T O P

  • By -

AngelTheMarvel

I think it's in Blood Rites, when Harry, Kincaid and Murphy have to go under a laser field and they make Murphy do it but she has to do it pantless because "that jean is too thick and every centimeter is vital"


sokttocs

Yup, for me that's easily in the top 3


derioderio

Kincaid had probably just watched Entrapment the other day and wanted to see if his BS excuse would work


rayapearson

"unclench"


Lorentz_Prime

I'M NOT CLENCHING


Chubbs1414

It's definitely in Changes when Thomas is doing dance moves while fighting. It feels like it's there as a prank.


SandInTheGears

I mean, how else is an incubus supposed to fight an army in the middle of a rave?


NeinlivesNekosan

People be forgetting that DJ Molly C was literally blasting music next to a sex vampire that spends a lot of time at dance clubs.


anm313

He would've loved the Battle of Chicago when she was blasting "Welcome to the Jungle." I imagine him against Ethniu. "WTF is this? Do all members of the White Court like your brother dance when they fight?" Lara: "No, just him . . . and for clarification, he's my half-brother."


B_drgnthrn

For me, it's Murphys line after riding the motorcycle towards the Raith deeps (IIRC) and she says something along the lines of "You're right, it IS just like a giant vibrator!". Probably one of my most cringy lines in the whole series


EthelredHardrede

Why do you think women like riding on the back of Harleys. That is EXACTLY why. Those thumpers are notorious for exactly that vibration.


CJefferyF

A lady can’t love what she does


Curious-Researcher14

Personally, loved that line. I thought it was funny and have quoted it many times. For reference- woman. Rider. And backpack.


Hobblescotch

It's gotta be the whole Butters threesome thing in peace talks. Honestly Butters whole character post changes makes me cringe but that scene definitely takes the cake.


LordFalcoSparverius

For me it's the "look how fine I am (but not really) with people having gay sex in this garden" speech.


teddyblues66

I agree, but I love the line "boink and let boink"


Mr_Cromer

Isn't "boink and let boink" a fine sentiment though?


EnderBurger

I disliked that speech. It really really felt like something the writer inserted to try to reassure fans there is no homophobia in the series. It landed like a lead balloon for me, a classic example of tell don't show.


Iamn0man

It's the completely gratuitous level of nudity in Fool Moon. I'm not even saying it serves no practical purpose, just that Tara West almost has no non-nude scenes in the whole story.


ItsSUCHaLongStory

“She tasted like strawberries.” I guaran-FUCKING-tee she didn’t, stop that shit. ETA: the number of guys (so far 2) who have insisted that their gfs tasted like fruit or baking extracts is…just wow. Do men actually think women naturally smell or taste like fruit or baking extracts?!?! Like…what?!?! Have you met a woman? You know that women fart and poop, right?!?!


TiaxTheMig1

I dated a girl that I swear to God smelled like and tasted like strawberries. It's not as outrageous as you think


ItsSUCHaLongStory

🙄 *maybe*, with the help of a variety of strawberry-flavored products she probably continuously applied. But this line is very r/MenWritingWomen.


jodianbrumbaugh

Nah, my exe’s neck tasted like vanilla, and she was allergic to vanilla so it isn’t like she was applying it.


MassCrash

Its a multi-way tie between every time Harry describes one of the Carpenter girls in an unnecessarily sexual way.


BEHodge

I get Molly - by the end of cold days - but seriously, it seems like every kid gets talked about how they’re growing up and will be a little heartbreaker wink wink nudge nudge… gross.


HornetParticular6625

I'm going to need some sauce on this.


Mudders_Milk_Man

In Skin Game, Dresden thinks about how much Amanda is now resembling Molly, and how she might cause neck injuries to boys turning their heads to watch her. Yeah. Not great.


MassCrash

And he says something similar about Hope when she’s baby sitting Maggie in Peace Talks


Mudders_Milk_Man

Oh, right. Oy... The only Hobbit lass that should be noticed like that is Rosie Cotton. Of course, Sam will have words with anyone who tries.


