Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:08)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through 12 months. I'm Adam Ruzzo and with me as always is a confused desk sergeant, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (00:21)
Hey, Stallings, you're an SI. that Dresden guy, he's got a twin brother, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:27)
You don't wanna know. But something we do wanna know here is what's Harry gonna do now that Cravo stole some of his mojo? Well, not his mojo. Bob actually is happy about that. It's night number two still here in Grave Peril, moving into the morning number three. And chapter 18 is where Harry is recovering, having just been essentially devoured by

Kravos the nightmare in his dream and lost a bunch of his magic and Bob tries to help him process exactly what happened Bob explains that the nightmare got to Harry the same way as Mickey and they sort of finally figure out that

piece of the puzzle.

but Brian, this always made me feel really anxious while reading the book because Harry acts super differently after that piece of him has been stolen.

Brian (01:15)
Yeah, we're gonna talk about this more in the question for Bob segment, which is all about the moments like this in the series. But it's interesting that you say that because I didn't honestly notice, he's acting different during my first read of the series.

But

Because we're gonna talk about this later, I think I have a question that I don't feel like we really ever get an answer to in the Dresden files. Is this completely out of this world?

Like this has never happened before? Someone attacking your chakra in your dream and getting to you? Or is this something that Bob's like, ⁓ the old chakra in the dream ploy. You know, I just, it's hard for me to get a sense of which one it is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:02)
Well, I have to imagine that spirits or entities, let's say, whether they're mortal, immortal, spiritual, have attacked a person's spirit or soul, not least wise because Harry sort of explains that to Murphy when he investigates Mickey in the first place, right? He's basically been taught about the kind of damage that can be done by these psychic attacks and Bob,

when Harry explains what happened does not seem super surprised and like jumping to conclusions. Like you said, he's kind of like, yep, they got you right in the chi. So I have to imagine that this is not an unusual thing. Now the fact that it happened in a dream by a super ghost may be unprecedented, but I have to imagine that there are some things in the never never that literally will just attack your spirit, your soul and try to eat you that way if they can.

Brian (02:56)
Yeah, I think Jim is definitely tapping into that idea of a dream-eating sort of ⁓ creature here. You see sort of echoes of that in the fringes of mythology, but it's more of a ghost story kind of thing, and that's definitely coming up here. ⁓ But it does seem to be that either this is so rare that

Harry shouldn't have thought about it and Bob does have to tell him, hey yeah this is what happened because it's just pretty crazy that it went after him this way. Or that's actually part of the reason why Harry is so upset at himself. It's not just that he's emotionally off kilter for obvious reasons, it's also that he feels like

he should have in some way at least conceptualized the idea that I have to take precautions against things coming after me in my sleep.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:57)
Yeah, I mean, he was so confident. know, I've got my threshold, I've got my wards, no problem. But even then, his dream should have been his own domain. As Bob says, he should have had the advantage. And Bob hypothesizes that the only reason that he wasn't able to turn the tables is because he was still under the vampire venom, right? He couldn't wake himself up to get out of it.

Bob couldn't even really wake him up. He had to basically scratch him across the face with Mr. Claws to finally get him to wake up. So, you he should have had the home field advantage. He shouldn't have lost in that dream. He's got the mental defenses to have stopped it. It's the vampire venom that changed the equation. That's the way that I see it.

Brian (04:41)
Wow, I mean, that is, we know that the Mirror Mirror point of departure is in grave peril and folks, like that's not it. That's not the Mirror Mirror point of departure. But that's definitely the reason why this is a book and not a short story, right? I mean, if Harry's not under the effects of the vampire venom and Ghost Kravos just thinks, I'm going to get him and goes after him in his dreams and Harry just kicks his ass six ways from Sunday, I mean,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:59)
Hmm.

Brian (05:09)
End of book, you know?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:11)
Well, Bianca's still out there, she'll have to get Harry some other way, is what it comes down to.

Brian (05:16)
Well yeah, and also the threat is substantially less from Bianca if there isn't this whole other crisis happening. Harry gets on the phone with Susan and they have a conversation as opposed to Susan just, you know, making invitation copies later.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:24)
right.

Right, because later on Harry is busy tracking down the nightmare and trying to bind it when Susan calls. Everything changes, you're not wrong. It's a big comedy of errors essentially in this book. well not com- tragedy of errors, is that a thing? So what happens next is that Bob basically, you know, talks to Harry and says, hey, so this dream, you were attacked in it, is there something in the dream that happened differently than in real life? And-

Boy, when I was rereading this and looking at it closely here, Brian, it's really clever what Jim did. If you go back to chapter 17, where the attack takes place, and you read very carefully, the very first thing that goes wrong is that Harry's spell to bind Kravos fails in the dream.

Not in real life, in real life it went fine, but in the dream, the hair he had was wrong or something like that. And then the demon goes crazy and attacks and kills Michael. But in this chapter, what Harry remembers first is that the demon attacked Michael and jumps to the conclusion, hey Bob, can a demon leave a ghost? And that's what sets them down the wrong path. It's an excellent red herring because the truth is right there for you to see in the previous chapter.

Brian (06:45)
I think it's doubly good because...

I'm huge fan of mystery stories. My mother compulsively read whodunnits when I was a child. mean, there was literally always three of them stacked in various places around the house and I would devour them. So I'm a big fan of mystery stories. I know all the tropes. I'm reading Grave of Peril and I'm like, it's not the demon. Like it would, it's not going to be the demon. Like, first of all, they never get it right on the first try, right? So you know, it's going to be a red So, you know, you just in a normal,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:13)
Meh.

Brian (07:17)
mystery it's just not really justified it's just trying they try to slip it past you and if you've been down this road a bunch of times you're gonna catch it and you'll be on the right track and you'll get the satisfaction of solving it before the character but i think there's a justification for why harry thinks it's does the demon leave a ghost and not the what i thought at the time was way more obvious isn't it just cravos and the justification is that harry

kind of underestimate sorcerers as a rule.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:47)
Ooh, that's a really good point. Yeah. He would jump to the conclusion that this must be something stronger than a sorcerer's ghost, because sorcerers are two bit chumps, blah, blah, blah. But we know Kravos may have been a stronger one than he appeared. Now, Harry had all the advantages going into that capture, right? He had a link to Kravos that he could use to bind him, because he had a piece of his hair attached to a doll or something like that. So.

That to me suggests that maybe Kravos was stronger than Harry thought, but because Harry was in such a position of strength, A, he's doing thaumaturgy, one thing he's really good at, he's very prepared for it, and he has all the right tools and links, that made it seem easy in the flashback and maybe in real life, and he could be underestimating him as a result. That's a really good point.

Brian (08:37)
So I think that the red herring is doubly good because even on reread, maybe we think that Harry's making a reasonable mistake, but even if we catch things like, well, you should have realized, man, the thing with Kravos went wrong first, and why wouldn't you think about the human leaving the ghost? Of course Harry doesn't think that. works on.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:59)
Well

again, Harry thinks Kravos is not dead. Kravos is locked up, right?

Brian (09:05)
Well, that's certainly true. ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:06)
That's what

he knows as of right now. Now, you could argue, I mean, Susan was asking him about Kravos, but at that point he had no reason to suspect that Kravos was dead, just that something weird was going on with his trial or something, right? She's a reporter, she's digging into a story about a potential murder trial, what's gonna happen there. At this point, I think it's entirely reasonable for him not to put those things together. Later, when Stalin starts to say, there's some really weird things going on,

That's I think when he starts to go, ⁓ maybe he should have figured out at this point that something weird is happening with the Kravos case. So I do think it's reasonable here. I don't fault Harry in this moment because man, a demon ghost did it is a really cool story regardless. Like that's not a bad story to finish. Like if that's how this kept going, if that was right, that's a cool story. So.

That's good too. Like from a writing point of view, from a reading point of view, I'm going, man, that's a cool enemy for him to fight, a demon's ghost. We've seen demons, like Chauncey was called up before, and he's fought a demon before. Michael helped him out, but a demon's ghost, that's new, that's interesting. He's never seen this before. What's gonna happen?

Brian (10:17)
And you know, Bob does come up with a plausible way that the demon could have left a ghost, you know, it's, Amorakius? yeah, that could maybe do it. But I think that there's definitely a hint here that Dresden is not being perfectly rational about everything. Now there's lots of reasons he's not being perfectly rational in this moment. I mean, the fact that he can get it together at all is pretty impressive. But you know, even Bob's like, that could be true. And then Dresden at no point goes, well, could it be anything else?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:25)
Yeah.

