Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Brian (00:00)
So until like three years ago, I didn't even have my phone locked because I wouldn't use any Apple Pay or any kind of payment technology on my phone. And I also tended not pay with you know a credit or debit card. I would only pay for things in cash. And this is not like some lead-ite I don't like technology thing.

It's just if I force myself to withdraw cash money then I say I could only spend this cash, then when I go somewhere, you know, if I go to a bar or whatever, I never overspend. And that's exactly.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:34)
Yeah, you're hacking your own brain to to really

make it easier to not overspend.

Brian (00:39)
But I have done this to the point where my facility with modern payment methods is approximately equivalent to Harry Dresden's. Like

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (00:48)
Yeah.

Brian (00:49)
I am sitting there waving my credit card in front of payment meters, trying to get the chip to beep, and then I'll shove it in and the p I'll take it out too quick, and then I try to scan the magnetic strip like it's 1998.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:03)
Ha ha.

Brian (01:03)
And it's

like that's misaligned and then I pull out my phone and the face ID doesn't work 'cause I'm wearing sunglasses and I don't remember it. And I just I single handedly I think cause more supermarket traffic jams than any other human being.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:26)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to Recorded Neutral Territory where the spoilers go all the way through twelve months. I'm Adam Ruzzo and joining me as always, It's a Chlorophiend, it's Brian O'Reilly.

Brian (01:38)
I prefer chlorofriends.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:41)
Then why are you trying to kill so many people?

Brian (01:44)
They got in my light.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (01:45)
Totally justified. I get it. We all get it. I'm just gonna see myself out. All right, Brian. We are tackling four chapters here.

This is the entire Walmart sequence from Summer Night, starting with chapter 18, where Harry calls up Murphy and says, We need someplace public with a bunch of people, but quiet enough to talk. And that winds up being Walmart.

Brian (02:06)
And it's important that Murphy almost entirely nails this. And probably in her mind, does one better because she finds someplace that is quiet, it's public, and there's not enough people around to overhear them. Murphy even kind of shows up incognito. You know, they're gonna be able to talk about whatever Harry wants to talk about without anybody, you know, really picking up, who's the weird guy with the stick walking around? Unfortunately.

Murphy doesn't know some key background information when she picks this location, and that probably leads to the commotion we see on page.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (02:43)
Although to be fair, picking a Walmart gives them a pretty big home field advantage against fairies. There's an awful lot of metal implements that they are able to take advantage of during this entire sequence.

Brian (02:55)
It's the Burger King of Stores. It's Dresden's territory.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (02:58)
Exactly right. So that brings up the question, why did Jim choose to have this sequence at Walmart? Obviously it allows Harry and Murphy to ad hoc, make quick plans to deal with fairies, but there's another question, like normally this type of conversation would take place at Mac's We've seen them have that before.

but Jim chose for this to take place after midnight so that they could have it here. So Brian, is that just because he wanted to put an action set piece and didn't want it to happen inside of Mac's?

Brian (03:34)
I think that's actually a very important part of it, Adam, because as you can tell by the name of this show, we know that Mac's is a corded neutral ground. So he can't have fights breaking out in his establishment.

Jim is going to eventually subvert that trope to show us how serious the threat from the walkers is in cold days. But at this point in the series, he can't have a fight at Mac's. So it's gotta be somewhere else. And I think you made a really good point in the pre-show that Harry feels like he's being put into a kind of set.

Piece battle the way Jim has done in earlier books. Like Jim has a specific scene in mind here that he wants to execute, but it just feels so much more natural because it makes sense in a way that specifically in like Full Moon, some of the set piece battles do.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (04:36)
Yeah, the integration of those set pieces into the rest of the story, getting Harry to that point, felt a little bit more like you could see the structure of what was happening rather than feeling more natural within the story. This one, obviously, Jim just chooses to have it happen a little later, and suddenly Walmart being open twenty four hours and Harry having an impetus to like be with a bunch of mortals so that the

assassins won't come after him, which turns out to be an incorrect assessment, by the way. He was right that he did need to worry about assassins relatively soon. He knows he's already been attacked. Elaine has been attacked. so he's right about that, but he's wrong about the fact that they won't come after me if I'm surrounded by mortals They definitely have a way around that particular thing.

And it does feel like it's working backwards, as you said, but specifically, Jim thought to himself, I want Murphy to kill a plant monster with a chainsaw. And like that just feels like a good place to start.

Brian (05:40)
Yeah, that's definitely the image that this fight starts with. And I think part of the reason why that's so important is that this is Murphy's appearance in the story. So Jim says, Okay, last time I had a book, I had Murphy have kind of no moments of glory, really. She's just frustrated that she can't solve the situation, and then she's taken out of commission.

And in this book, I'm not gonna have her in the climax either because Elaine is kind of Harry's sidekick, but I've also got the Alphas and I've also got Toot Toot and

not enough room for Murphy. So she can't appear in the climax, but I can't take her out, with the villain beating her again. I have to give her kind of a moment of awesomeness before I take her off the stage.

So it's almost working backwards from that principle. But my God, Adam, this is done so well. The leap Jim has taken in summer night with a scene like this is astronomical compared to a similar moment in an earlier book. And and full moon is the one that sticks out the most here, obviously, but it's just a a

Really big change in this point in the series forward that Jim has figured out, maybe because he got feedback from readers, maybe because he's now a published professional author supporting himself with his writing, he can quit the day job. He's figured out how to integrate his background characters much more effectively. Speaking of, in this case, he's including a bit of irony in the situation. Like Harry, in the process of bringing Murphy in.

so he can use her as backup is actually the agent of removing her from the story.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (07:29)
Yeah, as we're going to talk about, He lays out a bunch of marbles hoping to trip up Grum, and it actually winds up backfiring. Grum just stomps them into dust, and Murphy's the one who trips on them, hurting her knee, and that gets exacerbated later in the fight, even though she does have that ultimate moment of victory.

He she has to go to the hospital to get her leg looked at and dealt with. But the fact that she is able to demonstrate herself overcoming the trauma that we saw at the beginning of this book when Harry first goes to meet her, that allows her to have a very real presence in this book, not just as the lady who saves Harry's life, but she goes on her own character journey.

That started in Grave Peril and sort of is somewhat resolved here. I don't think she continues to necessarily have the same kind of trauma reactions from Grave Peril going forward, but those lessons that she learns there to take Harry more seriously and to not assume that she and SI can take care of everything.

Those lessons carry on and this set of chapters shows her literally overcoming her fear to get back to being the Murphy we know and love in future books.

