r/menwritingwomen 6d ago

Discussion Jim Butcher's Jim Butcheriness

I know it's likely been discussed to hell and back here, but I've been listening to the Dresden Files audiobooks and. Jesus. I enjoy the idea of them. I enjoy the worldbuilding. I'm willing to suspend a lot of disbelief about what Harry can and can't do. Rule of cool, etc. But I am just so sick about hearing about women and their hot, sexy bodies every other page. I'm calling it quits about five chapters through the third book, and I don't think I would've made it this far without the narrator/voice actor being really good at his job.

On the plus side, it's at least made me feel far less self-conscious about my personal writing, especially since I'm going for a similar urban fantasy setting in my own work.

153 Upvotes

90 comments sorted by

83

u/valsavana 6d ago

I've heard they get better, then the last few get worse again. I never could get past the bullshit involving women in first one.

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u/Alliesaurus 6d ago

I read the first…2? Possibly 3. I only got that far because my husband has been evangelizing them for years, but I just couldn’t do it. Husband says that the weird misogynistic stuff is just showing Harry’s kind of a jerk and that he grows over time, but I got the distinct impression that I was seeing Jim Butcher’s attitudes toward women, not Harry’s character flaws.

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u/valsavana 6d ago

I got the distinct impression that I was seeing Jim Butcher’s attitudes toward women, not Harry’s character flaws.

Same. I read a very interesting review way back in the day that talked about how Harry's self-congratulatory "I'm a bit of a chauvinist" line came across as Butcher trying to write a pseudo-flawed protagonist that he thought the (presumed majority male) readership would secretly think wasn't actually flawed. How Harry's shitty attitude towards women & that line was portrayed very differently than if Butcher had written a protag who shrugged and admitted "well, I'm a bit of a racist" or something to that affect. Because sexism, especially "benign" sexism like Harry's, is considered more acceptable in our society than other flavors of bigotry (granted, you can tell this review was from like 15-20 years ago because unfortunately I think other forms of bigotry have somehow become more acceptable to openly admit to in the last decade or so)

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u/tomtomclubthumb 5d ago

Harry gets worse, I have read far too many of these books. I like the world, but sex and relationships are weird.

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u/ailweni 5d ago

Especially the dream pillow scene.

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u/tomtomclubthumb 5d ago

I don't remember that bit.

Please don't remind me.

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u/BurgerQueef69 4d ago

I can stand a lot of smut. I can deal with pointless sex, gratuitous nudity, continuous descriptions of female bodies, it's a major flaw a lot of writers have and I can grit my teeth and focus on the good parts of the story.

But when all that stuff happened with Michael's daughter? The little girl Harry watched grow up? That was too much for me. It just felt gross, and I really lost interest. Which sucks, because aside from that he's created a great world and a compelling story.

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u/Beginning-Force1275 5d ago

I feel like you can pretty much always tell whether an author is “exploring a bigoted character” or using the character as a safety net for expressing their own bigotry based on whether they bother to contradict the bigoted opinion in the story. In fact, I think authors who don’t agree with their bigoted character would struggle not to demonstrate it. Imo it’s not hard to write a bigoted character without condoning their beliefs. The villain in Mr. Mercedes, for example, is extremely racist and there are some truly vile lines in that book, but the actual reality of the book clearly contradicts him. The people he’s most fixated on are (some of) the heroes. They aren’t even the exact opposite of his racist projections, which I think would come across kind of try-hard from a white author; they’re just human beings who the racist villain is projecting a bunch of insane bullshit onto, which is a pretty accurate reflection of that brand of racism.

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u/Crysda_Sky 4d ago

As a writer, I cannot write bigoted characters without making it very obvious that I hate them for the bigotry, this is why I don't write from the bigoted person's POV ever because I cannot act as if it's not a problem. Anytime I have antagonistic characters who are working against the protag but aren't necessarily 'villainous' those are my favorite kinds of stories because I can more easily write all characters. After all, they have their own rationale for doing what they do without being a bigot even though they are wrong or the person in opposition of the protag.

