Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:09)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through twelve months. I'm Adam Russo and joining me as always it's a Pizza Express employee being grilled by the FBI, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (00:22)
a a bomb in in a delivery? I I don't know anything about that, man. F to kill a wizard? I I I liked Lord of the Rings.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:33)
Wrong wizard, but close enough. You're free to go. Okay. Brian, this is our grave peril assessment episode. This is the one where we look back at all of the seventeen different episodes that we talked about grave perils. We talk about the overall book itself, but also some of the things that we missed, some of the stats that we collected, some of our favorite parts, and some of the major repercussions that are gonna echo forward in the series as we go forward. Let's start with your overall thoughts here. Talk to me about

The grave peril as a book in its completion here at this point in the series.

Brian (01:07)
I don't think it's a spoiler to say that, we there's definitely some upticks in quality in Grave Peril. And I think one thing that's really interesting is not only does Jim improve as a writer.

He sort of

Creates directions for the series that you might not have anticipated when you read Stormfront or Fullness.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:32)
Yeah, this one definitely makes connections, bridging across both before and after itself, in ways that the first two books just didn't do. The first two books set up some potential future questions, right?

We get so much more mythos in this book than we got in the first two combined. Because all the werewolf lore that we got in book two was really localized. It's like, ⁓ it's that lycanthrope gang. And they're like destroyed by the end of the book. They don't exist anymore. And it's like some corrupt FBI guys using magic. And just aren't anything.

bigger than what's happening in Chicago in those books. This one introduces stuff that is so much bigger than what is happening in Chicago and gives you such a much higher level view of what the rest of the series could be.

Brian (02:32)
And I think it's very interesting that, you know, the first book, titled Stormfront, but we discussed in that assessment episode how the original title was semi-automagic, which is about as noir as you can make an urban fantasy title. I mean, that is really perfect for that, you know, note. this series

Like the semi-automagic series that could have been ends with grave peril. Because that series is one where characters like the Alphas don't recur. They're one-offs, they appear in the book, they're kid werewolves, and you just never see them again. That's a series where you don't need to know about three different vampire courts.

Because the monster of the week is one vampire and if you need to make a different kind of vampire, you just make a different kind of vampire later.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (03:24)
You could have had the Red Court vampire killer book and you could have had the White Court vampire killer book. That was kind of what White Knight was. and then you could have had a black court vampire killer book and they wouldn't have necessarily had entire political structures behind them.

Brian (03:38)
Right. They're just X Files. This is a type of monster, now, next week, here's another type of monster. And at the conclusion of Grave Peril, Butcher has opened a door that I think if you're reading the first two books, you want him to open. Because the series is titled The Dresden Files. And I think what you want is to have not the, you know, sort of monster of the week sense.

of the X-Files or of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But you want to have the sense that there is a connected world behind it, the way those, you know, shows had. The X-Files has its meta plot episodes, the whole alien government conspiracy, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the whole, big bad sort of concept of hell mouths and, you know, stuff that gets introduced a little bit later, like in the Dresden Files.

But that's suggesting that there's a bit of a ⁓ a momentum towards a final confrontation in the series. But within that structure, it still feels like a monster of the week series. That is, I think, classically the thing that you sell people on the Dresden Files being. And that's not what books one and two are. It's something that kind of gets started. there's a recurring cast. look, it's the Lone Gunman. They showed up in an episode a season ago.

That starts in summer night and ends in or before changes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (05:01)
Yeah, we see pieces of that come back in things like Small Favor and White Knight and even in Summer Night, where Harry's on the case to find out who really killed Ronald Rule and where did the thing go, right? He's doing the investigative stuff in some of those books, but having the entire book fall into those tropes of the procedural recurring monster of the week style, which don't get me wrong, that could have been a fantastic series of.

All by itself, right? Jim got better as a writer. He could have written all of the books similar to these first couple and had it much more emphasis on that noir element and less emphasis on the big time fantasy epic. But he decided to go in that direction. I personally am happy that he did, but I know people who have read the books and said, you know,

I liked it more when it was a detective story and less when it was this big fantasy epic.

So my main overall thoughts here were fairly simple. I thought it had a much more satisfying ending, and I really enjoyed seeing Dresden be more competent in this book. And that might be entirely by design, right? Jim is trying to show you that he is getting more experienced, both as an investigator and as a practitioner. And that really comes through in this book, and I enjoyed that a lot. Michael is the

One of the best side characters introduced in the entire series. And this is his first book, of course, so that makes it special. And I personally loved the expansion of the world, which is why I also really like Summer Night for that same reason, where we'll get a lot more world expansion. It just I always have all these questions about what does that mean for the wider world? And hearing Jim answer those questions is a personal favorite part of the series for me. Now, that having been said, let's talk about the

This book itself from a couple different angles. Which major events have important repercussions for later books? What are our personal favorite sections? And what are the sections we think personally are the weakest? So kind of going chronologically through here, we have that first racing to catch the ghosts at the Cook County Hospital at the beginning in the first night. Then we've got this cool flashback to Harry's office, Brian. We talked about this a couple times.

And I think we both agreed it works really well to establish this story.

Brian (07:24)
I marked this as one of my favorite sections because I I you know, I don't know if this is a memory or an in invented memory, but I feel like reading that for the first time, I went, What happened? Because it, you know, it made sense to me the moment I found that Jim was twenty-five when he wrote Stormfront. Because that flashback is such a step up in intricacy. You know, from the author who last book was like, Okay, I need him to not do anything. I'm gonna knock him out. Like

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:45)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (07:51)
He's just like, I'm gonna tie him up. Like he's just doing that to to just get time skips, you know? And it's fine, it works, but he's clearly like clutching it together to this extremely elegant, like layered structure thing that gives us all this exposition while being fun and interesting and introducing a ton of new characters, and i it's just so exceptionally well done. And it's the first time in the series he does anything like that.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:51)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, absolutely. So after that, he meets Lydia during that flashback. We then finally get to the actual fight with Agatha when we flash back to the present. And I have to say, all of Harry's interactions with Lea here, not only in this scene, but throughout the entire book, are major setup for the ramifications of what happens in the rest of the series, because how he ties himself deeper in debt with Lea is how Mab.

gets him with her three favors. Almost everything that happens with Harry and the Fay courts between here and changes is set up by what happens in this book.

Because Lea really wasn't able to bother him until he broke his word two more times in this book.

Brian (09:07)
Yeah, and I think that you really need all of this to happen. When you're reading it, it feels like it's a little bit overkill. Like how you know, how how dumb is Harry gonna be with dealing with fairies, right? But he Jim really needs to make this happen because he needs to really have you believe that Harry's screwed. So that when Mab walks into his office, even though you know it's a bad idea.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (09:18)
Yeah.

Brian (09:33)
You don't think he's stupid for taking the deal.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (09:35)
Yeah. and then of course we get to charity's introduction, which I know is something you had a bit of a problem with.

Brian (09:42)
Yeah, so I said it when we talked about the scene. I don't like the first chapter of charity because I feel like it in it introduces her as being of a little bit of a shrewish caricature of, certain kinds of especially religious women that I think is just, Jim not really knowing how to make her completely three dimensional. But the thing is, he rescues it so significantly that

in the night two graveyard scene that I almost wish he just didn't do the first introduction to charity, that it was like she's barely introduced as a character, that she barely has lines. Because it works so much better if charity is a jerk to Dresden reflexively after the graveyard scene because he quote unquote he kidnapped her than just in the beginning. Now obviously I know

That in Proven Guilty, you know, Jim is going to introduce Charity's backstory in a way that really explains her introduction to Harry in the first scene, and it does make sense in that lens. I don't really think that you should, you know, say, well, this isn't gonna feel great now, but in seven books, I'm really gonna, you're gonna come back and you're gonna, you know, I think that that's a little bit too indirect to work

But I can even look past it in this book because he ⁓ makes charity out to be such a badass the second time we meet her that the fact that she's a little bit of a caricature the first time we meet her is forgivable.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:09)
Yeah, i that's exactly what I was gonna say is it's it's it's l much less of an issue because in the same book we get a different portrayal of her, which is very valuable to make her more three-dimensional. So by the time we get to day two, Harry has declined Bianca's invitation and he's investigating the attack at St. Mary's, and of course, all of Harry's interactions with Michael and with Father Forthill will solidify these two very important allies.

throughout the rest of the series, right? There's there's, I don't know, five or six books featuring Michael very prominently coming up f after this. Father Forth Hill fe features as a smaller piece of much all of those books and more. So getting those characters established here is very important. But what happens after that is ⁓ I think an important element that

makes me a little bit uncomfortable, but I know you thought it was very valuable. It's it's when Dresden goes to visit Mort and he's kind of a dick about it. in more ways than one. A private dick, as it were.

Brian (12:12)
So Yeah.

Right, and that's the thing. That feels like you you said it during our pre-show, it feels like, the film noir private dick shaking down, you know, rounding up the usual suspects and getting the information out of him, even if he's gotta push him around a little bit. And it it feels like that and it is that scene, and I like that a lot, because I don't want Dresden to be a bad person.

And you know, I think that your mileage may vary, right, on how Dresmond's views on women, even though they're a very understandable character flaw and Jim pays it off in a lot of ways, maybe you don't like it. This is the kind character flaw I want to see from my twenty-seven year old wizard private eye. He's a little bit of an arrogant jerk sometimes, and he thinks that you gotta do what he says because he knows what's right. That feels real to me.

In a way that makes him an imperfect character that he needs to be, for me not just to kind of think he's, you know, a little bit of a a Marty Stew or whatever. And especially in a book where Harry simultaneously establishes himself as not being religious. And also, you know, presumably because McCoy instilled certain values with him and had him do a lot of reading, but conveys that he

knows a lot about the church ritual and is like inherently respectful to people who don't share his views.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:38)
Yeah, and it that scene with Mort is saved a little bit by the gentler way he deals with him at the end, right? It's very clear that he's treating him the way that he is because he has such disrespect for frauds in general. And that's kind of how he sees Mort's whole operation is he's be he's defrauding people when it comes to magic, which is very personal to Harry. So you can see why.

Brian (13:46)
Mm-hmm.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (14:06)
The normally fairly compassionate Dresden would not feel so much here. But the fact that at least a little of that shines through and says, Listen, I have general respect for people. This is about how your behavior makes me feel. If you change it, then my behavior towards you will change. And that's paid off so well in future books. Both the fact that his advice in particular helps Mort,

All of that in the future. We'll talk about it more. But I do really appreciate that element. Now, after this, we get to the exorcism making Malone's house. And this, I think, is a very important ramification in future books because we already know that special investigations over the course of the first two books

Has really come to trust Harry. The flashback that we see where the raid on Kravos, where they're all listening to him and treating his suggestions seriously, carrying the holy water and doing what he says, that's all clearly got him some significant respect from them. But I think after he saves Mickey Malone, and they're all there completely helpless, unsure what to do, and he steps in and

brings Mickey back from this horrible seeming fate, I think at that point he basically becomes one of them,

Brian (15:26)
I mean before that you can maybe call him he's the he's our good luck charm, he's our mascot. You know, you can rationalize it away that way if you're in SI After he walks out of that house returned the insane to sanity, you're like I think I read about that in the Bible once, Like that's magic. That's a miracle he just performed. So that that and Jim does such a great job of,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (15:31)
Mm-hmm.

Right?

Brian (15:50)
using that, but also it's something that in twelve months in Outlaw he is it still makes sense. You see Stallings and you're like, of course Stallings, trusts Dresden implicitly because he was here for this. Like he sets this up all the way back in grave peril, and it's still paying dividends that far into the future. I mean, really, really incredible. Especially because Adam, as you pointed out

Not only does he do this, set this whole moment up that has such character ramifications, he also weaves in a bunch of great expositions.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (16:27)
yeah, we get to learn more cool stuff about how magic works. And we get to see Harry be good at what he does, right? He comes in going, I don't know what this is, but I'm gonna try to solve it. And then he does. He doesn't trip and fall on his face and have to like pull something out of his ass in order to like partially save the day by accident and luck.

Brian (16:37)
Mm.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (16:54)
Like we see happen in the first two books. This is really the first time we get to see him come into a situation he doesn't know about and figure it out and make it work anyway and save the day and be the hero without a huge amount of fallback, because this is a much smaller scene in a bigger book where more stuff will go wrong, but

This goes right, and I really appreciate that. It makes the re where everything else can go wrong, and you can make bad decisions in other parts of this book. This makes that feel better for me. So the fact that we learn so much more about magic, we get to see how the site sees Murphy. That was such a cool moment, and it got me thinking, like, what does that mean for her character?

Brian (17:36)
And I think that we need that. We need Harry to get that win because night two of this book sets the tone for how rough it's gonna be. We

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (17:48)
yeah, that's

a great point. two is when the nightmare gets Harry in his dream and he has curled up in his summoning circle with Bob trying to explain to him what happened, and then he has to go save Murphy in Murphy's office and talk about ramifications. Murphy is going to be dealing with the PTSD from that specific situation for at least the next book, and I think it really changes.