Brian (10:45)
They just plow kind of ahead with this

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:47)
But Harry does figure out like, okay, even if this is a demon's ghost, he couldn't have done all of those torture spells. Demons can't cast sorcery like that. And that leads him to coming up with maybe Bianca's involved. And he tries to come up with logic to support that supposition. And he goes over it and Bob's like, well, does she have motive? And I love the line that Harry has here. He quotes the one word note that she gave to him in Stormfront, regret.

Regret is her motive. And that is such a great callback to that line because it's so weird that she sent him a note with one word, regret, and like the phone number or whatever he was looking for. So the callback here is great. And then Bob and Harry have a ⁓ conversation about morality where Bob just can't quite get it.

Brian (11:36)
Yeah, I mean the joke that Bob doesn't understand morality is a bit of a double-edged sword for me because I get it, he has no intrinsic idea or belief about what's right and wrong, but also he's a spirit of intellect. So you figure at some point he would have, you know, read Kant whatever and, you know, develop some kind of ethical framework. So it's a little funny.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:54)
That's a good point.

Brian (12:00)
that Bob ⁓ is unable to grasp the concepts. But it's also, I think, pretty weird that Harry's like, Bob, you can't just go around killing people. They're not talking about, you Susan. They're talking about a vampire whose business is often killing people.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:22)
Yeah, Harry's very differently here than he will later when he comes across vampires. He's like, you definitely can go around just killing them. I think the thing here though is when he's making that protestation, he's probably thinking of the political consequences. And once you're at war, the political consequences don't matter anymore. But he gives a couple of different reasons. can't arbitrarily end someone's life because of something they may have done. And then when Bob points out she's a vampire, he says, yes, but to get to her,

I'll have to kill a whole bunch of her people, some of which might not be vampires, right? He's putting together a good reason for why he can't just go hat up and kill her that the reader will understand. But it's also definitely a Harry moralizing his way out of killing that winter night Harry will not have as big of a problem with when it comes to monsters that have done wrong.

Brian (13:12)
Yeah, mean, Winter Night Harry will, you know, kill she with very little pretext and they're probably less malevolent on average than a Red Court vampire. I think partially this is Harry being young and idealistic. Partially it's again, he had this emotional chunk taken out of him. I really love you just turning that on because it just, it makes so much sense that he's just kind of...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:18)
Yeah.

Brian (13:38)
not attacking problems in a way that is the most complex expression of his character. He's gonna be a little more timid, especially when it comes to going to whack something. But also, I think Harry is not just more idealistic and not just a little timid, he also, I guess, feels in general like...

he hasn't made that evolution we talk about to well it doesn't really matter if Bianca's guilty of this specific crime I know she's out to get me might as well you know and winter night harry might deal with it like that

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:18)
Mavrah in blood rights, Harry is just like, ⁓ she's threatening me. I have to go end her, right? But I think that's partly because it's sort of a standard operating procedure for wizards to be like, there's a black court scourge, can't let that dig its roots in, gotta go deal with it now.

Get all the stoker supplies, let's take care of it. The next thing that happens here is that Harry realizes that the nightmare stole some of his magic because he's unable to light a candle the way that he normally does. He has to put a lot more effort into it and Bob helps him explain, yeah, they got you right in the chi, that stole some of your magic and some of who you are.

Now, Brian, based on the rest of this book and Harry's ability or inability to cast a lot of magic and put up mental defenses, et cetera, how much of his magic do you think he stole? Is it half, more than half, less than half?

Brian (15:07)
So I think we actually get a clue to this, and maybe Jim's not being this literal, but ⁓ Bob asks, when it attacked you in your dream, did it go after a specific place on your body? And Harry indicates the base of his stomach, and Bob wins this and says, ooh, chakra point, that isn't good, got you right in the chi. Well, it's chakra point. There are seven of them. So I think that the nightmare got

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:26)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Brian (15:33)
one or maybe two sevenths of Harry's magic, because that's all it was able to do. I don't think he got like half or something, but I also think that part of what, as you've alluded to, is going wrong here is not just that Harry literally doesn't have the ability to channel enough energy to light the candles.

but that he doesn't have enough belief to do everything that he would do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:01)
Yeah,

the other clue to that is fuego piro fuego, where he just lights everything on fire. And I think the first couple of times I was rereading this book, I always forget, I'm like, yeah, he does that whole big thing after he gets his mojo back. No, that is before he defeats Kravos and reabsorbs his magic. That is before he gets it back. So he's got that much of a gas tank to set that whole place on fire.

Huge gouts of flame, the way it's described, it's just absolutely crazy. And it's probably because he's letting loose, right? He's using no control at all at that point. So that explains some of it, but he still has to have a lot of gas tank left if that's what's happening after he's lost some.

Brian (16:46)
Yeah, and to be clear, we're pretty sure at this point in the series that Dresden is not a, as they say in the earlier books, top 40, know, or top, top, like Dresden is the kind of guy who would be at the very least on the senior council in 200 years if he lived that long, right? Right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:06)
Hey, maybe even 150.

Brian (17:08)
So Dresden has a majorly gas tank and could Ebenezer burn down a building with only half his magic? Yeah, probably with only a quarter of it. The man's responsible for things like Krakatoa and Tunguska, know, explosions that are described with the words hundreds of megatons, right? So it doesn't take that much power for him to do something like that, but that

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Brian (17:34)
is even calls more attention to the fact that what does he fail at here? The candle lighting spell. It's not about just the amount of a chunk the Nightmare's taken out of him. Maybe it is more than half. It's about the fact that Harry now feels disconnected from who he is and doesn't have the confidence to try a lot of the magic he would normally

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:55)
Yeah, absolutely. Now, the next piece of this where Bob tries to explain to him, okay, well, now the nightmare has some of your magic and it can use it. And he has some of you, your soul, your spirit. He doesn't put it in those specific terms, but I think that's kind of what we've determined here. And that means it could potentially look like you. And he quotes specifically the line, you are what you eat. And Brian, when we were talking to Jim last week,

on the interview, he mentioned that again in reference to Lara eating Harry. So that is definitely a through line in these books. We see it multiple times and it's still important resonating all the way through the most recent book.

Brian (18:38)
Yeah, he even mentioned it not discussing Harry when we were discussing Connie because he was talking about how when Connie is feeding on Irwin, she's actually feeding on, you know, everything around all of them because he's so connected to nature, right? So Jim really thinks about this trope a lot, which is going to be part of reason why the nightmare becomes, you know, witty kind of halfway into this book. It's got some of Harry's snark too. We'll be talking about that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:44)
yeah.

yeah, yeah,

Brian (19:07)
But I think it's really important to notice what the Nightmare is doing is NOT something we see anybody do in Ghost Story. This is some really out there stuff. Bob is explaining it like, yeah, this is what it's doing, Harry. But clearly this is not how a normal ghost behaves. So

of course this is a demon's ghost. It could be weird in some sense, but this is not typical ghost behavior. And the thing that it most mirrors that we do see in Ghost Story is Corpse Taker, who...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:44)
Yes.

Brian (19:45)
gets

the power from all the Lector spirits and is feeding on mortals and attacking people like Molly and Mort. That kind of lends credence, I think, just the mere fact that the Nightmare can do this to our supposition that actually the plan that Mavra and Bianca presented to Kravos included and then you'll come back to life as the ultimate Karen.

because he seems to be operating even in this chapter from a playbook that we've only seen someone like Corpse Taker use.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:17)
Yeah, yep, the connection that I made as well. this, confused by what Harry says next, right? Bob says, you are what you eat, and Harry says, okay, well, we've gotta find this thing now. if it's using my power, it makes me responsible for what it does with it. Bob's scoffed. Harry, that's irrational, unquote. Now, Brian, this is an interesting discussion that these two are having.

We've always talked about the fact that Harry takes way more responsibility onto himself than many other people. He takes that great power with great responsibility thing way into the extreme. But do you think that there's a kernel of truth here or is he just being irrational the way that Bob is describing it?

