Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
Quick note before we start, we are going to be skipping an episode next week, so you will not receive an episode on August 1st, but we will be back on August 8th.

Baloreilly (00:10)
Okay, so Adam, as you know, I spent like nine hours yesterday in the hospital. Everything's fine. but, know, at one point it was like just after midnight. And I realized that I had left my car keys in the MRI waiting room, which was now closed.

So I just go to the testing wing of this hospital and there's nobody there. And it's a very nice hospital. It's got like a gift shop with all glass walls and the floors are like these stone tiles. It's beautiful. And I'm walking and literally the only thing I can hear is the sound of my own footsteps and just the whir of some machines that are just, you know, on during the night, I guess, so they don't have to turn them.

and the whole time I'm walking through it I'm just looking around and going man this would be a cool place for a Loup Garu attack

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:00)
Or Agatha Hagglethorn to show up.

Baloreilly (01:02)
Yeah, even better,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:11)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to Recorded Neutral Territory. This is a Dresden Files reread podcast and the spoilers go all the way through Battleground. I am Adam Ruzzo and with me as always is an Oxford-educated demon, it's Brian O'Reilly. Welcome, Brian.

Baloreilly (01:29)
Now Adam, what is it that you desire?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:33)
⁓ world peace, clearly, yes.

Baloreilly (01:36)
Unfortunately, a demon, I'm contractually obligated not to offer world peace. You'll have to do something else.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:44)
Could

you at least tell us what's the deal with dark energy?

Baloreilly (01:48)
I do have that information in my possession. However, in order to give it to you, I require an exchange.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:55)
⁓ how much is this gonna cost us?

Baloreilly (01:59)
One donut. Immediately conveyed privy with sprinkles.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:05)
I'll get right on that. I'll tell the physicist. This is a very good day.

Okay, so today we're looking at chapters 11, 12, and 13 of Fool Moon. the chronology here? What night is this?

Baloreilly (02:18)
So on the same day we were in the previous chapters. It's just, I suppose, nighttime now. Harry's at home and he's summoning up a demon.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:29)
So Chauncey here is going to be providing Dresden with some information on Macphin. They have some negotiations. They go awry. Then in chapter 12, Harry arrives at Macphin's house to find Kim Delaney dead. He's called there by Murphy and she misunderstands the situation, thinks Harry's been holding out on her. He has. And

She arrests him and throws him in the back of the police car. Tara arrives in chapter 13 to save Harry from the police car. They barely get away. That's what happens in these three chapters. So, Brian, the first question I have for you. Harry's calling up this demon, right? Chauncey. How dangerous is this, really? And by that I mean, how do other wizards treat-

this practice of calling up demons for information? Is it a common thing? Is it a manageable risk? Or is it something only to be done in desperation?

Baloreilly (03:25)
So I think it is a really serious risk, but I don't think it's because of what Chauncey says, like the White Council doesn't approve of this. I'm sure that most wizards in the White Council don't habitually call up demons constantly for information, but I bet it's something that is totally an accepted practice to do when you absolutely need to. We know that Martha Liberty communicates with spirits fairly regularly. ⁓ Demons, think, are another step up from

I think that's a bigger deal, but I think what's actually dangerous about this isn't the disapproval of the council, it's the thing that Chauncey is trying to allay suspicion of, which is himself. The dangerous thing when you're dealing with the demon is that it's very easy to make a mistake, and the demon is always, regardless of how they seem, trying to get you into a Faustian bind.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:19)
and we do see Harry do this another time in Death Masks. He calls up an oracle spirit, which I have to imagine is a lot less dangerous than this demon, least of which because Bob describes it as being found in Harry's copy of like Dumont's Guide to Divinationators. And...

That suggests that there are many copies of this book. It's a thing that many wizards have. So these lesser spirits probably are easier to get information out of, and you probably have to trade them information in return. That's kind of what we learn in that chapter. But yes, demons, I get the impression that this is something that few really trifle with on a regular basis. Harry is treating it a lot more cavalierly here, probably out of naivete.

Baloreilly (05:06)
Yeah, and I think it's important to recognize that Lesharovas is described as sort of being aligned with, you know, the forces below. Maybe not to the extent that Chauncey is, but Lesharovas is in a similar...

slice of the sort of ⁓ Venn diagram as Chauncey. What Harry's just not realizing, what he's being cavalier about, is that yeah there are probably some spirits who are slightly aligned with the forces below who aren't really trying ensnare most of them are.

And that's what he's being cavalier about. He is treating Chauncey like he's just any other spirit you'd call up. And for the most part, imagine, demons are always working against you.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:51)
Yeah, and in this scene we absolutely see that happening. Later on, it appears that this whole thing where Harry calls him up for information and gives him a name was a setup to get Harry, his soul or his name or something to go down and work with them. we'll talk about that in a little bit, but it definitely does seem like this is a lot more dangerous than it at first appears. we never see Harry call up demons again.

with the exception that we just talked about in Death Max where they refer to it as an oracle spirit rather than a demon specifically. So it seems likely that Harry takes more going forward with this.

Baloreilly (06:29)
Yeah, especially presumably after he meets the Denarians. He is no longer on board with making any bargains with that side of the coin. However, he does immediately get some really key information out of Chauncey. the price of one more of his names, gets the down low on McFin. And it looks like McFin's got to be the guy. This is a good frame up by Denton. Harry gets a lot of information.

that suggests McFin is a Luguru. He absolutely could commit these murders. He would commit murders on the full moon if he wasn't, if he was capable of it, you know, the Luguru simply would do that. So it kind of seems like, talk to Chauncey, should this just be an open and shut case?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:18)
It does look like a very clever frame job.

He does have means. Being able to turn into a demon wolf and point himself at his enemies like James Harding III is one of them. He does have motive to make sure this Northwest Passage Project goes through. But he doesn't have opportunity. That's where Denton messed up here. Because Denton didn't know or wasn't told that the Loup Garu only transforms three nights a month. And Denton committed

murders over five different nights. So that is what ultimately points Harry into realizing that McFinn is not responsible for at least some of the murders.

Baloreilly (08:04)
Yeah, and I think there's another factor here, which is Harry has one historical Lughru to look back on, the beast of

And the rampages that were the result of that monster's existence killed a lot more people than just the occasional deaths that have resulted in the last full moon. So it's weird that if McFin was the killer, that like he's only killing Harding that night.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:31)
Yeah, it absolutely does not make sense it kills James Harding in a parking garage in the middle of downtown Chicago, and then just disappears without killing anybody else that night. Highly suspicious compared to what we have learned so far.

Baloreilly (08:49)
And that's why we think that this cover-up by Denton was something that was initiated after the fact. Denton had to try to find the most likely way to blame this on somebody else vis-a-vis the supernatural community. He didn't set it up beforehand because if he had, they would have acted very differently.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:09)
I

think so too, I think this is a, no, wait a minute, the White Council exists and we have to worry about what they are gonna think? We've gotta find not only a patsy for the mortal cops, the street wolves, but also a patsy for the magic cops. That would be the Lou-Guru. And yeah, it was sort of hasty covered up after the fact and that explains some of the holes here because otherwise Denton makes for one really sly

antagonist.

