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Statement continues...
Dec. 5th, 2019 11:45 pm I think the main difference between the Magnus Archives and the Dresden Files (or, well, one of them, anyway) is that... at least as far as I've seen from Magnus (I'm on episode 113 right now), it never... It never tries to get you to take the monsters' side. Even with Jon being/becoming the Archivist, even with the Institute's creepy powers (mainly I'm talking about Gertrude here- and I guess Elias??? Idk, he's up to something. I don't trust this "Watcher's Crown" ritual), it never treats these... Powers, I guess, as anything more than what they are: Horrifying, unknowable things outside of human understanding that are not to be treated lightly or trusted. Even if the one our guys work for sometimes "save the world". Really all the Powers are doing are opposing one another. The Eye isn't suddenly good just because it's agenda (or... what have you) currently lines up with what our guys, "the good guys", are doing or what they want.
I guess the main thing is that the Magnus Archives actually manages to pull off having vast, unknowable beings of horrifying powers beyond human comprehension. Whereas Butcher... Well. Doesn't. But honestly, I think its more than that. Even with the limitation/difference of the spookies in Magnus being inhuman and the spookies in the Dresden Files being human-like, it still... The Magnus Archives still does it better. Not just the Cosmic Horror Story stuff, but the whole "having the good guys work for a big spooky power" thing.
(And without any rape! Or any of the other disgusting stuff Butcher puts in his books! Imagine that! A horror story without any gratuitous sexual violence! Or excusing abuse!
No, I will never not be bitter about this.)
I wanna say it starts in Changes, but honestly, right from the start, just with the way Dresden acts as a protagonist and how we're just supposed to constantly forgive him for all of the horrible things he does, even when he never grows or changes from it... It's just all right there, right from the beginning.
I think it's by... I'm gonna go with Ghost Story, and then Cold Days, and then Skin Game, where it's REALLY clear that we're just sorta just... supposed to just be FINE with everything Winter and Mab and Lea does. All the rape, the abuse, the torture, the kidnapping, all of it, we're just... supposed to be fine with it.
We're still supposed to see Dresden as A Good Man™, even with all of the horrible things he's done (and will continue to do! Because, as we all know, Dresden never changes!). Even with him willingly working for Winter. Michael and other characters stand up on their little soap boxes and bleat this at us constantly.
(Same goes for Molly, tbh. I give her more leeway because she didn't have a choice in becoming the Winter Lady and her Mantle doesn't have a Tam Lin way out like Dresden's does. And it LITERALLY strips her of her free will, whereas Dresden's doesn't, or at least not as much. It's still infuriating.)
Tangent: The Denarians might be more obvious with all of the horrible things they do, but Winter is just as bad. They both kidnap and torture children, and worse. Winter just has to keep its damned "exact words" about it, that's all. They're both just different flavors of rotten. Maybe not even with goals that are all that different, honestly, if Deirdre's line in Skin Game about the Denarians working to "save the world" is to be believed.
And somehow that's supposed to excuse all of it. That's really what it boils down to, I think, at least for me. These monsters are doing what they do to "save the world", so somehow that excuses everything they do, and its like we're not ALLOWED or SUPPOSED to hate them for it. Even if the world they're "saving" is awful because they're in it. Because surely nobody else could do it any better... even though I'm sure they could.
I think it says something about the differences in writing quality that the Magnus Archives and the Dresden Files are both set in a Crapsack World, but the Magnus Archives, for all its vast, uncaring horrors, still feels like the better place to live in. I mean, yeah, both of them are places where the average person can just get... swallowed up by some random horror, but at least the monsters in the Magnus Archives don't take it so personally. Not in the way that the monsters in the Dresden Files do, anyway.
(Or maybe just in what I like; I've always hated grimdark, misogynistic power fantasies. It's just boring. It's like a work is just wallowing in its own horribleness, and nothing ever really changes or improves. Nobody ever really moves forward. And- I got this from an article by Terry Pratchett titled "Let There Be Dragons", but- there's no hope. And if there's no hope, and I can't get invested in the characters because they're all horrible people or they all die, then why should I care? Why bother following the story?)
I'm not really sure if I'm making much sense here, with this post/"statement" or the last. What I'm trying to say is just... Well, that the Magnus Archives is better than the Dresden Files, obviously. I think maybe it also has something to do with the way the Magnus Archives doesn't try to apply morals to abuse, while the Dresden Files does, but I just... I'm not sure how to phrase that.