Brian (20:58)
If you analyze the literal text that Harry says, he is being, as Bob says, we've now left reason and sanity junction, next stop, Looneyville, right? Totally, completely, no, Harry. I mean, Adam, you said this in the pre-show, you know, if somebody steals your car, like carjacks you, and then drives into a crowd of school children, like you're not morally culpable for their deaths. You got carjacked, man. So,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:09)
Yeah.

Brian (21:27)
In that sense, I think that Harry is completely wrong. But I don't think that's what Harry really means. I think what Harry is saying is the only reason the Nightmare was able to get the power it now has is because I failed at defending myself. And therefore I have a moral obligation to stop it. Not literally that it's using his magic.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:52)
Yeah, and I think maybe what Harry's thinking in his head is a different metaphor, right? Harry's got a gun, his magic, and he let a bad guy take his gun from him. Now the bad guy's using the gun on innocent people. He's thinking to himself, that should never have happened. I should have been prepared. I should have, you know, made sure that my gun was locked up or attached to me or biometrically, you know, whatever, right? He should have been more prepared, as you said.

more able to defend himself. And we know that if we're looking at this objectively as a reader here, it's really hard to blame him because we're pretty sure it's just the vampire venom that really prevented him from properly defending himself. We see him defend himself later pretty easily. He hails the help of his ghost, but we do see it happen. So to me, I think he's not unreasonable, but he's still wrong. That's the way I put it.

Brian (22:20)
Right.

Right,

I think you're completely correct that, you know, my metaphor was you got carjacked at gunpoint and Harry's thinking of it as, ⁓ I left the keys in the ignition and the door unlocked while I went in the store for 30 minutes and then somebody, you know, stole my car and used it to rob a bank. Man. Right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:53)
Right.

Yeah, he's giving himself way less credit essentially.

Brian (23:07)
But like, you're also exactly correct. That's not a true picture of events. Yes, if that's the equivalent of what happened, Harry, you would be right. But really it's like, you you locked up your car and you turned on the car alarm and you did everything, but you know, there was just a crack in the window that they could worm the clothes hanger into. And that's how they got inside and stole your car. prevent.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:31)
Yeah, he wasn't

being negligent is what it comes down to.

Brian (23:34)
Exactly, and he's acting like it was his negligence that allowed the Nightmare to gain access to his power, and it's not. And that is irrational, but I think we can give him a little credit and say he's not literally saying, just because it's using my magic, I'm responsible. He's talking about whether or not he did enough to prevent it from getting his magic.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:56)
Yeah, and the fact that, mean, until this point, he never even realized that somebody could steal his magic this way. I mean, even before this, when Bob's trying to explain it and he said, the nightmare took a big bite out of your powers, Harry says, I turned around very slowly to blink at Bob. It did what? Unquote. Like, he's clearly not expecting this, which is, again,

another thing where he can cut himself some slack. Like this doesn't happen on the regular. Ebenezer never taught you to defend yourself in your dreams because he didn't expect cornerhounds coming after him, or you the way that it came after him, or this demon potentially goes. So the next thing here, the last part of this chapter I wanna talk about, Brian, is that Bob starts explaining that he has been reading Mort's journals, which is good.

We went through that entire chapter to go and get them. So I'm glad that somebody read them and he gives some of the information to Harry about how ghosts can really only have this kind of power in relation to areas where they're acting their And Harry doesn't understand what that word is, but I do want to open up our copy of Obscure Words Quarterly

Bailiwick is a really interesting phrase here because he could have said area of expertise or field and those would have been perfectly reasonable words, much more common words, but he chose a larger and more obscure word Bailiwick originally referred to the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, which is something I didn't know until I looked it up for this show, Brian.

Brian (25:27)
Yeah, well, you know, think that, Bailiwick is a good word here because it has a sense of place that Bob is trying to communicate. He literally talks about Agatha Hagothorn couldn't go to a Cubs game. There's a sense of place in Bailiwick that makes it, you know, really good here. But frankly, you know, he could have used field. He could have used acting within the parameters of their

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:34)
Hmm.

Brian (25:53)
Honestly, I don't think there is a better word than bailiwick.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:55)
No, you

know, you're right. I didn't think about it. Yeah, having a sense of place does matter because that is directly what Bob is trying to communicate here is that he can only act in physical locations next to physical people that were involved in his death. He can't just go to a random gas station and attack the clerk behind the counter unless that clerk was involved in his death or somebody in the store was involved in his death. So I think you're right. I think bailiwick is a really good choice of word here.

So.

Brian (26:24)
But

the thing that I find funny about it is, yes it's a good word choice and that is a good enough reason to use it maybe, but I also like that he puts it in Bob's mouth and Harry doesn't know the word because of course Bob would know it. Bob was probably hanging around in London when people were literally talking to bailiffs about their bailiwicks.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:33)
Mmm.

Exactly right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like I said, it's obscure word. We know that Dresden reads a lot, but maybe he just never came up with cross this word. So that's the end of chapter 18. That brings us to chapter 19, which is where Dresden rushes over to Murphy's office. First he calls her, and that's where he learns that the nightmare has already called her and arranged to meet with her.

boy, that is scary. And you're like, good, he's talking to Murphy. He can explain. And Brian, there's this little back and forth where Murphy's like, ugh, I already said that I would wait for you 10 minutes, now you're telling me you're gonna be later, and winds up hanging up with him and then just like unplugging the phone or like leaving the phone off the hook. It feels a little bit like a plot contrivance to me. Does it feel that way to you or?

Does this feel natural? I mean, she does explain she's been up like two days straight

Brian (27:40)
So I think the reason why this does work for me is not that Harry wouldn't expect the nightmare to be doing this. He is, he's trying to get ahead of this. What shocks him is how rapidly the damn thing has switched to the next target. And there's two things that that suggests.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:55)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (27:59)
One, that this isn't Agatha Haggothorn. This isn't a ghost that is acting on the emotional imperatives that existed as its death and just lashing out at those people that it can hurt.

This is a thinking spirit with a plan to wreak havoc. And I don't think Harry had yet gotten, ⁓ that's what it is. This thing is fully sentient, fully sapient and making plans to deal with us. It's not just reacting. And two, even if the thing was making plans, not only has it already moved on to the next target, it's already figured out how to turn into him.

And that suggests that it is getting a lot more out of his magic or that it sort of knew more about shape-shifting than he expected. And I think obviously that's because this is a sorcerer. So it has some sense of how to use Harry's magic to do more powerful stuff. But that's not something that a demon necessarily would even think of doing right away.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:06)
Yeah, 100%. And I guess the real question for me is, is Murphy's response of like, quote, wait Murphy, are you saying you talked to me five minutes ago? I am about two seconds short of killing the next thing that pisses me off, Harry, and everything keeping me out of bed is pissing me off. Don't get added to that list. She hung up on me, unquote. And then he tries calling her back and it's busy. I actually totally see a...

running on coffee and nothing else Murphy in this situation potentially doing that. So, I mean, that does kind of work in retrospect.

Brian (29:40)
Yeah pardon my language, but all she's saying is what the fuck are you talking about?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:45)
and he doesn't get a chance to explain, hey, the nightmare can look like me, Murph. Like if he'd just gotten that one line out, she might have suddenly like stopped being pissed and tried to pay attention. And honestly, if this was Murphy just at the office on a normal day, she wouldn't have hung up on him that quick and he would have gotten that word in Edgewise.

Brian (30:05)
or even if none of that had happened and this was just after summer night, where Dresden's clued Murphy in on how the supernatural stuff operates, Murphy probably doesn't know that a shapeshifter is a potential thing that could happen. So there's no.

way she would be, you know, even suspecting that anything is going on but Harry being ridiculous for some stupid reason. It doesn't seem dangerous unless you live in a world where doppelgangers exist.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:37)
Yep, 100%. And I do like that he then rushes like, I've got to go save Murphy, right? He's grabbing improvised exorcism kit, salt, a wooden spoon, table knife, blah, blah, blah. He grabs a whole bunch of stuff, throws in a Scooby Doo lunchbox and runs out. But then he hesitates and he realizes Michael is also a target. So he dials Michael's number two. He takes a moment, like he's desperate to go see Murphy, but he knows it's important to warn Michael too, in case he's too or in case the...

you know what, maybe this thing is thinking two steps ahead is playing 3D chess. It calls Murphy and then goes to Michael's place. I don't know if that's what he's thinking, but it does seem like a good idea. And I'm glad that he takes the time to try to warm his friend, but it's busy. Every time he tries to call Michael in this, it's always busy. And then he finally gets to the precinct, Brian, and this part that I think like the first time I read it, just like burst out laughing, hi.