Brian (08:45)
And part of why this is so brilliant is merely having the instinct to have a Murphy scene in this book at all. You could do this story without this appearance by Murphy. It just makes it harder to write to bring her in. But why does Jim have to do this? Well, he's already got the 20 book outline, and in the next one, Harry's, you know, sidekicks are.

The Knights of the Cross and also John Marcone. No Room for Murphy on the train scene with Nicodemus. And in the book after that, Murphy's turned into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She is completely comfortable duking it out with supernatural foes above her weight class. So how does she get from grave peril to there? He has to accomplish that.

Whole job, basically, in this one scene. And he does. Murphy handles threats that are perfectly within her competence in this scene because she has shooters that she has to deal with. She's effectively chasing perps through a human store. That stuff's within her zone of competence. And while she's in her zone of competence, she takes some steps to,

Deal with supernatural creatures. Okay, so fire and metal work, got it. She's learning that there are tools that she can use against them, and then she wins the day and she goes off screen. That sets Murphy up in the future as a character who we believe can come into the story and kick some supernatural ass. But not only does Jim give us all that, he also gives us a

bit of a a shift in how he's using Murphy that's actually more believable of the lieutenant in charge of SI. That is, Harry uses her in Summer Night for her expertise as a homicide detective. One of the things that Jim's gonna have to do in the book series is transition Murphy into a little bit more of an action character than a detective.

And it's a transition that he handles really, really well.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (10:56)
Yeah, and h with Murphy being so brittle in this moment, sh this is like the moment that decides her future. She goes, if she flinches away and doesn't face her fear now, she's almost certainly never gonna face it again. Cause every time she fails to face it, it's gonna make it harder. Just like when Harry talks about when he fails to do his magic, every time it reduces his confidence and makes it harder for him to do magic again.

This is the moment where she has to put the irons to the fire and determine if she's going to continue to be the force we saw her be in the first couple of books. And she does do it. She makes that choice, and we get to believe that she can have that in just this one scene. She has to choose between those two directions. Now, this brings us to the discussion that she has with Harry about.

the case. He's basically describes telling her everything, including the White Council. And he'd like, he doesn't leave any of it out. He tells her ahead of time, knowing this could get you into trouble, but I will tell you if you want. I just want you to know. And she says, tell me anyway. So he tells her everything. But here the is the interesting thing, Brian. During this discussion, they appear to discuss

Who killed Rule? Why was he killed? Murphy says, you you stuck start with the motive. That's the best way to start, et cetera, et cetera. Then they also, why would somebody try to take you out in the park yesterday? Like those are the two cases they're discussing. But Harry just took on a third case, Lily's disappearance, right? And what's really interesting here, and I think what's very clever, is that we talked about how Jim likes to take two cases.

have them appear to be different, but actually they're the same case. He definitely does that in Stormfront and he definitely does that in Grave Peril. And now here they're discussing these two cases. Who took a shot at Harry in the park and who killed Rule. And if you're just following along with those tropes and you're like, yeah, good old predictable Jim, he's doing the same thing, you're gonna wind up being fooled.

Brian (12:55)
Yes, the two cases are related. The way they're related is that the third case is part of both of them. Why does Ace think he needs protection? Because somebody's already gotten Lily.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (13:08)
Yeah.

Brian (13:08)
Why was Rule killed? Because we wanted to put the Summer Knight's mantle into Lily. So those cases are entwined. Each of them is entwined with the Lily case.

They're not entwined with each other, which Murphy correctly diagnoses. I mean, she gets it in one. it's probably the vampires trying to kill you. Yeah, yeah, Tristan. It is. No shit. So, you know, she absolutely does a great job diagnosing the situation. And man, I mean, we're almost I'm looking at our notes. We almost completely brushed over this, Adam. We should just take a moment to thank Jim for doing this.

Because was so annoyed so many times in book one and book two and even book three when Harry says, Well, I could have told them this, but that would have only put them in danger.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (14:03)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (14:03)
And this is the moment where Jim says, This is not an authorial issue. This is not me.

I think this is the correct way for Harry to behave. This is a problem that Harry has. And here's your payoff. Here's some character growth. He's going to give people information if they decide they want it. He's gonna let other people learning from specifically the Kim Delaney mistake in the past. He's gonna let other people decide if they want to be brought in.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (14:38)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (14:38)
That moment.

Here is the first time it really happens in the series. And it's not that from here on, Harry never makes the mistake of not giving, you know, information in the future. But this is the first moment he brings someone in for real, and it's not the last one. So that conversation is not only

An awesome red herring. It's not only really sharp on Murphy's part. I mean, she's just stellar. She's just on it for this whole scene. This is where people start to like her because she is just knocking it out of the park. It's also a moment of growth for Dresden that's very important beyond.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (15:21)
Yeah, and bringing Murphy in completely allows them to have important, deeper conversations in the future.

Brian (15:30)
Right. And after Jim has shined a bright light on the mysteries, he turns them off because now we've moved to the action sequence portion of the book.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (15:42)
Yeah, all the lights turn off in the whole building and they have to get up and immediately deal with this. Harry grabs some salt off of the table they're they're eating in the little cafe or something like that, or sitting in the cafe. And

so they have to then figure out how to get out, but as they try to go to the exit doors at the beginning of chapter nineteen, that's when they realize there's this weird fog that appears to be causing everybody who comes into contact with it to just zone out.

And Harry calls it a mind fog. And that at that point we see Murphy try to hit the fire alarm and nothing happens. And I read through that, Brian, and I thought to myself, well, that's you know, a little bit odd in a sense, because that never comes back. It's not like hitting the fire alarm is relevant at any other part in this book or any other part in this series. And if hitting the fire alarm causes nothing to happen, then why take the time to

Interrupt the rest of the story to have these three lines about Murphy hitting the fire alarm and nothing happened and Harry saying worth a try. Well, I think it makes the whole scene feel a lot more authentic and real. If you take that out and you only ever have your characters making plans that work, it doesn't feel realistic because real people make real mistakes. And

If you don't have them try the obvious solution, then they feel like they're dumb characters. Why aren't they trying the obvious solution? Well, I've already determined it's not going to work. You have to show them trying the obvious solution and it not working, that A makes their characters look smart enough to try it, and B make sure that it feels authentic and real because not everything works the way they want.

Brian (17:33)
And I thought you bringing up this moment was so prescient because I feel like this is a setup for a future moment, just not in this book. So here I think that a reader in book four of the series probably thinks, yeah, she wants to pull the fire alarm so the cops come, so the fire department comes, so there's a commotion.

Because that's how you get the supernatural predators out of there. You shine some light on the situation and the supernatural cockroaches scurry back into the corners of the room.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:08)
Yeah,

and that's probably what Murphy would have assumed i the advantage of this would be.

