[30Days]: The Dresden Files

[seventhe]

renay has asked me to talk about books, and since I sent her some of this particular series (ACCIDENTALLY COVERED IN CHOCOLATE, that will never stop being funny) and she hasn't had time for them yet, today I am going to talk about: The Dresden Files.

I do love this series and I enjoy these books very much, but let me get out there first that I am definitely not the kind of reader who lets books I like get a free pass. I actually enjoy critiquing books I like. Sunshine, aka my favorite book of all time? SOOO not a perfect book; and one of my favorite things about it is being able to discuss its flaws with other people, discussing how it works with them and around them. So! If you also like the Dresden Files but you don't want to see them discussed from all angles (strengths AND weaknesses), uhhhhhh this is so officially your warning. If you're curious about the Dresden Files and you'd like to see my take on where they succeed and where they fail, hey: this is your invitation!

Note: There should be no major spoilers in this part. If I end up wanting to write about something that's a spoiler, I will mark it!

The Dresden Files

This series revolves around Harry Dresden, a professional wizared-for-hire in Chicago. The books start out following Harry as he solves cases, wrestles baddies, tangles with the law, and does the right thing; later books begin to pick up an over-arcing plotline, mysterious stuff in the works and in the background that are driving the series to a pretty climactic battle-for-the-world-type conclusion. It is a little bit funny because there's this huge good-vs-evil battle going on, and yet Harry still has to pay his bills because saving Chicago doesn't net him any serious income; it's an irony that's played pretty well.

Harry's a wizard; magic's real, but most people are ignorant of its existence and its danger, and Harry has positioned himself to help protect people from all the evils of his magical world. He starts off as a private-investigator-type, consulting for the polics department and solving cases on his own, but like I said, a bigger plot begins to appear in the later books.

It's a supernatural series, and one of the strongest things about it (in my opinion!) is the way Jim Butcher weaves in all kinds of supernatural standards, myths, stereotypes, and tropes, in a way that's both new and works in the world he has built. For example, there are vampires, but there are three vampire Courts, and each one represents its own kind of vampire trope (traditional "Bram Stoker" vamps, incubi/succubi, superpowered meat sacks, etc) - and the Courts sometimes collaborate and sometimes fight, and sometimes ally with wizards and sometimes with each other and sometimes they backstab, and the way Butcher represents all of the traditional "expected" vampire mythology but turns it into his own is quite clever in my opinion. Likewise, when we meet werewolves, they come in a variety of flavors, each type obeying its own magical rules. Butcher also draws heavily on the world of Faerie - the Summer and Winter Courts play very heavy roles in the ongoing conflicts and in Harry's life - as well as some interesting artifacts of Christianity and faith as magic.

There are a lot of kinds of magic and power, wizardry being only one - and two of the arguably 'strongest' characters in the series (Karrin Murphy and Gentleman Johnny Marcone) are 'normal' humans, a cop and a mobster respectively. It's interesting the way it all weaves together; Butcher has his own set of rules which keep everything relatively balanced. There aren't any Mary Sues or stuperpowers here: the powers have their price, characters have their weaknesses, and even Harry - the series' POV and obvious badass - can't overpower everybody by blunt force, although that doesn't always stop him from trying.

You read the first book, and you go, "That was pretty good. Not amazing or anything, but good. I could have written it." And then you read the second, and the third, and by the fourth you are going, "I wish I had written this, because it is awesome." By the fifth or sixth you realize that you're going through them in a day, staying up until bleak hours of the night, because they've caught you.

Cast and Characters

Harry himself is a (usually) likeable character, which is good since the books are all told from his POV. He's delightfully cynical, snarky, and sarcastic, but seriously has a huge woobie heart of gold underneath it all -- he lives to "do the right thing", a philosophy that makes him both likeable and annoying, because it can make him kind of dumb. As the books go on, however, he gets both smarter and more clever, and can actually get fairly ambiguous in his good/evil divide even while striving to do "the right thing", an inner conflict I found/find pretty fascinating. He's a wizard; he's a nerd who likes roleplaying board games and makes awful quips in the face of danger, his jokes are terrible and he lives like the world's worst bachelor. He's a rogue. There is admittedly something about him that is downright sexy. He's terribly complex and also simple.

