Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
I've been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and one thing that occurs to me, having read Jim Butcher's series, is the vampires in Buffy are very unimaginative. There's so many scenes where they're,

Doing a great job by the way chewing the sceneries, James Marsters is great going, ARGH that slayer, I can't believe she foiled me again, we're gonna get her this time. I'm like, dude, Molotov cocktail through the window, AK-47's outside, she's dead.

Brian (00:32)
Okay, Adam, when

you said the vampires are unimaginative, I thought you mean like in the creative process when they came up with like how are going to depict vampires, you were they didn't do it in a very bad way. No, no, no, no. What you're saying vampires need to go to the IRA terrorist training school so that they get better at killing slayers.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:51)
Yeah! They're

just really bad. Their only solution every single time is run at her and punch her, and you know what? That just never works.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:09)
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, a very stressed lighting technician, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (01:21)
Guys, we can't miss the cue for this spotlight or Bianca will kill No, literally kill us. Chop, chop.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:28)
That's a better motivation than I can get from IAV techs. All right, Brian, we're on still the party scene. It goes on for several chapters here, and in this one, Harry and company meet Mavrah for the first time, which means later on in this episode, we're gonna talk about the vampire courts in general in the Dresden Files and compare them to some other media. But first, let's dive in to this chapter.

It's right after it is revealed that Susan has forgotten all about Harry.

Brian (01:59)
So I think one interesting question here is, Maverick claims Adam when she stops Harry and friends that if Michael had the sword, it would sort of be sporting if they fought. Do you think that she would have even dared stop them?

if he had amoracchius

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:18)
to be honest, Brian, they talk about how 20 years ago, Michael had dispatched a scourge that Mavra had been putting together, some of her children, and she still holds it against him. But you know what? If she wanted to act on that, and she could, and it was a good idea to do so,

I think she might've done it by now. I think she's not gone against Michael with the sword for a very good reason. She hasn't lived this long by taking stupid chances.

I think she looks at this and goes, hey, he doesn't have the sword. This is my opportunity to kill him. And they have that planned out to happen later. But I was just thinking if he did have the sword, she's like, hmm, I'm probably gonna win, but there's like a 10 % chance that he comes out on top and I'm dust. So that's too high for me. I'm out, see ya.

Brian (03:06)
Yeah, I completely agree with that. Do you think that this is a potential departure point in Grave Peril? Because we know that Mirror Mirror has got a lot of departure points. This interaction with Mavrah, Michael offers to actually have this confrontation with Mavrah so that Harry and Susan can get out. So if Harry took him up on that offer,

Would that make a difference?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:34)
Yeah, there's a couple of different points where Michael offers to like, hey, you guys get out of here, I'll hold them, or I'll sacrifice myself, it's what I'm supposed to do, it's my job, Harry, you guys don't need to be here kind of a situation. And in all the cases, I was kind of looking for, are there any situations where Harry is like, strongly thinking about it, or maybe considering it?

And in all the cases with Michael offering to sacrifice himself, Harry says something to the effect of Ixnay on the Uppidstan play. ⁓

Brian (04:07)
Mm-hmm.

is definitely on the table in this part of Great Barrel.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:11)
⁓ Right, but

there's never a moment that it feels like, ⁓ alternate Dresden might have made this choice to sacrifice Michael. So I don't think that any of those situations here at this first part of the party are situations where Harry has chosen to sacrifice Michael in the alternate mirror verse. I've been looking for him, but I haven't found him yet.

Brian (04:34)
I agree, mostly because I think even if alternate Harry did take Michael up on that, Mavra's still not gonna let him and Susan leave.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:43)
Yeah, she'll find some other way to slow them down probably. even later when they're actually doing the fighting and know, Michael says, you know, take her, I'll hold them off or something like that. And again, Harry's like, no, we're doing this together. So anyway, we'll keep on the lookout for that. I think we're gonna have a lot to talk about in the final confrontation between Harry and Bianca with Duke Ortega there. That seems like the much more likely point of departure.

Brian (04:46)
Exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:11)
We'll get there when we get there. The next thing to talk about is that Harry, being a good investigator, observes that Mavrah shifts a little bit away when Susan sort of shuffles and moves the basket a little bit towards Mavrah and peeks into the picnic basket to find all the Stoker classics, including Garlic. Yes, in fact, dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, Susan has come loaded for vampire.

Brian (05:39)
And a 45, Harry goes, is that a 38? Susan goes, a 45, which I think is hilarious because Susan clearly knows enough about vampires and Harry's sort of, know, line of work that she does bring all the superstitious stuff, but she also brings a massive hand cannon because yeah, I mean, maybe you can't kill them like a normal person, but you can slow them down, right? Like good on you, Susan, that's thinking.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And Mavra responds to this provocation by calling power. All of this is just a delaying tactic by Mavra. She knows that if she can buy just a little bit more time, they will all be trapped and forced to stay here because when Bianca starts her speech, if they try to leave, it's an insult that could result in them demanding satisfaction and just starting a duel right then and there. But...

They could theoretically walk out now during this first hour without being insulting. And so Mavra has to stall them. And she does this by like daring them to attack her, by pretending to be about to cast the first shot. And when she calls this dark power into her hand, we get Harry confirming that's what I felt when I felt something manipulating the nightmare.

And the way he describes it feels very similar to how we hear him describe the sort of necromantic energy or what we might call like the anti-magic. Like it doesn't feel like the magic that he's familiar with.

Brian (07:09)
Mavra spread her hands out to either side and gathered darkness into her palms. That's the only way I can explain it. She spread out her hands and blackness rushed in to fill them, gathering there an arriving mass that shrouded her hands to the wrist. Adam, you know what that sounds like to me? In changes when we see Ebenezer wielding the Black Staff.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:28)
What's that?

Ooh, that's an interesting call.

Brian (07:36)
And what does he immediately do with it? Rip. Yeah, so.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:39)
Death magic. He rips the

life out of like 30 guys or something.

Brian (07:44)
So I wonder if the law that Ebenezer's breaking in that scene isn't the law against taking the life of another. I mean, he's doing that too, obviously, but it's really the law against necromancy. And I think what's interesting about this sort of growing nexus of things that are associated with necromancy is that with the exception

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:58)
Yeah, that very well might be the case.

Brian (08:12)
of all of them have something to do with the Starborn Cycle So that suggests that Mavra has something to do with it as well.

this is sort of another building point in the idea that there's a nexus that we're literally seeing at this party between the outsider trying to get in Starborn Cycle Endgame and the people at Bianca's party.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:40)
Yeah, absolutely. We're gonna have more connections there and we're gonna talk, I think, a lot more about those connections and future ramifications of this book when we do the main analysis at the end of this book, when we finish going through the chapters. But the next piece here is that Harry figures out, this is all a bluff. She's not gonna take the first shot. She can't because of the accords and hospitality and things like that.

And then he goes to threaten her and says, listen, if you attack us, you'll be attacking first and we'll be all in our rights to respond. And I don't care how big, bad and ugly you are, there won't be anything left but a greasy spot on the floor. And that opens up Michael to have one of the best,

paragraphs of dialogue in the whole book. I'm gonna read it here, quote, blood of the dragon, that old serpent, you and yours have no power here. Your threats are hollow. Your words are empty of just as your heart is empty of love, your body of life. Cease this now before you tempt the wrath of the Almighty. He glanced aside at me and added, probably for my benefit,

or before my friend Harry turns you into a greasy spot on the floor." Unquote. Fucking badass A, because of that great, like, it's not like poetic symmetry that he has there. Your threats are hollow, your words are empty of truth as your heart is empty of love and your body of life. Wow, pull. Maybe he was writing this in the car on the way over, I don't know. But then to also just go, or you know, Harry could just like literally.

turn you into dust, guess. Like he's in comparison to what Harry's threat was. Michael's is so much more poetic and interesting, but he just throws Harry a bone. I love it. Michael's such a good friend.

Brian (10:26)
And I think also it helps to sort of bring it home because that sounds like one of the things that a capital K knight says when they're about to do some capital K knight stuff. And then he also reminds her there's a wizard there. So I think that that's, you know, effective by Michael, but okay, Adam, I have to remark on this. This is just, I can't let this pass without saying. The language that Michael is using there.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:39)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (10:54)
refers to the devil.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:57)
Yes, blood of the dragon, that old serpent.

Brian (11:00)
that he is talking about the devil literally garden of eden serpent tempting eve you know satan like that's who he's talking about but mavera is also literally the blood of a dragon because she is one of the blackboard vampires who's progenitor dracula is the son of the dragon who is dracul so look

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:21)
Yeah. ⁓

Brian (11:24)
I'm not saying that Drakul is Lucifer, of Darkness, but if Drakul is Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, this is where Jim told us.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:34)
Yeah,

So right after this, ⁓ Mavra essentially, it turns out, stalled them for just long enough. The doors are closed, the hour is up, and they are trapped here. And we have an interesting moment where Thomas and Justine walk over and Thomas is like, can I stand here next to you? And Harry noticed something on Thomas' neck. Quote, there was a mark on his neck, black and angry red, like a brand in the shape of lovely feminine lips.

I would have thought it lipstick, but I sensed a faint odor of burnt meat in the air. What happened to your neck? His face paled a few shades. Your godmother gave me a kiss." Unquote. So, Brian, this stuck out to me on this reread. It sounds like Leah may have sealed some kind of a deal with Thomas. Otherwise, why does she wind up giving him a kiss that...

sears his flesh in some way? Is she allowed to just harm someone like that?

Brian (12:34)
So it could be that Leah's just having fun. Winterfey, they're kind of mean. They like being, you know, kind of an asshole and then pointing and laughing at you. And maybe Leah gave him a kiss with the memories of Susan's love as sort of the thing on the tip of her lips and that somehow was able to burn him because Leah...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:53)
⁓ I like that explanation,

yeah.

