Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
like the four things. Like, he leaves, he's thinking, he gets his hair stolen, he chases Gimpy, the Good Samaritans try to stop him, and then he's out.

Baloreilly (00:08)
I didn't remember when I reread it that he actually did catch him. And that the only reason... Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:11)
Yeah. Cause he calls him Gimpy for a reason. Harry's gonna

be able to catch him. He's got a bad leg. Which makes Gimpy's plan really kind of dumb. I'll get this guy's hair and then outrun him with my bad leg.

Baloreilly (00:28)
It's very funny because,

you know, Harry's also huge. it's a little bit, you know the Morgan Freeman scene in The Dark Knight? And your plan is to blackmail this person? You believe that my client, who is six foot nine...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:37)
yeah.

is also

a wizard of the mystic arts.

Baloreilly (00:46)
and Fist is also a wizard and your plan

and your plan is to get into a fist fight with this person? Good luck.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:05)
Welcome to Recorded Neutral Territory, a Dresden Files chapter by chapter reread podcast.

Today we're taking a look at chapters 15, 16, and 17 of Stormfront, but remember, the spoilers go all the way through Battleground. I am Adam Ruzzo, and with me as always is an ordinary Varsity patron, it's Brian O'Reilly. Welcome, Brian.

Baloreilly (01:24)
I'm having a great time this is an episode of people for the first time in the Dresden Files witnessing Harry blowing stuff up. So can't get better than that. Yeah, absolutely.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:35)
Yeah, we get to witness Harry blowing stuff up.

it's

the first building that burns down that is probably kind of his fault, even though he isn't the one that sets it. He definitely sets things into motion that cause it. They do, yeah, they burn it down at the end. these three chapters, just to get you an idea of what's gonna happen in them, this is the one where Harry goes to Linda Randall's place. He has a confrontation with Murphy. Then he's going to walk out, get assaulted by one of Marcon's thugs who he recognizes. He names Gimpy because he's got a bad leg. Gimpy steals his hair.

Baloreilly (01:43)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, they do set it on fire. I forgot about that. That's, yes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:07)
He disappears off the city. Harry confronts Marcon at the Varsity, reveals Gympie as a double agent, there's some violence, and then Harry leaves without any more leads as to figure out what's going on. That's what we're talking about today. But where are we in time, Brian?

Baloreilly (02:24)
So the funniest thing in this, the whole thing of these next three chapters, the funniest thing here is that there's two people out for a jog at one in the morning or whatever. It might be like 11 or something, I don't know. But these late night joggers in Chicago, getting in, trying to stop them day of their lives.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:33)
It might be like 1030 at this point.

Baloreilly (02:44)
It's about, like we said, midnight Saturday, getting into early Sunday morning. He probably arrives at the scene at, I can guess, no earlier than 10.30,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:56)
So for this chapter, which takes place entirely within Linda Randall's apartment, we've read the chapter from Harry's perspective. we think it will be very interesting to explore this chapter from Murphy's perspective.

Baloreilly (03:09)
Right, I mean from Harry's perspective, he walks into the crime scene and he makes what to him are some very rational decisions about what he can tell Murphy. And she basically him like he's a suspect by the end of the conversation. And if you're on Team Dresden, if you're living in Harry's head, if you're like, this guy's an actual wizard who can do fricking magic, right,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:32)
And he's obviously a good guy.

Baloreilly (03:34)
You should assume that when he says, can't tell you, or when he doesn't say, doing so for a good reason. And in Harry's mind he is, but there's two problems with that analysis. The first is he doesn't actually have a good Harry is rationalizing to himself. And if you weren't Harry, if you weren't primed to accept his rationalizations, you wouldn't. And two, Harry's perception

of how he's being treated hinges a lot on what his assumptions are about how Murphy would act or what she's thinking. And we actually don't think that Harry has a good handle on what Murphy's planning to do or what she's thinking. So that's where we should start. The first thing we should lay out here is Murphy already knows that the dead woman Harry's business card on her.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:08)
Exactly.

Baloreilly (04:24)
She knows Harry's been investigating the case, but Murphy has told him, don't go near anybody, don't interview anybody. Harry has never mentioned Linda Randall to her, and yet, she invites him into the crime She doesn't invite him to her office for a conversation. She brings him into the scene, same way she did to the first murder scene. Adam, putting you on the spot a little bit.

What do you think her deal is? Why do you think she does this?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:50)
Well, as we talked about in the last episode, at this point, Murphy wants to extend her trust to Harry She's worked with him some in the past, she believes that she can read people well enough to say, he's a good guy. She even helps drive him home and leaves him some money. She loans him some money. Like, all of that to me says, I wanna be able to trust this And I think this is another

test for her, this is her hoping that her trust is returned. She knows something, she's gonna give Harry the opportunity to come clean on his own accord. a moment where she the of the dead when she does, she makes it a point to turn around so she's not looking at him when she says it.

Because if you think about it, that's what a cop would normally do, If they suspected that you were hiding something from them, when they revealed the important information, they would be staring at you to see what your reaction was. But she very purposely does not. She turns around and goes inside and says the name with her back to Harry. I fully believe this is a test. She wants to trust him. She says, she's thinking to herself, I'm gonna tell him the name.

and he's gonna say, my God, Murph, I talked to her yesterday, or whatever his explanation is. That's what she wants to happen.

Baloreilly (06:14)
let's play that out a little Say that's what Harry says. Harry goes, Murphy, you're not gonna like this.

You know how I didn't talk to Bianca on Friday? Well, I didn't talk to Linda on Friday too. And goes into the whole thing. So clearly he was not supposed to do that. But let's play it out. If he does do that, what do think Murphy's reaction is?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:38)
I think her reaction is very, very similar to her reaction that we get later in this chapter when he like, pretends like, say that I sensed that, you know, he tries to like, hypothetical his way out of actually implicating She gets very angry and we're gonna talk about whether that's justified, but it seems to me, she specifically says in that statement that she could have maybe done something about this and was basically, Harry made choices for her.

by questioning Linda and then not telling Murphy, he took away her agency. And she is supposed to be in charge of this investigation. This is not just a subordinate making choices for the superior. This is a consultant. He's not part of the hierarchy at all. He should not get to make choices. Murphy is responsible for catching the killer and she wants to make all the choices. She wants to be in control of everything because she knows that if it fails, it will be on her.

