Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
So Brian, I mentioned last week that I'd asked the Literary Studies Reddit if we had a name for the drawing transition that Butcher likes to use to go from a calm scene to a scene filled with tension and stress. After recording that episode, one of them answered with a great observation. I gave an example from Chapter 6 where it says, ZealousIdealPool65 answered with the following,

quote,

but switch it out for the original thee, and suddenly the assassin is catching us off guard, just the same as the detective. He's come in armed and ready, and has skipped right over the grammatical niceties.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:16)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to Recorded Neutral Territory, a Dresden Files reread podcast. Today we're looking at Stormfront chapters 13 and 14, but the spoilers go all the way through Battleground. I'm Adam Ruzzo, and I'm joined by a Toad Demon of the lowest repute, it's Brian O'Reilly. Welcome, Brian.

Is that acid eating away at your microphone right now?

Baloreilly (01:41)
I think that's what happened,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:42)
Okay, well good you think you've got a backup. talk to us about where we are in the story here. I think it's Saturday night, correct?

Baloreilly (01:49)
It's Saturday night and we know that like almost exactly 8.30 or 8.45 or something because Harry is ambushed by nine o'clock so to speak. And that means that Dresden has slept at least eight hours and very possibly more like 12 hours.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:07)
Which is

very uncharacteristic for Butcher to let Harry sleep for eight hours in a book.

Baloreilly (02:12)
mean, we talk about early installment weirdness a lot in Stormfront, and definitely Harry getting a full night's sleep, is early installment weirdness in its highest form. So Harry wakes up and he's going to be introduced to ⁓ two persons, we'll say, in short succession, one of which is Susan Rodriguez, who he should have been expecting, and the other one is the...

Toad Demon? Do we ever get a name on the Toad Demon?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:40)
No,

his snark projectors get upgraded in future books where he comes up with good names like octocons and chlorophenes, but in this one he just calls him a toad demon.

Baloreilly (02:49)
Yeah, so the Toad Demon shows up shortly after Susan, and that's gonna lead to, I think, the first true dramatic wizard fight scene in the series, is cool, and it's really interesting to see how Butcher grows from this moment in this book to stuff like the climax of Battlegrounds or, you know, the big stuff he does later.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:12)
To start

I wanted to begin with a quote that starts early in the chapter Where Harry is describing the boarding house that he lives in.

Quote, it creaked and swayed in the spring thunderstorm and the wind, timbers gently flexing, wise enough with age to give a little rather than put up stubborn resistance until they broke. I could probably stand to learn something like that. Unquote. So Brian, do you think as of Battleground he's learned to ⁓ put up less stubborn resistance and bend with things instead?

Baloreilly (03:43)
I'd love to give a nuanced and detailed answer here, but I think the most important thing to say is no, he has not. Now that's slightly nuanced, right? Of course he's more flexible in later books than he is in the earliest ones. But no, I honestly think for the most part, Harry is still kind of, and it's not just a character flaw. In some ways it's a positive trait, but he is a stubborn son of a bitch.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:11)
I just finished Battleground, and at the very end of that, when is sandbagged with the fact that he has been his knowing to Lara, he almost commits suicide by Mab. It takes Lara and Molly to interrupt him

And now, to be fair, he's had a hell of a week at that moment, so he's not able to resist his normal urges to be that stubborn resistance. But even at that moment, I think it's clear that he more flexible, but I wouldn't say he's grown that much more than he is in this book.

Baloreilly (04:33)
Mm-hmm.

So, last we saw Harry. He's vomiting in Murphy's office And what do we find in this chapter? Not only has Murphy given him a lift back home because he had no way to get there without her help, she actually quote,

On top of it was a scattering of cash that she left next to his folded clothes from Murphy. the fact that Murphy, and we're of course gonna talk about this next episode when it's more relevant, but the fact that Murphy is so immediately and uncompromisingly kind is the reason why, one of the reasons when she feels betrayed.

She takes it so.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:30)
We know from future books that she has severe trust issues because of things that have happened to her in the past. Specifically, she's had two ex-husbands and they were not clean breaks And meanwhile, she has to be part of the boys club. So she doesn't get to vent about this the way that she might want to.

with people because part of the being a cop is just accepting all these terrible things and not complaining, har har har. So she has problems trusting and getting close to people because of her past, and she's taking this opportunity to reach out. She's putting herself in a vulnerable place. I'm going to trust Harry. I think he's a good person. And like you said, in the next chapter, he's going to close up on her when she needs him to open up.

and that is going to cause her to feel betrayed. And this moment where she left him, she didn't just bring him home and say, hope you do okay. She went the extra mile when he said, I don't have money for bus fare. She brought him home and then left him some cash to help him out. she's extending the olive branch. She's extending her hand and he throws that in her face in the next chapter. So that's definitely worth pointing out here.

Baloreilly (06:39)
Right, so after Harry takes stock of his surroundings again, realizing, I'm home, this is what's happened, there's a storm he immediately thinks, wait a second, could the killer use the storm to fuel his spells? And I really like the fact that Jim puts this here.

And I feel like it's honestly great execution of this trope. What you don't want this to feel like, the ultimate fact that Victor Sells is using the storms to enhance his magic, we don't want this to feel like it's an Like this is something we, the readers, could have had no way to expect because we don't understand magic.

and he's doing it and okay author I mean I guess fine whatever that's just how the story goes but we also don't want it to feel like the main characters are idiots for not thinking of this thing that's you know duh a Captain Obvious of course he's using the storms and by just it's not a Chekov's gun this is you know he's gonna kind of make sense of this all very quickly here

But by just mentioning this as something that occurs to Harry naturally, just because there's a storm outside, it makes it seem like, well, this would be a possible thing. It's dangerous as hell.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:02)
That's definitely in the text here in chapter 13 where he's thinking about this before Susan arrives But you know what he doesn't say later when he's talking to Murphy He shows up and says he's using the storms and she says you didn't say anything about that the night before and he says I hadn't thought about it until From her perspective. That's all she gets. She doesn't get elaboration that we see in this scene where the actual quote here?

It bore looking tapped magic was often too unstable or volatile to use in such a carefully directed what Butcher is telling us the reader through Harry the narrator is that this is dangerous stuff. And that's why he didn't immediately assume that that would be something that's happening smart people don't try this. It doesn't happen very often. But what does Murphy hear?

Murphy hears, oh, I figured it out, it's the storms. Well, why didn't you tell me that yesterday? Oh, I didn't think about it until today. she doesn't get that context of this is a crazy thing to do. Of course I didn't think of it yesterday. Nobody does this. So that's another reason why she might feel a little betrayed and out of the loop because he doesn't go that far as to explain his understanding to her. He doesn't have enough empathy yet to understand her position and the fact that what's obvious to him

Using Storms is crazy is not obvious to her. You have to elaborate, Dresden, come on.

