Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
So Brian, I think you were the one that told me that The first book that Jim wrote after having gotten feedback from his audience was actually his fourth book, Summer Night, right?

Baloreilly (00:11)
I got that off Reddit actually, yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:13)
do you realize that we have followed in his footsteps?

Baloreilly (00:17)
How so?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:17)
Well, this is the fourth episode and it's the first episode we're making with feedback from people that have actually listened to the show.

Baloreilly (00:25)
mind blown actually. Yep. I

mean that's, you know, gotta do three practice rounds. We're just sticking with the theme of the series.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:41)
Welcome one, welcome all. I am Bridger and this is Recorded Neutral Territory, a Dresden Files chapter by chapter reread podcast.

this week we're examining chapters six and seven of Stormfront, but as always, the spoilers go all the way up through Battleground. I am Adam Ruzzo, and joining me as always is a visiting dewdrop fairy, it's Brian O'Reilly. Welcome, Brian.

Baloreilly (01:04)
Hi Adam, it's nice to be here. No, absolutely not. Quality's going up, we're making it better. Okay, so at beginning of chapter six, it's still day one. It's quite late, we don't know how late. Dresden's gonna take a long car trip out to Michigan, actually, so he's gonna be in the car for at least a little while. It's probably, you figure he leaves Max after dinner.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:07)
no, you're not gonna do that for the whole show, are you?

Baloreilly (01:28)
getting towards nine. We're not sure exactly. Dresden doesn't tell us. And we're going to Victor's house in this chapter because it's got nothing to do with the murders. Harry's been hired by Monica Sells to locate her missing husband. So these are two distinct cases at this point, and it seems like Dresden is just tackling the easier one first by going to the Sells house in Michigan.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:54)
Yep, absolutely, but before he goes there, he stops home and this is the first well, no, the second actual insinuation about the existence of Dresden's cat, Mister. The chapter starts with, Mister was nowhere to be seen when I got home, but I left food in his dish anyway. No further explanation. The only previous...

mention of Mr. was when in the previous chapter, Mack gave him a doggie bag and grunted Mr. Mr. is such a weird name for a cat. I'm having trouble remembering what I thought when I was reading this for the first time because this chapter obviously suggests that it's a pet.

a tiny little mystery for the audience, right? We've now had two references to them and there's no real explanation. And that little mini mystery within this much larger mystery, it's very tricky because you can drop those in as ways to get the audience to like just wanna keep reading, right? Often I would describe.

Dresden Files people as a page turner. Like you just want to find out what happens next. There's no point in the story where you can stop and go, all right, I'm relaxed. No, I always want to find out what's coming up next. But that can be done, overdone badly and make the audience and the reader frustrated again, see lost for a bad version of mystery done. But anyway, we're going to keep harping on that for the rest of the show.

Baloreilly (03:11)
Yeah,

I mean, especially this show, and when you brought that up to me, it was a little bit mind-blowing that he's never even mentioned that it's a cat before.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:20)
Yeah, chapter eight is when we first get to find out who Mr. Is, because he actually shows up and gives Dresden the quote unquote shoulder block of greeting.

Baloreilly (03:29)
Right, and it's really well done in that rereading with the information in your It stick out to you, it doesn't seem weird. He's not overly doing exposition pick up on that there's a, what is this mister thing?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:48)
Yeah, I think it just shows a level of confidence in his writing that he can leave this unspoken for two more chapters after mentioning it and not have the reader be confused and mad and want to put the book down.

Baloreilly (04:02)
And he does it just that simply. It's one paragraph we get of him at home, and then I went back out to my car. That's when we get the whole description of the drive. So Lakeshore Drive, the Lakeshore Drive he refers to, is a real road in Michigan, right around where he's saying.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:19)
Yep, and then he finds the Victor Cells place, he gives you a nice description of that, kind of wanders around, very purposefully tells you why he doesn't want to go inside, we'll get to that in a second, but what he does find is a small plastic film canister, the first important piece of information, though we don't know it at the time, underneath the deck of the Cells place. And from that point, he's still not doing any magic yet, he will in a moment, but at this point, he's still just using his detective skills.

Baloreilly (04:47)
It's really, in retrospect, so prescient of Jim to spend as much time describing what a film canister is as he does because, yeah, you know.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:56)
That's true! Kids

these days will not know what it is!

Baloreilly (05:01)
Yeah, it's really, I was reading

it and I was like, man, it's a good thing you said that because there's some teens who are reading this nowadays who are like, a what? Film canister? What are you even talking about? Exactly, exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:11)
You keep movies in it? What?

Baloreilly (05:14)
Of course, after we finish with Dresden's normal investigation of the house, Dresden begins a paranormal investigation.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:24)
Yeah, we finally get our first actual glimpse of real magic here, and it's circle magic, specifically summoning magic. And I believe that's our first passage here that you're gonna read for us.

Baloreilly (05:34)
Quote, I left the house behind me and walked out toward the lake. The night was breezy but clear and a bit cool. The tall old trees creaked and groaned beneath the wind. It was still early for the mosquitoes to be too bad. The moon was waxing toward full overhead with the occasional cloud slipping past her like a gauzy veil. It was a perfect night for catching fairies.

I swept an area of dirt not far from the lakeshore clear of leaves and sticks, and took the silver knife from the backpack. Using the handle, I drew a circle in the earth, then covered it with leaves and sticks again, marking the location of the circle's perimeter in my head. I was careful to focus in concentration on the circle, without letting any power slip into it and spoil the trap. Then, working carefully, I prepared the bait by setting out the little cup and bowl.

poured a thin bowlful of milk into the cup and daubed the bowlful of honey from the little plastic bear in my backpack. Then I tore a piece of bread from the loaf I had brought with me and pricked my thumb with a knife. In the silver light of the moon, a bit of dark blood welled up against the skin, and I touched it daintily to the underside of the coarse bread, letting it absorb the blood. Then I set the bread, bloody side down, on the tiny plate."

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:55)
All right, my first thought, maybe all of this little, the tea set and the blood and everything, everything must be required to do some kind of ritual. But really the only things necessary here are the blood and the circle. The rest is just set decoration to fool Toot Toot into coming in and sitting here or act more as an invitation.

