Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Brian (00:00)
okay, Adam. Rundown looks great. Like how you organized the question for Bob, but I think you made a mistake. the highest voted comments actually not on there. So I think we gotta put that in.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:12)
I thought it was a good joke, but here's the thing, Brian. never goes to Burger King in this book. If he went to Burger King in this book, it would actually work, which would make it a great joke, and it answers the question of like what

difference could be made in this book that makes dark hairy in the other universe. ⁓ he goes to McDonald's because Burger King is closed or something and it gets him hooked on McDonald's and from then on that's the difference. I want to see that one, but we don't ever see him on the page go to Burger King. So he can't ever make a different choice in this book, having done that.

Brian (00:48)
Adam, I can't believe you're being so short sighted. That's utterly ridiculous. If Dresden off screen got in league with the hamburglar, everything could be different. This could be an entirely different series. He would be the kind of arch villain

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:00)
Ha ha.

Brian (01:04)
Grimace is. You know, this would completely change

and thanks to Trickiest Toast and Ultima J five for inspiring that little bit.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:23)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through twelve months. I'm Adam Ruzzo, and joining me as always, it's a hired gun getting real drunk at a bar in two thousand three, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (01:37)
It was like he was in that w wja Wikowski movie with the w he stopped all the bullets? We're in a computer, man. It's it we're it's the we're there. B th the Skynet has us.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:52)
Yeah, ⁓ Harry is Neo. Everybody already knows this. All right, Brian, we're on the last three chapters here of Grave Peril, and it's really exciting. This is a this is a pretty good climax. I like this climax better than the other two books that we talked about, and I'm really excited to discuss it with you. So chapter 37, quick rundown. Harry is going to escape the laundry room finally with Susan and Justine. He's gonna fight Kyle and Kelly.

Then he's walking upstairs to confront Bianca. In chapter thirty-eight, he confronts Bianca, calls up the ghosts to defeat her, and then chapter thirty-nine is a big whirlwind of an epilogue, kind of what we saw in the first two books, where he's like, This happened, this happened, this happened, and then that happened. So let's start with chapter 37, where if you recall correctly, at the end of the last chapter, chapter 36, Harry blasts open the door, having just gotten all his power back from Kravos, and then some. Only now, Kyle.

grabs him by the throat when he tries to escape. And that's where we start at the beginning of chapter thirty seven.

Brian (02:56)
So I wanna pause before we get into the the nitty-gritty of these chapters, because there's I think two points we need to make right at the top here. The first is I think you undersold it when you said exciting climax. I really feel like I don't know if it's universally acknowledged, but it is pretty widely considered that one of the reasons why Grave Peril is

big step up from the first two books is because of how well the ending lands. I think that's I I speak for I I can speak for the fandom in general when I say that.

I love that Dresden, right? Who, Adam, you did the great job of highlighting the entire book since Kravos got him.

has lacked the verve that he usually has, immediately comes out and it's like, too much verve, man, too much verve.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (03:51)
Yeah, the very first thing that happens after Kyle grabs him, and Kyle, a very strong vampire, has him by the throat. The very first thing that happens is Harry acting as if he's the one holding all the cards, tells Kyle to let go and give him a chance to walk away. This is his last chance. And Kyle's like, Yeah, we're not falling for your bluff, which

You couldn't blame him for that. I mean, Harry clearly has to be out of tricks by now, right? They don't realize what's happened with Kravos and how he's suddenly gotten ⁓ not only back to his full power, but maybe further than he's ever been before at this particular moment. And that makes him not just confident, but over confident.

Confident, very similar to the Harry Dresden that we saw when he jumped out of the car in full moon after having drunk that sort of what is it, coffee in a bottle or whatever. and as a result, he makes this mistake of thinking, like, ⁓ I can clearly take this guy. The very first thing that happens is he

Almost gets his throat ripped out by Kyle. The only thing that saves him is that Susan with her super strength comes in and stops him from doing so.

Brian (05:04)
Yeah, and I think that it's interesting that Kravos' power affects Harry almost the way the super coffee does. And I think that's interesting because the super coffee potion is kind of a drug. And it seems like Harry's almost getting a little bit of the sensibility.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (05:19)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (05:27)
That a lot of black magic users have, the kind of, sense of their own invulnerability that characterizes some warlocks. I wonder if in taking the magic from Kravos he actually got a little bit of that not black magic addiction exactly, but that desire to use his power and feel invincible.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (05:40)
Mm.

And and the sort of arrogance to believe that this power can let me do anything, right? We we see Harry being referred to as arrogant a number of times throughout these books. Michael specifically calls him out on on his arrogance regarding his guilt and such. But as far as like arrogance of I can use my magic to kick your ass, we don't see that terribly often from Harry unless

Brian (05:54)
Mm-hmm.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:17)
It's comparing like a full wizard of the White Council to some two-bit sorcerer. Like that's a few of the times that we've seen him f seem really arrogant and like I can clearly take this punk, including in this book. But in this case, Susan saves his life after he's a little bit overconfident there, and then while they're fighting them off,

Harry, of course, casts this like Kravos spell, something that clearly came from Kravos, the inspiration for the spell itself, the memory of how to cast it and what it does. All come from Kravos, and it acts as a sort of ⁓ prison inside which the vampires, Kyle and Kelly, are cooked alive. Which, boy, it it affects Harry when it happens. He he seems like I can't believe that.

I did that with my magic right here. And I I kind of had the same moment of reflection when I was reading it as well. I was like, that is a hell of a way to go. We don't really like Kyle and Kelly. Redcord vampires are monsters, but still, that's pretty awful.

Brian (07:21)
Yeah, I think that this is interesting because don't really feel bad about dehumanizing vampires. You know, not not these ones. I think that the Red Court we're often told, you know, they're murderers and every single Red Court vampire has taken a life and you know, that's that's important for justifying what Harry does in changes, though it's not really, I think

Something that he he sort of recognizes the scope of in the same way at the time. It's not something he set out to do. So I think that's that's the bigger idea. But these guys are obviously evil. They're trying to take away people's freedom and, you know, they're killers and they're they're the bad guys. They're very clearly the bad guys. And I think that Harry really is as upset about.

How good he feels using the spell as he is about actually watching the vampires die. And it's the same way, I think, that in White Knight we'll see, it's not really how he treats the ghouls that at any point gets to him. It's when he is shamed for it. You know, when Carlos says.

You know, essentially, yeah, you've really taught these kids what to do.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (08:40)
Yeah, I I think you're right, cause he does say a part of me wanted to dance in malicious glee, to throw up my arms in the air and crow my defiance and scorn to my enemies while they died and roll through their ashes when they'd cooled. Now, that's obviously the Kravos part of him. There there's nothing in his character in any of these books that really suggests that that comes from him deep down.

There may be a part of him that is susceptible to that, as there is a part of him that really wants power that he has to fight against in some cases.

But what's really interesting is just a couple paragraphs later.

When they start going through the basement and they come to the pile of corpses. A bunch of them are kids from the party, and a bunch of them are the street people, the homeless people that they had gone missing, and they're all completely drained of blood. And at that point, Harry sees all of this death, and he says, I hate them. My voice rang out too loud in that room. I hate them, Susan. Unquote. And you to go from

Boy, I feel really bad about the way I killed those monsters to suddenly proclaiming how much you hate them. It's kind of just a reminder here that Harry has been distancing himself from the trauma and death that the Red Court deals, right? He's been living in the same town. This stuff has been happening. He knew intellectually it was happening, but he's always tried to stay out of it.

And now he announces that he can't stay out of it anymore.

