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- (00:00) - Intro
- (00:58) - Ch. 26 - “Siriothrax should have learned that trick"
- (32:53) - Ch. 26 Cont. - A Wild Susan Appears!
- (42:18) - Ch. 27 - "Your power weakens with rage, dear man."
- (01:00:47) - QfB: Fae Bargains - Who got the better of whom?
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).
Brian (00:00)
Do you know when my wife's birthday actually is? so my brilliant, brilliant woman.
Because, what family does she marry into? She's, you know, Jewish. Her father's family is Italian and Persian. But she marries into the O'Reilly's. And man, like, they're Irish I can get Irish citizenship. I'm, I'm very, you know, kind of close in descent to Ireland. when's her St. Patrick's Day.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:20)
⁓
Brian (00:27)
We were having a party for her every year before she even joined the family.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:29)
I see, yeah.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:40)
Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through 12 months. I'm Adam Ruzzo and with me as always is a party crasher at the LaChase family reunion, it's Brian O'Reilly.
Brian (00:53)
Hey new friends, hope you're hungry, cause I brought snacks.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:58)
⁓ you sure did. Nobody tell him. All right, let's move in chapter 26 here where Harry has just been told by Thomas that the wine is poisoned.
And then he quickly determines that, ⁓ it's spiked with vampire and they can get away with it because it's for everybody and it's recreational. He forces himself to throw up very quickly, but it still has an effect on him here, Brian.
Brian (01:22)
Yeah, I mean, I suppose I wouldn't think that, they've drugged the wine when I went to the vampire party. But I will say, when I find out that they've drugged the wine, I think I might have the, at least, first glancing thought, maybe I should leave.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:41)
Well, he does think that in a sense. He starts thinking about like, ⁓ they must want me to leave. That's why they did this, which honestly feels like a very arrogant way of looking at this, Brian. I have to imagine every single one of these parties has the wine spiked in order to make the prey, the cattle, their meals pliant and willing for the rest of the night, because I believe it was the previous chapter.
Brian (01:56)
Yeah.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:10)
Harry and Michael sort of look around and recognize, okay, all of the humans that are here are in black, all of the vampires are in red, like they're color coding their food.
Brian (02:20)
Absolutely. And Harry thinking means they don't want me here is for me so psychological because mean, what about drugging the wine makes you think they want you to leave?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:34)
Yeah, in fact, it's kind of out of nowhere where Harry suddenly decides that they don't want him there, that this must be an attempt to scare him off, but he's gonna stay anyway. Because we know earlier in the book, he determined they don't want me there. wait, maybe they do want me there. And now he's like, they don't want me there again. And then later on, he's gonna finally come to the conclusion, which appears to be correct, like, they.
do want me here, this was all a setup to get us here, to kill us by forcing us to endanger ourselves by breaking the truce. It's a little bit confusing because it happens so fast here.
Brian (03:14)
Yeah, and remember, we're at this party because Harry has decided that whoever is pulling the strings on the nightmare is going to be And this is the place to be. And I guess it makes sense, following that logic, that they might not want him here so that he doesn't uncover the truth.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:35)
it's very confusing to the reader because, okay, in these kinds of mystery stories, you're expecting some kind of a head fake, some kind of a red herring, right? And it looks like Harry's earlier supposition that they want him to be there. Remember during the invitation when Kyle is leaving, he's threatening Harry, he's saying, you'd better be there, Dresden. Something to the effect of you don't wanna find out what happens if you don't go.
Right? So Harry's like, they want me there. I'm definitely not going. That's his response to that. Now here, Butcher spends about three, four paragraphs. Harry is explaining why he's now certain they want him to leave. Right? Thomas even brings out like, why on earth would she invite you if she didn't want you to be here? And Harry has an explanation. she's obligated to invite the council to witness this.
and she didn't expect me to actually show. This all reads like Harry coming to the correct conclusion after being misled earlier, when in fact, this is the misdirection here. And I feel like that is not really clear because when Harry does like have a revelation in these books, the vast majority of time, it's because he's correct about something and you the reader are supposed to understand that he has now deduced the truth.
This is an anomaly in that sense.
Brian (04:58)
I think the way to square that is to realize that this is bad reasoning and it's sort of psychological wish fulfillment. Harry has been drugged. He now wants to leave, but he knows that he can't. He shouldn't. He's got to find out who's in control of the nightmare. He has to stay here to do it.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:06)
Yes.
Brian (05:21)
So he sort of constructs the thing that wants him to leave as an external thing. it's the vampires, it's them, it's the enemy that wants me to leave. So I have to stay because he's just so contrarian. And we should be able to divine because his reasoning's so weak that this isn't a true revelation of the plot. And why do I keep saying his reasoning's so weak? Well, he makes the judgment call.
Not only that the drugged wine is about him, and you're right, Adam, there's no reason to suppose that that's about him at all, and they probably do it at literally every Red Court gathering.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:58)
Plus they were also like, he wouldn't be stupid enough to drink that, would he? I mean, he's a wizard of the White Council. They told him not to drink the food at these, eat and drink these food, right? They probably astonished that he actually did it.
Brian (06:13)
Well, and moreover, drinking vampire venom, we've seen Harry become envenomated already in this story. What happens? He falls asleep Taking this venom isn't like you're being attacked by a Malvora or something. It's gonna make you languid and lazy and sleepy.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:20)
Mm-hmm.
And honestly,
in that mood, he wouldn't break the truce. He would just be like, it's all good, man. And he wouldn't be able to bring himself to confront them. They wouldn't get what they wanted.
Brian (06:46)
Right, if they wanted him to leave, they would tell him the wine was drugged. They wouldn't let the wine drug him.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (06:54)
Yeah, if they were trying to mislead him that way, I agree. Now, right after this, Thomas is still there and Harry makes a sort of offhand comment about trying to find out quote, who it is unquote. They're still looking for who's behind the nightmare. Thomas overhears this and says, exactly who is what? None of your beeswax, Thomas. Has anyone ever told you, Mr. Dresden, that you are a thoroughly annoying man? That made me grin, to which he rolled his eyes unquote. Brian.
That feels exactly, exactly like the sibling banter that they have from Blood Rites on through the end of the book.
Brian (07:30)
I mean, you could literally copy paste it because one of the exact things that they do to tease each other is to stay stuff like, has anyone ever told you this obvious character trait that everyone remarks on all the time? Like that's a patented, know, Dresden Boys line.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yep, and then the grin to which they rolled their eyes is like something that definitely happens between them a couple of times in the future as well.
Brian (07:55)
And that is, I think, in the party, really the first time that Jim starts doing what he has told us he has done all over this party, which is drop tons of foreshadowing and MacGuffins and tools for him to pick up in later books. The fact that Harry and Thomas
are already teasing each other like brothers during their first meeting is like sign number one, hey, everything that happens here is portentous.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:34)
And I love Harry's initial reaction to him, right? Thomas moves on and Harry says, nice guy. And Michael says, a vampire, but don't trust him, Harry. There's something about him I don't like. And Harry says, I like him, but I sure as hell don't trust him, right? Harry already likes the guy he learns to trust him later. By blood rights, he has very good reason to do so, even if that's hidden from the rest of the world. But that fact that he does like the guy already,
really does lay the foundation for their relationship going forward.
Brian (09:05)
Right, it's why when Thomas is revealed to be Harry's brother, you go, ⁓ cool, as opposed to, ⁓ God, because that could be the other thing, right? If it's a total like, they hate each other and ⁓ it turns out you're brother's trope.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:15)
And what's more?
Yeah, and actually seeing Thomas through Harry's eyes in these early books before he knows that Thomas is his brother is a little bit like seeing Harry through the eyes of other people, right? We're getting to see Thomas's actions, but not really understanding his internal motivations. As we talked about in the previous episode, Thomas making that loud pronouncement about how great the Red Court's hospitality is. We can in retrospect,
suspect at what his internal monologue is going on in there. And if we read this whole book from Thomas's perspective, it would feel a lot like Harry scrambling, reacting, trying to survive the night. And that's kind of what Thomas does. He's a good guy that is often.
on the back foot, just like Harry, when we see him again in blood rites, that's how we meet him. He's trying to pull off a coup against his father, which has no hope of succeeding until Harry gets involved. So to me, it feels a lot like they are very similar people in their very different worlds, and getting a picture of Thomas through Harry's eyes is almost the same as what it would be in the reverse.
Brian (10:35)
And the thing that's really interesting about that is, so when Thomas walks off here, he says, let me know if there's anything I can do for you. And then he walks away. And his internal monologue has to be, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, right? Dresden's poisoned, right? I'm trying, like, my dad sent me here to get killed, right? I know Dresden, they sent him here to get killed.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:49)
Yeah. What are we going to do? Yeah.
Right.
Brian (11:00)
I can't just tell Dresden, hey, we were both sent here to get killed. Also, I'm your brother. Also, you know, I also don't know this guy from Adam. He might be this incompetent.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:09)
Right, exactly. It could be that he's taking what he sees at face value. This guy's kind of an idiot drinking the wine. What was he thinking? Exactly, exactly.
Brian (11:17)
showing up in the costume, what was he thinking? Right? And
but this really says something about Thomas, that Thomas is his big brother, and he is already seeing this guy act like a moron, and he is still determined, even without having any actual relationship with him. We're all getting out of here.
and you and me are going to work together to do it. It's just like you're absolutely right. The the backup novel of Grave Peril would be such an interesting read.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (11:50)
Absolutely.
Now, they, after leaving Thomas, move on to try to, again, find whoever's behind the nightmare, and they decide to confront the Centurion. And in this case, of course, we know that is Mr. Ferro AKA Ferrovax and Harry, being arrogant, he comes in and gives him two of his four names, thinking, psh, nobody can do anything with two names. Meanwhile, Harry Dresden. And then, you know, Harry feels it and goes,
Holy crap, and his first response is, how did you do that? You're not White Counsel. Again, Harry's education here feels very weak. We saw earlier in this party scene, it was implied that he didn't even really know much about the vampire courts or etiquette at this function. Now, he's just like, what the hell are you? Only White Counsel can do that, when clearly that's not the case.
