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- (00:00) - Intro
- (01:15) - Ch. 9 - Harry's Dreams
- (13:54) - Ch. 9 - "Something spent the night trying to get into the church"
- (23:11) - Ch. 10 - “We need to talk, Morty.”
- (51:07) - QfB: Is the NN Barrier Weakening?
Patreon (bonus episode each month): patreon.com/RNTPod
Episode Art by Nick Strom; you can find his work here: https://displate.com/artist/fadelias/dresden-files
Creators and Guests
Host
Adam Ruzzo
Adam has been producing and hosting podcasts for over 20 years. Such podcasts include Tales of Heroes, Tales of Tyria, and Tales of Citizens. Spread throughout this is various video and streaming projects on his youtube channel. The most recent production is Recorded Neutral Territory, which examines the Dresden Files book series in a chapter-by-chapter re-read.
What is Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast?
Recorded Neutral Territory is a chapter-by-chapter re-read podcast for The Dresden Files book series. Each episode, we one to four chapters with a deep dive on the writing, characters, and worldbuilding within this fantastic series. These episodes contain spoilers for all DF related material released at the time of recording.
New episodes drop on Fridays (~3 per month).
Adam (00:08)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through battleground. I'm Adam Ruzzo And joining me as always is a ghost raging against the Almighty, it's Brian O'Reilly.
Brian (00:23)
Ahahaha! I will show this puny god by tearing up these flower beds! Maybe then I'll steal a Deacon's car stereo!
Adam (00:32)
That'll show him. I'm sure he'll change his ways. All right, Brian, we're looking at chapters nine and 10 of Grave Peril, and man, things are starting to get very interesting. Chapter nine is where Harry goes to see Father Fort Hill with Michael because Lydia was there last night, but she's gone and something terrible tried to get in in the evening. Then chapter is where Harry decides he needs to go and talk to Mortimer Lindquist.
and get some information from him. So let's start with chapter nine, which is actually starts with Harry's dream. And this is terribly interesting to me as a re-reader. why don't you walk us through with the first quote.
Brian (01:15)
I dreamed. The nightmare felt familiar, almost comfortable, though it had been years since I'd gone through it. It began in a cave. It's walls made of translucent crystal, all but glowing in the dim light of the fire beneath the cauldron. The silver manacles were tight on my wrists and I was too dizzy to keep my own balance. I looked at the left and right and watched my blood glide.
down over the manacles from where they pierced my wrist like thorns, then fall into a pair of earthen bowls set out beneath My godmother came to me. Pale and breathtaking in the firelight, her hair spilling down around her like a cloud of silk, the she-lady was beautiful beyond the pale of mortals, her eyes bewitching, her mouth more tempting than the most luscious fruit.
She kissed my bare chest. Shudders of cold pleasure ran through me. Soon, she whispered between kisses, only a few more nights of the dark moon, my sweetling, and you will be strong enough.
Adam (02:24)
Wow. Okay. Brian, I've got two main questions about this segment here. Number one, he says the nightmare felt familiar. He's, he's had this nightmare before. Presumably this is a true like remembering of what happened after he fought he who walks behind and then before he went back to fight Justin.
She takes him into the Never Never and quote, makes him stronger unquote, and then he goes to fight Justin. Is that your interpretation of this or is this some kind of a weird dreamscape version?
Brian (03:03)
I think this is effectively a true recollection. Maybe it's a pastiche, right? Maybe he's remembering things sort of out of order in some way, but this is what he actually remembers happening. Emotionally, this is what he feels happens.
Adam (03:19)
Now, Brian, my favorite part of this quote here is that she's talking about making him stronger by bleeding him. That's a little weird, but maybe there's some magic going on that he's getting stronger, right? She's giving him power to go fight Justin.
That's what appears to be happening here. But Jim has said this in the past during an interview, Mostly what he got out of the deal with Leah was confidence. Her torture sessions essentially handed Harry Dumbo's magic feather. They made him think he was better, stronger, and faster without actually altering a damn thing otherwise. And it worked! He overcame Justin. Granted, there was no reason he couldn't have-
done what he did completely on his own, but he didn't know that at the time. So in a very real way, Leah kept her side of the bargain to make him strong enough to face Justin. It just wasn't a terribly benevolent or friendly way to arrange it. Those wicked fairies go figure." Unquote.
Brian (04:14)
Right, can see Leia having the conversation with Mab, know, sort of like while Harry is sleeping when she first brings him to the Never Never. So, you know, what do I do, you think, to just make him feel like we're doing a fey ritual here? ⁓ bleeding him's really good. I like that. we'll make it a spooky ca- A cauldron. You're just the best at this,
Adam (04:37)
Yeah, right?
let's move on to the next part of the dream because, dream changed. I dreamt of fire. Someone I had loved like a father stood in the middle of it, screaming in agony. They were black screams, horrible screams, high pitched and utterly without pride or dignity or humanity. In the dream,
As in life, I forced myself to watch flesh blacken and flake away from sizzling muscle and baking bone, watched muscles contract in tortured spasms while I stood over the fire and metaphorically speaking, blew on the coals. Justin, I whispered. In the end, I couldn't watch any longer. I closed my eyes and bowed my head, listening to the thunder of my own heart pounding in my ears. Pounding, my heart pounding.
That's when he wakes up out of the dream and hears Michael pounding on the door. But this section here, Brian, raises an interesting question. He says, in the dream as in life. And that's one of the reasons I think that both of these are true rememberings. Again, as best as he can recall, I don't think the dream state is imparting any like weird changes to it. That's my interpretation.
Brian (05:50)
Yeah,
the point being that when Harry is a ghost, he remembers things with a clarity that he cannot do in life. That's like a plot point in Ghost Story. So we're not saying this is equivalent to the ghost memories we get later. there's any contradictions, prefer the ghost memories. But it does suggest that Justin, he's dead. I mean, he's dead. Harry watched him burn down to charcoal. He's dead.
Adam (05:57)
Exactly.
Right.
Brian (06:19)
So does that hold water? Do we feel like, you know, okay, we can close the book on that guy. We found out in grave peril. Okay, guys, I know there's all this speculation about Justin being cowl or whatever, but nope, he's dead dead. We saw him turn to dust.
Adam (06:34)
I mean you ask yourself, what's the evidence for Justin still being alive? And the answer is, it's a trope in stories like this that the person who died long ago that is if they were to turn up again it would cause all kinds of drama for the main character and so that's what happens, right? That is like the only main reason I think anybody thinks that Justin is still- because I don't think there's any evidence
that Justin is still alive, and this is really strong evidence that he's definitely dead.
Brian (07:06)
Now, we've seen people die in a fire at other times and not die. He who walks behind is kind of a special case. We don't really see him turn to ash or burn to cinders or whatever, but we literally
Adam (07:18)
Yeah, we know that
otherworldly entities can quote unquote die in the mortal world and it really just means they're banished.
Brian (07:24)
Right, but we did watch a MAVRA, quote unquote MAVRA, burn to death. That didn't really take. So is that the, you know, is that what's happening with Justin here?