Brian (10:13)
Yeah, and I think that's why the disgust he feels is clearly more about the spell and his reaction to it than the fact that he just turns some Red Court vampires into ash. I mean, I don't feel like he is very upset with what he does at the end of this chapter, let's put it that way. So I think that when Harry here feels

This intense anger towards the Red Court. I again, we can really only compare it to how he feels about ghouls. I mean, he's gonna be collecting their teeth, know, within a couple books. So he's definitely got what I think would be called a hate boner for them. but in this moment, when he is sort of saying it for himself, when he's sort of clarifying for himself that.

he no longer can put up with them. He can't live with this any longer. This is not only the Dresden who has his righteous fury back, but also a Dresden that has taken one step away from private investigator who happens to be a wizard, towards wizard who deals with supernatural problems.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:20)
Yeah. I and s I think between this book and Summer Night, where he kind of gets pulled into it, these are the two main steps that get him towards, yeah, not only am I helping out the police when they ask, and not only do I have this private investigator thing, but if anything bad comes to my town, I'm going to deal with it myself. That's sort of he takes on that responsibility, and he's always kinda had that responsibility, but now he really starts to feel it.

at this point. Now, he does resolve to not let them keep this up. Like here, it feels like a very important moment where his eyes have been opened and he's now unable to look away from the death and destruction that the Red Court is causing in his town, and he makes that resolution. But then I ask myself, do we see the effects of that?

In the future books. And you could argue that we kind of do, but also he's at war and being attacked all the time. So there's no opportunity for him to look away that he might otherwise have gotten. Can you imagine a different scenario where the war doesn't happen, but Harry has still gone through this kind of a thing? And what happens there? Does he continue to go after the vampires until he starts a war?

Brian (12:38)
I think it looks a lot like how he feels about ghouls, which is that he's looking for excuses to set them on fire, basically.

The problem with being involved in an unsanctioned war with the Red Court is it puts you on a collision course with the laws of magic because of how closely humans are tied into them. It's actually probably a saving grace for Harry that this war does start after these events, and as we might talk about in the point of departure, if the war doesn't start, that could put him in a very strained position.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:13)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (13:14)
Because the fact that the sanctioned war is on means he's going to have opportunities to sort of act out his vengeful instincts, and those opportunities are going to be curated in a way that minimizes the chance that the wardens break the loss of magic.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:29)
Yeah, and I I could actually see the war doesn't start as one of the ways that the dark mirror mirror verse creates a dark hairy. But we're gonna talk about that in our question for Bob when we get there. Now, this is a very short chapter after he has the the after he has the fight with Kyle and Kelly, he finds his equipment, including Bob, and they grab he he gears up and then they turn around and Susan is gone, and it's determined that, well, Bianca probably has the ability to call her

Up the stairs. So that's probably what happened. And so Harry goes up the stairs, says, Justine, stay down here. I'm gonna try to fight them and get you out of this. when he goes up the stairs, Bianca taunts Harry very quickly and then immediately just asks all of her gunmen to open fire on him. She's not giving a big villain speech, she's not doing anything dramatic, she's not revealing her evil plan. I appreciate

A smart villain every once in a while, which is a nice juxtaposition from Kravos, who was like the dumb villain that managed to get good help in this book, and that's why Harry was able to dispatch him with his own trickery. but now we have a real smart villain that is not taking any chances with Harry, No.

In this, she just opens fire immediately.

Brian (14:45)
And I actually love it because she doesn't do it immediately, immediately. She does bandy a couple sentences with him, which is the perfect amount of time for him to relax, just an iota. You know, it's better than h he walks up the stairs and then they they're just already laying into him and lighting him up. Like in that case, she expects, okay, if gunshots are literally going off the moment his head appears, if he's not done in the first salvo, the shield's

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (14:57)
Yes.

Brian (15:13)
Right, and he's retreating back down the stairs. Whereas if I let him get all the way up and it seems like we're gonna have a negotiation, and then I drop the hammer, well now I got a much better chance of killing him. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (15:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you're right.

It's it's a nice little psychological ploy to maybe bring his guard down. That's a perfect point. Now, we're about to go into this final confrontation. And I think it would be useful to put this final confrontation and Bianca's plan here in the context of a Merlin plan, which is to say, I've been reading the beginning of Summer Night, and as Ebenezer says in there, he's gonna have a plan A, a backup plan, and an ace in the hole. So what is Bianca's

Plan A, backup plan, and ace in the hole for this fight here.

Brian (15:59)
Yeah, plan A is Harry doesn't make it up the stairs. And I think that's really clear that Bianca she only calls Susan to her after she knows Harry's going to be able to make it up the stairs. Because plan A is he doesn't even make it there. And I think that Bianca would really like Harry to die downstairs in sort of murky circumstances because the more

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (16:23)
Hmm.

Brian (16:26)
you know, sort of layers of obfuscation there are surrounding the events, the the more of a political problem it causes, the more the Red Court has the freedom to sort of twist the incident and, you know, weaponize it against the council and either bring it to a war or not, depending on, you know, how they feel about it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (16:46)
Yeah, that makes sense. So plan A, either Kravos gets him, Susan gets him, the poison get him, or Kyle and Kelly get him. He doesn't make it up the stairs. Plan B, the backup plan, is when he comes up the stairs, gun him down and he's probably exhausted at this point, right? He hasn't had any real rest. He's used up all his magic, and you know, there's no way

He's gonna be able to deal with six or seven gunmen all shooting at him at the same time, and vampires come at him from the side. And of course, he normally wouldn't. The only reason he's able to do that is because he has this extra magic coursing through him from eating Kravos. And that's gotta shake her to the core, right? She's expecting him. He must be done, right? We took some of his blood. He's got the poison. He's been

Doing all this magic. He he died twice. She doesn't know that part, but she has seen him like be exhausted. How is he still able to put up these shields and stuff? That must shake her to her to her core when she sees him block all of these bullets. And then of course the gunmen who have this glazed look in their eye, I think he describes, like they're not seeing everything that's going on in the room. They just see this wizard blocking all these bullets and they get the heck out of there. They weren't play they weren't being paid enough for this shit.

Brian (18:04)
Yeah. Now ⁓ one thing I love about this plan is I think Bianca would actually attack him with sorcery if he's able to stop the gunfire, but he does look exhausted. And I think the thing that actually leads to her ace in the hole is that she and as she's gonna say in the next chapter, it seems we are at an impasse because he does have the juice to, you know, sort of it seems

get into a magical confrontation. So Bianca's ace in the hole is let's make a deal. I'll give you your life. I'll give you the other innocent who's downstairs. And all you have to do is a walk away from this woman who's a red court vampire already. Free money. And in fact, right, hey, you're you're not you don't want to walk away from her? You're in love with her? Okay. Join up. Join the team.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brian (18:52)
Look

at me, I'm happy, we're all happy, everything's great, you know? And that's just so powerful because it really does feel like that, you know, sort of Xanatos gambit TV tropes thing, where it's, you know, heads I win, tails you lose. Because if Harry doesn't really care about Susan, well, he will leave. And if he's irrationally, you know, cares about her too much, boom, we've got a wizard who's now joined the Red Court.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (19:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and the and the extra insurance to all of this is when she introduces Don Ortega. And to me, this is a very interesting move for Butcher to put in here for Bianca to make because he could have just been there observing from the shadows, and that would allow him to report back to the Red Court, yeah, the wizards started it. We can go to war now if that's what they wanted to do. But

She reveals that he's there as a witness, and the only reason for her to make that revelation to Harry is if she thinks that it's going to change his mind. That if he sees there's a witness to his actions, that it might temper his choice and he might not choose going to war. Because going to war with Bianca with a witness there means going to war with the Red Court.

It's a clear and obvious declaration. And she's thinking, he's thinking he can kill us all and get out of this and pretend it was all a big misunderstanding. And his story's the only one. No, I'm gonna make sure there's another story out there which will force his hand. He will have to accept the compromise. It seems like she is definitely expecting him to take this deal in some form. I can't imagine she'd expect him to join her after all she's done to him, but I think.

allowing for that, sweetening the deal is if he loves her so much, he's just not gonna start a war in any case, right? He doesn't want to be the one that starts a war. And sh that just shows she fundamentally does not understand Harry Dresden or his motivations. Just a complete misunderstanding of his character. And so that's why this whole plan fails.

Brian (20:56)
I think that Bianca actually does think it's possible that Harry will take the deal. Because Bianca, like a lot of members of the Red Court, has deluded herself into believing it's not that bad.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (21:08)
Mm.