Brian (12:55)
Leah has the capability to sort of manipulate the memory she's taken in that way. She's the Lananchi, that's like her whole deal. But love the idea that Leah and Thomas have made a deal here.

because it would explain why Leah is allowed to do the stuff she does later, which is not covered under anything that she's made a bargain with Harry specifically, and I guess is theoretically covered under things that, you know, she should do under her bargain with Margaret, but she also isn't always allowed to intervene to save Harry's butt. So presumably,

she sometimes needs some extra permission, extra, juice to be able to act directly in the mortal world on behalf of Harry. And maybe Thomas just gave it to her. And maybe Thomas did it with a sweetheart deal. know, Leah said, in exchange for one kiss. know, that was...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:51)
Yeah, and then, then,

ahaha, I used the kiss to burn you, because I used love, and that fun and joy was enough for me. You know, exactly right, she didn't ask for his firstborn or anything. ⁓ wait, I guess that'll be a different party. so, but later on, what we're referring to is, in the next chapter, when everything goes wrong, and Harry does the pyro fuego pyro thing, and then everything's burning,

It turns out Leah is the one who creates the tunnel of clear air that allows them to escape, and it never really gets explained why she would do that. I think Harry sort of implies that, she was just maintaining her investment in me. Like, I can't become her pet if I'm dead, so she had the power to do that. But to me, it definitely makes more sense if this was...

a deal that Thomas made with her, like, I know that I don't have much to give you, but would you be able to help us in the coming fight? And she basically said, well, you know, I have to remain neutral here, but I'll do what I can in exchange for, you know, whatever the exchange was. And whatever I can was, all I did was allow a column of nice clean air.

for any of the survivors who are trying to leave, right? She gets to maintain her neutrality while overtly helping Harry and company.

Brian (15:15)
Right, and let's be clear, Harry is definitely wrong about why Lee is doing it. She is doing it because she has made a bargain that obligates her to help them get out. The only question is, is that a bargain just now with Thomas, or does that fall under the bargain she made with Margaret? Because in this case, Harry might be about to die and she's standing there. So she has to help him escape.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:38)
Yes, exactly.

I like the Thomas one myself, but I could definitely see it working either way.

Brian (15:45)
Yeah, I think the Thomas option is actually more consistent and clever on the part of Leah, but it obviously could just be because she's Harry's godmother. And that leads us to ask, okay, we're about to throw down here. Like this is about to all go to hell in Susan's hand basket. And Mavra is ensuring that that happens. But Adam...

That makes sense if Mavrah is working for Bianca, who is trying to start a war with the White Council and, you know, wants that all to happen. And presumably if Cowl is Simon, he also wants that to happen because it lets him fake his own death. So that would be really good for them. But Mavrah working with Cowl for Drakul?

And if she's working for Drakul and he's a starborn, then why is she working with cowl?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:44)
Yeah, I mean, the main problem with any of this line of inquiry is we really don't know what Cowell's motivations are. It seems like he's been on the outsiders team, specifically the biggest piece of evidence for that I think is White Knight, where he appears to be working with forces in the Black Council that seem tied to outsiders specifically. But if we assume that he's...

directly on Team Outsider. Cowell is Team Outsider for whatever reason. Maybe he has an outsider inside of him or corrupting him. Maybe he's Nemesis Corrupted, who knows? But in that case, why is Bianca ensuring all of this is happening while Cowell's also doing that behind the scenes? And that's a very good question.

We could potentially assume that Mavra's being a double agent here on behalf of Drakul, who she seems, as far as later in the series, to be very loyal to. And they seem to be on the same page. She wants to achieve his goals as far as we can tell. But the other option here is the Black Court being mostly destroyed, is looking at any opportunity of chaos amongst the good guys as an opportunity

to rebuild their numbers. The White Council and their allies aren't gonna have time to go out and do stakes on scourges if they're busy hiding from or fighting the Red Court. So this could just be something that's good for her own gain. And so she works with Bianca and potentially Cowell, even knowing his association, because right now they have similar goals.

Brian (18:24)
So the reason why this is confusing is because Drakul must have been around for the last Starborn cycle, or we're wildly misunderstanding some things about Starborn. Because it seems like Starborn are born before every Starborn cycle.

and the last one was 666 years ago, shortly before the historical Vlad Drakul enters onto the scene. So if he was around for at least the last one, and he's on team outside, and he's still alive, then why is the world still here?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:59)
Yeah, exactly, it's really, really wanna know more about what's going on with him. I need that chapter with listens to win, Brian, I need it so bad.

Brian (19:08)
So there's only essentially three versions of what's going on at this party. Either one, Cowl is on full team outside and so is Mavrah and Drakul has either switched sides in a way that people don't really know yet or Mavrah is actually betraying Or other option,

Drakul, despite being not a nice is on team reality. And Cowl is not. And Mavre is here, working as a double agent on behalf of Drakul, kind of against the machinations of the Black Council. We have a lot of evidence for this, In 12 months, we see Lord Wraith.

who we can be pretty sure is Black Council, kind of masterminding an attack on Dresden's castle, and Mavrah gets out of there so that she's not harmed, while Drak-Kul foils the trap. So definitely seems like it's possible that Mavrah is a double agent working against them from that circumstance, and also because when Kal is trying to cast the Dark Hallow, Mavrah comes and says, no, give the book to me.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:20)
Mm-hmm. She sends Harry directly against him.

Brian (20:20)
trying to keep it out of his hands.

So that we actually have a substantial amount of evidence for that Mavrah at this party is doing all of this to ingratiate herself into the team outside camp and is then going to spend the rest of the series working against them. She's sort of doing maybe what Leia's potentially trying to convince them of, but better because she has even fewer scruples.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:46)
One more possibility for you, Brian. At this point, Cowl either isn't yet on team outside, or is pretending not to be. And that might explain why Kumori, who seems to be portrayed in a sympathetic light in Deadbeat, the one time we really get to meet her, maybe that's why she's willing to work with him, because at that point it's not been revealed that he's secretly

controlled by Nemesis or working for Team Outside or whatever that may be. My own personal sort of idea, my own personal hypothesis about this is that the Black Council was an organization that was doing all this chaotic stuff behind the scenes for its own ends and it got infiltrated by Nemesis and eventually became a pro outside organization, but maybe it didn't start that way.

That I think could be an interesting take on it.

Brian (21:43)
So I've got a third possibility, which I'm actually starting to think is probably the most likely. So the is not really for or against the outsiders. The Circle, what we call the Black Council, is a loose collection of people who are all trying to manipulate this star-born cycle to achieve a

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:45)
Ha ha ha.

Brian (22:07)
different reality where they are effectively in charge. Which is why

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:08)
Hmm.

Yeah, so which means they're

against team outside, right? Because outside, if the outsiders win, they can't get that goal.

Brian (22:18)
Yes, exactly. And it also means that they're against Team Winter Court, Team White God, because those are the current sheriff in town and they want to be the new sheriff in town. But they're also against each other, because each one of them is trying to scramble over all of the others to be the person who ends up in charge. Hence why Mavrah is going to help Kal during something like Grave Peril, but then...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:27)
right.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (22:43)
actively work against him when he gets a hair's breadth away from becoming a god in deadbeat and that continual climbing over each other is why the circle is a really good destabilizing force and they're great at like taking the world apart but they can't really win until whatever happens

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:48)
Yeah.

Brian (23:08)
when the starborne cycle comes to its apogee because the only thing that matters in their game is who's left standing at that moment. Hence why Drakul will alternatively help people who are part of the circle through Mavra or on his own and leave them hanging out to dry because he's playing for a much bigger price.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:29)
Yeah, so to recap, why is Mavrah here? I know. It still remains to be seen, but it's fun to speculate about. Yeah. Exactly, that's crazy. right, let's move on to chapter 29, Brian. In this chapter, we see some direct evidence of what I've talked about before, right?

Brian (23:33)
We have no idea.

20 years later. Jesus.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:51)
Harry basically talks about how when they become locked in, when Madra closes the door and they become trapped here, he starts feeling a lot of fear. And then we get this paragraph, Fear and anger always come hand in hand. Anger is my hiding place from fear, my shield and my sword against it. I waited for the anger to harden my resolve, put steel into my spine. I waited for the rush of outrage and strength to feel the power of it.

coalesce around me like a cloud. It never came. Just a hollow, fluttering sensation beneath my belt buckle. For a moment I felt the fangs of the shadow demon of my dream once again, and I started shaking." Unquote. This is some direct evidence that one of the things the nightmare took from Harry is his ability to...

be calm under pressure, his ability to push fear away and do what needs to be done. And it was specifically his shield of anger, his ability to be righteously angry at injustice. Because right before this, he said, and the fear for those around me, for the folk who didn't have the power I had, for Susan, for Michael, for all the young people now lying in darkness, unquote. His anger,

His righteous anger on behalf of others is gone. But, and we're gonna talk about this in the next chapter when he actually unleashes his fire, he still has a different kind of anger left. We'll get to that.