I love that it was a perfect night for catching fairies because that's just a big sudden turn on everything that has happened so far, which is all expressly, you know, hard-boiled detective fiction so far with a veneer of supernatural elements to it. This is the first time and that's a nice jarring moment of like, yes, finally we're going to find out more about this magic stuff that the book's been telling me about for five chapters so far.

Baloreilly (07:46)
And literally, in the prose, it's a jump Butcher makes it its own paragraph. And that draws your attention to the, wow, okay, we're gonna do the magic stuff now. We know on the one hand that for ritual magic, very few things are actually required. Dresden summons Mab, not binds her, but summons her and changes, constructing the entire ritual in his head.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:53)
Yes.

Baloreilly (08:13)
So some of this is just making the ritual easier on Dresden. But it does seem like this is a take on the concept in Celtic mythology of offering bread and milk for the fairies. It's the reason that today you leave out milk and cookies for Santa Claus. It's the exact same notion. So the bait is probably necessary.

since Dresden, as we find out, will be using Toot's true name to summon him, but won't be commanding him with that name.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:48)
Right, if he did, then he would be violating the fourth law of magic, and we're gonna get into that in a minute, because Morgan's gonna show up to press that point.

Anyway, so we saw him setting up for the ritual. Then we get a piece here which we'll read that talks a little bit more about how magic works. Quote,

It does this by creating a sort of screen defined by the perimeter of the that keeps random magical energy from going past it, containing it within the circle so that it can be used. To make a circle, you draw it out on the ground or close hands with a bunch of people.

or walk about spreading incense or any number of other methods while focusing on your purpose in drawing it. Then you invest it with a spark of energy to close the circle and it's ready."

Baloreilly (09:49)
And Butcher has to tell us about circles here because Dresden is using one. But it's remarkable how consistent the magic circle depiction in Stormfront is with every other book. When he teaches Butters how to create a circle in Deadbeat, I feel like it's almost word for word the exact same thing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:09)
That's true, and what's more important in this book is that Dresden is explaining how the Circle works now so that he doesn't have to explain it as much later in the middle of his action scene when Harry is fighting the demon and he has to trap himself and Susan in the Circle to protect them from the demon. At this point, he's laid the foundation for how the Circle works and later he just has to explain, and by the way,

This prevents spiritual entities from crossing the circle. And so he spread out the explanations and it doesn't slow down the pacing of that element of the story. That might be why he came up with this particular scene in the first place, because it's a good writing trick to get us to know more about this in preparation for that later scene.

Baloreilly (10:57)
Yeah, I mean, that might be why he came up with the character of Toot-Toot in the first place, because nothing that Toot actually tells him about Victor being at the house is particularly unique to this interaction.

information that he gets from Toot, that there were multiple mortals in the area, is information that he could just as easily get from developing the film canister. We'll later find out. But Harry has gotten a lot of what Toot tells him through other sources. So it makes you wonder whether the whole genesis of that character that's been durable through however many books

however many short stories, was just a way to seed a magic circle theory because he didn't want to have to dump exposition in the climax.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:42)
Yep, so first he calls out Toot's name, then Toot arrives, inspects the trap, and then goes, it seems fine, and goes ahead and walks right into that trap. Now, I have been reexamining this in a new lens rereading it through this time. In the past, I'd always taken it at face value, which is Toot walks into the trap,

Harry springs the trap, Toot furiously goes, I fell for it again, no. And Toot is painted as a character that just has no real memory like a goldfish. Like he falls through this trap every time because he just doesn't remember. The more I think about it, the more this whole thing feels like a ritual interaction because even later,

Toot specifically says you could at least pretend to be afraid, Harry. He remembers Harry's name, right? I think that gives away the game. I think Toot remembers all of this. And when he at first protests and says, warn you mortal, release me now or you will feel the awful, terrible, irresistible right of my magic. At that point, he's just going through the motions of this ritual interaction that they have.

that results in an exchange of information for gifts. Harry is giving him something he can't normally get in the spirit world. And so he feels compelled to go through with the ritual that they started with. Cause I'm guessing that Harry did initially trap Toot just like this in their first or second or third interaction. Toot is continuing that ritual because it's part of who he is.

Baloreilly (13:23)
And I think that's not only correct, but hinted at through another mechanism. Harry makes, he carves, it says in the beginning of the chapter, this whole dinner set from Teakwood. He lays out the milk and the bread and the honey.

This is really old school, 17th century Scotland kind of behavior that's really honoring the little folk as if they're really there and a force that's important in your daily life. Toot probably gets a huge kick out of being able to threaten people with fairy magic, but he gets so few opportunities nowadays because no one, you know, tries to entrap the fae or bargain with them like this anymore.

it's a chance for him to sort of nostalgically relive things that he does remember being fun. And that's why he's annoyed that Ires not playing along. know, back in the day people used to quake in fear at this.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:20)
Yeah.

Baloreilly (14:22)
I also think we get Toot basically mentioning directly that that's how he's treating the And it's funny, because the first time you read it, it does seem like posturing, you know, very well. I have deigned to grant you a single request. You're trapped in a circle and you're six inches tall, buddy, you know, get over it. But Toot probably

he was going to be ensnared in the circle trap. And he did deign to trade that ensnaring for a small request of some nature.

So yeah, after he does the thrice said and done, he does talk about.

the fact that he would never try to nab Santa in a magic circle. And of course, what do we have in Deadbeat? He tries to nab the Earl King, as many people have mentioned, who is almost the exact equivalence to Santa in the other court or from another perspective. So after Dresden has made this bargain with Toot and releases him for the circle, he waits for a while, like a half hour.

walking around because he's so tired. So we have to be approaching midnight or something here. You Dresden's been up all day. He's literally falling asleep on his feet. And after we had get through the waiting, Toot comes back and What did you find out, Toot? Guess. I snorted. No. Oh, come on, just a little guess. I scowled, tired and irritated, tried not to let it show.

Toot couldn't help being what he was. Toot, it's late. You promised to tell me. No fun at all, he complained. No wonder you can't get a date unless someone wants something from you.

I blinked at him and he chortled in glee. Ha, I love it. We're watching you, Harry Dresden. Now that was disconcerting. I had a sudden image of a dozen fairy voyeurs, leaning around my apartment's windows and peering inside.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:23)
What do you think he means there? Is this just a playful thing of like, hey, the fairies watch everybody and we happen to also be watching you and I heard from someone who heard from someone Is it just something innocent like that or are there like people watching him for a reason? Do the Fae know something significant about him at this point?