Baloreilly (09:24)
Right, this is the difference between Harry at 25 and Harry at 42 or whatever. Harry at 25 is just giving you the information. He's not contextualizing it for Harry at 42, and even at, you know, 35 or whatever, is thinking, are you taking this from your perspective? How can I make you understand? How can I get you on my team? That diplomacy that he's learned makes him feel more flexible. He's not really more flexible.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:52)
Yep. So the next several paragraphs are setting situation where the fight is going to take place. It very specifically calls out the knock comes to the door and it's actually Susan, we find out it's Susan, but while he's going to the door, he says, quote, I felt the pocket of my duster for the gun, but then I remembered I had set it down in the lab, unquote, telling us the reader, hey, here's where his gun is. That's why he doesn't immediately pull it out and fight the demon with it. And then later,

when Susan comes up with the gun. We know that it was there. Again, it's telegraphing the scene, it's setting the stage so that we're not surprised by anything and we're not just like, that's Dezak's machina. No, we know about that ahead of time. In addition, we get more information about the start of the fight, which is Harry doesn't have any of his tools because he's naked when the fight starts. He's in the shower when the Toad Demon shows up. He runs out assuming that it's Linda.

and it turns out it's the Toad Demon. Now, this setup, which looks like it's going to be, comical love triangle situation or an embarrassing moment for Harry where he goes like, it's not what it looks like, is a complete red herring when it turns out that's not Linda coming, it's the Toad Demon instead. So I think that's a great head fake.

Baloreilly (11:03)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:13)
by Jim, we talked a lot about the various headfakes that he's done so far within this story. And this is just another one that just is excellently executed. I don't have a specific memory of this moment the first time I read it, but reading it again, it still feels like a great setup and payoff of, my God, that's not her. And then we get the big kick in the chapter 15, where Linda had a great reason to not show up, she was

Like, this series of misunderstandings by the audience is so expertly set up and paid off. I really like it.

Baloreilly (11:47)
He does a great job with the farcical elements of this scene, the sort of comedy of manners-y stuff. It's very, dramaturgical. and... No, not to be confused with dramaturgical. It's the kind of thing that you go to school and like this is how they do it in the book. You this is how Oscar Wilde would...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:56)
to be confused with thaumaturgic.

Baloreilly (12:05)
would set up this kind of ⁓ mistaken identity thing, except it would be a butler instead of a toad demon. But I think something that's great here is Harry's behaving a little oddly in terms of how he's reacting to this.

So Susan, you know, comes in and says, the police having you put in overtime, Harry, the killings must be sensational. And it gives Harry an opening to say, yes, actually.

I'm so sorry. This is a horrible night. let me take the money Murphy left him. Let me buy you a cab home. would love to make it up to you next

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:46)
Yeah, he doesn't even apologize to her.

Baloreilly (12:48)
Right,

he should do something like that. And he doesn't. And I think that's two things are happening there. One of them is he literally says about a page up from that, I was feeling better, I wasn't dizzy anymore. that's phrased in a manner that makes you think, okay, you're not feeling top notch, Dresden. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:09)
No, no, he's not fully recovered from his concussion, but a good eight

or 10 hours of sleep, that's gonna help a lot.

Baloreilly (13:14)
Right, so he's still getting it together, which is part of the reason why he doesn't have the wherewithal to immediately get Susan out of here. Because he thinks Linda Randall's coming over. He's worried about the two of them arriving at the same time. Right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:26)
Yeah, this makes, it makes no sense from

that perspective. he even like realizes that and he's looking out and she says, expecting someone Harry? And like she reads him like a book. And then he says, well, let me go take a shower real quick. okay, yes, prioritizing shower when you haven't showered in like two days and you're supposed to be on a date, probably valuable, but you're right. He should say, yes, I'm so sorry. This was a really bad time.

but maybe he's planning to do that when he gets out of the shower. That's the most favorable read I can have.

Baloreilly (13:59)
Well,

but which wouldn't make sense because then you're running the risk of Linda arriving with Susan, which is this whole issue that you... So one of it is he's just not thinking clearly. The man suffered a head wound that might have killed a normal human being. He's just not all together there. But it's also really good subtle hint that Harry and just have this overwhelming electrical attraction.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:02)
Right.

Baloreilly (14:26)
they're like magnets, they just can't pull Partially because Harry doesn't send her away, but also Susan, guy shows up, not dressed, smelling horrible, looking like somebody who's just gotten hit in head with a baseball bat and thrown up in a police station. Exactly, and you're just like walking inside and making jokes and you

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:43)
and I clearly forgot you were coming.

So the next thing that happens is he goes into the shower and he's getting ready and he comes out to the fight wearing nothing but a towel and with suds still in his hair and multiple times in the fight, it points out how the soap and the shampoo is like coming down into his eyes while he's trying to deal with this fight. And there's nothing else I can think of but a YouTube channel called Every Frame a Painting. Are you familiar with this channel?

Baloreilly (15:36)
I'm not.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:37)
had several very, very interesting and very well-researched videos about movie-making techniques. And one of them was about how to structure a fight scene the way that Jackie Chan structures a fight scene. And one of the things they pointed out is if you ever watch a Jackie Chan movie, major set piece, there's some reason that he's at a severe disadvantage.

He's naked or he's handcuffed to a ladder or he's got no shoes or whatever. There's always some gimmick that he has to fight his way up from this severe disadvantage to eventually emerge victorious. And sort of one of his rules, they had like interview clips of him where he says like, it's much more interesting as a scene and more investment in the character if you see him make this come from behind moment. And this is what Jim Butcher's doing to Harry here.

Baloreilly (16:27)
Yeah, and I think that's something that Jim has actually mentioned directly, that the books are what happens when Harry kind of gets caught without his A-game ready for the situation at hand. And the short stories are what happens when Harry is ready for the moment when it first comes up.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:46)
we then move on to, no, before we move on, Brian, you'll have to excuse me. I just gotta rant for a little bit. Jim, let Harry have hot water. This bothers me in every book when you say that Harry is getting, he got a concussion and.

Baloreilly (16:57)
Ha ha ha!

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:03)
his friend is dying or, you know, this is, had to stare at something, negotiate with a horrible thing, and then he comes home to a cold shower in the winter, Just, okay, Jim, water heaters don't have to live next to the wizard. They can be in a different part of the house. Do you think Mrs. Spunklecrief doesn't have hot water? Just run a pipe down to Harry. Come on, man. I was so happy when, was it cold days?

rolls around and Molly's like, yeah, here's your digs and it's got hot water. I'm like, yes, Harry, that's all I've wanted for you since Stormfront. Okay, end rant. just, that's my own personal pet peeve.

Baloreilly (17:42)
So

I think that it's actually, some people have speculated that...

A water heater would pose no problem for Harry. It's pretty old technology, like you said, could be pretty far away from the wizard. That's a thing that fans have said. And the usual response to this is, know, Harry is just a masochist. You know, he doesn't believe he deserves nice things, so that's why he never gets a hot shower. It's got nothing to do with whether it's possible. It's just why would I, Harry Dresden, seek out nice things for myself?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:15)
Right,

the argument is that he blames himself for what happened to Elaine and maybe his father later when he learns that they were quote killed because of him or what have you. So it's sort of a self-flagellation situation with certain aspects of his life. It's why he lives in a small dumpy apartment. It's why he doesn't allow himself to make money any other way. that's all sort of a making up for past sins thing.

Baloreilly (18:22)
and his mom and... Right.

But I wish to suggest that both of these statements are somewhat overplayed. Harry is kind of a masochist, and Jim is kind of torturing him in a way that really is, you know, very front and center. But taking a bunch of cold showers is actually a thing that people do.

There are people who regularly prefer to take a cold shower. I don't wanna do this, but they exist. And the idea is that if you're used to warm showers and you expect a warm shower, the cold shower feels horrible. But once your body gets used to the idea of, I'm getting to the shower, it's gonna be cold, it's not so bad, you can put up with it. Just like how when I was a swimmer in outdoor pools, six in the morning in the summer, I was like, all right, it's gonna be cold, it's fine.

