In this one, it's more like the latter (though I don't think CW means him to be *as* dumb and irresponsible as the logical reader must conclude he is). In To Say Nothing of the Dog his role is minor, but one more gets the impression that he's being clever behind the scenes than that he's being incompetent. In Domesday Book he's mostly a victim of ill fate doing the best he can -- and more of an honestly tragic figure there than in Blackout/All Clear, where he's meant to be but it doesn't ring as true.
The trouble is, the Mr. Dunworthy of Domesday Book really should never have let anyone use the net again, and if he did, he should know way, way better than he or anyone else seems to in the latter books.
I read To Say Nothing of the Dog first, without knowing the others existed, and that one a) read like a goofy farce, where people doing dumb illogical things was part of the comedy, not meant as realism, and b) like the net malfunctioning was supposed to be genuinely unusual and surprising in-universe. But when every single book involves severe and unexpected net malfunction (or at least, not-functioning-as-expected) to drive its plot, one has to wonder, not so much why they keep using the net, as why they ever expect it to function as expected, and why they don't just develop a routine that takes into account the fact that they can't actually reliably send people where they think they're going, or keep track of them/get them back?
Re: Shorthand Connie Willis rant
The trouble is, the Mr. Dunworthy of Domesday Book really should never have let anyone use the net again, and if he did, he should know way, way better than he or anyone else seems to in the latter books.
I read To Say Nothing of the Dog first, without knowing the others existed, and that one a) read like a goofy farce, where people doing dumb illogical things was part of the comedy, not meant as realism, and b) like the net malfunctioning was supposed to be genuinely unusual and surprising in-universe. But when every single book involves severe and unexpected net malfunction (or at least, not-functioning-as-expected) to drive its plot, one has to wonder, not so much why they keep using the net, as why they ever expect it to function as expected, and why they don't just develop a routine that takes into account the fact that they can't actually reliably send people where they think they're going, or keep track of them/get them back?