdown. The problem is that that Knights exist to save the Denarians. Everything else they get involved in is kind of a side job. And she's not cut out for that poo poo at all. And she knows it. There's a reason she didn't take up the Sword as a Knight; she did not feel herself capable of wielding it. When she sets out on this adventure in Skin Game, her lack of faith drives her to bring the Sword of Faith and it is broken as a consequence. And so Murphy pretty much had to take a step back, somehow. She's a vanilla mortal and the oldest 'fighter' by a decade or so. Yeah, Shiro was a badass in his old age, but Shiro was also emotionally capable of wielding one of the Swords. Murphy isn't, and Dresden isn't fighting on a power level that lets her be relevant without one. She knows it, too. When Dresden asked her to go with him in Skin Game, her first question is basically "Shouldn't you take Thomas? He can actually fight." This is a good way of stepping her back. She takes up a Sword and gets it broken, proving that she was right to avoid doing it all those years. She suffers a debilitating physical injury, which provides a good reason for putting her on the disabled list for a while. Having to adapt to flying a desk for a bit puts her in a better place to grow out of being the Combat Chick, which is all she's ever been. Ascher: The rape thing didn't really bother me because it wasn't the source of her trauma/hosed-up-ness. Being hunted for breaking the Laws of Magic in self-defense was the source of her problems. The 'attempted rape' thing just set up a simple one-line reason for her to justifiably kill somebody with magic. If a dude jumped out of an alley with a knife and demanded her wallet, incinerating him is a little harder to justify and a lot less sympathetic. And being hunted for breaking the Laws isn't particularly sexist or anything; Harry would have been killed for the same reason had Ebenezer not been his secret grandpa. Yeah, using rape might have been a bit crude and it's a subject you always need to consider carefully, but I'm okay with this use. As for how she's constantly showing off the goods for Harry? Meh, she's the host of a Fallen angel-temptress that Harry turned down; of course she's going to give him a show.
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May 28, 2014 07:45
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I don't think Murphy would take up Lasciel's coin; she's not the temptress type at all. If she takes up a coin we already know about, I think it will be Deirdre's.
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May 28, 2014 07:52
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I don't think Dresden has a specific Naming power. I think that Dresden is the only one careless/reckless/ballsy/stupid enough to go around Naming things.
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May 28, 2014 10:56
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Xtanstic posted:
Vadderung(Cold Days): Harry gets Vadderung's services for a nickel AND a favor. Favors on Harry's level are a pretty major currency and Vadderung will take that poo poo seriously. I'm pretty sure he didn't get that information cheaply. The nickel also seemed like it was mostly to drive home the point that Harry needed to ask his friends for help on this one and that he couldn't Lone Ranger it just because he was afraid of getting them involved with Winter Bullshit. Grey: Vadderung said that Grey would take the contract if he introduced them. Maybe Grey owed Vadderung a debt and this was part of the payment for it?
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May 28, 2014 22:42
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Darkrenown posted:Good read. Some thoughts: Outsiders and Artifacts: I don't think that the artifacts are anti-Outsider weapons; I think they're just weapons that are effective against Outsiders. The Swords exist to save the Denarians, but back in Proven Guilty Michael shows up with Amoracchius all covered in gore and Ebenezer says that he showed up and straight up saved their lives from Outsiders, so it's obviously effective against them as well. Bob's also of the opinion that it has the power to straight up obliterate a demon's essence; faith magic is powerful poo poo.
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May 29, 2014 01:38
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mistaya posted:
Marcone, Mab, Mac, Mebenezer.
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May 29, 2014 10:02
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I thought the name seemed familiar, but it turns out that I was thinking of Andariel, a boss from Diablo II.
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May 29, 2014 16:08
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One page ago!Bunnita posted:I was able to ask one more question, which was obvious as I think about it. I asked why it took so long for Ebenezer to take Harry in. Apparently Harry was at Justin's on Ebenezer's orders, no one had any idea the guy was evil.
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May 29, 2014 19:54
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Lash was a shadow, not Lasciel herself. Additionally, she was actively trying to seduce Harry at first and, at the end, was actually seduced by Harry. Also, she's a temptress and seducer older than humanity and in all of her countless eons of life Harry Blackstone Copperfile Dresden is the first person who ever turned her down. I can understand her being a little pissed off.
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May 30, 2014 03:30
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Bobulus posted:I suspect that Hannah will totally be back. She's basically Harry if he made all the wrong decisions. Never grew up and learned to accept the White Council. Didn't reject the Coin. Concentrated all of her magical ability on emotion-fueld fire, rather than diversifying. She just needs to make two or three more 'bad deals' (or a few years training with the Coin) and she'll be back to harass Harry again. Well, let's be fair here. Harry only survived the Council because his grandfather the goddamned Council Blackstaff vouched for him and agreed to go under the Doom of Damocles for him. Without that, he would have been executed, and he killed a straight up demon-summoning black wizard in self-defense. I'm pretty sure Ascher never would have gotten a chance to "accept the White Council", she'd have gotten straight up executed.
