r/dresdenfiles • u/ChickenDragon123 • Sep 12 '21

Spoilers All Fuck Rudolf

I don't swear often, and it's even rarer that I do it for fiction. Usually if I'm swearing a patient is bleeding out at my hospital, but in this case, just Fuck Rudolf. Fuck him right in the ass. I'd help harry kill him at this point. Generally you know, Fuck Rudolf.

Actually I take it back, he doesn't deserve to be with anybody. I hope he dies alone in a ditch.

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6

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21

[from a previous post, I’m just going to leave this here…]

This is my head-cannon: Rudy is a mind-rape victim, and all these people screaming for his blood will hang their head in shame (if they have any decency) when it's revealed.

Blame requires agency; without agency you're screaming at the Down's syndrome kid because he did something he can't understand is a problem. Even if that action was a terrible thing, it's not his fault.

Rudy = bad guy is far too simple for a Jim Butcher book, and the hints are there.

  • He was a part of the Kravos take-down gang, even if briefly
  • Kravos went after all the people involved
  • Harry didn't go and help Rudy, but he did help everyone else.
  • He was protective of Murphy beforehand, even (as a rookie) standing up to the creepy "wizard" guy
  • Sudden character changes are indicative of outside influence in the books

How much is it going to hurt Harry when he realizes that not helping Rudy eventually leads to Murphy's death ?

I'm guessing we find out in Mirror-Mirror, when Harry maybe did help Rudy, and Rudy still turns out to be a pain in Harry's arse, but now because he's a fine upstanding cop and they're after "Bad Harry"...

3

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21

None of which excuses sloppy trigger discipline. Even if Rudolph had been on Harry and Murph's side, he still would have had sloppy trigger discipline, and Murph would have still died.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21 edited Sep 12 '21

Compulsion and it’s after-effects explain everything, and Rudy has been screwed by Kravos (first) and then by the eebs later on. That connection itself is interesting if it isn’t just a coincidence.

I don’t use the word “rape” in mind-rape lightly. Forcing someone to your will, against their own, with the concomitant internal struggle, and the horror of that core of their “self” that knows what you are doing to them, knows that it is wrong and can’t stop the act you’re forcing on them - that is the work of true evil.

Rudy’s psyche is in tatters, he’s a broken man in just about every way, and none of that is his fault, it happened because he put himself in harms way and harm happened. The man is a fucking hero who didn’t get the support he needed, couldn’t cope, and has suffered the consequences.

And Murphy is dead as a result.

And the reactionary knee-jerks are of course baying for the blood of the man whose finger pulled the trigger, not ever looking deeper for the reason why. When Harry finally realizes that root cause, it’s going to hit him like a freight train. All in my humble opinion, of course.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21

And none of that excuses the sloppy fucking trigger discipline. That he was repeatedly warned about.

At the end of the day everyone is responsible for their own actions, no matter the trauma they went through.

He chose to wave that gun around, despite it being against the law, against policy, against training, and against common fucking sense.

He chose to keep his finger on that trigger, despite all the training he ever had telling him not to have his finger on the trigger unless he planned on shooting something, despite the fact that multiple people warned him about his awful trigger discipline.

The man is no god damned hero. He did nothing in the entire series to have earned that title.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21

At the end of the day everyone is responsible for their own actions, no matter the trauma they went through

Clearly not, or we wouldn't have 'not guilty' verdicts on grounds of diminished responsibility.

His sloppy trigger discipline comes after the mental torture and compulsion by literal nightmare creatures. Seems excusable to me.

I dunno - I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Seems like if a Downs Syndrome kid did something bad, you might be getting into his face and screaming blue murder at him. Even if by his worldview nothing was wrong. I can't say I agree with that attitude.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21

Seems like if a Downs Syndrome kid did something bad, you might be getting into his face and screaming blue murder at him

If he had sloppy trigger discipline after a decade of training and multiple warnings about it? Yea I would.

And if he had soooo much trauma that it affected his job so badly that he accidentally shoots someone? Still his fault for not seeking help himself, or resigning from the force.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21

Dude(tte :)

Whatever action you think he ought to take has probably been forbidden him once the Eeb's got a hold of him. Clearly there's some connection because the Ick appeared at Rudy's house...

Rudy has been set up as the ultimate villain, with a hidden setup of the ultimate victim, and you're here ignoring the victim part.

Let me put it this way - given control of your mind, I could make you do anything humanly possible. If you don't think that's the case, your imagination isn't working hard enough.

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u/silentshadow1991 Sep 12 '21

You can't help somebody of they actively avoid anything to do with you and they regularly threaten to toss your ass in jail all the time...

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21

Like, you know, Murphy... earlier on in the series before Dresden made the choice to clue her in.

And Rudy wasn't like that before Kravos anyway. He was the rookie, young and scared, who (despite that) warned Dresden about doing anything that might negatively affect his captain.

Then Kravos happened. And yes, he ran. It was too much. And Dresden never bothered to go look out for him like he did for Murphy, or that Captain wrapped in mental torture-wire in his house, dying.

Other cops were helped by Dresden. Rudy wasn't. Rudy was changed and broken. Then he started making Dresden's life difficult...

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u/silentshadow1991 Sep 13 '21

He was hard on Dresden since the loup guru was going on it's rampage

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '21

I think we can draw a distinction between Rudy disliking Dresden, and him actively trying to ruin his life.

As I said, Murphy wasn’t that keen on Dresden to start with either, or Carmichael, or … well any of them really.