Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Brian (00:09)
Welcome everybody to another episode of Recorded Neutral Territory. I'm Brian O'Reilly and I'm very excited to kick off death masks, but remember the spoilers go all the way to twelve months. With me as always is Adam Ruzzo. Adam, why don't you start us off with a summary of these first chaotic chapters?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:27)
I'd be happy to, Brian. Harry gets his big break in reality TV, but his stage fright sparks a heated debate with his co-stars. Feeling as though he dodged a bullet, he gets a new job tracking down the church's dirty laundry.

Brian (00:39)
Thanks, Adam, that was very helpful. So don't sugarcoat it. Tell me how you really feel about the opening to this book. does this get get us kicked off in a satisfying way?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:49)
Yeah, actually, Brian, I really like the situation that Harry is put in in this book. And I didn't always like it. I always thought it felt a little awkward. Like every time I read it, I always go like, Why are they meeting here? What is going on? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Like, Mort does not want to be seen with Harry, and it feels at first like that's a little bit of an overreaction, Mort. What do you what what kind of you just being a little coward like you always are. And then

I realize, okay, but Ortega is literally having Harry's friends and associates followed by hired guns ready to murder them, and I realize, nope, Mort's Mort's absolutely right here. He's he's exactly as practical as he needs to be.

Brian (01:36)
Yeah, Mort is definitely not being too paranoid. I think the real question is, why couldn't this be a phone call? I you know, I I

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:42)
Yeah, right. Are they

tapping his phone? this is another one of his friends. Quick get get on him.

Brian (01:47)
Exactly. So

that that strikes me as a little silly. I I also sort of feel like Jim is being a little self-indulgent here because we talked about this a little bit before the show. Larry Fowler is almost certainly supposed to be a Jerry Springer style of character. And I did not watch a lot of Jerry Springer, but I don't really remember him having Wizards on.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (02:15)
No.

Brian (02:15)
So

it just seems like Jim really kind of wanted to do a a Jerry Springer setup, but there's no compelling reason why Larry should have them on the show. And like it doesn't even seem like he wants them on the show. So why is this happening in the first place?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (02:32)
Yeah, the other thing that I would criticize about this specific opening chapter is it feels a little ham-fisted, ham-handed, insofar as he's gonna use this to reintroduce you to Susan, but it's done as like directly narrated to the reader, right? First Harry's like, is it she at least alive? What can you tell me? Like, give me your report. And then Harry just kind of talks to the reader.

Susan

Rodriguez was a reporter at a regional yellow paper called the Midwestern Arcade, and gives her whole backstory and like what had happened to her previously. And that's just the most boring basic way to give that exposition. The scene itself doesn't help him explain. There's no somebody there who Harry has to, this is a person that Harry hasn't met before, and he needs explain his history to Susan. There's nothing that makes that feel more natural.

Brian (03:26)
Right. And I think there's a better joke here that, to be fair, would be a little bit more of a niche reference, but when has the Dresden Files ever shied away from that? Which

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (03:35)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (03:36)
is to have this be kind of a coast to coast style program, with Larry Fowler being more of an Art Bell character who's just, you know, completely credulous. Like you know, Harry walks in and is like, Yeah, you know, I was talking to Bigfoot the other day, and you know, Art Bell's just sitting there going, Bigfoot, now

How big are his feet? Can he wear normal shoes? Just just really total credulousness. And that could be its own kind of funny. And it would also sort of work and play into, the the vibe that we're trying to create by having a necromancer, a wizard, and a vampire

on stage with a literal devil, right? Like this is.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (04:17)
Right.

Brian (04:18)
Like a D like walks into a bar joke practically. And there's like a

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (04:23)
Yeah.

Brian (04:23)
there's a really funny joke about Art Bell being very credulous when the light is on. And then when it goes off being like, geez, can't thank you guys enough for coming out here. You know, I know sometimes you can feel a little ridiculous saying it, but you know, it really does get the people interested. So I appreciate you playing it up. And we get the exact opposite of that.

Right, which I understand why that would be more frustrating for Harry. And that's what Jim always wants to do. The books are there to punish Harry, but the joke here just I think would work better if it wasn't forced into being Jerry Springer.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (04:59)
Yeah, that would have been a better way to do to frame this scene as something like Coast to Coast. One of the things I will say in favor of this first chapter is it so neatly puts Harry on the horns of a dilemma here where he's got this suppression spell. Okay, first, inserting the idea that he can potentially suppress his Murphy onic field is a cool one. But if you let it be something that he can just do.

It denies you the tool of using the Murphy field to create all kinds of fun things like time is a river, life is a journey, the door is ajar. Like, you don't get that without the Murphy field. If you can just suppress it whenever he's riding in a car. Or if he can suppress it, then he can have a cell phone. Like you can't have that work, right? But we need a scene where it shows him trying it and failing. And it works really well for that purpose, not least of which because Harry his.

Forced to, and this might be entirely by design from Ortega's perspective. Harry is forced to deal with Ortega's dual request, his challenge, as it were, while he's under the time pressure of talking between commercials while holding on to this spell at the same time and dealing with the fact that he just found out his friends are all in mortal danger. Like it's all I think purposefully designed.

To make Harry make poor, quick choices when he hasn't had the right time to think about it. And we'll talk more about that as we get into the actual chapters.

Brian (06:28)
Yeah, I I don't think that this is an indefensible choice.

I mean, after we get done with the exploding Stownstage at the Larry Fowler show, we go to Assassination Attempt, The Shroud of Turin is missing, Susan's back, dead body in the morgue, literal fallen angels. That's the first six chapters. It is boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like techno beat levels of action movie is happening.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:57)
Or

or I mean butters is involved. Could be oompas. Oompa oompa oompa.

Brian (07:00)
Could be Oompas, yes, some polka.

And I don't think we get something that's this tense from the drop until changes, frankly. Jim writes himself an awfully big check to cash with the first few chapters in this book. I ultimately think he does it. But I feel like he just has set up such a series of coincidental one right after another.

Chaotic events that it creates a vibe that the story is gonna be full of stuff like that. And it is, but I think it might have actually worked better if we didn't see something really extreme until Deedre is in the Etrange.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:49)
Yeah, that's possible. But even then, I feel like the second chapter, surviving that hitman, is portrayed as the hitman being very

inexperienced, and like getting away from them actually is surprisingly easy. Probably because he thought, I'm just gonna go whack this priest, it'll be easy. We don't need to cover the exits, but then the wizard gets involved, you know?

Brian (08:12)
Yeah, definitely. But that's part of the sort of series of extraordinary events. You know, Marcone sends a hitman, but he's not a good hitman. You know,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (08:22)
Yeah.

Brian (08:22)
like it's it's a lot of little conveniences to create exactly the circumstances that Dresden has to find his way out of. And it's fine. The the book is all about that. I mean, this is a book of a lot of things coming together. And frankly, when

The white god and presumably the devil are this involved in the proceedings. You can definitely see fate, get entwined into things very strongly. But it's just it's a very fateful couple hours here. And I don't know if it had to be that. But

Adam, just taking chapter one on its own, Harry's meeting with Mort on the Fowler show.