And his response, Brian, is so good. When Harry says, blurts out, I would say, you're not White Council. Mr. Ferro response is, how very fortunate for me. Which is just so good. He doesn't want to be compared to the White Council. That's kind of an insult.
Brian (13:02)
Yeah, Jim has him, you know, with a fancy cigarette holder, but you really can see him almost chomping on a cigar as he's having this conversation. It's just such a condescending, you know, barely flicking ash in your direction series of responses from Ferrovax, who I guess, you know, is nice enough not to actually take offense at Dresden really for real, because that's the only reason that he doesn't, you
know squash Harry like a bug either at this moment or later but what's also interesting here is that okay Harry doesn't know how to recognize a dragon I can buy that even if he got a pretty good education from Ebenezer there's not a lot of them left it's just not something you're going to talk about I mean when's they were going to run into one you know Ebenezer's not telling him to go to Red Court soirees but
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (13:55)
Right.
Brian (13:57)
Michael recognizes him. And Michael doesn't recognize him as, I'm looking at him with my sight and I can see that this is a giant scaly monster. Michael recognizes him because he notices that his cigarette isn't actually lit.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:15)
Right,
and there's very few beings which will have smoke coming out of their mouth for no other reason. So Michael is actually being the observant one in this scene. We were talking earlier about how Michael is a little bit on the back foot in most of this book in the sense that Harry is leading the intellectual conversation almost all the time. This is sort of the one.
space where Michael gets to prove that he knows a lot more than Harry.
Brian (14:43)
And we're gonna come back around to this. There's obviously a reason why Michael would be able to recognize a dragon when that dragon was doing the kind of things Faribax is about to do to Harry, but...
It's really interesting that he recognizes a dragon before it's taken any aggressive action or used any kind of will or anything. Kind of suggests to me he's seeing those targeting carrots that Butters sees even without the sword.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:11)
⁓
But maybe just more of like an intuition thing, right? I feel like Butters targeting Carrots, like the MMO user interface that he gets is just a more blatant example of what Michael's intuition tells him. Like we were arguing about him opening the door and Father Fort Hill being on the other side. I feel like that sort of comes to Michael as intuition, that's the way he would expect it to work.
Brian (15:15)
Yes.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:37)
That's the way that works for him within his own psychology.
So, Brian, there's a great moment here where we get a lot of dialogue from Mr. Ferro where he basically puffs himself up and to brag about who he is. And boy, Harry puts his foot right into
Brian (15:56)
Pharaoh rolled his eyes and said impatiently, we are what we wish to be, Mr. Drafton. Dresden, I snapped. He waved a hand. Don't tempt me to show you what I can do by speaking your name and making an effort, mortal.
Suffice to say that you could not comprehend the kind of power I have at my command. That my true form here would shatter this pathetic gathering of monkey houses and crack the earth upon which I stand. If you gazed upon me with your wizard's sight, you would see something that would awe you, humble you, and quite probably destroy your reason.
I am the eldest of my kind and the strongest. Your life is a flickering candle to me, and your civilizations rise and fall like grass in the summer. Well, I said, I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth towards the breaking point.
his green eyes blazed. What did you say? I don't like bullies, I said. You think I'm gonna stand here and offer you my first born and sacrifice Virgins to you or something? I'm not that impressed. Well, Mr. Ferro said, let's see if we can't make an impression.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:21)
And boy, do we get an impression here. Harry is basically just flattened to the earth by Mr. Ferro's will. And I will say, Harry is a lot more careful around deity level opponents in the future. does, his snark projectors do get upgraded over the course of the entire series. But for example, in the very next book, the first time he meets Mab, he is...
way more careful. He tries very hard not to insult her directly in the way that he directly insults. Like, Ferro would be within his rights to demand satisfaction here, wouldn't he, Brian?
Brian (18:03)
I think so, but I think the reason why he doesn't take Dresden that seriously, and the reason why Michael is kind of elbowing him the reason going hurry hurry, is because Dresden's drunk.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:17)
Yeah, more or less, but I also think if Mr. Ferro was to take him seriously here, it would actually be a lowering of his own reputation. Like Harry is so far below Ferrovax that if he pretended that this was anything other than ⁓ just an annoying fly, that it would take him down a peg.
Brian (18:41)
Yeah, I think that's probably right, though I imagine that sort of on an open field outside of the rules of hospitality, Farrowax probably doesn't lose any face from squashing bugs, which is the way Dresden's behaving right now. But I think that Farrow is the kind of person who is more worried that someone will consider it to be in bad form for him to sort of take a drunk at his word and kill him, than he
actually is about anything that that drunk says. Like, nothing Harry says here is actually bothering Farovacs. What's bothering Farovacs is that this idiot's not getting the picture.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:23)
Right, exactly. Now, what actually happens here where Mr. Faravax actually flattens him to the ground with nothing but his will, more or less, that is something we've seen a few other times in the book. Specifically, I'm thinking the Lords of Outer Knight definitely do that to Harry and co. in changes, and it takes an angel's proclamation plus Bob helping out to like break through. Then we have Vatarrung who does it to Harry
In changes and Harry can't break out of that one. Vatarrung has to let him up. And then we have Mother Winter who does it in cold days, which again, she has to let him up. He doesn't get out of it himself. And then we have Dracul as well. And Dracul again has to let him up. It is not something that Harry can break out. But Brian, we've seen two other situations that are similar to this that Harry does manage to break out.
Though they're framed as psychic attacks, the situation at the end of White Night where Harry and co. are basically flattened to the ground by the outsider's psychic attack, And then again in cold days when they're on the boats trying to attack the island and they're again under a quote unquote psychic attack. They do feel a little similar though, don't they?
Brian (20:36)
Absolutely. I think it's very clear that manipulating pure will as a form of attack is something that some earthly beings do, and those earthly beings have to be kind of at minimum deity tier. And also outsiders can do. And one thing we know about the walkers, for example,
is that harbinger, gatebreaker, he who walks before, is described as being deeper than even map. These are entities that have vast reserves of something, presumably will,
And even in the ways they're handicapped in our reality where they kind of can't bring in their full presence due to the whatever MacGuffins we're not fully certain of yet, that will is still very potent. But I don't think, and I think you've made a very good point to show, that even though these are related, it doesn't seem like this is inherently an outsider-y thing.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:44)
Yeah, it feels almost like the psychic attacks that are described in White Night and again in Cold Days are like the same effect as the will, but because they're outsiders, it manifests in a way that feels a little bit different in our reality, because they are outsiders. They don't share the same DNA for want of a better word, magically speaking. Now, the other thing that we see here is as you say,
Michael does intervene and save Harry by distracting Ferrovax I don't think Ferrovax would have killed Harry in this moment, but when Michael comes in and says, Seriothrax should have learned that trick, it might have kept me from killing him. He does get Farrow looking at him, and it gives Harry a chance to sort of pull himself up and break Farrow's spell or whatever it is, and then Harry gets back up.
and we get this little exchange between Mr. Ferro and Michael, including a point where Michael specifically says, it wasn't anything personal, I'm not proud of what I did, and Farrow says, Sir Knight, I would advise you to be more humble in the face of your betters. So right after Michael was being very humble, he said, not humble enough. The fact that you announced it at all is clearly not humble enough for you.
Brian (23:02)
Well, that is what he says, but I think the reason why Faravax stops using any of his energy to keep Harry pinned down is now he actually has to take the person in front of him seriously. And he has to try to intimidate Michael a little bit, because Michael is actually dangerous in a way that Dresden's simply not.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:15)
right.
Yeah.
Now, Seriothrax is mentioned here, and I believe we have a word of Jim that Seriothrax is the least...
of the capital D dragons. There are apparently two different types of dragons. There are dragons and dragons. And in the Dresden verse, the capital D dragons are deity tier, essentially. And Siriohthrachs was the lowest of them. Farrowvax is the eldest, and there is still one other, I believe Pyrowhax, that is out there in the world, having been mentioned by Jim at some point.
and that's what we know about them. But there's a suspicion, I believe, again, based on some word of Jim, that there are other lesser dragons that are more animalistic type dragons that you'd see in medieval European folklore, as opposed to the celestial dragons of the East.
Brian (24:20)
Right, I think that's exactly the differentiation here.
Jim is using dragons like Ferevex and Sirio-thrax as an analogue to things like archangels. The archangels are shaping galaxies and the universe and stuff like that, and the dragons seem to have some role in terms of shaping the earth in an elemental or physical way. That's some sense we
about what capital D dragons do. They're a kind of being that is more about the stewardship of the world than they are about, you know, hordes of treasure and rescuing princesses.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:02)
Yeah, what's more is, mean, bringing up the elemental thing, if you consider them to be tied to elements, the names make a little more sense, right? Pyrovax very clearly spells out fire-breathing dragon, with pyro in there, but you have ferrovax, ferro being very similar to ferrum, the Latin word for iron, could indicate that he is a metal or earth-based elemental dragon.
And Cereo could be like Sirios, which is I believe Latin for burning, which could be another fire-based dragon, which would make sense because according to Harry, earlier in this very book, when he's talking to Susan about Michael and Charity, he says that they started out well and then explains that he saved her from a fire-breathing dragon. So that suggests that Siriothrax was a fire-breathing dragon, but maybe they all are since even Theravax here has smoke coming out of his mouth.
Brian (25:55)
Well, it's definitely clear that the dragon names are associated with fire mainly because
Obviously, Pharaoh is a reference to iron, but iron is the metal that burns, because that's what rust is. Rust is iron oxidizing, burning. So they're all kind of named after things that are fire themed, even Faravax, who, you know, in a way, that's sort of the slowest fire that exists, right? Rust. So he's sort of the biggest, the slowest, the most earthen and elebs.
mental possible fire. That's kind of how I've always seen that connection, but it could be organized in any number of ways. The really interesting thing is that we know that in the stories, you rescue the princess from a dragon who is basically one of these more troll creatures.
It's a marauding, Grendelkin kind of trying to carve out a territory, very earth-focused predatory being.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:04)
often not even necessarily speaking or intelligent in that sense, right? You've got the Sean Connery version that we saw in the movie, but a lot of the folklore doesn't necessarily include dragons talking.