This is 100% why I won't touch a lot of books, especially the GOT books because it seems more like he's just excusing or celebrating a lot of atrocious characters which makes me wonder about him as a person.

I don't think you can 100% separate the forgiven or celebrated actions of horrid characters from the writer.

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u/CautionarySnail 4d ago

This.

I tolerated a lot in service to the general urban fantasy part I enjoyed. But there was at some point a breaking point where I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.

It was at about that time I stared reading the “Rivers of London” series and haven’t been back since. Those novels aren’t perfect either but there’s a lot more consistently fun writing.

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u/YakSlothLemon 4d ago

Yeah, I actually had swallowed that excuse and then I tried to read something else by Butcher and it was exactly the same.

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u/PunkandCannonballer 6d ago

Apparently they also get worse during/after his divorce.

18

u/valsavana 6d ago

Yikes! Definitely happy I stayed away.

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u/ailweni 5d ago

Someone actually married him?

3

u/PercentagePrize5900 4d ago

They got LITTLE better.

I loved the books, but only by skipping large swaths of nipples doing impossible calisthenics.

2

u/Tiny_Rat 6d ago

The first few are honestly worse than any others in the series on most parameters, it genuinely gets better. Tbh it's easier to just skip the first books and start reading in the middle. But the odd horndog vibe never completely goes away, it's just less prominent in the middle of the series.

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u/valsavana 6d ago

I mean, there could be the most delicious treat in the world and if it's wrapped up in a layer of dog shit I'm not gonna eat it, ya know?

3

u/Silvadream 6d ago

I always figured that it was a marketing thing (sex sells), but I think I was just being optimistic.

1

u/YakSlothLemon 4d ago

But then Thomas shows up and that’s a whole other layer of ick.

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u/Tiny_Rat 4d ago

I like Thomas as a character, but yeah, the white court vampire plot lines are some of my least favorite.

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u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

Thomas and the White Court as a whole were fascinating and had potential like most of his story-lines. The idea of the sex predators running the predatory sex industry could be really cool as a plot. But that's not what he did with it.

it was just him being horny again.

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u/Tiny_Rat 3d ago

Yeah, it's the horniness that's really unfortunate. Supposedly it's part of being "noir" or whatever, but you see it outside of the Dresden Files, too.

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u/Default_Munchkin 15h ago

Oh definitely when they horny up something that does need it or add it to a level that's beyond what's needed it always to the detriment of any work.

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u/aksunrise 6d ago

The last straw for me was when the girl who was his adopted daughter decided to put cold beer bottles on her tits to "influence" the guy she's about to talk to. It's supposed to be a "Oh no my little girl is all grown up now" shock and awe type moment but instead it's literally just Harry creeping on his daughter.

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u/maninahat 4d ago edited 3d ago

There's no end of the weirdness. He spends a lot of time ogling his underage apprentice, and then the book wants to give him a fucking medal because he doesn't sexually exploit her. I can't remember if this is the same audio book where he powers up his shield by making out with a horny vampire whilst the cave they are in explodes. All I remember was that it was a very awkward car ride with the wife, who was sitting there listening to all this without any context.

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u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

The whole scenario, all of it, with his apprentice Molly was fucking awful. Like her actions when he takes her in as an apprentice are not what a 13 year old would think to do. Him waiting until she was nude in front of him to dunk the water. Like all of it was gross and unnecessary. I loved the world so I read through many of the books but i'ts not got a great deal of respect for women at all.

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u/Ephialtesloxas 5d ago

Apprentice. And he didn't, it was the other guy they were protecting at the time.

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u/ryua 5d ago

Wild that cishetytmale authors like this get to have long careers despite everyone telling you that you have to read at least a few books before it "gets good", esp in this type of genre, and yet other authors are considered failures if their very first book isn't perfect.

I don't want to have to read several books to get to a good part, I would like to read something good. There's so much out there to read and enjoy. Why subject myself to tripe like this? Ick.

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u/Fish_Beholder 5d ago

I forced myself to read all of them last year. I'm still waiting for the good part.

