[amphibian]

The various Butcher books I've read do not seem to show that Butcher himself is in agreement with Harry's attitudes. Harry is Harry, and since Harry is writing the stories after the fact in an honest way, he's putting in all of the flaws of his own thinking. The women in Dresden and in Alera all have agency, all have identities outside of the main protagonist, all have agendas of their own that mutually impact and shape Dresden's own agenda, and are admittedly mostly higher up on on the attractive and intelligent and capable sidess.

We'll see what happens in The Aeronaut's Windlass in September.

[worry]

@Abyss: Mostly yes, which is why I say he's only Level 1.

That said,

@amph: I think Butcher is self aware enough to make light of his chivalristic tendencies, as embodied by Harry's own self-awareness, but it never strikes me as disagreement (and certainly never challenge). It's slightly self-mocking but also reinforced "This is just how I am, for better or worse"-ism. Keep in mind Harry is entirely Butcher's creation, and Butcher can at any time have Harry evolve just a little, and he never does (it's not so different an argument from critiques of high fantasy worlds that reinforce real world issues). Butcher's characters are individuals, they have agency, they have points of view...but I still get the sense that he subscribes to the "boys will be boys" and "girls will be girls" mentality. I don't want to overstate it (he's never, and I don't think he ever would, promote the she's good "for a girl" mentality; and he certainly presents relationships as partnerships between equals). But he does have plenty of Male Gaze stuff as Tapper notes, and the occasional stale "women sure do take a long time to get ready, don't they fellas" joke; there's a men are from mars, women are from venus vibe. We all know Harry (read:Butcher) has a habit of repeating himself at the start of each book, but I tend to lump these things in with his weird, jarring, pointless gay agnosticism in Cold Days (which had weird notions of sex, period, too) than I do with the more mundane repetitions about his shield bracelets or whatever, especially since they're unchanging and unchallenged.

All that is to say I still like the books, I'm still in for the long haul, but I agree with Tapper wholesale on this issue.

[polishgenius]

I think the weird thing is is that Butcher generally creates women characters really well, but writes their interactions with Harry average-to-poorly. It's not at a high enough level of out-of-dateness to ping my radar generally, but it's pretty obvious once it's pointed out.

And I do prefer his 'well I probably am a bit backwards on this but I can't help it' openness than someone like Joss Whedon who seemingly identifies as a feminist and generally does quite well on the front of creating female-led fiction but completely can't accept it when people, often rightly, call him out for falling into some of the same sorts of traps as Butcher does.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 01 July 2015 - 08:37 PM

[Andorion]

I agree with Amph. Bringing in Alera is a good point. Harry's chivalry thing can grate a bit but I don't think it makes him denigrate or see as inferior women in general. Like in the first three or so books he held everything back from Murph but once he saw that was actually putting her in more danger his attitude changed.

He does have the Male Gaze, oh yes, especially after Susan left, but It doesn't make me dislike that character. It doesn't really objectify.

I am into military sci-fi and there were these books I picked up cheap once, the author name escapes me for now, and the level of misogyniy in them....like there were this all male mercenary force and they went to a planet with gender integrated armed forces and then there wee these long lectures on why women shouldn't serve, or how the military force is inferior because of that, I could have dealt with it if the issue was inverted with the women giving a badass answer, but it wasn't. Compared to stuff like that Butcher is absolutely fine. He is no Erikson, thats for sure though.

[Tapper]

Abyss, on 30 June 2015 - 04:03 PM, said:

Tapper, on 30 June 2015 - 03:13 PM, said:

reading Skin Game.
...
The Deirdre thing was not a surprise...

You read Dresden for wild crazy did not see that coming surprises? Really?

Quick reply: no.
Longer reply: no, because your typical Dresden novel is constructed like a Bruce Willis action movie in which at some point Harry/Willis ends up walking on glass on their bare feet looking for a phone, and then ending up in the end in a one-on-one with the bad guy. The plot is a straight road with ever higher obstacles for the hero to overcome, with the occassional machine gun with half a magazine of ammo thrown in as loot.

