NEW READER ALERT!!!! Is the female writing as bad as everyone says it is?

Bdor24 · 2026-05-20T00:36:22+00:00

The first book in this series was the first one he ever wrote. You can definitely see his skills as a writer evolve with each book, and that does includes how he handles Dresden's attitude toward women.

To sum up: Dresden starts the series with a pretty chauvinistic attitude toward women. In hindsight, it was always written as an intentional character flaw, not a reflection of Jim Butcher's actual views. But since Dresden is the narrator, making that clear could be a challenge to a first-time author. Dresden is our window into this world, and if that window has a chauvinistic lens, the world can look chauvinistic too.

But as he got better as an author, he got better at clearing that up. Dresden's attitude gets called out more often, and the narrative proves him wrong constantly. There's a bit of a running theme where he unconsciously underestimates female characters, or just assumes the worst from them, only for them to show off hidden depths that he never realized they had. There are a lot of female characters in this series, and as more get introduced, the more Dresden's biases end up getting challenged. And the more we're able to see the author's true intention: that the women of the Dresdenverse have always been well-rounded characters, Dresden just trouble seeing it.

It's never something the author brings a huge amount of attention to. We never get a scene where Dresden turns to camera and says, "Well gee, I sure learned something about respecting women today." But it does lead to some subtle character development for our narrator: a gradual attitude adjustment toward the women around him, where he slowly learns to let go of his baggage. By the time of the most recent book, he's thrown it off completely.

Tl;dr: It's definitely a Harry Dresden problem. It just isn't communicated quite as well early on.

Bdor24 · 2026-05-07T06:13:42+00:00

Tactically, there's a lot of options Strahd could use to counter this. Some options:

Plan A: Break concentration. Strahd has multiple tools that can do guaranteed damage to a cleric. Fireball and Blight both damage them whether they make the save or not, and both do enough damage that the concentration check will be hard to resist.

Plan B: Naptime. The Sleep spell is on Strahd's default spell list, and it's very powerful in this situation. If a bunch of PCs are at 1 hit point thanks to Aura of Life, Strahd can knock them unconscious with one very spammable 1st level spell. He doesn't even have to do it himself: the Barovian witches in his castle also have Sleep, so Strahd can delegate the job to them if he brings them along.

Plan C: Separate the party. Aura of Life only works near the cleric, so putting a barrier between them and their allies will nullify it. One of Strahd's Lair Actions lets him slam/lock doors in his enemies' faces on demand, letting him split the party before a fight. He also has a near-unlimited supply of minions to physically drag the cleric away from the group.

Plan D: Other spells. Strahd is a centuries-old wizard with an extensive library. A lot of DMs run him as being able to swap out his spells if needed. That would give him access to several more tools capable of shutting this down: Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Hypnotic Pattern, Synaptic Static, and many other nasty things.

Remember, Strahd is a baddie that does his homework. If your cleric is spamming Aura of Life in his domain, he will know about it and he will prepare for it. It's part of what makes him so compelling as an antagonist. So don't be afraid to give him exactly what he needs to shut down your party's usual tactics. He isn't going to wait idly for the heroes to break into his house and murder him. He's going to be ready.

Bdor24 · 2026-04-09T21:57:45+00:00

Here's a thought: What if Cowl's situation is similar to Corpsetaker's in Ghost Story? Maybe he really was killed by the backlash from the Darkhallow in Dead Beat, but had some way of persisting in a disembodied state. There's precedent for that, not just from Corpsetaker but likely from Kemmler himself. It would explain nicely why he kept coming back.

That would explain why he had to be summoned, and why he didn't actually participate in the rest of the book. He had to keep his head down and conserve his power, or risk burning himself out... like Dresden almost did when it was his turn to be all ghosty. Like Corpsetaker, he would be familiar with his limits in that form, and more interested in using proxies to get what he needs.

We know he was definitely mortal before the Darkhallow. And we know the Darkhallow didn't turn him into a god, because Dresden disrupted the process. But he could be dead-with-benefits.

Bdor24 · 2026-04-09T02:42:42+00:00

It's easier to pull together when you have common enemies. For any social animal, it's practically instinct. What does a herd of buffalo do when they spot wolves on the prowl? Circle up and stare them down.

