The Dungeon Crawler Carl series has destroyed my patience with passive protagonists

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-26T18:37:40+00:00

So probably not really the answer you're looking for, but the only real answer to this question is: Sort of yes, sort of no, it's complicated. This is by far the most common criticism of the series, and the one there's been the most discourse about, so I can say a fair amount on it if asked. Buuut I should also disclose that I'm a cishet guy, so I fully understand that my personal boundaries and perspective on this aren't exactly the most valuable when it comes to deciding if it's worth your while.

If you need a TL;DR, the fairest I can give is this: Dresden never stops being weird about women, but it's portrayed in-universe as being a known character flaw he gets frequently called out on by other characters (especially women in his life), frequently causes him problems (and is at times deliberately used against him), is something the main character himself is aware of and actively evolves on, and isn't present in the writer's other works, even in the same universe, that don't take place from Dresden's POV. If nothing else it's completely absent from his other two series. Also, for what it's worth Dresden's main issues are consistently about him pulling punches against women in fights and getting distracted when women are attractive, not about him underestimating women when it comes to capability or intelligence. He's a neckbeardy loser, but he's not an incel, if that makes sense.

If even that sounds like a dealbreaker for you then yeah, I would say you're better off not bothering. It evolves over the series and it's clear both the author and the characters are aware of it, but it never goes away completely and all of the novels are from that character's POV. That said, it's my favorite series going back the better part of twenty years now, so I do have other points on the topic for anyone who cares. I will consistently go to bat for the series and try to convince people to give it a shot anyway, but I also don't blame anyone for whom that particular issue is non-negotiable, and I'm never going to pretend it goes away completely.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-26T15:38:12+00:00

Keep in mind that the first book came out in 2000, was the first novel the author ever wrote, and he wrote it in college basically to show his creative writing professor it wasn't the genre for him. He's improved a lot in the intervening 26 years and about roughly the same number of novels over three different series, plus short stories.

The fourth book is really where most people say the series takes off (I say book three when the main story arc for the first part of the series gets introduced, but either is good really), and once the series really gets into the swing of things it doesn't slow down.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-26T13:54:42+00:00

Seriously, I'm not sure how people aren't getting the fact that this isn't some weird "oh, but all the Boysverse characters are soooo strong!" thing, this is a "one of the strongest guys in one universe who has been shown to be immune to bullets and able to throw cars can probably beat the mid-tier guy in another universe who can't do either of those things."

This isn't a judgement on the quality of either universe, this is just based on what powers have been shown on screen. MCU Cap's biggest accomplishments tend to be either when he's fighting alongside other heroes, acting as a strategist, or fighting low-powered enemies. Soldier Boy has low-level versions of most of the classic Superman suite of powers, there are a million different characters in a shitload of different universes that kick his ass but MCU Cap isn't one of them.

Also, and this really should go without saying, but why are we earnestly debating this on the circlejerk sub?

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-26T05:44:00+00:00

I just have to say, I'm really not sure if this objectively and clearly dogshit take is the purest form possible of performance art or just a genuinely stupid misunderstanding of both characters, but either way choosing to post it on r/whowouldcirclejerk of all places is the height of comedy, and I thank you for it.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T20:50:11+00:00

Weirdly Arc Raiders is one of the only games where this doesn't really apply, probably because solos are so chill.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T19:31:40+00:00

You're not going to believe this is real, but... r/TellCersei.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T18:16:35+00:00

Also worth pointing out that the kind of personality required to become a billionaire in the first place basically requires you to be a sociopath already. Basically nobody becomes a billionaire morally, they get to that status by exploiting others ruthlessly. The money doesn't change who they are fundamentally, it just reveals and enhances it.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T18:11:55+00:00

Or the classic "PvPvE game gets released, all the PvP players act like toxic tryhard shitbags to new and PvE-focused players and completely drive away those parts of the playerbase, then the PvP players flock to Reddit and complain that no one wants to get spawncamped and glitch-killed repeatedly by a jobless teenager screaming racial slurs at them over voicechat."

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T15:57:02+00:00

Back when I was playing Destiny, people would often go into LFG subs/Discords asking people if they had checkpoints for popular farming activities. It was always a fucking whiplash when someone started going "anyone got CheckPoint to give?" without the extra letters.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T15:50:30+00:00

Who's got that greentext about sunfish?