How she relates to Dresden in the future as well. We talked about this in Stormfront, where she sees him as the civilian who sometimes can provide useful information who should not be getting involved beyond providing information. And by the time we get to Full Moon, she physically sees that he can help in a physical way against monsters

And so he's all obviously gained some respect from her in that listen to me. I need to be able to handle some of these things. And she then says, okay, fine. You're not purely a civilian. Sometimes you can help, like with the raid on Kravos, et cetera, et cetera. But this, the ramifications of her being unable to defend herself from the nightmare, is going to make her rethink, ⁓ actually, there's some things where Dresden has to go off.

on his own without SI using his own authority. And that's exactly what happens in summer night when Murphy joins him and goes off riding into the as a deputy, but not under her normal So it's converted completely from I'm in charge to okay, you can help more than I thought you did before to

I need to trust you when you say something's out of my league and this is what causes it I think.

Brian (19:33)
And you know, that's a really incredible point because something that's overlooked is that when Jim has that conversation between them in Walmart and Summer Night, that we're obviously going to talk about when we get to it is clearly a change on Harry's part. He has made a decision to be different. But Jim does a really good job of making Murphy ready to have that conversation. And that is a key component of it.

Murphy is going to eventually become somebody who goes from thinking this is her story and Dresden is helping her to thinking is actually like this is his story. I am helping him. And that conversion happens because she gradually learns that the things that Dresden deals with are more dangerous than the things that she deals with on a day to day basis.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (20:23)
Yeah. So continuing on, we have the Graceland Cemetery fight, and I would argue that this is very important specifically for Harry's relationship with charity in the future. There's a couple of times that he needs to talk to her and she doesn't like him. And I feel like if he isn't here to save her from quote unquote himself, if some if Michael was the one that came and did the saving and Harry wasn't in this fight.

I think she doesn't give him the time of day when he needs it in future books. But the fact that he's here putting himself on the line very clearly, getting between her and the bad thing, earns him enough brownie points that despite all of her grumbling about him, especially in the epilogue of this where she's laying into him about everything, I think that this is enough to where he earns some trust with her, so that in the future when he needs

To get a little bit of help from her, it's there.

Brian (21:22)
I think it's important that Charity's reflexive reaction, which is the kind of thing that trauma creates towards Dresden, always negative. Charity's considered reaction to Dresden, often positive. And that's because she knows intellectually that if she takes the measure of him, he is on the side of the angels. But she doesn't feel like that's true because of her.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (21:32)
Ooh yes.

Brian (21:46)
experiences that she can't shake until she really gets to know him on that deeper level. But, you know, that's all in night two. We recover with charity at Cook Hospital into the wee hours of the morning. Day three is when Harry summons the nightmare to bind it and has a psychic duel against what we will later find out is

Kravos, you know, in the circle in his lab. And this is, I think, the first time we've seen anything that can even be characterized as a psychic attack in the series.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (22:21)
Yeah, I mean I would argue also the the nightmare attacking him in his dream is probably a version of a psychic attack, right? A spiritual attack. And I think between the first fight in his dream where he loses, the fight where he summons the nightmare with all the tools to give him the leverage, right, that lets him basically bind this thing that

Brian (22:27)
Yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (22:44)
wa that is the ghost of a sorcerer that had some magical capability already, pr pretty powerful because of when it crossed over, the way it crossed over, and has like half of Harry's power in it, and he's still able to bind it at least a little bit. And then to fully defeat it again later, these three bouts in the spirit realm essentially, to me, feel like Harry's getting a bit of experience and a bit of a level up.

in his spiritual will mind based ⁓ magic and power that we'll see becomes very important when a piece of Mordite is flying towards him in death masks.

Brian (23:25)
Well, you also, you know, really made me consider something that I hadn't really liked until I literally read your notes here, which is this the first scene where Harry meets Corpse Taker in deadbeat, and he's able to hold Corpse Taker off with these mental defenses that are, you know, like what they teach to babies, basically, according to Corpse Taker. And this is why. Because yes, they're rudimentary, but they are battle-hardened. Harry's been through this already, so

They are better than she would expect seeing their form, because he has defended himself in the past. But this kind of cool, interesting moment is, I agree, kind of undercut by something you noted.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (24:07)
Yeah, so the whole thing where it's very serious, Harry is mentioned on the page, like he's literally fighting for his life. If he cannot hold this thing, it will just come out and eat him in the real world and he'll be dead. And at the same time, Michael appears to not be taking this seriously. And when we talked about this chapter, we came up with a couple of reasons, right? Harry isn't good at explaining himself yet, and he probably didn't explain to Michael that this was a super dangerous spell,

Because, you know, he didn't want Michael to caution him against it and have that whole conversation. So it does technically make sense. I get it. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense. I'm saying that it appears to be played as a joke between Harry going, I'm a bit busy here, Michael, as he wrestles with this thing. And Michael's like, she says it's really important. You know, the tone shifting there just didn't work for me personally. I found it to be one of the weaker parts of the book because it

Feels like a contrived reason for Harry not to get the very important message that Susan is calling to tell him. Presumably, she's calling to tell him that she found out that Kravos committed a ritual suicide, and maybe that has something to do with the ghosts you've been chasing for the last couple of weeks. That crucial bit of information could have been very valuable. And if she'd talked to him, maybe she would have asked about the party again, and maybe he would have convinced her not.

to fake her way into it. Like a lot of things could have gone a different way, but for this particular interaction, which again feels a little contrived in order to make the rest of the events fit into where they need to be.

Brian (25:43)
yeah, one thing that I don't love about this scene is that there's different kinds of making jokes in the face of death humor that you can use. And you know, the classic very Marvel Weeden esque casual danger dialogue where we're kind of having a conversation that doesn't fit with the gravity of the situation because we know we can handle this.

That can be fun. And as we're going to talk about later, one of the best lines in this book is what I would argue is a form of gallows humor, where the characters don't necessarily think they're going to make it, but they're sort of, you know, stiff upper lip facing death with, you know, ⁓ good humor and calm, and it's showing you that these people don't get rattled even by things that, really should scare you out of your wits. But the

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (26:15)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (26:34)
This is a little bit of sort of like farce in this scene that's more at home in sort of an Oscar Wilde play than an action movie. It's a very comedy of manners thing. And I agree that it just doesn't work. It it kind of tonally is inconsistent with the other ways in which Danger is played for laughs in the same book. And I think honestly.

That continues to a certain extent for me when we get to Bianca's party that night and Dresden shows up in the cheesy vampire tuxedo.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:09)
But when we get to that mansion, the events that occur there, I think, directly lead to blood rites and subsequently deadbeats. Specifically Harry's interaction with Mavra. I think one of the reasons she comes back to Chicago in Blood Rights to start her scourge

Is because she's daring Harry to take a shot at her. She wants to something to do with him. And I think it's partly because of what happens at this party.

Brian (27:37)
Or perhaps daring Michael, because you know, she seems to be a lot more concerned with Michael than she is with Harry in the events that are going on, you know, during Bianca's party. And what happens right before Blood Rites, well, Deathmasks, if Mavra knows about that in any way, shape, or form, that doesn't make you think wizard. It makes you think Knight of the Cross. So if

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:40)
yeah.

Brian (28:02)
It very well might be that Mavra's coming back to Chicago is more about Michael than it is about Harry, or it's about both. But just from a, you know, authorial perspective, when we look at this through the Doylist lens, God, everything that Jim's done with Mavra has been incredible. I mean, she steals the scene she's in in this part. She is by far the scariest person at the party. And that I'm I'm including

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:23)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (28:27)
Everyone at the party. I think she's by far the scariest person there. And then she's just gonna not be on the page for a while. And every time she appears, it's a banger. And he doesn't need to give her a lot of room because he sets her up as being so creepy and so alien that we expect horrible things to happen when Mavre's around. And the fact that she delivers doesn't feel cheap.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:52)
Yeah, I I can't disagree. I'm I really wanna know what her deal is and what Drakul's deal is after twelve months. And it really started here, the the whole interaction. I I don't like any of that, let me just say. Yeah, and the other things that happen at this mansion, I mean the effects of those are obvious. This starts the war with the vampires that sets up so much of the rest of the events in the entire series, and it also, importantly.

Clears the vampires out of Chicago. The Red Court gets destroyed here in Chicago, and we do see that they came back in dribs and drabs to like make assassination attempts against Dresden. And didn't they buy his building? We find out in changes as well. So they're kind of still present, but it's just not nearly to the degree they would be if they still had a noble of the court here with her own coterie.

Brian (29:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (29:47)
So I think that's very important, not only because he starts the war, but he stamps them out of Chicago, which probably means he has less to deal with them in the future books like, ⁓ we're doing this whole thing with the Fey in summer night, and there's no red court directly breathing down his back in the city, right? He's getting assassins, but not like on a daily basis because they're in the same town as him.

Brian (30:12)
And man, just think of all of the stuff that Jim is able to do on nights three and knights four of this book. First of all, he provides the future in for the existence of butters with Harry's, you know, big the biggest fire spell we see him do. We get to see the height of Harry's ability to do magic at this point of the series. And it's like when he blows the doors off the varsity in Stormfront, where you're like, ⁓ right. A book about a wizard. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (30:36)
Yeah.

Brian (30:40)
Jim, very subtly, even if you're just looking at the perspective of this book, obviously he's setting up things that are more important later, but he does this sleight of hand, where he takes one court of vampires out of the door, and he introduces the whites and brings them right in and puts them in front of you, and they're what you might have thought Bianca was going to be in book one.

sort of a frenemy that's gonna come up over and over, a little bit of a vector for a femme fatale, you know, situation. And seamlessly, he's introduced Mavra, but introducing Thomas and the concept of a white court is giving him the ability to just usher the Reds off the stage and not make the scenery feel any bearer for it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. And mo more importantly, Thomas earns significant goodwill when he returns Amarakius, and Harry will then trust him at least a little bit in the future. And I gotta tell you, I've mentioned this during the scenes, but I'm always super uncomfortable when Harry loses the sword. Like the first time I read that.

I had anxiety until I just had to keep reading to resolve that situation. I'm like, my boy Harry, he can't be responsible for the destruction or capture of one of the only super mega weapons in the hands of good in the world. The one of the most important tools for fighting evil. It would be like, Yeah, what if Frodo accidentally gave the ring to Sauron? Like, what? No, you can't let that happen.

Brian (31:48)
Yeah.

Seriously.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (32:15)
So the fact that he finally gets it back in that scene is like a it it takes a weight off my chest the first time I read it. And even in my rereads, it's still a little bit like until I get to that moment, I'm like, okay, finally, we've got we've dealt with that problem. Now, we then get, of course, more with Lea and Mab when we goes into Fairy, which ties back into what we were talking about before when Lea gets him into his her net.

Mab will show up later to take over in future books. And when Harry finally defeats Kravos in the laundry room, again, it's a similar situation. I get s I get uncomfortable and I got a lot of a like the anxiety piled up in this book because once he lost his his mojo to the nightmare and then he lost the sword, that was like a one two gut punch of like, ⁓ man, those weren't I mean, they were kinda your fault, but like you didn't really make any

Obvious choices towards evil, but you've done some horrible things here in in the end result. And then he gets to undo both of them in sort of quick succession here by the sword coming back with Thomas, and then he gets to defeat the nightmare and get a power-up. And as I was saying to you, Brian, one of the things I really like about this book is Harry walks into the climax fully overflowing with magic. Not just full of magic, but overflowing with magic.

Whereas in the past two books, he's walked into the climax, either A, pretty tapped out from having done a lot of magic already, or B having fried his magical circuits in the case of Full Moon. So having him here confronting a much smarter, more sophisticated, more magically inclined villain, but he himself being much stronger creates a climax that is much more gripping to me personally. That's why it's definitely one of my favorites.

Brian (33:51)
⁓

I mean, think about the change Jim makes in this book. The climax of the first two books is okay, we've gotta beat this guy up so that it's really, really, hard for him to deal with the situation he's in. That's where the drama's gonna come from. And then Jim figures here, okay, I'm gonna actually make the people he's facing off against so scary that I need him to be above full strength. And he goes, Ooh, I liked that.