Brian (18:13)
But we know that running water disrupts magic. So if the sprinklers come on, well, no more problem. Dresden, why aren't you just catch casting Fuego at the roof? If you just throw a fireball, you can solve all the issues that you're you know having in this fight.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:28)
Ha ha ha.

Brian (18:30)
And now we know why he can't just do that. But he's gonna just do that. Not next book, not the book after, but

All the way in small favor, his little ball of sunshine is gonna trigger a sprinkler, and he's going to really coolly, thaumaturgically spread that around the whole station to break the merc so that Michael can go on the war path in one of the coolest scenes in the series.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (18:58)
Yeah,

Union Station with the Hobbs. That's great. We only ever see the aftermath of it, but it's still described in a great way. But we'll get there. But yeah, i if that had managed to cause the fire or the sprinklers to come on, usually the pulling the firearm doesn't cause the sprinklers to go on. They're set on a different ty you know trigger. But if Harry had thought to try to get the sprinklers to go, maybe that would have gotten rid of the mine fog, and then they could have gone out the exit they wanted to take and not the one that was guarded by Grum, and they wouldn't have even run into him necessarily.

So it would have been a good plan, both for the reasons that Murphy thought it would be, but also for that reason. Now, we then move on to the point where Harry comes to the conclusion this mind fog is coming in from multiple directions. I can probably defend myself, but Murphy can't. I've gotta buy myself some time. So he creates a circle with the salt

And he activates it. It does protect them from the fog. And he then creates a little charm for Murphy. Tie a string around your finger and you won't forget, right? He kind of puts some intention into that charm. It's a short term thing, but it will protect her from the fog. And I think this is a great little moment because it does help show Harry's competence at this time. He sees the problem.

He deals with it, buys himself some time. He gives Murphy the charm that she needs. We see him doing this magic, you know, on the fly, creating a piece that's important, sort of counterspelling this situation, and it does work. It doesn't backfire in any specific way. He's going to have things that backfire. He already tried fire on the ogre, and it completely failed when he did. So we'll we'll see him being competent again towards the end of this, but things are gonna get worse before they get better.

he gets so many times that he gets punched in the face and like appears to be a bumbling buffoon in some of those first three books that it's just nice to see him be competent as well.

Brian (20:49)
And man, the economy of language here, because what is Jim

also starting to set up? The eventual molder sculdy will they won't they dynamic between Harry and Murphy. And we get this exchange, which is just like, man, you can cut the tension with a knife, right? She regarded me, her face pale and uncertain. I've never really seen you, you know do it before. It's okay, I told her.

I met her eyes for a dangerous second. I won't hurt you. I know what I'm doing. She lifted the corner of her mouth and a quick smile that made her eyes sparkle. Just like Yeah, it's very intimate in

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (21:27)
Boom chick a wow wow. Yeah.

Brian (21:31)
a way that's not by accident. Obviously, I'm taking that out of context, right? She's talking about magic. Like that's that's a little bit of a joke. But he's setting them up.

Really close together in the circle, looking each other right in the face, having an intimate moment where Murphy is vulnerable and Harry is being protective in a way that doesn't feel chauvinistic. That's the kind of thing that you can grow a romance out of. And there isn't really a scene like this before that moment either. Every other kind of scene that could be

between them is either played totally for laughs or is, you know, made definitively about their friendship, like at the end of Full Moon.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (22:18)
Yeah, and right before that part that you read when he's first setting up this charm, he he asked Mercy Me to give me your left hand, and then we get this quote She did. Her fingers shook so hard that I could feel it when I put my own around them. Murph, I said. She kept looking down the aisle, her eyes a little wild. Karen she looked up at me. she looked very young somehow. Remember what I said yesterday. You're hurt, but you'll get through it. You'll be okay. She closed her eyes tightly. I'm scared.

So scared, I'm sick. You'll get through it. What if I don't? unquote. And this goes on. They have this intimate moment of her showing vulnerability to him and him reinforcing to her, I you will get through this. He's building up her confidence. helping her build her confidence and her resolve.

That's a great thing that a friend would do, but in this moment he knows the most important thing is to really get her to take control of her fear. And the way that he does that is by finding anger to chase away the fear. And so when she questions, what if I don't get through this? He says, quote, Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life. I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons around your car, and lurk in the parking lot of CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby.

every single day. Unquote. And that is something that's only going to work if they already have a good enough relationship where she understands that he's not being serious here, but he's just gently mocking her in a way to provoke her anger in order to help her take control of her fear. She has to understand that and trust him on that level to where she doesn't hold that against him.

Or like actually get upset that he's mocking her there. Instead, she uses that as a springboard to her own confidence and her the their back and forth. You know, I'm holding a gun, right? That banter that they have getting her back into that familiar place is what helps her overcome the fear. And it's so well done here. It's just beautiful.

Brian (24:30)
Yeah, it has been theorized that laughter exists for humans who are in a tense situation to signal to the other humans around them, it's okay. Right? I heard a twig snap. We all turn around and look, and then I laugh and I turn back around and I point it's a little squirrel. And then everybody laughs too, because we're relaxing. It's fine. So what did Dresden do there? Yeah.

He teased her, he annoyed her, but he also said something that was so ridiculous in this situation, so over the top and clearly untrue, That she couldn't help but have Murphy's breath escaped in something like a hiccup. She's giggling.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (25:16)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (25:16)
Because

it's so ridiculous. And that releases some of the tension to let her step back into the okay, I got this position. And my god, does she got this Adam? This is some serious, like lethal weapon cop action that Murphy's about to lay down. Because the thing you have to realize is Harry doesn't notice this as soon as Murphy does, but she does this whole scene.

Also knowing that someone is shooting at them.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (25:47)
So the next part that we get here, when Harry takes down the circle after giving Murphy the charm and after fortifying his own mental defenses against the fog, we get this particular quote. It glided over my skin like a cold and greasy oil, something foul and cloying and vaguely familiar that made me want to start brushing it off.

It writhed up over my arms, prickles of distraction and disorientation crawling over my limbs.

So Brian, why would it be vaguely familiar to Harry?

Brian (26:22)
Well, I think there's a couple options, Adam, but one thing is clear it's gotta be Elaine casting it, right?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (26:30)
Yeah, I mean, we're pretty sure Slate only has his winter night powers. Like he's not a sorcerer or anything, so he's probably out. It could be Aurora, but it doesn't really feel like fairy magic, and like why would Aurora's magic feel vaguely familiar to Harry? So that doesn't really track either.