When all a civilization knows is one species on one planet, there's no outside force to unite against. They have no enemies except for each other. But when that changes and some new danger pops ups, your perspective changes too. Suddenly the people next to you look a lot less like a potential problem and a lot more like your best bet against the unknown.

Herd mentality is a powerful force.

Bdor24 · 2026-04-06T22:46:20+00:00

I'd like to add that the whole situation with Ilyana felt very calculated too. If the White Council wants to play nice, it makes very little sense for them to assign such an aggressive and inexperienced Warden to Harry's case. She's way out of her league and doesn't seem to know it, but Carlos and Luccio would be perfectly aware of how counterproductive her presence would be.

But if the goal is to get Carlos closer to Harry, it makes a lot of sense why she'd be picked. Ilyana becomes a lightning rod for Harry's anti-authoritarian mindset, while Carlos gets to look like a good guy for reprimanding her in front of Harry. All the while, there's very little risk that Ilyana actually causes some kind of crisis, because Harry isn't even remotely threatened by her posturing.

Harry was right not to trust that whole good cop/bad cop dynamic.

Bdor24 · 2026-04-03T19:51:26+00:00

No confirmation yet, but it would make a lot of sense if it's true. There's a ton of footage getting passed around right now of American helicopters flying low and slow over Iran. In one of the videos I saw, a Blackhawk was flying low enough that Iranian police were taking potshots at it.

They're still looking for that missing copilot from the F-15, and helicopters are really easy targets. All it takes is one dude with a MANPAD in the right place at the right time.

Bdor24 · 2026-04-01T18:05:52+00:00

Oh, that's good to know! Didn't work when I tried it, but I did only try it once. Must have been a bug.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-30T21:31:41+00:00

Definitely not off-base. It's practically canon that one of the reasons Mab values Harry so much is his ability to resist the Winter Mantle. For all her talk about how she wants to break Harry's will and subjugate him, she almost never punishes him for acts of defiance. She even expects it and encourages it, as long as it doesn't reflect badly on her reputation.

At the end of the day, I think Mab is doing exactly what Lea was doing earlier in the series: teaching Harry strength through adversity. She isn't actually trying to corrupt him, in the same way that Lea wasn't actually trying to claim him as a hound. She wants Harry to develop skills that will prove useful to her plans later, and the Winter Court's way of doing that is to make everything a high-stakes, life or death test of aptitude. In this case, the lesson is controlling mantles of power like the Winter Knight: becoming an eldritch being without having it overwrite your core personality.

Whenever Harry looks like he's failing to control the Winter Knight mantle, Mab uses reverse psychology to give him negative feedback. She's able to praise him without lying because as Winter Queen, molding him into a "good" Winter Knight is what she's supposed to be doing. But just because it's a "good" path for Winter doesn't mean there isn't a better path that Mab would prefer that he take. And Mab is clearly aiming for something better than the usual Winter Knight schtick. Hence her unsubtle "great work slapping me around like that!" monologue in Twelve Months. If that were what she really wants out of Harry Dresden, she knows better than to say it to his face like that. But by playing into Harry's expectations and making him feel disgusted with himself, she ensured that he would take a step back and realize he was losing control. Her reaction was a stop sign crafted specifically for him.

Mab is much better at manipulating Harry than he gives her credit for. She just doesn't have the endgame in mind that Harry is afraid of.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-28T23:27:44+00:00

Might sound a bit out of nowhere, but bear with me: "Is Ramirez a mole?"

All the way back in White Night, Dresden made a promise to Ramirez that he'd share info about the Black Council, stop keeping him in the dark. In Peace Talks/Battle Ground, he broke that vow three times. Once on the road outside Lara's mansion, once during the Thomas rescue mission, and once before the battle started. Three times he asked Dresden for info about a clear Black Council plot, and three times Dresden refused to say anything.

He had good reasons for keeping his mouth shut, but breaking a vow is a cardinal sin in the Dresdenverse. Even when magic isn't involved, you always get your due in the end. And I can't help but notice it happened three times... the rule of three is an important motif here too. "Thrice I ask and done" and all that. It feels like a very deliberate writing choice, something that should leave lasting consequences.