Skin Game on the other hand was..., let's say... a heist plot like Ocean's Eleven, including a team building montage sequence and double crossing between the forced-together partners, where stuff happens between the lines. Basically, a certain amount of information is inserted to the planning segment of the plot in order to sketch an impossible situation. In order to make such a plot interesting, the writer first needs to inform the reader of certain elements of what the team faces, then plant some clues as to how a trap will be overcome, while retaining a surprise factor (Harry using fireworks for the distraction instead of magic is one such thing). throw in a big surprise and if you as a reader/watcher figure out a clue, you need to feel suitably rewarded. Skin Game didn't deliver on that part and that makes it a "meh" book for me - had it been the usual path of a Dresden novel, I probably wouldn't have minded as much.

The structure of this book is something Butcher isn't good enough at (imho) to keep it at the same level as the regular Dresden Files.

Regarding what you and QT say:

Quote

Quote

...I still really don't understand what Harry's issue with Mab is. She has been fairly patient with him, backed him on occassion and was open to bargains. She keeps him in the dark, yes - but that is only because Dresden is a specialist in turning long term plans upside down for short term personal gains, all the while racking up debts with other entities of power. ...

You do remember the previous Winter Knight, yes? And what happened to him?
Also, virtually every Winter Sidhe Harry has dealt with has been a complete asshat. Mab has near zero compassion or humanity, and even where their interests are the same, Harry won't trust her to not sacrifice innocents to get what she wants.
[size=2]

The Sidhe are bound by the rules of the Fae. You don't get to stay up without being a master of getting a little edge out of what seems to be an equal trade. Mab delivers exactly what she says she will. Slate is the perfect example: she says to Harry that she will torture Slate until Harry accepts the mantle of Winter Knight. Harry obviously doesn't care (even comments somewhere that Slate gets what he deserves), so she keeps it up, as she had stated.

On the other hand, as long as Slate was loyal, she kept him around while he did as asked, despite being a despicable person with plenty of flaws that could be abused by a clever foe - the bond between liege and vassal required this. The same goes for Harry. Mab is his liege lady and has actual obligations towards him, part of which comes with him being a servant of Winter, part of which comes with the Mantle, and he can always bargain for more - like I said above, he's just terrible at the bargaining and always trades away long term obligations for short term benefits. I guess the winter bond also works in another way.
If Harry picks up a different formal position somewhere, Mab cannot ask him to (ab)use perks of that position for Winter assignments - like Vadderung having to meet with Mab if she summons him as Kringle, where he casually mentions he could tell her to get in line for an audience with him if she had asked for Vadderung as CEO of his corporation, or for Odin as Norse God.

As for the killing of innocents and the terrible, terrible being Mab: Skin Game twice gives a great insight in that regard that QT especially skips over.

Harry says he would not kill a human in service of Winter. Mab remarks he had no such qualms about killing a Sidhe of her Court. Harry replies that Sidhe aren't human. Hence, the "sacrifice of innocents of a different species" hinders neither and they are more alike than Harry seems to think - if he doesn't care about Sidhe, why should they care about him as a human?

Likewise, the wiping out of the Red Court was basically genocide - if you want to talk about terrible acts to a different species (no matter their nature and the consequences), this was one. Yes, the Red Court itself was "evil" (rather, it just was in tune with its nature, which is admittedly very anti-human despite depending on humanity).

In relation to that, Harry admitted to Ascher that he didn't care for all the reformed half-vampires in the Order of St. Giles who fought the Red Court and died as well when Harry/Ebenezar stormed the Court - rather, he thought it very much worth it.

This post has been edited by Tapper: 02 July 2015 - 08:23 AM

[Illuyankas]

On the surprise thing, I feel a knowledge of Greek mythology clueing you in for a plot point would be a bonus rather than a negative.

As for Mab, let's consider the things the Winter Fae do and have done:

Lea's considerable dicking over of Harry and his friends
Mab making him stab his own hand
Maeve working the musicians to death
Jenny drowning people
Lloyd Slate the turborapist drug addict being A-OK
His years of torture
The fetches murdering people, kidnapping and eating magic-users
Mab manipulating Molly into possible Winter Ladyhood
Redcap murdering dudes wholesale for hat dye and liking bad teams
The fact Summer exists to hold Winter back from humanity despite their explicit reality saving mission
The other parts I've missed

Also as long as he's the Winter Knight, even if he picks up another mantle he'd still have to come at her call as the Winter Knight, and if he loses it she can still transform him into a stag and release the hounds, turn him into stone, tie him up and leave him in a bog or any of the other not immediately lethal methods of murdering you the Fae can do without the direct link Mab has over him. You have a surprising amount of leeway for an amoral sociopathic monster who literally gets off on violence and murder. Also yes, Harry is being forced against his will to perform dangerous actions that have permanently damaged him and his friends and family, which just screams reasonable responses. Hell, he wasn't prepared to murder Slate to save him from being tortured, a fate Mab clearly could have stopped at any time. Pretty sure Mab is still in the lead for murder here, too, since she and the rest of Winter have been butchering mortals since before recorded history.