The supporting cast is one of the other great things about this series: Dresden's friends and companions are fully-drawn, living-breathing characters, with their own stories and motivations and agency and powers. The characters (and their relationships/interactions with Harry) are really well done, barring a few cases that feel meh at times.

I actually wanted to discuss some of the characters here, but uh I am afraid of spoiling! I'm just going to say: Murphy, Thomas, Michael, Kincaid (oh Kincaid)... what an awesome cast. Yes. That is all.

The Dresden Files From a Lady's Perspective

The one thing about the Dresden Files is that they're told from the POV of a white(, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied) dude! There are a lot of books told by white dudes, about white dudes. So let's talk about this for a moment.

POC: The supporting cast does carry a fair representation of minorities (Susan Rodriguez, Ramirez, Kincaid (? although he may not count, being [spoiler]...?), Martha Liberty, Ancient Mao, Listens-To-Wind, and more) but they are supporting cast rather than main standby characters. Many of them are shown to be powerful, and there's a decent amount of not-white-people philosophy showing up in magic/wizards (Elaine, for example), so it's representation but not ground-breaking in any way. A pass but not a gold star?

Queermosexuals: Sadly, none I can think of, and in a scene where Harry pretends to be Thomas' boyfriend to gain access to his place I am pretty sure it's (sadly) played with the same "Oh, but I'm not gay, but I have to pretend to be gay" homophobic humor most sitcoms and movies use. :( Poor form, Butcher, sorry. (Although as I am mentally shipping Harry/Thomas the scene pleases me on other levels, because of [spoiler].) If there are any representatives of the GBLTQ community here, they're not obvious ones, because I'm not remembering them. Maybe we'll get something fabulous in the later books.

Ladies: This is where is gets interesting; the series both strongly passes and strongly fails in this light. I'm going to take this apart a bit.

It's difficult to apply the Bechdel Test (two lady characters, who talk to each other, about something other than a dude) to this series, because it's in Harry's POV. We see female characters talking to each other and often it's about or involving Harry, because he's there. And it's implied that female characters might talk with each other (about non-guy things!) off-screen, but we don't see it, because we're in Harry's head. So that's pretty much an automatic fail for the books because of the way they are structured. Some readers will call this a fail and some will not. I leave it up to the individual.

There's also the case of Harry's chivalry/misogyny/deal with women: Harry has a thing when it comes to women, and women in danger; he likes to "save them" and "protect them." Ugh, say all the woman wizards, right? Also, pretty much every female character in the books is described as attractive at some point: Harry spends a lot of time dwelling on the sexy, smokin' hot ladies he works with all the time. I can go either way on this one; on one hand it's tough to put up with, as a lady reading a book about a guy - it's irritating (and demeaning!) to have characters reduced to their curves. On the other hand, it's often used as a storytelling device (the Fae are described as dangerously, otherworldly beautiful, so this kind of "Harry's boner woke up" can often be a subtle warning sign), or it's made obvious by the way it appears in the story that this is part of Harry's worldview, and not necessarily that of the author.

I will also point out as a counterexample that Harry takes great pains to mention how amazingly sexy Thomas looks every time Thomas walks into a scene (man I ship them). And that his protective instincts extend to friends of both genders - I am thinking of Billy and the Alphas, specifically - so. These aren't excuses; it makes it no less annoying to read when directed at the women, since ladies have to put up with this kind of shit from all kinds of books written by a dude. I just point it out that a lot of it is just Harry.

This is the kind of thing I'd definitely be interested in discussing with people who have read the books: do you give Butcher a pass or a fail?

