Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
We could talk a little bit about my Latin translation of his one spell.

Baloreilly (00:03)
Yeah, I don't actually

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:04)
or something.

Baloreilly (00:04)
Yeah, I have followed

your... Testatum.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:08)
Follow your testimony is what Google says.

Baloreilly (00:08)
Peace.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:10)
maybe follow your trail, the evidence you left behind.

Baloreilly (00:15)
testatum is testimony when you're using it as a Latin word in English, but it comes from the Latin word for a witness. So it's...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:19)
Hmm.

Right, that's why I kind

of thought of it as like evidence, the trail, the track that you've left behind. Like somebody who walked through the jungle and you can find the trail that they left.

Baloreilly (00:29)
Bright.

Right, it's more like,

So GUI is I followed, but it's literally like I have followed. It's the perfect tense. So it's like have followed...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:39)
Hmm ⁓

Baloreilly (00:43)
I have followed your witnessing. Something like that.

Yeah, I don't think it's particularly good ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:50)
We're probably gonna

all Latin discussions with that.

Baloreilly (00:54)
I think

like

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:02)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory. Remember, while we are now reading through full moon, the spoilers go all the way through battleground. I am Adam Ruzzo, and with me, as corrupt FBI agent, it's Brian O'Reilly. Welcome, Brian.

Baloreilly (01:19)
Hey, would you just hold this gun for a second? Take your glove off, take your glove off. Make sure you get your finger on the trigger. Yeah, just put that down right in front of you. Perfect. ⁓ a lot.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:21)
yeah, I can help. ⁓ okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

okay. Yeah, will this help your investigation?

Glad to be of assistance.

So, we're starting a new book. Brian, where is this book temporally in relation to Stormfront?

Baloreilly (01:40)
So it's the same year, which we think is the year 2000. It's about five to seven months after Stormfront. We know that this book is taking place in October. Stormfront takes place in the spring, so March, April, May. So it's been five to seven months. And this book takes place, just like Stormfront, over four days. The first day is the day before the full moon. The full moon is three days long.

purposes of this book and it makes up days two through four.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:11)
we start in McAnally's where Dresden is refusing to tell Kim Delaney his quote unquote sometimes apprentice details about a greater circle that she has sketched out for him. Brian, it's...

very different the way that Kim is introduced and her relationship with Harry versus Molly's relationship with Harry. Why do you think that is?

Baloreilly (02:39)
I think Dresden, as somebody who really has beliefs with regards to the White Council, is trying to kind of be the cool new teacher here who's come up with a new way that you're gonna learn. And he's not doing something so rigid with Kim as a formal apprenticeship, partially because maybe she's not a White Council level talent. But because this goes so badly, it makes him treat Molly's apprenticeship in the most by the book manner he possibly can.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:08)
Not to mention consequences of him not teaching Kim Delaney super well is like, okay, maybe she doesn't become a super great wizard if she goes to somebody else to be a teacher. The complication of if he doesn't do that well with Molly is death.

Baloreilly (03:23)
especially

when the results for Kim Delaney of this methodology are death. So I think Dresden really gets the program with regards to how literally wrote the book and Dresden's gonna follow it to the letter with Molly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:38)
Yeah,

So next, Kim finally convinces him to tell her some stuff about this drawing, which we know is actually the circle Harley McFin, has to contain himself when he turns into a Lugaru.

Baloreilly (03:54)
The first layer of this circle is something we see all the time, which is a circle to keep out spirits. Dresden does that constantly. But this second layer of the circle atom is a circle that blocks mortal flesh. Is that something we ever see again?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:11)
I don't think so, and it might just be because it's not something that Harry really needs, but we know that he can make that kind of magic whenever he wants. He uses his shield bracelet to block bullets or anything else physical from passing through. think this circle might just be another version of that kind of force magic.

Baloreilly (04:34)
Yeah, I wonder if when the White Council closes convocations in summer night and then in proven guilty, they do use this keeping out mortal flesh thing because it appears that they're trying to make sure that nobody breaks in. But I think that might be the only time it's even implied that someone does this as opposed to just a shield spell.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:55)
then the third circle is the one that becomes a problem in this first chapter where we get Harry's narration explaining to us that what she has drawn in this third circle is something that is designed to deal with something that transcends the spiritual and the mortal, something like an archangel or a demonic demigod.

So why is that needed to deal with a Loup Garou?

Baloreilly (05:24)
So I think you turned me on to the notion that the Lu-Guru is a spirit bound to mortal flesh. That's why McFin has no personality in the form of the beast and why able to create masks the way only master shapeshifters seem to be able to do. So it seems like that's definitely going on. The interesting thing here is, I think when Harry is saying this is too advanced for Kim, he doesn't just mean because it's too dangerous.

He literally means this is too hard to do for you because the only time we see magic that can contain beings of this level is the small favor pentagram maybe, or the island on demon reach keeping out the Negloshi. stuff that, Harry does to Lashiel's coin, it's stuff that even he barely knows how

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:07)
Hmm ⁓

Baloreilly (06:17)
And certainly Kim is definitely not gonna be able to do it in one night, which is the truly tragic thing about this. She has no chance whatsoever. So when Kim storms out in a huff after Dresden refuses to give her the last couple pieces of the puzzle here, it's very tragic because Kim on the one hand simply doesn't understand why Harry won't tell her because Harry won't explain why he won't tell her in sufficient detail.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:43)
Yeah,

yeah, he thinks, I can't tell you this, and I can't even tell you why I can't tell you this. Like, there are ways that communication works where you can avoid telling them the thing, but give them some understanding of why, right? But he instead tries to lie about it and say, it's gobbledygook, it's meaningless, it's not really, it's not a real thing, because he, some reason, wants to keep the White Council's secrets so bad.

despite the fact that he is openly practicing as a wizard, and yet he's still abiding by their rules of what you shouldn't tell people.