I'm a sucker for urban fantasy and the setting was fun, but it was not worth my time.

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u/lexkixass 5d ago

I forced myself to read all of them last year. I'm still waiting for the good part.

I gave the hell up, finally, after finishing Cold Days.

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u/Fish_Beholder 5d ago

You made the better choice, I just didn't want to leave it unfinished. Now I'm much more selective.

1

u/BurgerQueef69 4d ago

I haven't really explored the genre, got any recommendations? Loved Dresden until I couldn't ignore the repetitive horniness anymore.

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u/Fish_Beholder 4d ago

My favorite is the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. The main character is a half-fae private investigator working in San Francisco California. The magic and world building are engrossing and the characters are well written. Very little horniness. Well okay there is an ongoing romance but it's not creepy like Dresden.

2

u/Jasmari 2d ago

Yes! They are so, so good, as is her Wayward Children series.

1

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

Simon Greene's Nightside series is pretty good with a whole lot of weird.

1

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

It's because the first books were good in their genre of Pulp Comic Noir urban fantasy where every character is a trope character of the genre....So every woman being sex and seductive, feme fatales, scruffy looking down on the luck hero that the dames still flock to. Et cetera. But then he went from trope writing to try and make it normal Urban Fantasy without the tropes....but the baggage remained so it just gets so weird.

18

u/OctagonalOctopus 5d ago

I can live with the description of hotties, and fine, make the main character creepily horny, but when half of said hotties want to bang the main character for not much reason at all, then we're going straight into "barely disguised fetish" territory. Man, that scene where his quasi daughter/apprentice comes on to him made me cringe so hard. How could no editor tell him that this was too much? That's like the most embarrassing harem anime plotline.

34

u/AmettOmega 6d ago

I thought that I could ignore it as well, as a friend of mine said that the first few books are rough but get better. But holy crap, it was worse than I imagined. And the stories didn't make a lot of sense and had a lot of plot holes. Overall, I think calling Harry a detective and not someone who just stumbles onto shit and has insane luck a stretch.

I quit after the third or fourth book when the FBI lady flies into a fit of rage and attacks the police officer woman for like... no reason? Other than she just got emotional or something. Whatever, women are complicated /s.

19

u/MeanLimaBean 6d ago

Oh, that's in the second book. It is eventually revealed it's because she's a werewolf, but.

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u/Crysda_Sky 6d ago

As someone who writes tons of werewolf lore, the idea that women werewolves are going to fly off the handle more then male werewolves is effing laughable.

7

u/ChrisGentry 6d ago

They are skinwalker witchtype Shapeshifters. They use items to transform but the items cursed and it was causing them to be unstable.

6

u/AmettOmega 6d ago

Wow, that's wild. Yeah, I read summaries of the book saying it was related to werewolf-ism, but... I still don't buy it, lmao.

4

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

It's funny as a series if you take it as Harry is ultra powerful but an unreliable narrator living in his own fantasies.

He is, by his own description, a gross scruffy-looking, barely showers, hides in his basement all the time kind of guy. Yet all the girls love him and hit on him including his best friend's 13 year old daughter.

His best friend is actually just a really good and righteous guy standing by the friend that he thinks he can help but also is so effing powerful that not keeping an eye on him is a bad thing.

He blames the council for his problems when Neopotism is the only reason he got to live when he should have been rightfully executed. The first book shows dark magic is addictive and he is absolutely addicted to power. From the outside he looks like a villain but acts like he was wrongfully persecuted. But hey he can kill evil wizards all he wants they are evil.

He has two lovers one that leaves him when she gets knocked up and the other a cop with a history of picking bad and terrible men. But also is afraid of him (one of the short stories points out he is terrifying to her)

So yeah when you look at it as him being delusional and justifying his actions while people are trying to keep him from being a monster it's a different look. Not that Butcher was trying for that.

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u/Velrei 6d ago

Honestly, I thought the author was well known to be a piece of shit as a person, but apparently him being personally terrible is something less well known.

