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beccastareyesDay 07 - The most heartbreaking scene? Harry/Susan in Changes
Hoo, boy is this a spoiler. If you are a Dresden Files fan and haven't read Changes yet... for the love of god, don't click on the cut.
Fans are pretty ambivalent about Susan Rodriguez in the Dresden Files. For non-fans, she was Harry's first on-screen girlfriend (Elaine, his first girlfriend, is mentioned and later shows up, but we don't know if Harry ever dated seriously between Elaine as a teenager and Susan). The two of them started dating when she asked him out in the first book, though Harry had known her before as 'this tabloid reporter who tries to get paranormal info from me'.
By book 3, Harry was ready to propose to her... then Bianca, a vampire of the Red Court grabs her at an inopportune moment and tries to turn her into a vampire. It half works -- Susan is pushed halfway towards being a Red Court vampire, but needs to kill and feed on a victim for the transformation to be complete. Anyway, she and Harry break it off because Harry blames himself for the whole situation -- not only was Bianca's stunt designed to get at him, but him not telling Susan the details about vampires meant she did some pretty dumb things. Susan goes off to South America to look for help in coping with being part vampire, and Harry spectacularly fails at moving on with his life, but it finally does sink in that he can't expect the mortals who get involved with him to remain blissfully ignorant and stay safe*. (Thus, he actually starts talking to people like Murphy about stuff, rather than deliberately hedging and pissing her off.) And, aside from a single return by Susan investigating the Red Court (and a fling with Harry for old time's sake), she stays off the radar...
... until she calls him telling him that they have a kid, and the Red Court has her. And they're planning some blood magic designed to use the kid's death to kill Harry, Susan, Harry's granddad (surprise!), Harry's White Court-vampire half-brother that the Red Court doesn't know about (though it might only drive him insane because of the vampire thing), and enough people to cause a real mess**.
So, between the vampires trying to keep him from going to the rescue and Harry pulling out all the stops himself, Harry ends up losing his apartment and office to major damage, his cat goes missing, Murphy loses her job helping him, and a spinal injury involves him deciding to swear to serve the Winter Court of fairies, because it is marginally better than signing his soul away to a fallen angel or sacrificing a good portion of Chicago to become a necromantic god, and Heaven said no to the 'miracle cure' thing. They get to the Yucatan***, discover that the vampires have been killing mountains of people to prime the metaphysical machinery. and Epic Battle Ensues, and Susan turns full vampire, losing her humanity. Harry saves his kid, but realizes he can't save Susan, and the best way to make sure that Red Court politics never touches him again, is to use the magical setup to sacrifice vampire!Susan to kill as many Red Court vampires as he possibly can.
Jim Butcher is really a magnificent bastard, you know? All of the recent books since... well, since Proven Guilty, at least, have had some kind of sucker-punch in the victory. Murphy gets demoted, Thomas falls off the wagon, Harry discovers his girlfriend was mind-controlled into being his girlfriend as a spy, Michael gets shot badly enough to retire him. This one just is the season-finale of sucker-punches. (I don't even mention the ending which might have gotten Butcher lynched if he hadn't mentioned 'BTW, here's the next book's title -- don't kill me!'.)
--
* Deleted rant about how Susan got put in the fridge at least twice. While crap happens to, say, Murphy or Luccio or Elaine (or Molly or the Archive or Justine...), it strikes me as less of a Women in Refrigerators situation because of their actions. Maybe if we had seen some short stories or something about Susan's time as a Latin American resistance fighter against the secret machinations of the Red Court, rather than her being vamped, then showing up once, then showing up again to die.
* I'm not sure how much power is in the spell. Logically speaking, all humans are descended from a small population of about 100 individuals that lived on the south coast of Africa some hundreds of thousands of years ago, though those of us whose ancestors left Africa before the historical era have a tiny number of Neandertal genes. The curse could skip through dead generations -- Harry's parents are both dead, after all -- and strike both Harry's maternal grandfather and half-brother. Which makes me wonder how many people this thing could actually kill. To put it another way, would Harry's eighth cousin who was an accountant in Beloit suddenly drop dead of a heart attack? It would be hilarious if the spell had so much power that it accidentally nuked humanity -- whatcha gonna do for food and attention *now*, Red Court?
** And here I'll cut my rant about Mayan culture short. Mostly I'd just like a fantasy book where it doesn't feel like Central American myths are going to eat my face moreso than the rest of the myths. When the dominant religion in my country comes from a belief system where men had to cut bits off their kids to please their god, and for which arguments about whether a weekly ritual is symbolic cannibalism or, through miracle, becomes actual cannibalism, then I'll toss stones.
Besides, what about the wars that mostly seemed to be fought for power and prestige and so you can brag about how your Sacred Lord was more awesome than all the other city-states' Sacred Lords and your armies created mountains of skulls and lakes of blood of your enemies? The Mayans are awesome.
Previous Days
Day 01 - What is your current favorite ship? Anthy/Utena
Day 02 - What was your very first ship? Jadzia/Worf
Day 03 - A pairing that needs to happen now? Snow/Talia
Day 04 - The pairing with the most chemistry? Lina/Gourry
Day 05 - The pairing with the least chemistry? Anakin/Padmé
Day 06 - The best kiss? Eleanor/Gerard
Hoo, boy is this a spoiler. If you are a Dresden Files fan and haven't read Changes yet... for the love of god, don't click on the cut.