Baloreilly (07:19)
mean, maybe this is just the trauma of being under the doom for so long. He really hasn't broken out of that yet. But you made a really good point here. Kim does not promise to stay away from this magic.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:23)
Maybe.

No, he says, promise me you won't stay away. And she says, whatever, and leaves.

Baloreilly (07:37)
that should be a clear signal to Harry that he can't leave it there. She's clearly going to try to do this.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:42)
Yeah!

instead he just lets her walk away and then spends the next like four or five paragraphs convincing himself that he did the right thing. Because we have to assume, if he at that moment realized that Kim was gonna try something dangerous and stupid, he would have immediately gotten up and done something about it, right? He's not the type that would just say, well, it's not my problem, I warned her. Like, that's the opposite of what Harry is. So he's obviously too young and naive.

to realize that she is about to go and do it. And the weirdest thing is, he is exactly the type of personality that if somebody told you, no, don't do that thing that you think is right, it's too dangerous. Like, he would definitely do it. He's done it before. spent an entire book of him doing that already. So the fact that he doesn't put himself into Kim's shoes and realize, she's gonna do that anyway, regardless of what I say.

I should go and maybe oversee it is a little baffling.

Baloreilly (08:42)
I think it's honestly the reason why so many people think this is the weakest book in the series. It's not really because the characters aren't written believably. It's because Harry really fails to put himself in the shoes of other people on a continual basis throughout the book, and it makes their motivations unclear even to the reader at the time when they're taking actions. Is Kim making a mistake here? Cert-

But the mistake Harry's making comes from a place of greater knowledge and is maybe therefore the one that is more preventable.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:15)
We are so used to, as people who are re-reading the series, are so used to Harry being smart on so many levels by the time you get to Cold Day skin game battle talks. But at this first part of the series, he is young and naive on a lot of things.

We didn't see him do a lot of interpersonal stuff in Stormfront. A lot of it is him lone wolfing everything and like it's him versus a suspect or somebody he's interrogating, right? He's not doing much with allies except Murphy and he's messing that up in Stormfront. Here we see him messing up these kind of assumptions all the time throughout this book and he does learn from it. And I understand the frustration. It is frustrating to read that, especially if you are

a fan of the Harry from turncoat changes, et cetera, and beyond.

Baloreilly (10:09)
And especially if you're the kind of person who reads in part because you like putting yourself in other people's shoes. Harry's failure to do that here, you know, sticks out like thumb to me. So Kim storms out and once she does show, she blows one of the fans in Mackinally's. And I think that's kind of significant because I think that is a clue that Kim is maybe a little bit stronger than Harry's leading on.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:16)
Mm-hmm.

Baloreilly (10:35)
And that's why she feels capable enough to try something like this.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:39)
Yeah, Harry describes her as having modest magical talents, but we have to remember that he is one of the strongest wizards in the White Council, even at his young age. So it's harder for him to contextualize what a modest talent looks like, because he's comparing it to one of the strongest wizards himself, and he always downplays his own strength and capabilities, at least in the early books.

Later on, he starts to really contextualize and decide that maybe I am amongst the heaviest hitters in the White Council by the time we get to battleground. But at this point, he's still downplaying his own abilities.

Baloreilly (11:16)
And Kim might not be White Council material, but we certainly see nobody else in the paranet community do something like this in McAnally's, hex one of these pieces of equipment that are designed to be resistant to those sort of swirling wizard emotions.

Now, while Harry's doing this justification to himself after she leaves, Murphy walks in, picking up the paper that Kim dropped, and giving Harry a case in its place.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:47)
Yes, the main case for this particular book,

and he's kind of turning her away until she mentions that there's been a murder and he suddenly takes things more seriously and puts off his annoyance at the fact that she hasn't hired him in the several months and they head to the crime scene in her car.

Baloreilly (12:07)
So Harry and Murphy arrive at the crime scene outside of Chicago proper in Rosemont at what is the varsity. It's back folks. There's a varsity in Rosemont now. Marcon's keeping his legitimate businesses outside of the city where no wizards can set them on fire. And we walk in and we see someone we know. just no longer with the living. It's Spike from Stormfront. Absolutely.

torn to shreds in frankly a gross manner. mean, pieces of face are missing, his eyes have been ripped out.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:44)
Yeah, Harry basically only recognizes him because of his hairstyle that is the reason he gave him that nickname.

Baloreilly (12:50)
Right, and presumably because he's associating the Varsity with Marcon's people, so he's got it on the tip of his tongue. Harry walks the crime scene and sees lot of evidence that clues him in that there might be something going on that does require his talent, namely paw prints. He's gonna ask Murphy about those directly, and that's when she broaches the topic of werewolves with him. But...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:55)
right.

Baloreilly (13:15)
A funny thing that happens here is for the second book in a row, Harry reads a crime scene wrong, he picks up a shard of glass that's got some blood on it, and says, ⁓ this must be the killer's blood.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:20)
Mm-hmm.

We know that that is actually Tara West's blood that she came in through the window to try to stop the actual attacker that was attacking Spike. when he follows this blood in chapter five, it leads him directly to Tara. So normally you'd think, hey, there's the killer, but he manages to come to the correct conclusion that she is not the killer.

in that chapter. We'll get to But it is interesting to note that he keeps being wrong about his very initial first design. We're gonna keep looking at these. If he's wrong about every initial observation, that might be a pattern.

Baloreilly (14:00)
Part of the reason why he's wrong in this instance is because the actual plot of Full Moon is pretty intricate. What's going on is very complex. And I think that's another thing that turns people off from the book. It's hard to see as information is revealed how it connects back to earlier facts that were presented to you because Harry spends the entire book,

on the balls of his feet just stumbling forward because there's just always a crisis that's about to be precipitated. So we never really get a chance for him to take stock of the situation and unravel it in detail for us, which leads to sort of a sense of incompleteness in terms of dealing with the evidence that's presented to him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:42)
Yeah, that's a great point. All the information is there, but it's spread out and revealed at different points, which makes it hard. And even when it is revealed, Harry doubts it, right? So when he confronts Macphin later in the woods, Macphin gives him a lot of information that Harry then questions. Like, okay, if you're telling the truth, then this is the way, but you could be lying, it could be her. So even at that moment, when we get real information, we as the reader,

don't know whether we can trust it or not, and it's only later that we get more information. We have to go back to that chapter and say, okay, all of this was true, now recontextualize everything else. So with that in mind, we're gonna talk about in chapter four, when Murphy lays out the facts of the case so far, we're gonna try to describe what actually happened with our knowledge of the plot going on here, because it is convoluted and not as well described as other books.