Baloreilly (16:41)
So I think that both of those things are kind of simultaneously true. Harry is the equivalent for the Fae of a local celebrity because he's one of a handful of mortals in Chicago who actually interacts with them on any level. So I'm sure that they're not actually literally tracking him in packs at this point. I'm not sure if that, but I'd put my bet there. But it's the hot goss, you know, whenever...

Somebody sees Dresden doing something significant. that news makes the rounds.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:16)
Yep, that's probably true. Dresden is a strong, water-cooler celebrity talk for the Fae. I can definitely see that being the case. Okay, so then he Toot to actually spit it out. Toot says, Okay, Toot said, talked to Blue Blossom, who talked to Red Nose, who talked to Meggo Aspens, who said that Goldeneye said that he was riding the pizza car when it came here last night. Toot thrust out his chest proudly. Pizza car, I asked, bewildered.

Pizza! Toot cried, jubilant. Pizza, pizza, pizza! His wings fluttered again and I tried to blink the damn fairy dust out of my eyes before I started sneezing. Fairies like pizza? I asked. Harry! Toot said breathlessly. Haven't you ever had pizza before? Of course I have, I said. Toot looked wounded. And you didn't share? I sighed. Look.

Maybe I can bring you guys some pizza sometime soon to thank you for your help." Toot leapt about in glee, hopping from one fingertip to the other. Yes, yes, wait until I tell them! We'll see who laughs at Toot Toot next time! Unquote.

Baloreilly (18:22)
I'm like,

Adam, I literally had to mute because you're killing it on the tutut voice. was nearly, you had me laughing. Just beautiful. So I love this. I love that fairies love pizza because it makes so much sense. It's, I'm somebody who before I read the Dresden Files thought.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:28)
I'm just copying

Baloreilly (18:44)
a lot about the connections between modern folklore and current human behavior. That's something that I find just really interesting. And fairies liking pizza was just one of those perfect ideas that just is so whimsically good. Because what do you give fairies? You give them bread and milk and honey. You give them carbs and dairy fat and sweet. That's literally pizza. It's

carbs, the dough, the crust. It's cheese, obviously important to any good pizza is cheese and tomato sauce, the sweet element. I mean, it's just like, it's the best possible thing a writer could have had the fey like. It's just perfect.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:31)
Yeah, and it's so just everywhere in modern society. And again, we were talking about before, he probably can't just steal it, right? Because it's obvious that the Pixies love pizza so much that if they could just take it, they already, they would just destroy every pizza delivery service everywhere, right? So obviously there's something preventing them from doing that. So the fact that Harry's the first one to really figure this out in a modern context,

where pizza is just available for 10 bucks a pie and you can order a bunch of them and just have an army of little folk at your disposal, which he uses several times in the following books, is an incredibly useful thing that we come to suspect that Harry's the only one that figures this out. It's like knowing a true name for a very important demon or something that a wizard would keep that information really close and not tell anybody about it.

And it's such a small thing too. think later in either peace talks or battlegrounds, they're getting ready for the battle and Harry calls him up and does his thing when everybody's just like, how did you get them to do that?

Baloreilly (20:38)
Yeah, it's brilliant on that story logic level just...

The metaphor is just so perfect, right? The reason why you give the fay bread and milk and honey is because these things are fairly dear to you. you're somebody who eats porridge a lot of the time, know, stuff that's not as nice as, fresh baked bread. Honey sweeteners, they're expensive. Milk from a dairy cow is something that you can't always get in the era before artificial growth hormones. So you're giving them little bits

things that are very nice. And in modern times, pizza, which is way better than those things, right? The crust is fresh and hot and it's got all this texture to it and the recipe is more complicated and cheese is like milk but even better. But you can get it fresh, hot, right out of the oven so easily. When they joke that he's a drug dealer for tiny fairies, it's just that Sonya in Changes, it's just...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:42)
Yes.

Baloreilly (21:43)
So, it's just so good, it's so good. I can't get over how great he did in hitting on that. Fairies love pizza, they're addicted to it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:52)
Yes,

that idea has paid for itself so much in this series and there's so many great moments and Toot is such a great character. We can't get off on that tangent because we're gonna talk about him and everything else to do with the fairies and pizza a lot coming up. So let's move on. He learns that there were mortals sporting and that they needed pizza to regain their strength. And then of course we get.

Detective Dresden who figures out he says sporting, he doesn't mean that they were playing basketball out front. He means that there was relations going on in that house. And here's an interesting piece that is again,

very clever misdirection by Butcher. He's giving you all the information that will actually lead to solving this mystery. But Harry is misunderstanding its significance. Here he thinks, he caught, you know, Victor having sex with someone else, having an affair out here, and that's all this is. It's the most classic reason that a spouse goes to a private detective is, I think my husband or wife is cheating on me, and

This is just slotting it right into, oh yeah, this is more evidence that it's a classic one of those situations. And Harry is already trying to figure out how he's gonna tell Monica that that's what's going on. When, of course, we learn later orgies are specifically to power these bloodline curses that Victor Sells is sending out.

Baloreilly (23:22)
And we've talked about the difference between Watsonian and Doylist perspectives on the story without using those words before.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:30)
Why don't we do a quick definition

for those, for those people who are not familiar with the terms.

Baloreilly (23:33)
Right,

so Doylist is the authorial perspective. Why things are this way from the perspective of the story writer. And Watsonian, you know, Dr. Watson, is the in-universe perspective that the characters have. So obviously this is a classic Doylist detective narrative. There's two cases, but actually there are one case. Dresden Files do this a lot, but a lot of mystery stories do this a lot.