Oh, and he's clearly measuring the millions of lives being saved now and in the future by the loss of the Red Court versus the couple hundred Order members at that point. Do you remember how upset Harry was about learning they were farming children in Death Masks?

[amphibian]

worry, on 01 July 2015 - 08:24 PM, said:

Butcher can at any time have Harry evolve just a little, and he never does

The Harry at the beginning of the series went overboard to "protect" Murph and Susan by never telling them anything and doing everything on his own.

Butcher has pushed Harry to evolve slowly by bringing in characters who are women and don't need him or are his equals/superiors as enemies or allies. The White Court, Lasciel, Mab, Titania, Maeve, Lily, Corpsetaker, Ancient Mai, Bianca, the Valkrie and more.

I think the Susan saga and the subsequent complete overreaction in Changes genuinely changed Harry to someone who doesn't reduce women to lesser status. He relied on four women in particular to get the Changes solution done and then needed Molly's help as a complete equal in Ghost Story. It's Cold Days and Skin Game that have had him interact with new women characters - and he's been the Winter Knight there, with the mantle out and out pushing him to be savage and cruel. Butcher has Dresden being a pent-up loner, eschewing all human interaction for a year, so him being horny makes sense in that context, but I don't feel that Butcher has been making the women characters lesser or solely objects of male gaze.

Also, yes, it was plenty clear that this was an Ocean's Eleven style heist caper. What matters is the execution of the story - which I think Butcher did well. The Big Surprise for me was actually there in that what they went to steal ended up being what it was.

[Tapper]

Illuyankas, on 02 July 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

On the surprise thing, I feel a knowledge of Greek mythology clueing you in for a plot point would be a bonus rather than a negative.

As for Mab, let's consider the things the Winter Fae do and have done:

Lea's considerable dicking over of Harry and his friends
Mab making him stab his own hand
Maeve working the musicians to death
Jenny drowning people
Lloyd Slate the turborapist drug addict being A-OK
His years of torture
The fetches murdering people, kidnapping and eating magic-users
Mab manipulating Molly into possible Winter Ladyhood
Redcap murdering dudes wholesale for hat dye and liking bad teams
The fact Summer exists to hold Winter back from humanity despite their explicit reality saving mission
The other parts I've missed

Also as long as he's the Winter Knight, even if he picks up another mantle he'd still have to come at her call as the Winter Knight, and if he loses it she can still transform him into a stag and release the hounds, turn him into stone, tie him up and leave him in a bog or any of the other not immediately lethal methods of murdering you the Fae can do without the direct link Mab has over him. You have a surprising amount of leeway for an amoral sociopathic monster who literally gets off on violence and murder. Also yes, Harry is being forced against his will to perform dangerous actions that have permanently damaged him and his friends and family, which just screams reasonable responses. Hell, he wasn't prepared to murder Slate to save him from being tortured, a fate Mab clearly could have stopped at any time. Pretty sure Mab is still in the lead for murder here, too, since she and the rest of Winter have been butchering mortals since before recorded history.


Oh, and he's clearly measuring the millions of lives being saved now and in the future by the loss of the Red Court versus the couple hundred Order members at that point. Do you remember how upset Harry was about learning they were farming children in Death Masks?

It is getting into semantics/ interpretation now, I guess. We can probably agree to disagree.
Regarding the underlined, my expectation is that the moment Mab said she would torture Slate until Harry took up the mantle of WK (in Dead Beat I think), that might well have tied her by her word to actually keep torturing Slate until Harry did pick up the Mantle, given Mab can't lie and has to stand by her word.