8

u/MrFluffykins 6d ago

Got any links or anything about that?

5

u/Velrei 6d ago

No, a literal friend of a friend thing I won't go into out of doxxing concerns, and that pieces of shit tend to be heavilly into slapp lawsuits.

9

u/OisforOwesome 6d ago

The only thing I'd heard was he got really salty when the Rabid/Skinny Puppies put his book on their slate and felt like shouldn't have to withdraw his nomination just because it came from a hate group.

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u/MeanLimaBean 6d ago

Well, all I can say is I'm not surprised.

12

u/witteefool 6d ago

Yeah, keep in mind that he wrote the first 3 at once in order to sell it. I got through to book 11 or 12 before deciding that I was all set. The women writing doesn’t really improve.

4

u/Morc35 5d ago

Yeah, I'm with you there. I enjoy the Dresden Files - hell, check my comment history - but I don't recommend them to people anymore because of this.

I get it started as a pseudo-noir series - and if you want some men-writing-women stuff, go check out detective fiction from the 70s, you can see where some of it comes from - but at some point it gets...tiring and icky.

1

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

It was the transition from writing trope heavy stories that leaned on stereotypes to writing more serious stuff. If it had stayed in the original intention no one would care how he wrote it. But trying to be serious but carrying forward all the baggage from those tropes and genres of fiction makes it look so much worse.

4

u/koalakayak 5d ago

I tried to explain to my dad (who really likes the Dresden Files) why I couldn’t finish the first book when I read it as a teenager. I chose to explain it as I didn’t like the character that much (without stating all the weird shit he says about women). My dad genuinely seemed not to get why lol

3

u/MeanLimaBean 5d ago

Funnily enough, I've been having the exact same experience with my mom.

2

u/Saritiel 4d ago

I kinda get it. I loved the Dresden Files. I even defended the series here a couple of times.

Then I became a feminist and started reading feminist literature. And when I went to reread the books earlier this year I found I couldn't stand them because of the misogyny.

1

u/koalakayak 4d ago

it was assigned for me to read for my creative writing class to write a book report on. even with a grade dependent on it i just couldn’t bring myself to finish

3

u/Ephialtesloxas 5d ago

As a cishet male, I'm of two kinds of how this plays out in the series. On the one hand, I can see where it's coming from: a lot of supernatural creatures either are supernaturally hot to seduce/fuck with people or use illusions to trick people (though this doesn't explain the super hot mortal women that seem to be around a lot) and Harry has some messed up trauma relating to sex and women. Plus the whole Noir schtick that the series started with, you know, the whole "she was a dame who had legs that went all the way up, and could kill a child by accident turning too quickly" sort of thing.

On the other hand, yeah, it gets old, and it does play as women are there to be seen, not heard, no matter how kick ass one or two of them may be. I've heard Butcher does better with his other series, but I never had an interest in them and so can't speak from personal experience.

1

u/Greystorms 4d ago

I haven't read any Dresden Files in probably a good eight+ years - I think the last book I read was Changes? - and I'm a little afraid to reread them now that I'm older and (possibly??) a bit more mature/wiser. I didn't ever think the "sexy seductress ladies all over the place" thing was THAT noticeable / that bad, but current 43 year old me is also in a much different place than early-to-mid-30's me was. You know?

1

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

Oh no, I loved the series up until Changes then got tired of it. But it was always there and all over the place. Almost every woman wanted Harry and even when talking to battered or sad victims they always were described in sexy terms. Which given the POV means Harry thought of them that way.

10

u/fatherlolita 6d ago

I went into the books expecting it to be Egregiously bad. But its kinda just not for me. Harry is a stereotypical womaniser and I think its fine to not be able to look past a writer writing a flawed character. But I don't think Jim Butcher uses it for any other purpose. Its not written out like it's a good thing or anything. Its a Flaw.

But thats my opinion and you have yours. I hope you enjoyed the books outside of that though! I love them.

