The Dresden Files

The fact that the Knights just so happen to keep ending up in exactly the right time and place to make a difference suggests that someone is pulling a few strings. I quite like the contrast between the Denarians who outright give you power but at the cost of free will (except maybe Nicodemus) and the God squad who put you in a position to make huge changes but only by your own choices.

IIRC Butters's short story makes it clear Knights are specifically directed towards people who need their help

Yeah, God is weighing the scales of the universe in their favour, for His ends, basically. It's a literal invocation of "if God is on our side, who can be against us", and it kinda makes me sorry for the Denarians "only" having Fallen Angels bound to coins tbh.

There's no reason the White God should be in this story.

Maybe it's honestly just me. But knowing that an omniscient, all-powerful being is objectively part of this universe beats down the stakes for me so much. Even if he can't intervene directly, he can clearly contrive events so that certain things happen.

He has to be there so that Michael "Best Character" Carpenter can be there.

To be fair, Michael doesn't necessarily need an objective God to be a good character. He could have been a Humanist symbol where the power of Faith itself, and a willingness to train like mad, is enough to make one capable of standing up to Demon level threats. He could have been a low level self-trained practitioner who just got that good through Charles Atlas Super Power.

I mean, he is objectively in the universe AFAIK.

And I dunno, the stakes I feel are for the characters themselves. It may not necessarily be in the White's God's ineffable design for Harry or any of his allies to actually survive whatever encounter they have in a given book, so I don't take His unambiguous presence in the Dresdenverse as a tension-killer at all.

It's classic "Problem of Evil". The fact that evil exists in the universe proves that the White God is either unable or unwilling to fix it all, so why should you assume he'll solve any particular conflict?

Plenty of people in Real Life believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God exists and is active in our lives, but are still frickin' terrified when danger comes up.

It's not that I don't think the characters will be in danger. It's just Butcher is adding an element to the story that I don't think adds anything. At best, The White God doesn't matter. He's so tied up in rules that he can't influence events. At worst, he shatters any and all tension. At least with Mab they're doing character stuff with her.

Like, we all know that the good guys win in the end. That's fine. I can suspend my disbelief and half-forget about that fact when I'm in the heat of a good story.

But if you introduce an in-universe element that is fully capable of contriving events months, years, decades in advance and that knows everything. Well, my thoughts inevitably drift back to how I know that the good guys will win in the end. Because now it has an in-universe reason too.

Right, so I'm more interested at that point in how they'll win and what they'll have to do/sacrifice.

Like, in Changes, you could probably reasonably infer that Harry would save his daughter. You don't introduce a character from absolutely nowhere like that and then off her - that would be shit writing. All the stakes therefore is not "will the good guys succeed" but rather "what will it cost them". And Butcher has already said that he's not sure yet whether Dresden will survive the "big apocalyptic trilogy" that will cap off the series. So any long-term stakes being hard in favour of the good guys is really irrelevant to me, it's already not the kind of series that will end with a Downer Ending with the entire world being overrun by Lovecraftian horrors. I care about how/if the cast come out the other side.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Feb 1st 2020 at 9:33:46 AM

But with God in the picture there's a very real chance that part of that "How will they come out the other side?" question could be answered with the phrase "God fudged things so they would win." I don't see how that's compelling.

It's not a deal-breaker for me, granted. Most of the things I criticize about Dresden are just that. They're criticisms. Things I don't particularly like. In this case, I don't see what the White God adds to the story.

I might as well mention this too since it's been on my mind.

Butcher includes this idea that God exists in balance with Evil. Any action he takes can be met with an equivalent action from the forces of evil, and vice versa. So neither side directly intervenes without very good reason.

But that's just it, he's omniscient. So he knows how to nudge things and solve any conflict.

Having two influential forces that are completely even and which cancel each other out always sounds good, but in my experience, it tends to lead to one of two outcomes.

A. Evil is pro-active and they move first. Good can only respond as much as Evil has. In practice, this means that anything Good does will 100% work because they're acting completely perfectly to neutralize the evil.

B. Good moves first, but they move with perfect foreknowledge of what Evil will do, and their endgame counts on the counteraction from Evil to be successful. (As a very blunt example: Good gives an Evil General a heart attack. They know that Evil will counter by giving a Good General a heart attack. Good then reveals that this was all a part of their plan, as the next person in line to be Good's General will be even more competent than the last one and will be inspired by the previous General's martyrdom.)

In Dresden we've already had at least one example of A.

A Fallen Angel discretely whispered 7 (I think) words to Harry with almost complete assurance (from millions of years of knowing how to manipulate humans) that these words would cause Harry to kill himself.

In turn, Uriel was able to whisper 7 words to Harry that gave him the strength to live again.

So congrats Fallen Angel. Your plan only succeeded in giving Harry direct experience with the Spirit world. Which will likely only help him in the long run.

Honest question: why do you even still read the series? You do nothing but complain about it. I'm not saying that that makes your complaints invalid, but I genuinely don't understand investing this much energy into something you don't actually like.

