Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
Brian, did you get to watch Tombstone yet for the Patreon episode?

Brian (00:03)
Well, I've already seen it. I really do love that movie, but I have not watched it, like, again to do fistful.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:09)
All right, think we should probably, well, I'm gonna re-watch the harder they fall. So if you feel like you know Tombstone well, that's fine. But anyway, I did watch it and I have to say, I'm a little disappointed.

Brian (00:15)
Mm-hmm. No, I'll re-watch it. It's a great film.

That's ridiculous. That is a classic of the Western genre, Adam. Val Kilmer's performance alone.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:29)
Hold

on, no, the movie is great. I got nothing bad to say about the movie, at least not yet. I got quibbles, we'll talk about them, but on that episode, the Patreon episode,

Here's the thing, I was sold a bill of goods. I thought there would be more dusters in Westerns. And I gotta say, I think there was like one and I didn't even have the cool mantle that is always described as the one that's hairy as where.

Brian (00:51)
Well, it's hot out of it. It's hot.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:53)
But dusters are supposed to keep you cool. I learned this from Rimworld. They're really good at keeping you cool. For some reason.

Brian (00:59)
Okay, I mean, I'm not a costume

designer, so yeah, you might be right about that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:03)
So here's the thing though, after not finding that many dusters in Tombstone, to go look because Michael and Murphy both tell Harry that his coat belongs on the set of El Dorado, right, the 1966 John Wayne movie. So I went back to watch the trailer for that one. Brian, do know how many dusters are in that trailer? Not a single damn one.

Brian (01:14)
Set of El Dorado. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:37)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory. A Dresden Files chapter by chapter reread podcast where the spoilers go all the way through battleground. and with me as always is a hell hound in pursuit, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (01:52)
I'm actually more of a let them come to me kinda guy. ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:56)
⁓ sorry Jared, ⁓ I meant the other hellhound. Don't worry about it. We'll see ourselves out. So anyway, Before we jump into chapters five and six of Grave Peril, I wanted to remind everybody that next week is our Patreon episode, so we're gonna be recording and releasing the Patreon episode for the people that have.

Sign up for that, it's part two of A Fistful of Warlocks. Gonna have a lot of fun with that, but means there will be no public episode next week. We'll be back with the next episode for Grave Peril the following week, which is the 21st. All right, we're still on night one, Brian, and the ⁓ fight continues as Harry and Michael have just jumped through the Never Never Rift from the hospital into the Never Never to chase down the ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn.

Now, we did take a break there to do a little flashback, but now we're gonna try to finish the ghost off with round two with Agatha. one thing I do notice here, we made a joke about Harry not using a proton pack when he's fighting ghosts, but he is using depleted uranium in his ghost dust, so there may in fact be a nuclear reaction component to this.

Brian (03:01)
Yeah, that's why I part of the reason why I said in that episode that you know, might that might work in the Dresden files, you know, it's just not Harry style. He goes halfway between the symbolic and the real. I think what's funny about this is, first of all, guys, like depleted uranium is radioactive and toxic. So just to be clear, like Harry's walking around with like through a hospital, know, with a satchel of stuff that you know, you can't drop on the floor.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:19)
yeah!

Presumably that bag is lead lined, but yeah, if you just actually did throw that ghost dust around at Agatha with all the babies, like that could be bad.

Brian (03:39)
Yeah, look, and everything's radioactive. Bananas are radioactive. Bricks are radioactive. Everything is radioactive. It's just that depleted uranium is a lot more like uranium than it is like, you know, the sheetrock around you in your home.

So, they prepare to fight Agatha, but it's her house, baby. You're not getting the drop on her here. So, even though they kick down the door, the bad guys are, to a certain extent, lying in wait.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:00)
No.

Yeah, and just before Harry suggests that they split up, Agatha jumps on them and then there's a fight. And one of the things, Brian, that I was so relieved to see is the initiation of wise ass Harry. Yes, I know there were a few sarcastic wise ass Harry comments in the first two books, but in this moment when he's smashed out of the way by Agatha and as he's getting up, he says,

I guess it's a little too late to have a reasonable discussion, Agatha. And then she says, my babies, ⁓ mine, mine! And he says, yeah, that's what I thought. And so that, I don't know, Mars's delivery there is good. And I just imagine the hero character, that's a very Harrison Ford character moment, right? Getting up and being like jaded. And you brought this up, it makes sense that Harry has to earn that jaded hero.

style of talking. It doesn't get to do that from the beginning.

Brian (05:05)
Yeah, if you talk like that during your first rodeo, you sound kind of like an arrogant asshole. And Harry's not a wise ass because he's an arrogant asshole. Harry's a wise ass because I've had bigger and meaner things try to kick my ass three times in the past two years. You're really not that scary, you know? He is the sort of ultimate equalizer in terms of the amount of

that he's experienced, things that would terrify a normal person are to harry, ⁓ man, guess it's gonna be one of those wednesday nights. so the fact that he's had a lew guru charge at him multiple times a year ago is why a ghost doing it just isn't that scary anymore.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:53)
Yeah, and to carry on with this point, this is where, and I've added this, the way, Brian, to one of our potential best lines in the book, is Harry hearing the hellhounds in the background and saying, holy shit, hellhounds! And then of course Michael says, Harry, you know I hate it when you swear. And Harry's response, sorry, holy shit, heckhounds!

I don't know why, but those two are like back to back, right? A couple paragraphs apart is Harry's like wise ass response to Agatha, who obviously is like insane even for a ghost. And then that moment there, those kind of levity moments in the middle of these fights are things that I really enjoy. And something I felt was lacking a little bit from the first two books. And again, maybe rightfully so, but I also would argue that maybe why some people don't like rereading those books.

because they like this Wiseacre guy.

Brian (06:50)
Yeah, and you know, doing that in Stormfront would have been appropriate. A lot of noir protagonists are, you know, real wise asses. So making that a bigger part of Harry's trope in Stormfront would have actually worked from that perspective. So I do think there's a little bit of intentionality here, but it might just be that Jim's becoming a better writer who is more able to sort of vary the beats of the scene as he's doing it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:17)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (07:17)
Before

we move on though, I do want to mention one of my favorite parts of that exchange with Michael is, holy shit, I breathed heckhounds. Godmother's out hunting. How the hell did she find us so damned fast? Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:30)
You know what? I never noticed that. He

immediately goes back to using the word hell because he knows he's just being-

Brian (07:34)
And well, and not just hell,

how the hell did she find us so damned fast? Because he doesn't change the shit, right? He knows that the problem is the blasphemy's. Yeah, exactly. So.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:38)
Damned fast!

Yeah, of course, that's the joke. Yeah.

man, I'm glad you pointed that out. I never noticed that before. now one of the other things that happens here, Brian, is that as the ghost charges at Harry, he uses his staff to channel a defensive shield, very similarly described to the way that we've heard his shield is described in the future, but he's using his staff and not a shield bracelet here.

And it occurred to me that he has it later on in this book. He gets it from his house at some point when he's gearing up. And only reason he's not wearing it right now is because he was wearing the dead man's talisman on his wrist earlier today. He gave that to Lydia and immediately went to the hospital with Michael. He didn't get time to go home and get his real shield bracelet. So right now he's using his staff, which as we know, he's able to channel lots of stuff through. It's very versatile.

but it's harder or less effective to use the staff than a dedicated tool like a shield bracelet.

Brian (08:42)
Right, and that says something really interesting about the dead man's talisman because the shield is worn on his left wrist because the right projects energy, the left takes ⁓ in energy, it accepts the energy or stops it, I suppose. So that means that the way that works against a ghost is that it prevents it from possessing you maybe or from...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:56)
Mm-hmm.

affecting

you with energy probably makes the most sense, but yeah, I think I'm right on the same page with you there.

Brian (09:12)
Yeah.

And presumably this is why when Harry eventually upgrades his shield, it's never multiple bracelets. It's always one...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:23)
Well, Brian, don't be

ridiculous. There's only one bracelet slot on your left wrist. Everybody who plays RPGs knows that.

Brian (09:28)
It's true, it's true.