Baloreilly (07:36)
So I think that that's certainly possible and it is indeed consistent with how she reacts in the chapter. But I actually think if at this point Dresden had said, yeah, so you're not going to like this, but this is what happened. I don't think she would be nearly as angry at him because Murphy is not angry. Like Murphy's angry that Harry went and saw Björn.

But she's not like, I'm gonna throw you off the case says, I saw her because she's on the spooky side and I knew she wouldn't talk to you. Mert, yes, exactly. And if he said, look, I thought I heard over the phone that Linda was at an airport. I wasn't sure if she was coming or going. Figured I might as well try to track her down while she was in the country.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:12)
And I think that's a decent justification. I think that's why Murphy's not super angry at him.

Baloreilly (08:28)
Turns out she actually worked for the Beckett's, but she didn't know anything. So I didn't mention it to you because she didn't know And if Harry did something that was dumb, which I Murphy would have filed that away as, that was a dumb choice, you need to tell me everything.

I don't think Murphy would be that upset about it. She'd be mad, but she'd be the kind of quick anger that she's like, ⁓ you know, that was a stupid thing to do. And then, okay, you whatever, we're on the same team. I think the thing that's so frustrating in this chapter for Murphy is she feels like Dresden is trying to make her feel like he's on her team, but is not actually treating her like he's on her team.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:08)
Yeah, I could definitely see that interpretation because like you said, if at this moment, at this test where she gives Linda Randall's name, if his response is to admit to her what happens rather than try to cover up his interactions with that validates her trust in some

Baloreilly (09:30)
Right, I think that's definitely correct, because Harry says in the narration, quote, it was a good thing Murphy had turned away, or the way my jaw dropped would have

not have a good poker face as we're going to describe in this scene. He would have given it away and Murphy is trying to make it a free choice on his think Harry pointing that out is actually a signal to us that Murphy is trying to give him that free choice to reveal it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:00)
That's a really great way of putting it, because choice is a huge recurring theme throughout the entire Dresden Files. She's giving him a choice and not putting her finger on the scale by glaring at him or looking at him with a poker face or implying that she's gonna judge him here. She's doing it and giving him the choice without any pressure. And meanwhile, one of the reasons that she's mad at him is he took away her choice when he decided don't...

need to know about Linda Randall because I already asked all the important questions and she didn't know anything. And we're gonna get to that in a moment, because I think that being incredibly arrogant to think that he asked all the right questions and is the only one who could have put together any information. Like it's entirely possible that a trained detective that has Murphy's background

would know different questions to ask or would recognize other things about that interaction, even if she asked the exact same questions as Harry.

for her.

Baloreilly (10:58)
And I'm setting

the stage for that because the next thing that happens is Murphy doesn't stop him there and go, what do you mean you, doesn't ring a bell, you know? She brings him into the crime scene, brings him into the apartment. He walks through the whole crime scene. And then Murphy says something as Harry is taking everything in before he walks into the actual site of the murder.

She says, quote, Harry, Murphy said quietly. Her tone of voice suggested that it wasn't the first time she said it. Are you sure you're all right for this?

End quote. And I think Murphy saying that is one, she knows it's gonna be a gruesome scene. She's asking if he's okay to see the body, et cetera. But two, Murphy knows Harry knew Linda She's especially saying, are you sure you're ready to see this? Because she knows it's gonna be somebody who Harry's met already in a scene in life. And this is another opportunity Harry to say,

I think this is somebody who I met, Right? You know, he's... Right. especially because there's a bunch of pictures of Linda in the apartment. So he's gotten a chance to now put a name, a face to the name. Maybe, you know, he didn't get her name or doesn't remember the name or whatever. But he walks through the whole scene and sees all these pictures. Okay, so now they're gonna walk into the site of the murder with Harry again denying, quote,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:05)
Yeah, this is test number two, which he fails again.

Right.

Baloreilly (12:29)
My head's just aching, sorry, let's just get it

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:32)
the next piece that we see here, and it's probably another test, is she starts to describe Linda Randall

Again, hoping that Harry breaks in and it gives her some information and opens up to her. she says, quote, we tried to reach her boss, but he wasn't available. Mr. unquote. So she's now giving him more information, giving, yeah, Mr. Beckett. Okay, here's how I know Linda, But again, he just doesn't look at her in shrugs, like the most guilty thing you could possibly do. And that's when we see Murphy's poker face break, because the next line is, quote,

Murphy's jaw tensed, little motions at the corner of her face." Unquote. So that is clearly something indicating that she's now getting mad because he's failed three tests at this point. She

Baloreilly (13:21)
asks Harry, ever heard of him? With regards to Mr. Beckett. And of course Harry has, he gave Linda business Murphy's covering all of the basis of how he could have heard of this.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:31)
Right,

And now instead of just lying through omission, he is lying to her face. He is answering a question with a direct lie. And that is even more egregious.

Baloreilly (13:42)
So the next thing Murphy does is Murphy gives Harry information about the Beckets. Now we need this information to understand why they're involved. Someone has to give us the audience the information that Marcon is responsible for the, at this point, death of the Beckets' daughter. But, ⁓

Why is she telling Harry this?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:03)
she's simultaneously treating him like a consultant and like a suspect, where you're trying to prime them with information and get them to talk about it, and anything that she can get to shake loose information from him, where he'll finally admit, ⁓ yeah, Murph, here's the deal, right? She keeps waiting for that to happen and it keeps not happening. And then we finally get to the point where she shows him his business card in an evidence bag,

unmarked evidence bag, which gives him the information, I'm ready to put this into evidence, but I wanna hear your side first. And she's been trying to get him to do this of his own accord, and she's been trusting him less and less each time. And at this point, he realizes he's broken her trust several times in this conversation, and so he tries to get it back here.

And this is where he says, ⁓ if we hypothetically met yesterday? And hypothetically, I talked to her about the case and hypothetically, she didn't have any information. He does this by pretending he had a premonition about it. And that just makes her madder.

Baloreilly (15:10)
So why is she still allowing him to be in the crime scene?