Brian (27:17)
I mean, the most famous current dragon lore is probably Game of Thrones and the dragons there are like, you know, dog level intelligence. They're not dumb animals, but they're not smart as people. And I think that the interesting thing is Jim chooses to have slay what seems to be a capital D dragon. He doesn't have to do that. This scene doesn't have to be here.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:21)
Hmm?
Brian (27:43)
Jim could get Harry out of this in any number of ways. Why does Michael have to slay a capital D dragon like Seriothrax?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (27:53)
That's a fantastic question. And it leads me down an interesting path, right? So we know that most, if not all, deity level powers, their power has a purpose, right? We've been exposed to a lot of what happens in the fey courts and the mantles all have specific purposes. Mab's mantle has a purpose, Titania's mantle has a purpose, the ladies has a purpose, the knights have a purpose.
but we also can assume that, for example, we have the Negloshi that they used to have a purpose as like a deity's messenger, like a demi-god, but that purpose was corrupted over time and they don't follow the path anymore, so to speak. So is it possible that the dragons had some...
deity assigned purpose as demigods or gods of their own, like you said, like archangels, like shaping the earth or something to that effect. They had some dominion, some domain that was theirs to control. And is it possible that Syriothrax was going off the reservation, was being corrupted by something? And that's why Michael-
got to intervene or was able to intervene because the knight's job is to fight evil, yes, but if Mab's mantle isn't strictly evil, I mean, it has a purpose to protect the entirety of the Dresden universe and maybe the dragon mantles or the purpose of their existence is similar, as wicked and evil as they seem, they could also be doing something with a purpose.
but maybe Seriothrax was leaving that purpose. And that leads us to ask why or how? Did he pick up a coin somehow, like blood on his soul, or was it something worse?
Brian (29:47)
Right, so one obvious thing that can turn a being at this level against their own purpose is nemesis. And that leads to a couple interesting possibilities. that would make sense.
Nemesis definitely works with two-bit sorcerers and having them cause havoc and that's what happened with Charity. She's part of a cult, it's run by a two-bit sorcerer and he's sacrificing people to the dragon. He's feeding people to the dragon. So where'd he get the idea to do that from? You know, how did this come about in the first place?
We suspect with someone like Victor Sells, it's because somebody aligned with Nemesis puts a book in his hand. Maybe here, the dragon is coming to the sorcerer and telling him what to And that makes you think, why did they invite Faravacs to this party?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (30:40)
Yeah, I mean, who else is here? You got Mavrah, you got ⁓ Leah, you got Bianca, and yeah, Cowell is here as well, who has been directly aligned with, working with the Black Council type folks, and maybe or maybe not aligned with Nemesis, maybe or maybe not supplied the very Athame that corrupts Leah.
Brian (31:05)
Right, I mean the only supernatural unaligned powers in terms of the story at hand who attend this party are Leia and Faravax. Well, Leia gets infected and Faravax also receives a very shiny nice gift. So maybe that was the plan for him too. And you have to wonder if Sirio-Thrax was just sort of a dry run at this.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:17)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (31:31)
Because Farovacs, as much as he's being a little bit of a dick to Harry here, does seem to ultimately be on the side of mortals. And in fact, thinking about it, Farovacs, if the dragons are about fire and the earth and shaping it...
Well, he's the eldest. He's the one who's named after what's at the Earth's core, right? The Earth has an iron core. So, Faravax is like the root of the world to a certain extent. If you corrupt him, you really got something. So, this could be a play at that. That might be why Faravax is at the party. Sure, maybe everybody always invites him everywhere because just like Dracul, you can't not invite him.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:52)
Yeah
Brian (32:16)
but maybe somebody put a bird in his ear to try to get him to show up so he could receive his very nice gift.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:23)
And that got him to show up to this party where he might otherwise not have. Because I mean, it's, a vampire's being raised to the nobility in some town in North America. Like, why would he care? Like, it's not like...
the Red King succession or like a very high rank, it's somebody who's becoming the lowest level noble, like a barony or whatever. ⁓
Brian (32:46)
Right, your civilizations
fall like wheat. So I came to this party about raising a new mayor, you know?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:50)
Yeah, exactly,
exactly. It makes no sense. Okay, so anyway, we're gonna be talking a lot more about Faravax and his gift when we get to the chapter where they give the gifts. But for now, let's talk a little bit about what happens next, which is a wild Susan appears and Harry sees her and almost attacks her because she kind of pops up behind Michael and appears to be a vampire, because she's dressed in red like all the vampires are as little Red Riding Hood.
And Brian, this is one of the tropes that bothers me in this book. More often you see it in like TV shows where one of the characters is a misunderstanding or something and one of is like, but I can explain, but let me explain. And then the time that takes them to constantly ask to be allowed to explain, they could have simply explained what's going on. And between this chapter and the previous chapter where Susan-
suggests going to the party and Harry shuts her down, he never actually communicates with her why this is dangerous. He just says over and over again, it's very dangerous, we can't go. He makes these flat statements without ever elaborating why. And we know that's part of his character flaw, but it does feel a little exaggerated here.
for plot reasons, because again, she shows up and he says, you don't know what you've done, you have to get out of here. I mean it, you're in danger, you don't get it, you don't understand, you don't, and then it takes Leah who comes in and says, you don't understand that coming uninvited, you've waived any right to the protections of laws and hospitality. It means they get to eat you. Like that sentence said way back in the earlier chapter when she first suggests this,
might have convinced her not to go, but why is she here, Brian? Why does she think she can get away with this?
Brian (34:43)
So I think we have to recognize a few things. The first thing is, Susan doesn't realize that if she comes with a forged invitation, she will be let inside, and they will know it's a forged invitation. So she probably thinks that the outcome that has actually happened, where everybody knows she's not supposed to be but they let her in, is impossible.
And once you accept that that outcome is possible, now your mind, well, why would they do that? You know, I mean, why are the vampires? ⁓ God, they're going to use me as a juice box. So she just doesn't think that that's a possibility in the first place.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:22)
I mean, guess that makes sense. I'll go to this party. catch me and realize the invitation's a forgery, they just won't let me in. That's not a bad consequence. If they let me in, then I'm home free. Nobody's gonna check me once I'm in the party. She's imagining one of these big galas at the museum with the governor and the mayor or whatever, right? Where there's dozens and dozens, hundreds of different important people. Meanwhile, at this party, there's like
five important people and a bunch of food. And so it's absurd to us to look at this and think, yeah, Bianca and the vampires aren't gonna realize there's a sixth different person here for some reason. Of course they're gonna figure it out. But from Susan's perspective, what she's expecting is she'll be able to get away with it because she can blend in with this giant crowd that nobody will necessarily know who she is.
Brian (36:15)
And I think the other thing that's obviously going through Susan's head is she doesn't necessarily expect Harry to be there. So who's to say that she's not invited?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:29)
Ha, yeah.
Brian (36:30)
You
know, she's got one of the two passes. She walked in. Maybe things are fine. Clearly, she's supposed to be accompanying Dresden as his guest, but maybe that's okay if she just shows up. They're expecting somebody to stand in for Dresden. They sent him an invitation. I'm here on behalf of Harry Dresden. She definitely doesn't expect Harry to show up.
and she definitely doesn't expect Harry to bring another date when he does show up.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:58)
Yeah, and you have to imagine, this is a huge opportunity for her. She's known about the supernatural. She's seen various pieces of it, but she's never been able to interact with it in like a civilized situa- I mean, remember, the first situation was she was being attacked by a toad demon.
and then she was in a fight with a Lugaroo filming from a distance. So she's been in these action scenes, but she's thinking at this party, I'll get to do a literal interview with a vampire. You know, she sees them as these civilized things because she knows Bianca is a known quantity as a madam here in Chicago, right? People know who she is. And so she thinks she's walking into this civilized place when of course it's only civilized if you're part of the club.
And even then, they're gonna tempt Harry to break the rules.
Brian (37:48)
Yeah, and this is the end of this chapter. It's a big bang of an ending because Jim finally explains not only to Susan but also to the reader that she's grave peril. Because she is very easily going to lose her life here.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (38:03)
Hahaha!
Now, before we move on to the next chapter here, Brian, I gotta ask you this question. Ferrovax is here at this party. Why, we've speculated on the motivation of the character. Why did the character show up? Why does Jim decide to include Ferrovax as a character in this party? Like, so we're looking for the Doyalist explanation here rather than the Watsonian one.
Brian (38:30)
Yeah, that's interesting because we can speculate as to why Faravex comes, and we can speculate as to why the movers and shakers want him to be here, but that's all because Jim wanted to come up with reasons to have Faravex at the party. Obviously, it's for the same reason that Thomas and Harry act like siblings. Foreshadowing.
But the shoe hasn't really dropped on this one, right? I mean, we've seen Faravax since, but not in any way that makes sense to introduce him in book three. Why does Faravax have to be a looming threat for 20 years of story, Adam? Like, what is Jim drip feeding us with Faravax? It's gotta be the Kaiju book?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:16)
Well, yes, but I think what it does is adds a little bit to the world building that is often missing in fantasy books in general, which is you drop in little hints of a wider world without fully exploring and explaining them. Here, it's like, okay.
I need a few important people that stand out that Harry has to check to see which one of them is behind the nightmare. So he gets to fill that out with a couple of people. He knows Mavra's definitely gonna be there. She's gonna be the big bad. She's the one Harry has to identify. So we need a couple of people for Harry to have the wrong answer, right? So Thomas is the first one, not him. Then they check Kyle and Kelly, not them. Then they go up to this Centurion, right? So.
Why pick Tharovax to put here? And I think it's because, hey, I want to blow people's minds. I want to put something really big and cool, someone who's so much stronger than Harry. It's like the same reason that if you play, what is it, Mega Man X, the very first thing that happens is that your character gets completely defeated and there's nothing you can do. You will get smashed at the first fight, at the beginning of that.
and then another guy comes in, Zero comes in and absolutely destroys the boss and saves you and you're like, wow, that guy's super cool. I'm bad, but I wanna be as strong as that guy someday. So this is sort of setting up a comparison of how far Harry has to go over the course of the series, of how weak he is and how strong some of the entities out there actually are. So that.
widens the world, it doesn't take a lot, it's got some really great dialogue that keeps you hooked and engaged, you learn a little bit of Michael's backstory, like it's doing so much work, and as you said, it's also giving him room to move in the future. Ferrovax received a gift here. What was it? Who knows? Maybe Jim himself doesn't know when he's writing Grave Peril, but he knows he's written himself a juicy hook for a future book.
