Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:00)
So Brian, Harry sets up a magic circle trap here for Toot, and we see him use circles all the time. including later in this very book where Harry wards off the mind fog by setting up a circle that he and Murphy can hide in. And it caught me thinking, How far up?

Do those circles go? If the mind fog was high enough up, does it go over the top of the circle like it's a cylinder and start coming down? I don't think the ans that that's possible. It must go up infinitely, right?

Brian (00:27)
it can't be infinite Adam because then, birds would be breaking his circle all the time, flying in and out. people flying a kite would break the circle.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:36)
Yeah, I I guess that's gotta be true, but it's too bad. There could be some benefits.

Brian (00:40)
Like what?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:40)
Well, I just imagine a bunch of apprentice wizards learning how to make circles and they're just all over the place and this one Nagloshi just smashing into them at high altitude all the time like sideshow Bob

Brian (00:54)
Stepping on the rakes, yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:05)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through twelve months. I'm Adam Ruso, and joining me as always is a Dewdrop Fairy that recently got promoted in the Za Lord's Guard. It's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (01:20)
I'm an admirable

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:22)
you mean admiral.

Brian (01:23)
Yeah, and admirable.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:25)
I'm not gonna take the time to explain to you the difference between the army and the navy. I'm just gonna say congratulations.

Brian (01:28)
Mm-hmm.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:30)
all right, Brian. Today Harry is gonna call up Toot Toot for help locating the ladies. The way I said that, for help locating the ladies. And chapter

Brian (01:39)
Really?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:42)
14, Harry and Billy travel through the undertown to meet Maeve. In chapter 15, Harry actually spends some time trying to negotiate with Maeve.

Only to eventually realize he has the information he needs all along. So

let's start here in chapter 13. Harry has just got climbed out of the dumpster that Meryl threw him in previously. Billy comes and finds him, and he brings the pizza that Harry needed in order to get Toot to join them. But Brian, they arrive dressed for battle.

Brian (02:12)
Now, Adam, they're not calling it the Za Lord's Guard at this point, but this is the beginning of that organization.

and the Pixies have already decided to organize as some kind of militia or army or whatever. And they are

Worse at military ranks than they are at even most other kinds of human conventions, which is impressive.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (02:39)
Yeah. We get we get them reporting and Toot Toot orders Caption report and then the captain asks the lootender to report and then the Star Jump and the Corpse Oral and the First Class Privy. And then they say, Everyone's here, generous, and we're hungry. So we know that Toot Toot eventually becomes the major generous, but for now he's just the regular generous. And it is

Those those are great. The the way that we see them so earnestly trying to recreate this military organization when their entire existence is sort of antithetical to the discipline that is necessary for modern militaries to function, right? Pixies should make the absolute worst militaries because

They can't focus on one thing for more than two seconds. They can't follow complex orders, et cetera. And yet, this is the beginning of proving that Pixies can eventually do that.

Brian (03:41)
and I think something really cool is that Jim is showing us that they do get it, even as he's making fun of them. Because they do get every single military rank wrong. But they do all of the ranks in order

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (03:58)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (03:59)
without skipping a step.

there's no joke about a a a kernel, you know, or exactly,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (04:04)
Right, kernel after private or something. No.

Brian (04:06)
exactly. That's not the, you know, no general specific and you know, private public kind of thing going on here. We we only do these ranks in order. They get them all wrong. They don't know how to say them, but they've clearly tried to put some, focus on actually getting the structure right, which suggests not only

that they, you know, think that it's important that they do create a a structure that is correct and in some way mimics the human militaries, but that they sort of envision this as not being something that they're just doing today, or they wouldn't put in the effort to actually get the order right in the rankings.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (04:49)
Yeah, and I'm gonna go one step further and guess In Battleground, when Harry talks to Toot and tells him that the pizza is in danger, and all of those beings on the top of the castle are kind of surprised at the fact that these fairies are all organized to help Harry, I think.

If either one of those was watching this here, they would raise an eyebrow because the kind of organization it requires for them to all come in and do this reporting thing in this order is something that has to be highly unusual for these dewdrop fairies. But Brian, where did they learn all of this from?

Brian (05:25)
Yeah, you know, when you first brought this up, I felt for sure it was the movies because that just seems like a very Dresden thing to have happen. You know, the Pixies are watching, you know, some the whatever that Charlie Sheen military comedy from the eighties was, and you know, that's where they got all the

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (05:42)
Platoon?

The military comedy platoon?

Brian (05:46)
Hm is that is that

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (05:47)
None

Platoon is very serious and it has Charlie Sheen. You're thinking

Brian (05:51)
No, but there's a there is a comedy. It's it

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (05:53)
I don't know what you're thinking of, but it's not Platoon.

Brian (05:56)
I'm I'm talking apparently after some Googling about Hotshots, not Platoon, which yes, I'm aware is a is not a military comedy. But I I I felt like they got it from pop culture because they don't get all of the the ranks right. In fact they get none of them right, as you noted.

But you know, the fact that they're so organized suggests that maybe it's not just biosmosis.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (06:20)
Yeah, maybe it's something that they're actually watching. I mean, there could very well be a military base somewhere in or around Chicago that they watch sometimes because we do know that one of the primary elements of fairies is that they sort of watch humans. That's how they gather information for Harry. Is Toot will come in and

Say, yeah, I talked to so and so and they talked to so and so and they talked to so and so and they saw the humans sporting in the thing out by the lake, right? But that also raises another question, why are they mimicking human militaries at this particular moment or in general?

Brian (06:56)
And I think you brought up a great point by mentioning that this would raise eyebrows because it's inherently organized. And also they're inherently trying to, you know, mimic an organization that's job is to deliver organized violence. Like not only are they being organized, they're they're sort of structuring themselves to be able to to go on campaigns.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:22)
Hm.