Which way did I go? To the desk sergeant. And he's like, did I just come through here a minute ago? And the desk sergeant confirms like, yeah, you just went up to see Murphy. How did you, how did you, and he's like, no time, just run back up there, right? So.

Brian (31:41)
Well, he

specifically says, great, I need to see her again, buzz me through. Just not at all trying to explain to this guy anything that's happening. Just literally like, I'm just gonna say, I need to get information out of you and then I need you to open the door and I'm just going to do whatever efficacious thing is gonna make that happen most quickly. Absolutely hilarious. I mean, the poor guy.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:45)
Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it was

the right call too, because the guy does let him through. I'm glad that we didn't get like a prolonged thing here where he tried to, I went out the back door, but then I came back, like we don't have to get through. That's something that maybe a lesser writer would try to throw in here as an obstacle for Harry, but he gets past this one because the real obstacle is waiting up in Murphy's office.

Brian (32:26)
Yeah, no, I just want to come back to what you said about Michael, the number always being busy during this book. This has got to be just a dial-up internet thing, right? Like Michael's got dial-up, that's what's going on the whole... Yeah. But anyway, so Harry bounds up the stairs racing after the nightmare, but it's already gotten to Murphy. And man, we're going to talk about stuff that kind of makes you...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:36)
Yes, it could be, right, Thereabouts.

Brian (32:52)
feel sort of uncomfortable later. This is really messed up. mean, Grave Parallel really gets us into like some horrifying things that other books have not touched on yet about the way that magic can psychologically mess with people that we're not even going to talk about or think about again really until something like proven guilty.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:16)
Yeah, I just gotta read this one paragraph here. I stood behind her, all in black, the same outfit I'd worn the night we stopped Kravos and his demon. The nightmare looked like me, its hands rested on either side of her face, fingertips on her temples, except that they had somehow pressed into her head, reaching down through skin and bone as though gently massaging her brain. The nightmare was smiling, leaning down a bit towards her, head canted.

Brian (33:39)
Ugh.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:44)
as though listening to music. I didn't know my face was capable of making an expression like that. Serene and malicious and frightening." Unquote. Wow, you're right. That is such a weird thing to think about. The fingers like getting into your brain, just passing right through your skin. It's very violating.

Brian (34:04)
Yeah, and I think that's

really what it is. mean, Murphy reacts later to this scene in the same way that people, you know, could react to other kinds of having your, you know, personal physical boundaries transgressed. I mean, she acts like a sexual assault survivor in the wake of this. And Jim is not, you know, being grotesque in painting the picture as to why she would do that. But he is certainly giving you enough so that you can

understand why it makes her feel that way. that reason...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:38)
Hell, might be

what she's experiencing, what the nightmare is forcing on her in the dream for all we know. That's the really scary thing to think about.

Brian (34:44)
Exactly. Yes.

Exactly, and you know, I'm not going to go into it, but obviously it's really good that Harry puts her into a deeper sleep where she can't continue to have that experience because you can think of a lot of ways that the nightmare could create a scenario that is especially damaging even if everybody comes out of it okay. If Murphy's in a scenario where not only does she feel like Harry, you know, is the thing that put her into this situation,

But he's actually part of the torment that could be what the nightmare is creating so it's it's really messed up and the you know

A little gibbering shriek of terror started somewhere in my quivering belly, but I refused to give it a voice. When he's telling the nightmare, get off of her, is, I think, Harry cottonning on to just how screwed up this is. It is one of the moments in this book that makes me feel the most cold sweat.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:52)
Yeah, 100%. And the thing that occurred to me while reading about this here, Brian, this doesn't look like he's casting the barbed wire spell, right? Harry doesn't have to pull that off of her later when she wakes up. This has gotta be something different, right? He's maybe gained the ability to do more than what he was limited to before, or we determined that he might not have even been able to put the barbed wire spell on Mickey Malone, that maybe he had helped before.

Brian (36:20)
Well, I think it's probably, and we know this now because of 12 months, we didn't know that when we were first discussing the barbed wire spell. I think it's probably because the barbed wire spell takes too long.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:32)
Mmm.

Brian (36:33)
because

in 12 months you need a ritual circle, you need a bunch of people, there's a blood sacrifice. I don't think Kravos needs all of those things to get it done. He's far more powerful than any of the practitioners in that circle, but it definitely seems like the kind of thing that would take...

tens of minutes as opposed to tens of seconds and he needs something that he can do quick here because he probably realizes he might be interrupted not necessarily by Dresden but by any cop coming in to try to talk to Murphy.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:10)
Right, that's 100 % true. And you know, when you mentioned that, the ritual sacrifice, what about all the animals that were dead outside of Mickey Malone's house? I wonder if he was killing them and absorbing that ritual sacrifice energy and holding it the same way that Harry sometimes holds the magic for a spell in his mind for a while, so that when he finally did manage to find Mickey in the dream, he had that necromantic

death energy, that sacrificial energy ready to go for the barbed wire

Brian (37:43)
That might literally be a requirement and man, like wouldn't that be screwed up? The thing that Bianca and Mavra are using to torture ghosts requires you to make more ghosts. It's like a chain reaction of insane ghosts from doing this spell. So that would certainly stir up the Never Never. Now we get a little bit of what I would consider levity in this scene because when Harry's trying to get the nightmare to go away, it responds

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:55)
oooo

Brian (38:12)
with, is something thou hast forgotten, wizard. You know, I have partaken of thee. am what thou art. He flicked his wrist toward me. Ventas servitas. And, ⁓ taste of your own medicine, Harry. Take that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:17)
Yeah? What's that?

Yeah, I should

have known better than to give him a straight line like that. It's such a great thing for Harry to say, like, my fault, I'm the one that said it. So good. Now, the other interesting thing here, you heard in those quotes that it said, and also when he first shows up, be thou silent wizard, else I will tear thee apart as I already have this night. He's using this very archaic form of speech, Brian, and this fits perfectly if this was a

Brian (38:39)
Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:59)
demons ghost because demons we've seen old like immortal type creatures and spirits tend to have archaic like thoughts and outfits and modes of speech. But why would Kravos be speaking like this?

Brian (39:13)
You know, my head canon is that Kravos in life had a very distinctive high-pitched squeaky voice, and he just knows that if he talked in his normal register, Harry would identify him No. But I do think it's something like that, right? Where...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:25)
You

Brian (39:29)
Kravos is speaking in this archaic fashion in order to disguise his identity. Now it happens to make him sound exactly like the demon, which maybe he's going for. Maybe he's actually actively attempting to convince Harry that he is the demon and that's why the red herring's working so well. Or maybe Kravos just knows that if I speak in Olde English, right,

How are you going to assume that I'm some sort of fairy or demon or other old ghost or some thing that learned English in the time of Shakespeare or whatever and that's gonna throw him off the scent. So maybe it's a deliberate I'm the demon disguise or he's just trying to convince him I'm not a guy who died two days ago. But I think it's just that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:21)
could be it. You're giving a little more credit than I did. Because my thought was, okay, this guy's leading a cult. He wants cultist to believe that he is some big wig sorcerer or whatever. What better way than to talk like you're from the 1400s to convince them, like, yes, I'm an ancient power or whatever? So it-

Brian (40:36)
Sure. Yeah. Right. He's literally

sitting there reading Macbeth at night the pricking of my thumbs. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:44)
Because he gets it wrong later, right? Harry

later chastises him and says, it should be thine, you idiot, right? He says the instead of thine or something during the fight in the cemetery. So he gets it wrong. So that's why I'm thinking he's just putting this on as an act. And maybe that's what he did with his cultists in life in order to intimidate them more or to try to fit into the image of what he thought a sorcerer should look and sound like in the same way that Harry tries to act like a badass wizard hero.

Brian (41:13)
Well, you know what? probably is, if my theory that Kravos is doing it deliberately, it probably is both, right? Because if Kravos just could speak French or whatever, well, he'd just do that. I mean, that would actually, you know. So doing the old English thing, it's something that he knows how to do. Maybe that spell book?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:26)
Maybe,

Brian (41:33)
is written in Old English. That's where he picked it up from. So all the rituals he's doing with the cult are in Old English. And therefore, when he speaks as the authoritative sorcerer, he tries to mimic that. Or maybe he just thought, it makes me sound creepy and powerful, so I'm going to speak that way. Oh, let me do that to convince Dresden that I'm some creepy and powerful thing and not Kravos, the guy you put in jail a couple of months ago. So definitely could see it being

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:37)
Hmm.