But seriously, you know, I've always wondered, well, why not just wear a ring of protection on every finger?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:35)
I mean, he kinda

does where, doesn't he have like multiple rings later, they're all braided together and he's got like five on each, four on each end or something like that?

Brian (09:42)
Yes,

exactly, exactly. And this is my point. It's that.

Presumably, when you're using a shielding foci, you can only have one on your left hand magically set up as a shield. Like there's some kind of, to borrow another D &D term, attunement process where that becomes your sort of filter for incoming energy. And it's why he can't ever have multiple bracelets. Instead, he has to like braid multiple kinds of metal

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:05)
Hmm

Yes.

Brian (10:16)
the shields be different kinds of metal, can only ever be one thing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:19)
so that he can stop things

like thermal energy and kinetic energy and whatever else. Yes, that's something, of course, he learns a very dear lesson blood rights.

So once they hear that his godmother is on the way, or at least speculate that that's her when they hear the hellhounds, turns out that they are right, Michael says, if you want to go, Harry, go on and leave. I'll hold the ghost until you can get back through the rift. Unquote. Brian, I have to ask you, what is Michael offering here? Because as far as I know, he doesn't know how to get through the never-never.

Like he can't get back on his own.

Brian (10:59)
So I don't think in this moment Michael is worried about that for a couple of reasons. First, I think that his assumption is Harry is being pursued by his godmother but she can't be everywhere all the time. So eventually he could come back for Second, I think that Michael just assumes that if he does the right thing, everything's gonna work out as best it can. So...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:25)
I mean, experience

probably backs that up for him, particularly.

Brian (11:28)
Yeah, well, that's

a little bit of a chicken or the egg, right? Like, does he believe that because he has the sword or does he have the sword because he believes that? But, Michael doesn't really think that letting Harry get away is going to actually affect his chances of survival. This Michael's a little bit different than Michael in the future. You know, Michael in the future is God protects me. My Kevlar helps.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:31)
Right.

Yes, that's true.

Brian (11:53)
Michael,

Michael right now is a little bit more on the side of if I'm going to survive, God will will let that happens. And if I'm not going to survive, I couldn't stop it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:04)
I think some of the things that change Michael, like, Doyle is, like, maybe Jim kind of changed his mind about exactly how Michael's thinking works, but the Watsonian explanation, I think, is Michael, Michael's family has probably not been threatened until this book. Like, we know that he's been a knight for a long time, but I don't get the his family has ever been under direct threat.

as a result of his journeys, his choices, his fights. And I think that's partially because, and we're gonna have this conversation later, Michael, until this time, has been guided to situations that are black and white, good and evil, because that's what his purpose, his truest purpose works best in.

Harry obviously works in a world of gray. And when Harry pulls Michael into that world where you have to compromise to actually save anybody or everybody, then that's where Michael's power is less effective. And I think that's why Michael becomes more cautious over time. I think you're absolutely right here. He's working under the assumption that if I do the right thing, I will get out and it will be fine, but-

Charity is later a target, and that, I think, changes how he responds to these situations.

Brian (13:31)
Yeah, that is a bunch of really great points. And I just want to be clear that we're not saying that Michael thinks he's invincible. We're saying that Michael does not think his chances of survival are affected by whether he stands bravely or retreats. Like, he's not more likely to get away if he's cowardly.

That virtue of courage, if he exhibits it, is going to keep him as safe as anything else, because as soon as he breaks faith with those important qualities, he's at more risk.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:07)
Exactly,

exactly. Harry in the two chapters, hence I believe, in chapter seven is explaining Michael's power to Susan. And he talks about the fact that Michael lives his ideals and that gives him power. And that's what makes him worthy of wielding a sword, this sword in particular perhaps.

So Brian, there are two other instances where he basically does this same thing. He tells Harry, know,

get out of here, I'll hold them off, more or less, the very heroic thing to say. In chapter 28, which is at the party, Bianca's party, basically Harry and he discover Susan is at the party and she doesn't have an invitation and so they try to sneak her out and Mavra's there at the door saying, you must choose which of these is your invitee and I'll have my way with the other one.

when Harry asks, if I take Susan as the protected one and walk out of here, are you gonna be okay? Can you take Mavrah? And Michael looked down at me for a moment, his lips pressed together. Then he said, take Susan and go, I'll manage here, unquote. So he obviously doing a very similar thing there, being the hero. And like you said, think, and reminder, he does not have the sword in that moment. He has a couple of knives.

and he has his, faith protects me attitude, and that's it at that point. Then again, in chapter 29, he does very similar thing after the doors have been closed and they think they might have to fight their way out. Michael basically says, you know, we'll head to the gate, and then Harry says, you'll never make it. And Michael says, you will, I think I can manage that much. And at that point, Harry says, he has a great line here where he says,

ease off on the martyr throttle. So that is, think those three different times in this same book that Michael makes the same pledge to get you out and I'll take care of myself after, which I don't know, I think it might not have all worked out for him in the end if he didn't have the sword at Bianca's party. Here, I think guaranteed it does make work out for him against the ghost and The Leanansidhe which actually has nothing against him.

Brian (16:23)
Right,

exactly.

Yeah, so I think that there are three very different incidents. Even the last two are different from each other. In this case, it is, Harry, if you want to get out of here, just go. I'll take care of this and you can pick me up later. And is that like riskless? No. know, Michael might not know that time passes differently in the Never Never, but he definitely knows that the Never Never is like a bad place to hang out in. So, you know, this could be a bad situation. It's dangerous for sure. But I also think that, you know, he wouldn't be

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:30)
Yeah.

Brian (16:54)
surprised if Amorachius cut a hole between the worlds if you he needed it to. I think in the instance with Mavrah, Michael doesn't know if he can take her that's why he pointedly does not answer Harry's question but

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:59)
Mm. Yeah.

Yes.

Brian (17:10)
he doesn't think it's a suicide mission because I don't think at this point Michael knows or realizes or even really thinks that the whole point of this party is to get at Harry or something. So if he can just get past Mavra maybe he will be able to walk out of here. The Reds don't really want to touch him and are they going to really just start shooting a Knight of the Cross as he walks out of the party? I don't know if he at that point

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:30)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (17:41)
realizes yeah they definitely would so it's just a question of can his faith protect him from mavra and the answer might be yes he might think yeah it's not gonna be easy I could die here but I have a hell of a lot better chance than Susan

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:54)
I definitely agree that those are like different degrees of self-sacrifice, right? In this one, he's like got a 99.9 % chance of getting home fine. In the second example, maybe that's down to a 70, 75%, and then in the third example, I think it's a lot lower, where he's like, well, I'll fight my way out past the Reds, and just to get you guys to the door.

you know, sacrifice myself in that way. I think that's a lot lower, because he specifically says he doesn't think he will get out in that situation. He's like, I can guarantee that you can get out. I can't guarantee that I'll get out too. So that's, think, when we're seeing he's unsure at that moment, but he's willing to do it anyway. So that's really going to show us who Michael is as a person in this book, is those three different self-sacrifice situations

Brian (18:36)
Yes.

And I think that it's important to notice he's willing to do all of these and that they are different because in the first two, you can even write this off as Michael is not being a martyr. He's just trying to do the utilitarian thing that's best for the group. But in the last one, he's definitely saying the two, maybe it's the same situation. This is the best way to get anybody out, but

It's worth my life to do this. And you brought up an interesting thing, that this might be a little bit of a test for him in the sense of, since he's had a family, how many times has Michael made the where I know I'm not getting out alive? You go ahead. This might be the only time.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:42)
Yeah, it might be. But let's move on to what we've got going on in this chapter. So fighting the ghost,

It's described earlier as Michael's trying to hit Agatha with the sword and it's going all over the place dodging every hit. So when Harry gets the ghost's attention, Michael's finally able to deal the death blow and they reveal

As result of the scuffle, the ghost's clothes have come torn and they can see the barbed wire spell curled around her neck all the way down to her ankle. And that reveals a very vital part of the story that's going on here. But then that leads to the question, Brian, why is Agatha a target for this spell?