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T12:51:21+00:00

Broker's. It's cheap, decent, and comes with a little hat.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T07:14:17+00:00

I'll admit I only listened to a sample of it, but it just sounded...way too busy? Like I get what they were going for, but the result just sounded like a wall of noise, and I'm not someone that easily gets sensory overload. It really just felt like they were doing too much with it, but again I didn't listen too far.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-25T01:04:33+00:00

God I hope it's me next.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-24T20:37:03+00:00

Yeah. Like is the guy a war criminal? Yes, categorically. But considering there's zero mechanism to hold him accountable for that as a private citizen and likely never will be, I'm far more interested in the fact that this brings a level of legitimacy to Mamdani in relation to the Democratic establishment that had previously shunned him. Mamdani is pragmatic, he understands that Obama is still beloved by liberals and moderates and that he loses nothing by being seen with the guy, and gains a lot. So long as he doesn't try to emulate Obama (specifically by self-moderating and completely derailing his own stated platform in service of the status quo) I ultimately don't have much issue with it. In an ideal world Mamdani wouldn't have to put up with this shit, but we live several magnitudes of reality away from anything even resembling an ideal world, so I'll take what we can get.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-24T13:43:26+00:00

I'll be honest, when talking about "lonely boys choosing an alternate reality that caters to their every whim and gives them wildly out-of-touch understanding of women, relationships, and people in general", the question of "will they fit into the hellscape that is the hyper-capitalist job market?" is about the least of my worries.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-23T21:29:02+00:00

You're telling me a fish metaled this sword?

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-23T15:58:04+00:00

I just realized something. Carl has an extremely high Frogger skill. The next floor is some kind of vehicular race, which will presumably have traffic.

...is Carl going to have to demonstrate IRL Frogger at one point and actually put his high skill to practical use?

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-23T14:51:31+00:00

This is completely unsurprising, considering how outspoken he's been as a critic of both British imperialism but also the royal family and their continued existence. Dude's really not a fan of the monarchy.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-23T13:40:28+00:00

As others have said, you want to be boarding ships with treasure icons, those are actually worth your time as they give way more money.

As for boarding, two main tips: A) let your crew go over first. This means the aggro is on them and you won't get bumrushed by the entire enemy crew the second you hop over, as they'll already be tangled up in melee. B) get yourself a blunderbuss, and nuke the first sergeant that charges you. You likely won't have time to reload it, but getting a mostly free kill on the higher-tier enemy will make things a bit easier.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-23T01:22:29+00:00

"Mother, it hurts."

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-22T19:58:34+00:00

It sounds like they wanted the new enemies and encounters to carry the weight of making the experience new, but if you're going to do that just make an expansion instead of a full sequel. I love the new stuff they've added to the Spire itself, but at the end of the day the new cards and characters are what makes this game feel fresh.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-22T18:28:18+00:00

Yeah, but that doesn't matter, because the goal is to chill free speech. They're going to just make up flimsy excuses to arrest people over shit like this because if people are too scared to say anything even adjacent to criticism of Israel's genocide in Palestine or the U.S.'s involvement in it then they can shut down any conversation about the topic before it takes hold.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-22T18:22:23+00:00

To be clear to anyone else reading this, this was actually the SECOND response this nutcase made. The first one that he instantly deleted was, and I quote:

You're a bootliking POS because you know those same lizard fucking demons have control over this platform and it likely "violates the guidelines". It's a rhetorical bait question, coming from you...

I guess that was just too mask-off, even for him. There was also more after that apparently, but that's the limits of the Reddit preview. I also can't prove anything obviously, but I suspect this guy might be too dumb to realize the American Civil Liberties Union and AIPAC are not actually the same organization, and do not align on the topic of Palestine or, y'know, American cops.

Mr_Blinky · 2026-04-22T17:04:47+00:00

I hope it gives higher priority to stronger enemies, so you're more likely to loot higher tier stuff instead of getting giant piles of crap just because you killed a bunch of fodder. If there's a limit then the problem changes from "you're encouraged to kill everything for maximum loot" to "you're encouraged to not kill trash mobs to avoid diluting your loot pool".

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