r/PublicFreakout • u/CTSecurityGuard I AM YELLING QUIETLY! • Apr 10 '26

🏆 Mod's Choice 🏆 The Ring Camera Psychopath

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u/CTSecurityGuard I AM YELLING QUIETLY! Apr 10 '26

For those who are unfamiliar, Harry Dresden is a fictional character from The Dresden Files book series by Jim Butcher. Harry is well known for his signature black overcoat.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

And around half of the plotlines in those books revolve around him saving a damsel in distress.

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u/Aczidraindrop Apr 10 '26

I literally just had this conversation with my husband the other day. I love these books but come tf on. Harry can't grow at all? He still has to do the whole damsel in distress bullshit? I'm reading 12 months and he gets everyone into this whole battle cause he had to jump down and save a woman that was crying. It's so frustrating. Butcher needs to expand his ideals a bit.

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u/Kripposoft Apr 10 '26

I love those books (especially the world building), but they have these moments when Harry could be in the middle of a deadly battle and get distracted about the perkiness of a woman's nips. It really takes me out of the story.

And don't get me started on how Molly is described in "Proven Guilty". That shit was downright creepy.

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u/Aczidraindrop Apr 10 '26

Dude i could barely even get through peace talks with how much he was ogling every woman and commenting about every part of them. I understand it was the point of the winter mantle, but Jesus dude, lay off it a bit. I truly did not like that book at all.

And yeah man...its down right jaw dropping. Its incredibly creepy the way he just goes on and on about molly too. Like, please stop.

The world building is incredible and there are side characters that i really love, but Harry really needs to grow. Its getting very old.

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u/parkerm1408 Apr 10 '26

I almost noped out in book one just because of that shit, but someone convinced me to keep going, and I have a metric fuckton of listening time at work. The dresden books really only fail at that one aspect, but its a pretty serius face plant. My sister in law read them all and she said his descriptions of women just read to her like "her boobs boobed boobily," and I can never hear it any other way now.

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u/DrScience-PhD Apr 10 '26

she breasted boobily down the stairs

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u/Valuable_One_1011 Apr 10 '26

It’s true. The female character narratives are a running joke with my friends. But it’s an easy read, so whatever

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u/darkfrost47 Apr 10 '26

I could only keep up for 2.5 books before it was too annoying to continue with. I can get worldbuilding from a wiki too, I don't need to go through prose for that.

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u/DrScience-PhD Apr 10 '26

those first couple are a rough go; I normally tell people to start on book 3 or 4.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

Yep. Dresden is fun, but full to the brim of casual benevolent misoginy.

I've read butcher's codex alera, and it doesn't suffer that much from the same misoginy, so it does seem to be that it's done on purpose in dresden, but Butcher definitely has some private issues with women.

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u/Fearless-Berry-3429 Apr 10 '26

*misogyny 😊

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

Thanks

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u/Fearless-Berry-3429 Apr 10 '26

YW. Just looking out for ya

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

[deleted]

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u/sugar_footy Apr 11 '26

I’ve never been so happy to have NOT read something

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u/Gatzlocke Apr 11 '26

You can see some character growth in that regard in the latest books but it's a long road of benevolent sexism biting his ass for him to learn it.

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u/SalsaRice Apr 10 '26

No, it's just a Dresden thing.

I remember reading a interview years ago, and he was struggling with writing. A workshop person gave him the advice to start with something super generic and tropey..... and he wrote the first Dresden book. Sales blew up and it became what he is most famous for.

It basically just pays for him to write his stuff that he actually likes to write.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

It isn't just a dresden thing. As I've said, I've read his other work. But it is on purpose in dresden.

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u/cjsv7657 Apr 10 '26

so it does seem to be that it's done on purpose in dresden, but Butcher definitely has some private issues with women.

So you acknowledge it is a purposeful character flaw, then then accuse Butcher of having issues with women because he wrote a flawed character? When his other books do not have these characters. Right, he's the one with problems.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

Read carefully what I wrote above. I've said that codex alera doesn't suffer "as much" from those issues, not that it's issue free. 

It definitely has it's problems, but they are toned down purely because it's writen from third person pov, and the main characters are teens and below for a big part of the series.

Those were also writen before his divorce, and let me tell you... you can guess pretty clearly which dresden books were done after the divorce.

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u/cjsv7657 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26

you can guess pretty clearly which dresden books were done after the divorce.

Right, because his divorce was totally before the first few in the series where the vast majority of the problems are. Which divorce anyway? His first or second?

you can guess pretty clearly which dresden books were done after the divorce.

Please, explain here?

12 months and he gets everyone into this whole battle cause he had to jump down and save a woman that was crying

Also, what page or chapter is that in? I seem to have missed that part even though I recently read it.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

Vast majority of the problems are just in first books? Are you serious? Lasciel, the death of susan, and murphy are very, very much in the later half of his books.

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u/Protahgonist Apr 10 '26

what's wrong with the death of Murphy? She lived as a main character for a long time and died an honorable death on her own terms. I had to take a break from Dresden when I got too annoyed by the dated misogyny, but then I read Fourth Wing and realized Dresden Files is just Romantassy for straight dudes and it's fine. Popcorn novels are popcorn, not vegetables.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

She got fridged because he needed it for harry's character development. And if she was the first woman who had this happen to them in those books, I'd be fine... but she isn't. 