Brian (25:24)
Yeah, and that's really important here. There's something about Harry that is distinct from his sense of righteousness.

that also fuels him to sort of take the heroic path sometimes. And Jim is literally telling us that here. He's like kind of laying it out by saying, Gravos took the one thing from him, but he still reaches for something else. And the fallback that he attempts to go to, which is not the one that's ultimately gonna save the day, is reason. And reason doesn't work because from a reasonable perspective, they're screwed, Adam.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:02)
Yeah, he tries to, he tries to say, okay, and this is a great line too, where he says, quote, reason, reason was my next line of defense. Fear is bred from ignorance, so knowledge is a weapon against it, and reason is the tool of knowledge. I turn back to the front as Bianca started speaking to the crowd, some vainglorious bullshit I didn't pay attention to, reasons, facts, unquote. And the problem here is that yes, fear is bred from ignorance, and if you,

know about a thing, there's two different ways that can go, Brian. One, you can say, ⁓ I can use this knowledge as a weapon against it. For example, Bram Stoker's book, Here's How You Fight Dracula and Vampires. I have the tools, I don't have to be as afraid because I've got a clove of garlic and I've got a cross. But if the reason leads you to a conclusion that, ⁓ I am wildly outclassed right now,

then that does not slay the fear in this particular case.

Brian (27:00)
Yes, and it's not just that Harry's learning he's outclassed, it's also that his recitation of the facts, his analysis of the situation, leads him to understand he's not just in danger, he has been played, lured into a trap, hung out to dry, and it's already sprung. Harry's learning

when he reasons his way through the situation, that it's even worse than it appears at first blush. So reason gives you power and even knowing exactly how bad the situation is does allow Harry to take some actions, you know, that can try to mitigate the situation, but they don't really solve the fear because the fear is not irrational.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:47)
Yeah, and this moves on where he basically now has to explain to everybody around him, well, of course, the vampires are looking at them because you're not supposed to be talking during the speech. He basically points out, yeah, she wanted us here, this is a trap, and then

He compares this to the events that occurred at the historical Vlad Tepes inauguration, the way that ⁓ Vlad Tepes got the nickname Vlad the Impaler.

Brian (28:13)
So the historical Vlad the Impaler actually has three different periods where he is the ruler, the Voivode of Volatia. And you don't get the nickname Vlad the Impaler by impaling people one time. He did quite a lot of impaling. But one specific time that Vlad kills a whole bunch of people gruesomely,

is the beginning of his second reign. So he gets run out of town at the end of his first reign, he's in exile, and he comes back to take control of Wallachia again. And when he comes back, he executes everybody who he thinks is an enemy. Basically everybody who was involved with getting him deposed, people who thinks are against his father, he just kills all of them. Now, presumably, that's what

Harry's referring to here. But thing that's interesting about this is that Vlad is not known for doing this because he was just, you know, a mean nasty guy who just didn't like people. Vlad is considered to be a natural hero in Romania because he resists the occupation of the country by foreign powers like the Ottomans. So

Vlad's second rule is where he gets the famous nickname due to his actions after the night attack at Targovista. The reason why I'm mentioning this is because Harry is more right than he knows. Bianca is killing all of her enemies in her own backyard. Why? Because this is the prelude to So she's got a purged Chicago of her enemies because this is a

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:53)
Hmm.

Brian (29:58)
about to become the front lines in a struggle between superpowers. This doesn't exactly go the way that she plans, but she is right to be thinking that way.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:05)
No.

for what it's worth, in our history, the story that Harry tells here about inviting all of his political and personal enemies to a feast and then basically doing a red wedding on them, that is probably an apocryphal story. It's a collection of other things that all happened in and around Vlad the Impaler that sort of get amalgamated into that. But maybe in the Dresden verse, that's literally what happened.

We don't have any specific way of knowing that. Maybe this is Jim telling us, yeah, in the Dresdenverse, that's what

Brian (30:36)
I mean, the various times that Vlad Tepes kills a lot of people might be, some of what Dracula did, but there's also some supernatural massacres that we're not even aware of. And it's interesting because it's not just Harry being targeted here, right? I mean, obviously they're also going after the white god through Michael.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:52)
Yeah.

Yes, so we know that A, it would be great if they could get rid of one of the swords that have stood up to them, even though the swords mostly go after we know that the swords can and will stand against the Red Court specifically in the future. But we also know that Thomas being sent here is an insult to the Red Court, that's explained by Justine.

She also wants Thomas dead because he managed to snag Justine when she had theoretically decided I want that, it to me and he said no.

We have that being explicit when Harry talks to Bianca later in this chapter. Quote, and if things are hectic and confusing enough and a few others die along with you, well, that's hardly to be blamed on me. Thomas and his little whore and the knight and your reporter friend, I'm going to enjoy the rest of this evening, Harry. Unquote. Now, Brian, why is she targeting Susan?

Brian (31:55)
Yeah, that's pretty weird. I mean, I guess maybe the arcane wrote an unflattering story about the Velvet Room? Or vampires? I don't know. What I think is really interesting though, Adam, is yeah, she wants to kill Thomas and his little whore for personal reasons. But presumably as a member of the Circle, Lord Wraith is also using this as an opportunity to get his house in order before he goes to war by removing the only person who could challenge him as White.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:19)
Yes.

Brian (32:25)
king. The funny thing being that there's not going to really be a white king after he's deposed, but you know, he doesn't know that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:32)
Yeah,

and we know that when Bianca says, you know, I'm gonna also get that little whore of his, what she means is I'm gonna get her and turn her so that she can be part of my, velvet room. Now, the other thing that I do like here, I don't know if this is an homage, but it definitely feels like a little Wizard of Oz where Bianca's like, I'll kill Thomas and the girl and the knight and your little reporter friend too.

Brian (32:58)
If Mister was around, she definitely would have included, and your little kitty!

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:01)
Yes,

exactly. It definitely felt like that was what Jim was trying to reference here a little bit, or maybe he was doing it subconsciously. So now that brings us to the actual speeches concluding, and she's distributing gifts to all of the different players. And these gifts turned out to be very important throughout the rest of the series. And we're gonna talk about how they impact the rest of the series in

Our main overview of the book at the end of all of this analysis. But for right now, let's talk about what happens in this chapter here, Brian. I do like the way that the spotlights pop up at exactly the right time, like at the beginning of this party when Dresden appears, boom, the spotlight is there to announce him and Thomas is there. And then here, Bianca says, now we have gifts.

All right, show them and then boom, the spotlights go on, Mavra and Farovacs and Thomas and Harry and ⁓ Leah. And I gotta say, I work in the audio visual industry, she's got some people that know what they're doing. They got spotlight operators, they know when to turn them on, they got an AV team that's doing the right thing with the microphones. So here, I have to imagine they've got either a competent mortal team that doesn't realize what they're walking into

Or it's after dark productions. The all visual production team. I think that's also possible.

Brian (34:25)
That's definitely possible, but I'm gonna be honest, I think I actually can tell you who is doing AV at this production. It's whoever does AV for the White Court. Cause you know they've got a big technical staff of AV people, not only because they're involved in the movie industry, but also cause have you seen Zero? I mean, that's a hell of a nightclub. So they definitely have some, you know, various does and staff.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:35)
Ha ha ha!

That's true, that's true.

Brian (34:53)
you know, at this party tripping bliss on some white-court vampire who are just nailing their cues because they've been promised that they're gonna totally, you know, get fed on if they do a good job.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:01)
Ha ha!

Anyway, but I bring this up because none of these spotlights illuminate Cowell and Kumori, which is, as we mentioned before, just another piece of evidence that they are not here as honored guests, even if they may be honored, they're here in a down-low capacity. We don't want anybody to know who they are. It's a secret.

Brian (35:26)
Right, one thing to be very clear about is this works perfectly well with who I think both of us think Cowl and Kumuri are, but this works with lot of theories. If, you know, Cowl is literally Kembler, then no, he's gotta stay hidden. We can't let people know that. And there's some people here who might even recognize Justin Dumourne. And there's definitely some people here who would recognize time traveling.

Harry Dresden. then Cowl would also be 6'9", so I think he'd be recognizable anyway.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:57)
Yeah,

time traveling Harry Dresden who's had surgery to shorten his legs. All right, or who's actually the art of shape so while these gifts are being given out, a very interesting scene plays out here, Brian, and I almost always forget about this scene during the reread.

Brian (36:03)
Right, exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:19)
because when Justine shows up at the beginning of this party in chapter 27 or so, she acts as the ditzy bimbo and, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dresden. Just kind of seems like she's kind of on drugs touching Thomas and going, yes, that's the stuff. Except here,

She perfectly manipulates Dresden into a position where he has to help her.

Where Harry initially says, I'm not helping that vampire. I'll get you out of here. Don't worry. You're a human. I will definitely help you. And she's like, no, you're taking me and Thomas together.

And she then like threatens him and says, if you don't make this agreement, I'll be forced to tell Bianca what I just heard you plotting and it will cause a duel and you'll be in trouble and it will maybe get us out of hot water, but I'd rather not do and she basically points out all of the right things about you should be wanting to do this for us.

Brian (37:14)
He's also a person, Mr. Dresden," Justine said. A person who's never done you any harm. Why shouldn't you care what happens to him? I hate it when a woman asks me for help and I witlessly decide to go ahead and give it, regardless of dozens of perfectly good reasons not to. I hate it when I get threatened and strong-armed into doing something stupid and risky.

and I hate it when someone takes the moral high ground on me and wins. Justine had just done all three, but I couldn't hold it against her. She just looked too sweet and helpless.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:52)
it's amazing how well Jim has laid the groundwork for Justine's secret agent that's going to be, spying on Lara on behalf of Thomas, that's a very high stakes game, but also being competent enough to become

Lara's number two and like really get into inner circle and like be well placed to be taken over by Nemesis. And at the same time, we see that same like secret agent Justine in the short story from Marcon's perspective called Even Hand, where she's not just as an analyst or an executive assistant for Lara, she's also out in the field.

gathering intelligence from the Fomor and trying to manipulate Marcon. Like that version of Justine is right here working Dresden over at this very party when we first meet her.

Brian (38:48)
Justine is legitimately terrifying. I mean, her tactic for manipulating Marcona in the future is going to be as follows.