Brian (07:22)
And

these are Wild Fey. These are not members of the courts. Their whole thing is that they're not beholden to a lord. They don't have to go to war for them. So it seems like the Pixies know that you do military stuff to be like, you know, the winter or summer courts to be kind of more dangerous, to be more of a big deal. So I wonder if is this is a little bit of their attempt at intimidation.

You know, if they all have ranks, if they if they're they're a highly organized military force, you know, nobody's gonna mess with their pizza.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:58)
That's a very good point. They're gonna have to defend that pizza. And figuring out how to best do that is something that would probably be one of the only things that sticks in their mind long enough. Yeah,

Brian (08:09)
The only thing they care about, yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (08:11)
yeah, exactly.

But yeah, after Toot and Co. show up, we do have Toot offer to provide Harry with a guide to take him to the winter lady and the summer lady, and he introduces Harry to Elodie. Now

Brian (08:24)
You mean

L E D L E D the light bulb?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (08:29)
Jim does love playing with names, and LED being the type of light-emitting diode is a homophone for the name LED that he came up with here. And that might be something that is more obvious to people that only listen to the audiobook, as opposed to people who read it, because it is spelled E-L-I-D-E-E. And unless you think

Think about it and pronounce it in your mind while you're reading it, you might not notice the comparison to L-E-D.

Brian (08:58)
Yeah, and I just can't wait until, you know, we see Lady in a few books and she's become, you know, O L E D or

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (09:05)
Ha ha ha.

Brian (09:07)
Tantum Wo-L-E-D or whatever upgrades exactly, yes, she's g getting further

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (09:09)
Yeah. She's currently mini LED.

Brian (09:14)
upgrades. But she is a very effective guide who leads Harry and Billy into Undertown. And wait a minute, Adam. I thought that Harry,

Didn't want to have to babysit Billy everywhere he brought up.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (09:31)
Yeah, he was very clearly dismissive and also protective of Billy in chapter one. And I think that this attitude of you're coming with me, without even Billy having to say, like, can't I come along? Like having to convince him. It's just like, no, Harry says, We're going to Undertown. You're coming with me.

It's got to signify a real shift in Harry's perception of Billy. And he is surprised at how efficient Billy is with his quote-unquote one trick in that first chapter. But I think it must also speak to a little bit, not Harry's desperation, but just like he doesn't have.

anybody else that can back him up here at this moment.

Brian (10:14)
One of the things that we can love about Harry Dresden is that he is willing to admit to himself, at least, when he is wrong. And in the beginning, he was telling Billy that he didn't want his help because he would have to be babysitting him the whole time. And then Billy is the basic reason he survives the ambush by the huntress, and he mentally has to go, okay, note to self. That was unfair.

the werewolves can, at least this one, can handle themselves in a sticky situation. But

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (10:42)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (10:43)
I think it does go beyond that, Adam, not just in the sense that Dresden is starting to realize the kind of danger he's in and he needs all the help he can get, but also the fact that Billy kind of got him into this by setting up the meeting with Mrs. Somerset

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (11:02)
Ha ha ha ha.

Brian (11:04)
means that.

Billy's already a part of it, so he shouldn't feel as bad about bringing him. A little bit of a you wanna get me in deep with the fairies, kid, then fine, you can come along, you know. but also the fact that Billy showed him that he's not just muscle, you know? Billy th thought to actually set up a client meeting for him. He's

thinking beyond just this is like an adventure that I get to go on, he's thinking about what's actually good for Dresden's life. And he's not a dummy. He knows that he should say yes to a client for Dresden. So I think basically Dresden's done not a 180, but at least a turn on everything he said in the first chapter already. And that's the reason he invites a Billy along on a mission where yes, it could be dangerous. He might need some muscle

But also where it's going to be full of fairy glamour and he definitely needs another set of good eyes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (12:05)
Yeah. And in this very chapter at the beginning, when Billy says, you know, what can I do? I was just hoping to do something more than deliver pizza. And Harry's like, I don't know what you could do. And Billy's like, Well, I could track those three that just threw you in the garbage. And Harry's like, they probably just got into a car and left. And Billy's like, Yeah, but I could get their scent and tell you if I smell them again, I can tell you who they are. And he's like,

I didn't think of that. So Harry like noticing that Billy is actually thinking of things that even Harry himself is not thinking in terms of improving the odds of this investigation.

Brian (12:40)
Okay, so we're gonna get back to Harry and Billy following LED to Undertown. But let's talk a little bit more about LED and Toot and the Fairies here. Why are these Pixies listening to Toot Toot? Like, we're told time and again that they're disorganized and they have the brain of a goldfish and

Like Toot Toot has imposed an organizational structure on these pixies and they've let him. How is that even happening?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:12)
Yeah, that is a really interesting question. And I think there's a couple of different possibilities. Harry has been essentially feeding Toot wizard blood for the last couple of years, whenever he calls him up in need of some piece of information, right? And that's probably happened off-screen in some of his normal everyday cases, like finding lost puppies and what have you. And if that's the case, maybe Toot is actually gaining power.

From the wizard, like an inherent level of power that gives him the ability to command these others and compel them to follow him in a sort of magical way. That probably isn't the answer, but it's the first one I came up with, Brian. What do you think?

Brian (13:58)
I think that's honestly very reasonable because we do know that Jim's fairies are to a certain extent based on, you know, a lot of Celtic folklore involving fairies. And the idea that a fairy wants, milk and and you cakes from humans or whatever, the the whole thing that Jim is aping here can't just be about the food.

