Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
Okay, before we start, need to come up with a question for Bob for the first episode of Grave Peril.

Brian (00:06)
Like it could be about, you know, what do you guys think of the Menses and the Never Never? You know, how many of them have we been to? Well, unless the Earl King's realm, like, is a Demens.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:13)
Yeah, we haven't really been to that many, huh?

⁓ that's true. And I wonder if the garden, Leah's garden on the other side of Harry's also counts as one.

Brian (00:23)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:27)
You know, it might be a little early to break this out, but I think we've got to ask them,

Who is their favorite character in the whole series and why is it Michael Carpenter?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:45)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through battleground. I'm Adam Ruzzo and with me as always is an awestruck park ranger, it's Brian O'Reilly. Welcome Brian.

Brian (00:58)
So I'm out there in the Rockies, and there's a bear. My legs pinned under fallen lumber. And the bear, it's closing in. But what comes between us? A giant she-wolf out of nowhere. She chases it off. She grabs the tree with her mouth and she pulls it off of me with inhuman strength. I'll never forget those amber eyes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:21)
Okay, what a story. You're gonna be able to tell that one for the rest of your life.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:24)
Hello, this is Adam at the editing in with a quick bit of housekeeping before we begin. We are launching a Patreon for the show. We'll provide full details at the end of this episode, but I wanted to make a few things clear right up front. This does not change anything about the public feed you're listening to right now. We'll continue to aim for about three episodes a month as we make our way through the mainline Dresden books. The Patreon feed will get one bonus episode every

covering alternate Dresden content like the short stories, novellas, graphic novels, games, et cetera.

Now next week, October 10th, we'll release the first patron bonus episode featuring Fistful of Warlocks, the short story set in the Old West told from Warden Lucio's perspective.

The next episode on this main feed will be in two weeks, October 17th, when we begin our discussion of grave peril.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:12)
This is our Fool Moon assessment episode. And we're gonna start with our overall thoughts of the book. Sort of high level analysis of what our experience is reading this book rather than the really deep dive that we took throughout the episodes. Brian, what is your overall thought here?

Brian (02:31)
Well know Adam, I want to compare this to literature that is very similar, that hits a lot of the same themes, that's kind of of the same rank. So I was thinking about what to compare this to and I thought of the Aeneid and the Iliad.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:46)
Ooh, very high praise indeed.

Brian (02:49)
Well, so it is in a way, and I say the Aeneid because I think that's a lot like Stormfront. It's derivative, right? The Aeneid is just, you know, the Romans doing the Odyssey for themselves, but it's really good. You know, it's snappy. It drags at times. There's parts of it that are a little bit eye-rolly, but it's a good book. It's a good story. It's a good yarn.

Fool moon is kind of like the Iliad. Nobody actually reads the Iliad anymore. read the Odyssey in school maybe. But the Iliad, man, it's just a bunch of lists of names and people's dads and like, you know... Right. So you just don't read it because it's a cool story. Everybody's supposed to know the story of the Trojan War. The Trojan Horse, the Wrath of Achilles, all that stuff.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:17)
Mm-hmm.

It's like the Silmarillion, really.

Brian (03:36)
but actually getting that story out of the Iliad takes a lot of work and you just, the juice is not worth the squeeze. And Full Moon's a little bit like that. The story embedded in this book, honestly, is good. It's actually, I think, one of the better, more complex plots in the early part of the series, but the work you have to do to actually figure out what's going on and to kind of get past all the parts that drag,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:44)
Hmm.

Brian (04:02)
means that it's just not one that you recommend for people to like start the series at. You tell them read the Odyssey or read the Aeneid or you know read one of the derivative works of that and then yeah if you really really like it give the Iliad a try. That's kind of what Foolmoon is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:18)
Yeah, for me, this is a weird comparison, but I was reminded of Iron Man, the movie. You have Tony Stark in Iron Man, and it's a very well-liked movie. To me, that's kind of like But then, the Marvel guys, they're like, okay, we know where Tony is now, we know where we need him to be in Avengers, like three or four years later, but we also want a sequel.

So we have to craft a movie and a script where Tony is still gonna be the same guy by the end and you get Iron Man 2. And it's just like more of the same and it doesn't really expand the universe or the character at all. And it's kind of seen as one of the weakest of that series. And I kind of feel Full Moon fits that bill here as well. It's very similarly set up.

to the first book and it doesn't really expand much. We have Harry trying to solve a case, Murphy's helping him out, there's some rivalry between them in both books. It feels like we're stuck in neutral as far as the character and the world are considered. Now if it was one or the other, to me that would be that.

If Harry doesn't change much, but we learn a ton more about the world, great. Or if the world stays the same, but Harry or his relationships change dramatically over the course of the book, great. But here it feels like neither of them go anywhere. Especially when you compare it to Grave Peril or Summer Night. Like just think about what do we get in Stormfront? A brand new world. We learn about Circle, we learn about the Fae with Toot Toot, we learn about magic through Harry's eyes.

And in Grave Peril, we learn about an entire court of vampires we didn't know about before. We learn way more about the Reds than we knew before. we know about demons and ghosts in Grave Peril. Like all of that gets explored for the first time in that book. But in Full Moon, we learn that werewolves exist and we learn that we meet like two kinds, maybe three kinds to me, that doesn't feel

big, as expansive as the other two books feel when you're going through them the first time.

Brian (06:31)
Yeah, and I really liked that comparison because I was like, damn, I wish I thought of that. Because what's the most memorable thing, the most durable thing introduced? The sidekick, right? The alphas in this book and, you know, war machine and Iron Man. That's like the big differentiation in those movies. We've added like this side character who's going to help out and it's going to be a, you know, buddy relationship, but there'll be some friction sometimes. Like, that's the big thing that comes out of this book.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:35)
Yeah

Yeah?

Brian (06:58)
Everything else is just this self-contained story that's just a lot harder to get into because it's a lot of what you've seen before.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:06)
Yeah. All right, so let's dig a little deeper into the plot as an overview. Now, of course, we've gone into this in great detail in the past. So here we're gonna basically limit ourselves to talking about parts that we found particularly good and enjoyable and things that we kind of look forward to when we do a reread. Parts that we think are particularly weak. And we've talked about a lot of these in the past, so we're not gonna harp on them too much. And also the parts of the book that have the biggest repercussions.

through the rest of the series. And this one does have a few of those. It's limited in that way, but it does have a few. So for this, we're just gonna kind of break it down into scenes instead of chapters. There's way fewer scenes than there are chapters in the book. It starts out at Max, we meet Kim, we meet Murphy there, et cetera, et cetera. Then they go to the crime scene at the varsity. And personally, this is one of my favorite parts of this book. I think the setup of this mystery is really cool.

man, there's murders happening that look like it's done by animals during the full moon and it happened before and Murphy's given him the breakdown of this is what happened last month and I couldn't bring you in because of all this interdepartmental drama and like all that. then the parts that I really like here is that they bury the hatchet. Like they had this tension building since the end of the first book and they kind of just get it over with very quick. It doesn't have that problem where they create

additional interpersonal drama that doesn't feel

That is one of my favorite setups of these books is the way that this one, got the paw print in dust, in the circle of the moonlight coming through and hitting it. That reveals very cool. So I like that setup. I think like you, the actual mystery in the story here is very cool. The bad guys and the reveal of the bad guys is very cool. There's just something to do with the way that it's plotted, the way that it's written that holds it back.

Brian (08:55)
Yeah, I think that beginning is so strong. I wonder about that road not traveled though, right? Because the word serial killer is thrown around. Like, can you imagine if this was actually a book about a werewolf serial killer? Like, way more simple, not nearly as complicated, doesn't fit into the setting as neatly. But if this was truly gonna be a case file series,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:03)
Mmm.

Brian (09:17)
This would be an awesome opening for that book. And Jim doesn't take it in that direction because that's not what this series is. This is not just a Case Files series. There is a larger world. He is laying groundwork. He already has the outline. But just when I'm first getting back into this, I'm like, man, yeah, this screwed up, messed up, messy crime scene. Can you imagine if they're just hunting this guy the whole book? Like, it's like seven.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:39)
And they're there

also, there's the tension of like, they're actually there illegally. Like even though she's the cop, it's not her jurisdiction. So there's that element they have to do as fast as possible and get out. But then the FBI shows up. Like all of that builds so well. I love that whole scene.

Brian (09:44)
Mm-hmm.

And I think that going through the department store is the first time in the book that you realize that it's gonna not kind of go that way. Like, it's kids and they're not the killers and it's gonna be a little bit more of a whodunit and a little bit less of a thriller.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:03)
Mm-hmm.

Right, we're gonna

Brian (10:11)
and then when he goes home to Bob and we get the whole werewolf download It's a great section. It's so cool. It's such good lore, but it

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:20)
Their banter

is great. The jokes that Bob uses that go over his head are good.

Brian (10:25)
Yeah, it's really deep. It's very nice. But I do feel like that's where we start to realize, okay, this is going to be a book about werewolves and which one is the bad guy. it's not Stormfront again, where there is a sneaky killer that we have to ferret out, but this one's going to be creepier and scarier. This is a book about what werewolves are in the Dresden universe.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:46)
So then we go to day two, he drops off the report. He gets the tip about the full moon garage. He goes to the full moon gets chased away. We go to Harry's office. He turns down Marcon again. And then the second night we're back at Harry's apartment and he's summoning Chauncey. I really like this chapter, Brian, as well. This is a very strong start. I found a lot of things that I really like at the beginning of this book because I love the double fake out with regard to Chauncey where he's

starts the chapter like straining and trying to get out and Harry's like describing how he's holding him and containing this demon. And then he just puts on a British accent and takes out spectacles that he puts on his crab head. And I just could totally see exactly that scene in the TV show or whatever, where it's like trying to get out and just like, down to business, okay, now you see we have to observe the formalities of course. that's a fact that that's a fake out, but then it's a double fake out because he actually.

Brian (11:19)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:39)
That is the mask. It's the British, the British guy, the polite guy, that's the mask. And then we see the real Chauncey afterwards. I love that. That's a great setup and payoff. And it gives us some important world building.

Brian (11:51)
Yeah, it's really, really good. It lays the groundwork for some super important stuff down the line. mean, Jim has to talk about what happened to Harry's parents, if he's gonna make it a thing. It's a brilliant way to work it in early in the series. You if he's got this whole outline done, he knows he has to get to Elaine and Justin by the beginning of book four. So he's laying a lot of groundwork and it's very subtly worked in. It creates this mystery that still isn't really

solved really really good job through here and look some of the route is clunky we didn't really talk about you know the full moon garage does that scene work that well there there's bumps in the road here but it is through this part in the book not maybe going the direction you initially think but it's tight it's cool lots of good stuff happening

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:41)
Yeah, and 15 books later, we still don't really know the deal with Harry's mom, and we kinda do, but the way they refer to her as like, oh yeah, we knew about her down here, she knew people down here, like, we still don't really know what her whole deal was, her motivations, we speculated on it a lot actually on the chapter when we talked about this, but we don't really know, and I'm guessing we'll find out and it will pay off in the future.

Brian (13:04)
So after that, have Kim's death and the scene at McFenn's house, and we have to talk about this here. This is fine as a narrative element. You want to have Harry and Murphy's relationship broken in a significant and important way. This is a way to do it that doesn't really make you hate Harry. But the

The is the way Jim does this really does make you hate Murphy because police brutality is not how you express earned frustration, And it clearly sets a lot of people against her character in this book. lot of people say, I don't really like Murphy's character in Fool Moon. It turns me off in the early part of the series how she relates to Harry. I think if this scene was just different, that wouldn't happen.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:28)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (13:50)
So it's not a terrible scene, it's not that it's inappropriate to have in the book or to include, it's just really not delivered well. And it's one of the places where the warts do show.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:01)
Murphy's obviously justifiably angry based on what she knows in this scene, like you said, earned frustration for sure. But

If she had expressed herself a little better here to the point where she says, I know that you aren't involved in this, Dresden, but you are holding out on me and you promise not to, I'm bringing you in and treating you like a normal witness because you want, you're not playing by our rules. The rules that we set this, you know, yesterday in the car or if she explained herself that way,

Brian (14:09)
this.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:31)
It doesn't have to be that calmly, right? Obviously she's mad. But if she explained herself that way, because what we're doing is we're inferring that explanation onto her actions. It's not explicit enough so that a lot of people cut her a break. a lot of people see her in this scene, like literally thinking that Dresden did it and hauling him away as the bad guy. And of course they think that's absurd. And of course we think that's absurd. But if you see it through her eyes and it's a

about his breach of trust and it has nothing to do with the fact that she obviously doesn't think that he's involved.

