Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
Brian, did you see the news from the butcher panel at DragonCon over the weekend?

Brian (00:04)
I did. I'm really worried.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:06)
worried. I thought it was exciting. said he might have Mirror Mirror done before the end of the year.

Brian (00:10)
Yeah, but you know what that means for us, Adam? You know what that means for us? That means hours of staying up till all hours to finish the new books so that we can drop updates as they come out and he's gonna get even further ahead of us and there's no end in sight.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:29)
⁓ yeah, I guess I was kind of looking forward to a vacation when we caught up to him, but maybe we never will.

Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to Recorded Neutral Territory, a Dresden Files podcast where the spoilers go all the way through battleground. I'm Adam Ruzzo, and with me as always is a young werewolf in love. It's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (00:58)
So I got her a full moon necklace made all in silver. It's the best gift ever,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:08)
Does it hurt when you touch it?

Brian (01:10)
Yeah, maybe I gotta go with gold.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:12)
Yeah, if it comes from the heart, doesn't really matter. All right, so we're here on day four, ladies and gentlemen, of this exciting ride through Full Moon, and Harry is cowering in the corner of the Full Moon garage as Denton and the FBI duel it out with the street wolves and Marcones in the background also fighting, and that's chapter 24, is that whole big battle. Chapter 25.

Brian (01:14)
Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:36)
Harry manages to sneak outside, or the end of chapter 24 and to chapter 25, Harry manages to sneak out into the alley, thanks to the help from Tara and the Alphas. He defeats Roger and interrogates him to get some more information about what's going on. That leads us to chapter 26, where they escape in the van driven by Susan Harry, the Alphas, and Susan all go back to Georgia's parents' house, where they sort of prepare for...

the upcoming confrontation that evening. Chapter 27 being specifically where Harry and Susan sit down to sort of a bit of a talk, in quotes, that goes a little further than that,

And in the end, she gifts him his iconic leather duster. That's what we're talking about tonight. So let's pull it back, pull it back to chapter 24. And Harry is hiding in the corner after having barely escaped at the beginning of this big fight. And he's actually wrestling with the fact that his magic has failed him. And he specifically says that he's actually way more troubled

by the thought of his magic failing him than he is that he's probably gonna die real Brian, why is he so much more concerned with the loss of his magic than the potential loss of his life?

Brian (02:49)
So I think that there is a simple answer to this, which is in Stormfront, we see Harry wrestle with true mortal danger for the first time, and he makes peace with the fact that attempting to protect people, something that is with him. know, if Harry Dresden dies doing the right thing, that's not going to be a bad way for him to go out. He can make peace with that.

But if Harry goes out longer a wizard, that's a loss of identity that strikes him in a way that's more precious than just his life. And it's a funny thing, but I think it's a very human thing, right? We prize who we are even more than we prize the continuation of one more day of life on this

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:41)
And we see him wrestle with this exact thing again in the future when he finally talks to Michael about the fact that he's got a fallen angel in his head. And Michael says, there's only one way I know that you can get rid of it. You have to give up your power that will let you give up the coin. And Harry absolutely refuses that path. He's like, I will find another way to deal with this. So we know that this is so tightly ingrained into who he is and his inner self.

that this is a huge blow. Now, at this moment, he's not certain that he's lost it forever. In fact, I think at this point, he's probably thinking it's very likely that he's temporarily damaged some of his circuitry, but he's wrestling with the fact that maybe it's permanent. He doesn't know.

Brian (04:25)
presumably this has never happened to him before. He's never been able to do nothing with magic before. He's never been this tapped out. And he actually says, quote, but I had never thought that the magic would fail More accurately, had never guessed that I might fail it. Now that I think is very interesting because it seems like Harry's coming to grips here with not just the idea that he's

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:28)
Yeah.

Brian (04:51)
burned out the circuitry and that's why he's losing his identity as a wizard. But that he has somehow misused magic in the past couple days in a way that's not compatible with his identity as a wizard. What do you think of that idea?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:07)
Well, I think part of it is the idea of you can't get things for free with magic. Magic isn't a just solves all your problems thing. In fact, one of the most important lessons he teaches Molly is you can't solve all your problems with magic. one of the things he tried to do in this book is, ⁓ my body is fatigued and can't do anything, no problem. I'll just use magic to fix it with this potion. And of course that...

backfiring is one of the reasons that he is in the state he's in now. And he's kind of learning that lesson that he eventually teaches to Molly and like, ⁓ I'm tired and my body can't do anything. I can't solve that problem. And Bob even warns him when he's making this potion, Dresden actually asks Bob for a night's rest in a bottle. And Bob's like, yeah, you can't really do that.

but I can give you some super coffee. Now, as we know, coffee, caffeine, doesn't actually give you energy, it just makes you feel less tired. Your body is still tired on the inside, it's just making you feel less tired so you can push yourself further and stay awake longer. That's exactly what this super coffee does to Harry and it comes back to bite him.

Brian (06:20)
I think it might even go a little beyond that I feel like Harry is recognizing as the FBI busts in and starts laying waste to the place that he's kind of been off his game this whole book. He thought the alphas might be the bad guys, but then he was pretty sure it wasn't them. And he just kind of walked into the street wolves and caused that whole fracas. And he didn't really see

Denton and co coming until he noticed Roger driving the car past in that last chapter or two ago, full moon garage. So I wonder if Harry feels that he not only has been using magic in a way that it's not really good to use it, but if he feels like he hasn't been at

Putting in his part. You know, he hasn't been holding up his end of the bargain and doing the other stuff a wizard is supposed to do. And I think we'll see that that might be the root of it with how he reconciles to this loss of his ⁓ ability to just move energy around at the end of this chapter.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:34)
Yeah, and this ties into something that I've been thinking about

When you're re-reading these books, you're used to Harry being at least competent. I would say by the time we get to summer night, Harry is just making a lot fewer boneheaded mistakes. He's misled sometimes, and a lot of times he's misled by creatures that are really good at deception, like Aurora, like the fae will trick you, that's their thing. So you can't really blame him for that. But he's making a lot of

boneheaded mistakes and not realizing things that in retrospect maybe he should have in these early books, which makes sense. He's just 25. He's still learning this stuff. He does not have the experience that he will have later in the later books, but when you're rereading them...

It's very frustrating because you've gotten used to this character that by book four through book 17 was at least competent most of the time and sometimes was just utterly brilliant in his ways of getting out of things or solving problems or seeing through to what's going on behind the scenes.

And here, he's just making mistake after mistake after mistake and driving himself deeper. And part of it is, every mistake he makes in this book leads to him getting beat up more or shot or whatever, which of course, compoundingly makes it harder to outthink his opponents because when you've got a concussion or you're just feeling awful and stressed and in pain, that makes it very hard to reason. So that kind of explains what's going on here.

But it's another reason that people dislike these early books, think, specifically this one, because I think he makes the most mistakes over and over again in this book compared to all the others.

Brian (09:15)
I love that line of thought because of course when you're making errors with things that you're not good at, What's really harmful when that metastasizes into you making errors with the things that you are good at, with the things that you do expect reliably to be able to do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:32)
Hmm.