As for the Red Court: yes, seen from human eyes it is terrible, but not that different from the way we get our dairy and meat: grow it in pens, exploit it until it runs dry, slaughter it when it can't reproduce anymore, rinse and repeat.
Vampires adopting an 'agricultural' approach to their sustenance over a hunter lifestyle in which they survive on hobo's, hookers, junkies and the random willing vamp groupie makes too much sense for them not to establish it. As for using children: maybe they're more succulent. To pursue the analogy: most of us would prefer lamb over mutton and purposedly bred Angus over the carcass of an expired milk cow.

To realize your own species isn't the top dog of the food chain you expect it to be is a slap to the face, althemoreso if it gets personal. Dresden is in his mid-thirties or older already and he is still more or less consistently outraged and surprised (not to mention personally insulted) by structures that have apparently been in place for ages in one form or another in the supernatural world, which is my main issue with him as a character.
I fully expect him to go toe to toe with Ferrovax soon and be completely unprepared for what a dragon actually is and can do, despite running into him multiple times. It is the same lack of prep that prevents him from establishing a magical lab on the island to provide him with the blasting rod and bracelet whose loss he lamented about seven times each in Skin Game alone.

Mab could set him up easily - and to prevent the argument that he wouldn't want her help for fear of owing her more: he could also tap into his friends for help. Ask Molly to leach a few thousand in funds from the Winter balance (which contains billions, probably, so they won't miss it), Bob to compile a shopping list, Butters to supply bones/skulls/blood/medicin and whatnot, Murphy for mundane parts, Thomas for exotic bits and for the all important transport. Considering his old circle cost him a few thousand from the svartalfs, 10k and a year shopping for parts should set him up nicely with all the tools and potion ingredients he requires.

[Illuyankas]

There's torture and then there's "torture", if Mab's sophisticated enough to get 'parasite' out of 'baby' then she can stick on a few romantic comedies or something equally banal in comparison. She instead goes for turbopain because, yes, she literally gains immense sexual and spiritual pleasure from it.

We would stop farming an animal wholesale if they were even close to as intelligent as humans. We actively try not to eat dolphins and great apes and they're not even sapient. If an alien species started secretly kidnapping human beings and farming them as the only food source they could obtain for X reasons, this would still be cause for either war or a concerted effort to manufacture an alternative and then seek reparations for the hundreds of millions of people killed and eaten over the length of time this will have happened for before things were put in place to end it, and I wouldn't see the latter happening for the Red Court even before they were killed.

I feel that despite only meeting Ferrovax once, he'd have enough info from Michael and the White Council (also all fantasy ever) to have some idea on what a dragon could do. I think Butcher's actually stated the lack of prep sometimes is to preserve narrative tension, since if he was always prepared for everything he'd be nearly unstoppable and that wouldn't be fun. Same thing about why wizards fuck up electronics, so he can't fix every issue with a mobile call.

As for the island lab, I feel you completely glossed over Mab purposefully and deliberately isolating him from his friends completely for about a year, as well as the point of her training him up in Cold Days' rehab sessions to be better without the crutches of his equipment.

[Morgoth]

Illuyankas, on 07 July 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

There's torture and then there's "torture", if Mab's sophisticated enough to get 'parasite' out of 'baby' then she can stick on a few romantic comedies or something equally banal in comparison. She instead goes for turbopain because, yes, she literally gains immense sexual and spiritual pleasure from it.

We would stop farming an animal wholesale if they were even close to as intelligent as humans. We actively try not to eat dolphins and great apes and they're not even sapient. If an alien species started secretly kidnapping human beings and farming them as the only food source they could obtain for X reasons, this would still be cause for either war or a concerted effort to manufacture an alternative and then seek reparations for the hundreds of millions of people killed and eaten over the length of time this will have happened for before things were put in place to end it, and I wouldn't see the latter happening for the Red Court even before they were killed.

I feel that despite only meeting Ferrovax once, he'd have enough info from Michael and the White Council (also all fantasy ever) to have some idea on what a dragon could do. I think Butcher's actually stated the lack of prep sometimes is to preserve narrative tension, since if he was always prepared for everything he'd be nearly unstoppable and that wouldn't be fun. Same thing about why wizards fuck up electronics, so he can't fix every issue with a mobile call.

As for the island lab, I feel you completely glossed over Mab purposefully and deliberately isolating him from his friends completely for about a year, as well as the point of her training him up in Cold Days' rehab sessions to be better without the crutches of his equipment.