Right, and now I can't even imagine jumping into one of those pools that got the rain water on top of it and like, oh God. So I think Harry, it's just the same way that the beetle is his car. The cold shower is his thing. It is painful, it is distracting, it does force him to deal with it.

But in a way, that's comforting to him. It's a usual problem that he's used to navigating and triumphing over.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:11)
So, moving on, we have a moment where he jumps out of the shower having seen a shadow go past the window and he thinks it's gonna be Linda and he says quote, well, he narrates quote, I couldn't let Linda come to the door and have Susan answer it, that would be the catiest thing you've ever seen, unquote. I think this is a little bit more of Harry Dresden's

subtle sexism, or not so subtle sexism, showing itself here, because why is he assuming that these women wouldn't be able to have a conversation about this? I think you said it in the pre-show, which is something along the lines of, he's seen like days of our lives and assumes that that's how all other people interact with each other.

Baloreilly (20:52)
Yes, like Harry's idea of the conversations women have is like the one time he saw an episode of a soap opera, in another he where somebody else was watching TV and he caught like, you know, three words of it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:05)
And we know

he reads paperback novels like crazy, and those things use tropes all the time. If that's where he's getting his information about how real people interact, know, Susan, he's gotta give her more credit.

Baloreilly (21:17)
Well, I think it's in part because this again speaks to the fact that he is truly magnetically attracted to Susan and he doesn't want anything to screw it up and that's why he's so worried about it. it is silly because of course, Linda's not coming to fuck him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:33)
Right,

but she's going to be dressed up in that way and he does want to avoid the misunderstanding and this and the other thing.

Baloreilly (21:39)
But if

Susan says something, Linda's gonna go, ⁓ no, I'm here to meet the private detective.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:45)
Right.

It would have been better for him before he went in the shower to say, ⁓ I'm so sorry, I had to meet a source tonight to give me just a minute and then goes into the shower. So at least she knows who to expect showing up.

Baloreilly (21:59)
Yes, and the rejoinder to that might be, well, you know, he doesn't want the reporter to know that a source is coming. Right, which is why you should send her home! Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:06)
Yeah. We're back around to that. Okay.

So on, the visitor's obviously not Linda. Instead, it's the Toad Demon who begins to spit acid at Harry, and we get the very first spell that we ever see him do outside of the calling of Toots with his true name, and it's Ventoriflitum.

that, I believe, is the only time we see that specific wording used anywhere in the books. mean, Jim decides that he wants to change exactly what he does. We see ventus a lot more often than vento, and the rough translation of this is wind reflect. Careful observers will notice that the Latin that Harry uses often isn't super consistent and seems kind of wrong. So I looked up, for example,

Ventus with a U in Latin is the noun for wind. Ventas with an A doesn't appear to be a Latin word from what I can tell. It's a Spanish word that translates to sails, and in this case, vento appears to be Harry misapplying the suffix to the Latin word ventus. I don't know if that's on purpose or do we blame the stupid correspondence course. What do think, Brian?

Baloreilly (23:13)
Okay, so Adam, here I have to reveal to you something that I've been keeping secret for the entirety of this production, which is that I took three years of Latin in high school. ⁓ Unfortunately, yes, and I will say I was just as bad at it as Harry was. I think I just did it for longer. But vento here very well could be a Latin word. In Latin, if any of you guys

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:23)
So you know more than Harry.

Baloreilly (23:38)
speak romance languages, you're used to conjugating verbs. We do it in English too, but it's really obvious in romance languages. Latin, you sort of conjugate nouns. They're called declensions. You decline nouns. So vento is a version of ventus that means like by the wind or to the wind or for the wind. So I read this by the wind.

reflect it, know, something like that. Of course, Latin refliteum, that looks to me completely wrong. Like, R-I-F is not even a thing that you see in Latin.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:15)
Yeah, later

on he uses reflectum as his defensive spell, I believe. And that sounds like it might just be made up as well, but maybe that's better than reflitium.

Baloreilly (24:27)
Well,

you see words that start with R-E in Latin all the time, but the sort of R-I-F thing, like rifle, that would sound strange as a Latin word to me. So I think that this is Jim not yet realizing that he wants this to literally be Harry trying to use Latin. It's a little bit of the Harry

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:30)
Yeah.

Baloreilly (24:51)
which is not a Latin word. It sounds Latiny, it's got a Latin root, but it's not actually Latin. think...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:51)
right.

And Harry

later calls it pseudo Latin, which is I think how Jim gets away with, well, I didn't want to use, if you tie Jim to saying, yes, Harry uses Latin words, then you can't use cooler sounding words if you come up with them. So you're tied to using specific things and it really kind of hamstrings you. So I think if he decides, yeah, Dresden uses pseudo Latin, he takes some Latin he knows, and he just kind of makes it sound cool.

and that's his spell name.

Baloreilly (25:26)
And Jim does a great job of explaining why that's not a crazy thing to do or why that doesn't make you sound stupid. Canonically, that's what every wizard has to do. When they're casting, I forget who casts in Japanese.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:35)
Right.

Baloreilly (25:39)
I know at least someone uses Japanese, but presumably they're speaking like bad Japanese, you know? Like, right. And it's because if you did understand the language, it wouldn't work as a casting language. That's the whole tension with Harry trying to speak Latin and trying to cast in Latin-ish. It's that if he were to cast in Latin, he wouldn't be able to speak it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:44)
Probably.

Baloreilly (26:04)
You know, that's the tension.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:06)
Do you think Harry considered at one point casting in pig Latin?

Baloreilly (26:09)
I mean, look, the fact that

he has not just changed the damn language he casts in, you know, in 17 years or whatever it is, just, Harry, you don't even have to know it. Just watch Telemundo in a drive-in for, you know, two nights and just start casting in Spanish. You already say fuego.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:27)
Well,

we know for a fact that he does pseudo Latin because in the flashback in Ghost Stories, we see him learning his very first spell, Justin is trying to teach him to use the Egyptian word for fire, sedgit or something like that. And he pulls out a Bic lighter to pretend that it worked and.

Baloreilly (26:42)
Hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:48)
He doesn't do a very good job of hiding the fact that he used a lighter, and then Justin gets real mad at him, and he decides in the spur of the moment to try again, and this time instead use his own made-up word instead of the Egyptian, and he used flickum biccus, which is clearly not Latin, because he's just taking flick your bic and turning it into a Latin sounding word. So I think that absolves Jim from any of these weirdnesses around the words.

So anyway, Vento Reflitium sends the acid spray back at the Toad Demon. It doesn't do anything really. And then he uses Vento Servitas to...

his staff with a fine gust of wind from the corner where it's resting over into his hand, which is just such a cool thing that we don't see him do enough in the future. I feel like I've seen it maybe once or twice amongst all of the books after this one. And it's just such an awesome Jedi thing that you could just, put your hand out, say a word, and your weapon jumps up into your I don't know, I wish we saw this more often. It's just so cool.