Brian (42:02)
a Kravos knows this from running a cult and he's using it here basically for the same reason to make Harry think he's something that he's really not.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:11)
So the next piece of this is that basically, like you said, the nightmare says, am what thou art and then blasts Harry with the gust of wind and then just walks out while everybody's recovering, presumably because he's like, my work is done here.

I've trapped her in a nightmare. What you gonna do about that wizard? Now I'm going on to the next one on the list. And we know he's gonna be going after Michael via charity in the next couple of chapters. But at this point, Harry then puts Murphy into a dreamless sleep. He asks Stallings for Kravos' book, thinking he can find the demon's name in there and that he can get it. Stallings stalls a little bit saying, I don't know if I can get that for you, Harry. And he's like, I need that book, John.

Then Harry calls Michael again, still busy, and then Rudolph threatens Harry. Brian, this feels very unlike the Rudolph that we have later in the books. He says, you better not be a fake, Dresden, he said quietly. I'm not really sure what's going on here, but so help me God, if something happens to the lieutenant because of you, I mean it, Dresden, if you let Murphy get hurt, I'll kill you. And then Dresden says,

exactly what you think he would. Kid, if anything happens to Murphy because of me, I think I'll let you." Unquote. that line where he's basically super protective of Murphy and almost, is he believing all this stuff after witnessing this right here, right now? I don't know, Brian, is he?

Brian (43:41)
So first of all, Jim, I know you don't listen to our show. I'm not believing that just because we got an interview with you.

But if you ever do hear this episode and you legitimately knew at this point that Rudolph was going to kill Murphy and like every part of this statement was like actually going to be an inversion and like you're an evil genius and I just, I can no longer actually comment on your books because you're just that much smarter than me.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:01)
you

I think, I think unfortunately it is word of Jim in a different set of interviews where he didn't know that Murphy was going to need to die until I think like cold days he figured out like, she can't keep up with resin anymore, even though, you know, he will keep calling her for backup. Like she's going to have to die at some point, something's going to have to happen. So he figured that out later in the series. I don't think he planned for her to die this early.

Brian (44:35)
But you're absolutely right. This doesn't sound like the Rudolph who ultimately does kill Murphy. This is a totally different guy. basically, rather than looking at a giant and thinking that it's just a dude, he's thinking this Dresden guy better be a real wizard because if he's not, we're in trouble. The assumption is that he is a real wizard if you're saying that. And you better protect Karen.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:00)
Yeah.

Brian (45:03)
I mean that sounds like a person who under no circumstances would let alone forget shoot her accuse her of being a terrorist.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:10)
Right, that's what Carmichael sounded like after he started to believe in Full Moon, right? He basically started to believe Harry a little bit more by the time you get to that book. That's the kind of line I would have expected to come out of Carmichael's mouth, not Rudolph's. And I think, Brian, the only conclusion we can come to here is this is pre-handler, right? This is before Rudolph was picked up as an asset by somebody. And like, I'm still on team, his brain was scrambled by someone.

for maybe several years after this to just crank up his denial in the same way that Peabody was subtly altering and Lucio was pushed towards Dresden very subtly and things like that. I think somebody is just going into his head and cranking up his denial. But we'll talk about that more when we learn more. I'm sure we've not seen the last of Rudolph in this whole story yet. But.

Brian (46:03)
Yeah,

just before we move on, think what you just said gotta be true that this is pre-handler. Gotta be. I think we can put that in bold pen, everybody. If you're trying to figure out what happened to Rudolph, you know at this point he is his own man. All, you know, with everything good and bad that that implies. He is his own man here. But one thing I do want to say, Adam, just to counterbalance what you said, because I don't think it's a slam dunk.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:11)
Mm.

Brian (46:25)
is that this might be the whole tragedy of Rudolph as a character. In this moment, he's so close to getting it, and then he ends up where he ends up in Battleground. So, you know, it's possible that that is in large part due to whoever his handler is.

But it might be that it's all a defense mechanism against the cowardice that puts him in his handler's pocket. And either way, it's tragic. It just depends what story Jim's writing. So in chapter 20, I got a question for you. So Harry arrives at Michael's place, but Charity's already gone. She's at the store. And we're going to talk about the conversation that Harry and Michael have. But Charity's at the store. How the heck does the Nightmare Finder there?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:08)
Ooh, that's an interesting question. How does it find anyone, right? It found Mickey Malone's house. I have to imagine that ghosts are drawn to the reason for their existence, right? So he is a ghost because his death is wrapped up in these people and he wants revenge on them. We know from like what Bob said that a ghost, once they've fulfilled their purpose, they disappear. That happens to Harry's ghost later in this book.

So I think there must be something like magnetically pulling him to the people that he wants revenge on, that if he were to get all of them, he would disappear, right? We think maybe Bianca's got some way around that, promised him some way around that in order to get him on her side, but I think that's probably what's happening.

Brian (47:53)
Okay, so I agree with that. And that means that one of two things just happened. Either one, ghosts are drawn to it so he knows where he's going to go, but

Also, he's getting help, and we know that he is, and this is just further evidence that the Red Cord or Maver or whatever is also working with the Nightmare. And that's why he's headed in the right direction already, but he runs into a lookout who says, make a left, go to the store, that's where you'll find the girl or whatever, right?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:26)
or he could

be waiting outside of Michael's house, because he doesn't want to go into Michael's house. He remembers what happened when Michael showed up.

Brian (48:29)
Well,

so this is how creepy Grave Parallel is, right? That's option two. Option two is the nightmare, just like at Mickey Malone's house, is standing in the yard across the street staring in through the carpenter's window, cracking the heads off of squirrels.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:53)
hoping

one of them has a dream that puts it into the never never.

Brian (48:57)
and then it sees Charity get into the car and follows her the whole way. And God, that's so scary and messed up. I Grave Parallel is really traditional horror movie slasher vibes from The Nightmare all the way through. Now, when Harry actually gets to the house, Charity is already gone and he knocks on the door to tell Michael basically everything that we've described here and then says, come on, let me in so that I can help with...

And Michael is a little bit too experienced to just bring Harry inside right away.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:31)
Yeah, Michael says, then how do I know that you aren't this nightmare trying to get me to invite you in? Then you get that sort of butcher-ism that I've seen in a lot of his Dresden books. I open my mouth, close it again, and then said, either way, it's better if I stay out here. Charity would probably gouge my eyes out for showing up at this hour, unquote. And that's what convinces Michael to let him in. I love it. Michael just immediately knows.

Yep, no, you're the real Dresden. Because the copy would not say that.

Brian (49:59)
And the funny thing is, you know, of course that could be the double trick thing. You know, I'm going to pretend I'm really not interested in going in and that's what's going to get you to invite me. But Michael doesn't have to worry about that because if it wasn't sincere, have twigged to it.

And that's what makes me think later, we've got a slight disagreement, that maybe Michael is really reliant on things like his instincts and timing just lining up really well.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:18)
Mm-hmm.

Could be. I think the extra bit of detail on Charity would gouge my eyes up for showing up at this hour. That's something that a bad guy probably wouldn't know to say. He wouldn't realize that Harry and Charity have such a bad relationship. But kind going out on a limb. But then,

We get to the point where Harry finally convinces him it's so kind of creepy to me, Brian, because first Michael's like, I don't have to wake my family up, things coming after me, I'm already awake, no problem. He's a little bit naive in that sense, probably because all of his villains have gone after him. But Harry says, if I were going to come after you, Michael, I wouldn't start with you. And boy, what,

Michael says when that realization hits really telling.

Brian (51:19)
Yeah, it hints at a side to Michael that we maybe only see in the short The Harry, sit. I'll be down in a moment. But it might I'll see to it, he said in that same soft gentle voice. It scared me. I sat down.

Michael immediately goes into the Terminator mode or maybe the D Terminator mode. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:44)
Yeah, his face hardened while he looked down at his child.

Woo hoo, okay, you do not want to get on the wrong side of Amarokius.