Brian (15:06)
I if she doesn't beat him up and arrest him, but instead just fires him. think that delivers the exact same message, really shows the depth of it, puts Harry on the outs, forces him to work outside the law. You can do everything the same. You can even have the FBI chase him, because now they want to bring him in for questioning because he's no longer under the aegis of the police department.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:13)
Right, exactly. Give me your card and rip sit up or something like that. That would have been a perfect response.

Brian (15:36)
You don't really have to change anything. Carmichael can still be like, Murph, are you sure you wanna get rid of our ace in the hole? You can do everything the same. It lands the same way, but Murphy is less of a detestable character in that moment and more of someone who's just had enough. So.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:52)
Yeah, and I think

that's why people dislike this on reread more, because they've grown to love the Murphy character over all the future books, and when they come back here, they're like, don't recognize this person.

Brian (16:05)
And I think if Jim could have that back, would take it back. But I think this is where the book starts to go from really tightly plotted, cool atmosphere to a little bit station to station. And a lot of the stations the train stops at are so cool, but the journey to get there isn't always as smooth. After this, we have the scene in the motel with Tara. We talked about why the character motivations there are a little mismatched. The Wolf Lake Park thing,

I mean, Adam, you did a great job mentioning that, you the opportunity to reiterate, a lot of that just seems unnecessary.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:39)
Yeah, he's already beaten up like crazy throughout this book. It almost feels like we need, this guy's a wizard, we need to show him doing magic more and the Luguru fight isn't for five more chapters. So let's have a made up confrontation with his ostensible, the guy who they're going to help instead is going to misunderstand and attack him so that Harry can do a tornado to fling off Terra and a zap spell, magical taser on him.

That's almost what it feels like to me. It's unnecessary misunderstanding between allies that feels... Yeah, forced is the right word.

Brian (17:14)
It's a little forced.

And then we get to Harry's apartment to pick up the gear he needs to get into the police station. The Terra distraction thing, which, mileage may vary on that. But then we get to the police station, we get the set piece fight with the Luguru, and man is that cool. The blending potion is awesome. You love that it actually does work as intended, but it doesn't solve everything. creates some extra complications.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:43)
Yeah.

Brian (17:44)
that's great. get the character development and the death of Carmichael. The introduction of Rudolph is well done. Murphy comes off as really smart having the silver bullets even though she's gotten rid of Dresden. And Dresden cuts loose in a way that is probably the coolest thing we've seen him do in the series up to this point. Not just blasting the damn monster across the entire city.

but then also having the wherewithal to put it functionally out of commission for the night. That is so good. It's so many great character moments stacked on top of each other. It ranks right up there with battle scenes from deadbeat and battlegrounds and changes as really tight, good action.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:32)
Yeah, and not only that, it's like one of the things we want to see out of our wizard protagonist. It's one of the reasons that him blowing the doors off the Varsity is such a great moment in Stormfront because yeah, this guy's a wizard, this guy's a wizard, this guy's a they're telling you he's a wizard over and over again and then he shows it to you. He blows the doors off. In this one, the way it's set up and the way that it's explained where he blasts him through like multiple buildings and then the prisoner kinda...

Brian (18:37)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:01)
hooks his head through the hole and just looks back at Dresden and says, damn, and the way he said it was like a holy word. Like that is the perfect description. I can see that in the movie slash TV show. That is such an incredible shot.

Brian (19:19)
Right, though I will say that next scene, the asleep in the car, shadow Harry appearance, you know what, if you told me that was gonna be in the books, yeah, I'm gonna have his subconscious be a separate character who interacts with him. I'd be like, are you sure, man? Like, are we sure about that? It works though. Yeah, it's good, it's good.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:35)
It feels really cheesy, buddy. It does!

Yeah, absolutely. And it's something that comes up quite a bit and it's very important in some elements later, specifically in the Lashiel elements and in cold days when he's taking care of Bonnie inside Harry's head, essentially.

Like that's all set up by this book and it matters. I really love that.

Brian (20:02)
Yeah, it's wonderful. We then get the scene rolling out of the car. Not our favorite. The Full Moon Garage 2 scene is pretty good. It's a good fight scene. It's a little thick in terms of pointing out Harry's, you know, out of magic-ness. It really does layer that on hard. Maybe it could have been a little tighter.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (20:24)
we did note here that we are introduced to a facet of the Hexen-Wolfen transformation that seems to...

increase the grounds for criticism that people have made of the files in the past and you know is carried on into later books which is that the fems are all fatale and that's not necessarily true of male characters.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:49)
In this book, it's Tara being naked quite a bit and Harry remarking on it. And it's also Agent Ben having a fairly different reaction to her withdrawal. They've definitely set these belts up to be a metaphor for drugs, right? Hard drugs that you go into, you know, you'll do anything to get the next hit of this belt, more or less.

but instead of showing her going through some form of withdrawal, like shaking or they do show the anger, right? She tries to shoot at Murphy in the crime scene at the beginning, but like they trade in that withdrawal for this sort of sex obsession or like this violence is arousing thing that she does and it starts here in the Full Moon Garage and it keeps going into the end as well.

It's not something that we see happen to the men. It's only Agent Ben.

Brian (21:43)
yeah, and listen, I understand why Jim might want to do it that way because obviously if...

Wilson is crazily sex obsessed during all of the scenes with Murphy and it's not a rivalry between these two female characters who are out to kill each other, but know Wilson's basically committing sexual assault or if during these fight scenes

That could be weird and icky. So I get why it would sort of read easier. It's less awful and more disturbing when it's the female character that is sexually aggressive and aroused, but leaning into that common

media trope, that more acceptable media trope, doesn't help you break free of the of the criticisms that a lot of literature like this has around using those tropes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:32)
And you

know what, that's a good point. When you talk about, I can't remember the name of the second in command, Parker's, the woman, she definitely seemed ultra violent, but not like aroused. She was like, kill him, kill him, kill him. that was, they could have gone that way with Ben too, because they kind of did. But it's like, it's this melding of sex and violence in Ben that feels unique.

Brian (22:44)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:57)
to all of the people affected by the Belts, and even the lycanthropes don't have that melding of sex and violence, it's just violence. So, I don't know, that felt a little weird to us when we were thinking about it going into this. So after the Full Moon Garage, we go to George's parents' house, there's some scenes in there, we like them, but no particular standouts. Then we get to Marcon's estate, and there's a lot of things to like about that scene there, Brian.

Brian (23:21)
I even like the fact that the infiltration plan is kinda bad. It feels kinda real. mean, should they have plotted it out better? Yeah, but they haven't had a lot of time to. Everybody's exhausted. So the fact that it's not executed flawlessly or planned flawlessly is fine for me. Things go about as well as you'd expect them to. It's not clean. They don't get away with it. They get in serious trouble. But...

You really do like Harry in those scenes. He's intelligent in his reactions. He uses every lucky break to his advantage. Well, he maximizes the resources he has. He makes hard decisions. He mostly does admirable things. And while some elements of it are a little hard to visualize, it's a little hard to understand, especially the final confrontation. How does Murphy not see the Luguru at all? We discussed that in that episode.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:15)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (24:15)
episode,

but like for the most part, think every part of that is exciting. It's put together nicely and especially when you really think about it, it makes sense why the FBI is so disorganized, why they've made the pit in the first place. It works. It's good. The actions great. It could have done a little bit better explaining itself.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:36)
Yeah, and I do, as I mentioned in the last episode where we talked about this, I love the way that Harry really believes that Murphy shot him. And that genuine misunderstanding and him being like, I forgive you for shooting me, I understand why you did it, is like enough for her to finally accept who he is. Especially when she turns around and realizes he was saving her life at the same time that she was saving his life. And it like helps repair their relationship. And as we talked about in that episode,

Brian (24:44)
Hmm

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:05)
brings it to a new place where she may still be worried about him not being forthright with her, but she will be willing to trust him with her life in the future.

Brian (25:16)
This is the one piece of character development that I feel is really extremely well done. The close of the Harry Murphy relationship. I don't love how it is brought to a nadir, but I love how it is rebuilt. It makes a lot of sense. It transforms how they treat each other. It really makes them friends, not just an employer and an employee that get along well. I think that is very good. You're right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:26)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (25:41)
Harry and Marcones relationship also progresses in a way that's interesting. Marcones been trying to hire him the whole book. The respect is there. The storm front forged interaction between them that created a mutual sense of, I don't know if I want to mess with this guy. I'm going to try to kind of dance around him is foiled by the fact that Marcones feels like he needs supernatural help for really reasonable reasons. And it sets the stage for a lot of their

future interactions where Marcones gotten the message that this guy's not going to work for me. gotta go somewhere else. But also, this guy's not just going to go out of his way to get me killed, to see me go down. He really is an honorable man.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:25)
Yeah. not only that, and Murphy's relationship progresses. We talked about that in the last episode, but now they trust each other. And one of my favorite things I sort of learned while we were rereading it for this show is right after Harry has that conversation with his shadow, where his shadow says, you have to start trusting Murphy. That means telling her he's convinced by that, by his subconscious to do it because the very first time he has a conversation with Murphy after

that conversation with his shadow, he immediately mentions the White to her. He doesn't explain what it is, but he doesn't hide it. He says the White Council's gonna be mad or something, I don't remember exactly what the line is, but that's the first time he ever mentions it to her. So he's already making good on his commitment to tell her more things that his shadow told him is what he should do.

Brian (27:12)
And one thing that I didn't really like the first time or even maybe two times that I read the series was what I felt like was this whiplash from book two to book three, where in book two, he's kind of on the outs with Si, the person who maybe at the end of it, Carmichael, who's started to trust him more is dead. But then in book three, yeah, we were going on raids and Harry's kind of one of the

But when you do kind of crack the nut and get the story out of it, it does really work because Harry's made this commitment.

Everybody's seen him in SI. It's not talked about, but they do see it. And Murphy at the end has realized, you know, there's some things that the cops just can't deal with on their own. And Harry was not just a crazy asshole to try to keep us out of it. It's something that engraved peril and afterwards Murphy's still going to be frustrated about. She still thinks that her job includes the supernatural turf, but she's not

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:47)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (28:12)
quite as pigheaded when it comes to listening to Harry's reasons why the police can't be the point people on a case.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:22)
Yeah, and I think that's kind of her journey of learning more about how she interacts with the supernatural. I think in Stormfront, she says, Harry, you're nothing but a consultant, and I will consult you, but I will take care of everything later. In this one, she learns, okay, no, we need him to be like with us on the raid. Like normally she would, no, you're a civilian, stay back, but by the time we get to Grave Peril, this book has taught her, no, Dresden can handle himself.

Brian (28:36)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:50)
in these situations better than we can. We need to bring him with us and work with him directly. And then eventually that leads to Harry even telling her in like blood rites when they're going after Mavrah, you can't call in the cavalry Murphy. You can't do it. This is gonna, it's gonna kill everybody. It has to be just you, me and Kincaid. So she eventually gets to that point of trusting him. And this is an important part of that lesson.

Brian (29:14)
So let's check in with Harry. So we did this last book, but physically, where's Harry at, Adam?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:21)
He's basically a decently fit 25 year old, although he probably doesn't get enough nourishment considering his budget and the way that it's described in some of these books where he's eating nothing but ramen for a couple weeks while he has no real work. So he's probably scrawnier than he should be at his age and his height.

But otherwise we haven't seen him make any significant changes to his physical regimen. Later on we know that he starts running and then of course he starts really training when he becomes the winter knight, but at this point he hasn't started any of that.

Brian (29:53)
Yeah, I think it might be after this book that he works out with Murphy a couple times. I think that might be mentioned.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:01)
Yeah,

he trains with the staff with her at the dojo at some point. can't remember what book that is though. We'll get there.

Brian (30:07)
Yeah,

but that's pretty soon. So he takes some steps shortly after this, but he's in the same place he was in Stormfront, honestly. He isn't really doing anything differently. It's been six months. And mentally, that's, you know, kind of the same thing. He's still 25 years old. He still makes the stupid mistakes that 25 year olds make. He's had a lot of lessons in six months, but hasn't learned very much from them.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:30)
No,

the only really big change we can say that he's made is his decision to trust Murphy more and open up to her more about the secret things that are going on in the supernatural world and trust her to use the information wisely. That is one significant change that he makes in this book. Other than that, you're right, he's still making a lot of similar mistakes. I would argue that he gets a little bit better in Grave Peril I feel like he's making fewer stupid mistakes by the time we get there, but he's also a year older in that book, and this one's only like

four or five months after storm front.

