Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:09)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory, where the spoilers go all the way through battleground. I'm Adam Ruzzo, and joining me as always, it's a befuddled TV producer, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (00:22)
So I've got to give you the tape because you work for the library? don't understand.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:28)
Special Collections Division, sir. All right. So we stopped in the middle of Chapter 31 last week, and we're picking up in the middle of Chapter 31. And what happens here is basically all of Team Dresden is down, Marcon goes down, and Denton gets to execute his plan in its entirety. And we thought this might be a good time to sort of and back up.

because we did a lot of criticism of Dresden's plan last time, but let's take a look at what Marcon's plan looks like and what the FBI's plan looks like through these different lenses of what they were all hoping to achieve this evening. So Brian, let's start by walking through Marcon's plan. What is he trying to do this evening before the FBI betray him?

Brian (01:14)
So Marcon's plan seems to be, I'm gonna have this pit, which is 20 feet deep, 40 feet wide. The Lugaroo is going to jump into it effectively. I'm gonna get the Lugaroo to go into it. We don't really know how Marcon is necessarily planning on doing that because he doesn't seem to be as willing to kill as the FBI do. But he's gonna get the Lugaroo into this pit and then they're gonna drop nets on it.

And this seems completely ridiculous, maybe the nets are made of Kevlar or steel cables or something, and they're just gonna drop so much stuff on the Lugru that it will hold it until morning. But obviously, Adam, this isn't going to work. So why does Marcon think that this is a good idea? I mean, he could just leave town, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:03)
Yeah, that's the thing that occurred to me is this seems like a pretty stupid plan compared to the Marcon that we're used to dealing with. Even earlier in this book, like he's obviously smart to have read Dresden's report, right? He mentions that

managed to snag it from the CPD. He's got a clerk on the payroll. if he's read that report, he knows that he's in trouble. He's deduced that this thing is coming for him.

But then, you gotta ask yourself, if he read the report and he understands what this Lugaroo is, does he really think he can hold it until morning with a pit and some ropes? My best guess, Brian, he must be just...

assuming that Dresden is exaggerating. Or he's just taking his best shot because he realizes with his sort of cunning criminal instinct, if I leave town tonight, I will lose the respect of my underlings and there will be an attempt on my life because they will see it as weakness.

Brian (03:03)
Right, it's more dangerous to flee.

what seems to be a pretty haphazard attempt to get to him from everyone else's perspective than it is for him to stay and fight it out. And I think that part of the disconnect from our code might be, okay, I'm reading the report and sure this thing killed a couple hundred people in France in, you know, 17 whatever, but we have automatic weapons now. This shouldn't be that big of a deal.

But also think about the killings from Marcon's that he thinks were done by McFinn. He maybe knows about Kindelaney, that's only one person that whole night. He maybe knows about Spike, well he definitely knows about he maybe thinks that the Lugaroo killed Spike, that's the idea anyway.

That doesn't seem like a super powered terror predator. That seems like a pretty normal big wolf kind of thing. It didn't throw Spike through a wall, it just killed him. And the same thing with his business And we that the Hexenwolves committed those murders, but from Marcon's perspective, the level of brutality and destruction the Lugru is bringing is not in step with Harry's report.

So he's going off of the physical evidence he has rather than vague notions he's getting from whatever Dresden typed up to submit officially to the police.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:28)
Right, that makes sense to me. And the last piece of this is he knows Dresden is on the way and he still hopes to get Dresden to help him, right?

I'll give him an offer he can't, literally can't refuse because I'll like hold somebody at gunpoint to make him help me or something to that effect. So that's kind of the last guess as to what he's thinking here.

Brian (04:50)
And at that point, I think we can say it is a bad plan, but it's not a completely unreasonable plan, and it doesn't really undercut Marcon as a character.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:01)
Exactly. So now the FBI seem to get everything they want They betray Marcon without losing anybody, right? They knock Hendrix down and it looks like he's dead, but later we find out that he's still alive. And they take Marcon very quickly. None of them is injured in that process, which is probably honestly the most dangerous part of this. Like taking down Terra and the Alphas seems trivial to like...

Brian (05:24)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:28)
surprising Marcon while Harry is there telling Marcon, hey, they are about to betray you, they still manage to pull it off. So then they get to string him up exactly as bait where they want him to be and they get to put everybody else in the pit. So they got everything they wanted, Brian. What's the outcome look like if things go their way?

Brian (05:48)
I think what they're expecting to is that the Lugaroo takes out Marcon, jumps halfway across the pit, grabs him by the leg and ⁓ rips it off and he's dead. And then falls into the pit where it sees a bunch of groggy things for it to And it lays waste to all of them. And as soon as the FBI sees the blood splattering the walls of the pit, they are out of there. Like the car is running out front.

They are close enough to react to what's going on, but they're attempting to be far enough away that they can get out of there before the Lugaroo had the chance to sort of look up and pick its next target.

And presumably that's because the FBI don't, as Harry conjectures, have a plan to actually take out McFinn. They're going to let McFinn rampage and get away and either get him later or just let the supernatural authorities do it if they decide to care.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:49)
Yeah, and so the sequence of events here can be a little bit confusing, but it works like this, right? So they string up Marcon, Dresden, Tara, and the Alphas, and Murphy, they're all in the pit. And Harry Marcon, they come up with this plan. Marcon has a hidden knife. He manages to throw it perfectly to get the rope to fall down to Harry. Harry tries to climb out, but there's right out there, and he manages to get outside the pit, and Tara gets outside the pit, and Tara goes to distract.

Mac Finn.

Then Agent Ben is,

booking it down the hill to try to deal with this, with this escape from the pit. And that's why she's the first one that shows up and she takes a shot at Dresden, misses, and then decides to go and use the belt instead.

Brian (07:33)
And I think what's important to realize here is that Ben is not following some playbook the FBI have set. The FBI, and like Denton specifically, probably doesn't have a plan for what if Dresden comes crawling out of the pit, because presumably in Denton's mind, who cares? As long as I've got him in one place, the Lugaroo is gonna kill everything.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:56)
Yeah, Harry's not running any marathons to get away from the Luguru right now.

Brian (08:00)
So when Ben charges back into the action, the rest of the FBI is slow to react and they react haphazardly and they don't form up because Ben is going off script. She's seeing, like you said, the prey get away and that's causing her to be irrational because she's

her mind. And that leads her to run in without really conceptualizing that the very presence of the Hexenwolves is going to give the Luguru more targets and actually reduce the chances that it gets all of the people the FBI wanted to. It's a bad move on her part. It is not accomplishing their goals. It's an irrational reaction to the idea that the prey might escape.

One other thing that I just want to note here is Marcon throws his knife to cut the rope that's actually holding the platform he's dangling from. The rope falls into the middle of the pit, which is why Harry's got to do the whole rope swinging thing to the edge. And I bring this up because it's very written, or perhaps better, haphazardly described.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:06)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (09:15)
And one of the reasons I actually recommend the audiobooks of the Dresden Files to people who like audiobooks instead of recommending the books is because when you hear this in sort of that radio play format, there's a lot of context added from the narrator's pauses and emphases that are not necessarily present on the page and clear up some of the sequencing for you.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:42)
Yeah, you get that added frustration at the right moment in the tone of the way it's being spoken or the hesitancy, et cetera. Just like what you're talking about, it adds something to it. Now, what it's adding is sort of the subjective understanding of that reader, James Marsters, but I think he basically nails it 100 % of the time. He's so good.