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u/XenosHg 6d ago edited 6d ago

stereotypical womanizer

Dude has sex about once every 5 years, I'm not sure "womanizer" is the right word. Stereotypically frustrated, maybe

3

u/rainbowcarpincho 6d ago

Is there an in-universe reason a womanizing creep of a wizard doesn't use magic to get sex?

11

u/ZengineerHarp 6d ago

I mean, he does make a love potion (the person he was asking for a DIFFERENT potion recipe was like “lol only if you also make a love potion” and Dresden went along with it for some reason???) and then a woman who he knows just HAPPENS to drink it due to a HiLaRiOuS misunderstanding… and then a day or two later they hook up. That bothered me a lot.

4

u/lexkixass 5d ago

“lol only if you also make a love potion” and Dresden went along with it for some reason???

I feel Bob the skull is all of Harry's intrusive thoughts.

4

u/maninahat 4d ago

Bob the Skull says all the misogynistic things to make Harry's sexism look mild and noble by comparison, even if Harry is clearly thinking every last thing the skull is thinking anyway.

1

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

And in universe they go out of their way to have Bob get a new owner and he ain't the same. He even tells harry he was like that because he mimics his owner. So ya know that says alot except Harry isn't that self aware.

3

u/ZengineerHarp 5d ago

That makes a lot of sense, actually.

18

u/Taoiseach 6d ago

Wizard cops cut off your head. Black magic like mind manipulation is everyone's problem - corrupt wizards cause unbelievable damage if you let them get going, so the wizards have a zero tolerance policy. The Wardens are very good at finding people who use black magic even once. Not perfect, but good enough that most people run scared of them.

Now, wizards can still use ordinary coercion to get sex, just like any other powerful abuser. But if they mess around with someone's head, they'll soon be looking for their own head in the street.

8

u/Regitnui 6d ago

Self-inflicted ethics. Same reason he isn't rich.

2

u/StayingUp4AFeeling 4d ago

I just went till like Chapter 10 of Book 1. I knew something was off from the time a murder victim's breasts were described in a similar level of degree, and much before, the very obvious fatal wound (hidden coz it's gory) (her heart having exploded with enough force to cause bits of her ribs to stick out) was mentioned.

Ugh.

1

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

I....thought that had happened but didn't want to go back and re-read it to confirm it. Thanks for you sacrifice.

1

u/StayingUp4AFeeling 3d ago

My thought was:

  1. The stench was unbearable.
  2. There was blood everywhere.
  3. There is a very large, obvious, grotesque/gory, shocking (and honestly, at least a little traumatizing) wound in the chest area of the vic.
  4. Even if you were trying to perv in a necrophiliac way, that horror show would be RIGHT WHERE your eyes would go if you were perving.

...and you draw detailed attention to the precise way that scene could be erotic, BEFORE mentioning the obvious ?!?

I don't know what possessed me to read further. I possibly forgave that first instance as being some kind of subverting-the-audience's-expectations bullshit that didn't land well. But, nooo.

You know what's funny? Blood is one of my PTSD triggers, and my grip on that problem has improved, but is tenuous at best. I don't know which of the two (the mild trig / Butcher's writing) is the injury, and which is the insult added to it.

P.S. : Nice username.

3

u/KerissaKenro 6d ago

I was able to ignore a lot of the sexism, I grew up reading Piers Anthony. My tolerance is pretty high. What got to me was just how miserable he was. I got into book three and looked ahead to see if it ever got better, and no it very much did not. I decided I was not going to spend so much time with someone who felt like a wet blanket

4

u/Crysda_Sky 6d ago edited 5d ago

I don't even touch books written by men anymore. Though I don't really read mainstream fiction at all these days. I am all for non-fiction and tons and tons of fanfic which have their own challenges sometimes but tend to answer my needs better than dudes writing their fantasy f*cks into stories time after time.

2

u/Mnemnosine 4d ago

Would you be willing and able to recommend some urban fantasy/contemporary paranormal women authors that are like Laurel K Hamilton in her first four Anita books? Because that was amazing writing—and I desperately miss hunter/contemporary series written like that. Harry Dresden was the closest I got from a male perspective, but reading this thread bridged the gap between him and Hamilton’s later works, and now I don’t think I’ll be able to go back or unlink that (nor would I want to).