The thing is that even with this, these books can drip with female character agency! For example: Karrin Murphy is quickly becoming one of my favorite woman characters of all time. Harry starts out wanting to protect her, but Karrin basically runs him over time and time again with her agency and by maybe the third? fourth? book, Harry is confiding in her, taking her advice, following her direction, trusting her judgment and not just respecting her own personal choices but really not even commenting on them, as if this is totally normal and the way it works (which it is, or should be) -- it isn't even "EVEN THOUGH she's a woman" in later books, it's like "oh she is amazing and by the way female". Murphy is awesome, and the Harry-Murphy relationship (no matter what you see in it (I can also ship them okay)) is really well-done. It's a huge strong point against the other iffy bits.

It's a huge strong point for the series, alone, period: read it for Harry-Murphy (or Harry/Murphy) because gosh, do I love what they do together. It's a perfect example of trust, trust both earned and given like trust has to be. They embody every last bit of it. And I love it. it's so significant, the way Harry trusts Murphy - a human in a world of superpowers! - so much more than anyone, and Murphy trusts Harry - the keeper of these mysterious things she doesn't understand! - and they have each other's back no matter what. I am wanting to go back and re-read their scenes right now. Fuck.

And the other female characters carry strengths of their own, both magically and personality-wise - Molly, Elaine, Charity; the Faerie Queens are basically the most powerful beings out there - and moreover, they aren't caricatures of female characters. They aren't stereotypes; they may start out that way, but they develop into their own characters with unique motivations and unique choices. (Even Susan, who I feel is the blandest of the female characters (unfortunately...!), demonstrates her agency in a major way later in the series when she [spoiler].)


In The End

This post is too long, and I know I've left out a ton, so feel free to ask stuff in the comments. Overall: I have really enjoyed this series, with its flaws, because the storytelling is engaging, the characters intriguing, and the world-building excellently complex.

AND NOW I POST.

This is part of my 30 Days of Posting meme - feel free to check out the schedule of posting and contribute if there are any spaces! DW || LJ

Comments

[shanaqui]

I should give Butcher another chance. I had a friend who thought he was Harry Dresden, pretty much. I mean, he didn't say so, but he did his very very best to imply that that was the role he should play in my life. Except creepier, because he would make innuendoes at me all day and all night, even if I was triggered and told him to stop.

So Harry Dresden is him to me, or was when I was reading them last. (Now I have kicked him out of my life decisively, maybe I can forgive Harry.)

But yeah, seriously, Harry's thing about not trusting women really, really pissed me off. I was willing to give it time for him to develop, but oh, I wanted to strangle him in the meantime.

[seventhe]

That is... very creepy and very unfortunate!

Harry's "thing about women" sits strange with this female reader, too, but as the series went on and I was shown stunningly awesome female character after character, I started to think that it was more Harry's characterization than anything. (We can grump about why Butcher chose that for Harry's characterization, but... reading onward in the series is worth it for Murphy and Molly alone!)

[shanaqui]

Yes! Particularly as he, like me, was engaged to be married. (Now he is married. And hasn't changed a bit.)

Yeah, I had been told that, and to hang on a bit because Harry would develop. It was just... unfortunate parallels.

[seventhe]

Completely understandable. (I get pinged out by names, like, if there's a Jessica in a book too prominently? Weirds me out. Or the name of a friend? I can't focus on the character because it reminds me too much of that person, even if the characters are nothing alike.) :P

[vrazdova]

Lol I always forget that's your name. You don't seem at all like a Jessica. Almost every other Jessica I've known has been a total BEYOTCH or kind of an idiot and since you are the total anti-Jessica you are always therefore Sev.