Brian (26:48)
Yeah, I feel like Elaine's absence in this scene is telling because we see or see the presence of a lot of the other conspirators. You know, Grum Talos is obviously present. A Aurora's influence is something that we'll get to in the scene. She's definitely here. Slate is lurking around, but he is around.

So where's Elaine? Now, she could already be buying a plane ticket in O'Hare. We're gonna talk about that next week. But more probably, especially if her injury wasn't as severe as it seemed, she's been drafted in to help with the plot to kill Harry. And we'll talk about this later. But the way she's helping with that plot is telling.

There's some

Other reason it could be familiar though. Harry has been in contact with Justin. He has seen some other magic. He can't really explain the Hexen Wolf belts, the stuff Victor Sells was doing. And we're going to have descriptions in the future of things that like the barbed wire curse.

Feel almost burning cold.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:06)
Mm.

Brian (28:06)
And those things are often necromancy. Now, this still fits our Elaine theory very well. If Elaine is Kamori, then maybe in order to make this fog, she's drawing on some power that most wizards don't have access to.

Now, there's something else going on in this scene that I've alluded to multiple times that I think we have to try to explain. So, the mine fog, Later we're gonna talk about, as we teased in the cold open, the plant monster. Definitely fairy. Grum's here, fairy. But the tigress is also here, Adam. And as much as Murphy is just

correct that actually that's got to do with the Red Cord, it's not to do with the fairies. It sure seems like they're all working together in this moment. What the hell's going on?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (28:59)
Yeah, so there's a couple of different possibilities here. One, it could just literally be a coincidence. They both pla were following Harry and both tried to attack him at the same time. That could be the case. Or maybe there's some por part of foreknowledge on the Tigress's part. The Tigress saw them setting up a a a play to attack Harry, and so she sets up to take advantage of the Mind Fog too. But it seems more likely

you got two different groups that are both trying to kill the wizard, and the wizard, for the first time in a while, puts himself in a vulnerable position. He's not inside of a fairy court like he has been for like the last eight hours or something when he was going to see Mave, and then when he was going to see Aurora. So this is the first time he's been outside in a vulnerable position in a long time. So it makes sense that.

This is the first moment that both sides are gonna try to hit him. So that seems the l most likely answer to me. It also happens to be a place that's

Devoid of any supernatural witnesses, right? If this was taking place near max, then you'd have a lot of people clued in that could tell the story of, yeah, there was a big ogre or there was a you know, this guy with a s with a sword that cut, with cold or something like that. You have potential witnesses that know what they're seeing. Here, every mortal is gonna be completely mind-fogged and forgotten. So this is a good place to attack and not.

Get caught.

Brian (30:29)
Yeah, and it's especially important to realize that before this moment, Aurora probably wasn't trying to kill Dresden. She's trying to get him on her team, as we discussed when she's talking to him in her garden. And this is basically the first time that Harry pokes out his head after that. So this is the first time Harry's in a public place since Aurora decided, all right, we gotta whack

And the Tigress probably needed some time to recover from her defeat earlier in the book.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (31:05)
Yeah, and what we see here next is that the Tigris does show up pretending to be like a Walmart employee or something, and she takes out a gun, she's just going to off Murphy. You're right, frontal assault. Just go in there, take out the gun when he's not looking and shoot him. Murphy, though,

She uses her close combat skills to disarm the tigress. And then we have a moment where the tigress is sort of at Murphy's mercy with the gun, but Murphy is shaking. She's not sure she can do it. And then the Tigris taunts Murphy by big mistake. She's she just opens up and I I looked this up, Brian, because the way that it's described here, there's lines where

It says Murphy started shooting and then there's a paragraph of what's happening and then Murphy kept shooting and then there's another paragraph and then Murphy kept shooting and finally the gun click empty. And I think it's a Colt 1911 that she has, which is like eight shots. So she puts eight shots into this ghoul's chest, and that of course is gonna cause any ghoul to flee. They do take a lot of punishment, but eight shots from a 45 ACP round is not something that they should be able to just completely shrug off.

Brian (32:14)
Yeah, when Murphy says, Taste this bitch, she is not kidding. She is going to be feeding that ghoul some serious lead. But one thing that you noticed, Adam, is that when Murphy does put some rounds into this girl, sudden flowers of scarlet sprayed out from her back. Scarlet! Ghoul blood's not scarlet.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (32:39)
Yeah, this could be maybe early installment weirdness, but later Jim will describe ghoul blood as like brown and alien like. So I think that's probably at Camp Kaboom we get that description, if I remember correctly.

But let's move on here. Because the tigress does escape, but then Grum attacks. So out of the frying pan, into the fire, Harry comes up with a brilliant idea of throwing a bunch of marbles on the ground to trip up Grum. And

I just love the reversal of expectations here where you as the audience is like, yeah, the hero is throwing a bunch of marbles on the ground, and then when the villain who who remember, if you've even if you've read this before, Harry uses the the bigger they are, the harder they fall to get a lot of different baddies, including like the the big fetch.

In proven guilty when he tries to take a turn and use the ice or whatever with that guy. So you you might expect this should work, right? And then no, he's just so big, he crushes the marbles into glass dust. And it's just a great moment of like, that's right. This is not a cartoon, this is real life.

Those things don't always work. And it's a weird juxtaposition because you do have some instances of like Hollywood physics and Hollywood realism in this story because it it mimics action movies and it kind of runs with those tropes. But at the same time, it also gets to say on some tropes, yeah, no, this is real life. That wouldn't work.

Brian (34:12)
Right. And I feel like this is a great counterpart to the vampire tuxedo moment from the last book. Very, very similarly, Harry does kind of a hare-brained thing in both situations. Now, in Grave Peril, I don't love it because it seems like he had a lot of time to make that choice, and he just made a dumb one that just creates plot complications for no reason. But

I love this in summer night. Harry's under pressure. He sees the marbles. He goes, This'll work. And he throws him out there. It's just, rash choice, sure, but it's in the moment. He's just going with it. He's just trying to be creative. And doesn't always work. Even if it seems natural, even if it seems like it's the sort of indie, indie ploy, you know, the famous Indiana Jones just looks over at one.

random object and just goes, I'll throw that thing. And you know, that that leads to the cascade chain reaction that saves the day. It's a it's a ridiculous plan that might just work because of its audacity, but it doesn't. And that intermittent reinforcement, the fact that sometimes Dresden will get away with this wily coyote super genius,

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (35:26)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (35:26)
and sometimes he won't, actually makes it more delightful for the reader.

when it does work, and it can make it very funny in turn in the moment when it actually, gets a Murphy written out of the rest of the book.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (35:44)
Yeah, because not only does this plan just fail to work, and he goes, and it's not just, that didn't work. Now I have to come up with a new plan. It turns out, and we'll find this out in the next chapter, that Murphy has actually slipped on the marbles. They worked against her because she's not like two tons of ogre. And so as a result, her leg gets hurt, and that really restricts their options going into the rest of this sequence.