Brian (10:04)
Yes, and that's important here because this climax is very confusing as to exactly what people are doing at given moments. And it's really cool. It's really good. I really like this climax because it hits all the right emotional notes. It's got a lot of drama in it. It's very seesaw and it makes sense. But when we were trying to plot out just what happens for this episode, it was like, my God, Jim, you've got people running.

practically in circles during this whole thing that's going on here, it can be very tricky to follow.

got that very Scooby-Doo element for sure of people kind of going in a door and then coming out the same door because they've literally run back to the pit at one point, we'll get to it. But an important thing here is that Harry's reaction to Ben running down is to immediately go to DEFCON He is saying, I've got to pull out all the stops because the Lugru is here for one thing and now the FBI is coming back.

I have no magic and there's basically nobody here who can help me.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:09)
Yeah, and he's got no weapon either. Remember, he lost his gun when they threw him in the pit. For sure, they didn't let him keep it.

Brian (11:16)
And Harry takes the faithful step of activating Harris's belt. And Adam either, it is completely understandable why the FBI immediately went off the rocker with these things, or the belt's affecting Harry even more than it affected them.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:36)
Yeah, one of the pieces here that he uses to describe it is he says when trying to activate the belt, it was easy. It was easier than any magic I'd ever done leaping into me with a sort of hungry eagerness seeping into me, making pain and fatigue and fear vanish and replacing it with nothing but strength, ferocity, power.

unquote. when he snaps his fingers and it lights up a bunch of candles, he always makes that look easy. He's done it before. And he says that this is easier than that simple trick. That has to tell you something. He's not getting anything for free here. He's being, being overwhelmed by the power of this also changes

Brian (12:05)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:25)
who he is so fast compared to, we know that, for example, Harris has put on this belt two or three times, but does not seem to be so far gone as Agent Ben just yet. And yet, it seems like when Harry puts on this belt, he's immediately making plans to like make more of them and pass them out and like, I'm just gonna stay in this form forever. I think it's affecting him.

way more strongly than it is the others. Why do you think that is?

Brian (12:57)
Yeah, and I mean to add to that, Harris might have put it on two or three times. Harris might have put it on six or eight times. We don't actually have So there's a few different reasons and I want to lay them out before we take them in One thing might be, Harry's a wizard and the spirit in the belt is coming to him really easily because it wants him. It wants his power.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:03)
Yeah, we don't quite know,

Brian (13:21)
So it is working double time to get it. He's actually getting more out of the belt, which is why he's able to immediately be as, you know, more deadly than Benton is. Or perhaps, like Ben, Harry's tainted by his previous exposures to black magic.

The fact that he's previously taken lives, the fact that he has wrestled with the notion of killing in cold blood before. And maybe none of the other FBI agents, with the possible exception of Ben, did that before they put on the belts. It also might be how quickly he tastes blood.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:01)
⁓ that's a good point because he immediately goes into combat and it feels like the more blood that he tastes, the more direct control this spirit is having on his person.

Brian (14:15)
And we know that's how it works because that's what pushes Denton over the edge in the full moon garage. It might also just be that Harry's willpower is extremely depleted. We talked about wizard stamina and Harry's kind of out of willpower. So the rage spirit gets unfettered access to his personality in a way that wouldn't happen for somebody who is fresh putting on the belt. which one of those options hits you as the most

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:19)
Yeah.

Brian (14:43)
Do you think it's a combination? What's going on?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:46)
So

I think the thing that feels correct to me is Harry being a wizard, I imagine has like conduits to magic itself already worn really well in his mind and his body and his spirit, whatever it is, his connection to magic. If you think of it as like a bandwidth thing, he's got a much bigger pipe normal humans do. And so it is able to flow into him in greater amounts

Brian (15:00)
Mmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:15)
faster. That feels correct to me. But I think it also has something to do with his desire for power pulling it into him. Harry is constantly dealing with Galadriel's test from the Lord of the Rings, where she is offered the ring and she's like, I would be a queen and I would take this ring to do good, but I would become terrible as the Dawn. Like I'm butchering the lines, but you know.

So I feel like that's Harry all the time is with this power. He wants more power to do and has to constantly turn it down. And here it's just pouring into him. And he's thinking I could save everyone with this as his mind is being clouded with these other thoughts.

Brian (16:00)
Yeah, that's really good. I think that the first, second, and fourth things are working in combination for sure. The rage spirit really wants in. It has a big connection to get to Harry. He's got a lot of passageways to the never never for it to flow through. He wants it on some conscious level, so he's not resisting it. And his conscious ability to monitor what's happening is depleted because even though he doesn't feel tired,

when he puts the belt clearly his more human aspects are not being revitalized the same way that his more terrible and ferocious aspects are. But...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:39)
Hmm. Yeah, that's a very

good point, because he says like, you know, all the fear vanish, but his control disappears.

Brian (16:49)
right. But I do think the blood has something to do with it, because Harry says, as Ben came through the trees, I leapt forward and was at her throat before she even realized I was there. A quick rip, hot blood, and she yelped in agony and fear of throwing herself to one side. And then immediately, stupid bitch.

I'd missed the heart's blood, but she was badly hurt. Two snaps severed her hamstrings as she tried to flee and left her writhing on the ground, helpless and terrified. I felt my body thrill with abrupt and vicious excitement. The bitch was mine now. She were live or die as I wished. That is, in the beginning, the belt getting to and as soon as the blood, he is there.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:31)
Yeah.

thing that occurs to me now is the why is Harry so effective at this belt the very first time he puts it on? And it might be exactly the same question that we just answered before. If there's a bigger connection, more bandwidth between him and the belt and the spirit is able to move more into him, it could give him more power or better control of this body than

Ben has, and then Denton has. Now, Ben comes through in a reckless way, not expecting him to be a wolf, so that also explains why he's able to dispatch her very easily. But later with Denton, he does face off in a way that they get equal and he still comes out on top.

Brian (18:17)
And we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to it, but I think that in addition to everything else that we said, there's a couple other pieces of evidence in the confrontation with Denton that give us another clue as to why Harry's so immediately effective. So the next thing that we see is the Hexen wolves getting absolutely wrecked in short order.

Wolf Wilson arrives on the scene, immediately starts attacking, killing the downed Ben.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:48)
Well, Ben

attacks him not realizing who he is, right? That's the way that it's phrased, is that Harry hears Wilson coming, kind of backs off a little bit. Wilson comes around the corner or around the tree or whatever. Ben thinks it's Harry in her rage, she just attacks. Wilson starts fighting back, kills her. Then Roger Harris shows up, sees that happen and shoots at Wilson thinking it's Harry and kills Wilson.

or at least fatally injures him, and then Wilson turns back into a human and shoots, I didn't realize that their guns could also turn into the part of the wolf, but he has his gun when he turns back, and he shoots Roger and kills him as well. So they very quickly shoot and kill each other, but here's my question for you, They seemed way more unstoppable and undamageable, invulnerable, healing, whatever you wanna call it, in the fight at the Full Moon Garage.