Baloreilly (15:40)
And Adam, you put a post up on Reddit today that actually asked people when they uncovered who the culprit was in Fool Moon. And I think it's to Jim's credit that he does a nice enough job with the clues and the red herrings to where a lot of people didn't figure it out until the very end. Of course, some people figured it out quite quickly because of the next thing that happens in this scene.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, so the feds arrive, we meet Agent Denton. Thank you for the shout out to Day Sex. I'm sure that's what Jim was referring to, I always appreciate that. It was a fantastic game from the 90s. So Agent Denton arrives and says, Murphy, you don't belong here. And this is when, Harry's first realization that she is not actually on this case, that she is going outside the law to bring him here. And I think one of the interesting she says under her breath, like,

how do they keep getting to all these places so fast? We know it's because they were the ones that committed this act. They are ready for this call because they knew it was coming. FBI arrives and they tell Murphy to leave and Murphy makes a mistake here, which he admits to later in chapter three.

she gets all up in Denton's face and says, I belong on this case and you shouldn't, you should let me stay here, I know what I'm doing. And it causes Denton to ask Agent Ben to remove Murphy from the scene. And Agent Ben loses her cool, gets physical with Murphy, Murphy fights her, and Ben pulls her gun and it discharges. Basically, Harry saves Murphy's life by pushing her out of the way of the bullet.

That is a really intense thing to just come out of jurisdictional issues, right? You don't normally see that in any of the TV shows where somebody's pulling rank.

Baloreilly (17:28)
Yeah, this is nuts for a number of reasons. First of all, Ben tries to kill Murphy here. I that's what she's trying to do. That's just crazy. That's gobsmackingly crazy. But even what happens immediately afterward is pretty wild because they sort of come to the understanding among cops that we're gonna say this was a misfire. Here's the thing.

My wife is an attorney. She's worked with the NYPD in their sort of strategy office. She now defends a lot of municipal governments. She does a lot of cases involving police. And I was talking to her about this being like, isn't just your gun going off at a crime scene gonna cause mountains of paperwork? And she said, yeah, I mean, on the extreme end, the Rosemont police could like maybe even sue the FBI for tampering with evidence. But at the very least, the amount of discipline

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:20)
Hmm.

Baloreilly (18:24)
that's gonna come down on Ben is going to be extraordinary. It's not just a negligent discharge, it's a negligent discharge that complicates the forensics at a crime scene. Why do you even have your gun out at a crime scene?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:38)
Exactly, exactly. So the implication here is that everybody's gonna pretend nothing happened because it's not in Murphy's interest to press the issue because she shouldn't have been here in the first place and it's not in Denton's interest because he doesn't member of his team to get in trouble and then you have to wonder if the Rosemont cops that were stationed outside that come running in and say, hey, what's going on?

Did they want to go up against their word against the FBI? No, if the FBI don't report it, they're gonna shut the heck up and not mention anything. So everybody's covering this up. But the reason, and we know Murphy's doing it because her job is on the line. Like if she was here legitimately, she is the kind of lawful good character that would not let that go unless she had a really good reason to. In this case, she has a really good reason to because she's going to lose her job if she tries to press this. But.

You have to wonder if Agent Denton is that standup of a guy if he's willing to cover up something like this. It's more egregious, as you say, it's more egregious than it is, appears to be on the page.

Baloreilly (19:45)
Yeah, and that's partially because he's got to do one of two things. Either one, he's going to report that there was a misfire at the crime scene, and that should kind of lead to him sending Agent Ben home immediately, pending discipline. There's going to be something. So the fact that she just stays around at the crime scene, doesn't even leave the premises, is already him pretty far out on a limb. But moreover...

If he's not going to do that, if he's not gonna file all the paperwork, it means that he's going to have his forensic team cover up all of this new, the bullet hole, the powder residue, all of this information at the crime scene and hide it from his own case file so that none of his superiors could find out.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it would be bad enough if this happened out in the street somewhere, but having it happen at the scene of a crime where forensics hasn't even taken place yet, you're right, it complicates it so much more, which indicates that Denton is just that much more corrupt of a person it initially seems, or that the book treats it in this scene, or maybe it's just you have to have that extra knowledge going in.

Baloreilly (20:56)
And another signal that this is more serious than it's immediately treated by the law enforcement personnel in the scene is that Agent Penn begins to cry. She breaks down in tears as Murphy and Harry are leaving.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:10)
Yeah. And seeing that, initially, you think, well yeah, she obviously snapped, couple paragraphs later, Harris comes out and explains, give her some slack, she's really stressed out about these killings, she hasn't slept past much in the last month, and she knew one of the guys who got killed, she's been tense ever since. Now, I think he's just running a story here. It's unlikely that she knew

Baloreilly (21:34)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:36)
the homeless guys or the gang bangers or the little old lady because she was the one that committed those crimes. So I guess technically she did know all the victims. But the point is he's trying to spin it. And if you take it at face value, then yes, if she hasn't gotten much sleep in a month and she's still dealing with the fact that somebody she knew was killed and she keeps having to go to these crime scenes, that does kind of explain her behavior. I'm not saying it makes it okay, but it does make...

it more understandable in this context. But the real context, the fact that she is so out of control of herself that the Belts have basically taken away her self-control to the point where she is at a moment's notice getting ready to kill someone who wasn't even really threatening her in any kind of a real context. That is horrifying. And

In that moment, when she is bent over weeping, she has enough of herself left to realize what's happening to her. And it's tragic. It's really horrible on this re-read that she is being corrupted by this thing and she can't get away from it and she's watching it destroy her life and her self-control. Ugh, it's it's so horrible.

