It feels like Jim wanted a The Unmasqued World for Chigago specifically, but not have to deal with a broader The Unmasqued World than Harry's own backyard.
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."Yeah, the issue there is that he's trying to have his cake and eat it too, which is a bit meh. It probably would have worked better if they hadn't hyped up the idea of this being blatantly masquerade-breaking and then walked it back in the end. Instead of "this is definitely going to break the masquerade, no going back from here" and then "well I guess most people are going to stay masque'd, but some people, at least some Chicago locals, are going to be more open to the idea at least", they should have gone with "we're throwing around a lot of power really blatantly here, how are vanilla humans going to react?" and then "well, seems like most people are treating it like business as usual, but a lot of Chicago isn't buying the official story, and a few who saw the worst of it directly are 100% in the know".
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.I’m actually reading Cold Days right now. I needed to take a break after Ghost Story because that and Changes were not meant to be binged back to back. Too many emotions.
I haven’t felt like talking about the books in detail. I can go through each one and say what I did feel about it, but I don’t feel like doing long writeups. It’s not that I’ve lost interest, it’s just harder to put my feelings into words for some reason. I’ve been really fuzzy lately because of stress from other stuff, and my mood’s been up and down. I didn’t have the energy to come back and post after every book. Also, the thread wasn’t moving and I didn’t want to double post. I know it’s not a problem if it’s been a while, but it was more an excuse for not wanting to post than anything.
I think part of it is that I was going through things quickly and had a harder time distinguishing books from another. And I didn’t want to come here and post, I just wanted to get to the next one. (If you hadn’t noticed, I read very quickly. :P ) Also I had a friend I was talking to about this too, so that kinda scratched the same itch.
That’s all. Hope that explains it. Still interested. Sorry for dropping off like that. I would like to come back later and go book by book - I just need to remember to do it. Probably better this way, now that I’ve had time to process.
And I’m glad to hear that you guys genuinely like hearing what I have to say. I get self conscious easily, and a part of me was worried that the walls of text were getting annoying even though no one had said that.
Edited by SapphireBlue on Oct 12th 2020 at 10:42:31 AM
Just finished Battle Ground. Lots to think about, but the main takeaway is that Butcher can write one hell of a fight scene. And while I'm not certain of how to feel about a couple of the twists, I can say that Murphy's death hit me way harder than I thought it would. I don't dislike her or anything but she wasn't my favorite character either, but her death was extremely well done.
Couple more thoughts. As someone who likes Butters and Marcone a whole lot less than Butcher does, I guess I'm gonna have to make my peace with them being that much more relevant and powerful going forward. Kinda wish Sanya had gotten some of Butters' big moments, but nothing to it. About Marcone, I'm slightly sick of him but at least being a Denarian means that the eventual showdown with Dresden that's been teased for like twenty years has a slight chance of actually happening. We might've been told that Murphy won't come back as an Einherjaren till everyone's dead, but I'll eat my hat if they don't get to circumvent that rule one way or another. The White Council has long teetered on the edge of being wholly unsympathetic and they've just about crossed it — and Carlos got the brunt of the asshole stick too. On the other hand, Lara and Mab got put ever more firmly in the allies category (the wedding bit was hilarious) and I find them more likeable than they've been in a long time. And I'm looking forward to the new status quo — in a weird way it's kind of how it was at the very start of the series with Harry a White Council outlaw and his own dingy house and Bob by his side, except everything's a couple of orders of magnitude bigger. The Justine theory ended up true, good on that. But it's a bit weird that they didn't end up getting Thomas out afterwards, he wasn't really mentioned in the epilogues.
Edited by Ninety on Oct 15th 2020 at 2:39:09 AM
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.Right, I was thinking that that was more of an emergency situation and they'd have some method or other of healing him on hand. Maybe someone willing to be fucked to near-death by a hot vampire, who knows.
Also, another thought. "You didn't talk to me and as a result sixty thousand people died". Get your head out of your ass, Ramirez.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.If Harry wanted his sex life to be private then he should stop hanging around the mind controlling sex vampires and letting people think they're fucking in the middle of peace talks. Dude also risked putting Ramirez back into a wheelchair by fucking with his neck and back for his revenge/distraction.