Here, it's just or three shots from Agent Harris, and Wolf Wilson is down for the count, and he's switching back to human, because he's so hurt.

Brian (19:54)
Yeah, it's weird. mean, in the street wolves fight, they're outnumbered five to one, maybe 10 to one. There's over a dozen street wolves there for sure. And there's only three of them wolf form. Denton only joins in basically after they've routed the street wolves. So it seems they're able to shred these people with weaponry that fight.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:16)
And it's worth pointing out, without taking any obvious

injury or at the very least healing those injuries because at the start of this night, none of them are limping, none of them are hurt.

Brian (20:28)
And that suggests that there's one of three things going on. Either one, the street wolves simply don't have...

guns in large part during that confrontation or if they do have them they don't use them because when the moon is full and the street wolves get into a fight they brawl baby that's what their rage spirit drives them to do so they're not taking the tactically intelligent approach of attempting to kill the hexan wolves from range they're mixing it up with them and basically you can't get into hand-to-hand with a hexan wolf and kill it

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:48)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (21:01)
Or two, it might be the case that in that confrontation, the street wolves are so panicked by the magic aura.

around the Hexen Wolves that they don't actually put up very much of a fight at all. Sort of in the moment where they have to come to grips with the enemy, all of them freeze for a second or something, and the Wolves really can get the drop on any number of them because their reaction is terror, a coordinated counterattack. Precisely. Exactly, exactly. Or it could just be that, you know, Harris

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:31)
Yeah, they failed their saving throw. That's exactly what happened.

Brian (21:41)
not necessarily the most talented gunfighter, gets a lucky shot. He gets Wilson right in the aorta with the first round. That's why when he transitions to human form, there's blood coming right out of his mouth. It's just a lucky bullet. And if he'd hit him three times in the legs, he'd be able to get up no problem. he...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:59)
or even other

parts of the chest. It's such a big animal that if, you know, Harris has probably got a nine millimeter, that thing doesn't take down a bear. This is at least as big as a big bear. So like, yeah, I could definitely see that being the case.

Brian (22:12)
Right, so it could be any number of those things. But one thing I want to point out is I don't think it's weird that the hexan wolves are able to do so much damage to each That makes sense. They're on the same level of power magnitude. So even if they're super tanky, they're sort of weak to themselves.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:31)
Yeah, they would have some

kind of magic damage that can get through any kind of magic defense that they have. That doesn't make sense. So I noted a part later here where Denton shows up and Harry and he are sort squaring off with each other. And Harry says in his wolf inner monologue, quote,

It was the most ancient of struggles, the deepest of conflicts, survival of the fittest. One of us would live to run again, to hunt, to kill, to taste the hot blood, and the other would be dead and cold on the grass. It was good." Unquote. And while I was reading that, Brian, I said to myself, this doesn't really feel like something from natural wolves.

and I kinda thought about it and I was like, well yeah, that makes sense because these bestial spirits of rage are never described as wolf spirits in any way. They are instead spirits of rage trapped in a wolf pelt belt. The wolf is only the body that they're because this is nothing like how actual wolves in reality work together.

Brian (23:39)
Right, if you made a hyena belt or a polar bear belt, they would end up in the exact same circumstances. Yeah, so I think that's correct and it's important to note two things. know, Harry's saying the most ancient struggle.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:46)
That's my interpretation, yes, exactly.

Brian (23:55)
As you said, real wolves don't behave that way. The whole notion that, you know, alpha wolves are fighting their subordinates to the death to maintain control over the pack is essentially junk science that comes from a study that was just wolves in zoos, and it doesn't actually map onto the behavior of actual wolf packs very well. But moreover, even if we can say, Jim didn't know that at the time, because the reevaluation of that research was fairly recent.

Tara says in universe animals don't kill for fun and Harry is having a lot of fun killing these other wolves.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:29)
right?

Absolutely,

it's very clear that this spirit is getting to his desire and making it ramped up for killing, for the blood, for the hunt. Like that is all part of it there.

Brian (24:47)
Another thing to note here is that we get some more evidence that who's putting on the belt has an impact on the power of the Hexenwolf that comes out. Because Denton, Harry notes, is stronger than him in wolf

But Harry, the younger man, is quicker. So it's not that you put on the belt and you get a certain power level that's entirely circumscribed by what the belt gives. Who you are has an impact on what kind of Hexenwolf you And Harry is obviously huge and in the prime of his life and very magically So it makes sense that he's kind of the most badass thing running around.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:30)
Yeah, and the next passage here is already wounded Denton and it was wounding enough so quote, we both knew that it was all over, but the bleeding, I shuddered. Yes, the bleeding, unquote. So that's the situation where Harry is now contemptuous of him as he begins to whimper to seek escape.

And then there's this part, Brian,

I would have been content to lead him to accept him as a follower and to take him with me on the hunts. It was sad in a way, but then I could always find others. It would not be difficult to make the belts, I thought, to give them to a few people to try. Once they had, they'd never take them off again, unquote. So this is Wolf Harry planning to...

create his own pack of hexan wolves just to hunt because it's so addictive. And boy is that a scary road not traveled. I mean, the end result is that Morgan comes to finish the job, right? That doesn't take too long, but this version of Harry, this wolf Harry is so arrogant. Okay, he's a little more like real Harry, but he's so obsessed with how strong he is that he's just like, yeah, just do that. There'll be no consequences to me doing that.

Brian (26:44)
Ha!

And something that's really crazy about it is he's not even saying, I'll get the young ones from Terra and I'll lead them. No, no, no. I'm going to make more belts. I got to make belts. It's got to be the belts. It's that real drug addict mentality. You know, there's no other way to achieve this release. No one can understand what I'm feeling unless they've done the same thing. It's just that good.

It's really terrifying. It really brings home how sinister these artifacts are, and it's going to lead to some questions that we have to answer later. But Harry wins this fight against Denton, and he's about to finish him off. But something stops just for a second, and that gives time for Susan to arrive and pull him out of it, at least a little bit.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:44)
Yeah, and at first he mistakes her expression for desire then realized that her eyes are terrified him specifically and that's what is enough to snap him out of it. He's able to come back when he realizes that this woman that he's slowly been falling in love with, or at the very least is very much infatuated with, is now terrified of him. And to be honest,

That is Dresden's nightmare, right? He stays up at night worrying that he is the dark wizard that everyone claims he could turn into. So that is what is enough to really just snap him out of this.

Brian (28:26)
Yeah, it's sort of the perfect thing. And Harry does take off the belt.