It it's par partially about some ritual, about you paying homage to this creature. It's about the fact that they're getting something from a human the same way that, you know, in the Dresden Files, things gain power from belief. The belief in Toot Toot that Dresden is showing is giving him some power. But I don't think that's why he is binding the guard to him. Because we know.

At the very least, on like a basic level, that there is a transactional rel nature to the relationship. Because we later find out that the guard has auxiliaries, that there's other fairies that Toot can call in just for, you know, a a little bit of pizza on that occasion. And those guys are showing up to get the pizza. That's the whole deal. They're not necessarily part of the gang.

institute has created to follow this structure. So it doesn't seem to be that there's some sort of inherent power or authority compelling the ones who just show up for pizza.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (15:28)
Yeah. And so in those situations, it probably is like a one-time deal. Show up, I'll arrange for you to have pizza. You do what we want. Often the the those militia, those auxiliaries, are used just for like reporting on things or messengers or whatever. We see them used occasionally in various books. But the core members of the guard here that he is sort of

Officially commanding as we see them here. They're responding to him as if he is a commander, are likely either formally or informally making binding deals with Toot Toot in some way where he's they're generating debt to him in exchange for pizza. And that is what sort of

puts them into this position of the guard. It's not a single transactionary thing. It's a long running deal or debt that is built up that they have an obligation to repay.

Brian (16:28)
Right. It's sort of almost like a vassalage agreement where,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (16:31)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (16:32)
you know, you pledge military service to your lord or whatever, and rather than pledging to, you know, defend your lands or whatever, the Lord pledges that you get pizza every Wednesday.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (16:43)
Yeah, exactly.

Brian (16:44)
but I wonder if it's if it's even a little deeper than that. Like if Toot is binding the guard to this idea of we're the ones that get the pizza from Dresden.

Is it kind of like he by necessity created like a a pact between several of his Pixie friends? Like, okay, I can't protect the pizza I get, you know, from Dresden every time from, you know, other Pixies wandering by and just taking some, because they will. So

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (17:17)
Right. 'Cause

he just has it delivered to a spot out in a park somewhere and left there if I recall.

Brian (17:23)
Yes. So the or an and whatever, you know, Jim does with it, whatever Jim has Harry do with it, we don't know that every single time it's delivered to a location where only Toot Toot can kind of get a bead on it and Harry's there to kind of watch the whole thing. Definitely it seems like there'd be an opportunity for other pixies to to jump in. So maybe these are the people that Toot already had preexisting relationships with and now they're kind of like blood brothers, but about the pizza.

I've brought you in to the cadre that gets pizza when it shows up in return for defending it from others. But I wonder if there's another way to look at this, which is Jim has sort of created Dresden's version of the Baker Street Irregulars

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:06)
Actually, Brian, yes. Anthony sent us an email a while back pointing out that there are more potential Sherlock Holmes connections beyond just Marcone as Moriarty. He suggested that Toot and the Little Folk are very similar to the Baker Street Irregulars, exactly where you were going with this. so if you remember

In the original Sherlock Holmes stories, the Baker Street Irregulars are essentially a group of street urchins led by a boy named Wiggins. And Sherlock pays them, you know, a shilling here or there to go and snoop some information because street urchins are everywhere and nobody pays them any mind. And so they can get a lot of information and return it back to Sherlock. And that certainly sounds like the kind of relationship that Harry has with these pixies.

Brian (18:52)
And in the original Sherlock Holmes stories, I think it's mostly a narrative convenience that Arthur Conan and Doyle constantly has homes just deal with one of them. You know, there's more than one Baker Street irregular, but just law of conservation of characters. We're just gonna have this one keep showing up and giving the reports and

Wiggins, therefore, just sort of seems like Holmes's lieutenant with regards to the irregulars. And it's it's sort of by happenstance that that happened. Wiggins definitely seems like maybe he's got a little bit more leadership quality. So

Why did Toot Toot become the commander of the guard? Because he's the one the Za Lord talks to. And because of that personal relationship, very like in a feudal hierarchy, that informal power has actually spawned an entire formal system around it, just as a consequence of the Pixies all recognizing that their proximity to Toot's favor counts as their proximity to Harry's favor.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (19:51)
Now, as you said, Harry and Billy are getting set to travel through Undertown. Harry gives him a quick sort of briefing on what to do with fairies and what the deal is with Undertown. And during that discussion,

He talks about how Chicago was built on a swamp and has been sinking ever since they built the city and

To the point where they planned houses with a door to the exterior on the second floor so that when it sinks, you would then have a first story door aligned with the street. And that seemed very extreme to me, Brian. Is that anything like reality?

Brian (20:26)
So, as far as I know, that is not representative of Chicago at all. However, it's not completely divorced from reality. So there's a few things that are true. Chicago is sinking. There are places where buildings have sunk to that degree where they've lost a floor. And,

There are sort of ideas. There's the, you know, Tartaria conspiracy theory. Don't even bother looking it up. But if you know what I'm talking about, the mud floods, there are other ideas in our world that, you know, sort of cities have been buried under the the earth, on on past occasions. So Jim is sort of pulling at all of these threads. And he's taking the fact that Chicago is,

slightly sinking and the fact that things like this have happened on occasion and these popular ideas, too, as he said, Adam, when we interviewed him and basically asked about this, to give himself an underdark because he started the Dresden Files with a D campaign to kind of explore the space with some people. And he realized they needed something like Undertown

To serve as a 3.5 counterpart to the underdark. So this is just his best version of a plausible way to get that in a modern scenario. The one thing, of course, that is completely divorced from reality is when this does happen in real life, when and I don't know, maybe this is true in some parts of Chicago. I I I you know I don't know enough to know that, but when this does happen in real life.

you don't end up with when the when this the house sinks into the earth and the second floor door is now street level. The bottom door doesn't open into anything anymore because it's

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (22:26)
Right.