Brian (41:23)
And I wonder if originally, just like the way that the fairies, and then later the angels, show up occasionally in books as characters who were helpers and also antagonists to Dresden, if the dragons were originally going to be a bit more of a faction?
And then Jim sort of realized, no, there aren't that many of them. They're gonna have kind of one book that's about them, one part of the story that's about them. And it's important and I wanna introduce them early. So he puts them in grave peril. Jim's writing this, he's thinking, well, book 15 is gonna be the dragon book.
So I might as well drop a hint in the party where I drop a hint about every other book that's coming in the series, not realizing that the story is going to grow in the telling a little bit and Faravax is going to be pushed very much to the periphery and he could have introduced him way later.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:18)
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, again, we're gonna talk more about Faravax and his gift when we get to that chapter. I it's chapter 30. But for now, let's move on to chapter 27. Now, what's interesting here is the description of Leia. We already got a description of Bianca earlier. I don't think we read it last episode, but it basically describes her as wearing a dress of living flame, like animated flame, thinking very much like Catching Fire, the Hunger Games ⁓ one. But here,
is how Leah is described. Quote, she wore a slender strapless dress of pale blue which flowed over her curves like water crashing into white foamy lace at its hem, unquote. So Brian, Leah is wearing animated water while Bianca is wearing animated fire. Do you think there's a significance to this?
Brian (43:07)
Yes, obviously, I definitely think there's a significance to it. But I'm gonna be honest, Adam, I'm not sure what it is. part of that is because these seem like weird analogs for these two characters. Why is Bianca fire? She's a red-cord vampire. Don't they not really like fire? And then Leah...
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:27)
That's a good point.
Brian (43:29)
Fire and ice is a dueling pair. Leah is water. Now maybe Leah just couldn't go as ice because of course, you know, she needs to show Bianca what their relationship is going to be. And it's not that, you know, you melt me. It's that I'm going to snuff you out.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (43:35)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Exactly
my thought. That is really what she, she wanted to subtly position herself on Harry's side at odds with Bianca in a sense. Everything she does in this, her actions appear to keep her independent and not on anybody's side as like the sort of unaligned in this, just like Mr. Ferro. But we see her actions also
ultimately help Harry in the end multiple times. So I do think she is his godmother. She's by whatever binding deal that, you know, Margaret Le Fay made, she is destined, ⁓ she is obligated to guard his spiritual self, which in this case requires her to help guard his physical self, because his spiritual self won't continue to exist if he gets himself killed here.
Brian (44:40)
And I've always wondered about Leia's attendance at the party.
Is she telling the people behind the party, the mavra or the cowl or whoever the mover and shaker is kind of above Bianca and the pecking order or maybe it is Bianca, I don't know. Is she telling them, yes, give me a gift and what that means is I am going to help you with the nemesis plot. I'm on your team and she's trying to hoodwink them.
Or is she invited because they're trying to infect her? And Leah actually does make a mistake at the party, which is essentially what she says, in that she feels like she can walk into their trap and spring it and come out on top and take care of the Athame. And she's right about everything except that last piece.
That feels to me to be kind of what is actually going on here, but I'm gonna be honest, I think I sort of just put that together in rereading this chapter that Leah really isn't positioned as a co-conspirator with Bianca and co. It's just a situation where everybody knows who's on what side.
and nobody's sure who's gonna draw the bigger gun faster.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:11)
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Now the next thing that happens in this chapter after Leah shows up is that Leah reaches towards Susan, says, let me see those eyes, little one. And then of course Harry has to intervene. He shoots his hand out, grabs Leah's wrist, and upon touching her, he starts to get woozy, his head swims, and then he gets these images of like a peaceful, glorious, you know, let go of your
Burdens, relax, let me take care of you from Leah's magic, essentially. But of course, she reveals it's not her magic, it's his magic going back against him because of the deals that he's broken. And we get this moment where Susan is going to be offering to try and, she says, know, stop what you're doing to him. And then Leah says something to the effect
You couldn't afford purchasing his debt, his obligation, but maybe we could arrange for some surcease, which is a great word, meaning sort of giving Harry a here. And meanwhile, Harry is kind of swimming, his head is woozy, he can't really participate, and we get this paragraph, and it's the moment that Harry, is in almost every single one of these books, where Harry has to decide to take the hard road.
He realizes that this would be so great, she would comfort him, my place would be there in the warmth by her feet, like a good dog. And then we get, And
And I really like that there because it again is simultaneously talking about how Harry is always gonna try to do the right thing, but he's also going to punish himself here because of all of his past trauma. He is not worthy of peace is one of the reasons he's rejecting this.
Brian (48:15)
Yeah, and I think it's also important to realize that Leah isn't lying to him. She literally can't. And I mean that like on a surface level, but also on a deeper level because she's his godmother. Leah can't offer Harry something that she thinks is bad for Harry. So when we say that he is rejecting peace here, it's literally true.
Leah doesn't want something out of him that puts him at a disadvantage. She can't, she's not allowed to. That's what Margaret purchased in making her a godmother. Harry doesn't really seem to get this through his head, that Leah can do things that Harry doesn't like, but she can't actually do something that would lessen him. So if Leah's saying, I'm gonna turn you into Fido,
It's because on some level she honestly thinks being Fido is your best bet right now.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:11)
Yeah, and maybe it was only going to be temporary and she was going to try to train him and mold him into what she wanted in the future. But we'll never really see what happened in that unless the mirror versus, no, probably not. So at this point, he's basically out of it and so Leah is talking to Michael and to Susan and Michael is telling Susan don't accept any of these bargains and Leah suggests first like, ⁓ I'll take your eyes.
No, no, eyes are too precious. Okay, what about your name? you're too smart for that, ⁓ you're good. ⁓ What about your love? ⁓ you don't wanna give up your love either. How about your memory? She goes from one to another without ever really trying to sell Susan on them, which suggests to me that she knew she was gonna wind up on memory from the very beginning. It's one of those sales tactics where you start with a high price and then you work your way down very easily so they feel like they're getting the better of you.
I don't know how effective it is here, but Susan does wind up taking her up on it.
Brian (50:10)
And I think that's why it's important to that Susan's not trying to work against Harry here, because all the things that are actually really, really dangerous for Leah to get in this trade, her name, for example, Leah gives up on instantly. But a year of your memories and...
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:25)
Mm-hmm
Brian (50:30)
Happily, mean, honestly, it's it obviously causes immediate term problems, but Leah doesn't even take a consecutive year, which, you know, could screw her up or lead to some mental damage or, you know, cause some giant gap or, you know, if she took the past year, that would be really horrible.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, why am I here? Who are you people? Why do they have pointy teeth? Like, that would be really scary to like find yourself at a party with no memory of how you got there, no memory of why you're there. At least here, she will remember, I came here to get an interview with a vampire and wait, where did I get the invitation after all? Like there are pieces missing, but not the whole, which you're right, would really mess her up and probably cause her to.
in a way that is very unhelpful in the coming fight. But as it is, she's actually very helpful in the coming fight, which is pretty impressive.
Brian (51:25)
why does Leah effectively just use a roundabout method to take Susan's love, which she's already offered to do? It's because she and Harry are having an argument about whether he should do the right thing or take the poisoned fruit of peace. But it's not the argument that Harry thinks they're having.
What Leah wants Harry to is to cut and run and let go of these mortals who are holding him back from the actual things that are his job and that's her job to make sure that he deals with. And Harry won't.
stop trying to deal with the nightmare because then what will happen to Murphy? And he won't leave Susan to the vampires even if she doesn't love him anymore because he's just not that kind of guy.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:09)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (52:17)
And that's what Lee is trying to actually negotiate here. She's not trying to get Harry to be a dog so that she'll control him. She's trying to get him to let go of these mortals and just let them get eaten so you survive to fight another day.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:37)
Exactly right. Now, the next question I had on my list here, Brian, is this an example of a mortal getting the better of a fey? Because in the end, Susan gets her memory back. But put a pin in that, that's our question for Bob this week. We'll come back to that. So let's get through the rest of this chapter first. after Susan does agree to give up one year of her memory in order to get Harry some cerces, then...
Leah slaps Harry across the face, he comes back to himself, he's no longer under the influence of that weird blowback of his own obligation. Michael offers himself to Leah to get the sword back, and Leah says, ⁓ my dear knight, no, no, for once the Redeemer's blade was in your hand again, you would find the shattering of our pact a simple enough matter. Now, Brian, that is a very interesting passage.
It really suggests that the faith magic that the sword provides to Michael allows him to break fey bargains to the point where Leah wouldn't have power over him if he chose not to honor his word, right? But if he chose not to honor his word, doesn't that reduce his own power because he's no longer walking the righteous path?
Brian (53:53)
I think that what's actually going on here is if Michael has the sword, Lee can't make him do anything fun. Like, he still has to fulfill his bargain to her, but she's not going to be able to get him to do anything that would work against the will of the White God. And obviously the only reason to suborn at height of the cross is to get them to do things that they wouldn't do anyway.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:02)
Ha ha.
I see.
Now the other interesting thing here is right after that she says, and you are in any case far too restricted for my tastes, you're set in your ways, unbendable, unquote. Has she met Harry Dresden? picture is in the dictionary under stubborn. Harry is pretty unbendable as well, and yet she's really trying to bend him at the same time.
Brian (54:44)
Yeah, it's pretty amazing that she's calling Michael set in his ways when she, a she of the winter court, has probably not changed in a thousand years either. But the-
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:55)
That's fair. Although she
wants to mold others, she doesn't want to be molded.