Brian (51:52)
Now the one thing I will say, Adam, is I don't think it's that Michael is naive in the sense that he wouldn't think of something going after his family. I mean, to a certain extent, I do believe that he is of the opinion that in large part he is only putting himself in danger in his duties and the Lord sees to that. But I think if this was Nicodemus, he would have thought that that was a possibility.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:10)
Mm-hmm.

You're right.

Brian (52:20)
I think it's just that Michael can't conceive of a purely spiritual entity acting with this level of premeditated maliciousness.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:33)
Yeah,

plus he thinks it's a demon's ghost and they just don't think that way, would be my guess. They wouldn't go after a mortal indirectly the way that Harry's describing.

Brian (52:43)
Right, so Michael getting on board with this I think is a function of him really starting to recognize, ⁓ when Dresden explained to me that this thing took a piece out of him, I need to act like Dresden was coming after me. And that's what makes him go into ⁓ shit mode.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:59)
Right.

100%. Now, the next piece of this, the last piece of this that we wanna talk about in chapter 20 here is Michael says, all right, let's get going basically. And Harry's like, but your kids, and then we get this quote, Michael rolled his eyes, took a step to the door and jerked it open without looking away from me. Father Fort Hill stood on the other side, unquote. And he's like, oh, my car broke down. Oh, you need a babysitter, don't you? Just such.

perfect comedic timing of, and a great way to demonstrate to the reader for I think the first time that Michael's job, the way he lives his life ensures that things work out for him in the best way possible via coincidence. Somebody is out there looking out for him as long as he's walking the path properly. And it still seems a little crazy to me, Brian, that

he would be so effing certain that at that moment, right when they're ready to leave, that somebody was gonna be there to help him. So that leads me to believe maybe while he was upstairs taking care of everything, he looked out the window and saw Father Fort Hill, and he's like having a little fun with Harry. Like he was certain something was gonna happen, but to be so damn certain that that is happening exactly right now on the other side of that door, I don't know, it feels a little crazy, because I feel like we don't see him.

do that or show that sort of omniscient foresight in the future.

Brian (54:27)
Yeah, I think you're definitely right that part of the reason Michael could have come down so serious and ready to go is that he saw that, you know, the man upstairs had already sent him cover for the fam and he was like, it's going to be one of those nights, you know, and he already knows. But the other possibility is that basically the coincidence and convenience of being a knight.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:42)
Hmm.

Brian (54:51)
isn't that things just work out well for you and you can count on things to happen in a way that is specifically awesome all the time. It's that you will not, because you are doing what you're supposed to as a knight, incur any dangers beyond that one that you're pushing yourself into.

So why is it that your plane gets stuck in the place that you need to be? Well, that's because the Lord is saying, okay, if you're gonna walk the path of the night, you need to be here for now. And you're not gonna lose your job because of that. Or if you do, you will be rehired immediately afterwards by someplace that's even better.

if you're walking the path it's not going to lead to the actual act of doing that causing you inconveniences that are unrelated to the danger you're putting yourself in. And that means that it's a system that Michael can't game. He can't be like, Charity and I want to go out to dinner so we can just walk out the door and there will be a babysitter. It's literally when I am compelled to chase after a bad guy I know that

I don't have to worry if I left the stove on. The house is not gonna burn.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:08)
Right, yeah, that does matter. That does make sense. Now, they jump in Michael's truck, they head down to the only open grocery store this time of night, that's how they find Charity's van parked out front. They go inside and this is the first time we get a real look at the Michael that shows his face in The Warrior as we were talking

And that's the one where zealot comes after Michael's family in order to try to convince Harry to release the sword so they can be used to fight evil again. And Michael goes pretty ham on him, gets a lot of wrath ⁓ in that one. But here we see him walking up to the store.

go inside, Harry's basically questioning the kids behind the counter, and when Harry says, another guy like me, tall, skinny, all in black, jacket like mine, did that guy come through? The girl says, maybe I have, what's in it for me? And at this point, we get the line, Michael rolled forward a step, a growl bubbling out of his throat. And I grabbed his shoulder and leaned back, whoa, whoa, Michael, slow down, man.

There isn't time to slow down, Michael muttered. You detect, I'm looking. With that, he turned and strode off deeper into the store, casually carrying the sword in his left hand, his right upon the weapon's grip. Charity! Unquote. That, that was scary to me when he kinda just started advancing on these teenagers in a threatening way. That doesn't feel like the Michael we know.

Brian (57:36)
Yeah, I mean, that's the fear that he's feeling causes him to commit the deadly sin of wrath. He is angry because the kid is being smart with him and no, the kid shouldn't be smart with him, but it's because of the fear he's feeling that he, rather than merely trying to impress upon this youth, the seriousness of the matter just gets pissed off.

And Michael, he's a carpenter and he's on earth in human form, know, sort of taken one to save us from our sins. There's some definite Jesus parallels, but his real characterization is as a father figure. And he very much like the Old Testament God has one sort of button.

that goes negative, he will absolutely turn your city into a pillar of salt if you threaten his family. And that wrath is his real flaw from the sense of being the true pure knight. It's the thing that keeps him from being Galahad. He is not absolutely perfect.

And it's probably why he actually doesn't make it to this fight as quickly as Harry does, both in a literal, but also in a theological sense.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:01)
Yeah,

so here he is kind of stepping off the path temporarily, right? This is not Michael at his best doing what he should be doing in this moment. And as a result, he goes wandering off into the store, tunnel visioned, like not doing the smart thing. Harry decides to bribe the kid to get some real information

as a result, Harry gets results and he then tries to call for Michael, but Michael doesn't hear him. He calls him twice and then runs outside, realizes that Charity's car has been messed with and the kid told him they went down that way. He turns down that way and sees somebody going into the cemetery, appearing to drag someone behind them by the hair. Whoa, that concept of like,

being dragged into a cemetery by your hair, by a literal nightmare, is another visualization that gives me the heebie-jeebies, as it were.

Brian (1:00:00)
Yeah, it's some of the strongest horror movie vibes in the most horror movie book in the series to this point by far. I also, man, could it get even more like on the nose for being a Christian metaphor? guess if, know, Harry called it a third time, so, you know, he could be denied three times instead of only twice. But it's really ridiculous on page that Michael

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:20)
Hahaha!

Brian (1:00:27)
doesn't hear the call or doesn't have time to catch up. Harry's a huge dude. If he calls out your name, you're gonna hear it. And it's not like he runs immediately in that direction. Harry has time to walk outside, pop the hood of the van, and see what the nightmare did to the engine. Michael still has to even come to the door. Harry calls him again. He's nowhere in sight. And then he runs off. This is a really good example of

being off the path. He's literally not headed in the right direction. I mean, I don't know if Jim had conceived of all the ways in which the Knights of the Cross worked at this point, but what he's doing in this chapter perfectly maps on to everything he describes about the Knights in later books.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:16)
Yeah, the coincidences that often go his way when he is walking the path didn't work here. Conceptually, I was trying to figure out like, it's a big empty store, Harry's gonna be yelling, how come Michael can't hear him? I've been in those big empty stores, I worked at a deli late at night, I know you can hear everybody that's yelling across the store, so what's going on? And my only thought was, okay, Michael is so tunnel visioned.

He's running around this door yelling for charity and he just goes into the back looking back there for some reason, those doors close. He can't necessarily hear Harry that's way up at the front of the store at that point. Once he's through those doors, maybe that's too far. And again, we're kind of hypothesizing that it's his flaw that takes him there. And that's why, now imagine what happens next. He comes back out, Harry's gone.

He's already run down the street. He goes back to the kids and now he's super scared. He can't find her. She's gone. He knows she was here. Her car is out front. And Harry's gone now. That fear gets cranked up even more. He probably turns up the intimidation factor even more on these kids, which probably makes them even less likely to help him because now he looks like some jealous ex-boyfriend, not like...

Brian (1:02:11)
and Harry's gone.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:29)
the hero trying to save the day.

Brian (1:02:31)
And it's only, of course, when he calms down in this picture we're imagining and is able to reassure and put other people at ease and think of them first for a second that he gets the good information and is able to run to the rescue insofar as he does. So, think that it's... We're obviously investing a lot into this scene that's not there on page, but I think it's just really exceptional how incredibly...