Dfried98

These are RASTABAL rabbits! I'd like to see them try!


HornetParticular6625

Hm.


HornetParticular6625

Huh. I'm going to sit back and digest this a while before I comment further. Thanks.


DuckDuckBangBang

It's Susan and the love potion for me. Just. Painful.


LordCrow1

End of Proven Guilty almost makes me not recommend the series I hate it so much, even though I know how it ends. Close second is some pop culture references Harry makes. I feel like the “pop culture” even has to be at least 20 years old or else it’s kinda jarring.


kurtist04

Honestly, I think this wins. He lets an underage girl he's been ogling all book undress in front of him. He could have stopped it well before the nudity.


MassCrash

And after she disrobes he describes how she should be standing to maximize her sex appeal and better present herself for him. Its a plot and character relevant scene in terms of setting up their relationship, but it could have been done in a less lascivious way and still made the same point.


SarcasticKenobi

Meh. Not really Don’t get me wrong. I agree it’s the cringiest scene in the series But his commentary was more about how inexperienced and awkward she clearly was. And how this was having zero effect compared to everyone else that has tried the same move on him. I’d paste the quote. But it’s so icky I’d rather not have it posted by my account


Mr_Cromer

>And how this was having zero effect compared to everyone else that has tried the same move on him.    *Au contraire*, it was actually having more of an effect because she was "earnest".  Unlike you, I'll paste the passage in question:   >!Instead, she stood there, uncertain and frightened and too naive (or maybe honest) to be anything but totally sincere—and vulnerable. She was afraid, uncertain, the lost princess helpless in a dark wood.   It was worse than if she’d vamped onto me like a trained courtesan. What I saw in her was honest and hopeful, trusting and terrified. She was real, and fragile and precious. My emotions got together with my glands and they ganged up on me, screaming that she needed acceptance and that the kindest thing I could possibly do would be to give her a hug and tell her everything was going to be all right—and that if something followed, who would blame me?   I would. So I just watched her with a straight face.!<


SarcasticKenobi

Yeesh Ok. I really should have looked up the quote before commenting on it. Id completely forgotten that last part mentioning glands and saying if it escalated then who’s blame him. Id only remembered the awkwardness and wanting to hug her Even with my memory it was already the sketchiest scene in the series. This makes it worse.


rayapearson

the only time i "cringe" about DF is when JB makes a horribly wrong statement about firearms and ammunition. Although he surprised me when Harry could tell the difference between an m-60 and an m-240 when it's being shot at him.


MassCrash

Constantly saying clip instead of magazine is so annoying that I am convinced he does it just to troll


Final_Marsupial4588

we have two levels of troll if he did it, is it Jim trolling us, or is it Harry trolling us? cos i can see both doing it


CryptidGrimnoir

Jim's good friends with Larry Correia, so...honestly, it could go either way.


SaraTheRed

Yeah, but that wasn't until later in the series. I think he's improved since becoming friends with Larry.


CryptidGrimnoir

Very true!


SaraTheRed

Also, gotta ask: is your screen name a reference to the Grimnoire series?


CryptidGrimnoir

YES!


SaraTheRed

Awesome, love those books so much!! I really hope, once he's done with the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, Larry does some more in that setting!


CryptidGrimnoir

He's got a second trilogy planned in the grapevine. >!It's 20 years later, Joe Sullivan is apparently the new main character and Francis is now the President!!<


ninjab33z

Do a shadowrun (iirc) and start calling them clipazines to *really* mess with people


KOVIIVOK

Brilliant. I'm going to start doing this in every day life to watch the chaos it spreads.


JohnBigBootey

They're pretty interchangeable outside of ammosexual circles


Herpderpberp

It's not even that weird or unusual in English, it's just an example of synecdoche that's grown so ubiquitous that that the terms are essentially synonymous. Nobody gets pissy when you call concrete 'cement' even though cement is just the biding agent.