Brian (20:22)
Now Michael says in the moment that presumably it's because somebody wanted to hurt those children, which I mean, maybe that's like a little bit of an objective, like that will tear up the Never Never a little bit more. But from what we understand, Agatha wasn't specifically a target. Ghosts were a target generally to be tortured to stir up the Never Never.

And presumably, you're just going after the ghosts that are already the most tormented. Because that's where the effect of the spell is going to have a bigger impact in driving them insane and potentially causing them to manifest or something.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:07)
Yeah, and one thing I do like about this reveal is Butcher flips the normal metaphor on its head, you know, the monsters out there or whatever, and they're like, Was it someone or something? And here you have Harry saying whether or not that was their goal. What it implies is that someone is behind all the recent activity, not something or condition, unquote.

and now we have a reason to think that there's a motive, and this isn't some condition that Harry can cure by figuring out why the Never Never has some problem, he's now had an opponent to deal with, and that ups the stakes a little bit.

Brian (21:47)
Yeah, and it's a great place to drop it because of course we're not going to get the barbed wire spell explained for a long while, but just like many things in the first couple chapters of Grave Peril, the breadcrumbs are really well laid. So Adam, how satisfying was this fight for you?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:05)
I think it works pretty well when you actually break it down and say, what actually happens? Agatha pops up, they go flying, presumably to the ground and take some little bruises here and there. And then Michael tries to fight it, gets backhanded by the ghost away. Harry tries to shoot it somewhere in there. He's also blocking the ghost with his shield. That sends everybody flying again. He tries to shoot it with fire.

and then it jumps on him and it's trying to strangle him and bite at him and then Michael kills it. So it's a fairly simple fight. And to me, it it wins me over with two specific things. Number one, we get wise ass Harry that helps make the fight entertaining in that sense. But number two, the way that Butcher weaves in the clock, the tension is ramped up. We don't ever think like, yeah, these guys are easily gonna beat this ghost. I know technically they're on her home turf, but.

Clearly this sword is able to defeat her pretty easily and Harry's not gonna die. He's the main character. So there's not a lot of tension, right? ⁓ but there is because Michael in the middle of the fight says, you hear that? And Harry hears the banging of the hounds. And then at the end of the fight when they've noticed the barbed wire spell, Michael says, do you hear that? And Harry's like, I don't hear anything. And he's like, yeah, the hounds are gone. And boom, there's Leah. She shows up at the right time. So that adds a clock on the fight and a mystery.

What's gonna happen when Leah shows up? What's the deal with her godmother? Like you said, breadcrumbs just keep getting layered and layered.

Brian (23:36)
Yeah, and not only is it a satisfying fight in the sense of, well, we've created sort of an additional win condition here. You don't just have to win. You have to do it quickly. It's also satisfying because I buy that Harry Kent.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:47)
Yes.

Brian (23:53)
Right? Michael acquits himself pretty well. How many times has he fought a ghost in their own demean in the Never Never? Probably very few, but he does a fair job of it. But Harry is really all over the place. He is left right. He's barely the entire time they've been fighting Agatha. He's barely like doing a decent job of it. And I assume that's because this might be the first ghost of this level of violence and insanity that he's ever encountered.

So it works for me that Harry's getting smacked around when, you know, mean, winter night Harry, does this last five seconds?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:32)
Yeah,

and I think it's because one of the reasons that he misses with his fire spell is because the ghost gets to him too it's not explicitly stated on this page, but I imagine that when Harry gathers his will to shoot the fire in this scene, it takes him two seconds or so. Whereas, winter night Harry, he's gonna have that fire on you in a quarter second, right? He's much, much more experienced at that. And even though, as we know,

This version of Harry is still very good at evocations compared to most wizards. So two or three seconds is actually very impressive. It's not impressive enough in most fights.

Brian (25:08)
Right, so I like the fact that basically Harry gets rag-dolled a little bit even though the opponent isn't really that dangerous. She can't really kill them that quickly. They should be able to do this pretty efficiently. He makes mistakes and I buy that he's making those mistakes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:26)
Yeah, but there's two of them and that's one of the reasons that he's able to make this work. As soon as the ghost is distracted by one of them for long enough, the other one has a tool to put it down and that's exactly what happens.

Brian (25:38)
Right, which is why it shouldn't take them any time at all.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:42)
Yeah, but it takes a little too long and Leah shows up.

So that takes us to chapter six, but right before we go there, Leah shows up at the very end of chapter five and we get to hear her description for the first time. Brian, why don't you take that?

Brian (25:55)
A very tall, slender, inhumanly beautiful woman stepped out of the smoke. Reddish hair curled down past her hips in a riotous cascade, complimenting her flawless skin, high cheekbones, and a lush, full, blood-red lips. Her face was ageless, and her golden eyes had vertical slits instead of pupils, like a cat.

Her gown was a flowing affair of deep green.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:29)
Yeah, so a glamorous lady indeed.

Brian (26:33)
I mean, she literally rises from the smoke like Aphrodite rising from the mist and is just a, you know, it's almost the description you would give of the Venus coming from the sea kind of painting. So I think that Jim is definitely signifying that, Leah is that kind of beautiful, dangerous femme fatale that we should be expecting.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:49)
Right.

Yeah, seductress,

siren, whatever version you wanna use for this particular fairy.

Brian (27:04)
And

one thing that works so well about that here is that we instinctively mistrust her because she's the beautiful, dangerous seductress. And we're gonna talk about whether that's something that makes perfect sense in retrospect on a reread.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:22)
Yeah,

it does, that's one thing I definitely wanna talk about when we get more scenes with Leah is does she feel consistent with later versions of Leah? So we'll definitely talk about that, probably when we talk about the graveyard scene where she shows up. But for now, in chapter six, she blocks their escape, Harry tries to talk his way out of it, and she says, no, no, no, no, no, it's been far too long, we must catch up. And at this point, we have to ask ourselves, Brian, what is Leah?

trying to accomplish in this book, right? She's showing up here to harass Harry. We know that she hasn't really had any contact with him for a while. Presumably that's because he's been in the mortal world and hasn't come over, but we know she has other motivations with regards to Harry.

Brian (28:10)
so as Adam said, we're going to delve into this deeper.

in Leah's next appearance in the book. But we just sort of want to open things up now to sort of, you know, talk about what we should think about as re-readers when we see her in this book. Her overt motives are that Harry made a bargain and didn't keep it, so when he's in the Never Never, she goes after him to get him to hold up his end of the bargain. And why does she do that? Well, because first of all, know, fairies got their reputations. You can't let a moral get one over on you, especially when it's not clever. He's just not paid.

Come on, but also that Leah is a creature who gains power

by gaining servants and people in servitude, and literally, it seems, as we find out later, by sort of collecting some of the energy, the life energy of those people. So there are selfish reasons why she's doing this. It protects her reputation, and it's good for her power. That's why she's doing it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:18)
Yeah, and the mythological Lenanshi, the one from our universe, not the Dresdenverse one, did similar things. She traded blood for inspiration to poets and musicians and things like that. And that's how she's portrayed here as well. And we'll talk about that later when we get to Harry's flashback scenes. But for now, her overt motives, like you said, needs to hold up his end of the bargain, I need to take him into my service.

underlying motives. What is she doing in this book? Well, she's Harry's godmother and she has a deal with Harry's mother to protect his spiritual self. And we know that as rereaders coming from the future, essentially, but we want to try and see is that evident here in this book? And we'll talk about that as we see more of her actions.

then we also have to ask ourselves, does Leah know that Harry is a Is that why she's trying to collect him into her service? What do you think about that,

Brian (30:21)
I think she definitely knows that Harry's a starboard. Now, partially I think this because as we discussed in ⁓ season two, episode four, when we went over why Harry's parents were killed, I think Leah was in on it with a lot of what Maggie was doing and that Maggie intentionally conceived Harry as a starboard. But also because how else would Mab find out? mean, Harry never...

tells Mab that he's a starborn. Mab knows from the jump when she's trying to get him to become a knight. Either Mab knows for some reason, and she probably told Leia, or Leia knew and she told Mab.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:03)
Yeah, and Leah definitely knows the significance of the Starborn. She's been around for several cycles, I'm sure, at this point. As from what we can tell, I believe it's word of gym, that she was the equivalent of Mab's Jenny Greenteeth when Mab was the Winter Lady, and she got a promotion when Mab got a promotion. So she's been around for a thousand years plus at this point. So she knows about the Starborns, the cycle, and is heavily on team reality because she's Mab's number two, and Mab is the defender of reality.