But just like the FBI agents, it's clear that that feeling he had is influencing his personality even when he's back as a human. He is furious. He uses that word when he's trying to get Susan and the Alphas to leave so that he can deal with the situation. We'll get to that in a second. But either, like Ben,

taking off the belt has not rid Harry of its compulsions even after the first Or it is definitely affecting him even more than the FBI agents because it's carrying over so directly, so immediately, in a way that doesn't even seem to be the case when, for example, Harry takes the belt off Roger just a couple chapters

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:21)
Yeah, and there's a line here right after he takes the belt off and throws it away from him. He says, I felt hot tears on my face at the loss of that joy, that energy, that impervious strength, unquote. He is at this so forlorn about losing what the belt gave him that he's crying.

Brian (29:33)
Whew.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:43)
And at the same time, he still has the strength to get rid of it.

But then to the point that you were saying,

Susan starts to argue with him and he says, fury rose to the top of the rampant emotions coursing through me. I got enough blood on my hands. Get these kids out of here, damn you, That is not the way that Harry Dresden would normally talk to Susan, right? He would be insistent. He would try to get her to leave, but he would not use that tone or those words necessarily.

Brian (30:15)
Yeah, mean, Susan literally goes pale when he says that, according to him. So he is very scary in that moment, and she is reacting to that display. Susan agrees to get the alphas out of there, but Murphy won't go with them. She's gonna stick around. She's gonna try to help the situation. ⁓

So that confrontation with Denton leading to Susan getting the alphas away brings us to chapter 33 where Harry has two objectives. One, slow down the and two, as he said to Murphy, we should probably try to save Marcon, right?

They're both going on different pathways back to the pit. And again, this is where it gets kind of confusing. They split up to give both of them more of a chance to get there. And we don't exactly understand what track they're each taking, but they're breaking away from each other and both going to the pit. And Harry's able to get there and try to get Marcon down. But then he gets a nasty surprise.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:20)
Yeah, it turns out that the Lugaroo is in the pit. by the one thing we skipped over, by the way, Tara is heard to make a horrible cry, and so we know that she's no longer distracting the Lugaroo. But Harry gets there and he basically points up at Marcon and tries show his eyes like, hey, do you see it anywhere with his hand gestures? And Marcon shakes his head. And I believe Marcon would have warned Harry in this moment, but how is it Marcon missed?

like a 350, 400, 500 pound Luguru, like climbing into the pit without making any noise at all? I don't know. That's one of those things that I think we're gonna talk about a lot in the assessment. There are these moments in the book where Jim had a perfect visualization of the thing he wanted to describe and it seems like he didn't spend enough time setting it up because here,

when Harry is at the edge of the pit trying to get Marcon down and then the Lugaroo comes out at him from inside the pit. That is a really cool scene in the movie or the TV show or whatever you want to, but it doesn't quite work for me here, because all I could think of is how the heck did it sneak into the pit without Marcon seeing it?

Brian (32:36)
And a lot of these moments give Jim the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. One of our other questions is, when it kills Kim, why does it only kill one person? It's quite possible that the Louvre is magically able to sort of go into stealth mode.

And that's a thing that it does when it doesn't have a specific target that it's directing itself at. If it's killed everybody around, it's gonna go stealth and find some other thing that, you know, gets its gander again, that gets it ginned up to wreak havoc. And here it's using that to get rid of this damn wizard that keeps causing me There's definitely something more than just animal instinct in the loop.

much like the hexan wolf belts, it seems like whatever metaphysical thing the curse is Doesn't turn McFin into a pure raging animal. It turns him into a cunning predator that's just very indiscriminate.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:44)
Yeah, and one thing, there is a little bit of discrimination here because Terra survives. Is she the only one that actually gets attacked by it and survives? There are a few people in the precinct because it moves on to fight others, but he had the opportunity. Terra was just there at his mercy and he leaves her That to me suggests that he recognizes who she is.

Brian (33:50)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:10)
and doesn't like that she's distracting him and he can't stop himself from chasing her, but once she's down on the ground, he's able to restrain the beast that the prey drive is gone. This prey is just on the ground now, it's not running away, so I'm not forced to chase it, right?

Brian (34:26)
stuff makes sense, it's just as we're saying, not actually written into the scenes, which is the frustrating

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:31)
Yes,

So what we find out later is that Murphy went on a different track through the woods and found Tara and was giving her first aid while this is happening to Dresden, where the thing is coming out of the pit. He tries to throw some fire at it and completely fails. he thinks he's dead and then realizes he's got his mother's amulet. And I love the way that this is written, where he's thinking about...

drawing in his breath for his final death curse. Maybe he can take this thing down. Maybe he can cancel the curse that's under McFinn, or maybe he can take down Marcon's criminal empire with his death curse. And he says, quote, I debated these things as I drew out the silver pentacle amulet I had inherited from my mother so that it would lie brightly on my chest. My mother's amulet, silver.

Amulet inherited from my mother, inherited silver."

What he should be doing here is smacking himself in the face because it's so obvious here. But again, I cut him from some slack based on how hard he's had it over the last few days. It's hard to make good decisions when you're exhausted and beat the heck up and in pain. But he figures it out. He starts to swing the pentacle around and cast a spell. And Brian, what do you think he's doing with this spell? We know that he throws it at the Lugaru, but what I noticed is,

He's casting a form of wind magic. He used Ventos Servitas.

Brian (36:04)
He's using this Wind Magic because it's a spell that's easy for him, that's familiar to him. But as far as we know, Harry's totally tapped out. It doesn't matter how easy the magic is. It seems like this should be impossible. So how does he do it?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:21)
Yeah,

yeah, there's this passage where he tries to find the magic, he even describes it that way. Quote, but I had to find it. I had to find enough magic to stop this once and forever. I searched inside of me where everything was numb and empty and tired. Magic comes from the heart, from your feelings, from your deepest expressions of desire.

That's why black magic is so easy. It comes from lust and fear and anger, from the things that are easy to feed and make grow. The sort that I do is harder. It comes from something deeper than that, truer and purer, harder to tap, harder to keep, but ultimately more elegant and more powerful. My magic.

That was the heart of me. It was a manifestation of what I believed, what I lived. It came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour. It came from my love of a good steak, from the way that I would sometimes cry at a good movie or a moving symphony, from my life, from the hope that I could make things better for someone else, if not always for me. Somewhere in all that, I touched on

Something that wasn't tapped In spite of how horrible the past days had been, something that hadn't gone cold and numb inside of me. I grasped it. Held it in my hand like a firefly and willed its energy out into the circle that I had created with a spinning amulet on the end of its chain." Somewhere in there, Brian.

Somewhere he found something, but what was it?

Brian (37:59)
So I think there's a lot of interesting answers to this and they relate to the conversation about wizard stamina that we had in our last episode. the one hand, people brought up that a large portion of why wizards run out of juice might be that they run out of belief that they can keep doing things or belief that what they're doing is truly right and necessary. In this moment, Harry is

finding that belief, But it seems like there's some other things going on here as well. It almost feels like the kind of thing Harry says later when he taps into soul fire. And he was just thinking about throwing his death curse. So is it tied to life energy more directly? A lot of fascinating possibilities.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:33)
Yeah.