Baloreilly (27:50)
It is, I think the only reason we don't see it is because if Harry could do that that easily all the time, it would sort of take the wind out of disarming him in any respect a little bit.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:02)
after that, you pointed out something here.

see a kind of a weird spell that he's casting in English question mark

Baloreilly (28:08)
Yeah, he says quote, out, out, out, you are not welcome here. A touch of dramatic in any other circumstance maybe, but when you've got a demon in your living room, nothing seems too extreme. The toe demon hunched its shoulders, planted its broad feet and grunted as a wave of unseen force swept out from my staff like a broom whisking along the floor. End quote, Harry has literally used that same description.

before his, know, forzare spells at other times, it's kind of weird that he or he, one, casts an English, that's a no-no, or two, casts without saying a word, which is also a no-no, but also the consequences of this wave of force, it doesn't set up what we normally see with a forzare, which is a moving sort of shockwave.

that hits a thing and then moves on, it sort of steps between Harry and the demon and they have a little tug of war over it, almost like he's projecting a shield. Butcher has clearly got a lot of ideas about how he wants wizards to be able to use telekinesis to an extent that haven't been hammered out.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:29)
Yeah, and to me, this feels like a banishment. And to put it in D &D terms, your characters have spells, but then some of them have features. For example, the cleric has turn undead. That's not a spell per se, it's a separate thing that they can do. And I think here, Jim may have had the idea that banishing something that doesn't belong in this world, that comes from the Never Never,

Baloreilly (29:36)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:57)
isn't a spell per se, but it is a thing that you can do if you have a strong enough will to contest the will of the thing or the person who brought it here. So I think this was a concept of banishing something, it's something you.

do with your will and with an announcement, like a declaration. I didn't say it, I declared it. And so that might be what he was going at here, but we don't ever really see that come back. It's a little bit, I think it's a little bit of the early book weirdness.

Baloreilly (30:25)
But also, and I think you mentioned this in the pre-show, this is a little bit like how

gods or the lords of outer night or outsiders use their will to hold a thing in place.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:40)
Right,

So.

Baloreilly (30:41)
And maybe

Harry just panicked naked is just doing a thing instinctually that he couldn't even do five books from now.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:49)
So after the Toad Demon shows up, Harry is able to distract it long enough to send Susan down into the basement. He comes up with the idea to get her out of the place so that he can focus on this thing and make sure she's safe. Drink the escape potion, it doesn't work. So instead, she grabs a gun and comes up and starts shooting at it. The way that it's described, the bullets kind of bounce off this thing, ricochet off like it's Superman,

But that gives them enough time of a distraction of like this thing responding to getting hit in the head with a bullet. They rush downstairs, Harry's like, help me get this ring uncovered, we need to put a circle up. Meanwhile, suddenly Bob is like, who's the babe? Whoa, hey, Harry, there's a toad demon coming down? And this scene where they go down into the basement is just so well written that I could see that

television show, whether it's animated or whether action, it's just laid out so well that you see all these chaotic things happening at the same time, right? They come down, who's the babe? Not now, Bob. I'm trying to get this thing and they're trying to get this stuff out of the way and Harry's bending down and getting her inside the circle and meanwhile he's having this conversation with Bob where Bob's like, Harry, you should know, not now, Bob. ⁓ Harry, I know, Bob.

Harry, and then Susan's like, hey, is it getting warm in here? Is it just me? And he's like, ⁓ no. And Bob's like, I was trying to tell you. And all this stuff is happening while the Toad Demon is coming, and then they put up the shield just in time for the acid to hit That is an amazingly cool and funny scene, the way that it's written. And while I can see this all kind of happening in rapid succession in like a different media, it's very difficult to capture.

simultaneous action like that, where three things are happening on screen at the same time in a written context, because by definition, writing is sequential. So it's hard to do simultaneous descriptions. I really, really wanna see the Dresden Files series in a visual medium because of scenes like this.

Baloreilly (32:52)
Yes, I can definitely see Brendan Fraser circa the mummy making the proper face as the acid slides down the shield wall. I think that some writers...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:00)
Yes

Baloreilly (33:06)
are the kind of ⁓ people who just have such a brain for their lore, you your Tolkien's, people who are sitting there inventing languages without even a story to go with them. And what they write, you it starts as encyclopedias, and as they get better and better at writing, it becomes more and more like a book, like a novel, like a And then you have the other side of things, which is the people who just have such an imagination for seeing the thing in their head.

and their whole struggle is just to get that vision down on paper in a way that conveys all of the best parts of what they can see so clearly. And Jim is totally from that camp, and it actually puts him into a class of writer that I think is part of the reason why I like his prose so much. Somebody who almost like deliberately

does a very similar thing to the very theatrical, stage direction-y way this scene is written, is F. Scott Fitzgerald. His first book,

in this side of paradise has a whole like section of the book where he literally just switches from just a novel you're just reading a novel it switches to a stage play just halfway through the book there's just characters saying stuff you know name colon what they say stage direction afterwards because he's visualizing it so hardcore that he just can't write it he just needs you to imagine it along with him and Jim in this first book is almost there

You know, he's just holding himself back from this being stage directions and, know, a exhumed pursuit by a bear. And it's great because that visceral imagery does continue throughout every book in the series, and it's part of why it's so great. But he only gets better and better at spacing the beats out a little bit, so you get to look at them sequentially and not as overwhelmingly all at once.

as this scene is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:06)
And also great, and I don't remember, I think we talked about this during the Toot Toot summoning scene, is that entire scene is in a way a set up for this one. Harry is going to save him and Susan by putting themselves in a circle to protect them from a spiritual being from the Never Never. And in the Toot Toot scene, we see him trapping a spiritual being from the Never Never.

in that circle. So we're introduced to how that works so that in this quick, tumultuous, fast-paced scene, we don't have to slow down and stop and say, by the way, here's how magical circles work. We already know. We laid all the groundwork for that back in chapter four or five or something. So that's great.

Baloreilly (35:51)
I just want to come back to one thing here that we can't let pass about saying. Susan Rodriguez is such a badass. How many fucking Toad Demons has she seen in her life? Right? Clearly none.

What's her first reaction? you said the gun was downstairs. No problem, I got that for you, boss. Like, just, I mean, Susan is seriously cool, and Jim is given credit for writing women who kick ass, but it's just really important that he doesn't just write, you know, characters who are ladies who are badasses. It's not just Sigringard. It's just, there are...

women who do action hero stuff. They think on their feet, they improvise, they make the best of the situation, and that's just so refreshing if you've come from a fantasy legacy of damsels in distress who just can't stop tripping over their own two feet.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:49)
When Susan shows up in death masks and in changes, now part of the Fellowship of St. Giles, it felt a little disconnected where she's now this like super secret agent, where she, you know, they're sneaking into buildings and they're doing all this stuff. right here,

Baloreilly (37:01)
Right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:04)
You can see the foundation was already laid. We see Harry saving plenty of people in very tense situations from scary monsters like this. And a lot of them freak the hell out and make things worse. For a long time, Butters is that guy. Like throughout most of Deadbeat, Harry is told, Butters is going to get you killed. Just let him go. He's going to get you killed because he freaks out and makes things worse when you're trying to help him.

Baloreilly (37:20)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:32)
She doesn't. She immediately just decides to do something, anything to help. She doesn't spend any time panicking. And that's the type of person she's shown to be from the very beginning.

Baloreilly (37:45)
scene is an important part of establishing why not only is she the kind of person who Harry is going to have such immense respect and affection for, but also is the kind of person who is capable of doing the things that she does in death masks and then of course in changes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:05)
So now at the beginning of chapter 14, they're stuck in this circle and she is trying to take him to bed. She is trying to mount him while he's trying to keep them in this circle and he says, that's really not a good idea right now. Susan's fingers wandered and her eyes sparkled and she said, quote, your mouth says no but.