Adam (07:32)
No, no.
Yeah, I don't think so unless Justin was able to like swap out a simulacra of himself that was like very realistic. The impression I get from what we just read there is that Harry and Justin faced off, Harry manages to get fire through Justin's defenses. However, I mean, maybe we'll at some point finally get that story told in full, but.
Maybe it takes a long time or maybe it just happens like that and Justin then burns alive, right? Assuming that that's how it went down, there's no real time for Justin to have swapped out ⁓ a fake, unlike what we're talking about with Mavrah in Blood Rites, where she's hiding down a corridor that's filled with smoke and stuff and then a burning corpse wearing the same clothes as her.
comes shuffling forward and burns in front of Harry, even Kincaid later is like, if you believe that actually was Mavra, I've got a bridge to sell you. I think those are exact words. So I think here, there's less possibility for deception. That doesn't mean there's none, but it really does rule it out in my mind. If Justin is still alive, then he would have to have been planning to fake his death at this moment.
Everything else that happens around that moment doesn't feel like that's what he's planning.
Brian (09:12)
Now, Ryan Hardy in the chat is making a great point here that Justin had Bob. Bob, of course, contains a bunch of Kemmler knowledge and, you know, KEMLR notoriously was killed a whole bunch of times and it didn't really stick. So.
Adam (09:28)
That's fair
if there's some like phylactery thing or whatever that these necromancers are doing to come back to life, specifically Kemmler, but I'm sure that that's a trick that more than one necromancer has pulled off in the past, then yeah, I could see that. By the way, we are live.
recording this live now with our patrons watching in the chat. Thank you, Ryan, in order to help improve the quality of the show, because we're expecting that if we have a couple of extra people listening to us while we record, they can help us ⁓ point out errors or things that we may have missed so that the show itself is more consistent, more accurate, more insightful. So, thank you. Exactly.
Brian (10:07)
And just raise interesting points like this.
one thing that we have seen, you know, forget about Necromancers in the past. mean, deadbeat. Cal, as far as we can tell, should have be dead. Like, Cal should be absolutely obliterated. He took a spell backlash that was maybe the biggest spell we've ever seen anyone do with the possible exception of the bloodline curse.
Cal comes back from that. Now maybe he just didn't die, but maybe he did. Maybe that's somebody pulling a Kemler on the pages of the story and maybe Justin is Cal. That could totally be possible. I think that another thing that suggests that Justin could have gotten around this is the stunt Harry pulled in Peace Talks.
Adam (10:37)
could very well be.
Brian (10:49)
with the simulacrum that he makes from the ring. Justin could totally, as we see in that fight with Ebenezer, have a magical body that is channeling his power to handle this dangerous task of doing to Starborn. And okay, there was a backup plan already in place. He could have planned for that. Now, why would he? I feel like Justin's demeanor towards the two of them is a little bit too arrogant for him to conceive that that would be necessary, but...
Adam (10:53)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, agreed.
Brian (11:19)
I think that does create some breathing space. I don't think either of us necessarily believe that Justin's coming back from this. I think we mostly take it at face value, partially because of something that Ethan actually mentioned in the chat a little while ago. Talking about people who are sort of the dramatic return from the dead, we've got one of those, it's Elaine.
Adam (11:40)
Yeah,
she comes back and makes Harry's turns his world upside down a couple of times. And yeah, she quote comes back from the dead by the time we get to summer night. So.
Brian (11:50)
Right. If
literally nobody died in that fire, then it's sort of, know...
Adam (11:54)
Yeah, and we know that
Jim doesn't like to reuse tropes too many times.
Brian (11:59)
Now, we're gonna put a pin in this, only because we will be doing an this month that is about our theories that we wanna kind of get on record before 12 months drops.
But getting back to what we're talking about here, I want to just point out a couple other things about that scene with Leia. The first is, you brought this up, the silver manacles are piercing his flesh to get the blood. Those might be the original thorn manacles. Harry does not seem to be able to use magic. They don't seem to feel or look or do exactly the same thing, but maybe they're just the original.
And another thing that I just want to flag because man are we going to talk about this as we get into 12 month season. So Leia's got Harry in a crystal cave. Very famously, the resting place of Merlin in a lot of the stories is a cave or a pit or a glass or invisible tower or a crystal cave.
where he is locked by Vivien or Nimue or the Lady of the Lake or however you want to slice the mythology given Mab's relationship to Arthurian lore, Harry might have been brought to the cave by One, because it's
dramatic and just very, you it feels like the kind of place where you would get But two, because maybe it's not just the manacles, but also the cave that are sort of refracting or dampening or channeling his power so that Leia can get it.
Adam (13:45)
Yeah, that's entirely possible. Like you said, we're gonna be talking about that in our 12-month theories episode that's coming later this month. But for now, let's move on.
All right, so Michael arrives just before sunup. Susan and Harry had been sleeping in front of the fire. Susan moves to Harry's room. Michael comes in and says, something spent the night trying to get into the church. And Harry and he rush off to go talk to Father Fort Hill.
When they arrive, Harry and Michael find the outside of the church, specifically the door to get into the back area where Lydia was hiding, has been trashed. the rose bushes are all dug up, the cars have been smashed, and I think one of them was even described as being completely flipped over, which is huge.
Brian (14:30)
Michael speak with Fort Hill. And to Michael's surprise, Harry has had dealings with Fort Hill since Michael gave him Fort Hill's number or whatever, because Fort Hill blessed a five gallon drum of holy water.
which Harry apparently used against ghouls at some point off screen or maybe during Welcome to the Jungle or something.
Adam (14:51)
Yeah, I
like this detail that you have Harry and Fort Hill working on something that we don't know about and even Michael doesn't necessarily know about. It makes the world feel like a bigger place. It's also like a small detail about something that's not super important. So I'm not sitting here going, ⁓ man, I want the story about how Harry fought ghouls with holy water. Like that's not, it's not tantalizing enough to where I really feel like I'm missing something, but it does
add to this world feels real and lived in and exists outside these small windows that we get to see into Harry's world like once a year or whatever.
Brian (15:31)
Yeah,
the noodle incident is that thing that everybody brings up all the time and nobody ever talks about. I don't know if there's a trope name for this, but it's a really ingenious thing to flesh out your lore by mentioning that there are other things that have happened and not even bothering to remotely explain them because the fact that there's unknowable things in the world increases your verisimilitude far more than if you just have a lore die.
Adam (15:56)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, 100%. So then they get the details from Father Fordhill. Here's, I'm just gonna go right through the whole thing real quick and then we'll come back and talk about it. So Lydia arrives just before sunset. Fordhill provides some fresh clothes and a meal. then she had some kind of a vision or a seizure. 10 minutes after the vision, the nightmare begins to attack the church.
Forthill begins to then compel it by the Holy Word, which causes it to go and after that, Forthill describes how Lydia disappeared shortly after the nightmare did. So let's back up a little bit and talk about those different moments. So after she had this vision or seizure, Brian, what do you think she saw in this one? Was it just the same exact copy of the last three?