Yeah,

the thing that particularly stuck out to me is that it came from my desire to see to it that someone stood between the darkness and the people it would devour. That line really sounds like it defines what the star-born Harry is, what we're hypothesizing his job is to stand against the outsiders and like tapping into

that most pure desire maybe unlocked something connected to his star-born abilities, and maybe that is what he tapped into.

Brian (39:31)
Yeah, I think that's definitely a great answer here. Now it could just be as simple, guys, as he's making the circle and that makes it easier, right? We talked about that in that episode too. He is setting up a ritual here.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:43)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (39:46)
And two of those easier ones that I do think we should mention is that he might have help. One, in the form of he's touched his mother's amulet again. Does that mean that Leia's nearby? Or two, well, he just got a huge power injection from the belt. And maybe there's

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:58)
Hmm.

That's true.

Brian (40:05)
And maybe there's a residual aspect to that, that he's metastasizing into his own magic through this examination of his desires.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:19)
All right, so anyway, he's using this spell and he casts a form of his wind servant, ventocervitas.

which I think is essentially the magic that he's doing is trying to make sure that this thing flies straight and true and fast right at the heart of the beast, right? Because I have not personally tried to do like a sling thing, but they don't seem easy to aim and he's got something charging at him. He needs to hit the heart. That's probably what the magic is doing most of all, making it fly straight and true towards its target.

Brian (40:56)
And like you said, fast. I mean, there's definitely something magic at work where silver will go through the Lugru literally because that's its bane. But to get an amulet through an animal? We're talking tornado wind speed. I mean, it's right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:12)
Yeah, exactly.

Brian (41:15)
However, he doesn't get to just get the satisfying kill shot immediately because in between Harry and the Luguru steps Murphy pointing a gun at him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:27)
Yeah, I think this is the thing that trips up a lot of people on this book because it's sort of a forced misunderstanding by both of them and it doesn't really track for me, Brian. It really doesn't. I actually really like the next chapter where he wakes up thinking she shot him and like forgives her and she's like, you moron, I didn't shoot you. You're cold because it's raining. Like I love that part of the book.

Brian (41:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:57)
But this part gets me every time because again, I now have to tap something you said, which is maybe this thing has a stealth mode magic that's powering it because in my head I'm always like, how the hell is she not hearing the giant monster?

pounding through the grass behind her while she's aiming at Denton. That never made any sense to me. If this was described as like howling winds and the rain was pounding on the ground, there was a lot of other noise, that might alleviate it, but it's never been described that way. So in my head, I'm just thinking like a light drizzle and she's standing there in a light drizzle and can't hear the giant thing pounding through the grass behind her and it's always felt so dumb to me the way that it's set up.

don't know, how about you? Has this ever worked for you when you reading through them in the past?

Brian (42:48)
It does work for me, but I kind of agree. This is another portion of this chapter where you as a reader have to do a lot of work to make it make sense if you do really try to picture it. And I think there's a couple things going on. One, the amulet is glowing with that light. So this is causing Murphy's eyes to adjust and the Luguru is in total shadow.

I think that Murphy's scared because she's wondering what the fuck Harry's doing with the glowing spinning light show.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:23)
That's true.

Brian (43:24)
So I think that's why her words are directed at him from a place of getting him to stop what he's doing. She's frightened and tired and she's been drugged and all that stuff. But I also think we should recognize that Murphy has probably been tracking Denton's progress towards Harry for a while now and her attention has been entirely focused on that. And Denton is probably moving in a way to interpose

Harry between him and Murphy. And again, we don't hear any of this on the page. Jim doesn't give this to us. But it makes some sense to me if Murphy is wholly focused on trying to get to Denton and Denton is wholly focused on keeping Harry between them, she's not going to be paying attention to the Lugru, which is not moving at full speed. It has been pursuing Harry cautiously here.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:22)
That's true.

Brian (44:23)
and the lighting is set up in such a way that it's not going to draw her eye any movement that it's making. So it doesn't completely fall apart for me. I buy that this could happen, but it would work a lot better if any of that was in the text.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:40)
Exactly, and I think that's one of the things that Jim gets way better at in the future at providing the little details that make all of this, which was probably in his mind exactly the way that you're describing. Like it all made perfect sense as he was writing it down, but he didn't have enough beta readers or editors or whatever to point out and say, hey, I don't understand what's going on in this chapter. Where are they standing relative to each other? Why can't this be the case?

Brian (45:08)
and he's giving us the details that heighten the drama of the moment the most, which is cool and it's why the climax is so intense. But what I think he does get better at is letting the reader add a lot of that stuff for themselves and filling in a little bit of the moving parts that let the scene come together. So.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:14)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (45:31)
In this confrontation, Harry and Murphy at almost the same exact time release their projectiles and they both make their mark. Harry's amulet rips through the Luguru in a crazy light show and Murphy's shot hits and Harry hears it and thinks, that's the end for me.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:55)
Yeah, it leads to, like I said, one of my favorite parts of this book where for some reason he blacks out, I guess because of the magic, right? He spent everything that was left and he blacks out for, I don't know, two, three minutes, whatever, but he wakes up and says, you shot me, Murph. I can't believe you shot me.

We get this whole piece here and their banter feels a lot closer to what they have in Stormfront. As some examples here, in chapter 31, we didn't talk about this, but going back to chapter 31 earlier, when they're in the pit, Murphy says, I've done some thinking, Dresden. I've decided that there's a reasonable chance you aren't involved in the killings.

Brian (46:41)
⁓ man.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:42)
That's a great line. But

after that, it feels like that's leading into, ⁓ they're back to having their original style banter, they're friends again, they can trust each other. But very shortly after, Dresden says, you and me, we've known each other for years. You should be able to trust me by now, right? And Murphy responds, I should be able to. But after what I've seen, all the blood and death, no, Harry, I can't trust anyone anymore. I still like you, Dresden.

but I can't trust you." Unquote. that establishes that in chapter 31, where we started this episode, they are not cool yet, right? Just because she found out that it's definitely Denton and the FBI doing all this stuff doesn't mean that Dresden is off the hook for betraying her trust so many times.

Brian (47:30)
Right, and trust is the key word there. I still like you, but I can't trust you. It's the betrayal of her trust that she hasn't gotten over. She thinks Harry's a good guy. And one thing I really love about Harry saying you shot me is, have you ever seen 10 Things I Hate About You?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:49)
that's a fantastic movie. I try to watch it every couple of years.

Brian (47:52)
One thing that they say in that movie that I love is to make it up to the girl. You've got to sacrifice yourself on the altar of vanity. You have to do something dumb that'll make her feel like you're not trying to be superior to her. And Dresden saying this makes Murphy go, you idiot.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:00)
Yes!

Brian (48:12)
But somebody had to say something. And this is the kind of thing that Dresden doesn't say the past six months. Dresden doesn't admit to his own foibles and frailties and the crazy situations he got himself into. But in this moment, by saying, you shot me but it's okay.

He's one revealing that he didn't understand what was going on and that's why he wasn't reacting in the way that would be best for Murphy's objectives. And Murphy now knows that he was willing to die over that misunderstanding to save her life. And without him saying that, she wouldn't understand the depth to which Harry was willing to sacrifice himself to save her because she might have still thought that he knew Denton was back there.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:47)
Yeah.