Baloreilly (22:55)
And this might be the moment that Ben actually realizes she's never going to be the same again. Because the next time we see her, she has fully given herself to the lust for violence that the belt pushes on you. So this is it. This is the last shred of her humanity being sobbed out on the page. And after this, she's gone.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:23)
Yeah, and she's only the first because we definitely see Roger and Agent Wilson handle it a little better, definitely lose it. And even Denton by the end starts to lose it when we see the final scene there. anyway, that is terrible. It's tragic when you look at it from a reread perspective. But we also know from later context that she was not reaching for her gun in this moment.

she was reaching for the belt and at the last second realized that turning into a wolf in front of a bunch of witnesses is probably a really bad idea and grabbed her gun instead. So she was able, she had enough control to decide not to grab the belt, but she didn't have enough control to say, don't do violence. Like the violence was gonna happen.

Baloreilly (24:10)
Right, exactly. And Denton obviously is extremely concerned about these events for reasons that he can't say to anyone outside the group of Hexenwolves. And Harry notices...

something's up with him. He notices that Denton's hiding something. He's not saying something on the scene. And I think Harry's so good at honestly telling why and when people are hiding information because it's something he does a lot himself and he can see the strain that puts on people.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:43)
Yeah, and we know he doesn't have much of a poker face just yet, The last thing we wanted to mention in Chapter Two is we're gonna try to speculate how many times have they put on the belt so far, and then note how many times they're going to put them on from here going forward. We do get some information from Roger during the confrontation at the Street Wolf's garage that...

Denton had to take the belts away from them because he was the only one that had enough control not to use them except when they were planning their murders. So we know that four people have died. Let's keep that in mind as we go through the next couple of chapters.

Baloreilly (25:22)
Right, they've least worn the belts four times, maybe part of the reason why Ben's being more effective isn't necessarily because she's worn the belt more often, but because perhaps she did the plurality of the killings in the crimes that we're about to talk about. As Harry and Murphy walk out of the scene, they reach Murphy's car and they take a moment to decompress.

Harry actually has something of a panic attack in the moment, the same way he does after seeing Gimpy die. And it's so jarring to go back to these books after finishing the series and just see how uncomfortable normal mortal violence can make Dresden when it's unexpected.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

He's not yet used to this level of violence and

dealing with what just happened as well as the dead body. The dead body was enough in itself and now he also has to deal with saving Murphy's life from an incredibly tense situation that came out of nowhere. it's also apparent that Murphy is sort of having the same calming moment as he is. She's going through it herself and then they get in the car and they make some snipes at each other but eventually they agree

Okay, I'm sorry about what happened before. I'm sorry about what happened before. We never really talked about it. Well, I'll let you in, but you have to promise me, no more secrets. And he almost says I can't, but then he decides, yes, I promise. So they kind of come to a bit of an understanding, which Harry is going to immediately go back on. Damn it, Harry. Why do have to be so dumb?

Baloreilly (27:02)
It's incredible, honestly, yeah.

So something that's key in this moment is to realize where Murphy is in relation to Dresden. Because we've been drip fed through these chapters that Harry's a little bit annoyed at Murphy because she's stopped contacting him as much. After Stormfront, she did hire him for some work with SI.

but it is gradually tapered off. And Harry doesn't know why, that's part of why he's frustrated. His guesses as to why he's been frozen out are, not flattering to Murphy and part of the reason why he's frustrated. But he's really unable to put together what we think are some pretty straightforward reasons why Murphy has stopped contacting him.

And even after Murphy kind of tells him what they are, I don't really think he understands exactly what's been going through her head.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:05)
Yeah, I mean, the thing is they're both missing some vital pieces of information. Murphy doesn't know anything about the White Council or that Harry's kind of forbidden from telling mortals these things. He's not supposed to be doing Harry doesn't know that Murphy's been under an internal affairs investigation for the last several months. So those two pieces of information that they don't have allow both of them to speculate about the other person's behavior and usually

to the detriment, right? They're thinking of the worst possible outcome. Harry's like, ⁓ she saw that article in the arcane about how I'm a charlatan and now she's embarrassed to be hiring me. He hasn't considered that maybe she's been prevented from hiring him because of the scrutiny that she's under.

Baloreilly (28:51)
Right, and beyond that, the rumors came out and Harry says at the end of Stormfront that he doesn't deny them that Marcon hired Harry to take out cells. So looking at this from Murphy's perspective, Harry does take out cells. Marcon immediately, for no apparent reason to her, she doesn't know about Dresden causing the Varsity to be burned down and challenging him in public. That's not something that Murphy ever mentions.

So from Murphy's perspective, Marcon starts all these rumors that Dresden did it for him, and Sells does die rather than being taken into custody. Now, we don't think that Murphy actually believes, especially right after Stormfront, that Dresden was working for Marcon. But the fact that they see each other, apparently on multiple occasions afterwards because he does work cases with SI,

And Dresden never even deigns to say, by the way Murph, you know that Marcon stuff is all BS, right? Has to, as this investigation drags on, start to make her, at the very least worry, if not wonder.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:00)
yeah, and as we speculated in one of the previous episodes, there's no way that she believes those rumors to any significant degree or she never hires him again. But you're right, the fact that he doesn't deny them must be eating at her a little bit at a time as this is going on. And she's under all this pressure from the internal affairs thing. So anyway, they basically agree.

to work together again and try to repair their relationship because Harry's promising, okay, I will not keep anything from you, I promise. And that's all she's been asking. She just wants him to be fully forthright with her. they both apologize. They both acknowledged they were wrong. Earlier in this chapter two,

Murphy acknowledges that she should not have challenged Denton and forced that confrontation, and Harry acknowledges that he should have told her more back in the Stormfront situation. I really appreciate it when characters are strong enough to admit that they are wrong. I think that sets a really good role model for other people, especially characters that are the heroes of the story. They should be strong enough to do that. Maybe it's a character flaw if they can't, but they should be able to get over that at some point as part of their journey.