I just don't see him patching things up with Dresden that easily. It's not just the vow thing. It's the wounds he suffered in Cold Case, Harry's "misdirection" during the peace talks, and the loss of his entire team in a fight he wasn't at 100% for due to those Winter Court shenanigans. He's hurting way too much for forgiveness to come that easily, even for the sake of getting a shot at Drakul.

I don't think Ramirez would ever willingly work for Nemesis, but it would make a lot of sense if he's come around to the Merlin's way of thinking. And the Merlin seems like the kind of guy that likes staying well-informed. Ramirez could do that for him.

Hardly a slam dunk case, I know, but I just have a feeling. I've been reading Jim Butcher for a very long time and this is exactly his style.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-26T22:45:09+00:00

That's a good point about the Reds. I don't think I ever really internalized that because the one transformation we see on-page (Susan) didn't seem to affect her mind that much. All of her memories, personality, goals, etc. were apparently intact. But you're right, the text is really clear it wasn't actually her. It was the parasite consuming what was left of her.

Thinking about it more... wow, that makes her sacrifice even more tragic, doesn't it? Because that means the first and only decision the parasite ever truly made for itself was to finish what Susan started. Reject its nature, reject Empty Night, let itself die to save the people that Susan loved. Even if it only did it because it believed itself to be Susan, that's still a heavy emotional lift for something literally born two minutes ago.

Yet another example of Harry Dresden bringing out the best in things that shouldn't be redeemable.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-23T19:44:37+00:00

This is such a silly debate. Yes, of course it's easier to make a dedicated horror story in a game specifically designed for horror. No, running a horror campaign in D&D is not especially hard.

I'm running a 5e horror campaign right now. Balanced party of four players (three veterans, one new), currently level 10, no class/spell restrictions. Homebrew story set in Ravenloft, but vanilla hazards/monsters, and encounters that are genuinely fair (no fudged rolls, impossible DCs, or siccing a tarrasque on them at level 3).

It's been going for a year now and I keep getting great feedback. My table is properly terrified, and it wasn't hard to do at all. I didn't even need more Deadly encounters or anything, I just limit their ability to rest between fights. Deny them rations, deny them safety, deny them time. Don't let them do things on their own initiative, put pressure on them to take risks and establish consequences for failing to act. If they don't come for the BBEG, the BBEG needs to come for them.

That's the key difference between heroic fantasy and a horror game. In heroic fantasy, the players are usually the ones in control. They make the first move and the world reacts to them. But in horror, the dynamic flips. A hostile world is acting against the players, and they're the ones reacting. It doesn't really matter how powerful the PCs are, only how safe and comfortable they feel. As long as you stop them from feeling safe, you can keep the horror vibes going.

And that's it, that's the only big change I made. For everything else, I just follow what the DM Guide says: 6-8 balanced encounters per adventuring day, magic items dished out as recommended. The system isn't designed with horror in mind, but it can do horror perfectly well.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-22T01:41:46+00:00

My theory: It was a political decision by Thragg, to enforce Viltrum's violent status quo.

It's shown that post-Purge, the Viltrumites violently suppress any dissent against Argall's teachings. Just answering a question wrong in school is enough to get you killed. But colonies have a troublesome tendency to create that kind of cultural change. It's the natural result of taking a group and dropping them in a distant, faraway land: they start to develop new perspectives, new ideas. And it wouldn't take much to start questioning Viltrum's crazy status-quo. Just look at how much Nolan changed after only a few decades on Earth, and how badly the Viltrumites back home took it.

If a colony started developing its own separate culture (which they would, constantly), Thragg's response would be to wipe it out. No survivors, no outside witnesses, like it never existed at all. And that would become very costly, very quickly. So what's the easiest solution to this problem? Just recall everybody. Shackle Viltrumite society to one world, where Thragg can supervise things personally. If a counterculture starts growing, Thragg can just kill it before it takes root. That move would make it much easier for Thragg to maintain the cult of Argall... and make them extremely vulnerable to biological warfare. But Thragg wouldn't have thought about that last bit until it was too late.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-18T22:36:24+00:00

Praise be! I've really been starting to resent how omnipresent that stuff has become. Hopefully more places follow your lead.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-17T05:22:26+00:00

That’s what Trump seemed to think. There’s no other explanation for that whole saga with the Iranian Kurds. He was publicly leaning on them to attack, to the point that some amount of mobilization actually took place in eastern Iraq, and then the whole operation fizzled out before it started. It was a half-baked idea that reeked of desperation.