Why hasn't she thrown him out in his ear already? It's because Murphy has a hard time switching from you're on my team to you're not on my team. from Harry's perspective, he's not really noticing this happening in real time. But Murphy's anger is slow to come in this scene. And when it comes, it's irrational and implacable.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:35)
And that's, think, a perfect explanation of why some people have a problem with Murphy in this book and in Full Moon, because it does seem to come out of nowhere unless you read this scene, A, with a knowledge of future Murphy in mind, and or B, with a generous interpretation of Murphy's state of mind. And you kind of have to work your way backwards to the beginning of the scene, right? Because

When she reveals that she has his business card, it recontextualizes all those interactions we just discussed. The reason we know that those are tests is because we know that the business card is already in her possession.

Baloreilly (16:15)
Murphy is not flipping a switch and getting angry immediately. Murphy has been cool as a cucumber, keeping all of her emotions about this almost perfectly under wraps for the entire walkthrough investigation of the apartment. And only after she literally shows him an evidence bag with his name on it, Only after that does he give her anything.

And even then it's not much. At that point, she has leashed this so hard, she's been so calm, she is just infuriated. Right? and she doesn't know this, there is no way Harry could have done anything to prevent Linda Randall from Basically, if there's a storm and Victor Sells has a thaumaturgical means to connect to you,

He can kill So the only way they were gonna stop this is if they had already caught Victor, essentially. There was no way that was gonna happen. Nobody has enough information to know that it's Victor at this point to make that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:16)
so from Murphy's perspective, he has taken away her choices.

And now if something goes wrong, everything's her fault and she didn't get to do her best work.

Baloreilly (17:27)
And I think this is the thing that underlies Murphy's treatment of Dresden in both of these books. From Murphy's Harry has gotten two women Not in this book, only one woman, and then later, is the second one. Murphy doesn't know, as we the reader do know, that there was no way to prevent these deaths effectively telling the police anything.

wouldn't have changed a That's not usually true, right? Usually, if somebody's put out a hit on a key witness and you take him into protective custody, they're fine. They're gonna get through. That solves the Murphy doesn't know any of this because Harry doesn't tell her any of So him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:11)
Right.

Baloreilly (18:14)
because she doesn't understand some things, that it was in Harry's power to help her understand.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:22)
So, I personally think that Murphy's anger here is justified. would you say that that's fair?

Baloreilly (18:30)
yeah, I completely agree.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:31)
could Murphy have handled this better, more generously, or in a way that gets Harry to open up properly?

Baloreilly (18:39)
Honestly, I think the only thing Murphy could have done differently is when Harry the whole premonition thing. Murphy could have simply asked...

Why you tell me this?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:53)
yeah, absolutely, because Harry never volunteers that information.

Baloreilly (18:58)
She is absolutely justified having this level of reprobation towards him.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:05)
so now let's talk about Harry's reaction here. Harry gives two specific reasons for why he chooses to keep Murphy in the dark. the first reason he enumerates is it would not be hard to find out that Linda wasn't exactly a high fidelity piece of equipment.

that she had numerous lovers on both sides of the fence. What if she and I were closer than I was admitting? What if I'd used magic to kill her lovers in a fit of jealous rage and then waited for another storm to kill her too?" Unquote. So the first reason is Murphy might think like a cop, and put me on the suspect list. you think that's a valid concern with what we know about Murphy now?

Baloreilly (19:43)
absolutely think that that's a valid concern, but the funny thing is that's the outcome he achieves by saying nothing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:49)
That's a very good point.

Baloreilly (19:52)
So yeah,

if he said, ⁓ Linda Randall, crazy that she's dead, I just had lunch with her yesterday. Yeah, that's, buddy, they're gonna check that story out.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:01)
And by the way,

I had it on my calendar to talk to tonight. Yeah, that's just a the next reason that he gives, he says, quote, the second problem, and the one that worried me a lot more, was that there were already three people dead, and if I hadn't gotten lucky and creative, there would have been two more dead people back at my apartment. I still don't know who the bad guy was. Telling Murphy,

what little more I knew wouldn't give her any helpful It would only make her ask more questions and she wanted answers."

what is going on here? It's arrogance. Harry is assuming that he got all the relevant information out of Linda. He's assuming that...

He's the only one with any information that could connect dots. Murphy's been investigating this from her own side for a couple of days now. What if she has information that will connect dots to any of the information that Linda gave to him? that arrogance of I know everything and this won't actually help Murphy even if I tell her and I know that enough to keep her in the dark is hurts him here.

Baloreilly (21:07)
And the thing is, I think why people are forgiving of this from Harry's perspective is that ultimately I believe that he is correct about that insofar as he did not get anything from Linda that is going to help Murphy catch the killer. Now, he could just tell her what he got from Linda let that play out. That's what he in fact should do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:29)
I

was under the impression that he started to do that, and if Murphy had handled it more carefully, she might have pulled the rest of it out of him and got him to tell her the whole story. But, because he tries to do that hypothetical and if she says, you don't have to do that crap, just tell me what happened, I'm not gonna arrest you, right? Like, if she had played it that way, then he probably would have finished explaining everything that happened with Linda Randall and what he suspected and blah blah

Could Dresden have handled this better?

Baloreilly (21:57)
So, one, he could have just given that explanation anyway, because the fact that she's upset at him is not a reason not to explain it.

but I think that more than that, Harry is not doing any of this for the reasons that he actually states.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:14)
he's lying to himself.

Baloreilly (22:15)
Yes, because the first thing that we get in this chapter is a very good line. Quote, as it turned out, Linda Randall had a darn good reason for skipping out on our appointment Saturday night. Linda Randall was dead. the way that Harry says that really makes you feel like he is taking it pretty hard.

The first thing he opens on is our appointment and she's dead. She missed our appointment because she's dead. He's drawing that cause and effect line from got Linda Randall killed. And to be honest, I think that that's true. He did get her killed. If Harry doesn't meet her when the Beckett's see him do so, I don't think Sells has any reason to think she's a problem. And I think that Sells probably doesn't kill her.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:04)
Mm-hmm.

one of the reasons that Harry shuts down is when Murphy gets mad at him and says, quote, if you sensed these things yesterday or maybe even this morning, it's possible that we could have talked to her. It's possible that we could have found out something from her. It's even possible, it's even possible that she'd still be alive, unquote. That hits him extra hard because he's

already blaming himself. Because we know he blames himself even when he shouldn't, like when he feels responsible for defending everyone and if he fails at that responsibility, even if it's completely not his fault, he didn't know about the problem, well I should have known about the problem. He blames himself when he shouldn't and he blames himself when he should and now when Murphy is also throwing it on him, it's just too much and he shuts down and says, a lot of people have my car.