Brian (16:44)
I doubt it. I bet she saw the nightmare coming to the church. I bet it was a direct different prophetic thing where because she's in the grips of this prophecy, she's now getting precognitive flashes of the details. I imagine Cassandra's tears is like souped up wizard precognizance. Like you see the big events really far off. You know, in cold days, Odin will talk about the echoes, the shock waves of events from the future.
to big stuff that has lot of shockwaves, you can see that from a distance. But the smaller stuff you catch right before it happens. So it's not she has this vision and therefore the nightmare comes. It's because the nightmare is gonna be here in 10 minutes, she has a vision of that happening.
Adam (17:31)
here's my little pet theory. After we were talking about the fact that Harry appears to be one of the, if not the first person to believe her and help her,
What if that changed the vision, right? What if the three visions that she saw prior to going to see Harry were the nightmare's going to get me because I'm out on the street somewhere and Kravos is just gonna show up and possess her. But this one instead shows her getting possessed in her dreams. And I'll talk about why I think
that is the case when we get to the end of this chapter. So we'll come back to that. But I think that might be what's going on here. I think it changed and I think that's why it freaked her out a little.
Brian (18:22)
So the Cassandra's Tears thing, Harry mentions the Cassandra's Tears thing and Fort Hill without missing a beat just seems to be like, yeah, Cassandra's Tears, I know about that. So did Lydia tell him or is this just like Father Fort Hill lore master knows his stuff backwards and forwards?
Adam (18:40)
Yeah, mean Harry seemed to know what it was right away. Like it didn't seem like was hard for him to remember what it was when she gave it the name. So I guess it's not something that is unknown, right? He mentions that it's probably something you tell people in the paranormal community about, like beware, people use this as a scam, right?
Brian (19:01)
Well, I also bet that a member of the Catholic clergy who's on the supernatural response team would be pretty familiar with prophecy because the, you know, citing of the Virgin Mary at
Adam (19:13)
Yeah,
now another interesting part of this is we discussed this when we first talked about Chrisandra's tears and how various characters appear to be getting affected by it, including Father Fordhill here, where he seems immediately skeptical that the tears are real and seems to suspect that she's coming off of some narcotic addiction or something to that effect. Now, here's another interesting thing. First,
Harry helps her because he seems to believe her, at least believe her enough to not want to take the chance, right? Here, it seems to me that Father Fordhill doesn't believe her, but he helps her anyway. And I have to imagine it's not very often that she meets someone for whom the tears convince them she's not truthful, and yet they help her anyway. So this has to be like a double whammy of kindness from her perspective.
because we know Father Foothill is just that kind of a person. He's not just gonna dismiss somebody because he sees them a drug addict. He sees that somebody, he should help.
let's talk about what actually happens here because this is one of the more frustrating things when I was rereading it, was trying to get all this straight in my head because right now, Father Forthill explains how he went to go make sure all the doors were still locked and when he came back, she was gone. And of course, that's a great mystery for this point in the book. Did the nightmare get her? Did it compel her to come out? Did she allow herself to be taken? What's going on? And later,
In this book, Harry is speculating and he puts this together with how did the nightmare get through Mickey Malone's threshold and he says, ⁓ the nightmare somehow, she went out for some reason because she was, you know, despondent and didn't want Father Foothill to get hurt. It possessed her and she got herself invited into Mickey's house and that's how it got Mickey. And that's how I remembered the book going. But if you read the epilogue to the book, there's like,
Just similar to the first two books, there's just like this one chapter epilogue where it's like, and then this happened, and then that happened, and then that happened, and Murphy got a nice new plaque on her wall, or whatever. And in that thing, it explains, by the way, here's what her real name was, and she also gave me what really happened, which was she was terrified of falling asleep. And so she went out to get some uppers, and while she was out, she got grabbed by Kyle and Kelly.
and that's the next time we see her. So she's never possessed by the ghost during this period. It's later in Harry's apartment we find out she's possessed.
Brian (21:51)
So a plausible reconstruction of what Lydia's actually thinking and doing in the moment is, as we said before, if she stays in the church, she will be possessed. That's something that she gets an impression of in her vision or that she knows is the case. Perhaps when Fort Hill says that Kravos was calling her name, Kravos is actually calling her true name.
She was a member of his cult, so maybe he knows it and could normally compel her if there wasn't a True Faith Five priest standing there. That's a World of Darkness reference banishing him, right? So maybe that all would have worked, but because Forthill resists the influence of the Tears, it wouldn't have maybe. Maybe it would only happen when she fell asleep. Maybe it wouldn't, but she assumes that's real. She runs off.
Therefore, she's never actually asleep creating a demean where Kravos can find her because she's under the vampire venom narcotic basically until she gets to Harry's apartment and falls asleep there. So Lydia makes the correct choice to avoid possession on this night, but she doesn't defeat the prophecy because, I mean, it's a prophecy.
Adam (23:12)
Yeah, that's where I land on it too. Okay, so I think that pretty much brings us to the end of this chapter where Harry decides to go see Mortimer Lindquist to find out more information about what's going on with these ghosts.
Brian (23:27)
So, Harry arrives at Mort's tacky excuse for a business.
Mort, however, isn't taking clients today. He's on his way out of town. He's packing a suitcase. He's so distracted by trying to get all of his stuff ready to get into the cab that Harry can literally sneak into his house and sit down in a chair like he's Batman before Mort even realizes, you know, it's just, hello, conditioner, you know, like when the, in the shadows from somewhere. So.
Adam (23:54)
Yeah, exactly.
Brian (23:59)
Mort is all wound up, and Harry doesn't seem to have any compunctions about sneaking up on him. He sort of treats Mort in a way that is rather unlike him. Do we feel like they've met before?
Adam (24:14)
Yeah, I don't, I come from the position of no. I think Harry is operating on a bias here. I think he's been told what Mort is by other people, maybe members of the White Council or something, members of the Wardens. I get the impression that he is, ⁓ I know that kind of type. Because Morty, even in this chapter, doesn't seem like the kind of person
that would require the treatment that Harry's giving him. Maybe I'm wrong about that, maybe not, but Harry specifically says, I hadn't planned on getting any honest answers out of him without a lot of effort. So I suppose that could mean he's tried to get answers out of him before and just got the, I don't want to get involved and shut in your face kind of a situation that we do see from Morty in the future.
Brian (25:06)
Yeah, I think Harry has met Mort before for three main reasons. The first is that they're not on a first name basis, they're on a preferred name basis. So Mortimer doesn't call him Harry or Harry Dresden or Mr. Dresden, he just calls him Dresden. That's his first words to Harry.
Adam (25:32)
Yeah,
I feel like if you only know him by reputation, that's what you would call him, right? If you're in the Paranet community before it's the Paranet, you might call him, you know, that wizard or Dresden or something like that. And he's calling him Morty. That to me seems more like I'm just gonna use the sort of childlike diminutive version of his name to talk down to him as part of this intimidation schtick. I don't think it's,
Brian (25:59)
Yes.