That's a pretty massive hypothetical to base that argument on. I mean, if you think Butcher's going to write that shit of an ending I think you need more proof.

I think I get what you're saying. It's like God's a safety net: however desperate the situation may get, you know that, if all else fails, Butcher will always have that to fall back on to keep the heroes from defeat.

Because I don't think the things I like are really worth discussing. I could say that Thorned Namshiel is the most underrated character in the whole series, but I couldn't really give an argument why other than that he owns so fucking hard. I could say that Michael Carpenter is a saint and the best thing ever. But everyone already knows that. I don't think I have much to add when it comes to positivity.

Any element of the books that I haven't discussed entertains me to at least some degree. I'm not really good at the things that seem normal on this site. I'm no good at speculation about what comes next in a series, and I've never really been a gusher. Only a few things in my entire life have ever made me gleefully gush about them.

Doesn't one of the books literally end with God contriving events so that Harry and Mike can clear things up with the White Council? I don't think that God is literally going to swoop in and kill the Outsiders. Instead, I think that a bunch of things will start to conveniently happen. Swords of the Cross, once broken, will just so happen to find their right wielders and reform. Characters will show up in the nick of time. A line said to Harry by someone books ago will finally click into place at just the right moment to help him come to a critical conclusion. That kinda stuff. In other stories, I can suspend my disbelief and chalk it all up to a set of honest coincidences. Here, it could literally be God doing all of those things. That's a real possibility.

It's just a super charged version of my distaste for Magnificent Bastard heroes where the end of the story reveals that everything was actually part of an elaborate plan this entire time. God is the premier example of this concept.

Edited by GNinja on Feb 1st 2020 at 2:02:43 PM

I mean, the only reason I ask is because you tend to turn this entire thread into "justify why this series isn't terrible" and it kind of kills any other conversation.

Well, did you have another topic in mind? I can try talking about something else.

I don't know that there's much else to discuss yet, other than speculating on future books. Things like "will the world actively end and a new one be found/made?" or "who do you think will survive the B.A.T.?" Another good one! "Will Dresden and Murphy ever actually get together?"

ETA: If Dresden bites the dust, I bet he and Murphy get together, then she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice that pisses him off so badly he just about magically nukes the bad guys and dies in a blaze of winning fury.

Don't tell me that doesn't match what we've seen so far. Dresden's always repeating old habits, as is Butcher. He fridged Susan and no other relationship has worked so far for Dresden. If he and Murphy get together, she's probably going out in a blaze of glory.

Edited by Journeyman on Feb 1st 2020 at 10:11:25 AM

It's hard for me to speculate on the BAT because I have no idea what the tone will be. Dresden is a pretty dark series in some ways already, but I don't know how dark Butcher would be willing to let it get.

I'm torn on characters dying. I don't want EVERYONE to go out in a blaze of glory taking a million demons down with them. XD

x5 If the things you like about the series aren´t worth discussing, then you should probably drop the series. Some pages ago the discussion in this thread even just revolved around wether or not you should drop the series, as you pretty much disliked every major thing about it and the answer was mostly "yes, but let someone you trust read the new books to see if they might fit your tastes later". For me it´s gotten so bad that i mostly just skim your posts, because it mostly turns interesting discussions into discussion about wether or not Harrys allies are to powerful and that it kills all suspense (a position i strongly disagree with).

Ithink it´s pretty likely that the BAT won´t have a super dark tone. The situations will be dire but Harry will still make jokes and there will be a ton of humor, otherwise it just wouldn´t be a Dresden story. I´m still convinced Chicago will become the human sanctuary during the BAT, with Harry replicating the creation of Demonreach for the part of Chicago he had build on little chicago. Which it why it was fixed in the past (in my opinion it kind of fixes the paradox about future Harry fixing it, as his reason for coming back wasn´t fixing it in the first place)

I feel as if that's... reductionist, is that the right word? It reduces "right way to enjoy and discuss the things you enjoy" to narrow view. For some people, aspects of what they don't like stick out in their mind more than what they do. Kind of a "time flies by when you're having fun" phenomenon applied more broadly.

Of course, I say this without remembering the rest of this poster's posts.

I believe there is no "right" way to enjoy something, but i see a significant difference in "prefering to discuss negativ aspects" (which i myself really like to do) and "I don't think the things I like are really worth discussing". If the things you enjoy aren´t worth discussion...i can´t understand how/why you would stay with a series in that case, it basicly means that nothing even remotly interesting happens in the parts you like...

Well, the assumption is that, if you're posting in the Dresden Files thread, then you probably like the Dresden Files, so bringing up the series's good qualities … probably not gonna generate much debate; just a lot of people agreeing with each other. But if you bring up something you dislike about the series, then we can get an extensive and in-depth back-and-forth going.

And it's not as if Gninja is always negative about everything, he just has more complaints than most.

Which is fine, people are different and what is perfectably good for someone can grate someone else.