When we get to that point and he explains that, that might have been me, we get this great line, which I've added to our possible best lines of the book. Harry, that's not a plan. That's a Looney Tune. I love it. So I really appreciate that this plan didn't just not work, it also backfires on them and creates more complications that they then manage to overcome in a heroic way.

Brian (36:37)
And

backfires and doesn't work in a way that's very appropriate to the moment. You

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (36:42)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (36:42)
expect Murphy to come out of this fight with an injury. She's a vanilla mortal going up against supernatural creatures. It's funny, it's ironic that it's inflicted by her own side. But Adam, before we move on to the next chapter, this is where we find out from Murphy that the Garden Center's exit is covered by gunfire.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (37:06)
Yeah. So go go ahead.

Brian (37:06)
Now, I've

already said that this is probably Ace keeping them pinned down as part of the Tigris's hastily assembled plan. Does that hold water?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (37:19)
Yeah, when I was first reading through this and I saw that shot, I was thinking, is it ace or is it slate? But it makes much more sense for this to be ace because we literally see him do this exact same thing later in the book when Harry and the Alphas and Fix and Meryl are getting ready to go up and fight in the battle in the clouds, they get ambushed by who else but the Tigris.

Up close and personal with Ace firing a rifle from the distance and trying to cover her and kill Harry. So at that moment, it kind of clicked with me like, no, this is definitely Ace. It's the same thing happening here. Now, it could be Slate because we don't see him anywhere else, and that would explain.

where he is during this fight. Like why is he so conspicuously absent. But as we're about to discuss, I think there's a better reason that we don't really see him in this fight. Because if he walked up and worked with Grum to just slice Harry in half with a frozen sword or use his cold powers to just I mean, there's like a ninety percent chance they kill him and he doesn't get out alive. So we have to find out why they wouldn't do that. We'll talk about that in a little bit.

Brian (38:37)
The funniest option though is that Ace and Slate both brought guns and they're both keeping them pinned down without

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (38:45)
Yeah.

Brian (38:46)
any prior coordination. Ace, because where was he when he said he was at work? Planning with the Tigris for this exact situation, but Slate, because he's trying to lurk around in the shadows. And the reason why that is potentially true.

Is yes, the exits are mostly covered by mind fog, but if it was just Ace keeping them pinned down, you feel like Murphy might have decided to chance it and just, you know, use cars as cover and try to take out the shooter or something like that. But if it seemed like the shooter moved and was going from a different location, she's like, this guy's really competent. There's no way that'll work. So that's a little bit of a stretch, but it's possible that.

Part of the reason we don't see Slate is because he is trying to provide some covering fire at the same time.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (39:40)
Yeah, just being the last line of defense if Harry manages to escape all the others. That's possible. Okay, so at this point, Harry gets herded by Grum into the garden department, and he then gets herded further inside a trap. In a chain link fenced area with barbed wire over the top of it, and he realizes as Grum like twists the lock closed behind him that he's now trapped inside and

A summoned creature, a a sort of formed creature that is made up of all of these plants nearby. That's right, it's the Chlorophiend. And Brian, is this thing like its own sentient monster come out of fairyland like the fetch that can like inhabit plants? Or do you think this is literally like a puppet that Aurora is controlling and piloting from afar?

Brian (40:35)
So I'll be honest with you, when I first read the series, I thought it was effectively a monster or some kind of animating spirit drawn here from Fairy. That this, like Grum, who I didn't at the time know was Talos, was just a hitter brought in by whoever the bad guy was to take Harry out. But I think, Adam, it's pretty clear that my first read on this was wrong. For two reasons. One, that

The chlorophine's gonna speak later. And the way it talks to Dresden doesn't sound like a random thug. And two, once you do know that Grum is Talos, I mean, Aurora has kept her circle pretty tight knit. So unless this is, you know, Korick running the plant monster, it's gotta be her piloting it. And who better to do something like that than the Summer Lady?

She probably controls plants the same way that Maeve can control ice.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (41:35)
Yeah, that makes sense to me too. The way that it talks later where it says,

Medler, you should never have involved yourself in these affairs. You have no concept of what is at stake. Die for your arrogance, unquote. That sounds like something that Aurora would say in this moment. Not like if it's just a rando monster that she is summoned for help here, why is it so invested in what's going on?

Brian (42:03)
And Adam, I think that's a really good setup for a question that we don't get a straight answer to in the book. So Aurora's piloting the Chlorophien, but she doesn't show up in person. We get some evidence that Slate is here, but we never see him directly. We're theorizing that Ace is outside, but we don't get a look at him either.

It seems like if they made a more concerted effort, one or both of these groups could take out Harry. Like you said, if Slate just walks up with a sword right in the beginning in Grum's first rush, they probably get the job done. But neither of the people trying to hit Harry really push that many chips into the pot here.

So what are their plans? Are they actually trying to kill him? Are they just trying to scare him? What's going on?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (42:58)
Yeah, and I think to understand that we have to try to figure out their goals in this specific situation. So I think it's safe to say the unstated sort of supreme goal above all the others is that nobody wants to die killing Harry Dresden. They want Harry dead, but they're not willing to throw their life away to do it. This is why Grum is going to retreat in the next chapter. This is why the Tigress has already retreated when she took some damage.

If they really wanted to, they could probably kill Dresden by throwing their life away in the process, but none of them are that committed to the cause. So we're gonna start with that assumption.

Brian (43:38)
Right. Here, it's not like they're ideologically inclined to kill the wizard. In fact, they probably want to avoid his death curse more than they want to kill him as a whole, because their larger plans, the tigress's larger plan being presumably to keep, you know, living her tigress existence, and we know what Aurora's goal is overall, depend on

Being able to freely operate without taking the kind of damage that a wizard's death curse could dish out. Maybe given some things Aurora says later, she's not thinking of that, but that would be a really good reason to attack Harry as an unknowable chlorophien, as opposed to in your own flesh and blood.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (44:26)
Yeah, so let's break this down a little bit. So we've got basically a couple of different groups here that sort of share the same goals. Presumably, Ace and the Tigris share the same goals in this specific scene. And presumably Aurora, Talos, and Slate all share the same goal in this scene. Presumably, Elaine might have different goals, or not necessarily in the same order.