Because summer night, Harry does not need to be depowered for the final battle. Death Masks, Harry does not need to be depowered for the final battle. Now he goes back to the well a little bit in the Wraith Deeps, but Jim has sort of, I think in Grave Peril, learned how to have a wizard who can do all of the things that you would want your, you know, DD character sheeted wizard to be able to do.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (34:47)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (35:01)
without making it feel like everything is trivialized by that. And that is a r like when he stops Neo style all of the bullets at the end of this book, you're like amazing, so cool. But then you also buy, yeah, that barely counts. You're still in ridiculous levels of danger.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (35:18)
Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly my feeling on it. Now, we do see a lot of new elements of the supernatural world in this book. We asked the same question in the previous assessments, like, what new stuff did we learn in Full Moon that wasn't there in Stormfront? And it's like, there's a couple different kind of werewolves. It's like that's it. Here, Brian, we got three different vampire courts with different strengths and weaknesses, different motivations that are introduced by

Pretty significantly, but with still a lot of questions about them. We get a lot of information about ghosts and spirits and how they work and how you defeat them and why they do what they do. We get a lot more in Ghost Story, but we get the foundation laid down here. We get a lot more l information about the Lenanshi specifically, which gives us a little tangential information about how fairies work in general. And then we've got the complete introduction of essentially a paladin

⁓ Jim's version of a paladin, the Knights of the Sword, in this, including the introduction of Michael, and we get a little bit more lore about the never never because Harry uses it several times and they introduce the idea of how, ⁓ these two places that are close physically could be very far away in the never never, or vice versa, and you can use it as a shortcut. So I think those are the five big lore drops we got in this book. Which was your favorite?

Brian (36:40)
So I just want to be clear. We said five big lore drops, and those are the five big ones. But we know this is also where we introduce dragons and to a certain extent the idea of an like elder god or something like that. And not just the lore of the Knights of the Sword, but also how the Catholic Church plays into the role of the Dresden Files, like how Christian

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (36:51)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (37:07)
sort of iconography and spirituality is going to actually be a specific force, it can hold back the nightmare. But my is one of the big five. And it is definitely the brilliant idea of creating the three vampire courts. Not just because they are in and of themselves great and very differentiated interpretations of the vampire mythos.

But also because unlike Full Moon, where Bob literally the talking head just lays out all the different kinds of werewolves for me, it is seamless that we now have the Dracula vampires who are undead nightmares, and we've got the, you know, Anne Rice vampires, and we've got

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (37:40)
Ha ha.

Brian (37:56)
did you want bat monsters? I've got bat monsters. I'm not convinced that Jim even knew there were three different courts of vampires before this book, but I can't tell you, because it is utterly seamless to me whether Harry knew about them already, but it just didn't come up because, you know, he doesn't interact with vampires that often, or Jim invented them for the book. That is truly the best kind of exposition.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (38:18)
Yeah b

Yeah, because there's definitely a couple of lines that could be read as though, like when Thomas is explaining stuff to Harry, there are a couple of lines Michael explains stuff to Harry that that Harry goes, Yeah, yeah, I knew that. And you could read it as in he actually did know that already. Or he's pretending that he knew that because he doesn't want to seem like he doesn't know what he's talking about. So it it could go either way, but the information about the three courts is.

Is sprinkled so well. We get information from Michael as an aside during the party, not all at once, at points where it's important. and you get information from Thomas before they walk in, what to expect about how the Red Court conducts their operations. And then later he shouts, shoot in the belly. Without blood, they're easy to kill. And then you get information from Justine about how Red Court turns. Like, it's just

ex exposition comes exactly at the time you need it from the person that it makes most sense to come from at that moment and it's and it doesn't feel like it's shoved in there at all. It's so natural to put all the information in those spots and I I think it's just put in so expertly.

Brian (39:31)
Yeah, high quality lore, very well delivered, but I think your favorite makes sort of a great point of being in as far as I know, kinda unique in modern fantasy.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:44)
Yeah, how often do you see a really well-developed and interesting paladin? How often are they just carbon copies of the DD? I c I'm unbendable. I must always do what's right, lawful good character. And it's just so great to see the way that hair that Jim describes Michael as getting power.

From walking his own virtues, like walking the from backing up his principles with his actions so consistently that it gives him power. That is such a great definition of a paladin for your universe. I absolutely love it. Yes, the sword gives him some additional power, but from what we've been told.

It mostly just reduces the power of the enemy so they're on equal footing. The power that Michael gets is his own with a little boost from with a little help from the sword.

Brian (40:47)
Vampires don't burst into flames because Michael's holding the sword. Vampires burst into flames because of who Michael is.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (40:56)
Yes,

yes. It's so good. I love it so much. That's my favorite.

Brian (40:59)
And and the the

other thing I think we have to just note about that is that the Knights of the Cross are exceptional in being somehow a subversion of the Lawful Good Paladin while being a completely played straight version of the Lawful Good Paladin trope.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (41:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. He is that, but without being the inflexible, like stick in the mud archetype that we're used to. And man, it's just so good. I c I and the way he's bashful and like a little bit ashamed when the vampire bursts into flames by touching him and saying, It happens like that sometimes, sorry. It's so good. Okay, so we've gotta move on. We gotta do a

Bit of a Dresden check-in here. This is where we look at where is Harry at during this book, physically, mentally, magically, and interpersonally. We're just kind of doing qualitative exploration of his position here. We've got a quantitative exploration in a little bit when we're gonna take a look at some stats, but let's talk about the qualitative a aspect of this, Brian. Physically, he

Doesn't seem like he's changed his workout regimen yet, 'cause early on in this book he is huffing and puffing after Michael while climbing the fire stairs in Cook County Hospital. So I don't think he's done too much to change his physical regimen.

Brian (42:21)
No, Dresden certainly has not changed his game from a physical sense. But I think we can argue that maybe in a mental aspect he's leveled up. He seems stronger and more sure of himself when he hasn't been eaten by Kravos. And he's also willing to take on responsibility directly in a way that he didn't seem to be when it came to Kim Delaney. Dresden in Full Moon is.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (42:37)
Yeah.

Brian (42:48)
Is the kind of person that McFinn doesn't even bother asking because he's not the kind of guy who you'd expect to go out of his way to make sacrifices just to help you with your supernatural problem random person. But after that costs him someone, Harry becomes the kind of person where I guess, you know, it's Ghostbusters time because there's spirits, you know, kind of stirred up around Chicago.

Does he let the local Ectomancer Mort take care of it? Not that he can. No. Does he call it into the White Council? No. Harry's gonna do it himself with his allies in a way that in an earlier book, I don't think he would have felt the compulsion to do.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (43:29)
Right. He's not being paid for this. SI hasn't contracted him to it. Nobody came to him in his office and said, Hey, I got a problem with ghosts. He heard about this and decided to go out and do it, at least as far as we can tell. That's very different from how he gets pulled into all of the problems in the first two books.

but with the ghosts, it's a perfect example. He's been running around for weeks. Nobody's paying him to do this, but he still seems to think it's his job.

Brian (43:53)
Adam, what do you think about his magical

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (43:57)
Well, we definitely see that he's able to do a lot of what he was able to do in the previous books with like half his magic missing. So he definitely feels to me like he has gotten a bit of ⁓ magical weightlifting between the last book and this one. Maybe he's just s coming into his own and

He's just getting better at focus, like all the things that we know are happening in the background of the series overall, which explain why he can throw more fire around in later books than he can in earlier books, et cetera, et cetera. I think we get a kind of feeling like that's happening here because even if you don't look at the numbers, we've never seen him burn an entire house down before with the way that he does in this book.

The most we've seen him do is throw one big fireball at the Lugaroo that blasts him through a couple of buildings. Yes, that was impressive. But the columns of fire that are described in the party after having done all this other stuff while he's missing half his magic is very incredible. Plus all the stuff he does during the climax that we described, it feels beyond what he could have done in the previous two books.

Brian (45:08)
Yeah, definitely the Luguru in the police station is, you know, casting Scorching Ray as a seventh level spell. But whatever he's doing in that the house, in Bianca's mansion, you know, at the end of ⁓ the party, is not in the book. You know, we're going completely off script for that one in a way that r is really cool and feels almost like, wow, this guy's

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (45:25)
No.

Brian (45:33)
This guy might be something special. He appears to be breaking to a certain extent some of the rules he's actually established for this setting.

Harry seems to have taken a level up in efficiency.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (45:43)
Yeah, so we definitely see that, and we'll I think the stats bear it out. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But the last question that I have for you here, Brian, interpersonally, how's Harry doing? In the first book, we saw he had basically zero friends. He had Murphy as an as a sometimes acquaintance, and he kind of met the alphas in the second book, and he'll definitely b build a stronger bond with them in the future, but

Those are kind of the only two people aside from Susan that he's had in his life. What happens in this book? Where does he go from here? Let's check in with him interpersonally.

Brian (46:19)
Man, you really feel like in this book Jim has truly decided he wants to torture Because unlike the last two books, he goes out of his way to show us a person who is really coming into his own in his new home. He's got a friend who's kind of a work partner in Michael, you know, where he's, you know, doing stuff to sort of progress shared interests.

And you know, he's got a new ally in Father Forthill, and he's got all this respect from SI, and you know, his friend is asking him when you gonna settle down with that nice girl you've been hanging out with and by the end of it.

We go into a screwed up, highly traumatized depression that I mean, I'm gonna put you on the spot, Adam. When does Harry get out of it?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (47:06)
I wanna say that he's gotten over it to some degree after summer night, but honestly, I think it might be death masks when he re meets Susan, secret agent Susan of the of Saint Giles, and at least sees that she's doing well and gets to have a conversation with her that's longer than two minutes.

And he gets a bit of closure on that relationship. And I feel like that's really in early summer night, he's going out of his way, obsessing over trying to fix it. By the time we get to death masks, he's finally accepted that it's over and he can't change that. so I think that's probably when he comes out of it.

Brian (47:47)
So I agree that that's a plausible interpretation, but I wanna offer you an alternative. Don't hate me, 'cause I think this might be right.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (47:56)
I think I know where you're going with this.

Brian (47:58)
Cold days.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (47:59)
Wow.

Brian (47:59)
Because Dresden literally kills himself.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:03)
Yeah, ⁓ okay.

Brian (48:05)
I mean

he is in a guilt depression spiral that literally ends with over the same woman, him killing himself ten years later.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:14)
Certainly using the knife in changes exacerbates that to some degree. I just don't think that this

obsession that he's gonna go into, this guilt that he's gonna go into about Susan becoming and turning, is the major role of why he chose to, you know, call put in the hit on himself. I just buy into the fact that he really honestly was trying to split the difference here of I need the power of a monster to save my daughter, but I don't want to be the monster that she grows up with.

Brian (48:37)
Sure.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:50)
And this is the only solution I see. And of course there's a fallen angel whispering in his ear. So that pushes him in that direction. I just don't know how much of that decision is being fueled by the guilt from this book.

Brian (49:03)
Here's the thing though, and this is my counter argument. Harry in Summer Night is a mess. And yeah, by the end of Summer Night, he's begun to act like a human being again, as opposed to, you know, some sort of underground goblin creature. But that doesn't mean that he's cool. And death masks, torture and death, blood rights, maiming, deadbeat.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:17)
Ha ha ha.

Brian (49:27)
near death, undescribable horrors. Right. Proven guilty, maybe, arguably, that's like a nice day at the office for him. But then I think that Lara's words are pretty prescient in I think White Knight, where she realizes that Dresden hasn't slept with anybody since Susan. And she's just like

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:35)
Ha ha ha.

Hmm.

Brian (49:52)
Dude.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:53)
Yeah.

That's one way to put it. Yeah.

Brian (49:57)
And you know, the fact that he is for like a decade pretty much celibate is even given the life that he leads.

not

Susan's turning that leads to him killing himself ten years later in changes. But what I'm saying is the depression that he gets into in this book, like the mental illness depression, colors his thinking twelve at the end of cold days, he is able to look at Murphy and see hope for the future.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (50:13)
No.

Okay, yeah, I could buy that. I I s if you put it that way, I get it. All right. So let's move on to major themes in this book. ⁓ and ⁓ specifically the the kind of the one that I identified that feels it feels like this book might be operating on the same energy as the movie Signs.

In that movie, aliens are invading and everything seems to be going to hell. But then like there's a Dezex Machina in like the last 20 minutes where it becomes very clear that everything that seems to have gone wrong was happening for a reason to allow this particular moment to help save the day or whatever. And it it was very much a it was a very disappointing ending to me personally. But a lot of this book feels like it's operating on that sense.

A little bit, and it feels right that this is the book where Michael and the sword and the concept of fringe benefits of being a knight of the cross is that things that can go well for you will go well for you, even if it seems like they're going badly. So just as an example, Harry fails to sell Susan that he loves her, and that is obviously seen as a failure, as a weakness, as a problem for him.

But consider if he had been a better person, if Michael had convinced him, you really need to tell that girl how you feel, and he'd gone to her a couple weeks earlier and said, you know, I I d I I hadn't said this enough and I should have. I love you, Susan, right? The shock of that of saying that in the laundry room at that moment is what breaks down the walls.

And gets her to come back to herself. If that's not a shocking statement because it's not the first time he's said that, then maybe she doesn't come back to herself.