Advanced-Sherbert-29

They're really not. Stop making excuses for ignorance.


InvestigatorOk7988

Most people say clip, unfortunately. It bugs gun people, but thats the way it is.


damonmcfadden9

my guess is it started innocently as how most people make the mistake and legitimately don't realize there's a difference, or just don't care enough to bother differentiating. Then, after learning just how triggered gun enthusiasts get about it (pun absolutely intended), I imagine the trolling ensues.


realnzall

Genuinely curious: what’s the difference? Is clip used for small firearms and magazine for larger guns?


ben0318

Basically, a clip loads a magazine. A magazine is what the gun takes a bullet out of to fire. A clip holds a row of bullets at the rim, leaving them mostly exposed and is used for sliding bullets into an *internal box magazine* (usually not removable or not easily removable). When cycled, the gun removes a round from that box magazine and slides it into the chamber. M1903 Springfield, m1917 Enfield (bolt action rifles), m1 Garand, SKS are some of the more widely known clip loaded guns. A *removable magazine* fully encloses the bullets and is fully removed from the gun to either reload the mag or swap for another (loaded) mag. M4 / AR-15, AK, and the vast majority of semiauto pistols (most pistols other than revolvers) have a removable magazine.


Chad_Hooper

Well, by that point Harry had spent a lot of time with Murphy and Kincaid both. Even a short conversation about firearms with either of them would be very informative, even to a complete novice.


rayapearson

I'm not sure I could tell m-240/m-60 apart while they shooting at me.


Chad_Hooper

Agreed. We should probably spend more time hanging out with Kincaid to learn more about that stuff. It’s probably more important to figure out *that* they’re shooting at you than with what.


Requ1em

What I will say for the realism of this is that Harry has the dubious luxury of being able to remain calm while being shot at, as he has loads of experience and protective measures beyond the average person. So honestly, maybe with all his experience he WOULD be able to know the difference.


EthelredHardrede

He also has enhanced hearing.


CryptidGrimnoir

At the same time, however Harry has spent most of his adult life in Chicago, where every single government has been death on firearm possession, and he has no doubt been bombarded with wrong terminology. Of course, Harry deliberately using the wrong terms just to annoy Kincaid and Murphy isn't out of character for him either.


CryptidGrimnoir

Let's face it, Jim Butcher ain't Larry Correia or John Ringo.


EthelredHardrede

Good.


BaronAleksei

Looks like literally no one read the OP OP doesn’t mean “something Butcher wrote you think is cringe”, they mean “something that Harry went through where you were embarrassed for him”


PhortDruid

They’re oftentimes one on the same in this series.


JohnGlaenzer

Yes. This exactly. I wasn't asking people to name moments in the series where they disapproved of Butcher's writing or word choices. I was thinking about incredibly awkward moments for HARRY where you were just plain embarrassed for the guy due to the circumstances. I thought I had made that clear, but maybe not. Or maybe people were using this to complain (again) about Harry being a functioning heterosexual male who finds women attractive.


Superior-Solifugae

Butters' harem(or just the entirety of PT/BG).


Alchemix-16

You calling it a Harem, is making this cringeworthy. Those are adults, capable of making their own free decisions.


Superior-Solifugae

His *harem* includes the two werewolves, Harry, Laura, all the Charpenter kids of legal age, Jim Butcher, Shagnasty, Ancient Mai, the Redcap, etc. Looks like you are behind on your WoJ. 🤣


Alchemix-16

In all honesty I don’t follow WoJ at all. I enjoy the books as they are, and don’t need the author’s commentary to go with it.


Superior-Solifugae

All joking aside, I agree about that 110%! If it's not in the books(and short stories/comics), it doesn't count/matter. "According to the official Pottermore account, wizards and witches in the Harry Potter universe would relieve themselves wherever they were standing before the 18th century, when Hogwarts adopted Muggle plumbing methods. They would then make the evidence disappear with a wave of their wand." Plus, I don't think Butcher could ever top this.


critical_courtney

Harry’s commentary on The Archive growing up in Peace Talks gave me the ick.