Fans are pretty ambivalent about Susan Rodriguez in the Dresden Files. For non-fans, she was Harry's first on-screen girlfriend (Elaine, his first girlfriend, is mentioned and later shows up, but we don't know if Harry ever dated seriously between Elaine as a teenager and Susan). The two of them started dating when she asked him out in the first book, though Harry had known her before as 'this tabloid reporter who tries to get paranormal info from me'.
By book 3, Harry was ready to propose to her... then Bianca, a vampire of the Red Court grabs her at an inopportune moment and tries to turn her into a vampire. It half works -- Susan is pushed halfway towards being a Red Court vampire, but needs to kill and feed on a victim for the transformation to be complete. Anyway, she and Harry break it off because Harry blames himself for the whole situation -- not only was Bianca's stunt designed to get at him, but him not telling Susan the details about vampires meant she did some pretty dumb things. Susan goes off to South America to look for help in coping with being part vampire, and Harry spectacularly fails at moving on with his life, but it finally does sink in that he can't expect the mortals who get involved with him to remain blissfully ignorant and stay safe*. (Thus, he actually starts talking to people like Murphy about stuff, rather than deliberately hedging and pissing her off.) And, aside from a single return by Susan investigating the Red Court (and a fling with Harry for old time's sake), she stays off the radar...
... until she calls him telling him that they have a kid, and the Red Court has her. And they're planning some blood magic designed to use the kid's death to kill Harry, Susan, Harry's granddad (surprise!), Harry's White Court-vampire half-brother that the Red Court doesn't know about (though it might only drive him insane because of the vampire thing), and enough people to cause a real mess**.
So, between the vampires trying to keep him from going to the rescue and Harry pulling out all the stops himself, Harry ends up losing his apartment and office to major damage, his cat goes missing, Murphy loses her job helping him, and a spinal injury involves him deciding to swear to serve the Winter Court of fairies, because it is marginally better than signing his soul away to a fallen angel or sacrificing a good portion of Chicago to become a necromantic god, and Heaven said no to the 'miracle cure' thing. They get to the Yucatan***, discover that the vampires have been killing mountains of people to prime the metaphysical machinery. and Epic Battle Ensues, and Susan turns full vampire, losing her humanity. Harry saves his kid, but realizes he can't save Susan, and the best way to make sure that Red Court politics never touches him again, is to use the magical setup to sacrifice vampire!Susan to kill as many Red Court vampires as he possibly can.
Jim Butcher is really a magnificent bastard, you know? All of the recent books since... well, since Proven Guilty, at least, have had some kind of sucker-punch in the victory. Murphy gets demoted, Thomas falls off the wagon, Harry discovers his girlfriend was mind-controlled into being his girlfriend as a spy, Michael gets shot badly enough to retire him. This one just is the season-finale of sucker-punches. (I don't even mention the ending which might have gotten Butcher lynched if he hadn't mentioned 'BTW, here's the next book's title -- don't kill me!'.)
--
* Deleted rant about how Susan got put in the fridge at least twice. While crap happens to, say, Murphy or Luccio or Elaine (or Molly or the Archive or Justine...), it strikes me as less of a Women in Refrigerators situation because of their actions. Maybe if we had seen some short stories or something about Susan's time as a Latin American resistance fighter against the secret machinations of the Red Court, rather than her being vamped, then showing up once, then showing up again to die.
* I'm not sure how much power is in the spell. Logically speaking, all humans are descended from a small population of about 100 individuals that lived on the south coast of Africa some hundreds of thousands of years ago, though those of us whose ancestors left Africa before the historical era have a tiny number of Neandertal genes. The curse could skip through dead generations -- Harry's parents are both dead, after all -- and strike both Harry's maternal grandfather and half-brother. Which makes me wonder how many people this thing could actually kill. To put it another way, would Harry's eighth cousin who was an accountant in Beloit suddenly drop dead of a heart attack? It would be hilarious if the spell had so much power that it accidentally nuked humanity -- whatcha gonna do for food and attention *now*, Red Court?
** And here I'll cut my rant about Mayan culture short. Mostly I'd just like a fantasy book where it doesn't feel like Central American myths are going to eat my face moreso than the rest of the myths. When the dominant religion in my country comes from a belief system where men had to cut bits off their kids to please their god, and for which arguments about whether a weekly ritual is symbolic cannibalism or, through miracle, becomes actual cannibalism, then I'll toss stones.
Besides, what about the wars that mostly seemed to be fought for power and prestige and so you can brag about how your Sacred Lord was more awesome than all the other city-states' Sacred Lords and your armies created mountains of skulls and lakes of blood of your enemies? The Mayans are awesome.
Previous Days
Day 01 - What is your current favorite ship? Anthy/Utena
Day 02 - What was your very first ship? Jadzia/Worf
Day 03 - A pairing that needs to happen now? Snow/Talia
Day 04 - The pairing with the most chemistry? Lina/Gourry
Day 05 - The pairing with the least chemistry? Anakin/Padmé
Day 06 - The best kiss? Eleanor/Gerard
