DG is very good at character moments and individual scenes. She is terrible at plots, geography and time.

DG has said that this is a book about fathers & fatherhood and what it really means. Just off the top of my head we’ve seen these relationships this season

Context.  For one thing, he lost those pictures. For another, she is the last person he expects to run into.  But once she tells him who she is, he recognizes her.  

For that matter, the stones themselves are a “plot contrivance” as the contrive to send Claire to 1743.

Keep in mind that Geillis/Gillian could travel through the stones and she is an ancestor of Roger’s.  

I’d be interested in which of the coming events are integral to the plot going forward? This is hard to talk about because I don’t want to give away spoilers but I’d be interested talking with you after the final episode of the season about why the mistaken identity is critical to the long-term story and what we would…

She uses rape and the imminent threat of rape all the freaking time, though I believe that this is the last one for a while. 

No, she doesn’t always know what she’s doing. This entire situation is down to lazy plotting. In the book, if either Bree or Claire had told Jamie that Stephen Bonnet was her rapist, all of the horrible things that befall Roger wouldn’t have happened. It’s an absolutely maddening section of the book.

Book spoiler:

“Necessary for the plot” is a lame excuse. Having a female character raped so a male character will have “angst” is deplorable in this day and age. Maybe the plot in the book required it but the plot in the book was incredibly stupid and the show runners should have figured out a better way to get where they need to…

I’d been hoping that this wasn’t going to happen, that the writers would see this for the terrible plot that it is but no such luck I guess. I’m dreading the rest of the season. 

He published a Christmas-themed short story yesterday on his website and it got so much traffic that it broke his site so he moved it to Google Docs.  If you’d rather not click the link, you can find it by going to jim-butcher.com.

Thanks, that works.

I’m getting notifications of people replying to me who are gray but no matter what I do, Kinja won’t show me those posts.  So, gray people, I’m not ignoring you.  I wish I could see your posts because this is one of my favorite things to talk about.  

So wasn’t this comment longer two minutes ago?  Or is Kinja just being weird. 

He wrote the first book in an act of rebellion against his creative writing teacher who gave them some sort of formula for writing a good genre novel. He decided to prove her wrong by following the formula so the resulting dreck would show her the error of her ways. That dreck was Storm Front. So I guess he really…

The series gets better and better. The first three books are the weakest (I actively dislike the second one) so try to hang in there. 

He’s been keeping me company on my commute for the last couple of months, as I work my way through The Dresden Files audiobooks.  

I’m not sure if it’s mentioned that he lost the pictures - I didn’t really love those season 3 episodes so I only watched them once and don’t remember. 

Did Claire bring smallpox vaccinations? My recollection is that she brought back penicillin.