Baloreilly (09:38)
Yes, he's definitely thinking ahead, as a corrupt cop would, about how he could be caught. So we get some details about the curse that McPhins under, and Chauncey says that St. Patrick is the culprit. He's the one who cursed that bloodline. So what did the McPhins do to deserve that?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:03)
Yeah, that's a really good question. I was thinking to myself, what would make this a proportional response? Usually when you think about some kind of justice or even vengeance, it's an eye for an eye. It's some level of you did this to them, they do this to you back, right? So why would you punish someone by turning them into a ravening monster that can't control themselves?

it might have something to do with the fact that their crime was being a monster, but a human

So I think that might be what happened here is Macphin's ancestor was a horrible person, rapist, murderer, something like that. So he was then,

to do that for all time in a way that he couldn't control, that wasn't fun for him, that killed all the people that he cared about and loved, and that was his punishment. It's like, ⁓ you, it's the same thing, like, you like smoking cigarettes, huh? Here, come smoke a whole pack all at the same time. Like, that's the kind of punishment that it brings to mind.

Baloreilly (11:08)
Yeah, I wonder if one of two things happened. Because of course, when St. Patrick's, walking around, this is during the Christianization of Ireland. This is when there's still a lot of pagans and there's a lot of different petty kingdoms in Ireland. So you wonder, is Macphyn's family, was this ancient ancestor responsible for killing off an entire clan?

Did he kill part of his family that had converted to Christianity? And the proportional response is to curse his entire family since he cut off a different branch of another family or of his own? And did this ancestor perhaps acquire or possess sufficient supernatural power that the only way to deal with them was to lay out a really serious curse?

because otherwise it wouldn't take. They'd be able to shrug it off and keep doing whatever they were doing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:04)
So that brings me to another interesting question, Brian. This curse has been going on for a long time. And we do have one example of something like, actually we two examples, technically, the whole Lord Wraith being restrained and not being able to feed because that death curse that Margaret Senior laid down is tied to Harry and Thomas's life force, whatever. They're keeping it going, right? And we also have the Billy Goat curse.

from the story and briefcases called Curses, where we find that that curse is being re-upped year after year. So what do you think is happening with this curse, with the Loup Garu Curse?

Baloreilly (12:45)
Well, if the story we get about St. Patrick is true, I have to imagine that this is a little bit beyond.

how magic works, this is something that's divine, like the swords or like the coins or like the shroud of Turin or the Holy Grail or something, where there's an extra power behind this curse that is keeping it going. That of the question, the white god

throw out a curse like that. That doesn't seem like a very, Christian thing to do or anything.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:24)
Especially since we

know that angels, archangels, and the white god are all heavily restricted in what they are allowed to do in this world. So could they have even been the power source for a curse like this?

Baloreilly (13:40)
Yeah, exactly. think that's a great question. either Chauncey's relaying this legend that Chauncey knows is not actually true because he's an anti-church propagandist, essentially, or this is true, but it's really complicated. Something that was going on in Macphin's ancestry required a lot of power being bound in a way that it would only hurt the most limited number of people possible.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:51)
Hmm.

Baloreilly (14:10)
and this was the best outcome in some weird way.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:15)
Huh, that could be it. So the curse itself is binding some kind of beast to a bloodline so that it could only come out during a full moon instead of being free to attack things all the time. And it's called a curse, but maybe it's more like Diablo where the hero binds the demon into themselves in order to stop them.

but it doesn't fully take. That's an interesting idea behind of it. Maybe it wasn't a curse at all. Maybe this is a self-sacrifice. I like that interpretation. We may never know. It's a fun thing to speculate about.

Baloreilly (14:52)
So after we get the information that pertains to the case itself, Chauncey drops what I think it's fair to say is one of the biggest bombshells in the early books of the series. Chauncey tells Harry that both of his parents were murdered.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:14)
And the specific wording is important. says, quote, didn't you know about your mother's past, Mr. Dresden? A pity that we didn't have this conversation sooner. You might have added it into the blog and we made. Of course, if you would like to forfeit another name to know all about your mother's past, her redemption

and the unnatural deaths of both mother and father, I'm certain we can work something out." Unquote. The unnatural deaths of both mother and father, which does heavily imply murder, right? Now, I would argue, and we're gonna be talking about this later, that specific wording does not rule out self-sacrifice, right? They could have killed themselves or one of them could have killed themselves.

in order to stop a greater evil, maybe that's the redemption. We're gonna have fun talking about that later. I just wanted to bring that up now.

Baloreilly (16:12)
Yeah, that's a really key point because it opens up some layers of possibility that otherwise do potentially seem foreclosed. In addition to broaching that topic that we'll discuss in our question for Chauncey also says about Harry's Adam, do you think that means?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:39)
I interpreted this as meaning there was some kind of prophecy about Margaret Le or some oracle or some kind of precognition like, this person is coming. the Dark Prince obviously awaited her arrival with great anticipation and was hoping to get her on his team or that she would facilitate some goal of his and then

She managed to avoid helping him either on purpose or by accident or thwarted him on purpose, whatever the actual thing is. She did not fulfill the prophecy in the way that he had hoped. And so he lost getting her on his team or he lost utilizing her the way he'd expected. That's how I interpreted it when I read it.

Baloreilly (17:24)
Yeah, I think that's so interesting because one of the key questions of the series that I think has been kind of buried is, so whose side is Lucifer on? And I think that that makes some suggestions given what we're going to talk about later that are really intriguing. I read it a little bit more simply. I think that her coming was perdition. He's saying that Margaret was damned. She was going to hell.

But in the end, due to the redemption, he talks about beforehand, the dark prince lost her. And I think that in the end is Margaret isn't going to hell, period, because she's already dead. I think that that precludes

some notions that people speculate on about Margaret's continued ⁓ participation in the story. I think that if we interpret Chauncey as saying that she's been lost to hell, that means that she went somewhere else and she's no longer part of the mortal world.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:30)
And we do know in the Dresden verse that there is a concept of your souls going to some kind of hell after you die, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with your religious affiliation, because if you remember in Ghost Story, Carmichael does refer to the fact that, that was a southbound train. You don't want to be on one of those, implying that it's going to some kind of punishment zone, whether you call it hell or Hades or whatever.

Baloreilly (18:57)
Yeah, definitely there is a place where souls go in the Dresden Files if they've been naughty. And I take this to mean that Margaret is no longer among the living and she's not there because of the finality that Chauncey seems to be speaking with here.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:15)
Yeah, I

believe that if for no other reason than if there's some twist where she's still alive, it feels like pretty cheesy writing. It doesn't feel earned at this point with the way that things have been set up. Like that twist just doesn't feel satisfying to me.