It may help keep up tension to have Dresden so unprepared, but it does get rather old. That together with fight after fight were Dresden pull out some last last strenght to do one final spell.

My main struggle with the books is that Dresden never seem to learn anything from previous experience. Formulaic, I guess, is the problem, as the books seems to fit too neatly into a set mold these days.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 07 July 2015 - 12:17 PM

[Tapper]

Illuyankas, on 07 July 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

There's torture and then there's "torture", if Mab's sophisticated enough to get 'parasite' out of 'baby' then she can stick on a few romantic comedies or something equally banal in comparison. She instead goes for turbopain because, yes, she literally gains immense sexual and spiritual pleasure from it.

We would stop farming an animal wholesale if they were even close to as intelligent as humans. We actively try not to eat dolphins and great apes and they're not even sapient. If an alien species started secretly kidnapping human beings and farming them as the only food source they could obtain for X reasons, this would still be cause for either war or a concerted effort to manufacture an alternative and then seek reparations for the hundreds of millions of people killed and eaten over the length of time this will have happened for before things were put in place to end it, and I wouldn't see the latter happening for the Red Court even before they were killed.

I feel that despite only meeting Ferrovax once, he'd have enough info from Michael and the White Council (also all fantasy ever) to have some idea on what a dragon could do. I think Butcher's actually stated the lack of prep sometimes is to preserve narrative tension, since if he was always prepared for everything he'd be nearly unstoppable and that wouldn't be fun. Same thing about why wizards fuck up electronics, so he can't fix every issue with a mobile call.

As for the island lab, I feel you completely glossed over Mab purposefully and deliberately isolating him from his friends completely for about a year, as well as the point of her training him up in Cold Days' rehab sessions to be better without the crutches of his equipment.

Didn't Harry and Thomas built the dock together?

EDIT: if the constraints to keep Harry from auto-wins become more and more improbable, then Butcher did something wrong in the larger narrative. At the very least, if keeping Harry from his toys as one part of those constraints, he should have refrained from bringing them up every other combat scene.

EDIT 2: I am not all sure "we" would stop farming other mammals. We may not cultivate dolphins for food, but they are still accepted as casualties in fishing other species, for example. We are not above exploiting fellow humans, either - child labour, minimum wages, poverty standards and other agreements and standards be damned.
Finally, there's still plenty of idiots in this world who think (up to a degree) that different sexual organs, sexual orientations, skin colours and/or belief systems make other people inferior to themselves.

But I think we stray very far from what Dresden is about, here

This post has been edited by Tapper: 07 July 2015 - 12:31 PM

[QuickTidal]

Tapper, on 07 July 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

We may not cultivate dolphins for food, but they are still accepted as casualties in fishing other species, for example..

Where exactly is this "accepted"? I'm pretty sure dolphins aren't some collateral damage that gets slaughtered when netting tunas, or netting any fish for that reason. In fact, most fishing that I know of doesn't consist of dynamiting the water and killing all fish in the vicinity....drag nets are employed and catch fish live. If a dolphin were to get trapped in such a net, odds are it's thrown back.

[Illuyankas]

@Tapper: Yeah they did, and then a Faerie Queen decided to stop them interacting.

While they are getting a little more prominent I think they're meant to be Harry grumbling that he needs his old tools for stuff, and then getting it done anyway without them, both to show off his personal growth as a statline and to a lesser extent as a character and to hint at what whacky shit will be pulled off in Peace Talks and later now he has nothing preventing him from making new accessories, like the bracelet, the rings and the other stuff. He might not even need a blasting rod at this point.

Actually we can still tie it to Dresden, as it's about choice. An interesting question would be whether the Red Court actually has any, once they go full vamp.


While the delay of Peace Talks for this new steampunk series is a pain, the possiblity of it's novelty revitalising Butcher's enthusiasm for the Dresden books and improving his work might help fix some of the problems you and I both have with the series (some shared, some not) since a happy writer is a better writer.

[amphibian]

The Red Court was doing more than farming people for sustenance. The King was permanently drunk off his rocker on blood and groups of old gods were coming in to get some of that blood debauchery.

To extend a bad metaphor of Tapper's, this would be if people used the various Seaworlds to throw dolphin BBQs every day with the Big Ritual from Changes being an orca/walrus buffet.

We don't do that.

