Also, I agree about Thomas fridging. I need him back ASAP.

Dunno. I somehow have a feeling he can stay fridged till BAT, because really I think Butcher had little idea what to do with Thomas overall.

I am not going to engage about Murphy here but I agree Dresden repetitions are annoying. It's not the male gaze what bothers me, after all, Dresden is quite good describing males too. Michael, Sanya, Butters, Marcone. But he repeats too much and not only about people, I am really tired of him explaining us how soulgazes work. We got it the first time you told us, 20 years ago, and in PT/BG you explained so many times that it even lessened the effect of the Empty House Tragic Moment.

Yes. For instance we could get longer introductions and epilogues to series giving us better vision of what Dresden was doing between books - that's about as much place we needed. (And no Jim no sane reader would pick tome 16 of your series, and just run with it mindlessly. If he does he will notice something is wrong - like you can put list of all the books at the beginning or something).

That is a problem with long running series. I read on Ilona Andrews blog that one reason she ended her Kate Daniels series is that it became more and more difficult to write original and new descriptions of the same recurring things.

DO NOT DESCRIBE THEM. Like really. Describe new things. Introduce new things.

The male gaze bothers me not in the least. It exists and if any man tells you he doesn't look at women, he's a liar, given that he is heterosexual. And I assume that women have something similar going on with men. But it's almost never vocalized, even  internally. The whole fashion industry is built on the idea. He just does it to the point of exhaustion.

I agree. Problem is with overall formula of repeating everything. I have no problem with supernatural predators using sex-appeal as weapon - I think it's quite legit strategy. But Dresden is just repeating everything. I mean constant reminding to us how Butters is a short guy was no less infuriating than reminding how sexy Lara is.

My point falls back on the only women who was written in the books outside that concept.  Murphy. As poorly as Jim treated her over the course of the books, she deserved a better end then what she got. A talented writer should be able to pull that off and get the emotional punch that he wanted.

I agree and disagree. I would like more random death in Battle Ground - in the end only named characters that fallen were Wardens taken in mid-boss fight, Murphy taken in another sort of mid-boss fight, and Hendricks. Way to scripted for my taste for this level of unholly mess.
As much as Murphy demise go - I think her failure as knight, connection to Odin and death were planned at least since Changes. And as such it's not a bad way - it gives option for Murphy powered up and back right for Apocalypse, while she would be not able to neither follow up, nor accept she cannot follow, and I think both her and Marcone's fates shows that time for mere mortals is over. Which is dark, but for me sort of expected resolution - compared to many stories when mundane man shall stand up to gods and monsters and prevail.

The problem is that now I think main reason Jim went for Dresden/Murphy romance was to push Dresden darker in this book. It's not her death was fridging - it's her relationship with Harry was fridging in my vision - put there just before her planned further death. Which is why Rudolph was used rather than any supernatural monster. Murphy was meant to die, but her death was staged too much. I do not think it's that bad overall - I'm always for random before poetic, but it sours her and Harry relationship.

As I said there should be extra book between SG and PT to let their relationship breathe, to let her deal and accept his new condition (and then of course run in battle anyway because BG is just too big to stay at home), and be something more than advancing things forward for bigger gut punch.

But with this "deserved better end" I honestly disagree. Death... death should not be cool. Even death of cooler characters.
And TBH it seems for most part deaths in Dresden Files rarely are COOL. Neither for villains nor for heroes.
Now I think Hendricks probably was only one so far who get classic like movie death.

I'd also notice that there is character that IMHO was fridged way worse than Murphy and with whom Butcher clearly has even more problem to do anything interesting - it's Thomas. Even his thread and whole Nemesis Xanatos Gambit in Peace Talks sounds more like afterthought, and literally nothing interesting happened with him since Turn Coat. And now he's in literal fridge. (And I won't talk he deserves better - but seriously Jim if you don't have idea what to do with Thomas maybe just kill him or smth).

I agree, she did deserve better.  But perhaps that was the point?  Jim wrote that completely avoidable ending for her to piss us off.

I honestly think main reason was for another fake Dresden Going Dark tease.
I believe that's why he hooked them together right before Peace Talks after all this back and forth dance.
If it was some monster or even very dangerous mortal like Listen - the Dresden could have honest revenge without much of remorse afterwards. If it was random mortal with trigger finger who shot too fast (my preferable option - Murphy killed by honest to Earth people she meant to defend, just by accident and battle panic) he probably would stop himself. Rudolph was perfect as minor petty villain, as Draco-Joffrey of this series, to just make Harry really really ANGRY.

(My second favourite alternative solution - would be Murphy killed by debris, which would leave Dresden without any place to steam off).

But I think Jim predicted people would be angry - hence Harry and Sigurn talk in last chapter.
Where (my qualms about overall moral standards of Odin, Einherjar and Valhalla asie) Sigurn was of course quite right and it was sort of challenging many viewers perspective on unworthy death.

There's a whole comic of them being the US team, Dresden gets Chicago, Carlos gets LA, Bill gets Texas, Yoshimo is the only one we don't have the assigned area for.

Maybe they left her with them, as they were war-squad together. Or they lacked local Warden.

Your own one in Harry’s case or another one in the corpstakers case if she had succeeded in Ghost Story.

In her case, I'm not really sure she was SOUL anymore, she seemed more like Nightmare a bit - ghost per se but with power and drive of dead man.

That is dead in the definition of the dualistic world view which has a total distinction between spiritual and material. It is a worldview Christianity got from the Greeks and it is the worldview in the books.

Now TBH Christianity on dogmatic level rejects such dualism.
From Catholic perspective even if his concioussness was wandering around a bit - he was still alive overall.
If body is alive, soul by def. is not gone.

Was he a child? I thought Vittorio was a nephew.

Thomas can bang whoever but Justine is unfaithful. Right.

My comment was about how Jim has written Thomas. And more generally how he has written women.

While fact that too many women around Harry are hawt and he is way to aware of it all the time - is annoying quite a bit, i honestly cannot say I see those books going into attitude where man fucking around is chad, and women sleeping a lot s-word or something.

I mean he can write Thomas as "sexy vampire" for laughs, but ultimately Thomas powers and overall whampires powers are shown as creepy and unraveling humanity of their hosts. So I cannot really see much double-standards here... Too much thirsty geek fantasies maybe.

There were 9 daughters overall. One son alive. Some others he killed. We can I think round it to about 18.
Still low yes.

Very true, I had a theory a while back as that being the reason Raith got to be head of the family.  Yet, it is pretty rare, because the family isn't expanding, how long has Lara been around?  Why hasn't she had any kids?  The only vamp we know of that was really young aside from the baby, if Thomas is the father, was Inari.

I have feeling it's possible only men sire children, as pregnant whampire lady would have problem from two Hungers interacting.