This says yes. And of course, we know what this means in this context. And he says, that thing is always saying something stupid. That is one of my favorite lines in this book.

Baloreilly (38:40)
Yeah, it's pretty funny. You know, it's a juvenile gag. it's a dick joke in the middle of the fight scene. But it's a pretty fun gag. And one thing about this scene that I really like is it feels like ⁓ a farce, like a true farcical old school kind of slapsticky play. I did college theater because I'm a really cool guy.

In a farce, when you're reading it on the page, it's kind of funny. When you see people act it out, it's got that cringe humor factor that just, you know, makes curb your enthusiasm, some people's favorite show or whatever. This is a very, can't believe this is happening. my God, I can't watch, but I can't look away.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:25)
feeling third-person embarrassment for Harry right now, who's trying to literally not die while this beautiful woman that he likes is like slobbering all over him thanks to this love potion.

Baloreilly (39:27)
Exactly.

And as a writer who sometimes takes a little bit of flack for being a little racy in how he writes things, I actually feel that Butcher does a lot of self-censoring. I think, you know, he has joked that his family put the fun in fundamentalism in their Christian sect. I don't think is necessarily a good description of his modern beliefs, but he definitely leans away from some

overly salacious or overly direct descriptions of sex. In this scene, that's part of why it's because Harry's embarrassment is really coming through for the fact that he can't say a three foot circle was not enough for us to get it on. He has to say was not enough to perform wrestling or gymnastics or literal dot dot dot.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:14)
Mm-hmm.

Baloreilly (40:32)
anything else. So it really just ups that factor

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:36)
So after that, he negotiates with Bob to get the actual escape potion sent to him. I think we get a little bit of early book weirdness here. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Bob is a spirit. He should not be able to throw anything through the circle in the same way that the acid from the Toad Demon can't get through the circle. And the same way that the Toad Demon couldn't take a pencil and break the circle.

Baloreilly (40:58)
Bingo.

Bingo. I'm fine with Bob picking up the potion. Bob helped make the potion. He seems to be able to physically influence stuff like that. know, Butters coat in skin game. know, he can do, there are certain things that he appears to be able to move. He's a spirit of air. Maybe he's just using the air to move stuff around. I can buy Bob manipulating the object, but.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:17)
right.

good point.

Baloreilly (41:32)
Literally, the spirit can't spit acid through the circle, the spirit can't throw a potion through the circle. That's some early book weirdness.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:40)
So next, he manages to get the potion, they manage to get outside, and he's like, ⁓ there's a, that street over there always floods in heavy rain. If we go there, we can get across the moving water, and then the spirit can't chase us. But on the way, somebody shows up, a shadow man, as it were, and you have a note here because there's a quote where it says, the voice was supremely confident, unquote. Why did you highlight that?

Baloreilly (42:06)
Is Victor nuts? Is he just out of his mind because he knows Dresden's a wizard? That's why he sends the demon after

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:16)
I think this is the Dunning-Kruger effect made manifest in the Dresden verse. For those unaware, there's a psychological phenomenon whereby the less you know about a topic, the more likely you are to be confident in your knowledge of that topic. And the more you know about a topic, the less likely you are to be confident about your knowledge in that topic. this is attributed to the fact that

as you become more of an expert in a given topic, it could be anything. It could be literature or automotive repair or nuclear physics. You begin to learn what you do not know. And gives you the sort of humility to recognize that you shouldn't be as confident as an ignorant person might be who thinks they have it all figured it out. And I think that's pretty clear what this is here.

I don't think Victor knows much of anything about the White Council or Wizards. If anything, he's probably been fed misinformation by Nemesis who told him, don't worry about those guys. They're pushovers. You can take them. I'm giving you all the power.

Baloreilly (43:25)
Right, and that's definitely highly the suggestions that I was thinking of are, this could just be Victor, could just be who he is, we've all met a guy like this who just thinks that they're naturally good, as good as you at anything you know, even if they've done, put in no work. Black magic, we know, drives people nuts, gives them delusions of grandeur, maybe he's just done too much.

I think though this reminds me of, ⁓ you a basketball fan Adam? So there was an NBA player, a six foot nine redhead named Brian Scalabrini who played as like a third string backup for the Boston Celtics for like 10 years or something. Guy was never a huge pro, but there was a lot of jokes about him. People nicknamed him the white mamba, know, Kobe Bryant's nickname.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:54)
I am not.

Baloreilly (44:16)
And one day he issued a challenge to all comers, anybody who wasn't an NBA player, that he would play them one on one if they wanted to, and he would absolutely kick their ass. had D2 college basketball players, former high school phenoms, the best amateurs in cities would all go play this guy one on one. And he kicked all of their And the quote that came out of it was, there's only 450 guys in the NBA.

I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me. Speaking to the random, you know, best basketball player in the neighborhood. There's not that many wizards in the White Council. Dresden might only be 25, but to think that you, a sorcerer 18 months of study, if we're gonna be generous, can touch this is

Such unbelievable arrogance that you have to be right. Nemesis must have basically told him, you know as much as any wizard. And immediately, Victor finds out that's not He's been lied to because Harry quote, I extended my senses toward the shape and found out that what I had suspected was true. It wasn't a real person.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (45:17)
Yeah, there's no question there.

Baloreilly (45:32)
or an illusion masking a real person, it was only the seeming of one, a phantasm of shape and sound, a hologram that could hear and speak for its creator wherever he or she was. What are you doing? It demanded. It must have sensed me feeling it out. Checking your credentials, I said, and sent some of my remaining will toward it, the sorcerous equivalent of a slap in the face. The image cried out in surprise and reeled back. How did you?

do that it snarled i went to school which is just so like dude you don't even know what you don't know

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:04)
you

Exactly, exactly

right. It's like, what's the phrase? You're not even wrong. Like when someone is so wrong, they're not even wrong. That's what this is. He's so far out of his depth, he can't see the bottom of the ocean. Like that's the thing. So.

Baloreilly (46:14)
Yes.

Exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:27)
that's a great line too. What are you doing? Checking credentials? Like, that's so good. And then later we get another great line too

when he says, ⁓ the demon is mine to call, time for you to die, and he's like, deposit another quarter to continue your call, asshole. Then he just brushes him away. He just like completely spells his magic. And that helps establish what we already have slowly been told over the course of this book is a pretty big deal.

compared to most other people, as you pointed out with the NBA example. this guy is a lot worse. And the reason that Harry's having such trouble is because of the circumstances that he finds himself in. Even fight, he would kick this guy's ass. But every single time, he's got something going against him. that brings us

Baloreilly (47:13)
He's literally

caught with his pants down. I mean, that's what's going on here. So you have quoted here, the spell he uses to dismiss the hologram is Stregolum Finitis. Finatus, Finitis, one of those two. the translation you put up is end witchcraft. End.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:16)
You literally coughed his pants down. That's a good point.

Baloreilly (47:38)
Me reading that, that's pretty close, but that's, as you hopefully noted, it's Strega, Striga, that's the name for witchcraft, for bad mojo, for maleficarum, you know, in Latin.

Harry here doesn't use the word strega. He says stregalum. Which in Latin, that lume ending is like calling it cute. know? It's like ito in Spanish or something. So he's saying like, the cute little trick. Or, okay, end the mischievous magic. It's not even strega.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:06)
Hahaha!

