Dungeon Crawler Carl

The newest Dungeon Crawler Carl book came out, and of course I had to reread all the other books so that I didn't spend the first few chapters trying to remember the details of who is who, or what happened if they reference earlier events.

I am in awe of the storytelling, even more so after this book. I'm not sure how to explain it, I don't think I'd enjoy a similar book with less talentee writing (it doesn't shy from the grotesque and disturbing, imho. It's hard to imagine how a TV or movie could hold true to the story without either sanitizing it or having quite a lot of gore and violence) but I don't really think it's grimdark, despite my initial impressions.

There's hope, especially as he starts making allies and coordinating his fellow crawlers.

It's more like we have this absolutely terrible system, but you see how many people are caught up in it. They're not necessarily evil.

It also has some excellent moments showing the cognitive dissonance that lets a system like this exist.

He and his cat are popular enough that they're sometimes pulled from the show for interviews and such (kind of like in Hunger Games - if you're popular you're more likely to have a sponsor giving you loot that can really help you survive), and during one such show a side character was killed. All the other people on the show were expressing their shock and horror, and he's like 'it's terrible when they die, but you're all okay with us dying?'

Or when he learns that the AIs life is protected... But not the crawlers.

There's so many layers to the story - about terrible systems, community action, power dynamics (the AI is obsessed with his feet, which makes things - strange. Like we talk about sexual harassment and power dynamics in the real world, and an artificial intelligence that can make lots of monsters attack you is one hell of a power imbalance), there's his relationship with Donut (the cat, who was given a pet treat that made her intelligent and thus a crawler in her own right), and there's Carl's own backstory, which was slowly played out.

Really, I could write pages about these books.

But I think what I've been dwelling on the most is how part of his path to success is reminding the public that they are people.

Dehumanizing the 'other' has all too often allowed people to tolerate the intolerable. Allows them to brush it aside, or ignore it.

Like the rich people who cared more about Epstein's arrest than the damage he was doing to all those girls.

Same for job losses, healthcare disasters, and all the other things far too many people struggle with.

We may not have an obviously evil Dungeon Crawl, but there are systemic problems that people with power have learned to look away from.

Maybe they tell themselves it's because normal people are lazy, or entitled, or whatever excuse they can come up with to justify blocking any attempt at change... I don't really know what goes through their heads.

I just think any explanation that dehumanizes the vast majority of people (and calling them 'lazy' as a way of dismissing them is one such) is a good indicator that you're not thinking too clearly.