Baloreilly (19:31)
We'd have to lay a lot of groundwork in my opinion to explain why these are weasel words before that's unveiled for it to make sense at the very very least. But this conversation continues because Chauncey is trying to get the whole kitten caboodle. He wants Harry to sign himself over to the dark powers and Dresden's kind of tempted to but he doesn't. And Chauncey...

turns into a furious hellspawn after that. So what's going on there? Why does Dresden's denial of this further bargain turn Chauncey from a seductive spirit who's trying to get him onside to kind of pulling the mask off that quickly?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:22)
Yeah, that's an interesting question. So I interpreted this as this entire thing has been a setup. Chauncey giving Harry good information just with, we'll give you one name. And then we'll give you just one more name. You don't have to give me your whole name, just one more. And what about a third name? You still got your fourth name, it's still not that bad. And then as you pointed out earlier, Chauncey.

uses those three names at least three times in this. And I believe you speculated that that means he's trying to compel Harry. It's not written on the page, but it could be read that way.

Baloreilly (21:00)
Yeah, I think that that is almost certainly true. In the next book we see with just two of Harry's names, Farravax can lay the will smack down on him. And here Chauncey keeps saying over and over again, I can show them to you, Harry Blackstone Dresden, or if you have other family out there, Harry Blackstone Dresden, but Harry Blackstone Dresden

Chauncey is trying to use Harry's names to compel him to take the deal and give him the fourth name so that Chauncey has control over him truly. I think the fury that results from the failure of is because that almost always works.

What normally happens is when you're dealing with somebody like Dresden, a wizard, you get some of their names and they know that you need the whole thing if you're going to use it against them. And you know that. So you don't think, well, they'll give over the fourth one for a little piece of information in the future. You've got to close the deal when you have them on the hook after they've given all that they can freely give. And I think the

reason Harry is able to shrug off this compulsion is not just because he is a strong, independent, determined person, but also because he's a star-born. And as we know, mental compulsion doesn't work like normal on a star-born.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:41)
All right, so

after Chauncey goes nuts, Harry sends him back where he came from, and then the phone rings, and Murphy's on the phone. She says, we got another body. Here's the address. it's Macphin's address, the one that Chauncey just gave Harry.

after that, we get to chapter 12. Harry arrives at Macphin's house on the Gold Coast,

and before he gets to Murphy, he sees Carmichael. And Carmichael has a bit of a different reaction to Harry here than he did in the first book.

Baloreilly (23:15)
quote, Hey, Dresden, Carmichael said. I looked over my shoulder at him, expecting the familiar jeers and insults. He was studying me with bright, narrow eyes. I hear things about you and John Marcon. What's the deal? I shook my head. No deal. He's lying scum. Carmichael studied me intently, then nodded.

You ain't much of a liar, Dresden. I don't think you could keep a straight face about something like this. I believe you." End quote.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:47)
but he doesn't

Baloreilly (23:48)
this is interesting because Murphy and Carmichael have very similar information about Harry's actions in Stormfront. And Carmichael, at what seems like the first opportunity he's had, or the first time where it's really crossed his mind to ask, just asks Harry directly about the Marcon thing. And Harry's answer is enough to make Carmichael think, okay, this guy's still good. He's still cool. And I think it goes beyond that.

Because I think Carmichael thinks in this instance, it's all hitting him. He's studying him intently. Holy crap. So we had a warrant out for this guy. We were searching his office. We were trying to bring him in. And what was he doing that whole time? Still trying to bring in the bad guy. Jesus, Dresden's a lot more of a cop than I thought he was.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:40)
Yeah, and I think the way that Carmichael sees him is yeah, he's a charlatan, but he is a good PI, right? He doesn't respect the claims about being a wizard, but he does respect the actual gumshoe nose to the ground, does the work, gets the results kind of a thing.

Baloreilly (24:58)
And not

just the results, but also his courage and determination.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:02)
⁓

And Carmichael has always been described in every scene we see him in as a guy that would be underestimated. He always looks like a schlub, a little bit overweight, he's never dressed real well, he's got stains on his tie, but Harry always describes him as being a really sharp cop.

And I think that Carmichael might have a little bit of a knack to tell when someone is lying in the same way Tilly can in changes, I think one of the things that makes Carmichael such a great cop is his ability to get insights on people, his ability to read people and determine when they're lying. And he probably doesn't see it as any kind of magical ability, and maybe it isn't, but I kind of,

land on the idea that Carmichael has a little bit of magic helping him out in that particular way.

Baloreilly (25:50)
Yeah, I mean, listen, there's one of two reasons why Carmichael ends up on Uriel's squad in Ghost Story, as far as I'm concerned. Either one, like Murphy's father, he's seen a lot more weird stuff than he lets on about. And actually, even though he constantly denies it, he's a little bit more on the fence about Dresden's abilities than, you know, he lets on. Or...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:15)
Hmm.

Baloreilly (26:17)
Carmichael, like Tilly, has some kind of a gift that's not just experience that makes him interesting to an angel who could have anybody he wanted to, basically.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:30)
Yeah, I could buy that. We'll talk more about that when we do our Carmichael retrospective in, I think, two episodes. Sorry, buddy. It's sad, we're not gonna see him again until Ghost Story, and even then, he's only there for a little bit. Now, one more thing I wanna point out before we get into the meat of this chapter is that when Harry does see Murphy, she's wearing, quote, jewelry the color of steel.

Baloreilly (26:37)
Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:53)
her earrings seem to be a little more than bright beads of silver in her ears, which I had never really noticed when she had worn her golden hair long." I think this is a very good bit of foreshadowing. We know that she is going to be melting down these earrings that were given to her by her grandmother, inherited silver, to use when shooting the Loup Garu in the precinct later on. And this is just, drop that in there. Here's a little extra detail. Now,

that detail is dropped amid all the other descriptors of Murphy. She's in a crisp gray business jacket and slacks with sensible low heels, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And as a result, it doesn't really stand out except on a reread when you know that that is a crucial piece of information. I thought that was very cleverly done.

Baloreilly (27:41)
Yeah, and it's interesting to consider, is she wearing the earrings, she does it constantly, and that's why she realizes she has inherited silver, she just usually has her hair down, or is she wearing them tonight because she's already thinking, I might have to get rid of these, and I want to wear them at least a few more hours before I do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:03)
Right,

exactly, in honor of grandma. Okay, so Harry arrives at Macphin's house, he meets Murphy here, she brings him upstairs, she's acting all weird and terse,

putting together all the pieces while Harry provides the information from Chauncey.

Harley McFinn is a Lou Garou. The woman from the department store, we know as Tara, is in the picture with McFinn on the dresser. Kim tries to help contain him in the improvised circle and it fails. Murphy then shows Harry the normal ritual circle, which is complete with gemstones and gold and silver inlays all in the basement, but has clearly been sabotaged or destroyed. Harry puts all those pieces together and realizes that he has contributed to Kim's death.

by refusing to share this dangerous information with her and goes into a sort

mental shock where he can't really think straight. It's quote, something went click in my head.

someone threw some kind of switch that just turned off my emotions entirely and immersed me in a surreal haze." He basically goes into a quick of denial about, ⁓ no, Kim can't be dead, et cetera, et cetera. So while he's in that denial, Murphy is revealing to him that she has the piece of paper that he dropped in McAnally's back in the first chapter.

and she's now connecting him and Kim Delaney from that moment to Macphin and has come to the conclusion that Harry has been holding out on her and she is furious.

