Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:08)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to Recorded Neutral Territory where the spoilers go all the way through twelve months. I'm Adam Ruzzo and joining me as always it's Brian O'Reilly. Hello, Brian.

Brian (00:19)
Hey Adam. So today we are skipping chapter four, where Harry catches up with Susan, who he's just reacquainted himself with outside of his apartment at the tail end of chapter three, and then he meets Martin, who arrives to pick Susan up. That discussion is coming later, we're gonna pair it with the next time we see Susan on page, which is gonna be in a few episodes. Today we're going to be talking about.

What happens as a result of the tail end of that chapter when Murphy calls Harry and tells him to come to the morgue? So Adam, why don't you lay it out for us? What are we gonna see?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:59)
Yeah, today we're talking about chapters five, six, and seven, and the cleanest way to say this, Harry has to rebuff an extremely aggressive recruitment pitch from an organization in the deep south.

Brian (01:09)
The deep south, huh? Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:11)
Yeah, that's what we

went with.

Brian (01:12)
All right. Okay, well, okay then. In chapter five, Harry meets Murphy and Butters at that morgue and they examine an unknown corpse atom. Nobody knows who this body is.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:24)
Yeah, and I expect a new reader wouldn't know either, because Jim has not dropped a lot of real obvious hints or foreshadowing about Father Vincent, as we discussed in the previous episode. So this is really a head scratcher. Harry's gonna have to go on the case here and really figure out what's going on. And he's not gonna figure it out until s chapter twenty-five or twenty-six, somewhere in that range. and that's all gonna come down to the very lucky coincidence of happening to notice that.

Father Vincent has the same tattoo that he sees on the body in this very scene. So, very briefly, what happens in the scene? Because it's a lot of back and forth, it's a lot of plot, and there's not a lot to analyze in this particular section. Murphy introduces Butters. This is where I meet him for the first time. He reveals that the person died of plagues plural about two days ago. Harry notices that tattoo, which is called the Eye of Thoth. We learn that from Bob later.

And then Murphy can see that Harry has connected some dots, asks Butters to leave for a few minutes, and then they sort of have a small conversation where he fills her in a little bit, but tries to protect his client's confidentiality at the same time. And then he muses, hmm, this plague curse might be something that a demon could do. Now, as part of all of this discussion, Brian, we had a couple of different things to note. One of them is this line from Murphy at the very beginning of the chapter where she says, You look worried.

And

frustrated. And guilty. You know, romance things. Unquote. Boy Brian, that is a hell of a detective there. She just clocks his situation immediately, down to the exact the cause of those emotions.

Brian (03:04)
Yeah, it's pretty impressive. And Murphy really gets her flowers in this scene. The first thing that Dresden tells you about Murphy, if you're a new reader, is quote, that said, Murphy was a monster huntering Valkyrie. She was the only person I'd ever heard of who had killed one with a chainsaw. Like the the immediate info dump you're getting from Butcher is this person's a badass. She's absolutely on the ball, and you know, is very observant.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (03:32)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (03:32)
and that's why it's cool that later Harry's observations about this tattoo are what is actually gonna crack the case open for him and the Knights of the Cross. They're able to kind of figure out where things go because in a way that foreshadows the fact that they're a good match for each other, Harry and Murphy are both equally observant. But we get other hints about the future growth in their relationship here because

This is a conversation that they couldn't have had in book two.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (04:05)
Yeah, in fact, they've had this conversation several times since the first book, but this is the first time where both of them extend trust, and that trust is repaid immediately, pretty much. So, what we do need to remember is that when Harry observes this body, it is cut up in almost the exact same way as Gaston La Roche.

Which is the photograph that he looked at that Father Vincent showed him in the previous chapter in chapter three that we discussed. So he looks at this and he's connecting the dots in his head and going, this is related to the shroud and Murphy can see it in his eyes. He's figured something out. now when she asks him, Hey, I can see you're putting something together. What can you tell me? He immediately says, I got confidentiality it with my client here. I I'm not supposed to tell you anything.

And sh instead of blowing up at him, instead of yelling at him, she makes the calm decision to say, is it gonna get anybody killed? And he's like, I don't know yet. And she says, Okay, I'm gonna trust you. But if you learn anything that I need to know, you'll tell me. And at that moment, he could have just said, Yeah, no problem, and walked on his way. But instead, he realizes he owes her more than that. And he sort of does

plausible deniability thing where she was gonna figure this out anyway, so I'll just give her pointer in the right direction of what she needs to know to figure out how to connect this to Gaston La Roche.

Brian (05:28)
Yes, by pointing Murphy to Gaston La Roche specifically, he points her to something that obviously would have come up eventually. Hey, there's two guys who've been ginsued, as Dresden puts it, and you know, within a couple days of each other, eventually somebody's gonna connect the dots.

Harry just lets Murphy be the one to do that and to do it quickly. So he saves her time without saying anything that could be pinpointed as only coming from the church and therefore revealing his client. He can't

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:02)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (06:03)
say the words Shroud of Turin, because

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:05)
Right.

Brian (06:06)
once he does that, he's given up who his client is. But this is something that he could be hired by any old person who's looking into this. This is just the two murders that are obviously connected. And

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:16)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (06:17)
Man Adam. He's cut into little pieces. Like they're gonna serve him on toothpicks for dinner. And that's not how he died. He died

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:27)
Yeah.

Brian (06:28)
of the plagues. Like with an

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:31)
Sh

Brian (06:32)
S. Holy smokes. Jim has come up with some pretty good like the full moon crime scene with the wolf prince and like Yeah,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:40)
Yes, in blood. Yep.

Brian (06:42)
like that's like this might be even better than that in terms of

Holy shit, what a crime scene to start off with.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:49)
Right, because even the the wolf prints in blood, you're like, okay, yeah, I know what this is. This is the the the full moon is right outside, we've got some kind of a werewolf going on. I I'm comfortable with this. I know what's going on.

Brian (07:00)
Yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:01)
We're gonna it's it's still a mystery. We don't know who it is, we don't know how it's happening, but I know some of what's going on. Here, Ginsu'd with plague in the same way, set up like so many plagues, you almost have that Monty Montgomery Burns syndrome where they're they're all trying to get through the door at the same time.

Cause the three Stooges syndrome.

Brian (07:17)
Yes, exactly. So he he yes, he

can't die of the plague because he has all of them simultaneously and they're sort of Darwinian competing. Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:24)
Unfortunately, yeah, we talk

about the Dresden Files having sort of Hollywood physics or Hollywood realism, but it doesn't have cartoon realism. So unfortunately

Brian (07:32)
No.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:33)
the plagues do kill him here.

And the fact this is a great hook does kinda make up for the fact that the answer to a lot of these questions are kinda boring. Like who is this person? it's Father Vincent, you already met him, but it's a lot more interesting about why he's still up and walking around, right? He's being impersonated by Snake Boy, as it were.

Brian (07:53)
Yeah,

it this is a lot like a Sherlock Holmes style mystery, where there's no way you, the reader, could figure this out, but it's still gonna end up being satisfying because the setup is so strange and it's resolved in a way that's cool in universe. So Jim is not really respecting the detective fiction genre with this one, but it is nonetheless a really good story beat. And that takes us

To Harry's exit from the morgue atom, he started this whole conversation after midnight. Like, he doesn't even get home to meet Susan until after midnight. Now he's leaving the morgue. It's gotta be the hour of the wolf, you know? Like

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (08:39)
Yes, exactly.

Brian (08:41)
and he leaves the morgue. God, can you imagine anything more creepy to do at 2 30 in the morning?

than wandering out of the morgue into a dark alley? That's the only way to get to where you parked or whatever. And of course, as he's walking down that dark alley.

He realizes he gets that creeping sensation he's being followed.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (09:08)
Yeah, specifically the steady tread of the footsteps behind me shifted, becoming louder and unsteady. And that's when we get the reveal of Ursiel is charging him in bare form at that moment. But I wanna back up right before this. We get this line I passed a little old homeless man hobbling along heavily on a thick wooden cane.

A while farther on I passed a tall young black man dressed in an old overcoat and tattered in two small suit, clutching an open bottle of vodka in one heavy knuckled hand. He glowered at me and I moved on past him. Chicago nightlife. Now, one thing that's happening in this scene is that he's got this

chill

on the back of his spine. His magical senses are detecting something is wrong around me, and he's extending them, trying to figure out where it's coming from. And I can see why he might dismiss the little old homeless man hobbling along on a thick wooden cane, who we will find out very soon, is actually Shiro, one of the Knights of the Cross. But Brian, a tall young man in an overcoat in an alley in the dark at 3 a.m.