Baloreilly (48:16)
It's Strigano, it's a little trick. That's so dismissive after the line, deposit another quarter to continue your call, asshole. Harry can't even keep the contempt out of his dog Latin. That's how much he thinks this guy's jerk.

And part of what I think is interesting and what makes wizards in this series different from sorcerers is Harry describes spell casting, and Thomas actually does a little bit in backup too, sort of as math. And the reason why that appeals to me, my undergraduate degree was in economics. I don't love math, but I do like it. When you're learning math, you know how to do the problems that you've,

you've seen, that you've been taught that, okay, yeah, I use the chain rule to take a partial derivative of this equation. But you can also solve novel equations that you haven't seen before by kind of trying a bunch of different stuff that you know you can do to it and seeing where you get with it. So really good wizards are like your legendary mathematicians who don't need to play with the thing.

to mess with the novel equation. They can instantly, they have the insight to instantly know, ⁓ that means I need to do this thing and this thing together, and that's how I unpack this. That's the kind of stuff that separates the guy I knew in high school who went on to become an experimental physicist and get his degree a year early and all that stuff from guys like me who studied economics and are pretty good at math.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:56)
Yeah, this demonstrates that Harry has just a gut level knowledge of how the magic works, that he can adapt it at that level. And it's much different than just being taught, here's six spells, now you know them. He's manipulating them on the fly. I mean, we've already seen that earlier in the previous chapter when he uses a wind spell to reflect.

the acid back at his opponent and he uses a different, much gentler and more fine controlled wind spell to call his own staff towards him. And these things might be things that he'd learned in the past, but they variations on a theme, which he's probably played around with and created on his own.

Baloreilly (50:39)
Yeah, and we know that wizards can invent spells on the fly. know, Molly modifies that same spell into a hairdryer. We don't see that on screen a lot, but that's where the hairdryer spell Dresden has later comes from. And we see Dresden, you know, regularly shape his four spells into different variants in order to accomplish slightly different tasks. know,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:02)
and his shield

spells, sometimes they're curved, sometimes they're flat planes so that you can cause something to skitter over you instead of ⁓ blocking it entire. Yeah, that's true.

Baloreilly (51:12)
And that's why Victor Sells comes off as such a nut, because if you're a sorcerer, and you know who you're messing with when you mess with wizards, you gotta know. That's the difference. You have a bag of tricks. an encyclopedia.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:31)
Or no, they have a manufacturing capacity to make stuff that goes in the bag. Right?

Baloreilly (51:35)
That's it. Yes, that's

it. Exactly, So.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:39)
Okay,

so the last spell that we get here is the one where he calls down the lightning or rather ⁓ turns himself into a lightning rod and then shoots it back out through his body, of it through. And the spell is Ventas Fulmino. It's a little odd that he uses Ventas in this because the Fulmino is like from what I could tell, it's like the throwing of lightning or something to that effect. And you can correct course of Latin.

Baloreilly (52:05)
No, you're 100

% right. This is literally the word you use for what Zeus does with the thunderbolt. So he is smiting with lightning here, for sure.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:15)
So, Fulmino

all on its own would make perfect sense for this. You don't need to bring the winds into this, Dresden, but it's possible, but he says it twice too. He says Ventus, Ventus Fulmino. And maybe it's because he's using the winds to carry his spark up to the right point where it's gonna bring the lightning down. We can kind of think of it that way, all of these spells are pretty unique, right? We don't actually see him use the same one multiple times here. It's different variations.

Baloreilly (52:18)
Mm-hmm.

So funnily enough, we see fulmino or fulminaris used again multiple times.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:52)
We do, no, I'm sorry, yes, that is true. Elaine, I believe, uses White Night and...

Baloreilly (52:58)
and

Harry then later adapts it in small favor into the taser he uses against the Denarians. So, yeah, so Elayne reminds him, hey, remember Fulminarius? It's probably something they came up with together. And then he reuses it in small favor. I think you actually get to see him thinking through how to invent a new spell here. He's probably never done this before. So he's thinking, how do I get

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:07)
I forgot about that one.

Baloreilly (53:27)
lightning from the storm. It's like, it's like, ⁓ it comes through the air, right? So it's like a wind thing. So I'll channel it and you hear his words. The reason he's saying wind is he's figuring out in real time how to do it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:41)
Yeah, no, I could definitely see that. You're right, it goes through the air. He has to form a channel through the air that's going to pull the lightning to him and the steeple of the blocks over, right? The lightning could hit any spot on Earth. He needs it to land where he is. So he has to create a channel through the air that's going to attract the lightning to his spot. I could totally buy that now. I'm 100 % on board. Okay, Ventus, full on me now. No problems. Headcanon accepted. the last thing that happens in this chapter

After destroying the demon, Morgan shows says, summoning demons? Oh, in addition to your atrocities you have already committed, I knew I smelled black magic on you. Basically accuses him of summoning that demon and of course Dresden tries to defend himself and say, hey, it wasn't me, you just saw me kill it. Yeah, well, you probably lost control of it. this is where it's worth bringing up that the micro fiction called Journal, that is the last journal entry that Morgan ever made Turncoat.

And this excerpt from it, it's a very short piece, but this piece here is specific. End quote.

internal motivation known to Butcher when he wrote Stormfront. I don't think so, but I accept the retcon. I think this moment here, it would be absurd to think that Morgan sees this and goes, yeah, Dresden definitely called that up. That makes Morgan out to be an idiot, which we know he isn't.

Baloreilly (55:18)
And I think that, you know, it's also just not consistent with the way the rules work later. Is it even black magic to summon a demon? So I don't even think that would be something Morgan could get him on. Moreover, as you pointed out to me, Morgan shows up and goes, you were summoning a demon to kill me, which is okay, a big leap, Morgan. And then he says, I have convened the council. Already? You just got here.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:27)
That's true.

Baloreilly (55:45)
You know, so how'd that happen, buddy? So the only reading of this that makes Morgan out to be not a completely one dimensional cardboard character, and later it is established that he is not, right? That is Butcher's whole drive in small, in turncoats, sorry, is to establish that Morgan is not a cardboard cutout. He's a complicated character with a lot going on. That suggests that we have to read

the later reveals into these actions. And I think then it makes sense. Morgan has no idea what's going on. And he's saying all this stuff like he was in the earlier chapter to try to get Harry to admit something that would confirm his suspicions. If Morgan actually thought Dresden was summoning a demon to kill him, there would be no conversation.

Harry would be a body in one place and a head in another place disconnected from each other.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:43)
Yes, absolutely, because we know how competent Morgan is. He almost killed the Red King on his own. So that reading has to be it here, where Morgan is just pushing him, testing him, as it says in that journal, Microfiction, in the same way a cop will bluff and know more than they actually know in order to get information out of a suspect. Because if the suspect thinks that he's been caught,

then maybe he starts talking to get himself a better deal. And that's what we're seeing here. This is a magic cop. He's doing what other cops do.

Baloreilly (57:20)
And to be clear, it really works for this book that Butcher later establishes the role of Nemesis in these stories. Now we don't know why so many of them take place in Chicago. That piece has yet to be explained. But it explains how Sells knows how to do this. It explains the overconfidence that Sells has. It explains...

why no one's kind of done this whole thaumaturgy storm thing before. It's new tech from the hacker who's on, you know, Team Bad. And why Morgan doesn't realize it can be done by someone like this. In Morgan's brain, he's gotta push Harry. He's gotta figure out if it's him because Harry's the only wizard-level talent in Chicago, it seems So how else could this be happening?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:14)
Yeah, it's one of the only explanations. it's the only plausible one you can come up with. we're gonna end there. Next chapter, we're gonna find out what happened to Linda Randall, why she didn't make it to her and Murphy's going to have a confrontation with Harry. But before we get there, we're gonna stop and have our question for Bob.