But I really love the attention that Butcher pays to making it make sense in character for Harry that, well of course these two cases aren't related. Why would he assume that? He's not drawing these connections because it would be somewhat ridiculous to, but it's not actually ridiculous that these things are happening at the same time because the motivating incident that makes Murphy call him is the same motivating incident that makes Monica

go to and he's the only person in Chicago that anybody knows about who would actually be able to shed light on the magic. So yes, Harry is treating this in a way that's totally logical for him, but it also makes sense within story why these things are related.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:49)
Yeah, and like I said, he's playing it straight with us, the reader. He's giving us the real information so that later when it's revealed how these things are connected, we don't look at that and go, come on, how could I have possibly figured that out? I mean, yes, obviously we're not intended to figure that out ahead of time, but when the mystery is revealed in a good mystery story, it's supposed to feel like the reader or the viewer could have figured it out.

because the clues were all there. If we were as good as Harry Dresden, if we were as, well, not Harry Dresden, if we were good as Pierrot or as Sherlock, then we could have figured it out from those clues put together. on, we have all of this great useful information for the mystery.

And now we're going to get some information about another mystery that was set up in chapter two, where Harry sort of mentions that he's under the doom of Damocles, and then it's just dropped.

Baloreilly (25:42)
And it's total whiplash. Because the last thing Harry says is that he's thinking about going to sleep. But then,

Perhaps 50 years old, his listless brown hair going gray in uneven patches. He wore a long black coat, a lot like mine but without the mantle. And his jacket and pants too were done in dark colors, charcoal and a deep blue. His shirt was a crisp white, pure, the color you usually only see with tuxedos. His eyes were gray, touched with crow's feet at the corners, and dangerous.

Moonlight glinted off those eyes in the same shade it did for the bright silver of the sword's blade. He began to walk deliberately toward me, speaking in a quiet voice as he did.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, irresponsible use of true names for summoning and binding others to your will violates the fourth law of magic. The man intoned, I remind you that you are under the doom of Damocles. No further violations of the laws will be tolerated. The sentence for further violation is death by the sword to be carried out at once. End quote.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:13)
That's the end of the chapter. I guarantee you there's no way I stopped at the end of this chapter reading it through the first time. There's no way, because how could you do it? It's such a great punctuation mark on the end of that. it's so good.

Baloreilly (27:15)
you

One of the best modern fiction fantasy lines introducing a character, introducing a story in this case, is the man in black ran across the desert and the gunslinger followed for the Stephen King's Dark Tower. And this has a very similar punch you in the face. There's a dude and a sword and it's on vibe. And it's so the whiplash that Butcher is capable of wielding.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:58)
Yes, we talked about

how he said it was a great night for calling out fairies or whatever. That is a nice little sudden tonal shift where, you know, before you're in Tective mode, suddenly you're in Magic mode. Here, I'm so tired, I'm gonna head home. And then the man with the naked sword in his hands appeared. Like, crap, he's tired and now this is happening? The stakes just keep ratcheting up.

Obviously the stakes in this book are much lower than what we see later, but in this little moment, it seemed like everything was done and then he shows up and the idea of just the naked sword in his hand was such a great detail. He could have said the man with the sword strap that is hip or the man carrying a sword, but the man with the naked sword is so visceral and like you can clearly see he's holding the sword ready to use it and that implication is built into those words and it's just so good.

Baloreilly (28:50)
And before we move on to chapter 7, that's something I also really appreciate about this. If you're from the Hemingway School of Writing, you hate adjectives. Adjectives are the enemy. Everything, all of the subtext should be able to be picked up by the reader from the just vibe of the story.

But here, using the word naked makes it so much more dangerous than if you just said the man with the drawn or the sword in his hands or whatever. Naked is the word that makes you most think about the that quizes up for chapter seven where we finally find exactly what the deal with the sword and the man wielding it is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:31)
a quick breath and had to work not to put it into a quasi-Latin phrase on the exhale, one that would set the man's body on fire and reduce him to a mound of ashes. I react badly to fear. I don't usually have a good sense to run and hide. I just try to smash whatever it is that's making me afraid. It's a primitive sort of thing, and one that I don't question too much.

but reflex-based murder seemed a tad extreme, so rather than setting him on fire, I nodded instead. Evening Morgan, you know as well as I do that those laws apply to mortals, not fairies, especially for something as trivial as I just did. And I didn't break the fourth law. He had the choice whether to take my deal or not."

Baloreilly (30:13)
there's

so much to unpack here already just from that little snippet. First, we were talking about earlier Dresden saying he reacts badly to fear.

One thing I want to throw out is, does he react badly to fear? Because here, he keeps his head, he remains cool. Dresden's judgment of his own interior reactions in contrast to his expressed stoicism is something that is a continued theme throughout the series. And Harry always judges himself very harshly because he's prone to not thinking that other people have the same dichotomy, something that actually causes him to underestimate Morgan in this chapter.

Beyond that, we've just heard about fourth law. It's not defined yet. It's easy to forget when you're doing the reread that we don't even know if Dresden's right at this point. We don't even know what the law's basically about.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:08)
Yeah, he doesn't really go through and say, the fourth law is this. And so technically I was right. He says he didn't break it. We want to believe him because he's our protagonist, but you're right. We come to find out later that he can kind of be an unreliable narrator in certain situations because he only knows whatever he knows. the other thing that this reminded me of...

There's a book called The Unthinkable. It's a nonfiction book that examines various disasters and how people reacted to those disasters. Buildings burning down, which relevant, but cars going off into icy rivers, for example. And specifically, it identifies that,

there's the fight response, there's the flight response, there's the paralyzed and won't do anything.

It takes too long to process this very unexpected thing. A guy showing up with a sword is a very unexpected thing. The most common reaction would be cringing away in fear or like he says, trying to hide or immediately fighting.

Like he kind of implies, like he reacts badly to fear. He was almost about to try to fry this guy with fire. But one of the things that the book talks about is like less than 1 % of the population has the hero reaction. And the example that they give is like a car on a busy street goes off the road and crashes through the bridge into an icy river. And dozens and dozens of people freeze, call for help, watch.

and one guy gets out of his car and dives after it and rescues the people. And it's like that heroic personality in reaction to stress. I think Dresden has that, not the fight. Cause you can picture the guy who's just always ready for a fight and whenever any small provocation has he lashes out. That's not Harry. As much as we like to make fun of how big of a temper he has.

