While Butcher has been often accused of employing male fantasy tropes in his works, I sometimes think he has a habit of subverting them.
Thomas embodies two tropes: he has women magically drawn to him and being the only son in a billionaire family, is effectively the rich playboy who would make Dan Bilzerian jealous. He never had to work a day in his life up until he moved in with Harry, and he got to spend his time sleeping around, learning martial arts and driving fancy sports cars. His life on paper sounds like a dream come true.
However, for Thomas it's a dream come true in the sense that it's a nightmare. His magical ability is a demon that feeds on his partners. It makes it incredibly difficult for him to hold down a job, instead of filling him with pride, it fills him with self-loathing, and the cherry on top, he can't touch his true love Justine, the one woman he genuinely wants to be with. He has stated more than once that he wished he didn't have it.
Living off the family money also makes him dependent on his toxic family whom he would gladly have cut off otherwise. He never received anything in the way of love from his father, and while I think we could say he does love his siblings to a degree, we never see much in the way of warmth in his relationships with the people in his family. The only exceptions may have been his mother who left him when he was five, and his sister Inari. One thing Molly noted when soulgazing him is that he was, deep down, very much lonely. He had money and women, but he preferred his impoverished half-brother and his girlfriend, wanting real relationships over the glamour of his White Court life.
Harry is practically living a male fantasy right now as of Battleground. On paper, he's never been better. He lives in a literal castle as opposed to his old dingy apartment, has a small army of fae (pun intended), money from the haul in Skin Game and an extremely beautiful, superrich fiancé who's supernaturally good in bed. There are plenty of guys who would trade places with him right now in a heart beat. However, it's clear that he is not happy, if anything, he has never been more sad since the beginning of the series.
He has an awful boss with a job he has for life, and his fiancé is someone he can respect but never see as wife material. He lost a friend in Carlos, and his relationship with Eb is now strained. Two of some of the closest people in his life are gone. His brother Thomas has been locked away, and his lifelong friend and girlfriend Karrin is dead. Karrin was literally his true love, certified by Lara, and she was the person he trusted most, the one he trusted with his daughter and the Swords. It left a big hole in him that cannot be satisfied by castles, money or whampire wives. As the adage goes "money can't buy happiness" and neither can magic in the sense that it can't buy real relationships.
Harry was happier when he was still an impoverished PI in a dingy apartment where he had his independence and the authentic relationships with people he cared about. Harry and Thomas live the fantasy, but it's defined by a sense of emptiness. They truly desire connection and wanting to be their own men.
The male fantasy is a fantasy for a reason. It reminds me of the words of the late Summer Lady Lily: âI didnât want the world. I didnât want vast riches, or fame, or power. I wanted a husband. Children. Love. A home that we made together."
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