I mean like not to bash your name, but you know how we get name-associations n'at XDD

(P.S. for the record, I haven't known any "Jessy"s so you're golden! XD)

[seventhe]

HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS COMMENT; I FIND IT HI-LARIOUS

[yukie]

I stopped reading the series before it started to go super duper grimdark - I have I think seven of the books. And while I hugely, hugely appreciated the fact that Harry's sexism bites his FACE, I had issues with his borderline-loli business at Thomas's little sister, whose name made me go 'NO, NO WEEABOOING, I WILL SLAP YOU WITH YOUR HAT'. XD; It - I used to go to Catholic school, and - yeah. Everything THAT entails has made me very 'fuckyou bye' at the barely-legal-hur-hur type of stuff. The fact that she's basically a succuba doesn't inspire me to give a pass. It's too much SCHOOLGIRLS GONE WILD for me to stand. Man I can tell SO many stories about victim blame but that would cause me to be cranky and get rabies so yeah.

but back to the sexism thing. Harry gets a clue about that. it's his "OH TEH NOES I MUST PROTECT THE WEAKER WOMENSES" attitude that means Murphy's in the dark about a situation and thus gets attacked by that evil doppelganger thing. If Harry had been SMART and treated her like a fellow adult and said "look, here is the dealio", that never would have happened. And he knows it. And he starts to smarten up. THAT I appreciated.

I found the Japanese templar guy to be a little bit magical-other, but he was extremely cool nonetheless.

So yeah. In some ways he passe,s in some ways he reminds me of Joss Whedon in that he seems to figure he's a lot cleverer than he is. Not LOL EGOTIST just - a dude who is progressive but thinks he is more progressive than he is. Though Butcher seems to be able to take crit and go 'wow dur my bad!' and try again more better.

However oh god how I wish he'd not tried to make up his own angel names XD; I - this is so pedantic of me but again, LOL CAHTOLICISM and it yanked me out of the story. For one, fallen angels rarely have the -el name ending because that means '(of/pertaining to) god'; when angels fall, it's usually told that they turf/change the -el (some of the Grigori are an exception to this, but they're weirdoes in general and I think they're 'canonically' dead anyhow so they don't count, and Azrael is exempt because he is not fallen in some texts) or change their names entirely. For two, -el is a Hebrew name ender, so tacking Latin gobbledygrunk onto the front of -el looks dumb as heck to me XD; It reminded me of the fangirl German in Weiss Kreuz fandom. For three, there are a LOT of prefab/pre-existing demons, ex-angels and critters out there; why not use one of those and put one's own spin on it? The Goetia is FULL of weirdoes. A lot of them shapeshift into weird shit, and have sigils associated with them, and they can and do feed on the baser aspects of human nature. tl;dr it comes down to "GOOGLE DAMN IT" for me. It's a really esoteric nitpick, and most people won't care, but to me it was like "nooooaaaargh."

I talk a ton :D;

[seventhe]

Ha, see - I didn't really get pinged out by anything between Harry-Inari because to be that was an example of the "sexiness is a giant red flag to reader" thing I mentioned above -- it was more indicative of what a creepy fuck Lara Raith is than anything. I spent a lot of that book going "OOOO WHITE COURT" so I think it landed in my brain as "their powers are seriously fucked up, yo." To me -- I can definitely see it being creepy to other readers, now that we are talking about it :P

The angel thing: again, for me, like... alright in book 2 there are like 4 or 5 different kinds of werewolf and at that point I was kind of like "Oh okay, that is what kind of series this is" so... fabricated names, again, don't ping me out. XD Are you talking about the Denarians, though?

[vrazdova]

Harry has a thing when it comes to women, and women in danger; he likes to "save them" and "protect them."

So........ Harry is Locke? LULZ

Obvs I haven't read these books, but I will attempt to add to the discussion: As far as the progressiveness-of-the-author issue goes, I can never be so set in stone about things like "Oh they didn't have enough strong female characters" and "It's another story about a straight white dude". On the one hand, it's always awesome to see progressive stories that break the "traditional" western boundaries of all these points you bring up. On the other hand... if the author has a story they want to tell, and there's a specific way they want to tell it because that's their story and their characters, are they necessarily being backward-sexist-bigots by not throwing in a black female lesbian jewish protagonist who kicks everyone's ass and becomes President?