Adam (26:00)
we've met before, so I can call you Morty.
Brian (26:02)
I think that's completely possible. think that's completely possible. is a you, Dresden, and know, Harry has done the, we need to talk, Vic, we need to talk, John, you all the way back in Stormfront. So he totally does do that. But this is just bricks in the wall here. So that's brick one. They use these names that are a little bit more familiar. Brick two is Harry has this, I'm gonna play the heavy, I'm gonna put them off balance thing.
Adam (26:13)
Right, exactly.
Brian (26:30)
that he doesn't really do to a lot of people. Dresden does not like bullies and he bullies Mort. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel like, okay, he knows that at this point in his life Mortimer Linguist is going to do whatever gets him in the least trouble. So if you make it seem like it's gonna be more trouble to stonewall you than it's gonna be to answer you honestly, you will actually have a productive conversation with
Adam (26:38)
Yes.
Brian (26:59)
So that's something that, yeah, you could learn by reputation, but it's so contrary to Harry's character that I think he would need to have some experience with the guy to launch into that.
Adam (27:10)
Yeah, I
think that's the biggest thing that convinces me because it does feel so out of character. Like you said, he hates bullies and he's definitely playing the bully in this moment. I think I even highlighted a section here where Harry's internal monologue says, thing about intimidation is that people can always think of something worse that you could do to them than you can if you let their imagination some room to play. Right, this is right after he says, I've got a few questions. Now if you cut the crap, you'll make your cab and if not,
Now we know Harry's not gonna like assault him or like do any weird magic and turn him into a frog or something. Yeah, yeah exactly, he's literally, and if not, you'll miss your cab. Like that's what Harry would do is make him miss his cab, but he's leaving it on there to make it sound like he's doing something, like he's a tough guy, he's gonna do and break your legs or something like that. So you're right, it's way out of character for him. And that's one of the things that always bothered me about this is it.
Brian (27:46)
He's gonna make him miss his cab. Yeah, like that's yeah.
Yeah.
Adam (28:07)
feels so out of character, but I could see if he'd interacted with Morty in the past and then stonewalled when he knew Mort could have helped, but Mort was being, you know, what he is, what he describes himself later, a coward in the, you know, deadbeat and again in Ghost Story, he reiterates, I'm a coward. I don't want to get involved. So I could see that being the reason.
and Harry now has understood that from a past interaction. It still is written in a way that to me suggests they've never met.
Brian (28:35)
case.
Okay, third brick in the wall. Harry simultaneously tells Michael that Mort is a con man, essentially, but that he's probably the second closest person to the spiritual world in at the end of chapter nine. So that's the kind of duality that I don't think Harry would believe without having seen it.
The fact that he thinks of both suggests to me that he went to Morty before because he heard, he's a real ectomancer, saw what he did and was like, this can't be a real, I guess I'm already here, and then found out.
And this is part of why Harry's willing to bully him, because this is so antithetical to Harry's whole being, that Rort does have the power. But he deliberately turns away from it to be more comfortable and make more
Adam (29:39)
Yeah, counterpoint two, we know that Harry's read Mort's books and those books were probably written some 10 plus years ago. That's kind of the impression that I get. Somewhere between five and 10 years ago. Before he lost his power, before he started this con man thing, right? so Harry could have gotten the impression of like, this is what you could have been, this is what you were. Like I know that you were the real deal and now you're doing this. And that again,
Brian (29:55)
Yeah, true.
Adam (30:06)
brings us to Harry's sort of disgust at what Mort has become. And it's especially so much worse because he knows Mort's potential because he said, you you did good work when it comes to those books.
Brian (30:21)
And I think that you're actually getting at what I think is the greater truth here, which is maybe Dresden knows him. Maybe Dresden just feels like he knows him. ⁓
Adam (30:31)
Yeah, that
is where I was coming at it, where he's got this bias of, ⁓ I know what's going on. He's got like this stereotypical, I've met wizards like this before, maybe during his training with Ebenezer.
Brian (30:45)
Well,
here's the thing though, I don't think he has. very young, I don't think he would have met somebody like Mort before. I think that's why he has this sort of special ire towards Mort.
Adam (30:54)
I could have also see like
he's on the farm with Ebenezer while he's doing his like two or three year training with him for whatever that is, right? And Ebenezer, who's instilling in him the values that he professes through the rest of the book, right? That magic is a force of creation. should be used to help people. That's what Ebenezer instills into him. Could you not see Ebenezer going off about, I knew this one guy who had this great talent.
for healing people and instead he used it to con rich people out of their money and didn't really help. You know, I could see that getting to Harry and then when Harry sees and hears what Mort has become, that's in his mind.
Brian (31:21)
a million percent.
a million percent.
I'm positive, in fact, that Ebenezer told Harry things like that, and that's part of where this bias comes from. I think what I'm just trying to get across here, and again, it doesn't ultimately matter that much, is that I feel like whether it was just Harry observing him, he read the books and then he wanted to meet him, and then he sat in his waiting room for 20 minutes and left in disgust, that Harry has only ever met.
one person this gifted who has done this little with it in his eyes. So that's why he has, and because I agree with you, the way that he treats Mort sort of exhibits a special animus. know, Mort is that very punchable face for Harry. So, you know, it's the, that special animus I think needs to come from something a little bit more visceral, but it's possible that Harry
had that visceral reaction just from the sort of word on the street about more juxtaposed with, as we'll talk about later, what his books say.
Adam (32:45)
My last counterpoint, Brian, and this is more of a meta counterpoint. If Harry had met Mort before, I would have expected something about that to be in this text. The fact that it's missing is my main reason for believing that there wasn't any prior indication. That he didn't go, ah, the last time I met this guy, was blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, that's what I expect to be in here. But it could go either way. I'm happy to admit it could be exactly. You've convinced me more towards your side than I was before. So let's move on.
Brian (33:19)
And
vice versa. But I think that what's important to note is this disagreement is arising from the incredibly strong juxtaposition between how Dresden complements Mort on his early work and his early books, which they talk about, and the fact that he just steps to laying out the harsh truths about how unethical he's being.
You know, Harry is not somebody who pulls his punches, but he is so direct with the sort of, you know, breaking you speech here that it just, it's really even for Harry, who is a very straightforward guy, it is out of character for him to cut this close to the quick.
Adam (34:06)
Yeah, and this is actually one of, I can't remember for sure, but I feel like this scene made me not necessarily uncomfortable, but it made me feel like Dresden was acting very uncharacteristically in this scene. If there had been one paragraph about Harry had tried to ask for his help in the past, he had slammed the door in his face, even lives were at stake, that would go a long way.
towards explaining Harry's antagonistic stance during this scene. And it would make me understand him a lot more. Now, I understand that now. We've had two full other books in which Mort has pretty significantly been involved that helped flesh out Harry's view of Mort and it has slowly changes. So to me, that has done a lot to
sort of resuscitate my relationship with this scene regards to Harry's conduct. I understand it now and it doesn't make me feel as confused or uncomfortable as it did before. speaking of the way that he shows up as Batman, that is so flippin' rude but it's also so freaking cool that I can, always vacillate between like, Jesus Harry, that's that's super rude and,
That's so badass. I can't, I can't decide between them.