Brian (31:01)
Yeah, I feel like he definitely learns in this book that he needs to put more trust in other people. That's why the alphas end up as durable allies. That's why,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:09)
Mm-hmm.

It's why he gets Michael as an ally, I bet.

Brian (31:15)
it's a little unclear exactly what part of the timeline has Harry and Michael meeting for the very first time, but we can assume that Harry and Michael's relationship wouldn't develop the same way if he didn't go through the experiences he went through in this book. However, ultimately, what's the big problem in Grave Peril?

He's not able to teach Susan enough about the situation to actually make her back off on her harebrained scheme.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:47)
Yeah, he makes almost

the same exact mistake as he made with Kim Delaney.

Brian (31:51)
Right. And that's not, just like with Kim Delaney, that's not his fault. It's most of all Kim's fault or Susan's fault, but he could have been wiser in a way that may have lessened the chances of those events happening. And, the situation he experiences with Kim doesn't change his ability to recognize that as it will later on with people like Molly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it took Susan's turning into a half vampire and him spiraling down to really solidify that lesson in his head. You can't just forbid someone from doing bad thing. They will turn around and do it without your permission. You have to convince them not to do bad thing and that will actually stick. And so that's the lesson that he still hasn't learned at the end of this book.

What about magically, Brian? Is he basically the same level or has he gotten any kind of power ups since Stormfront?

Brian (32:48)
he's essentially the same.

The tapping out thing is interesting because in Stormfront he does talk about being magically tired about running out of juice, but this I ran out of magic I can't use it anymore thing that really is new. That's not something we really knew could happen in this way in Stormfront. The only notable thing that I'll mention as a power up is this is the first use of Forzare to bend the bars in the special investigations jail.

That is a very limited use of the spell. We're gonna see it a lot more later. Other than that, basically no differences from Stormfront.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:26)
Yeah,

but what about interpersonally, Brian? At the end of this book compared to the end of Stormfront, it seems like he has more friends with the introduction of the Alphas.

Brian (33:37)
Definitely. Harry is more of a known commodity to SI as we were discussing. That's why they're chummier when we get to Grave Peril. He's still an outsider though. Even when they're inviting him in Grave Peril into Mickey Malone's house.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:48)
Mm-hmm. I agree.

Brian (33:53)
It's a little bit awkward. It's a little recalcitrant. He feels like he's intruding to a certain extent. We'll talk about that when we get to it. So he's got more friends, but they're not best friends yet. They're friends, which is important.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:59)
Hmm.

And

with more exposure, if they went on those raids with SI more over the next two or three years, I think he does become one of the guys, essentially. That's why by the time we get to Battleground, there's still people in SI willing to put out the call and say, listen to Harry, he knows what he's talking about. This is his night, right? So he does make those long lasting connections. They're just not quite there yet with SI.

Brian (34:34)
Yeah, one person that we haven't mentioned, think, enough is Stallings, who almost certainly saw some stuff in the special investigations fight. That means that for literally the entire rest of the series, he doesn't cause any problems for Harry, which is just, you know, frankly, given the amount of friction he experiences just in this book alone, outstanding.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:42)
Mm.

Brian (34:58)
So that's a friend Harry doesn't even know the extent to which he has.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:04)
Alright, so we normally have a crazy theory corner, but we have a lot to talk about here today and we didn't have one prepped. But we did do some crazy theories during this book. We have during Full Moon 4, that's episode 4 of the Full Moon series,

We talked about Harry's parents and all of the things that Chauncey said and like what that meant. There was a lot of fun theorizing in there. And in the most recent episode about Full Moon, Full Moon 10, we also had a crazy theory from Halcyon Knights about how the Luguru is actually Fenrir and is designed to deal with Odin at the right time to unleash a death curse. It was really cool. If you didn't listen to that one, check that out. At least the sort of final question for Bob's segment because that one blew my mind.

Brian (35:48)
Yeah, I think that HalcyonKnights theory there is one of the most fun ones that I've read in A Question for Bob that I'd never heard of before. That was really awesome. And just to briefly mention the Harry's parents theory, the theory is that Maggie Dresden was a member of the Black Council.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:57)
Mmm.

Brian (36:08)
conceived Harry to be the Starborn Destroyer but broke with the plan and my extra special sauce on that is that maybe Maggie was actually a warden of Demonreach and that's where Harry was actually born. So if that sounds interesting go check that one out too in Full Moon 4. But let's leave the theories at the door here and get to the themes. So the first thing that I noticed in this book is that

It's the quiet ones you gotta watch. Because who causes all the trouble? The FBI, who start out the book, Denton specifically, as being fairly magnanimous, chill, somewhat helpful, but somewhat cool, not trying to interact with the weird wizard guy. They seem like they're people who are kind of pursuing a parallel course to Harry and they don't want to hear from him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:36)
Yeah.

Brian (36:58)
And who else causes problems? Kim Delaney, who Harry thinks of as not that big of a deal, just somebody I'm helping out, not getting up to much magically outside of my interactions with her. In this book, Harry starts to learn that in real life, looking at the guy at the bar reading a book and going, is he the baddie? Is paranoid. But in the supernatural world,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:08)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (37:23)
The supernatural creature that's standing around not paying attention to you is actually the one that's most likely to throw a knife in your back.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:32)
You know what that reminds me of? Men in black. Do you remember the audition scene where he's expected, he gets in a shooting gallery and there's all these aliens everywhere and he shoots the girl with the quantum physics textbook and they're like, why did you shoot little Sally? And he gives this whole thing like that guy there, he's just doing pull-ups and that guy there, he's doing this. But she, that is way too high level for someone of her age. And so obviously she's the bad guy.

Brian (37:40)
Mm-hmm.

with the Quantum Physics textbook.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:00)
That was a great scene and it's true. You have to be careful because in the supernatural world of the Dresden Files, there are monsters that are smart enough to appear as normal as possible. Enter the white court, essentially. So that's one of the, I agree with you, that's one of the main themes is he learns to be more paranoid in this book. The other thing I think is that he really learns, sort of, we talked about it a lot,

He mostly learns that he needs to not withhold information from people in order to protect them because that doesn't work most of the time, especially with strong-willed people. They will just go around you to do the thing anyway. So it's better to arm them with the information so they can protect themselves. That gives them the best chance of success.

Brian (38:45)
Right, I think here, Harry learns that if someone expresses the desire to do something dangerous, you can't just say no. You have to give them information about why it's dangerous.

It's a little bit later that Harry learns the benefit of preventatively giving people information so that they don't get into dangerous situations, but right now he still thinks information is dangerous for him to hand out. He's just starting to realize that it is sometimes more dangerous to withhold it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:18)
Alright, one of the other themes that we wanted to talk about here is the morality of power. Specifically, when is force justified, or specifically lethal force justified? because Denton and Harry seem to have very different opinions on that question.

Brian (39:35)
Yeah, that really sparked the idea to take a look at this because I think that it is something that is pervasive throughout the series. Butcher is meditating on what levels of force are

only adequate responses to various threats, our justified responses are ethical responses are moral responses to different kinds of threats and Harry and Denton feel like there's a lot of stuff they agree on They want to get rid of the bad guys, even if they have to operate outside the law But they disagree on who counts as a bad enough guy to get rid of so let me give you the

scale here that we're going to use to sort of categorize how people respond to threats. one level is true pacifism, which means you never think that you are justified in taking a life to avoid a threat. You will turn the other cheek even if it kills you because you are completely nonviolent.

In the real world, can look at something like Jainism as being an extreme example of you don't even slap the mosquito that bites you. The next level up is kind of where our actual legal system in the United States lands. It is you are able to respond to an immediate threat to your life with lethal force.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:57)
or the

life of someone else.

Brian (40:59)
Yes, if someone is trying to kill you, or if somebody is trying to kill someone else, depending on the precise circumstances, you can use lethal force to stop them because they are an immediate danger. The clear and present danger justifies extraordinary action. But there's a lot of people who think that if a threat is inevitable, that is, it's not here right now, nobody's trying to kill you today,

But you know they're coming. Well, then is it morally justified to just sit around? But is it morally justified to take action against someone who's not threatening you yet? The next level I would say is when you...

believe that you're morally justifying in eliminating systemic threats. That is, when people have blood on their hands, is justified to remove them, to eliminate them, to kill them, even if doing so won't actually improve the overall situation. know, killing one terrorist leader so that another one can take his place. Does that change anything? Is that justified? People argue about this in the real world.

But there's a step beyond that, which is true consequentialism, which means that there's no sacredness about human life. If you think that killing someone would make the world a better place or provide a 51 % chance that the world would be better off, you do it.

Because there's no innate right to human existence. Whatever you think is best for the world is what you do, unconstrained by any qualms about who deserves the justice you're meeting out.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:33)
Yeah, and that's four tiers. Keep this in mind as we're talking. ⁓ Pacifism is a tier two, but let's look at the four that we're really gonna talk about here. Immediate threat, inevitable threat, systemic threat, and true consequentialism. How do these map onto the Dresden files? Well, when we're looking at this book, Harry definitely falls into the immediate threat camp. We know that because when the Alphas and Terra are...

Brian (42:36)
And true pacifism, yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:59)
about to murder Harris outside of the Full Moon Garage, Harry stops them. Agent Harris is not a threat in that moment. Harry does not think that it is justified to kill Roger in that moment. So we know that Harry in this book feels that only immediate threats justify this. Even though Harry knows that this guy is an inevitable threat, that he has figured out that the FBI are behind all of these killings, that Harris has probably been involved in murders.

but he lets him go because that's where Harry lands in this book. Where does Denton land in this book?

Brian (43:34)
Denton is closer to the other end of the spectrum. Denton is literally attempting to take out a systemic threat in Marcone. And to be really precise, what I mean is that Marcone is not an inevitable threat to any specific thing that Denton's trying to protect. Removing him isn't going to save someone down the line that Denton can point to. But Marcone has blood on his hands, so Denton feels justified in taking him out.

regardless of what he has to do to make that happen. important thing here is taking out Marcon probably doesn't improve world in any measurable way.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:13)
See episode two of Recording Neutral Territory.

Brian (44:16)
because somebody else is just gonna step in and maybe they won't be as competent. Maybe the share of the economy dominated by criminal enterprises will drop, but they probably will be more violent and they probably will have less scruples.

And to be clear, it's not just that Marcon isn't a threat to any one individual, it's that Marcon being eliminated doesn't necessarily do anything good for the world or the United States or whatever. Maybe if somebody replaces him as less competent, the size of the criminal organization will decrease, but that criminal organization will probably have fewer scruples.

and be more brutal and it's unclear whether that would be a net gain or a net loss for society. Denton doesn't care about that. Marcon has blood on his hands. And it's interesting to note that Harry is actually unconcerned with the amount of blood that the threats he's dealing with have on their hands with their morality because he doesn't kill Harris.

even though that gives the FBI more manpower, more of a chance of success. But who does he kill? McFinn. Who he doesn't see as a bad guy, but who is an immediate threat to Harry's own life and to Murphy's life. So it's not about for Harry the blood on your hands. It's about whether there's any other conceivable way he could stop you.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:28)
Mm-hmm.

Let's talk about some other characters and where they might fit in this journey. Michael,

is definitely in the immediate threat stage. He will not harm someone who is not immediately threatening someone else. Even if you look at, for example, the Urseal fight in Death Masks, they give Urseal and Rasmussen a chance, but then they do use Lethal Force on him because he is a immediate threat to them and to Harry. Who else?

Brian (46:07)
And that's

something that Michael takes outside of his engagements with the Donarians. When Michael is attempting to help Harry in many situations, his first course is to counsel, trying to work things out without killing anybody. In Death Masks, this is taken to an almost comical extreme, right? Because when Cassius gives up the coin, big swishy air quotes, Michael and Sonya

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:12)
Yes.

Brian (46:33)
won't even harm him. But what do they do? They leave the room so Harry can go to town with a baseball bat.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and that's part

of Harry's journey towards inevitable threat.