When you're already certain something is wrong. Does Harry's dismissal of who it turns out to be Sanya strike you as unusual? Like should he be dismissing and not keeping an eye on this guy behind him?

Brian (10:29)
Yeah, I always think, Adam, for anybody but Dresden, this would be terrifying. Because when I think of Sanya, I think of like Carl Weathers in Predator. And

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (10:42)
Hmm.

Brian (10:42)
for those of you who are too young to know what I'm talking about, you've seen the meme, perhaps, of Arnold Schwarzenegger's arm grasping this ripped black dude's arm. That's Carl Weathers in the movie Predator.

the epic handshake

meme is what Sanya looks like in my mind. And he's like 6'6 or 6'7. He's

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:03)
Yes.

Brian (11:04)
enormous. Sonja is the one who actually looks like a linebacker, except he's a little too big to be a linebacker, right?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:14)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (11:14)
So this tells us two things about Dresden. One, as a very tall man, he's got a little bit of height blindness.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:22)
Yeah, that's gotta be it.

Brian (11:22)
You know, Sonja

Sanya, like everybody else, is just classified as shorter than me, so he's not particularly intimidating. And he's not racist. So just d you know walks right past this guy and doesn't give him a second thought. But you make a good point that part of the reason why he might not be that spooked by this behemoth in the alley glowering at him is that the swords

Let him know on a subconscious magical level, these guys aren't the threats.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:55)
Yeah, or just like his the thing that he's feeling, what his magical senses or instincts are telling him is that there's something wrong here, and it's not coming from that tall guy that's in the alley. Like he can tell that's not the source of this, so I'm discounting that as a threat. The other possibility here, Brian, is that the useful coincidence that is bestowed upon the knights is just this is one more example of that. It'd be useful

Because obviously Shiro and Sanya are trying to not be noticed, right? They're kind of trying to blend to the background. They're not announcing themselves. So little coincidence here and there. And you know, J Dresden just dismisses them a little quicker than he might. The little tiny changes in people's behavior and things that happen that help whoever's wielding the sword to do what they want to do, what they need to do.

Brian (12:45)
Now at the end of the chapter, Harry just turned around and ran like hell to try to

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (12:52)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (12:52)
get away from the six-legged bear with four eyes and ramshorns that's chasing him. Just try to picture that one. I mean, Jesus,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:00)
Yeah.

Brian (13:01)
Jim's imagination for the Denarian forms is really peak.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:06)
Right?

Brian (13:07)
And that brings us into chapter six, where we get the confrontation with

What we're gonna find out is Urseal.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:16)
Yeah, and this is I would say Harry bravely ran away, but that's one of the only times I don't mean it as like a put down. Like this is the right time to run away, and you can call yourself brave while doing it. But what's interesting is we get this specific line here. Quote, This bear thing, whatever the hell it was, had followed me. Hence, it had probably picked its time and place. I could have stood and blasted away at it, but in these close quarters of the alley

If it was able to shrug off my blasts, it would tear me apart before I could try Plan B. So I ran. Now, early book Harry would probably also run from this encounter, but his internal monologue would probably sound a lot less wise and a lot more panicky.

Brian (14:02)
Yeah, that's the emotions that Harry's having in book one when Ursial, you know, tr chases him down for sure. I think that not only is is it good to sort of note that Harry's kind of staying even though he's panic running basically, he's kind of staying calm here. And another way to interpret that is that Harry's natural reaction to threats is to try to swat them down.

He actually tends to lash out with anger when something unexpected jumps out at him at the middle of the night. And he's smart enough to realize that's not the response that I should have to this thing. Even though just looking at it, I mean, look, obviously it's a horrifying monster, but Harry throws Fuegos at horrifying monsters all the time. It's like the first thing he does to grumble.

In the last book, when he's confronted by him, is whoop, better hit him with some magic. And Grum, you know, shrugs it off. But that's his immediate response. In this circumstance, Harry realizes because this thing got the drop on him, it's probably prepared for whatever he can do. So he sprints away towards the street at the end of the alley, and Ursiel leaps at him.

Because I think it realizes that he's actually gonna be able to make it out of the alley and corner if they continue at a straight run. So Harry drops prone. So, and this is a little cartoon physics. The bear goes just over him because it's leapt so high it can't even reach down and stop itself by grabbing him. And he's able to get up and run in the other direction, which is why he runs back.

back into Sanya and Shiro, who he then tries to get to leave the situation because you've gotta get out of here. It's dangerous.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (15:59)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if nothing else, right, in the next chapter, we're gonna talk about how it seems a little like Sanya and Shiro, when they have their moment to talk to Dresden alone in St. Mary's, have their own ways to sort of try to evaluate him, to learn about him, to judge him, because obviously they must have heard f about him from Michael, but they also want to try to judge him for themselves and they're gonna have their own way of doing that. But the very first thing they see him do.

is try to get them to safety while he turns to fight probably one of the strongest Denarians physically in existence on his own. And that has to be a pretty good encouragement about his character.

Brian (16:42)
I definitely think that both Sanya and Shiro would be pretty prejudiced against Dresden. They're actually gonna say some things or imply some things about him that are a little unflattering anyway. And the fact that he does this makes both of them go, I definitely don't hate this guy. Like in this moment, Harriet least puts himself in a camp.

Where they might not think I mean he turns around and fights Ursiel. What does that tell you? Two things. One, he's brave and noble, and two, what an idiot, right? So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (17:19)
Ha ha.

Brian (17:20)
they're gonna try to help by doing what Michael thinks is the correct thing to do, and they've sort of explained to themselves that Harry, you know, maybe is a good man, but also maybe he is, as Michael says, you know, maybe a little too reckless to handle this on his own.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (17:37)
Yeah, so to to just finish the details of this fight, and then we'll come back and interrogate this particular section. So after he runs back into Sanya and Shiro and tells them to run away, Shiro comes back up and s and asks Harry to hold his glasses and confronts Ursiel. And this is the moment when Harry realizes,

Hey,

that sword is not reflecting light. It is emitting light. And he puts two and two together and realizes it's a

Brian (18:03)
That's extremely cool. Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:05)
very cool way that Jim reveals the fact that this is clearly another Knight of the Sword. and then Sanya and Shiro both kind of battle Ursiel, and eventually they aren't able to get him to repent or give up the coin. And so Michael jumps down from a fire escape and beheads him. And that sort of ends.

that particular element of the fight. But before we go into the details here, Brian, let's talk about this as an action scene. We like to break those down when we get to them. What do you think of this one? Is this something that would you give high marks for Jim compared to his other ones that we've seen so far?

Brian (18:39)
So this is very good. It is a little stylized for me. It's very anime vibes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:47)
Hm.

Brian (18:48)
Like Shiro first whacks the bear in the face with the the katana in the sheath and then draws the katana and just like I can see the the shot in the anime with all the lines going in one direction as he just slices the tip of his ear off.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (19:04)
Mm.

Brian (19:04)
And

then how does Michael finish the fight, you know, dropping out of the sky to like behead it in one blow? This is very yeah. Very

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (19:10)
Yeah, like a superhero landing with the sword just chopping Yeah, exactly.

Brian (19:14)
the kind of thing that you'll see, you know, in an anime. And it's cool. It's a well executed version of that, but I tend to like it when Jim avoids that kind of high stylization of sword fights. And I think he gets better at it. This is really the first time he's.

Writing a fight like this, where you have three guys with swords against a monster, and he'll get better at sort of talking about more of the nitty-grig gritty punching and kicking, and the stuff you'll actually see in one of those hema manuals from the 1600s about sword combat. One thing that I do really like in this scene, because it contextualizes the knights, is that Sanya.

Basically stops a charging bear with like his arms,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (20:08)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (20:08)
and that's pretty insane, and sort of categorizes for you in a way that might actually create a misunderstanding. We'll get to that. Categorizes for you exactly how badass the people you're dealing with is. Like the one who gets hurt and can't handle it can stop a charging bear with his bare hands.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (20:30)
Yeah, it's very impressive. Now, Brian, let's let's go a little more detail here because we're gonna get one of the most amazing soul gazes we've gotten I don't I don't think I mentioned it, but during that whole sequence, there's also a soul gaze where Harry looks into UrcyL slash Rasmussen's eyes.

Let's talk about this soul gaze. We've broken it up into two sections here, and I will read the first one. Quote

I expected to see something hideous. What I saw instead was a man of lean middle years, dressed in rags. His hair was long and straight, wispy grey that fell down to his chest. He stood in a posture of agony, his wiry body stretched out in an arch, with his hands held up and apart, his legs stretched out. I followed the lines of his arms back up and saw why he stood that way. He'd been crucified.

