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 shade trapped in Graceland, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (00:20)
I believe that shade is wearing a person. This is most interesting night we've had in centuries, Lenny.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:27)
And they've got that lady lying on an altar. Are they gonna do a human sacrifice?

Well, hopefully not, but Brian, we're here at chapter 21 of Grave Peril. This is where Harry and Michael went out searching for Charity. They know the nightmare's after her, and Harry manages to track her to

And as he rushes towards the cemetery, he has to take a moment to figure out how he's gonna get inside.

Brian (00:48)
I paused outside the graveyard. A dull, restless energy pressed against me like when weariness and caffeine mix around 3.30 in the morning. It rolled against my skin and I heard, actually heard, whispering voices through the rain. Dozens, hundreds of whispers, ghostly susurrence. I put my hand on the wall and felt the tension there.

There are always fences around cemeteries. Always. Whether stone or brick or chain link, it's one of those unwritten things that people don't really notice. They just do it. By reflex. Any kind of wall is a barrier in more than merely a physical sense. Lots of things are more than what they seem in a purely physical sense. Walls keep things out. Walls around cemeteries.

keep things in.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:42)
⁓ Brian, Brian, the horror in this book is leaking out into reality and I don't like it.

Brian (01:47)
Yeah, I really think this is probably the first time in the series, maybe with the exception of walking the crime scene in Stormfront, that actually crosses into modern horror in a way that's a little bit more like a Lovecraft, you know, story or like

a possession film that you get in the theaters where it really feels like you just learned something about our reality that's true and the fiction is kind of in the room with you now.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:21)
kind of took this for granted when I read this the first time. But when I was coming back to analyze it right now for this chapter, I was like, wait a minute. There aren't fences around all cemeteries, Jim. Not always. For example, the one in my town, and I pulled it up on Google Maps and I'm like, yeah, look right there. It's a wrought iron fence.

goes all the way around the whole thing. Huh. But what about that one in my hometown? That one did, yeah, it had a stone wall around it, didn't it? Huh. What about the other one near my home? That also had a stone wall. Okay. Well, let me just, I kept looking. It like just pulled up cemeteries on Google Maps. So my search history might look really weird right now, but I kept looking and I finally found like the sixth or seventh I looked at had a fence going around.

half of the graveyard, but not the other half, which suggests maybe it was expanded at some point and somebody didn't do their due diligence. So that's gonna be ghost central. But man, it's more true than I thought it was.

Brian (03:17)
Well, I think that this is definitely true, and Jim is just really smart for putting this spin on it, because it's very creepy, it's very good. But if you look at American criminal law, you understand completely why there's walls around cemeteries, because desecration of a corpse is a crime. So grave robbing, desecrating corpses, these are all things people were...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:23)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Brian (03:40)
really very icked out by, know, especially a couple hundred years ago. And, you know, for all those reasons, we make sure that they're secure locations. These final resting places need to be free from, people coming in and digging up the nice suit that you put your uncle to the ground with.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:58)
Yeah, and I think what Jim points out here is like, could be stone, could be brick, chain link, even something small. As far as the spirit world is concerned, a symbolic wall could be as strong as a brick wall around Graceland, right? Like the one in my town, it's like a three foot tall wrought iron fence. You could just hop over it. It's decorative only. But in Jim's world, that fence could have the power of a threshold as far as,

the spirits are concerned. That's kind of how he describes it here.

Brian (04:31)
Well, the thing that seems to be the case just from my reading is that it's consecrated And that's what's actually sort of the wall in some way inscribes this location. And it's like this consecrated barrier they can't push past. So I don't think this would be true if you built a fence, you know, not to get too real, but like, I don't think the chain link fence around a concentration camp, you know, necessarily has the same effect.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:36)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Brian (04:59)
I think that it is, maybe it keeps things in, but I don't know who'd be as metaphysically real as something that is, even if it's a three foot fence, part of the innately religious ritual of how we treat our death.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:14)
Yeah, so I think that's a huge part of it. And I think the other part of this is how in the Dresden Files universe, when a lot of people believe that something should be true, it is true. Like the quote unquote weapons that Harry pulls out of the vault in skin game, you know, the goblet isn't.

inherently magical, nobody invested magical energy in it, but the belief of millions, billions of humans over centuries that it should have power, actually invest it with real power. And I think the belief of millions, billions of humans over the centuries that the dead should stay in graveyards, imbues the walls of graveyards, the fences of graveyards with some actual ability to be a barrier.

Brian (06:01)
Adam, that was a cogent, well taken point, but I will admit I was slightly distracted by the realization that at some point, we're gonna get to do a breakdown of the Holy Grail. That's gonna be fun.

But Harry eventually breaches the wall and enters the cemetery through this pressing horde of ghostly susserence using his pentacle ambulance.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:23)
Yeah, his pentacle amulet, he holds up, quote, like a Diogenes lamp. So I read that and I was like, well, I know that's a reference to something that I'm not familiar with. So I went and did some research on Wikipedia and Brian, this is fascinating. Diogenes is a cynic in the old Greek style. That is, cynicism was a philosophy in ancient Athens. And it's not used the same way we would.

use it today, right? A cynic today is somebody who's like more pessimistic, you know, they don't believe, they're more skeptical, that kind of a thing. This is kind of connected to that, but the cynics rejected all conventional desires for wealth, power, glory, social recognition, conformity, worldly possessions, and even flouted such conventions openly and derisively in public. So you could think of them more of like an ascetic monk in that sense. Now,

Diogenes in particular was renowned for his ascetic lifestyle and his radical critiques of social conventions. The radical critiques, by the way, included him living inside a large ceramic jar. This is like something that, imagine a massive pottery jar tipped over onto its side and the top of the jar has a diameter of like,

for four and a half feet. So you can like sit inside of it cross-legged and like preach at people who are coming by about his belief system, about his philosophy. That's kind of what it was.

Brian (07:50)
Yeah,

in the early translations, people just call it a barrel, basically.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:55)
Yeah.

And in fact, some of the famous paintings that are showing him inside of this pot, it looks more like a barrel. But yeah, it's like about three, four feet high. He's also always pictured with dogs around him. I guess he was like, know, feeding wild dogs so they would always congregate around him. But Brian, one thing that stuck out to me, he quote, advocated for a return to nature, the renunciation of wealth and introduced early ideas of cosmopolitanism by proclaiming himself a

citizen of the world, unquote. Was he the first sovereign citizen? Was he a sovereign citizen that traveled back in time to tell the Athenians that they don't have to listen to their government because they're citizens of the world? That was immediately the connection I made to that.

Brian (08:41)
return to nature, renunciation of wealth, one world government, I guess in the future of the anarcho-syndicalist communes win.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:47)
Yeah, well, or the past. So Diogenes, he spent his mild winters in Athens surviving by begging and taking shelter in a large ceramic jar, as we talked about. The Athenians reportedly held him in high regard, even replacing his jar when a youth broke it. And then he was also known to wander the marketplace. And that brings us back to his lamp. He is always pictured with his lamp because he would wander the marketplace by day, or at least the stories say this, right? A lot of this has been

probably punched up by different historical writers over time. They say he wandered the marketplace by day with a lit lamp, looking at people saying, I am looking for an honest man, right? And their read on this is a criticism of the moral corruption, the hypocrisy of modern life in Athens. He's like looking around in broad daylight with a lamp saying, I still can't see any honest people here, right? That was the idea. But me, I'm thinking of this,

Weird old at strangers in the city while living in a jar on the street and feeding stray dogs and the people around him go, oh, that Diogenes, he's such a character. Brian, this sounds like a very sick old person that's homeless on the street that they just took pity on. It's like, ah, get him a new jar. He's always portrayed as an important philosopher in the, yeah, okay, I guess.

But the way that you tell it, I really can't disconnect that from like crazy homeless guy that people take pity on.