Brian (46:43)
Yeah, exactly, that's where I was going with that, because I don't know if the Harry of Full Moon has the stomach for what is essentially torturing a man to get information out of him and then hitting him a little more because he's a dick. I mean, listen, I'm not saying Cassius didn't have it coming, because man, did he have it coming. But Harry having the stomach for that kind of cold fury?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:57)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (47:11)
isn't really something we see in Stormfront. In fact, in Stormfront, he turns away from that exact kind of exercise of power at the end of the book.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:20)
Yeah, and let's follow that journey with Cassius because Harry leaves Cassius alive in death masks. And then in deadbeat, Cassius comes back, confronts Harry at the Field Museum, and when Mouse comes in to save Harry, Harry has Cassius at his mercy. And what does he say to Mouse? He says, He chooses to kill the inevitable threat.

at that moment. I think that's the moment that he, his morality goes from immediate threat to inevitable threat. We see it also in Deadbeat with Corpse Taker. Corpse Taker is not immediately threatening anyone, not Harry himself, when Harry pulls the trigger and shoots him in the back of the head.

Brian (48:01)
And you have to realize in both of these circumstances, he's not necessarily doing it purely because as a calculation, it's to his advantage. Cassius throws his death curse because Mouse kills him. If Harry left him alive, Cassius would have died soon anyway. He just would have been a looming threat. Same thing with CorpStaker. Harry could attempt to use CorpStaker to get to Cowell.

It's not necessarily purely a calculation of what's best in killing Corpse Taker, but she is an... Yeah, but she is inevitably going to be a threat. Harry feels justified in killing these people in cold blood because he knows they would do the same to him. That...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:33)
Those were emotional decisions, yeah.

other

examples, the ghoul in White Night that Harry just literally has at his mercy, murders one of them and then tortures the other to send a message.

Brian (48:55)
and again, he knows those ghouls literally are an inevitable threat. Whoever is commanding them is going to be able to send them back at Harry. They don't have the stones to try to refuse in order to attack the White Council. But man, Harry is no longer the kind of person who lets Harris off with just a warning.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:16)
And I think the

culmination of this is the fey in cold days after Harry lays down the law and says, anybody have any questions? And there's one of the she starts to open their mouth and Harry just instantly kills him. The guy didn't do anything at all yet. He just started to speak and Harry kills him as an example to others. Now, those aren't people, right? Harry has a different sort of scale when it comes to humans than it does to supernatural creatures.

but I still think that his immediate willingness to go straight to death in that moment does demonstrate a significant difference between early Harry and winter night Harry.

Brian (49:54)
It absolutely does because something that we have to realize about the characters in the Dresden Files who only kill in response to immediate threats is that they're often shown to be somewhat naive. If you are not willing to take somebody out when you know they're coming for you, but before they get there...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:07)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (50:14)
I mean, you're not really being a wizard. You're not planning things out in advance. Why do we like Odin? Because Odin saw you coming last year. He made his counter moves a month ago. He's been waiting for you a week already. That makes him cool. He's planning for the inevitable threat. He's already taken the countermeasures. But it's a fine line. Because who decides when a threat is truly inevitable and when it is merely looming?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:39)
It's also a power disparity between good and evil. If good people restrict themselves to only dealing with immediate threats and bad guys don't, they don't put that same restriction on themselves, they allow themselves to act early to preemptively strike, well, that's a huge disadvantage for the good guys. And in this world where you have...

creatures of significant power to do things on their own, right? In our world, the worst that one person could do is like build a tank out of a bulldozer or on a killing spree until they're stopped. But in the Dresden Files world, the kind of power we're looking at, I mean, you can turn yourself into a god. That's literally what Deadbeat was about by killing thousands. So that is a...

different kind of world and it probably requires a different kind of morality and ethics to navigate it.

Brian (51:35)
Absolutely, yeah. Facing individual beings that can accumulate that kind of power and that have to do so, right, because magic works on belief, by displaying specific intentions creates a sort of different dynamic than we face in everyday-to-day morality. So we're not saying that dealing with inevitable threats is like the actual smarter moral way to, you know, operate in real life, but you are punished in the Dresden Files if you don't at

least consider dealing with things that you know are going to be threatening. But that's still different from getting rid of systemic threats, where you're not really thinking about whether you're preventing a specific inevitable harm. You're just deciding that somebody has a blood on their hands and you're going to get rid of them because they deserve it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:05)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (52:28)
And I'm calling this a systemic threat because in the Dresden files, this is usually connected to people who have a hatred for an organization or a larger group. And what they're trying to do is eliminate the person running the show or a powerful person in that group, even though doing that isn't actually

going to change anything or make anything better for anyone.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:54)
What are

some other examples of characters that are willing to take out systemic threats?

Brian (53:00)
And I think Denton's here, right, as we discussed, because killing Marcon is going to attack this system, but not in a way that really changes what it does. But I think the most interesting example might be Hannah Asher.

who is willing to take up the coin and do a lot of harm by making a deal with the literal devil, including going after Harry, a man who hasn't done anything to her, because he represents system of oppression, the White Council, that has cast her out as a warlock. Her feeling of injustice towards that system allows her to go after

individual targets, even though killing Dresden isn't actually going to make her life or any other warlock's life any better.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:45)
Yeah, I think Lara probably falls into this category too. She is, I mean, all of the white court sort of games where they, know, secret plots and assassinations and stuff. You have to be willing to kill or deal significant damage to other members of the other courts if you're gonna win those back alley games. So I think she's definitely gonna be in there, at least at some point in the book.

Brian (54:11)
Yeah, and I think that, you know, to be clear, we're saying that that means Lara is only killing people when she can come up with a justifiable reason for it. When they're... ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:22)
Yeah, even if it's you're

on the other team and I needed to take them down.

Brian (54:26)
Right, it's not really true consequentialism because Lara doesn't kill senselessly. She's not her father who is willing to crush anything for the sake of expediency. She puts a little bit more thought into it. She realizes that life is an iterative game and if you treat people as completely disposable, you're not going to get true loyalty. And I'd actually ask the question, if Lara's morality has changed since she stopped being...

constantly horrifyingly abused by her father, since she's had to look in the mirror after some of the things that Harry said to her, and since she's seen Harry and Thomas show her that there might be some not just benefit, but also pride.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:55)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (55:11)
in operating in a manner that is a little bit less calculated and a little bit more ethical. And she could be totally pulling the wool over our eyes. But recent Lara has seemed like someone who is willing to, of course, deal with inevitable threats, but not take out people just because she feels like she's justified if it's not actually going to change anything for the better.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:35)
Yeah,

I've always harbored this feeling that Lara was almost wearing a mask when it comes to the brutality that she was showing. Like she needed to do it to exist in the world that she lives in to maintain her position, to not get killed herself. And so it's more of a, this is necessary.

Brian (55:44)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:02)
but she doesn't like it. She looks for excuses to avoid it that can save face, I do this instead of killing Dresden, what if I let him do my dirty work for me? That will actually gain me reputation. And if he dies, well, it's not that big of a deal either, because whatever, he's just a wizard. You know, that kind morality.

but it feels like she goes out of her way to make those choices instead of taking whatever the easy road would be.

Brian (56:30)
I think there's a moment where we can see kind of a transformation because in White Knight, it's revealed that Lara is kind of behind the deaths of a lot of those low-level practitioners.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:44)
Mmm.

Brian (56:45)
And that's an example of this systemic thing. She's getting rid of these people because the White Council, Human Wizards, as an organization, are an agent that she feels justified attacking, and it doesn't matter at what level she does that. She doesn't need a personal reason to get rid of them. They're part of this system, and she feels fine in doing what she needs to do to combat it, even if it's not really going to change anything in an important way.

And juxtapose that with the Lara of Cold Days, who doesn't really need anything from Thomas, doesn't try to really extract anything from them to deal with the inevitable threat that might come from the success of the outsider attack on Demonreach. Lara, five years before that, with them over a barrel?

probably going to try to extract something more significant than just her own safety, which of course she could maintain by simply fleeing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:39)
Yeah, and having her own family flee, which seems to be mostly all she cares about, more or less. Like human servants and mercenaries, they're nice to have. She treats them well so that they serve her well, but if they have to die, who cares?

Brian (57:55)
Yes, and there's of course other elements to morality, right? How you value human life generally. This is just talking about when you feel like lethal force is justified. So when she does kill her own human servants, it's not like, Papa Wraith, you've displeased me, therefore it's justified for me to cut your head off.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:13)
Right, no,

it's more practical, essentially. Yeah.

Brian (58:15)
You have to serve a greater purpose. You know,

there's this threat to my family, eliminating you will keep my sisters from literally starving to death tonight. Therefore, it is worthwhile. So Aurora is another example, Adam, that you came up with of somebody who's in this systemic threat level really clearly. Because if Aurora's plan succeeds, winter just has more power.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:37)
Yeah,

and she's willing to go through all of this and get people killed and essentially sacrifice her friend, Lily, in order to accomplish what she's seeing as systemic change, more or less. Lily isn't an inevitable threat. She's not ending an inevitable threat by killing Lily on the table, but that's what she winds up doing for a different kind of greater good, as she sees it.

Brian (59:01)
Right.

She is literally replacing one conflict between winter and summer with a different bad situation, which is winter running amok. And she feels justified in ending the winter-summer conflict because it's bad without really caring about whether what comes next is actually better, whether it actually makes people safer.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:24)
Yeah,

and that brings us to true consequentialism. What characters in the series fit that category?

Brian (59:31)
So I think that there's a few really good examples. And the one that we've been batting around a lot lately is cowl. Because we don't believe that cowl is just team nihilism, burn reality to the ground. We think that,

Howell is working towards some end that he believes is justified and better. He just doesn't really care who has to die for him to get there. If the path he's on leads to a world that is in his mind better in the end, the things that he has to do to get to that place are not morally prescribed to him. That's true consequentialism.

If I think this makes it more likely we'll be better off, I don't care if I have to torture someone.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:15)
mean, Nicodemus explains just that philosophy to Dresden in a couple of different points. I think the aquarium in Small Favor is where we really get him monologuing about his philosophy and why he does what he does. He's working on a much grander plan to make sure humanity stays free of essentially the white gods control. He's got this whole thing planned out, but he justifies all of the murder and death suffering that he,

Brian (1:00:18)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:40)
does on the altar of that greater there's no amount of butchering or suffering that is too much as long as does help him reach that goal. Which sounds like one other familiar person to the series, Brian. What about Mab?

Brian (1:00:56)
So I

actually think that this is a really interesting question. Because Mab really to me falls in one of two categories and it again depends on exactly what story that she's telling you believe.

So maybe she's just true consequentialist and it's a little bit of a blue and orange morality thing where it's not that the world that Mab wants is bad and she'll actually do anything to get there. It's just that she will do anything within the limits that have been placed upon her and those limits don't include a lot of things that we think are like good ethical limitations. So Mab will do anything she can do to

get the world to where she wants it to be, she's limited, she has restrictions on her, but those restrictions don't conclude a single ethical compunction about human life itself.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:50)
Yeah, and the other interesting thing, we talked a little bit about how in our world, morals and ethics work one way, but if you introduce this level of power differentiation between people that's present in the Dresden Files, it can change the way your morals and ethics need to work in order to navigate it successfully. And Mab lives in a world where if she does not accomplish her job, the universe ends. And I think in that world,

You kinda have to go as far as true consequentialism because it doesn't matter whether you did or didn't kill that innocent person. If you fail in your mission, the person's dead the terrorist that has a button that can blow up the world. Any amount of force is justified in getting that button away from the terrorist, essentially, if you believe that situation is true.

Brian (1:02:42)
And that's part of the reason why I wonder, is that actually where we should categorize Mab Because let me frame it to you another way. If there is a world ending threat that is coming, no matter what, it is not necessarily right now about to cause the end of the world, but it is truly inevitable that the outsiders will continue to assault the gates.

Is it really that what Mab is doing?

is responding to this inevitable threat with just the minimal level of sacrifice necessary in order to actually meet it. Because Dresden leads a small army into battle, it's not like having other people join you in taking risks inherently means that you're truly consequentialist. You can command an army and have ethics and morals.

So

is what Mab's doing all sort of the minimum amount of destruction necessary to make sure that she achieves her goal? Or is it, I don't care about what I have to do to achieve this goal, it's purely I'm calculating what makes our survival most likely. Mab would tell you what she is is rational, but that doesn't answer the question.

Because depending on what your assumptions are, both of those things could be rational. So it really depends whether Jim wants to send the message ultimately that making the world into what you think it should be can be justified if you've worked that hard on coming up with the right idea. Or that actually that's never justified.

the only characters we can admire who take steps that put other people in jeopardy are those who are least responding to inevitable threats to the lives of those very same people.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:37)
Yeah, that's great food for thought. it feels almost like the box you put her in is dependent upon how much she's holding back, right?

Brian (1:04:46)
Mmm. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:47)
Anyway,

spectrum that we just discussed is something that we're going to want to keep an eye on as we continue going through the books and kind of see where the different characters slot in.