Brian (09:37)
So yeah, I've been a bad investigator. Yeah, I haven't been the best team leader. I haven't been the best consulting detective, but I am a, I can't use magic? That's really the last kick, you know? Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:47)
⁓ Exactly.

Yeah, absolutely. The other thing I think in this moment, the thing that's hitting him here is that he probably feels more vulnerable in this moment than any other time since he was bound by Elaine for Justin, right? That has to be the only other time I can think of in the history, at least as far as we know, that he was this vulnerable since he was a kid.

So he has to that has to be weighing on him in terms. There's a battle going on around me I can't use my shield spell. I can't even fight back I'm just ⁓ a dude that's been beat the crap out of so I can't even physically He's not even physically trained at this point right so he's not good at fighting He just relies on being big and now he's cowering in a corner, and that's kind of where he's at

All right, so at this point, while Harry's cowering, Marcon and Hendrix manage to escape by hotwiring or stealing a truck.

and they blast out their way out, the rest of the street wolves are arriving and fighting with the wolves outside and with Denton inside, and it appears that they just completely overwhelm the street wolves, despite this being the correct time of month for the street wolves to be extra good at fighting. see Agent Ben or Agent Wilson wounded at all in this

They show up later tonight, fully ready to go in wolf form. What do we know about their healing factor as wolves?

Brian (11:12)
As far as we know, they don't even have one. I mean, later Harry is going to injure Denton and that basically ends the fight. Now, maybe it's something about a hexan wolf injuring another hexan wolf. You know, we're not sure. Maybe they can shrug off injuries from other sources better. But the point is they're outnumbered five, 10 to one, and they are wiping the floor with the street wolves. It's easy enough that they can take breaks to chat in the middle of it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:36)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (11:42)
So the Hexenwolves, it just seems like they must have some extra metaphysical weight that is just overpowering the rage spirits the Lycanthropes are channeling. Whatever's bound to these belts is significant in a way that allows them either just because they're so strong and so fast or due to its ability to influence people around it.

strike terror into their hearts, whatever it is, it's allowing them to absolutely overwhelm other werewolves who should be equally strong relative to their usual capabilities on this night.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:25)
Yeah, and that to me might tie into the addictive nature of the belts being way stronger because we don't ever get the impression that the street wolves are like unable to control themselves in the way that Ben and later Wilson and Roger are kind of unable to control themselves. So I have to imagine that you might be on the right track there where these belts contain spirits that are just an order of magnitude stronger, more fierce, whatever you want to call it, than the spirits that the lycanthropes have.

Brian (12:53)
It's a great trick by whoever gave them the belts, right? Because it makes them very capable at whatever he wants them to do, or she wants them to do, or they want them to do, while still causing chaos because the FBI effectively is losing its capacity to operate rationally and independently in this investigation and in Chicago. So as this fight is going on, wolf paws start.

Digging right next to, they're coming for Harry Adam, they're gonna get him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:26)
Yeah, it's a real weird decision for him to be like no wolves from the outside in the back are coming in and getting me and he's like I have to fight back. I think I don't know what he's thinking here. This is a funny moment where he's like I will do something with this wrench and and attack the paws I think anybody who's reading this for the first time probably assumes like that's that's Terra or the Alpha is coming to save him like that's what feels right in this moment and

that's media literacy, where like, we feel like in this moment he's going to get rescued because that's what happens in stories in situations like this, but it feels like he should know that too.

Brian (14:01)
Yeah, you know, I wonder if it's just he's so panicked, he's so down right now that he just can't believe anything good is happening.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:09)
and he wants to be able to fight back. And here's something he can actually fight because it's stuck on the outside and he can attack the paws when they come under.

So Harry manages to finally understand that it's Tara and the Alpha. She explains to him, stop attacking the paws, I'm gonna have them dig. as he's sort of escaping out that hole, the battle ends with the last remaining street wolf, Parker, coming for Denton. And Denton is convinced to change at the last second by Ben, who's like.

sliding her blood covered hands into his mouth and he's like trying to resist, but ultimately fails. Like he's been the most stable, most able to resist the addictive nature of the belts. And this, Brian, seems like the moment that he cracks, that he no longer has control.

Brian (14:52)
mean, this is nuts. He's like licking the gore off of her fingers, basically. It's like some Queen of the Damned, you know, vampire horror movie shit. And, that to me just seems completely at odds with what Roger tells Dresden outside later. We're taking these belts because we're gonna get the people who nobody else can go after.

And here is Denton just reveling, literally bloodthirsty, literally bloodthirsty. And it's just either he, in this moment, loses himself and is just no longer on mission. Or this is the moment where he admits to himself that it hasn't been about the mission for a while.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:27)
Hmm.

Yeah, I think that's it too. And what's more, it gets worse because we're about to have a fairly long chapter where Harry interrogates Roger after stealing the belt from him out in the alley. And I think the reason they get all that time to interrogate Roger is because the other three are literally devouring Parker that's the last thing Harry sees is they go down on Parker and then start to eat him. And so,

I think it's implied that the entire time that he's interrogating Roger, that they're eating Parker and maybe the others, like they can't control themselves.

Brian (16:20)
get to this a little bit later, but I think there's some evidence from Dresden's experience with the belt that the actual consumption of blood feeds the control of the rage spirit. So this orgy of violence here, if Denton just went over the edge, well, he is having a long

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:33)
Mmm.

Brian (16:42)
fall because they are going to really hit bottom after this.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:47)
Yeah, and I have to imagine that the spirit itself has a sort of stamina and sort of gives back control after a period of time. Otherwise, Ben would never transform back. Like how far gone she is and why would she ever transform back, right? So I have to imagine that the rage spirit eventually gives back control and that's what makes Denton go, okay, now we're gonna go finish Marcon and like think rationally again. He's gonna like convince himself like, no, I can keep control this time. That kind of a situation.

Brian (17:17)
Well, it's an excellent drug metaphor because of course when you come down off your addictive high, you don't want the next hit Your body is tapped out, so the rage spirit is sort of standing in for whatever neurotransmitter or drug stimulates. And yeah, I think that's a good reading of

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So Harry finishes digging out the hole, and he manages to slide his way through, and when he emerges into the alley, he finds Tara and three of the Alphas facing off with Agent Harris, now in big wolf form, and.

Two of the Alphas lay nearby and they are injured. And later we learn that their names are Cindy and Alex, who I believe we never hear from again. We'll talk about that in a future episode. But in this moment, he emerges and Tara instructs him to run, get away. She's like, we'll hold them. You need to go help McFin. I read this and thought about it.

There's no way that she can fight the FBI, maybe one of them. But we already know from the conversation that she's about to tell us in the van that when she attacked the FBI at the varsity, she was trying to save Spike. she knew that they were potentially framing McFinn or the Alphas. So she went to stop it. But when she got there, she didn't realize that they were

Hexen-Wolfen. She thought that they were some kind of regular werewolf and she'd be able to out-wolf them in wolf form. But when it turns out, ⁓ there's three of them and they all have a wolf spirit inside of them. I can't win this and she leaves. So that leaves me to believe she already knows she can't win. The alphas are still puppies. They definitely can't win. So if she's sending Harry away and saying, we'll stay and fight, Brian, is she basically?

committing a noble sacrifice here?

