In my continuing re-read of the Dresden Files novels I have just finished reading Fool Moon.

Spoilers if you haven’t read it ~

I had forgotten just how beat up and broken Harry gets. He gets shot. I forgot that Murph breaks an arm. I knew that her partner died in the series, but I didn’t realize that Carmichael bought it so soon. I think this is a bit of the television show creeping into the memory of the book. Carmichael in the books looks nothing like the television show version and it far less annoying… and far more dead.

I’m glad I’m going back through these books. It’s tough to recall all the little details (and not so little details apparently). I’m tempted to make a series of notes about injuries sustained by Dresden, but I’d have to go back through the first book looking for them and I’d rather forge ahead.

I do still like this book. It was tight and quick and showed a lot of expansion to the world building that the series would continue to expand on. I admire the world building.

As for my new view on things, looking for the misogynistic? That’s harder in this book.

Harry continues to state that he’s from a different school of thought. He claims to understand that he’s a bit of a chauvinist, but doesn’t do anything about changing that attitude. I actually went and looked up the definition of chauvinist – and the word itself is actually defined as aggressive or exaggerated patriotism. Only when combined with ‘male’ does it take on a different meaning… and it’s a large collection of ugly words. Not as ugly as misogynistic, but still ugly. I suspect either the author or the character really wanted it to be chivalrous. Chivalrous I think is more fitting. Harry doesn’t think women less capable, doesn’t believe that women owe anything to me and in fact depends on women in his life in many ways. Those are not the characteristics of a misogynist, and not really of a chauvinist either. To be fair – a lot of Harry’s problems go away if he quits with the “I think women are delicate flowers that must be protected” attitude, but then it makes him less of who he is. I look forward to seeing if this goes away or increases in the upcoming books. It has certainly made for an interesting viewpoint for me, and good discussion with others who don’t like the series.

I look forward to more!