Baloreilly (29:37)
Yeah, and Murphy's fury is understandable emotionally. In her mind, Harry failing to give her information has led directly to someone's death, just like it did with Linda Randall. This is two people that Harry's effectively killed by refusing to give Murphy what she needs to do her job, even though that's exactly what she hires him for.

So it's completely understandable if you accept that line of thinking that she's furious. But I think it's an open question as to how much blame actually rests on Harry's shoulders in this scene.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:20)
Yeah, because we're finding this out, this connection between Kim and Macphin. At the same time Harry is, there's not a lot of reason to suggest that Harry should have figured this out ahead of time. Of course, he beats himself up. I should have figured it out, I should have put the pieces together. It's my fault for not being better. And

We get that excellent scene with Michael in a couple of books where he says, you're being super arrogant right now. You are human. You have to accept that you can make mistakes. If you tried your best and did everything you could and still failed, you need to forgive yourself. That is what's happening here is Harry can't get past this. He thinks...

I should have done more, even though we, the reader, know that he did everything he could and that we really couldn't reasonably expect him to have put these specific pieces together in time to save Kim Delaney.

Baloreilly (31:19)
Right, and you know, you can say that Harry made one mistake. When Kim is walking out of Mac's pub.

Harry should know that his advice is not going to stop her from doing anything. And whatever she's doing with that kind of circle is so dangerous that he can't really let her walk out of there and feel like as a master-apprentice relationship, he's done everything in his power to keep her safe.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:50)
Yes, that was.

Baloreilly (31:58)
failing that we've discussed before, the fact that he thinks the best way to protect people, especially women, from supernatural threats is to make sure that they don't know enough to get them in more trouble. And this is one of the many times that bites Harry, and it's something that he will learn and grow from as time goes on, and this is an important stepping stone along that pathway, but it's not a failure of his inability to realize, ⁓ she's trying

hold a Loup Garu how could he have possibly known that?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:31)
Yeah, I think 100 % that's about the only criticism I would have with the way he handled the Kim Delaney thing. And we talked about that in the first episode of Full Moon. He should have absolutely noticed that she was determined to do this, whether he helped her or not, and followed her out of Max and said, listen, I know you're gonna try to do this. I'm telling you, you can't do it. You don't have the right training, you don't have the right experience.

let me help

Baloreilly (33:00)
And would a more seasoned version of Harry have done that? Would Ebenezer have done that? Maybe. But at the same time, what actually happens next? Murphy walks in and says, there's been a murder. I need you on the case. So it's not like Harry's been letting the grass grow under his feet for the past day and he's got nothing to do and he should have called her because he had all this free time. Harry basically had one chance to let

Kim know in that conversation, know you're gonna try to do this, you are not capable of doing this, you need my help, you need to give me more information. And as soon as he fails to do that, he really doesn't have much of a chance anymore if he's going to take Murphy up on her offer, which is within his character to do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:51)
Let's say

for the sake of argument that Harry had decided to just give Kim whatever she wanted in order to give her the best tools, right, to protect herself. Tell her what all the symbols mean to the best of his ability, et cetera, et cetera, instead of like just denying her that last layer that he claims, oh no, this is gibberish, it doesn't matter, and then we get his internal monologue where he goes, that's designed to contain archangels. So to me,

even if he had explained everything. I don't think Kim succeeds in containing Macphin. We see Harry struggle to contain Chauncey. Just in the last chapter, when Chauncey's really raging at the end of that chapter, Harry describes as how sweat is beating on his forehead and he manages to shove him back into the down below. We know Harry is a powerhouse of a wizard and he couldn't contain a regular old demon.

Do we really think Kim Delaney with no experience was going to be able to contain something that needs to be kept inside a circle to hold an archangel or an archdemon?

Baloreilly (35:00)
Right, exactly. And I think that there's one of two possible ways, if he lays it all out there, that maybe things turn out differently. One is...

He lays out exactly what you would need to do this. And McFin, he's super rich, he's known about the curse for practically his whole life, literally has everything on hand. Everything you could possibly want or need to do this. He's got all of that stuff literally at his house and they can set it up. And then maybe with the exact proper fulcrums, Kim can do I don't think so, but maybe.

Or as you speculated, which I think is honestly the more likely way it would have helped, if Harry laid out for her what you would need to get that circle up, Kim might have realized there's no way I can do that. I don't have the materials. And even if I did, I might not have the power. And McFin would have taken a helicopter out to the woods.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:58)
Right,

yeah. Okay, so we speculated on that a lot. Let's continue. Now, one thing I wanted to point out here this chapter, boy, it's so tragic. Harry is having a full-on breakdown in his mind here. Quote, I started to harder.

too many things pressing against my head, my heart. I could feel the pressure somewhere inside of me, that switch on the inside of my head quivering, getting ready to flick back beneath a tide of raging anger, fury, regret, and self-hatred. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes, trying not to let it happen. I opened my eyes and looked up at Murphy. God, I needed to talk to her. I needed a friend. I needed someone to listen, to tell me it would be all right, whether it was truth,

or not. I needed someone to let me unload on them to keep me from flying apart." And of course, what does she do? She throws the crumpled piece of paper in his face before he can explain and accuses him of withholding on her. At the moment that he needs his only real friend the most, she has the wrong impression.

and throws it back in his face. It's like a double blow of tragedy here.

Baloreilly (37:19)
Yeah, and I think when you first read Fool Moon, you the reader are screaming at Murphy, just shut up for a second, just shut up and just let him finish the sentence, just let him get a word in edgewise. And that's what your reaction is to this scene. But I hope that we've laid out that first of all, none of the stuff in Stormfront was resolved from Murphy's perspective.

She knows that Dresden was holding out on her in that book, and he never stops holding out on her entirely, vis-à-vis exactly what went on at the end. And, as we pointed out earlier in this book, she also knows that Harry pursued Tara West without telling her. So from Murphy's perspective,

It's not entirely unreasonable for her to view this as a continuing pattern, because every other time, Harry has known things that he decided not to pass on to her, to pursue his own ends, his own investigation, the supernatural side, quote unquote, without involving her. But in this moment,

Murphy's reaction is an expression of all the anger she's been holding back and it's a flaw on her part that she's been bottling it up, bottling it up, bottling it up like a good Irish Catholic and then when she lets it all go it's unrestrained fury without a moment of reflection or a moment to even consider if the other person might be able to at least tell you something that

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:54)
Ha ha.

Baloreilly (39:10)
that you should know now.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:11)
Yes, absolutely. And it's worth remembering, she is under an enormous amount of outside pressure. So even discounting the fact that she feels fully betrayed by Dresden again after deciding to trust him and give him another chance, like that is already going to cause any person, especially someone like Murphy who doesn't trust easily, to be furious.

but she's also got a huge amount of stress coming from this IA investigation and this situation with the FBI budding in on her investigation. what she says when Harry tries to explain is, well, she slams him across the jaw and says, no more talking, no more lies.