All right, that kind of is it for themes. I think other books are gonna have more interesting themes for us to talk about. If you think we missed one, please send us an email, mac at rnt.fm. All right, so moving on to some undiscussed questions here, Brian, things that we didn't really talk about during the episodes. We had a couple of them, and one of them is, why don't we see Cindy and Alex more regularly again? They are name dropped here, along with Georgia and Billy.

So Cindy and Alex, if you forgot, are the two wolves that are injured outside the Full Moon Garage while Harry is escaping. And they are name dropped, but we really ever see them again.

Brian (1:05:35)
Yeah, no, I think one key reason is because their names don't start with ⁓ so that's why we gotta replace one of them with Marcy. That's very important. more seriously, I think Jim does a really smart thing in that, know, Kirby, who's not mentioned, not mentioned by name, but we do think we see him, does come back because he gets through it relatively unscathed. Whereas the alphas that are injured in this book,

even if they tag along, don't necessarily have the same get up and go. And that makes sense to me, it works. lot of them are gonna appear in Summer Night flanking Harry in the sort of summer-winter war in the clouds. And works to me that some of them would realize, I don't wanna do this again. I've done this twice, I've gone around with this guy twice into scary situations, and both of them have been

awful and Billy and Georgia and Marcy and Andy and Kirby Clearly have that thing. We're like, yeah, maybe it was awful But actually a part of me needs to do it needs to be a part of it Yeah, yeah thrill seeking So other big question is What was the bargain between Denton and the unknown party and Adam you brought this up? I thought this was so smart

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:38)
Yeah, the sort of daredevil type. Yeah. Drill seeker, exactly.

Brian (1:06:52)
because we discussed the hidden motivations of that unknown party. But Denton gets the belts from them. So just in the original deal, what was that party supposed to receive?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:04)
Yeah, because I cannot see Denton, the way he's portrayed in this book, as meeting up with this person who says, hey, I'll give you these belts, they'll let you kill Marcon, and then Denton goes, yeah, what do you want in returning? nothing, here you go, like that's an obvious trap, but if the guy says, what I actually want is, you know, these FBI files on insert potential Starborn or,

Brian (1:07:17)
Yeah

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:30)
somebody you know that would become an important person in the paranet or something else something else that they were interested in as a side project maybe it's FBI files on Dresden who the heck knows but I was trying to think myself what could Denton

give to them that they might want. What does he have access to? An FBI files was the first thing that came to mind.

Brian (1:07:48)
Yeah, and that sparked me to think, I wonder if it's something a little bit more physical. We know that Marcon, what is it, Boney, Tony, Maloney, or something like that, and Deadbeat, we know that there's an illegal artifacts trade in Chicago. If Cowell is the one that gives him the belt, well, what does he have the next book?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:59)
Yeah.

Brian (1:08:09)
Morgana's Atheme. So maybe that was a seized piece of stolen property that went unclaimed in an FBI locker somewhere and that's what the trade was for. Definitely far-fetched, but it would be a cool kind of coda if that's where the Atheme that causes so much trouble came from.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:11)
Yeah.

Brian (1:08:29)
Indiana Jones, the Ark of the Covenant, just in the warehouse, kinda, yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:33)
Yeah, exactly, the government

warehouse.

But this is already a long episode. Let's move on to our favorite statistics.

Brian (1:08:45)
Statistics?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:46)
Yeah, it's And 20 people just turned off the podcast.

Brian (1:08:48)
So

we've got some statistics on spell use, Adam, but I'm going to give the headline here if you don't mind. There's actually less magic thrown around in full moon than in Stormfront, which shocked me because he spends the whole book out of magic.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:03)
on the one hand, it's like, well, of course there's less magic because he spends half the book being unable to cast any magic. of course, but then at the same time, you're like, but if you use so much magic over basically the same amount of time to run out of magic, shouldn't that have happened in Stormfront 2? it's gotta be that the spells he's doing here are just more potent. I mean,

The way that he blasts the Lugaroo through multiple buildings probably used a huge chunk of his gas tank. All of that stuff that he does on the side of the freeway to impress and scare away the street wolves, probably way more magic than he normally would shove through himself.

Brian (1:09:38)
Yeah, I mean, let's just count magic that we think is bigger than the fireball he throws at the Varsity. Here's the first one, calling up Chauncey, right? That's a pretty big spell. I mean, it's a circle spell, but that's gotta be beefy, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:48)
Yeah, that's got it. Yeah.

He's

described as straining to contain Chauncey at the beginning and end. So yeah, I think it is costing him something.

Brian (1:10:01)
And the jukebox, he doesn't say anything about straining to throw that fireball. Let's look at the fireballs he throws.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:08)
Yeah, so in this book, he blasts open a wall to find the Luguru, then he blasts the Luguru across the city, then he blasts all four tires off of Parker's truck at the same time, which to me seems crazy because he's doing magic in four places at once with a single

Brian (1:10:26)
mean, that's... So I think all three of those, bigger than the jukebox, the fog spell he uses to escape the FBI with Tara is blood magic and... I mean, it's cool. It's really cool. It's also a big spell. We know that real mist is hard.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:41)
Yeah,

they specifically talk about that in, I think, is it cold days where they're dealing with the water beetle? Yeah, and he has Molly call up an illusion of mist instead, because that's much easier than actual mist.

Brian (1:10:46)
With the she, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We also have the Magic Taser with McFin, probably bigger than that Fireball, maybe arguable. Definitely. The mini tornado with Terra, that sounds way strong. I mean, that to me, making a mini tornado,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:00)
It was wordless magic that automatically puts a strain on him.

Brian (1:11:10)
it's really like an oversized dust devil. an actual kind of more funnel cloudy thing of a strength to pick up a woman and throw her sounds way more powerful than just little pyrotechnics on stage.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:23)
Yeah, he does

mention after he sees the tornado that throws her, he's like, whoops, I didn't mean to do that strong. It kind of just gets away from him, which is another sign of his sort of immaturity as a evidence of that. He kind of talks about how he doesn't have as much control over how much power he plunges into things unless he has his gear with him. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't as his staff when he's doing that particular piece of magic.

Brian (1:11:48)
And that's at least seven spells that are all arguably bigger than the biggest magic he does in Stormfront. Now he does one more piece of air magic, or sorry, two more, where he uses Ventus Servus D'os twice to pull his staff towards him and close the cell door, and ultimately to launch the pentacle at the Luguru. Those are probably smaller than the Jukebox spell, but that's still more spells.

Are there any others that you think are bigger than the jukebox spell?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:16)
Well, he does use forzare for the first time to bend open the bars. Now it's used here in a little bit of a weird way. It's more or less used to reinforce the strength of his staff.

It gets him through it eventually. But he does another couple of spells in that fight, including a defensive reflex spell that literally stops a charging Luguru in its tracks. I have to imagine that one took some effort.

Brian (1:12:41)
Definitely, so that's gotta be eight. The shield spell he does in the Full Moon Garage, talking about defensive magic, stops a shotgun blast, we're pretty sure. So that's probably pretty significant. At least he's trying to make a bullet stopping shield. He does make two potions.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:55)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:12:57)
The Blending Potion we love and will come back to, and the Super Coffee Potion, which doesn't work out very well. Those of course are not big spells effort-wise, but we are already at 8 or 9 that are more significant than anything he does in Stormfront.

I do love the items used to make the two being so different. The potions in this book are really, really well done. Tip of the hat, Jim. The two thaumaturgy spells he does, the first one, Finding Tera and the Alphas is probably not that big of a spell. The blind bind spell in the Luguru uses a circle, again, probably able to do it pretty efficiently, but that's gotta be some major league magic at last all night.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:17)
Mm-hmm.

Probably not.

Mm-hmm. Yep, absolutely.

Brian (1:13:36)
So that might be

nine total cast spells more powerful than anything in Stormfront. Smaller number, exactly,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:42)
Yeah, so it makes sense that he would be exhausted, absolutely.

the result of this is he's using fewer sort of miscellaneous spells and magic elements. He doesn't use counter spell like he used to defeat the shadow man in the first, in the Toad Demon fight. He doesn't use the sight at all in this book, as far as I can tell. And he does use his pentacle as a focus for a light spell.

He does use a hex one time. He's listening three times, actually. I searched for listening capital L. That's how I found those three in the book. And he does soul gaze two people. So we do get this, you know, a smattering of other magic outside of direct, you know, obvious combat magic and things like that. But that's sort of the full rundown. In total, the new things that we see him do in this book, summon a demon, create fog, magic taser, mini tornado, forzare,

defensive reflect, which I don't think we ever see that again. I think he learns in this that if you try to stop a charging Luguru with a like equal opposite force thing, it's gonna throw you across the room and into the wall, and so he doesn't use it again. And because most of the things he fights are

Brian (1:14:48)
Yeah, Dresden fights things that are too

The one thing we should note here, because we're gonna be tracking this going forward, is Dresden's maximum peak fire spell that he hits the Lugru with is as big around as his hips. We're thinking the size of like a telephone pole. And the reason why we wanna note that is not because it's always gonna get bigger, but because sometimes it gets more precise. And that's actually cool.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, getting smaller appears

to provide a bigger punch. When we see White Council experts cast fire, it's a precision laser beam that is way stronger. And when we see him do it in battleground against the Jotunar, he peets like the most concentrated, tightest, tiniest beam I could do. And of course, the Jotunar was like,

That is all you bring to a son of Mesfelheim? anyway, we'll get there. Fire giant, Harry.

Brian (1:15:42)
Yeah, fire giant Harry. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Lucio

is throwing around like laser pointer, just destruction. You know, it's scything lightsaber stuff.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:50)
Yeah.

So I think

that's like control, but more importantly, I think it's efficiency. It's you're pouring exactly the right amount of energy through in a very tiny area, which gives it more power than if it spreads out, just like a laser beam, right? Light spread out over a big place. It all diffuses and goes everywhere. But if you concentrate it into a tiny, tiny beam, then it can light up something far away. So.

Brian (1:15:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:18)
With that, let's move on to magical attire and gadget use. There's some new things in this that he uses for the first time, but a lot of them are reprisals. He uses the shield bracelet that he's used in the past. He uses the force ring again. Now remember, he uses the force the Varsity as like a hex to like knock out the lights to scare people. But this is the first time we see it use it as a force ring.

Brian (1:16:38)
So he might have improved it.

Yeah, he might have improved it, because we know he works on it, so it might be that it actually packs more punch now, though I don't think he mentions that. We of course see the staff blasting rod and pentacle, which is used in a slightly different way in this book, though we can assume that might be a one-off. But Adam, you pointed out to me something that I thought was really wonderful. There's another item of Harry's gear that he's actually never used before, but we finally see it in this book. ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:07)
Yeah,

his 38th Chief Special Revolver. Susan uses it in the first book, but he carries it around a bunch and never actually uses it. I think this is the first time we see him do it. He shoots Parker in the knee on the exit when his magic starts to fail him. It's that great moment where it's like, I may be out of spells, but I'm not out of shells. And of course, the lycanthrope is like, huh, cute. See the full moon up there? His knee will be done by the morning. so it was, it's a great.

great reveal where he pulls it out of his pocket and it's kind of a surprise to the reader and it's just like a surprise to Parker, but in the end it has no effect. So it gets to be at the same time Harry's sort of naivete and foolish, at the same time as being, that's a cool idea and then having it not work out

Brian (1:17:53)
And the 38 Special is also a pretty small gun. It's not exactly a tiny pistol. It's not a derringer that he's shooting people with. It's not Murphy's gun for the silver bullets. But one thing that we're also going to track is the sort of stopping power of what Dresden's using. And all we have to say about ⁓ Old Faithful here is that it doesn't appear to have much effect even on fairly regular humans. So, Adam, I just want to set you up for this.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:59)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:18:22)
Let's talk about Harry's physical condition. Now I'm looking at a spreadsheet where in Stormfront you selected, I believe it's six different physical injuries. Am I reading that right? was six different injuries in Stormfront?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:35)
So the way that I have this set up is I'm adding together injuries and severity at the same time. So my method is essentially a one injury is like, okay, he's thrown into a wall. That's the kind of bruising that's a one injury. A two is like, he's hit on the head with a baseball bat and got a concussion. And a three is like, he's got a broken back. And I'm just adding together.

all of these physical injuries and I'm rating them and summing them up in different categories. So for example, in the first book in Stormfront, he had some bruising being knocked down a couple different times, and then he's got a two from the head injury that he gets from the baseball bat. But as far as bruising blunt force trauma goes, that's all he goes through in the first book.

as I described in the rant on episode four or five, I think it was. In this one, he gets knocked down twice, he gets punched in the jaw three times, he gets strangled, he lands on his chin escaping the Lugaroo, he gets thrown against the wall, jumps out of a moving car, beaten up by the street wolves, beaten up by Parker, beaten up by the FBI, and then thrown into a pit. And that's just the blunt force trauma. So when I add all that up, I gave his like pain scale, the amount of

that he was receiving in Stormfront, a three, and in this one, he got a 12. That was a lot more.