Baloreilly (58:37)
So Bob, you were in this chapter. You got to see the whole fight and it was exciting. It was thrilling. So let me ask you, what makes a cool fight in your thousands of years of experience?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:54)
Yeah, well, ironically, Bob can't make it this week either because he's helping Harry with potions.

Baloreilly (59:02)
They don't even make potions anymore. Harry doesn't even have- it's butters-

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:07)
I know, but apparently Harry needed help and Bob is a very help. You know, that doesn't track. I think he might, you think he might be lying to me?

Baloreilly (59:13)
These, I

think these lies are getting more and more transparent and frankly, we need to get in contact with somebody who's higher up in the food chain here to spook him into coming on the show.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:23)
But when I do talk to him, he

Okay, so why don't we take this What makes a great fight

So the first thing that comes to mind is stakes beyond the physical result of the fight. And what that means is stakes that are personal to the characters, outcomes that are beyond simply

the bad guy is dead or I get out alive. What that means is things like, hey, if I don't win this, are going to be consequences to Murphy, my friend, or the city of Chicago is going to find out about this if I don't, or the White Council is going to be going to war with someone if I don't do this right. those kinds of stakes that are beyond the...

I killed you or I survived are good and they help make a fight more interesting.

Baloreilly (1:00:09)
Right,

great example of that is the fight with Fix in Cold Days, where it's not just that Harry has to win, that's trivial, he has to win quickly and he can't kill Fix.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:22)
Yes, yes, exactly. The limitation on the fight due to the way that the stakes are set up. Another great example that I think I saw somebody Michael trying to save Nicodemus in skin game in the vault, that is a very different stake. Like, yes, they're about to have a fight, but before the fight happens, Michael sets up the stake. This may be your very last chance.

Baloreilly (1:00:33)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:46)
you have to see what Enduriel's doing to you. And that was such emotional scene because they're on the verge of fighting or they're basically set up to fight and Michael stops it to try to change the stakes. It's not just about defeating you or killing you, it's about trying to save you. And that's a great example of that. Another characteristic.

Any scene introduces something novel, there's gotta be something novel in the scene. If it's just the same six spells that we see Harry throwing over and over again against the same enemies over and over again, it definitely gets tedious and boring. But when you introduce something new, either a new enemy that is immune to Harry's whatever and he has to find some new way, some novel way to defeat that enemy, obviously that makes sense. But a great example of this is seeing Ramirez fight

in White Night was one of the coolest things that I can remember ever reading for the first time in the series. Like, are you kidding me? His shield doesn't stop things, it disintegrates them as they pass through so they become harmless? That is super cool. And then later it branches out from there and his offensive magic also just rips atoms apart at the atomic level. That is so cool. I love seeing those kind of.

clever in new ways to see things work.

The last one I want to touch on is believable stakes. If the outcome, if the stakes are Harry survives or not, come on, we know Harry's gonna survive. That's not a believable stake. He's only gonna die when he's shot at the end of a book when there's no fight going on, clearly. But one of the ways that an author can set, and the same thing is true of side characters too.

If your author doesn't kill any of your friendly likable characters, you never feel any tension when they're in danger. But Butcher does not strive away from that, right? Sheero puts himself into danger and dies as a result. Mac Finn is a likable enemy. You hope that Harry will save him by the end, but he doesn't. He has to kill Kirby, that was unexpected and just comes out of left field and boom, Kirby's just dead.

Baloreilly (1:02:55)
think one of the biggest examples of this is Lily in Cold Days comes out of nowhere. She's an antagonist, but like you said with McFin, she's one that you want to see redeemed to a lesser extent that's true of Aurora. You see stuff like with Nelson, Molly's boyfriend, she just, she just ruined him. no happy ending. you didn't actually hurt someone that bad, Molly. It's going to be okay. No.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:01)
Yeah!

No, they

said he's probably gone insane forever. maybe, maybe with a lot of therapy he can come back, but he's probably just insane forever. Yep.

Baloreilly (1:03:28)
Anna Ash in White

Knight. She is just such a likable character who does so much work and is doing so much to keep herself safe. And she still eats it. She's smart and she dies. Obviously the big one. Twice. Susan Rodriguez. And that was the one you brought up where I was like, yeah, Deirdre's death in...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:46)
Yeah. Morgan Deirdre.

Baloreilly (1:03:54)
skin game is that's, you know, the subtle way Butcher gets you to kind of start to like her just so you feel it when she dies. I mean, he does all of the textbook character deaths that really land and they never feel trite. They never feel like they are easy and cheap. They hit you, but he you know, step away from.

and they happen with some regularity.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:24)
So this list of 18, if you include the ones from Battleground, Murphy, Chandler, Yoshimo, Wild Bill, and Hendrix, that's 18 names that we just talked about over the last couple of minutes of likable characters that have been in multiple books in many cases that you wouldn't necessarily expect to die, but they that allows Butcher to put characters in danger.

in a future book and you to go, well, I honestly couldn't tell you for sure if they're gonna make it out of this one. Like, I know Harry's gonna make it out, but maybe he's gonna be scarred this time like he was when he went after Mavrah and he had that horrible thing happen to his hand. Maybe he's gonna have PTSD like with what happened with Susan when she turned the first time and he basically went and became a hermit for three months. Like, those are stakes that can happen to the main character, but other characters being able to die?

That keeps the fight interesting, the tension high.

Baloreilly (1:05:17)
And as you mentioned, Butcher's also willing to scar the characters he can't kill. Not just physically, but Harry becoming Winter Knight after breaking his back. Molly and Sarissa becoming fairy queens. know, is Molly...

really Molly anymore question that's bubbling up through the series. That makes you worry when you see him put characters in situations where, well, you don't think he could kill them story-wise, but he could still do something really bad.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:49)
So did you have any fight characteristics, anything that stuck out to you as what makes a really good Dresden fight scene?

Baloreilly (1:05:54)
So I reverse engineered my favorite sort of climax arcs in the Dresden Files to figure out what I liked about them so much. So White Knight, we're gonna talk about, probably my number one, from the Elaine Murph, I think we got through, to the Super Ghouls and the Wraith Deeps. whole series of events, that whole thrill ride is incredible.

because everybody is just doing exactly what you said, stepping up their game to a new level each part of the way. That crowning moment of awesome that Butcher does so well and chains together so well really makes the fight satisfying. As you see, quite progression fantasy style, but similarly, the characters develop not just...

emotionally, but in terms of their capabilities over the books. That's amazing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:53)
I noticed when I was thinking about my favorites, they're often more structured. The ones that I find to be more forgettable are like, some monster ambushes Harry and he has to struggle to survive. Those ones, I don't know if there's just too many of them that are too similar, but the ones that I came up with as my favorites, the Wraith Deeps, Carlos and Harry versus Magical and Vittorio at the end of White Night,

Baloreilly (1:07:02)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:15)
Harry and Susan versus the Ikaroks and the vamp in the Goblin Sanctum when they're trying to escape in changes, and Harry versus Ariana, all of those structured duels were things that came to mind when I thought, man, that was a really cool scene when those things happened.