Brian (10:13)
Yeah, I mean, this is like, are you familiar with Zizek at all? Okay, so he's this ⁓ Eastern European philosopher who's a bit of a lunatic. And I mean that in affectionate way, he's a very smart man. But the Athenian public square is like, that's like the TV or the YouTube of that era, right? That's where everybody's just hanging out to watch what happens. So this is like, there's a YouTube channel where

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:17)
I am not.

Hahaha

Brian (10:40)
Zizek is wandering around naked, know, walking up to rich people, you know, while they're shopping and just being like, you're a liar and just wanders off to the next person. And everyone's like, God damn, this is the best TV on.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:50)
Hehehehehe

Yeah, I could definitely see that. And this of course brings us back to the concept then from these stories, the concept of Diogenes holding up his lamp in an attempt to find truth and virtue in a society of corruption and moral depravity and hypocrisy. That's what gave the sort of visualization or the metaphorical concept of Diogenes' lamp.

a truth-seeking and an illuminating thing. And so when Harry is holding up his pentacle like a Diogenes lamp, he's doing, know, when Butcher writes that phrase, he's trying to put you in the idea of Harry's, yes, he's holding up his pentacle in front of him as if it were a lamp, but it's not just any lamp, it's a lamp in the search of truth and justice, more or less.

Brian (11:41)
and importantly, a lamp that is not necessarily useful for its light, I think.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:48)
Yes, it's

metaphorical or in this case spiritual light rather than physical light.

Brian (11:53)
And man, that really works. When we had Jim on for that interview, he discussed how making faith an innate part of magic was important when he was developing his magical system. It's kind of seamless on the page here. Harry uses the magic symbol, but what effect does it have? Well, it's producing light. That's just your D &D cantrip. But that light has a spiritual property that lets him enter the graveyard against the press of ghosts.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

it actually pushes them back and gives him room to go through, yeah.

Brian (12:24)
And then when he gets into that graveyard, he's very quickly able to find the Nightmare, who is... I mean, he could have killed Charity pretty easily, right? So presumably, he's sort of threatening her as bait or something, Adam?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:38)
Well, that's what I was gonna ask you about, Brian. We know that the nightmare somehow infects or corrupts or puts a spell on Michael's child, the unborn child inside Charity at this moment, because at the end of this book, when Harry has finally destroyed Kravos, it is then revealed that like, suddenly the child got well very quickly, like.

was almost dead, then made a big turnaround at the end. And it's sort of at least heavily implied, if not outright stated, that this is because Harry cut the spell by destroying Kravos that was weakening it. So, has he taken the time to put that spell on the unborn child before the fight? Because I was looking through the fight and I'm thinking, when does he get to do that? It must be before this moment, before Harry arrives.

Brian (13:28)
unless it's some kind of passive thing that almost happens accidentally. But in that case, he definitely doesn't want to kill Charity so that the child can be born. Presumably that's useful to his, you know, life-siphoning spell or whatever, that the child is actually alive. So the fact that when Harry walks up, he's, choking Charity on this almost altarpiece in the Greek mausoleum,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:32)
Right.

Brian (13:54)
I think the reason why Harry finds the nightmare so easily is because the nightmare is trying to lure Harry to it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:01)
Yeah, you're right, I'm rereading this here. Quote, the nightmare stood over her with my dark hair plastered to its head, my dark eyes reflecting the gleam of my pentacle. It held one hand in the air over Charity's belly, its other over her throat. It tilted its head and watched me approach. unquote. It tilted its head and watched me approach, not it noticed me arrive.

it knew he was coming, probably because it has some of Harry in him, maybe it can feel where he is when he's close, like the way that Justine can with Thomas, that's possible, but the other thing is like, this is all a show, right? He's putting on an act for Harry to terrify him, to like make this worse for him, to make it more painful for him to watch when it actually occurs. I think you're absolutely right, I think he was just,

waiting for Harry to show up before he started the show.

Brian (14:50)
Right, or he's literally just finished casting that spell that you were talking about, which we're not saying is impossible. It's either extremely convenient that the timing lines up perfectly for our antagonist, or the antagonist is doing some of this as theater to make sure that he corners Dresden where he wants him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:54)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (15:11)
Now, charity is... Absolutely, it seems like, in pain, in terror at this moment, she's really no longer struggling, it seems, and doesn't appear, at first blush, to have strength to move.

Of course, that only lasts until the nightmare is distracted.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:29)
Yeah, and not only that, the very first characterization we get of her in this moment, when Harry finally gets a clear look, is that he sees that she's on her back, hands clasped over her belly, her teeth bared in a snarl. She's not crying, she's not screaming, she hasn't lost control of her reason at this point.

She's been through some stuff, right? She almost got eaten by a dragon. This is not her first rodeo, is what it comes down to. But she is keeping her cool, which is very important, and like you said, the instant that the demon tries to attack Harry and its attention is not fully upon keeping her in position, quote, Charity moved. The instant the nightmare's attention was distracted, she spun her feet towards it with a furious cry, planted both of her heels high on the thing's chest with a vicious shove.

Brian (15:55)
Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:17)
And then of course she falls backwards off because when Newton has his say, he has his say. And then Harry tries to tell her to get out of there and run for it. But I love this characterization of her not being a helpless damsel at this point, right? We know who she is and this action, the action that she takes here helps show to us the reader who she is.

Brian (16:38)
Yes, Charity is a brave woman. And I want to say that I think that I said in the beginning of this book that I didn't like our introduction to Charity. If that introduction was more neutral and we met Charity, you know, in that scene and she's annoyed that Michael's in jail, but she's not quite as antagonistic towards Dresden. Man, would Jim create an incredible reason.

for her to be resentful, upset at, and unconsciously biased against Dresden until proven guilty. Because he lays the groundwork right here. Immediately after that, I sprinted forward, charity, I shouted, get out, run. She turned her head toward me and I saw how furious she was. She bared her teeth at me for a moment, but her face clouded with confusion. Dresden? She said? She hasn't realized

until this moment that the nightmare wasn't Harry.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:31)
Mm-hmm.

Right? Exactly.

And she thinks that Harry is a bad guy and that is colored by her history and the fact that her husband always comes back hurt or in jail, and now this thing shows up.

looking like Dresden and it's just a confirmation of all of the scariest, like deepest, darkest fears she has about the man. And suddenly that is what colors her actual vision of the real Dresden for the next several books, right? It's gonna be hard to separate out those fears when they've been proven right for such a traumatic thing. Even if afterwards you know, okay.

Reasonably, know that that wasn't really Dresden, but emotionally, she connected those things on a fundamental level in this scene, and that trauma stays with you.

Brian (18:23)
Yeah, there's no way that she could avoid some kind of resentment towards Dresden after this scene because we don't get to see what actually happens. But presumably from Charity's perspective, she goes to this store where Dresden meets her and says, hey, your car won't start here. Come with me and Michael's here. I got to bring you. And then within seconds of this thing, you know, convincing her it's Dresden, he is.

grabbing her by the hair and dragging her into the cemetery. And this is not an operation that is over in 10 seconds. This is not three steps. He drags her kicking and screaming, nine months pregnant through the rain for, I don't know, right, exactly. Like that has gotta be a terrifying several minute long experience. And there's...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:51)
Mm-hmm.

Couple blocks maybe?

Mm-hmm.

Brian (19:16)
No way she couldn't connect that to some trauma. mean, you people who come back from war, they hear a car backfire, it sounds like a gunshot. This is not, you hear something that sounds like a gunshot. You see the person who did this to you every time you see Dressed-

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:32)
Yeah, that's a huge, huge trauma trigger for sure. So she has to get over that before she can accept Dresden for who he is in future books.

Brian (19:44)
Because here's the other thing, right? And this is the thing about Charity in this scene that I think is the coolest. So from her perspective, Dresden is assaulting her, trying to kill her child. She doesn't know. Seconds later, after she gets away, Dresden's in front of her.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:58)
Yeah.