As Aurora Talos and Slate. So I put her in a third category. Let's let's start at the top there, Brian. Ace and the Tigris, their main goal appears to be kill the wizard. And of course, that probably would have happened if not for Murphy. But what about Aurora Talos and S and Slate here? Is that their primary goal? Just kill the wizard? Or are they operating on a slightly different behavior?

Brian (45:11)
Yeah, I think that what you're hinting at here is that their primary goal is not being seen. Talos is wearing a disguise the whole time. Aurora, if she's there, only comes in as the chlorophien. Slate is very careful never to be even remotely visible. And Elaine, assuming she's the one casting the spell, is probably in the back of a car somewhere as out of sight as she can.

Possibly be. Their primary goal is don't get caught because their actual plan relies on secrecy. The second everybody knows who killed Rule, what they did with the mantle, and what they're trying to do overall, they think, the jig is up. They're gonna stop us. So if they can kill the wizard.

Great. But the worst case scenario is not Harry Dresden living. The worst case scenario is Harry Dresden seeing himself being attacked by Lloyd Slate and a plant monster and putting two and two together to say, summer and winter are on a team before aparturing into the never never and getting away to fight another deck.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (46:31)
Using some other, like he could have had his escape as mist potion that he used in in Stormfront or something else. He's a wizard, they can be sneaky and slippery, and you do not want him slipping out. If they had like a 99.9% chance of killing him, they still might be very careful about this because the stakes are just that high. Remember what's going to happen to Slate after this book.

And think to yourself, would you be extra careful about if that was the possible failure state? Yeah, I think you absolutely would. So primary goal, don't get caught. Secondary goal, kill the wizard.

Brian (47:13)
And then Elaine's goals don't seem to align with either of them. Like, she's not trying to get caught, but as far as we can tell, she's going out of her way to make sure that Harry doesn't get killed. So maybe her primary goal here is repay her obligation to the summer court. She is trying to make sure that she is behaving as far as Aurora considers it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (47:39)
Yeah,

that's the self-preservation thing, right? If she fails to do that, then her life is forfeit. So that has to be her primary goal. In the same way that Harry's sort of un unstated supreme goal is like, I have to solve these cases and figure out who killed Rule, or else my ass is in the fire.

Brian (47:58)
Right, and Elaine here might be in a situation where she's fully reliant on Aurora, and if she doesn't do what Aurora says, she's just dead, or she might be in a situation where she's been told that what's important to her ultimate goals is helping Aurora, but as we've already mentioned, Aurora's plan doesn't need a dead Harry to succeed, and in fact him getting the unraveling later isn't necessarily even bad for her. So

Elaine can think I'm absolutely working, you know, towards my ultimate goals, even if she's trying to help Harry survive. Help Harry, isn't she casting the mind fog? Note

Her mind fog is something that Harry is able to hold off almost too easily. He's throwing around magic left and right, and it barely seems to get to him. And what do we see in the future?

Elaine traps Harry in big swishy quotes with a spell that he can easily slip. In addition, the fog stays up, which keeps the sniper from shooting them.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:13)
Yeah, it makes it harder for them for sure.

Brian (49:15)
yeah, there's a conspiracy at work. Elaine is a double agent.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (49:19)
Yes, well, Harry did correctly guess that she would not be doing any of this voluntarily and that she was forced into it and that he can probably trust her. He will have to trust her again at the end of the book, and even after she appears to betray him, but he figures it out. So I would say her primary goal here, repay her obligation, or at least appear to do so. And then the secondary goal is to help Harry. In fact, Brian, we have to ask ourselves when it comes to

Team Aurora, who came up with this plan? I'm guessing they're following Harry. He goes into the Walmart. They have a little powwow. How are we gonna approach this? Whose plan is this?

Brian (50:01)
Now, the obvious answer would be Aurora, but I don't think it's her. She might be the team leader, but the plans that we see from Aurora are either kind of elegant with lots of back doors and very convoluted and tons of misdirection, or they're very straightforward. I'm gonna trap you here and let you sink into the quick stand.

I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna take the It's very either subtle or direct. This plan is neither of those things. There's a cunning to it. We're gonna corral Dresden in this one location so we can take him out with a plant monster. But it's not particularly beautiful. I mean, they just sort of chase him down an alley until he ends up where they want him to. And

As you mentioned, Adam, the person who is probably most pants shittingly terrified of getting caught is Lloyd Slate. So a plan where he doesn't have to get anywhere near Dresden, and the thing that's gonna kill Dresden can't really be traced back to any of them, that involves a certain low cunning.

Sounds exactly like our thug sleep.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (51:20)
Yeah, and I think the other element of this, what else do we know about Lloyd Slate? Well, he picks on changelings that he is immensely overpowered. Like he's clearly a classic bully. If he's gonna go pick a fight, he's picking it with somebody much weaker than him. I believe him when he said in Maeve's court, I'm not even sure I could kill him.

When he was talking about rule. He needed a sucker punch. He needed backup from Elaine and Aurora. And I think he's right when he said, like, I don't know if I could take a wizard, I thought I could take you. So I think this is him going, Yeah, I could probably kill him, but I d I'm not I'm not in this for a fair fight. So it's not only something that keeps him from getting caught, it's also something that gives him the least risk. But Brian, there's one other element to this.

Just like Elaine suggests the way that we should the way that a Team Aurora should kill Harry in chapter 27, when Aurora has trapped him outside the mother's cottage, Elaine suggests this specific way that allows Harry to escape. I'm guessing she piped up during the planning session and saying, And I'll make a mind fog to prevent him from escaping and to

prevent any of the mortals from witnessing or interfering, right? Knowing that that mind fog maybe went a little misdirection, right? Implying that maybe the mind fog would work on Dresden, but never actually staying it outright, being very fay about it, and knowing that Harry would be able to deal with the mind fog. And so that it wouldn't be, it would let her appear to be helping without actually helping all that much.

Brian (53:06)
Yeah, curses. He blocked my spell. I had no idea he would do that. I mean, he looks so dumb, right?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (53:14)
He

was never that c that clever back when I knew him. Yeah, exactly.

Brian (53:18)
Right. Now there's a couple reasons why I like that. And it goes to a a note that I think Aurora wouldn't have thought of, but that I could see from either Slate or Elaine, which is locking Harry in by twisting the gates closed behind him, using these metal, these steel fences to pen Harry in. Why could that be Slate's plan?