Baloreilly (24:02)
And I think that what he says, a lot of people have my card, acting very guilty. He sounds And he sounds guilty he views himself as guilty. And Murphy is just picking up on that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:09)
Mm-hmm.

Baloreilly (24:18)
And why does Harry do this? It's not just because he thinks in this one isolated incidence this might have been my fault. It's because Harry has serious PTSD about women entering his life and getting killed by the supernatural. Linda, literally, enters his life, is killed by the supernatural. Susan, just a couple hours ago, goes on a date with him.

attacked by a demon. Elaine, his mother, it is a refrain that he just, it hits on his most primal insecurities that when women get close to him, something that goes bump in the night bumps them. And that's why he starts stonewalling Murphy here. It's not because he rationally actually thinks, what I really need to do is lie to this police officer who's my boss.

It's because Harry has this trauma response where he thinks that if he lets people in, he will get them killed. It's not a rational fear.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:22)
Yeah,

all the ones that you mentioned, and one more, Wilhelmina in Welcome to the Jungle, the woman that works the zoo, also gets in mortal peril being around Harry Dresden. So this early in the series, I think we named five or six women that either did die or immediately became under mortal peril because they entered into his orbit. So it definitely makes sense that he's got that going on here.

Baloreilly (25:31)
Mmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:51)
Okay, so moving on, this ends with her treating him as a suspect and saying, well, we don't have enough to arrest you right now, but we need you to come in tomorrow. We have some more questions. he then moves out and leaves. The next chapter, there's not a lot to say about it. He's leaving, he's mulling over the case, and Gimpy, Marcon's thug, comes in, gives him a sucker punch in the gut, steals his hair, runs away.

Harry tries to chase him, and if you recall in this scene, Harry catches him. This is not a bright man. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna sneak up on the wizard, I'm gonna steal his hair, and then I'm going to outrun him with my bad leg. Dude has some problems. He's not thinking this through. So Harry catches him, and it's only by...

the help of some good Samaritans who think that Harry is the aggressor in this situation, that they pull him off a gimpy and gimpy gets away. Harry ever learn that dressing nicer might have resulted in a better outcome for him here?

Baloreilly (26:58)
It's pretty funny, he gets the spider silk suit in Battleground, but it's got absolutely nothing to do with it being a suit, even though, of course, Molly, you know, puts him in nice clothes for the party, but Harry would never think to do anything like that. Right.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:08)
It immediately gets ruined. It gets

all slashed to pieces.

Baloreilly (27:16)
But the funny thing is Harry is surrounded by people who know this. know, Marcon dresses for success. Michael doesn't like wear suits everywhere, but Michael with the white cloak with the cross on it, you he dresses for the job he wants. Harry, be a PI, but he's never gonna be wearing a suit and tie and trying to look respectable on the job. He's always gonna dress, you know.

t-shirt and stick and scraggly hair and the thing that bugs me about this scene is Harry's 6'9 so it's not just you're gonna sneak up on the wizard it's you're get into a fist fight with the NBA player you know and then try to steal his like just just bring a crowbar buddy just hit him you know you already got him with the baseball bat

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:55)
You

been like an attack of opportunity, right? He's panicking because he thinks Dresden is getting closer to his boss and he can't ever let that happen because then if Marcon finds out, then he's in real trouble. He's much less afraid of Harry than he is of Marcon. So this is like, he's been following Harry around and he's like, this is my opportunity, I have to take it while I've got it. I'm guessing that's where we're seeing this here. It's not a lot of pre-planning. This is like operating in a desperate situation.

Baloreilly (28:28)
this must be information that

this guy has just received from Victor, I need a lock of this guy's hair. So he's definitely feels like he's under time pressure to get this done, but it is ultimately very sloppy. luckily the two joggers are the only reason that Gimpy actually gets away Varsity.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:50)
Yes, Harry then uses the little bit of blood that's underneath his fingernails to get to follow Gympie to the Varsity. the spell he uses is a tracking spell, Segway Votro Testatum. our best guess is it roughly translates to follow your trail.

or something similar that follow the witness of, you know, the witnesses. And I kind of figure that is like, okay, the trail through the forest you can find, here's a boot print, here's a broken tree, you know, those are like the trail that you've left behind, the witnesses to your passing. So that seems to be what this particular spell is. Does he ever speak the tracking spell in the future? I feel like this is the only time I've ever seen it said out loud in Latin. He might have just muttered a spell or something without actually naming it.

Baloreilly (29:38)
Yeah, I think it's unique tracking spell on a couple notes. First, as we were talking about before the show, My Latin's pretty rusty, but this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So this is some real dog Latin. And he might just mutter it down to one word, know, segui, might be what he says in the future. It's just, follow. But he also does this whole nose thing he tracks him by giving him like smell-o-vision.

of the guy or something. can follow the scent like he's a bloodhound. And that's not how his normal tracking spell works. He normally just uses the pentacle and triangulates off of where the pentacle is swaying to.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:13)
Well, it's also not unusual to use your senses because we see Molly in bombshells, I think, use her lips. She puts the piece of whatever it is she's using for her tracking spell into her mouth and uses her lips, like the sense, she says your lips are very sensitive to touch. So then she uses that so when she turns her head, she can feel on her lips where the spell is pulling her.

Baloreilly (30:24)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:40)
That's another way to do it. One thing I do like about both of hair and the smell and the lips thing is you don't have to be super obvious holding up a dowsing rod front of you when you're trying to track. It all happens in your head and nobody gets to see what's happening to you. It's more of a secret.

Baloreilly (30:56)
Yes, I think the thing about the Pentechol that he realizes later is that he can hang it from the rear view mirror, and that's very convenient. But of course here he's got to get into a cab anyway, so he's really doing the follow that car, no make this turn, no make that turn kind of thing with the cabbie.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:02)
Yes. Yes.

Exactly, and the cabbie has

a surreal experience where this guy won't tell him where to go. He'll only tell him which turn to take. I can't tell you. Okay, so that brings us to chapter 17 where Harry confronts Marcon. Now, the way that this works is he decides to finally hat up, get all of his equipment and be a frickin' wizard and not just be caught.