The man's back rested against the cliff, the great glowing sigil stretching out above him. His arms were pulled back in an agonizing angle, and were sunk to the elbow in the green black marble of the cliff. His knees were bent, his feet sunk into the stone as well. He hung there, the pressure of all his weight on his shoulders and legs. It must have been agonizing. The crucified man laughed at me, his eyes glowing a shade of sickly green, and screamed

As if it will help you nothing, you're nothing unquote.

Brian (21:49)
Okay. So first of all, that's ridiculously nettle.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (21:54)
Right?

Brian (21:55)
Second of all, so Rasmussen is like sunk into this cliff partially, literally, in this vision, in this soul gaze, he's being crucified. This is, as Harry says, agony. But is it

Physical agony? Because that's what the the soul gaze makes it out to be. But of course, soul gazes are metaphorical. So presumably this is trying to tell us something about how Rasmussen feels with like a religious connotation, but without being literal. What do you think we're actually supposed to take away from Rasmussen's torture in that vision?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (22:39)
Yeah, that's a very good question. My first thought is that it's an analogy showing Harry the sort of physical pain, that's an analogy for the emotional pain that Rasmussen is in, and that emotional pain is how the Denarian got to him and is controlling him. Because there's something about him and and my my gut instinct is that it's a kind of insecurity, and I don't have a lot to base that on, but when he says

As if it will help you. Nothing. You're nothing. Like his very first thing that he says to Dresden is specifically just to make it s like, you're nothing. I'm bigger than you. Like that bully mentality that insecure people have. Like their first instinct is to make sure everybody else knows that they are lesser. That to me says that there's some deep level of insecurity, some kind of victimhood that he has, which also goes well with the concept of the

The self crucifixion there.

Brian (23:37)
Yeah, I'm just gonna read what you put in our notes because I think it's pretty good. Is Ursiel driving Rasmussen using a steering wheel made of toxic masculinity? That's pretty, pretty funny. I wonder if the pain he's experiencing is actually some kind of constant torment or agony that he is suffering through, or if it is a representation of

Of the damage that he's done to his soul, that he should be in agony for the evils that he's committed, whether he is or not. I find it difficult to sort of determine if when the Denarians are driving their host, if they're doing that by subduing them with pure pain and, you know, all stick.

Or if there's some carrot involved that they're making the pain stop. You know, it could be either way. Ursul doesn't seem to be the type doing the the latter. So you imagine that this is a reflection of what Rasmussen's actually feeling in some psychic sense.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (24:46)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (24:46)
And yeah, it would make sense that he's insecure, or perhaps that Rasmussen took up the coin.

When he was, you know during the gold rush, not enough stakes to go around. He's not getting anything out of his claim. He's about to starve to death and then boom the coin is in the river in front of him, where he sort of thinks that everyone is helpless in front of the Denarians. It is either them or death.

And the pain he's feeling is just he's too cowardly to take death. Because that seems to be an option. There's always a chance that you can reject the coin, as we're gonna find out later. But we don't just get a portrait of Rasmussen here, Adam. The second part of the scene gives us something a little different. Quote The man screamed again, this time all rage and anguish, void of words.

I lifted a hand and stepped forward, my first instinct to help him. Before I got close the ground began to shake, the cliff face rumbled, and slits of seething orange light appeared, and then widened until I faced the second set of eyes, eyes the size of subway tunnels opening on the great marble cliff. I stumbled several steps back and

And that cliff face proved to be exactly that a face cold and beautiful and harsh around that fiery gaze.

The quaking in the earth increased, and a voice louder than a metallica concert spoke, the raw sense of the words, the vicious anger and hate behind them hitting me far more heavily than mere volume.

Get out! The sheer force of presence behind that voice seized me and threw me violently aback. Violently aback? The sheer force of presence behind that voice seized me and threw me violently back, away from the tortured man at the cliffside and out of the soul gaze. The mental connection snapped like dry spaghetti.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:04)
Yeah, Brian, wow. My first thought when I'm reading this now is okay, there must be something that Harry sees here that could maybe help Rasmussen because boy does he piss Ursiel off by coming in here, right? Ursiel's first thing is get.

Out.

I want you out of here because I have to imagine there might be some clue that can be used to help Rasmussen.

Brian (27:31)
Well, I mean, Harry's first instinct is to step forward and help him, and that's when Urseal intervenes. So I think

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:38)
Yeah.

Brian (27:38)
you're almost certainly correct. And it might be the mere act of reaching out to Rasmussen through Ursial. If Urseal's mediating all contact Rasmussen has with the world, this might be the only genuine connection he's had the opportunity to have with another person.

In literally a century, for all we know.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:03)
Mm, yeah, that's a good point. Okay. Now the next piece of this that I want to discuss is the way that Ursiel is depicted as this enormous cliff face that's holding Rasmussen in place suggests that this is how Rasmussen sees the situation, right? He sees himself completely at the mercy of this massive, powerful being.

Brian (28:28)
Right, and we know that because the only thing Harry can soul gaze with here is Rasmussen. This is Rasmussen's soul he's seeing. This is his vision of himself.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:39)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (28:40)
Ursiel apparently can control this to a certain extent, but he does not have complete control of it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:47)
Yeah, but like that time that we see Thomas's soul, it's like the outsider and Thomas are blended together, and then we see Lara and they're kind of like blended together more efficiently or whatever. Here we do see that even though we're looking at Rasmussen's soul, there is a fallen that's attached to it enough that it shows up in the soul gaze, like those other situations. But I guess my point here is we know that technically

Rasmussen can give up the coin at any time. We know that the fallen cannot directly impact the world. They cannot use free will themselves. They have to get someone else to do it for them. They can tempt. That's what they can do. So the fact that Rasmussen sees the situation as he is trapped by this enormous, powerful thing is wrong.

It's it's almost like he's been gaslit into believing that he is the powerless one when in fact he's the only one with any real power to change the situation.

Brian (29:54)
I think that there is an idea that with the Denarians you can put yourself in a situation where basically you've made bargains with them that create a scenario where if you were to attempt to give up the coin, between the moment where you made that decision and the moment where you actually gave it up, the fallen inside the coin.

Could torture you for a and I mean this literally, subjective eternity.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (30:25)
Yeah,

there is in the next couple of chapters, I believe, an explanation from Michael and Shiro about like what their real job is. And it specifically says that, you know, sometimes people give up their influence to the denarian slowly over time, and eventually they're in so deep that they can't get out on their own. And so the purpose of the Knights is to wear down the Denarian to allow

That person underneath the chance to finally emerge again and make their own choices. So that might be more about what's happening here.

Brian (30:59)
But I think in this situation, it really is gonna be sort of impossible to get Rasmussen out because Ursiol is not just connected to him. He is a core part of his identity. He is the rock upon which Rasmussen hangs rather than stands.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:20)
But yeah.

Brian (31:21)
But similarly, when he's that foundational

I think as we see in this chapter, he is too far gone. The knights can't save him. They still have to try, but they can't.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:33)
Yeah. And I think the best way to interpret that again, going forward with my hypothesis that he's got some kind of philosophy about the world where might makes right and only the strong are va have any value. So

Brian (31:44)
Right.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:44)
the only way that he has value is if he is strong, and the coin is what gives him strength, therefore the coin is what gives him value. And so because that's the way he sees the world.

He

can't give up the coin without a lot of therapy, and they just don't have that kind of time sitting here in this alley.

Brian (32:03)
Yeah. Now one interesting thing that happens here, Adam, that we didn't talk about yet is that Urseel appears to break the soul gaze with some kind of psychic attack that then flings Harry across the alley. That seems wild. Like, we don't know of many things that can interfere with the soul gaze. That seems to be kind of, you know, the deep magic at the core of the world kind of stuff. I mean

I thought that the you know, fallen weren't allowed to intervene with that much power and rewrite reality.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (32:37)
Yeah, you would think. I mean, the only thing that comes close that I can think of is when Harry and Thomas have their soul gaze and it triggers a sort of message from their mother that they see, right? That's sort of a spell from the real world interacting and weaving into a soul gaze, but it's bound up with them and their souls specifically from their mother. Like it's this familial connection.

Brian (33:02)
Yeah, it's not an evocation

like done at the drop of a hat, yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (33:05)
Right. Cause it

it it does appear that Ursiel from inside the Soul Gaze does a Forzare so strong that it affects Harry out in the real world. Now, another way to interpret that is okay, he just did a Forzare in the real world, because he's not trapped in the Soul Gaz the way that Harry is, because Harry's sharing this with Rasmussen, and maybe Ursiel is aware of it, but he can be in two places at once because that's just what he is. So he does some kind of spell in the real world that forces Harry back.