(Something to do with Michael's whole "God will never give you a bigger burden than you can carry"- so therefore if your struggling with something and need help, you're weak and Dresden's whole "abuse/abusive 'training' makes you stronger- and is the only way to get strong" thing. Idk. I'll leave that for a later day.)
Still don't know how to put a Read More on these things.
I guess the main thing is that the Magnus Archives actually manages to pull off having vast, unknowable beings of horrifying powers beyond human comprehension. Whereas Butcher... Well. Doesn't. But honestly, I think its more than that. Even with the limitation/difference of the spookies in Magnus being inhuman and the spookies in the Dresden Files being human-like, it still... The Magnus Archives still does it better. Not just the Cosmic Horror Story stuff, but the whole "having the good guys work for a big spooky power" thing.
(And without any rape! Or any of the other disgusting stuff Butcher puts in his books! Imagine that! A horror story without any gratuitous sexual violence! Or excusing abuse!
No, I will never not be bitter about this.)
I wanna say it starts in Changes, but honestly, right from the start, just with the way Dresden acts as a protagonist and how we're just supposed to constantly forgive him for all of the horrible things he does, even when he never grows or changes from it... It's just all right there, right from the beginning.
I think it's by... I'm gonna go with Ghost Story, and then Cold Days, and then Skin Game, where it's REALLY clear that we're just sorta just... supposed to just be FINE with everything Winter and Mab and Lea does. All the rape, the abuse, the torture, the kidnapping, all of it, we're just... supposed to be fine with it.
We're still supposed to see Dresden as A Good Man™, even with all of the horrible things he's done (and will continue to do! Because, as we all know, Dresden never changes!). Even with him willingly working for Winter. Michael and other characters stand up on their little soap boxes and bleat this at us constantly.
(Same goes for Molly, tbh. I give her more leeway because she didn't have a choice in becoming the Winter Lady and her Mantle doesn't have a Tam Lin way out like Dresden's does. And it LITERALLY strips her of her free will, whereas Dresden's doesn't, or at least not as much. It's still infuriating.)
Tangent: The Denarians might be more obvious with all of the horrible things they do, but Winter is just as bad. They both kidnap and torture children, and worse. Winter just has to keep its damned "exact words" about it, that's all. They're both just different flavors of rotten. Maybe not even with goals that are all that different, honestly, if Deirdre's line in Skin Game about the Denarians working to "save the world" is to be believed.
And somehow that's supposed to excuse all of it. That's really what it boils down to, I think, at least for me. These monsters are doing what they do to "save the world", so somehow that excuses everything they do, and its like we're not ALLOWED or SUPPOSED to hate them for it. Even if the world they're "saving" is awful because they're in it. Because surely nobody else could do it any better... even though I'm sure they could.
I think it says something about the differences in writing quality that the Magnus Archives and the Dresden Files are both set in a Crapsack World, but the Magnus Archives, for all its vast, uncaring horrors, still feels like the better place to live in. I mean, yeah, both of them are places where the average person can just get... swallowed up by some random horror, but at least the monsters in the Magnus Archives don't take it so personally. Not in the way that the monsters in the Dresden Files do, anyway.
(Or maybe just in what I like; I've always hated grimdark, misogynistic power fantasies. It's just boring. It's like a work is just wallowing in its own horribleness, and nothing ever really changes or improves. Nobody ever really moves forward. And- I got this from an article by Terry Pratchett titled "Let There Be Dragons", but- there's no hope. And if there's no hope, and I can't get invested in the characters because they're all horrible people or they all die, then why should I care? Why bother following the story?)
I'm not really sure if I'm making much sense here, with this post/"statement" or the last. What I'm trying to say is just... Well, that the Magnus Archives is better than the Dresden Files, obviously. I think maybe it also has something to do with the way the Magnus Archives doesn't try to apply morals to abuse, while the Dresden Files does, but I just... I'm not sure how to phrase that.
(Something to do with Michael's whole "God will never give you a bigger burden than you can carry"- so therefore if your struggling with something and need help, you're weak and Dresden's whole "abuse/abusive 'training' makes you stronger- and is the only way to get strong" thing. Idk. I'll leave that for a later day.)
Still don't know how to put a Read More on these things.