Here, even in the second book, both of them have the strength to admit when they were wrong. And that's what allows them to proceed forward.

Baloreilly (31:25)
Yeah, and I really like that I think Jim is trying to walk a fine line here, where he wants Harry to be a genuinely thoughtful and kind person, but also to be someone who needs to mature and grow up.

So he's willing to admit that he's wrong, he's willing to understand that he's made Murphy upset and that it is his fault, Murphy is likewise willing to admit when she's behaving and negative things happen that are her fault. But he doesn't quite ever get to the level of actually solving the root cause of these issues. For example, at one point he says quote,

I felt an abrupt twinge of guilt. Because I was on the scene, you had that worn out for me and then had it rescinded. And then there were all those rumors about me and Marcon after the whole thing was over. Murphy's lips compressed, and she nodded. Yeah.

And if you tried to tell me about it, would have been throwing gasoline on the fire, I rubbed at my forehead. Even at that moment, when he's directly discussing the rumors about him and Marcon, he doesn't say, which were, you know, untrue, by the way, Marcon never asked me anything of the sort, that never happened. Because what I suspect is, not that Murphy thinks that Dresden did it for Marcon, but I suspect that Murphy does think that Marcon might have...

asked Dresden to do it or put

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:55)
or threatened

him or something like that, right? Yeah.

Baloreilly (32:57)
or even just that knowing that Marcon had actually said anything like that, even if Sells died for completely unrelated reasons, would be incriminating information for her to have in the course of this IA investigation. So totally dispelling that, saying that no, Marcon had nothing to do with it, here's what actually happened with Sells, which he has the opportunity to kind of do there and just completely,

Well, we got a case in front of us now, let's just talk about that instead. Is an example of Harry, not going to deal with the root cause the same way he does with Kim in chapter one, telling her don't do it, but never really asking her seriously why and bringing that information out of her. Harry is trying to do the right thing and he is being thoughtful and strategic about it. He's just not quite

good enough at that yet to actually solve these problems before they cost it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:57)
I do want to thank Jim because he does set up these sort of interpersonal relationship problems between Harry and Murphy or between Harry and other characters like in Deadbeat with Lashiel and later, but he does not let those interpersonal relationship problems drag on for several books. I was commenting to you, Brian, earlier

Baloreilly (34:20)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:24)
I've been trained by bad TV writing that such relationship drama is always dragged on for like a whole season or something. And it's so refreshing when characters get over it in a more realistic time scale. It's not just a, but I can explain. And then they don't actually wind up explaining for seven or eight episodes. So to see it really finally like, okay, they got into problem in Stormfront. We're dealing with it literally here in like chapter.

Baloreilly (34:31)
Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:53)
three and four of the very next repairing the relationship to some degree, and yes, there are other strains later in this book due to things that aren't properly explained by the characters, but by the end of this book, they're solid again. And from that point forward, we no longer have to worry about this relationship. So I just wanna point that out, that we don't have those kinds of drama problems.

for the most part in the Dresden Files and I am thankful for it.

Baloreilly (35:21)
honestly, part of why the book might feel a little weaker than some of the others is because it does that with such alacrity that it feels, a little bit too And I think that that's actually true to life. What you're saying is correct. In real life, people who care about each other do try to deal with things like this, fairly quickly as they come up.

but we are sort of trained from a narrative perspective to expect people to carry the idiot ball for a little bit longer. Now, Adam, you did a really great job of going through Murphy's description of the actual events of what are to be known as the Lobo killings so far. So what's been going on in the case of issue in full moon?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:05)
So, as Murphy lays it out, in the previous month, there were a total of five nights where there were murders that appeared to have wolves involved. there's three nights where the moon is the fullest, and then they talk about the first night before the full moon and the last night after the full moon.

So let's lay them out one at a time. The night before the full moon starts, some gang bangers are killed in a wolf-like attack at a beach in South Chicago. actual first night of the full moon, an old lady in Washington Park is killed. The second night of the full moon, three homeless guys in Burnham Park are killed. And this one is described as much worse than the other, way messier, like someone or something got way out of control.

the third night of the full moon, an old man outside a liquor store, and the first night after the full moon, a businessman and a driver in a parking garage. Now what we know from having read the book before, that the first night of the full moon, the gang bangers were almost certainly the targets of the agents. Agent Harris and Wilson and Ben wanted to use the belt to go after people that they couldn't get with the law. So...

They go after some gang bangers that they know were bad drug dealers that were probably killers. They kill them in the wolf form. And then, the next three nights, we get an old lady, some homeless guys, and a man outside a liquor store. Probably those weren't targeted killings for, know these people are bad. They were either, the people got out of control. Like Denton, after those things, decided to take the belts away because maybe Ben or Harris or Wilson couldn't contain themselves. Or,

those were used as cover. They were gonna blame everything on the street wolves and or Macphin, and so they needed to make them happen at the full moon. But we know that the night after the full moon, the businessman and his driver, the businessman in question, is connected to Marcon, and that was another one of their targets. So the first and last appear to be definitely targets from Denton, and the other ones are either cover or them losing control.

Baloreilly (38:17)
Right, and we can speculate as to what happened on the middle three nights. Maybe there were other targets that they didn't get to because they got too wrapped up in the feeling on the way. Maybe after the first night, Ben is just like, wow, that was amazing. I just want to run like a wolf again and kills the old lady. And the next night it's, okay, guys, we got to practice being in control when we wear these. And it doesn't work. It gets worse.

and they realize after doing one more test run, where maybe it's only Ben who can't control herself, that they have to only put these on when people need to die.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:56)
Yeah, and so we have Macphin later in chapter 15 when he's talking with Dresden denying all of these killings. He basically says, no, I didn't do it. I saw my circle was broken and I ran out into the wilderness where there aren't any people. And so it wasn't me. And you know it wasn't me because I can only change on the full moon. And two of these deaths happened outside of those three nights that I change. So Harry's unsure whether to believe him at that point.

but it does seem to be telling the truth at that point.