Brian (22:27)
in it's in a bunch of mud, you know? So that's the true invention here.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (22:32)
Is th is that yeah,

that there's these connected buildings with somehow streets underneath the streets that you can walk through. that was the one that really tripped me up. But

a twenty twenty five study published in published in Nature Cities identified Chicago as one of the fastest sinking major cities in the United States,

With approximately ninety eight percent of the city area affected by land subsidians. Now, Brian, take a guess how fast is the f one of the fastest in the United States that's sinking?

Brian (23:06)
I don't know, Adam. I've you I feel like I've got egg on my face 'cause I I said it probably wasn't sinking at all. It can't be an amount that's like super noticeable, so like per year two or three inches.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (23:19)
Yeah, well, that's not a terrible guess. It's actually two to three millimeters. And for those of you in freedom units, that's roughly one sixteenth of an inch. So you were only

Brian (23:28)
boy.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (23:29)
off by a couple orders of magnitude. But

Brian (23:31)
Yes, exactly.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (23:33)
yeah, so clearly just s just a full invention of Jim to have this undertown area. Now he also mentions that it's like all the tunnels and underground facilities that were built for like the Manhattan Project are also part of Undertown and

other underground like subway stations or something like that or in down. So he's come up with other plausible reasons to explain this underground area, but it's mostly an invention. It's it's at the very least you have to say it's a significant exaggeration of what is actually

there.

Brian (24:03)
we should note that the idea that, there are abandoned tunnels under Chicago is almost certainly correct. I mean, people do this line with New York constantly because the New York City subway is huge and there's literally abandoned subway tunnels that nobody goes in anymore that you're not allowed to to to visit. So, like there's actually like a Manhattan under Manhattan to a certain extent, but even there, it's just much.

Much, much smaller and more constrained than what's above ground because there isn't that much tunneling. The big difference in the Dresden Files is there's all these tunnels underground that assuredly do exist, which connect to something that has the scale of a city beneath a city. And it's that sense of scale that I think Jim is trying to imply when he says that there is these sunken parts of the city. That scale

Is what you need to think D D Underdark, not anything that matches up with reality. So

they go through quite a lot of travel to get to Maves Court, actually meeting up with Grimalkin to get, sort of a further guide to the actual location.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (25:17)
we do see

When Grimalkin finally leads them to that door and then disappears, and right before they go in, Billy turns to Harry and says, You know what bothers me? Grimalkin never said he'd guide us out again. What a great line that after going through all of the trouble of Harry forcing Grimalkin to say his name and what his actual goal is three times to bind him into a promise that he would guide them safely here.

Billy notices he did not promise to guide us back out again.

Brian (25:52)
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Jim is setting up this long journey, maybe partially because he wants it to be plausible that they actually enter the never never when they walk in there without kind of Harry even noticing because they've they've kind of traveled into such a a portion of our world that's so divorced from the mundane. But it doesn't matter if it's just them going across town or them going,

Really deep, to something that's level with the lowest regions of demon reach. The tension that Jim creates with Billy getting that line actually makes you feel like this is a dangerous situation in a way that is really I think much scarier than anything else we've seen in this book, even though you're actually probably in a lot more danger just meeting.

one on one in the daytime than meeting Maeve anywhere. You know, Harry was more likely to get killed by Morgan in his own apartment than he is by Maeve in this fake club. But Maeve wants you to be scared when you meet her.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:05)
Yeah. And right after Billy says that, Grimalka never said he'd got us out again, quiet hissing laughter came out of the darkness, directionless.

Brian (27:13)
Whoa.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (27:15)
man. That is creepy. That is perfectly setting the scene for the fact that they're walking to a very dangerous situation. And that takes us to them entering Maeve's little underground area here. And boy, it is quite the performance they walk into. Harry does his best to describe.

The she dancing to this big band music and everybody's dressed as if it's the nineteen forties and they got like dress uniforms and the women have stockings and knee-length skirts and authentic to the very specific and the hairstyles, and he describes it as being like this beautiful hypnotic moment. And I just thought to myself, is this all a show?

Because they knew Harry was coming, right? They sent Grimalkin out there to guide him in. They knew he's coming. Or is this just like your normal Tuesday at Maves?

Brian (28:07)
Yes, the day Bison came to your village was the most day important i in your life. But the day that, you know, Maeve had you play for her was just Tuesday for Maeve. Yeah.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:17)
Yes.

Brian (28:18)
And I think it is just Tuesday. I think Maeve just yeah, we're gonna kill a musician today because he made a chance remark that I heard. I think that's just what gets her jollies. Because, like, let's remember, we find out later in the series.

Yeah, Maeve has the whole like sex kitten vibe going on. And and we'll talk about this a little more in the future, but she actually can't get any satisfaction from that. She doesn't like her job and she doesn't get any satisfaction from doing her actual job. She doesn't like really any of the other members of the court, you know, who are in positions of power. The thing that she has left is sadism.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:59)
Yeah, just torturing

mortals.

Brian (29:01)
yeah, that's what Maeve honestly likes. That's what gets her through the day. So they're not putting on a show for Harry. Killing a mortal via torture for sport is just what they try to get away with every chance they can.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (29:14)
Yeah, that sounds about right to me. So anyway, he immediately, Harry immediately just comes in and says, So, did you kill him? And he she she just starts like laughing at him and not answering, and he asks it again, Did you kill him? And then when he asks it the third time, she's like, I can't just give you that kind of information, Wizard Dresden. It's too powerful. And then she concludes the chapter by saying, Let's make a deal.