Baloreilly (39:57)
Yes, and obviously Murphy's, you know, physical violence against Dresden is uncalled for, regardless of what he said, and indeed she's misusing her authority as a police officer to get away with assaulting him. So that's totally wrong. But I think this is partially Jim not really knowing at this point how

express the depth.

of Murphy's anger without including a physical expression. think a more seasoned version of Jim might have her throw some stuff around or shove him repeatedly, making him back up over and over again, which again is technically assault but is not quite punching someone multiple times. So I think that that makes her less sympathetic, but I think that is perhaps to be attributed to Jim's

lack of experience as a writer at this point.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:56)
Yeah, I 100 % agree that that is one of the reasons that people look on Murphy unfavorably in these early books. A lot of fans, even ones that love Murphy in the later books, they always will mention like, I hated her in Full Moon or something to that effect. And I think this scene is what does that because we are so in Harry's head and we get the tragedy that is happening here. That-

that I read earlier about how he just needed a friend and this is like destroying him on the inside and Murphy could be that friend and instead throws it back in his face. But I think it's entirely reasonable the conclusion that she draws here.

As we talked about, he did withhold the thing about chasing down the lead of Tara West's blood.

But here, he actually is innocent, but it's like, dude, the boy who cried wolf too many times. Now when the wolf is finally here, nobody believes you.

Baloreilly (41:54)
Right, except we get the impression that maybe somebody might have believed him because Murphy cuffs him, Perp walks him outside, tries to get him into the cop car, runs into Denton who has appeared on the scene, and we'll save all that for a second. But Carmichael, when Harry's walked out and cuffs, has the following reaction.

Carmichael looked up at me and stared, his mouth opening. Lieutenant, Carmichael said, you sure about this?

He was arguing with the most recently deceased last night. I can connect him to at least one resident of the house, as well as some of the decorations there. I'm taking him in for obstructing and for conspiracy to commit murder. Put him in the car, Carmichael, then get your ass upstairs." Murphy gave me a sharp push toward Carmichael, and I stumbled. Carmichael caught me.

Carmichael shook his head and walked me to one of the police cars. Fuck, Dresden. And here I was getting ready to throw in on your side. Guess I'm just a sucker for the underdog. Carmichael unlocked the back of the car and put his hand in the back of my head as I bent down to get into it. Watch your head. Christ, what happened to your jaw? I sat down in the back of the car and looked straight ahead. I didn't answer him. Carmichael stared at me for a while and then shook his head.

We'll have someone drive you downtown as soon as the scene is secure. You can get in touch with your lawyer then." I kept my eyes forward and still didn't answer him. Carmichael studied me some more, then stood shut me into the car.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:29)
Yeah, so one thing that jumps out at me when I read that is Murphy's reasoning here is spot on. Like as a cop, she's been putting these things together and probably in her deepest thoughts doesn't think that Dresden's directly involved. But if she didn't know Dresden and didn't have her hunches about him and she knew...

all these things about him. He was arguing with the most recently deceased last night. I can connect him to one resident of the house, as well as some of the decorations. All of those things mean you take that person downtown for questioning, at the very least. They are a person of interest, no question, even if you don't think they're a suspect. So I think that response is perfectly reasonable from a cop, and even in this case, Murphy has plenty of reasons to drop back into that cop mode and stop.

about her relationship with Dresden at this point.

Baloreilly (44:24)
But in that scene, Carmichael is asking, are you sure? He's studying He's not immediately going along with Murphy's framing of the events, at least, you know, as far as we can tell. And it seems like that, you know, Murphy's enraged, she's furious, but a more seasoned cop, a later Murphy, might even realize in this moment, wait a second.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:36)
Yeah.

Baloreilly (44:52)
Are we taking our queen off the board here? Are we sure that putting Harry down as person who's

on Team Bad Guys is actually useful or right. Murphy is coming to reasonable conclusions in the most part, but the way she's turning them into responses is colored not by reason, but by her deep anger and frustration at the death of another person that she possibly could have prevented. Carmichael's sitting here going,

I think this guy's mostly on the level boss. Can't we use him?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's 100 % true. I think that Murphy is blinded by the feelings of betrayal from Dresden We've been beaten a dead horse about this, but I think it's worth talking about because it is one of the biggest discussions around Murphy in the Dresdenverse community. ⁓ Most people want to say that she's just an unlikable character here and what she does, makes no sense.

I think it makes perfect sense and I think it's a very interesting flaw in her character and it doesn't really make me like her that much worse because I can see it from her perspective.

Baloreilly (46:08)
Yeah, I don't necessarily think you're supposed to like Murphy at this point in Full Moon, but I think that when you're rereading the series, you go, I understand why Karen Murphy would feel like this right now. I know her and I know how she would act. And you you asked earlier, you know, if she gave Harry the opportunity to explain, would she change what she's doing? And I think that...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:13)
Mm-hmm.

Baloreilly (46:35)
At this point, might just be that Dresden has dug himself such a big hole that she would honestly think whatever he was saying was a story to get him out of trouble.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:46)
Okay, so let's move on. Chapter 13 what we just started. The beginning of that is when she locks him in the car, and then he kind of...

spends some of this time thinking about the case, feeling terrible about himself, but trying to figure it out. And there's a great moment where he's of just wallowing in self-pity and thinking about what's going on, and then he realizes something very important. He's alone, outside, in the car, handcuffed, vulnerable,

There's no cops around and the killer is still out there. at this moment, Jim writes, I broke out in a cold sweat and looked out the other window directly into a pair of brilliant, feral, amber eyes. Great smash cut to super high tension, right? The previous paragraphs are like I talked about, he's slowly realizing there's nobody around, he's handcuffed and there's still somebody out there.

and then you have that great transition into super tense moment. In this case, it's a misdirect because it's not the Loup Garu, it's Tara who's here to help him. that is just another brilliant Butcher. when he does this, it doesn't always mean that he's gonna get a baseball bat to the back of the head all of a sudden. Sometimes,

It's a good surprise in this case. He's just framed it as a scary one. I loved it. This is one of my, so out of all the chapters we've read so far, that's my favorite line.

Baloreilly (48:23)
Yeah, it's a really good one. And he's really working from Hitchcock's playbook here. Because Alfred Hitchcock is known for saying in an interview, if there's a bomb under the table and the bomb is to go off and kill everyone, you never show the bomb. But if you do show the bomb, it cannot go off.

The school of drama is that when Harry has the realization that something bad could happen to him, I'm so vulnerable and you build it up and you build it up and you build it up, you have to ease that tension. And if it's gonna be a baseball bat to the back of the head, it's gotta come out of nowhere. Now,

I don't think Butcher always follows this school, and in horror, you don't. In horror, you ratchet up the tension until the monster arrives. And Butcher plays with both genres, but this is a very film noir thing to do. This is a suspense thriller moment, not a horror moment.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:17)
Hmm.

and that thriller genre does continue here, because after Tara shows up, she explains that she's there to help get him out, he argues with her for a while, he's not sure if he believes her, and then he finally decides to run. That's the same moment.

that the FBI agents are exiting the building. Now it's very specifically says it's only the FBI agents exiting the building, so I believe they are the only ones out there, which is why when Harry starts to run, they say stop one time and then bullets start flying at him. And it actually results in him getting shot in the shoulder as they escape. And that is almost certainly Agent Ben losing her control again.

and just firing at prey that's fleeing because she's so in the mode of like the beast that's taken over her slowly over time. Now, let me ask you this question.