Brian (19:59)
telling her, hey, you gotta get away, run, I'll hold him off. She doesn't miss a beat. She has one second where she's like, Dresden? And then she just gets with the program and is on mission for the rest of the fight. So that is some quick processing, realizing this is a different person. Okay, I was attacked by a shapeshifter. Like, great job, Charity. Like that's, you you know your husband's a knight when you're like, ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:05)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (20:26)
shapeshifters, yeah, you know, had squirrels in the attic last year too, ⁓ and books it out of the cemetery, letting Dresden assist her. That is a real demonstration of the kind of person she is in terms warrior woman we see in Proven Guilty.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:30)
Ha ha.

Yeah, now the next thing I wanna talk about here, Brian, is we've called this out a couple of times so far, even in the early books, Jim's efficiency with his writing is definitely one of his strengths. And for example, we have this moment where the nightmare is about to throw a fireball or some kind of fuego spell at Harry using Harry's own magic against him, and he needs to pull up a shield to block it. Now, sometimes you'll get something like, and then I formed a shield,

but instead of that here, we get quote, I slammed power recklessly into a shield unquote. Now that does so much more than simply tell us that Harry's bringing up a shield. It gives us his state of mind where he's recklessly doing it because he's panicking and he's slamming it recklessly because he's not being careful about how much energy he's using. Like just a few extra words.

do so much that like would normally take two whole extra sentences to try to explain, and I was panicked at the time. No, you do that by showing, not telling, right? That's always what you hear about good writing or good media.

Brian (21:51)
Jim put that much effort into his magic system because he can use it for expressions like this. That's a purely emotional state that he gives us through spellcasting. I've seen people do that with a swung the sword in some way that connotes that he's angry and reckless and not...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:55)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (22:15)
holding up a guard and I've seen people do that with fighting. I have never read a series where somebody is this good at describing the magic itself in terms of emotionally painting how the characters are fighting.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:28)
Yes, that's exactly I think what I, when I read it, I was feeling that exactly, but I think you said it much more succinctly than me. Another example happens a little bit later in this fight where after the shield breaks and Harry basically just barely survives, mostly because it's raining really hard and fires a.

bad idea, he basically says, even I would know that fire is a bad idea in the rain like this. And that's why he's able to withstand it. But then the nightmare basically grabs him by the leg, swings him around in the air by the leg and then launches him at a marble column that he hits head first. Concussion city, baby, it's over. But he doesn't quite fall unconscious, Brian. Now, Jim could have said,

You know, something like, I managed to stay awake but barely. Instead, he realizes, quote, with a flash of depression that I wasn't out of the fight yet. Beautiful, perfect, super efficient in getting across the state of mind of this character. Like, it hurts so much, I kinda wish I was out of the fight already.

Brian (23:32)
Yeah, which for him means death. So that's a, hurts so bad I wish I was dead moment.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:37)
And it's a characterization

of like, we've talked about this character kinda has a death

Brian (23:42)
Yeah, now I will say this is, in a great scene, one moment that is a little bit too cartoonish for me. The Nightmare should have just picked him up and thrown him into something. Whirling him around by the leg. I'm pretty sure you dislocate your leg and then when you crash into the mausoleum, all of your bones break.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:00)
Hehehehehe

Brian (24:00)
You know, even if you're not

dead, just nobody's getting up after that unless they are like, we can't have it both ways where wizards simultaneously just recover well, but also they fly into marble and, you know, don't even break a finger.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:15)
Well, he broke his head pretty bad, but that's the one thing that Leah fixes for him, which we're gonna get to in a few minutes. on that sense, it doesn't bother me as much because after Leah, he accepts her bargain and his head clears, like it's clear to me that the concussion that he was feeling goes away, because he's able to get up after that. But he does mention that like his body still protested. So like the bruises he got from the impact,

with the ground after being thrown around like a rag doll are still there. Why should Leah bother to heal those if she doesn't have to to complete her end of the bargain, right? So that brings us to the specific moment where he's on the ground, clearly the way it's described in a concussed state, right? He wants to get up, he tries to get up, but he can't do it without this blinding pain in his.

in his mind and he's just physically unable to make his body do what he wants to do. He just doesn't have the strength. And then Leah just shows up and says, so much water, so many things flowing down away. I wonder if some of them are not wasted, unquote. That is so perfect to make her this like creepy, like stakes are so high. My friend's wife's about to die, their unborn child, I'm here about to die and she's here waxing.

poetic about the rain and flowing things. Meanwhile, she's actually giving him a hint, isn't she, Brian?

Brian (25:42)
Well, not only is she giving him a hint, I mean, this works in so many levels, because the characterization, think, is even better than you're suggesting. First of all, she purrs the line. And we have the Lenunci described with cat imagery on several occasions. She even has cat-eyed pupils, like most fey. So that works, and it's consistent. But

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:52)
That's true. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (26:06)
On one level, not only is she giving him a hint, she's laying the groundwork for the bargain. You know, what am I, well, I'm about to offer to save you. Why? Well, you know, I think, you know, we've got charity over there and the baby and your friend Michael and you, you're all dying. And you know, I feel like it's just, this is a waste. You know, that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:12)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (26:27)
kind of implication that she wants to make an exchange here because she would hate for these things to go to waste is the sort of indifference that a fairy approaches the bargaining table with. I don't really care, but I could be talked into helping you. It does seem like such a waste.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:44)
Right, you gotta make

it worth my while, because I'm not doing this for free. I don't care about you to the point that I'll help. But here's an interesting thing, Brian. So, when she shows up, she says her little line about things flowing downhill. Harry looks up at her and says, what are you doing here? Quote, she smiled, reached out a finger, ran it over my forehead, and drew it back to her mouth, and slipped it between her lips, and suckled gently upon it. Her eyes she let out a long and shivering sigh. Such a sweet boy.

You always were such a sweet boy, unquote. Now, on the one hand, deeply creepy that you're like sucking on his blood and going, mm, so sweet. But on the other hand, Brian, did you see what she did there? He said, what are you doing here? She did not answer him. We know the Fae have to give you the truth if they talk to you, but they can avoid telling you what they don't wanna tell you, right?

they can lie through omission. And that's exactly what's happening here. Because if she answers that question, what are you doing here? She would have to explain why I'm here to protect you. I'm your godmother after all. Your mother gave me the obligation to protect your spiritual self. And she does not want Harry to know that, Brian. That is actually super cool that it's pretty clear to me she's dodging that question. Jim already had that figured out.

Brian (27:57)
Well, Adam, I could do you one better. I don't think she's dodging the question. I think she answered it honestly. What is she doing here? She's there for her sweet boy. She's obligated to be there for Harry. What are you doing here? I'm here for you, dummy. But she can't say that and let him on to it. So she...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:12)
Hehehehe

No, instead she's just gotta imply

that she's here to offer him another bargain for her own sake.

Brian (28:21)
Yes, and just to be creepy in a way that gets him not to think about it too much. And she hurries him up. She's, you the next line, thy strength is fading, my sweet, here in the place of the dead, it may fail thee altogether. She's like, okay, you better hurry up, you know, time's a wasting. We gotta get a bargaining here. And it's great because we will find out later that Leah, and we'll talk about this a little bit at the end of this episode.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:23)
Yeah

Brian (28:47)
Leah probably has a carload of reasons to just save Harry's ass in this situation. But Leah at this point is also not that impressed with how smart Harry is, which is why she wants to make him a dog in the first place.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

That's exactly

Brian (29:05)
So speeding him up like this in her mind is a great way to get him to make a rash deal without thinking it all the way through. And Adam, it pretty much works exactly as intended.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:17)
yeah, that's part of her nature. She's been doing it for thousands of years. She's really good at it by now, which is, we know, shortly after Harry accepts her deal, Michael comes to save the day with Amarokius. And I've been thinking to myself, like, what if he told her to, like, pound sand, and like, I'm not doing the deal with you? Michael was almost there. He might have saved the day regardless. But we can talk about that in a minute. One thing I wanna point out here, Brian,

We're about to find out in the next chapter how seriously screwed Harry is, but it's set up in this chapter really well. Right after that quote that you read about his strength fading, Harry responds, this isn't the never, never Godmother. You don't have any power here, unquote. And she says, my sweet, you know it is not true. I simply have what I am given, what I have barely traded for, unquote.