Brian (29:41)
Yes. Now I think that this is a great setup because Maeve is sort of created as a fairy who is a very obviously trying to get the better of Dresden by being indirect and sneaky while he wants this direct information. But as we're gonna see in chapter 15.

Harry doesn't sort of do his normal thing where he just pig headedly, walks right into the trap. He's actually learned a little bit, at least as he's shown when we met him with Mab. You know, he tried real hard to not fall for something then. And he is able to handle the ambush that Mave has, put together for him. Now, Mave.

Tries to tempt Harry with a a knight with Jenny green teeth, and she gets to to keep his child afterwards. and we know that that's not really tempting for Harry, but that's not really what Nave's trying to use to get him, because there's obviously not just the words in the proposal.

affecting Harry's decision making.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (30:59)
Yeah, Harry makes that joke after she puts the hard sell on him. And he says, Dear Penthouse, I never thought something like this would happen to me. And then she keeps putting the pressure and upping the ante. She says, Wizard, I see you weighing the consequences in your eyes. You think too much. It weakens you. Stop thinking. Come down to the earth with us, unquote.

And I feel like those words do sound like they're part of a compulsion spell, which is broken when Harry unbuttons the fly in his jeans and dumps freezing cold water down his pants. And the actual wording of what happens after that is quote, the gesture had its intended effect, that overwhelming, almost feral hunger withered and vanished.

Unquote. That to me sounds like he was in fact breaking a compulsion spell. This wasn't just pretty girls are offering themselves to me and I'm a horny dude.

Brian (32:03)
Yeah. And we know that, you know, Harry says to Billy earlier, th it's glamour. They're using glamour on us. It isn't real. But it's not just that they're using glamour, it seems like. It seems like there's an element of direct magical attack. One piece of evidence for this, and you know, fairy magic doesn't always work this way. So Jim might not be trying to signal this. He might not even be thinking about it. But like, what does Harry use to diffuse the situation?

Literally running water, right? So in that sense, he might be actually grounding out, you know, something of a a very subtle spell that's been laid on him to enhance the effect of the glamour. But his response to Mave when he turns it around on her and starts explaining how, you know, he could essentially accuse her of violating his guest right, you know, that suggests that.

She did more than try to passively ensnare him with just what the Faye have going on as kind of background radiation.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (33:10)
he goes as far as accusing her of breaking hospitality, saying, I am your guest, but in spite of that, you've thrown glamour at me anyway. That seems to be this shift where he's been acting polite and trying not to insult them in any specific way until he got to this point, and then he's willing to literally tell the Lady of Winter, shut up.

I'm not finished, as she tries to interrupt him. And that to me basically suggests that he's certain that he's holding all the cards here, that she committed a grave faux pas, and now he's allowed to be righteously angry against her. But that is what triggers Slate to say, I told you, Maeve, you should have been polite. Anyone who declares war on the red court isn't going to be the sort to take kindly to pressure. Unquote.

Brian (34:04)
Yeah, it's a great entrance for Slate. And it does suggest that this again wasn't just, normal background Maves a sex kitten and the Fay are always trying to seduce you. This is something a little bit more active, as I think it has to be to break hospitality in the way Harry's accusing.

She has to be doing something a little bit more than just existing as Faye with glamour that to for that to happen.

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

Brian (34:35)
Maybe because he's the emissary, he's owned a heightened obligation. You know, we we don't know, but that seems to be what's going on under the surface. And Slate coming in and clocking, hey, you know, I I was the wise one here who had everything right.

And then as we'll later being a very convincing liar, who reads Harry well, I mean, even that line kind of ingratiates him with Dresden. Slate isn't the sharpest tool in the shed or anything, but looking at his actions in detail, he's a lot slicker than I remember.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (35:14)
Yeah, you gotta give him a lot of credit where it's due here. He obviously does an extremely boneheaded thing in helping Aurora and betraying Mab, at least in retrospect, right? If it weren't for Harry figuring everything out, Slate might have gotten away with it. And so honestly, it doesn't seem like that bad of an outcome if he had been able to do everything correctly. But you're right that

He's very good at lying here. Jim doesn't insert any kind of hesitation or hint that he might be lying in this moment. Because as soon as he does come out, Harry says, Yeah, so did you kill Ronald Rule? And he covers his reaction by laughing and saying, Christ, Dresden, you don't waste time, do you? And then he says,

no. To be honest with you, I'm not sure I could have killed him. He's been at this a lot longer than me. Harry counters with, but he was an old man. And Slate says, so are a lot of wizards. I could have bench pressed him, sure. Killing him isn't something else altogether. Unquote. So that set of lines where he first buys himself some time by laughing at the honestly very forward nature of the question. And it's

Certainly a response that seems completely normal in that context. Then he just smoothly says, no, I didn't kill him. I probably couldn't, to be honest with you. So it feels like a very slick, maybe even pre-considered, rehearsed kind of answer to what he would say here.

Brian (36:47)
Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked if Slate definitely thought about, you know, he knows coming in winner emissary, asking questions and investigating and so on. He's clearly been briefed to a certain extent as to what to expect. So he's probably had some time to think of everything. But he's just a really good actor. Though laughing, like you said, Adam, it buys him time. But also, there's a lot of people who, even if they know, yeah, this person's gonna be asking questions.

That direct question freezes him up. Slate does not pause for a second. He just immediately laughs, like that's the funniest thing I've heard all day. You know, not even bothering him. I mean, this guy'd kill a polygraph. And then, okay, when he shrugs and says, I'm not sure I could have killed him, what a fucking ballsy thing to say. Cause he did kill him.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (37:36)
Yes, but he did kill him with help.

but you're not wrong. and I think that's probably the kernel of truth in his statement, right? If he was j if he was the lone attacker, he probably couldn't have killed him, not in the way that he actually did die, right? And that's one of the things that Harry comes to the conclusion later on is like, yeah.