The FBI agents were coming out on their own here. What happens if Tara doesn't show up? What happens if Dresden's still sitting in the car thinking when the cops come out?

Was Denton coming out to threaten him or to just pity him or just to make sure that, to make sure that he wouldn't talk? Like were they gonna finish him off or something and try to blame it on the wolves? I don't know. What do you think, Brian? Was there anything else gonna happen here if Tara hadn't shown up?

Baloreilly (50:46)
rub his nose in it.

I think something else was gonna happen, but I think it's a lot less immediately nefarious. I think Denton was gonna ask him, so there was some weird ⁓ creepy shit going on in there. You're a wizard or whatever. You know anything about that?

because Denton wants cover with the magic cops. So he wants to make sure that Harry is buying the misdirect, that it's a Lugru, that he's putting it together. So I think that's what he's coming out to do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:17)
Hmm.

Baloreilly (51:25)
Harry and Tara take off, leading their pursuers on a merry chase through some wonderful ⁓ lakeside architecture in Chicago. And they eventually get away, despite Harry's wound, because he unleashes this crazy huge mist spell using his blood as a catalyst. He says, ventas veloce, I murmur.

Umbrium, Umbrium. And that creates this extremely thick fog. This is a weird one. We don't see Harry cast a spell anything like this ever again.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:06)
No, but we do see a illusory mist created by And that appears to be an easier thing to do. But here, because he's already been dripping his own blood, he sort of create probably a thaumaturgical link to his blood to send his magic through it

And we don't see him use this specific spell anytime in the future, because it is a pretty useful one. It lets him get away pretty easily.

Baloreilly (52:31)
Yeah, it's a cool spell and I think that it underlies both that Harry is a really powerful wizard and also that using blood, human blood, can enhance magic. Because the reason Molly uses illusionary mist, I mean, one, she's super good at illusions, but specifically in cold days on the boat is because doing real mist over water in that case would be super hard and an illusion is much, much easier.

does real mis-tier as far as we can tell. He passes out afterwards, but it t-

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:07)
Tara is surprised.

He says, I saw her expression, her eyes wide with wonder, the first emotion I'd seen on her face. We know that listens to wind knows her, she knows him, presumably she's seen some mortal magic, but she's surprised that Drezin is able to pull this off.

Baloreilly (53:25)
And it's even more impressive because not only is it a very powerful spell, which I'm sure is part of what surprises her, but Harry's definitely never done a blood mist evocation before. He's coming up with this spell, presumably on the fly. And Harry claims that he's not very good at evocation. But one thing that we both think he's very good at is coming up with ways to alter evocations that he does know how to do.

in the heat of the moment to the specific circumstances.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:59)
So that's probably what's happening here. Okay, that takes us to the end of chapter 13. so, and that brings us to our question for Bob.

Baloreilly (54:12)
So Bob, we got a big one for you, and I don't think that you're gonna be able to give us a direct answer on this, but we're trying to figure it out. Who killed Harry's parents? And maybe more importantly, why?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:27)
Well, as you might expect, Bob couldn't make it. He sends his regrets. He's apparently attending a funeral. He didn't say who it was for. I didn't ask any more questions. I didn't really need to know any further because I'm pretty sure it's fake. Okay, so what we're gonna do is do our best to answer that based on what we have here. So let's start with Margaret Senior, Harry's mother. We first wanna talk about the timing, which seems very unusually coincidental. She dies.

giving birth to Harry, or at least that's what Harry's been told, and we're just gonna assume that that is true. Why she killed during childbirth?

Baloreilly (55:06)
So we get a lot of great answers that touched on this. Sarcastic Kenobi said that maybe she's been under attack for a while, but she's been protecting herself and she couldn't maintain whatever cloak she was using to dodge curse that killed her while she was delivering a baby. Sounds reasonable to me.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:27)
Absolutely.

Another one came from calm medicine, 3992. Maybe she was hiding in the never never and until she gave birth and she had to come back into the real world to do that.

Baloreilly (55:37)
Yeah, I want to note something about this. I definitely think calm medicine is on to something. We discussed this in the thread because

Maggie is very clearly choosing the dates her children are born. know, when is Thomas's birthday? A white-court vampire whose bane is true love? Valentine's Day. Harry, know, is a star-born born on Halloween. And what do you use the Never Never for if you're the best Never Never traveler in the land? Well, one thing can be effectively bending time by going to places in the Never Never where it

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:59)
Hmm.

Baloreilly (56:15)
passes more slowly or more quickly. I don't think Maggie was actually hiding in the never never the whole time. I'm gonna talk about where I think she was. But I do think that's a very good

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:18)
Yes.

Okay, the next one we got was Leah's deal to protect Margaret Senior, but when she gave birth to Harry, she passed that obligation on to Harry and said, you're no longer, I don't want, you no longer owe me. Harry now has my debt. You have to protect Harry instead of protecting me. And once Leah wasn't protecting Maggie, now she can be attacked by the curse.

Baloreilly (56:57)
Yeah, and Taffington 2086 said that. Downshe 624 had a slightly different take. Maggie might have contracted Leah to be Harry's godmother before Harry was born. And of course, if she's the godmother and she has to protect Harry, that means while Margaret's carrying the baby, she's gotta protect her.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:22)
Yeah?

Baloreilly (57:22)
know,

Leah might have been totally on board with that plan, but that might be why Leah could have been protecting her without an exchange being made.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:31)
So the last one we had about the timing was from Sensitive Narwhal 30, who suggested, Wraith's spell only worked the night that Harry was born because it was Halloween and a special conjunction, which has superpowered his spell and was able to break through whatever Margaret's defenses were.

That's an interesting idea, that maybe he was trying to do it several times, but it was only strong enough to get through on this specific night under this special conjunction.

Baloreilly (58:00)
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense if she was under immortal protection. Maybe that kind of thing breaks down on Halloween.

So the next question is, who done it?

And we think we know the answer to this. It's Lord Wraith. We see him use the Molokio in Blood Rites and we know that that entropy curse kills people in all kinds of ways. Sounds like it dovetails very nicely with doing it in childbirth. Of course, he has some obvious reasons for going after Maggie and some not so obvious ones. But do you think he had any help, any co-conspirators? Do you think anybody else was in on this plot?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:37)
I don't think so. I think he's old enough and strong enough that he doesn't need any help from like anybody else in the white court, nor would his pride allow him to. Like we saw that his closest were like the Ken and Barbie bodyguards and

They were basically Android robots, like they didn't have any obvious, like that's how he likes them, perfectly obedient. And so to me, that doesn't suggest that he gets a lot of co-conspirators, he just gets servants. So I don't think he has anybody helping him unless it's some outsider that gifted him the spell in the first place.