And that kind of felt like a through line to me. And because Michael.

is in this book, I thought maybe it was intentional.

Brian (52:27)
Definitely think it's intentional. And I think that a lot of people we'll talk about this more in the future, but I've heard a lot of gripes about the fact that, you know, I liked this book so much more before the whole chosen one thing came into it with the the idea of being starborn. But what this all feels to me, the thing you're talking about, because I do feel it, is it feels like prophecy governs this world. And Jim is not shy about it. He puts Cassandra

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (52:48)
Hm.

Brian (52:54)
The oracle from the oldest story in the Western world, right? The Odyssey and the Iliad, he puts Cassandra in this story to make prophecies of doom. If this is a world in which prophecy is a thing, then there are certain instances where our heroes don't have control over whether something is going to happen. All they have control over

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (52:58)
Hmm.

Brian (53:19)
is how it's going to happen. And this everything happens for a reason feel that we get here might be the conflict between these, individuals attempting to resist the consequences of the, you know, plots and machinations of not just the villains in the story, but the wider meta villains from Beyond Time and Space.

And they're not able to do that. There is going to be a war with the Red Court. But because they are good and true and right, they're able to just nudge things so that they happen in a way is less bad. And all of the tragedy that they endure, because they are good people who are trying to be good, is in service of making things less bad. I think that that's something that Jim kind of believes in.

And I think you're right, he's signaling to us here that he's, creating a series in which there's an external force, some kind of, conservation of history in prophecy that is to a certain extent governing at least some events, and that's why it's so interesting that he chooses this book.

To kick off through lines and drop MacGuffins and connect characters that pay off not just years and years and books and books down the line, but that are still potentially hanging. I think we've gotta discuss something that we talked about a lot during the shows one last time. Bianca's party.

this book kicks off major through lines to ideas and plots and characters that we still haven't put a coda on. So, Adam, these are all important questions.

And they mostly pertain to Bianca's party. Let's just start with like the headline item. Why is Bianca ultimately having this party in your mind?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:13)
Yeah, so we talked about everybody's motivation at the party, I think in like episode two or three of this, and we came up with a lot of different ideas for speculation on why these things are, because we do kind of have a stated motivation for some of these in the book, but we've learned so much more since this book about the things happening behind the scenes with the black court and the circle and

Cowell and Kumori and all this other stuff that we have to go back and assume there might be more going on than what is obvious on your first read of this book. So that having been said, I personally feel that Bianca's motivations are fairly straightforward and not super deep in this book. I think she is in this to get vengeance on Dresden and has ambition to climb the ladder.

inside the Red Court. She specifically describes that, I think, when Harry goes up to get his present, that she wanted to thank him because with without his her quest for vengeance against him, she never would have had the ambition to get as far as she's gotten. And that feels really true to me. Whether she is being used or is using the greater powers for her own reasons, or maybe both at the same time.

I don't think she's in it for any deeper, bigger concerns. What about you?

Brian (56:35)
So I I wanna emphasize that the reason why, and I'll I'll we'll lay it out for you, here's some but you know, inside baseball stuff, guys, I pushed Adam to do this segment because I wanted us to go on record about what we think, you know, now after the publication of Outlaw are the truths about this party. And the reason why I want to do that is because I think it's important for us to track what the fandom thinks about things like this as we get new evidence.

So that we can kind of look back and see how skillfully Jim was able to create and pay off the mysteries he lays out. So when I disagree with Adam here a little bit, it's not because I think that his interpretation is unsupported by textual evidence. I think it's incredibly supported by textual evidence. I think it makes perfect sense. It's just not my bet on what's going on. I think that Bianca is having this.

party because she is now a junior member of the circle. This I think is our first encounter with the Black Council, the Circle. I don't think that's disputable. Our first direct encounter, I should say.

And I think that Bianca is a knowing agent of an organization that she is aware includes both higher-ups in the Red Court, like Paulo Ortega, and people who are not Red Court vampires at all, like her servants at the party, Calvin Kumori. So I think that Bianca, yeah.

It's she wants to get revenge on Dresden. She wants to do a lot of things. This is benefiting her in many ways. But she's ultimately having this party because she's under orders to have this party to further the agenda of the conspiracy, which right now is to start a war between the Council and the Red City.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:21)
Alright, so we disagree a little bit there, but now Brian, what about Mavra? What's her deal here?

Brian (58:27)
So I'm gonna keep playing the same tune. I think Drakul has ordered Mavra to be a double agent. Mavra is a member of the Black Council, the Circle, as far as they're concerned. That's why in Deadbeat she knows about Der Lee Der Earl King and the word of Kamler. Because Mavra is getting the same information Kowl is. But

Mavra isn't really on that team. And that's part of the reason why she cuts bait and runs and doesn't make sure everything goes according to plan on the next day. it's also part of the reason why Drakul is doing things like trying to save Harry at the end of twelve months.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (59:12)
Yeah, I I think I disagree a little bit about her primary motivation here. I think you make some good points. I don't necessarily disagree with the likelihood of those, but I think it's a little more likely that

Mavra might be here to schmooze with the circle, get some intelligence gathering, as you mentioned, sort of become a double agent or whatever. But I think she's also here because whenever we see Drakul he seems to be planning for whatever the conjunction is, whatever the big starborn cycle his main goal seems to be wrapped around that. So maybe he knows already, as of Grave Peril, that Harry.

is one of the potential starborn that is going to be dealing with whatever happens during the Starborn cycle. And he's sending Mavra to Chicago to see how this wizard responds. ⁓ Bianca is gonna try an attempted assassination on this starborn. Let's see if he's worth paying attention to. Mavra's like, ⁓ I'll help. I'll train you in the in the necromantic arts or whatever it is that she's that she helps. And so I think that's part of her main goal here.

Brian (1:00:14)
And you know, that really grew on me when I considered the fact that, assuming this is a black council operation, they should already know that Harry's a starborn. Justin Dumorne, the guy who raised him, was presumably an agent of Cowl So they already know this. It's not a surprise to them. If Mavra didn't know before she came out of Chicago, she sure as hell probably found out while she was there, which might be why she makes it a point to directly interact with Dresden, even though, you know, like

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:23)
Hmm.

Brian (1:00:42)
Why does she care about him in particular otherwise? But that leads to I think another question, Adam. Kravos literally kills himself to be a part of the sort of smaller conspiracy about stirring up the ghosts.

Why does he do that?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:57)
Yeah, I think almost certainly Kravos is just doing this out of vengeance and maybe even self-preservation because he sees this as a way to dodge prison time, essentially. We speculated that he was promised some way to come back from being a ghost, a la Corpse Taker, but he's also never demonstrated as like

Brian (1:01:10)
Sure.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:01:21)
A really high IQ individual or somebody who thinks multiple steps ahead. So I think of all the characters we're talking about here, his motivation is probably the most straightforward, the most simple. It's just straight up vengeance and ambition and a promised resurrection outside the prison walls.

Brian (1:01:40)
Yeah, I mean Adam, over the course of doing this reread with you, you really convinced me that Kravos is a patsy, like is an idiot in a way that like I didn't really pick up on as keenly.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:01:51)
Harry's Harry says it multiple

times, but he's also, you know, talked down to other bad guys in the past, but he really seems to feel like he's so superior to Kravos here. And Kravos not realizing what Harry's doing in the ghost scene where Harry's ghost shows up, and his cliched villain dialogue. It just sounds like somebody, you know, doth protesting too much to be a super villain, essentially.

Brian (1:02:02)
Yeah.

Right.

and I think that that really made me believe that he is stupid enough to think that becoming a ghost is kind of a get out of jail free card. But I think even he would need the carrot of and it's only temporary, don't worry, for him to go along with that plan willingly, as he seems to be doing. And I really think it's important to notice that okay, they're stirring up the ghosts

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:34)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:02:45)
Like in Deadbeat, how the ghosts are stirred up to make the veil thinner so that they can do the dark halo. And Kravos maybe is trying to possess somebody like Lydia so that he can come back. Kind of like the way that Corpseer wants to possess a minor talent, Mort, so that she can come back in Ghost Story. And those Yeah, those parallels I think are are very

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:06)
Yeah, there are some definite parallels there for sure.

Brian (1:03:11)
very important in signaling the axis along which Bianca's party runs, which brings up another question. Why is Ortega there?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:21)
Yeah, this one's much harder to really pin down. We don't see we don't interact a ton with Ortega between now and him getting flattened by a satellite in death masks. So I think he's there just to support the Red Court conspiracy. That's that seems to be the most likely to me, which is like s get this war started and, you know, maybe eventually replace the Red King because he's become crazy and weak or whatever.

Brian (1:03:49)
Yeah, and I think that it's really sort of useful to realize that Ortega is not there for the reasons that Bianca sort of states. in part because he doesn't seem to do very much to prevent Bianca from dying. And Right.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:04:02)
Right. She might very well believe that's why he's

there, but his actions suggest otherwise.

Brian (1:04:09)
Yes, he seems to be more interested in starting the war, which is also why when the war is going on and he says, Dresden, you and I can have this duel and it will end the war in this way, that is that's not really what Ortega's trying to do. If Ortega wins by cheating, which he's prepared to do, is that gonna end the war? Absolutely not. So

I think it's pretty open and shut if you believe as we do that Cowl and Kumori are Elaine Mallory and Simon Petrovic. That the idea that we're gonna start a war between the Council and the Red Court is already in motion at the time of Bianca's port party, and Ortega's actions signal that he's pretty much there just to maximize the chances.

That the party can lead.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:02)
Yeah, I'm not a hundred percent on board with Elaine being Kamori. I think it's a strong hypothesis, but it's not my favorite one. But if we had to s kind of guess why Kamori is there, I think the most likely answer is because Cowl is there. I think Kamori is essentially acting the part of Apprentice here sh because what we see in Deadbeat is she seems to have her own motivations for why she wants necromantic magic that don't

Brian (1:05:17)
Definitely.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:31)
necessarily align with Cowell's goals. He's gonna use her and she's gonna use him and then maybe they go their separate ways because we don't see her again the few times that we see Cowell in the future.

Brian (1:05:41)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's well, let me take one step back.

We don't see them together in the future if Kumori isn't Elaine. If Kumori r is Elaine, then there's it's a little more complicated. Yeah. But ⁓ I think what's interesting is that the other Cal theories I think kind of have to stretch to explain why Cal feels like he needs to be at the party.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:53)
Well, sure.

They're both in the same book a couple of times. Yeah, okay.

Brian (1:06:10)
It doesn't really make a a lot of sense to me that like time traveling Harry Dresden feels like he needs to be at this party. And like, how is he even doing that without Bianca, thinking this is all a trick or something? And, you know, all of these other potential theories, it it just doesn't make sense that he's there, that he wants to be there, unless this is somebody who needs the war to start so that he can fake his own death.

So when the conjunction happens, nobody sees him coming. And Petrovich is only mentioned in the books, the next book we're gonna talk about, Summer Night, Archangel, which only occurs because the war starts.

In grave peril when it does. Nobody else has as strong of a motivation to do it. And as the council's Red Court vampire expert, arguably, no one no wizard has as strong of a chance at making inroads with the Red Court to be in this kind of position.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:14)
Yeah, that's probably the best case scenario for why Cowell and Kumori are there. That's our best bet on those.

Brian (1:07:21)
And there's a couple other open questions, you know, why are Leah and Faroux there? And I don't think we that's as important for us to pin down as much. But one thing I think we do need to pin down is the gifts at the party. Do is there any calls we wanna make now, having gone over grave peril about what we're gonna see in the future with these gifts? And Adam, you really put me on to sort of the the pulp

level that Faravax's briefcase is just called out as, hey guys, here's a MacGuffin. Right? So Right. So it's i like exactly this is a glowing box that everybody's gonna chase. So I'm I'm gonna give it to you. Are we gonna see it again?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:51)
Yeah, we're not gonna show you what it is. It's just a thing that will maybe come back later.

Well, we know with meta knowledge that Jim has said he's got like a dragon book, which might also be the kaiju book that he's been talking about. And if that's the case, then yeah, we might see it again. I think he wants to use each of these gifts at some point before the series is over. Now, I think two of them were already used in this book, right? Amarakius as a gift from Mavra.

was pretty much just a plot MacGuffin in this book and that is paid off. Amorakius is back in the hands of the good guys. Lydia got away. I don't think that any further events.

Brian (1:08:40)
Yes

Mavra has a MacGuffin. It's called the word of Kemler

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:08:45)
⁓ She doesn't need another one. Yes. And Thomas, his condo in Hawaii and one plane ticket, again, that's just sending a message to him at that moment. That has no real bearing on the rest of the book. He says it right before, you know, mirror mirror comes out, and it turns out that's the difference. Thomas took the one plane ticket and the mirror mirror first and it changed everything. but there are some that we see.