Baloreilly (1:07:31)
That's certainly true. One thing that I really also love that Jim does is when there's this idea that authority equals ass kicking in books like this. If you're gonna make a character powerful, if you're gonna make a character important to the story, they have to be able to kick ass. And that can force you to bend the limits of human capability a little bit. know, can Murphy actually throw Hendrix around, even if she is really truly amazing at Akito?

She's like a 38 year old five foot nothing woman. That might not be realistic. But it's important that she can for the story because making her a character that is as important as someone like Harry or Molly or Michael requires that she can kick ass in a level commiserate with them. a development of this, a further refinement of that idea is when you use these physical conflicts as moments of characterization.

which is why stuff the only number that matters is one Mab to none.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:33)
⁓ god, that's such a great line!

Baloreilly (1:08:35)
Like,

and then just like from that point to Mab soloing the Eye of Balor blast is like, God, okay, I now understand. Like Mab was a force in the earlier books. Now she's a person. Yeah, so when Jim Fisher does that in a scene is really, really impressive. And the other thing that I love watching him do is it's something like a deadbeat.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:52)
Yeah, absolutely.

Baloreilly (1:09:03)
and that's obviously the most famous example of it, but it's all over the place, when Harry's...

solution is so creative or so Indiana Jones, know, that kind of combination of risk-taking and intelligence, that sort of scoundrel behavior, you every Harrison Ford character, right?

That's really hard to nail. It's really hard to not make that come across as cheesy and my god, yeah, okay, whatever. You have to build up to why he's in the Field Museum. have to really come up with a good reason why he's the ghost who can just say

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:48)
And how

the other characters react to that is as important because for example, if 250, 300 year old captain of the wardens goes like, well, I have never seen anyone do that before. makes it much more impressive than just like, look, I'm riding a dinosaur.

Baloreilly (1:10:08)
and that's why people who are much more experienced than Harry being surprised by the things that he pulls off, not just by the power he uses, but by what he thinks is actually why when the star born label appears in the series.

It doesn't bother me that Harry's got something special to him that makes him different. Because it's a reason that he's capable of going around corners in a way that others can't. That sort of explains his ability to do this. I really appreciate that Butcher is not just, you know, trying to make him impressive and cool and, ⁓ what a great...

author insert, know, dmpc I made or whatever, he's really carefully constructing both on an in-story level and on a meta level why Harry's the guy who's inventing the zombie tyrannosaur.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:04)
before we go, we got a few more things to talk about.

from Reddit because we had some really great responses to this question on both Reddit and the Aspert says, would say balance is a factor. Internal balance in the prose needs to be sufficiently descriptive in order to draw the reader and create a sense of urgency. However, it mustn't be so descriptive as to get bogged down in the minutiae, thus losing the sense of dynamic action. External balance, for example, how the scene sits,

within a greater work. Fight scenes need to have a purpose beyond, ain't that cool hype moments. If it's not developing the plot and or informing the character, then what's the point? Unquote. That last part, getting to what you were talking about before, character development by seeing their choices in a fight.

Baloreilly (1:11:50)
And Acebird's first part is something we didn't bring up at all, but Butcher is so good at. He does a great job describing fight scenes, partially because he doesn't overly describe fight scenes, which is something that you see in a lot of books that have this much combat sometimes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:06)
Yeah, absolutely. And then we got another one from Great Metropolitan who said, quote,

Each move and each combatant should tell you something about them. Are they disciplined, sloppy? Are they determined, casual, or frightened?" ⁓

Baloreilly (1:12:36)
It really is great to have magical combat in a world where there are no spell books because the creativity of the wizard is such an important window into how likable of a character they are. Ebenezer, I'll never hate because some of his magic is so pretty. the body armor thing with the cornerhounds is just like,

Yeah man, that's incredibly badass. really a master and you just impress me with what you're able to do and think of. And of course, all of these ideas in reality come from the author. It really does say something about Butcher's writing that he can do that. We also hit up the powernet where Talby16 said, quote, something I've enjoyed about some of the fight scenes in Dresden Files is the element of surprise.

Harry sees something that lets him arrange the fight in a particular way or take specific actions, but we aren't told what it is until the surprise is sprung. We end up being surprised just like the enemies are, yet we can see why Harry did what he did and get the satisfaction.

I think the fight in the botanical gardens in cold days. Harry knew the tenture needed to be broken correctly to avoid a slaughter and was able to do that because he saw Katzith take out one of the bad guys. Something that's only revealed to us as the fight's going on, of course. ⁓ so good. Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:00)
Hey, didn't there used to be seven of you guys? Oh, it's such a great line. Such a badass line.

the other thing that he's talking about, what Talby's talking about here, it's very common and sort of a Dresdenism or a Butcherism to where

Harry says like, I got an idea, but I'm gonna need these things. And then the sidekick says, what do you need? And then instead of actually having that conversation, the narrator just says, so I told them. And then we never hear about what that thing was until later when Harry opens his bag and a bunch of fairies with plastic box cutters come out, right? That's the reveal.

but don't learn about it until much later. So we, just like Talbot says, we end up being just as surprised as the enemies are because Butcher hides that reveal from us until the very end.

Baloreilly (1:14:45)
And it's important, of course, that these feel plausible. Fairies with box cutters is genius because of course you can get box cutters, of course you can get fairies, but I would never think, I mean, Summer Night is one of the books that really made me fall in love with the series because nobody else, nobody but Butcher has fairies with box cutters as the final battle, kill the evil fairy queen.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:52)
Mm-hmm.

Right, you can think, can you think of anything else that Harry could have done to win that fight against the Summer Lady at that moment? I don't think there's anybody he could bring, any ally he could call that could win that fight, but a bunch of tiny fairies and she can't defend against all of them at the same time? And because they're all swiping at her with steel, she can't do magic? That's just brilliant.

Baloreilly (1:15:39)
And in the hands of a lesser writer, Harry would do that one time never comes up again. We never learn anything, nobody grows from this. What happens in the Dresden Files? 10, yeah, 10 books later, exactly, yeah, exactly. It's asymmetric fairy-based warfare, the whole book.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:49)
It becomes doctrine when fighting with fairies.

Yeah, and Harry becomes the recipient of it instead, is, aw, it's just such a great turnaround in cold days. That whole fight with the fairies and then later, when they're making fun of him for getting his ass kicked by fairies. Bob, I think, is the one that he can't stop laughing. Oh man, anyway, we'll get there. I'm very much looking forward to it.

All right, so before we go, we gotta talk about what our next week's question for Bob will be. Brian?

Baloreilly (1:16:22)
So just like we said, reusing tricks from earlier books, in Stormfront, thaumaturgical links are used to wreak havoc with characters, killing handful of people in this book alone. So why doesn't anybody do this to the Merlin or some other member of the White Council or try it on Harry again?

Why don't we see thaumaturgical links exploited more in the Dresden files? Why isn't that the main way you try to fight wizards in the first place?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:54)
Yep, we'll see it happen in the next episode we'll be talking about the chapter where the Marcon comes and steals Harry's hair and he panics, he absolutely panics. Why does that tactic not get used again? What's protecting I think we're gonna have some good answers, but Bob is gonna give us the correct answer, I guarantee it. He's gotta know. All right, with that we are going to say good night.

Baloreilly (1:17:14)
I mean he knows, he's gotta know.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:19)
We hope to see you again next time.