I'm going to need to rob the Fomor when I'm hanging out with them doing reconnaissance for Lara because we really need to get good intel on them. So what I'll do is I will jailbreak a child slave bring it into Marcon's territory because I know he won't let anyone miss with kids. So that'll cause him to go to come to blows with the Fomor, putting him set up against the Fomor exactly where we want him on side of the brighter future society. And then I'll get away with the secret documents and the safe

child. And the brilliant thing about all of that, being crazily, absolutely Batman Gambit after Batman Gambit of manipulation, is that I can't morally fault her at all, because I believe Justine thinks that saving that child isn't just like a throw-in thing, it's also a really good thing that she gets to do. Justine is the evil genius

working for the good team. And she is, if you look at her actions in the broader scope of the series, simply terrifying. Justine is frankly more like Cleopatra or Irene Adler than she is like your typical vampire sexy girlfriend in this kind of story. And

Frankly, the fact that she doesn't get as much screen time as she perhaps merits as a character is a bit of a tragedy because what's going on in her head is just, it's gotta be really interesting.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:31)
Yeah, I lament the fact that we don't have a short story from her perspective. Remember, she does feature in a couple of the short stories, like Bombshells, but Bombshells is a Molly perspective story, and as we just mentioned, even Hand does reveal a lot more about her, but that's a Marcones story. I'd love to get a story from inside her head. Don't really matter where it takes place. I know Jim could write a good one. So I'd love to see more about what's going on with her, because she is really an interesting character, which makes the fact...

that she gets taken over by Nemesis so much more like tragic and horrible because of how competent and well-placed she is.

Brian (41:08)
Right, and you think in the beginning of the party, ⁓ Jim, problematic age gap relationship between the vampire and the girl that he's totally grooming. And it's like, actually Justine seems like she's got like a 150 IQ and probably engineered this whole situation because she prefers it to whatever mental health medication she was on beforehand.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:27)
Hahaha!

Brian (41:36)
you-

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:35)
and knowing that

Bianca was looking to groom her as well and this is a way better potential outcome than Bianca's option. Yeah.

Brian (41:42)
and literally seduces Thomas into being

the dough that he falls in love with and therefore cannot harm. Like obviously she comes to really deeply care for him, but if we just look at her as being coldly manipulative the entire time, she's terrifying.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:59)
She's

dynamite at it, yes. All right, Brian, that brings us to one last piece I wanna talk about in this chapter. Because when Harry goes up to talk to Bianca and receive his gift,

Bianca says, do you remember Paula, Mr. Dresden? I returned to the gesture only more shallowly. I remember she was pretty polite. Didn't really get to meet her much. No, she was dead within an hour of you setting foot in my house, unquote. Now, Brian, in Stormfront, that character that...

Bianca kills after Harry goes to see her is called Paula all throughout Stormfront. Here she's referred to as Paula again by Bianca. Earlier in this book when talking to Bob, Harry calls her Rachel. He's definitely talking about the same person. And then later in this very book when Harry meets her ghost,

He calls her Rachel again multiple times. Those are the only times that this character is referred to. All in Stormfront, it's Paula. In this book, Harry refers to her as Rachel every time he says her name. Bianca calls her Paula here. What is going on?

Brian (43:14)
So there is only two possibilities, Either one... Okay, so in the time travel that surrounds the future book in which Dresden breaks the laws of time, the woman who is killed by Bianca...

changes because maybe like she calls a different one into the room or because one was never in her service but the other was or something growing around grave peril as a result of that time travel and the mirror mirror departure

Jim didn't catch that he gave her two names in the edit.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:53)
Yeah, it seems more, the Doyleist answer is probably much more likely. I don't think we'll ever see a resolution to this. It's fun to try to come up with some timey-wimey explanation for it, but I think it's simpler than that. Honestly, one of the questions we asked Jim during the interview was like, hey, is there anything you'd wanna go back and change? Because there are some authors, some creators that don't...

ever want to go back and open that can of worms. And I understand the impulse, like, because if you start changing something, you're just going to chase perfection and you're never going to call it the exception to me is like, yeah, but even Tolkien like fixed some of the inconsistencies in his books in later editions. And it seems to me that this is one that you could just go back and fix if it was actually just, oops.

We just changed the name by mistake. Why wouldn't you fix it in future publications? I don't know.

Brian (44:50)
Yeah, I mean, the other really simple thing, the retroactive continuity thing that we can apply to this is that Rachel is the woman's real name. Harry saw her death certificate. That's why he calls her Rachel. That's why her ghost refers to herself as Rachel. But Bianca calls her Paula, and she's called Paula in Stormfront because when she's working as a prostitute in the Velvet Room,

she uses the name Paula Poundstone or whatever.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:20)
Yeah,

yeah, that's potentially consistent. Though you just pulled out one of my favorite comedians and I'm offended. ⁓ Yes, I get it. I get it. All right, just before we leave this chapter, we have, of course, when Mavra's gift is rolled out, it turns out to be A, Amarokius, and conveniently, ⁓ this innocent that I'll allow you to sacrifice to the blade to destroy it.

Brian (45:27)
Well, yeah, but you get it because it's pound. All right. All right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:48)
Lydia, and when that happens, Michael basically says, Harry, I've got to intervene, and he says, you go, I'll, I don't want anybody, and Harry steps up to him says, no, we're doing this together. And again, this is another potential departure point, but I really don't think Harry ever, in any continuity, leaves Lydia high and dry here. I just don't think that is the possible departure point myself. But one thing that I thought was a little bit interesting here is when he pulls out his sword cane,

He holds it in his left hand. And I know we see him use his staff, like holding it in his left hand in the past, but a lot of the times he like shifts it to his right hand to use for Zare by channeling it through the staff or something like that, because he has referred to his right hand as the one that projects power and his left hand as the one that receives power. That's why shield bracelet is on his left hand. That's why in Stormfront,

when he redirects the lightning, he does it from his left hand to his right hand. you think there's any significance to him holding the sword cane in particular in his left hand as opposed to his right?

Brian (46:59)
I actually there is because I don't think Dresden's left-handed. I don't think Dresden's left-handed. If Dresden was left-handed and he just learned to fence Southpaw, then there's no significance to it. That's just how he's expecting to fence. But I think it's because Harry is viewing the sword in this scenario as something he's going to use to parry attacks from vampires, not something he's going to use

to kill vampires. He knows he's not Thomas, who the first thing we see Thomas ever do is disembowel a vampire. Thomas walks into this story as a master fencer and it will never change. Harry's not that good, so he's thinking, I'm gonna keep them off me with the sword. The thing that's actually gonna do the vampire squishing is the will. So that's why the right hand has to be free.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:40)
Mm-hmm.

Right. He

doesn't have his blasting rod, but he can still throw fire, and he's probably thinking that's my only option right now. I've got one more possible thing. When we do see him use the sword cane as a magical focus, he uses it as sort of an electromagnetic, like, get over here spell. He's trying to pull Amarokius away Mavrah.

And in that sense, because he's using it to pull something towards him, maybe it does make sense that it's in his left hand. if he wanted to use electromagnetism to push something away, maybe he would do it with the hand that projects. But because he's trying to pull the sword to him and away from Mavra, maybe that's why it's in his left hand.

Brian (48:35)
Yeah, and he might be thinking about that from the get-go because he does know that the sword has fallen into Leia's hands and he brings the cane on the off chance he's gonna have to do some electromagnetic spells. Or maybe he just realizes in the moment when he sees the sword, hey, good thing I brought my earth magic cane and thinks, I'm gonna need this to pull the sword to Michael or something.

So that's definitely possible that he's kind of planning that from the moment he takes the sword out. And I totally agree with your analysis that if he's pulling something towards him, it would be with the hand that receives energy.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:12)
Yeah, and that takes us to the end of chapter 29. Harry and Co. has just broken hospitality by threatening them. And so the fight is about to start. Now, as mentioned, we are going to talk much more in detail about the gifts themselves that get given in this chapter later in our book analysis at the end of this. But for now, let's move on.

Next week, we're gonna be talking about chapters 30 and 31. This is the fight itself, and then the follow-up chapter where Thomas brings Amarachius back to Harry and Michael at Harry's apartment. we'll talk about that next week. But for this week, let's head to our question for Bob.

Brian (49:51)
though.

Bob, you read a lot of Romanticie. And presumably also other stuff. But Romanticie has vampires in it. So how do you real vampires, the one in Harry's case files, stack up against the ones in those books you're reading?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:13)
Yeah, it's insane how relevant Bob's knowledge in this moment would be for this question, but he's not able to make it. This time he told us he's helping prevent the collapse of the Earth's magnetic field. He didn't say who he's helping or how. I mean, maybe he's just like literally moving a magnet around and calling it good, I don't know.

Brian (50:36)
You know, we're on hands for a, you know, a North Pole to South Pole reversal atom. So maybe it's just all hands on deck. I actually kind of buy it on that one. Okay. So we'll answer the question. How does Butcher's depiction of vampires compare to how other media depicts vampires? And we can start with a Doylist observation from powderkeger1, who I was talking to earlier today on Reddit, actually. I like that there's variety between the courts.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:43)
That could be. right.