That brings us to sort of her other underlying motive here. She needs, she wants Harry to be strong and healthy, both because that's her obligation to Margaret Le Fay, and she's hoping to get him under her service. And so she needs a strong and powerful servant rather than a broken one. And so for those reasons, she's trying to get him to hold up his end of the bargain in this scene.

Brian (31:55)
Right, Leia will later say that she wanted to make Harry into a hound to protect him. And that might literally be the case. She knows that people are trying to kill him in this book.

Also, she can't let Harry break his promises. That harms a wizard's power. He's gonna be useless if he keeps doing that. So as long as she's still pursuing him to hold up the bargain, maybe that's not affecting him as badly as it would otherwise.

But also, it's very possible that acting in Harry's mother's stead means helping to mold Harry to be a starborn who is aligned with the Winter Court. That might have been the whole plan from the beginning. Leia is literally the person who defends the Outer Gates when Mab isn't there.

If there's anyone to bring in to specifically have your kid raised to kick outside her ass, short of Mab, she is the one. So, if that's Leia's goal, then all that she's doing here has to be, as his godmother, as his mother's surrogate,

in line with those goals. And that means that this whole thing she's doing, she really does think it's the thing that will make Harry the most powerful, the most able to fulfill his destiny, and the safest.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:27)
The other thing I was thinking about with this scene is, okay, why is she just now coming to claim Harry based on the obligation he made? What, at this point it must be 10 years earlier, at least? So she's only doing it because he's coming to the Never Never, but shouldn't she have power over him in the real? That's where they made their bargain in the first place, right? After he defeats he who walks behind and before he goes back to meet Justin, he does the deal with Leah, which we don't have a ton of...

information about, but we have a lot of speculation. And why doesn't she collect him right away? Why is she waiting 10 years? And my thought is she has competing obligations at that point, right? She has an obligation to collect him, but she also has an obligation to protect him. And so I think that limits what she's allowed to do to him in the real world. Now he comes to the Never Never, she can protect him by collecting him here.

like you said, sort tricky legalese that she uses to suggest that, he would be safe as a hound. But then when he breaks his word here, whether he does or not, we're gonna argue that in a few minutes, when he theoretically breaks his word here, that gives her the power to come at him in the real world, which is where we get the graveyard scene later on in this book. So that is an interesting...

set of situational motivations that Leah has. Very complicated character, even from the jump here. Now, what happens next, Brian?

Brian (34:56)
Well, Michael tries to warn Leah But Leah says, oh no, Sir Knight, you're not going to be able to stop me on this one. She literally says, he is mine, Sir Knight, by blood right, by law, and by his own broken word. You have no power over that. And Michael has to turn and say, is what she says true? And it And that

from his own mouth takes him out of the picture. Adam, you pointed this out to me. This is so Michael, in this scene of this book, can't protect Harry from something which, as far as Michael knows, is effectively going to kill him because...

He would be defending a liar?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:49)
No, it has to with free will, I think, right? Because Harry made this choice to bargain with the Fae out of his free will, and the white god can't interfere with mortal free will unless, of course, the fallen have messed with things already. Then they can balance the scales. But in this case, Harry can't be protected from his own choices. If this was the Lananshi coming to prey on him or some other

Brian (35:52)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:16)
Beastie that was just coming to attack Harry and be the provocateur Then Michael would be free to step in and defend those that can't defend themselves But in this case Harry has made his own bed and the fist of God can't intercept that particular consequence

Brian (36:34)
Yeah, I think that's a really good analysis. The fact that it is a bound oath made freely is what stops him. Except, as you noticed, not entirely.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:51)
Yeah, so Michael basically says, you know, if this is true, Harry, there's little I can do to stop her. Not too long, like a page and a half later, we have the situation where Harry becomes ensorcelled by her, and he realizes he's only gonna have a few seconds where he can break out of her spell, and he uses those few seconds to dump the ghost dust all over her.

delicatage, as it were, in order to, create an escape. Now, we're gonna come back to that in a second. Right after that, the hellhounds come for Harry while Leah is distracted, Michael steps in to fight the hellhounds. Now, he just got done saying, he can't do this, but he does it anyway, because this is Michael Carpenter helping his friend Harry not...

the Knight of Love defending an innocent. And I think that's why while fighting the hellhounds, one of them bites his leg and injures him. He doesn't have his, for want of a better example, plot armor that the white god grants to him that he normally would benefit from in a fight like this.

Brian (38:02)
Yes, I think

Also, he doesn't die. The sword doesn't fall from him. He doesn't fall from his purpose because while he's going off mission, he's not compromising what a knight does because Leah has changed what she's doing. She says, if you will not give me your life serpent child, then I will have your blood. And presumably here Leah's going off her own mission. She's pissed off. She's in severe pain. She's not thinking

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:22)
Right.

Brian (38:34)
through this, you know, clearly so she sends the hounds at him, you know, by command but also presumably just with her emotions, with her reactions, to kill And now the fist of God can get in the way, not on mission, not like this is something that God needs to do, but Michael has the freedom to act. Exactly. Because she has decided to try to kill him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:43)
Mm-hmm.

but it's not betraying the mission either. Yeah.

Which we will see later in the graveyard scene where Harry betrays the mission of the sword and it loses its power. Michael, of course, has an innate understanding of what is and isn't the mission for the sword. And so in this case, I think you're exactly right. He's like, there's nothing I can do until she changed her tack and said, I'm not just collecting my debt, I'm aggressing against you beyond what I am owed.

and that's when he's able to step in. yeah, and it's not purely the sword's mission, but it is not antithetical to it either. So that's all happening here. And then we have the situation where Leia is enraged and tries to throw like fairy fire at Harry, but they duck through the rift just as it's closing. And I got to ask you a question, Brian, what do you think the sides of this rift?

feel like, right? I'm imagining the vertical slit in reality and they're closing and Harry is diving through it at the last second as he brushes past it. Like what are the sides of that rift feel like?

Brian (40:06)
you ever worked on a play?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:09)
Yes, several.

Brian (40:10)
So

you know how if you've ever been either on stage or a stagehand during a play, when the lights are off you, you're wearing all black, or when you're an actor, you know, of ducking out of the scene, and you pass through a black curtain into a dark backstage, and you have to feel around a little bit for where the opening in the curtain is, and you can't exactly see it because everything's dark, and you don't actually know visually.

that you've walked from stage to backstage?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:43)
because the lights

have gone off between the scenes, yeah.

Brian (40:45)
But the parting around you of the fabric, brushing against you, the feeling of it as you walk through it is how you know you're where you're supposed to be. I've always thought it was like that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:59)
Hmm.

Yeah, so you're saying like a fabric type feel. And that is what I now think. But for a long time, I was envisioning this rift in reality as being sharp and hard, like glass, essentially, knitting itself back together. And like, if you had dove through it and like, you could cut yourself going through if you were too close to the sides. But I don't know that that's correct. For some reason, that's just what my brain

thought of the first time and that's just what it's always thought of before I went through this careful reading this time. But then I thought to myself, okay, maybe it's not glass, maybe it's more like fabric that you can kind of brush past. Could a very strong person hold it open?

Brian (41:48)
⁓ definitely. Yes. Now you say

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:51)
Sorry, not

magically, sorry, with physical strength is what I mean to say.