Brian (1:20:00)
Absolutely made my eyes pop when I saw it and forget that he takes like one cut in storm front Just in terms of actual wounds. He's got a hole in him. Not only does he take a pretty wicked Puncture from the Lugaroo. I mean he's able to run on it, but I can't imagine that felt good the next day He's also literally shot literally shot

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:21)
Yeah.

it's not a graze, it knocks out his shoulder. We were actually talking about this. If he wasn't shot, it's another one of those things that would make the rest of this feel a little bit more believable. And then when it comes to exertion, he overexerts himself. And I gave like a two to Stormfront in terms of how much he overexerted himself and a three this one in terms of, because he pushes himself to the limit.

a couple of times, one obviously when he's off the exit with Parker and the street wolves, but the other time is when he casts the fog spell to get them out of there, he literally passes out for 16 hours. So obviously he's over exerted himself and I think the magic that he uses to cast that probably has something to do with it. But what's interesting is Jim also gave him more opportunities to recover.

Brian (1:21:08)
Yes, he gets more sleep, he gets a literal IV. Tara patches him up pretty good.

We still think that Dresden is fairly sleep deprived because of how much of the time he's just sleeping off gunshots and beatings and other severe injuries. He's not getting really like the amount of sleep you would want to with the abuse that he's taken, but he is repairing himself a little bit more than in Stormfront, which is one of the reasons why it's at least more plausible that he takes the amount of punishment he does.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:21:45)
Yeah, so overall I had total amount of pain delivered to Harry at my subjective six in Stormfront and 18 in Full Moon. But healing, I gave him a total of three in Stormfront and eight in Full Moon. So at least you're right, he did get a bit more healing and the ratio, pretty close. Yeah, so I'm.

Brian (1:22:06)
ratio is pretty close. It's just the numbers that are big.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:10)
planning to sort of keep plotting this out, and obviously this is very subjective, but maybe we can make a nice graph of punishment over the course of the books.

Brian (1:22:19)
I wonder if what we're actually going to see is a bit of a downtick after Jim gets out of his system, the level of unrealism that, you know, he's sort of playing with in these first couple chapters. Like, he does need to beat Harry up, but he also needs to make it a little bit more believable. So I think we'll actually probably see those numbers drop, which will be interesting too. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:26)
Mm-hmm.

I 100 % agree. I think that

we'll definitely see them drop a lot. There are definitely books where he will be able to take way more punishment when we become winter night Harry. And I don't know exactly if I'm gonna keep the same scale of like, I think we should probably do that. I've keep the same numbers of like, this is what this would do to a normal person. So we're going to pretend that it would affect him this way and just, know, obviously he can ignore a lot more pain and he can recover faster, et cetera, et cetera. So that having been said, let's talk about more stats.

Brian (1:22:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:09)
Specifically, what are our favorite lines from this book, Brian? Now we have, we're trying to take three of our favorite lines from every book and then when we get to the very end, we're gonna make them all battle for supremacy. what is the one that we agree is one of the best lines from this book?

Brian (1:23:27)
Try it, I said, and thumbed back the hammer on the gun. But after the loud noise, remember to keep going down the tunnel and toward the light.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:38)
Yeah,

that's a pretty badass line, especially like right when Harry is in the most desperate situation and he needs to convince Denton not to go for his gun, not to try to struggle. He needs Denton to cooperate and he's gonna do it by sounding as intimidating as possible and damn it, that line works, I love it.

Brian (1:24:01)
Now Adam, your runner-up, think, that's a great quote. It's such a hard line. But I think it's one of the best pieces of just descriptive writing we've gotten from Jim so far in the series. Not because it's so poetic, but because it's so very atmospheric in the moment.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:24:20)
Yeah,

so if you remember, Harry's sitting in the car after Murphy arrests him. He's got his hands cuffed behind his back, he can't leave the car, and he starts to realize, it's still night. The Lou-Guru is still out there, and I still don't know what its motivations are. And he starts going through his head like, hey, there's no cops around, it's really, there's nobody here. And then we get this line, I broke out into a cold sweat and looked out the other window.

directly into a pair of brilliant, feral, amber eyes. chills. I frickin' love that line every time it comes around because the setup for it is perfect and it just gets you right there. And of course it's the head fake, right? It's actually Tara outside the car with her amber eyes And so, I don't know, it's just great. But you had another favorite.

Brian (1:25:12)
I do, and this one's obviously a joke, but when Dresden's sneaking into the police station using the blending potion and she hears Murphy and Carmichael arguing about how they're gonna track him down, and Murphy, Murphy snorted. Christ Carmichael, is Dresden gonna have to walk right into the office before you can find him?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:33)
Yeah, that's one of my favorite lines. Again, if you make that into like the TV show or the movie or whatever, you gotta have that moment when he's sneaking in there and they say that in the background because it's a great laugh out loud line. The juxtaposition is perfect.

Brian (1:25:46)
And

of course it's really, I think, added to because Dresden is revealed in the station. They do find If he gets in and gets out, it's funny, but the fact that they do, no, the correct answer to the question is yes, Dresden is gonna walk in before you can find him. ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:56)
Yes, because...

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so that's our three choices for this book. had some great ones for Stormfront II, and I think maybe we'll revisit these when we get to changes and sort of have a mini bracket halfway through the series and then come back to it. So, but let's continue and talk about the best name in the book category, AKA, I couldn't possibly refer to that thing as a plant monster. I'd be a laughing stock, AKA, ⁓

Brian (1:26:30)
AKA,

how are you gonna wail properly on a thing if you don't even have a name for

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:26:35)
Yeah, so Harry comes up with, well, Jim comes up with some great names Unfortunately, we don't see that element in these early books. I think we had Fido in the first, in Stormfront. We got Chauncey and Flatnose here, Flatnose being one of the street wolf goons that Harry punched in the face or something. So, I don't know. Chauncey,

I guess takes it kind of by default because flat nose kind of feels a little lame and generic.

Brian (1:27:02)
Yeah, slim pickings here, but Chauncey gets it. We'll have better options in Grave Peril, and then it will very shortly get very fun, as the names start getting very long, and Harry starts giving more insulting nicknames.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:27:13)
Absolutely,

can't wait to see more of those. Now, let's get to rating Harry's relationships. If you recall, we did this for Stormfront, and the scale works thusly. It's a scale of to seven, where one is an arch-enemy of Harry's, actively hates Dresden, and is working to kill him if possible.

Two is just a regular enemy. They see Dresden as an enemy and they will kill Dresden if he gets anywhere in their way. Three is more like an antagonist. They see Dresden as an obstacle. They're not actively trying to kill him. They'll find other ways around him if it's easier. Four is a sort of neutral character or sometimes a frenemy, somewhere fits in that category. Five is someone who sees Dresden as an ally.

Six is someone who was willing to offer significant aid to Harry, and seven is somebody who's willing to follow Harry into hell itself. So, gonna talk about our previously established characters. First is Murphy. We had her at a five, ally of Dresden. What do you think she is at the end of this book?

Brian (1:28:15)
I think she's a six. I think their relationship is deeper. She's willing to aid him more significantly than merely looking at him as a trusted associate. But Adam, I've got a question for you. What do you think the nadir is for the Harry Murphy relationship in this book? How low do they go?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:28:33)
that's very interesting. I don't think they go below antagonist, like number three. I don't think she ever sees him as an enemy.

Brian (1:28:40)
I think that in the heat of the moment it gets to a two. Yeah, the reason I...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:28:44)
Really? Okay, yeah, I know, you know,

you're right. I could buy that just for like two minutes in McPhin's mansion.

Brian (1:28:50)
Right.

And she feels bad about it afterwards, and that's part of the reason why she's not quite as much of a hard ass in the police station, in addition to everything else that we mentioned. But I think that in that moment, she really does think that Dresden might not be the perpetrator here, but he is a bad guy that she needs to stop. Now, Susan, we had it at six last book. Adam, where you got her this book?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:29:13)
Well, she's definitely willing to offer significant aid to Harry. he calls, she comes, she helps rent the van, Marcon's estate, offers to help them in a bunch of different ways. I think she's still at a six. They do talk about their relationship a little bit, but I don't know. In this one, she doesn't say that she loves him. She says,

I don't think I can fall in love with you, Harry, or something to that effect, right? So I don't think she's quite at a seven yet. I think they will get to a seven eventually. We'll have to figure out where we think that actually happens.

Brian (1:29:44)
Yeah, I think I agree with that. mean, even if she had said, love you, the first time you say that in a relationship, does that mean you're willing to follow the person to hell? So I don't think Susan's there yet. I agree. Bob, we had at a five, he's an ally. He wants to help, but nothing more, you

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:29:54)
Right.

Brian (1:30:03)
significant than that. Do we think that changed at all here?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:30:07)
No, their

relationship doesn't really grow or change much at all in this book. Like, we'll definitely see their relationship change. mean, Deadbeat is a really interesting time for their relationship, but it does change over the course of the books. It just feels really slow. But I do feel that Bob definitely moves more towards a six as the series goes on. He's definitely not there yet.

Brian (1:30:17)
Mm-hmm.

I think I completely agree. The most interesting person on the list, think, is Carmichael, who we had as a four last time. Kind of a fr- Yeah, like kind of a frenemy in the sense that not like very seriously one, but was alternatively on the same team as in working with Dresden and a little bit antagonistic and suspicious of him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:30:35)
Hmm

Neutral slash frenemy, yeah.

Brian (1:30:52)
I think we both said that he skipped five and went straight to six before he bit the bullet in this one.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:30:59)
Yeah,

that feels like it to me. He fully bought into this guy's a wizard and we should listen to him, right? So when Rudy says, who is this guy? He's the guy who knows. When he says something, you listen, right? That's paraphrasing what Carmichael says as his last words there basically. I think honestly that does get him up to the willing to offer significant aid to Harry. If Carmichael hadn't died in this book,

I think he would be right up there with Murthy in terms of like respect for Harry in these situations.

Brian (1:31:32)
Absolutely. Um, Marcon, we had a three last time. I wasn't going to change him, but you actually suggested that we have really clear reasons to believe that things are different.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:43)
Yeah, he's an antagonist in the first book. He absolutely is. He's trying to buy Harry off and his goon goes and messes with Harry. We find out later that that was sort of on Victor Sells orders, but he's trying to scare Harry away and say, no, I need to handle this. This is a mob thing, right? But in this one, they aren't on opposite teams. Marcon wants to stop the Lugaru just as much as Harry and tries to hire him multiple times, not just to get him out of the way and say, I'm hiring you to do nothing like in the first book.

Instead it's, want you to do what you're gonna do and I want you to help me specifically. So I could put them closer to like neutral slash frenemy. So I upgraded him from a three to a four. Now I don't think he's gonna stay there, but in this book they're not on opposite teams.

Brian (1:32:27)
And I agree, I mean, when you were originally saying that, I was almost like, God, is Marcona five? I mean, he's keeping Harry from getting killed, as far as he knows, both at the Street Wolf's garage and, you know, later FBI, you But I ultimately agreed it is a four because Marcona's not doing that because he sees Harry as an ally, but because he sees him as useful.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:32:40)
Yeah!

Right, and the other piece to consider is that these relationships are kind of two-way streets. And if Harry had been willing to work with Marcon, then I think we could upgrade that closer to a five. But because Harry is still so antagonistic to him, we can't argue that the relationship is an ally relationship. He won't take help from Marcon. At least not in this book.

Brian (1:33:00)
Yes.

Yes.

Now,

we have two new characters. Rudolph, we had a bit of a disagreement about this, but you brought me around again. think you're right. I think he's not an antagonist here. He's a straight four. He might be dumb, but he's perfectly willing to listen to Dresden in a crazy situation.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:33:30)
Yeah, I think you were ready to have him as an antagonist, as a three. And I think he starts here as a four, because when Carmichael tells him, listen to this guy, and Dresden says, get me that stuffed animal, he shows up with it. He delivers, and that helps save a lot of people, because Harry's able to bind the Lugaru. So I think he's kind of neutral in this. He's obviously not an ally of Harry. He's confused, and he's...