Brian (1:09:05)
Ha ha ha.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:09:11)
significantly in the future, like the headstone and his grave that comes along with it comes back up several times, but Brian, it's filled in at the end of Battleground. Do we ever see that grave again?

Brian (1:09:25)
I mean, we very well might see it. But I think you're right, it's kind of done in terms of being a a s a piece of symbolism the series needs to contend with. And I wonder if we know because it was filled in with all these people who died under Dresden's banner, if that's kind of a hint from Jim that actually Harry is gonna make it to the other side of this series. We're not gonna bury him.

In that grave.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:09:53)
Yeah, that's actually a really interesting point because as long as it's sitting there open, the symbolism of that is really strong. So that that's an important part of Battleground, I think, for get getting that little bit of catharsis and just taking that that Chekhov's grave off the table. But I think there's definitely one tool that we haven't seen the end of, and that's Morgana's Athame, that Leah trades Amorachius to get.

In this. And we've seen it come back. We know that it infects Leah with Nemesis, he who walks beside. We know that it probably helped infect Aurora and or Mave with Nemesis, or maybe ⁓ that was done directly from Leah. But we also know that it was cleansed, and Mab is now using it to ⁓ extract Nemesis from

those that it has infected because we get confirmation in twelve months that Morgana's Atheme is Medea's bodkin that has been mentioned a couple of times. Brian, I think in changes,

Brian (1:11:03)
Yeah, so in Changes, the knife that Harry uses to kill Lloyd Slate and become the Winter Knight is called Medea's Bodkin. And at the time, I don't remember exactly why, but when I read it, I just assumed that was Morgana's Athame. But in actuality, we did not get confirmation, you're right, until twelve months.

That they are one and the same. And I think we were originally going to talk about this earlier and kind of had to pull most of the content because I was like, my god, no, we don't even know that. You're right. ⁓ but it turned out that Jim wasn't describing two different knives. And that's crazy. That's crazy because Medea is

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:11:42)
Yeah.

Brian (1:11:47)
not only a figure in the story of the Argonauts, who is the wife of Jason, who after being spurned, murders all of her children. She is also

as ⁓ was mentioned in the chat today by Woolgreath,

Medea is also a high priestess of Hecate, which is crazy, because if Hecate was instrumental in the creation of the fairy courts, which occurred during the time of Arthurian lore, and Medea's bodkin, the ritual dagger of the high priestess of Hecate, potentially contaminated by the

you know, horrifying sin of child murder that it was used to commit, was then taken up by Morgana LaFay, the in Thomas Mallory's version of the Arthurian Legendarian, dark witch or necromancer, who is a foe of Merlin.

Well that explains why it's an important ritual object now, doesn't it?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:12:49)
Yeah. Two very po potent and important mythological figures using it in very powerful r rituals definitely make it a very powerful ritual knife. And now, of course, Mab has been using it in these potent rituals, most recently of which is ⁓ that we've seen is in twelve months when she's ⁓ basically claiming she's gonna use it to pull Nemesis out of Justine and

contain it within where the other piece, the one that was in Leah, is already in there. So that's a very important piece. And I have to imagine we'll see it again. Brian, when will we see this knife again? Is it just gonna be in the context of gathering up Nemesis?

Brian (1:13:32)
Yeah, I mean it does seem to be a little bit of the Ghostbusters proton packs for walkers of the outside, right? Just, you know, sort of siphon them in, lock away in the the the vault, so to speak. think

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:13:44)
actually

that's an interesting comparison because what happens to the vault in Ghostbusters? It gets opened again.

Brian (1:13:51)
Well, that's part of where I was going with this, because of course we know that there's gonna be a big apocalyptic trilogy. So I assume that any time we see Nemesis defeated, we will also see Medea's Bodkin, Morganus Athame. But I bet ya if we ever see Nemesis victorious, we're also gonna see Medea's Bodkin, Morgana's Athame. And I bet ya

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:14:13)
Yeah.

Brian (1:14:15)
that if Mab ever breaks her word or we ever need a new winter queen, it's going to be because she was killed with that very knife, which was maybe once again turned against its wielder.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:14:33)
Yeah, it's it seems like it would be Good symmetry there.

Alright, that's a lot of heavy discussion. Let's jump into something fun now, Brian. We got some stats. yeah. I'm pulling up the Excel spreadsheet that I've put together for

Brian (1:14:47)
You know, Adam, that's

what I love about this podcast. When we're ready to have fun, what do we break out? The Excel spreadsheet. And let me tell you, I'm here for it because there's a lot of magic going in the spell use spreadsheet from this book.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:15:02)
Yeah, there's some really cool things that are revealed when you try to track all this detail. As we mentioned earlier, Harry seems to be doing more magic in this book. It's actually not that much more. The total number of spells that I counted in Stormfront was 29, 22 in full moon.

And 33 in grave peril. So a small step up from Stormfront. But the concentration of spells is more specifically around combat and evocation. like Vente Faro, where he uses it to shock Kyle's gun out of his hand or try to pull Amarakius from Mavra's hand.

Things like Fuego or the Flamethrower spell, which I guess is probably a variant of Fuego that he uses in the final confrontation. We get Pyro Fuego Pyro, the big fire spell in the middle, and of course we have the spell that he gets from Kravos, the Satharach Nakadoom that that cooks Kyle and Kelly. And we've got seven times using Venta Servitas, and he's got his first force ring used.

He's feeding the ghosts with huge amounts of power. In the middle of all this, he's also gone to the never never and back twice. So there's four aparturums, and he's performed two different kinds of exorcisms. So we really run the gamut here for a lot of different things. And some of those things in Stormfront were really simple, basic things like, using Toot Toot's true name or using circles twice to do various things. ⁓ in

He actually does a circle in this to trap and bind the spirit. And he does it again to defend himself when he's actually fighting against the nightmare. I'd forgotten both of those. So let's up that number to 35, shall we? So there's quite a bit more magic overall, and combat magic in particular, I think, in this book. And it's been very cool. And for those of you that didn't listen to all of our detailed discussions on this book, I know there are some people that like to hear the more general outline.

One of the really cool things that we identified when we were going through this book with regards to these statistics is this. Before Kravos eats Harry, he uses a bunch of Ventas Servitas, his favorite air spell, to do gusts of wind, to do various things. While Harry has been depowered after Kravos eats him and before Harry gets his mojo back.

Zero wind spells, no Ventas Servitas at all, but Kravos uses it once Murphy's office against Harry. And after Harry gets it back, when he eats Kravos and gets his magic back, he uses Ventas Servitas immediately, like three times. So it seems very clear to me that one of the things very specifically that Kravos did was

Eat Harry's air magic, specifically that spell. And he got it back eventually, and he really likes using it, but he didn't have it through most of the middle of the book.

Brian (1:18:11)
And it's incredible because not only does Harry stop using air magic, which has clearly been taken by Kravos, who uses it, Harry also feels and acts a little bit out of character. And what is air magic? It's a representation of the mind, rationality. It governs sort of your ability to use things like reason to banish, you know, the darkness.

And Harry kinda sucks at doing stuff like that for a big chunk of this book.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:18:43)
Yeah, he's way more afraid in the text rather than just trying to appear confident, like, I'm going up against a big monster gulp. We get that kind of internal monologue in plenty of the books, but in this one, it very clearly describes him trying to avoid letting them see that his hand is shaking or that his mind is panicking, thinking about what they did to him and things like that. So definitely a much

more fragile mind during that middle part of the book when he's missing that piece of himself.

Brian (1:19:15)
And I think it's also really important to notice that despite being depowered in that way, Harry, I think it's instructive to compare it to Full Moon because, like you said, there's so there's the the difference in the intensity of the spells is so much greater in Grave Peril that we, in our initial count, left off circles altogether, not even realizing we had counted them in Stormfront, because they're so minor compared to everything else Harry's doing here. If we compare it to Full Moon,

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

Brian (1:19:43)
Yes, this book is a day longer. But I'd say the average spell Harry throws around in this book is bigger than the average spell he throws around in Full Moon. Not by a lot, but it is bigger. And he throws around fifty percent more spells. And never once does he say, ⁓ I think I've permanently damaged my ability to use magic.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:20:06)
Like he does in full moon.

Brian (1:20:08)
Harry has

clearly, potentially because of all the ghost busting he's been doing with Michael, become much more efficient in his use of magic and can get a lot more bang for his buck than he could a year earlier.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:20:22)
Yeah, I mean out of those twenty two things that we counted in Full Moon, three of them is him listening, which may not actually even be magic necessarily. And then two of them are soul gazes, which don't appear in this book necessarily. So like those are minor magics that don't even really count as spells because they don't exert hit any

energy from him necessarily as far as we can tell. So yeah, it's it's a very interesting level up that you can clearly see in the amount of spells that he's using and the and like you said, the intensity. Now, as far as his magical gear and just the g the gadgets that he has, we do see some things for the first time. The sword cane makes its first appearance and I think it's almost his only appearance. I think we see it like one more time in the future.

we definitely only see the dead man's talisman just this one time as far as I can remember, and we I don't think ever see the ghost candle again. The ghost dust is referenced several times. For example, during Ghost Story, Harry finds out that Mort uses ghost dust in the paint of his study, so he has to he tries to walk through the wall and fails.

Brian (1:21:28)
Brilliant.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:21:32)
And we also see Harry grabbing the depleted uranium or or the ghost dust that has depleted uranium in it in order to bring into his the Leah's garden in changes to hide it from the federal investigators that are coming to search his house with a warrant. aside from that, I don't think we see much about the ghost dust again. He's also used all of his standard folk eye, podii, stupid correspondence course, ⁓ more than

more often than in previous books. Like he's using his shield bracelet, his blasting rod, and his staff, and he's using them more often than in previous books for the most part. Plus he was using the sword cane. He's used his pentacle to turn undead for the second time, I think. We kind of see that when he walks into the graveyard and he's holding it up to keep the spirits back. The only other time we saw him use it that way was against Bianca in the in Stormfront. And so we see his force ring really get used

It's I don't think it's the first time. I think he used it in Full Moon. but we do see it again here and ⁓ yeah, that's probably about it. What we don't see, Brian, is his weapon. We e i Bob references the fact that he has a new gun, but I don't think he ever carries it, much less uses it.

Brian (1:22:41)
It's very funny that he doesn't appear to bring his revolver to Bianca's mansion the second time he goes there through the Never Never to literally do like a rescue infiltration operation, you know, a la, you know, Tom Clancy's splinter cell or something. He's literally doing a stealth extraction mission, and he doesn't bring his gun. Very, very higher Dresson.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:23:04)
And he's magically

exhausted because he's been eaten by Kravo. So he's depowered magically. If there's any time you're gonna bring your physical backup weapon, this seems like the time to do it. The old I'm all out of spells, but I'm not out of shells moment could have been here. Now, in the end, would that revolver have changed everything anything when he walked right into the trap? Almost certainly not.

Brian (1:23:29)
Not even a little bit. And you know, that means he doesn't have to get another new gun, because Bianca sh assuredly would have thrown that one away. but I think that it's very interesting that Harry has all of these other magical pieces that we don't see later, even though he doesn't make any potions in this book, it seems like he's getting better at using long term gear.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:23:34)
That's true.

Brian (1:23:55)
I mean maybe he's always had the sword cane, but maybe he wasn't necessarily keeping up the spells on it as well in earlier books. And that's something that we will see again, so he evidently continues to keep up the spells on it from this point forward. So Dresden might not just be growing in his ability to throw around magic on a day-to-day basis, he also might be growing in terms of the amount of enchantments he can maintain on his gear simultaneously.

So in addition to all of that, Harry is actually now hanging his blasting rod from a cuff on his wrist. Brilliant, Harry. No more fumbling around between staff and blasting rod. You've at least got it at your fingertips at all times. Now he doesn't necessarily, you know, get the most out of this that he could, and later having a a way he can more easily carry it might be better, 'cause it appears that he moves

his holster sort of inside his coat in the future. But just the fact that Harry is no longer, you know, juggling when he's trying to do magic is an impressive ⁓ display of practical improvement that he wasn't doing at twenty five.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:25:01)
Yeah. So the next thing that we're doing, because Jim loves to torture Harry, we're trying to track just how much Harry is being

this is a very subjective list, but we're scoring each of the different injuries or or or pain that Harry is suffering, whether it's physical or psychological or psychic or whatever. We're scoring them on a three-point chart, right? One is a moderate. So

Maybe he gets thrown to the ground and he's gonna have some bruises. Two is pretty significant damage, like he's been smashed back against a wall or something. And three is really quite extreme. It's like he's got a broken back or a broken wrist or something significant. Or a melted hand, exactly. And four, four is like the worst injury of this category in the entire series, at least so far.

Brian (1:25:47)
Or a melted ham.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:25:58)
So that's the categorization that we're using. And then we're just adding up those totals within each category. So for example, he gets bruised a number of times, like five different times. He's like thrown into a wall or thrown on the ground, falls over, gets knocked down by Agatha Hagglethorn during that fight. I'm kind of calling that like overall four ones, more or less. That that they they add up to four ones. So we're gonna give that a four.