She's pointing out, you're right, I wouldn't have power here, but you broke your bargain with me twice, That's why she can help him now and heal his injuries, which requires that she have like,

access to him like true name or blood style power over him in the magical sense and he finds that out in the next chapter he's getting examined at the emergency room and they say you don't have a cut.

And he's like, what are you talking about? And he realizes that his wound has been healed and he freaks out because that implies just how much power his godmother has over him. And this is a great setup here. It's slowly trickling in these things that make that realization hit you as hard as it hits Harry.

Brian (30:55)
Yeah, this is a masterpiece in making Leia seem like a villain because Jim has to. To make things work the way he wants it to from Harry's perspective, the Lananshi doesn't need to just look like a wicked fairy. She needs to look like she's actively bad news. But literally, Jim's already decided the perks of a 20-book outline, she can never hurt him. So by setting up this

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (31:21)
Sword of Damocles hanging over his head. And by reminding him of it, and by showing her power, she seems like the shark fin in the water, just mere feet away, poised to strike. When really, I mean, imagine if Harry tells her to pound sand and Michael does show up. Can the Lanange afford not to heal him?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:41)
Right, I mean, in this very thing, she comes up and tries to imply an excuse for why she wants to help him, right? She says, I don't want you dead, I want you tamed, but not like this, not as you are, pathetic, really, Harry, allowing yourself to be eaten, so Justin and I taught you better than that. And the fact that she equates herself with Justin just reinforces how evil she seems in this moment.

Brian (32:02)
What a dig.

Yeah, it's really expertly done. And that's why when Harry takes the bargain, we feel like he's gotten in deeper, even though looking back on it from the series, though Ananshi showing up at this moment is probably literally the best thing that could have possibly happened to him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:29)
his ultimate arc is positive for so many people. How many people has he saved? Thousands and thousands, because just the Dark Hallow alone, right? gotta be in near millions in terms of how many people Harry's has saved. So the fact that she saves him here is critical to the good outcomes further down in the book.

Brian (32:51)
And not just that it saves Harry's life, because of course it does, but in this case, she is supposed to safeguard his spiritual self. He was attacked through the Never Never by a ghost. She might actually be obligated to him for not holding up her bargain with his mother.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

That's a good

point. She technically failed him. Now, she was protecting the Never Never on his side of the thing, but when he went out in his dream, it formed a special domain in the Never Never that she didn't know about, couldn't get to, maybe didn't realize was there, and so she couldn't protect him there. You're right. She might have some extra obligation here because she failed him, some debt she has to repay.

Brian (33:35)
And what I mean by he's getting, it's so perfect that she's showing up, is that the Lananchi convinces Harry to get further in debt with her, which is the entire reason he stays in the White Council in

because he's obligated to map. So the fact that Leia does it this way, she's actually right. Her getting Harry on her hooks is actually keeping him alive.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:52)
Yeah?

Yeah, she's got better long range view than he does. I'm not saying she has foresight, but she does have wisdom enough from centuries of seeing what goes on with politics and this and that that she realizes this boy's gonna need help figuring this stuff out. And if I have him under my obligation, I can force him to do things that are in his own best interest.

Brian (34:25)
Now while Harry and Leia are having this conversation and he's getting healed and we get it together, Michael does fight the nightmare. Just out of curiosity, Adam, if Charity and Harry weren't here, do we think Michael just wins?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:39)
I think he would have to, right? As long as he is walking the path and fighting evil. And I don't think the nightmare can't be considered anything but pure evil at this point. It's a spirit, so it's not human. And even though it's not a Denarion, I think it still counts as something that Amorakius is designed to fight against. It's doing nothing but terrorizing humans and mortals.

Brian (35:00)
which means that Harry asks for exactly the wrong thing from Leia, which is effectively the ability to help Michael in this fight. He doesn't need it. And in exchange, he promises, I'll be a good doggy.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, and that always, This is a hard scene for me to listen to for that reason. Like he's making, what he sees as like, need to make a sacrifice for my friend and his wife, like I owe them, I got them into this, right? That's how he's seeing it. But then it all goes so wrong by the end, but we'll get there.

One of the things that I think was also very interesting here is that she reiterates that in time, he will heal. Basically what she's saying here is you don't have to defeat Kravos and eat him like he does later in the book to get your soul back. Your soul, your spirit will heal over which is very consistent with what we learn later when Bob is talking about Harry's soul and the soul fire.

discussion is that he just needs to live his life and the more fully he lives it, you know, the more fully he is alive, going out and doing things, talking with other people, living, loving, laughing, that kind of a thing gets your soul to regrow faster. He could have done it and that's consistent all the way through, all the way back in book three.

Brian (36:15)
Right, and not only does she give him consistent information with how the mechanics of this all work, she gives him really important information. If Harry was smart enough to realize that she can't lie to him, and when she says, time you will heal, that's actually deeply meaningful. He'd have the kind of secrets he has to get out of an angel later just at his fingertips.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:34)
Mm.

Brian (36:40)
It's really funny re-reading the series as far into it as we are now, knowing what Leia's job is and seeing how hard she is constantly working to do her job, even as Harry fights her every step of the way.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:55)
Yeah.

All right, so he does finally accept that bargain. She kisses his forehead and is gone with a flicker of shadows after telling him like, answer is all around you. Just like, you should have negotiated for a better deal than, oh, don't worry,

Brian (37:05)
Yeah, you thick-headed. Yep, exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:13)
I'll give you what you need to save the White Knight's Lady. And then he just says, okay, whatever. He doesn't think, okay, but the fae's only gonna give me what I need, not what I want, which is like, give me the power to do it, or give me the secret to defeating the nightmare once and for all. No, it's just, look, there's a lot of rain, isn't there? Bye! And also I'll heal your head wound.

Brian (37:34)
But she's gotta say the thing about the rain twice. As we noted, she opened on the line about, huh, look at all the water that's around, Harry. So she's just repeating herself like, come on, kid. Like, I'm not allowed to give it to you. I am your godmother, but I can't just unrestricted give you all of the information. You've gotta ask the right questions. I'm really trying to hint at the solution here. Now.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:42)
Yup.

or bargain for the right details.

Yeah,

you know, I like to think that if he didn't have a concussion, her first line might have given him the epiphany that he gets later in this chapter that he needs to shove the nightmare into the stream that's downhill.

Brian (38:12)
Yes, and obviously it's to Harry's credit, he's very good at thinking on his feet without panicking, that he's able to put that together himself. And obviously, Leigh is not giving it to him perfectly straight. You just have to imagine from the phase perspective, with thousands of years or hundreds of years of experience, we look really dumb and slow sometimes. So this fight scene, Adam, as you're discussing, ends with Harry.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:32)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Brian (38:39)
dunking the nightmare in the water. But it takes us all over the cemetery. There's people thrown into mausoleums, Michael's jumping over whatever altar they were on to get at the nightmare. There's back and forth. It's very swashbuckling on the page. It's a way more kinetic fight, in my opinion, than anything we see in either Stormfront or Full Moon.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:03)
Yeah, I think it's very clear all the time what's going on and who is where. So I think Jim is definitely doing a better job of learning how to convey that to the reader. And it's also sort of a fairly tight and quick battle. He doesn't have to say, and then there was a sword swing and then it went over there. Like it's just like, while Harry's talking to Charity and learning that her water broke by the way, Michael is like.

battling the nightmare in the background. you'd be like, you know, they're fighting. We don't really need to the details until Harry gets up and tries to take, you know, Charity away with him he can't. And then what's important is the way they wind up is the nightmare basically seems to disappear from Michael and go, why am I doing this? I'm a ghost. And just like appears next to Charity holding like a tombstone to drop on her head.

and says put down the sword buddy or this is gonna happen. Like he actually at some point remembers that he's a ghost and he can use ghost powers to win this fight because if he didn't, Michael would have won it.