As it is Ramirez gave Harry several chances to trust him and Harry turned it down each time which means that it's probably going to be one of those things that was absolutely avoidable in hindsight like Harry vs Ascher if Harry didn't use wisdom and charisma as his dump stats.
inb4 this was all a long game by Mab to make Harry a more amenable pawn
I mean, most of her plans do involve Harry just being, like, himself.
Bewitching EyesI feel like Ramirez not trusting Harry is textbook Poor Communication Kills, for better or worse. Ramirez is angry at and suspicious of the Winter Court — and the Winter Court's mortal-born members specifically — because of what happened between him and Molly. That's at least in part because Molly never tried to explain what happened, just (to his eyes) suckered him in and then nearly murdered him for (as far as he could tell) no reason except the sadistic glee of causing pain to someone weaker than herself. But no one ever told Harry about that incident, which means Harry doesn't understand why Ramirez is acting the way he is. And Ramirez probably assumes Harry knows about it because of his close relationship with Molly, so the fact that Harry acts completely ignorant of it probably feels like a deliberate insult to Ramirez.
My objection to that whole thing is pretty much the same as all my other objections about Battle Ground: the thing in itself isn't the issue, it's that it leaves me with a sense of "haven't we done this already?". We've already been through the whole "the White Council considers Harry a half-step away from becoming a full-blown warlock and they promise to collect his head if he even looks like he's stepped a fraction of an inch out of line". We've been through that twice, actually, since they did it again in miniature when Harry took Molly on as an apprentice, though at least that situation was somewhat interesting because of the role reversal of Harry as the one putting his neck on the line for a troubled young wizard, instead of being the troubled young wizard. The events of Battle Ground just seem like "and now the White Council hates Harry again" without any character payoff like that.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.I think fans keep thinking the White Council is fundamentally a good organization and just misinformed. I think what this book is establishing is, no, actually the White Council is just a bunch of assholes that are A Lighter Shade of Black. It was never Harry's job to prove himself to them. They have failed to prove themselves worthy of being followed.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 17th 2020 at 1:46:59 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I find it difficult to judge the White Council because i think a lot of its negative aspects are enhanced by getting our information through the lens of Harrys thoughts. In the end my opinion is that the White Council as an organisation has noble intentions and did a not-bad job at following and acchieving these intentions for the majority of its existence, with only a normal amount of bad side effects simply cause by human nature.
However, it couldn´t keep up with the rapid changes of society in the last ~100 years (in my estimation because of the longevity of its members) and is now in dire need of modernization. If the Paranet becomes its succesor organisation i think it will run into the same problems very soon, except if they make sure to always have at least some with a normal human lifespan in its leadership.
Oddly, I have the exact opposite opinion, which is interesting. Specifically, Harry has a self-hating Magi view of the White Council. He has internalized their beliefs that he's a Bad Guy TM and that he did a Bad Thing TM and he's always going to be a Anti-Hero.
When in fact it was the Council that was wrong about warlocks all along.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 17th 2020 at 5:48:43 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I think all the information we have backs up the notion that the majority of warlocks are indeed unredeemable and trying to give them a second chance has a high chance of ending up in tragedy. Just so happens that two of the main characters are the exception.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.Both could be somewhat true. The Council could be right that black magic is incredibly addictive, but we know from Harry and Molly that giving into it isn’t entirely inevitable and that warlocks are not necessarily a lost cause. And the Council prosecuting the War on Warlocks solely through after-the-fact executions rather than incorporating prevention - making a concerted effort to find and educate young practitioners before they do something that they don’t know is against the Laws - is something that Harry has pointed out before, and that does make the Council look negligent and uncaring.
They’re still way ahead ahead of the Winter Court or the White Court in terms of morality and relations to humans - not actively considering humanity a prey species like the other two do puts them in a whole different league. “Uninvolved” is greatly preferable to “actively malign”.
Edited by Galadriel on Oct 17th 2020 at 10:55:49 AM

In addition, the 'Supernatural is widely accepted by the larger community', Masquerade-breaking thing is probably put back into essentially Status Quo as well, given the part at the end where the government seems bent on gaslighting the populace until it doesn't believe its own ears and eyes about the situation and it can be explained as something terrible but mundane.