And when Harry's eyes break contact, that breaks his the soul gate. So you could look at it in the reverse and see that maybe that's what actually has happened.

Brian (33:41)
I think honestly, that this is just an example of the kind of power that the fallen have in a spiritual sense. The soul gaze is not really taking place in the mortal world. So that restriction on their power that exists in the mortal world doesn't exist within the soul gaze, which is why Ursial is able to break what we seem to think.

To see as sort of a fundamental law of nature, the way that we're told, somebody like Uriel can when that's part of his job.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (34:17)
Right. Now, this brings us to the d after the soul gaze is broken, we have Shiro come forward and say, you know, hold please, and he gives Harry the his glasses and then he goes to

Brian (34:29)
Well.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (34:30)
it's such a badass line. Like Harry just got his ass beat by this thing, he's throwing his best punch, and this little old guy with a cane is like hold priest and gives you his glasses and then he goes to fight this thing on his own. But one of the things that he says and which Sanya will continue to echo later is Ursio.

Let him go. You have no power here. That line gets repeated a couple of times. And that goes to as more evidence towards the idea that Ursiel and the Fallen in general gaslight their hosts. They lie to them constantly about reality to the point where they then believe the reality that they're told by I mean, literally, Sheila does this to Harry by making him think he's in a fully furnished apartment when it's actually a you know abandoned.

apartment complex or whatever. So we know that that's what they can do. What Shiro is doing here is trying to counteract that. UrcyL, you have no power here. He's trying to prove to Rasmuton. He's trying to remind him to show him that Ursiel does not have the power he says, and that there this is a moment that there can be repentance. He can let go of the coin. It is possible to get away

all of these things at the same time, which may, with the presence of the swords, actually break through that gaslighting, whatever kind of corruption or temptation that the the fallen are able to pull the wool over the eyes. Like for example,

If Michael was the one that walked into the apartment with Sheila and snapped Harry out of it, I'm guessing just the presence of Amarakius would probably put the lie to the room, right? The room would sort of melt away in the but the power of that sword. It's one of the things we're gonna talk about later. The swords

The swords balance the scales. They reveal

The lies.

Brian (36:22)
Yeah, I think everything you said about why Shiro is using that language is correct. But I also think Jim is taking that language

From something that you can see in the real world, which is the language that people use when they are, you know, in English doing an exorcism. Now, he's not gonna say the whole power of Christ compels you part, but this is very get behind me, Satan, you have no power here. this is God's, you know, country kind of thing. And I think that that's appropriate.

You know, in the literal sense that these are fallen angels. But I also think it's appropriate to invoke the notions of exorcism because you're trying to convey to the reader that it's a similar kind of thing to get the fallen to relinquish their hold on someone, or the other way around, to get someone to relinquish their hold on the coin.

That it requires a sort of exorcism, a spiritual attack upon the entity in order to give the person that opportunity to get it out of them. And I think we're supposed to see it that way because the function of the knights as the people who do this is something that Jim is using this story to drive home to us. And I think this language dovetails with that nicely.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (37:53)
And just like in an exorcism, the demon talks back. Now, there are four different main lines here that are spoken by this big bear, this big Denarian, and the final line is very clearly described as being a different voice from the other three, which raises the question, Brian.

Are the first three Rasmussen and the final one would be Ursiel, or is it vice versa? Are the first three Ursiel and the last one is Rasmussen. So let's go through the lines. Here they are. The first three are, and and by the way, the first three are described as coming out in a voice quiet, smooth, melodious, words somehow slithering out of the bear's jaws and throat. So the first three are Shiro.

Look at yourself, little fool. You are an old man. You were at the peak of your strength when last we met. You cannot defeat me now. That's number one. Number two. Sanya, traitor, do you really think any of us fears even one of the three in your pathetic hands? So be it. I will take you all. And then the final line from that first voice Age.

Death comes, old man, its hand is on your heart now, and your life has been spent in vain. So Brian, give us that last line, and what is it described as?

Brian (39:18)
Another voice, this one not at all beautiful, the words twisting and snarling said Stupid Preacher, time to die like the Egyptian did.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:30)
Yeah. Now, that last line was definitely a different voice. Harry makes it very clear that that's the case. My take on this, Brian, the first three are Ursiel,

and the last is Rasmussen. Here's my argument for this. The fallen are still angels.

And I could see their voice still being described as quiet, smooth, and melodious. In addition, it is only after the last line is uttered that Shiro resolves to kill Rasmussen. This suggests to me that he was basically waiting to hear from Rasmussen before he decided to allow Michael to make the killing blow. So that suggests to me that the final line has to be Rasmussen.

basically coming forth and giving the final rejection of this chance that Shiro and Sanya are offering him.

Brian (40:23)
And I agree with you, Adam, in trying to read those lines out, in trying to come up with what that voice sounds like. I mean, just doing it myself, I'm like, yeah, that's a crazy prospector from like 1840. It's not a fallen angel. But I think it's also really cool that if you read it the exact opposite way, it still works. So if Rasmussen

under the control of the fallen, has learned to be more of a seducer, has learned to speak in a way that gets Ursiel what he wants, then maybe those first lines are smooth, melodious, a little fawning, and that's Rasmussen. And Shiro also knows that Rasmussen's made his choice

When he allows Ursial to speak for him. So the fact that it

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (41:21)
Yeah.

Brian (41:21)
works either way with Rasmussen giving the final word on the subject, or Rasmussen electing to let the fallen take over, I think is really cool by Jim because it makes it really hard to miss what's happening here, which is that the knights are only killing.

This horrifying monster once they're absolutely sure that they can't get it to be good, which

is mind-boggling from Harry's perspective.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (41:56)
Right, it gives an order of magnitude increase in the degree of difficulty of what the knights have to do, right? Just confronting and killing a horrifying monster is hard enough, but fighting it to a draw and purposefully not killing it to give it a chance to get to go good, that is just it's no wonder so many knights die in this profession. It's just not an easy gig.

Brian (42:23)
Yeah, and if you don't do it that way and cut corners, you know what happens? You die anyway. So Yep.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (42:28)
Yeah, absolutely. The sword doesn't work anymore for you.

So anyway, after Urseel finally dies, Michael jumps down from the fire escape, chops his head off, the coin rolls out of the decapitated head right over to stop at Harry's feet. The only person in the alley who is both ignorant enough and susceptible enough to actually pick it up. And that feels very much like a the ring wants to be found moment.

Brian (42:58)
Yeah, absolutely. This is that's a perfect callback because we see a lot of divine providence nudging coincidences carefully to bring about

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (43:12)
Mm.

Brian (43:13)
the world, you know, that the creator wants. It seems like divine perdition can also nudge the fall of a coin a little bit too.

and get it to roll exactly the arc that brings it to its next host. It's a really, really good opposite to all of the things that we see go right for the knights. Things go right for Denarians in the same way.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (43:45)
Yeah, in fact, before Shiro stopped him, Harry bent to recover the coin before the slime engulfed it. He's like, this is a clue. I should grab it because no, the slime is about to get it. Like he he has rational and like reasonable reasons for doing all the things he's doing, but to me, that's just like

Tweaking a little thing. Give him a good re Yeah, he's got a good reason to do that. he's gonna bend down and pick it up. Like nudging people's personality, tempting them to just touch it. Which again is what he's gonna do at the end of this book. He could have saved Michael's child by gr grabbing, his coat and putting it over it or putting his foot down on it. Instead, he slaps his hand.

Down on that coin. And that will be a very important choice that we will talk about in the future when Harry and Michael still eventually have that conversation. But this is the first example of something like that, where Harry is tempted to go pick it up, and there's probably more than just happenstance.

Brian (44:47)
It's really cool to read the fall of Boromir in the first person, you know, to see the rationalization happening

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (44:53)
Yeah.

Brian (44:55)
in the person's head. Jim does a really good job with it. So Harry is able to avoid picking up the coin. The knights tell him not to, and he doesn't. But then he also doesn't do what they want, which is come with me if you want to live. Harry says.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (45:11)
Yes.

Brian (45:13)
Make time to explain. I'm not going anywhere until I know what the hell is going on here, which is a great straight line.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (45:21)
Yeah, because

then the little old knight snorted out, HEL, that is what is going on. And then he asked for his glasses back. But I do think this is a funny reversal, Brian, because in this moment you can kind of look at this and see, you know, Harry is normally the one with all of the information, or at least more information than the people around him, and they just have to trust him because he doesn't have time to explain, yeah, that's a demon. Hey, Anna Velmont.