Brian (1:33:32)
I was.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:33:57)
He's like, isn't right. Aren't you supposed be under arrest and like all this other stuff. But as you said, Brian, it only goes downhill from here.

Brian (1:34:05)
Yeah, and you know, I think his recalcitrance in those moments made me think of putting him lower, but it's really just because he's a straight in a high strangeness situation, and he just doesn't know how to deal with it. other introduced character are the alphas and straight six.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:34:17)
Mm-hmm.

we know they're willing to offer significant aid to Harry because they put their lives on the line. You could even argue maybe that there are seven here. The ones that go with him could potentially be argued to be sevens because they know they're risking their lives to go stop this Lugaroo. I still think six makes a little more sense because at this point, still pretty young.

and they might have that sort of I'm indestructible level of belief to them, that sort of naivete, which means they can't really understand the consequences enough to know what they're risking, which makes it hard to rate them a seven.

Brian (1:34:55)
Right, and if you follow Harry into hell, but it's under somebody else's orders, you're not Harry's greatest ally, you're somebody else's greatest ally.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:35:03)
That's true. They're kind of

working for Terra at that point. So yeah, six feels right. Okay.

Brian (1:35:07)
Yeah, so I think a six is fair.

Now, we're gonna talk about our ranking of the book in the series. Guys, I'm gonna really suck some of the drama out of this. Adam put the ranking of this book below Stormfront. I put the ranking of this book below Stormfront. The community put the ranking of this book below Stormfront, and those are the only two books right now.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:35:26)
Yeah, so as we keep going, the next question we're gonna ask at the end of Grave Peril is where do you put Grave Peril in this ranking? Right now it's Stormfront, then Full Moon. Do you put Grave Peril above Stormfront, between the two, or below Full Moon? I don't think it's gonna be below Full Moon, but we're gonna see what happens when we get there, and we're gonna keep adding books to this ranking as we go until we build the ultimate definitive answer to what books are best and in what order.

as it were, but specifically Brian's list, my list, and the community's list. We're gonna keep asking polls when we have the opportunity to do so in the future, and in this particular case, 22 people rated Foolmoon below Stormfront and 13 rated it above Stormfront. So the 22 takes it in this case and we put Foolmoon at the number two slot for the community. Now, also had a fun one to talk about here.

The Title Brian, what do you think of the Title Fool Moon versus the Title Stormfront?

Brian (1:36:29)
I like Stormfront better because full moon doesn't refer to anything in the book and Stormfront does, yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:36:35)
That's exactly it. But not only that, full

moon doesn't refer to anything anywhere that I can find. There was like a Nickelodeon show that had a concept of a full moon that comes around every 20 years and it affects their magic weird or something like that. But like, I don't think that Butcher's referring to the Nickelodeon show from the 90s. I could be wrong, but I doubt he's referring to it. Because I looked it up, I'm like, is a full moon like an idiom that is a phrase that is used to mean something?

Brian (1:36:41)
Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:03)
Deadbeat means a thing, Blood Rites means a thing, but I could not find anything of what a Fool Moon was. So Stormfront, obviously, means a thing normally and has multiple meanings in the context of that book. Fool Moon, I guess you could argue, in the context of the Dresden Files, Harry makes a frickin' crap ton of mistakes in this book and is made to look a fool, but...

Brian (1:37:03)
Right. Yes, I did too. I did too. Yep. Yep.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:28)
That's kind of like the only interpretation I can think of the title with regards to this book.

Brian (1:37:33)
Well, and I do like it when Jim changes the wording of a phrase to make it fit the schema of two words of matching letters. So for example, Blood Rites right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:47)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:37:48)
blood

rights is R-I-T-E-S, like a ritual, it could have been like your right, like your rights by blood, blood R-I-G-H-T-S, but that doesn't fit, so he changes it. And I like that, of course, because the original phrase would not fit the schema, the new phrase does fit the schema, and it's still, and better relates to the book because of the ritual. The thing in this instance why he gets no points for that is, okay, maybe the point

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:52)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

and

Brian (1:38:16)
is that Harry's a fool or someone's behaving foolishly, but full moon is two four-letter words.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:38:21)
Yes, Full Moon is right there. Now, to be fair, Full Moon is a really boring and generic title, right? And it refers to one thing in this context. Like Stormfront we talked about had like two or three arguably different things that it kind of refers to in that book. But Full Moon just refers to the Full Moon and it's, it's a book about werewolves. Full Moon, get it? Maybe there's more to it. I haven't deciphered anything myself.

Brian (1:38:28)
Yeah, couldn't have done it. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:38:48)
The other thing, and in case by the way, the schema that Brian's referring to, because I didn't even notice this until like last year, every single one of Jim's books, except for changes, is two words and both words have exactly the same number of letters, which is really impressive to pull off over 17 books. And the fact that changes is the only one that's a single word is like, it's just so perfect. Like everything changes here, even.

The title schema changes. Great. Love it.

Brian (1:39:18)
Yeah, and I think my favorite ones for those are White Night and Summer Nights because, but the other one would be more natural, but changing it is more meaningful to the book and keeps the schema. ⁓ just chef's kiss. Now, the community has Full Moon rated as higher than Stormfront. So look, we're not gonna delve into this for too much longer, but send me an email, guys, mac at RNT.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:39:23)
They're different nights. Yeah, different spellings.

Yeah, it's, yes, we'll talk about that when we get to those books too.

dot FM.

Brian (1:39:46)
Why do we like Full Moon? Just more fun to say. I mean, I'll buy that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:39:49)
There's a couple of people

that said that Stormfront felt really generic. So I think that some people felt that way. But oddly, mentioned earlier, in terms of the quality of the books, 22 people ranked Stormfront as number one, 13 ranked Full Moon as number one. And in a reversal, 22 rated Full Moon as a better title and 13...

Brian (1:39:53)
I mean sure.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:40:11)
rated Stormfront as a better title. Now, these weren't exact opposites. Like, there were some people that said, I like this one better here and I like that one better for the title. But not everybody did that. Some people said they liked both. You know, Stormfront for both or Full Moon for both. just, the numbers worked out that way.

Brian (1:40:27)
Clearly not a coincidence, it's a nemesis operation, the podcast is compromised. So we did a community poll to figure out, as we're waiting for 12 months to drop in a couple months.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:40:30)
Yes, what

Brian (1:40:40)
When did you first have to wait for a book? And the highest number that we got in responses of the 62 people, 11, picked up the series after Battlegrounds, were able to read all 17 books, and 12 months is the first thing they're waiting for, the highest number. Kind of fun to see that people who just got into the series are so active on the subreddit, it's cool.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:41:04)
Yeah, and

it might be obvious too, like yes, they are willing to keep talking about it because they haven't spent the last 10 years talking about it the way that more Dresden fans have. And I'm not casting shade, it's just an interesting observation. The other observation here, the other unusual things here is that Peace Talks was second at number 10. Now that also kind of makes sense, because there was like a four...

Brian (1:41:12)
It's newer, sure, right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:41:27)
plus year gap between skin game and peace talks. So it makes sense that we picked up a lot of new readers between those two books because it was a much bigger gap than say peace talks to battleground. I was surprised to see five. And by the way, we had 62 total responses for this particular poll. We had fewer people answer the question about where they rank the title in the books, but 62 people answered this And so we had five people.

that joined between peace talks and battleground, and that was like a four month window for them to join.

Brian (1:41:58)
But you know what,

that makes a certain amount of sense to me because it was a lot of sustained publicity for the series. So, you know, it makes sense. the book's out and there's another one coming out right away. Sounds like a cool series to pick up. Which is funny because that's not what happened with Cold Days. Cold Days comes out a couple months more than a year after Ghost Story.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:42:04)
Yeah.

Brian (1:42:20)
you like, I think it was 14 months or something from Ghost Story dropping to Cold Days dropping. And basically we had one person who picked up the series on Ghost Story and had to wait for Cold Days. So the publicity blitz there didn't really bring in anybody new, I guess.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:42:34)
Yeah!

I guess not. And what's interesting is Ghost Story is number four on the list. So we had 12 months as the highest, then Peace Talks, then Skin Game, which does make sense. I think the gap between Cold Days and Skin Game was about two to three years. So I think it was two years, like 2012 to 2014 or something like that. And then Ghost Story is number four, which...

those poor bastards that had to wait. They got to changes and they got to the end of changes and then they had to wait for Ghost Story. I'm so glad I picked it up where Cold Days was the one that was out and I had to wait for Skin Game.

Brian (1:43:16)
So that's pretty funny because I'm a little bit of a later comer than you. The first book I had to wait for was Peace Talks. I am in that big skin game, or I guess I'm in that big Peace Talks crowd, so my number brings it up as equal to 12 months. But we were wondering, maybe the number is so high for changes, or for Ghost Story as compared to changes, which is only three. Because every single person who picked up the series on changes

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:43:24)
⁓

Brian (1:43:43)
and have to wait for Ghost Story is just like, what did I do to myself? will it res- yes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:43:48)
Right, they remember and when they

saw this poll, they're like, I need to explain to you guys what it was like. Yeah, it's traumatic. That's gotta be like, okay, is there another book to book like weight that is not, I think changes to Ghost Story is the biggest one, but what's the next biggest one that's like the biggest cliffhanger? Is it Peace Talks to Battleground?

Brian (1:43:53)
Yes, it was traumatic, yes.

runaway winner.

You know, we don't really have information that goes back far enough, but I wonder if it's actually grave parallel to summer night.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:17)
in terms of waiting for the next book.

Brian (1:44:18)
just like, yeah,

where does the series go from here? Like it ends to escalation to war, like what happened to Susan? gonna have a lot of fun talking about Grave Parallel here. And it's because it is the first book in the series where the world that we're given for Harry is really significantly altered. Until the end of Ghost Story, it's the same story with just like bits added on.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:22)
Yeah.

Yeah?

Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:44:43)
And Summer Night is a bigger world because the ending of Ghost Story has so much riding on

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:51)
Did you mean the ending of Grave Peril? You said Ghost Story twice. It's fine. We'll leave it in. Every once in while, we're to leave something in so they know that we're not perfect. Anyway. OK. Well, that's fair.

Brian (1:44:54)
That's a story.

I don't think anyone was under that illusion. So let's talk

about the Patreon. Now you can give our imperfect selves money.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:45:08)
One last thing I want to point out if you want to see this graph which by the way It's a smattering of lower level stuff like two for summer night one for death mass one for blood right the bigger ones at the end and and I put the I'll put a link to this graph in the description of the podcast here and we'll post it on the reddit as well and We'll post it on the patreon. So speaking of patreon. We are gonna have a patreon Why why are we gonna have a patreon? Well at this point I've spent

Brian (1:45:17)
falls off a cliff after Ghost Story, yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:45:35)
roughly $750 on this project, not including all of the audio recording equipment that we already had. That is for the domain name, getting the hosting, the monthly cost for the recording equipment, the monthly cost for the hosting, and the artwork that we put together for, that we commissioned for our logo.

Brian (1:45:55)
And

my salary, Adam, for the app. I don't get a salary?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:45:58)
No, we're gonna double your salary for next year. Don't worry about it. Zero times two, carry the zero. Anyway, while I did know going to this project that it was gonna be a drain on my finances, I had hoped that if we had got enough support from the community, we could see if some people would be willing to help. This is a passion project for us.

Brian (1:46:01)
that's great! Wait a minute...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:46:20)
It is not a side hustle. We're not trying to make living. We both have full-time jobs that pay relatively well that allow us to do things like this in our leisure time. We are very privileged and thankful for that. And we're trying to pass on a high quality product that we would be proud of and that we would like to consume ourselves. And that takes quite a bit of time. So if we can at least break even on this whole project,

and also maybe get a little compensation for the 10 hours a week that we spend pre-production, pre-planning, then post-production and recording and things like that, it would be nice. Now, we also want some additional art that is specific to each book that will make it easier to find

a thumbnail when you're looking through the episodes. That's kind of a cool thing we want to do. That's one of things we want to help pay for with the Patreon as well. I'm in talks with an artist to help us with that. Now, what are we going to do with this Patreon?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:47:17)
We'll be starting with two tiers. The $3 tier will get you access to our planning session recordings. Before each show, we spend about 60 to 90 minutes going over the chapters and our notes and hammering together a rundown for the show's structure.

This will be an unedited recording of that planning session, except for any very long gaps, like one of us getting up to get a drink or something. Those will be removed before posting.