Gets interrupted when they reveal Ortega. Now, Mort's there because that's where they're gonna, like I said, not on the phone, tell know, Harry whatever Mort's found out about Susan. Do you buy Ortega as he's the vampire, but his actual literal job as a mortal is debunking the paranormal?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (09:30)
Yeah, that's very interesting that he's introduced as a world-renowned researcher and debunker because A, it pits him in opposition to Harry on this show. so in that sort of public persona, he's in opposition to Harry, and he makes remarks.

That are basically calling Harry a liar there on the stage. And we know that he knows that those aren't true. So it's just one extra jab that he can get in on Dresden's pride. But the other question is okay, it would make sense if there was some somebody somewhere in the Red Court whose job it was to be a public figure that convinced people that vampires aren't real. Like

It seems like that would be an important job that you might give to a duke. Not somebody way high up, but just like, yeah, we've got a bunch of dukes. This is your this is one of the things that you do. When you go out in public, you pretend to be this guy, this professor or whatever that debunks things. That makes sense. But Brian, I actually think it's a lot funnier if he literally made this up just to get on the show that he knew Dresden was gonna be on, and the Larry Fowler team just

Is so apathetic in their fact checking, they don't care what he says. They looked at it and says, he says he's a doctor from South America, whatever. Yeah, go with it. Just put it on the Chiron. nobody will well nobody will bother checking. It's fine. We don't even need to care. He's gonna be good.

Brian (10:51)
Right. No one in our

audience can l speak the language from where he's from anyway. They're never gonna check the university website.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (10:57)
Exactly, exactly. I think it's funnier to imagine that that's the case.

Brian (11:01)
You know,

I like that choose your own adventure because it is kind of convenient that he just does that. But it works in the sense that if that's his job, he's actually the person whose main responsibility is maintaining the masquerade for the red court. Makes perfect sense. Or he just wanted another thing to twist at Dresden on the show. And why the hell does Larry Fowler care? Sure, you're the king of England, whatever.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:29)
Yeah. And one of the things that I think is interesting is trying to examine what this whole show is about, right? From the way it's described, where the audience begins to chant Larry, Larry, that is definitely evoking the Jerry Springer show, right? But the format doesn't feel like the Jerry Springer show because Jerry Springer, as I understood it, never brought like

well-known, you know, D tier celebrities onto the show, local, local names like Mort is and or or Dresden is. And it it also never struck me as a sort of interview show, the way that it's set up here. It this feels a little bit more format-wise, closer to a late show where they have dev several guests on and they have, you know, they come and they talk about to promote their new book or their new this or their new that. And that's how Mort is treating it.

Right. He's using it as a way to advertise his services. Like this is literally a marketing stunt for him to get people to to come and provide him with business. And I think the reaction that Larry has with Mort versus Harry is a little bit instructive because for whatever reason Mort feels much more comfortable and fits exactly what Larry is expecting.

But Harry, when he makes comments, it always seems to cause Larry some kind of anxiety or or discomfort or just anger. And it seems a little bit like if Harry is getting the last from the audience, it makes Larry upset. And I'm not 100% sure why.

Brian (13:00)
Well, I think it has something to do with the fact that Mort is poking fun at himself all the time and not taking himself seriously and letting Larry be the big dog, and you know, Mort is this guy who is probably a charlatan, but Larry's kind enough to let him pedal his wares on his program. And Dresden's just having none of that.

Because while Harry's trying to deflect from what Larry wants to talk about, the juicy detail that Dresden's a psychic who works with the cops. Dresden says that the reason he's on the show is because Larry's paying him double his fee makes it sound like Dresden is the big deal that Larry had to beg to come on his program. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:45)
That's a good point.

Brian (13:46)
of course that's gonna piss Larry off because he wants to be seen as the gray eminence in this situation.

But I also think it's because, and and this is why I I do feel like the kind of art bell thing would work better. It's because Larry is supposed to be doing a quid pro quo with these guys, where they say some out there stuff that, you know, his viewers get titillated by, and in exchange, he, you know, pulls his punches enough.

To where maybe they do get some business out of this. And Dresden's just straight up like, no, I really am a wizard. If you think I'm wrong, you're dumb. Like that's his attitude.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (14:32)
Yeah.

Brian (14:33)
So he's not playing along with the shtick, even though based on how the show is introduced, Larry's personality, it's a little weird that that's what the shtick seems to be.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (14:45)
Yeah. And the other thing that I thought was interesting here that I asked myself, like, okay, but why is Harry asking Mort to help him find Susan, right? He explains that Susan's boss called him and said that her column hadn't come in, and that's what makes Harry nervous, right? She's been gone for a while. Why should he care? Now there's your inciting incident. He calls up Mort and says, I want you to look into this for me, and he agrees, but only if they meet here. Fine. Whatever. That's the setup.

But why call Mort in the first place? And then you get this reveal where he's like, is she I you know my sources in contacting the dead are not that great. Is she at least alive? And then you're like, shit. He's worried she's dead. He's acting the he's asking the Ectomancer to find out if she's dead. That's a lot darker than I thought.

Brian (15:38)
Yeah, and that is I would criticize it for being a little, yeah, why mort? Why not ask Ebenezer? But it's because Harry's worried about that specific thing. That's why his mind turns to Mort. That absolutely makes sense to me. I get it. now Harry's been on the show before, where apparently the suppression spell did work at him. We don't really

Hear about that. So I'm a little bit surprised that Harry isn't quite as prepared for the host to kind of be as antagonistic as he is. It really does like the jeers of the crowd get to him. That's the first moment. We have the lights flicker. Why is that not just water off over a duck's back? Like Harry, you what you're getting yourself into. You know, aren't you mentally prepared for this?

Obviously it makes a lot of sense that he's off his game once Ortega introduces himself, but even before that, Dresden's apparently a returning guest, so why is he so surprised by what's going on?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (16:37)
Yeah, I was also confused by that a little bit because very specifically, Harry narrates to the reader quote, the suppression spell was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be, and getting harder by the minute, unquote. So he we know he was on the show before, and presumably it people were able to see that show because they recognize him as the guy from Rare Larry Fowler in some of the previous books. So

somehow he was on the show when he first opened his private investigation office. And that means A, he didn't need a suppression spell back then because he was just not that strong at that time, which means the murphionic field didn't go as crazy. Or B, he did use the suppression spell successfully, and then that r asked the question, okay.

Why then is it so much harder now? And I think that is probably the question we should be asking. And it's just because he's come into his own. The the time he was on the Larry Fowler show was literally like two years before Stormfront, I think is when he set up his private investigation office when he when he split up from Nick. So that to me suggests that it's been about five or six years, and he's gone through the final stages of wizard puberty or whatever you want to call it, and he's just got a

bigger power, right? He's reached the maturity level of his power. From now on, when his power grows, it's gonna be because his skill and control and experience level are growing, not because of some natural increase in power over time.

Brian (18:13)
And remember, we've also speculated that him eating Kravos could

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:17)
Yeah.