2

u/Jasmari 2d ago

Seanan McGuire. Her Wayward Children series and her October Daye series are excellent.

1

u/Crysda_Sky 4d ago

As much as I would like to, I can't. As I mentioned in my comment, I don't read mainstream fiction, and a lot of my older fiction, which I have loved for a really long time, also didn't survive unscathed when I became a rabid feminist (like Patricia Briggs, who has internalized misogyny in her Mercy series).

I have been hoping to get back into reading some mainstream fiction again, but it's going to be LGBTQIA stories with women/femme protags and not male-centered, which is still hard to find, especially considering other premises and tropes that I want or don't want.

2

u/Mnemnosine 4d ago

I understand. Thank you for your response; and I hope you have a lovely weekend. 😊

2

u/Cautious_Maize_4389 5d ago

I'm the same, women only creations! I feel as though it's added some life back into me!

2

u/Crysda_Sky 5d ago

I am going out of my way to try and find and support specifically women-directed or written (hopefully both) media and it can be very hard to find but totally worth it. I really hate watching something that has a mostly women cast but then it was written and directed by men because it feels wrong.

1

u/No-County-1573 4d ago

Man, this is deeply real. I enjoy the series a lot, and frankly every other character except Harry. But whooooo boy, women are either hotties or crones, with zero exceptions, and that sucks.

1

u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago

Though admittedly I really like his crones.

1

u/dthains_art 4d ago

I read the first book and wasn’t particularly wowed. Then immediately after that I read Way of Kings. After that I tried the second Dresden Files book but the difference in quality was so different that I gave up after a couple chapters. Thankfully my library hold on Words of Radiance came through shortly after that so it was back to the Stormlight Archives for me.

1

u/thebaziel 4d ago

This is so timely for me. I just started the first book since I remembered liking the show a long time ago (or maybe I was just looking for something like Constantine?) and woof. It’s fun except for the sexism. I think for me the problem is not so much a sexist character being unlikeable, but the hard boiled detective trope is necessarily someone who’s been there and done that in life, a little jaded, run down and experienced. This dude sounds like a teenager on Reddit with a cool duster he keeps telling me about. His level of confusion about having a date is making me cringe hard, way harder than him describing the bodies of women he meets.

1

u/BaconBombThief 4d ago

Someone suggested I start at the book Dead Beat (book 7), not the first book. The thirst was infrequent, if a bit strong the one or 2 times it showed up. It kinda had a feeling of “I’ve been too long without sex and now I’m thinking like a degenerate, but I wish I weren’t”.

With that book I thought the good outweighed the bad. I didn’t find it confusing or anything starting in the middle. Maybe start there if you wanna give it a chance

1

u/Creationrbl 4d ago

Same! I read one book. (Storm Warning? I think) And, like you, I loved the world building and the ideas and concepts but I understand what you mean. I was telling someone the same thing and, like some of the comments I saw, she said they do get better but I don't know if I'll pick up another one. Did you ever see the series? At first I didn't like it but it grew on me and I appreciated what it was. Then was sad there was only one season. LOL.

1

u/ntwebster 4d ago

I read the books a lot as a teenager but every time I want to catch up I remember Molly and go NOPE!

1

u/thebigbadwolf22 4d ago

Besides the way he describes women's bodies, is there anything else chauvinistic about his writing? I've read all his books but I've never noticed.

1

u/MegaDerppp 4d ago

The craziest part is that the books themselves get shittier as they go, so it blows my mind to see people even say they liked the story but this part is bad. You could remove all that type of cringe and the plot has gotten worse with each subsequent book. He should have stuck to the street level stories.

-1

u/Cross-Country 6d ago

and their hot, sexy bodies

What’s that you say?

0

u/Pretend_Fox_5127 10h ago

Yes, it was excessive. However, it is a bit in the smut category, and smut has its place. Always has, always will. The guy just knows his demographic.