Because it's exactly the kind of way he thinks. This is a guy. How do you pin a human in a space? It's not something a supernatural creature thinks of. You bring him in a gate and then you break the door. That's like a classic movie. Yep, we locked him in the room and we took the doorknob off kind of situation. Like it's it's a very human plan. Or it could be Elaine saying, Huh, how am gonna get him out of this? well I'll lock him in a cage match with a fairy.

with a ton of iron around, because ultimately that's how Dresden's gonna get away from it.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (54:20)
Yeah.

that brings us to chapter twenty, Where Harry uses his shield in a way that we haven't seen before. He uses it to absorb kinetic energy as the chlorophiend is sort of throwing him around into all these metal shelves. And that's something that we will see him use again in a critical moment in like White Knight

When he and Lara are blasting out of the deeps, surrounded by layers and layers of this kinetic shielding that helps absorb the impact as they're going through it. This is the

first time we see him using that much intricacy with his shield spell in particular. I believe up until this point, it was pretty much just used to block missiles and spells

Brian (55:04)
yes, and Jim has to let him use the shield this way to stay consistent. He's using it to stop.

Kinetic energy, which is just movement, so he's gotta be able to use it to stop his own movement. And this is probably when Jim starts thinking about, well, does the shield stop everything? Are there things it doesn't stop? Because eventually it's gonna get even more intricate, and Harry's gonna need different charms on the shield for all different kinds of things.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (55:36)
Yeah, so this is a a great little slow bit of progression that we see in Harry's spell work. Over time it has to get stronger and better because he's learning and doing better things. And so I just love these baby steps that we see, where now he's just using it to help him, from hitting a wall going ten or twelve miles an hour after getting thrown around by a chlorophien. Later he's gonna be blasted out of a cave and

by C4 and he has to survive that using the same trick. So I I love to to tr track how this is slowly getting better. Now, as we get deeper into chapter 20 here, what we see is Harry is able to knock one of the shelves over onto the chlorophiened

And the shelf being all metal is able to trap it and do a lot of damage to it. He then runs out and meets Murphy, who's on the other side of the fence, and he's like, We gotta get out of here. You gotta get me out of here. And the first thing he says though is, Where have you been? And Brian, she rolls her eyes and says, shopping. And I just imagine the venom that must be dripping out of that sarcasm.

Brian (56:46)
man, Murphy is fully back. She began this series of chapters scared, unsure if she could hack it in the wild world of the supernatural. And now Harry is like, what's what have you been doing in this war zone? And Murphy's like, my hair, you know?

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:01)
Yeah.

Brian (57:03)
So it's a great way to bring us towards the end of this chapter, but man, does it get even better in the next one? Because

There's two enemies left. Harry knows that the chlorophine is down, but not out. But they've also still got grum to worry about.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (57:22)
Yeah, and presumably when Harry was trapped in there, the plan was let the chlorophine finish him off. He has no one to direct his death curse at. Grum is like safely out, and he's also maybe transformed back into Tallows that if Harry tries to send a death curse at an ogre named Grum, it won't find a target, right? We're we've got to think about it from their perspective. Now, if that's the plan,

Grum is hiding out of sight, and it

gives Harry and Murphy a chance to stock up on the things they will need to defeat Grum.

Brian (57:55)
specifically a super soaker, gasoline, a chainsaw, and a sterno. And if you're thinking, hey, this sounds kind of like some anarchist cookbook napalm, that's exactly what we're getting out of this confection, plus a chainsaw just to add some evil dead on top.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:15)
So you're saying this is a dungeon crawler caro reference twenty years early?

Brian (58:19)
Yeah, Jim is a time traveling warlock.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (58:22)
The Dungeon Anarchist Cookbook. Okay. Anyway. so yeah, this plan goes off pretty much as expected, right? They lure Grum out, he's overconfident. They use that to get in close to him with a chainsaw, which hurts him a lot. Then he's like, Your fire is nothing, and he's like, Good thing I got this old vanilla fire and this gasoline. And he goes stomping off back to Fairyland, like

Disappearing into the never never because, you know, after being chewed up by a chainsaw and being set on fire, I'd run away too. I do think, though, that it is hinted at here that Murphy's leg gets worse during this interaction, where Grum is able to grab her wounded leg and it gets worse, and that is why she's not.

limping anymore. Like she was limping when she shows up earlier, having fallen over from the marbles, but now she can't even really put any weight on it. Even hopping is a problem, which creates a new restriction for Harry. How's he gonna get Murphy out of here? They dealt with Grum, but now they gotta figure out how to get away from presumably the rifleman that's outside. And so he has to go and get the Beatle. But the chlorophiend here is down but not out as you said, because

As he's going to get the beetle, he looks over at the garden center and he sees that a hole has been cut in the side and the chlorophine is nowhere to be found. Specifically, the hole appears to have been the result of the metal becoming so cold it snapped. And then we see as Harry gets into the beetle, winter ice go over the entire windshield so he can't see. These are the two pieces that let us know that slate.

Is involved in this fight. And at the same time, he's got this chlorophien, which is a plant monster. Growth. That's a summer thing. If you're paying attention and thinking very carefully about the details here, this is Jim throwing you a bone. Harry's not gonna get it for quite a few more chapters, but you could theoretically look at this and go, this is someone from winter and someone from summer. That's the only way it makes sense.

Brian (1:00:34)
Yeah, and maybe you think it's MAVE and you know, who knows from summer. That's not precisely clear. But Jim is definitely giving you a strong hint here. And honestly, I don't remember picking up on it the first time I looked at the book because I associated the fog and the icing over of the windshield with the same person. So I was just like, enemy magic guy.

But it's probably two different people. So We have the awesome moment where Harry drives the beetle into a chlorophiend that Murphy takes out with a chainsaw. Down and down and down and down.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:01:22)
Yeah, it's very metal. I really like it. You could you could read read it's just a great action climax to everything that has led to this moment, and it's a great hero moment for both of our characters. A plant monster

and Frosty the Snowman, she says.

Brian (1:01:38)
Yeah,

this is a real like comedy horror movie ending where, we think we've made it out, and then Jason's not dead yet, and the scene drags a little bit, but because of the quips, it's honestly just a pretty cool coda to at this point, I think the most intricate action scene Jim's had in the book. I don't know if you've seen the true detective Adam.

But very famously, there's like a six minute one take scene of running through a firefight in sort of some housing in the the bad part of town. And that kind of one take scene is really hard to do in a movie or in a TV show. This is almost the writing equivalent. Stay in the same place for four chapters.

Constant transition of action-seen moments and don't overstay your welcome. Really, really good. One of the best sequences we've seen in the whole series so far.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:02:45)
Yeah, so that's gonna end this set of chapters here. Chapter 21 ends with that as they're driving away. And that brings us to next week where we're talking about chapters twenty two and twenty-three. This is where twenty two is where they're regrouping at Billy's, and Harry has a conversation with Merrill and gets everybody organized there. And then at twenty three, Harry calls up his godmother and she shows him the stone table and reminds him.