Brian (55:01)
And that's the best line, which is, fa, just so. You have children, do you not? Mortal children are so sweet and can be bent and shaped in so many, many ways. Your eldest daughter, I think, would, and Michael cuts her off there because he's not having any of this, but talk about foreshadowing, Adam. I mean,
Every single scene in the party is just chock full of things that aren't gonna pay off for 10 years of in-world time.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:37)
Yeah, and I wonder if he had in mind, yeah, okay, we're gonna get Michael's eldest daughter somehow involved with the Fae, or if at this point he was already like, yeah, she's gonna be Winter Lady at some point, or maybe Summer Lady. He's like, maybe he hasn't finished that, figuring that out. But he did set things in motion here and then follow up on almost all of them. As you said, we still don't have the full story of Cowell and Kimori. We only have the word of Jim that that's them.
at all at this party, and then we don't have what's going on with Mr. Ferro, but Mavra's appeared several more times, and we have all these interactions with Thomas, and now Leah and Michael and Michael's daughter are coming up, and that all pays off in future books, as you say, a dozen years later, potentially.
So Brian, do you think he had this planned or is he doing something similar to what he did with Farovax, which is just set something up that he can come back to later as like a story idea, a hook that he'll use in a future book?
Brian (56:41)
Yeah, think that's, obviously impossible for us to know. But what we can, I think, glean from what Jim's told us at other points is that Jim does think of the story idea. He's just not sure if he's going to take it. Think of the changes choice, right?
Jim has said that in changes, Harry has three pathways he can take to deal with the problem at hand and to, you know, presumably destroy the Red Court and get his daughter back and all that. Now, I think on the one hand, Jim was always leading to the fairy courts. I think some part of him always knew that winter was going to be sort of the most natural choice to make.
But he wanted to make sure that he had options, and he wasn't sure. And he also hadn't exactly thought about how any of the rafts would go.
So I think you're on to something, Adam, that in this story he's kind of doing a combination of foreshadowing and giving himself options because the Farovac's thing, and I think this is what I was trying to get at before, is an option that he didn't exploit as fully as he could have.
And this is an option he gave himself that he did exploit as fully as he could have.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:05)
⁓ Right, and I think Thomas is
an example of an option that he already knew where it was going, because it's only a couple books hence.
Brian (58:11)
Exactly.
Right. And that one I think is clearer because he doesn't drop it in as obvious a way. He's foreshadowing it, but he's also trying to keep you off the scent of it a little bit because he knows he's going to be pulling that out. Right. And here, has Jim planned for Lady Molly? Well, Jim has definitely planned for the idea that it would be interesting if...
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:24)
He wants it to be the reveal. Yeah.
Brian (58:36)
the daughter of Michael Carpenter ended up as part of the She Court, but maybe he does think that Molly's gonna end up at Summer in this point. Maybe Sarissa hasn't even entered his brain yet.
So there's a lot of possibilities for what Jim could be thinking this early on. He definitely isn't just getting the idea that this is possible later, though. He's absolutely realized that this is a thread that he can draw out if he likes the look of it. And obviously, it's just so good in practice that he has to.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:17)
All right, Brian, I think that's the end of the chapter. Any final notes on this one?
Brian (59:21)
One thing that I just want to call readers' attention to is the similarities and differences between the first meeting that Leia and Susan has and their last meeting at the end of changes. They work together pretty well. They make this deal pretty easily.
Leah is apparently kind of impressed by the chutzpah of her godson's girlfriend, and later when they're picking out Harry's outfits together they have a great time. But each time Leah interacts with Susan...
she's also willing to make a sacrifice. Susan is a piece that Leia is always willing to leave dangling to further her strategy. And I think it really shows you something about the Winterfae that they can genuinely seem like to actually admire you a little bit, but here...
Leah is definitely considering the possibility of hanging Susan out to dry with the vampires, and she's trying to make it easier for Harry. And later in Changes, there's a reason she puts Susan in a sacrificial robe.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:33)
she probably had some foresight into what's going on or guessed at what might happen. We're certainly gonna talk about that when we get to changes itself. For now, let's move on to our question for Bob.
Brian (1:00:47)
So Bob, fairy bargains are obviously a big part of the series, but what we've always heard is that you shouldn't make them. So we're wondering, you're a cold, calculating, reasoning spirit of air. Do mortals ever get the better of the fey? In the series, how have the mortals performed in their bargaining? How could they have done better?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:12)
Yeah, unfortunately he can't be here as expected. ⁓ He said this time he's out getting Harry a birthday present.
Brian (1:01:20)
Okay, look, as we know from literally this book, Harry's birthday's in Halloween, so come on.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:25)
Yeah, it's almost insulting at this point, but ⁓ no, he's not really. But we're gonna go ahead and take a crack at this. Now, one of the ways that we're gonna try to frame this is to rate how well the Fae side got of their bargain and how well the mortal side got of their bargain in each of these cases. We've got a big long list here. We're gonna try to go in chronological order. So we're gonna start, Brian, pre-Stormfront.
Brian (1:01:29)
He doesn't even try.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:52)
⁓ One of the most important deals of the whole series, Margaret Le Fay makes a deal with Leah to be Harry's godmother. How do you think that turned out for Leah and how did it turn out for Margaret?
Brian (1:02:04)
Yeah, so Elphitch 47 says, we don't know what bargain was between Margaret and Leah, from the outside, Margaret got a really good deal. Leah watched over Harry for almost 40 years and was a caretaker of a heavy duty piece of equipment, her amulet, for just as long. absolutely, it does seem like she got a good deal, but I think it might go beyond that, Adam. I mean, it seems like Margaret...
had Harry for a reason. And I literally can't think of anyone in the universe better to prepare your potential star-born kid to defeat the outsiders than the Lananshi. It's basically the person whose job that is, except not Mab, because don't try to make Mab somebody's godmother.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:57)
I think I agree. And I think, Brian, this might be the first one where we give the mortal basically all they could have wanted and more. On a one to a five, with one being the mortal didn't really get what they thought they were gonna get, and a five being the mortal got way more than they thought they were going to get, I would argue that Margaret Le Fay here gets a five. Now, if we ever learn the exact terms of the deal, then we'll have to revisit this, but...
with what we know now, Harry, his life is saved dozens, maybe hundreds of times just by the fact that Leah's garden has a mountain of bones in it from people that were trying to get to Harry, people, whatever, from the Never Never. plus, in addition to that, all the other things that she does to help Harry in this book and all future books. The fact that she gets Harry involved
with Mab Mab purchasing away the debt, then allows Harry to get involved in small favor and in all these other stories in a way that turn out beneficial to him on at least some level. He has a daughter and saves her because of Leah's influence. So I think it's fair to say that the outcome for Harry, and presumably Margaret was looking for a good outcome for Harry here,
is good enough over the course of these books that she got all that she wanted and more.
Brian (1:04:28)
Yeah, I think Margaret gets a five. And if later we find out that Margaret literally had to let Leah kill her, like she would have lived, except she made this bargain so that she was trading her life for this protection. Okay, 4.5. Because Leah protects, you know, Harry probably better than Margaret could. Obviously she doesn't love him.
the way his actual mother could have. So there is a trade-off there. But she gets just about everything she could have wanted. I don't even really think that's interesting. I think the more interesting question is, so did Leah get screwed?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:05)
Yeah, that one's harder to answer because we know what Margaret, well, we have strong evidence for what Margaret wanted for Harry, which is a spiritual protector, right? That is in the text. But we really don't know what she gave to Leah or what she promised to Leah or whatever. My supposition has always been that...
Margaret sacrificed her life's blood to Leah. We know that Lananshi, both in our universe and the Dresdenverse, was supposed to have taken blood from mortals as payment for favors. So you would think the life's blood of a powerful wizard, ⁓ a young one at that, could be something that would give Leah a bunch of power. Under those conditions, I would say probably Leah what she wanted, you know, the
the blood, assuming that that is what happened. But then the question is, did you get more than you bargained for with Harry? Did you have to give up more than you expected? So I'm gonna put that at a four myself.
Brian (1:06:06)
I think that's a really good case because I think it's important to realize that Leah is fundamentally on board with Margaret's larger plan, which is we're going to make a star-born wizard who can totally kick some outsider ass when the cycle comes around. And, ⁓ yeah, that's my job. When Mab doesn't watch the outer gates, I'm the person who does it. Obviously, I want to be a part of this. So all the energy that Leah's spending to make sure that Harry survives,
That's like a project that naturally aligns with her interest. She might have done that even if Margaret didn't make this bargain. And in fact, getting Margaret to make this bargain probably allows her to intervene to a greater extent to protect this asset that she'd care about anyway. So this could be a five for Leia. And actually the only way I would knock it down to a four
is if what happens at this party wouldn't have happened without Harry. If Harry is the reason why Leah takes the athame, gets infected, and is encased in ice for half a decade, then I think, okay, three or four. But if that was gonna happen anyway, because she was always gonna take this risk, four or five.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:11)
Yeah.
Yeah, so because we don't have the explicit details, the face side of this bargain, probably somewhere between a three and a five, I agree. Let's move on to Grave Peril. We've been dealing with these this whole book. Harry made three early deals with Leah. The one for power to defeat Justin, the one in the graveyard for the ability to save charity, and then the one that we're not yet seen.
which is when he's at the bridge trying to go back and get Susan and he's taken the mushroom, the poison mushroom and forced his godmother to agree to let him be for a year and a day. So we're gonna take those three together and try to give a score to Harry and a score to Leah. Honestly, Brian, the first two, Harry is gotta get like a one or a two at best. I mean, he does technically defeat Justin and
charity from the nightmare, but in both cases, it feels like he expected to get more out of the deal, even though technically he got what he wanted.
Brian (1:08:33)
Yeah, I'm gonna give him a two because I'm giving him a score of one, two, and three. The Justin one is a one. And it's not because the bargain's so bad. He gets Dumbo's magic feather and he does defeat Justin, but he gets literally nothing else for placing this yoke on his shoulders. And he could have asked Leah to help him get a better outcome, like Elaine not dying or something.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:35)
Agreed.
Right.