Brian (19:12)
I think on the one hand, she is essentially trying to sacrifice herself to save I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. Because I don't think Alphas they would have any issues with the FBI. The FBI was inside, they were gonna come around from the outside and rescue Harry. fact that Roger,

hadn't transformed or gone into the garage yet and was presumably able to see them and interrupt them means things are already foobar. So I think she knows we can't exactly run because then we'll have a hexan wolf pursuing us. That's not gonna work out well. So not all of us are going to be able to get away. But I don't think it's just a noble sacrifice.

I think it's something a little bit more instinctual than that. Because Tara's not even in a wolf form. She's just walking around on two legs holding a wrench. Tara might be able to pin Roger down and let the kids get away and let Harry get away. But she's not doing that either. The pack is gonna stand and try to fight this hexan wolf. So I feel like that signals to us

On the one hand, some things about Terra's relationship to a wolf pack. She can't give any more territory. She can't give any more ground to invaders. also that she feels a necessary compulsion try to have her pack behave like wolves.

to work together to defend their wounded as wolves in a way that goes beyond just what's logically necessary for the greatest number of people to get away from this one guy.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:08)
Yeah, and of course she says there's Pack on the ground, Cindy and Alex who are injured, and she does not leave them Now, Harry's response to this is unusual, I think. He says, first I need Tara, I can't let her die here, I need more information from her, which he tries to get out of her in the van later. But the other thing that he says is basically, you know, she's offering to give her life for me to stay.

and occupy Denton so long as I get away. And that makes him furious more than afraid. And I think that's one of the things that we see Dresden do a lot, which is when he gets into a situation where normally we would expect someone to be afraid, he instead gets angry about the situation. Like, this shouldn't Sort of a righteous anger. And that helps allow him to think clearly in situations where he otherwise would be

and scared and thinking unclearly. Now, here it's because he thinks of himself as the person that should be saving others. And here's someone doing that for him. And he's like, no, that should be me. That's the way I interpret this.

Brian (22:16)
Well, and clearly Tara is sending him away because she doesn't think he's gonna be any use. she, yeah, if she thought that he could, you know, throw Roger through three buildings the way he did McFinn, then, you know, just do it, buddy, let's get out of here. So she's dismissing him as something weak that needs to be protected.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:22)
That probably hits him hard

Brian (22:39)
And I think this is one of those things that happens a lot in fiction and happens very rarely in real life. But we all, when we're feeling down, want this moment to come when we've just had enough. I've just had enough of feeling useless. I've just had enough of feeling like I'm not living up to my self And Harry says to himself, quote, it didn't matter to me at that moment.

that I couldn't work any of my spells against them. I might not have any magic available to me, but that didn't make me any less of a wizard. One of the magi, one of the wise, that's the true power of a wizard. I know things. Knowledge is power. With power comes responsibility. And what does that drive him to do? I'm gonna solo this Hexenwolf because...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:30)
Yeah

Brian (23:31)
I know his weak spot, I know the flashing little red dot that you gotta hit. So he Roger with a wrench from inside. And not to try to hurt him, but merely to try to get that into his jaws for Harry to just have a long enough second to wiggle his hand into Roger's pelt and unclasp the belt.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:41)
Yeah, he has the wrench that he got from

Yeah, that to me is the most insane part of this because I'm trying to imagine like taking off a belt one-handed. If you know what the belt is like, like you're familiar with it and it's on you, is already kind of a hard task. I mean, I could do it, but it's not something I could do super quick necessarily. But he's gonna take off a belt he has never seen before, because there are different designs for the belt buckle, right? He's gonna take off a belt that he's never seen before by,

feel one handed while a werewolf's face is bearing down on him. That is truly crazy to me, but of course he's got plot armor so it works.

Brian (24:36)
This is one scene that I do have to headcanon because Jim literally writes in that the Alphas and Terra don't have time to react and help him. And in my head, you know, Billy bites him on the leg. know, like somebody, exactly. Somebody makes Roger slow down a little bit to buy Dresden just an extra second because Dresden's also not a small target. You know, I can believe this a little bit more when it's, you know,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:46)
Right?

Yeah, to distract him.

Brian (25:05)
fart off, know, jump it running between somebody's legs or whatever.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:09)
Or when Murphy is facing the Lugaroo and trying to like dodge out from under it when Carmichael jumps on its back.

Brian (25:14)
Yeah, but Dresden is probably still actually longer than the Hexenwolf is, you know? So how's he gonna hide his head? But he does, you know, he's able to get the belt off. And I do like the move on the whole, because what Dresden realizes isn't just that he knows you can take the belt off, but he knows that the second the belt is loosened, they immediately go full human.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:19)
Yeah.

Brian (25:43)
He has that insight about how the magic works, and that makes it work for me in general. I headcanon in the office or helping a little bit, but in general, if that's the rule, if you just have to get it a little loose, okay, then that's a worthy gamble.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:59)
Yeah, and when he has this moment of realization, like I'm a magi, I know things and knowledge is power and power becomes responsibility. Of course, the Spider-Man quote is the most common known thing today within the geek culture, but of course, that concept of people that have power have a responsibility to use that power wisely goes back a really long time.

Brian (26:22)
Yeah, it's literally biblical. mean, when you look up the Wikipedia page, it references the Sword of Damocles, which we talked about in Stormfront, but it also references Luke 12.48, from everyone who much has been given, much will be demanded from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. You know, it's just a wordier version of Stan Lee is really just condensing the Bible for us.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:46)
Exactly,

exactly. All right, so that takes us to chapter 25. chapter is mostly concerned with the interrogation of Roger. But at the beginning, we have an interesting conflict.

because after Roger is de-Wolfified, he's suddenly vulnerable, and Tara and the Alphas move in for the kill, and Harry has to convince them not to. Now, it does feel a little incongruous with what we know of Billy and Georgia that they would be willing to kill this FBI agent in this moment. Brian, how do you square that circle? Because they don't have a beast riding along with them. They are normal human emotions.

inside their head.

Brian (27:31)
I don't think that this is terribly incongruous because they really have the battle fury on them. has already wounded two of their friends to the point where they can't leave under their own power. So it seems like the Alphas want him dead. Do I think that Billy, if you told him, okay, there he is, go, tear his throat out with your mouth, would actually go over and do it?

I don't know. But even Harry really has his blood up. It says before the interrogation starts that to get him to stop struggling, Harry slams Roger's head into the ground a half a dozen times, just wailing him into the street. I mean, that could kill So everybody has the battle rage on them. Harry just slips out of it more quickly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:18)
Peace, yeah.

