Reviews with content warning for Confinement - Ölüm Maskeleri

Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Ölüm Maskeleri by Jim Butcher

3 reviews

ameydireads's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

“It isn't good to hold on too hard to the past. You can't spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can't see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be—even if it isn't what you expected.”

The Duke of the Red Court, Ortega, challenges Harry to a duel to end the war between the White Council and the Red Court once and for all. Harry knows going against such a strong vampire will be fatal, but he accepts it nonetheless to save the people he cares about. In the meantime, Harry is not afforded even one moment of rest. In addition to investigating a few bizarre deaths in the city, he is asked by Father Vincent to retrieve the Shroud that was stolen from the church. And to top it all off, Susan returns. It is one huge ball of chaos with crazy high-stake situations that push and pull Harry in every direction. The unexpected plot twist at the end blew my mind. Altogether, a great recipe to capture and hold my full attention.

I like that more depth is added now that we explore new parts of this universe and meet new characters. The most unexpected character is the Archive. I was as shocked as Harry to discover that she is actually a little girl. Harry renames her Ivy—such a beautiful name! Ivy is the neutral emissary who has been sent for the duel. The supernatural world is very professional, right?

For someone possessing all the knowledge and wisdom, it’s almost embarrassing that she didn’t notice Ortega’s attempt to win the duel by cheating.

The character that I liked most is Shiro. He is a brave and wise Knight of the Cross, just like Michael. After meeting Shiro, I realized that I only hated self-righteousness when it came from Michael. Could it be because, in his case, Charity plays a big role—and I find her very annoying? She is very concerned about her husband’s safety, rightly so if I may add, but she blames Harry for putting him in harm’s way. However, being a Knight of the Cross is enough to attract danger. And let's be honest, even if Harry wanted to, he wouldn't be able to keep Michael away. His strong sense of duty would not allow it. So, I find Charity’s intense hostility towards Harry too harsh, but on the other hand, I can also understand that redirecting anger can make life more tolerable. At this point I know too little about the Carpenters to empathize with Charity.
Another new character whom I think will have an interesting arc in the future is Molly. She is the eldest of the Carpenter children which simultaneously means that she is partially responsible for taking care of her younger siblings. This is very common in most families, especially when there is a huge age gap between the eldest and the other children. It does, however, come with its own challenges. We’ve already seen her hidden rebel side when it comes to fashion. I’m curious to see how this will be handled in the series and how it will affect Molly’s bond with her parents.
Lastly, the supernatural villains in this book belong to an organization called ‘The Order of the Denarius’. They are also known as the Fallen. I liked that these creatures are so powerful, yet limited in what they can do without a human host. They want Harry to join them as well and this is only possible after he comes in contact with the coin that contains one of the Fallen. Throughout the story, he rejects their offer, even if it could potentially cost him his life.

That is until he touches the coin when he sees little Harry Carpenter nearing it. A very altruistic move, but one that will cost him a lot.

I’m interested to see how this ordeal with the Fallen will play out in the next books.

Some of the recurring characters also surprised me a lot. I expected Susan’s return

to have been dictated by the Red Court in order to distract Harry and keep him from connecting all the dots in the midst of chaos. In fact, Susan proves to be essential to Harry’s safety. Without her, he would have been killed already. I like that she can still be of great support to him even when their relationship is so uncertain. In many ways she resembles Murphy.

Murphy has changed a lot since the first book, mainly due to her encounters with the underworld. She is more trusting of Harry and is more careful when dealing with the supernatural. I was also enlightened by Marcone’s softer side which is invisible to the outside world. It plays a huge role in humanizing him as a villain. He might be a bad guy for the outside world, but he is a hero for those he loves. This plays well with the overall notion that life is different shades of grey instead of just black and white.

The plot is delivered in a captivating way, albeit on a slow pace. Several clues and insights glimpsed through the main plot, involving for example the Outside and the mystery surrounding Harry’s parents. I need to know what’s going on!

Content Warnings

nicosta_music's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Honestly, I thought Death Masks was once again dragged down by the boring politics between factions of supernatural creatures. Maybe I'm in the minority with this but I think I preferred the monster-of-the-week pacing of the first few books in the series. The action sequences of Death Masks were great as usual, but everything in between felt a bit over-complicated and dull.

I also was just generally annoyed to see Dresden's misogyny return full-force, and I think it especially had a negative impact on

his reunion with Susan. I wish he had spent more time actually treating her like an equal and less time complaining about how she makes him insecure in his masculinity, especially since her becoming a half-vampire has made her a lot cooler and more interesting in my book. Men really just hate seeing women come into their own, I guess.

Content Warnings

ggcd1981's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

First let me give a brief summary of Death Masks,

Harry is challenged to a duel by São Paulo University’s Professor Don Paolo Ortega, a disguised Red Court Vampire noble who wants to end the war between the Red Court and The White Council as soon as possible because he has his own plans. Dresden is also hired by a Vatican priest, Father Vincent, for a secret mission, to recover the stolen Shroud of Turin. Related to this case some gruesome murders have been executed. Johnny Marcone is somehow connected with this mystery and the man shows some more layers to his character. Susan Rodriguez comes back as a badass half vampire who works against The Red Court and she stirs up old feelings in Dresden. Also the book introduces a new faction, The Denarians. They are 30 fallen angels who reside in Judas Iscariot's 30 denarii of silver.

Now to my opinions, after Summer Knight I thought Jim Butcher was willing to treat his female characters a little better…no, he is still at his old Sexist, Misogynistic bullshit. He still is mistaking “White Knighting” for chivalry. Dear Butcher, these two concepts are not the same. Do better. I will just go straight to the point that really pissed me off in this volume: Jim Butcher chose to write a pointless scene when a fourteen years old child, the daughter of Harry’s best friend, changes her clothes in front of creepy Dresden, who, of course, cannot help to notice her underwear. People often use the argument “these are the character’s thoughts not the author’s”. No, my friends, writing a scene of a minor changing clothes in front of an adult, a scene that has no relevance at all to the plot or to the characters, is a choice Butcher made and there is no justification or rational explanation to why this had to happen in the scene. He went as far as making Dresden notice the young girl’s underwear. At one point of the book Dresden compares himself to Peter Parker (Spider-man). I had already noticed that the author wanted Harry to be his own version of Peter Parker, but sorry to inform you Butcher, Dresden is nowhere near the man that Peter is. Spider-man would never objectify women as Harry does, especially underage girls. Jim Butcher please don’t give me reasons to believe you are a pedophile. I do not want to come to this conclusion, but those kind of pointless scenes are not helping. Please just keep your supposedly “good guy” characters away from underage girls. Thank you. As for the rest of the book, it was good. Every other character BUT Dresden, plus the world building are the reasons I’m still reading this series. The mystery plot in Death Masks was pretty interesting. Some characters had a deeper development such as Marcone and Susan, which I really enjoyed. Other interesting characters were also introduced: Shiro, Sanya, The Archive, Kincaid, etc. The plot, as for all The Dresden Files volumes, has its holes. Sometimes that world’s logic is a bit muddy and things are often too convenient in the story, but overall it was an entertaining book.

The cliffhanger of Dresden touching one of the silver denarii and later burying the coin deep on his basement intrigued me. I wonder how the story will develop from there.

Nonetheless, the author’s issues with female characters and the fact that Harry Dresden is a creepy pervert keep me from giving a Dresden sequel anything higher than 3 stars.

Content Warnings

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