Book: Jim Butcher, Cold Days
Oct. 28th, 2013 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI bought this because I forgot I wasn't just waiting for the paperback I was Not Buying it. Because I'd heard bad things about the content.
It does indeed need Trigger Warnings for violence and sexual assault, and a lot of the bad things are from the point of view character, the 'I' of the book.
It seems like the author tries to cake-and-eat-it by putting vivid descriptions of very bad acts in Dresden's thoughts and then being all lalala he doesn't actually do it so that's okay. But the more I read the more I thought, these are meant to be symptoms. This is all to show that Harry is epic not okay, and hasn't noticed the extent of it. Literally every single one of his friends point out what a creepy dumbass he's being. So the main problem of the book isn't that it's full of sexual violence from an alleged hero, it's that it's from the point of view of an unreliable narrator with little insight into how really damn far he is from being a hero right then. Which leaves the reader in a really uncomfortable point of view that I would plaster a whole lot of warnings all over. A LOT.
I'm undecided on if I'd recommend not reading it though.
I really wish the author had chosen a different sign of sneaking evil, but part of Harry's problem is he has noticed the sex stuff is bad by the end of the book, but is still being scarily past the line about the violence. Like, he spends a lot of time trying not to rape, he knows rape is bad, he just in the process fails to notice that actually the amount of murder he's doing is kind of a lot not okay.
It's like, on page 27 he sits there explaining how he's a nice guy so he won't rape this woman he's talking to. He's trying to get kudos and cookies for not being a rapist. But that's jarringly Wrong, because actually, since when does a nice guy even think about it? But by page 35-36 he's all
So he's flat out telling us, Harry is an unreliable narrator of his own state. We have to rely on him as the 'I' of the book for what we see and hear, and he is wonky. But the book tells us these things, because the book has him meet all his friends, his brother, Karrin, Molly, and all of them tell him different ways he's currently creepy.
His brother also calls him out on last book's late revealed Dresden masterplan: Harry was so scared of what he'd become as the Winter Knight that he arranged to have himself killed. He attempted suicide in order to avoid becoming a monster. His brother the vampire has a really big problem with this. His brother has no choice being a monster, and lives with it, and deals with it, and is frequently called on by Harry to do things that will make it harder to deal with, for the greater good. But Harry decided actually no, he'd rather be dead than be that.
He also chose to be the Winter Knight because he broke his back, so what he's also saying is he'd rather be dead than disabled. Somebody needs to yell at him about that too.
Plus he doesn't phrase it in terms of 'arrgh arrgh I can't feel my genitals' in specific, but when he gets injured he goes numb below the chest, and when he temporarily loses the power of the Winter Knight it happens again. And then when he gets the power back he's this creepy sex obsessed guy. So that would appear to be a factor, even if he then doesn't have actual sex.
Plus he phrases it in terms of disability removing his independence, and spends the whole book asserting he's still a free willed being, except everyone is noticing ways he's kind of not. He's made a choice to be Winter Knight and he's sticking in that corner, even though the loss of the mantle when he rejects the accompanying rules suggests he could in fact just quit. Possibly not survive it, but that's always his problem, where Winter court politics is only currently his problem. So it's not independence as we know it. It's that he'd rather monster himself up and tell his friends to kill him for it than just get a damn wheelchair and cope.
Also, it has been established that wizards heal more thoroughly than other people, so injuries that would be permanent on mortals are just long term on wizards. So it's not even the rest of his life he was looking at, but he made this deal anyway.
At the time it was for other reasons, but he's zooming on to the next reason at high speed, and giving the impression there will always be a reason. He's messed up, and the book shows the reader that, but it doesn't do it through the 'I' of the protagonist. So the reader gets dragged through a lot of nasty impulses.
On the flip side, the actual plot kicks things up a large notch. It needed to Buffy quote at some point to acknowledge that he's just realised he's the Warden of the Deeper Well, and also that his friend's trick with the mud is the same as the trio's with the meat suit, but I think Harry is more of a movies person, and that not recently.
It ties together every previous book by saying there's a bad thing that makes people act against their natures. I feel that isn't exactly the simplest explanation available. Sometimes people just choose bad things, is the simplest explanation. But okay, so, now it's all Nemesis Made Them Do It. And it's all about Outsiders.
The Outsider in the rags is a pretty cool enemy.
All the plot threads that tie together at the end are interesting too.
Except now we'll be stuck with Faerie politics forever.
... okay, I actually don't have much to say about the plot. Except it's all very level up, like, here's a new reality to match your new character level. Meh. Buuuuut, it does all look like clues being tied together. Probably fair.
Harry is a mess, but he's probably less of a mess at the end of the story than at the start, so that's... kind of hopeful. I'll know better what I thought of this book when we get a couple of books away; if this is his low point and he starts sorting himself out, fair enough, but if this is his new direction and he just moves his moral lines down to meet this? Goodbye. Thing is, with all his friends telling him to listen up and pay attention to himself and sort himself out, it seems likely this is in fact a low he'll escape from. Probably. Hopefully.
also, it was enough of a page turner I stayed up hours later than I intended just to finish it in one read.
but you might want to avoid it anyway, because I don't feel exploring the predator's eye view in quite this way enriched my life any.