Brian (28:28)
And don't know if the Alphas would be willing to kill Roger immediately, but I do think Tara would do it in a heartbeat.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:37)
I think exactly what you're saying. think Billy and Georgia, and there's an unnamed third male wolf here. We're gonna call him Kirby, because we don't know whether that is or isn't Kirby, but it's easier to say, to have a name for him. So we don't know if Billy, Georgia, and Kirby would have done something here. I think they're just backing Tara's play as she advances on this guy, and they're probably would be like, yeah, I'm gonna bite his leg a little bit.

to get back for my friends or whatever, but I think you're exactly right. If they were actually in the moment of time to tear his throat out, I don't think any of them would do it. That's outside of their normal behavior. But in this moment, they might just wanna scare him and hurt him a little bit.

Brian (29:20)
They definitely want to hurt him and like I said, even Harry wanted to hurt him. mean, you know, a half dozen concussions is probably overkill. I think an interesting question is, is Harry crazy to stop Tara from killing them? Because his stated reasoning is, there's been enough killing, take him out now, you're no different than he is.

And Tara proceeds with the wrong, I would be alive and he dead. Yes, very literal Tara, we get it. But I think that there's a rejoinder here where Roger is presumably trying to kill people who are not actively trying to kill him. Whereas if they let Roger go, mean, he's just gonna try to kill him again, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:51)
You

Brian (30:12)
This is not Batman is tying him up and sending him off to Arkham Asylum. He's just on the street

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:19)
Yeah, they're just escaping and that doesn't solve their problem if they leave him there. So it is, but then again, we know Drezin's not a killer. Like as soon as he takes that pelt off of Roger, Roger's just a dude now. And I don't think Harry could, even just with like the wrench, I don't think Harry would beat him until he was dead. That's just not in his character to do something like that, at least not yet. But we see him struggle with that when he, for example,

kills Corpse Taker in cold blood. Like he rationally decides, she's not threatening him in that moment in Deadbeat. He just decides she needs to die right now or there'll be really bad consequences. This is my only shot. I'm gonna take it. I'm not currently being threatened. And that has consequences for him psychologically in the next couple of books. So at this point,

He's not there yet. He couldn't kill Corpse Taker in this book.

So anyway, we have now Billy and Georgia and Tara and Kirby, bringing the two wounded Alphas to the Harry interrogates Roger for a while and finds out that the FBI has been trying to kill him since they sent him to the street wolves. And we get a great line here where he realizes this and says,

It figured that someone else had been trying to kill me the whole while and I hadn't really noticed. Come on, Tresten!

Brian (31:44)
Yeah, I loved your annotation there,

Adam. Just, there's the low wisdom score in D &D, really, absolutely.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:50)
Yeah.

⁓

Brian (31:53)
So Roger

fills in a lot of the details for us and we know a lot of them already, so we're not gonna go through them here. But one interesting thing is he has this line where he says that

we messed up McFin's circle and then the next night people died. Is he trying to suggest that McFin killed those people?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:15)
Yeah, I think that's what he's doing. And he says that the night after that also more people died. McFin claims he didn't kill anyone during that previous month. my interpretation here is that Roger admits to killing the gang bangers. They just meant to scare them, they, you know, as soon as they took off, the beast spirit was like, nope, we're hunting them. And that was it for the gang bangers. So my guess is the next couple of nights when they killed the little old lady and the bums in the park,

I think he's trying to imply here that that was Macphin. yeah, we messed up his circle and then people died the next night. Who knows what happened? But I think what actually happened is that after getting a taste of it the first Ben maybe couldn't control herself because she seems to be the one that goes further and faster than any of them. But it could easily have been that she's the one that goes the first night and convinces one of them to go out the next night with her and go after the homeless guys or whatever.

And I think he's just trying to dodge responsibility for that or not admit to it, or he's ashamed of it. That's kind of how I read this.

Brian (33:17)
Yeah, I think that's really the only question. Is he trying to mislead Harry or is he just unwilling to even in his own voice use a sentence structure that would indicate that they were actually responsible for these innocent people dying? You know, is it a willful manipulation or is it him subconsciously just needing to say, and then people died the way a little kid will say, and then it just fell over.

rather than saying, knocked it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:49)
so the rest of the interrogation occurs and we get a lot of the same information we talked about in the past and Harry ends the conversation by sending a message to Denton via Roger. Basically, you know, come meet me in the center of town at noon tomorrow, but in this case it's moonrise at Marcon's building and so he's called him out more or less.

That leads us to chapter 26. Harry, Tara, and the alphas are regrouping and preparing at George's parents' place. Basically the ride there and then ⁓ winding up there.

get all the way back to George's place and Billy goes over to Harry and basically insists, like, you're going, we need to help you. Tara has already said, by the way, I'm going too. And Harry's like, no, no, no, don't, no, I'm going too, okay. And then Billy tries to make his case.

that, and he kind of implies like why they started this, right? He pulls out a bunch of stats that support the kind of thing that Harry was talking about back in the very end of Stormfront when he was quoting, or well, when Jim was essentially quoting from The Second Coming, the poem by Yeats. And in this case, Billy says, violent crime is up 40%.

murder rate is up 100%, abductions are up and disappearances are up 300%, something is happening, we can do something about it, therefore we should, echoing the whole concept of with great power comes great responsibility. And that brings us to this question, Brian, Dresden's noticed this trend, Billy is now backing it up with real hard facts, what is causing?

this trend of violent crime. Does this echo something that was in our real life, like in the 2000s?

Brian (35:35)
it definitely doesn't. According to the FBI, the year 2000 marked the lowest volume of violent crimes since 1985. This is an all-time low for violent crimes in the United States in the past 15 years. The 90s crime wave is over. This is the safest the country has been in over a decade. So the Dresden Files world is different from ours.

Jim Butcher can look this stuff up. He's not having Billy say this because he's too lazy to go dig up the statistics. He's having Billy say this because something is different. And I think the obvious thing that's different is that the cycle is happening. Everybody knows we gotta gear up, we gotta be ready. We have to make sure we're well fed, that we've grown our armies because this is the time where powers are realigned.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:33)
Yeah, and I think even the supernatural powers that don't know too much about this cycle or are not super clued in, they'll take cues from the others, right? You've got Papa Wraith who,

Brian (36:43)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:45)
definitely knows about this cycle and he's probably making moves to improve the position of his family and his control over the white court, et cetera, et cetera. And when he makes moves, others will make moves because they see him making moves and you get a Cold War situation where before you know it, they're at war in Vietnam and nobody knows why. So that I think is all happening in the background in a Cold War style situation

And that is all leading to more violence, more abductions, they're making more red court, they're making more white court, et cetera, et cetera, just as two obvious examples, but you know.

The Denarians are doing their own thing to try to acquire power. They're stealing more, they're killing more to get what they need to prepare for this.

Brian (37:27)
the...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:27)
And

we didn't even talk about, Nemesis is in the background doing stuff. We know that because they're responsible for these things happening in the first two, three books.