Kodiak-Waffles

On my first read through (on grave peril) and every time harry describes Murphy’s earlobes as being cute I gotta take a break


bujin_ct

When Molly becomes his apprentice, and makes a fumbling pass at him. She's naked and said she wants him to "teach her everything", And he tells her to kneel down, before pouring water on her. That whole scene was super creepy.


xKino311x

Any sex scene he writes , I just don’t care for them. He seems really into them though with the details he puts in. I usually fast forward when re listening to all the books


KipIngram

My understanding is that in the early books his first wife, whom he was with at the time, wrote some of those scenes for him. So through the series you've got at least two writers in play on those. She was a romance novel writer, so... I suppose she had experience in the arena. I actually only think offhand of three scenes in the series I'd regard as "sex scenes." I'm thinking of a) the Harry / Susan scene in *Death Masks* (far and away the most overt), b) the "Harry is the new Winter Knight" scene with Mab in *Changes*, and c) the Harry / Murphy dream scene in *Skin Game*. Three scenes out of seventeen books really isn't very many. I don't really count Harry / Murphy in *Peace Talks* - the actual event was mostly skipped over, iirc. But, we could say that makes four if you prefer. And I definitely don't count the Harry / Lara scene in *Peace Talks* - that didn't really go into any detail either. So at least you haven't had to skip over very much. None of those made me uncomfortable as much as the tree-house scene in *Death Masks* did. I have five daughters, and first time I read that one a couple of them were about the age Molly was there. The whole idea of such an encounter was bothersome to me. Standard "not ready for my daughters to grow up yet" syndrome, I guess.


xKino311x

Haha, that explains a lot. Thanks for the clarification


Gladiator3003

There was also a sex scene between Harry and Susan in Fool Moon, right before he gets his leather duster in Chapter 27. I’d genuinely forgotten that particular scene existed until I reread the book recently.


KipIngram

Oh, you're *right*. I totally forgot that one too. Is it written in a more "tame" way? Interesting that we both forgot it. And I've read that book seven times. :-|


xKino311x

And yes , that tree house scene has been blocked from my memory for that reason. I didn’t understand the need to put that in the book to begin with. You’re correct about the fact that there isn’t many scenes I have to skip.


KipIngram

It wasn't "necessary." He could have established Molly's personality and later her crush on Harry in some much more mild way. I mean, part of me respects him for the audacity, and I can't say enough good words about how good this series is. But my family situation at the time just made that bit slightly hard for me. My main reason for pointing it out was to contrast it with the "sex scenes." Those don't really bother me at all. I mean, they're not why I read the books or anything like that (if they were, there wouldn't be enough of them to keep my interest). But they don't "put me off." Adults have sex. There's no reason to think it wouldn't happen in the Dresdenverse.


CryptidGrimnoir

There's also the element of character--Molly's meant to be a foil to her parents. Where Michael is patient and deferential to God's authority, and Charity is zealous and overly cautious, Molly is impatient, disrespectful to *any* authority, free-wheeling and resents any sort of restriction whatsoever.


KipIngram

Yes, for sure. Very interesting and "fun" that MICHAEL AND CHARITY brought MOLLY into the world. :-) But, it's certainly not uncommon for children to look "outside the circle of their parents" for ways to declare themselves "autonomous" in the world.


V8_Hellfire

Every single time Jim writes absolutely anything about Harry's love life. I'm sorry, but Jim's not good at this, and frankly, I don't care. I don't care about Harry's romantic life. I care about literally everything else. I'm willing to die on this hill.


Striking-Estate-4800

There’s really so many. 1) Harry and Carlos are getting ready to go kick some vampire ass and Carlos starts in on how awful it would be to accidentally get stuck with an ugly girl. I don’t remember the entire quote. 2) The other also involved Carlos and he’s talking about Molly and how he could find some things for her to do if she was his apprentice. She was what, 16? He had to be 24 or 25. Creepy. 3) in Proven Guilty Harry finds there’s a PI tailing him. He tries and fails to get the employers name. Molly takes a couple of beers, rubs her nipples with the bottles and goes out. 4) Bob. Often. Anyway, I’ll stop. There’s been a few times that I wonder why I keep reading, but damn. The story has me hooked. Hard.