Brian (51:03)
but also specific strengths and weaknesses for each. It allows Jim, or fan fiction writers, to choose the right tool for the job. Horde of enemies? Probably go red. Political mystery? White court has it covered. Horror movie monster? Classic black-

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:19)
Yeah, this is a great, great point. And it's probably something that Jim was wrestling with when he was trying to decide what are the vampires like in my world? And he came up with, well, I want them to be able to tell these kinds of stories and these kinds of stories and those kinds of stories. Aha, maybe there's more than one kind. Obviously we know that Jim was aware of Vampire the Masquerade, which famously has

what is it, a dozen different clans of vampires that run the gamut from the sexy seducers to the horror movie monsters and all other kinds in between, animalistic versions like the red court, they've got everything. So he probably cribbed from that a little bit and said, yeah, I want different kinds of vampires. And what I appreciate is how that variety is accomplished.

because I believe in Vampire the Masquerade and any other of these vampire media that we're talking about, most of the time, the vampire differences are explained as a sort of evolutionary gap. They all came from one original vampire or whatever, and the differences have emerged over time, and they're explained as being families or clans or courts or whatever it is. But Jim...

as far as we can tell, has created three separate origin stories for three different beings that all prey on humanity. And so there's a lot of overlap in their interests, which is why it would make sense that the vampires would be essentially allied with each other at this point in history, because ⁓ they have a common food source and common enemies that look to defend that food source. And they also have different strengths as,

Powderkegger pointed out the white court is able to fight much more effectively in the boardrooms and the government offices for things that would benefit both of them. Meanwhile, the red court is able to much more dominate in the physical realm when it would be needed. So it makes perfect sense to me that these two completely divergent groups that never started together would wind up together as

one whole thing under quote unquote vampires.

Brian (53:36)
Yeah, and I think one of the important differences is that, like you said, vampires don't all have a common origin, but they might have an origin in common. By which I mean, it might be that every vampire court is the result of, in some way, shape, form, outsiders fusing with humans in various ways or at various stages in the human's life or death. And

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:50)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (54:02)
That is another reason why they could be sort of allied with each other naturally. But because Jim has also built in this really extraordinarily big speciation, if we can call it that, between his kinds of vampires, it allows them to interact in the mortal world in lots of different ways that most vampire media can't touch at all. Like

the black court are literally the monsters from the folklore of old europe and the white court are basically stand-ins for you know general decadent elites they're sort of almost like a an illuminati kind of feeling organization of

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, definitely like secret

cult organization working behind the scenes to control everything and we know that in certain industries, like the porn industry, they literally control everything.

Brian (55:06)
Right, whereas the Reds are a whole different thing of sort of like the ghouls are also in the Dresden Files, an army of literal monsters that literally eat people today and are sort of the THE hidden world. Literally, they are the branch that the White Council goes to war in in our timeline. They are the hidden world of the supernatural in that sense. They are the hidden monsters. So the fact that he does that

that speciation to allow them to interact with humanity in such different ways is probably, I think, the strongest credit to how he differs from other sources, because I can't think of any other piece of media that's done that. Of course, they do have a lot of similarities to vampires and other media intentionally. mean, especially in the case of the Black Court.

one thing that FireBane101 noted, Adam, is that an interesting similarity between all the vampires in the Dresden Files.

is that they all have some power of essentially mesmerism

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:09)
Yeah, and if you're gonna be preying on humans, you need some way to incapacitate your prey. And we know that the Black Court can do that via the classic eye contact mesmerism. Red.

appears to be able to do that some of the time. mean, Harry's very hesitant to look Bianca in the eye, but we also know that Bianca is a sorceress. That might be the reason that she has that power. But the Reds definitely have their spit, their venom. And then the Whites, if they can touch you, as we see in the chapter 31 with Lydia, where Thomas needs to restrain Cravo's possessed Lydia, he just needs to be able to touch her and boom, she's incapacitated. And we've seen the Whites do that as well.

So that ability to incapacitate your prey so you can feed on them is a similarity between all of them, but they all do it in unique ways. And Firebane101 also points out that Jim basically wanted the classic vampires of his world to actually be misinterpreted myths about all three. So if you have one concept of the vampire in mythology,

Brian (57:00)
part of his thing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:18)
in our history of, in the Dresden Files world, in Europe or whatever, it's actually an amalgamation of all three of these beings that prey on humans. Humans have just only seen certain facets of them and they group them all together inside their folklore as vampire. That's a really cool idea.

Brian (57:37)
Yeah, it's something that you have to do in an all myths are true series because vampire myths are incompatible. You can't both be a shambling walking corpse that looks like a horror and a seductive noble who's able to entreat damsels into trysts. the zombie that's falling apart can't do that. So Jim...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:42)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (58:04)
just like anybody has to when they're engaging with this in an all myths are true way, needs to create different vampires because it's not possible for one kind of vampire to be all of the things called a vampire. And J.J. Pearson points out that he's cleverly created a symmetry between the three courts as well. They each represent a perversion of mind, body or spirit.

J.J. Pearson says that the black court is the perversion of spirit, the red court of body, and the white court of mind. I'd actually argue that the black court is the perversion of the body, because it appears that the host has left. The red court is a perversion of the soul, because I do think they dominate the human soul that's within the body. And the white court is, like he says, the perversion of the mind.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:53)
Yeah, yeah, and that's a really cool idea. And I could see arguments like you said for spirit and body being either way, because literally the red court is changing your human body into this thing that doesn't even look like a human anymore. But like you said, there are arguments for it both ways, but the white court definitely fits with the mind. But that's a very cool observation. Thank you, JJ Pearson there. And Sarcastic Kenobi continues along.

by saying, quote, I enjoy the white court are essentially sucky by. There's something we don't see much in the mainstream. It's always blood sucking vampires and werewolves outside of the TV series, Lost Girl and throw away episodes of Monster of the Week TV series, unquote. And that is true. And it's probably because, you know, American religious stuff going back to like the Puritans.

⁓ really can't handle sexuality in an adult manner, but violence? Awesome. Americans, we love violence. It's allowed everywhere, but no, we can't talk about sex in front of the children.

Brian (59:57)
Yeah, I really like you about this as a point. We'll talk about this when we get to some of the other vampire media, in Vampire the Masquerade, canonically, vampires can't really do it. And that's probably because they're trying to look for a way to keep those themes out of their TTRPG that they're trying to sell to people at the end of the satanic panic. And Jim says,

Well, here's the thing, I'm not gonna mix drinking blood and sex, I'm just going to have psychic sex vampires, which does, yeah, think map on really nicely to Lost Girl, which I have seen. It's one of my wife's favorite comfort shows, and ⁓ I actually never thought about that, but the protagonist of Lost Girl is sort of Lady Thomas Wraith in a couple ways.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:42)
I did watch it for a little bit and seeing how do we make

⁓ a succubus into like the hero of the story, the protagonist, was a very interesting question to sort of see how they answered it. Because we just don't get that many versions of that.

Brian (1:00:58)
Mm-hmm, yeah, I totally agree. A-Spert also likes the differentiation and the fact that it lets all myths be true without creating a contradictory mess. He's very curious to know Jim's origin story for the Black Court beyond what's been mentioned so far. You know, how did we get the first one, Dracula? He also enjoys the little quirks that bat-faced red approach struck him as a nod to

one that doesn't cost freedom or flexibility in the storytelling as opposed to an over-the-top direct reference. I've seen Buffy, but it's a series I've watched in pieces like three times, maybe a total of one and a half, you know, all the way through. Do you, where do we have bat face? Is it, he's not talking about the scrunch face thing?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:41)
Yeah, I

think it's the scrunch face thing. I don't really see Buffy working with the red court as an analogy or similarities to myself, but I guess I take the bat face thing when Jim says it a lot more literally.

We talked about in Welcome to the Jungle, there is a thing that looks like Jim's depiction of a Red Court vampire, that looks like a big vampire bat that's kind of humanoid a little bit. And so it's possible that what Ace Britta says, like when I think of them, I think of them as having this human face that's got this weird thing like what happens to the vampires in Buffy when they go into demon mode.

Brian (1:02:20)
But I also think that's a good point that the vampires in Buffy can pass up till the moment that they don't. And that's the same thing that's true of the Reds and not true of either of the others. The White literally look human unless they're bleeding and you're really paying attention. And the Black never look human. So the Reds are more of a nod to that. And it's interesting that in a way Jim's most

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:28)
Yes, that's actually a very good point.

Brian (1:02:49)
traditional vampire, also most breaks the mold because of how extreme and gross the shape-shifting is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:57)
Yeah, it really does make, I think he's setting up the Reds of like, when I genocide them with Harry, you're gonna cheer. I don't want you to be having any thoughts about, no, but what if there was a Red Court vampire that was a good guy? No, that should be the furthest thing from your mind. These are monsters that are bad, period. That's what he set them up to be.

Brian (1:03:21)
Yes, Tolkien had warmer

feelings about his orcs than Jim does about the Red Court vampires, for sure. Elphitch 47 says, each of the different courts that we are aware of, red, white, black, and jade, appear to have roots in older vampire stories. And instead of picking and choosing which do I keep or match together, Jim took all of them and assigned them different courts. And we've talked about this, this fantasy kitchen sink approach. But I love that Elphitch

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:25)
Exactly right.

Brian (1:03:49)
⁓ notes that it really allows each of the different tropes myth to do their thing without having to conform to the competing overlapping myth away that have been swapped, stolen, overlapped between them. That is what Elphich is saying is building on what we were saying before Adam that the fact that Jim has broken these tropes into pieces and assigned them in parts to each of the courts means that they don't step on each other at all.

So even wearing Vampire the Masquerade, because all of the vampires have a common progenitor, they have to have certain things in common? Jim can completely pull apart a fear-eating psychic vampire and undead creation, and they can have nothing in common, and that's really unique to the Dresden Files.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:40)
Yeah, can, we don't, we're not sitting here going, ⁓ why does a symbol of faith work on a black court vampire, but not a white court vampire? Gotcha! No, Jim has already answered all of those questions by creating different origin stories for them. And that is exactly what Elthich is saying here, is he's not constrained by trying to keep all of our folklore consistent with one specific vampire type.

for his universe, breaking them apart gives him the flexibility to give them their own stories and not have to be constrained by the specific folklore that we know.