When Jim has one Night of the Cross in the first book he's introduced to them, he already has the perfect feel for how things work for them, even if he's not actually conscious of it. He's just subconsciously writing it into the scenes, as droidly as possible. So ⁓ we're gonna leave it there for today, and we will talk about what happens in that graveyard next time.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:22)
next week we're gonna be reading chapters 21 and 22, and those are big chapters, Brian. 21 is the whole fight in the graveyard with Charity and Harry and Leah shows up and steals Amarachius, and 22 scene where Michael has to explain to Harry that there were...

complications, that he says that word with such weight. we then learn that the child is getting weaker. Harry supposes that maybe the nightmare has put some kind of a spell on it to make it weaker and we have to kill the nightmare in order to save the kid. And that's what gets Michael out the door. So that's what we have to look forward to next week. But before then, yeah, let's find out what Bob's answer is to this week's question.

Brian (1:04:07)
So, I know this is probably a strange thing to ask you, as canonically you don't understand morality or many human emotions, but when you're going over Harry's journals, are there any scenes that make you kind of uncomfortable to relive or where you're empathizing with a, you know what, forget it, but readers, are there any scenes that make you empathize too strongly in the Dresden Files and sort of...

create a sensation of I can't put this down until this tension is resolved

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:39)
Yeah, mean, Bob obviously can't make it again. This time, he said he's stuck in a cemetery. He sounded more and more panicked as the call went on, and then it dropped, so hopefully he's okay.

Brian (1:04:53)
yeah i hope you got to a great

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:55)
so yeah, now the thing that inspired this question is, as we alluded to at the beginning of this episode, when...

Bob is explaining that the nightmare got to Harry the same way as this, that, and the other thing. There is a line that sort of encompasses what I'm talking about here, but there's a lot of small bits of characterization. And it's this one here. After Bob explains that it's coming through dreams or whatever, Harry says, I shook my head, rested my elbows on my knees, and put my face in my hands. I did not want to be doing this. Someone else could do it. I should go. Leave town, unquote.

So that does not sound like Harry. Now, Harry has expressed something similar to that almost before every climax in every book. He always comes to the conclusion of like, before he walks in to Victor Sells' house or to confront the Lugaroo, he's always like, this isn't smart. I could, I don't have to do, it's not my responsibility. Like he tries to...

his way around his guilt, but then he eventually decides to do it anyway. But he never really sounds terrified. This sounds terrified. Like he's trying to talk his way out of it because of his fear, not because he's trying to talk his way around his guilt. And that to me is what really hits me hard, is I really feel Harry's fear and his lack of confidence.

which is just going to show up again and again over the rest of this book until he finally gets his Chi back, as it were.

Brian (1:06:27)
Yeah, and I think that there's a reading of this scene that doesn't pick up on what you're talking about. We discussed way back when we were talking about Stormfront that in the climax of that book, in Victor Sells' house, Harry is sort of timid in a way that he will never be again in the series. He's sort of paralyzed by fear in a way that doesn't happen to him later. And this is something of a callback to that.

But I think you're right. I don't think this is just Harry's less experienced so he feels weirder about it. And man, when you frame it as the demon has changed him, it has made him different, in a way, that's like, you know, Shippathesius, that's like killing him. He has taken the Harry we know.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:11)
Mmm

Brian (1:07:23)
crossed him out and replaced him with someone who's almost the same. And it's not exactly like that. know, Harry will feel reunified by the end of the book and he's not so noticeably different. But it is a weird kind of thing to go through when you read the scene as Harry is saying, this thing has made me into not.

me. That's really, really scary and really, really uncomfortable.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:55)
Yeah,

and I was to put my finger on like the part of Harry that's missing from this scene and the rest of the book up until he gets to eat Kravos. I would say it's his calm under pressure, right? His ability to stay focused and clear headed when his life is under threat, other people's lives are under threat, or he's on the clock, like that...

version of Harry Dresden is missing. He still does go through with it, even though he's not calm under pressure. So we know like the fundamental underpinning of who he is is still there because he still throws himself into charge as it were, and he still has the courage to defy his terror, but

The thing that makes it less terrifying, the thing that allows him to ignore his personal danger, that's what's missing from him during this part and the rest of the book.

Brian (1:08:56)
Yeah, I mean, it's telling that he puts his hands on his lower abdomen when he's telling Bob where it attacked him because he doesn't have the stomach for it. He's still doing it, but he's queasy about it in a way that he wouldn't be in another book. So I think that's a really good call for the kind of scene we're talking about.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:03)
Hmm.

And the reason that I wanted

to point it out is almost acts not as powerless as he is in Ghost Story, but like that, the way that Jim writes him, using words similar to the quote that I just read the rest of this book, is just, it makes me as a reader anxious for him, because he's no longer the calm Indiana Jones,

Han Solo type character who's just throwing snark and jokes out, keeping the tone light and fun. Now he's a terrified rabbit that's going into danger anyway. And that immediately changes the tone of the book from a lighthearted or dangerous adventure.

to ⁓ suddenly more like a horror story. And that's what raises the anxiety in me. And I was like, I have to close the loop on this as fast as possible. need to get to, like, I very much look forward to the moment when he finally eats Kravos and becomes himself again, until I get to that moment. I get a little bit of like tight chest anxiety going on when I think about the book as I'm reading it. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about and discuss. And I'll give you one more example.

because it relates directly to this, Brian. When he loses Amarachius to Leia, that moment is such a gut punch to me on an empathetic level. Like, I feel the sudden despondency that Harry must be feeling. Like, my God, I just lost this incredibly potent weapon for good.

and it was my fault. I should have known better. She tricked me. Everything that happens now is my fault. That is also a huge source of anxiety for me reading the rest of this book. Now, obviously on a reread, it's much lower down, but the first time through I'm like, what is going to happen? Holy shit. They killed Carmichael. They could kill other people. Michael might not get out of this. know, Jim sets that up and it works really well to... ⁓

get me to feel things outside of just what he wants me to feel in the moment in the book.

Brian (1:11:32)
Well, and I think what you're specifically describing is a little bit deeper than you're worried about the consequences that it could have for the characters in story. Because I think what this is, what we're really trying to put our finger on here, is the moments in the Dresden Files where the way in which you are empathizing, not sympathizing, but empathizing with the characters brings you to something that is both resonant and very uncomfortable.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:41)
Yeah.

Brian (1:12:01)
And that requires like a certain confluence of factors. Like you have to have something that makes you feel, you know, disempowered in a similar way as like something that you psychologically dread. Like it has to map onto something that's a little bit personal for it to really sink in in the way we're talking about. So there's a lot of scenes in the book where sympathetically I'm like, ⁓ that would make me super uncomfortable.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:20)
Yes.

Brian (1:12:31)
but I also can't really relate because it's just not a scene that I can put myself into in the same way.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:39)
Exactly right, I don't have kids and so, do you wanna meet my dad? Doesn't hit me the way that it would hit a father or somebody who grew up without a father or something to that effect, right? Those moments when Harry's relationship with Maggie is really tenuous and new, like I have read comments from people.

that said like, man, I just had my first kid, we're in the hospital right now and I'm reading this and I'm bawling my eyes out, right? Because it resonates, like you said, directly with them and it connects with them on a personal level.

Brian (1:13:16)
Yeah, and Artichoke Open answered that, that the scenes that this made them think of were all of the heartache ones involving Susan and Maggie. The grave peril I love you scene when Susan is restraining herself from eating him. The Harry confronting her about hiding Maggie in changes.

Of course, using the knife. But then also, like you said, Maggie asking, do you want to be my dad? To me, like you said, that one doesn't get me on a personal level, even though I can see how uncomfortable it is, you know, sympathetically. But I can imagine.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brian (1:14:07)
you've ever been in a situation that remotely echoes that, God has that got to tear at your heartstrings.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:13)
Mm-hmm.

And we had actually several people that said like pretty much all of 12 months. And when it came out, I saw a lot of comments from people that were like, wow, I have been through depression and this was a very good sort of explanation of what it feels like to deal with that or the grief or the what have you. So I think that is also a pretty good answer on that. If you're personally affected by the kinds of things that happen in 12 months.

Brian (1:14:40)
Yeah, and I don't have that same relationship with the PTSD sort of due to violence that is very much what Harry's going through in 12 months. But the depression he's in in the beginning of Summer Night...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:53)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:14:59)
when he hasn't been seeing people and he hasn't been doing the things he likes and he hasn't been taking care of the chores around the apartment and the cat is using his clothes as a litter box. That's one where I'm like, hmm.