Right, and so now I think what that crystallizes for her is maybe she can't trust Dresden to tell her the whole truth, she can trust him with her life. And that does mean something.

Brian (49:15)
And that's why I think that Dresden and Murphy's relationship never returns to the place where it is before Stormfront. Where he is this colleague who's pretty much just a guy who I like and I think is fun and is a good employee of mine. Murphy sees Harry differently now. He's the kind of person that you can trust with your life.

even if he's kind of a shitty person to have working for

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:44)
Yeah, almost like in the before time, back in Stormfront, he's an intelligence asset. And by betraying her trust insofar as not sharing everything, he betrays the very purpose that he has with her unit. But now she realizes that he's not only an intelligence asset that is sometimes not giving all the intelligence, but he's also someone that

will risk his life for her. And that means something separately from his use as an information broker. And I think that's very valuable because Dresden actually does refer to them as being friends again. Quote, later I went with Murph to Carmichael's funeral. She went with me to Kim Delaney's. Those are the kind of things that friends do for each other, unquote.

I think that implies that they are at the very least back to something similar to what they had in Stormfront. But I think I buy your opinion that they're actually on a different track now.

Brian (50:49)
changed, but in a positive way overall. Murphy has come to terms with some of Dresden's issues, some of his problems, some of his foibles.

and is now relating to him in a way that allows them to get on better. And he has the same reaction towards her, effectively.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:10)
So that leads us to this sort of fast epilogue very similar to how Stormfront does it Murphy and Harry burned the belts Hendricks survives Marcon got arrested the FBI agents were confirmed to have killed each other Marcon calls Harry Harry hangs up on him Susan filmed the death and got a big promotion got the internal affairs people offer back to the popularity of her being the hero in that film and Tara

recovers Park a few weeks later so they can say goodbye and of course no hard feelings. we've talked a lot about what we might be. What's your final guess? I think mine is that she is some kind of demi-god or sort of spirit of nature.

similar to, but not quite like the Nogloshi, but obviously hers is not corrupt the way the Nogloshi's is. But that's kind of where I land on her. She's like a demi-god of some kind.

Brian (52:10)
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. think two specific possibilities spring to mind for me. One is effectively what's presented in the text that she's a wolf-ware, right? A wolf that can transform into a human. But the specific reason why she can do that is that she is the eldest among wolves. She has extra power, extra agency compared to others of her kind because she is the eldest.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:23)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (52:41)
Or, I think another interesting possibility is right in her name. Not Tara West, but Tara West. Basically just the Latin word for land. She's named Western land. That sounds an awful lot like a genus loci to me.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:53)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (53:00)
we should remember that Jim's definition of a genus loci strays a little bit from the original Roman A genus loci is sort of the god of a place. It is a sort of animistic spirit. So these two things can work hand in hand, and I just want to mention that

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:12)
That's true.

Brian (53:16)
would also make sense with how the alphas came into the picture, meeting Terra through ecological work as well. So that brings us to the end of the book, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:28)
Yeah,

and one thing I wanted to point out is right at the end, Harry muses about who was it that taught Victor cells because you don't really have these warlocks spring up out of nowhere normally. And who gave the belts to Denton and just kind of speculates that there's something going on here. These two incidents are so close together chronologically. It seems really coincidental that that is the case. I had forgotten.

how early he ties these things together as being part of a bigger plan. I remembered that he did it later with Ebenezer when they talk about the Black Council for the first time, later in cold days when Lily straight up tells him.

Hey, did you never wonder about all these things that were happening in your town all around the same time? So I think it ends on this great mystery note of like, what is tying these things together? And it really does make you want to read the next one immediately.

Brian (54:22)
It does, and it's also something that I love in universe because how many series do you read where a truly incredible amount of coincidences happen in the same place and they don't address what's going on for a season or two in the TV show? And it brings us really nicely to our for Bob.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:38)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (54:43)
Bob, who warned Denton about the White Council? And why?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:48)
Yeah, Bob can't come because he's captured by Mab.

Brian (54:50)
Captured by Mab?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:52)
Well, his exact words were, quote, chilling in the never never But I thought my phrasing was more dramatic. I assumed she has him cornered somewhere. So hopefully, you we'll cross our fingers. I'm sure we'll get out of it. He's sneaky like that. All right, so

Brian (55:05)
You had me scared there for a moment, Adam. So

not here, we've gotta go back to our readers to get some information about where the belts, the warning, everything came from. And we're presuming, we're gonna say this at the that the person who warned Denton about the White Council has gotta be the person who gave him the belt, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:28)
some people in the thread did speculate like maybe he has other supernatural contacts. The White Council isn't exactly an unknown quantity. If he talked to anybody in the supernatural community, they're like, yeah, the White Council, they're like magic cops. They'll come get you. They're super strong. They know everything. They can always find out. Like that's the reputation that they have. So it's possible that he was told about the White Council from

somebody in McAnally's who they happen to run into. But I think for this question, it's easier and more interesting to assume that whoever gave him the belts is also the one who warned him about the White Council after they'd already gone and done a bunch of killing.

Brian (56:09)
Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a way to put them in an awkward position. First, you give them the belt. You don't say anything about who you could get in trouble with. And then you drop the bomb on him. That sounds like someone who's trying to apply pressure to them. And it makes it a better narrative. So we have a couple answers that speculate that the person, the figure that Denton's kneeling in front of in the soul gaze is or some other member of the Black Council. ⁓

says, quote, always assumed it was A lot of what he did was to hurt the council and taking out a star born that seemed to be loyal to them would do it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:46)
Yeah, and away programmer 3555

There was no follow-up investigation by the White Council despite clear breaches of the seven laws interfering with mortal authorities. And this omission makes sense considering Peabody, Cowell's cat's paw, was manipulating information flow inside the White Council and providing a measure of protection for Cowell and his schemes." That's not what I had considered. But yes, Peabody is active at this time and theoretically he might even be infected. I don't think we know exactly when he got infected, but maybe he is covering for...

cowl or whoever agent is behind this.

Brian (57:22)
And I want to be clear, we don't actually know if Peabody ever was infected or if he's just got some other acts to grind and that's why he's involved. But certainly the amount of time he's put into wearing down the senior council's will means that he's gotta be doing it, at least in full moon, if not years and years and years earlier. There are some totally different answers though. Woodworker Dan.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:31)
Right.

Brian (57:49)
has a really nice theory that he's laid out very quote,

werewolves might not be thematically appropriate for the Lords of the but they do have members from Welsh and Northern European mythology too. Three, Listen was way too good at being a covert agent by the time Dresden first encounters him to have been an amateur even at the beginning of the series. And

Four, Cowl's attitude towards Dresden when they actually do chat doesn't really seem to indicate Cowl was involved with Full Moon, or he wouldn't have overestimated Dresden, which I'm guessing Woodworker Dan thinks is the interpretation of Cowl's caution in Deadbeat.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:52)
Yeah, I think that's the idea. elaborates and suggests that if Cowell was present in full moon and was basically watching these things play out, he would have noticed that Dresden just got absurdly lucky and later on would not have treated him with the kind of caution that he treats him with in Deadbeat

And...