Brian (40:04)
which really signals something about Kravos. Being dead hasn't made him any smarter. He uses fire in the rain. He gets into hand-to-hand combat with a knight of the sword, who killed his demon, by the way. So what are you?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:20)
Yeah, and he

knows how painful it is because Amorachius does actually hit him and bite into his side and it like glows with a white fire when it happens.

Brian (40:29)
And it takes him, I mean, I suppose to a certain extent, he is infuriated that Dresden is snatched from his fingers because obviously he's got a hate boner for Harry. But he's also probably terrified of Michael's appearance, even though he does a pretty good job putting up a front. But the fact that he only realizes after the entire conversation Harry and Charity have,

Hey, can just teleport and get my hostage again. Is, not exactly giving him grade A for thinking on his feet.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:01)
Yeah, and I gotta say, so the other thing that's about this fight scene that's very interesting is there's a couple of times where the fight starts and then it stops and then it starts and then it stops again, right? Harry shows and there's like no struggle, right? The nightmare is waiting for him and it's like, yes, I see you wizard, you're a demon, is that what I am? So at that point the fight hasn't started. Then the thing starts to throw fire at Harry. Then Harry jumps over the,

the thing, at it and attacks it as fast as he can to sort of get surprise on his side, but that doesn't work for long. Then Harry's like knocked out and concussed and the fight drops again. And the thing just sort of slowly walks over to Charity being as terrifying as possible. Then Harry suddenly gets back up. I like to think that that whole conversation with Leah kind of happened in a sort of slowed moment in a sense.

Brian (41:53)
It probably just happens

in his head.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:54)
Yeah, exactly, the way that sometimes Lash slows time to have a conversation with him. I don't know if that's necessarily a power that Leia has, but it almost feels like it would fit really well here if she could. Not a lot, just a little bit, because right now you're like, oh, they had this whole ass conversation, but at the same time, they only exchange a few words. All this other stuff about Harry and his head and trying to figure out what's going on, and oh, my head hurts so much, it makes it seem longer than it is. So for a couple of seconds, fight is,

quote unquote over, right? The Nightmare thinks he's done. Then Leia shows up, Nightmare probably can't see her, she's making herself invisible to him. And then Harry gets back up and he's like, I'm ready for round two. And then Michael shows up and now the fight is back on. And then suddenly the Nightmare has the stone above Dresden and Charity and demands that Michael put down the sword. Now the fight is off again and they're negotiating. And then when Michael puts the sword down,

There's this great line where Michael puts the sword down after Harry says, don't do it Michael, just kill this thing, he's gonna get us anyway. Wizard, thy friend should have listened to thee. Like that is a great villain line, like yeah, as a reader you can see that coming, right? This thing is duplicitous, there's no way it keeps its word. Michael is gonna be who Michael is though.

and he's gonna put the sword down and you're the reader going, no, no, no, don't do it. He's gonna definitely betray you. And then of course, in that great, you know, villain way, he betrays them and then the fight is back on again when Charity brings the crucifix up and then Harry tackles the thing. So it's this weird start and stop element where the fight itself has these sort of mini acts where this is the first act of the fight. Then the second act of the fight when Michael shows up, then the third act of the fight when Harry realizes its actual weakness and how to kill it.

Brian (43:35)
And Charity, forget about just holds up the crucifix, her arm abruptly swept up the symbol flickered and kindled with white fire, right? Charity's got that full on true faith power. And then she steps up next to Dresden, she's not high tailing it, chanting in Latin, like, I've seen the exorcist, I know what to do. Absolutely on it, she's undergoing contractions. Serious action girl moment for Charity.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:46)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Brian (44:03)
But I just want to call back to something that you mentioned about Leah's ability to have that conversation in slow time. Remember, she doesn't need to. Because as we see in turncoat, if you've got any skill with airomancy, you can have conversations at the speed of thought. And Leah, as an illusionist, almost certainly does have some skill with air magic. And she's

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:22)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (44:29)
probably like you said Adam, not even really there in any physical sense. She just creates a nice, you know, mental image for Harry to see while they have this conversation entirely in his head in, you know, at the speed of thought. If we assume that something like that is going on, then it makes a little bit more sense to me why over the course of this book, Leah doesn't show up more often.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:44)
Could be,

Brian (44:56)
because in that reading, she might not even actually be physically in mortal Chicago at this moment.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:03)
Yeah, I tend to think she is, she's just glamored to be hidden, right? That's kinda how I see it, like only Harry is allowed to see her, but it's entirely possible that she's just projecting, like an astral projection of herself into Chicago so that she can talk to Harry without anything else seeing her and not even necessarily be there. She is number two in winter. It's entirely possible that she might have something like that. Now, after Harry knocks this thing out, it occurs to me,

she does technically give him what he needs, but then she shows back up and she's like, okay, now it's time to claim my side of the bargain. And of course, Amarokius is right there on the ground and Harry picks it up. And boy, that's the most tragic moment of this whole freaking book because even knowing that Michael will get it back later, it still hurts me when Harry is saying, no, no, wait.

Godmother, can't we just talk about this? It's such a gut punch, Brian.

Brian (46:00)
Yeah, and you gotta love Leia's line. I knew that you would try to cheat me again, sweet boy. I must thank you, Harry. I would never have been able to touch this had not the one who held it betrayed its purpose. Just-

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:15)
Yeah, so succinct,

Jim. we heard Michael say, no, Harry, can't be used that way. And then Leah just perfectly encapsulates why. And you just understand, you don't need more explanation than that.

Brian (46:26)
Right, but it's also, again, continues to characterize Leah as this absolute villain. I mean, she's taking the Holy Sword from the Paladin. She's clearly a dark witch, right? But not only that, it's also characterizing this whole ploy as a manipulation, not to help Harry, not even to make him a hound, but to get something else that she's gonna trade with the bad guys later.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:38)
Yeah.

Yeah!

Brian (46:54)
So

Jim is doing a masterful job in this scene of creating a real sense that Leia is a villain that's going to make the scenes at Bianca's party where she shows up feel so incredibly dangerous even when she's just straight up helping.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:12)
Yeah, and I do want to address the one thing that some people have criticized this moment and Leah's whole behavior. So she knew that she was gonna be able to get the sword. Like, I don't think that's true. I think the moment when Michael says, Harry the sword, and Harry says, I got it, and he picks up Amarokius, at that moment is when Leah goes, I have an opportunity right now. And that's when she enacts this situation. I don't think she necessarily predicts

Addicted that Harry would be the one to pick up the sword or that she tried to engineer it anyway I think when she saw him holding it she was like, ⁓ yes, perfect moment for me Harry's got the sword. I've tricked him several times I'm gonna do it again, and he already owes me so here's what's gonna happen now Harry will

actually learn from this moment. You would hope that he would have learned from it back in the whole fight with Justin, but he does the same thing here again where he actually has leverage. He doesn't know how much, and so he bargains just to win the fight and save charity when he should have been bargaining for, you know, beating the nightmare, as he says. I wanna beat the nightmare, then I'll go with you.

Brian (48:26)
I mean, Leia certainly could just take out Kravos. I don't know if she's empowered to make that deal. Okay, you'll come with me immediately and I, you know, kill this ghost for you, but could she do it? Yeah, absolutely, sure. Moreover, Harry doesn't even think about, okay, I will follow through on this bargain, in 24 hours.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:51)
Right.