Brian (37:35)
Right, and it's exactly what you said. If the gang a couple blocks away upgrades from pistols to Uzis, well, even if they're not beefing with you, now you feel like you gotta get some right, there's a natural escalation when even a few players start to step up their activity, and Billy is just one of these very rare people, like someone we're gonna discuss later.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:49)
at that

Brian (38:02)
who's noticed, and that's very rare in this universe.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:04)
Mm-hmm.

And he definitely doesn't know anything about the cycle, but he's responding to it and creating his own level of violence. we generally agree that he's doing what he can to defend humanity. It winds up usually doing a lot more good than harm, but it is a response that's increasing the cycle of violence in

Brian (38:27)
Yeah, so speaking of cycles in a very different light, Billy and Georgia, they're in love now. They were fighting in chapter five and now, you know, they're touching each other and they're being, you be safe and, you ⁓ you don't have to bandage me. And how do you feel about this quick and dirty enemies to lovers story?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:48)
I definitely felt very like anime-esque in terms of the trope because they started and like, you jerk, I hate you. And then it's like, by the time you're here and you're like, you didn't, you got yourself hurt. Don't do that to me. And then they slowly like realized that they both, it's one of those things where like love and hate being both sides of the same coin, in both cases you have strong feelings for the other person. And sometimes those feelings can be

muddy and clouded. felt like it worked pretty well for me. I know it's very fast. There's like what? Four or five total paragraphs devoted to it between the chapter five confrontation between Billy and Georgia in the warehouse and like this chapter here where she chastises him for getting hurt.

Brian (39:36)
Yeah, I mean, I actually think this works fine for me on reread because I'm starting to make some assumptions. Actually, they were probably really close when they became alphas. And maybe there was a budding romance already occurring and what we were seeing in chapter five wasn't two enemies, it was a lover's quarrel.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:50)
Hmm.

Yeah, and they're all fairly young and they're described as being fairly socially awkward. They haven't had quite enough experience to feel comfortable in social situations and so confrontation can lead to unusual emotions. And I think that might be one of the things that we saw in that chapter five. But overall, it works for me, especially because we know where they're headed in the future. So it's just a fun little, not a meet cute, but like this moment that Harry gets to share.

Brian (40:22)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:28)
by hiding in the corner and listening to them.

Brian (40:32)
Yeah, it's the extreme of the aphorism that if you're going to write a story, you do it on people's most interesting days. We see their relationship at their nadir and, you know, at its height, even though we don't get to see much of it. that takes us to chapter 27, where Harry in, says five minutes talking to Billy, goes in to meet Susan in a private where she tries to talk him out of fighting. So

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:38)
Yeah.

Brian (40:59)
Clearly she's doing this because she's worried about his safety, but it doesn't just seem to be the kind of worry you'd have for somebody who you've been on a few dates with, right Adam?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:12)
Yeah, they have what feels like the way that they're describing, the way that they're talking, it feels like this is the deepest conversation they've had about their relationship in a long time. And it's kind of forced on them because Harry and her, turns out, are about to go and risk their lives pretty significantly here. So that is putting the rest of things in perspective. They have to say these things, at least Susan does. Harry doesn't say much, but Susan feels...

She has to say these things to him now because she might not get to say them to him again. And so she tries to talk to him about their relationship and Harry's looking at her and realizing, you know, one of the things that he really likes about her is her passion, her motivation to go and do and act. It's what drove her forward, digging up stories of the supernatural for a half comic rag like the arcane. And one of the things that this made me realize, Brian, is

This may not seem that big to us. Yeah, we've all seen the driven reporter trope. We've seen driven women in business in our real lives, whatever. But you have to remember that in the Dresden files, her drive to find the truth about the supernatural is extremely unusual. We only see it actually occur.

in one other character that I can think of and that's Butters. As far as a direct vanilla mortal with no direct connections to the supernatural, she and Butters are like the only ones that actually figure it out for themselves. Other examples where they kind of, like Tilly, it's just kind of brought onto him and he believes it. Rawlins later on. Like he comes to accept it, but it's not something he went out and figured out and decided.

to investigate.

Brian (43:01)
Right, mean, Susan in this world isn't someone who's a crank conspiracy theorist. She's like Woodward and Bernstein. She's got an inkling that something is up and she's right. She's better at her job than everybody else.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:19)
And that drive, that exceptional quality of refusing to just ignore the supernatural because it's scary or inconvenient is one of the things that Harry loves about her.

Brian (43:32)
And you have to figure that part of why Susan has fallen for Harry so much isn't just his qualities. She definitely likes him. She definitely thinks he's a great guy. But it's also got to be so refreshing to her that he actually takes her seriously because he knows she's right. You know, to most other men,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:52)
Yeah.

Brian (43:58)
She's ambitious about something that's fundamentally kind of silly. Whereas to Harry, she's a war correspondent who just got dropped in Afghanistan and is trying to get footage of the most terrifying conflicts he can imagine. And that inculcates in him a level of immediate respect that you have to figure Susan never gets from anyone else when she tells them her job.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:02)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (44:27)
even though she's so obviously passionate about it and good at

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:31)
Yeah, that's a great point, that is fortunately, for him, one of the only men that will truly be able to understand her and her drive because of this connection to the supernatural. Now, there are other dudes that go to the Machinales that know about what's going on, that are maybe hedge wizards or whatever, but Harry's the one that she found first, he's the one she went on that crazy date with, and that's where it brought them to this.

Brian (44:59)
And it doesn't hurt that he's 25 and at least a little bit of a tall, dark and handsome character.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:04)
Yeah,

he's described, when he's not wearing pajamas and with a purple face, he is described as being, she describes him as fairly handsome. all right, where does that bring us to? have this conversation and Harry notices that she says, we could go somewhere, we could hide. And he sort of acknowledges this is her taking their relationship beyond friends with benefits and doesn't say anything about it.

Idiot. Anyway, he kind of ignores it and she says this crushing thing, like, don't know if I want to fall in love with you, Harry. Why does she say this? Why doesn't she want to fall in love with him?

Brian (45:48)
my god, this really gets me because she says it after they have sex. And clearly, not only does she find Harry to be impressive and feel like he takes her seriously and feel like they really care about each other, but she just knows, man...

Letting myself feel these feelings puts me at so much risk. Not just because you might die tonight. Let's put that But because when I said we, you said

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:22)
Yeah.

Brian (46:23)
You

don't say, love You're not the kind of person who is forthright and emotional in a way that's gonna make it easy for this relationship to be even if we make it through the day.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:35)
Yeah, absolutely. But the other thing that I think that's being implied here, maybe it's not even something that she knows or means in this sentence, but I think that might be something that Jim is implying. The way she phrased this, I don't know if I want to fall in love with you, Harry. I don't know if I could stand it. I don't think she has a choice in this, right? You can't really choose that. Aside from like deciding I want nothing to do with you and never seeing them again to avoid that blossoming.

this is kind of where she's at. I think if she decides to stay with him, that's what's gonna happen. And that's why she's saying this out loud, right? She's at the point where she feels like she's at the point of no return. If I stay with you, this is going to blossom into something, and I don't know if I could stand being in that relationship.