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May 30, 2014 06:31
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Tornhelm posted:Something I just thought of. All the really cool stuff Butters does with his Batman gear is really reliant on Bob. Bob powers his skateboard, animates his whips, turns his coat into a parachute, and basically serves as the Jarvis to his Iron Man. Bob's advice couldn't turn the Paranet into magical Batmans unless they all had an equally capable spirit buddy to serve as their battery/controller. And even if you disregard that, there's a problem with giving all those nearly anonymous and unknown Paranetters such capabilities. You could do an awful lot of unsavory poo poo with memory gas and windwalking potions and the like, if they could even make it without Bob's direct help. The best use of Bob as far as the Paranet is concerned is almost certainly going to be analyzing the information they manage to collect and alerting them as to what they should be on the lookout for, which is something he does already by serving as their all-purpose magical advisor.
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May 30, 2014 08:02
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Rumda posted:It literally HAS to be Minerva. There's no way it will be Minerva. Harry's not going to name his daughter after a goddess who's quite possibly still alive and kicking; the risks of her being offended at his presumption are too high.
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Jun 2, 2014 08:10
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Harry totally will do that when it is his rear end on the line; I think he will be much less willing to do so when his daughter would share in the risk.
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Jun 2, 2014 09:26
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Calidus posted:If Iron cuts off the mantle completely then that means Harry's back has healed and his need for the mantle as severely diminished. Iron doesn't, though. In Cold Days, Harry gets by the Little Folk nailed several times without going all paraplegic again. The only time he loses control of his legs like that is when he says something like "Screw Winter Law" and the Mantle cuts out entirely.
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Jun 2, 2014 20:34
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Zola posted:A few thoughts. 1) It would be really awesome if Marcone has had one all along and it was part of the reason for his ascension to power. 2) Emotion is really powerful magic fuel and fire doesn't really have a stun setting. 3) I thought Harry might try and use this to bribe Marcone. 4) Holy crap. Disliked the Star Wars references, they felt forced since I figure Butters would be too terrified to actually say anything like that, but holy crap, yes.
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Jun 4, 2014 02:35
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SpookyLizard posted:Never mind that he basically got her pregnant and has no intention of sharing custody. Other way around on this one.
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Jun 4, 2014 06:38
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Not reading an Iron Druid book?
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Jun 8, 2014 20:03
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I liked the first few books, the ones where Tavi was a magicless man in a magical world and had to get by with cleverness and trickery. Once he got his furies and became an unstoppable force of asskickery, all that kind of goes away. Yes, he has a lot of clever tricks with his furycraft that other people don't think of, but he's no longer the underdog.
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Jun 27, 2014 21:01
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Alex Varus is what I wanted the Iron Druid books to be.
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Jun 29, 2014 01:47
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ookiimarukochan posted:It wasn't bad for a first novel very obviously written by someone who didn't know London or the UK at all. As an American who doesn't know London or the UK at all, this didn't bother me at all.
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Aug 9, 2014 18:57
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Mean Streets is not a particularly good anthology, imo, especially if you are hoping that the other stories in it will be Dresden-like. I'd just go straight for Side Jobs. But, yes, you should wait until after Changes to read Side Jobs; there are biiiiiig spoilers for later books in some of the short stories. EDIT: The Mean Streets short story could be read after Small Favor.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:17
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ImpAtom posted:I never understood why people got upset at Murphy in Fool Moon considering basically the only thing she is doing wrong is not assuming Harry Dresden's plotcock is so gigantic he should be allowed to get away with lying and obstructing a murder investigation. Fool Moon is the only book in which I actually like Murphy, precisely because of this; she manages to be more than just his fighter chick 'good people' backup.
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Aug 15, 2014 20:05
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Harry's the Winter Knight and Molly's got a bank account with eight zeros in it; I seriously doubt that something as mundane as mortal money will be a major roadblock to Harry's getting new tools.
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Aug 17, 2014 03:00
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Loving Life Partner posted:Fair point, but being able to have a machine shop with a mill and water jet and forge and whatever else you could want to wrought intricate custom metal and do fabrication would probably help any magical endeavor Doubtful. Harry would be completely incapable of actually using a facility like that; he'd hex a water jet to death in minutes just by being in the same room as it.
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Aug 17, 2014 03:48
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I think that Marcone is probably the weakest part of Butcher's writing. I hate hate hate being that guy going "show, don't tell", but goddamnit. If Marcone is a bad guy show me him being a bad guy, don't just tell me he's one while you write him in as somebody who is, essentially, one of the good guys.