Brian (21:08)
Why wouldn't you want to do this? It's great. Right. And because she's got this warped perspective, she thinks that author is a lot sweeter than it is. And part of the reason why Ortega might be there is to be the one who turns him. Because he might not accept it from Bianca.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (21:11)
Eternal life.

That's a good point. Yeah. I think it's not just that she thinks he'll take the compromise. I think she has she thinks she has him in a lock. Like, there's no way he refuses this compromise. I've even sweetened the deal and given him an a an alternate option, but he doesn't have a choice. He's not going to start a war. He's not crazy because when he does refuse her.

Bianca's eyes widened. You're mad, she said. You would float with chaos, destruction, and with war for the sake of this one wounded soul. I smote my staff on the floor, reaching deep for power, deeper than I've ever reached before. Outside in the gathering morning, the air crackled with thunder. Bianca, even Ortega, looked abruptly uncertain, looking up and around before focusing on me again.

For the sake of one soul, for one loved one, for one life. I called power into my blasting rod and its tip glowed incandescent white. The way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for. Unquote. Boy. That is a pretty badass moment, and I love the extra detail that when he smote the staff on the floor, there's a the air crackled with thunder. There's you could read that as did he like, was that just

prestidigitation, like he was just adding an extra sound effect to make it very ⁓ scary. Or was it, you know, it's October, so it's conceivably could have thunderstorms coming and it's just a coincidence. I could e see it either way, but I like the idea that he added a bit of prestidigitation there. But the

Brian (22:59)
Well,

I wonder if that's actually a, sort of foreshadowing of what he's going to do deliberately in White Knight when he hits the staff on the floor and uses a force spell to destroy the one tile, you know, and really make the gunshot sound. If Harry's calling up so much power and he's n s not really efficient at this point, that it's just leaking out in random sort of spells, one of which is just a sort of

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (23:12)
Hm.

Hmm.

Brian (23:25)
maldirected force spell that just comes out the other end of a staff.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (23:29)
Yeah, that could be possible. Now the the the important thing here though is that line, you know, the way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for. And then Bianca goes crazy and just says, kill him, kill him, kill him. Like she's obviously this is her last most desperate plan is just murder him, throw all the vampires we have left. He has to die now, or I'm going to die.

Brian (23:50)
Let's not

And I think it's important to realize this isn't a plan. Bianca hasn't planned well, if he does reject the deal, I'm gonna shout kill him, kill him, kill him four times, and my eyes are gonna turn black and we're all gonna take him in a mad rush. Right? This is her freaking the hell out. Exactly. She's totally reacting to the stress of the moment and I

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (24:07)
Right. More like a desperate gamble than a desperate plan. That's g that's a good point.

Brian (24:15)
I think this is some clear evidence that Bianca has built Harry up in her head as a ⁓ real scary villain, as she alludes to at the end of chapter 37. Because

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (24:29)
Yeah, exactly.

All of this for a guy with two sticks and a pair of yellow ducky boxer shorts, you must think I'm real dangerous man. And she says, as a matter of fact, I do. Were I you, I would consider it flattery. Like I think she's being genuine there. I think you're a hundred percent right.

Brian (24:43)
And the thing is, when he rejects the deal, she doesn't really think of it as he's doing this on a matter of principle. She's thinking of it as my god, he thinks he can take us.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (24:55)
Yes. That's why she's freaking out so much. His confidence in this moment. You're right. Instead of him being like, Well, guess I'm gonna get killed doing the right thing, she's seeing this as, no, he has more cards to play.

Brian (25:08)
And the funny thing is, while Harry doesn't have any more cards to play.

He does manage to pull his own ace in the hole anyway, because

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (25:17)
Yeah, although not

one that he had planned for. It's like many hairy plans, it's something that he pulls out of his ass at the last second. He comes up with it at just in time.

Brian (25:25)
Yes, it's

it is with when ha with Harry plans it's more like a joker in the deck than an ace in the hole.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (25:32)
That's perfect. But before we go there, I do want to ask you this question, right? So Harry's response here, saying, you know, for one loved soul, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for. Harry and Susan's relationship has been built up over the last three books, but we haven't seen a ton of it on the page. In fact

We saw a little bit of it in Full Moon, it was sort of alluded to, and we saw a little more of it in this book. In fact, the first chapter opens with Michael chastising him for not saying that he loves her, even though he clearly does. And that helps imply a lot of things that have taken place between the books. But when we get to this moment, Brian, do you buy this relationship as something that Harry would go and start a war over? Has there

been enough work put in to build it up and show what it is.

Brian (26:24)
You know, Jim Butcher is a lot of things, and he's a really good writer, but he is no Bill Shakespeare. And I think it is really, you know, sort of instructive to compare the Harry Susan relationship to, you know, that enthralling love story that you just can't get away from through all of fiction, Romeo and Juliet. Why? Because if you were to ask, you know, which one feels more like

You know, a love worth dying over. I mean, come on, it's gotta be Romeo, Romeo, wherefore out thou Romeo. In the East for Juliet is the sun, arise, fair son, and kill the envious moon already pale and sick with grief? God, lay them bars, Billy. But right, they're fourteen. Like they're actual children who don't even know what love is. They just Right.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:03)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, this is puppy love. It really

is.

Brian (27:14)
They just got to like, I like you like you, you know? And right. And like that feels like it's worth dying for because of how earnestly it is built up. And a lot of these books is Jim not building it up earnestly. It's always got a little bit of a cynical undertone, you know, is sh how much is she just in it for the story? It's playful, it's fun.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:17)
Yeah, exactly right.

Brian (27:39)
But it's not built up as, you know, they're out in the garden speaking poetry to each other and that's, you know, they're they're just madly enthralled. And I think that from a story perspective, that's kind of why maybe it feels a little bit light in terms of a relationship that's worth starting a war for. It doesn't feel like, you know, you can pick

any number of works of, you know, sort of romantic, you know, from Twilight on up. but also you can look at stuff that is kind of in the more urban fantasy genre, you know, your sort of true blood things where the relationships are a more central focus and therefore they feel kind of bigger in terms of the plot. But this isn't any less earned from a real life perspective than any of those.

Because how humans feel about the other people in their life is not dictated by what we as readers find believable or rational.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:38)
Now, I will say that this book does a good job with what little time it has with them being on the page in the same scene together. the moment when she's bailing him out of jail and he and her are walking out of the jail and they're bantering together. I think we talked about at in that scene, like it felt very casual and natural, like they slipped into this

back and forth like they've been doing it for years, which is I guess what's supposed to be implied here, right? At least the last year or two, they've been getting closer together. They've been spending more time together. And that helps us establish what's been going on between the books. If there was a short story that took place between Full Moon and Grave Peril, and it was them on a date together or something, and maybe something weird happened and

where Susan and he have to be together for it. And maybe we'd get a little bit more built up. But honestly, if you're grading it on a curve for with the amount of time Jim gave them, do we do we think this is believable? I think it works pretty dang well. And it's partly because this is not a romanticy genre. We could see a very different version of this if it was more like Anita Blake and less like Harry Dresden.

Brian (29:56)
Well, and I also think that the thing that makes it feel a little abrupt is something that I don't think Jim was really thinking about, which is Susan has put herself on the line for Harry a lot. Now, in this moment, Harry is doing that a thousandfold. He literally starts a war for her. I mean, that should show you how he feels about her, right? But

We don't get to see the foreshadowing of this. We don't get to see him laying out the breadcrumbs about how deeply they care about each other.

And Harry, it's good, it's true to his character that he doesn't have the words. But until this moment, he doesn't really have the

Actions either. So it kind of leads naturally to the question and I think it is because it it's Susan, and that matters a lot. He really does love her. But it sort of leads naturally to the question of, well, you know, is this because of how great his love is for Susan? Or is it because of what he literally says? For the sake of one soul, for one loved one, for one life?

everybody's somebody's loved one, everybody's one life, everybody's one soul. Harry does this for his girlfriend, but I mean wouldn't he do it for Michael?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:11)
Yeah, this is the most extreme version, right? It's the person he's closest to at this moment in his life. But would he do it for a platonic friend like Michael or Murphy, or a stranger like Lydia? And I think the answer is clearly yes.