Brian (1:05:19)
Yeah, and Elphich goes on to sort of label some interesting things that they see Jim doing in the various kinds of vampires. So one thing that I found really interesting was that Elphich says the Red Court lands straight in Bram Stoker's rape allegories. And that's really true. We're going to in this book.

see Jim use the Red Court and their venom and like so their whole modus operandi to be a very strong allegory for sexual assault in a way that the White Court is not as succubi and incubi because they have the fig leaf of your succumbing to temptation. They're leading the victim on and seducing them

you're making a deal with the devil in a sense. That's the vampire tempter. And that can cause a lot of problems for depictions of vampires. know, the vampire is always seducing their mark into their mesmerizing them into, you know, feeling this sense of wanting to be with the vampire. Jim very neatly bifurcates red court victims are drug addicts who will wake up the next morning and feel like they were raped and white court, victims.

can be basically somebody who is self-consciously like, yes, I want this vampire to psychically feed off me because it's awesome.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:48)
Yeah, or just like the jogger in Deadbeat who Harry stumbles upon when he comes home and the jogger's coming out of the bedroom and she's like, ⁓ I didn't know he was into men. that's interesting. And she just leaves like, she just had a wild one night stand with Thomas and she's happy to leave and we know that some of the whites probably leave their victims like that. We also know some of the whites literally just go right to death

Like the white king. So obviously not everything in the white court is as hunky-dory as that but it can be it does have some overtones of like Manufactured consent like did they really consent if you roofied them with white court power, but you're right It is pretty neatly bifurcating, you know those two answers of like this is what Harry feels like after a night with the Red Court

there is enemies, so this is not a perfect example, and then versus this is what that jogger feels like after a night with Thomas, those are the two most extreme examples we have, but those examples can be brought up as a big difference between the two courts.

Brian (1:07:55)
Yeah, and I think one thing that we'll talk about very soon is how Justine is set up to be relating to Thomas. That this is actually something that is explicitly kind of good for her in a way that the Red Court simply can't be. The Red Court are addicting you to heroin. And the White Court might be getting you hooked on coke, but it's still just not even at its worst the same exact quality of bath.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:11)
Yeah.

Brian (1:08:22)
And these are both completely different from the Black Court that Elphich compares to the Golem trope, the walking, unkillable automaton. And that seems to be true of the rest of the vampires in the Scourge, all of the ones under the master. That I never really thought of, but it's a really interesting ⁓ note to take of how Jim's doing this. The Black Court vampires are

extraordinarily powerful in a way that Dracula is not even really depicted to be in the book. And some of them are mindless like zombies or golems.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:01)
and they're, yeah, almost impossible to kill unless you use their weaknesses against them, right? We know that Harry figured out their weaknesses like gravity or being squished by stuff, because he just uses that over and over again. The battle bonus weakness. But think of the scene in Battleground. If those wizards had stumbled upon Drakul and his little group there,

Brian (1:09:13)
Hahaha!

The special bonus weaknesses, yes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:29)
and had known they were going to be there and came with garlic, holy items, steaks, like the whole Bram Stoker kit, holy water, all of that would have made that fight very different. Now, still even odds that Drakul wins there, but it would have been much more in favor of the wizards.

Brian (1:09:46)
Yeah, Drakul probably just... yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:52)
might not have lost three of their people in that case. Maybe they only lost two or one. I think they still lose in the end because Drakul is Drakul. But to me, that unkillable nature does fit in here because the Reds are very killable with just straight up like, shoot them in the belly and they like collapse with no real special power after they lose their blood.

Brian (1:10:14)
Yeah, it's really awesome that white court vampires are sort of classically what you expect a vampire to be. Tougher than humans, hard to kill, but if you, you know, put enough guns in them, you can basically take them down. And also maybe they have specific weaknesses. The white court vampires weaknesses are very different from, you know, Stoker, but they have weaknesses. The black court are, you know, the T 1000. And the red court are like, you know,

the bad guys minions in an old action movie. They're like the guys going after James Bond in GoldenEye. They just die by the hundred. And that works because obviously they can also reproduce just as quickly as the Black Court can. So the fact that there is unkillable hordes of them. Yeah, Jim totally has that covered. He's got a good rationale behind it. Really, really works nicely. Also, the Jade Court, probably as Elphich says,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:43)
Hahaha!

Brian (1:11:07)
has its roots in breath key cheese steelers that inhabit Asian mythology. ⁓ we might not see those in the main series, but that sort of gives Jim another really interesting set of potential antagonists that he could sort of play on a little bit of those white court influencing people from a distance tropes with, but perhaps more nefariously.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:32)
Yeah, the breath stealer concept, I think, is something that Jim confirmed in an interview at some point, is that that's the concept he has for them. Whether we'll ever see that fleshed out or not, I don't know. think he's mentioned that the reason that most of his mythology in the Dresden files is rooted in European and Western European, specifically folklore, is because that's what he's familiar with. So that's what he writes.

If we ever did get a Jade Court story, I think he'd have to do a lot of extra research to make sure that he gave it the same treatment that he does to the stuff that he's familiar with, to the tropes that he's familiar with, to the folklore that he knows.

Brian (1:12:14)
Now Adam, one thing we expected people to do when we asked this question was to actually compare the Dresden Files to other media. And you know, we didn't get a ton of responses that did that. But what you didn't know is that your podcasting partner had an entire list of vampire things to compare the Dresden Files to. So, ⁓ can I start? Okay, so there's two that are better than the Dresden Files.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:35)
Pop off, King.

before we get started, define better. We're not talking about, ⁓ I like reading the stories of the, that's better, no. We're talking specifically about these vampires as a piece of lore are more interesting than the Dresden Files, yes?

Brian (1:12:55)
Yes, exactly, thank you. And Vampire the Masquerade, has that one limitation that they all have to sort of be anchored in fundamentally Judeo-Christian mythology. They eventually also include Asian vampires, but we don't talk about that supplement because it's not exactly well received. It was the 90s, cut them some slack. But what they're able to do is cover not only every different vampire archetype.

in the canonical 13 clans, which is really more like 20. Hey, everybody else who's read True Secrets of the Black Hand, I see you out there. ⁓ And because they can chop and remix them so often, you get really interesting kinds of vampires that are both like straight playing classic vampire tropes or like carving cathedrals made out of flesh that

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:28)
Hahaha

Brian (1:13:49)
float around Europe, claiming victims and turning people into furniture. Vampire Masquerade vampires cover this even wider gamut of archetypes while still all being able to have common weaknesses and play in the same sandbox. Truly it's impressive. Now, obviously, they've had an entire team of writers working for even longer than Jim has to keep

pumping out different lore books. So the fact that he's anywhere in the ballpark of the vampire TTRPG is really impressive. And I'd say his, his wizards are on par with their line of mages. So they're not really, you know, ⁓ outdoing Jim in creativity. They just kind of outworking him in number.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:34)
Yeah, my main exposure to Vampire the Masquerade was Masquerade Bloodlines PC game from, geez, I think mid-2000s. And it did a really good job of capturing that universe and allowing you to explore it in a way that felt very free. Like you had a lot of agency for like what your character was going to be. You could be a bloodthirsty

Nosferatu or one of the clans that just like really wants to hunt and eat humans and you could just be a bad guy or you could be one of the you know more human like clans and like try to do things that make you feel more like a hero of the story and everything in between and that was very impressive to me. I never felt like I want to play this disgusting looking thing that was never my cup of tea but it's there if you want it.

Brian (1:15:25)
And a lot of people do. The only things that'll say I really don't like about the Vampire of the Masquerade lore is that essentially they try really hard to convince you that if your character was an ethical being, they would have to walk into the sun. Like there's no way to, without deluding yourself, think that you're doing more good in the world than harm. And I think that sort of

Because it's a personal horror RPG, that's what it's supposed to be you're experiencing. I personally think it's more horrifying if you do have the chance of living a life, an unlife that's worth living, but the deck is so stacked against you that you're almost certain to fail. And vampires and vampire the masquerade canonically cannot have sex and they have a bunch of

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:55)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:16:18)
weird workarounds that are just weirder than allowing vampires to have sex, for vampires to do things that fulfill the sexy vampire trope, and they just shouldn't have done any of it. They should have just let vampires be sexy vampires the normal way.

Now, the one vampire's thing that I can say is just unambiguously better than the Dresden Files also takes place in a book series. It's not even the main subject of the book series. This guy just came up with it. It's incredible.

is the book Blindsight by Peter Watts. Peter Watts has created the best vampires in any work of fiction I've ever seen. So first of all, they are a subspecies, homo sapiens vampiris. They fill our folk stories and nightmares because they did exist.

you know, like at the end of the Ice Age, younger, driest period, middle stone age kind of in human history. And they died out because they have ⁓ essentially autistic savant brains, but they're a savant at everything. That's why they're able to hunt humans. They're just smarter than us. And because of how their brains are wired, when they encounter perfect right angles,

they go into grand mal seizures. So one, they can't survive in modernity because in a modern city, you always see perfect right angles everywhere. But two, that's why vampires back away from crosses.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:51)
Wow, that's an interesting take.

Brian (1:17:52)
So

are sort of a hyper intelligent human species that has diminished sentience and he actually uses the existence of vampires to explain the existence of the dark triad of personality traits as essentially the junk DNA of this subspecies which did have to reproduce with humans and ate us because like cats they can't manufacture their own taurine and they needed

or not tarium but something else and they needed specifically human cerebrospinal fluid in order to survive. So they're incredible. This is a science fiction series where it just happens that a character is a vampire but the vampires in this book are both deeply frightening and made to be extremely sort of not necessarily realistic but deeply interwoven into the actuality of history.

to point where there is on YouTube a 30 minute slideshow where Peter Watts, the author, pretends to be the doctor that rediscovered vampires through some horrifying big pharma style science experiments does a 30 minute presentation on the reintroduction of the vampire gene set. It's amazing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:08)
wow, so these vampires, all of them essentially embody the dark triad, by which you mean the three big psychological diagnoses, narcissism, megalomania, and sociopathy, if I remember correctly.