Baloreilly (59:17)
Yes, I mean to call the spell you definitely have to call out to either he who walks behind or his master. It's not a hundred percent clear. But I do think he might have had some help locating Maggie, pointing the curse in the right direction, getting around her defenses. Because to spoil a little bit of what I'm going to talk about, I think Wraith is in with the Black Council and that's why he's got outsiders protecting him. So I think he might have gotten

some help from other people who would go on to be part of the Black Council because Maggie is a big deal. She's hard to kill, presumably.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:57)
One would imagine. the question of why, why would he kill her is the other question that we asked. And we had a lot of good answers from this. Sarcastic Kenobi Rev both suggested that she learned some kind of a secret about Lord Wraith that he could not let exist out in the world. So he had to kill her to silence her. Now, what could that be? It could be his connection to outsiders.

Presumably his connection to outsiders was not a known quantity Until Blood Rites, when Harry witnesses it and presumably puts it in a report somewhere and sends it off to the White Council, maybe nobody else knew that he was messing with outsiders until that moment. And that's what she knew that he wanted to shut her up about.

Baloreilly (1:00:42)
Right, could have also been simply a weak spot in his defenses or the White Court's organization as a whole, or it could be in the theory I'll add a little bit later, the existence of the Circle, the Black Council.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:56)
And I mean, talking about a weakness in his defenses, she identifies it and targets it with her death curse. So, yeah, it could be some way to get around whatever magical defenses he's come up with, and he realized that. I don't know, maybe we'll find that out. She's gotten away with the Death Star Plants, and he wants to make sure he doesn't give it anybody, but she wants to be using it herself. So, the next one that we had, Lfinch47 said that,

Baloreilly (1:01:02)
Yeah, he was definitely right if that was the... yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:25)
Wraith probably monologued the whole plan to her, whatever his secret evil plan is, maybe it's the black council thing you're talking about, and he would do that because his ego is quote, so big that doors need to be widened unquote, that he never anticipated her being able to get away from him. And so he didn't mind.

giving her all of his secrets. And that's why she gets away and he panics and figures out a way we have to kill her despite the fact that he must know it's super duper dangerous vis-a-vis death curse.

Baloreilly (1:01:57)
Yeah, I think no matter what, this is definitely hitting on some things that are true. He definitely has too much of an ego to ever think that she would be able to get away, and that could lead to the pure spite motivation we're about to talk about. And he very well might have let her in on stuff that he didn't really want her to know because he had too much of an ego to shut himself up and he never thought she'd get away.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:21)
and of course, ⁓ Ros Drago and Dresden the Shade both suggested essentially Occam's Razor, he's got a huge ego, she left him, therefore she has to die. Pure spite, he just needs to kill her for that reason alone. And that's entirely possible. It doesn't have to be some big conspiracy in the back. There are plenty of big conspiracies in the Dresden first, we don't necessarily need another one here.

Baloreilly (1:02:45)
So we're both gonna talk about our answers for both Maggie and Malcolm when we get to the conclusion of this question for Bob. So we're gonna move on to Malcolm here. So first, let's do the who and why part together because we really don't have a lot of knowledge about this and the motive kind of helps us identify potential culprits. ⁓ The clearest one is Justin.

It puts Harry into the foster care system that Justin's later going to scoop him out of, we know that because Morgan tells us in the microfiction that he pursued Harry, that somebody was on it to clear his records the second he got in there.

Nikki7127 says, Justin wouldn't know if Harry's a wizard until he hit puberty, so it was just easier to kill Malcolm and tuck him away somewhere until then and pick up his starborn only if he manifested magic.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:41)
Yeah, you wouldn't necessarily know. So why would you go through all the trouble of trying to raise this kid only to have them turn out as a bog standard normal human? There's just no way to know ahead of time as far as we can tell. And Anakpak answered the question. Why not just wait to kill Malcolm until Harry was definitely a wizard? Why not wait until Harry was 10 and then,

kill Malcolm with an aneurysm or whatever. Well, a knockbox suggests that this is because sticking Harry in the foster care system for four years would then make Justin look like a much bigger savior, getting Harry out of that terrible situation that he's been in for four years, and that would make it much easier to manipulate Harry in the future.

Baloreilly (1:04:22)
Yes, also Malcolm might have known some stuff about the situation that he wouldn't tell Harry until he was older. And if you kill him before Malcolm can do that, then you can really, control the information that Harry receives.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:38)
Yeah, and it might even be that whoever it was that killed him tried to kill Malcolm sooner because we know that Malcolm was constantly on the road moving around for all of Harry's childhood that he lived with him. And maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe Margaret said, there will be people coming for our child. You must keep moving. Always keep moving. And he took her at that word and maybe somehow they caught up with him anyway.

at that moment when Harry was six or whatever. So it doesn't necessarily have to be that Justin was like, I'll wait until he's six. Maybe Justin was like, I just wanna stick him away somewhere where nobody but I know where he is. And that was the first opportunity that he was able to track down Mal.

somebody else suggested Anduriel, and presumably Nicodemus, was responsible. Bombin says, my conspiracy theory is that Harry's dad was killed by Anduriel in some sort of plot to harden up Starborns for the upcoming future. And Harry's talk with his dad in the forest dream was his subconscious telling him that his dad was also murdered by Daenerys. Because that was happening

Death Masks.

Baloreilly (1:05:49)
Yeah, now it's interesting as a suggestion because Nicodemus does seem to be on team reality and we'll get to the evidence about this in future books. However, my problem with this is I don't think Justin's on team reality.

So if Anduriel's gonna kill Harry, he's not gonna let him be disappeared into the foster care system where the Black Council can nab him. He's gonna make sure he ends up wherever Nicodemus thinks it's most manipulative to put him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:24)
Yeah,

I kind of, concur. So, the next culprit on our list of possible suspects of who killed Malcolm Dresden, Jim Butcher. Jim Butcher did it with the candlestick in the foyer. No, the doilest reason provided by is I believe Harry's an orphan because Butcher is trying to set Harry up as the person

most in the headspace to believe that altruism and goodwill ⁓ do not exist or are wrong, and yet he believes them anyway. that...

is a really interesting way to look at the framing of the entire series of who Harry Dresden is and making him an orphan definitely accomplishes that goal.

Baloreilly (1:07:12)
Yeah, and I want to mention Baron Alexei's other theory, which is that Margaret's murderer was actually disrupting her plan to murder Malcolm.

Now he actually gives some fairly compelling reasons for why that might have been part of Margaret's plan, but I do think that what Chauncey said in the chapter we read does cut off that possibility because Chauncey says that Margaret's been redeemed and isn't going to hell. If she died with the intention to murder someone who she manipulated into loving her, I think she would be with the Dark Prince. So I don't think that happened. But another suggestion by Lord Macau

is that Leia did it. It's obvious, isn't it? When Harry was very little, he made a deal with Lennonchi to be like Batman. the first step was she had to kill his parents. Leia then helped mold him into the defender of Now I think that's a little bit of a joke.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:07)
Yeah.

Baloreilly (1:08:10)
But I do think we should talk about this just a little. I don't think that Leia's godparenting would have involved killing Malcolm or doing anything that was sort of against Maggie's plans. And we don't think that Maggie and Malcolm were on different sides or Malcolm was in the dark about stuff.

I think that Maggie, Malcolm, and Leia, in very different ways with very different skills, were all working to turn Harry into the person he ended up being. It's just that there were forces working against that too.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:45)
So let's talk about your pet theory.