Unawares on any everything he does so it describes what he's brought quote a bracelet on each wrist a ring my blasting rod my staff That sounds very familiar to what he brings to every other fight for most of the series now He does upgrade his bracelet. He upgrades his rings where he gets multiples of them

but he says a bracelet on each wrist. I don't think we ever get information on what the other bracelet does in this book. And we don't ever see it again either.

Baloreilly (32:11)
Yeah, I can't even see what the bracelet does in this book. The bracelet on his right hand. I don't even...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:14)
Yeah.

It's mentioned

and then nothing happens with it. Maybe it was a piece that Butcher decided to cut, but this is kind of a little ruin from that.

Baloreilly (32:25)
Yes, I think that might be exactly what happened.

never hear about this again, but the rings, is it plural rings? The rings are of course familiar. okay, so this time he's only got the one ring. Uh-oh.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:34)
It says A-ring.

Okay, fine, I'll let it go. what I want to imagine. Imagine you're sitting in the you're having your dinner or your drink or whatever and this is what happens. The door blows off its hinges into the night this guy in a coat with a big stick walks in and he...

Baloreilly (32:41)
Hahahaha!

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:05)
blast the jukebox with a fireball. That's the only way that I can read this, because he says, quote, I pointed my blasting rod inside and spoke a command. The jukebox slammed back against the wall as though a cannonball had impacted it and then melted into a puddle of liquid plastic goo, unquote. He doesn't say what the spell was, but he's using his blasting rod and then it melts. So to me, he's casting fuego. you watch this guy blast the doors off.

Fireball into the jukebox and then look at the big mob boss in the back of the room and address him I would leave in a hurry too.

Baloreilly (33:44)
Right, and it's especially really because not everybody in the club knows it's a mob joint. the people who know it's a mob joint, okay, he's a wizard, that's scary as hell, but...

If you're in the club and you're a low-level member of Marcon's outfit and you see somebody attack the place, you're like, ⁓ shit, it's business has come to the party. Okay, you know, is the boss going to tell us to do? If you're just a random witness who's here to get drunk with your buddies, this is some here's Johnny level of, scary person entering the building.

calling somebody out. I mean, I don't even know if you'd register fact that he's calling someone out because he's literally throwing around fireballs. I can't imagine anyone in the club who sees this, and not everyone will, of course, but I can't imagine anyone who sees this not realizing that something supernatural has happened. I mean, is that even possible?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:47)
That's true, but

this is a college bar at 1.30. Are there any sober people in it? There's a very easy explanation the next day when they wake up with a really bad hangover and this crazy memory of a wizard busting down the doors and casting fireball, they're gonna be like, man, what did I drink last night? That is probably gonna explain away most of the people's...

Baloreilly (34:54)
Definitely not. So that's definitely true. Nobody is sober here.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:16)
rationalization for what happened here.

Baloreilly (35:18)
For sure. I think that they're gonna find it very easy to rationalize, but...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:22)
What's more,

they're gonna learn the next day that the varsity burned down. So they're like, maybe imagined that it was a wizard. What happened? Was I there when it burned down? Like, it's just gonna be so confusing.

Baloreilly (35:35)
That's interesting, that might actually be part of Marcon's motivation in doing the arson, not just to of cover up the fact that it's openly been,

that Harry's openly discussed a business in it, but also because he doesn't want any stories about people throwing fireballs to hit the press. Now why would Marcone be concerned about the masquerade? I mean, no particular reason, probably just makes his life more complicated, but you know, he's gotta burn it down anyway, why not?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:06)
So the other thing I wanted to point out here is Harry, the narrator Harry says, quote, you only get one chance to make a first impression, unquote. And it reminded me of the part in Cold Case, the short story in briefcases where Molly is being sent on her first official mission as Winter Lady a piece of it that says, first impressions matter, Mab said, her voice hard edged.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, Molly said, rolling her eyes. I may have sounded a little bit like this guy I know, maybe a little." Unquote. I think that's a bit of a callback to Harry's line right here in Stormfront.

Baloreilly (36:47)
Well, I also think it works metatextually because this is Harry's first impression on the reader to a certain extent as a wizard. This is the first time we get to see Harry gear up and actually show us what he can do.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:00)
As Butcher says, cut loose.

Baloreilly (37:03)
Right, and I remember, specifically, the first time I was listening to Stormfront, this chapter made me go, I'm gonna like these books. Because in the beginning, you know, okay, you can do a tracking spell, and it seemed like we were getting a detective story where rather than there being highly realistic chapters of...

The protagonist goes on the internet and looks into some land deed purchases. You know, we're gonna get, and I cast a tracking spell, which is cool. It's a cooler thing than looking at deeds on the internet, but it's not really that magical to me. I'm somebody who has read a lot of high fantasy in my life. This scene was the first time I felt like, is a...

high fantasy book series where the protagonist is capable of really doing things that I think of as &D what a wizard does.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:05)
Yeah, exactly, this is definitely the first scene where that becomes apparent. it does make the book shift into a different genre in your mind when you get to this scene. And whether you like it or hate it, obviously, is going to depend on you personally. But I certainly did, I think, have the same impression that you did, which was, ⁓ this is much cooler than just the sort of lame thing that he was doing before.

Baloreilly (38:25)
Yeah.

think it's important that Butcher has really done the work of making the first part of the book so noir because haven't, I'm gonna be totally honest, Dresden Files is the urban fantasy series that I read. As a genre, I don't always love urban fantasy because I don't think that a lot of authors are really good at integrating fantasy characters into the modern.

I Butcher is brilliant at it, that's why I love his books. I can't say the same about everybody who does that.

Butcher does such a good job grounding the series in detective story tropes that even when he in chapter has the protagonist rip the door off a building, blow up some machinery, and go, hey, Gandalf's here to party,

that I don't feel like I'm reading a different book. I feel like the book I'm reading just better and more complex in terms of its genre than before. And I think it's not because

Adam (39:34)
Absolutely. up our estimation of Dresden as a character. Up until this point, he's kind of been a sad sack, like we just keep seeing him fail and be wrong over and over again in a lot of ways. He does have some insights that lead him in the right ways a lot of the time, but he's still made very little progress on either of the cases that he's taken. So this moment at least levels up

our respect for him in our own eyes as to what his capabilities are. one thing I wanted to also point out is Marcon's reaction to his entrance. this line in particular, he, Marcon, must have been but the icy exterior concealed it, unquote.