Never let Mab take you here. yeah, a little bit.

Brian (1:03:16)
Is that foreshadowing? Is that yeah. Okay.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:18)
All right. So that brings us to this week's question for Bob.

Brian (1:03:25)
Bob, what's the best way to defeat fairies in a Walmart? You know, standard thing happens every couple weeks.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:31)
Yeah. Well, again, Bob can't make it this week. He said he's riding the lightning. I don't know if that means he's just surfing the internet. like

Brian (1:03:39)
Maybe

doing drugs, or it could be literal. I don't know. He's a spirit of air.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian (1:03:44)
But we did get some great answers from Reddit.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:03:47)
Yeah, I I did restrict them and say, listen, you can't you can't say chainsaw, you can't say gasoline and sterno, because we we just saw that those are probably some of the best options. But assuming those weren't options, what would you pick as the best way to defeat fairies at a Walmart? And Fiona Cat takes a very unorthodox approach.

You get on the PA system and convince all the Faye that they are guests and need to sign up for a Walmart loyalty card and collect everyone's true name at the same time. I love the idea. It's totally not feasible in the scenario we're talking about. But yeah, hey, listen, I'm a Walmart greeter. You're a guest here. That's how this works. You have you have to obey as guests. You can't attack us. And would you like to sign up for this loyalty program? It's what everybody does.

man, it's a it's a fun thing to think of, but are there better options out there?

Brian (1:04:42)
Yeah, presumably because there's no threshold, you can't convince a fairy that they're violating guest right, but it's a genius ploy, if you could. Aldris Vallis quotes a well-loved movie. Listen up, you primitive screw heads. See this? This is my boom stick.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:05:03)
Yeah, basically a lot of people said, Go to the go to the sporting department and get a gun. and that probably would work if you were to take this scene and assume that that was a possibility. There are some problems with that, because A, not all Warm Walmarts can do that, depending on what state laws are there there are where they are, etc. But there's also the possibility that, well, the guns are probably all locked up and

Getting through those locks might be a problem if you're not a wizard. So maybe Harry could do that, just blast the lock and get to the shotgun, but it's not necessarily something that everyone can do.

Brian (1:05:43)
Yeah, I mean I think you could probably pry loose somehow if you had to, you know, and nobody was trying to stop you. But I think the the issue you're getting at first is the bigger one. In this Walmart in Chicago, guys, I know there's some rumors about Chicago, but you can't buy guns in a Walmart there. So you know, that's a very

Area dependent and wouldn't work in the situation in the chapter. However, Hayuko figured out a better version of Harry's Looney Tunes plan. Forget marbles, thumbtacks, push pins, scatter them on the ground, or throw handfuls at the air if there's pixies about. You've basically created caltrops for fairies.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:06:32)
Yeah, that's brilliant. Because we do know that if you get metal stuck inside you and you're something to do with the Fey, it really messes with your ability to exist, right? Insert the moment where Harry gets hit by Lakuna's squad and gets hit with nails puncturing his skin, and also insert the moment where Mab is punctured by rebar and stops being Mab for a little while until she gets a boot to the head. So

That actually sounds like a really good version of the marbles plan because if the big ogre is not v able to notice these things, a lot of them are gonna stick in and cause a huge amount of pain disorientation. I think this might be one of the best answers.

Brian (1:07:19)
It's a really good one. Electric Turtles, though, has a solution that you might prefer if you're willing to get up close and personal. The sporting goods department has machetes in the camping section. Lots of good options

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:32)
yes.

Brian (1:07:33)
in the tool department, including shovels, axes, sledgehammers, and crowbars.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:07:40)
Yeah, of those, I think axe or machete makes the most sense. Machete being probably the best option if it's available, because you've got maximum, you know, metal service. Like an axe is great, but it's got a wooden handle. You know, Grum could catch the wooden part and not touch the metal. But if you swung a machete at him, he has to dodge or like block it with something or he's in trouble.

Brian (1:08:02)
Now I don't know exactly how the bane works at him, but honestly, I think he's probably leaving off some of the best stuff, because it doesn't really need to be sharp or do a ton of damage. It's just the touch of iron. So you really just need a long metal pole. Go to the fencing department or whatever, you know, just get a single like iron stick and just play like you're a soldier with a spear.

Humans and pointy sticks, it is the height of military technology for several thousand years for a reason.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:08:34)
Yeah, I mean they're in if they're in the garden department, a pitchfork seems like the best spear you can get to keep something at range and something with the sort of

arm length of grum, you definitely want something that can take it on at range. Now quite a few people suggested nail guns and other people debated like how effective would that actually be? Like are how much Hollywood realism are we using here? Because nail guns traditionally not just traditionally by law

Actually, they are required to have safety features so that they can't fire a nail unless they're like pressed up against a surface to make sure that they can't be used as ranged weapons. But presuming that you could get up and close and personal with the fairy attacker, a nail gun would be great, assuming it's one that uses like compressed air and not an electronic one.

Brian (1:09:25)
Yeah, I think my dad had an old nail gun that you took up to the compressor, because he was a carpenter at the time. He's had a couple jobs, but I think he had a nail gun that actually, for some reason, the safety feature didn't work or whatever. And the thing could shoot a nail pretty far. So it definitely

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:09:45)
Yeah, and some people did suggest,

listen, you can definitely bypass those safety features if you MacGyver it a little bit.

Brian (1:09:50)
Yeah, so I think that would totally work, but think everybody's missing a simpler solution here, Adam. Walmart sells hundred-foot steel cables. You got two plans here. One, this is how you lay some traps, okay? You can create your own fences with these suckers. You can make a nice little tripwire that burns their foot off at the same time, you know, Resident Evil style. Or.

You can use them as whips. You can get dual wielding whips. Like I said, you don't really have to get the iron too far in there. If you're just whacking with it, they burn. That's why the ghost dust works on the Lenanchi.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:10:31)
Yeah, and maybe the best place to go and hole up is like the kitchen section, the kitchenware section, because there's so much stainless steel and like cast iron for pots and pans and such. You'd have a lot of options there. That's probably the best place. Not to mention the number of knives that would have to be available, especially if you have any wizardly kinetic powers.

Brian (1:10:53)
Yeah, sure. You cast Fazare and it's just Cloud of Daggers level six.

Adam "Bridger" Ruzzo (1:10:59)
Yeah, absolutely. All right. I think that's gonna do it for us here today. Thanks everybody for joining us again. We will see you next week.