Right. And then he the fight with the nightmare is another couple of points just on the generalized bruising scale. Then he's like beaten by the red cord and strangled by a Kravos-possessed Lydia. So all of those things, I'm like giving them ones and twos or whatever, and adding it up to about a nine. And then when you look at like head impact, well, Lydia smashes his head in the floor a couple of times. I gave that a one, but like

The nightmare swinging him around by a leg and throwing him head first into a marble pillar to the point where he can't even stand. Brian, I think that's gotta be a three.

Brian (1:27:01)
Yeah, he should be dead. And I'm really glad that Jim has Leia magically heal him afterwards, because I would not have accepted any other way that he gets up and continues that fight. He should be DED, as Jim would say, dead. at the end of the literally swi I mean, presumably the nightmare swinging him pretty fast and hard, because it's like a, you know, demon ghost thing or whatever, and the you know

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:27:07)
Yes.

Brian (1:27:27)
Basic physics, the outside edge of the circle is traveling faster than the internal road. He probably smacks his face into marble at something like, you know, the as fast as you can swing the head of a baseball bat. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:27:30)
Ha ha ha.

he's

had those injuries before too. Yeah.

Brian (1:27:43)
Well, that's that's another thing, but he

absolutely shouldn't be getting up from that one, so I'm glad that Jim gave him the healing. Now that means that our overall Blunt Force trauma score is unlucky thirteen. One higher than full moon, which we got on Jim for beating him up too much. Adam, do you feel just as bad about this book?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:28:04)
No, not really. And to go over the other two categories. Wounds are things like scrapes, bl cuts, bullet holes, punctures, burns, blood loss, things like that. So I gave that a total of three because he does get, you know, punctured by the red cord. He gets some blood drunk and he gets a little bit of burns during the f during the actual thing. Not too bad. Just a collection of ones for the most part. And then the last category we have here is

Is exertion in general, both magical and physical. He does have the shield explode during the fight with Agatha that's had of sort of has a feedback against him where he almost collapses from trying to cast a normal wind spell after that. So he obviously exerted himself pretty hard there. He also has the the death curse at Bianca's, which almost certainly exerted

all of his magical energy, generally speaking. And then you have physical exhaustion. He didn't actually have a lot of that in this ch ⁓ Brian. He just had kind of like sitting down after fighting the barbed wire spell for a while because it made him cold. So overall got windowed running up the stairs. And all of that, yeah, him like a six, but he did die twice. I don't even know how to score that. So we're gonna have a death counter

Brian (1:29:05)
Got winded running up the stairs, yeah.

He did die, yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:29:17)
In this book he died twice. It doesn't count towards overall pain, but it's definitely up there. Now

Brian (1:29:23)
Yeah, we're

just keeping track of that because we wanna know when we get to changes, you know, how big of a deal was it really?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:29:29)
Exactly. Okay. So overall though, thirteen blunt force trauma score versus twelve in full moon and three in stormfront. Whereas for wounds, again, bullet holes, punctures, blood loss, three in grave peril, three in full moon, and only one in stormfront. Exertion was six for grave peril, three for full moon, and two for overall it's twenty-two, eighteen, and six.

For Grave Peril, Full Moon, Stormfront. So he definitely seems to have gotten beaten up a lot more. But to answer your original question, Brian, he's also got a lot more rest and recovery, including significant magical healing, also over a longer period of time. And for that reason, I think it doesn't bother me nearly as much. Not least of which because part of that magical healing is getting supercharged with his old magic and you know, just just

We know magic is life force, so that keeps him going when he otherwise might fall down.

Brian (1:30:28)
Yeah, and I think we've really kind of actually stumbled on what the line is. I'll be curious to see if this holds up. Because we were sort of talking about it before the show. Full moon is like three and a half, four days, something like that. This book is more like four and a half, five. And if you just sort of total up, and this is very unscientific, right? But if you subtract the, you know, damage we counted, if you take away from that the healing he gets, you're left with a

Damage minus healing of ten in full moon, damage minus healing of eleven in grave peril. But the fact that it's over an additional day, it's like Harry's picking up two points on our scale of injury per day, and that doesn't feel bad. But rule of threes, when he's getting three points per day, it feels like a lot.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:31:19)
Yeah. Now that doesn't factor in the psychological trauma, which

Brian (1:31:24)
wait,

b Adam, was there psychological trauma in this book?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:31:27)
little bit, yeah, actually

it turns out. now we're gonna see the effects of that mostly in future books. We do see a little bit of it happening here, but we totaled up eleven psychological trauma.

That includes things like self-inflicted trauma where he blames himself for what happened to Susan, the grief over losing Susan, because she leaves him at the end of this book and, you know, sends him cards and stuff, but it's not the same as having a relationship. And then you have

the psychic trauma that he deals with from fending off the damage from the barbed wire spell and more much more importantly, being eaten by the nightmare. And then you have the torture at the hands of the Red Court which went on for several hours, if we believe Justine. And that is gonna haunt him for quite a while to come.

Brian (1:32:19)
I sort of forced Adam to invent the category of four to describe what happens to Dresden in the hands of the Red Court in this book. Because it is the worst thing he suffers through in terms of, you know, yeah, nightmare, torture, panic attack, assault in the entire series. There's nothing else like it. And I think it's a big part of why in Summer Night he's not.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:32:34)
Torture, essentially.

Brian (1:32:46)
Bouncing back, yes, he's sad about Susan, but he's also been traumatized in a very new and thorough way, and it's very realistic that Jim does not allow him to recover from that immediately. And I think that also might have something to do with why, in addition to a myriad other reasons, Harry doesn't rush back into any relationships after he loses Susan.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:33:08)
Yeah, so to put it in c in context, We gave one for total psychological trauma in Stormfront. We gave three in Full Moon and eleven points in Grave Peril. And that's probably gonna be tough to beat for future books. Eleven might be the highest for quite a while until maybe we get to changes. we'll we'll we'll see when we get there.

But that's where we meet that's where we kind of ended there. We did invent a new category, poison slash infection, slash drugs, because he does take toadstool poisoning and he gets ⁓ some they're not negative effects of the vampire venom, since they make you feel so good, and he just kinda sits in his apartment feeling great for a while before the nightmare gets him. But it's still a lock it's still a loss of control, which probably has a part of Harry's head

You know, there's a buried part of him screaming inside of this pure pleasure, like just go with the flow man ⁓ element. So that's why I still kind of put it there under some kind of negative effect.

Brian (1:34:11)
And it's something that we should track because when it happens in the future, we're gonna want to keep track of it. So, you know, that might easily be beaten in another book, but you know, this is the first time Harry was effectively poisoned.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:34:22)
Yeah. All right. That brings us to the rankings. Specifically, Brian, one of my favorite categories, the best line in this book. Why don't you start us with the first contestant?

Brian (1:34:35)
Yeah, we are spoiled for choice in this book, Adam. Chapter one Can we go any faster? Michael drawled. It wasn't a complaint. It was just a question, calmly voiced.

Only if the wind gets behind us or we start going down a hill, I said.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:34:50)
Yeah, that one was great and it really does characterize both of these characters so well in such a little time because it's v it's very important that Michael is just stating a question. He's not complaining. That's not the kind of person he is. He just wants to know can you break the law a little more, Harry? We're still under the speed limit. All right, the next one here is

when Harry is again in chapter one talking to Michael and he's refusing to say I love you to Susan, and then Harry says, So what if I haven't? She knows. What's the big deal? Harry Dresden, Michael said, You of all people should know the power of words. ⁓ boy, Michael, that is a fantastic.

Rejoinder and Harry doesn't have a good comeback to that. I think he just moves on because he can't. He can't. He absolutely should know the power of words.

Brian (1:35:48)
Those are both just in chapter one. Then in chapter five, we get Harry hearing howling while they're fighting Agatha. Holy shit, I breathed hellhounds. Harry, Michael said sternly. You know I hate it when you swear. You're right. Sorry. Holy shit, I breathed Heck hounds.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:36:07)
It's so good. It's so good. it's one of the ones I see quoted in a lot of places.

Brian (1:36:12)
That's one that if it happened like in an episode of Critical Role or something, people would meme it forever into i oblivion. But what about the next one in chapter eight?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:36:19)
Yes.

yeah. This one is it's tough because it's so not important, but I still love it. It's like my own pet project. Harry is confronted by Kyle and Kelly with the invitation, and Kyle says, My sister hasn't eaten tonight, he explained. She's on a diet. Vampires on a diet? Susan murmured under her breath. Yeah, I said back soda voice. Make hers a blood light. Susan made a choking sound.

Makers of blood light is great. I I almost think the only reason she's on a diet is so Jim could make that joke.

Brian (1:36:50)
Bloodlight is very good, yes.

Given that Jim

said he was writing this at like three in the morning most of the time, a thousand percent. Also we have in chapter eighteen the very simple Harry rushing into the precinct to catch his doppelganger, the nightmare Harry Dresden. Which way did I go?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:37:03)
Yeah.

And it works. I love that. The sergeant just points up the stairs. He's like, you just went up there. It's so good. He doesn't have to come in and say, Hey, you did you see me come in here? I would've ⁓ it would've looked like me, but it was he just says, Which way did I go? Very straight and to the point, I need to go save Murphy. I don't have time for bullshit. This is where it is. All right. The next one here is chapter twenty one, where Harry is arriving at Graceland Cemetery. This is a more serious contemplative line.

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

Brian (1:38:10)
That's a real makes you think line. I mean, it does just get you looking at cemeteries when you go by them and being like, yeah. Jeez, there is a fence there. Really, really good. Mm-hmm. But there's also

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:38:21)
Never noticed that one before.

Brian (1:38:26)
Harry and Michael and Susan confronting Mavra, when Michael drops

Blood of the dragon, that old serpent, said Michael quietly, you and yours have no power here. Your threats are hollow, your words are empty of truth, 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 inside at me and at it, probably for my benefit.

Or before my friend Harry turns you into a greasy spot on the floor.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:39:00)
boy, I love that one so much, Brian, because it is a callback to a moment ago when Harry threatened to turn her into a greasy spot on the floor. His was a very like super basic lame like I'm gonna kill you threat. This is so much better. He's not just threatening her, he's describing her to death. It's so good.

Brian (1:39:24)
You know what this reminds me of, Adam? Because it's just so perfectly like evocative of a almost biblical language without being it's almost in my head a dead ringer for Ezekiel twenty five seventeen The path of the righteous man is beset upon all sides, the Samuel L. Jackson speech from

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:39:26)
What's that?

⁓ that old chestnut.

Brian (1:39:49)
pulp fiction, which isn't really in the Bible and is just what Jules says as a badass thing before he kills somebody. The funny thing is in that movie, uttering that verse over and over again is one of the things that triggers Jules to become a wandering paladin. So of course, what does somebody like Michael say? Well this isn't a made up Bible verse, but it sure as hell sounds like it could be.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:40:12)
Yeah. Now the next one happens right after the blood of the dragon quote. The hour is up.

The hour of socialization at the party is up, and Susan asks, What happens now? Laughter, gentle and mocking, quiet, hissing, thick with something wet and bubbling, came from all around us. When it comes to spooky laughter, it's tough to beat vampires. You're gonna have to trust me on this one. They know it well.

Brian (1:40:39)
We mentioned gallows humor earlier, Adam. That is the perfect example, because it conveys how screwed they are, very ominously, while also being funny.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:40:51)
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's Harry, you know, breaking the fourth wall like he does often because this is written as if it's his memoir, so he's talking to the person reading it. And the quiet intensity of the descriptions there and then going, Yeah, well, when it comes to spooky laughter, they know what they're talking about, right?

It's that that that sort of aside to the reader is a fun thing. I do like when he manages to pull that off at the right time so that it doesn't undercut the actual gravity of the situation too much.

Brian (1:41:22)
It manages to make it, if anything, more spooky. And then in chapter thirty nine we get the following line from Michael consoling Harry, who's having trouble sleeping in the wake of everything that happened at the party and after. And Michael says I'm not a philosopher, Harry. He said, But here's something for you to think about, at least. What goes around comes around. And sometimes you get what's coming around.

He paused for a moment, frowning faintly, pursing his lips. And sometimes you are what's coming around. You see what I mean? I did. I was able to get back to sleep.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:41:58)
Ooh, yeah, I love that line. And we're gonna reveal our favorites here. It's not gonna be this one. And it's partly because. If not for the fact that some really screwed up people could use this to justify just about anything. ⁓ I am just punishing you because I'm the punishment from God. well.

This is a great line that should make Harry feel better. A real moral person who cares about their choices and how those choices affect other people should take comfort in this concept, but it can be twisted and used in the other w in another way.