Brian (18:18)
have something to do with his power being a little bit higher. So that would make sense too. And, you know, it does make sense that, you know, Dresden says that going on the first time had been a mistake. He'd have to fight his way uphill against the infamy. So maybe Dresden's got those bad feelings, and that's why he's kind of unwilling to put up with any of Larry's BS. But all of this.

requires you to believe that Mort couldn't just have this conversation with him over the phone.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:47)
Yeah. that's the one weakness

or plot hole you might say that does feel a little bit contrived.

Brian (18:52)
Right, the more reasons you come up with for why this is such a terrible situation for Harry, the more obvious it becomes that they could have done this some other way. I know, right? Like

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (19:02)
Yeah. Literally write a letter and send it through the mail.

Brian (19:06)
or d have a spirit show up in his house and just tell him, you know, whatever.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (19:10)
Yeah, and

I I mean the the one charitable way to look at this is Harry is desperately concerned about Susan because she's recently, you stopped s sending in her r her articles to her editor, and so he's very worried about it. So when he calls up Mort or or talks to Mort somehow, maybe finds him outside, goes to his house and Mort says, Fine, I'll do it, but not here. I'll contact you or whatever, and like shuts the door in his face, whatever it is. Harry is

Desperate enough that he just agrees to whatever Mort says, like, fine, yes, just get me the information, even if it means I have to go on the Larry Fowler show.

Brian (19:41)
Yes, but

that means that Mort thinks that appearing with Dresden on TV is safer than calling him on the phone.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (19:50)
Yeah, and to be fair, we know that the Red Court uses like mortal stuff. Like they literally buy his building sometime between now and changes. I remember the exact time. So I don't think it's beyond reason to think that some red court technicians dressed up as city telephone, you operators

Went up on a telephone pole, tapped into it just to hear all the phone calls that Harry makes on his actual phone. Like that

is not beyond the reason. And even if that wasn't the case, Harry could easily assume that that's the case, or maybe Mort does.

Brian (20:23)
Totally think that that's possible, Adam. And I think that's honestly you could go as far as to say that's probable. But the other thing I'll say is that the Red Court has already tried to assassinate Harry Dredston, and they did it in public in the middle of the day, and didn't have any concern for the people around him. We saw that in the last book. So Mortz fears if he's more afraid of his phone being tapped than he is of you know getting assassinated in broad daylight.

I guess that makes sense. But

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (20:53)
I think it's

less about him being afraid of being caught in the middle of a Dresden assassination. But if I am a known associate of Dresden, that makes me a target. And that's exactly what Ortega is literally doing in this scene. All of Harry's known associates are being targeted by Red Warriors and Mortal Assassins. And if Mort had been on that list.

He would also be potentially killed as a result of being known as an associate, not necessarily just but if he's on the same show as Dresden, well then there's no reason for them to necessarily add him to that list.

Brian (21:32)
Now, I understand that that's the idea, but what actually happens shows why that was dumb on Mort's part. There's a Red Court vampire on the show. Could be in the stands, could be working in as part of the crew. That guy's gonna hear everything Morton Dresden talk about because, they've got super good hearing. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (21:52)
Hmm.

Brian (21:53)
you know, why risk this at all, Mort? This is you're putting Dresden in a situation where the Red Court

w is gonna want to be around to see if they can take a swing at him. And then you're gonna try to have a private conversation about his half vampire girlfriend. Like, like you said, Adam, just stick this in a letter and mail it from a post office box with no return address. That's the way that you should actually handle this this business.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (22:17)
Yeah. Alright,

but

Setting aside our critique of Mort's tradecraft, let's continue talking about what we're actually seeing here in the chapter. Specifically, of course, Ortega reveals yes, Mr. Dresden, I am here to kill you in Chicago. I'm here in Chicago to kill you, but not today. Just to talk today.

We're gonna you know, he lays out the whole thing with the duel, and that raises a very important and interesting question. Why is Ortega choosing this method to kill Dresden? Why not shoot him at a long distance with a sniper rifle the way that Kincaid is gonna do? Or put a bomb in his car or any other possible ways of killing Dresden? And we are going to address that question.

But we're gonna wait until chapter seventeen when Shiro adds some useful information because he says if he approaches you through formal civilized channels, it is because he thinks it is the best way to kill you. And that, I think, opens us to that question at the right time to talk about it. So we'll get back to that at that point.

Brian (23:17)
Yeah, and and spoilers,

I don't think Shiro's just talking about the easiest way to kill you. That's

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (23:24)
Right.

Brian (23:24)
not necessarily what best means. But I think the more interesting question for this chapter, Adam, is how he negotiates to participate in this duel. I mean, he's negotiating with a gun held to not his head but his friend's head. But could he have done anything better? Because this seems pretty lopsided, right? Option one.

I win, and you don't try to kill me or my friends, who are non-combatants anyway, directly in Chicago anymore, versus two, you win the duel, I'm dead, and war's over, you got your way.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (24:03)
Yeah, that leaves one really big obvious plot hole there, Brian. What if what if his friend takes a holiday to Hawaii? What if what if Georgia goes home to visit her parents who live outside the city or whatever? To me, just acknowledging and accepting the terms exactly as Ortega has has portrayed them here, because Harry doesn't the only point Harry makes is you've got to put it in writing.

Under the accords, like there has to be witnesses and it has to be all official so that you can't weasel your way out of it. That is a good thing to that's a good loophole to close there, Dresden. If you just took him at his word, that's a problem. But making sure that they call Ivy and Kincaid and make this all official, good first step. But to me, he should have counteroffered with not only is Chicago a neutral territory, but you never come after me or my friends or use them as leverage for any reason, right? No matter where they are.

Constraining it to only Chicago is a huge tunnel of a loophole to drive through in a f in a future situation, even if Dresden gets through it without the whole cheating situation that happens at the end of this book.

Brian (25:10)
Or just say yes and we'll negotiate the written terms at accorded neutral territory where I'll be with my lawyer in two hours. And then Ortega shows up and you know the Lenanchi's there in some very practical shoes and a pantsuit, you know, ready to yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (25:30)
That would be amazing. Yes, because

I feel like that would be something the godmother's totally able to do without a huge ask back from Harry.

Brian (25:38)
Yeah, well, and you know a fairy lawyer, that's the best you can get. You know, there's no

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (25:41)
Yeah, absolutely.

Brian (25:42)
no better representation. So we could have gotten some pretty cool scenes here. What we get instead is Harry gradually getting more keyed up and therefore blowing out the stage. But seriously, Adam, if he does have the presence of mind to set up some either in writing or in person at a later date, other negotiations.

What should he be asking for?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (26:07)
Well, I think the idea like closing that one big loophole for his friends is the first idea. Another idea is like, okay, you win the war ends. Why not I win the war ends too? Like, why does it why d why can't we end the war if I win? Why don't we make this into a trial by combat that like determines if I was right th you know, in doing what I what I did with Bianca's place or whatever, you know, and that she was in the wrong for setting me up.