Brian (48:51)
He just says I'll follow through, which even if he wins the fight, that doesn't make anyone safe. The Nightmare's going after people right now. He's very short-sighted, and it makes sense. He's in the middle of a life and death situation, I understand it. But that's a reckless way to be around fairies, and he needs to learn that. In part, Leia's teaching him here.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, and he learns that and it's demonstrated later in this very book. He manages to get leverage over Leah by basically poisoning himself and then he says to her, me a year and a day and she's forced to accept or else he'll die. So she won't get anything. Like he's already learned the lesson that he's been taught here and from that moment on, anytime he deals with a fairy,

He is extremely careful about what he says. And whenever he talks to anyone like Butters or Molly who have to meet the Fae, he gives them all of the smart advice. Like, don't accept anything, any gifts from them. Don't accept, don't give them anything that could be seen as a gift. Like he goes through all the rules.

that he had to really experience the hard way. He probably knew them. Like Ebenezer no doubt told him all of this information, but in the middle of everything that's happening here, it's just not on top of mind and he's not thinking clearly. He had a concussion after all, but he does really take that lesson to heart and it's shown in his character throughout the rest of the books. And I love that growth in him.

Brian (50:20)
And presumably it's not just because this doesn't go well for him, it's because the price is nearly amarachius. And that makes him feel so guilty about it that he's never gonna be this reckless talking to fairies ever again. So this scene, this chapter is really maybe one of the best ones we've seen in the series up to this point.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:27)
Yeah.

Brian (50:41)
Jim gets a lot done. He also has a great fight scene in the middle of it. He manages to have a bunch of different characters running around, all of whom get the proper characterization and all of whom are not just characterized well, but are characterized in ways that are very, crafty. Leia being the villain as a main one. Charity having an actual reason to not want Harry around anymore.

being another. This is, I think, yards better. He gets more done than any two chapters of any previous book.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:19)
Yeah, I think I can't disagree with that.

Brian (51:21)
and we'll talk more about this in the assessment because I think this is the equivalent place in the book that the fight in quotes with Tara and McFinn happens in the park in Fool Moon this is the equivalent spot in the story where we're setting up some obstacles that need to be resolved and big climactic scenes and that one we went on for a while about how it didn't work great

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:36)
Mmm.

Brian (51:48)
And this one works beautifully, it's really night and day. But beyond that, Adam, Jim also manages to drop another red herring that we haven't talked about yet. In the very beginning of the chapter, while confronting the nightmare, Harry calls it a demon. And the nightmare replies...

Is that what I am? Interesting. I wasn't sure.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:15)
Yeah. Yeah. Does the nightmare actually not know what it is? It's possible. I mean, the only information we really have comes from Harry's time as a quote unquote ghost in Ghost Story, but we know he was actually walking around naked in his soul. So he wasn't really a ghost. And what we've seen of ghosts, they seem to have...

Brian (52:15)
What the hell does that mean?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:40)
some of the memories of the person they used to be, but not all of them. So it seems entirely possible that if this is Kravos, maybe he doesn't really know what he is, especially if he used some weird ritual that Mavrah taught him to create his ghosts in the first place. You know, she wouldn't have told him, by the way, you won't remember who you are. She would have said, yeah, this is gonna make a pretty awesome tool. But she would have told Kravos, yeah, no, you'll be super epic as a ghost. You can get all the revenge you want.

which is technically true. So I think that's possible. But the other possibility, Brian, is that this is Kravos trying to put on an act for Harry to mislead him. which do you think it is?

Brian (53:22)
So I leaned pretty hard to the nightmare is lying to keep Harry off its trail and so that he thinks it's a demon or something because he knows enough about magic to know that that makes Harry's job harder. But you really got me thinking when you said, I mean, what does Maverick care?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:40)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (53:46)
She absolutely would promise Kravos that sure, you'll be a ghost and you'll come right back to life, you know, no problem, A plus B equals C, you're fine. But she doesn't care if Kravos remembers who he is or what his purpose is beyond what she wants. But can I take a third option? knows that he's Kravos, or rather that he was Kravos.

But Kravos knows that he's doing stuff that ghosts really shouldn't be able to do. So when Harry calls him a demon, maybe Kravos is thinking, is this how demons are made?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:26)
I love that, because again, it's Kravos just being dumb, ⁓ rather than actually being smart, which the interpretation of him pretending to not know what he is, to throw Harry off the trail, that's more along the lines of, he's a secret mastermind, but as you pointed out, right, he's using fire in the rain.

Brian (54:32)
Right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:51)
And it just does, it's not consistent with that kind of level of sorcery. then as we concluded, like he's probably using the these and the thys and the archaic speech to put on a show for his cultists and he got used to doing that. So he thinks it makes him sound scary and evil and old when really it's just like Harry's like, you're not even doing it right. It should be thine, you idiot. So I think that what you just suggested that he.

Harry now convinces him that he's a demon is totally on brand with that idiot sorcerer motif

Brian (55:24)
And to be clear, when I'm calling Kravos an idiot, I think he's very manipulative and interpersonally intelligent. So I think it's totally within his character for him to try to deceive Harry. I mean, as a cult leader, he's got lots of practice lying to people to get them to do what he wants, right? That was like his whole job. But Kravos is using fire in the rain. He definitely does not know what the spell he cast actually did.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:32)
sure.

true enough.

Brian (55:52)
So it creates that funny, all of the above kind of options where Kravos is legitimately, okay, I don't want to tell you the truth, Harry Dresden. That's no good. But also, I am, and as we'll see later, Harry realizes this, not the mastermind. I don't really know what's going on.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:03)
Mm-hmm.

Right? Yeah, I don't think he's got a complete picture. So right after Michael, this is the one that gets me every time, quote, Harry, Michael whispered. I think he was crying, but I couldn't see the tears in the rain. my God, what have you done? Unquote. God, what a gut punch to end the whole chapter on, Jim. my. So after that, it cuts to the hospital.

Brian (56:29)
Oof.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:33)
Right, they have made it to the hospital, Charity's there, Michael's there, but we start with Harry in the emergency room, and that's when he finds out, my God, my wound was healed by my godmother, she has way more power over me than I thought. And then Stallings finds Harry and says, you really need this book, Harry, it's Kravos's Book of Shadows.

Harry insists, yes, I've gotta have it, and Stallings is like, you've gotta make it disappear then, and Harry's like, what's going on? Stallings refuses to tell him. It's like, you'll find out in a couple days, and leaves, right? Harry tries to get the information out of him, but can't. How does the rest of the book change, Brian? If Harry learns from Stallings at this point, Stallings says, yeah, it'll come out in a couple of days, so I guess I can tell you, Kravos killed himself or died somehow. It looks like a weird ritual thing at the prison a couple nights ago. Anyway, Harry, I gotta go.

How does that change the rest of the book?

Brian (57:24)
So I think it might change things pretty significantly because if Harry gets the book and the information that Kravos is dead at the same time, I don't think he's immediately going to say, ergo ipsofacto, Kravos is the nightmare ghost that I've been fighting. But he is going to go, well, that's weird. Kravos is dead?

Did the nightmare go after him?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:51)
That's one thing he supposes earlier on. I think actually in this chapter after Stallings leaves and Harry's like, something happened with Kravos, I wonder what it was. Maybe the nightmare went after him. And I think that's a reasonable assumption.