Come with me if you want to live. What why should I come with you? What are you talking about? Listen, really scary things. Demons from hell are coming What demon from hell? You're crazy. That wasn't that wasn't a demon. It No, listen, you have to so

That's normally the situation where he's the one trying to convince them. Now Michael and Sanya and Shiro are the ones with more information. They have that prophecy, after all, and they have all the information that they know about the Narians. And Harry does not have it, and he's the one that has to be stubborn. And if he was looking at himself, a little doing a little introspection in this moment, he would be like, I can see now why people do this. I yep, I see it.

Brian (46:24)
Yeah, why they dig their heels in.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (46:25)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (46:25)
And it's really great that Harry, as the one who often gets the straight line, is the one to give the straight line. Like Jim is very clearly mirroring the situation for us, but he eventually does agree to go along with the knights. And, you know, Adam, that's the end of the book because he just lets them take it from here.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (46:48)
Yeah. He does to go along with the knights, and we'll talk about that coming up in the next chapter when they try to explain why they've come to talk to him and why they came to protect him. But before we get there, Brian, one thing I do want to note. Going on the heels of this small reversal where Harry doesn't have the information, if you rewrote this book from the knight's perspective, Harry would be the sidekick, right?

The knights are the ones that are doing all the important stuff. Shiro is the hero coming to save Harry when he's stuck down there. And later on, the knights are the ones that are stopping the Denarians and everything. Harry is the sidekick that gets in the way.

Brian (47:24)
Yeah, and that's honestly the mark of a good story. I think we talked about this when we were reviewing Twelve Months, that to a certain extent the world the Dresden Files establishes is one where there is a very clear hero protagonist and her name is Mab.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (47:44)
Yeah.

Brian (47:46)
And we're just, you know, it's narrated by her bumbling henchman. And this is a similar kind of thing where

If you just take the Denarian plot of this story, this is a story of, like Rocky IV, where Shiro is Apollo Creed, and then Michael comes back at the end as, you know, Sly Stallone to knock out the big bad guy who, you know, killed his friend. It's the fact that there's the B plot with Ortega that actually makes it.

a Dresden file story as opposed to a Knights of the Cross story.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:25)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (48:25)
And that leads to a question about the story from that Knights of the Cross versus Knights of the Denarius perspective. So we know that Nicodemus wants to get Dresden on side. Adam, it doesn't seem like Ursial is like a

Delicate instrument for that sort of subtle seduction. So what is

he doing here?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:49)
That's a good question, because it really looks like Urseel's trying to just murder him. and I don't know that we ever get a mention later that Nicodemus is like, well, too bad you got Urseal. He was a good henchman or something. I don't think Nicodemus even acknowledges him. So I'm almost wondering, like, okay, if it looks like it's trying to kill Dresden and he's not really acknowledged as being part of Nicodemus's crew, then

Maybe he's here to kill Dresden. But then you're like, okay, why is one of the Denarians coming to kill and then one is coming to recruit him? Well, we know that in the future, Tessa and Nicodemus will be revealed to have been at odds with each other for like a thousand years or something ridiculous. And so maybe Ursiel was actually part of Tessa's crew, and they're like, anything that Nicodemus wants, I have to stop him from getting, right?

Brian (49:39)
Yeah, I mean Nicodemus clearly has a capital P plan. And whatever that plan is, Tessa knows about it and doesn't agree. So if this is part of the plan, then Tessa presumably does not want that to happen. It's not like they don't want any of the same things, but they clearly have some big philosophical disagreement. But I wonder, Adam.

Because we're gonna see Ursiol working with Andurial in about ten years, if it's just that they sent Ursiol because Nicodemus, not really knowing exactly what happened, assumes that anybody who can kill a fairy queen is gonna take quite a lot of subduing. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (50:22)
Hmm.

Brian (50:23)
you gotta put a denarian on him who can actually handle him.

And it's only when Ursil gets there that he realizes, okay, this might be overkill actually. You know, maybe I should have

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (50:32)
Ha ha ha.

Brian (50:34)
gone with the less giant scary monster format.

But they do get to walk out of this alley and into St. Mary of the Angels. And I think this is an important time for us to talk about as we get into chapter seven, what Jim is establishing with the Knights of the Cross. Because the point of this chapter is

Is just to give you a hello, my name is, moment for the two knights you've been introduced to, and to contextualize their mission a little bit. So let's talk about that mission. Jim has, I think, at points described what the swords do as balancing the scales or leveling the playing field so that people have the opportunity to make a choice.

In the context of this book, what does that mean?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (51:25)
Yeah, that's an interesting question. I guess my gut reaction, what I've always thought of in my head, Canon, is that the swords almost act like a sort of kryptonite. Not that it cripples, like sometimes Superman just like falls to the ground, he can't do anything, but more along the lines of it it reduces the supernatural strength and power that the opponent gets. So the Knight of the Cross gets to use their

Full training, skill, and power as a human at theoretically the peak of their conditioning and training, going up against just the human that's inside the Denarian or the whatever other dark thing that is that is being involved, it reduces that power of supernatural strength.

But then I'm wondering, okay, but Shiro moves really fast for a guy who's claimed to be pretty dang old. And we even see Michael sort of shrug off his wounds when he picks up Amarakius in grave peril after Thomas returns it. So

Maybe it's a little bit of both, Brian. Maybe it actually gives them a little bit of superhuman strength, a little bit of superhuman speed and reaction time, etc. And obviously it gives them that knowledge of where to go and where to be. So there are some supernatural senses involved, but I have to imagine it also weakens the opponent too.

Brian (52:53)
Yeah, I think it definitely has to be a combination of reducing the magical and physical advantages that the fallen have, and increasing the capabilities of the people wielding the swords. It's just doing whatever it does in the way that seems most subtle. So, for example, in the fight we just saw, at one point, Ursial basically pounces Sanya, and Sanya just like.

takes it. Like we get we hear that he's pushed back six inches across the concrete, but he doesn't fall over. He's just holding up this giant six-legged bear on top of him.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (53:31)
Yeah.

how do you stop a charging grizzly bear? Throw a Sanya in front of it, apparently.

Brian (53:35)
Exactly.

And on the one hand, sure, Urseal's definitely being depowered there. This is a literal angel, you know, there's no human flesh that can withstand him. But even if we depower him down to just normal six-legged bear levels of strength, presumably that would be way too much for a normal human to handle. But Sanya has the strength to do it. Later, when Shiro rescues Harry, he moves.

So fast that he kills three people before any of them can draw their gun and cuts the literal legs out from under Deirdre's chair before she has a chance to transform. It's like he's like operating as a speedster in the comic books, like in the

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (54:22)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (54:22)
two seconds he walks in the room. So is it that?

Deirdre's ability to transform is slowed temporarily, sure. But what about the normal mortals with the guns? Shiro, from Dresden's perspective, moves simply too fast for them. He's sped up. Later in this book, Michael is going to just kind of casually fight a running battle on top of a train along with Dresden and Marcone. Look, guys, I mean I know in Hollywood you do it all the time, but in real life.

If you fight a battle on a train, you're gonna fall off the train. Hold your arm out of the car on the highway. Feel how, you know, much air is blowing back against you. Imagine that's entire your entire body. Now imagine you're trying to run and jump with people shooting at you and trying to stab you. There's no way you stay on the train for, you know, a scene. There's no way all three of them do, unless Excalibur is out there.

Giving them a little bit of magnetic boots kind of situation and helping them stay on. So it seems like leveling the playing field often means weakening an opponent that's unrealistically, in a literal sense, beyond the nature of reality, unrealistically strong, but also makes it so that the knights are way stronger than.

Than a normal person would be if they have to. But this is all in the service of letting mortals make choices.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:59)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (56:00)
Part of the reason why they have to position Michael on top of that fire escape, I think, Adam, is because after Rasmussen rejects the choice, they would.

actually be at a disadvantage. And that ironclad commitment is actually why Nicodemus, we're told, kills so many knights. He makes the choice time and again, and therefore they don't have enough of a boost to stalemate him.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (56:28)
Yeah, and the other thing that I think is very important here is that they don't gain any magical skill. They don't magically, I know kung fu because they're picking up this specific sword or whatever, right?

Brian (56:39)
Yes, yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (56:41)
We know that Michael trains with charity all the time. Because, okay, if I have to duel Nicodemus, this guy's got 2,000 years of experience. And even if the sword makes it so that

We are at the same speed and strength level, I still have to beat him skill to skill. So that is part of the choice, right? He chose to train with charity every other day for months or whatever that he does in order to get to the point where he can take on Nicodemus in a one-on-one fight that we'll see in Skin Game.