Brian (47:23)
I think part of the reason why Jim is putting this in Susan's mouth here,

is because it's reinforcing a conviction that Harry has about himself that I'm not someone who it's safe to fall in love is externalizing something that Harry honestly does believe about himself.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:42)
Yeah, and one of the other things that she says is, you see so much pain, I just wanted to remind you that there was something else in the world, unquote. Now, that to me is very interesting because as we just discussed, we never see Harry opening up emotionally to her in any of these conversations. It's entirely possible that that happens off screen, but it would feel a little out of character. And so to me,

Brian (48:02)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:09)
This helps indicate what it was that Susan saw when she soul-gazed Harry.

Brian (48:15)
You rescued this scene for me because I thought that was such a bad corny line, because how do you know that that's what Harry sees? He doesn't tell anybody how he feels ever. But you're right. Susan doesn't need Harry to She knows in a way that goes beyond something that normal humans can have.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:36)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons that she feels this connection to Harry, even though he doesn't open up as much with her, at least not that we see. So that is something that she does see in him, is pain when she first meets him. And that has a lot to do with his traumatic past with Justin and Elaine. And that pain is driving him to take these big risks that he's about to take again here.

That's probably something that she also knows. Like that is what's driving him. There's a pseudo death wish going on in the back of his head. He's not worthy of this life that he has. He has to make up for past mistakes that I think is where he's at mentally and she knows it.

Brian (49:20)
Yeah, now we get out of this scene with Susan gifting Harry, as you said at the top, that iconic leather duster that he will have poetically until changes. And aside from that and Roger's gun, Harry's got about nothing else going into this showdown. So Jim is definitely putting him in the underdog lone cowboy role

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:46)
except he has friends, but oops, they're not gonna be very helpful.

So Susan says to Harry, she's going, she will help tonight at Marcon's. And Harry doesn't even put up that much of a fight. I have to say, this is a very big change from the Harry that we would have expected from, even earlier in this book, you would have expected him to say, no, under no circumstance, you can't go, I have to take care, it's too dangerous.

but he's actually taken to heart all the lessons of Stormfront and earlier in this book with Kim Delaney dying. so says, I'm going, he says, no, you aren't. And she says, yes, I am. And he says, okay. And then Billy says, I'm going. And Harry goes, are you sure? It's going to be really dangerous. You need to understand this is not a game. And Billy says, that's what we signed up for. We know what the risks are. We're here to help because we can. And Harry's like, fine, you're going too.

And then Susan asks, and he didn't even put up any resistance. I think this is the growth that we've seen in Harry accepting help from others. In Stormfront, he fully decided to just go full rock cowboy and not call anybody for help. But in this one, he accepts help from everybody who offers Yes, at the end, yes, at this point.

Brian (51:01)
At least at the end he does, certainly, yes.

And I think that it's tragic because of course he's going to backslide on bringing people along with him, keeping people informed in the next book. And it sets up what I think is a very natural thing that even as Harry improves as a person, becomes a better communicator, doesn't mean things just go away.

because you have an epiphany.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:31)
All right, that's it for this week's chapters, but next week we're 28 through 31, that is partway through 31. We're gonna stop about halfway. So we'll see you there next time, but for now it's time for a question for Bob.

Brian (51:46)
So, how do wizards' stamina work? Like when they're using magic and they get tired and they run out of juice like Harry does here. What's going on?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:58)
Yeah, this would, I really want Bob to be here for this one, Harry got a tip through the paranet that Shag Nasty left the reservation again and Harry's worried that he's gonna go after the Alphas at some point. So he's got Bob keeping an eye on the Alphas just in case.

Brian (52:10)
I mean, makes sense. That's like, you butter is entire threeple. So.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:15)
Yeah, okay, so we did ask the reddit this and there were a lot of great answers Stark raver provides the simplest doilest answer that is one that helps suit Jim's needs basically Jim leaves the whole stamina thing really fuzzy and Not clear so that he can use it precisely when the plot requires him to Harry's out of juice Because I need him to be out of juice

Brian (52:40)
Yeah, mean, certainly that is true, but I like to give Jim a little bit more credit than that. He's trying to devise something that's internally consistent, so it works the way he needs it to work insofar as it feels internally consistent to Jim.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:57)
Yeah, and it needs to be concrete enough that he can reliably utilize that trope, but he's not ever explaining it in pure detail to the audience. At least not the way, for example, that Bob explains all the different werewolves at the beginning of this book. He never goes into that kind of detail. We only know about it through experiencing Harry's actual exhaustion over the course of the book. In fact, I don't know that we ever see any other wizards like

Brian (53:15)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:27)
run out of gas through Harry's eyes. We only ever see it happen to Harry because we're in his head all the time.

Brian (53:33)
Yeah, maybe that's sort of happening to Lucio in the raid on the camp scene, and that's why she has to send Harry up the hill, but I don't even remember if she's actually running out, but that's a good point.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:40)
Hmm.

Brian (53:44)
Dragon Fett takes a fairly simple approach in their answer, which is that magic can come from outside or inside, and in either case, channeling that magic takes effort, which drains the user.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:44)
That's fair.

Yeah, Dragon Fett says, quote, think that part of it is there is a limit to how much energy he can channel through himself and or from himself. Where that energy come from doesn't really matter unless he's within a circle, unquote. Now that's probably the more general way to look at but they're saying that basically it doesn't matter where the energy comes from. The channeling is the thing that causes fatigue.

Brian (54:21)
Yes, I fundamentally agree with that. I think that it's a little more complicated than that, but not very much. ⁓ Daoan Shi, 624, elaborates on this concept of two sources of magical energy. He says that the environment can't run out of magic, but your ability to channel it efficiently is based on talent and technique. Quote, the technique part affects how efficiently they can utilize said environmental magic.

where the talent part affects how much environmental magic one can channel. But Dao and Shi is adding that magic could also come from the wizards themselves. It's a resource they can run out of.

quote, Harry feels emotions strongly. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, as it were. This allows him to have raw power storage that appears to be greater than most other wizards. Adam, do you agree with that assessment, that his strong emotions give him more power and the ability to store more power?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:27)
That's an interesting idea. And maybe that's something that Dresden might think, compare that to like, okay, the Merlin or any of the others on the senior council, they're able and willing to sort of suppress their emotional responses to do what needs to be done, right? That's the whole concept of we're gonna kill warlocks even if everybody in the room knows this is sort of distasteful.

Brian (55:38)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:54)
they're able to suppress their emotion and do it anyway, but nobody would call them weak or having a small amount of magic. So I'm not 100 % sure that Harry wearing his emotion on his sleeve gives him more raw power or a bigger gas tank considering that situation.

Brian (56:13)
Yeah, I mean, in the world of darkness, TTRPG games, mages have a paradigm, which means effectively they have a way that they think magic works. And the thing about magic is, like in the Dresden Files, you can only do the magic you believe in, magic only works the way that you think it works for you. So maybe for Harry, the emotions do let him not only channel more, but also store more.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:32)
Hmm.