Brian (1:19:22)
Yes, they are literally all sociopaths because they essentially do not have empathy. Humans are just food to them. just they'd have to be. That's how it would have to evolve. And the lion does not, you know, feel sympathy for the deer. They're all narcissists because they're highly territorial. If you're a giant apex predator, if you're a tiger, if another tiger shows up, you don't you're not friends with the other tiger. And they're megalomaniacal for a justified reason. They are smarter, faster, better and stronger.

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

Brian (1:19:51)
than everything they do encounter on a daily basis. So their genes sort of being evolutionary thing, a pure evolutionary mechanism is just, nobody has ever done that and it's just so.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:53)
Yeah. ⁓

That is really cool. I like when scientific sort of explanations occur within a book that are very deep and well thought out and satisfying. I also really enjoyed The Martian and Hail Mary, Project Hail Mary. I don't know, that's probably unrelated. when you were talking about how in Vampire the Masquerade, the lore is set up such that if there were ever a good version of that vampire, that they would be morally obligated to walk into the sun.

That made me think of the Anita Blake series. Now, so the ones you talked about, you said, these are probably better than the Dresden Files in terms of the interesting nature of the lore. I would say the next pieces on our list are as good as, and I wanna start with that Anita Blake example, because in the world of Anita Blake vampires, they historically had been secretive and they prey on humans in secret, but at the time the book starts,

They have recently revealed themselves to the world and are essentially arguing to get like full citizenship more or less and their whole thing is, listen, some of us are bad, some of us are good, just like humans. Let's just make some laws that says that vampires can't eat people or you send hunters after them, it's fine.

like they're doing this political maneuvering and the idea being like they open up these clubs where people can come essentially have their blood drunk, standard drinking blood method, except of course, as in most vampire lore, that is like this orgasmic pleasurable experience for the person being fed upon. So people seek it out and will pay for the pleasure of being food.

for these vampires, it's a win-win situation, right? They get to eat and people get to feel good, use it as like an escapism drug or something like that. And so that's how they're portrayed to the public. And of course our protagonist knows that you really shouldn't trust that. That they're worse than that in most ways, that this is a front that they're putting on and that's why she's a vampire hunter. So that sort of is...

on one vein, similar to what you said, but on the other vein, as she discovers throughout the series, there are versions and groups within the vampires that do believe in the ideas of let's get along with the humans instead of treating them as a subclass as food. And so there is the possibility for the protagonist to fall in love with.

and become friends with a bunch of vampires who are the more liberal version of their breed. But at the same time, there are very clear parallels to Vampire the Masquerade in Anita Blake as well, because you have all of these vampire clans that have different powers and different specialization. You've got the super sexy one, which of course is the one mainly featured in the book.

And then you've got the one that's called like something in French, like rotting death or something like that. It literally has the power to like rot down to the skeleton just to scare people. Kind of gives me a little bit of a Malvora or Scavis vibe essentially. But they want to feed on you while they're terrifying you. It tastes better, I guess.

But the thing that really made me think about this here is unlike most of these, which are very centered in the vampire lore, even butchers like Wide Net here with these two different kinds are very centered around established vampire lore. The way that the Anita books slowly expanded the universe reminded me a lot of how Star Wars slowly expanded what the Force can do, right? In the first Star Wars,

Brian (1:23:58)
Mmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:24:00)
What can the Force do? It can basically just help you move a lightsaber and can give you premonitions and things like that, right? ⁓ And then by the time you get to Empire, the Force can actually do kinetic shit, like choking you from a distance. And then by the time you get to Return of the Jedi, it can also do lightning from fingertips. And then of course, the rest of the Star Wars supplemental material and future movies,

Brian (1:24:06)
and shoot a gun better.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:24:26)
build and expand on that. Also, it can make you jump three stories high and like all of this stuff. So, to me, the fact that Anita Blake slowly turns into also vampires, some of them can do like sorceress stuff and then other ones can do like command of animals, like they're druids almost, like masters of beasts or whatever. It expands in all directions well beyond normal vampire stuff, which gives them

more room for creating ⁓ interesting mechanics to what these things are, which is why I would put it at least on par with the Dresden files. Not saying the Anita Blake books are as good as, the early ones I did really enjoy, and I know that Jim did too, but around book 12 or 13, it just becomes pure romantasy and the politics and interesting elements fall to the back.

Brian (1:25:19)
And when you were first describing the Ineeded Lake vampires, it really reminded me of True Blood, which I also think is as good as the Dresden Files vampires, not because...

they do as good of a job of sort of differentiating the ways in which vampires are. Honestly, they really don't. True blood vampires are not even the only supernatural thing in that setting. even though they're sort of the main one, vampires are a way and that's the way vampires are basically. But the idea of vampires attempting to reenter modern society, I think is very nicely played with through the idea of true blood, a big pharma synthetic blood substance.

substitute that doesn't taste as good as the real thing but you can survive on. And I really like the way in which unlike in Vampire the Masquerade where vampire blood makes you into a supernatural thing, in True Blood it just gets you really high.

but that provides a reason why people both want to sort of, you play with vampires and why maybe you'd like to make them your slaves and milk them for their blood. So, right, so I think it really does a good job of sort of creating, a situation where the humans themselves can become monstrous in a way a lot of vampire media doesn't.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:26:28)
Yeah, that's kind of scary.

Brian (1:26:40)
One thing that I will say I do really love about Vampire the Masquerade and something that even though it differentiates vampires really widely like something like Anita Blake that is you know almost unique to it is the concept of generation. Kane is the first vampire and therefore he is a god on earth. You can't touch him.

And if when it comes to the third generation vampires, the founders of the clans, they're not around anymore. But if they were meeting them would be certain death and fourth and fifth generation Methuselahs that have been alive for 6,000 years are truly inhuman blood gods that are universally terrifying. The nicest ones are pants shittingly scary. But

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:27:31)
Ha ha!

Brian (1:27:33)
your normal characters that you actually play on a daily basis are just a dude who last night woke up dead. that kind of gap between, okay, you're a vampire now, so guess what? You're a monster. You are a monster. But there's still way scarier monsters that you need to be way more afraid of. And by the way, think that you're a delicious as moose bush.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:27:59)
Hahaha!

Brian (1:28:00)
really cranks up the horror in a way that I don't think any other series are capable of. And this is so good that one of the reasons why I think Underworld is also as good as what Jim does in his books and Underworld being the movie series is because they straight up just steal this concept from Vampire of the Masquerade. They were sued over it, they lost the lawsuit, they had to fork over a ton of money because they ripped the concept of generation from Vampire of the Masquerade.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:28:28)
Hmm.

Brian (1:28:30)
But the great thing that Underworld does is it says, okay, what if we remove the idea that vampires are innately bad? Like, yes, they drink human blood, but also that's not really a big deal. And the main thing is this war with the werewolves that's gonna have this backstory we're gonna get to later. But they also...

have a society that is to but distinct from human society. And sort of when you play in the sandbox, there are things that are bigger and scarier than you. So now you can sort of very easily set up this thing that.

people get made fun of for doing in Vampire the Masquerade playing Vampions, is just D &D with the Vampire the Masquerade ruleset. You're an unambiguous good guy killing just bigger monsters. Well, Underworld sort of, obviously in the movies, the heroine is a vampire protagonist, but it sort of sets up this world where you could do that or you could also basically be, you know, the historical Vlad Dracula.

and like both of these things, are sensible and we're going to depict both of them. And I like that duality of just kind of making it very the force. It could be something that, you know, you essentially don't use against people and you're basically the good guys or obviously you just manipulate it so that you have tons of power over others.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:29:53)
Yeah, so those are probably the ones we would say that are as good as the Dresden Files. Again, in terms specifically of how they portray their vampire lore. We've got some honorable mentions. Now a lot of these are on this list because they're very popular. Not necessarily because we think Twilight is really comparable to the Dresden Files in terms of how interesting the vampire lore is.

but we wanna mention all of these and just touch on them a little bit. The first one that we have to talk about is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Brian (1:30:24)
Yeah, so Dracula's not the first vampire novel. think that's actually Carmella is the name of the first one, which is way more lesbian in its overtones. It's like the more transgressive Dracula that couldn't become popular with everybody. But Stoker's Dracula establishes a ton of the tropes. It is, if you've never read it, actively scary. It is a really, really, really scary book. That's why we keep remaking it into stories. But it's

also a book that really does a great job of making vampires sexy. And Stoker didn't invent that. Like Carmella did that before him. And I think there was things before Carmella that even dipped their toe into this. But Stoker kind of made it a thing where you've got not just Dracula being able to seduce and memorize people, but also the brides of Dracula in that like crazy scene with Harker in the castle. And by fusing

this truly horrifying, deeply scary monster and this really attractive sort of seductive dimension. creates this mix of revulsion and appeal that is the cornerstone of every good vampire myth moving forwards.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:41)
Yeah, so the next one that I wanted to mention is Blade because it is one of the more popular depictions of vampires in popular culture today. Blade most closely resembles the Red Court, the way that those vampires are depicted, right? The first...

I don't know, all of the movies, like the main goal of the vampires is like, we're gonna do this ritual that's gonna make us super powerful and we're gonna take over the world, like very, very much like we want to dominate everything and we're gonna do it with our physical prowess, more or less, and with our endless numbers and such. And they're very monstrous and unredeemable. Blade is obviously, himself, is a half vampire.

which is why he's the protagonist willing to fight them because he's not as monstrous as the rest of them.