I wouldn't be surprised if Listen was popping up somewhere in earlier books in the background. And if we find that out later, that would be very interesting. I don't think it was here, but I really wouldn't be surprised. Because as they said, Listen is probably one of the most competent opponents that Dresden ever has to face.

Brian (59:30)
Yeah, I've thought probably too much about Cowell and I don't necessarily agree with his take on what Cowell's attitude is here, but I do think that that point about listen having a lot of experience is a really, really good one. Is a really, really good Also, ⁓

I think it is plausible that this is exactly the kind of thing the Fomor would be attempting to do, because what ultimately catapults them back to the big time? A power vacuum. And how do you make power vacuums? By breaking down the existing infrastructure. So this is a sensible plan for the Fomor if they see that as their way back.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:15)
Yeah, the next potential culprit is Mab. Cream Is Tasty says, how do we know Mab isn't actually this person? Setting events in motion to lead Harry to become the winter knight, unquote. Boy, when I read that, my head started spinning. Like, I don't think this is it. But on the one hand, just doesn't, it doesn't quite feel right. But on the other hand, Brian, can you imagine?

As we get closer to the big apocalyptic trilogy, Mab, who's been holding the outer gates against the outsiders, has her chosen knight, the Starborn, who is one of the most uniquely qualified to fight against the outsiders without becoming tainted. And it turns out she's manipulated all of Dresden's life to drive him into this position. And that bomb is dropped on him at the wrong moment.

where the right moment is his enemies see it and drives a wedge between them, that could make some heavy drama.

Brian (1:01:17)
Yeah, and one thing I really like about this is, I'm just gonna say it, this is completely inconsistent with what we found out about Mab in the last couple books about how she does seem to have a bit more of a series of soft edges than we were led to believe in the first couple times we meet her. but what do we hear about those soft edges? Well,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:38)
go ahead.

Brian (1:01:42)
Ebenezer leads us to believe on the in Battleground Mab is giving Harry a version of service to her that is palatable to him. And it wouldn't be shocking to me if a lot of what she's doing turned out to be a work.

not exactly a lie, but a to get Harry more tightly on her side. this would fit with that. She's actually super cold deep down, but she's kind of giving Harry the softer motivations up front so that he doesn't think too hard about who he's actually working for.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:24)
Yeah, the way that I've seen Mab in the most recent set of books is basically she has her goal and she will attempt to complete that goal % of the Now, if she can do it while causing less harm and that will keep Harry more obedient to her, then that is a better path, right? She will take the path that will make Harry be the knight she wants him to be.

Brian (1:02:43)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:52)
if that's an option.

Brian (1:02:53)
Yeah, and I think that the ultimate question that Cream is Tasty is really raising here by bringing this idea up is when Mab gets to have those conversations, I was a mortal once, or talking about what it feels like when people under your banner die.

Is that really a relief and a release for her that she wishes she could do more often, but as the Queen of Air and Darkness, she cannot indulge these Or is all of that a show?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:28)
Yeah, that is an interesting question. I think it's possible that it's all a show, but I personally don't believe that it is. I think we actually are seeing through to who she kind of is on the inside that she must hide at all times because she has to be the queen of air and darkness and she can't show weakness, et cetera, et cetera. Now, the next one on the list of candidates is Nemesis. We didn't see a lot of people specifically say...

Nemesis was behind this, but we did have people that kind grouped together Nemesis and Cowell and the Black Council as a singular entity. I personally, Brian, don't think that it's a guarantee that Cowell and Nemesis are synonymous or even working towards the same goal. So I think Nemesis is a separate possible figure here, maybe an infected version of who knows what was the one that giving the belts to Denton.

Maybe he who walks beside who was infecting somebody else at this time, not Justine, who knows?

Brian (1:04:30)
Right, Nemesis and the Black Council are sort of the Imperial and Nazi They're sort of conveniently allies because their goals don't affect each other yet, and they're working against the same groups. something like that. Right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:44)
That's the way that I see it, yeah. I think

that's more likely.

Brian (1:04:47)
And if that's the case, then it's perfectly possible that, as we speculated in Stormfront, the person who's mostly behind this isn't a person at all. It is a puppet of Nemesis who has made the belts and passed them on to the FBI. Now, I think that we're given hints that the cowl answer is the stronger one, which is why people might not have mentioned this, but it's certainly possible that first appearance really is in

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:17)
So the last question we want to talk about here, Brian, why did they warn Denton only after the first series of murders? Now, partly this question,

kind of has an obvious answer, which we're going to get to right away. But the other question here is like, why did they give Denton the belts in the first place? And we had a lot of people go to both of those questions. So the most answer to this question is to manipulate Denton. Romeo 9594 says it thus, quote, you'd warn someone afterwards so they're more dependent upon you.

or as a form of blackmail. Quote, hey, you know that thing I gave you? Turns out it's super illegal. Better do as I say or you won't protect you from the fuzz that comes knocking. a lot of people answered variations on this. But then the question is, to what end? Why are they manipulating Denton?

Brian (1:06:06)
Right, that's the big key here. we know that the reason you delay the warning is to put the squeeze on dentin. what's the point of that? And one answer that Proof Apartment 9565 gives is, I always assume the first three books were the work of Cowell or some other black council agent, just spreading chaos and black magic, essentially.

And that's not a...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:27)
Yeah, that's kind of the nemesis

answer of like, just do as much damage as possible and also gather as much intel as possible. That's kind of what we speculated at the end of Stormfront.

Brian (1:06:35)
Yeah, and we can give them even a little bit more credit. You're sort of testing the defenses, you know, you're probing the immune system for weaknesses and, got a bunch of games running, this is just one of them, and, okay, well, this Dresden guy, he might be an issue in the future. So, definitely a possibility, but there's more specific ideas as well.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:56)
a common answer was like some of them saying, yeah, they're manipulating Denton to try to kill Harry. Maybe it's because they know that he's a Starborn and they're trying to kill the Starborn on purpose, or maybe they're just, hey, this is the wizard that happens to be in Chicago. We wanna operate in Chicago. Let's get rid of this guy. says, quote, after Denton and his team used the belts, implicated themselves to the council.

and began the process of becoming addicted to the belts, Cowl warned them about the council and told them that they needed to frame someone to give them McFin. The eventual goal was to drag Harry into a conflict trying to fight a Lugaroo. Basically, he got the agents intentionally desperate and then gave them his preferred action as the only way to get out of trouble." ⁓

Brian (1:07:42)
Yeah, I mean, that's really good in terms of creating a clear goal for our antagonist. They're causing a supernatural crisis in the city that's got a wizard in the phone pages to get the wizard in the phone pages to respond to the crisis.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:57)
and hey,

it's a crisis that wizards are gonna have a really hard time dealing with, because it's immune to magic and bullets, unless you happen to have a skull that has all this information about Lugarus and you figure it out in time to have inherited silver handy. Or you get super lucky. That's the Dresden method.