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Aug 26, 2014 13:23
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Stroth posted:Isn't there a Marcone short story that opens with him murdering a couple of people to send a message? That's Evil Hand and , IIRC, the message he sent out was "Don't sell drugs to children" and then he lets their accountant go. That story was really jarring to me, too, because he was the same Marcone you'd expect from reading the main series books and yet he was constantly running an internal monologue of "One day, Dresden! One day!" while there's still no apparent reason why the two will ever clash. The thing about Marcone is that he comes off a lot like Stephen Brust's Vladimir Taltos. He's a crimelord, but he's not a bad guy! He sells drugs, but he doesn't push drugs on children. He runs brothels, but the employees are willing and he treats them well. You might have to pay him protection money, but it's reasonable and he's serious about the protection; anybody who robs your place will disappear and all the criminals know it. He kills people, but they're all underworld types so there's the whole 'live by the sword' vibe going on there. The difference is that it works for Vlad because Vlad is the hero of the stories and the worst you see people saying about him is "honorless Jhereg scum". You're supposed to think he's a good guy, so he doesn't do horrible things and people don't go around talking about how he's an evil monster. Marcone is written the same way, and yet every time you mention his name Harry's all "rabble rabble evil criminal monster rabble rabble". The dude's done nothing but huge favours for Harry, he's put himself at risk to help him out, and he's generally been a solid ally. It just doesn't fit together and that's why it's so jarring for me every time Harry starts going off about how evil Marcone is and how much he hates working with him.
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Aug 26, 2014 23:04
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I like the Alex Verus books, in large part because the protagonist isn't a heavyweight and it's almost certain that he never will be. While Harry Dresden might fight above his weight class, he starts out as a freakishly powerful wizard(in terms of raw strength) and he only goes up from there. Harry never really runs into any enemy short of a God that he just absolutely positively cannot take in a fight(Cowl excepted), and he can go into a straight up slugfest with most wizards he's likely to meet and have at least a reasonable chance of coming out alive. Verus has none of that going for him, and so he has to win his battles with sneakiness and planning and forethought, and I like that approach.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:51
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The thing about Codex Alera was that it started off as a story about Tavi, the boy with no magic powers in a world where everybody had magical powers, and it ran like that for three solid books. In the last of those books, he successfully led an army of magically gifted B-rate soldiers against an army of werewolves backed by spellcasters, and he did all this while successfully hiding his lack of magic. In the fourth book he gains magical abilities and defeats the best magic-swordsman in the world in a 1v1 fight, and after that it starts to get ridiculous. That's what makes those books fail for me; the premise changes radically from book 3 to book 4 and then it becomes pokemasters versus the zerg. In contrast, Harry Dresden starts off as a relatively powerful wizard in a world where very few things are as powerful as a wizard. Sure, he doesn't have much control or finesse, but it's pretty early on in the series when he tells you that in terms of sheer magical muscle, he's in the top ~50 wizards in the world(and considering that wizards generally gain in power as they grow older, his being this powerful at such a young age makes him hugely powerful). He's never low-powered; he's the underdog merely because he's less powerful than whatever he happens to be fighting at the moment, not because he is lacking in power. This is completely different than the way it was handled in the Codex Alera. Khizan fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 03:42
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He had all kinds of help against the Red King, though; the biggest thing he went up against on his own would probably be Shagnasty, and his performance in that fight was rated as "almost not pathetic."
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Sep 19, 2014 04:05
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I honestly think it's too early to tell. Dresden's sitting on book 15 and poo poo really didn't start escalating for him until book ~11, when he claimed Demonreach. Alex Verus, Laundry Files, and Rivers of London are all sitting at book 5. They haven't shown much power creep, but Dresden wasn't showing that much power creep in Death Masks, either.
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Sep 19, 2014 07:25
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TenaciousJ posted:Weren't all the werewolves huge nerds for the first couple books? That kind of thing doesn't entirely disappear from someone's personality. I'm sure they have some things in common. The werewolves were Harry's D&D group for a while, there were definitely some common interests there.
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Oct 23, 2014 21:22
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Wittgen posted:(Because he sacrificed his life to utterly destroy a pretty bad evil.) Himself?
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Oct 24, 2014 01:02
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:Yeah, cause it was Gods plan. When the knights show up in the books its always works out for the greater good. If Sanya gets cancer from fighting Evil in Iran, it'll be for some overall greater good reason, but I doubt that'll happen, it'd be just a tad too pointlessly grimdark for this series. It's also arguable how much exposure he'd actually get. IIRC, unless he was popping a squat on the reactor core or something this is more "he has an n% increased risk of cancer in the future" and less "bam! you get leukemia!"
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Oct 30, 2014 22:44
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:33 |
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OptimusWang posted:Which is odd, because all sorts of bad poo poo has wondered onto the Carpenter's property. Mortals can do it any time they wish, and I think Faeries can also do it provided they obey the usual threshold restrictions.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:33
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