If there's any one, two, or three things that you can use to describe what makes Marcon unique within this universe, it's his poker face. Imagine you're the mob boss of Chicago. You are kinda clued in into the supernatural, at least well enough to know that soul gazes are a thing, but I'm guessing at this point in the story, Marcon doesn't know too much about wizards. He doesn't have...

guard on retainer to give him supernatural information. So what does he see? He sees this guy blow the doors off and fireball his jukebox and his reaction is just an icy exterior and the announcement, ladies and gentlemen, the varsity is closing early. It would seem please make an orderly exit through the door nearest you. That's insane. He's so controlled. That's crazy.

Brian (41:06)
So I actually think it might be even more impressive than that because the first thing Harry says is, quote, at the back table, Johnny Marcon regarded the doorway with his passionless muddy colored eyes. He was not smiling. But then right before the exterior thing, says, Marcon stared at me for a moment, then his lips twitched up at the corners.

a fucking joke.

Adam (41:40)
You're right, you're right, that's Dresden's thing. That's crazy.

Brian (41:44)
rips the doors off the

club, throws a fireball, calls him out, Marcones like, really, this is just how you approach everything, huh? Okay, I mean, all right. he's not just not showing Dresden how he feels about it, but actually what we see about his maybe actual reaction to it is more amusement than fear.

Adam (42:04)
here's my one interpretation of this. He has soul-gazed Harry. One of the things we know about Harry is he is an incredibly principled person to the point where he is willing to die for his own ethics and morals. He's doing the literally honest to gravestone, he died doing the right I have to imagine that Marcon saw that when he soul-gazed him earlier in the book. And he knows that Harry has limits.

and that he is confident that unless he pulls a gun to fire at Dresden, Dresden will not just kill him in cold blood, he will not torture him, despite the fact that he may be capable of it. He has a code, he has rules, in the same way that Marcon has rules. And so he understands Harry in that deep way that allows him to be confident enough to make a joke.

when the wizard made the most scene you could possibly imagine and just be totally cool and be like, yeah, but I know on the inside he's definitely not here to actually hurt me.

Brian (43:10)
I think the reason why Marcon is able to weigh the odds like that in moments like this is because think I said in the episode where we introduced him that Marcon isn't a sociopath by the description we get of him. He cares about people in a way that is not compatible with that understanding of his character.

Adam (43:32)
Right, he fully believes that the world is better with him acting the way that he does.

Brian (43:39)
Yes, and that you could quibble with the extent to which he cares about making the world a better place, but I think that he does use that. He's aware of other people's perceptions of him to the extent that he can use that as a way to justify his actions.

Adam (43:55)
Right,

I think it justifies it to himself that way too, but we'll definitely do a whole question for Bob dossier just on Marcon at some point so we'll leave that for when we get there, but

Brian (44:05)
The key point is Marcon does care about his people. He is upset when bad things happen to people who he has close relationships with. And he does, he's willing to sort of put himself on the line in order to save other people. He's not a completely selfish individual who only uses others to further his own sort hedonistic pleasures. However, Marcon is...

definitely on the spectrum of sociopathy to where he does not care about the lives of the average human as much as other people do. And he doesn't particularly care about his own personal safety to the extent that other people do.

Adam (44:55)
Right, as sensitive as Molly is as an empath, he's kind of the other direction.

Brian (45:01)
so I think that part of what's going on here is, and part of why in Death Masks, Marcon hazards himself on the train from the helicopter, why he gets physically in dangerous situations, is because he enjoys He really is an adrenaline junkie, a thrill seeker who needs this to feel as alive as other people do.

So when something like this happens, it really is more interesting for him than your normal Saturday night.

So you made an interesting point here that the other person whose reaction we get is Hendrix. And Harry's analysis of Hendrix reaction is about 90 degrees offset.

Adam (45:41)
Yeah, it seems like it. Throughout the entire series, Harry seems to portray Hendrix as a dumb thug. From the very first time we meet him, where he just kind of thinks of him as a meathead or something, even to this moment and in the future, he thinks Hendrix is a dumb thug. we can tell, even in the context of the regular series, that Hendrix is...

smart and capable. He would not be Marcon's right hand man if those two things were not true. But in even hand, the short story, Marcon's perspective, Hendrix is working on his PhD thesis on the side computer. Like, that's not a dumb guy. So here we get a little contradictory statement.

Spike leapt clear of the table, staying low, a small, oozy-style automatic now in his hand. Hendrix was more ruthless and direct, reacting with the mindlessly violent instincts of a savage. With one hand, the big bodyguard hauled Marcon back, putting his own bulk between the mob boss and Gimpy Lawrence." Now that's obviously when all hell breaks loose because Gimpy answer Marcon's questions and it is proven that he has been double-crossing Marcon. So...

Hendrix on the one hand, Harry interprets as being reacting with the mindless violent instincts of a savage. On the other hand, he is putting himself between Marcon and danger. And that to me are two Dichotomously opposed.

Concepts. Is he mindlessly violent and like that to me suggests he's jumping at the target trying to attack it or just instantly opening fire without thinking? Whereas if he's instead playing the bodyguard and putting himself in danger while protecting his boss, that is a calculated move. That is not something one does on the instincts of a savage.

Brian (47:29)
I think that Harry is, writing this down later of course, partially working backwards from what Marcon says after Hendrix fatally shoots Gimpy, which is, I wanted him alive. He could have answered several questions first. And Hendrix says, sorry boss, because he recognizes that, you know, he killed But nobody is trained to shoot, not to kill.

whether you're a cop or a soldier or a bodyguard, you're trained to shoot center of mass. The whole movie idea of shooting to wound, I'm gonna get him in the leg. Nobody does that in real life. So I think Harry, who is not a firearms person, is working backwards like Hendrix did something wrong here because he's mindless, when in fact, Hendrix perfectly executes what he's trained to do in the moment that he needs to. So.

He's mindless in the sense that he's reflexively reacting, but he's highly trained and doing exactly the most highly trained thing he could be doing.

Adam (48:33)
Right, and in the context of the moment, it is the right thing to do. moving on from there, we've only got a couple more things to quickly discuss. Marcon then goes on to say,

Harry says, you know, give me whatever you can tell me about your competitor that's with the three I and Marcon basically says, yeah, I'm not going to do that. You made this public and now I can't be seen helping you. And then Harry tries to convince him and eventually Marcon says, Mr. Dresden, even if and I'm paraphrasing here, even if I did, even if I did want to tell you, I don't have any more information. Brian, do you think Marcon's being truthful here or is he holding anything back about Victor's identity?