He's not strong enough and the and and Mave isn't strong enough either to have killed him. They're too reckless. They they they they leak too much power when they use their thing. They couldn't have done it as smoothly and simply as what was done. And so there is an element of truth. He's been at this a lot longer than me. Slate is telling the truth there, sliding those into the middle of his lies. It's so good.

Brian (38:23)
Yes, and that is scientifically how good liars lie. They they pick a story that is close enough to their perception of the truth that it doesn't really trigger in their brain as they're totally making it up. And simultaneously, the way that Slate implies to Harry that Slate doesn't think he could take Harry.

So are a lot of wizards.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (38:49)
Mm.

Brian (38:50)
I could have bench pressed him, killing him something altogether. That is, hey, I might look bigger than you, but you know, I know man. I don't think I can take you. I mean, I think that's a certain degree of false modesty because I think Slate does assume he can take a young wizard. this

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:06)
Yeah, you're right. He's kind of buttering him up, isn't he?

Brian (39:09)
is all reading Harry really well and flattering his vanity, and Slate is very good.

Presumably, at getting people in authority, people who are investigating, to not look at him. I'm just a guy, you know, I run with a bit of a tough crowd, but could I kill a guy? what's the profit in it for me? I'm not even sure if it would work, you know, like you

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:32)
Hmm.

Brian (39:33)
know, I'm not even that dangerous. And it's really good because he does all of this.

Not just lying to Harry, but needing to lie so that Maeve will believe it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:49)
Right. And that brings us to the moment when Maeve let out a sudden hiss of anger, the sound eerily loud. She lifted her foot and kicked Slate in the shoulder. Something popped when she did, and the force of the kick drove the winter night down a tear into the table and the she seated there. unquote.

So that is the moment when Maeve discovered that the knife that Slate has brought her has blood that's been charred to a crisp, is no longer useful. she can't use it to catch, kill, track Elaine. And we know that he did that on purpose, but he's about to suffer as if he's r he's

Outraged that she would be mad at him for delivering this. This is another part of the act, another part of the the the lie is that he acts mad that she would be mad and retaliate against him for delivering the knife in that state. He did that willingly and knowingly, knowing that it would piss her off, and yet he still acts the part of the angry subordinate that's been wrongfully punished.

Brian (41:02)
Yeah, and maybe knowing that this is the perfect time to have a conversation with the emissary because Maeve is going to be interested in this knife, and she's not going to listen to a damn thing I say here. And then we do see perhaps the motivation for Slate getting in with Aurora. Because after Maeve kicks him down the stairs, Slate appears to come at her.

And Maeve uses some power to hold him back, but that's not what actually stops him. What stops him is she spoke again and flicked her wrist, sending glowing motes of azure flickering towards Slate. The snowflake brand on Slate's skin flared into sudden light and Slate's advance halted his body going.

Rigid. Adam, she can't just tell him, you know, do what I want. He'll he broke clearly broke her command to, you know, get Elaine's blood. He allowed that mission to go awry. But she can stop him with flickering motes of light. What's going on here?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (42:16)
So I think what we've seen established is that the knights are not bound to follow direct commands from the queens. They are bound to follow winter law, because that one time where Harry says, fuck winter law, and immediately loses the winter knight's mantle entirely as a sort of message of what happens if you try to break winter law. But not every command from a queen is

Is winter law, right? I think those are two distinctly different things. So Slate is allowed to not follow commands. In fact, it's probably necessary because you couldn't give Harry Winter Knight the command to go kill Maeve on Halloween if she could have just told him stop, stand there, don't do anything, and he'd be forced to follow that order.

Brian (43:11)
Right. I mean, we know that knights can kill their own queens, so they can't directly say, Don't attack, but also it might be part of their actual job to either be disobedient towards their queens sometimes or to be able to attack them.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (43:28)
Yeah, a check.

Brian (43:29)
Exactly, because they are the way in which the queens interface with the mortal world. They're, you know, the queen's hatchet men in the case of the winner knights specifically.

And that means that they're the last sort of bulwark between, you know, Mave saying kill the president and you know not doing that. If you're designing the fairy courts a thousand years ago to be protectors of the outer gates, you want to make sure that there's a lot of layers of checks to stop people from the fairy.

Who are within the fairy courts from doing something stupid. And a knight that has a mind of its own might be a necessary check. But Adam, this is not, okay, Slate doesn't have to follow her commands, but this is not an example of a slate providing that check because she does stop him with that snowflake brand.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (44:32)
Right. I guess the implication of what you're saying here is that the knight being a a being that is mortal and not directly required to follow the command of the queens. Well, that means the queen has to treat him with a little bit of respect, because otherwise he could actually come at her and do some damage. Maybe she'd win in the end, but it could be bad for her, right? So that brings us to the question of

Well, why does Mave have this snowflake brand on him? That seems to circumvent what appears to be maybe a built-in check in the system. He's supposed to be able to be defiant. He's not supposed to be able to be completely cowed like this and brought down and blocked by the winter lady in this way. She's just not that powerful compared to the Winter Queen. So

This appears to be something that maybe Maeve put on him before she made him Winter Knight, maybe a even as a condition of becoming the Winter Knight.

Brian (45:39)
Right. Like I wonder, you know, I don't think the queens could get around this super easily by just taking a mortal that they've already enslaved and making that person the knight. I think that that, you know, the the thing that needs to happen on the stone table, whatever magic that ceremony represents, would probably break some previous binds that prevent the knight from fulfilling any necessary functions. But maybe

You know, Mave says, I will name you Winter Knight. You will have, you know, money and pleasures and you'll be stronger and faster. But after the ceremony, you need to let me give you a kiss. You know, w

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (46:19)
Right.