Brian (1:42:40)
Listen, this isn't the reason why it doesn't make my top of the list is because this is an old cliche. It is older than the form of the novel that sometimes you are the wrath of God. And you know the thing is, this isn't the best version of it. The best version of it is Genghis Khan naming himself the Scourge of God.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:42:52)
That's fair.

Yeah.

Brian (1:43:03)
But when I'm putting

you on a list with Genghis Khan's nicknames, you did a pretty good job executing a truck.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:43:08)
Yeah, overall. Alright, so we both talked about these and the one that we gave the ultimate crown to was Holy Shit Hellhounds. Holy shit, heck hounds. The that joke is just so good at the right time in the middle of that fight that they're doing okay at, but it's not super high stakes, so you can just c have that aside where they're bantering between. It's so good. Everybody remembers it because of how good it is. I see that one kind.

quoted probably more than almost anything out of this book because it is so memorable.

Brian (1:43:40)
Yeah, I mean the fact that Harry still blasphemes with the holy shit, but transfers the hell to heck, which is like the one thing that's not blasphemy actually, and therefore wouldn't bother Michael, Chef's Kiss. Now, Adam, that is an incredible line, and I cosign that being the best one of the book. My runner up is walls keep things out Walls around cemeteries keep things in.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:43:46)
Yes.

That is a suitably creepy line. And if it was it was either that one or the the the mocking, quiet laughter, both of those would like win the creepiest line of the book for sure. ⁓ but mine, my favorite runner up is definitely Blood of the Dragon, that old serpent. I just love the symmetry. It's like Michael must have thought about this for a while to have it come out so perfect. ⁓ I love it so much. All right.

Brian (1:44:19)
For sure.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:44:36)
That's the end of our favorite lines for this book. At some point, we're gonna have the best lines of each book go up against each other in a bracket and we'll ask the community to help us fill it out. That will be fun. aka.

Brian (1:44:47)
I think we'll do

that for March Madness twenty thirty.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:44:50)
Yeah. But

for now, we're gonna move on to best name in the book. This segment also known as I couldn't possibly refer to that thing as a plant monster. That'd be a laughing stock. Also known as, how are you gonna properly wail on a thing if you don't even have a name for it?

Brian (1:45:05)
And the winner here, by default, because there's only one name, but it's a good one, is the nightmare, the name for Kravos' ghost coined by Mort of all people.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:45:16)
Yeah. I think we're gonna see Harry do more naming.

In earlier books we even got him say naming like nicknaming somebody Fido because it was some goon that was just fetching stuff for him for one of the one of the antagonists. But in this one we really only get the nightmare, which is still way cooler than the than Fido. And we'll see him do Chlorophiend in the next book, which is gonna be great.

Brian (1:45:35)
I mean listen.

Yeah.

We already know what's a winning summer night. It's the trope namer. We don't have to, you know, even do that one on the next one, frankly.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:45:46)
Yeah, we might we might

we might find out that there's another couple in there that are worth talking about.

Brian (1:45:50)
And there probably will be because I agree with you that it does happen more and more as the series goes on, including

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:45:56)
Until we get to octocongs,

which might be the the ultimate

Brian (1:46:01)
I ⁓

of the kind of the meta winner though, because it's yeah. but I think it's important that we note that while the naming hasn't gotten more complicated, in this book, the Harry Relationship Web has gotten a lot more involved.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:46:03)
Yeah.

yeah. This one we finally stretched out the Excel spreadsheet a little bit. I had to add a whole bunch of of rows because we had a ton of new characters introduced into here. There are only five previously established major recurring characters that are in this book. Murphy, Susan, Bob, Rudolph, Bianca. All the other major characters in this are introduced in this book. Michael, Father Fordhill, Kravos, Leah, Charity, Mort.

Thomas, Mavra, Faravax, Ortega. Now, again, s go ahead.

Brian (1:46:49)
So if you're keeping score,

that's twice as many introduced characters as recurring ones, which should make the book feel like you can't keep track of anything. That's like a Game of Thrones book or something.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:47:03)
Yeah, you would think, but in it they've laid the groundwork well enough and Jim does such a fantastic job introducing a lot of these characters that spend so much time with us, like Michael, like Thomas, like Mort, that we really do just get what we need. He starts with an archetype

That you think you're familiar with, and he then allows it to breathe and really just introduces him to you in a natural way that fits.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:47:29)
Now, what we've been doing is tracking Harry's relationships on a seven-point scale, where a one

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:47:34)
is basically Harry's arch enemy, somebody who hates Dresden and is actively working to kill him. And then on the other side of the scale, a seven is somebody who's such a strong.

Ally of Harry that they will literally follow Harry into hell. Like that's the strongest version of an ally that we've got. Now, for the characters that we have previously met with, we gave them some previous scores. For example, Murphy, we started at a five in Stormfront, then we upgraded her to a six in Full Moon. Here she kind of stays a six, Brian.

Brian (1:48:09)
Yeah, we don't get a lot of FaceTime from Murphy in this book, and I think it's important for everybody to realize this is where they are at the end of the book. So, yeah, there's definitely a down point where Murphy sees Harry come into her office and attempt to, you know, put a mind whammy on her. But obviously she realizes by the end of the book that it wasn't Dresden, and, you know, it doesn't seem that their relationship is in any way damaged. Now, the next character we have to talk about is Susan, and

I think, Adam, we're giving Susan a grade that's not necessarily based off of where the book leaves her, but is more about when she last kind of appears in a major scene in the book where Harry is, you know, basically burning down the world to save her life, and that's a seven up from a six in the last book by far. Susan, over the course of these first three books.

Basically, you know, she was a six for the first two we had, but she essentially ticks up until the very end of Grave Peril where she refuses Harry's proposal, and we wanted to sort of keep our analysis of that to summer night.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:49:20)
Yeah, so we wound up pre-rating Susan for summer night down to a five because she basically cuts all contact with Harry for good reasons, and not because she dislikes him, but that means they don't have much of a relationship anymore at that point. So we did six six, ticked up to a seven because they both said I love you to each other in this, and they've clearly been growing closer together between the last two the between the last book and this one, and then

We have to take it back down to a five because of what happens at the end of this book and then she disappears for a book. So that's where we have ⁓ Susan ending up. Bob's relationship has been a flat five. He's basically Harry's ally, but not a super strong one. I think we're gonna see that increase as we go forward.

Brian (1:50:07)
Yeah, I think that might even tick up next book. You know, I haven't really looked ahead on it, but I wouldn't be surprised. Bob is very much talking head in this sort of mini arc of the series through Grave Peril, but he evolves into more of a character as the series continues. The other recurring character who guess is beginning to evolve to a certain extent is Rudolph, who in Full Moon we had as a four, essentially a frenemy. And

despite him saying some nasty things to Harry in in the first point we meet him in this book, we kept him there.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:50:39)
Yeah, because the last thing we see Rudolph say is he said something along the lines of Dresden, you'd better make sure the lieutenant is okay, or I'm gonna kill you. And I think Harry's response is, Kid, if I can't help Murphy, I'll let you. And paraphrasing. But like that shows to me, Rudolph is kinda starting to believe in Harry. He thinks Harry can actually help Murphy, and he wants him to. So

I don't think like you said, despite his hostile treatment when they go to pick him up to bring him over to Mickey's place, it seems like in that scene, Rudolph is starting to come around to him, so we gotta leave him around a four, which is neutral slash frenemy. We suspect that something may have happened to Rudolph off screen after that. Maybe the nightmare got him, or maybe something else happens between the books that turns him into a much stronger antagonist in the future.

Brian (1:51:35)
Yeah, and I think, you know, it's pot it's possible that it's already happened, and that's why he is so conflicted. He simultaneously has to disbelieve Harry, but also in a way believe him. But that reluctance to, you know, trust Dresden is gonna calcify, you know, over the next couple books as Rudolph gets deeper into whatever trouble he's in, or as he begins to get into that trouble. Now, someone who is a little bit ⁓ less ambiguous to place

is the last recurring character, ⁓ Bianca, who we put as a firm ally of Harry. No, she's a one. She's she's she's a one.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:52:08)
⁓ Yeah,

she was a one in Stormfront as a result of their interaction, and she's still a one, and she ends at a one. but the next one we're gonna talk about are introduced characters. So Michael shows up in this book, and I was trying to make the argument that Michael should probably start as a six in this book because there's a big stretch through the middle of it where it seems like he's unsure about his faith.

if it was properly placed in Harry after Harry loses Amarakius. But then Michael gets it back, crisis of faith is over, and he seems to have full confidence in Harry again. So it seems like it wobbles, like he shows up at a round of six, but I think by the end of this book, Brian, we gotta give him a seven.

Brian (1:52:58)
I agree, and my original case was that our definition for a seven is we'll follow Harry into hell itself. And Michael basically does that at Bianca's party without Amarakius, and then comes back for more, when they're passing through the never never. So he's, you know, absolutely willing to do that, but then you very cogently kind of made the point that, like, well, that's also kind of his job. And that's true. But then

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:53:12)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:53:24)
I think after some discussion we sort of just came to the conclusion that something that's definitely not in Michael's job description is naming his child after the people he helps. And that I think shows a level of esteem for Dresden that doesn't change the way that Michael treats him compared to other people. Michael is an incredibly fair person, but it just signals that the way he feels about Harry is

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:53:35)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:53:50)
even deeper than it would be for other people he would sacrifice himself for.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:53:55)
Yeah, and to be honest, it also feels to me like what we need to do is lay down that these are relationships at the end of the book, and definitely Michael ends at that seven for exactly the reason that you stated. So I think his as far as I can tell, his confidence is sort of brought back. Now, the next one on the list is a new introduced character, Father Fordhill. my argument is that he probably starts at a sees Dresden as an ally, but

isn't necessarily trust him all that much yet. He hasn't he hasn't known him long enough.

Brian (1:54:28)
Yeah, I think fun pub argument. Who's more helpful in this book, Father Forthill or Bob? You could go either way, which I think makes it make sense that they're at the same reason re rating. Another newly introduced character is Leonid Kravos, the nightmare, who again, firm ally of Harry Dr no, we rated him as a one also. He's he's a one.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:54:33)
Yeah.

Yeah,

definitely. No question there. So the next one on here is a little bit more ambiguous. It's Leah, the Lenanshi. She is well, she's an antagonist in this book, pretty clearly, but we also know she has motivations. But that knowledge is tied to future books. So if we're just rating her here in this book, Brian, I think we gotta lean her a little bit towards antagonists. I think she's gotta be a three.

Brian (1:55:11)
Yeah, it's hilarious because perfectly fitting her role as a she, as a duplicitous fairy trickster, seductress, and tempstress. The Lenanche is probably in Harry's mind at the end of this book a one.

Like, she's the biggest problem in his universe, with the exception of Susan, who he's trying to help. But in Leah's mind, Harry's probably a seven. She's like he is the only mortal maybe that she is sworn to protect potentially with her life. So it averages out to about four.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:55:48)
Yeah. we are we argued that, like, okay, knowing what you know in grave peril, she's probably a four-ish because she does technically help him, but maybe he should be a three in this, she should be a three in this book, but she would probably be clo much closer to a six outside of it. So yeah, that's kind of where we ended on that. We're giving her a four, she's kind of down the middle, in order to account for both of those things. Now, charity and mort both wound up as threes.

Because both of them kind of treat Harry like crap and it doesn't seem like they'd trust him very much or help him very much. I mean, he has to twist Mortimer's arm, ⁓ metaphorically speaking, in order to get him to help do something that Mort wants solved anyway, right? Mort doesn't dislike what Harry's doing. He seems to have respect for him, and yet he still has to twist his arm.

Brian (1:56:36)
Yeah, Mort, I think, is pretty clearly someone who sees Harry as an obstacle in this book. I think that's just literally true. So he qualifies as a three, even if under other circumstances he would be a four. Now, charity, you could, I think, argue, is a four. I don't really buy that Michael named their son without getting her okay. That just doesn't really seem like something Michael would do.

And that's the kind of thing that I think would, under any other circumstances, make a say frenemy, because she clearly has problems with Dresden, but also she acknowledges these like very good things about him. But I think that when you account for the lingering trauma from the graveyard scene, it makes sense that we put charity as a three here based on her later interactions, and I think that she probably sees Harry as more of an obstacle to her happiness.

than somebody who she just has a rocky relationship with.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:57:32)
Yeah. So next up is Thomas, who starts as a five. He sees Dresden as an ally. Now, maybe if we get more into his head in the future, we'll find out that he was more dedicated to helping Harry than it appears in this book. Obviously, at this time, he knows Harry's his brother. He probably wants to help him, but he's willing to sacrifice Harry's allies if that means getting himself and Harry and Justine out. That seems pretty clear. So he's

Definitely an ally, but not a super strong.