Brian (49:12)
Yeah, I think Marcon is lying here, but he's lying literally, not in spirit. So Marcon probably could sit down with Dresden and spend four hours being like, okay, so this is the street corners where you've picked up people dealing three eye and it's members of this gang. So,

and they could sit down for four hours and cross-reference everything and see if they could work out by pooling their resources any information. But if Marcon knows anything about why Dresden would bust in to go looking for a lock of his hair, he knows that frankly Dresden could be dead in four hours. So he I think has some...

notion that Dresden can't play the long methodical game and therefore he doesn't really have useful information for him. But also on top of that, even if that wasn't a factor, he wouldn't spend six hours in a meeting with Harry going over all these details because of the implications that would have on what threatening Marcon gets you, a six hour meeting.

Adam (50:19)
All right, we're gonna close out the chapter here with the last paragraph or two.

I still didn't know who was trying to kill me. I still had no defense to present to the White Council. Let's face it, Harry," I told myself. You're still screwed." That guy is wound up tighter than piano wire. I can't even imagine that stress. I know what stress is like in my own life. I can remember days where work...

I've got deadlines and I've got something going on in my personal life that I have to deal with and the phone is ringing off the hook and then my car breaks down, you know, those kind of days. But none of those are like this one. None of those are like, I'm kinda responsible for this person's death and because of the way I entered this place, this other guy died and I really hated lying to my friend.

who might not be my friend anymore, who might be trying to arrest me for murder, and the other cops, the magic cops, are also gonna kill me for murder. Like, that is a pile of stress, and that's why he's gonna spiral in the next two chapters.

Brian (51:51)
And it is truly one of Dresden's most admirable qualities and something that think Butcher is trying to in the series tell us is an admirable quality, that he just continues to try to do stuff even when he feels this overwhelmed.

Adam (52:07)
All right, so that's where we're gonna leave chapter 17. We'll pick up next time with chapter 18, but for now, we're going to go to our question for Bob.

Brian (52:18)
Okay, Bob, we've seen Victor cells kill three people with thaumaturgical links already. So why isn't thaumaturgy used as a weapon more often? You've got centuries of experience. I'm sure you know all about the history of offensive thaumaturgical spells.

Adam (52:36)
Brian, he's still not able to make it. This time he said he was at a tea party with Maggie and Toot Toot and Lacuna, Bob was animating the teddy bear, and Bonnie was animating a doll, he thought that it would be bad if he left. And oddly enough, he's right, right? He's not very good at morals, but I guess he's learning.

Brian (53:02)
I mean, I can believe that Bob would be bound somehow to have a tea party for Maggie probably as a punishment for sneaking somewhere. But here's why I don't believe that excuse. Lacuna wouldn't be caught dead at a party where people were serving tea and sugar,

Adam (53:12)
That's entirely possible.

yeah. There are holes in this story. Let's move on and try to. Yeah. So, why isn't Thalmaturgie used as a weapon more often?

Brian (53:24)
You have to interrogate him,

Adam (53:31)
I thought this was an interesting question, not just because that's what Victor Sells is doing in this story, but more along the lines of the way that Harry panics when he finds out that somebody has his hair, and other points in the story when he points out that if somebody gets your hair or your blood, that they can do things to you and it's almost as good as them having your name, like you can't defend against it. Now, my initial answer to this question was that

wizards do actually make it really hard to get links to them and we do see in turncoat when binder thinks that somebody's got a piece of his hair that he shaves his head off and that's like a clear and easy countermeasure to that there there are ways to have countermeasures even if somebody does get this stuff,

does seem that it would be hard. It's entirely possible that Harry's just bad at preventing people from getting access to his hair and or blood.

Did you have any thoughts initially?

about this question before we go to the Reddit.

Brian (54:26)
So.

We're gonna read a lot of responses that are very good, and I just wanna ground to the question by saying that we know that Victor Sells could kill Harry with a lock of his hair. So we need to accept that's the reality of the book Stormfront. If you can kill somebody with a lock of their hair, right, and Harry doesn't immediately think, I should just shave my head, that'll prevent it. seems like either he's panicking and not thinking clearly, or the kind of spell that Victor is casting is a little bit more difficult to avoid than some other things you would do.

So why is this?

Adam (54:57)
It could be a new spell that nobody's done before because Nemesis gave it to him

Brian (55:04)
Yeah, so

I think that's one important thing here. What Victor's doing might actually be pretty novel. Nemesis might have just hacked the system a little bit and come up with actually something that's very potent, which is why, as we're gonna discuss, we do get a callback to this spell later in the series. But also, I think you might be right about the fact that Harry is kinda bad at making people...

making sure people don't get a hold of little pieces of him. Because I bet that a wizard like Ebenezer has a spell that just, you know, after he clips his fingernails, sets them all on fire.

Adam (55:44)
Just

a little thing like Flickam Bickus that he just does all the time to make sure that that happens. And every time, you know, Martha Liberty brushes her hair, she doesn't leave any hair brush on that hair brush. It just like instantly, you know, incinerates any hair that's not connected to her head or something.

those are some easy examples. The other one, which we were aware of, but a lot of people also pointed out is, what are you talking about? There is a genocide committed against the Red Court with thaumaturgy, you morons. Well, people didn't say that, they were much more generous. But obviously, thaumaturgy is used as the weapon to wipe out the Red Court. So it's not like it's not present in the rest of the series. We were just remarking on how...

it seems like it should be a little bit more present in the day to day. Like, lots of people want Harry to die, why don't they try this method? So, let's talk about some of the answers that we got from Reddit that were more interesting too. 618 kicks us off with a very Doyalist answer, that is an answer from the authorial perspective rather than the in-universe answer. Might be just as simple as Jim sees it as a boring narrative device similar to how potions were used less after the first few books.

might also be that Jim has already planned out a few specific uses for thaumaturgy in later books, and if you spend too much time on it, you just can't play fast and loose with the rules as much." Unquote.

Brian (57:02)
Yeah, I think this is obviously true. Jim can't have every enemy literally doing this in the book so it'll get old. also that clearly Jim had at some point early on figured out what he was going to do in changes.