Brian (1:09:01)
So he leaves so much on the table and he gets a placebo effect, which I am counting as but he also gives up something that matters. This thing is only still dogging him because of that deal he made when he was 16. The one in the graveyard, I give him a two because as I think we said in the moment, he probably could have gotten more out of it, but you know, he's under pressure. He accomplishes what's at hand. And the fey border thing, I'll give him a three.
because it's fine, but he doesn't really put himself in a more advantageous situation. He just gets him back to status quo antebellum.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:09:38)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (1:09:38)
Now, I think it's way more interesting to look at Leah's side of the deal because I actually think Leah did way worse on these deals than she did on the deal with Margaret, mostly because she keeps winning the bargain so much that Harry doesn't want to interact with her and it makes her job so much harder.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:02)
Yeah, you know, I hadn't thought of it that way. what would you rate this then in terms of her getting what she wanted? On the one hand, I agree with you that because she wins it so well, Harry's like a scared, doesn't wanna go near her, doesn't want her to get turned into a dog, et cetera, et cetera. But on the other hand, these bargains do give her the power to act as godmother to Harry in a more
obvious and concrete way. Before these, the best thing we've seen that we might count is that maybe that was her sort of spectral hand reminding Harry of his purpose at the end of Stormfront by guiding his hand to the pentacle and reminding him of what he believed.
But aside from that, she doesn't appear to have a huge amount of influence on his life until he meets her again after fighting Agatha's ghost and then.
breaking his word again, she gets more power over him, can now manifest in the real world around him, because she has that, he has that obligation, and then he breaks his word again in the graveyard, and then she's like a main character for the rest of the series, except when she's encased in ice. So I feel like getting her to have a more concrete control over her godson, who she is sworn to protect anyway, is kind of a boon that might offset the difficulty of-
Brian (1:11:29)
I think it's not a two, I mean think it's a three. And the reason why I think it's a three, even though it seems like it's so lopsided in her favor, is because I think Harry ends up as the winter knight as long as the events of changes happen, even if he doesn't owe Mab favors There's a way to sort of get him on that path.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:11:33)
I do agree with that.
Brian (1:11:53)
I will say obviously it makes it a lot easier that they've already worked together on these occasions and that has happened because of these bargains Leah's made. So it does pay off in terms of getting Harry on side ultimately. But I don't think it was instrumental and I don't think she gives up anything. She's not outwitted, but she doesn't really get to capitalize on them because she obviously doesn't really want to break him and use him and drain him of his blood.
so she can't fully leverage how badly she outplays him.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:25)
That sounds exactly right. So okay, three for the Fae in that case and two for the mortal in that case. Now we come to Susan's deal with Leah here at the party, the one we were just talking about, where she trades away her memory in order to help Harry deal with this situation.
now let's start with the Fae this time. I think Leah gets exactly what she wants here. I don't think she actually cared at all about the memory she was taking from Susan. Maybe it gives her some semblance of power to take such things from a mortal, but like a year of Susan's memory, probably not super big and important. So I think what she really wanted...
was to be able to help Harry, but she couldn't do so explicitly because she's a she, she's a fey, she has to do it through bargains, she can't just give you a favor without having some obligation in return. So she does it through Susan, expecting that Harry will be able to undo it at some point maybe, or at least expecting that that's a possibility. But the important thing is,
Harry gets to have a clear head for the rest of this party so that she can protect her stupid godson that needs to leave right now, dang it. So I'm gonna say that this one is probably at least a four from her perspective. Yeah?
Brian (1:13:40)
I think it's a five, absolutely,
yeah. mean, Leah has a big quandary here. Harry is in it deep, he's hemorrhaging his power, he keeps swearing and breaking his word. She doesn't want that to happen, that's terrible. And he's also messed up and in a lot of danger. With one stroke, Leah puts him in a position where he can actually survive.
and creates a situation where either Susan's going to be fine afterwards and he'll get or
Susan's going to be dead afterwards, and the fact that she took Harry's memories is going to be more of a blessing than anything else. So, Leah gets everything she wanted still maintains her debt with Harry, which is what she's going to use, or what Mab is going to use, to rope him deeper and deeper into winter over the next several years.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:39)
Yeah, you've convinced me it's a five. That's why I said at least a four. I was leaning towards five as well. Now, what about the mortal in this situation? Does Susan get what she needs out of this?
Brian (1:14:50)
Yeah, I think this is actually a pretty good bargain by Susan. Now, Leah is not really trying very hard in these negotiations, but I think this is a four. mean, Susan gets what she wants and it doesn't really disadvantage her. It basically just accomplishes the goal of getting Harry back on his feet. I mean, do you think it's higher than that or maybe just a three, Adam?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:12)
think that's right.
think it doesn't go so crazy. Like maybe she could have gotten something slightly better out of it, but I think it's pretty dang good in the end. mean, it's touch and go where Harry only just barely breaks through, but it does work out for them in the end. I could go with a four. Let's roll it.
Brian (1:15:30)
Okay, so Adam,
I want to ask you about Harry's deal with Mab in Summer Night, because I know you just re-read that. So Harry gets, as a trade, the debt that he has with Leah that we've been talking about in these past couple bargains is gone. In exchange, he must do the Queen of Air and Darkness three favors.
Does he get a good deal here?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:58)
Yeah, yes and no. On the one hand, it sounds way too good to be true, because it is, because by the words that Mab is using in that part at the beginning of Summer Night, she basically says, I'm gonna offer you situations where you can do me favors, and if you don't want to do them, you can pass. That suggests he could just pass indefinitely. He could say, I don't care what you're offering,
Brian (1:16:25)
Right.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:27)
I am going to turn it down until I get the next one for 300 years until he dies. Now, maybe you don't wanna die owing something to a fey, having twisted the deal against them for 300 years, that's a different conversation, but as a result, this looks like a great deal. Mab, of course, knows ⁓ I can manipulate events so that he will want to get involved in order to save his friends, for example.
or to save the world, for example. So she knows that this deal isn't as good as it actually looks like. One thing that occurred to me though, Brian, let's start with Harry's side of it. If you recall, during this interaction, when Harry is first talking to her, she appears in a human guise to him, and he is suspicious. And he basically says, put your hand on the desk, and then flicks a nail at her.
and she pulls her hand back and he's like, that's what I thought. And then Mab's like, how did you know? And he's like, ⁓ cocky, like, well, the door should have been locked and there was some static on it, so I knew that you went through the door and thought you might be a fey. And then in order to prove who she is and that Harry should take her seriously, she forces him against his will, like his hand just starts moving on its own to the desk.
and then his other hand picks up his letter opener and he stabs his own hand with it. That's as proof that she is who she says she is because Harry calls her a liar, Brian. My godmother would never trade away my debt. Before he knows which fey he's dealing with, he says this, and to prove that she does have his godmother's debt, she forces him to put a hole through his own hand with a letter opener. Now.
after all of the shenanigans that we talked about where they're wheeling and dealing and it's too good to be true and Harry accepts, I'm thinking to myself, dude, you could have asked her to heal your hand as part of the deal. She wants you to do this favor. You would be more effective if your hand was functional. It's a win-win for both of you. The scales are not unbalanced. You could have kind of argued that in. For that reason, I think this is probably
knocked down from a five to a four, and then because Mab is gonna be able to twist and force him into these favors, I'm gonna knock it back down to a three, but also because Mab cleverly does not give him a favor that he's not willing to do, at least not until small favor, and even then we have considerations, I'm gonna say we stop at a three from Harry's perspective.
Brian (1:19:10)
So I agree with the overall premise that it seems too good to be true, and it is. I wonder if it's still a five? Because man, owing the debt he owes to Leia, which is like in a year and a day I have to come to you or whatever, to the Queen of Air and Darkness. my god. That is
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:29)
Yeah.
Brian (1:19:37)
That's a Lloyd Slaty kind of situation. Yeah, so
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:39)
We're going to get to him.
Brian (1:19:43)
The deal that he is inherited with Mab, or rather that Mab has inherited with him as the counterparty, is really stacked against him. And in making this bargain, he does put things on a much more even footing. I do think he should get his hand fixed, and it's not as good as it looks. But it does really seem to me that he couldn't do any better
I'm only going to give him a four because I think, again, in general the Winter Court, and Mab is assuming Leia's obligations as his godmother, is not working against Harry, so they're sort of putting up very little resistance to giving him a decent deal, but I think it's a little bit better than a three.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:29)
Okay, I could buy that, we'll stick it at a four. Now.
Brian (1:20:31)
I do think though from Mab's perspective, I think this might just be a three. And I think Harry really throws her in that scene when he figures her out and then flicks iron at her.
That, I think, Mab actually, you know, a little annoyed, a little emotional almost for a second. And that's why she does have Harry stab himself. That's why she is kind of a dick about it, because he's actually gotten under her skin just the littlest bit in that interaction. She was ready to walk out the door thinking he was an idiot who was of no use to her, and then all of a sudden he completely turns things around. So I don't think that Mab pushes particularly hard. She just gets him
to say yes and then she has to do a bunch of extra work later to convince him to take the job on all these favors? Sounds like a three to me. She got where she needed to but she doesn't do great. I mean am I wrong?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:21:27)
I
don't disagree with you if you use sort of a short-sighted lens on this, but in the end, this, and this is probably her goal the whole time, she's just, you and this is probably something she's considering the whole time, is that, huh, maybe this is winter night material. Later on, she becomes much more certain when she starts offering him the job all the time after this, after summer night specifically. But my point is, this,
leads to her having a knight worthy of the title or whatever she says later. So from that instance, I think it's a five for her. If you look at that long Renz, okay, we'll compromise on a four there. So that one's a four for both of them in the end. Now, the next one here, Brian, we only throw in as a counterpoint to some of the others because we've given the mortals
Brian (1:22:06)
you know, you've talked me up to a four you've talked me up to a four
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:20)
a pretty good score on a lot of these. Dresden's first three deals with Leo, we averaged out to a two, but the other ones were fours and fives. Here we have an example of someone who is definitely a one.
Brian (1:22:31)
musician at Maeve's party who said I would die to play that well. And indeed you will sir! That's a one. Here's the thing though, much more interesting. The score on Maeve's end, I'm gonna pitch to you that this is a two. It's not even a three. This is actually a two. It's actually a negative for Maeve. Because this is the shit that gets her
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:39)
Yes. monkeys paw wish
Brian (1:22:55)
It's the fact that she's a petty little jerk and she can't see the bigger picture. She's always doing stupid power tripping bullshit that keeps Maeve from actually doing anything with her power or position. She always sees herself as Mab's bratty little girl because she won't let herself grow out of that.