Brian (57:17)
Yeah, and that combination that the swords do part of the work in leveling the playing field, but only so people can make choices, that your own ability to wield them is influenced by your choices, both in the sense of your moral choices, but also like you're saying, in the sense of are you, developing your skills? Are you taking those talents and investing them? You know, go look at that parable. But in addition, this

Doesn't discriminate between who you're trying to save. So the swords are equally effective when they're trying to save Rasmussen or Nicodemus or Cassius, or when they're trying to save Jordan in Skin Game in ten years.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:05)
Yeah, Jordan's the guy who's got his tongue cut out. He's one of Nicodemus' servants.

Brian (58:10)
And the reason why later on the knights are going to be able to laugh when Dresden beats the shit out of a Tanarian with a baseball bat is because their concern immediately afterwards is for the possible stain on Dresden's soul, because as we're going to talk about, they're worried about the consequences of that in this book. But they're not actually interested in.

Saving the Denarians in the sense of saving them from pain, their concern, their mission, is solely about their immortal soul. And while they have to play fair to stay true to their mission, they cannot harm Cassius once he has given up the coin. The fact that Dresden humiliates him, brings him low,

Takes him to rock bottom by effectively torturing you know that man isn't bad because Cassius is harmed. It's bad because, well, maybe Dresden is a sadist now, and that could be bad. But it might be good. It might be something we can laugh about if it actually gives him a genuine moment to reevaluate his choices. Cassius dying free of the coin in that hospital room isn't, if he repents.

Actually a bad ending as far as the knights are concerned.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (59:31)
Yeah, and we'll talk more about that moment when we get to it, but it does seem to me like they believe that Cassius deserves everything Dresden's giving him and more for what he's done. The problem is they have to live their own virtues, and part of their own virtues are we don't make those judgments, right? That's not our purpose. Dresden is just a regular mortal. He is doesn't have those virtues that he has to stand by like a paladin does. He can make those choices, and they can,

Find them funny.

Brian (1:00:00)
Yes, and they can't stop him from making that choice. They can just try to help him afterwards as they do see the gravity of it. And that's why when we get to battlegrounds, and they can stop Dresden from making that choice, you do know that the Winter Knight's Mantle has changed him in a fundamental way. Because they don't stop him from beating the snot out of Cassius. They do stop him from killing Rudolph.

Now, obviously, Cassius is a much worse person than Rudolph, and Dresden's doing it for better reasons, but it also seems to be something fundamental to the job of the knights in those moments. So we've talked about them in general, Adam, but we get specific insights into the two knights we've just met. Let's talk about Harry and Sanya. They get to have a little talk here where Sanya reveals that,

not exactly who you'd expect as a knight.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:57)
No, no. in fact, it's one of my favorite reveals in the whole series when we get to the point where Harry asks Sanya, you know, where did you get this sword? And Sanya says, Esperakius, Michael gave it to me. And Harry's like, when did Michael go to Russia? And he's like, not that Michael. And he points up that Michael. That is an amazing

Brian (1:01:19)
Amazing.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:01:20)
turn.

I love it, but that brings us to the question. Harry says, so you get handed a holy sword by an archangel told to go fight the forces of evil and you somehow remain an atheist? Is that what you're telling me?

Brian (1:01:38)
Yeah, so we know now two ways that swords pass to long term wielders. A wizard gives it to you and an archangel gives it to you, which suggests that like being the custodian of the swords really is that big of a deal.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:01:52)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:01:53)
But let's hold that thought for a second. So Sonny is an atheist. Is this as insane as Dresden makes it out to be?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:01)
Yeah, that's an interesting question. The the defenses that Sanya gives is like, some could maybe argue that I am agnostic. And he's like doing his own semantic sort of flip-flopping here. And I love the line that Harry gives as part of this. When when Sonia's like, you just said that you're not religious, but you believe in the supernatural, and Harry's like, Yeah, but I'm not agnostic, I'm just nonpartisan.

Theological Switzerland, that's me. Harry a hundred percent believes in the white god that gave Harry this sword. That thing exists. And he just like, I don't want to be involved in the organization that that thing is in. So the other thing is that Sanya says, perhaps I it is possible I am mad, and all of this is a hallucination. And that is another one that kind of makes me think he's just messing with Harry, right? I d I do think he considers himself an atheist.

But because maybe the white god isn't really a god, maybe isn't the creator, Sonia's saying, okay, maybe this is a powerful being like Mab. I don't necessarily think it's a god, right? That's what atheism means. It means I do not believe in God. And so that's a possible way that he could hide this, but it does seem, even with that caveat, to be pretty absurd. And he still seems to pull it off, and I don't

I don't have a problem with it. I don't know how he does it.

Brian (1:03:25)
Yeah, so I think that you make a really good point that you know, having faith is about faith. It can't be about knowledge. So Sanya knows

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:35)
Hmm.

Brian (1:03:36)
of the existence of these beings. That literally does not in from his perspective make him religious. He doesn't believe in anything. There is a thing named Michael, it gave him the sword. What is it? I mean, an angel,

Yeah, what is

an angel anyway? You know, like that's kind of Sonia's reaction to it. But Adam, I think that he just resists using the vocabulary of religion because as he reveals, it's sort of antithetical to his political views,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:04:10)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:04:10)
which we can be pretty sure that Sanya holds on to very tightly, because we get the following exchange. Harry says.

Just a minute, I said. You became a knight of the cross because you were a communist? Sonya's face twisted with revulsion. Certainly not. Trotsky. Very different. Now,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:04:33)
Yes.

Brian (1:04:34)
I want to be clear that this is technically nonsensical. Jim is kind of trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wants this to be pithy, but he also wants to do this joke, and it doesn't act.

Actually work. We're gonna talk about what it means, but it doesn't actually work because a Trotskyite is a communist. They're a doctrinaire communist. A Trotskyite would argue that other communists like aren't real communists. We're the real communists. They don't see that as a dirty word that makes their face twist with revulsion. So

The only way this kind of works is that Sanya has to know what Dresden means when he says communist, and he's reacting to Dresden's assumptions and beliefs about the definition of that word, and therefore like correcting him, but he's not actually correcting him. He's just assuming that Dresden's a stupid American who doesn't know what these words really mean.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:35)
Right, because to an American, especially one Jim's age like Gen X kind of a thing, and even the millennial generation, they will have grown up in a world where communist was synonymous with Soviet. Like that model was the version of communist that me and my parents were all familiar with.

Brian (1:05:54)
And specifically like a Stalinist, you know, like there is in the beginning of the Soviet Union, there's a few different strains of communism, but Stalinism is the one that, carries the Soviet Union forward until arguably Khrushchev. But even then, that imprint is philosophically all over the state. And then what's the other one? Maoism. And a lot of people have kind of intrinsic negative reactions.

To those forms of communism for fairly obvious historical reasons that we don't really need to go into here. Whereas Trotskyism is like specifically oppositional to Stalinism. It is a brand of communism that you could define in a few ways, and it'd be very complex to do so comprehensively, and different people who are Trotskyites might have

Different beliefs about what the most important parts of their doctrine are. But the key point would be that they're not Stalinists. They are members of the left opposition to Stalin, and they think that Trotsky's version of Marxist-Leninism is the correct one. And broadly speaking, Trotsky's vision of communism was more international and democratic and liberal.

In the sense of being decentralized and thinking that people have kind of intrinsic rights that the state can't trample on, I'm painting with really broad brushes here. And the reason why I'm really careful to do so is because to describe yourself in the year of our Lord 2000 and whatever as a Trotskyite Adam is a level of I've been reading theory.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:43)
Ha ha ha.

Brian (1:07:44)
That even the most Che Guevara wearing college grad you've ever met in your entire life has not ascended to. Like the amount of books you've had to read with titles like What is to be done and the workers of the world, the amount of like communist theory you need to read to come out the other side and be like, Yeah, that guy Trotsky had it figured out in about 1927, is

Really, like you gotta have a degree in it practically. So Sonia's not kind of casually saying, like, I define myself as a this, like, I a vote democrat. He's like, I am a dyed-in-the-wool left opposition to Stalin person. This is a super important part of my identity. And in fact why I believe it's important to put my life on the line for others.

Because I believe that everyone should do all they can to improve the, you know, collective circumstances of the people.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:08:46)
Yeah, and the reason we're talking about all this is because it really goes to the core of what makes Sanya Sanya, his philosophy. It's literally he reveals this right after Harry asks, So if you're not religious, you risk your life to help other people because and that leads to him explaining that he's a Trotskyite. and to that end, as you pointed out, Trotskyism is a more

democratic, maybe you could describe it as more liberal. As you said, these are very broad brushes. And it's also a less state controlled and state limited version of Stalinism of communism. Because the Trotskyites said, no, no, no, a permanent revolution is what we want, which is we take all revolutionaries in our country and we ally them with revolutionaries in other countries and we seek to overthrow the capitalists

everywhere, no compromising. And as you said, I know what I know about this because I play Hearts of Iron 4. And some of those mods I get I read the some of the I'm like, okay, I need to go to Wikipedia to understand what my choices are here. Because as you said, the 1930s were had so many different flavors of communism in France and Germany and Russia. All over the world people were talking about. So

To choose a very specific one and say, that one is mine in the year of our Lord two thousand and anything is wild. And it's it's like say it you c it's not like just saying, yeah, I'm a progressive. It's like saying I'm a Jeffersonian progressive who believes in the Yeoman farmer or something like that.