To specifically break the guest right the way that she did, right? now, do I think that that necessarily would have been acceptable by Ortega or even anybody under the Accords? Because they could look at it and go, No, no, no, definitely violated a guest right. You're a hundred percent guilty. You can't take a trial by combat to get out of it. But maybe he could have done that as a as a negotiating tactic, as a place to start. You know, you you don't ever start with the thing that you're willing to give. You start

Higher or lower than that, and you negotiate to that middle ground that you're willing to give. So starting with, yeah, I want the war to end wouldn't be a terrible starting place, even if you could say at least negotiate back to a cessation of hostilities to to go to some kind of a negotiation. I don't know. That seems like there could have been something more there.

Brian (27:21)
Now, I think the reason why that doesn't happen is Jim's just saving, breath on the matter, because that is a non-starter, because it's already sort of been out there in the facts that Harry violated guest right. Like per the accords, he had no claim to Susan, and them's just the facts. So he can't be vindicated in a trial by combat. But if he wins the duel, maybe the Red Court needs to

Return some captives or pay a wear guild for Archangel, which happened before hostilities started, or you know,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:56)
Right.

Brian (27:57)
something where the the White Council gets something out of it and not just Harry personally, because as Harry's seen in the last book, there are some very powerful forces in the White Council who maybe don't want to help him, and he maybe should try to get into the good graces of more members of the wizard community.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:15)
Yeah, and worth pointing out, like, would any of these ideas made the book better? No, of course not. The book is better if we just jump into the action here to see Harry say, Yeah, I'll talk to you in two hours and we'll nail you know, we'll we'll iron out all the details. Like, that's not gonna make a good book. But we are just kind of examining within the context of the story, that would have been a smarter thing for Harry Dresden to

But

he's under the gun. There's so much anxiety here. He was worried about Susan. He's now got the the whole deal with Larry Fowle. He doesn't like being on here. He's got the suppression still. He's got this guy that he knows wants him dead right next to him. There's time pressure, and he just goes with it.

Brian (28:55)
Yeah, Jim is turning the screws in this moment to create a very, very tense scene, and he's doing exactly

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (29:01)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (29:02)
what he wants to do here. The critique isn't that the resulting scene isn't tense, like it doesn't accomplish its doylist goals. The only critique is that from a Watsonian perspective, it's a little bit of a stretch. Here's some reasons why maybe I could conceive of the characters doing something different, or it doesn't make the characters look that good. And

I don't think there's really any problem with starting the book like this. It's just that this does, like I said, immediately start things rolling downhill at quite a pace. It's

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (29:36)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (29:37)
really, really unrelenting, maybe until Ulsharavas is summoned in, you know, a few chapters. But one thing that we should address before we move on, Adam, is that Dresden claims.

A duel would mean a fair fight, and I hate fair fights. But fundamentally, he does win the fair fight. So is it is everybody just kind of wrong when they later say to Dresden, don't duel Ortega, he'll kill you? Like, it doesn't seem like he was so tough. Harry pretty much kicks his ass at the actual duel they fight.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (30:14)
Yeah, and I think there's two things going on here, right? One of them is the people that he's talking to, Susan, Martin, Shiro, that are warning him against this duel, are definitely saying, Yeah, Ortega is hundreds of years old. He's incredibly skilled at killing people and manipulating people. He will win that fight. Now, that assumption is wrong because our Harry is a starborn badass, but

Harry also probably assumes, yeah, this guy's hundreds of years old. He's a noble in the red court. I'll probably lose no matter what type of weapons we choose. So that's the false assumption that all of them are making. Number one. Number two, they are many of them also say, yeah, and he's gonna fucking cheat. He's not going to leave this to chance on the chance that you might be able to beat him. There will be something pushing the scales down in his favor, and they're right about that.

Two. So they're wrong about the assumption that he can't win the fair fight, but they are right about the fact that he is going to cheat.

Brian (31:16)
Yeah, I think the funny thing is that Harry is exactly wrong in the moment because what everybody's really saying to him is this guy's hundreds of years old. You think he's lived that long by playing fair. Right.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:28)
That's another way, yeah, exactly.

Brian (31:30)
And Harry's thinking, well, I want to get things to my advantage. Harry, the way you do that is by really clearly setting up some rules that he can't wiggle his way out of that create a fair fight.

And then out-prepping him for that fight within those rules, which as a wizard, you should be capable of doing. So the funny thing is, yeah, Harry, you don't want a fair fight, but the fight that's most favorable to you is one that's quote unquote fair, because you can be way more prepared for that than a fair fight in the sense of

You both just stroll out at high noon on a random day in, you know, the summer.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (32:15)
Now, to be fair, Harry, unknowingly, did get all that preparation, but not him personally. Martin turns out to be the one that does all the preparation on Harry's behalf and actually

Brian (32:26)
Martin

Martin and because it's downplayed in the book, Thomas. Thomas is

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (32:32)
Right.

Brian (32:32)
really the person who actually pulls Harry's ass out of the fire in this book. And when we get up to those chapters, we're gonna talk about that. Because it's not Martin. Martin is like he's involved, but he's really just there to kill Ortega, as he says. Thomas is the guy who comes up with the whole white court backstabbing.

Plans within plans, wheels within wheels things to save Harry again. And it's honestly kind of a moment of awesome for Thomas that he won't get again probably until White Knight when he's like basically being a secret agent, you know, as a part of his side job.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (33:13)
Yeah, exactly. Now there is one more thing I wanted to talk about before we leave this first chapter, and that is just how chilling it is when you reread a lot of the Ortega lines

Brian (33:23)
Yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (33:24)
with the knowledge that Shiro gives you later about like because he seems so reasonable. He says, not merely wizards suffer from this.

Our attention to the war leaves us less able to control the wilder elements of our own court. We frown on reckless killings, but wounded or leaderless members of our courts often kill when they don't need to. T! Tis a pity. Sorry, he didn't say that exact last part, but he's basically seeming as reasonable as possible. And you're thinking to yourself, cause you've only been exposed to the red court thing.

Through Bianca. And yes, they seem like monsters in pretty much everything they do, but this is the second time you're exposed to them, and you're like, well, maybe she's an outlier. Maybe they are more reasonable than they appear. And then you reread this with the knowledge of what you get, A, from Shiro, where he talks and gives Harry a pep talk about, hey, this isn't your fault. They've been trying to start this war for a long time. Don't believe anything they say. Susan gives them a similar pep talk.

And we also get direct from Ortega's mouth later on, where Ortega specifically says, You're we're not so different, you and I, you know? We you could join us. And Harry's like, Do you feed on children? Yeah, no, we are different guy. Piss off, we're doing this. Right. So I think going back and rereading these things

where Harry basically says, if you kill me, my death curse might fall on you, he shrugs and says, I am not as important as the whole of the court. I will take the risk. We know, we know that's not his belief. He's not willing to lay down and die for the court. He's way more selfish than that, than he appears there. He seems so righteous and sacr self sacrificial, like the court is more important. I will take a risk with my life for the betterment. No.

That's not who he really is.

Brian (35:09)
So I think there's two readings of Palo Ortega that are both reasonable. The first is that he's not that different from the person he portrays himself to be. He's just also a Red Court vampire. So he probably was all of these things in his life. And as the Red Court vampire, he still has a lot of instincts that sort of cut that way.