It does indeed need Trigger Warnings for violence and sexual assault, and a lot of the bad things are from the point of view character, the 'I' of the book.
It seems like the author tries to cake-and-eat-it by putting vivid descriptions of very bad acts in Dresden's thoughts and then being all lalala he doesn't actually do it so that's okay. But the more I read the more I thought, these are meant to be symptoms. This is all to show that Harry is epic not okay, and hasn't noticed the extent of it. Literally every single one of his friends point out what a creepy dumbass he's being. So the main problem of the book isn't that it's full of sexual violence from an alleged hero, it's that it's from the point of view of an unreliable narrator with little insight into how really damn far he is from being a hero right then. Which leaves the reader in a really uncomfortable point of view that I would plaster a whole lot of warnings all over. A LOT.
I'm undecided on if I'd recommend not reading it though.
I really wish the author had chosen a different sign of sneaking evil, but part of Harry's problem is he has noticed the sex stuff is bad by the end of the book, but is still being scarily past the line about the violence. Like, he spends a lot of time trying not to rape, he knows rape is bad, he just in the process fails to notice that actually the amount of murder he's doing is kind of a lot not okay.
It's like, on page 27 he sits there explaining how he's a nice guy so he won't rape this woman he's talking to. He's trying to get kudos and cookies for not being a rapist. But that's jarringly Wrong, because actually, since when does a nice guy even think about it? But by page 35-36 he's all
It wasn't me changing. Whatever Mab had done to me that had healed a broken spine, made me able to run at vampire speed, and given me the kind fo reflexes that were capable of keeping up with the attack of a furious malk hadn't changed me on some fundamental level.
Everything was perfectly healthy and normal here in Denial Land.
So he's flat out telling us, Harry is an unreliable narrator of his own state. We have to rely on him as the 'I' of the book for what we see and hear, and he is wonky. But the book tells us these things, because the book has him meet all his friends, his brother, Karrin, Molly, and all of them tell him different ways he's currently creepy.
His brother also calls him out on last book's late revealed Dresden masterplan: Harry was so scared of what he'd become as the Winter Knight that he arranged to have himself killed. He attempted suicide in order to avoid becoming a monster. His brother the vampire has a really big problem with this. His brother has no choice being a monster, and lives with it, and deals with it, and is frequently called on by Harry to do things that will make it harder to deal with, for the greater good. But Harry decided actually no, he'd rather be dead than be that.
He also chose to be the Winter Knight because he broke his back, so what he's also saying is he'd rather be dead than disabled. Somebody needs to yell at him about that too.
Plus he doesn't phrase it in terms of 'arrgh arrgh I can't feel my genitals' in specific, but when he gets injured he goes numb below the chest, and when he temporarily loses the power of the Winter Knight it happens again. And then when he gets the power back he's this creepy sex obsessed guy. So that would appear to be a factor, even if he then doesn't have actual sex.
Plus he phrases it in terms of disability removing his independence, and spends the whole book asserting he's still a free willed being, except everyone is noticing ways he's kind of not. He's made a choice to be Winter Knight and he's sticking in that corner, even though the loss of the mantle when he rejects the accompanying rules suggests he could in fact just quit. Possibly not survive it, but that's always his problem, where Winter court politics is only currently his problem. So it's not independence as we know it. It's that he'd rather monster himself up and tell his friends to kill him for it than just get a damn wheelchair and cope.
Also, it has been established that wizards heal more thoroughly than other people, so injuries that would be permanent on mortals are just long term on wizards. So it's not even the rest of his life he was looking at, but he made this deal anyway.
At the time it was for other reasons, but he's zooming on to the next reason at high speed, and giving the impression there will always be a reason. He's messed up, and the book shows the reader that, but it doesn't do it through the 'I' of the protagonist. So the reader gets dragged through a lot of nasty impulses.
On the flip side, the actual plot kicks things up a large notch. It needed to Buffy quote at some point to acknowledge that he's just realised he's the Warden of the Deeper Well, and also that his friend's trick with the mud is the same as the trio's with the meat suit, but I think Harry is more of a movies person, and that not recently.
It ties together every previous book by saying there's a bad thing that makes people act against their natures. I feel that isn't exactly the simplest explanation available. Sometimes people just choose bad things, is the simplest explanation. But okay, so, now it's all Nemesis Made Them Do It. And it's all about Outsiders.
The Outsider in the rags is a pretty cool enemy.
All the plot threads that tie together at the end are interesting too.
Except now we'll be stuck with Faerie politics forever.
... okay, I actually don't have much to say about the plot. Except it's all very level up, like, here's a new reality to match your new character level. Meh. Buuuuut, it does all look like clues being tied together. Probably fair.
Harry is a mess, but he's probably less of a mess at the end of the story than at the start, so that's... kind of hopeful. I'll know better what I thought of this book when we get a couple of books away; if this is his low point and he starts sorting himself out, fair enough, but if this is his new direction and he just moves his moral lines down to meet this? Goodbye. Thing is, with all his friends telling him to listen up and pay attention to himself and sort himself out, it seems likely this is in fact a low he'll escape from. Probably. Hopefully.
also, it was enough of a page turner I stayed up hours later than I intended just to finish it in one read.
but you might want to avoid it anyway, because I don't feel exploring the predator's eye view in quite this way enriched my life any.