Baloreilly (33:07)
Yeah, I mean, think you're absolutely correct. And one of the great things that the series didactically teaches its readers, something that you can learn about yourself and about the world from these books, is how to deal with situations that make you legitimately afraid. Because Dresden always notes the emotional response he actually has. And he lies here, by the way. Dresden will tell you in later books he runs and hides all the damn time. So it's not that Dresden only has one response. His response does

depending on what the threat is. And I think that's actually true for most people. Most people, they might be prone to one response over another, but they're gonna have varying responses depending on what's going on. But the thing that Dresden always does that is laudable is that he has whatever that response is and he doesn't let go of his reason when it happens. And I think that's actually, psychologically, what the hero response is. It is the fight response, I'm gonna

something about this without the emotional I'm gonna lash out at whatever is making me afraid. It is the combination of the courage to combat the situation with the reasoning to do what is actually the most good.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:22)
Absolutely. And he says here, react badly to fear. And you said, I don't think he does. And I think you're right. When he says I react badly, what he means is I have this tendency to do something which society might think of as less moral or the wrong thing to do because it escalates trouble. But the situations Harry finds himself in, his reaction is more of a benefit than the run and hide or be paralyzed reaction that

most people actually see as very beneficial because most people aren't in super high-stakes scary situations like he is.

Baloreilly (34:58)
Yes, and of course as Dresden will tell us in the future, you don't let predators see your fear, they will think you are prey. So after Dresden says his piece in here, Morgan says that that's a technicality. Now, there's only two ways to read this. Dresden reads this as,

Morgan is a jerk and he's kind of dumb and he's trying to get me in trouble and he doesn't really care what the law actually says. But we as readers know a little bit more about the fourth law. And we know that far from being a pair of technicalities that it's a fairy and he technically didn't enthrall them, that's the whole thing. That's the whole law. So Dresden is clearly not violating the fourth law.

So why the hell is Morgan doing this?

One reason that Morgan might be doing this is that he's just, as he will later, we find out he's doing all the time, he's doing this to test Dresden. And that makes a lot of sense to me. Dresden has the doom of Damocles hanging over his head. It is a suspended death sentence. If...

Morgan actually thought Dresden had actually enthralled a human being and broken the fourth law of magic. What do you think would happen?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:24)
Morgan is the kind of person that would not hesitate because he is like the epitome of lawful. Probably lawful good, but lawful neutral at the very least, but he's super, super lawful. He will abide by the rules later at the end of this book.

He will tell the true actual events, even though it's clear he thinks that Dresden is super dangerous and needs to be put down, he will not lie or cheat or deceive in order to see that end done. He's like, I'll just keep following him, he's gonna mess up sometime and I'll do it the right way. For the record, the fourth law of magic, quote, forbids the binding of any being against its will, unquote. And I think this is meant literally, as in,

you go into their head and take away their choice. He didn't do that to Toot. He at best put him in a cage until daybreak. That's the worst he could possibly do to him. That's not the same as binding someone and forcing them to behave the way that you want. Not even close.

Baloreilly (37:26)
Yes,

and against their will, this requires that the being have sufficient free will to qualify, which is I think the point about him being a dewdrop fairy. He doesn't qualify as being something that has enough will that it can be suborned.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:41)
And

technically, I think even the greater fey or demons or anything else you call from the Never Never, they are not mortal. They don't have free will as we see in a lot of different examples. Like when the summer lady wants to help him in, I think summer night, she can't. She's.

Baloreilly (37:45)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:59)
literally restrained from giving the information that she may want to give him. She doesn't have that choice. And I think all the Fae are generally stuck in that problem to one degree or another. It seems like the lesser Fae are more free to act, but even too it seems to obey that law of like, I can't just give information out without getting something and vice versa.

Baloreilly (38:19)
Yes, we know that free will is a gray area in the Dresden files. What MAB is allowed to do is highly constrained, but MAB is obviously still making choices. So what qualifies as free will is thorny, and it should be. That's like a deep philosophical concept. But we do know that from the White Council's perspective, toot doesn't really qualify as being something that you can support the will of.

And moreover, Morgan knows this. If Morgan thought Dresden was breaking the fourth law and could easily get the drop on him, as he does here, Morgan theatrically appears with the drawn sword walking towards him. But if Morgan wanted to, he could just cast a spell from the veil that he's presumably under and disable Dresden immediately. Just boom, you're asleep, bye bye. He could very easily knock him out with the pommel of the sword before Dresden

the chance to turn around. He could cut his head off right then and there. He's on a suspended death sentence and he's just committed a new crime. Morgan doesn't do any of those things because he doesn't think that Dresden's actually committed a crime. He's just testing him. He's just pushing him because as we're going to discuss later in this book

We find out from the micro fiction that Jim published years afterwards that Morgan feels like there's a lot at stake when it comes to whether Dresden's the kind of person that disobeys the laws.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:55)
Yeah, the sort of juxtaposition between the Morgan in this book and the Morgan as he's portrayed later, for example, in Turncoat or in that micro fiction, the journal micro fiction that you're talking about, it feels like they, there's two different interpretations. One, that Butcher wrote this Morgan to be the bully that he appears to be and later sort of decided to retroactively convert that into actually he was testing him. Another way is maybe he had that plan the whole time.

We're just gonna go with the in-universe explanation, the Watsonian lens, as it were, and that this is clearly based on later evidence that Morgan is testing Harry. Morgan is a lot smarter than he appears in this scene, and Morgan has a lot more and different motivations than he appears to have in this scene. So that having been said.

move on a little bit here. He then has a little verbal sparring match with Morgan about this, that, and the other thing, and he gets ready to leave, and Morgan has basically, hey, I'm not done with you, you're not allowed to leave yet. And Harry just punches him right in the face, and I think the only reason he got that punch through, is that it was completely unexpected.

I have to imagine that Morgan has been looking at Dresden since he was 16. And when he was 16, Dresden was terrified of everything to do with the White Council. And this is the first time that he has finally felt confident enough to confront Morgan like this. So this is a new thing for Morgan. He would not have expected this kid to do this.

Baloreilly (41:38)
We're gonna talk about this in some depth because it's important that Dresden does this, but something that I want to mention here directly is that Dresden's gonna say that he can see the steam coming from his ears and Morgan is so clearly surprised and shocked wants to, you know, ready to kill him or whatever, but he doesn't. Just like Dresden.