And this is a great example of her doing that. And I get it, the fate don't change. To what extent is that even in her control? But this is the shit that Maeve does instead of going to winter subjects and collecting the tribute as Molly does in Cold Case.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:36)
Yeah, and
how much, how many more trained soldiers would they have had in battleground if Maeve had been doing her job for the last 10, 20 decades or whatever? So that's certainly something to consider. Now, yeah.
Brian (1:23:51)
But there's another mortal who
I think might earn even lower scores for his deal.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:56)
Yeah, Lloyd Slate is one who appears to get the rawest deal, but I would like to separate this out a little bit because I would argue the consequences that he suffers under punishment
Those aren't really as a result of his deal. You could argue that the series of events leads to those that started with his deal, but those are as a result of his choice to betray the Winter Court, and Mab in particular. I would argue that he still didn't get a very good deal because Maeve chose him, and then from what we see at that little party scene in Undertown, he is mistreated by Maeve
All the time. He appears to be able to get drugs and women all the time, but she demeans him and hits him and just treats him like crap. So I would argue, even if you take the whole punishment out of the picture and you just look at his situation with the deal of him becoming Winter Knight up through that scene, he's still like a two.
Brian (1:25:03)
So.
I'd say if we're talking about Lloyd Slate's deal with Maeve, Lloyd Slate gets a 2 because that's what you get for accepting the Winter Knight offer. I mean, the average person who just takes the Winter Knight offer, it's a 2 because it's a poison to Chalice. You get stuff, but what they take from you is more. And for Maeve, it's a 1 because she literally gets betrayed. So that was no good. She loses her knight forever. No more knight privileges for Maeve. Right? But here's, think, the more interesting deal to talk about with Slate.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Agreed.
Brian (1:25:33)
I think Slate's deal with Aurora is a Because there's no way it could work. The deal gives Winter more power.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:48)
Yeah!
Brian (1:25:48)
So
if that's the deal you're making, right, to give the people you're betraying more power, there's no way, even if you succeed, that it could ultimately pay off. I guess the idea is if he holds both mantles, winter won't hurt him, which, I mean, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of how M.A.B. operates. And I'd say for Aurora,
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:26:06)
Yeah. ⁓
Brian (1:26:11)
That deals probably a three. She gets what she needs to out of it, but ultimately her plan is doomed.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:26:18)
Yeah, I would say because of Lloyd's lack of competence, Harry winds up killing Aurora, right? Lloyd is actually fighting on Aurora's side. If he had been able to stop Dresden from getting to the middle, then Aurora would have gotten everything she wanted out of it. So I would say it goes down to a two because his lack of ability dooms her.
Brian (1:26:35)
Sure.
Yeah, yeah, get better help, fairy lady. If you're gonna try to pull a conspiracy, make sure you recruit competent people. There's another deal, though, in Summer Night that I don't think people usually think of, and it takes place off screen, but that's Elaine's deal with Summer. So if we remember, according to Elaine, and look, I think that a lot of this is BS, but according to Elaine, Summer has been sheltering her since the fight with
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:26:46)
Yes, exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Brian (1:27:10)
Justin and it looks like the whole payment is having to go along with Aurora's plan here which Elaine then weasels out of to help Harry and take Aurora down anyway. So for her I mean if that's what actually happened and I don't think it is on its face a five?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:27:29)
Okay, I could potentially do that. I would say because we have reason to speculate that there's more to it than that. I think we drop it down to a four, just on general principles. Because we know that Summer's been sheltering her. We don't know the price she paid for that, except that she was emissary for this job as part of that obligation. Maybe there were other things she had to do to maintain that shelter inside the Summer Court.
Hard to say, we just don't have access to that information. Maybe we'll get it in a future book. What about Aurora's side of that deal?
Brian (1:28:04)
Yeah, so I think Aurora obviously gets a very capable servant here. And insofar as Elaine betrays her, I mean, would Elaine even do that if it wasn't for the fact that Winter chose Harry as their emissary because you can't beat Mab?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:28:20)
Yeah, it's hard to fault
I mean, the reality is I think she doesn't get the help that she needed because of those circumstances, because obviously Elaine lets Harry get out of that ultimately fatal trap that they have after he visits the mother's cottage. we think that Elaine's deal is with Aurora. That's what we're kind of guessing here.
Brian (1:28:43)
Aurora
is at least holding the contract when we see her. You know, mean, like just the way Mab is holding Harry's.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:28:47)
Yeah, so I would
say that's a two because again, she doesn't get what she wants because she is subtly betrayed by Elaine and that leads to her own downfall.
Brian (1:28:58)
Yeah, I mean, I think on the surface, it's a three and a five because Aurora gets a lot of competent help and then, you know, the inevitable betrayal. And Elaine seems to get exactly what she wanted. But what probably happened? Well, Elaine's probably Kimori and dealing with Kal and Kimori is probably why Aurora's infected.
that leads to Aurora getting herself killed and Elaine probably didn't actually need that much protection for the summer because she was protected by it's probably more like a 1 in a on the surface 3 and a 5 so that averages out to a 2 and a 4
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:29:39)
Yeah,
then we have a huge gap, Brian, because I don't think we see a lot to do with the Fae at all until we get to small favor,
Brian (1:29:49)
Yeah, obviously proven guilty is essentially a fairy story, but none of the fairies really talk to anyone. Molly doesn't make a bargain.
So we'll talk about the bargain she does make later, but we get through Proven Guilty, a book that's mostly about fairies, without any fairy bargains, and then the same thing happens again, as you were saying, Adam, in small favor.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:30:18)
But then when we get to turncoat Brian, we don't explicitly have a bargain, but we do wanna rate something here. Who uses Summer's boon better? Because Harry...
⁓ uses it for a doughnut in the previous in Small Favor. And we have Morgan using it here in turncoat to hide him from the White Council. So who do you think used their boon better?
Brian (1:30:45)
So I think that Morgan used his boon better.
just because he gets something that's more necessary for him and I don't think he could have gotten it any better out of it except for throwing the oak leaf pin away immediately. So I think this is a four. I think Harry's deal is the three. He gets exactly what he needs and literally nothing more.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:14)
A
great Chicago donut. Should at least make it a 3.1. 3.5. Prithi with sprinkles. So yeah, that's a fun one, but I agree. I think Morgan probably uses it slightly better in the overall. Now, we get to a big one here. Brian changes. Harry becomes winter night. This is a huge deal.
Brian (1:31:18)
I mean fair, 3.5, we'll give you 3.5.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:36)
We don't necessarily see how it's ended up for Harry yet, but if you had to rate it up until this point, what do you think it is?
Brian (1:31:43)
Okay, so in terms of does Harry end up getting out of this, it's totally fine, and if I was to rate it on that scale, it'd be some positive number. But I wanna give him a two. And the reason why is that if Harry had done this deal properly,
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:54)
Ho!
Brian (1:32:02)
He would have said, okay, and you're going to give me a place to live that has iron walls and I'm going to have a bank account that has, right? And he would have asked for things in this contract he's making with Mab that sweetened the pot for him as a winter night.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:32:19)
Yeah, he
had all the leverage. Mab really wants him to be winter night, and he's finally willing for a specific reason. She doesn't really have him over a barrel. He has her over a barrel because she really wants this. As much as he wants to go save his daughter, he has other options, right? He's got the coin and he's got the dark hallow thinking about those things in his head, but he goes with this option and.
So to me, I think you're right. I think he could have gotten just some small additional quality of life benefits out of this whole winter night gig, but.
Brian (1:32:55)
And
why doesn't he, Adam? It's because he thinks he's gonna cheat Mab by getting himself killed.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:33:02)
Yeah. And
that's the other thing. Part of what he thinks he's gonna do here is he's gonna get a five. He's like, I'm gonna get all the benefits of this deal, but then prevent Mab from getting her side of the deal and corrupting me. And he fails utterly. So on that note, I think I have to agree with you. We can't rate it a three. We have to rate it a two.
Brian (1:33:23)
Yeah, I mean, even if he just assumed that Mab might find a way to get him to live, he would have thrown in some things, and frankly, if he wanted to be a little less suspicious, he would have asked for a car or something just to not make it seem completely suicidal. But, I mean, Mab knocks this one out of the park, right?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:33:45)
is it a five immediately? Do we even have to, I mean, maybe it's a four because of how much effort she had to put into getting Harry to be like on her side. But by the end of cold days, he kind of understands, ⁓ winter's purpose is super duper important and maybe I need to stop resisting her quite so much.
Brian (1:34:05)
And let's look at the zoomed out view here, because in the story, it's natural that Harry and Mab should want to work together. What Mab wants to do and the kind of person Harry is actually lines up fine. But just from an outside Mab got as the winter night, basically...
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:34:19)
Yeah.
Brian (1:34:27)
At as a youngster, he could live for 300 years. She doesn't even get him when he's already old. She gets him as a kid, basically. A starborn. We know that's gonna be But there's lots of starborn. Listen to starborn. There's lots of competent starborn. A starborn. Wizard. Okay, good. Good. That's good so far.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:34:36)
Mm-hmm.
Heavyweight.
Brian (1:34:48)
a starboard wizard who is senior council material. I mean, who do you think the next Blackstaff was gonna be after Ebenezer? Right? It's gotta be Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. So we're talking about a, and obviously, you know, I'm saying if the events of Harry's life had gone differently, he's the kind of person who gets that role.
We're talking about a senior council level wizard with the stones to carry out the kind of work Mab needs done, who won't just, fall under her thumb and stop thinking for himself or get himself broken or killed on a job. And she has him for centuries.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:35:37)
Well,
unless he and Lara can figure out how to get out of it, because they're planning to do that. But zoom out a little more. By getting Harry, she gets the white court in 12 months. Spoilers, sorry guys. That I think in addition, I can't, at this juncture, I can't rate it lower than a five.
Brian (1:35:49)
Oof.