But, in the end, he's going to cheat, he's going to lie, he's going to be manipulative because that demon inside of him, or the one that's taken him over, or whatever the situation is, that's driving the show now. And fundamentally, you know, it doesn't really have that same commitment to honor. Or my preferred reading. And my preferred reading is that Palo Ortega is one of the scariest characters we see in the entirety of the Dresden Files.

And the reason why I'm saying that is because he is a conquistador. Palo Ortega is not some random Spanish colonist who just happened to get mixed up with the wrong crowd. He and Cortez were out there, like, raising empires to the ground so

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (36:17)
Yeah.

Brian (36:17)
that they could get their payday.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (36:19)
Yeah, genocide for personal gain.

Brian (36:21)
Right. And from that point, he was so chilling that Ariana, you know, that compassionate lady we're gonna meet in a few books, takes it upon herself to torture him for all of eternity because that's how much of a dick he is.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (36:39)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (36:39)
And the result of that torture is a first-class education in what it is to attract.

To convince, to manipulate people, despite of what they already think of you, to get them into your to believing you that this time it's real, over and over and over again, and then to be able to snap and immediately turn on them at the drop of a hat. That guy probably started out as a sociopath, and he's become Hannibal Lecter, just

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (37:12)
Right.

Brian (37:13)
Completely detached from humanity and incredibly good at faking it. So I like that reading, Ortega. The other one's also valid. I think both are possible. But something that I think we should also pick up on Adam and where I thought you might have been going with this, you know what Else is chilling to read? Every single one of Father Vincent's lines. Because when you recognize

That the guy who's just calmly talking to Mort while Ortega and Dresden hash this out is actually like a 2,000-year-old sorcerer who is just in town to, you know, kind of bring about the end of the world kind of situation, is so horrifying. The Denarians.

make Ortega look hot blooded and passionate, Cassius is completely capable of turning on and off this persona at will. And we really get to see that in chapter two.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (38:17)
Yeah, and one thing that really stood out when I was reading through the second and third chapters where we sort of meet Father Vincent for the first time through Harry's eyes is just how convincing he is as Father Vincent. There is not a real clue at all that a reader could look at this and say, there's something hanky going on over here. It's it's like maybe there is, but

Only if you know everything that's coming later and you really study it. There's a couple of times when Harry s you know gets a little suspicious and he asks a question and then it immediately is put to rest. Like the answer that Father Vincent has ready for him is real easy. So a perfect example of this is

Where he says, I'm told you're the best investigator in the city for it. And Harry's like, You got something supernatural going on. And this is where Vincent reveals that he does not believe that Harry is a wizard or that magic exists. He says, No, naturally not. I am not naive, Mr. Dresden, but I am told you know more about the occult community than any private investigator in the city. And Harry's like, that makes sense. He's coming to me because I know more about the occult. But how does he know that?

And he says, who referred you to me? He doesn't just say, this guy, Father Vincent, I know. He does the whole shtick. He goes, a local priest. And he takes out a small notebook and looks at it and says, yes, I spoke to Father Forthill from St. Mary's of the Angels. Like, he goes through the whole shtick of like trying to remember this priest that I barely know. Now we find out later that Father Vincent and Father Forthill know each other very well.

They fought a vampire together, and that's why they both have matching tattoos. They got matching tattoos the day after they had a crazy night fighting a vampire with some others that were in their that were like getting their religious studies at the same time. But at this point he's putting himself forth as, I just talked to a local priest while I was on my way here to get a recommendation and you came up. And it feels in the moment like, yeah, that tracks. Father Voorthill knows Harry.

And he would definitely recommend Harry if somebody asked for this specific case.

Brian (40:30)
It's crazy because Jim usually is pretty scrupulous about dropping some kind of hint that the person isn't who they say they are if he's gonna extend the whole thing for a really long time. He drops some clue that you can look back on and go, okay. Yeah, now that makes sense. And there is nothing in any of Cash's reactions that sell him as

Anything other than Father Vincent,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (41:00)
Yeah, and I think

that's very clearly on purpose.

Brian (41:03)
Yes, yes. D Jim is definitely trying to tell you, I think as you said in the pre-show, that Cassius has done this perhaps a couple times. This is like kind of what he does for Nicodemus, and he's very good at it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (41:16)
Yeah, which is why it's even more surprising that Marcone is able to figure out that he ha that Father Vincent has been replaced later. That is a fun reveal. We're gonna get to that.

Brian (41:28)
Well, I think actually that the only way you can see the issue here is what ultimately is the undoing of Father Vincent, and it's probably why Marcone's able to figure it out. It's that Cassius is really good selling it in the moment, but his whole story will not stand up to any scrutiny. He sells it, he lies really, really well because he has to lie well enough that you won't actually look into it.

Because if you do, it's gonna fall apart. If Harry calls Father Forthill and says, Did you, you know, Father Vincent said that he stumbled into you and and Forthill's gonna be like, Yeah, I've known him for years. Of course he came directly to me. He didn't remember my name. That's ridiculous, Harry. You know, like then it's gonna fall apart. But as long as that's convincing enough that Harry doesn't even follow up, then it's gonna stand up to scrutiny. And the reason that that's

Kind of interesting is that the clue for us readers is a meta clue. It's something about the nature of the case that's being presented to Harry. Because if Father Vincent is a special envoy from the Vatican who's come into town to track down a priceless artifact, why the hell is he asking a random local priest?

What you know, have you heard of any private investigators who might know? No, he's gonna come in and say to the archbishop, here's two million dollars. Hire the best private ema investigator you can in America, and the Pinkertons are gonna be on the case the next day. or it's gonna be Forth Hill's best friend who knows that magic is real and is gonna go directly to the wizard because he believes in magic, right?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (43:14)
Right.

cause I have to imagine, okay, when Cassius is getting this gig, he traps Father the real Father Vincent somewhere and probably interrogates him for a while to get it get get the information he needs to properly pretend to be him. Where are you staying? who have you contacted here? You know, all the information that he would need to put up a good front. But he doesn't get everything. he says, Okay,

Who did you talk to?

I talked to Father Ford Hill and he said I should recommend Dresden. But like, okay, he gets that fact, but he doesn't get the fact that we're buds, we go back for many years. So it makes sense that he would miss that specific detail because he's not gonna catch everything when he's interrogating Father, the real Father Vincent.

Brian (43:59)
Yes, he doesn't actually have a good reason for Father Vincent to talk to Father Ford Hill because there is none outside of the fact that they know each other already, and that the real Father Vincent does know that the supernatural, in the like very immediate here on earth sense,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (44:17)
Yes.

Brian (44:18)
is real. The other thing that's kind of a little bit of a tell here is that in chapter three.