Brian (1:32:30)
Yeah, and Blade is awesome for doing a great job of sort of thinking.

Okay, how do we have vampires be a parallel society in the modern world? sort of it's very important in modernizing the, you know, Stoker's idea of vampire. mean, is Dracula like the only one essentially, you know, Blade kind of is one of the pieces that engages with, okay, what, what would this really mean if vampires existed? The thing I don't like about it is in Blade, like you said, the vampires are all unabashedly, unreformably evil. And

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:32:48)
Hmm.

and just mustache

twirling evil too.

Brian (1:33:05)
Yes, and it's just sort of not that interesting because you know, they're just They're just another flavor of Bond villain except they can jump higher

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:33:17)
All right, so moving on. We've got the more like, more recent interview with the vampire is an example of like the Anne Rice vampires, which ⁓ I kind of led us to Twilight in a sense.

Brian (1:33:29)
Yeah, think that Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Diaries, anybody's seen that show, Vampire Academy, if anybody's seen that show, and Twilight, which I'm sure everybody knows about, are all examples of really well differentiated vampires with cool lore. I I laugh at the plot lines of Vampire Academy. It is Harry Potter, but with vampires, but more mean girl drama, you know? But...

they put so much work into the lore and having different types of vampires who are good at different things and really building off of those ideas that Jim uses, that vampire the masquerade uses in a very modern way. And Anne Rice does a great job of incorporating history and Twilight has, you know, vampires that have slightly different powers and the setting is very dynamic and you know, it's not good or bad. It's very morally gray, but just in general.

None of these series are really willing to go for, in terms of any visual depictions, something that's really interesting from a story perspective. I think the one I like the most is ⁓ Queen of the Damned, which is based on an Anne Rice novel. That's a really good Lestat of...

gets at some really really cool stuff and I really wish they made a sequel but they didn't you know they kind of didn't have the cohesion to keep driving that story forward the way that dresden or vampire the masquerade or even like true blood does

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:35:03)
Yeah, speaking of that, of like not getting enough of the lore that you're looking for, last year we had the movie Sinners, which was, in my book, a fairly unique take on vampires for one main reason, and...

It portrays these, spoilers for Sinners by the way, excellent movie if you like horror stuff. I don't even like horror stuff and I still thought it was excellent. It's got two Michael B. Jordans in it. That's one more Michael B. Jordan than most other movies have. So it was an excellent movie, but the way that the vampires are portrayed is there's this group of people that are having a nightclub thing in a 1940s-ish period and the vampire shows up.

and it essentially taunts them and slowly kills them one by one, any that are outside the structure because this has, they had some element of you need to be invited in for them to enter that is still represented in this. But as it takes more and more people that it manages to get when they come outside, it eventually culminates in the one vampire plus the two that were like with them when he shows up.

doing this Irish folk dance and song with everybody else that has been turned already. So another 20, 30 people that have recently, as in just within the last hour or two, been turned into vampires choreographing this massive song and dance number.

that is, and they've all got these glowing red eyes and the sides are like torn out of them and their necks are disfigured because they've been eaten and they're just these walking corpses. And it suggests that this version of the vampires are like a hive mind. Like they're all being controlled by the same vampire at once. And that it was legitimately really creepy to watch all of these former people that you knew that were at the party

running and dancing around with this one guy that's singing the song and they're all singing along in perfect harmony and perfect choreography and it's so well done and so creepy because it shows how much control the vampire has over these people that were independently minded just a few hours ago.

Brian (1:37:29)
Yeah, I really think it's interesting how other sort of creators are using vampire mythoi in really drastically different ways that are more akin to, you know, something like, you know, zombies in a sense. Also, something that we haven't talked about at all, and then I'm kind of deliberately leaving off of this, is just straight up comic and romantic takes on vampires.

vampire in brooklyn let the right one in or the tilde swinton vehicle only lovers left alive some of which are amazing i mean only lovers left alive is like that's an incredibly good movie but they're not necessarily it's not that important that

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:57)
What we do in the shadows.

Brian (1:38:14)
The vampire mythos is being used here. The vampire mythos is just a sort of vehicle that's not really deeply explored to tell like a very important different story. That's not to say that the lore in those properties isn't even good, but just that the lore is not as much of a focus, even as an underworld where you literally get to see the vampire world government in like movie one.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:38:38)
All right, so what's the number one you have in this category of like, they're in it, but they're not explored fully enough?

Brian (1:38:45)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably Anne Rice. Her vampires are really, really cool. I just wish that they didn't go in that very Anita Blake kind of direction. Other vampire properties I think we have to mention are Buffy. The vampires in Buffy are honestly not that imaginative.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:39:03)
Yeah, that bothers me. They're also often portrayed as being kinda dumb and they're also just considered, like we speculated with the Reds, in Buffy, when a vampire turns you, your soul is replaced with a demon, more or less.

Like you're just completely replaced, swapped out, you're not the same person. You have memories of that former person, but you're completely different. And like the canonical and obvious example is that Angel was cursed to have his soul put back into his body so that he would lament all the damage he did as a demon, right? So it's very interesting that they basically straight up said, yeah.

They're just a different form of demon and Buffy also fights other kinds of demons that are not vampires on the show as well, allowing them to expand their monster of the week to a bunch of other different things. But on the whole, the mythology is inconsistent and sometimes you just kind of have to ignore that in order to enjoy the show.

Brian (1:40:13)
Yeah, I think that's also honestly true of Supernatural. They play with vampire concepts in ways that are not, you know, uninteresting, but I never really feel like they kind of landed the plane on that. They're toying with it and they just constantly go back and forth on whether they're really going to sort of do something very interesting with it, which is also how I felt about Castlevania, the TV series on Netflix. Like, it's cool. I watched the first season. I think I'm going to go finish it sometime, but

I don't feel like they really did the vampire thing in that interesting way. And honestly, Adam, we put it here in the like, it's fine, we should mention it category, but I really hate D &D vampires. And I basically only kept them out of dishonorable mention because they did a good job with them in BG3.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:40:59)
Yeah, I guess that's true, but you're right. They're the most cookie cutter vampires you can think of. They're just like the most bog standard. And that's partly because they have an entire monster manual to fill. They don't have time to flesh out the individual vampires. Even in the adventures where they do have that, like the Curse of Strahd, it's still very much what you expect. There's very little that isn't, yeah, no, that makes sense from everything I already know about vampires.

Brian (1:41:27)
It's just funny that in a setting where, canonically, demons, daemons, and devils are three completely different things that are totally at war with each other, vampires are one thing that occurs in one way everywhere.

Okay, so some dishonorable mentions. Dusk Till Dawn, love that movie. If you've never seen it before and don't know that it's a vampire movie, I'm sorry. But if you've ever had the experience of watching someone see that movie, not knowing it's a vampire movie, it's amazing. The actual vampires, not that interesting. John Carpenter's vampires, just like a lot of things John Carpenter makes, not that interesting. Vampire the Requiem, this is a VTM household.

maybe the worst movie I've ever seen, Wes Craven's Dracula 2000. If you really want to see some mystery science theater 3000 level cringe vampire stuff, Dracula 2000, I honestly think might be the worst movie I've ever seen.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:42:10)
you

Even

the title is just awful. It's almost like somebody went to a producer somewhere in Hollywood and said, what if Dracula was still around in the year 2000? And they're like, that's great, I love it, what do we call it? ⁓ Dracula 2000, don't you think that's a little on the nose? Nah, it's perfect. Nobody will suspect what we're trying to talk about.

Brian (1:42:41)
E

That has to be what literally happened and you can see on screen the mountains of cocaine used to film the movie. You know, I don't mean in the sense that they're visible, but you can tell. Van Helsing, the Hugh Jackman film, not very interesting vampires, could have done better. did you see Nosferatu?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:42:57)
Hahaha!

No, I've seen some

clips of it and it is legitimately creepy looking in some scenes.

Brian (1:43:15)
It's super scary, very freaky movie, did like that part of it. Honestly, kind of hate the notion that the only way for the heroine with sexual deviancies to sort of do the right thing is to let herself be killed by her inner demons. Really did not like that messaging. But other than that, good movie. ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:43:36)
Hahaha!

Brian (1:43:38)
And then you mentioned something I had blocked out of my brain because I'd only seen commercials for it and it was just like, no, absolutely not.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:43:45)
Brian,

to this day, I think this movie remains the only one that I've ever literally walked out of a theater, and it was Blood Rain, based on the video game Blood Rain, which if I recall, was mediocre in the first place. I think it was somewhat successful because they had a sexy lady vampire on the cover, right? That's all you really needed at the time. But the movie was so bad, I think within 15 minutes,

I turned to my wife and said, I'm not sitting through the rest of this, and she said, me neither, and we just got up and left. I have never done that ever since. It was that bad.

Brian (1:44:21)
And to be fair, somebody's unpalatable, I hated that, can be somebody else's schlocky fun. So if that's it, definitely, you know, we don't mean to yuck or yum, but like the depiction of vampires in that sort of series, think, they sort of did what they needed to do to get the heroin they wanted and kind of let the mythology sort of stop there in terms of really building it up creatively. So.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:42)
Yeah.

Brian (1:44:48)
We hope you listened to the Vampire Podcast, a podcast about vampires. But next week, it will be back to recorded neutral territory. And our question for Bob is...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:53)
You

In your eyes, is Thomas a good person when we first meet him in grave peril? Again, this is your personal opinion. People have different definitions of what a good person is. We wanna hear from you. In your opinion, is he a good person?

Brian (1:45:16)
Wait, so we're asking a question about vampires again?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:45:18)
No, we're asking a question about Thomas.