Brian (41:54)
So,

so that's, yes, that's where I was gonna go with this. So you say very strong. I don't think it matters how many pounds you can bench press, but I do think that a person, not necessarily a person who is magically strong, but a person with very strong will totally could.

they would feel it as a physical pressure, but it be their will actually holding it open. I use the curtain metaphor, but I actually think of it as when you tear like a gossamer piece of fabric or like cotton candy, when you pull it apart and the strands sort of hanging together as like you part

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:26)
Hmm

Brian (42:30)
this this medium that I always thought it was like a veil tearing and that's a very common metaphor. A lot of you know different magical books talk about the veil between worlds. But yours was through the looking glass. You literally punch a hole in the mirror and go right through.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:44)
⁓ yes,

that's true. Okay, so anyway, I thought that was an interesting thing, because I rethought my own position this time. So now we move on to where they do make it through the rift. Michael chastises Harry for lying and tricking, and or tricking Leah. They disagree about what he actually did. Michael says, that's not the way we're supposed to win. We're the good guys, Harry, unquote. And this made me think like, okay, Michael.

Slow your roll, because future Michael is not gonna mind. In fact, he's gonna walk away and laugh when you beat the crap out of Cassius after tricking him into giving up the coin, more or less, right? They knew that that's what he was gonna do, and they were okay with Harry going and beating the information out of him in death masks. So that's a very different Michael Carpenter than this one here that's like, I can't believe you lied to her, Harry. We're not supposed to win that way.

I think it's more of an evolution of what Butcher was seeing the character doing or making him fit better with Harry, but you could also see it as him kind of growing to deal with these gray situations that he finds himself in, and that's one of the reasons that I kind of envisioned him being mostly in black and white situations up until he works with Harry.

Brian (44:02)
Yeah, and I think that he probably is, and almost all knights probably are, mostly in situations that are directly on mission or very black and white.

And there's only certain times during the entirety of supernatural history where that's not the case. And we're coming up on one of them. We're coming up on a cycle. We're coming up on a big confluence and attack from outside. Things that the white god is definitely on side of trying to prevent and fighting against.

not things that are part of the knight's normal mission statement. So you need someone, a figure who is ⁓ wise, who is one of the people in the know, who has access to secrets and magic, to guide a wielder of one of the swords to having an impact on the world that is a little bit less spiritual and a little bit more material.

sort of like the way ⁓ a Merlin leads a King Arthur to take temporal power and fight wars, not just help the needy. So I think that it could just be a total accident and Michael could just be written as more of a stick in the mud and Jim just got a little bit tired of it. But it could be a complex character evolution that's not only a result of Harry's influence, but that's also intentional on the part of Michael's boss.

who needs his knights to be a little bit more comfortable dealing with situations that aren't normally in their purview.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:40)
Yeah,

then the Chicago PD show up.

Michael prepares to talk his way out of it, and that leads us to the next chapter where we'll see what happens with that. But before we go on to our question for Bob, I have to ask you this question. Leah accuses Harry of lying and, well, of treachery, and Michael accuses Harry of lying, and Harry corrects him and says, no, no, no, not lying, trickery, classic tactic with fairies. I gotta ask you, Brian, which is it? Do you think that Harry lied here?

Or was he using tricks the way you're supposed to against fairies?

Brian (46:15)
So I think what we're actually asking is whether a lie is a false statement made when you know the truth to deceive someone or whether a lie is creating an impression that is misleading, like a lie of omission.

And Harry doesn't do the first thing in the sense that he says, I will come with you. And he doesn't, you know, say when and he then appends to it when hell freezes over. And, you know, it's not that he has literally stated a fact that he knows to be false, but he is definitely lying in the sense that he is omitting at least for a little while,

A very important piece of information that shows that he is trying to mislead her. But here's my question to you, Adam. What's the difference between lying and trickery?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:19)
⁓ well, I think when it comes to fairies and she in particular, there is like the letter of the law or the letter of a bargain or a word and that's what matters. That's how these she managed to trick mortals so often is because of these little lies of omission and like very specific legalese like, well, I never said I wouldn't do that kind of a situation. they're so good at it because they've been...

twisting words for a thousand years. Somehow they have to convince people to do what they want despite the fact that they can't actually speak a lie. That makes them really good at tricking you through lies of omission and misunderstanding and things like that. So I think that is exactly what Harry is doing here. He gave the impression, visually and initially, that he was going to go with her and then accosted her with the ghost dust.

and completed the sentence, I will go with you, dot, dot, dot, when hell freezes over. And I think if there was a long pause between those like 30 seconds, then it's a lie. But if it's just a little pause, if it's just like three or four seconds at most, then he was just finishing his sentence. And you know, then you're in the clear, legally speaking within the way that these bargains work. So I'm of the opinion that he did a trick

and it doesn't count as a lie, particularly, but he is supposed to go with her here. Not going with her is breaking the word that he made years ago, right? So he is still losing a piece of his power. It's what allows Leah to come and heal him in the real world during the graveyard scene, which makes him very worried because she shouldn't be able to do that, but now she has more power over him.

leaving her when she's asking him to fulfill his bargain, that is breaking his compact. But him giving the impression that he's going to go with you and then twisting his words, that's trickery. That didn't actually hurt him. That's my opinion.

Brian (49:30)
Yes, I think you're absolutely right in the sense of what he did would not be possible for a fairy to do because he literally breaks his bargain and Leah could not do that. However, the statement, I will go with you and never saying when absolutely something a fairy could do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:42)
Hmm.

Uh-huh, 100%. Yep.

Brian (49:53)
So Leah can't

throw stones on that particular account, but he is treacherous in the sense that he does have an obligation to go with her.

And this is something a fairy totally could do, but Leah isn't furious because of the statement. She's furious because he's continuing to break the promise.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:13)
And

I think she's furious because he successfully tricked her. She thought she had him. She was convinced. that, you know, deceiving a fairy is very unusual. And I think part of it is Harry is strong enough to break out of her compulsion. And that's the thing that surprises her the most. She thought she had him because once she had him in her compulsion, that's it, game over. And so when he broke out of that,

Brian (50:17)
Yes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:39)
That surprised her and the fact that he tricked her into thinking that he couldn't get away, that was also just salt into the wound. When's the last time the Lananshi got deceived like that? Probably 100 or 200 years or something.

Brian (50:53)
And as Harry will say in a later book, it's not your fault. I just look so stupid.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:00)
⁓ That's true. All right. That having been said, that's gonna close out chapter six. Next chapters are seven and eight. Again, next week we will not have those. We'll have the Patreon episode on Fistful of Warlocks, but seven and eight will come on November 21st. All right. That brings us to our question for Bob.

Brian (51:24)
So Bob, we for the first time are in a domain in this chapter. What's the deal with them? Like who's allowed to have one? Can I have one? Do you have one? What's the deal, Bob?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:41)
All right, well, Bob couldn't make it. He said he had to deliver an invitation to someone important. I guess we're not important enough to hear him, but yeah. What's the deal with Demains? And that, let's start there. Let's start with the pronunciation because many of you people who listened to the audiobook probably heard this as Demison, and that's incorrect. And many of you who read this probably read it as Demenznes, and that's also incorrect.

Yes, the S is silent. Thank you, English. So, demean has almost the same pronunciation and almost the same meaning as the word domain, as in like, see before you, your entire domain, it belongs to you. so the etymology of this comes from the old French demean.

which was land held for a Lord's own use. So that was sort of a ⁓ used heavily, if you played Crusader Kings, by the way, you would know the name, the word for that. Now it comes from the Latin Dominicus, belonging to a master, which originally comes from Dominus, Lord or Master, or Domus, which is house. So that's where that all gets. Now one thing I read suggested that the S creeped in there because in-

Old English, at some point, scholars began using an S before a consonant to indicate that there was a long vowel preceding the S or something, and so it just snuck in there and became like the official way you're supposed to write it. Anyway, just think word domain when you read it, and it's just a little bit dimane instead of domain. That's how you say it. So that's your...

That's your etymology lesson for today. But what we're trying to talk about, Brian, is what does it take for a being to have a domain? Which ones have we seen and heard about already? And who else might have one that we haven't seen?

Brian (53:39)
So, worded advice starts us off with a very fun idea.