He doesn't let that fear response overwhelm him. He pauses, and the first thing he does is say, how dare you strike me? And that's where we get Dresden's explanation that, you're no longer acting on behalf of the council, you're just messing with me on a personal level.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:18)
Yeah, and what's interesting here is imagine the metaphor here. Imagine you punch your parole officer in the mouth because you're only on probation for weapon-based crime and he doesn't have the authority to arrest you or punish you for bare-handed altercations. Like that's kind of what's going on here. and Dresden calls this a calculated risk to punch him in the face.

not a I was so mad I just had to do it situation. He said it was a calculated risk. It suggests that he thought about it and decided that this was the right play to make. And it seems to be one of the internal policies or just standard operating procedures for Dresden, which is if you're scared of something, don't show it fear.

punch it in the face, usually verbally, right? Usually he looks at something big and scary and he makes a wise ass comment to which the big and scary thing is not used to seeing people talk to it like that. In this case, it was literally punched it in the face and I'm not afraid of you, number one, and two, if you push me, I'll push back. That's how he handles things and it's what gives him the reputation that protects him for much of the series.

Baloreilly (43:35)
Yes, and I think it's that metaphor about the parole officer is so instructive because you can you imagine if Harry did this to an off-duty American police officer, you know, just a Chicago cop Harry's having some words with and punches them in the face. He would be booked, you know, he would be arrested. It doesn't matter that he didn't, you know, commit an offense other than that. You know, obviously that is assault. That is a crime. You can be arrested for that, but

Morgan's restraint to merely, as we find out later, punch him back, is really notable for portrait of Morgan that Dresden is trying to paint here, which is the equivalent of a thuggish brute of a cop who's a great evocator, but is kind of stupid

suspicious and a zealot and Morgan is that he is a but not in the sort of unthinking thick skulled way that Dresden is trying to paint him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:37)
At that point, Harry explains why he thinks he can get away with this, because there's no law of magic that prevents punching someone in the face. And then we get a passage where Morgan reveals that he knows about the Victor Cells murders, and he says he thinks Dresden did

Baloreilly (44:55)
quote, Morgan thought I was the killer.

And since Morgan didn't do much of his own thinking, that meant that the White Council thought I was the killer. Holy shit. Of course, it made sense from Morgan's narrow and single-minded point of view. A wizard had killed someone I was a wizard who had already been convicted of killing another with magic, even if the self-defense clause had kept me from being executed. Cops looked for people who had already committed crimes before they started looking for other culprits.

Morgan was just another kind of cop as far as I was concerned. And as far as he was concerned, I was just one more dangerous con.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:38)
So this is a good way of setting up your antagonist to not be stupid and still be wrong, He's given the explanation that Morgan has a lot of real legitimate rational reasons to think this way. Our opinion, as we were talking about before, is that Morgan is smarter than he appears and probably doesn't think that Dresden did it. He might still have like, well, there's always the outside chance.

And later we'll get to the point where he shows that Dresden had summoned the demon. We'll talk more about it then. But at this point, he's claiming that he thinks Dresden did this. And I think that he's probably got a 50-50 chance of thinking that Dresden did this. But he's been watching it, maybe he's like, the one night I wasn't watching Dresden, this happened, so it must be him.

Baloreilly (46:22)
Yeah, it's really interesting to try to work out what Morgan's doing here if we don't accept, we just start by rejecting Harry's characterization of Morgan as he doesn't do much of his own thinking. What's going on here? So first, he knows Dresden didn't break the fourth law. He's just trying to push him. He's just trying to get him off balance. Now, if Morgan knew about the murder and Dresden was actually his prime suspect, but he had no evidence,

Would he put Dresden on notice that the cops were looking for him? I don't think so. I just, that doesn't seem to make sense to me. So I feel like at this point, Morgan doesn't hear right now, think that Dresden is actually responsible. He doesn't really, it doesn't seem to fit with anything else he's seen Harry do, but Dresden is as far as he knows.

The only person in Chicago who could do this, sells as a minor talent, probably has never shown up on Morgan's radar. So he's trying to shake the tree a little bit and see what falls out. This is a total fishing expedition. If we look at Morgan as a guy who's trying to get to the bottom of this, this isn't him saying what he actually thinks, this is him saying what he thinks will provoke the greatest reaction.

And Dresden, to his credit, kind of looks at him like he's crazy. You you think I did it? He's actually kind of doing the best possible thing to allay suspicion, which is just seem confused.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:58)
Here, we get the next part, which I love. Harry decks Morgan. Morgan steps back and wipes the blood off his face. They have this conversation. Harry did this quote unquote calculated risk on the assumption that like, well, he can't do anything to me because technically I'm not breaking the laws of magic. I'm not touching you. But there's no reason that Morgan can't punch him right the heck back.

The same reason that allows Harry to punch Morgan with no official quote unquote consequences is the same reason that Morgan can now punch the crap out of Harry and he does it much better, right? Harry punches and it's like in a movie, the big guy just steps back and like brushes the blood off his lips and then they have a conversation and then he punches the hero who goes flying backwards into the dirt.

Baloreilly (48:45)
really a great echo of the Marcon conversation. You know, gotta get better at making threats. Morgan's kind of, you know, you gotta get better at punching people in the face.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:50)
Mmm.

Yeah,

we know he's definitely not that good at punching yet.

Baloreilly (48:56)
One other thing that's going on here is the underlying mystery of why Morgan can't just figure out who's doing the black magic in Chicago. In later books, it seems like the White Council is much more capable of getting to the root of where there are warlocks doing black magic.

and you actually brought up that Dresden is convinced in a later book that Morgan could find Molly, you know, in a hot second. No problem.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:27)
Yeah,

he's completely 100 % confident that there's no way that Molly could run and hide, even though nobody in the White Council knows that she exists or knows that the crimes in Proven Guilty had taken place. If she just went off the grid and stopped and gave up her magic, that's what Charity asks him to do in that book. She says, can't she just stop doing anything? She won't be in trouble, nobody has to know about this. And Dresden is convinced

that they will find her. They're probably doing some kind of major spell work back at headquarters every week and like plotting all the dark magic on a globe or something and then sending out wardens to investigate. And that's the impression I got when he's so certain that they're gonna find her at some point. Whereas here, how is it that Morgan isn't able to find Victor Sells? And why is he sure that Harry did it? And it might be that Victor Sells

isn't actually a wizard or even a sorcerer, right? It's made out later, like he's a really low level talent, but relies on the power of the storm and the ritual to give him the punch that makes him look like a wizard.