Brian (58:04)
But if Harry knew for certain that Kravos was dead, I don't think he would take it as a coincidence. And I don't necessarily think he would get it right, but I do think he would read the book more carefully. And what did we learn in 12 months, Adam? We learned that Kravos's book seems to have had the barbed wire spell in it. As soon as Harry sees that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:17)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (58:30)
Now we know. Either Kravos learned the spell from the demon that is now a ghost and doing the barbed wire thing everywhere. One possibility. Or Kravos learned this spell and the nightmare also knows this spell. That might be enough for Harry to least seriously consider

if he's fighting Kravos, who he knows could leave a ghost, as opposed to a demon where it's pure speculation that it could be a ghost in the first place.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:00)
Yeah, honestly, I think it's even stronger too, because if he realizes the barbed wire spell is in there, I don't think demons cast spells. At least not the kind of two-bit summoning demons that Kravos is pulling up. I think if you get an arch demon or something, then maybe that thing has some serious magic. But I always got the impression that the sort low-level demons that, like the toad demon in it's got acid that it shoots at you, but I don't get the impression that it can cast spells

Brian (59:13)
Sure.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:27)
like the barbed wire spell, which seems way more complex and intricate than just here's fire or here's lightning. Like those are the kinds of spells I might associate with a low level demon rather than, or here's acid, for example. So that's kind of where I'm at. I think he figures it out. Now the question is, if he figures out that it's Kravos, does that change anything? Because the chapter after this one, chapter 23, is when he takes Michael back to his apartment and tries to

bind the demon using its name from the book. That doesn't work. So he tries another tack and he tries to use the sense of the nightmare, the sort of spiritual psychic scent that he's been able to pick up by interacting with it to try to locate it out in the Never Never. And he is successful in doing that. He gets the nightmare, he pulls it into his binding circle, and then he eventually, just before he leaves,

binds it to attack him and only him. So if he's able to do that, believing that the nightmare is a demon, if he goes in knowing that it's Kravos, it's only gonna be easier to have that outcome. I don't think it changes too much. I think that result is the same.

Brian (1:00:39)
Well, I think the question is, does the name work to summon the ghost? Because Harry thinks that it does. But he finds out, quote unquote, in that moment that it doesn't work and he's gotta do it another way. If he's conceiving of the fact this could be Kravos,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:49)
Yes.

Brian (1:01:00)
Step two after trying the demon's name isn't trying the metaphysical sense of the nightmare. It's trying Leonid Kravos.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:09)
That's true, it might have made it easier to bind it or bind it more completely other than simply, well, I couldn't really bind it, so I just made it to come after me instead. that's entirely possible. Maybe he has more control in that scene as a result, and maybe that means he finishes the scene before Susan calls him. And that means that he actually gets to stop her from going to the party. So there's a lot of possible ramifications of that one.

Brian (1:01:36)
or that he gets his mojo back before the party, which I think we can talk about it, might change things later because Harry, obviously we find out by the end of the party, had more than enough power to deal with basically everything there. But he doesn't think that, and I think that makes him choose options that he wouldn't otherwise.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's entirely possible. Okay, let's move on. Harry finds Michael in the maternity ward of the hospital and boy, Brian, these are some, we've talked about some gut punches. This is the biggest double gut punch in the whole book, I think, where he comes in and says, hey Michael, which one is the next little carpenter? Because they're in the maternity ward looking at all the babies, right? And Michael just sort of in a dead voice kind of says,

you know, the labor was complicated, this happened, that happened, and then he ends the whole thing by saying there were complications. Complications. And he's like, tears are streaming down his face. And then he says the next gut punch, which is, the doctor thinks I beat her. That's how she got the bruises. He never said anything but, unquote. Wow! Double oof.

That is brutal because we know Michael is the furthest person from someone that's committing domestic violence. So for him to be accused of that is a, it's just awful, Brian.

Brian (1:03:04)
And in this moment where Harry has lost Amarachius, and Michael doesn't know if his infant son is going to survive, and his wife is seriously injured, and maybe he's now thought of as somebody who needs to be investigated for domestic violence,

and his family might be under attack from the scary ghost again. We really see the weight landing on Michael in a way that we might never see again in the series.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think I agree with you here. He's having a crisis of faith in a sense, which makes sense. He's lost the sword, his wife is in mortal peril, his child is in mortal peril, and he thinks like, maybe this is my fault. I stepped off the path. I'm fighting ghosts with a wizard instead of doing my true calling, which is standing up to the Denarians and-

He says to himself, something that's much more in Harry's wheelhouse. When Harry responds to the whole concept of the doctor thinking that Michael beats her, Harry says, stars and stones, Michael. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And then Michael's response is, it might as well have been me, Harry. If I hadn't gotten myself involved, this demon wouldn't have gone after her, unquote. Which is the kind of indirect fault that Harry always assigns to himself.

And those are the times when Harry does that, Michael gets to call him out for being arrogant. Like, you're not perfect. You have to accept that. You can't hold yourself to a ridiculously high standard. Of course, Michael probably has only been walking the perfect path, fighting the most darkest of dark creatures. And the fact that he's helping out Harry in these instances exposes himself to some of the consequences that come along with the gray in reality and not just the black and white.

Brian (1:05:01)
And it's probable that the reason why we don't see Michael in Summer Night is because in the wake of this, yes, it's a happy ending, but he still feels conflicted about whether he's supposed to help Harry like this. And it's not until the end of Death Masks that he realizes,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:19)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:05:24)
My boss has plans for this Dresden guy in some sense, and it is my job to come to bat for him when I can. So this is, I think you're absolutely right, a moment where Michael is wondering, these choices I've been making, am I the one misusing the sword? But I...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Otherwise, why

would it have been taken away? Why would the Lord allow this?

Brian (1:05:49)
I don't think that's what's actually going on. We know that the nightmare is doing something to Michael's kid. That's why it has the complications. And the White God doesn't protect you from that kind of thing. Supernatural enemies can still, directly or indirectly, harm you.

The fact that Charity got into this awful situation is, because Michael went to take out this demon and save these people from that cult, but that's how he met Charity in the first place. So that seemed to be pretty much on mission. Don't understand why it wouldn't be now. And of course, this whole domestic violence thing never amounts to anything. Maybe this was the best way for the doctor not to ask questions about what really happened.

So Michael might feel like he's been abandoned here, but that is a personal crisis because we've actually seen no evidence that he is in any way done anything to displease his boss as evidenced by the fact that he's literally fire to the touch of unholy things in, 12 hours or whatever it is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:58)
the next piece of this, Brian, is when Harry has the epiphany that, the nightmare isn't the end all be all. There's something else holding its chain, and it's partly because of things that Michael says here. So Harry then goes on to explain, like, okay, listen, demons are tough. They're dangerous and they're scary, but they're really kind of clueless. They don't understand love. They don't understand

social ties, empathy, friendship. And so earlier Harry had hypothesized, it's got a piece of me in it. I would know to go after Michael's family. That would be the best way to get to him if I wanted to hurt him. But the demon wouldn't understand that. It doesn't understand love. It doesn't understand empathy. It only understands things like pain and violence. So Harry uses that knowledge, that epiphany to come to the conclusion that the nightmare

isn't choosing its own targets, it's being directed by someone. Now, Brian, this is really interesting because at this point, Harry and Michael have come to the wrong conclusion on who the nightmare is. They still are operating under the assumption that it's the demon's ghost, not that it's Kravos, right? They still manage to come to the correct conclusion on who is...

pulling the strings behind the scenes, right? They figure out it's Bianca or somebody connected to her. But they do this using the wrong original assumption and erroneous reasoning. So somehow they still get to the right answer despite having the wrong reason and the wrong initial suspect. That is pretty impressive.

Brian (1:08:40)
And the reason why it works so well in the chapter, and you don't think, ⁓ they're completely wrong, and then later when they are revealed to be wrong, you go, that makes sense, is because it works just as well, everything Harry's saying, for Kravos specifically. Kravos has a reason not to try to, you know, just wipe them out immediately.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:58)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:09:04)
but he only has that reason because he's part of a larger plan. Without Bianca and Mavra, Kravos doesn't become a ghost in the first place.

So all of this is only happening because the nightmare is working with someone. Now that's got to be right no matter what supposition we use. If it's a demon's ghost who was just killed incidentally, well somebody's using it. If it's a person's ghost, well whose ghost would it be? Nobody who's been killed, so somebody must have had help to kind of set this plan into motion. They must have become a ghost for some reason.