I believe it would form similar to how a threshold does. But in the never never, spending a significant amount of time dwelling on memories might generate a plot of land to scale with your power, and the laws of physics and whatnot there would be more in tune with how you remember them working than reality. I imagine Dracul has one, and it is a terrible place.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:12)
Yeah, definitely. Thank you, poorly worded advice. I love this answer. The idea that it forms similar to how a threshold does in the mortal realm just is such ⁓ perfect symmetry for my brain. And I love that idea and that it is a little bit more than what a threshold does because you get to shape it by using your will in the never never. Whereas a threshold is more of passive thing that when you live life,

as a, especially as a social unit. Like they always talk about how families, intact, happy families have stronger thresholds than bachelors, for example. So that suggests that maybe there's some similar thing in the Never Never. If you have a domain that is composed of a family unit, maybe it's stronger and more bigger, interesting. I don't know. Maybe there's some other way that that could go.

Brian (55:03)
Yeah, I think that's definitely true. And we will talk about that specific thing in a little while. But I also really like that he's touched on why the laws of physics are under your control in a domain, because it's effectively your dream. And I think that that's wonderful. But the one thing I want to add is that I think that the process of actually creating a domain

has to be a little bit more of a lucid dreaming kind of situation. It's not just dwelling on your memories, it's intending to sort of create like a connection to a part of the never never through the sort of expression of

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:37)
Hmm.

Brian (55:51)
these memories or something. There's some active process that happens for beings like Dracul, if they want to create one, that is different from how one arises for a ghost.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:05)
Yeah, I was thinking there's probably like an active process, like you said, and there's probably a passive process where just the existence of a strong being in the Never Never of the correct type, maybe spirits, demons, fey, whatever, the existence of that being in the same place for a long time would create the demean. I'm thinking specifically of like Arctis Taur that has the wellspring of winter, like.

that is a geographic location where the Queen's mantle resides, and the Wellspring is probably something that was created over time and became what it is because the Queen resided there, not the other way around. That's kind of the way that I see it.

Brian (56:46)
Yes, I think that's exactly right. And just to have the conversation a little bit before we have the conversation, I wonder if something like Faerie, or the winter part of Faerie, is essentially one of those passive demons ridiculously overgrown because of the power of the well. But Arctis Tor specifically is something actively created by MAP.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:12)
Could be. All right, let's go on one more. Eliquoso Raptor suggests, quote, Now, actually, did a digging with this. Word of Jim from an October 2015 interview, quote,

That's one of those things that the old powerful wizards have. Most of them have a demean in the Never Never where they can retreat to when they feel like, unquote. So, Eliquoso Raptor, Jim backing you up there, I think every member of the Senior Council has their own demean in the Never Never that they can retreat to and it's maybe, maybe it's just the size of a house, maybe it's the size of a small plot of land that they can shape to their particular proclivities. Maybe they want it to look like an ivory tower or.

a cave or a fortress, whatever they want. They can make it look that way.

Brian (58:12)
Yeah, what is a sixth level spell? ⁓ Big B's hidden castle or something? No, I know there's literally a D and D spell that basically does this. So I think Jim is building off of sort of that trope here. And it's definitely the case that members of the senior council have domains. I think the really interesting thing he said here is they all have sanctums in their homes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:21)
Yes.

Brian (58:39)
Because if you're Harry Dresden, you're a starborn who from birth has been sort of ⁓ made to be a weapon in this war against the outsiders, your fairy godmother grows a garden on the other side of your house. But if you're Ebeneezer McCoy, you gotta do that shit yourself.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:56)
Yeah?

Brian (58:57)
So they definitely have a domain literally on the other side of their house in the Never Never, which probably looks like, you know, a freaking wizard's castle, literally. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:09)
Absolutely. Yeah, and

it would have all kinds of traps and spells laid onto it so that if anybody ever tried to attack the senior council from the Never Never Yeah, that ain't happening right the same way that Harry goes after Corpse Taker by trying to go through the Never Never and finds a domain there We're gonna get to that in a moment Defending the reality side. I'm guessing Ebenezer and the Merlin and every other important wizard is going to make sure

that the door, that the other side of this simple door, back door into their real life house, they've got protections in place. And it could be like halls of mirrors, mazes that you'll get lost in forever. Like it doesn't have to be physical things, right? Wizards can definitely screw with you in a lot of different ways.

Brian (59:51)
Right, Elphich 47 believes that places in the real world could act in part like a demean, building off this conversation we're having about connecting your demean to your mortal dwelling. They specifically cite Chichen Itza as a built-up fortress situated on an existing source of power.

The idea is that such a place could have similarities, magically speaking, to a demean in the Never Never. Do we buy that?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:23)
So I like, that's an interesting idea. And I like the idea, but the way that it's described as beings having sort of control over their demean in the Never Never, not quite something that we see happen in the real world. And we've definitely seen an example of this, right? If Chichen Itza is an example of this, then Demon Reach has to be an example of this as well. And Harry gets intellectus from it, which is really cool and powerful. And he gets to play with the

Brian (1:00:46)
Absolutely.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:52)
toys, magically speaking, right? He can talk to the inmates and put people in prison and stuff, but he doesn't have a lot of control over it. It was set up as a specific place with a specific purpose, and I'm guessing Chichen Itza was built up as a specific place with a specific purpose, and it can't really be molded to the current owner's proclivities, the way that a never, never demean could be. So the way that I kind of divide these and say, okay,

if it's in the Never Never, I think a demean makes sense to describe a being's own personal area that they have some magical affinity and slash control to. But if it's in the mortal world, I think the term sanctum fits better. We know that specifically Harry is asked by the gatekeeper,

you made this place as a, you claim this place as a sanctum. And so to me, that sort of suggested that term applies specifically to mortal world areas.

Brian (1:01:47)
Yes, I think that's definitely right. mean, literally, he uses a sanctum invocation to become the warden of Demonreach. And presumably, the big difference is, in the mortal world, you can build such a place of power that is magically invested, but because it's the mortal world, it doesn't change. Things are constant. And in the demean and the never-never, that's not the case.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

the halls of Edinburgh must be the equivalent of a sanctum with the amount of time and effort that's been put into the spells there.

Brian (1:02:19)
a sanctum.

Absolutely. fact, wow, geez, that you just like blew my mind because if that's the Merlin's sanctum. And like, does that mean he hears all the conversations Harry and like Ebenezer have in the hallways? That would be.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:31)
Oh, does he have intellectus? Oh, no.

I don't think so. Does it have

a genus loci? Probably not. I guess it could. It's had a long time with a lot of magical investment. Oh man, that would blow my mind if we get that reveal later. That's a really cool idea. Anyway, are some of the best answers that we had so far from the Reddit thread. Again, if you guys have answers and you don't wanna, if you don't see it on the Reddit, you don't wanna participate in the Reddit, you can send us an email, mac at rnt.fm to answer these questions. So.

Brian (1:02:42)
Why not? But why not? Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:05)
We wanted to try to list all of the known domains and some of these come care of the Redditors, so thank you for these as well. then we have also some that we're speculating probably do exist. So the ones we know exist, Leah's garden, we see it in changes, and presumably since Elder Gruff is Leah's counterpart in summer, he must have his own domain, right?

Brian (1:03:25)
Yeah, totally. And they're definitely demeans. I mean, the reason why the worm is there is because Leah put it there. She controls that area.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:32)
Yeah, and there's bones of

his enemies that she has purposefully killed traveling through there to get to Harry.

Brian (1:03:41)
So another one, and we're gonna start talking about a distinction here that I think is really key in this because, you know, like when is it a demean and when is it becoming something more than that?

The Earl King's Hall seems like it's his demean, seems like it is a place in the Never Never that you can't just like walk into from the fairy very easily. It's in some way sort of cut off a little bit because you can't just leave without his permission. Also, a bunch of goblins will attack you. But if it is not kind of too big to be a demean,

It's definitely histamine.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:26)
Yeah, I agree. It could be that the Earl King's hall is his demean inside the larger part of his realm, which I think is probably the best way to describe, for example, the winter fairy section, right?

because if you during the war between the White Council and the Red Court, Senior Council and the rest of the wizards, they used the ways through Winter's territory in the Never Never. So I would argue that Winter's territory, quote unquote, is the realm of Winter, whereas,

Arctis Tor and Arctis Minora, which is only mentioned one time, I think, in cold days, but that is theoretically the Winter Lady's demean. two are like demeans within that larger realm, and theoretically maybe the eldest Fetch has his own small demean within Winter Lands somewhere, or other creatures of Winter could be strong enough, like the Lananshi, to have their own demean.