When Father Vincent lays out the case for Harry, he's gonna dance around the subject of the investigation. But

before we get there, we have to talk about the other thing that happens in chapter two, where Harry almost gets a bullet in the head because there's an outfit hitter trying to kill this like 70-year-old priest. What is Marcone doing?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (44:51)
Yeah, but before he realizes much later in the book that the outfit hitter is actually going after Father Vincent, he's got another one of those moments of wizard arrogance. somebody's shooting in my direction. They must be trying to kill me. And it turns out that's not the case. Now, you probably would forgive him for assuming that based on the last several years of his life.

Brian (45:18)
Based on the

last conversation he had.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (45:20)
Yes,

that too that too. So I will say, even though technically this is a case of wizard arrogance and not the not everything in the world revolves around you, Dresden, he's not far off. so f we can forgive him this one. But yes, so the there's an outfit hitter shooting at him. The outfit hitter is clearly a little inexperienced. I don't know if they gave him this job because they're like, Yeah, you just need to go whack a priest. It'll be easy. There's there there's nothing they can do. But it does raise the question, Brian.

Harry thinks he's the target. Later he realizes he's definitely not and realizes that Vincent was the target. So why the hell is Marcone trying to kill Father Vincent?

Brian (45:59)
And I think this has to be a case of one of two things. Either one, and I think this is honestly probably the more likely one, though it's a little contrived, is that Marcone is keeping tabs on Father Vincent from the moment he lands in the States because he knows that the Vatican is looking into the theft that he's commissioned and he wants to keep track of the investigation. And one of the guys he has tailing Vincent.

Sees the dead body of Vincent, and Marcoon hears that somebody's walking around purporting to V to be Vincent now and thinks it's whatever other organization is trying to rip off the shroud, which it is.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (46:40)
Right, he knows at this point probably be the whole Interpol investigation because remember, he's got contacts all over Chicago. Interpol would have contacted the Chicago police immediately upon finding LaRoche's body and with the Chicago tickets and they would have said, Okay, here's the thing, this thief got killed, and Marcone says, Okay, so s I hired these guys, somebody killed one of them, and now there's a big investigation.

I gotta follow these guys. And wait, now the priest they sent to find it has been replaced by someone. They're probably the people that killed my thieves. So I really need to take them out because they're also comp competing interests for my purchase. I bought this. They can't have it. Let's kill this guy.

Brian (47:28)
And while I don't think Anna Valmont has clued in Marcone really on anything that's going on, I do think she's the kind of person to say, you know, there were complications. You didn't tell us there'd be another group going after the shroud,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (47:43)
Right.

Brian (47:43)
you know, just because she's gonna try to negotiate to get a higher price or whatever. So that's information that she will give Marcone now he knows to be on the lookout. And Marcone, assuming this is just another crew of thieves, doesn't

Put a high priority troubleshooter on it. He's just got an opportunist who's tailing Vincent, you know, who he says, hey, if you can, you know, see a way to get him alone with, you know, no witnesses who can identify you, you know, feel free to take him out. The guy's not a real priest anyway. And that play would make total sense as long as Marcone doesn't and no the per people he has telling him, as long as nobody ever sees both the original and the replacement.

And realizes they look exactly the same. Because if somebody did, Marcone would have to talk to the other potential source in this situation, Sigrin Gard. And the the shortcut to this whole situation could just be that Gard knows there are Denarians in town because Monarch knows there are denarians in town, and Marcone's paying for the premium plus membership.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:50)
Yeah.

Brian (48:52)
And

she just tells him, Hey, you should probably try to kill this guy. He's kind of a two thousand-year-old sorcerer who will totally fuck with your plans.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:00)
Yeah, if you're gonna s if you can find an opportunity to assassinate him when he's pretending to be immortal, maybe that'll work. So that brings us to the end of the chapter. Harry manages to get away. He sees just in case it wasn't a hundred percent clear, he sees Hendrix in a car outside the garage when they when they go speeding out of it in the Blue Beetle, and that just cements in his mind okay, this is definitely Marcone trying to kill me. What the hell's going on here? And

so then

Harry drives them to Father Vincent's motel, and that's where Father Vincent lays out the facts of the case. And as you mentioned, there's a little bit of an unusual reveal in this chapter where Father Vincent keeps referring it referring to the stolen article as the relic or the artifact. And it's not until he's finished laying out all the details that he finally describes the item itself.

Quote, the artifact is an oblong length of linen cloth, fourteen feet three inches long by three feet seven inches wide, made of hand woven three to one herringbone twill. There are a number of patches and stains in the cloth, and and then of course that's where Harry interrupts and says, Wait a minute, where did you say this was stolen from? Because he's starting to get a suspicion. And then he realizes, it was stolen from Northern Italy, huh? How about Turin? Yeah, he's figured it out. It's the Shroud of Turin. But

the interesting thing here, Brian, is like why does it take him so long to spill the beans on the whole thing? Like at first it looked like he's trying to hide what this thing actually is, but then he gives you all the details you need to figure it out.

Brian (50:32)
Yeah, so

from a doylist sense, this works perfectly. Harry seems smart for figuring out what the, relic in question is. We get to watch him, you know, know his history, know his geography, put two and two together, and yeah, our protagonist is he's he's on the ball. But in a Watsonian lens, why wouldn't Father Vincent, who's just cassius anyway,

Just tell him it's the Shroud of Turin. So I came up with three reasons. You tell me what your favorite is. One is Cassius wants Harry to know, but the church, of course, wouldn't want him to know because he's gonna go run to the Chicago Tribune and the church has lost the right. Yes. And the

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (51:14)
Or the ar probably the arcane actually.

Brian (51:16)
church has lost the shroud of Turin, and I'll sell an exclusive interview to you, you know, and

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (51:20)
Yes, Father Ford Hill vouched for him, but you don't necessarily know that that's a hundred percent ironclad.

Brian (51:26)
So Cassius would then pretend to be concealing that information, because he thinks Father Vincent would be trying to conceal that information, but

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (51:34)
But he but he does it badly on purpose.

Brian (51:36)
so that Harry can figure it out because he just wants Harry to sort of know what he's looking for. Option two is that Cassius just doesn't assume that Harry is a person of faith. And therefore, you

I I know that God is real. I'm holding the coin of a fallen angel, but you, idiot wizard, probably think you're the most important thing in existence. So you probably don't even know what the Shroud of Turin is. And from Father Vincent, the person he's pretending to be, perspective, he's already said, I don't believe in magic. So don't try to sell Harry on, you know, how important of a relic it is. It sounds like you're

Buying into his shtick. So you just assume he doesn't know what the relic is. You don't really want to talk to him about what the relic is. You're kind of feeling slimy about this whole thing. You just want to give him the minimum information he needs. And, you know, you don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of what it is. Or option three, Cassius thinks that Vincent would want Harry to know what it is. And that actually he might not give Harry the case.

Unless he could figure out what it is. So which of those three do you think is kind of the most likely? I it's weird because it's a double blind situation. It's Cassius speaking through Vincent, but which

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (52:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian (52:55)
of those seems the most likely to you?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (52:57)
I think it's probably the first one. I also kind of like the idea of like this is kind of a test. I want to see if Harry can figure it out. You know, what does he know about our world? Like, just get a little more information

Brian (53:08)
Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (53:08)
for Nicodemus, because you he's gonna try to recruit him later, right? He knows Nicodemus is looking into this.