Brian (56:42)
But that might not be how Arthur Langtree thinks of it, and therefore it might not work that way for him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:47)
Exactly. And calm medicine ties in right to what you're saying. Quote, in my opinion, some of the times Harry is out of gas, he's actually doesn't believe in what he's trying to do. Like when he tries to kill the lycanthropes with magic, unquote. I think he's referring to the part here where he tries to pull the metal and the wrenches and attack Parker with them, but it fizzles out. And that very well might be true. As you were just pointing out, magic only works the way that you believe it will work.

And if Harry doesn't fully believe that he should be trying to, I don't know if he was trying to kill them at that moment, but I do believe that there are times in the series where Harry doesn't fully committed to the idea of using magic this way and the magic doesn't seem to work the way that he wants to in that.

Brian (57:29)
Yeah, I can't think of any specific examples, but I definitely had a thought like that before. really feel like that is true. Spazzles82 takes a different tack with regards to the high magic events like the end of Dead Beat and Battleground in terms of magic in the environment and how it affects your ability to channel more or less.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:52)
quote. So the impression I got about the turbocharged spells that Harry is sometimes able to cast in high magic environments isn't that there's so much magic in the air that Harry is somehow able to use more magic, but more like...

Harry is using exactly the same amount of magic as normal, but the environment is so charged with magic that once it leaves Harry's body, a whole bunch more tags along with it. It's not that the magic got easier, it's that so much less is required in those environments to get the desired effect. Like when Harry cast the lightning bolt at the tree in Battleground. He did just a little lightning bolt spell between his hands, but the magic in the air reinforced the hell out of it to the point that he was barely able to control it and had to send it somewhere.

where it demolished a tree. Like there's too much magic pressure and instead of the magical equivalent of a garden hose, he got a water cutter.

But the particular effect is an additive one, not something where he's consciously drawing in and manipulating the power itself. It's more like serving a tennis ball in the direction of a 40 mile an hour wind. You're going to get a faster serve than you would if the wind were standing still." Unquote.

Brian (58:55)
Yeah,

I love this. think that's really smart. It's sort of magic relativity, right? If you throw the tennis ball out the car, it's already got the momentum from the car. I really like that. I think that it does affect how they channel magic a little bit, but I really do like that. How do you think about that analysis, Adam?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:01)
Yeah!

That really turned it on its head for me because I always have, I'm gonna talk about the way that I think it works in a bit, but I think there might be something to this because of the specific thing he cites in Battleground where Harry never intended to make it that big. And maybe this is a good explanation of that. But I do think there's another thing about the magical pressure kind of coming in. You're able to do more with it if you want to.

Brian (59:31)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:44)
and it will do more without you consciously trying. I think those can both be true at the same time.

Brian (59:50)
Yeah, Artichokeopen295 points out that in Summer Night, we get a bit of a differentiation in the types of magic in terms of where energy comes from, and maybe that affects this differentiation we're making. Quote, I was just re-listening to Summer Night, and Harry explains some of his stamina issues in his fight with the chlorophynd. He says the circle magic where he pulls from around him is time consuming, and evocation is what pulls from a wizard's will.

and he has difficulty with finesse and uses foci. Then he notes that he can do big dumb things with lots of energy. My guess is that the evocation is where he can run short on magical stamina. And his lack of finesse means he uses more energy than a wizard who is better at evocation. Just like someone who is very strong but unskilled wielding a staff in combat can pound on someone, but it will use more energy than someone trained in staff

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:45)
Yeah, I really like this explanation too, because it helps explain earlier in the police station, Harry uses every ounce of energy he's got and blasts that Luguru through like two or three buildings and then sits down and conducts a binding spell. But that binding spell is a circle magic.

Brian (1:01:05)
and it makes sense, it works along a continuum with foci, right? So a circle is like the ultimate focus. You barely have to use any of your own energy to get the job done. But the whole reason why Dresden uses a blasting rod is effectively that he's going to be able to get the same effect with less energy focusing it more So.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:13)
Hmm.

Brian (1:01:29)
This idea that we're going to invest more time into a ritual to get the same effect with less energy is consistent throughout the series.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:38)
Yeah, I think the only time I think we ever see him struggling with any kind of circle magic, it's when his will is being opposed by someone else. Like in this book, Chauncey tries to get out of his circle and he has to stop him. But other than that, every other kind of thing he's doing, he does a circle magic to do a tracking spell or some other thing.

It's never a problem, it never really exhausts him. He does describe like feeling the magic leave him and stuff, but I don't ever remember him feeling exhausted afterwards. So I think there might be something to this.

Brian (1:02:08)
Well, the

one reason I wanted to bring up the foci there is because of course Dresden says that you don't need the circle. You can do it all in your head.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:17)
And he does in the future. He goes mental circles for simple things.

Brian (1:02:21)
right, but doesn't do that all the time, presumably because that does take more energy.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:28)
Right, because usually the circles do have some folk eye involved, either they're symbols or items placed around them. So yeah, I like the idea of like the blasting rod and the staff, they're like traveling circles that he can use almost. Okay, so the existential bard brings up an interesting point regarding Harry's experience versus other wizards. Quote, this is an interesting point because Harry is star born and he also has an incomplete education.

Brian (1:02:41)
Hahaha!

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:54)
I think when we find out what Starborn can do, we will realize that Harry has been using his Starborn power throughout the books. There are also several inconsistencies his Starborn power will explain as well, or at least according to my tinfoil hat, it will.

Brian (1:03:09)
I like this, I think it's sort of suggesting that Uriel gave Harry Soulfire in part because he's already got sort of the Starborn Soulfire, Discount Soulfire, in that he can do things with his magic that he wouldn't be able to if he was merely doing normal wizard stuff, and maybe that's more exhausting.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, the way that I read this is, so we know that emotions can taint your intent with magic. Molly has that problem with boyfriend Nelson in Proven Guilty. but what if the way that Harry pours his emotions into his spells isn't a normal wizard We don't ever get an explanation from

Brian (1:03:36)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:51)
Ebeneezer's point of view of like pouring his emotions into a spell. I think the only other wizard that we really see within their head is Molly and Carlos. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if we go through those, we'll see like in bombshells or what have you that she actually does put her emotions into her spells. But that's kind of the concept. Like something Harry does could seem normal to us because he thinks it's normal and only later is gonna find out like, wait, you mean you guys can't do this? would be an interesting reveal.

Brian (1:04:19)
I do think this is really good. will say that I do want to mention one little bone with it, which is he does have an incomplete education, but if that wasn't a thing other wizards could do, I feel like Ebenezer would have told him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:33)
But Ebenezer does know about the Starborn stuff and maybe he doesn't wanna tell him so he doesn't make a big deal out of it. He just, yeah, no, you can do that? Yeah, okay.

Brian (1:04:36)
Ding ding ding.