Brian (35:29)
So I liked this scene when I first read it, and I'll get to why in a second. I like it more on reread. So first as to why I liked it when I first saw it, I needed some scenes where Harry was an asshole. And I needed them because Harry has some flaws that could be if you believe certain things.
not flaws, right? You could see them as not flaws if you have certain views on the way the world should be. And if you were writing a character that is essentially just a great guy, but he has these beliefs, you're you are kind of verging on that like tacit endorsement thing that critics of the series will bring up. The fact that Harry is just a freaking
Jerk sometimes means that he's not perfect. And that means that those things that I see are flaws are much more likely to be things that the writer sees are flaws. The writer is showing us very directly, this guy is flawed. He is not the world's nicest person. He is not Michael Carpenter. I think that's part of the reason why Michael's introduced, because Harry's not Michael Carpenter. And Jim is actually making that clear here in a way that's beyond, I pull out the chair for girls.
and sometimes I'm stubborn. Like, you know, do you actually think those are bad qualities? I don't even know. This is a dick move. He's being a dick. I want that because it shows me that you're saying this guy is flawed. On reread, it's even better because we don't really know at this point the fact that all wizards are like Dragon Ball Z characters. They're like reading your power level, you know, when you meet them, right?
So, and we find this out later when you shake Sheila's hand and Lash does that in his brain, but you get a feedback from somebody who's a practitioner. You can gauge.
Adam (37:32)
Yeah, in this book,
he touched Lydia and determined that she actually was a practitioner of some, she had some power.
Brian (37:36)
Exactly.
So Harry knows I can just walk in because there's no threshold. This is a place of business. He's not actually walking into this guy's home. He knows that intuitively and he doesn't say that. He doesn't feel like it's that big of a deal because magically speaking it's not. And that's the wavelength that Harry and Mort operate on. That's why Mort protests but he's not like calling the cops. Two.
Adam (37:44)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (38:05)
Harry immediately senses something about Mort's gift. He just gets it immediately. And that's why he's so sure about what he's saying to Mort in this speech. You know, just take, go to the beach. It'll come back. He's so sure about it because he's got the scanner on and he's going, power levels over 9,000. You know, you like, you can do the thing. You're exactly. So Harry,
Adam (38:29)
It's a psychosomatic block. Yeah.
Brian (38:34)
his demeanor, every action he takes is influenced by the sort of later background information we get, which means he's still being a dick, but it's not out of character. It's informed by the way he processes information. How are you socially awkward? Because he spends half of his mental energy reading the magical world and sensing the magical senses. He talks about it all the time. This is an example of it affecting his behavior.
Adam (39:02)
Yeah, and I think the other thing that helps redeem the scene in Harry's behavior to some extent is he's a dick for a virtuous reason, right? Not, exactly, right. He knows that this guy could be helping people, but instead he's hurting people. Now, a quote unquote good person, right? Michael would attempt to counsel him. He wouldn't be a dick to him, right? That's what a good person would do.
Harry has the same, like, sort of righteous anger, like, not anger, but righteous reaction of, why are you hurting people instead of helping them, and as Michael, but instead of, like, taking that and harnessing it into something constructive, he's just being a dick, which is something that heroes can do. They don't have to be perfect, exactly like you
Brian (39:51)
But
it works because he's actually correct about that's the way to motivate Morty. Morty needs the stick. If you give him the carrot, he's gonna take the carrot that takes less effort to get. He needs the stick.
Adam (39:57)
Yeah!
the fact that later we find out he has taken Dresden's advice and it's worked and he's happier we go, Harry's approach here was correct. But I would suggest that it's when he stops being a dick at the end of this chapter that it A, helps him get through to Mort and B, helps him stop the nightmare later on because Mort
gives him access to his journals and such. So let's get there. We've stopped like ⁓ two paragraphs into the chapter to have this discussion about Mort.
Brian (40:35)
Yeah, the spoonful of sugar making.
a spoonful of sugar definitely helps the medicine go down here, and Harry's rewarded for it because we get information after he compliments Morton on his early books and lays out these hard truths.
Adam (40:54)
Yeah, and Harry and Mort go back and forth a little bit and Mort is about to leave, take his cab out, and Harry kinda grabs him by the arm and says, listen, go relax, read a book, your power will come back if you stop abusing it, because you know this is wrong. They have that whole argument there. And then at that point, right before Mort leaves, he tells him, check in the drawer under my desk.
That's where my notes are about what's been going on. If you want to kill yourself fighting this thing, you might as well be prepared, right? So he returns Harry's kindness at the very end with some kindness of his own, and that can help him. So that brings us to the end of the chapter. Harry calls a cab to take himself home. But at the end of this chapter, Brian, before we go on, I want to talk a little bit about We haven't already talked enough about him. We're going to talk a little more now. How did he become con man?
We know that a while ago he wrote these books, he did good work. Now he's a con man with a lot less power than he used to. How does that come about?
Brian (41:56)
So I want to set this up by going back to something you said. You said that Mort is doing what he does now. He's doing it the way he does it. Subficially. It's for him. And I think the way he got himself into this predicament is that he doesn't actually see it that way. Quote, how the hell should I know? He snarled. You don't know what it's like, Dresden, to speak to things that exist in the past and in the future as well as in the now.
Adam (42:15)
Mmm.
Brian (42:24)
to have them walk up to you at the salad bar and start telling you how they murdered their wife in her sleep? I mean, you think you've got a hold on things that you understand, but in the end, it all falls to pieces. A con is simpler, Dresden. You make order. People don't give a flying fuck if Uncle Jeffrey really forgives them for missing his last birthday party. They want to know that the world is a place Uncle Jeffrey can and should forgive He swallowed and looked around the room.
with fake tomes and the fake skull. That's what I sell them, closure, like on television. They want to know that it's all going to work out in the end, and they're happy to pay for it.
Adam (43:09)
Yeah, that is him justifying everything that he's been doing recently. So how did he get to this point? And I think there's some clues in that part that you just read. Obviously, having Mort's power in particular is a burden it's not something you can easily control. If you see dead people and they're all over the place wherever you go, like at the salad bar, then
you're gonna have to deal with that in your day-to-day life. And that is obviously a burden. So I think what happened was he kept dealing with these things and it caused him some significant discomfort. And over time, he eventually snapped and like wanted to shut it all away. And once he had that intent, I don't want this anymore. It probably started to affect his power.