1. I'm not saying this to moot the argument entirely
2. One can certainly be bothered by feeling like they're reading the same shit over and over again by different authors
3. Variation is AWESOME and it IS refreshing to read more 'progressive' stories!
4. But at some point it could be forced, and then it turns back into the 90's-cartoon setup of having a black guy, and asian girl, a kid in a wheelchair and a ginger in every group just to make sure it's PC
5. Obviously it's fuckin sweet to read stories containing strong female characters whose looks aren't focused on, and who are smart and contribute important things to the story; and it's even more awesome to have non-straight characters whose sexuality isn't a trope etc. etc.
6. But I don't think certain great books should necessarily be lose 'points' for not having all that. Again, not having read the Dresden Files, I can't give my own actual opinion on the series - but think of it this way: this is Harry's world, it's told from his perspective, and I wouldn't think it's necessarily all that unbelievable for him to not really have much contact with non-straight people (and maybe it's just not a thing of relevance in his situation - maybe there IS a gay person in his life, but it's not part of the story so he's not going to mention it?). Sure, as you mentioned there's the "pretend to be gay" scene which may or may not be actually kind of a sad aspect, but I dunno. I just personally don't think every book should be critiqued by a checklist of "Oh it didn't have THIS and THIS".
7. Last BUT - at the same time, it's fun to discuss. So carry on!

I just like to play devil's advocate ^.^

[seventhe]

*FINALLY COMMENT-SNIPES YOUR COMMENT LIKE 4 DAYS LATER WTF*

In a very general sense I agree with you here -- I judge books on the story being told, the storybuilding used, and the characters, at first glance. Mainly: I know that many of my friends read and review books from an activist slant. So when I recommend a series to people who do so, I try to take a look at it from their angle, so that they know what they're getting into. If you're looking for a series with awesome explosions and good characters and diversity doesn't matter, then yeah! If you're looking for series with strong queermosexual characters in it, then you are going to be disappointed.

I mean -- I'll say this; when I read books I look for female characters. I don't know why. I've been reading books for the girls (LOLZ) since I was very young; the female characters always appeal to me more, even if/when they're minor characters or side characters or just mentions or whatever. I can read LOTR and love it but part of my brain is always like, "BUT WHAT ABOUT EOWYN!" It is just how I read.

It doesn't mean I don't like books like, say, LOTR, or other novels which star dudes. But based on that I can understand why other people might read books looking for other things - Readers of Color might looks for Characters of Color, for example, or GLBTQ readers might look for some Queermos. Or, hell, straight-up white bisexual girls might get interested in reading about the COCs and the Qs, just because it's whats they're interested in.

And -- I think it's interesting to look at books I *LOVE* through a different light, right? Just to say, hey, so, if I am reading from this angle how would this series do?

In the end, for the way *I* read specifically I think I personally agree with your comment. Like, for me, the Dresden Files are Harry's story, and I like Harry a ton as a character (enough to read what, like, 12+ books about the fucker) and I love the world and want a ton more.

But I know other people read for other things and so... that's why I ramble!

[vrazdova]

RAMBLING IS GOOD. I LIKE RAMBLING. And that's a good point - it's nice to list out that stuff for someone who may have a hankerin' for some Bad A female queermo characters (THOUGH REALLY, if such a character were a focal point of a story, you know every review would always point that out, because Every Narrator/Main Protagonist Is Assumed White, Straight And Male Until Proven Otherwise but that's a discussion for another time, haa!). Either way, ROCK ON.