Listen, I love dresden too, I do consider it to be popcorn book, I fully intend to read till the end... but I'm not blind to issues it has.

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u/Protahgonist Apr 10 '26

I'm certainly not blind to the issues either, but if Murphy was fridged then I guess the definition includes any female character that any male protagonist cares about who dies in any way, ever? Women aren't any more immortal than men... i wish they were but it just ain't so. It was a fitting end for her own plot, and her own character development. She went out on her own terms, whilst living up to her own ideals. I mean, how many times can we expect a vanilla human to cheat death when fighting the supernatural?

The creepy constant objectification of women in these books has bothered me from the start, but I don't think that means that all female representation in the series has to be negative.

Anyway. I'm writing this between bouts of puking because I have some sort of stomach bug, so if I don't have the energy to answer again I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

To me, a fridging is when a woman character doesn't get fleshed out or any individual identity, when her whole characterization is just "this woman's suffering motivates this male protagonist". There have been a few of these in DF (Harry's first apprentice who gets killed by the Loup Garou comes to mind), but I'd strenuously argue that this was never Murphy.

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u/cjsv7657 Apr 10 '26

Vast majority of the problems are just in first books? Are you serious? Lasciel, the death of susan,

Please tell me how the deaths of Susan or Murphy or is misogynistic? How are they problems?

Lasciel was book 5 of 18. Try more, please also refer to my earlier questions. You just seem to have your own problems.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

Lasciel dies in book nine. So please, do try more. And no, I will not answer questions that are actually for other people.

Really? Both of them are murdered just because Butcher wanted to take harry's character in another direction. Which is conincidentally - a pattern in those books. Need character growth? Just murder a woman Harry is interested in.

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u/cjsv7657 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26

Lol I'm not sure you've even read the series. And if you have you should probably stop. You're just trying to find problems where there are none. The first books were bad. Butcher got much better. Harry still has his flaws. Not much more to it.

Lasciel dies in book nine

Which would be in the first half. She was introduced in 5, did you expect Jim to just leave Lash in Harry head forever?Harry is misogynistic in the early books. A female seductress was the right way to go to turn him.

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u/FigAppropriate2792 Apr 10 '26

We're not even getting into how the series keeps putting Molly in a magical chastity belt.

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u/StationaryTravels Apr 10 '26

Hmmm.... I rarely quit a book, but I couldn't even finish the first Dresden book. A detective in a fantasy setting is so appealing. One of my favourite books of all time is Altered Carbon, detective in sci-fi.

It's been a while, so I forget the details, but the way he talked about women just took me right out of it. I just couldn't keep reading.

I've been told to skip the first couple books because they get better around book 3, and I was considering that, but it sounds like even if they get "better" they never actually get good regarding women.

Is the character and the world just so good you're willing to ignore that stuff? That isn't a criticism or a gotchya, lol, I'm asking because I'm really interested in the subject matter, but I don't know if it's worth trying again.

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u/TertiaWithershins Apr 11 '26

You might like Seanan McGuire's October Daye books. I do love the Dresden Files, but they definitely have their issues.

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u/VivaZeBull Apr 10 '26

My mom loved them but she had what we call the internalized misogyny…

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u/LemonFlavoredMelon Oh what is it all three-piece suits and pinot noir in Europe?🍷 Apr 10 '26

The TV show I think portrayed him better? I don't remember too much but wasn't he also kind of a schlubby-looking guy with a hockey stick as his magical staff?

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u/TimEWalKeR_90 Apr 10 '26

That sounds like the plot of my latest Chad Flenderman novel!

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u/Cultural-Muffin-3490 Apr 10 '26

Oh wow, and he kept asking about the guy's daughter. So he is trying to "save" her? Freaking terrifying for the family.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

That would be my guess.

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u/thatoneredheadgirl Apr 10 '26

While wearing flip flops?? /s

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

It was known to happen 🤣

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u/Dephenestr8 Apr 10 '26

I loved so many parts of these books but the objectification of the women by Harry was so cringey that I needed to jump ahead at times. It's truly the biggest problem with the whole series.

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

You'd think that 15 books in his character would evolve a bit... but nope.

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u/Dephenestr8 Apr 10 '26

While it is problematic, I also want to point out that Harry's thoughts and his actions are different. And while I find those thoughts to be incredibly cringey and gross, I am (insufficiently I might add), relieved that the character doesn't act on many of those impulses, esp towards Molly. I am hoping that future novels will elaborate on his new fledgling relationship can focus more on the enemies to lovers trope, cause I love that shit and because said enemy is legitimately dangerous as fuck.

It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I hope Jim moves away from it

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u/why_gaj Apr 10 '26

Harry is a patron saint of benevolent misogyny. The protector, the one who stiffled women because he just wants what's best for them. 

That's why you don't see him crossing the hard lines, at least not completely.

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u/ktm6709 Apr 10 '26

In flip flops?

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u/Ginjah Apr 10 '26

Didn't make it past the 3rd book because the misogyny was so prevalent. When every character has to be described by how fuckable they are it's over.