Baloreilly (1:08:48)
Okay, so buckle up guys, this is a bit of a mouthful. Now listen, I think we have a lot of information that suggests that Maggie Dresden wasn't just a powerful iconoclastic witch. She knew things that other people didn't know.

That's why she was Margaret Le Fay. She was more in touch with the fairy courts than anybody else. And we know what the purpose of the fairy courts is to defend reality from the outside. There's a reason why Leia, the number three in winter, is Harry's godmother.

It's because of Maggie's connection to this understanding of what the starboard cycle means. That's why she wants to have a starboard. She's trying to create the weapon that humanity, the courts, the White Council will wield against the outsiders in the coming cycle. But the question is why? Why is she doing this? How'd she get into that?

I think it's because started out on Team Black Council. Why? Well, probably for a lot of the same reasons that Kumori is working with Cowl.

They sold her a vision of what the world could look like if they won. If they ended up with power, with a star born, remaking the world the way they wanted to. And it dovetailed with all the changes to the council and the laws of magic that Margaret was desperately seeking, was really into and cared about passionately, which we know because Lucio tells us that's how she felt. But Wraith...

who was on the council and on her team and one of the people she went to dinner with as Ariana lets us know, let's slip a little too much. And let Margaret find out that their actual plans weren't so good.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:55)
The actual plan is empty night, whatever that means.

Baloreilly (1:10:59)
Exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:00)
so I could definitely buy that, but my own pet theory

what did Margaret give to Leah to get her to become the godmother? I mean, that's a never ending obligation to protect Harry for basically his whole life, as far as we can tell. It's never mentioned that it has an expiration date. So she must have sacrificed something pretty huge to get that from the...

third strongest being in winter after mother and Mab. What if she sacrificed her own life and gave it to Leah somehow? know, Leah takes memories from Susan. Maybe there's something Leah can get from a ritual sacrifice of one's own lifeblood in order to, maybe that's what makes Leah as powerful as she is. that is what Maggie knows. Maybe she knows,

I'm gonna be killed. Wraith will catch up to me soon. But what I can do is I can go out on my own terms and make sure my son is protected while I do. And so maybe she did a deal where she either let Leah kill her or killed herself in a ritual that gave Leah power. Something along those lines.

Baloreilly (1:12:12)
Yeah, and I especially like that. think it's an interesting possibility for two reasons. One, we know the stone table exists. And what does Leah say to Harry? Never let Mab take you here. Maybe because, you know, his mother's already been there.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:27)
Hmm

Baloreilly (1:12:28)
Or two, I believe mythologically the Lananchi actually trades inspiration to artists for their blood. So I think this is a built-in mechanism that Leah uses to gain power, literally lifeblood, and I especially like how that would dovetail with a continuing obligation. You get all of it, a life for a life.

whenever Margaret decides that she's no longer going to make a starborn for the Black Council, she begins her escape Now maybe all along they're trying to get her to father a starborn with Malcolm Dresden because maybe there's something special about him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:13)
we do know what's the one, what's the kryptonite for vampire It's true If she was enthralled by Lord Wraith and fell in love with Malcolm while she was supposed to be seducing him or something, that could break her out of the enthrallment when nothing else might have been able to do it.

Baloreilly (1:13:34)
That's an awesome point that absolutely could be it and it would make a ton of sense. So what happens afterwards? Where do they go? How do they hide from not just Lord Wraith, but his potential co-conspirators, which I think include Cowl and other powerful figures? Well, yeah, they can use the Never Never, but I'm not sure if that would have been enough. And moreover, I'm not sure if Mab would have even signed up for that.

I think ended up on Demonreach. And that's the reason why, in Small Favor, chapters 42 to 45, Harry shows up and feels like the place is really familiar.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:05)
Ooh.

Baloreilly (1:14:18)
Now look, could be his precognizance. We know that wizards have that prescience about what's going to happen to them. Demon rage is obviously significant to Harry. It could be coming in now, but Lucio suggests that really only happens when wizards are a little bit older. So I think he has been there The cottage is especially focused on. It seems so familiar and it's so well protected. It keeps out the Negloshi. So maybe that's where he was born.

Maybe that's where he stayed for the first year or two or three of his life before Malcolm had to go on the road because money was running out or the island was turning against them because maybe one of the unknown wardens of Demonreach was Maggie Dresden.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:03)
Whoa,

dun dun dun. I think you're reaching, but I love it.

Baloreilly (1:15:07)
So when Malcolm goes on the road, Justin killing him isn't a coincidence. Justin knows that Malcolm has a star-born child of Margaret Dresden with him because Justin was on the Black Council and knows that was the whole plan.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:27)
Hmm.

Baloreilly (1:15:28)
So, like you said, the first time Justin gets a chance, he gets that starborn into the foster system, where he's able to cash him out once he shows some magical ability. And that leads us to one more Why does Harry end up with Elaine? Why are they both adopted by Justin? Well, it's because...

The Black Council's original plot to create their star-born destroyer was foiled by Maggie's betrayal. So they had to make another one.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:04)
Yeah, so they didn't know they were gonna get Harry back is what you're saying. So they came up with an alternate plan and then wound up with both of them anyway.

Baloreilly (1:16:13)
And I want to make two really, think, small points here, both of which line up with the idea that not only is Elaine a starboard, but that she's got some larger connection to the Black Council as a whole. The first is that, where did she come from? Well,

Maybe one of the other wizards on the Black Council tried to have a kid. She could not only be Cal's apprentice, she might be Cal's daughter. And her last name, Mallory, isn't a particularly famous one, but there's one really notable figure in mythological history who has the author of Le Morte d'Auteur. ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:47)
Whoa.

Baloreilly (1:17:04)
Thomas Mallory, who created the courtly Arthurian story that we know today. In the Dresden Files, Mallory is probably like Grimm, somebody who's on the payroll of the supernatural to get these stories out there so they'll be remembered forever.

And the person who is that connected to those stories which surround Merlin and the creation of the fairy courts would have descendants who would understand what those courts were for and whose children would be in a position to be used for or against them.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:41)
You know, it's discussions like this that just make me subconsciously like send my energy to Jim so that he can get the books out faster, because I really want to know what's going on with all these things in the background that have been hinted at. It's so, it's so difficult to just sit here and speculate.

Baloreilly (1:17:55)
Well.

One reason it's important to talk about stuff involving Lord Wraith before 12 Months drops is because most of Harry's love interests don't make it very long. If she doesn't make it through 12 months, guess who's going to step back onto the stage?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:13)
yeah, yeah, I don't see that happening. I don't think Lara's going away. I think she's gonna be around for a little longer. Whether they actually get married or not, it's gonna be up in the air, but I think that's gonna happen. All right, we've gone on long enough for this episode. Next time, we're going to ask, what can a wizard soul gaze and why? Why is it that a wizard can soul gaze some things, like a kraken or a white court vampire?

but not other things like Tara West.

Baloreilly (1:18:45)
Yeah, it's an interesting question because is it about mortality or something else?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:52)
We're gonna talk about all that next time.