It makes sense to me that they don't jump to, Kravos was taught a ritual by vampires to commit suicide and retain his agency such that, you whatever, but that they come to the correct conclusion that the nightmare can't be working alone. What I love about this is I feel like I'm being misdirected on a reread. This feels like a red herring.

but it also feels like this multi-layered plot with all these moving pieces is very intuitive and emotionally works even if our heroes need to be wrong about it as to not spoil the mystery.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:19)
and when I wrote this out and like, okay, so they come to the wrong conclusion about who the murderer is, but they come to the right conclusion that the murderer is being directed, like all of that stuff sounds very convoluted when I say it out loud, and it made me think of like how we criticize the Fool Moon plot.

for being hairy, just like going off in the wrong direction so often that by the time he finally comes to the right conclusion, it's very confusing to the reader of like, wait, which one of these turns was actually correct? This one still manages to feel consistent when the revelation comes and you go, it was never a demon. It was Kravos the whole time and he had help from Bianca slash Mavrah. ⁓ okay, that explains some things. That feels...

like an easier retcon in your brain, like, ⁓ given this new information, I can recontextualize everything and ⁓ it all makes sense now, whereas I definitely didn't have that feeling in Full Moon when they reveal the FBI are secretly the ones behind this. well, let me recontextualize, okay, how does that make sense? Why did we go to the Full Moon garage then? So that all was basically more explaining, more, more.

thinking about to try to put all the pieces together in Full Moon. Here it's just clearer. He's laid the groundwork better.

Brian (1:11:33)
I

I think what I would say is that in Fool Moon, lot of the things that are Red Herrings basically happen for random reasons. The fact that the street wolves are after Harry is not something that Denton cleverly executed through a trap that no one could escape from. He just managed to point Dresden in their direction and got lucky that Dresden pissed them off so much they literally

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:43)
Hmm.

Brian (1:12:02)
had to kill him. So that kind of serendipitous catastrophic luck-based outcomes influencing the plot that much is very true to life. But when you're reading the story, it's not as fulfilling as, Kravos didn't happen to die in prison. He killed himself on purpose.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:24)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:12:25)
Harry's not coming to the wrong conclusion because he just doesn't get it. You know, he's not following the wrong person because he doesn't get it. He's not making these mistakes because he's making bad assumptions. He's making these mistakes because the people who are initiating the scheme are trying to cloak what they're doing in a way that we, by the end of the story, believe wasn't very complicated and would have worked.

everybody's acting intelligently and there's still a mystery. Whereas in Full Moon, in order for there to be a mystery, first the FBI have to make a bunch of mistakes and then Dresden does.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:57)
Yes.

100%. That is exactly right. I was thinking about it and I had exactly the same thought that the villains can be blamed for being really good at what they're doing. And that's why there's a mystery as opposed to the hero is inept and just keeps making the wrong conclusions. That feels like a less fun book to read, but maybe you needed to read through one of those for Harry to feel like a real character that's learning. I don't know.

There's one other piece here that I wanted to compare to some of the earlier books, Brian, because we talked about earlier in this chapter how efficient Jim is with his writing. And Michael comes to the conclusion while he's talking to Harry here, like, okay, I need to find out what's going on between Harry and this Fae his godmother.

So Michael asks Harry, how did you get mixed up with this fey woman? And Harry says, quote, my mother, I think, she was the one with the power. My father wasn't a wizard, wasn't into their world. I don't know why she would do that to her child. Something inside me broke with a little snapping sensation and I felt tears at my eyes. I scowled.

They were a child's tears to go with a child's old pain. I don't know, I said, unquote. I do not remember this line at all from my previous readings, Brian, but It stood out to me like a sore thumb here because I was reading it more closely for the podcast here. And I'm like, ⁓ man, it totally makes sense that he would have this trauma about never being able to ask his mother

Why did she inflict this on me? Because as we've been talking about, at this point, he does not realize that she is a positive influence in his fits perfectly, and it's just a couple of sentences.

and then immediately moves on to something else, but the characterization of Harry is so much deeper because of it.

Brian (1:14:57)
compare to the speech he gives about his father in Stormfront, where he says that his dad was basically a loser. He doesn't tell Michael, my mother did it, she was bad, she could never stop hanging out with the wrong crowd, and she probably wanted me to hang out with the wrong crowd, and Michael, I've thought about this a lot, and it doesn't turn into a big,

sort of parade of negative thoughts. It's just Harry's fear that his mom was bad. He says, I don't know. I know that she was mixed up with some bad people. Maybe Leia was one of her allies. He doesn't want to believe that she was one of those bad people, but he's afraid that she was.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:40)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:15:43)
That's so much more emotionally deep and painful, him wondering if she was, him wondering if his father was a loser, than him just saying it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:55)
Yeah, and the fact that

he can never ask his mother what she was thinking because he's never known her. She's been dead for so long. It's the same kind of thing like that ⁓ adopted children have. Like why did my parents give me up? You know, they never get, they might never get that resolution, but it can haunt them as a result.

Brian (1:16:15)
And the crazy thing is, it bothers him so much and it hurts him so badly that it's clear that he's never really pushed the issue with Leia, who would presumably know.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:26)
Yeah.

Brian (1:16:28)
So he is scared to find out what the answer is. Man, that is Jim doing so much with so little. It's very Hemingway, know, shortest short story ever. A foresail, baby shoes, never worn. It's all in the subtext, you know? And that is not something that he wasn't doing in the earlier books, but he's just so much more confident with it in Grave Peril.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:34)
Hmmmm

Yes.

Brian (1:16:58)
makes a huge difference, chapters like these two are the reason why people say the writing takes a jump here. I'm gonna be honest, Adam, I don't think the climax of Grave Peril is that much better than the other climaxes, but I think this middle portion here is just miles more effective.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:20)
That is precisely it. That's the biggest difference, I think, between Full Moon and this book is the middle portion is so much more well-structured, organized, and effective and efficient in these small detailed ways that you're talking about here. Not to mention it's got one of the best side characters ever in Michael, and we finally get to meet his godmother as well, who makes a great antagonist throughout multiple books. Like those two introductions are handled so incredibly

Readably well here that almost is like is this the same author that like botched Murphy's introduction in the second book? So that to me is the other big difference is the way that they've got these new side characters that are very very fun to read about and very invested you're very invested in

All right, that's gonna bring us to the end of the chapter here where we close with Harry like emotionally manipulating Michael into backing him up. And as a result, we hear Michael sort of doubting whether he is worthy of wielding the sword anymore, whether his quote, time with the sword has passed unquote. And we're not gonna talk a lot about that here, but just keep that.

thought in mind because that is a recurring tension that comes back through multiple books until finally we get to Small Favor and his time with the sword truly is past. wait, then there's skin game. So kind of, but we'll talk about it more in the future. Just keep that tension in mind. It's a low stakes and high stakes at the same time, which makes it really dramatic for me.

Brian (1:18:53)
It's really great when you have a 20-book outline and you know that your holy swords are going to change hands at different points.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:53)
words.

Brian (1:19:04)
so you can start the first time you see them talking about the potential of them changing hands. Really another brilliant little piece of Jim showing in this book how in command not only of the story but also of his lore he is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:19)
All right, that's gonna be the end of our chapter discussion for this week. Our next episode, the week of March 20th, will not be a public episode. That will be a special patron-only episode where we are going to analyze the final third of the graphic novel, Welcome to the Jungle. So if you wanna check that out, check out our Patreon. There's a link in the description.

Brian (1:19:40)
And in two weeks, when we get to Bianca's party, we'll meet Thomas for the first time. And our question for Bob for that episode is, is Thomas a good person when we meet him? And if he's not, when does he become a good person?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:54)
Yeah, that's a really interesting question. When you brought that one up, I really had to think about it for a while before I settled on my own answer. But we'll talk about that in two weeks, and we'll hear from you. you have an answer to that question, please send it to us, mac at rnt.fm is how you can get ahold of us, or on the subreddit, you can find our questions there. Thanks everybody, have a good one.