Our question, to be clear, is partially because we see the huge effect a thaumaturgical spell can have in changes. Why aren't more groups of evil people trying to do stuff like that? Seems like it would be very effective. know, if you want to wipe out the red cord of vampires, why didn't somebody just do that spell with the red cord as a target? So there's clearly doilus reasons why Jim wouldn't want it to be that.

easy to do stuff like this, but that's also why we think the explanation that it's, the in-universe explanation, the Watsonian explanation, that it's sort of new tech, this kind of thaumaturgy, makes a lot of sense. It gives a reason why people wouldn't know how to do this to large groups of people as happens in changes.

Adam (58:06)
Yeah, and so going into some more Watsonian or in-universe explanations,

The Shweta points out a bit of an error in our initial presumptions, saying, ⁓

by rain or something else is extraordinarily difficult or impossible to use, as is evidenced in cold days."

Brian (58:46)
Right, and I think that I point out that in this series, Harry doesn't seem to have a way to defend against his hair being taken for this spell. So that might not be true of all thaumaturgical workings, but it is a really good point. For every thaumaturgical spell that we've seen Harry cast, there are pretty clear countermeasures. And you do need very specific material.

Adam (59:12)
And the Shweta continues ripping our argument to pieces. And then he goes on to say,

Even if you have enough material, recently required, have a spell in mind, and the target either isn't aware of or hasn't protected themselves, every time we've seen Thaumaturgy used to attack, it has required enormous amount of energy, multiple full bolts of lightning or literal gods amounts of energy." Unquote.

Brian (59:53)
Now I think that's a really good point and it's part of what makes cells so dangerous and unexpected in this book. Nobody can figure out how some minor player has the power to do this because it does take a lot.

Adam (1:00:08)
Harry does even explain in this book, if he was to do it, it would almost kill him to do one person, and he couldn't do two at a time without killing himself. He's a heavy hitter, generally speaking.

Brian (1:00:18)
Precisely. I think that any

Absolutely, and I think that's why this third point by the Chweta here is a really, really good one. Unless you're a crazy person who's willing to do something nuts to get the raw amount of power, a bunch of human sacrifice, use the storms, whatever you need to do to get it, the amount of people who could realistically use a technique like this is a half dozen, dozen, something like that.

Adam (1:00:45)
the most direct answer, which came from a couple of people, digiman619 says, quote, also, if you're able to get their blood to channel magic through it, you almost certainly have more direct access to them and can kill or mess with them in far easier ways, unquote. And Sol K. and put this even better by saying, quote, if you're close enough to Nab hair, you're also close enough to fireball, unquote. So I think that

All of these arguments combined definitely put ⁓ the kibosh on our skeptical nature that we had in the previous episode. And now Doc Hooty came up with a really interesting idea for a villain. Can you read that one for us?

Brian (1:01:26)
Yeah, I love this. So Doc Hootie says, this made me A necromancer with some zombie mosquitoes could do some serious damage. Just have them out collecting blood for use at their leisure. And-

That's actually the kind of creative uses of thaumaturgy that prompted us to ask this question. You know, why isn't Kemmler out killing the whole White Council with some, you know, I'm going to to steal everyone's hair clippings or whatever. And I agree, Doc Hootie, some necromancers should get on that. They could wreak some serious havoc.

Adam (1:02:07)
Yeah, and it would take an enormous amount of time, You just get one or two bites a day to keep yourself under the radar where the wizard in question is like, man, mosquitoes are bad tonight. But then they come back and they give you like four drops into your little test tube and you seal it up and the next day they come back with four more and you're like, yes, in five months I will have them.

Brian (1:02:30)
Yes, and you've got a medical-grade lab where you can keep the blood from coagulating. exactly. Yes, exactly. Yes. Yeah. So this is only like if the WHO was taken over by a necromancer, then we could see this.

Adam (1:02:46)
Yeah,

All right. So that's going to do it for this episode. Next week's question for Bob. What was Nemesis' plan in Stormfront? Now, we know that there's a bit of retcon. We suspect, I should say. We suspect that there is some amount of retconning going on.

It's entirely possible, it seems like that Jim did not 100 % plan that Nemesis was going to be the baddie behind Stormfront, but let's just play along with the universe that has been built. What did Nemesis mean to accomplish here? If Dresden wasn't here to stop him, what does Victor Sells do that furthers Nemesis' goals? That's what we're gonna talk about next week.

Brian (1:03:27)
And I think part of why this is an interesting question is that I think in large part the book makes more sense when you incorporate the later material. You know, why Morgan's acting the way he's acting, the existence of Nemesis as something to teach Victor this new tech style of magic. So I think it's interesting to speculate. We taught Victor to make third eye. Is that?

somehow part of a larger plot from the outsider side of things, there appears to be some larger reason beyond just taking over the narcotic industry in for Nemesis to be pushing this plan along. And we can't figure out exactly what it is. We want to know if you guys have any ideas.

Adam (1:04:17)
And one thing that you just said there sparked a memory. There's an RPG called Dungeon World. It's built on the Apocalypse RPG engine. Sort of a light RPG with very few rules compared to something like Dungeons and Dragons. And one of the things that's in the book, the advice that it gives to you as a player, it's actually kind of, as a Dungeon Master, Game Master, it's actually kind of part of the rules, is draw maps, leave blanks.

because it knows that as you play, you're going to want room to expand ideas that you have while you're playing. If you draw the entire map of the area where they're gonna be, and the dragon's over here, and the dwarves are over there, and the whatever's over here, then you won't have any more room to put in ideas that you come up with while you're writing the rest of the things as it's progressing. So have to imagine when you're writing a long form series like a Jim Butcher is doing here,

It's a good idea to leave questions unanswered early in the series, even if you yourself don't have the answers yet. Even if he didn't have the plan for Nemesis, he left enough empty so that he could fill it in later and it still made sense. And that is a pretty impressive job.

Brian (1:05:31)
And it makes it a lot more interesting to consume as a fan because it gives you the opportunity to play along with Harry, as we're kind of trying to do here, and figure out what the heck are the outsiders trying to do in these early books? So we're probably gonna ask a similar question to this one in other books in the series, definitely Fool Moon. And we wanna take the first crack at it here. What is Nemesis doing in Stormfront?

Adam (1:05:59)
All right, with that for Brian, I am Adam. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.