I don't think I necessarily read for the girls personally - I kinda feel I identify more with a lot of male characters anyway (and this could open up YET ANOTHER long discussion on gender/identity which is just going way off topic! XD) - and I LOVE Lord of the Rings, but even I was like "okay... Middle Earth is apparently 95% populated with men wtf" XD

[bookblather.livejournal.com]

As problematic as the lady situation is in the Dresden Files, I give Butcher a pass, because like you said, every single female character has a hell of a lot of agency, and because his other series doesn't show the same flaws (it has flaws, just not the same ones). Like you said, the chivalry thing and the describing ladies as beautiful seems to be just Harry, since it doesn't really occur in the Alera series.

Also, I basically read for the Harry/Murphy dynamic. I was highly disappointed when she was barely in Dead Beat and then joyful when Butcher didn't make that mistake again, because Murphy and her sheer awesome make the series for me.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I agree; the female characters themselves won me over, and as unfortunate as it is, I still enjoy the books.

AND MURPHY. OH, gosh, yes: I pretty much cheer every time she is in the scene, especially with that damn silly gun Kincaid gave her.

[bookblather.livejournal.com]

The damn silly gun that saved Harry's sorry ass in White Night? That damn silly gun?

Murphy is quite frankly my favorite part of the Dresden Files EVER. I kept reading through goddamn Fool Moon for her and her badass.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

YES. I LOVE THAT GUN AND I LOVE THAT IT IS FRANKLY AS BIG AS SHE IS.

I agree. I've re-read a bunch of her scenes too! I seriously find her awesome.

[bookblather.livejournal.com]

There was this moment in one of the books where Harry was getting his ass kicked and Murphy came in and just effortlessly wasted the bad guys (the one I'm thinking of is when he told us precisely what a doubletap was) and he just spent like, half a page in sheer awe of how awesome she was before going "oh, right, bad guys." It was perfect.

THAT GUN IS SO AWESOME. ALMOST AS AWESOME AS MURPHY.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

YES! Even in the one with the tree monster that attacked them at Walmart? I know that's an early book, but Murphy was KICKING SHEER ASS and she seriously didn't even know what was going on! I was like. Cheering. XD

[sargent-snarky.livejournal.com]

I've slowly been working my way through the Dresden Files (I've read the first four and have the fifth waiting at home on my stack of things to read over break), though my situation in college is similar to how you described things for you in your last journal -- limited space and limited time that sometimes I want to spend on things other than reading. But from what I've read, I've got to agree with your assessments here. :)

I sort of forgive Harry his chivalry/etc. towards females because he reminds me very strongly (enough so that when I 'hear' his narration as one or the other of their voices, depending on context) of a combination of two guys I knew in high school. ... plus magic. Similar sense of humor and way of looking at the world, though (really - it's as if Butcher took the average of these two guys, gave him magic, aged him up and then named this creation Harry) -- and they were both very great guys to be around, though they had this ingrained sense of chivalry that, while it could get quite annoying, was nonetheless endearing. So I can't be too annoyed with Harry for exhibiting the same trait, I suppose? Especially since I feel that it really is Harry and not necessarily Butcher, given the very strong women in this story, as you point out. Especially Murphy. ♥ Can't pick out a favorite, yet, having not read enough, I think -- but she is pretty damn awesome.


The one thing that really annoys me with the series so far, though, is that exact same introductory chapter (usually the second chapter, it seems) in every. single. book. Please say Butcher stops with that eventually...?

I would have more to say, but it's late, and sleep probably should happen before classes tomorrow. When I'm a bit more coherent, I'll probably have a few questions about these books, because it's always very interesting to see what people have to say about them. :)

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Actually, yeah, the "intro chapter" stops showing up -- I think once you're a handful of books in Butcher assumes either you've read the preceding novels or don't give a fuck, and he sort of does like a one-paragraph "Harry remembers stuff that was important in the last book" rather than the spiel about "I AM PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR! CHICAGO'S LAST DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARKNESS" lol.

I give Harry a pass, too, mainly because (a) I LIKE Harry and (b) he does seem to learn from his shit, which I think is pretty awesome. But it's interesting to me to see whether or not other people see the same, right? XD