Brian (1:05:29)
So we think things like the Earl King's Hall, the Mother's Cottage, Arctus Tor, Arctus Minora are all demeans because even though you can walk into them from very there are places that these beings have special power with.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:47)
Okay, well let me ask you this, Brian. When Harry interviews Maeve in Summer Night, he goes underground into the under town, and then he appears to pass into the Never Never, or into sort of a crossover hybrid area where we meet Jenny Greenteeth and we see the big band that's been forced to play music for them while they dance. Is that area like part of Arctis Minora?

that has been like locked to this part of Chicago and she like can move it around.

Brian (1:06:19)
I think that's actually probably a really good guess. And I bet that it doesn't seem like a demean, but I bet that's basically because Maeve is actually really shitty at all this stuff. So she knows how to do what she wants it to do to make what she wants to happen happen, but she's not terribly creative and she's not really doing as much with it as she could.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:30)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I kind of feel like that might be the foyer into her main, into Arctis Minora. And like, she has the control to like move where the foyer is attached to. Because I think they mentioned that, it's not going to be there if he was to come back. Like the door is closed at that point. So the door is opening in New York, because they want to talk to somebody there instead.

So moving on, we also presume that there's a summer equivalent to Arctis Tor and Arctis Minora. You came up with some ideas of what those might be called.

Brian (1:07:11)
Yeah, Jim, these are free. Feel free to use these names. ⁓ Caretropus, C-A-E-R, tropus. ⁓ Arctus isn't like a real Latin word, so we're dog-latining that part a little bit with tropic. But caer is the name for like a city, a fortified city in sort of Romano-British, which is the same place that Tor is coming from. And it's a great alternative to the winter one because a Tor is a hill. It's sort of ⁓ a remote place. And summer is the

of that. They're more mortal. They're with people. So you want it to be more of a city. Or if you want to go all primal, can go with Yinnistropis. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but it's just the Welsh word for an

And then of course that would just leave tropus menorah as the ⁓ alternative place for the summer lady. Why tropus? Well because the only thing I could think of that sort of ⁓ arctic anything that has an opposite, right, is the arctic circle. And what's the opposite on latitude and longitude? The tropic of cancer, the tropic of catechol.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:15)
Yep, absolutely.

That was brilliant as far as I'm concerned. I'd be surprised if we don't see something like that. Now, the last one I can think of when it comes to the Fae is the Mother's Cottage, which the only example we see of a demean shared by two people specifically, or two beings, I should say. I'm guessing that's what we're seeing there. And maybe they each have half the cottage or something to that effect, but they also kind of have the land around it because it's implied that

Nobody just stumbles into that cottage. You have to be summoned there or know the way, or they have to allow you to find their way to that cottage. So I think that that is definitely a domain that they have control over.

Brian (1:08:59)
Yeah, totally. And presumably the reason why Aurora is the person that Elaine gets to take them there effectively is because if you're of that power, that is, if you are a Queen of Faerie, you can come to the dinner table. It's sort of the family demean in that respect. We were talking about families having powerful domains. There is an example, right? They've literally got, you know, all of the curses of world history on the shelves.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:14)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:09:24)
Additionally, it's not the only shared domain we ever see if we agree with the theory that in Summer Night, the battlefield created by Titania and Mab is a place that they share control over, a reality they're shaping to their will for them to fight it out around the stone table. That might be another shared domain for the battlefield to take place on.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:49)
Yeah, indeed

the stone table itself, it's implied that it doesn't always exist. They call it into existence for specific purposes, right? They brought it into existence for that battle, but we also see Mab bring it into existence in changes

sort of Chris and Harry, so to speak, as the winter night. So I think that that is probably a good speculation there. Now there's a couple other demines that we know exist, right? Hades realm is probably a realm, but the vault is probably part of his demean.

Brian (1:10:24)
Yeah, exactly like Fairey, we're assuming that Tartarus Elysium, the entire Greek afterlife, is its own realm, just like Hell, presumably, is a realm in the Never Never, but that Hades has a private office. And that's where he talks to Harry.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:37)
Yeah.

And we've alluded to this one in the past, but that Omaha Beach scene in Ghost Story, if you guys remember, when Harry's trying to get into the area where Mort is being held prisoner by Corpse Taker, he decides to go in through the Never Never. And when he gets the other side, we basically get the Saving Private Ryan scene.

with Omaha beach defenses, with demon Nazis and machine guns fortifications and Harry and co have to fight their way up only to find evil Bob up there. that has to be a demean, but do you think it's a demean of evil Bob or do think it's corpse takers demean?

Brian (1:11:15)
You know, until it was brought up that it could be Corpse Takers in the Reddit thread, I just assumed it had to be Evil Bob's demean. He's in command, so it's gotta be his demean. I suppose if it really was his demean, he could sort of warp reality in a way that was even worse for our intrepid heroes. So maybe that's a reason it could be Corpse Takers, but I ultimately do think, as a spirit of the Never Never, he probably just took that assignment whole cloth.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:41)
I think Evil Bob either took some memories from regular Bob of like watching Savor Private Ryan. That's probably not it, but that's the first thing I thought of. But the next thing I thought of is, well,

Evil Bob was around with Kemmler during the World Wars, maybe would have seen those kinds of defenses and it would make sense then that Evil Bob would create something like that for his demean.

Brian (1:12:07)
You know, I bet it's that evil Bob wants that to be his demean because for him that's one of you know, the great losses of our time when Normandy fell to the allies, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:16)
⁓ I would never

have let it fall in.

Brian (1:12:19)
Exactly, exactly. But Kemmler wasn't actually there or wouldn't have. So he's, you know, sort of wish casting based on pop culture. But we've got some other speculative demeans and we already dived into this realm versus demean thing. But I think Odin is a really good example of this. So Asgard, the land of the Norse gods, presumably is not like the demean of one god. That's a realm.

But Valhalla, Odin's hall, could totally be Odin's demean, where you drink Odin's mead and you're fed by the Valkyries from Odin's stores. That's his house, which is literally, Dominus, what a demean is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:05)
Yeah,

and we do have examples of other Norse entities from other Norse realms, right? We have the Svartalvs, which canonically in our mythology is another Svartalfheim is a different realm from Asgard. And then you have Nesvulheim where the fire giants come from.

Brian (1:13:25)
Right, but all of these God-level beings are probably capable of having, just like Arctis Tora were speculating, their own demean within the realm. We have some other beings that are a little bit below God-level, and I'm curious, Adam, do you think they have demeans? I'm talking about like Uriel or Ferevacs.

Do they have a demean or are they kind of like above that?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:57)
That's an interesting question because I was thinking like Uriel and then you brought up, what about the precinct where Harry goes in Ghost Story and he meets Jack? Like guarded by angels, it has to be static to some degree, right? If Harry goes there and Jack is there and Jack's been dead for decades at this point, that must be where he's been this whole time.

Carmichael's been there for a while doing this special job for Uriel. Maybe that is his demean.

Brian (1:14:32)
And it could just be that they're in purgatory or something. And if you're an angel, you can just build an office building in purgatory. That's kind of one of the perks of the job. And it's not a demean in the sense that Uriel doesn't need a special place to be able to control the laws of physics.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:42)
Maybe.

No.

Brian (1:14:51)
So

everywhere is Uriel's demean in that sense. It's just kind of where he set up shop and Faravax is very similar. Faravax may have the dragon's lair. His demean might be a place that he has a special control over or like where does a dragon, know, where does a 200 ton lizard demean wherever it wants, you know?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:16)
Yeah,

that's true. Now, when it comes to the Denarians, I was thinking the ones that are particularly powerful, magically speaking, might be able to create a demean in the same way that a wizard could, right? Per that word of Jim that we were talking about earlier, a particularly strong or powerful or crafty wizard can create their own demean that they can then retreat to if they want to. I'm guessing Thorned Namchiel could absolutely create a demean, but would they have to do so with the help of their host?

or could they do it on their own? I'm guessing they could only do it through their host rather than on their own because they can't cross over to the Never Never on their own. They're bound to the coin and the coin is bound to a mortal.

