Not a bar, but plays one on TV - 2018-01-16

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9:19 PM

in RPG General Chat, 1 hour ago, by BESW

But on reflection, and having read a lot more urban speculative fiction, definitely part of what felt "off" has nothing to do with that.

@NautArch Part of it is just that I much preferred the earlier, smaller stories where it was a quirky series about a wizard detective and not about how violent interdimensional politics between sapient beings who lack free will is the only thing preventing the end of the world.

ah, yeah - i can see that. ALthough do the OUtsiders lack free will?

The Outsiders aren't in politics.

or the fae?

It's the Winter Court that keeps the Outsiders at bay, and their war with the Summer Court that keeps Winter at bay.

I thought your dislike may have been more around a somewhat misogynist hero

@BESW and then the parallel between the angels and the Fallen

9:21 PM

And yes, fae are explicitly bound by their natures.

did you read the latest?

@NautArch And, yes. Dresden Files also had the bad luck to be the series I was reading while finally getting completely fed up with a lot of very unfortunate patterns in speculative fiction.

@NautArch No, I think I stopped with Ghost Story.

Now if I want to read about an urban wizard solving fantastical crimes, I read Peter Grant novels.

...googling

@NautArch Rivers of London is the first.

ooooh

and of course my library does not have that :/

9:24 PM

There's also Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series, which isn't about wizards solving crimes--it's about cryptozoologists solving crimes.

lol

@BESW I unfortunately read past that

I read all the books that were out at the time we were reading them

I assume there are more

@BESW i saw you and other chatting about that one. Looks interesting, but not sure I'm that interested. But recommendations of good books are hard to come by :)

but am not interested anymore

I'm still enjoying them @trogdor. Just finished book 15 and now about to start Side Jobs.

@NautArch The "chivalrous pervert" main character who acts like it's okay to think of women as sex objects so long as he doesn't force himself on them, was definitely a problem. At first I read past it because I was so used to it in all my fiction, but that was about the same period of time that I was finding better, less sexist literature in similar genres.

...And then I noticed the blatant whitewashing of a famously diverse city.

9:27 PM

@BESW well,... and it wasn't just the main character, he was often surrounded by hot women who had their,... own issues

Yeeeeah.

at least one of them decidedly underage

@BESW Hmm. I'm not sure what it says about me that while I noticed that, I didn't really ahve a problem with it. I mean, I look at women in a sexual way.

@NautArch but we don't read you

@BESW but that's a good point. I think the only diverse character may have been Susan.

@trogdor you're reading me right now :)

9:28 PM

well,... yes this is true

hehe

but we are reading what you choose to say

@NautArch There's a difference between being a sexual person and being a lecherous perv. Harry's the kind of guy who'll catch an upskirt if he can.

not your whole life story, what you are thinking, or what you had for breakfast yesterday

And, yeah, it's supposed to be a character flaw, but it's really not presented that way, and omigosh why pick that character flaw anyway.

9:30 PM

@BESW i'm really surprised a White Court vampire didn't eat him to death

@BESW same, a different character flaw would have been nice

Peter Grant is a sexual character, and all of McGuire's characters are too, but they aren't skeevy and it's so much nicer to read first-person narrative from someone I don't want to smack upside the head.

the other to consider is a lot of the Dresden feel is very noir

and noir detectives were pretty sexual (different time when those were written, but still)

our point is that it isn't those days anymore

I mean, you can still like the series

@BESW and I have just lost interest in it

and for good reasons

probably him more than me even, but I have no reason to read it anymore anyway

9:34 PM

I guess I'm still unsure as to where I draw the line between how we should be as people, and how we should write and read fiction.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'd never read a novel about a character with sexual flaws.

But the Dresden Files novels don't seem to get just how awful Harry is in that regard, and if I'm going to read novels that put me directly into the mind of a lecher I'm going to expect some kind of good reason for subjecting me to it.

Mind if I give some spoilers since you're not going ot continue?

Sure.

(For a good example of sexism in speculative fiction noir, maybe Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente?)

The sexual urges are getting addressed now through his new role as Winter Knight. He's constantly fighting and Murphy is also calling him out on them.

[waves world's smallest pom poms]

9:39 PM

hahaha

just saying that the issue is being addressed - but likely not enough. He still is he who he is, and that's the real problem.

yeah I read that far

I have slightly different issues with the series too though

what're your issues?

with the series, that is :P

I don't entirely enjoy "misery circus"

which is the continual direction it went in

Yeah, BESW was talking about that, too. I have enough of that in my own life (name one project that went as planned, I dare you!)

Dresden is constantly having worse and worse life problems, sometimes but not always as a result of the last huge fight he had with wtv it happened to be last time

9:44 PM

@NautArch The article I linked above talks about it a little, and reads it as a logical extension of how for the entire series women's "importance to the story [is] based on how sexually close they are to Harry."

I don't know if that's literally true or hyperbole, but it's definitely an established pattern even if there are exceptions (I don't think he pervs on the Archive, but he thinks about how sexy tiny fairies are).

@BESW I was going to try to counter that, but I can't.

@trogdor I think that's part of the writing.No good deed goes unpunished and whatnot.

@BESW I think he doesn't perv on the Archive because she is like his own child to him.

But every other woman he interacts with is sexualized. but a lot of it is them using their sexuality against harry (knowing he's susceptible)

So.... yeah, even if the whole series turns out to be an extended metaphor for a man learning to control his wand, I don't feel like it'll retroactively save the series for me. The problem for me isn't that Harry's a perv, it's that Butcher reinforces Harry's worldview as accurate.

did you have similar issues with codex alera (if you read it?)

I haven't read anything else by Butcher.

I've heard that his other series aren't as bad in that regard, but their premises don't interest me enough to give him the benefit of the doubt at the moment.

Codex Alera was my introduction to him

it's a pretty interesting storyline

9:55 PM

I mean, it was written on a bet.

@BESW wut?!

just read it

that's awesome

> The bet was actually centered around writing craft discussions being held on the then-new Del Rey Online Writers’ Workshop, I believe. The issue at hand was central story concepts. One side of the argument claimed that a good enough central premise would make a great book, even if you were a lousy writer. The other side contended that the central concept was far less important than the execution of the story, and that the most overused central concept in the world could have life breathed into by a skilled writer.

(Note that he gets in a little jab at the people who disagreed with him by pointing out they aren't published writers.)

have you read the SHades of Magic series?

@BESW always classy

I have not.

that was a really enjoyable series

with an interesting mechanic in it

10:03 PM

Do tell.

spoilers if i do :)

but take a look at the first book - darker shade of magic

gotta get home...supposed to get 5-10" of snow tonight/tomorrow

Be safe!

10:22 PM

@NautArch yeah, just not my favorite part is all

@BESW yeah this is a big issue with it, it isn't just Harry, it's the whole world he lives in that says "you are correct, keep doing the thing"

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