Brian (1:58:02)
Yeah, and I think that this is much like the Lenanche situation where Thomas probably is in his own mind a six, but is in Harry's mind a four. You know, Harry sees Thomas as somebody who he's gotta be wary of, but did help him out, except for when he was stabbing in the back during this, you know, ⁓ series of events, and Thomas sees Harry as somebody who he put a lot at risk to essentially save the life of. Next on the list is

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:58:13)
Hmm. Yeah.

Brian (1:58:30)
Is Mavra, and we discussed this a lot. I think ultimately we settled on putting Mavra at a three. Not because Mavra wouldn't, you know, kill Harry as soon as looking at him, but because that's how Mavra feels about literally everyone. And Dresden's simply not significant enough for her to really rate him as an enemy in this book. It's far more likely that Mavra is like a two towards Michael.

And a three to Dresden by association, because, you know, Michael is really, probably in her eyes, the bigger fish to fry. Now that is because we don't know if there's any background information that Mavra has on Dresden. Maybe it could come out that she is more of a two or even more of a four to him in this book, you know, we don't know. But as of right now, I think the safest thing to do is to say she sees him as an obstacle, but he's

Too insignificant to her to be an enemy.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:59:26)
Yes, well put. And speaking of insignificant, Farrovax definitely doesn't care about Harry. He's neutral, he's a four as far as Ferrovax is concerned. ⁓ are you talking about that mortal that mouthed off to me at the party a while back? What was his name? Jerry? Like, yeah. There's no way he he thinks of him as anything else.

Brian (1:59:43)
Yeah, exactly. Harry

Yes, Harry is not even significant enough to be annoying to Ferrovax. He was momentarily disruptive, and that's it. Ortega, on the other hand, I think is a little bit more interesting to rate. Because you could say that he sees Dresden as an enemy already by the end of this book, or maybe because Dresden gave him exactly what he wanted.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:59:57)
Yes, exactly. And go ahead.

Brian (2:00:13)
He really sees Harry as more of an obstacle he needs to work around, but somebody who is still able to kind of use than like a true enemy. And and I think we know enough about the Redcourt plot line to put Ortega as more of an antagonist than a personal enemy, even though the next time we see him, he is going to be trying to kill Harry.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:00:35)
Yeah, that's probably where I would put him to. Three sounds right there. It's we don't have a ton of information. Even what we do get in death masks is not a lot and could just be lies. We he he talks to Harry and then he gets smashed by a satellite after trying to cheat in the fight. So we don't get is a lot of motivation behind him. It's a lot of speculation there. Alright, so that's what we have for raiding Harry's relationships. We don't have a ton of data to go off of here, but if you look at

Harry's ⁓ relationships for people that are mostly considered allies within the total scope of the series. I've done a quick average over the course of the first few books. In Stormfront, the average is 4.8 because the people that are mostly his allies are mostly pretty his allies, right? So we got Karen, Susan, Bob, Carmichael, and Toot. They're either fours, fives, or sixes. In Full Moon, that jumps up to five point eight because we have Karen, Susan, Bob, Carmichael, and the Alphas.

Some of them have gotten upgrades at this point, but now in Grave Peril it's back down to a 4.9, mostly because there are just so many characters that are going to be future allies that at the moment are starting at threes or fours.

Brian (2:01:46)
Yeah, and that's with us putting Susan at a seven, even though that's probably not a fair reflection of where she ends the book, if we dropped her down to a five, it would be lower than where he was in Stormfront. And I think that mak

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:02:00)
And yet he seems

to have so much more support in this book, Brian.

Brian (2:02:03)
And I think that that makes sense because what he's dealt with is so much more traumatizing and alienating that even though there are more people who Harry can relate to, we're starting to see how hard it is for Harry to just like be on the same page as somebody like Mort. Like, necessarily when he has an interaction with somebody like Mort, it's going to be adversarial because they're not even gonna understand why he's so insistent about the things he's talking about.

Why is it even your business, Dresden? Harry starts getting that in this book, and he's gonna get it a lot moving forward.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:02:39)
Alright, so that's Harry's relationships. We've got three more quick things to talk about. We have our ranking. This is, by the way, slowly compiling the ultimate objective, correct, order, best book to worst book over the course of the series. Brian has his own list. I have my own list. And then we have a list that has been created by the community who's been answering the polls for us here. So Brian.

It looks like you had Stormfront then full moon in the past. Where did you stack Grave Peril in there?

Brian (2:03:12)
so I put Grave Peril ahead of Stormfront and and Full Moon in that I'm sorry, wait, wait, no wait, Adam, I'm sorry, I'm I'm reading the communities list. I'm reading the communities list. I put Grave Peril ⁓ ahead of Stormfront and Full Moon in that order.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:03:18)
You did. ⁓

What

a coincidence. I did too. And did you know? The community was unanimous on this point for the first time ever. They all, 21 different people, voted to put Grave Peril above both Stormfront and Full Moon. Now, as this list gets bigger, it's gonna be a heck of a lot harder to get that kind of unanimous answer because we're gonna have a bunch more places where these things can get slotted into. But for now

We all agree Grave Peril, then Stormfront, then Full Moon, in terms of book quality.

Brian (2:03:59)
Now, Adam, we also ranked the book's title, Where Did You Slot Grave Peril in relative to Stormfront and Full Moon?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:04:07)
Grave Peril is an excellent title because it is essentially describing what Harry is in in almost every book, but obviously in this book it has to do with ghosts. It takes place in a graveyard, so Grave is right there. It's so good. Stormfront, pretty good.

But it really only works on one or two levels. It feels to me like Grave Peril is just more flexible and just such a solid name that that A sounds more dramatic and interesting. It's a phrase that's more common, so it feels like it's more familiar than Stormfront or Full Moon, which isn't really a phrase that anybody ever says. So yeah, ⁓ I rated it above Stormfront and Full Moon.

Brian (2:04:52)
Yeah, I did the exact same rating in the exact same order because Grave Peril works on so many levels. First, the literal, this is a book about someone who is in grave peril. Harry Dresden might die at the end of this book, and he nearly does. Also, he's in peril because of things coming from beyond the grave. Ghosts and, you know, vampires and, you know, all sorts of what have you's that are dangerous from beyond the grave. Also, this is a book where

It's dangerous because of the stirred up things beyond the grave, right? The ghosts are not just a thing that puts Harry in peril, they're also the thing that ultimately kills Bianca. They're also the thing that they start the book fighting in a completely different, you know, sort of context. Also, Harry gets a grave, and he is in peril when he receives I mean, it just works on so many different levels, and it is, as you said, the most common phrase of all of the ones he's used.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:05:38)
Yes.

Brian (2:05:48)
So it's the punniest, it's the most common phrase, and like frankly, it's just cooler words. Who doesn't love a V sound? Like storm front, fine, full moon, not even fun to say, but grave peril rolls off the tongue.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:06:04)
Yeah, and so far we've been pretty much in lockstep with the community on all of these rankings, except the community when we did this for Full Moon actually did rate Full Moon higher than Stormfront. And I could see why that's the case. I I don't necessarily disagree with that. It's not my preference, but I get it.

Brian (2:06:22)
Yeah, Adam, I think you and I both sort of don't like ⁓ w the that askew rhyming or whatever it is. Like that's sort of an askew pun. If it was full moon, it would be a pun. Full moon isn't really a pun. It's also not really a phrase, so we don't love it. But Stormfront is almost abstract as a title, so it's just a reference to a random thing in the story. So I understand why they would put full moon ahead in that respect. Now another interesting thing that you did here, Adam, is you had the community rank.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:06:31)
Yeah.

Brian (2:06:52)
What the first book was that clicked with them, and we didn't give them a definition of click, but I think it was very significant that Grave Peril is ranked as the best book in the series. Stormfront, so far, second best in the so far rankings, full moon at the bottom. And while Stormfront was the book that the most people gave the answer of, you know, I clicked with the with the first book of the series, Grave Peril came in second.

And you included multiple options. Full Moon was like fifth behind book seven deadbeat.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:07:27)
Yeah, so Stormfront was the highest, about 32, 33% said Stormfront was the first one they clicked with, which really says, hey, I picked up this book and was like, Wizard Detective? Hell yeah, that sounds awesome. And I totally get that. I'm pretty sure I was like that when I picked up Stormfront, but I will tell you, when I was thinking clicked, I was thinking like the moment you were like, I need to devour the rest of this series. And for me,

That was like either the end of Grave Peril or the beginning of Summer Night, the council politics stuff. I remember really being fascinated by all of that and the jokes about Harry's Latin and stuff. So Summer Night was my answer, but I could re I was leaning towards Grave Peril as well. Because even though I enjoyed Stormfront and Full Moon, I remember just not being avaracious in like, I need to finish this series. Get me all the other books.

Brian (2:08:24)
You know, after I read Stormfront, I thought, what a great gimmick. He's a noir detective. But he's a wizard, like an actual D D. That's great. I'm totally gonna read these. And then I read Full Moon and I was like, okay, you know, that's yeah, you did the thing. And then I read Great Peril and I was like, ⁓ spicy, liked it. But Summer Night is when I went, my god, this author?

Has done his reading. There are just so many things in Summer Night where I'm like, man, like this guy it it it's sort of occasionally you listen to a a podcast and a host cites a fact that you know, and you know where they got that fact and how freaking obscure that is, and you're like, geez.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:09:14)
Yeah.

Brian (2:09:16)
Like this person, like that's my area of interest. They are clearly like doing their research. And Jim, you know, these first three books are awesome. Summernight was the first one for me where I was like, man, this guy knows stuff about comparative mythology and is creative with it in ways that just other authors that I've read who try to do similar things just can't manage on nearly the same scope.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:09:43)
And by the time you get to summer night, he's do he's making it look easy. I mean, just think of all the crazy stuff he has to introduce in summer night. He has to introduce the Queen of Air in Darkness. He has to introduce all of the White Council, essentially, including the politics of the senior council and the machinations of

Brian (2:09:47)
Mm-hmm.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:10:07)
LeFortier and how he's on the block with the Merlin, and Ebenezer needs to head that off with his friends, listen to it and Martha Liberty, and you get to meet them, and you have to understand their motivations. And all of that is just a pretext for this massive investigation into the winter and summer courts for the first time. And while you're learning all about all that stuff, you have to solve a murder.

At the same time. So it's insane just how much exposition has to happen in that book, and yet you never really feel overwhelmed, going like, God, this is like the seventh paragraph in a row about the lines of the kings of the such and such. You don't have to feel that. Everything comes when you want answers. It delivers those answers. It makes he he makes you want.

the exposition so that by the time you get to it you're like, Yes, give it to me. I need to f I need to know.

Brian (2:11:09)
And I'm really excited that we're doing that book next, because I think the thing that you can say about Grave Peril that really sets it apart from the first two books is that Jim has learned not only how to deliver a fun and thrilling climax, but how to really wrench at your heartstrings. And then it's summer night.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:11:26)
Mm.

Brian (2:11:28)
He keeps that up. He really makes you f like you might not be expecting that you're gonna keep feeling things the way you did in Grave Peril for this character. You do. And he's also like fully demonstrating a knowledge of like renaissance mythology surrounding fairies. Straight up Mab and Titania, like coming out of Shakespeare and like Spencer and you know, just like parachuting into this. And just stuff like the stone table appearing.

You know, naming i the fact that he names Mab Mab and then names Mave Mave as somebody who knows Celtic mythology, like not a lot, but a little bit, absolutely just made me say, my god, I can't believe this guy has read like the Cattle Raid of Cooley which is just what I assumed at the time that he knew Mave from

you know, that and he made the connection between Mab, sort of the English r you know, romantic fairy figure, and Maive, the the queen of Kanawh, who's probably a a former Irish goddess who's been dimmunitized into historical f like i it's just incredible the stuff that he's he's got going on in that's informing his world building. And the fact that while he's doing that, he actually, in a way that honestly echoes twelve months

makes you really feel like Jesus Christ. He actually like really understands depression is so impressive. I mean, I'm not trying to suck up to Jim Butcher so much. He's a great writer and these are like pop fiction, but he's very, very good at writing what he knows in a way that really leaves me feeling like I not only like this these characters

I feel like this author is in full command of exactly what he wants to evoke.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:13:19)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean at the end of Nope, you know what? We're about to roll right into an assessment of summer night at this point. I've gotta stop us there. We're definitely gonna talk about it a lot more. but at this point, I think we're gonna close it out. I wanted to make a quick thanks to Woolgreath and Stephanie for brainstorming with us during the live planning session here on YouTube. gave us some good

and some great ideas to talk about for this assessment. And we've got our question for Bob for our very first episode on Summer Night.

Brian (2:13:50)
Our first question for Bob for Summer Night One If Billy kills a human in wolf form, has he broken the first law of magic?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (2:13:59)
That's what we're asking you guys. If you have an idea of what of the answer to that question, send us an email, Mac at rnt.fm. See ya then.