That

is the, I think, best possible rejoinder. It might be that it's been kept from him the whole time,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:51)
Right, because

you

Brian (1:04:52)
So the

guy with the mohawk draws a parallel to human anatomy, suggesting that magic is like oxygen we breathe and muscles are like wizards will or talent or energy reserves, whatever, the thing that makes up their stamina. Adam, I know that this is an interesting mirror of your theory, so will you take this and go right into yours?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:14)
Sure, so the guy with the mohawk, that guy with the mohawk says, with this comparison, you can draw a lot of parallels to the how magic is used. In the pentagram, the magic was in a locked container.

When that magic was used, it would be gone, like a candle under glass. described pulling in as much magic as possible before it went up, like taking a deep breath before diving underwater. Older and more experienced wizards are better trained so they can use their muscles more efficiently. While Harry has been said to have a lot of power to sling around, he has very good genes for strong muscle. When the magic is very dense in an area, you get more air for each breath you take, just like altitude training.

or blood doping. You are used to having less oxygen to play with, so now you function better." Unquote. Now this is actually Similar to the way that I was thinking about this before I posted this question to the Reddit, except I kind of had it backwards. I originally thought of magic out in the environment as being the energy source ⁓

being the control for the energy source. Sort of the earlier, way that, but when he said, no, no, the thing out there, it's like oxygen. It's like the thing that makes it possible. It's like the, that, that crystallized it for me. So here's my tinfoil hat theory of, the more precise version of how this works. Okay. Right. So similar to what that guy with the Mohawk said, magic in the air is like Magic inside oneself is a lot like ATP in your cells. If for those who don't remember, that is like,

the energy unit in cells that they use to perform work. And then, at the powerhouse of the cell, exactly, you got it in one. so, the magic in one's body, when he throws his emotion, that's like the energy reserve. So the idea that I had was that the magic in the air is like the thing you need to

Brian (1:06:50)
Is it in the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:06)
with your own magic in order to actually have something happen. Like you can't do it without, you can't move your muscles without oxygen and can't do anything with just oxygen. You need them both. And of course your magical muscles are the things that combine those, like the mitochondria. So this allows you to be exhausted in different ways. If you can't get magic out of the air, it's like you don't have enough oxygen to move your muscles.

And if you run out of ATP, it's like you run out of your energy reserve. And if your muscles are overextended, when you actually exert your muscles, they get tears, micro tears in the cells of your muscles. So if you do a lot of working out and your muscles feel sore after and you aren't able to use them as well, that is similar to the way that Harry overuses his magical muscles in this book. I don't believe that the way that he

runs out of gas in Full Moon is because he uses up all his energy. I think it's clear it's because as he says, he fried some circuitry. So this is an example of that third version where your magical muscles are overextended because he's used them too much in too short a period. He's gone to the gym and done leg day three days in a row and his legs just won't work anymore.

Brian (1:08:27)
Yeah, I love that. I think the two of you guys are really on to something. I think that's a great explanation, not only of how wizards get tired, but also of why Harry, you know, he rates himself against other wizards now and again in the books. And the number of people he says are above him keeps getting a little smaller. he's never talking about the number of people who are above him in terms of overall capability.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:50)
Hmm.

Brian (1:08:57)
He's always talking about raw I'm in the top of this amount, I'm in the top of that amount. It keeps getting smaller and smaller. This muscle analogy suggests that yes, you need to start with a larger baseline, with the right genes to be a World's Strongest Man contestant. But as you exhaust yourself through doing the work, you will get more power. The only...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, as those

micro tears heal, they heal stronger than they were before. That's literally how you gain muscle by going to the gym.

Brian (1:09:30)
So I love that. I also think that we should try to conceptualize this in a couple different ways because I think that there's no one system that's gonna explain everything. Partially because the magic has to respond to the Doylist Imperatives of a plot, but also because it's a different thing. It is a biological part of Dresden's reality, but it's not something that's gonna map

precisely onto any one biological system.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:02)
But regardless of all of these different explanations, all of them have one thing in common, which is yes, you can use up too many energy, can run out of energy. Brian, what refuels a wizard's energy, whether you call that mana or willpower or,

emotional fuel, whatever it is. What does it take? Food, time, rest, indulgence.

Brian (1:10:25)
So I think literally the same way that you repair willpower, you refuel your energy tanks. The first thing is rest. And proper rest, so that requires sustenance. You you need to actually be able to sleep to turn your brain off and let it recharge. I think that's often why Harry becomes magically exhausted as he is pushing himself to run for tons of time without sleep.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:51)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:10:54)
But I also think that part of it has to do with your mood. If you're feeling good, if good things are happening, it's easier for you to regenerate that willpower. It's not the soul. It's not what you use soul fire But in a similar way, when you are down on yourself and your capabilities, it's a lot harder to make things happen. When you don't believe,

your will is not as effective.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:24)
Yeah, I always played with the idea of like, Harry's always described as like tall and lanky and he barely eats and stuff, so this doesn't really work, but I always played with the idea of like, part of a wizard's energy reserves comes from the food that they eat, and maybe there's an element of that there. There's not a lot to support that in the book, but for some reason my head sticks on that explanation.

Brian (1:11:44)
I mean, he loves Burger King and he never gets fat. So maybe he is just burning more calories. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:47)
That's kind of it, right?

But then we hear like he spent the last three weeks eating SpaghettiOs and nothing else, there's something to that effect. But he also drinks a lot of Coke, like that's tons of sugar and stuff. So maybe there's something to it. people have like what is essentially a magical metabolism. And that allows one to also have a bigger energy tank as a result, who knows?

Brian (1:12:11)
Yeah, I think that's something that we didn't totally cover in any of these answers, is

fact that we are aware that being a wizard, that having magic in you, also comes attendant things that seem like they would require more energy than a normal human. And it seems like things like the forest people or other naturally magic species do need really

concentrated forms of energy that normal humans don't. So there's got to be some dimension where magic is, because it requires more life energy to be a wizard, it's getting it from something.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:54)
Yeah, and Jim has tried to not break the laws of thermodynamics too the books he's like, yeah, magic just moves energy from one place to another. It's not creating energy. Sometimes it's pulling it out of the never never, or it's taking all the heat from one area to make it cold or what have you,

where every action in another equal and opposite reaction causes a force to happen. So all of those things are floating around, those sort of scientific concepts, and he's trying to keep them relatively unbroken within his book. So it makes sense to me that the energy needed to manipulate the other energies also has to come from somewhere. And maybe that is a piece of whatever food is coming into the wizard is being siphoned off into that manna tank that wizards have.

Brian (1:13:40)
Yeah, so Adam, I have to say I really, really love your answer to this question and I can't wait to see what our listeners come up with next week when we ask them, what do people see when they soul gaze Harry Dresden?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:57)
I know this has been speculated on a lot and we may be doing this a little early but he's gonna soul gaze Denton in... Yeah. And we've already seen Marcon and we know that he's also gazed Susan so we have a couple of things. We're also obviously gonna talk about the reactions of the other things that he's, people and things that he soul gazes in the future. with that, I believe we've reached the end.

Brian (1:14:05)
And Denton has quite a reaction.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:23)
Thanks, Brian. I'm Adam, signing off.