As for Mab being "stuck to her word" regarding the torture of Lloyd Slate. Butcher set up Mab to be a far-seeing, incredibly intelligent queen of a very powerful group. She was perfectly ok with Dresden signing up on the spot and perfectly ok with publicly (to the Fae) torturing Slate, who'd betrayed her, for years. That's why she gave Dresden that choice instead of saying something like "I'll pay you a billion dollars if you become the Winter Knight."

She rigged the choices to be two things she was very ok with. Just like Butcher has had her do from the very beginning of her interactions with the Dresden-verse and just like she always will.

Cuz Butcher gave Mab real agency in a way that is often inimical to what Dresden does or wants.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 07 July 2015 - 03:14 PM

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 07 July 2015 - 01:13 PM, said:

Where exactly is this "accepted"? I'm pretty sure dolphins aren't some collateral damage that gets slaughtered when netting tunas, or netting any fish for that reason. In fact, most fishing that I know of doesn't consist of dynamiting the water and killing all fish in the vicinity....drag nets are employed and catch fish live. If a dolphin were to get trapped in such a net, odds are it's thrown back.

They catch fish live, but they're usually cast out for a lot longer than a dolphin can hold its breath, so they either drown or lacerate themselves in their struggle to get free. Dolphin bycatch is such a big problem that it has its own wikipedia page. And here's a rather distressing article on the subject.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Tapper, on 30 June 2015 - 03:13 PM, said:

What Skin Game really made me realise though, is, is how Butcher uses female foils.... badly.

Spoiler

I am not talking about women in general, considering Harry is a chauvinist disguised as an old-fashioned gentleman who considers every woman a dainty flower and for whom the best compliment is trusting a lady to hold her own like one of the guys.

It is just that as soon as a woman in the DF is described as giving Dresden a hard-on as well as being open to the suggestion of wild monkey sex, you just know she's probably a baddie or at the least ambiguous (Ascher in SG is of course a baddie, Mab being the evilish boss-lady who has weird mental sexy times broadcasted everywhere when she makes Harry Knight, Lara Raithe being female top dog and - of course - a sex vampire). It gets tiresome.

"Good girls" can be hot, but are always first and foremost allowing Harry to be focused on the job at hand and not talking about mutual feelings until after a very long time (Susan and Karrin) one of the guys (Karrin and Andi), daughter figures that are looking up to Dresden and/or putting aside whatever they're doing when he needs them (Molly).

As for the Grail: in Indiana Jones it is to give eternal life.
In the Arthurian saga, it is mostly a vessel of purity that can only be seen by the worthy, and in the Welsh versions, it is a horn of plenty. Not sure what Butcher plans to do here.

All of the above, I am in total agreement with. The female foils point was the single most irritating thing about the series for me (possibly not helped by the fact I read all but Skin Game in one go - so every niggle became a bigger irritance as the books went on). I enjoy them as "popcorn" as someone above but it, but that sort of thing is one of the reasons I have to be in the right mood for Dresden.

Also extremely interested to see what he does with the Grail. To counter the above, the way he plays with existing mythologies is something I thoroughly enjoy.

[Aptorian]

The lack of Peace Talks release dates is very irritating.

[Abyss]

I think we're going to see Dresden dates stretch a bit as Spire books take up some of his time. Same thing happened when he was writing Alera, iirc.

[polle]

Mcardle, on 20 August 2014 - 08:53 PM, said:

Hi all, I have been working my way through the Dresden Files- half way through Dead Beats, based on recommendations from friends, but I'm starting to find several things that are starting to bug me and I was wondering if anyone agreed or are my criticisms just unfair:

1. The constant repetition of introductions to things in the world, such as who Bob is, the significance of 13 in Mackanallys, Harrys almost sexist protection of women, his effects on electronic devices etc, I mean after 7 books it annoys me that he acts like we have never encountered these each time they pop up.

I've just finished the first six novels (package deal on Kindle) and I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Maybe it's just a matter of reading them in quick succession (as I came in late to the series) that is the problem.

But the way it's handled just lacks subtelty and skill. It's frustrating being constantly reminded that he's just so "chivalrous" or that he's one of "the good guys", except of course when he's not. Bit of a self-righteous douche is Harry.

Still very much prefer Aaronovitch's series

[Cause]

I understand that Dresden truly was successful in removing the curse and that the Chicago cubs have won?