Baloreilly (50:40)
Right, and there's an in-universe explanation that's sort of given for this that will get out of the way, which is the White Council is overwhelmed, they can't deal with every warlock since the population of the Earth exploded post-industrial revolution, they haven't caught up to that yet. And that's true, but Morgan is actively looking into this now. So this is not it's getting past his attention, a thing happened, he's trying to figure it out, so why doesn't he ever get to the bottom of it? And it seems like it's not just that Victor Sells is

flying under the radar in a way that you know happens sometimes or whatever. He seems to be kind of a new class of warlock that is enabled by the book is set in 2000.

the rise of internet occultism, the ability to easily share ritual magic with anyone anywhere, to gather a lot of information about ritual magic and chain it together to do more powerful and more complicated things.

Because we know from later books that Nemesis is actually playing a role in setting up these events. And that's why Cells is on the cutting edge. He's getting help from something that's looking for everything it can do to undermine forces like the Council.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:57)
So the next part we get is a little bit of background on Harry and how he's under the doom of Damocles. For those that are a little rusty on that, the doom of Damocles is the magical version of probation. It's the only thing they have, which feels like it's a little extreme, right? He has to be sentenced to death and then the sentence has to be suspended pending him doing any other violations or even looking at someone wrong, apparently. So.

We're going to come, we're going to pause here. We're going to come back and talk about that next week. But for now, we're going to move on to our question for Bob.

Baloreilly (52:35)
does Monica Sells have any culpability in the events of Stormfront? Alright Bob, what do think?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:43)
Well, Bob actually came into the studio. He was ready to go this week, but It was a question about morality. And he just looked at us confused and left. So I think we're on our own here. I don't think he's gonna be able to give us a good answer on this one. So I'll start us out. This is a question about whether Monica has any moral culpability in...

the events that happened here. And we kind of laid this out in an earlier episode, but very briefly, Monica goes to Dresden knowing that her husband has committed these murders and points him in the direction of her husband to help get herself and her kids out of danger, hoping that Dresden does something to neutralize Victor. But she doesn't want Victor to ever find out that she's done this. She kind of...

tells Dresden details. She tries to point him in the right direction without giving him the full information. She's deceiving him by not including all the important details. And that's why this is a question of morality. So to give us an interesting point, Monica appears to be operating on a form of consequentialism, possibly utilitarianism, which states that the outcome of

series of events can determine whether the action was moral or not or it can be used to Try to predict whether an action is going to be moral by predicting what the outcome will be She's doing this and saying if this is what gets my kids out of danger without risking myself or them Then it's the right thing to do my own view Yes, exactly my own view of this is is I'm more of a Kantian

Baloreilly (54:21)
Yeah, it has the best set of outcomes, exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:29)
And Kant has a sort of, Kant is very difficult to explain. it's very interesting. But he has what's called the categorical imperative. One formulation of which is to act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become universal law. In plain English, what that means is act in a way that you wish it could be enforced

on everyone to act that way and you would be happy with that universe. It's a formulation of the golden rule. And from that lens, I think Monica is not doing the right thing here. I think she is morally culpable because she is prioritizing her own self and her kids above this.

person that she doesn't know, Dresden. She's using Dresden as a means to an end, and that's a big no-no in Kantian philosophy. You need to treat everyone as if they have agency, not as an extension or a tool of your own agency.

Baloreilly (55:36)
And we should be clear here that when we evaluate does Monica Sells have any moral culpability, the emphasis is on the any. Obviously, Victor is the villain of the story. Monica is a victim of Victor Sells. And the question is only to what extent are her actions compatible with moral behavior? So I'm not a Kantian, but I actually am pretty sympathetic to that argument. I'll get to my precise.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:48)
yeah.

Baloreilly (56:03)
answer later that up to the point we are literally at in the story right now, chapter seven, Monica has not done quite enough to clear herself of any guilt associated with her husband's actions.

Reddit also weighed in with some of their own views. James Kida said, yes, she absolutely bears some responsibility. She was in a terrible situation and definitely a victim, but being a victim doesn't absolve her of her crimes, which we contextually denote as she's in conspiracy to deal drugs and by virtue of knowing about it, potentially in conspiracy to commit murder. Remove the magic elements, James says, and just imagine she's the wife of a drug dealer who knows full well what her husband

is doing, she's even actively participating, it might be under duress, and she definitely is the least guilty of all guilty parties, but she's not wholly innocent either. I think that without the philosophical element, that's fairly compatible with what you were saying, Adam.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:05)
Yes, absolutely. And I actually had, when I was thinking about this, had set aside the concept that she was knowingly helping him make the Three-Eye and she knew what he was doing with it. Like, she never was like in his confidence, but she was around and participated in those rituals. She knew that something bad was happening and I'm sure that she was able to put two and two together with the Three-Eye stories that were happening in the news with what.

she knew her husband was doing. there's definitely some knowledge in there. And because she didn't go to anybody with that knowledge, that's what makes her potentially morally culpable here. it's just a question, I guess, for her was if she had gone to anyone, what would the outcome be? And for her, the answer was, well, high chance that the kids or I suffer because he's gonna find out because she's terrified of his mystical powers and she doesn't know what he's capable of.

The police probably can't help anyway, but when she finally hits on the idea of maybe this Dresden guy can help, that's when she acts, which I think does kind of redeem her a little bit in that sense.

Baloreilly (58:11)
And Flamebeard86 has, I think, a really compelling framing that sets up sort of the notion you were getting at there that she is so afraid of Victor.

that it constrains her ability to take action in her mind. Let's reframe the question, he says, by rephrasing it in a way that's still factual but not personal.

to someone they are asking for help, even if it may expose them to greater harm. Framed this way, my instincts, he says, scream a resounding no. When you look at her as a frightened victim and evaluate her in that context, it's clear that she's being reasonable and maybe even brave. Given her circumstances, she did her best in the complex, dangerous, and uncertain situation she was in. Elfitch 47 puts a similar sentiment more simply.

victim can do, and that includes hiring a PI to investigate your abuser. I think these are really good points that what she is doing, and I don't think either of us would argue with this, is unquestionably brave. She is increasing the risks that she suffers physical harm in the short term in order to try to do something good. There's two important points that need to be made here though.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:37)
Mm-hmm.