Right? We've talked about how the magic in the Dresden verse, a lot of it is really about what you believe. And so what he decided to start doing is, hey, I'm having a real seance, what he used to do. And the ghost is trying to tell me, no, screw that little twit, I'm not gonna, she doesn't deserve a dime of what I was leaving her or whatever, He instead changes the words to,
give them closure, right? And to say, ⁓ yeah, no, Uncle Jeffrey, he does forgive you. Meanwhile, Uncle Jeffrey's ghost is there going, I don't forgive them, what the hell are you talking about? Right? He changes the way he interacts with the power because it's become such a burden that he can't take it anymore. He doesn't want those interactions where he translates what the ghost says accurately and people chew him out for it. So.
He becomes this and he slowly loses his power. What do you think? That's my interpretation.
Brian (45:03)
So
I think you're right, but I actually think it's more tragic. not a specific dramatic event, but a series of inevitably dramatic events based on a fundamental disconnect. So let's lay this out for a second. What Harry says to Morty does work, that suggests to me that it's not just
Adam (45:08)
really?
Brian (45:26)
He gives him some Pavlum advice, gets him rest. It's not just what he says, it's that it's Harry saying it. Because what does Harry want? Not closure, not to know if Uncle Jeffrey likes me, but to stop a evil ghost from terrorizing Chicago. What did Mort set out to do as an ectomancer when he started giving people seances?
Probably the young idealistic version of Mort, the 25 year old Harry Dresden version of Mort, is conceiving of himself as what, you know, sort of an ectomancer was historically insofar as they existed. Like an augury, a diviner, someone who will ask the ancestors for counsel, for advice. You go to Mort to ask Sir Stuart what you should do when this town's under attack.
not to ask if Uncle Jeffrey forgives you. And why is the fact that people prefer the second thing and come to him for that all the time so much more tragic? Well, Sir Stuart can give you great advice about how to defend the town. The man has literally perfect recall of the things that happened during his But he's not really Sir Stuart. He's not the soul. So what you have here, as we discussed before, is this spirit
thing that's been pinned into a specific way of existing that is based on its death that springs from unresolved trauma during its death, it's gonna be in general kind of the orneriest worst version of that person loads of the time.
Adam (47:09)
you
the person wasn't having those sort of tragic emotions, they wouldn't have left a ghost in the first place.
Brian (47:20)
Precisely. So the people who come to him and should get closure, well there's no ghost. Their ancestors moved on. So he's got to lie because telling them that's how it works, hey they forgive you and I know that because they moved on, not satisfying. Why would you go to a meeting for that? Anybody can tell you that. The ones where there is actually a ghost, right, those are the ones where they're not forgiving you. That's why they're a ghost.
So Morty is in this position where every single person that he gives information to is invariably disappointed and none of the information he gives is actually the useful reason to use his power in the first place. If he was as much of a stubborn asshole as Harry Dresden, it wouldn't matter to him. But he's not. So it wears him down and he convinces himself, and I do believe this, that it's actually better for everyone if he lies. And that's the tragedy.
Adam (48:15)
Yes.
And I think one of the reasons that he is so antagonistic to Dresden is that Dresden is what he wishes he could be. He obviously wants to help after Dresden gives him some much needed advice and sort of does it in a kind way. He returns that kindness by saying, take my journals, see if they can use you to help. Because he knows that Dresden and the knight
Brian (48:27)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (48:45)
have been covering the worst of it, I think is the quote that he uses earlier. So he probably wishes he was brave enough to go out and deal. This specific problem, everything that's happening in Grave Peril, if Mort Lindquist had had the revelation that he has after this and become the real ectomancer that we meet in like Deadbeat slash Ghost Story, if that guy exists now,
Harry and the Knight don't have to go running all over town. Mort could handle all of it on his own, easy, right? So he wishes he was that guy, and yet he's not. And so Dresden makes him feel guilty about himself, and that leads to misplaced antagonism towards Dresden.
Brian (49:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
Exactly, Ryan, yeah.
Yeah, Ryan in the chat is reaffirming. That's literally what he's doing with like the lectors in Ghost Story. Absolutely. You're a thousand percent correct, Adam, and you are too, Ryan. And I think that to close the loop on this and to get to Morty's early I think part of the reason why he is that person in later books is because as an older Mort knows how to tell the truth the right way.
Adam (49:39)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Brian (50:04)
He doesn't say Uncle Jeffrey is mad at you and thinks you're horrible and wishes he left you nothing. He says, you know, Uncle Jeffrey died in a lot of pain. And I think that it's important to realize that even if you didn't get that forgiveness for him at the end, that shouldn't color the man you remember him as. You know, that kind of, he's not lying, he's not telling you anything false, he's not breaking his promise to tell you what the ghost says.
but he's framing it and being selective about what he says in a wiser way that he wasn't capable of doing when he was capable of writing these very hard hitting books that are straight to the point in a way that resonates with somebody like Harry.
Adam (50:49)
Hmm.
Yeah, that's beautiful. I 100 % agree with that.
right, we've run long on these two chapters. Next week's chapters are gonna be chapters 11 and 12. At a minimum, we might go on past that, we'll see. But now it's time to go to our question for Bob.
Brian (51:12)
Mortimer Lincquist wrote a book that basically says, Is he right?
Adam (51:26)
Well again, Bob can't make it this week. It turns out he's chasing down a lead on Rudolph's whereabouts. I guess Harry's still trying to find him. Maybe we'll find out what happens to him in 12 months. I do think one of those months might be a story about how Harry catches up with Rudolph and I want to figure out what happens there because that's gonna be spicy. But anyway, let's talk about this question. What is going on with the barrier? Now what was inspiring this? It is this quote from the chapter we were just talking about, chapter
Brian (51:33)
I mean, that's a good, yeah.
Adam (51:55)
where Harry starts by saying, why are you leaving town? He laughed and it had a shaky edge to it. You said you read all my books? Did you read They Shall Rise? I glanced over it, end of the world type stuff. I figured you'd been talking to the wrong kind of spirits too much. They love trying to sell people on Armageddon and a lot of them are cons like you. He ignored me. Then you've read my theory on the barrier between our world and the never never, that it's slowly being torn away.
And you think it's falling to pieces now? Morty, that wall's been there since the dawn of time. I don't think it's gonna collapse right now. Wall, he said the word with a sneer. More like Saran Wrap, wizard, like Jello. It bends and wiggles and stirs. He rubbed the palms on his thighs, shivering. And it's falling now? Look around you, he shouted. Good God, wizard. The past two weeks, the border's been waggling back and forth like a hooker at a dock worker's convention. Why the hell do you think all these ghosts have been rising?
Unquote. So obviously, in Grave Peril, Mort is wrong because we know why the barrier has been getting all messed up. We find out later in this book it's because of what Mavra and Bianca were doing. But Brian, he wrote that book, They Shall Rise, years ago, well before they started to mess with that. So that means he has to have some evidence to suggest
that the barrier has been weakening over time, even years before Bianca and Mavra started messing with it. So we have to ask ourselves, is the barrier weakening? Your thoughts.