Brian (1:16:00)
Yes, I think the coin is their demean in that sense. That's how they got

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:04)
maybe, maybe

they're in there like Bob is, man, when Bob is in his skull and we visit him, I think in Ghost Story, is that the one where Harry goes in there with him? Is that a demean?

Brian (1:16:13)
Yeah,

it is, but I think these are like the, I made the joke about the, you know, spell in D and D. These are your pocket domains, you know? Yeah. Well, I think it's different in the sense that this is what I'm talking about, about whether they connect to the larger never never or whether they're their own bubble. I think the coins are like their own bubble. They're not connected to anything. Bob's skull is its own bubble, but.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:22)
Pocket dimension is probably different than a demeaned for sure, yeah.

not connected.

Yeah.

Brian (1:16:40)
Marcon at this point, absolutely a thousand percent has a demean in the Never Never Now that Thor and Nanchel, yes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:47)
yeah, he's built his own safe room in the Never Never just for, he

does not want small favor to happen again.

Brian (1:16:53)
Exactly, could,

a supernatural nuke could go off and he wouldn't even notice. So definitely the Denarians can make Demens for their host. mean, Nicodemus almost certainly has one. The man, you know, why wouldn't he, right? And Duryal definitely could give him the juice. And that leads me to ask, okay, so these entities kind of empower their mortal, you know, servants, their hosts with this connection and they can

use it to make a demean. Is the archive, like not the person, but the actual archive, the store of information, like the never never equivalent of a server room, is it a demean where all that's housed?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:41)
Yeah, cause you gotta wonder like, okay, that's a lot of knowledge and gray matter is only so dense. you can't, how does it all fit in there? And I love that idea of like, there's a place in the never never that's just holding this near infinite amount of information that the archive, the person has access to through this magical interface that we call the archive.

Brian (1:18:09)
And the thing I love about that is that means that the archive, knowing all that information, now works for me because it's that she has intellectus over that library. So it's not that it's always bombarding her constantly in a way that she can't turn off.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:22)
Yes.

Brian (1:18:30)
it's that whenever she considers anything, she gets everything in the library about it, which is still overwhelming and crazy, but now I can like actually understand how the archive can be a person.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:44)
I love that idea. Now, this one comes thanks to a Redditor.

lowercase punishment says, Kringle's demean, Santa's workshop, is in the Never Never and not the North Pole. And they said that's how they can get to every house on Christmas, because they take advantage of time not flowing the same. Going from the workshop to each house individually, they get to have more time so they can deliver a gift to everybody.

Brian (1:19:09)
That is definitely true. It's absolutely brilliant. And what is the North Pole? It's the winter wellspring.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:17)
All right, some other ones

here. The Fomor, probably their senior council for the same reasons that we suspect that the White Council senior council could in fact have their own demean. The Lords of Outer Night, specifically the magic users would make sense. We know that Ariana was a magic user, Bianca was a magic user. So whichever of the Lords of Outer Night or the high level of the Red Court could have done it, probably almost certainly did. What's on the other side of the Wraith Deeps?

We know that that was opened once. We saw a cowl peeking through on the other side, sending all those ghouls through. Do you think there was anything going on with the white court? If there was, the Wraith Deep seems like the right place to access their demean.

Brian (1:19:58)
Give me a moment Adam. I have to look up Dante's Inferno Circle of Lust

Yeah, so it's the second circle of hell. That's what it connects to. No, but seriously, I think that I don't think that the White Court have demeans. We know that they're not very good at magic. Even Thomas, is, you know, Margaret Le Fay's son, is only capable of doing sort of very simple magic. So I don't think that Lord Wraith had a demean. He was sort of a two bit sorcerer on that side of things. But Cal, absolutely.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:07)
Okay, okay, there you go.

Brian (1:20:35)
fucking Lutely does, and he can probably move that shit wherever he wants it to go.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:37)
Yeah.

Right, so we might've actually been glimpsing into his demean specifically, and he tied it there for that purpose.

Brian (1:20:48)
I also wonder if Dracul's domain might literally be Scholomance, as in the evil Transylvanian magical school that Dracula learned some of his witchcraft at. This is like a very deep cut folklore thing. There's a lot of different variations of it, but that's exactly the kind of thing that I could see Jim tossing in here that no, no, no, no, no, that's a real place. There is a real place where people go

learn the forbidden arts and if it's Dracul thinks he needs something from you he'll teach you how to do it he's got a house for that it also kind of gives us a Dracula's castle so I wonder if you know that really exists and maybe that's where Chandler is

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:21:25)
Yeah.

⁓ no, that, if Harry has to storm that place. boy, that's gonna be an interesting one.

Brian (1:21:43)
I think it's a raid in World of Warcraft.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:21:44)
That sounds right. All right, Brian I've got one last one for you and it's given away by the name that Jim chose for this other reality that's not the mortal realm and it's never never land, right? I think Peter Pan exists and he was a being strong enough to create never never land or maybe it wasn't him maybe something else and he stumbled into it, right? But some part of the Peter Pan myth that was written down in that story

is true and maybe that's where the book, maybe the author got the name Never Never Land from what the supernatural beings called the Never Never.

Brian (1:22:26)
actively.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:26)
definitely

exists. There's definitely a giant crocodile. He's in an everlasting struggle against the Lost Boys. It's just always there, always going on.

Brian (1:22:33)
Well, but specifically,

I think we know not just that it exists, but where it is. Because who is Peter Pan's guide through Never Neverland? The fairy Tinkerbell, right? He's literally got a dewdrop fairy who is, you know, leading him from place to place. So it's in Wild Fae or something. And that's where the Lost Boys are. They're, you know, probably Pinocchio's island with the donkeys is there too.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:47)
Mm-hmm.

And I think that might be an example of a demean that is collectively created, right? That might be a demean that is shaped by like the dreams of children everywhere of a land that they can go and play in forever, more or less. And in the version that we know, in the Peter Pan one, it was like, we get to fight pirates, but maybe in different.

Brian (1:23:06)
Mmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:22)
versions, different parts of that area within the wild fae, it's something else. Maybe they're ninjas or maybe they're, I don't know, soldiers and they're cowboys, whatever, right? Any kind of, or fairy princesses, like whatever kind of dreams that children have, the largest mass of them creates and manifests this special place that they can go to in their dreams and maybe in reality, if they get brought over by a dewdrop fairy.

Brian (1:23:50)
Yeah, and I mean, because it's the Dresden files, I think I could tell you what it actually is.

We, we, well, we know why children go to live in fairy. It's because the Winter Lady has conscripted you as warriors in the never ending campaign against the outsiders. So how do you train a six year old to grow up real fast into an ogre? You set him into the battle simulator of Never Neverland.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:57)
trap.

Yeah. ⁓

You can't just turn Peter Pan into Ender's Game. You can't do it! It's not okay!

Brian (1:24:24)
time passes differently,

which is how cold case can happen in one book. then, you know, by the time cold days and peace talks roll around, the child soldiers are all grown up because they've been training in the never never with Peter Pan.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:24:42)
⁓ Okay, I think we've gone too far past where we started on this topic. That's gonna be the end for us this week. Next time, again, two weeks from now, We have another question for Bob because we're gonna be talking about the scene where Kelly and Kyle Hamilton deliver an invitation to Harry.

for Bianca's party. So we want to discuss who is the mastermind of Bianca's party and what are their goals. There are quite a few different possibilities here. There are some overt and obvious ones and there are others that are more speculative, more hidden, but we want to hear what you think. What's really going on? Because as Jim has said, there's a lot more going on at this party than we know.

Brian (1:25:30)
Yeah, we know that Bianca does literally want to have the party, guys. We don't think she's brainwashed or there are a lot of people there. Did she decide to invite Faravacs? That's the kind of question we're talking about answering.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:45)
Yeah, did

Mavra suggest it? Whose various people got different motivations? What are those motivations? Let's hash it out. That's what we're doing next time.

Brian (1:25:56)
And with that, we'll say good night. See you guys in two weeks when we'll be talking about chapters seven and eight of Grave Parallel.