Baloreilly (59:47)
The first is that even if you are doing something that is rational, that does not mean that you are doing something that, from a moral perspective, fulfills all of your moral obligations. And the second is, I just want to say as kind of an aside, on the Reddit post, the word victim blaming was used a couple of times. To be clear, none of the people on the Reddit post were blaming the victim for the harm that that victim themselves suffers. That sort of victim blaming

used to discuss. It's the, you know, well what was she wearing when someone complains about a sexual assault, saying that you were complicit in your own victimization.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:26)
They should never have been walking down that, everybody knows that street is bad. So it's their fault for getting mugged or whatever.

Baloreilly (1:00:33)
Right,

so no one is saying that Monica is to blame for the harm that she herself has suffered at the hands of her husband. It's just at what point do you have a moral duty to take actions that prevent him from harming other people? And it's totally consistent with many philosophical systems to say, understand exactly why that person would have acted that way and a normal person would have done the same thing.

and to say that that is immoral behavior, right? So you can, the bar that you have for what a moral action is, is part of your own personal philosophical system. Do people always need to do the absolute best thing? This is where sometimes I tend to disagree with somebody like Kant who does think that. He does hold you to a very high standard at all times.

But there are other philosophers, know, Nietzsche, who will say, listen, as long as what you're doing fulfills your own personal drives, then you're acting in the way that you're supposed to. So I think there's two separate questions here of is she behaving bravely and rationally, and does she have any moral culpability? But certainly, it is key to note that her culpability is mitigated by her circumstances.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:50)
Yes, absolutely.

But I think an interesting parallel here is what Harry does in changes because

Harry sees the right thing as do whatever I need to do to rescue my daughter, period, full stop. It doesn't matter how dark that gets, right? He is willing to bring his friends to Chichen Itza and have them all die if there's a chance it gets his daughter out. So he thinks protecting your child is an ultimate moral good in and of itself.

from his perspective at that moment in time.

Baloreilly (1:02:29)
Yeah, and I think that's a really good point that you sort of have to judge Monica and Harry almost together in that regard. Where if Monica, she's doing what she thinks is best to save her kids here, if that's moral, well then that means what Harry didn't change is immoral. And also vice versa. If you think what Monica's doing here isn't moral, well then that means Harry didn't live up to his moral obligations and changes. Which by the way, I think...

Harry might agree with. He thinks that what he did in Changes was not totally cool. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:56)
Yeah. Yeah. He's horrified at

once he finds out he has a kid. I think there's a couple of things in changes that sort of are him wrestling this newfound responsibility and what lengths he will go to to fulfill it.

Baloreilly (1:03:16)
Yeah, and I think that that gives us an insight into sort of what Jim is saying here. And I think that Jim is suggesting that...

Monica is effectively not to be held responsible for Victor's actions in any meaningful way. You know, she's not acting optimally. He kind of makes that point too. So whether he assigns any moral culpability to her I think is an open question. But I think within the story he is sort of suggesting that because things work out for her and her kids, you know, this was sort of the right thing for her to do. Now, ultimately what I can tell you is looking at like legal precedent. My wife is a lawyer.

I went to law school. actually tutored law students. would tell you that if Monica turned states evidence, if she testified against her husband...

the legal system would not hold her morally culpable, would not say that she was to blame for any of these actions. They would say that we're not gonna charge you with anything as long as you testify against your husband. And I think that that's actually the moral plank that a lot of people are grabbing onto when they make this analysis. And I think that from a practical, ethical perspective, it is a good argument that as long as she continues to take

the actions that she has against Victor to work against him in whatever way she thinks is best to keep her kids away from him, she's engaging in a redemptive process that absolves her of the culpability that she did have by not coming forward immediately. So she has done something that's morally blameworthy, but through the action she takes, she does enough.

to cleanse herself from what is a human and understandable moral failing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:04)
Yeah, and I think I completely agree with that take, that if she is culpable morally, she redeems herself at least in part by the action she does take in Stormfront. I would argue it probably would have been more morally correct, more morally right for her to be straight with Dresden.

to not treat him as just an agent of her will, but give him the information he needs to make his own choices. That having been said, it's entirely understandable why she chose to keep things close to the vest and not equip him with all the tools he needed to succeed.

Baloreilly (1:05:45)
Yeah, and we're gonna discuss this in the future. think analyzing what Jim says about, who the good guys are, why we can see these beings that do distasteful things as good requires us having these kinds of discussions. And one notion that I wanna introduce here is the idea of an action being morally super-rogatory, which means beyond the question. There are things that are good and are not required, and there are things that are

morally and are required from an ethical framework. So the only conversation that we're having to be perfectly clear is whether Monica fulfilled her moral duty but didn't do the most morally superrogatory thing or whether she didn't quite meet her moral duty. To be perfectly concise, no one is saying that Monica Sells is to blame for the events of Stormfront. We're just su- right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:41)
Absolutely, 100%.

Baloreilly (1:06:42)
we're

just suggesting that from the perspective of ethics, does she have any moral failing in what she did? And I think it's reasonable to argue that she has a slight moral failing or that she actually what she did was entirely morally correct. So next week's question for Bob is a little bit less introspective and a little bit more systematic.

We want to know if you guys can come up with a better system than the Doom of Damocles.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:16)
Yeah, the only way that we are ever exposed to the laws of magic being enforced is you've been discovered of doing it, we've sentenced you to execution, and every once in a while, they allow someone to step forward and take responsibility for the individual for their rehabilitation. That's it. There's no wizard jails. nothing that tries to fix anybody. It's just, hey, you got black magic, hey, we're gonna cut your head off.

That's it. So is there a better middle ground somewhere out there? We get hints later on that Harry is trying to use the para net to try to identify minor talents before they go warlock. That is great. That's not what we're talking about here. We're trying to talk about, how about you deal with somebody who already is showing signs of being a warlock like Molly in Proven Guilty.

Baloreilly (1:08:04)
Right,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:04)
All right, that's where we're gonna leave it for this week. I am Adam, for Brian, reminding you to obey the fourth law. Let your kids set their own Have a good one.