Brian (1:10:30)
Yes, it's it's like

not saying like I'm a Catholic. It's like saying like, you know, I'm a disciple of like Opus Dei, and you know, specifically like the 33rd right of like the second, you know, like that kind of like, are you a Baptist, Northern or Southern? Like, you

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:10:50)
Yeah.

Brian (1:10:50)
know, Western Congress or Eastern Congress, like getting really deep into the weeds. And one thing that this tells us.

Is that because this is such a core part of his identity? Well, communists, especially of that period, are hardcore atheists. You know, Marx is the guy who said religion is the opiate of the masses. So the idea that one of them is going to meet a guy in a white robe and be like, I'm a Christian now, if you really believe in it, is crazy. That would be crazy for Sanya to do, right?

He is somebody who has deep personal convictions. That's why he has to say, well, they could be aliens. I could be mad. But it's also why he might be primed to look down on someone like Harry. Because he associates Harry using magic with being a Wiccan, being a pagan. And that kind of folk religion is something that a scientific

Communist of like the Trotsky period would have seen as kind of backward superstitiousness. Like you're a rube if you believe in paganism. So Sanya is primed to not really have a lot of respect for someone like Dresden. And the fact that Dresden gets a handshake from him after that battle in the last chapter.

Actually says something about how much he's impressed him already.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:12:23)
Yeah. And the last thing I want to bring in about the Sanya and religion thing is that he could potentially believe in the Archangel Michael and God and all of those things, but not be in favor of any of the organized religions that are built around it, right? He doesn't

He doesn't want to be a part of orthodoxy or Catholicism or Baptists or Protestants or any of that stuff. Because how does he know which one of those is right? Right? They all seem to worship the same God. Hell, even the even the Jews and the Muslims probably worship the same white God. They're all kind of worshiping Yahweh.

Brian (1:13:03)
the

real solution for Sanya is universalist Unitarianism. You gotta go

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:13:07)
Exactly,

Brian (1:13:08)
to the meetings, they've got wonderful breakfasts after the services. but seriously, that's absolutely right. And I think what's also interesting is we actually know that Sonia's ancestry is originally Muslim because he is descended from Saladin. We're gonna find that out later, but

Sanya no, Saladin is like Syrian. The Abuyid dynasty starts in like Egypt by people who are kind of Arab, and like the last holdout of it is in Eastern Turkey. So there aren't a lot of black Abuyids, but Sanya is apparently descended from some branch of Saladin's family that

probably ended up in Nubia or something. And given that we know this about him, he must know this about himself. So his religious history is kind of inherently complicated. And it's not that he's sort of coming to this decision that I'm an agnostic on the basis of just kind of reflexively ignoring what's in front of him. It's definitely after

Deeply considering all of it. Also, we should probably mention that part of the reason why Sanya is a Russian communist and also a black guy is definitely because Jim wanted to make a joke about the drink, the Black Russian. And I just think that's inescapably, definitely why we have

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:14:46)
Yeah.

Brian (1:14:46)
to do all these gymnastics on the basis of Sanya. But

It's pretty good because his personality is a lot like that of a black Russian. You know, Sanya is the kind of guy who, you know, loves his vodka, loves having a good time and drinking, but also he's got that energy that only comes when you add that coffee kalooah to it. You know, he's he's got that kick.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:15:04)
Yeah, and he's just

and he's basically

unflappably hopeful and optimistic, which makes sense for the knight of hope, right?

So that is gonna be our little

digression into talking about Sanya and his history and what we know about him th coming up through this scene. because then Sanya leaves to go and make get a sandwich or something and Shiro comes in and we have a little conversation between Harry and Shiro. And just like Sanya asking Harry about, you know, are you a Wiccan and trying to get to the bottom of that, we have Shiro coming in and asking, you know, why are you searching for the shroud? Harry explains he's it's his job.

And so and Shiro says, You do it for the money. And then he says, Do you love money then, Mr. Dresden? And this we get a great frickin' line with Harry saying, I used to think I loved it, but now I realize it's just dependency. Which causes Shiro to burst

Brian (1:15:59)
Just incredible.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:16:01)
out in a bark of laughter. And I think it like passes the test, right? This was sort of a test of like Shiro.

Like, so do you love money? And Harry could have answered that a bunch of different ways. And how he answers is the important part, not exactly what his answer is. So the fact that he explains it in a way as, yes, I'm doing it for the money, but it's really just because I need money to do it, right? he kind of sees through it and says, hey, Harry's doing this to try to help people.

Brian (1:16:32)
Well I don't even think it's that. Like, maybe Shiro gets that out of this conversation, but I think that Shiro could see a few reasons why somebody might be looking for the Shroud of Turin. One of them is power. The Shroud is a powerful magical object. Harry's a wizard. He could be trying to get power.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:16:51)
Hmm.

Brian (1:16:51)
Okay, it's not power.

Okay, another possibility is that Harry is a man of faith and he thinks that he needs to recover this as kind of like a crusader. Okay, it's not that. Okay, another possibility is that he's just a mercenary. He'll do anything. He'll fight for any side. He just goes to the highest bidder. And Harry doesn't tell Shiro here that he's not a mercenary.

But what he does tell Shiro is, look, man, I gotta eat.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:17:21)
Yeah, exactly.

Brian (1:17:22)
And that suggests that even if Harry is doing this for base reasons, they're not really deep convictions that he deserves to be super rich. They're just the general need that people have to do things to survive. And I think Shiro

when he laughs and kind of o lets him end the conversation, is s really saying good enough. You know, like it's not maybe that means you're a good guy, maybe that means you're just a normal guy, but I can work with that.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:17:56)
Mm-hmm. That makes sense. Now, because we went to we're going do a deep dive on these guys here, let's talk a little bit about Shiro's origins, right? We know I think from a future book, Harry deduces that he's descended from the last king of Okinawa, I think.

Brian (1:18:12)
Yeah, so Shotai of Ryukyu, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, is specifically according to the Dresden Files wiki, who it Shiro is descended from, and that's stated in small favor. I'm not just taking it from them. This is kind of messy because Shotai is like a historical figure that we know, and we know his descendants pretty much, and it's

Kind of weird if Shiro is one of them. Because no one in the entire family is named Shiro. We'll come back to where that name probably comes from in a second. And I don't just mean that in terms of like there is no literal character named Shiro. I'm not saying you can't point to him in the genealogy. I wouldn't expect that. But a lot of the names repeat. You know, it's like a a noble family in Europe that's always naming their kid, you know, Charles or Peter or.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:19:06)
Yeah,

Charles the Sixth, the Seventh, the Eighth,

Brian (1:19:06)
Or Tom i Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:19:08)
the Tenth.

Brian (1:19:09)
Right. So this is not Shiro is not one of the repeating names. And Shiro's last name, and this I didn't have time to run down specifically to make sure that it was it was correct. But the only thing I could find is his name be last name being given as Yoshimo. And that name specifically is like only held by a hundred and thirty Japanese people.

All of whom are from Yamaguchi Prefecture, which is not in or bordering Okinawa. So Shiro is sort of a messy character. It's not clean to be able to see how he descended from this guy, who was alive in like 1900. Like we know this person's history, we can track his actual family.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:19:55)
It's a

lot easier for Jim to just wave his hand and go, yeah, Michael's descended from Charlemagne, you know, the guy from what is it, 600 AD or 700 AD or something like that.

Brian (1:20:04)
Exactly. Like yes, his we can pin down his origins there a thousand years ago. Okay, right. That's way, way easier. Now, an interesting thing I found looking this up is that Jim might have gotten the name Shiro from somewhere because there's a a person in Japanese history named Amakusa Shiro, who is a seventeen-year-old.

Who leads a peasant rebellion at the kind of end of the Sengoku period when it transitions into, and I'm not good at Japanese history, but I believe that's the transition to the shogunate. and this guy is a Christian who leads this rebellion. And eventually, you know, he dies from a Christian perspective, a martyr's death here. He is a Catholic, in fact.