Now the $6 tier gets you access to the same things in the $3 tier plus a bonus episode once per month. This is a fully produced episode up to the same standards we have for our normal shows.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:47:50)
Now, these bonus episodes will cover all the additional Dresden Files content that exists outside the main case file books. and there is a ton of stuff available.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:48:00)
The short stories and novellas, including the micro fiction, the stories and side jobs, briefcases, the law.

Other stories not yet collected in anthologies like Little Things and Fugitive. All the graphic novels. we'll even watch the TV show for you guys. There's also the games like the RPG. I really would love for us to get together with like Charlotte and Patrick and do a couple of episodes. then, but more importantly, have like a Patreon show where we talk about the RPG and what we like about it. Cause we're both, we're both.

Brian (1:48:15)
We will, he will make me guys.

That would be cool.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:48:33)
D &D nerds, so we've done that before. There's also the cooperative card game, which I have played and it's kind of cool. So I wanna do an episode on all of those different things. It's gonna take a long time. It's only 12 months in a year. So we've got all of that on the and my plan is also to slowly release this Patreon stuff when we need to take a break on the main show. Like if I'm going on vacation for a week or Brian has just overloaded with work that he's doing or something like that.

We want to be able to take a break and we have this big vault of Patreon episodes. We'll throw the oldest one out there on the public feed and it'll allow us to keep stuff out so there's always three things a month for the public feed. So that's kind of another part of our plan here.

Brian (1:49:15)
Just to be clear.

We're going to make this content regardless of how many people sign up for the Patreon. And we, because we want to, we really want to do the short stories. We like them and we think they're cool. And if you are a patron, you will get an episode with that content approximately once a month. That will only be available in the public feed if we need to cover a week we miss. So that is exclusive content only for subscribers.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:49:41)
Exactly.

Brian (1:49:45)
at this $6 tier. But Adam, why is it a $6 tier?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:49:49)
Yeah, so when I first started doing this, my mind is like, yeah, that's like $5 thing, right? You throw an extra episode in there. But then I started realizing like, yeah, that's what I was willing to pay 10 years ago. When did Patreon first start? It was a long time ago. I'm too old. prices have gone up, right? We pay $50 a month between the hosting and the recording software that we use. And by the way,

Brian (1:50:02)
You know it's 15. You know it's 15.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:50:13)
I know that I could just use Audacity or something. The recording software that we use, we're not in the same place. Brian's in Long Island, I'm in Connecticut, and that makes difficult, but the recording software that we use does a fantastic job of allowing us to be in different places and sync up very high quality feeds, and it has some automatic processing of the audio to eliminate noise and improve the quality of the speech and things like that. I will point out.

Brian (1:50:15)
we could make it cheaper.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:50:40)
We do not use any of the AI tools for content. It is only to improve the quality of the audio.

Brian (1:50:48)
Yeah, we would not have been able, if you liked the new reader reaction episode, we simply would not have been able to record that if we weren't using the software we're using. It would have been impossible, it would have sounded horrible.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:51:00)
And it saves us time.

And one of the things I want to do is see this show through to the end. And that means I can't burn out on it. And I can't burn Brian out on it. And so any software that helps us save time in the editing process, because this stuff does a really good job. If you've seen it, I'll say the name because I do like it. I wouldn't be using it if I didn't. And this is not a plug. Nobody's paying me for this. I'm only going to mention it one time. It's called riverside.fm.

And one of the very cool things it does is it shows me the waveform that I'm used to in Audacity and whatever with all my other podcasts. But it also does automatic transcriptions of what we're saying. And you can scroll through the transcript and like just click on a spot and go straight to that. It's so much faster to scan ahead and know, I want to cut this piece out and not have to find it in the waveform. So that really helps me back to...

Brian (1:51:49)
And also

those new reader episodes that we were just talking about, the software making possible, are going to be released on the Patreon first when we can. The schedules of the guests that we have and coordinating them with our schedule can be a little complicated, but our goal is to make sure we drop that at the end of books that we finish. It's not going to be right at the end of Full Moon, but only to release them to the public a month or two after that.

exclusive content, but you will get first crack by a while if you're on the Patreon, and you will get it in time with the end of the book insofar as we can pull that off moving forward.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:52:29)
Exactly, exactly. We got a whole schedule that we have planned out through March and we're gonna try to stick to it as best we can. Now, I will point out, for those interested, if we have a month with five Fridays in it, we're gonna take one of those days off. Every time we get a month with five Fridays, we're still gonna do the three normal episodes and the Patreon, but we're gonna take one of those weeks off. So that is gonna be our break for the most part.

Brian (1:52:43)
Yes.

should happen about four

times a year, so

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:52:55)
Four times

And to give you guys, I like when people peel back the curtain. So to give you guys a quick idea of what it looks like to make this show. On Saturday or Sunday, I read through the chapters and I make annotations, notes for myself on things we might wanna talk Then by late Sunday or...

Monday afternoon, am putting together the rundown for the show includes of the things that happen in those chapters, like a quick synopsis for us to reference during the show. And then it includes questions and things to talk about in the show. And then Brian, by the way, is doing this on his own with his own annotations. And then at seven o'clock on Monday night, we get together and talk about 90 minutes.

putting together our ideas and figuring out what the show is gonna be. Between us, we come up with questions to ask, topics to bring up, and then we actually record the show that same night that takes usually another 90 minutes or so. And then on Tuesday night, one of us will take a pass at editing the show. Wednesday, usually the other person would take a pass at editing the show. Sometimes it's the same person and we'll trade off week to week.

And then by Thursday, we need to finalize the editing, export the show, put it into a video format to upload to YouTube, upload it to both YouTube and to the RSS feed, put a description in all of those, make sure that the chapter numbers and timestamps are all correct. If you haven't noticed.

in your podcast player, you should be able to skip between the chapters. I make sure that those are all accurate. So if you wanted to skip from, I hate this chapter, I can jump to the next one, boom. Or you can just jump to the question for Bob. You can click links in the description. We try to make that as user-friendly as possible. And so then we get to the release on Friday, and one of us will go and post the question for Bob for the next week on Friday. And then we get about one night off, and then Saturday we start the process again. So.

It's a week long endeavor. It's an hour here, an hour there, but it's a week long thing. I didn't anticipate when starting this that it would be like that. A lot of my previous shows were live to tape with very little post production, but I realized when we first started doing this that that was not gonna cut it for this. It's gonna require more pre-planning, which I'm used to. I'm used to doing a lot of pre-planning for my shows, but.

Brian (1:54:58)
Yeah, I mean...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:55:20)
it requires more post-production because we're not just yapping about a video game that we both like, which is most of my other shows. It requires a lot more thought. And sometimes that means our thoughts terminate mid-sentence because we can't quite bring them together and we have to do another take on that idea or just scrap it all together and say, I don't know what I was thinking with here. It doesn't make a lot of sense. We gotta cut that out. So I don't know what your impressions were, Brian. We first started this.

as far How it measured up to your expectations.

Brian (1:55:50)
Yeah, so one thing that I just want to say for the listeners is that I talk for a living. I am a tutor, so I will literally spend eight hours a day talking extemporaneously to people who pay me to be good at doing that. So if we could do this show improv, we would, and I'd be totally comfortable with that. We don't, because in order to deliver the level of content that Adam and I want to be able to talk about things like ethics of violence in the Dresden Files, we need

to have philosophical conversations between the two of us beforehand and to work out what we're gonna say with some care. And I also want to mention that I got married at a church last weekend. My wife and I have been together for about a year. Thank you, Adam. But Adam has been carrying this whole show on his back for, I don't know, two months now between me planning for the wedding, which I'm having between the two busiest weeks of my, you know,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:56:31)
Congratulations, by the way.

Brian (1:56:46)
Job as a tutor because this is fall testing season so The work that he's talking about when he's measuring out these hours. I think that you kind of cataloged at least 16 there and that's just what you've been doing every week four months and you're losing money, so So guys take this poor idiot so his wife doesn't kill him ending the podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:56:56)
more or less.

Yeah, I'm a smart man.

No, this is not a sad-sack story to try and get your money,

like I said, I like to pull behind the curtain and see what people are doing in their shows when I'm listening to stuff too. Anyway, last thing I did want to

there will be a separate RSS feed for all paid members that include the entire public feed plus those bonus episodes that we talked about. That way you only have to subscribe to one RSS feed. You can, by the way, also connect this Patreon to your Spotify account and it will sort of automatically get that into your podcast player if you do Spotify for that purpose.

The other thing I want to point out is that all Patreons basically have a free tier, so you can just sign up as a member of our Patreon without paying any money. Why would you do that? Because it will send you email updates if you wish whenever there's a new free post sent out, and it will also be where we post any show updates. So if we wanted to let you guys know, hey, there's an emergency, sorry, there's not gonna be an episode this coming Friday, or something to that effect,

or we wanted to announce some giveaway, I don't know, any kind of show-related meta stuff. If you want to get updates about that, subscribe to the Patreon. That's where we'll post that kind of stuff.

Brian (1:58:20)
We don't want to say that the Patreon is going to lack content because this is just what we're doing right now. Two things that I can immediately think of that are probably going to get on there at some point is first, questions for Bob for Patreon episodes. I don't know how the subreddit will feel about us posting those questions there since that will be a paid product. So those might have to be only on the Patreon feed for free members too, but just you have

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:58:27)
Yes.

That's a good point.

Brian (1:58:48)
to be signed up there. Also we are going to put a $12 tier on the Patreon which we will attach things to. We have some ideas that we think would be cool but we have to actually work out the logistics first. So we'll put it there. If you want to subscribe at that level, mean thank you very much, and you will get stuff. We're gonna come up with more stuff to add to the feed and we, like I said, we have ideas but we're just going to put that out there before we fill it in to give you guys the opportunity to just

sort of pre-sign up for that content once we get it to drop.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:59:23)
Yeah, I think somebody did ask, know, hey, are you guys ever gonna, you do your recording live so that we can watch and comment and stuff. And I actually thought about that, because I've done that before. I recorded a Guild Wars show and I've recorded a Star Citizen show and it was live and people could talk about it we could look in the comments and refer to them. Oh, hey, so and so brings up a really good point or a really good question or whatever. And that sort of interaction.

in real time can make a show more interesting, because we pull out the comments and the questions that help add to the conversation that we're having. However, you have too many people in that and it gets impossible to sift through as a host where you're trying to have an interesting conversation and also scan that at the same time. So I'm thinking what we'll do is have that available at some point in the future, but have that restricted to the $12 tier at first.

depending on how many people sign up for it. So that's something we're kind of thinking about. And we're also thinking about, hey, when 12 Months comes out, we're gonna wanna gush about it as soon as we finish it. And we're also gonna wanna do a more structured show where we talk about it. And so the gushing show where it's like our first initial hot takes will probably be like a live show for patrons only. And then we'll have a proper episode the following week where we talk about 12 Months with more structure that you're used to here.

yeah, that's kind of the peak behind the curtain. That's kind of showing what we're gonna be providing in the near future. again, if you have any other questions, let me But that's where we're at now. we hope you enjoy I'm hoping we get to go through the long haul all the way to the end to 25.

Brian (2:01:01)
Absolutely. And that leads us to our second book ending. for Bob. how much influence is Cassandra's tears having in grave peril? Lydia's prophetic condition. How much is that actually influencing the world around her?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (2:01:19)
Yeah, this isn't a great question. Your original question, when did you notice this happening, blew my mind because I'm like, wait, I didn't notice it. Now I have to recontextualize so much. I don't know how I missed that. Anyway.

Brian (2:01:24)
Yes.

My

favorite one is Father Forthill thinking that she's a drug addict. That's just like, yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (2:01:39)
Yes, yes.

All we're gonna talk about that next week. I'm so excited to get to Grave Peril. We've been kind of forcing our way through Full Moon. I've been kind of like, Stormfront actually I was looking forward to each week for the most part, but Full Moon I was just like, I'm trudging through, we're getting through it. And now I'm so excited. Grave Peril one that I really enjoy. Summer Night also. Death Mask is great. I'm so excited, we're getting there Brian, we're really getting there.

Brian (2:02:03)
The next year is going to be a thrill ride and there are some bumps in the rest of the early books, but Grave Parallel has a lot of really cool moments that frankly, know, long time readers still talk about as being very impressive and we just can't wait to cover them.

But, as much as we can't wait to get to Grave Peril, we will see you guys next week to not answer that question, but instead talk about my favorite old Western magic story, A Fistful of Warlocks, our first Patreon episode.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (2:02:37)
still haven't decided if we're gonna need two episodes to talk about A Fistful of Warlocks or if we can do it in just one, but we're gonna find out next week.