Brian (1:08:16)
But one thing that people also brought up was the idea that it's not just to kill Harry, maybe it's to corrupt him or to drive him into the arms of the Black Council. And that seems odd, you know, how is that gonna happen? Either he's gonna get killed or he's gonna be a But remember, when Justin sent Who Walks Behind after Harry, it didn't seem like the walker was trying to kill him. It was true.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:42)
No, it was

playing with him, like a cat.

Brian (1:08:45)
and trying to get him to do stuff that would make him vulnerable in some way to its influence, maybe? What the Black Council may have wanted here, or what Nemesis may have wanted, was exactly what Harry putting on a belt. And the only reason why he isn't brought to the dark side

is that he's in and the woman he's in love with happens to be literally there when it happens. And if they hadn't, he'd be leading a wolf pack of warlocks all over the boulevards of the city.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:20)
absolutely. Now Halcyon Knights has been a contributor to this show before, but this has got to be the greatest theory I've ever read. The goal of this whole thing was to end the Lughuru bloodline and prevent it from achieving its purpose. This is a long one, buckle up. Halcyon Knights says, here's my tin foil theory.

I think the Lugaroo bloodline is Fenrir, which in this case is a living weapon, curse slash bloodline slash mantle that has been prepared to allow an immortal God, Odin, to release a death curse at the appropriate or appointed or prophesied time. Now, support for this theory. One, rumor has it that the curse was a Christian saint. Jim has said that this is Saint Nicholas,

which is a mantle that Odin wears.

Odin is prophesied to be killed by a giant wolf, but this is the sort of dude that could certainly avoid it if he wanted to given the time he's had to prepare, which strongly implies that he wants it to happen or is at least resigned to it. We know that one way to empower the mantle is good old-fashioned human sacrifice, but the quote unquote

good guys might be motivated to spread the body count over generations. Thus, a cursed bloodline that is guaranteed by said curse to survive to the end times which wakes up only a few times per year to kill and gain power, going dormant the rest of the time. With each victim and each generation, it gets stronger and stronger, more resistant to magic, etc., etc., until it's reached living conjunction status that can actually kill an immortal.

Only then will it be ready to battle the Allfather." Brian, that is some crazy and I love it.

Brian (1:11:12)
That is a fastball, man. That is smoking. That's a ghost pepper. That is awesome. I love that theory. wanna be clear that I love it because it works. That's not totally crazy. Fenrir is a real big part of Norse mythology. We're going into the apocalypse, so something's gotta trigger Ragnarok.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:20)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Yeah.

Brian (1:11:35)
Here's a big wolf that's got a curse on it. I mean, it does make a lot of sense, but to pick a few bones, Chauncey says St. Patrick. Why wouldn't he just say Nicholas, right? If it was Nicholas. And also it seems like the good guys wouldn't want Odin to be killed by a super powerful, uncontrollable.

death machine because then you're left with no Odin and a super powerful uncontrollable death machine.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:04)
Yeah,

I mean, the argument he made at the beginning is like Odin has to release his death curse at a specific time to fulfill some important mission. And the only way that that's going to happen is if you can get something that is guaranteed to kill him and thus everything else being set up to that end. Maybe, maybe not. I love thinking about it. Thank you very much Halcyon Knights. That was a very enjoyable read.

Brian (1:12:29)
Another answer, as I was sort of implying earlier, is to mold Harry into what they need him to be. Existential Bread says, quote, I don't think there's one Black council. What Harry is seeing in the shadows is often three, at least, independent groups. One is Nemesis. Motivation is simple. They want to end reality. But Cowell's The Circle, the group that Maggie Senior was a part of,

is a different Quote, when they couldn't lock down a star born, they turned to the outside. They don't actually want to end reality. They're just using Nemesis to cause chaos because chaos is a ladder. And implicitly that means that they would be trying to accomplish different things if they were the culprit.

And there's an unnamed third group that's manipulating events behind the scenes purely to mold Harry, people like Leia and his mother, so that he is prepared for the apocalypse.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:31)
third group, they had a lot more extrapolation into what that might be. know, Arthur Langtree might be part of it, Mab might be part of it. Like again, molding Harry into what he needs to be for the big apocalyptic trilogy. Who knows what that's gonna be? But I love the idea that we're having a hard time,

finding a through line of the goal of the thing that's behind the first three, four, five, six books, whatever it is, in part because it's more than one thing. That would be very good at helping to explain any inconsistencies and early book weirdness. So I think Jim might be considering that. Okay.

Brian (1:14:02)
Hmm.

So Adam,

what's your answer?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:13)
So I think simply from the law of conservation of characters, it was probably Cowl. And that is pretty much it. I'm just going with the answer of Cowl because it seems like we don't want to invent a new character and this is one of the only power behind the scenes characters that we've witnessed before. I think a strong second pick is some kind of infected nemesis puppet.

Those are my two biggest, but I think Cowl has a slight edge in my mind.

Brian (1:14:45)
Yeah, I agree. I think it is Cowell. I think that another Doylist answer is we meet him in the next book. He's in Grave Peril. We see him. Which implies that he's been to Chicago already by the time of Grave Peril, because otherwise how's Bianca so familiar with him?

And if he's in Chicago and he's trying to get the White Council into trouble and create chaos, well, dropping a couple werewolves that are going to rope them into a huge investigation sounds like the kind of thing he might do. Because remember, if Cowl is a major part of starting the human vampire war, the wizard vampire war, then he's got at least two goals. One is...

to have the Reds weaken the council so they're vulnerable. the other is to drive the council away from supporting the mortal groups that it might otherwise defend as they handle the war. So if he sees a way to gain some early influence into those mortal groups that he can use as a power base, might as well work on both sides of this game simultaneously.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:56)
Alright, I think that ends our discussion here. Quick news, next week we will not have a normal episode. Instead, we have a new reader reaction episode. We have two new Dresden Files readers and we brought them on to talk to us about their reaction to Stormfront.

We know we love to read and live vicariously through people that are reading through the series for the first time. And I've seen a lot of people on the Reddit really enjoy that. So we thought we might do that here on the podcast as well. We're hoping that they enjoy the series enough to keep doing this with every book. hoping that they enjoy the series enough to continue on and do this with us for every book.

and we'll keep doing it as long as they keep reading.

Brian (1:16:39)
Yeah, I was really, really happy to get this episode ready for you guys and Adam did an absolutely amazing job getting it together, so we really hope you like it.

Our next normal episode, which will be the week after that, so it's dropping on October 3rd, will be our assessment of Full Moon, where we'll go over everything that happened in this book and the themes that tie it So our question for that episode in two weeks is what was the first Dresden book you had to wait to come out?

Right now we're all sitting tight and waiting for 12 months to drop in four months. And it made us think of the first time we had to wait for a So we'd like to set up a poll and ask you guys what was yours?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:26)
Yeah, and I'll have a few other polls in there as well, because what we're trying to do is build a community of the books and the books' titles. How good are the titles, irrespective of the actual content of the book? How well do they match up on the book? How cool of a phrase is it? Et cetera, et cetera. I think Changes is gonna win because it's such a good name. we'll come back to that next time on the Full Moon Assessment. We'll see you then.