Brian (53:12)
But I do like that Jim gives Harry the opportunity to work out some additional stuff here because the shroud is a little bit of an easy get, but some more of the deductions he makes are real police work.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (53:26)
Yeah, that was very cool because it really paints this picture

This feels like, yeah, he's been working with Murphy for a while, and he comes up with a lot of the kinds of investigative things that he should come up with under that situation. Specifically, he says, okay, take a look at this picture. LaRoche was not murdered there. There's not enough blood for this kind of wound. And a professional killed him. Look at those straight cuts. This is no way this was like just a crime of passion or something. Exactly,

Brian (53:51)
Prime of passion, yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (53:52)
exactly. And then

We find out that the guy had Chicago tickets in his jacket pocket. Like a professional would not leave those there unless he wanted the police to find him. Therefore, he was left in a specific location with a sign that might as well be pointing at Chicago. This was that somebody wanted you to come here, right? For a reason.

Like, so then the question is who would want this body to be a clue and why? Now we know Deirdre's the one that cut up La Roche and Deirdre's the one that cut up Vincent because those were the same type of cuts that we see on Francesca later in the entrange scene. But the question I have, Brian, why are the Denarians specifically placing this body to point the police at Chicago?

Brian (54:41)
Yeah, now one possibility here is that Nicodemus just has a playbook he really, really likes. It's the exact same thing that the Sabat love to do in Vampire of the Masquerade, those Lesambra always impersonating priests. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (54:56)
Yeah.

Brian (54:57)
they want there to be a flaming neon sign pointing to Chicago. So that's where the Vatican sends their guy, so they can kill the priest and impersonate him. So that's one possibility.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:08)
Actually I see Cassius like hey Nicodemus, can can you get a priest there? Cassius,

Brian (55:13)
Right, exactly.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:14)
you and the priest every time. Why do you always want to be a priest?

Brian (55:16)
Right. I just like killing priests, you know.

so that's one possibility. The other possibility is that Nicodemus realizes that the church mice are pretty sophisticated and that their buyer must have pretty deep pockets. And all of this is designed to get Interpol involved, to get the FBI on the case.

To turn up the heat so there's enough friction that they have the time to track down the shroud before the buyer gets it and puts it underground, whatever they're gonna do with it. Nicodemus wants to get it in transit. And one of the reasons why he wants to get it in transit is because he wants to get it near major international throughways, right? Chicago

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (56:08)
Uh-huh.

Brian (56:09)
happens to be perfect.

But Nicodemus doesn't necessarily know that's the final destination for the trout. So if he turns up the heat enough, maybe he can keep them in town. And hair? That would be a perfect place for me to launch my plague anywhere. It's all coming together. So I think there's some combination of trying to actually make things more high profile, both so that the Vatican has a reason to get involved.

specifically in Chicago, and so that the authorities are putting a lot of pressure on the church mice.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (56:46)
Yeah, and I think it's probably a combination of things too. Why do things for one reason when you can do them for multiple reasons? In this case, okay, if we get this Dresden guy, which we want to test anyway, because we're gonna offer him a coin if he passes whatever test we want or just see how feel him out, right? And then also if the police are after it, that's great too. Because if the police get it, who are they gonna give it to? Father Vincent. And he's gonna be like, Great, they just gave it to me. Awesome. I got it now.

Brian (57:14)
Yeah,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:14)
and if Harry gets

Brian (57:14)
really good point.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:15)
it, he's gonna return it to Father Vincent. So, like, The only bad outcome here for Nicodemus is if Marcone gets it. Because then it becomes harder to actually get it back from someone who's got the kind of muscle and firepower and knowledge that comes with Monoch securities backing you.

Brian (57:36)
Right. And Nicodemus may or may not know that, but even if he thinks that the person who wants the shroud is just, you know, some rich art collector,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:45)
Collector, yeah.

Brian (57:46)
right? It's gonna go in the vault with that other stolen painting. And

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:50)
That's still harder.

Brian (57:51)
it's it's j I mean, that could take me years. You know, I've got an apocalypse to start busy, busy, busy. So,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:57)
Ha ha ha

Brian (57:58)
you know, all of those are good reasons to do this really publicly, but I think we're overlooking something, Adam, that's a

Definitely true about the Denarians, which is just they like to do fucked up shit.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:10)
Yeah.

Brian (58:12)
And leaving gruesome corpses for people to find is part of, you know, creating that frame of mind that Nicodemus not only wants for whatever reasons it will be beneficial, but also.

just seems to like. I mean there's a reason why he, you know, makes out with his daughter in front of Dresden in a few chapters. We'll get to that one. The guy likes messing with people.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:36)
Alright, so after Harry comes up with these details from Father Vincent, he collects his retainer, another cool thousand. That's nice. And then he heads home to find a fight between s two different superhumans outside of his apartment. And it turns out the victor is Susan. And that is gonna be the end of the chapter. Man, she has such great like end of chapter entrances or beginning of chapter entrances. I mean

They've taken our daughter is certainly one of the most memorable openers.

Brian (59:09)
she needs this in this book too, and we're gonna get more into her later. We'll talk about this at the end of the episode, but she needs this entrance because just read a thread today on the subreddam that was complaining about Susan and Grave Peril. I just can't get over. How stupid. Like, if Susan doesn't come back the next time we see her and just do cool stuff kind of the whole way through.

Readers might lose respect for her as a character. So she has to kind of come in with a bang here, and I do think Jim delivers.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (59:40)
Yeah,

and it's regarding that great peril thing, I think we should allow characters to make mistakes. Yes, from our perspective, inside Harry's head, it was an obvious and terrible mistake that had severe consequences. But these are fairly young people. They're both low less than thirty years old. People in their twenties make stupid choices.

Brian (1:00:02)
Adam, I've already heard you go on this discussion. And

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:04)
I know.

Brian (1:00:05)
guys, go look up our stupidest things people have ever done in the series questions for Bob, because we really went into it. But I do I

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:08)
Yes, that's true. That's true. We did make some defenses there.

Brian (1:00:13)
do agree with you there. I think though, before we get to wrapping up the episode, Adam, we gotta talk about the Shroud of Turin. I'm

sure that the people who are listening to this podcast have a general idea what it is, but

There's some kind of interesting real life information that it does kind of, you make it a little bit more fun to bring into the story here.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:32)
Yeah, now in the actual chapter here, when Harry describes the Shroud of Turin, he basically says, yeah, there were a bunch of tests that the scientists did in the 70s, but they were inconclusive. Now, that's one interpretation, but from everything that I've been able to read on this, those tests were not inconclusive. When scientists, proper scientists look at this as objectively as possible.

this is a fake from the fourteenth century. That's what it comes down to. Our historical records indicate that it first appeared as early as we can find any references to this thing is mid fourteenth century. The pigment tests they did in the 70s concluded that stains had been painted onto the shroud with a red ochre, which is a form of iron oxide, along with a vermilion, which is a bright red pigment made from mercury sulfide. this is not blood.