You know, I'll say right now, I have recently started an antidepressant because that's the place where I psychologically go as a stress response and seeing the hero going through that, puts me in the sensation of, yeah, I know exactly what this is like. Not for the same reasons. No one's ever turned one of my girlfriends into a half vampire and taken her from my life.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:42)
Hehehehehe ⁓

Brian (1:15:44)
but I can relate to that utter loss of momentum that depression can cause. And it makes me absolutely need to get to the point where he has got it going again. I can't put the book down until the council meeting is over.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:00)
Right, yeah, that's exactly the kind of concept I was thinking of, because there's definitely scenes where after I get to that scene, I need to keep going to like at the resolution of whatever started in that scene. Now, scarytry994 says, quote, the scene where Harry sees Thomas all beaten up by the Sphard elves was too much for me. I put the book down and I didn't read it again until Battleground came out. Then I just skimmed that bit, unquote. And I could totally get that. okay, this isn't gonna necessarily be resolved in time.

I need to wait until Battlegrounds around so I can figure out what's going on. Sorry, Scary Try, you had to wait until 12 months came out to get the real resolution, but at least you got to put him into that stasis where he's not hurting anymore. similarly, boy, Brian,

When the Negloschi reveals what he's been doing to Thomas in Turncoat, that is rough and it really makes me wanna get to the moment later where he seems to be much better, but he's still acting weird and at the end of that book, I always have the feeling like is Thomas okay? And I get this sort of anxiety in my gut again about this character and it's just so well written, damn you, Jim.

Brian (1:17:07)
And obviously, you know, that could be as simple as if you've ever had to watch someone that you loved, you know, go through extreme physical pain or trauma or extreme, you know, psychological trauma, you know, that that would put you in a similar frame of mind. But it doesn't have to be that one to one, you know, just kind of putting yourself in the situation that Thomas was in, right? I can't stop myself from making this horrible choice.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:14)
Yeah.

Brian (1:17:37)
That's a thing that a lot of people can empathize with and it's really deeply uncomfortable. So it doesn't have to be as one to one as, ⁓ because you're a new parent, the scene with the baby makes you feel things. It can just be more metaphorical. And I think that's part of why Violet Pumpkin's answers...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:38)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:17:59)
all of changes in Ghost Story. If you were to take this literally, like you've got a... I'm sure Violet Pumpkins isn't feeling anxious because they've also committed genocide against a supernatural race, right? But what they said is in Changes, he's basically on the edge of sanity the entire time. And then in Ghost Story...

all of the fight scenes are him fumbling around when he used to know how to do it. It's very much evoking the feeling of, am I crazy? Like, what's going wrong? You you just went through the emotional wringer and of course you're not doing things as well as you normally do. But man, when that's actually happening, isn't that so awful to deal with? And there's a lot of things that can make you feel that way. Now,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:31)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:18:48)
you know, I'm not saying that's exactly what Violet Pumpkins is saying, but I absolutely can relate to that idea where those books kind of come together to paint a very common psychological picture that is really uncomfortable even if obviously the specific events are nothing that any of us have ever been close to.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:06)
Yeah, and ⁓ Dia Steel and a couple other people quoted the soul gaze with Helen Beckett. Owie, owie, owie. my God, James Marsters. Guess me, every damn time.

Brian (1:19:19)
that I find really interesting because that's one where to me, that scene is like really, very moving.

but I don't feel it the same way as some of the other ones. I'm not saying that it's less effective, but it's effective differently. And that's one where I can definitely see, oh, there are some people who like have experiences that make them connect to this more deeply than I can. And it's sort of a good demonstration of exactly what we're talking about. Another version of that is Scatterbug 49 reminds us of the moments in

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:31)
Mm-hmm.

It is.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:19:58)
in I lost.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:18)
Yeah, and I think Marsters has his voice break at the end of so interesting because at that moment, it reveals just how fragile he's been the whole time. Like he's been holding it together since Ghost Story, but only barely. And losing Harvey is what pushes him over the edge. Like he couldn't save Harvey. And that's when he has to go see Michael because he has

He can't keep holding it together. And I think probably a lot of people can empathize with a situation where they had that last straw that just pushes them over the top into that kind of a problem.

Brian (1:20:55)
Well, and I think also the experience of exposing that level of vulnerability to another person, that's deeply uncomfortable. And Harry just, you know, bears his soul to Michael.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:21:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Brian (1:21:09)
And of course, that's why he unconsciously drives to Michael's. He knows he has to do it. you know, there's literally no one else who's better. You could possibly do that to where it be, you know, any more effective than to unburden yourself to Michael. But even with him, it feels awful.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:21:27)
Yeah, and the other one that ⁓ actually helped expand the question in my mind, the way I worded the question was that Harry was the one feeling the emotions that would make you feel uncomfortable via association or what have you. But Laz Lowey expanded that by saying, you know, the discussion with Molly and Charity at the end of proven guilty is what really, touched them. And it really is like a very...

important moment that I have to imagine has happened between every parent and child at some point where the child has to set the boundaries and tell the parent, no, this is not your choice anymore. And that I think must cause some people to maybe skip over that chapter as a result.

Brian (1:22:09)
Yeah, definitely. expanding the question as Lazlawi did actually made me think of the scene in White Night where Elaine is under the psychic attack from the scavus and is literally, you know, wrist slit, bleeding out in the shower, the bath or whatever.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:34)
and she

hears herself saying the most horrible things about herself to herself. ⁓ boy.

Brian (1:22:40)
And that just absolutely just makes me feel so uncomfortable because Jim nails there the sense to which, and I've heard a lot of people describe it this way, people can describe sort of mental illness as a set of related intrusive thoughts almost, and it's exactly what the Skaevis is doing. So effective, and it's why I cannot put that book down.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:00)
Ooh, yeah.

Brian (1:23:09)
until after Harry says, Murph, I think we got through.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:13)
Yeah, that is a very cathartic lightning strike. Let's put it that way. All right, any others from you before we finish this off?

Brian (1:23:17)
Definitely.

I think that and obviously again I can't say I've had any personal experiences that make me connect to this but when the Negloshi is just biting off fingers in the Wraith House as it's casually talking to Harry and Lara ⁓ my god

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:40)
Like

it's just, it's just a light snack. It's just, it's got a pretzel here, no problem.

Brian (1:23:43)
That...

I mean, Jim has truly like refined sadism to its purest form in that moment, and it absolutely makes me feel so uncomfortable the entire time I'm reading it. How about you, Adam?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:49)
Yeah. ⁓

⁓ That's pretty much it. I have mentioned some of the big ones for me, but the moment that we're about to come up on where Harry loses Amarokius, and it's just like, feel like I've had nightmares where I've messed up so badly. And I don't even remember what it is. It's just a nightmare that it's nothing in particular, but it's just like, ⁓ I did something and it caused a huge problem for so many other people. Like that feeling of guilt by

Brian (1:24:12)
Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:24:27)
failure is something that I can empathize me feel really.

Brian (1:24:30)
Yeah, it's almost the central

humiliation of every back in high school dream, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:24:34)
Yeah, more or less, yeah.

So that's the biggest one for me and along with the other parts that we mentioned.

All right, before we go, we're gonna let you know next week's question for Bob, since we're going to see Harry break his word to Leah again. What mortal in the series is most disadvantaged by their Faye bargain, and how should they have worded their bargain?

Brian (1:24:58)
And this includes bargains that we don't see explicitly. So if you think that in the Godmother agreement, Margaret Dresden Sr. should have gotten a few extra clauses thrown in, that's fair game as long as you can make an argument based in the text.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:14)
there are situations where Harry just makes a dumb bargain and should have asked for more. And that's really not what we're looking for. Like if it's something where he had more leverage than he thought he had, that's kind of a boring answer. So give us something more concrete. Like find the spot where the fey took advantage of the wording and see if he can reword it to a way where the mortal cannot be quite so far disadvantaged.

Brian (1:25:39)
Yeah, in debate, we call that a plus a cookie argument. So no plus a cookie arguments, or maybe in the Dresden files, we should say plus a doughnut arguments.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:48)
Exactly right. And with that, we're going to head listening, everybody. We'll see you next week.