Brian (31:27)
Well, I think that's a really good point because we see him make this decision already for Lydia. I think that's a very instructive example. He and Michael basically go to war for Lydia, yes, and the sword. But I mean, Michael's not just doing it for the sword, I think. We know where Michael stands.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:46)
No, if they if they were

Brian (31:48)
But would he do it if they were gonna kill an innocent in front of him in some other way? Yeah, probably. You know, I mean, geez. Yeah, he's willing to go to war for Deirdra of all things in Skin Game. You know, Nicodemus basically has to pin him down through some careful chicanery just so he could kill his own Denarian daughter. Spoilers for skin game. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:55)
Yeah, he he's he basically says that much,

Yeah.

Brian (32:11)
I think it's clear that he would do that. I do think that it would at this point in the series probably have to be someone who he has some personal connection to, who he in some way feels like is under his protection or is his responsibility. Harry is not until after this the kind of person who is going to actively seek out people to protect from the Red Court. That's the choice he just made. But

I do think that, it's not just that he would do this for Susan. And actually, I think the thing that makes this harder is that he knows that doing this, for Susan might or might not even kind of be the best thing for her, right? He says before this.

I looked at Susan, she stared blankly, her mouth partially open, caught in a trance of some kind. I hurt all over and felt so very damn tired. And he says, you know, I love her and whatever, but the the reason why like it's it tears him up a little bit. It makes him feel awful. It's part of the reason why he tries to save her from the the red court and tries to cure her later that

Her transformation here is something that he selfishly feels bad about, and I think it actually makes it a little bit harder for him to immediately act and he was just trying to save

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (33:34)
Right, right. How much of this

is a trolley problem versus how much of this is, you know, me selfishly wanting my girlfriend to stay alive?

So what happens shortly after that, of course, is he he declares no thanks and Bianca tries to kill him and he manages to parry her attack and to barely hold them off before he finally comes up with a plan. ⁓ but he he does this plan as his internal monologue, he's like panicking. He says i they were coming.

The vampires would be coming for me. My brain kept chattering at me, frantic, panicked. They're coming. Justine, Susan. I might as well be dead, dead like all the others, dead like all the victims, unquote. And so as he's panicking and thinking about everything that's happening, that's when he comes up with the idea to do the ectomancy, the just give the power to the spirits of the dead. And he reaches out and does that huge spell that causes them to come up and kill all the vampires, except

Ortega, obviously, who gets away, including Bianca. Rachel does her in at the last second. and I have a quick question for you here, Brian. This solution that Dresden puts together to this problem, does it feel like a satisfying conclusion to this big climax? Is this like a good or does it feel like a Dez Ex machina?

Brian (34:51)
No, I I love this. I mean I think that's this is one of the reasons why grave peril is considered to be as good as it is. I mean memorium memoratum memoritus there's a reason why there's a lot of words in Latin that he could have used you know I don't even know if memorium is the best word, but it's one that we will know.

one that we as readers will get what he's saying. This is him as as he's talking about. You know, I found others, dozens of others, scores, hundreds. This is him reaching out to those who have been wrongly killed and having giv it's like a crowning moment of awesome for the victims of abuse. Like that's really, really good. And of course it has to be magic that does it, because

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (35:15)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (35:40)
What else could? I I think that it's great that he does it, and I think that Jim has set up with the fire spell that he casts earlier in the book, and this is really something I love about Grave Peril, that magic is fundamentally different in the Dresden Files to, you know, something like Harry Potter, where if you learn how to flick your wrist the way right way and you memorize the words, you get an effect.

This is Jim in this book really showing us that the sort of intentions, the beliefs, the desires of the person casting the spell can really cause magic to do things that not even the wizards can really explain. And that's so much cooler than a system of magic that is entirely rules-based and obviously closed. Can you do this in DD?

No, I don't think so. But the fact that you can do it here makes it cooler than D D.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (36:38)
Right. And it he he obviously puts together some caveats, right? He shouldn't be able to use this to solve all his problems in the future. And the caveats are like, Mavra and Bianca paved the way by thinning the barrier between them. He wouldn't have been able to do this on his own otherwise. And of course, all these spirits are available in this place because of what Bianca did to them. Bianca and her crew did to them.

So I think that works really well as a solution. It's just it's a clever like, hey, remember this thing that's been in the background of the book this whole time? Harry's gonna use it in a clever way to save himself and the bad guys are gonna get their comeuppance and it's gonna be

Like hoisted on their own petard. Like you killed all these people. The vengeance spirits were your own creation. And he's just giving them access to perform their vengeance upon you. That's what makes it very satisfying. Harry comes up with a clever idea, and the bad guys are getting, what goes around comes around back to them. Now, we're at the end of the chapter here as Susan and Justine sort of limp out with Harry between them. But now I have to ask a question here, Brian.

Does Harry break the fifth law of magic in doing this? That one is called Thou Shalt Not Reach Beyond the Borders of Life. And according to the wiki, the law covers the research and practice of necromancy described as quote, summoning, binding, and exploitation of the unwilling dead, unquote. I think if that's

like the wording that the white council would use, I don't think Harry actually broke the fifth law here. What about what what about you?

Brian (38:24)
Yeah, so I think you did a great job of drawing a really important distinction that Dresden I think has already made in this book and will make in the future. This is effectively ectomancy, not necromancy. Necromancy, when he does it in Deadbeat, is about bringing the spirit to a living construct. And obviously we see that, you know, that's what Grivain does with the zombies, but that's not what Corpstaker does with spirits.

That's a different thing. How like is Corpse Taker technically not under the necromancy umbrella? Or does the fact that she's, you know, using the ghosts in a certain way make it cross over to necromancy? You know, I don't know. But I think there's a compelling argument that this isn't even necromancy in the first place. But Adam, I don't know if really what the law's about. Like you pointed out that

These dead certainly aren't unwilling.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:19)
And they're certainly not being bound by him.

Brian (39:21)
Right. I mean, I think before we get to the the next point I wanna make, in the pre-show, you made the great point that this is a kind of a callback to what happens in Stormfront.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:30)
Yeah, where he doesn't actually bind the toad demon to himself. That would be breaking the law about calling up demons. Instead, he releases it and lets it do whatever it's gonna do, knowing that it's gonna go after the master that bound it in the first place. And that's how he gets away on the technicality there. And I think that would probably apply here as well.

Brian (39:55)
But I think there's another thread running through the laws of magic that the fifth law might actually be prohibiting, and that is thou shalt not reach beyond the outer gates, because necromancy, real necromancy, the way that evil Bob tells it, seems to be less about, you know, raising the dead, and more about that kind of

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (40:08)
Hm.

Brian (40:21)
anti-magic stuff. Like lowercase and necromancy is I made a zombie. Capital N necromancy is the anti-life equation. So I think here Harry is not doing the magic that Mavra does. Or you know what Bianca does to block his his fire spell in the beginning of their confrontation might violate the fifth law, the actual reason for the fifth law

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (40:31)
Ha ha ha.

Brian (40:47)
more than anything Harry does afterwards, if it's about using that anti magic more than just, getting spirits to do things for you. And I think

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (40:57)
Like we've been suggesting

that l that magic comes from life and anti magic comes from death, and that's why that's the thing that Mavra and the Black Court can use.

Brian (41:07)
Right. And I think that certainly the White Council wouldn't enforce it that way, because you kind of have to break the law about the outer gates in order to see the fifth law the way I'm describing. So he does need this fig leaf of it was Ectomancy and I didn't bind them and all this other stuff to get away with it the same way he does with the zombie T-Rex. I think the reason why it's not actually corrupting to do this.

And in it might not even be corrupting if he nudged the ghosts in the direction of Bianca is because that's not really the corruptive thing. It's using a capital N necromancy. The thing that made

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (41:49)
and the lowercase

gets you to the uppercase, so that that's why they're like, Yeah, death sentence because you're too close to it here and we can't make a distinction.