Baloreilly (39:29)
And part of the reason why this is confusing is because the methodology of the murders is described as seeming different due to the difference in levels of brutality.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:39)
Mm-hmm.

Baloreilly (39:40)
That might just be because the people wearing the belts are at various levels of addicted, but it's an effective red herring that's actually sort of hard to parse out because it does really seem like, and Dresden realizes immediately, ⁓ maybe there's more than one killer, maybe it's a pack of werewolves. He has several different ideas immediately because there isn't one explanation that jumps out from all these different patterns.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:06)
So, connects the first four as being outside in a bad part of town and does note, hey, the businessman in the parking garage, that one stands out as being unusual. It's in a different place from all the others. And we know that that was one of the targets that Denton had gone after. That's the reason it's in a different place. He had to find him where he was. Now, we also get the stakes of the whole book laid out later in this chapter. If Murphy cannot catch the Lobo Killer,

she's gonna almost certainly lose her job and maybe go to jail and Harry might go with her because she's shielding him from the fallout from the first book and if she loses her job, somebody else wants to pin him with some of the things that went down in the first book.

It's more of a personal stakes rather than some of the other areas of the book which is like, all of Chicago is gonna be destroyed. So it's definitely good to see a balance between those kinds of setups.

Baloreilly (41:01)
Yeah, this really actually could have been an entirely different series if there were more books like Full Moon in it. And I don't know that I would have liked it as much. I like the idea of the meta-plot and how it gradually raises the stakes of each adventure. But one other thing to note about the stakes in this book is it's not like if Murphy doesn't solve these killings, then people will think she's doing a bad job.

It's more like the only way Murphy's not gonna go the way of the usual SI lieutenant is if she does something amazing like solve this serial killing case. And if she's taken out, that's probably going to lead to Dresden going down with her because his actions during Stormfront are the easiest way to attack.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:50)
Yep. So one of the other things that happens during this conversation back in the previous episodes, we had talked about how Jim likes to have these jarring transitions from peaceful scenes to suddenly tense scenes out of nowhere. The man with the naked sword appeared, right? But in this scene, we have a much more subtle raising of the tension. Quote.

Instead of answering, she cut into the slow lane and slowed to a leisurely pace. I half turned towards her in my seat to watch her. It was while I did that I noticed the headlights of another car drift across multiple lanes of traffic to drop into the slow lane behind us. I didn't say anything about it to Murphy, but kept the corner of my eye on the car." Unquote. So as Murphy is answering a lot of our questions, Jim just slips a brand new mystery the story for us. So we're having a lot of stuff explained.

and a brand new mystery. Who is this in the car that's following them? Why are they doing such a bad job of it? We know it's Tara West and we know she's doing a bad job of it because she doesn't have a lot of experience driving as a human. So.

Baloreilly (42:56)
Yes,

Tara West, I'm sure if she was just following the car as a wolf, would actually be less conspicuous than following the car in a car.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:05)
yeah. So that's what's happening there. And there's one more thing we want to talk about at the end of this chapter. Harry promises to give Murphy a full report on werewolves the next morning and she leaves. And Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys and instead realizes that he's got the piece of glass with the blood on it. And he thinks, ⁓ I guess I'm going to do this now. It's played off as if he forgave

got that he had the glass in his pocket, right? It's written as I went for my keys and then realized I still had this glass with the blood on it. Murphy's gone. a cell phone, so I guess I'll have to follow up on this on my own. well. But he was talking specifically, he asked her earlier in this conversation, did you get any blood or hair from the scenes? And so he should have remembered that he got that

blood sample from this scene and mentioned it to her before she left. Some part of him knew that he was going to follow up on this alone and even while he promised Murphy to keep her in the loop, he was lying about it.

Baloreilly (44:17)
Yeah, I mean, when Dresden picks up the glass and takes evidence off of the crime scene, he's gotta have that in mind already. maybe he forgets when Ben starts throwing lead around. But when he's asking Murphy about blood, you're absolutely right. That is a clear place where it should occur to him. ⁓ yeah, like the blood I took off the scene tonight.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:40)
Yeah Murph, let's follow up on this lead right now, just pull over, I got some chalk, we can do this. Nope, he waits until she leaves and then remembers, I'm doing air quotes but you can't see it because it's a podcast. So I think this is him being a little, some part of him, right, is being a little bit compartmentalization maybe, he's lying to himself, however you wanna put it. He convinces himself that.

He's the one that should go after this. And he quotes the Spider-Man thing, I have power and power and responsibility go hand in hand. I have a responsibility to use the power I've been given. And you know, very noble, Harry, very noble. But you still broke a promise, that's not cool.

Baloreilly (45:19)
And what is he doing when he says, have power and responsibility? He's denying the power and responsibility that Murph has. So this is an example of just a couple paragraphs earlier.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:29)
Right?

Baloreilly (45:34)
Dresden's talking about, you know, I have very out-of-date and chauvinistic attitudes about women. I like to treat women like ladies. And he paints it as sort of a his manners are old-fashioned and the way that he goes about things make people think that he has negative attitudes towards women. But really the sole attitude he has towards women that is actually concerning and actually a problem and which is causing him a problem right now in this book is when Dresden is going to

use magic to enter into a dangerous supernatural situation, he thinks that bringing any woman along into that situation with him is verbot, and he doesn't have the same hang-up about men.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:19)
it's certainly defensible if he's to say, normal humans don't stand a chance against this problem, but a wizard does, so keeping them safe because they can't possibly help me makes sense. But the problem, as you just described, is that he only applies that logic to women, he doesn't

apply that logic to men. Even later in this book, when Billy is the one that comes to him and says, I want to come and help you, I bet you dollars to donuts that if Georgia was the one that came and said, I want to come and help you, either flatly denied it or had been way more convincing to get him to actually do it.