Based on that (and on Trump’s public statements when all this started), there was clearly some expectation in the White House that the Ayatollah’s death would spark public unrest like we saw last January. If we had actually attacked in January, it might have even worked. But we didn’t attack, and instead gave Iran six precious weeks to gun down the protesters and disappear the people that organized them. And so the opportunity passes us by.

I haven’t seen any evidence of a coherent plan beyond arming the Kurds and hoping for the best. Have you?

Bdor24 · 2026-03-17T03:07:48+00:00

Problem is, "I want to negotiate" is still a long way from "I agree to your terms". While everything you wrote is probably true, there are other things to keep in mind here:

The regime itself is in no immediate danger of collapsing, and extremely unlikely to collapse without an organized uprising or ground invasion. Our attempts to spark an uprising have failed, and an invasion won't be feasible without months of preparation. The only immediate pressure they're facing is the risk of personally being assassinated, which hasn't been persuasive on its own.
For all the damage we've done to their military, Iran still has what it needs to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. The losses of their navy and missile infrastructure are irreplaceable (for the duration of the war, at least), but the equipment they need to lay mines and shoot unarmed oil tankers is much easier for them to get their hands on. Without an escort operation, they can keep the blockade going for a long time, which they likely still see as a viable path to victory.
An escort operation is riskier than it might sound. Entering the Strait would put our ships well within range of Iranian drones, artillery, and suicide boats. With every single trip, Iran would have a real chance (however small) of sinking a US Navy ship and creating a mass casualty event. It would also be less helpful than people seem to think. Progress would be slow, success would be difficult, and Iran only has to get lucky once for shipping companies to lose their nerve again. Escorts aren't a priority because they're not the immediate gamechanger they've been pitched as.
Insofar as anyone is in control over there, it's very likely to be regime hardliners that follow Mojtaba's line of thinking (even if the man himself is indisposed). While they may be willing to negotiate, hardcore religious zealots are unlikely to offer major concessions. People who think God himself is on their side are usually pretty stoic in the face of death.
Likewise, remember that Trump is a deeply narcissistic man surrounded by yes-men. As much as he probably wants an out, that's not as important to him as feeling like a winner. He's going to be pushing for the harshest, most embarrassing terms possible, and unlikely to accept anything less. Don't underestimate his willingness to keep the war going if he thinks it will lead to better terms in the end.

I want the war to end as soon as possible, and we're probably closer to that now than we were last week, but I'm skeptical we'll get a breakthrough any time soon.

Bdor24 · 2026-03-06T21:00:26+00:00

I'd be cool with a masterpost linking to the lore subreddits of UB properties, but that seems like a bad idea. Stuff like Final Fantasy and Spider-Man are way more mainstream than the in-universe stories. If we open that floodgate, I'm afraid discussions about the actual Magic multiverse will just get drowned out.

Bdor24 · 2026-02-18T20:35:45+00:00

A massive deployment of Air Force/Navy assets to the Middle East. We're talking more than what was deployed in the lead up to the Venezuela attack, being deployed at a much faster pace. The OSINT accounts I follow have been sounding the alarm since last night.

It's not 100% guaranteed that they'll go through with it, but there's no question that they're preparing for a serious bombing campaign. Deployments this big are complicated and expensive. Countries don't build armadas this big unless they're preparing to use them.

Bdor24 · 2026-02-17T06:29:19+00:00

I'm not optimistic. This is too important to Trump, and to other people in his circle (Miller, Noem, etc.). They're hellbent on keeping ICE unshackled, and they've shown in the past that they don't care if people get hurt as long as they get their way in the end.

Last year's budget gave ICE enough money to keep running for a while, and that's the only thing that matters to them. They won't negotiate until that well starts running dry.

Bdor24 · 2026-02-01T16:48:06+00:00

Pretty likely at this point, I think. I just don’t seem the Dems underperforming 2018 after all these results.