Brian (46:20)
whatever it is. And that's when she puts the brand on him.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (46:23)
And the brand seems to be more of a physical torment or restraint rather than something that's like a mind compulsion, right? He's fighting against it, and it's clear that it's causing him much pain, but it doesn't appear to be something that's taking over his mind, which is why Mave has to instruct Jenny Greenteeth to quote unquote calm him, and then she like

gets him and injects him with something, maybe heroin, you know, that he's addicted to, or something else that causes him to slump down. So it's very clear to me that this is more of a physical restraint than a mental one.

Brian (47:03)
Yes, Maeve was smart enough to think, Mab's letting me name the night. She probably thinks this is going to, f force me to take things a little bit more seriously because I've got this other person I've got to deal with who doesn't have to listen to me. I'm gonna get around it by making sure that no matter what, he can't hurt me. I'm gonna give him effectively an off switch where I push this button.

And he can't come at me anymore. He's gonna stop what he's doing, he's gotta freeze, whatever it is. It's this spell that I can trigger. It's a gayus, right? That he's taken on that allows me to stop him from doing something. That solves it. But Mave isn't smart enough to realize that the resentment that that's going to engender over time might be more catastrophic than just, you know, dealing with this person with a modicum of respect in a way that.

You could actually have a legitimate working relationship. This might be the fact that Mave has taken away this check on their relationship, might be the reason why Slate feels like he has to go to Aurora. Because

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:13)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (48:14)
for almost every winter night, if it gets to be too much, there's probably a a little bit of a get-out clause.

Where you can always just come at the queen and make them kill you. And Slate can't even commit suicide by queen.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (48:33)
Yeah. That almost certainly the the way that she's treating him in this scene suggests that he is essentially enslaved so much more completely than Harry is when he becomes Winter Knight, because at least there Harry has the leverage over Mab of saying, you want me because of who I am. I know you could definitely break me, but then I would be useless to you.

So he's got that leverage to always keep h some form of himself and his own decisions and his own values in play. Slate doesn't have that at all here. That has been completely taken away from him.

Brian (49:17)
And the interesting thing is, if we're right about the duties that the knight has towards each queen, then Mave, by sort of pitting herself as the direct master of the knight in this much more domineering relationship,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:35)
Hmm.

Brian (49:36)
has perverted sort of the essential nature of how that works.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:41)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (49:41)
And what does that mean?

That means that this isn't just gonna feel bad to Slate on a human level, this is also gonna feel bad to Slate on like the level of the mantle.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:53)
Yeah, it's gonna feel wrong.

Brian (49:54)
Yeah, it's not the way things are supposed to be. And that's gonna make him even more aggressive towards her because that's how the mantle responds to something like this.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (50:04)
Willing to

risk angering Mab and betraying her. So that brings us to the end of this chapter where Harry kind of deduces that Mave couldn't have done this because he watches her use this binding on Slate, and he comes to the conclusion that she like used a lot of power there, and she's actually a little winded power-wise, and she did it extremely sloppily. Like a lot of the power that she was using.

got spilled over into changing the temperature of the room. And Harry has seen what a really powerful wizard looks like, and it's all about efficiency. It's not just that Ebenezer and the senior council have huge gas tanks of power, they probably do, but it's that they use it so efficiently that they can do enormous things and make it look easy. She

probably wasn't a sorceress or a wizard or anything like that before she became Winter Lady. So she never learned the kind of fine control. And because she's Winter Lady, she's probably one of the top hundred strongest things in the entire universe and never never combined, if not higher than that list. So she's never needed anything other than raw strength. She hasn't needed to learn any fine control. I guess that's why Molly is so much better of a winter lady than she is.

Brian (51:28)
Well, and not only that, right? So if you look at Molly compared to to Mave, not only does she have more control, does she use the power better? Does she know what it's like to try to wield power as somebody with less of a gas tank? Does she understand the need for efficiency? Not only all of that, she's also not trying to flex on people as much

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (51:53)
Hmm.

Brian (51:53)
as Mave is.

Part of the reason why Maeve is inefficient, canonically in my head, is Harry's reading it wrong. She's not sloppy just because she doesn't know how to be, you know, more controlled. She's been at this for years. She's sloppy because the temperature going down scares people.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (52:14)
yes.

Brian (52:15)
Mave is constantly trying to fuck with people. And that means that, the same way a gladiator who's learned how to put on a show is a little bit less dangerous than an assassin who's just trying to kill you. Maeve doesn't really know how to be as deadly and as smooth as she would have to be to truly make the full use of the Winter Lady's mantle. It's part of the reason, maybe that a

Aurora is actually way scarier than she is because Aurora, because she's not trying to flex with her power all the time, because she's mostly

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (52:52)
Yeah, she's trying to be subtle, if nothing else.

Brian (52:55)
she's learned how to get a lot more done stealthily, just in terms of how she's using her magic, which means that when she does go big, she doesn't waste anything.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (53:06)
So you mentioned that Mave likes messing with people. Do you think that's the reason that she's

Doing this whole thing to Harry. Is that the reason that she's attacking Elaine? I mean, on one hand, it seems a little unusual for her to be doing this because she knows Harry comes to the conclusion at the end of this chapter, like she's trying to rush things. Mab is trying to rush things. It's very unusual for hair for fairies to rush things like this because they live forever. They're immortal. Their time scales usually don't need to be rushed.

So what's going on? We know that there's a coming war at the battle for the stone table that's going to be happening soon. Presumably Maeve knows that too. So why is she trying to murder Elaine and sidetrack Harry when those are the only two people that can prevent this coming war?