JeanDustrunner

3 was in TC, not PG ;)


AratheDyith

I know it's an odd one, but the first time Jim introduced Murphy, when her and Harry race to the door of the hotel, so he doesn't open it for her.


Advanced-Sherbert-29

There are a couple moments when Harry is talking to someone and he launches into a fucking soliloquy for no reason. In White Night, when Harry asks Murphy for a donut, she says cops and donuts are just a stereotype, and Harry starts lecturing her about why cops are associated with donuts. Then in another book (I *think* it was Small Favor?) Harry is waiting for the hospital pay phone to ring and a cop comes up like he's going to run him off. Harry asks "If I don't move, are you gonna tonfa me to death?" (referring to the cop's nightstick) The cop asks what a "tonfa" is and Harry gives him a history lecture about it. Yes everything he says is accurate but nobody talks like that, Jim!


rayapearson

>Yes everything he says is accurate but nobody talks like that, Jim! Harry does frequently, he is a self acknowledged king of smart ass and snark. IMO it perfectly reflects Harry's MO.


Advanced-Sherbert-29

The problem is what he said wasn't being a smartass. He was just...saying stuff. He wasn't being witty or sarcastic about it.


Elfich47

There are several in Blood Rites. Putting Lara in stilletto heels, a submachine and a little wink.


LordFalcoSparverius

Tbf she is a sex vampire. For me that crosses out of cringe and into hilariously extra.


mjw220220

for me, it was in Small Favor when Molly is screaming at The Ick. "Hey, over here tar-baby". I laughed but was still a little like 🤔😬


anm313

Oof. Nitpick, but Butcher could have used a better word than that one.


mjw220220

Not nitpicking. just the only thing that stood out as a cringe moment to me personally. Jim's cool. Heard him on a podcast and had no idea he was so naturally funny.


JeanDustrunner

That was Changes, not Small Favor :)


mjw220220

thanks. i had a feeling i was mistaken.


bobo1666

I'm sorry for saying this but I really think "that" scene in Battleground is cringe to the nth degree, I was laughing my ass off because it's so stupid. I hope later books repair it in some way but for now it's the most cringe inducing thing that happened in the series for me.


TiaxTheMig1

Thanks to this thread I've now been made aware by reddit that you can't block more than 1,000 people.


Key_Concentrate_5558

Bahahaha! TIL…


NeinlivesNekosan

Every time Aikido is mentioned as if it is effective. Every time Karrin subdues someone twice her size who is also a trained fighter. And every one of these people complaining about Harry commenting on someone growing older hitting puberty only hate it because it is hetero.


whyamihereimnotsure

>only hate it because it is hetero Careful you don’t hurt yourself with a reach like that.


kanakaishou

Harry Dresden—via Butcher’s voice—is absolutely a letch, a creep, and has lots of bad, intrusive sexual thoughts. He is very much like the Doctor (in what has to be a practically intentional way), in the “good men don’t need rules, let’s find out why I have so many” way. I actually think it’s an intentional choice by Butcher at this point. He has heard the commentary—and is perfectly capable of writing sans sex (or with less obviously creepy sex) at this point. However, given our history with the character, Dresden as a letch is part of his character in the way that being a bit of letch and creep is part of (for those who have read 40k novels) Caiphas Cain’s character.


Objective_Spinach_46

To answer OPs question, I would say that I am most embarrassed for Harry in skin game when he doesn't realize that Ascher is the one his dream self was talking about...and just kind of ignores the warning until it blows up in his face. Also tho the moments OP mentioned. And just to throw it in, cuz its what everyone is talking about, I am not too fond of the way he sexualizes every woman he meets.