Brian (53:30)
I'm going to give the boring answer first. And after we talk about this, I want to come back and maybe revise this a little bit. But the boring answer is... No! Why? Because we haven't seen any evidence of that. Yes, in Grave Parallel, the barrier is turbulent and stuff's coming across and it's worse and badder than it usually is. But there's a specific reason for that.
in battlegrounds the barrier is really thin and ferovax is barely keeping it but there is a specific reason for that every time something like this seems to be happening there is a specific cause that is not part of a fundamental weakening of the barrier between worlds so if morty was right
we would expect in, you know, 10 years later in Ghost Story that it's not Corpse Taker who's driving the Lector Spirits to kill things. It's just a ⁓ thing that's occurring due to the barrier weakening. We would expect that in Deadbeat. You don't need seven Necromancers to whip up the spirits. They're just there already.
We do see the stuff Mort's talking about, but it's not due to any fundamental universal cause.
Adam (54:49)
Yeah, that is, I think, the strongest evidence for Mort being incorrect when he's talking about his book, The Barrier Growing Weaker Over Time, because we've had a good 10, 15-ish years worth of Dresden stories, and with the few exceptions that you noted, the barrier doesn't appear to be any
But here's my argument for the fact that it is weakening. Harry admits that Mort knows what he's talking about, that he did good work. And what would cause Mort to write that book and say, here's what's been happening, unless he had good data to back it up? That is, I think, one of the main reasons that we have to say, okay, here is maybe...
what's going on.
Brian (55:35)
And one thing that I want to set up as a framing device as we look for this is that you brought up Mort's research suggests that it is. So that points us to, and my undergraduate degree was in economics, whenever we did regression analysis, this was like the thing we had to grapple So.
Adam (55:36)
go ahead.
Brian (55:53)
Are you getting signal or noise? Mort has the data. Is this data that's happening because he is knowledgeable of discrete events that make it seem like the background frequency of this is going up? Or is his data corrupted because his evidence is limited? He doesn't realize that this is actually happening regularly throughout human history.
Adam (56:20)
Yeah, I mean, he could absolutely be wrong about this. He could be jumping to the most dramatic conclusion even back then because it made for a good book. And sometimes people get sort of biased in that way, even if they do otherwise good work.
Brian (56:33)
I think maybe a useful metaphor is if I wrote a paper that shows that the modern news media, I can prove it, I've got all the data, the modern news media is causing people to have irrational beliefs, right? And no previous such study existed. We could say that that means that the modern news media,
is bad in a unique way that shows that something is happening about the collapse of truth. Or it could be that I don't have the data about how newspapers and crazy things they said caused instability during the French Revolution. So it might be that Mort is just the first person to be keeping track of stuff and that makes it seem dramatic. Or it could be that
Mort's noticing something that hasn't been happening before.
Adam (57:24)
Yep, that absolutely could be it. Now, you mentioned the barrier not weakening is the boring answer. So we're gonna explore the less boring answer. Let's say for the sake of argument that the barrier is weakening, that Mort is right. If so, what's causing it? Now we had a couple of good answers from the people on the Reddit, and I wanted to start with Javier. He suggests the outsiders are to blame. Quote.
In Grave Peril, it was implied that Bianca was doing something magical that barrier locally, and Harry stopped it. Later on, we discover Bianca's gift to Leia caused her to be infected. In Battleground, the Eye of Baelor, along with several gods battling, was causing the barrier to buckle, and Farrow Vax was holding it together from the Nevernever side.
At the end of Battleground, he who walks beside was revealed to be behind the whole attack on Chicago, who is the source of the infection. Outsiders and weakening the separation between the Never Never and Earth appear to be closely linked."
Brian (58:27)
And Naismith Gaming and Tom C. Fitz give an answer that is functionally just the other side of that coin. They say it's the star-born cycle itself, as we mentioned. It has something to do with the star-born cycle. The cycle is a convergence of the mortal and spirit worlds. So whether that's because the outsiders are making it happen.
or that's a thing that happens that the outsiders are exploiting and encouraging, kind of two sides of the same coin, but definitely a big enough thing to get an ectomancer to write, they shall rise, right?
Adam (58:58)
Right?
Mm-hmm, absolutely. Now of those two, the Starborn cycle being a natural strengthening and weakening of like a natural weak point of the barrier every certain number of years that allows for insert whatever Starborn is needed for here. That narratively, like I said, feels like it could be correct to me. So that one is the one I've been leaning towards so far. But what about this one from...
Apprehensive Sun, 1864. I really like this maybe it's something along the lines of the subtle knife in his dark materials. The sudden population explosion of the 20th century and the subsequent rise of wizard population meant that a lot more people were tearing holes in the barrier and thus thinning it. Maybe some never fully closed. Unquote. We have already explored this book series
other effects of the population explosion of humanity has on the supernatural world, the main one being that they're not able to catch all the warlocks that they used to be able to do. I think it would be very interesting if this was another side effect. Hey, the number of wizards may be one in a thousand, but there's way more total humans, and so now that must mean that there's way more wizards than there used to be.
and they do things that tears the hole in reality, maybe it can't mend itself that fast when that many people are tearing holes in reality. I kinda like that one.
Brian (1:00:37)
I really like it too. And I like it because Dresden says something in this chapter that I think is incorrect. Dresden says that this barrier has existed since the dawn of time. Liar, liar, plants for hire. He does not know that. And I don't think that there's any chance that he knows that for a fact. I think that's just something he assumes. It's the way that people assume the earth is
pretty old so it's always been here kind of thing and it's just not fundamentally true. We know back in the day folks like Ethnu walked the earth. They were just here among their worshippers living amongst them as gods. The Olympians were literally you could climb Mount Olympus and talk to him presumably. So some
Adam (1:01:17)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (1:01:32)
created a greater separation as far as we know it's the white gods sort of forcing everybody to come to the bargaining table and it might be that the discrete split between the mortal world and the spirit world is literally a result of an agreement between gods and therefore
It's only going to work as long as the total power of the gods who were signatories is stronger than the total power of the humans poking holes in it.
Adam (1:02:05)
talking about ones that blew my mind, Brian, that one was really cool. It a nice outside the box idea, but this one is great. The existential bread wonders, quote, is the barrier between worlds the equivalent of the Earth's threshold? Magically speaking, are they basically the same thing, unquote. This one blew my mind. I'm like, what if the mortal plane,
has a threshold in the same way that a home has a threshold, right? And JettyCat adds to that, I really like this comparison. Many of the beings of the Never-Never can't cross over without being invited or summoned. Those that do seem to have the powers limited unless or until they make some kind of deal to gain footing, unquote. There are some ⁓ similarities between the barrier between the Never-Never and the mortal world.
and a threshold guarding a home. Do you buy this one?
Brian (1:03:04)
I like it. I think that the underlying explanation of why it's weakening though could be stronger. So we want it to be distinct from the population explosion explanation. But this thing about stronger family units, so family units are weaker throughout the world and homes as businesses are weakening thresholds, I don't buy that.