Baloreilly (47:01)
Right, or when in grave Harry is having an injured Michael follow him around without Amarachius, at which point he's sort of the vanilla mortal who's just a little bit savvy. You the reason Murphy's not savvy is because you're not giving her information.

he's not willing to put her on the same playing field that he will, and he's got kind of legitimate excuses to himself, but it's fundamentally that he, and I think it's for.

reasons of traumatization, know, his mother, Elaine, people who were supposed to be capable at defending themselves from supernatural threats have been killed in his life and it does haunt him. But that's part of the reason why in just one chapter we're gonna talk about...

Murphy catching Harry going off on his own and letting him off the hook and not making a big deal about it? And it doesn't even register to Harry that he's better be on his toes now because he already committed a huge mistake.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:06)
Yeah,

huge, huge faux pas. And what's more is Harry is such a stickler about his promises, right? I made a note about it, but we didn't talk about it yet because earlier in chapter one, when he's talking with Kim Delaney, the deal was she would buy him dinner if he would go over something magic related with her, which is, I'm guessing, a deal they've had plenty in the past. he's so hungry because he's been eating nothing but ramen noodles for the last couple of weeks.

and he's sitting there looking at the food, really wanting to eat it, but also feeling like I can't in good conscience eat this meal or let you pay for this meal if I'm not actually gonna give you any information. She lets him out of the deal and says, listen, Harry, if you can't tell me anything, that's fine. Just, it's on me. Have something to eat, I know you need it. And he still refuses he specifically says, you know, I...

I'm somebody that keeps my promises, I keep my word. And then three chapters later, he's like, well, I guess I gotta follow up on this while the blood is fresh and just breaks his promise immediately. And that is uncharacteristic of him and I think you're right, it has to do with his trauma.

Baloreilly (49:14)
Yeah, and that's why I don't consider this to be a problem I have with Harry Dresden as a person. It's a tragic flaw that's going to cost people over the next couple books in the series.

It's a flaw that he's going to improve at and learn the consequences of that arises from this trauma that we've discussed before. But I want to bring it up again here because a lot of people see Murph as being the unreasonable one in this book. And I really feel like if you had her perspective, she is giving Dresden so many chances. And he's just absolutely taking none of them to show her that he will treat her as an

equal when they're working on a case together.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:01)
All right, so that ends our discussion of the first four chapters. We managed to blow through a bunch of those because they're kind of short, and we'll jump in next week with chapters five and six, and probably seven as well. This is where Harry tracks the blood to the abandoned warehouse, where we get to meet the Alphas for the first time. So with that, we're going to go to our question for Bob.

Baloreilly (50:26)
Bob, what would happen if Kim just laid it out for Harry? You know a lot about Harry's magical knowledge. Would he have been able to help with the circle?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:37)
So, you know, Bob didn't make it this week. And he told us it was because high winds blew him off course and he couldn't make it to the studio. Do winds even affect spiritual beings? Is he just messing with us now?

Baloreilly (50:52)
I mean, he is an air spirit, shouldn't he be able to just kind of control the winds? I think that's like the flimsiest one yet.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:56)
Yeah? I don't know. Yeah,

I think he's just playing with us now. Anyway, we're gonna try to deal with this. Let's break it up into two parts. Why didn't Kim tell the truth and what if she had told Harry everything? So, I had a couple of thoughts about this, but we had some good answers from many of our listeners on the subreddit. So, Elphitch47 suggests that Kim was maybe overestimating her abilities. We know that wizards have hubris in general, and so she was maybe overestimating her abilities.

The other possibility, Destorath, Aisbert, and Kyler Stern all brought up that revealing a Loup Garou to a member of the White Council may have turned out very bad for McFinn. Aisbert said, quote, there's a possibility about why she kept the secret that I haven't seen mentioned. She may have believed that Harry would try to harm McFinn, probably because McFinn said as much.

We see the Wardens go to war with the Vamps soon after this. A being on McFin's level probably has some awareness of the and their more militant functions and doesn't want to risk being targeted over a wizardly equivalent of shop talk. Unquote.

Baloreilly (52:05)
Yeah, I mean, obviously McFin has a reason to be worried about wizards. The whole reason for this curse is that somebody magically the members of his bloodline, whether it St. Patrick or not. So that's definitely something that could be going on here. And Kim might be hearing from Harry himself how untrustworthy the White Council is with stuff like this. And that's a reason why she doesn't feel like it's safe to bring it to him. A lot of people answered with that combination

Kim thinks she can do it on her own if she has to and everybody's worried about bringing in a real wizard.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:43)
and Sephir 27 does ask, why didn't Macphin hire Harry? But the answer probably is he doesn't trust the White Council. And maybe for good reason. It's entirely possible that the White Council would define what Macphin did in Vietnam. He tells the story later about how he was the only one that came back from his unit. Like when he first got the curse first occurred on him, he just murdered everybody in like a two mile square radius. So.

Would the White Council say, well, that's killing people with magic, off with your head, or would they be more compassionate? Not the White Council we know.

Baloreilly (53:19)
Yeah, it doesn't seem like them,

So I think those are good points about, know, anything McFinn knows about wizards probably counsels him against telling them. And it doesn't seem like Kim has the kind of close bond with Harry that would make her say, no, you've got to trust me, this guy is different.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:40)
Right, name here reminds us that Harry has been tutoring her and his past interactions with the White Council and specifically the laws of magic and the consequences of not knowing them that means that he has definitely told Kim all of the laws and made sure that she knew what the consequences of dark magic were. He would not make that mistake.

If there's somebody with magical talent at her level, he would want to protect her with that knowledge. This is very bad, it corrupts your soul, and these are the laws that will get you killed. Don't mess with this stuff. So she already knows how dangerous they are. and that would just make her

trust the White Council even less.