And if you've seen like the FX series shogun, like that's kind of the time period we're talking about. So that's where Jim might be taking this name from. which is cool because that would be the period where Phidolakius would probably be reforged into a katana. That's where you're you're seeing, you

globalization reached Japan and stuff from outside the country entering into it. So maybe that's when the sword actually enters Japanese history. So, you know, we can't be sure of any of that. All we know canonically is that he is descended from Shotai, king of Okinawa, and that's where he's from.

Everything else is just kind of trying to see where Jim was inspired by. And it's a little bit messy. It's it's hard to see the clear line the way you can for Michael Carpenter, who, you know, has Excalibur. Like that's got some very clear inspirations. Shiro is a little bit more of a a pastiche.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:22:01)
Yeah. And we'll talk more about Shiro throughout the rest of this book because obviously this is the only book that he's in, so we'll come back to more of him. After Shiro has that conversation with Harry, Michael enters and reveals that these enemies don't want you dead.

They want you. Unquote. Boy, Brian, that reveal is properly terrifying. No, Ursio wasn't coming to kill you. He was coming to effectively enslave you into the powers of hell.

Brian (1:22:29)
Yeah, when you see Rasmussen in that soul gaze, and then Michael gives you this line a chapter later, you're like, shit.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:22:37)
That's that's a fate worse than death, actually.

Brian (1:22:39)
Yes, and it's very, very effective. Jim doesn't need to put that soul gaze in that fight. Why does he do it? so we can understand the nature of the Denarians in a but so this line will hit like this. That's

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:22:52)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:22:52)
why he does it. And one of the other things that Michael says.

Is in response to Dresden's, if I was in so much danger, why did Father Vincent come and hire me? Fort Hill asked him not to. Father Vincent disagrees with Forth Hill on how supernatural matters are to be handled.

this is one of the things, one of the very few things

That could unravel that mystery we were talking about in chapter five as being kind of unsolvable. Who is that body that got ginsued and plagued to death?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:23:26)
Yeah, because the line here, Father Vincent disagrees with Forth Hill on how supernatural matters are to be handled. That line suggests that Father Vincent believes in the supernatural, which we know we

Brian (1:23:40)
Ding ding ding.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:23:40)
will find out later, of course, that he does.

That does not jive with the version of Father Vincent that we met earlier, but it is very subtle. You can forgive Fer Harry for missing that because I missed it and I've read this book four or five times.

Brian (1:23:55)
I missed it rereading it this time with you. It was

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:23:57)
Yeah.

Brian (1:23:58)
only 'cause you put it in the notes that we even saw it here. So really well done by Jim laying that in here. It's a really, really good clue. But Adam, I gotta ask you about something else. So Michael wants Harry to leave town. Like don't even help, man. Just get out of here.

That suggests that Michael assumes, you know, Harry's in more danger than anybody else here. He's in more danger than, other people who the Denarians might target. It seems like Michael assumes that if the Knights aren't there to bodyguard him, not only could the Denarians kill Harry.

But that they would in fact be able to bring them over to their side.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:24:42)
Yeah, and I think it might not even be, Harry is uniquely susceptible, but it's also a if Harry does go over to their side, he is a uniquely powerful individual that would bolster their ranks significantly, right? If they just pick some Tom Dick or Harry off the street, well, it's bad that that person has the coin and is going to do damage. But a Harry Dresden with a coin is just much scarier. But

Why if we come back to the original question, if we look at it from the framing that you gave, you know, why do they think that Harry is so susceptible? Well, I think this is the Gandalf quote from the Lord of the Rings, where Frodo offers him the ring. It says, You take it. And Gandalf says, Don't tempt me, Frodo, for I would use this ring from the desire to do good.

But through me it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine. That's very likely the way they would get to Harry. And it's kind of the way that Lash will get to Harry later. use this power to help save your friends, to help save this client.

Brian (1:25:50)
you've

you've got to read some German, do you? I could help with that.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:25:53)
Yeah,

exactly. They get to you slowly and steadily by helping you do what you want, what you think is righteous and good, but inevitably it slowly corrupts you, right? So Michael th does probably doesn't think that Harry's a bad person, but the fact that he's a good person and driven to do good things, and maybe because of something he saw in the soul gaze that he had to have with Michael at some point.

He's looking at him and going, my, he could be tempted by this.

Brian (1:26:26)
Yeah, and I think that's gotta be it to at least a certain extent, Adam, because we know that people can reject the Denarians. I mean, Sanya is a Knight of the Cross. Sanya held a coin, used its power for a while, and you know, only after, kind of becoming a full-fledged member of the team did he give up the coin and take up the sword. So it is definitely possible to reject.

An offer to join in the first place. I mean, the Denarians themselves think they're gonna have to torture Marcone and Ivy into doing it in small favor. But Michael doesn't think that they're gonna kill Harry. He thinks that Harry will fold. And I think the reason is because, as we've speculated, like everybody else who soul gazes Harry.

Michael probably saw some stuff that was awesome in both the sense of really inspiring and cool, and in the sense of awful and terrifying.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:27:30)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:27:30)
And he can sort of see the through line of this is the way that that bad version of what I saw comes to pass. But

What Michael's mistake here is, and it's not really a mistake because there's no way he could know any better. But what Michael doesn't know, and the reason why the Denarians aren't going to be able to get him in this book, and the thing that squares the circle here, is not that Michael's just underestimating the fact that Harry's generally stubborn. It's that being a starborn, the single power that it gives you.

Is the ability to defy. So Harry is always going to be able to reject the coin on a level playing field, the same way the knights can deal with the Denarians in a level playing field, because that's kind of the whole superpower he has. So I think it's really cool that when you sort of look back.

Back on this book from the perspective of somebody who's super deep into the series, seeing how Harry handles the winter mantle gnawing at him all the time, that you can actually say, Michael didn't misjudge things. He just lacks the information we can guess at. That kind of settled something for me that I've always found kind of weird in these first couple books where.

Michael reacts like with regards to the coins, Harry has no chance of rejecting them through his free will. He's gonna tell him to give up his magic and proven guilty, or, you know, he's inevitably gonna be taken over. I know that it's very hard for people to resist, but it su seems from all we've seen, like Harry should be a good candidate. He's super stubborn, very principled. Michael has

other reasons, probably, to believe that Harry might be voter.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:29:26)
Yeah. And I think the Soul Gaze is probably the most likely of those ones that we just discussed

Brian (1:29:31)
Definitely.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:29:31)
here. All right. I think that's going to do it with our big episode here, introducing us to the Knights of the Cross as a group. Obviously, we talked about Michael plenty before when we were doing Grave Peril.

Bit of a quick note, we will not be releasing a new episode next week because we need to take a week off. I will be participating in a war gaming convention all over the next weekend, and so I won't have time to prep before Monday. And Brian,

Brian (1:29:54)
And

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:29:55)
you're gonna be out of the country on Tuesday, so we don't really have time to do it.

Brian (1:29:57)
Yes.

I'm gonna be on a plane to Spain, hopefully not stuck in the rain. And you know, that's gonna be two weeks of me being out of town. So we're actually going to skip that episode and release our coverage of part one, a fistful of warlocks, which was originally a Patreon episode.

Patrons, don't worry, you're still getting an episode this month that's just for you. But we're gonna release this to the public since Adam and I will both be unavailable when we would record that other episode.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:30:33)
Yeah, we've had this concept that if there are ever situations in real life one of us gets sick and we can't really talk, or like in this situation, both of us just happen to be unavailable at the same time, we could release one of these episodes from the Patreon vault to make sure you guys still get something. Obviously, our patrons have already heard these, so we apologize. You won't have a new episode next week, but we're not going to be doing that on a regular basis. The Patreon episodes are still for patrons.

In this one case though, we do want to make sure we get part one and part two of a Fistful of Warlocks out to you relatively quickly so you're not just hung out there waiting for that second part to come out eventually. And it just so happens that we want to take a week off right around the holidays. So Fistful of Warlocks part two will come out around the first of the new year to give us some time off from the show at that point. if you want to hear it before then, feel free to head over to our Patreon.

Brian (1:31:31)
Yeah, I think we just skipped that week between Christmas and New Year's last year. I think it's better for us to release a Patreon episode, especially because it would be awfully mean for us to release part one and then just hold part two for all eternity or something.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:31:47)
Yeah,

that that would be 'cause it's such that's one of our best ones, I think, because Fistful of Warlocks is definitely yeah, it's i exactly,

Brian (1:31:53)
It's one of Jim's best ones, you know. Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:31:55)
it's one of the best stories that we've talked about on the Patreon so far. For those that are interested, that includes a couple of the graphic novels and we've gotten through the B is for Bigfoot series by this point.

We'll see you next time.