Brian (41:55)
Right. I mean

presumably lowercase necromancy got you zombies, and then that advancing to capital N necromancy is what got you the black court in the first place.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (42:06)
Yeah. Or what Kemler tries to do with the dark hallow and things like that. So

Brian (42:10)
Right. So

that leads us to chapter thirty nine, which is maybe even a more whirlwind epilogue than the last two books, which were pretty whirlwind.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (42:20)
Yeah, it's pretty short, and it's just like this happened, then that happened, then that happened. You know, Michael and Charity's baby got better, and they named him Harry Carpenter. And and of course, like, I can't believe you've done that, Michael. You you've traumatized this poor kid throughout his entire school year. But the the what we do get here is Harry's in the hospital and he is recovering from his injuries, and Michael is visiting him, and Harry is talking to him and worried about the repercussions of what he has done with his magic.

I think he's mostly talking about what he did at the party, where he burned what he thought were he thought he was responsible for the killing of those kids, and then also probably Kyle and Kelly, like I can't believe I did that thing, right? So he's worried about those repercussions. And Michael says this great line that I think has to be in the running of best lines from this book, quote, What goes around comes around. Sometimes you get what's coming around, and sometimes you are.

What's coming around? Unquote. Boy, that is fantastic. And I love that Jim probably wasn't the first one to say this, but I think it was probably my first exposure to this concept. And it's great. And and Harry immediately like takes that advice and really interrogates it and and comes to the conclusion that yeah, I think I do get it. And he goes able to go back asleep as a result. Like Michael's

Michael's words of wisdom actually do soothe his soul in this moment.

Brian (43:44)
Yeah, and I think that this is something that Jim uses with the Red Court a lot. I mean, the reason why people can sleep at night after changes is because they got what was coming to them. And like literally, you know, Raphael or whatever calls out from Murphy, you know, in changes, basically, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Like, you know, this is the hammer delivering the blow, but

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (44:07)
Yeah.

Brian (44:11)
Make no mistake about who's wielding it. And that's effectively what Michael is suggesting here. And, you know, Harry's not going to dwell on that too much because he's got a strained relationship with the idea of institutional religion. But, you know, when Michael Carpenter is saying, you know, sometimes you are, you know, the sword of vengeance, you know, the wrath of God, well he can he can maybe live with that.

But one way to look at it is it's not the fault of the circumstances. It is a natural result of how the Red Court operates. They would create the circumstances that force you to do this. You don't need to be worried about the repercussions of the harmful magic that you dished out, because the entire reason you dished them out are the people who deserved taking it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (44:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Now, the next couple of things that happen, some other stuff happens and Harry recaps all these other things. You know, Michael and Thomas escaped the fight and they came out in a quote unquote house of sin, a flesh pit, if you will. ⁓ Murphy came out of the sleeping spell, she went to Kravos' funeral with Harry, etcetera, etcetera. But then we get to this part where Susan kind of avoids contact with Harry and he has to track her down using some hair that she left in a brush at his place, and he proposes to her and of course she says no here.

And Harry says he's gonna help her. He right, he says, he swears, he promises, I will help you, we will figure this out, right? And you have to ask yourself, Brian, how many other wizards throughout thousands of years have had friends or known people or even loved ones that have been half turned? I mean, the fellowship of St. Giles already exists and presumably has existed for a while. There have to have been other wizards.

Much smarter and older and wiser than Harry that have worked this problem before. Does he really think he's gonna be the first one to crack it?

Brian (46:02)
Yes, absolutely, he completely does. Now, definitely part of that might be wishful thinking. But also, I think this is a little bit of Jim sort of trying to show you how Harry feels about Susan because he does earnestly believe it, because he has to believe it, but he also believes it in part because, you know, the power of love where like

Harry's going to be able to do this because he feels singularly motivated in a way that he's never felt before. And I think it's really, truly awesome. Not to spoil summer night, but it's really truly a great and and just immensely good choice that Jim actually shows us that, like maybe for the first time in his life, Harry is.

Failing at a project like this. You know, he fails to sort of learn a magic and it drives him nuts. This is his thing, and even within his thing, he's not actually good enough to do it. But the really ironic thing is that Harry actually might be the first wizard in history who could do this because.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (46:57)
Hm.

Brian (47:15)
The reason why it's probably so hard for him to find any research about it is that inherently in trying to research how to expel the red thirst from someone, you're doing research on outsiders.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (47:30)
Yeah. seems pretty logical at this point. We still don't have full confirmation that the Red Thirst and the Lurker are outsiders, but I think that's a pretty close theory. Some people don't like the idea that the vampire courts are all outsider related, but I think the symmetry is kind of nice. but I think that's entirely possible. You might be right, right? If Harry had more time, maybe he would solve it if Summer Knight didn't get in the way. But the other point about this is he has this immense g-

guilt and blames himself for the mess that Susan is in now. And he sees the o he sees only one path to free himself of that guilt. If I fix it, then I can finally feel free of this guilt. He doesn't even see the path of acceptance, right? That is unacceptable to him. That path is that that path lies madness. He can't go down that path. Instead, he just nearly

Brian (48:09)
Mm-hmm.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:21)
kills himself, nearly gets himself kicked out of his office and his apartment because he becomes so obsessed with solving this thing. It has to work. As you said, all of his hi his very sanity depends upon his ability to do this. And so he has to believe it, despite any evidence to the contrary, like months of research and no progress.

Brian (48:41)
And the funny thing is, right, later we're going to see Leia just put Susan and Martin to sleep, just turn off the red court part of them, and Harry's going to be absolutely gobsmacked by it. Which suggests that there is a way to touch those parts of them. And as a starborn who can do this with a white court vampire effectively, he seems to be able to do it with a red court vampire if he knew how.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:54)
Yeah.

Brian (49:09)
But he's too young, he's too inexperienced, he doesn't know enough about his own nature and what he can do, so he never even realizes what is possible because he doesn't even know where to start doing the research, because he doesn't even know what would, what could make him capable of doing what he wants to do. But Adam, there's another reason why I think Harry feels such a compulsion to do this.

Because it is about Susan, he does love Susan. He does feel like he has to save her, and that will cure him of his guilt. But Harry also talks about the fact that now he has nightmares. Nightmares that were all his own, a part of him, always the same, and they're about the vampires all around him laughing their hissing laughter, and he'd wake up screaming and crying. And that trades.

trauma that he's experienced, I think in a way he feels like if he brings Susan back to him, he's not just erasing the ways in which he fails her, but he's wrapped that up in the things that he himself suffered. This is the way to undo what happened to them.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (50:19)
Yeah, I think that sounds right too. I mean yeah, those two lines that you pointed out, right, where he has nightmares about all the things that happened to him, and then he just goes back to sleep. He never gets treated for this properly, right? I mean, Michael is a great friend. He often gives good advice, but he's not a psychologist.

He's not a psychiatrist. Harry really deserves to be treated for this PTSD that he's suffering. Instead, he locks himself in his in his room, a in his apartment, away from his friends for months and months, obsessing over this. There's probably nothing that could make that kind of trauma worse than just see seething in it and just settling into it and just thinking about it over and over and over again. And so that's really, I think, what leads to.

The sorry state that he's in at the beginning of summer night. Speaking of that, Brian, we get a very interesting set of timing here, right? Jim wants to set up that the White Council's coming to Chicago as like the sort of cliffhanger at the end of this book. But all of the things that happen here at the end of this book, up to and including the fact that Susan sent him a card on his birthday, they all happen in October or November of this year. And the White Council.

Doesn't show up until the following June, which even for a big bureaucracy, that seems like a really long time to plan a meeting.

Brian (51:44)
Yeah, I mean it's definitely it feels like Jim, you know, sort of made a mistake there that he should have if he knew that he was gonna do summer night in the summer, that he would have changed ⁓ his his plans. But, you know, I don't think it's actually that strange. So the reason why we think this epilogue is about November is because Bob says

Harry, you haven't been working, you've barely left your apartment. The rent was due last week. And this vampire research is going nowhere fast. So clearly this isn't like the sixth time in a row that Harry's been late with the rent because Bob thinks this will matter to him. So it's gotta be, you know, November or December at the absolute latest. And it would be, if the rent was due last week, the beginning of the second week of that month.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (52:23)
Mm.

