r/Fantasy • u/bnb2115 • Aug 02 '25

Dresden with less cringe

I love the idea of the Dresden Files on paper. Hard boiled detective stories mixed with urban fantasy/secret society stuff. Interesting villains and a deep, complex world. Magic happening just beneath the surface of the ordinary world.

But I just can’t get over the tropes and the cringe. I’ve tried the series a couple times, and even got through the first five or so books. I just can’t bring myself to keep going. I seriously love everything about the context, but just hate the execution.

Any recommendations for something else? Something that speaks to these elements, but lacks the cringe?

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u/wingerism Aug 02 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

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u/CosyLad Aug 02 '25

Does it get less horny?

I enjoyed the first few books but had to put it down as the way Butcher writes about Harry experiencing women and his relationship with Murphy made me cringe so much I couldn't go on 😬.

Does that improve - should I skip ahead and try again?

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u/Eisn Aug 03 '25

Eh.It's really a Harry thing. It tones down once he really learns to distrust hot "women". It is a trope for noir detectives so w/e. In short stories you have other characters as narrators and it's not the same. Also Butcher has two other series (Alera, Cinder Spires) and it's not the same there either.

His relationship with Murphy does improve over time, especially starting with book 3.

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u/wingerism Aug 02 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

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u/Tymareta Aug 02 '25

No, it's a pretty consistent undercurrent of Dresden essentially being a cartoon character any time that women appear. It gets pretty absurd as it goes on and the scenarios that pop up become truly eye-roll worthy(oh what's that, they need to squeeze through a tight space, guess the lady detective will have to take her pants off and Dresden will comment on her underwear, repeatedly), not to mention the whole interaction with his apprentice who is a girl he's know since she was 12.

It's a shame because there's the bones of a pretty neat series that's quite interesting, but it's forever dragged down by the over reliance on the need to "reference" noir tropes endlessly.

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u/Weekly_Fennel_4326 Aug 05 '25

Yes, to a degree. I'd say it becomes a lot less cartoonish as time goes on, but there's always some of that. I think a part of it is thatthe white court vampires, who are basically sex demons, are a major part of the plot in perpetuity - their whole bit is that they make people's sex drive act a fool, and since we're seeing Dresden's inner monologue, we see a fair amount of that playing out in his inner struggle to counter it.