Blood would look very different under the microscope. And it's important to understand that these pigments and paints were used throughout the 14th century. Then in 1988, a radiocarbon dating test concluded with a 95% confidence that the material itself dated to around 1260 to 1390. Hey, that's right within our estimate of 14th century. which, by the way, Brian, was a period where a lot of fake relics

were brought around and shown to drive pilgrimages and tour is basically a tourist trap for all intents and purposes.

Brian (1:02:01)
Yes, th

the holy pupus, which is the remnants of Jesus' bris, I believe was, you know, no less than like seven churches claimed to have it or something.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:10)
Yeah, s th

there were more more more p that had that claim to have, Saint Peter's pinky bone than bones in his entire body.

Brian (1:02:19)
Yes, more more people

had the finger bones of a given saint than the saint had fingers for certain. That happened

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:23)
Exactly, exactly.

Brian (1:02:25)
all over the place. Yeah. Now, one interesting thing about this, Adam, is that within the universe, it is a forgery. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:31)
Right.

Brian (1:02:32)
that actually works out perfectly. I wonder if Jim just kind of found out later, because you know, he grew up in Oklahoma, family put the fun in fundamentalism.

Maybe the story he heard about the tests that were done on the shroud was, they were inconclusive, you know, in a way that makes it seem mysterious and, you know, the

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:53)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:02:53)
Lord's hand at work kind of thing. And then he writes this book and somebody tells him, Jamin, like it's it is a forgery. And that's why when we get to Hades Vault, it's a forgery. The real ones in Hades Vault.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:07)
Yep, absolutely. And that was such a great reveal, too, because I knew when I was reading this, like, yeah, I know it's it's not real. Harry's like, it's inconclusive. But you know, maybe in the Dresden Files it is real because all this other stuff, you know, faith, the white god, they're all real in the Dresden universe. I could let it be real. Vampires are real. Exactly. Exactly.

Brian (1:03:22)
Yeah, vampires, right? Like, I mean, come on, there's there's bigger stretches.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:26)
So I could have allowed with that being a real thing, but that also explains why it

Doesn't work at the end of this book when

Marcone tries to use the shroud on Helen Beckett's daughter that he has squirreled away in that in that sort of recovery facility or convalescent, whatever it is. So the fact that it's fake.

Is perfect, and I've actually seen people in the server that are going, you know, Harry has that shroud now. Do you think he's gonna let Marcone take it to try to heal that girl? I'm like, dude, that was a thing he smuggled out of a weapons vault. You don't just give plutonium to the baron of Chicago, who

also happens to be a denarian now.

Brian (1:04:02)
Yes. Exactly, yes. That's you

know, I I've got this friend and you know, he's a little bit of a rough and tumble type. He's made a partnership with a fallen angel who's come from hell in the thirties pieces of silver that were given to Judas to betray the risen Savior Jesus Christ. And I just figured I'd give him one of the holiest relics in Christianity. You know, probably not. But

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:04:23)
What could go wrong?

Brian (1:04:25)
right, exactly. but I do think it's interesting that Jim

might maybe is letting us in on the fact that he does know in real life that it's a fake. I also want to be clear that the real life story and the Dresden story do agree with each other because the shroud of Turin is not a burial shroud from the first century AD that was used to cover Jesus Christ. It is not the veil of Veronica

Used to wipe the sweat and blood from Jesus as he's carrying the cross up Mount Calvary to be crucified, right? It's not that. But such a thing could have existed. It's just that they don't have that in Turin. And I think it's really consistent that Jim has included the veil of Veronica, which is the thing the Shroud of Turin purports to be.

In the series, because we've seen a lot of the other instruments of the passion, like the relics that are associated with the crucifixion. Obviously, we're going to talk about the nails very, very soon. We haven't seen the true cross itself, but Adam, here's the rest of the list: The Crown of Thorns.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:43)
Check.

Brian (1:05:43)
The Veil of Veronica,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:45)
Check.

Brian (1:05:46)
and what, if you look it up on Wikipedia, is called the Holy Lance, but you and I know as the Spear of Destiny.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:52)
Check.

Brian (1:05:53)
And then sometimes also included in the list, along with a few other things, the Holy Chalice. Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:06:00)
check. Although Nicodemus has that one.

Brian (1:06:02)
Yes, unfortunately for us, maybe. But it seems to me that Jim kind of has already decided.

At this point, that these relics are really powerful, magical, faith-based, you know, objects in the Dresden Files universe. He's already got the 25 book outline, and it's no coincidence that the real Shroud of Turin is gonna have enormous power because it doesn't just come from Hades Weapons Vault. It comes from Hades Weapons Vault from the time they killed God, right? So

All of these things are fit together, including the shroud, and it makes me wonder if we're gonna actually get something about the true cross at some point, because

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:06:48)
Hmm.

Brian (1:06:48)
that's got a whole long questing Arthurian Constantine, you know, story of its own in the sort of church myth history combo. so I I'm wondering if that'll come up at some point too.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:04)
Yeah, it's entirely possible. All right, that's gonna do it for our discussion of these first three chapters.

Now the next episode that we're gonna release on the thirtieth is actually gonna be a special episode for our patrons. And then the next episode for Death Masks, which we're gonna release on November sixth.

Is actually not going to include chapter four. If you listen to the second half of our assessment of summer night, we talked a little bit about some of our future experiments with how we format the show. And what we're doing is we're skipping chapter four, which is we just saw Susan has returned and she's talking with Dresden, but it's like half a conversation. She has half a conversation with Dresden before Martin shows up and says, We gotta go. She leaves.

And then she comes back in chapter 14 and they finish that same conversation. So it didn't make sense to talk about the first half of the conversation in one episode and then wait several weeks and talk about the second half of the conversation in a completely different episode. So what we're doing is we're basically just gonna say, skipping over chapter four, and then when we get to the episode that includes chapter fourteen, that's where we're gonna talk about chapter four and fourteen as a

complete scene. The first half of that conversation with Susan bolted onto the second half of that conversation with Susan. And all of this means that the next chapter we talk about that's going to be released on November 6th will be chapters five, six, and seven.

Brian (1:08:32)
That's gonna work out really nicely for us, Adam, because that lets us talk about a thematically consistent thing. These are the chapters where we get to know the Knights of the Cross. Now, listen, obviously we've already met Michael, but this is the debut of Sonya and Shiro, and it's the first time we actually see a Denarian in So we'll get to talk about that conflict sort of as a whole.

next time you hear from us on our next episode about death masks, which also lets us keep separate the sort of Knights Denarian plot and the Ortega plot because the next chapter starts to bring that up again.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:09:15)
Yeah, and it's it's kind of nice this book sort of ping-pongs back and forth between those two different plot lines, right? The whole Denarian plot, we have three chapters of that, then like four chapters of this, then three chapters of that, then four chapters of this, something to that effect. And so it's gonna nicely, I think, group up so that we can cover things thematically, where we only have to do this thing where we shift a conversation discussion like two times in the entire book.

Brian (1:09:41)
Yeah. So looking forward to trying that experiment and hope you guys like it. when we see you in two weeks.