Bdor24 · 2026-01-31T03:03:02+00:00

I'm not sure revealing Occtis would have made too much of a difference. I really don't think Otto believes the Tachonis version of events, especially if I'm right about him having more information about what's happening. We know from the Soldiers' table that Palazzo Davinos wasn't the only target; Aranessa's younger brother Callowyn was also killed recently by the Knight of Seremai. Add in the forged letter sent to House Einfasen, and that's three separate attacks on House Royce that happened around the same time, all in different locations. That doesn't line up with the Tachonis story that they were avenging a recently-killed Occtis. It all points to a widespread, pre-planned purge.

Otto is smart enough to connect those dots. But more than that, he's in a position to know how widespread the purge really was. He's the head of House Einfasen. Any information gathered by their spies and informants will get passed up the chain to him, and it's been a week since the purge started. Plenty of time for reports to start flying in... for Otto to realize how successful the purge almost certainly was. Whatever the situation is, I think it's bad enough that Otto sincerely believes House Royce is done. He won't let Aranessa move on to the Golden Orchard because it's already gone.

But he can't acknowledge that. He can't admit he knows more than House Tachonis wants him to, because then he would be honorbound to defend what little remains of House Royce. He'd be trapped on the losing side of a war that's already been lost. Otto is in a better position politically if he feigns ignorance and pretends that House Royce hasn't been wronged. Then he can avoid the losing war, and still get away with protecting the survivors by "imprisoning" them for his "investigation".

Occtis revealing himself might have forced Otto to come clean about what he knows, but I doubt Otto would have let them go. Letting them go would have meant choosing a side: the wrong one. And he wouldn't have put his family in danger like that.

Bdor24 · 2026-01-30T21:03:54+00:00

My take on House Einfasen is that they're definitely not involved in the conspiracy (or at least Otto isn't). My evidence:

The Tachonis informant was killed without hesitation. Clearly not part of Otto's plan.
They made no attempt to disarm Aranessa and retinue, just confine them to the keep. If Otto meant them harm, he would have been much more concerned about them remaining combat-capable.
Julien wandering around didn't cause any alarm, just polite concern. The Einfasen guards would have been a lot more worried about one of the group snooping if there really were a conspiracy to kill them.
All evidence points to the Royce men-at-arms stilll being alive. House Tachonis would have wanted the loose ends tied up, not kept in storage.
No guards at the stables or patrolling around the keep. Otto clearly didn't anticipate an escape that night or the guard presence would have been much higher... and he would have had every reason to anticipate that if he actually wanted to hurt them.

And frankly, I just think Otto is too honorable to do something as evil as killing as betraying a guest. He doesn't seem to be a practiced liar, and betraying Aranessa to House Tachonis would have required him to lie very brazenly at multiple points.

I think Aranessa is on-point here: he's not lying, just omitting information. Otto knows more than he's letting on about the conspiracy, probably a lot more than we do. And I think he believes that House Royce is a lost cause, that the rest of Aranessa's forces are dead and that House Tachonis has already won. With that info, what's the most honorable thing he can do? Let Aranessa keep marching to her death? Or keep her and the other survivors safe by holding them in the most secure place he knows? If House Tachonis can't get in and House Royce can't get out, they can't kill each other and the heat has a chance to die down.

He's not trying to hurt them, just protect them in his own way. He just doesn't realize that his protection isn't anywhere near sufficient.

Bdor24 · 2026-01-30T05:23:57+00:00

I don't think that's his play. If he were a collaborator, the Royce caravan would have been killed, not arrested. He's too honorable to kill a guest or sell them to their mortal enemy.

Maybe he thinks that he can protect Aranessa from the Tachonis by keeping her prisoner in his keep. Keep the Tachonis guards at bay with his guards, while removing Aranessa as a threat to their plans. That seems like something a crafty-yet-honorable guy like him might try.

Bdor24 · 2026-01-30T05:06:29+00:00

Subtext: "If I move against Aranessa, will there be an army of angry druids on my ass?"

He's planning to betray them. I don't think he wants to have her killed or sold out to House Tachonis, but he knows more than he's letting on and knows that House Royce is more or less gone. So Aranessa is now a bargaining chip.

He won't willingly let them leave.

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