Brian (54:01)
Yeah, it seems like she's kind of of two minds, right? Because on the one hand, she appears to be trying to participate in this. So she cares, you know. Like why would she go after Elaine if she didn't care? She cares about what's going on to a certain extent. But she's actually not the mastermind of the plot. So she's not trying to get it to succeed. So why are you messing with people who are trying to solve the issue? And

It might be just because, you know, in this instance, Harry's captive audience she can mess with. And as long as she doesn't literally prevent him from doing emissary stuff, she's gonna mess with him because that's kind of the only thing she lives for. You know, I mean, Maeve she seems to like two parts of her job. She seems to like the seductive aspect and the violence aspect, right? Like there's

more than just that to winter, there's rationality. Like Maeve's not a big fan of rationality,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:01)
No.

Brian (55:02)
right? Like she likes the sex and the violence. And the sex is ultimately because she's the lady, not something she can actually get any fulfillment out of. The violence is something that she can indulge herself in. So she does. That's her drug of choice. And man, she's been on that drug for a while and

And now she needs some pretty constant dosage pretty often for

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:27)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (55:28)
it to actually get her through the day. So that explains why she's messing with Harry. But Adam, she tries to kill Elaine or at least get her blood and use it for something. Like, that seems to be a step up from just messing with the emissary.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:45)
Yeah, I think that's just a part and parcel comes with a job. If there's some kind of comp contention between winter and summer, then it's your job to screw with, kill, block, prevent what the other side's doing, right? We always think of and the way it's explained to us is that winter has this very important job of like guarding the outer gates, and summer's only job is just to check winter. But winter also feels like it probably has the same compulsion to just check summer. Like that's

They they both have that same thing and the outer gates is just a bigger part of Winter's job. So to me, that's entirely part of this. Like, wait, it's my job to like just go kill people from summer and just screw over those pansies. Yeah, this gonna be great. Let's do it. Like, I don't care. And there's also probably an element of this of like, wait, this summer emissary, she's trying to stop this war. the war that I my side has an advantage in. I I get to ride

you know, my horse and s and kill people and behead them and just go crazy with my power on a battlefield? That sounds like fun. I haven't had that much fun in hundreds of years. So why would I let her get away with stopping the war? Th there's gotta be some element of that to it.

Brian (57:02)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a great point. Maeve definitely wants the chance. I mean, look, there's very few things in Fairy that scare her. She's not really likely to run into something from summer that's dangerous for her. And even if, you know, she did, that would probably, you know, excite her more than it would upset her. So yeah, war, that sounds phenomenal. I definitely don't want the summer emissary to, you know,

solve this case. I I want, you know, a field of wanton slaughter. And I can't just take out the winter emissary because mom will be a little bit too mad in a way that might compromise my fun. Or, you know, more likely I can't go against winter law that directly. But I can put him in a situation that messes with his head and delays him and makes it more likely that I get my war. And you know, Adam

I mean, it's not crazy for Maeve to assume that maybe Winter's trying to cause this war, and if she

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:07)
Yes.

Brian (58:08)
doesn't let it happen, that's actually what's gonna piss people.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:12)
Yeah, because what's happened here? The summer mantle has gone missing. That's good for winter as far as she's concerned. So it was probably somebody from Winter that did it. For all she knows, it's Mab's doing or the Lananchee or something else associated with winter that has actually gone and killed the summer knight and done pulled this trick. She might be like, Man, I wish I thought of that.

To that degree, allowing it to be revealed that winter was behind this is also a bad outcome. So if you mess with or get in a controlling position over the summer emissary by having her blood, or the winter emissary by forcing him into a deal here with your compulsion and glamour, then now you're in a situation where

Whatever the outcome is, you can compel both of those sides to say it wasn't winter. So or you could just compel them not to conclude the investigation if you want the war in the first place. So no matter what her overall top goal is, both of these actions give her control, and that is ultimately what she's looking for.

Brian (59:20)
Yeah, and we're not saying that Maeve has necessarily got like a really deep plan here. We're just sort of trying to sort through her impulses. And

the point is they're all pointing in one direction, right? She wants to mess with people. That's an impulse she has. Well, this way she can do that. And also she doesn't really like fulfilling her duties as the winter queen, but she's got a color enough inside the lines that it doesn't cause any major headaches. That's gonna like

mess with her ability to have fun. So her impulse is to, you know, mess with people in a way that doesn't make her day-to-day life harder. And also she kind of likes the idea of a bunch of violence. So if she can mess with people in a way that promises more violence, that's another instinct for her to follow. So Maeve doesn't need to be like working, like weighing all of the possibilities we're describing here. She just needs to be acting in accordance with her impulses and

And they'll lead her to preferring these kinds of courses of action for a whole set of reasons that she probably doesn't even acknowledge to herself.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:28)
Yeah, d if you can say nothing else about this, it's opportunistic. Like you said,

Brian (1:00:32)
Yes.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:00:33)
she doesn't have a deep plan here, but she knows it would be good if she can get control over these two emissaries, and so she attempts it. Now, I think that takes us to the end of the chapter. Harry has extricated himself from this challenge.

Position. He and Billy head back through Undertown, they get outside, and Elodie is starting to lead them back towards their car when Billy suddenly notices somebody setting an ambush in the alley. It turns out to be Merrill, but at the end of the chapter, you don't necessarily know that. And the next chapter is going to include Harry talking to Meryl and Ace and Fix and agree, begrudgingly, to help help find Lily.

And and then eventually in the following chapter, we're going to see Harry find Elaine hurt at the car and he brings her to Aurora's garden. Those are the next two chapters that we're gonna be discussing next week.