I don't think that Jim is inherently a Luddite in that sense, that he would say that the sort of basic realities of modern life are inherently spiritually malignant. I do think that there's a really good interpretation of this though, where we could view the Earth's threshold as literally the extent to which
beings from outside the material plane are not invited in, right? If it's a business, if they're welcome to come in, then there's no threshold. This dovetails with Ethniu being able to walk among her folks thousands of years ago and you not being able to do that today, but it's getting weaker because thousands and thousands of years ago, humans just believed all this stuff was a part of the natural world. And Dresden says from book one,
that human belief in the supernatural is on an upswing. Perhaps that is the cyclical thing. As human belief in the supernatural increases, it is easier to cross the Earth's threshold because you are more invited. And when that belief fades or is suppressed, the threshold gets stronger.
Adam (1:04:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
that is a really cool idea. All right. I have one more question I want to talk about. Let's again, say for the sake of argument, the barrier is weakening, whether it has been weakening for a while or it's something that's going to happen in the future books. What happens if the barrier continues to weaken? What does Dresden's world look like if that becomes the case? If there is some sort of convergence that happens over the next six to seven books, whatever it is.
Casimir wonders if it'll be like the Doctor Who episode, Army of Ghosts. Quote, I could even see it ending the same way, with Dresden having to reseal the barrier and cut the fey off from the mortal world, but also sealing Molly on the other side. Unquote. I have seen that episode, I know exactly what he's referring to. ⁓ Spoilers. But ⁓ yeah, spoilers for a,
Well, 15 year old episode of Doctor Who, wow, that's really bad. Anyway, Brian, what do you think about this? Is this something that we're gonna have to contend with in the future? And if so, what does that look like?
Brian (1:06:01)
does it look like?
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, the ceremony of innocence is drowned, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand when a vast image out of the spirit of the world troubles by sight, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun moving its slow thighs slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. That's what happens. So.
Adam (1:06:04)
Ha ha.
And for those of you
that weren't paying attention to our wrap-up episode for Stormfront, that is The Second Coming by William Yates. And yeah.
Brian (1:06:36)
Yeah, I took that all out of order, but yes,
that was all from the second coming. And ⁓ that's like a serious answer here. You know, there's a lot of things we can pick up. ⁓ Weaker talents can get stronger summons if the barrier is lower. You know, it's easier for somebody to, you know, Mab Mab Mab so I think that's, you know, the literal effect. But the overarching effect is the
apocalypse. mean that if like if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen because it's the apocalypse.
Adam (1:07:03)
Yeah, I think that's probably the case. I think that parts of the Never Never could start merging into the real world. And when you were talking before about like ancient gods and like you could climb up to Mount Olympus, I wonder if that's what the world was like. Like Mount Olympus was technically on another plane. The rules of what could happen there were different. Magic was real there, so were the gods. But...
Brian (1:07:10)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Adam (1:07:30)
you literally, without even knowing it maybe, by climbing up this mountain, you were traveling from one plane to another where the rules of our world, of physics and how the world works, change when you go into that plane. And that what you were talking about, the barrier as being an artificial thing that was imposed maybe by the white god as part of the deal with all the other deities of how to deal with the-
with the world being the way that it was, maybe there's some problem with these two planes converging that they had to fix and the barrier was their plan to fix it. is how I could see the reoccurring to where you're driving down Main Street or whatever in Chicago and suddenly you're in a winter wonderland and then the next block is summer.
bloom, you know, flowers blooming and the next block is a hellscape, you know, that is something that they could, that could be a good setting for a future book. That's all I'm saying.
Brian (1:08:32)
Right, you take a boat out towards where Demonreach is and there's just a hole of waterfalls, you know, down to the Earth's core. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that that is really compelling. And here's the thing, my answer at the top was no. But what's the better answer? The better answer is maybe that Mort has his correlation confused as a causation.
Adam (1:08:38)
Yeah, straight into a black hole of evil.
Brian (1:09:01)
saying the barrier is weakening, is making stuff like this happen. Maybe stuff like this is happening for a lot of complicated reasons, because everybody's getting ready for the cycle, because of the population explosion, because of the way that the attitudes of humans are changing, and those events.
are causing the barrier to weaken
That's how you get...
The Stars and Stones or Hell's Bells or Night. You get to the big apocalyptic trilogy because apocalypse is a frame of mind and a series of actions all taken under an understanding of a coming doom are actually what precipitates that prophesized doom.
Adam (1:09:55)
Oh, a self-fulfilling prophecy style.
Brian (1:09:58)
So, anything to add on that one?
Adam (1:10:00)
No, no, I think we covered it. We've answered all the questions and now Jim can call us when he's unsure of what to write next. No.
Brian (1:10:09)
So,
next week, our question for Bob? What's the deal with Rudy the brown-nosed reindeer? Rudolph, why does he suck so
Adam (1:10:17)
Yeah, what's the deal with Rudolph? Specifically, I mean, you look at Rudy and this is the first chapter where we see him being just an absolute dick, right? He's unreliable in full moon. That's what you can mostly say about him. But then again, you wouldn't necessarily expect a normal person who hasn't been exposed to Lou-Guru before to be super reliable in that particular position. But now he's just a giant dick.
Brian (1:10:29)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (1:10:45)
and Stallings is like ignoring him despite the fact? Yes!
Brian (1:10:48)
He's like insubordinate,
right? Like that's the weird, that's the thing that gets me here because what do we see from Rudy in the future? He at least plays the part of the guy who's, you know, you're a nuisance and a menace and I'm the IA cop who's by the book and I'm gonna get your ass. So the.
Adam (1:11:07)
Exactly. So anyway, that's what we're
asking is what's making, so we know later, there's a lot of speculation about Rudolph around the time of changes that somebody got to him, that he's under somebody's thumb, whether it's specifically to spy on Dresden, to cause him a hard time. There's all kinds of speculation about that, but we're way back here in Grave Peril. So is he at this point already under somebody's thumb? Probably not.
Brian (1:11:19)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (1:11:34)
But if that's not the case, then what the heck? Why is he such a big dick? We want to psychoanalyze Rudolph and see if we can come up with an idea of what he is all about next time.
Brian (1:11:46)
And if you're a patron, please join us next week. We'll be doing our monthly.
patron only episode on the graphic novel Welcome to the Jungle and Vignette the little micro fiction that Jim has both in a collection and on the website and after that
Adam (1:12:05)
the week after that, Brian, I am super excited. We're gonna be talking all about any speculation that might be revealed in 12 months. So is Cowell's identity going to be revealed? We don't know, but it might. So maybe we're gonna speculate about what's going on there. Are we gonna learn about what happened?
in the difference between the Mirror Mirrorverse and our Dresdenverse? No, probably not, but it might, so we're gonna speculate on it. So if you think you know what's gonna happen in 12 months, let us know. We're gonna post on the Reddit, you can post there, or you can send an email to mac at rnt.fm.
By the way, this episode, the 12 months theories episode is going to be spoiler free. So please, if you have one of those few advanced copies that are running around, don't tell us anything that's gonna happen in them. This is pure speculation from only what's up through Battleground and we will go from there.
for now, we'll head out. Thanks everybody, we are done.