Brian (52:32)
And I think that what we can assume is that the White Council would be there sooner. Now probably the absolute earliest that it could possibly happen, even if this is November, is something like February. Because just to get all of the senior council to put down whatever they're doing and get to Chicago for a meeting where they're gonna vote on issues.

That presumably just to get, you know, sort of ancient Mai to clear her schedule, you've got to give her 90 days of heads up or something. I mean, these are people who are pretty stuck in their ways in the best of times. Saying that, you know, we're meeting in a new location for them is sort of a seismic, you know, issue that that's gonna alter all their routines. But I think we are given a clue in summer night why it takes so damn long.

Which is that MAB, and this is the whole issue of summer night, won't give the council access to the ways through Fairy. So, okay, sure, it would take a couple months, you know, maybe three months to do this anyway. But we're trying to get a quorum of the entire council here. And not only are we trying to get them here, you know, we're gonna make political choices, we've got to get people's votes on our side, we've got to get everything lined up, and we have to get everyone there safely.

When we're at war with the Red Court, they're actively hunting us, and we can't take the most obvious safe routes that we would like to to Chicago. So coordinating all of that while fighting a war probably takes the Wardens the better part of a year to do. That's why it takes so long.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (54:12)
Yeah, even with six or seven months of heads up before this actually happens, remember that they call the role before Ebenezer gets chosen as the new senior council member, and they go through all these people and and Jim has a fun time coming up with what are some reasons that wizards couldn't make it? And they go, research trip to the Yucatan and ⁓ still sleeping off that potion. That one's on sabbatical, that one got real married, this one's living under the polar ice cap. That one is pyramid sitting, whatever that means.

So he has all these reasons for all of these people that couldn't make it even with six months notice. So you might be right. Wizards have a lot of long term stuff that they can't just drop everything and go So anyway.

Brian (54:52)
And we'll

we'll talk about this when we get to Summer Night, but that keep in mind research trip to the Yucatan, because that might be a bit of a nod to the fact that the council is doing actually a lot in terms of, you know, trying to keep an eye on the Reds during this war of of sort of spy craft and all of that intelligence j intelligence gathering is time consuming and requires a lot.

to to mature. So making these plans needs a lot of lead time because to gather the intelligence you need to think that they're safe takes a lot of lead time. So the next episode we're gonna do is an assessment of grave peril Adam. before that, we have to get to our question for Bob.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:37)
So Bob, how does mirror Harry break bad?

Brian (55:42)
So Bob couldn't be here today. It's Memorial Day. He's watching war movies. Actually, I think what the way he put it is that he's projecting war movies. I'm pretty sure he is the projector in this case. I'm not sure if anyone's watching them with him. He's a weird guy.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:58)
Yeah, you'd think you could just watch him in his brain like he's absorbed him from the internet, but maybe projecting them gives the proper proper view. All right, so the question for Bob, how does Mirror Harry break bad? We had a lot of great responses when we asked about this on the Reddit, and I wanna put this in the context of what is the major change to the timeline and then what is the choice that creates that change? So the first and most common theory, the most obvious one that might happen here.

is that Susan joins Bianca. And we had a couple of different people that explained how this might happen. Cephyr twenty seven, independent lack both did, but Elfage forty seven succinctly described this in the most common way.

Brian (56:41)
I'm of the opinion it comes down to Harry saying I love her when Bianca offers her compromise. In the mirror universe, Harry doesn't admit to loving Susan, takes the compromise, and surrenders Susan to the vampires. That Harry has a massive guilt trip about it, like we see in the beginning of Summer Night, but he figures he can live with it.

And live with it he does. And eventually that guilt goes away. And that Harry gets used to sacrificing other people so he can survive.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:16)
Yeah, I think that one is possible. I I feel like it feels like too obvious, right? Too much low hanging through. Jim has been teasing us with this for quite a while now. If this turns out to be the answer, it could make sense, but I would be a little disappointed.

Brian (57:33)
Well, I think that it's all going to be about the framing because it might be the case that it's not just Harry comes to a different decision. It might be that Bianca says something slightly different. Or that Susan says something slightly different. Or that Ortega, you know, and that prompts Harry to rethink, you know, she isn't.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:47)
Could be. Could be.

Brian (57:56)
really human anymore. She isn't really Susan anymore. is this something that I could do to the White Council? You know, is this something I could be that selfish about? And Harry makes the sacrifice out of a sense of trying not to be selfish, and that embitters him and gives him an excuse to himself to be selfish in the future. I could definitely see that as being

You know, sort of a way that Jim delivers on what I think is a pretty clear place to put the divergence, but doesn't make it as cookie cutter as, just gives up on Susan in a way that's completely uncharacteristic and from then on he's twirling his mustache.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:37)
Yeah. Now, another one, if even if Susan isn't actually turned by Bianca, if Harry doesn't make that choice at the compromise to take her bargain, what if Susan dies somehow? And there's a couple of different ways that that might happen. The one that I had in my head is what if in the laundry room Harry instead of figuring out, I could try to break through to those memories to save her?

What if he didn't realize that for whatever reason, or Justine had told him about her before she got up, and he had come to the conclusion the only way to save her is to kill her before she gets strong enough, right? That's what Justine literally advises him to do. So maybe if he doesn't have that epiphany, he has to kill Susan. Or maybe she's killed in some other way and it changes some choice that he has to make. But Warden Le Fay provides us with a very

Dark version of the Susan dies option. Instead of Harry being unable to save Susan, what if he's the one who kills her? Quote, I think Jim has said that Mirror Harry is grabbing other versions of himself to try to dodge the Wardens. Wardens really go only go after you if you've broken the laws. My theory is that when he's given the choice to surrender Susan to the Reds or to join them, he kills Susan.

His reasoning being that she was half turned and thus was no longer mortal. And heck, that might have been enough to dodge the wardens at the time, but that led to him to being more willing to kill, and he eventually split that hair too thin. Or seeing how outclassed he had been, he started turning to black magic. Unquote. This is a really dark one where he says, There's no way out of this, so I'd better kill Susan because she'd be better off doing.

dead than turned by the Reds. I could see him trying to convince himself of that. Again, I'm not super convinced that this is the one we're going to see, but I think it's a little more plausible.

Brian (1:00:38)
I love this. I I don't think Jim is going to do this. But God, I think I would love it if he did. First of all, the symmetry. Because Harry does kill Susan. You know, what if in every timeline?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:50)
Yeah.

⁓ no.

Brian (1:00:54)
Harry kills Susan. You know, that's the kind of like real tragic, you know, doomed from the start, star-crossed lover stuff, Bill Shakespeare. Exactly. Yeah. So I I could totally see that. That I think is wonderful symmetry. And I could absolutely see Harry thinking to himself, you know, in a way that's very much how Harry would think. Okay, there's no way I can win. They're gonna get me. That's fine. I'll die.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:01:02)
Yes, exactly. Speaking of Romeo Juliet.

Brian (1:01:20)
You know, I'm willing to sacrifice myself. But I can't let Susan be damned to that hell. I can't let them have her. So what I'll do is I'll kill her. And then, you know, they'll kill me, but that's fine. You know, is anything I can do to save her from having to live as a red court vampire to save her soul by damning myself? Huh. my god, I could totally see Harry doing that. ⁓

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:01:43)
And then somehow

after making that choice he still gets out of there. And then he has to live with the guilt of maybe there was a way to save her and me.

Brian (1:01:48)
Well

But see, I think if he kills her, the funny thing is the vampires just walk away because he's done everything he needed to do politically for them. You know, in front of Ortega, the witness, when offered this compromise, he kills what would be considered under the accords, Bianca's chattel. Right? So they can walk away from that being like, ⁓ done and dusted. Like we don't even have to kill you. In fact, it's kind of better for us if you're alive.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:10)
Hm.