Baloreilly (54:25)
Now I don't think that it is impossible that Kim could have reached the conclusion that she needs to be more forthcoming. When Harry's telling her that this is for stuff that shouldn't even exist, that's a moment where Kim could have simply said, okay, Harry, but what if something like that did exist and someone had to deal with it?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:50)
Right, yeah, give the whole hypothetical thing. Hypothetically, what if this did exist and it needed to work or else? some kind of thing like that where she didn't have to give away that this is a Loup Garou, didn't have to give away McFinn's identity. I mean, you could even say trying to help someone, but I won't tell you who it is. Like maybe she's worried about him tracking her, he's really good at that, but They're both young people and that explains a lot of their mistakes.

Baloreilly (55:15)
Yes, but I think that that was possible. She could have, if she had been maybe in a better mood, if she'd been less frustrated, if Harry had seemed more receptive, maybe she could have told Harry enough to get him to help her out. So the second part of this question is, what would happen if she did? If she managed to do that, if Harry did manage to get into the case from that angle that night, what would happen?

And the top response we got was only one of two possibilities. Either the book doesn't happen because Harry solves the case that night, or Harry can't do it that night and he dies trying. Adam, do you think that that is a correct analysis of what would happen if Kim managed to get that hypothetical out of her mouth?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:06)
Yes, I think it's possible. The thing I wanna bring up later when we get to the chapter with Macphin, he explains that in the previous month, he just ran out into the boonies where there were no humans nearby when he changed. And I wanna know why he just didn't do it this time. I guess he believed Kim when she said she could fix it. But I think if Harry, a real White Council wizard, comes and says,

Okay, I might be able to fix this circle, but it's gonna take a week to get all the right materials and do the right research and make sure we do it right. Then he could have just sent him out into the woods. He didn't have to die trying. We already know McFin has another option that he used multiple times the previous month to prevent himself from killing anybody. And so that easily could have been the solution while Harry tried to figure it out.

We know that Harry would have eventually figured out that McFinn didn't kill anybody. And if McFinn is innocent of these crimes and is genuinely trying not to kill people, then Harry's gonna be on his side.

Baloreilly (57:12)
Yeah, and McFin's the kind of person who has enough money to be able to get to the woods in 16 hours. If he's got to rent a helicopter, the guy is capable of doing it. So that point for the idea that Kim's hubris is part of what dooms her here. She really does think that she can do it and convinces McFin that she can do it. A couple other answers we had from Reddit were from Bad Karma Hua, who actually thinks that if she had

told Harry everything, and that had led to a better outcome, an unintended consequence would be that Harry and Murphy never learned to trust each other on a deep enough level for their bond to carry them both through the remainder of the series.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:58)
Yeah,

and I believe they even said that this results in Harry dying later because he does not, he's not able to call Murphy for backup in a moment when he needs it in one of the later books, he doesn't trust her enough to call her backup, so he goes into something alone that normally he would have gone into with Murphy in the canonical series.

Baloreilly (58:18)
Right, mean, she literally does lose her job for him and prove him guilty eventually, so that takes a lot of trust on her part. ⁓ Versederich says that an interesting thing that might have happened is that if the circle was sabotaged, Harry might kind of get around the entire issue by building another circle in a different place. Don't try to repair this one. We know you can make circles out of purely mental constructs. Harry will do it in the future. Just go set up whatever you need somewhere

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:22)
Mm-hmm.

Baloreilly (58:48)
else and that's where you'll contain McFin. And that could create an interesting dynamic. Elfitch pointed out in one of their comments that this would alert Harry that there was something deeper going on. There had been sabotage. But because the perpetrators were unknown, it doesn't just end the story there. There is still somebody doing these killings and trying to pin them on McFin. And the book isn't just over if Kim gets through to Harry.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:17)
Right, you could still entirely have that ending climactic fight Marcon's mansion because the FBI are still trying to set up McFin and they're still trying to kill Marcon. And so that is all still happening in the background. Whether or not Harry saves Kim Delaney, rest of that book still has to proceed. And so I think there's still definitely a book, which is different from...

we talked about earlier, if Harry had just gone in the right direction of the investigation in Stormfront, if he had just believed Monica and realized that her husband might be a sorcerer, and hey, mysteriously, some sorcerer is doing all these other killings. Maybe put those two things together, Mr. Dresden! But then there's really no book. You just say, hey Morgan, I think it's this guy. And Morgan goes and goes, yep, it's that guy. And that's the end of the book.

So in this case, think even if Harry does solve the Kim Delaney problem, there is still a story.

Baloreilly (1:00:12)
Yeah, and I think that Jim is deliberately creating a series in which Harry isn't going to save everyone, even if he could. And...

Whether or not you're satisfied with how that plays out in this book, I think it is important to let us know early on that side characters that you might get a good impression of aren't safe just because they're on Team Dresden. Obviously that's taken to another level in Grave Peril, but I think that would have been huge whiplash without laying some groundwork here.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:47)
Yeah,

any final comments on this situation with Kim not telling the truth to Harry and Harry not telling the truth to Kim?

Baloreilly (1:00:55)
Yeah, in a few chapters when we come across Kim's fate, we're going to revisit this topic to a certain extent. So this isn't our final word on it here. There are some criticisms about how this is set up at the book that I do think need to be voiced. But for the purposes of this question, I think this is a fine place to end the discussion.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:11)
Mm-hmm.

Excellent,

yeah, so we'll revisit the actual death of Kim Delaney when we get to that chapter. All right, for next week's question for Bob, a lot of people in this book do things that in retrospect are pretty dumb, and some of them own up to it, as we talked about in chapter three, but what is the dumbest thing anyone has done anywhere in the series? Anywhere. What is the dumbest thing?

Baloreilly (1:01:37)
And

right, we do mean anywhere. If you wanna bring in the graphic novels, go for it. Could be a one-off character, could be one of our favorites. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:48)
There are a lot of choices. So I'm happy

to go through those. So we will see you next time. Tell a friend about the show, won't you?