Brian (1:02:19)
Because that gives us the causes bell eye of asking the council to hand you over. It can literally go to the exact same place. Just instead of killing Bianca, he's killed Susan, and now he kind of feels like he's damned himself for nothing. Ugh. Just totally could see that. That's that's a real gut punch. But Biabolical mentions something else that could change Harry substantially.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:34)
Hmm.

Brian (1:02:44)
Even if it's not by his hand that Susan dies or anything like that, you know, just if there's a change in grave peril that prevents Maggie's conception, Maggie, quote, has been a huge factor in keeping Harry tied to his humanity. So many times he's forced himself to stay strong for her. My guess is that the difference would be some decision that just prevented Maggie from ever being born. Easiest way for that to happen during Grave Peril is if Susan dies or fully turns.

But there's lots of other little departures, and this is me editorializing, there's lots of other little departures that could lead to that same end.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:19)
Yeah, and I do appreciate that idea. The problem is, I think if you have to wait until changes for the effect to really get magnified by Maggie's existence not being, then I don't know, I feel like that cheapens things a little bit because it feels to me like what Jim wants to portray is the dark version of Harry made one different decision here in Grave Peril, and that led to

how he handled the events in summer night differently, which led to how he dealt with the in death masks differently. So I think he wanted to see that sort of snowballing effect of the one decision. And I totally agree that the lack of Maggie Dresden in the post-ghost story world

does have an effect on the story that's pretty significant, but I feel like that misses a lot of the differences that could have happened earlier in the story too.

Brian (1:04:11)
See,

I think that the reason why I do like this is because it would have to be a big enough change that Deathmasks was fundamentally different. So it would be a big change in the short term, but I like the absence of Maggie as being a big sort of ⁓ turning point. Because, you know, ultimately it doesn't

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:04:21)
Hmm.

Brian (1:04:34)
Make a lot of sense if Mirror Dresden just makes radically different choices from Harry in grave peril. They're supposed to be the same person. So it has to be something that's sort of reasonable enough that we'd buy it. And most things that are reasonable enough don't lead to a huge divergence. But if it's a chaos theory kind of thing, you know, a butterfly flaps its wings in Chicago and it

resounds in Chichin Its, you know, nine books later, then that's exactly what happens in our story. So I could totally see Jim making that feel right. but I think that is a possibility. I don't think it's necessarily the most likely option, but I think that that Maggie being actually a bigger deal than Susan is a possibility.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:19)
So the next one that we have up here, several people suggested this as an option. And I think we talked a little bit about this during the party scene, right? Artichoke Open 295 and Slow Moving Target both talked about this, but Honky Kong 682 is the one that it very well. This is Michael is either dying or is maimed or is turned and or the sword of love is lost or destroyed. So Honky Kong says, quote

I think the choice is written in stone, as in his tombstone. But in the alt universe, he doesn't make that choice. He makes the easy and selfish choice. He lets Michael breach guest right to stop Americas from being destroyed. He lets Michael die. He doesn't violate guest right. He claims Susan as his guest. He debates this in the book. He mentions how easy it would be.

But instead, Michael is killed, the sword is destroyed, and Susan survives. Now think what would happen to the story without the Carpenters. Harry would be fine with the council, no vote, no need for Mab's test, no Maggie, at least the way that that works out, no Red Court destruction, no Father Fordhill. Likely much more Ebenezer. But Harry loses his rock solid nerve. He starts on the path of doing what's convenient, not what's right.

That changes everything. He's more of a weasel than a hero. Council gets controlled by the ink. Harry becomes an enemy to be taken off the board by the larger plot. It makes sense he runs to the other dimensions to save his skin. Unquote.

Brian (1:06:53)
Yeah, I think that's very compelling. Now, I think the thing that doesn't really work for me is just Harry in the moment letting Michael on his own go after Lydia. I I think that's too

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:05)
But before

that at the party, before Lydia is revealed, Michael offers to stay and let him take Susan out of there. I think that is a perfect potential departure point because as Honky Kong says, this is something Harry debates with himself in the book. And that's what I've been trying to look for during this read through.

Brian (1:07:10)
Yes.

Yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:27)
When is Harry actually hesitating? When is he debating with himself? Because that is a more likely departure point than one where he seems very confident in what he's going to do. Why would he do something different in another book? It seems like one that he was on the fence about is much more likely to change.

Brian (1:07:47)
Yes, and I think that's exactly it. Letting Michael make a self sacrificial decision is not as out of character for Dresden as, failing to try to save an innocent. He would be doing that in order to save Susan. So I could totally buy that. I think that that is the thing that makes the most sense and would make Mirror Harry in our eyes sort of least tragic and most detestable.

Which I actually think is a really, really good way that Jim could put an evil hat on a Harry Dresden and have us really not like the guy, because that one choice has fundamentally changed him. Actually, in light with this of Susan not getting turned, of Susan being saved, Acebert sent us this one. What if Susan

doesn't get turned. What if Harry and Susan have their I love you early in the story? And evil Harry is actually a version of Harry that things went really well for. He doesn't face the crushing defeats, like the one we were alluding to at the end of the last chapter. He doesn't sort of suffer, he doesn't have things go wrong, he doesn't fail the way he does in Summer Night. And that meant he didn't grow as much emotionally, and that caused him to backslide.

By which I mean defaulting to a bugger, it might does make right attitude.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:09:05)
Yeah. That one is also interesting because if they do say the I love you early, then that could fundamentally change this book in ways that I mean, there's a du there's a bunch of different ways I can think in my head how you might write how that changes the book. You'd have to change a lot of stuff. So that could easily do it, and that would give Jim a lot of flexibility for what is what are the ramifications of that that actually result in Harry going bad. Because on its own it doesn't seem like a

bad choice, but maybe the butterfly flaps its wings thing, he comes up with a way that it results in Harry having to make a much worse choice that turns him into a worse person.

Brian (1:09:44)
Yeah, and I mean I think that the thing to to sort of it has going for it is that it's the angel on his shoulder telling him to do it. You know, Michael is the one who's saying, you know, when are you gonna settle down? When are you gonna get married? When are you gonna say I love you? it's it's him who is pushing Dresden to do that. So it's it and Dresden does sort of he resists what Michael's saying, but it is something that influences his choices. It is it does sort of fit that criteria of him debating it with himself.

I think the obvious knock against this is that it's not very satisfying for modern this is something that like Greek tragedies, I mean, they love, they they eat this shit up, but modern audiences tend not to like it when a hero is brought low due to a tragic flaw, which is like he was too nice. You know, we don't really tend to tend to react well.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:10:21)
Ha ha ha.

Mm-hmm.

No. They like flaws like hubris. Okay.

Brian (1:10:41)
Right. But I mean

like that's a very Oedipus thing, you know? Like why d why is Oedipus a tragic hero? ⁓ 'cause he thinks Jacosta's hot, you know?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:10:54)
Okay, now this is my one of my favorites. We've got we've got two more here, and this one was very inventive. I like this a lot. Loud Appointment 2545 thinks the choice was almost made, but all the way back in chapter three. The difference here is that Lydia dies at the start of this book. Quote, in the first scene where Lydia meets him and tells him about Cassandra's tears.

Brian (1:10:58)
⁓ so good.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:11:19)
And how she's being hunted, she tells him that she sees fire and wind and dark things and her death coming for her from the spirit world. She tells Harry he's at the center of it, the one, quote, who can make the path go different ways, unquote. At the very last second, he tells her to wait and gives her his dead man's talisman and tells her about Father Fordhill. I think.

The choice Harry makes is one he almost made originally. He lets Lydia walk away instead of helping her, which changes the entire trajectory of the story.

Lydia dies. Harry is not warned by Bob about Agatha Hagglethorn. Harry isn't delayed by talking with her, so he isn't there to meet Michael on the street. He and Michael never have the I love you conversation about Susan. Susan doesn't bail him out of jail, so she isn't at his apartment when he gets the invite to the Red Court Ball. Kravos gets a power boost. The church is never attacked. Dresden can't track Lydia down and get nabbed and attacked by Kyle and Kelly, etc. etc. etc.

The key piece is that it must be a choice that Harry Engrave Parable is capable of making. Harry would never not save Susan. Harry would never sacrifice Michael, but he almost makes this choice in the OG timeline. Unquote. Yes. Applause. Applause. Really great analysis. Loud appointment 2545. And boy, I am a little embarrassed that Brian and I didn't think of that one.

Brian (1:12:46)
my god, the quote there. Who can make the path go different ways? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like mirror mirror. that's a beautiful. That's that's truly I think the the cherry on top. Now here's the I think it would be s so cool if Jim did this. I'm I don't know if I'm rooting for this one, but it's one of the ones where I would stand on the chair and, you know, applaud Jim, applaud loud appointment.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:12:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brian (1:13:11)
You know, like just kudos all around, well done, excellently done. But it's not Harry doing something late in the book that's sort of related to the climax, and it means that fundamentally a lot of things are different that I think are more likely to result in Harry being dead than Harry sort of being an evil mastermind.

So that I think is the biggest issue here. I don't see I see how this is ⁓ definitely a point of departure that could happen. I don't see how this gets us the mirror Harry that we think we're getting, who is more of like a black hat who's very savvy, basically who is subconscious goatee harry.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:13:52)
Right.

But there's a lot of ways that Jim could write a future choice based on all of those differences that Loud Appointment described, right? A lot of stuff would have to happen differently in this book. Now, I really love this idea because for all the reasons that you and Loud Appointment discussed, but I think it would be difficult to go back and explain how this choice led to another choice, led to another choice. It would be a little more verbose than saying

Brian (1:14:19)
Yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:14:20)
⁓ he didn't save Susan or he didn't save Michael. I agree with Loud Appointment though. I don't think the choice is going to be something that he that he didn't hesitate on or debate with himself in this book. I think that would feel less satisfying to me. But speaking of one that solves both of those problems for me, Lyddy D and especially El Quoso Raptor came up with a really interesting one that I think might be my favorite at this point.

Brian (1:14:49)
I think Dresden uses the thinned veil to eat the ghosts at Bianca's mansion instead of empowering them. He draws inspiration from what Kravos did to him and what he did to Kravos. He eats the ghosts, getting a temporary but significant power boost, crushes Bianca, takes his first step on the path of a necromancer, and has his thinking and magic stained by dark magic.

leading him to make further poor choices with Snowball. The major conflicts of the books still play out, at least up to changes, but Dresden makes vastly different choices, which change who lives, who dies, and how the book is resolved. This allows for the maximum contrast between the two characters. Both were faced with Incipient Warlock Molly, both started a war with the Vamps, both dealt with Kemler's heirs and Nicodemus' temptation, but they made different choices and created a

Terrible world. It's not circumstance that compelled Dark Dresden, but rather his choices that changed things.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:15:52)
Yeah. Bravo, Elquosa Raptor. That was very well said. And I do like how you outlined like w the the more satisfying option would be a version of that world where the mirror Harry still dealt with all the major challenges that our Harry did. Because then you can really compare what happened between the two. And like, okay, he made this choice different, then those choices different, then those choices different. And if the if

Like it was a very different universe that branched off radically very early on, then it would be very hard to make comparisons. Like, what would our Harry do in that circumstance? Well, we don't have a close comparison. We just kind of have to go for it. But if we're like, no, our Harry also had to deal with Incipient Warlock Molly, we know how he handled it. Now we're gonna get some background about how it happened in the mirror verse and how it happened differently because of the different choices.

I really like that one. I think that one would work very well and the differentiation between necromancy and ectomancy, how how does Harry get away with this without like breaking the fifth law according to the council? Maybe he just lies about it and claims that he did it with ectomancy and they don't have any proof, so they say, okay, I guess you did. So it's it's hard to see exactly how this would fit in, but it feels like a really good kernel of an idea that I would love to see explored.

Brian (1:17:17)
Well, the thing that I think that makes it work, Adam, is that it's basically just the Dark Hallow. And the thing is that first, Jim tells us in changes that Harry thinks of having three options and he considered all of them in changes. And they are joining the Denariens, joining Mab, which he does, or the Dark Hallow. And the issue is with the Dark Hallow, you can only do it to become a god on Halloween. Because that's the only time that you can, you know, become an immortal or an immortal can die.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:17:21)
Yeah.

Brian (1:17:45)
It seems like in the Dresden verse, you know, maybe also Beltane or something, but it seems like it's it's just Halloween. So Dresden wouldn't become a god from doing this, but he could just kill them with fire after eating a bunch of ghosts. So there's no need to explain anything to the council. How'd you do it? Fuego, man. That's all Harry did. He doesn't have to mention this whole thing about the ghosts. Remember, even in

This book, even in what we just read, he's saying, I didn't know how to do the spell I was doing. I just did it. I was instinctive. I just, you know, sort of did what felt right. And if Dresden just does it differently, if rather than just giving the ghosts free reign to do what they want to do, he uses their vengeance to make himself the instrument, that does fundamentally change him. He becomes

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:18:36)
Yeah, it's just just

different enough that it could you could really see how that spirals out of control over time. Where instead of he died doing the right thing, he walked down the dark path doing the right thing one step at a time.

Brian (1:18:44)
Right.

Right, this is a Dresden who is basically the same guy, except he's willing to be a little bit more consequentialist, a little bit more means to an end, sooner and further than he is in our story. So how does he deal with incipient warlock Molly? Well, he probably doesn't ensure that their relationship is platonic. You know, why not get a little something for yourself?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:19:17)
Yeah, if you really want to make people hate dark hairy, that's a way to do it.

Brian (1:19:17)
How does he

Right, and you know, how does he deal with Kemmler's heirs? Well, I mean, he probably learns a lot about this Dark Hallow thing, gets the word of Kemler, and you know, obviously he's not gonna get the full power up, but maybe r he kind of takes evil Bob up on the offer to learn a little bit more than just, you know, rejects the choice out of hand. You could end up with a Dresden who is essentially still on the side of the angels.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:19:37)
Hm.

Brian (1:19:47)
But who looks a lot more like who the wider world thinks he is, a dangerous madman who's about to go over the edge than the guy who he actually is, which is an extremely principled man who is willing to make hard choices. So I I really think that's a brilliant one. But I'm gonna say, Adam, I honestly think it's not going to be.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:19:53)
Hmm.

Brian (1:20:11)
As big a divergence as that, in the sense of I don't think Harry is going to do something like the Dark Halo in Grave Peril, you know, as the the catalyst for change. I think it's much more likely that the change is about Harry succumbing to a human weakness, like a survival instinct.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:20:25)
Hm.

Brian (1:20:36)
and not stanking by his principles, which is why he becomes a person who's willing to let others take the fall for him.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:20:43)
Anyway, I think we're gonna leave that conversation there and talk about it more when for Mirror Mirror actually comes out.

Next week, we're going to be talking about the assessment for Grave Peril, the overall discussion of the book as a whole, as well as looking at the different pieces of data and statistics that we came up with for with that book. But what we want to know from you guys and what we'll post on the Reddit, but if you don't want to post in the Reddit, feel free to send us an email with the answers to these questions. Where does Grave Peril fit in the hierarchy that we've already created for the community? So the community has ranked

Stormfront number one, Full Moon number two. Does Grave Peril belong above Stormfront, between them, or at the bottom? We're gonna ask that question. And then what about the titles? Because the community thought that Full Moon was a better title than Stormfront. Where does Grave Peril fit? Above Full Moon, between them, or below? Please send us an email, Mac at rnt.fm, if you want to answer those questions. And the last question that we have for you.

Which book in the series was the first one to really click and hook you on the series? I know we're gonna get a lot of interesting answers from that one.

Brian (1:21:52)
Yeah, I mean I think a lot of people are probably gonna say this one. and you know, I'm I'm looking forward

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:21:57)
I've seen people say summer

night and I've seen other people say I read Deadbeat first.

Brian (1:22:01)
Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you know, if my intuition's confirmed there because I I, I think it really could go a lot of ways.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:22:08)
Yep, that's what we're gonna see next time. We'll see ya then.