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, like we're saying, Harry being a strathboris and a dick is a downside. Honestly, we know that Mab likes that. It's the only thing that makes it fun for her anymore. But in Ghost Story, Harry makes a with Leia. And the deal is one story for three questions. And thank you, Patterkegger, for bringing this up.
Leia answers like a dozen questions and all of Harry's follow-ups. I mean, he gets more than he bargained for, which actually makes me think that he didn't bargain for enough. I'm going to give him a two.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:36:31)
Well, okay, he gets more than he's, that breaks the rules. But I would say give him a four, but maybe he could have gotten more. But here's the other thing, he doesn't get the direct answer to the question he needs. Like who killed me? Like I think he tries to ask that and she says, I'm sorry, there's some things I can't answer as part of this. But you're right, she's very generous in how she interprets follow-up questions to be part of the original question in there.
Brian (1:36:35)
You
Yes.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:01)
And I think that is purposeful, right? She needs him to make it out of this alive. So I think this is also basically a four or a five for her because she pushes him in the direction she needs to push him.
Brian (1:37:12)
Yeah, I would say that Dresden doesn't do a good job with this bargain, except that he's very nice to Leah in not driving a hard bargain.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:22)
Hmm.
Brian (1:37:22)
and he shows her some trust. And that might be why she repays him so kindly and kind of works on his team. Or it might just be because he's literally on her team. He's the winter night at this moment, even though he thinks he's dead. So I don't know whether to call this a really good bargain for both of them or just they were using the bargain as an excuse to get what they both wanted. But being serious, maybe that is a four. That's how fairies operate.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:35)
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Brian (1:37:52)
So that might be an above average bargain. They just had interests that were aligned.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:37:54)
Yeah. I think
you could make an argument there. They were both a three or a four there. All right.
Brian (1:37:59)
What
about Leia's bargain with Molly, though?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:38:02)
Now, people make this argument a lot. I don't think Molly becoming Winter Lady is a bargain, unless we get some flashback that like when the mantle went towards her, time slowed and she was given the choice, right? Maybe Mab showed her what Winter's purpose is and I don't think that happened, but you could make an argument. Under those conditions, sure, then it's a bargain. But we gotta remember,
that when Leah was training Molly, it was upholding Harry's obligation as her senior teacher, right? I don't think that that counts as Molly making a bargain with Leah. She was accepting the help that Harry would otherwise have provided, but Harry being absent, Leah was required by her duties to stand in.
She wasn't helping Molly as a deal between Molly and her. She was helping Molly in a deal between Leah and Harry's mother. That was an extension of the godmother duties as I see it. Therefore, I don't think Molly becoming Winter Lady can be really argued to be a deal, but I'm happy to hear a counter.
Brian (1:39:18)
So here's what I'll say. I betcha everything you just said is true. But when Leia allows Molly to see her, she doesn't present it that way. presents it as a, well, I'm sure one could argue that as Harry is my godson, I could be inclined to take up your training.
as would be my right in assuming his obligations. If you are still his apprentice, how would I know that? You know, she could just sort of twist it so that Molly feels like if she actually wants Leah to fulfill this obligation, she has to agree to Leah's terms. And I bet that does happen. Because Molly's life, what she's doing, appears to be totally the kind of thing Winter would want Molly doing.
And not actually any of the kind of living that Molly would want to do. I mean, she doesn't get better. This is just a way to kind of get her deeper into the hole she's already in. For Molly, I'm going to say it's still a three. It's not a bad bargain. She doesn't lose But for Leah, it's a five.
because she made working with her seem like something that Molly should want, rather than something that Lee is forcing upon her. And that means she roped Molly into the winter court without giving up squat.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:40:43)
Okay,
I could see that. Assuming some of the suppositions that you're putting in there are correct, I could buy that. So five of three for Molly, I got that. But now, Brian, I think we enter the most lopsided deal, bargain, favor, whatever you want to call it in the entire list here, and that is Nicodemus, his deal with Mab
Mab needed something, Nicodemus helped her And now Mab is owing Nicodemus and quote unquote helps him by loaning Harry for the skin game heist. And it couldn't have really turned out worse for Nicodemus. His cultists are taken from him, his daughter is taken from him.
There's a new Knight of the Cross who's got a lightsaber now, and all of that was for nothing because yeah, I think he got the grail that he was looking for, but he didn't get the other quote unquote weapons from that vault. Honestly, Brian, I think this is five for the fey and one for the quote unquote mortal in this case.
Brian (1:41:51)
Okay, hang on, let me play devil's advocate. So, this is not a good deal for Mab. It's not a good deal for Mab, and we know it's not a good deal for Mab, because what she has Nicodemus help her with is being at two places at once.
And presumably it's because she needed to be at the Outer Gates and also handling some winter business. She couldn't be at two places at once and Anduriel and Nicodemus allowed her to effectively do that. And I don't think we know exactly were they acting in her stead, were they just helping her travel through shadows. You know, I don't know what it is, but they let her be in two places at once effectively. And she hates whatever she has to give him so much.
that she raises Leah up to be able to handle stuff like the outer gates without Mab's That is a huge amount of responsibility and power to place in the hands of a subordinate who we later find out is a little dangerous, is a little bit of a problem.
just to avoid being put in this situation again. So I don't think it's a good bargain for Mab, I think it's a two. And for Nicodemus, I think it's a five. Now, a negative five, but a five nonetheless.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:43:01)
Well, the fact, okay.
⁓
Okay, okay, you had me, you had me at the first half. Now, my counter argument for Mab is that part of her end of this deal is she needs to lay down revenge for Nicodemus breaking her laws in the first place, and that part goes off without a hitch. He gets absolutely smashed by this deal, so.
Okay, you said what? You said a two for Mab or a three? I want to upgrade that to at least a three because part of this deal is her getting revenge and punishing Nicodemus and for that I think it was fully successful.
Brian (1:43:37)
I said a two, yeah.
I think a 3 is honestly more fair, but let me give you the real Nicodemus number. The real Nicodemus number is probably a 2.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:43:57)
⁓ because he does get the grail?
Brian (1:43:59)
he gets the Holy Grail. And we haven't seen what that means yet.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:02)
No,
Book 20 he's going to use it, I guarantee.
Brian (1:44:05)
And book 20 is, that's right before the apocalypse, Adam. That's right before the apocalypse. So, right. So I think that what Nicodemus gets out of this, don't understate it. He gets a real thing and it matters. And he was willing to sacrifice Deirdre.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:09)
And it's a state of mind, don't worry about it.
Brian (1:44:27)
this and a couple other things and he thought he'd get some stuff thrown in, but it seems like the Grail and the Spear were the two biggest deal artifacts and he gets one of them. So it's not a total loss. He didn't completely get smashed, but maybe we'll find out that the Grail is a poison to Chalice for him as well.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:44:37)
Mm-hmm.
It could very well be.
Brian (1:44:48)
So in Peace Talks, Harry makes another deal with the Winter Court. God Harry, you gotta stop doing this. But this one seems to go pretty well. He makes a deal with Molly. We don't know exactly what the terms are, but he gets the illusion ring and maybe also the spider silk suit at him. What do you think about this one?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:45:06)
I think that
those two things work exactly as they're supposed to, and maybe that just means that it's a three so far. If the results of this right now, it's still pending. We haven't seen what Molly's favor or her price is. That is to be named. Maybe we'll see that in another book. If it turns out that that's not so bad for Harry, then maybe you upgrade it to a four or a five.
If it turns out to be a problem where she has to kind of force him to do something he doesn't want to do for maybe good reasons, then maybe you keep it down at a three or even lower it to a two.
Brian (1:45:44)
Yeah, I mean it does seem like it's a five, right? I read it as Harry wanted the ring and Molly throws in the suit as sort of ⁓ friendly interpretation of Harry's deal. Like Molly's kind of acting both as the counterparty and as Harry's lawyer in the exchange where she interprets his intent and gets him the most she can for what he's giving up, but the-
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:46:09)
Yeah.
Brian (1:46:11)
The with that is Mab can turn Molly in exactly the opposite direction and force her to use what she has on Harry maximally as well. And I think that means that really for Harry, it is probably gonna end up as a four. He got more than he bargained for.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:46:22)
Yeah, that remains to be seen.
Brian (1:46:33)
but he did that by trusting Molly and not asking for too much, which was smart. In addition to being kind and good and right, it was also smart. And Molly, think, probably, we hope, did it in such a way to not put an awful obligation on her friend, but...
get enough that she's not in trouble and maybe she can ask him to do something that she needs him to do? So probably a three for her but we'll see on that end that could really go up or down.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:47:05)
Yeah, we'll leave that as
a three question mark for both of them and we'll see how that goes. Now, the last one here, Brian, that I don't think qualifies is the whole 12 months thing and you'll marry Lara and bring her into our thing because at that point, it's not a deal anymore. That's an order. Mab can just order Harry to do those things. There's no terms. He just is supposed to be forced to do them. So I don't think that applies to our list here. And I think that brings us to the end, really.
Brian (1:47:32)
Well, there is one deal that you're kind of skipping over, which is Lara's deal with Mab. And that's one where I think, you know, this is where we see the reputation of the Fae. Mab gets a five. She gets the white court. She gets the whole damn thing. I mean, incredible. And Lara?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:47:38)
⁓ right. That's true.
Brian (1:47:54)
I mean, luckily it's Dresden who Mab kind of ⁓ ties her up with, so maybe we can call it a two instead of a one. But man, does Lara learn that there's a league above her.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:48:06)
Yeah, and if, as they sort of agree at the end of 12 months, if they do manage to together get out from under Mab, then we can upgrade this one in the future because it winds up working out for her, where she gets the alliance with Mab that she wanted and she gets the protection for her people and all the other favors that she gets Thomas out of hot water and peace talks, know, so.
she gets that side of the thing and then doesn't wind up being obligated the way that Mab hooked her. But if they don't get out from under it, then I think it has to stay a two, a five, two, think there probably works out okay.
Brian (1:48:43)
So next week, we've got a really interesting question for Bob that I hope will spark a lively discussion. We're going to talk about, on a Patreon episode, the restoration of faith. First real short story in the Dresden universe, in the timeline of the books. And in that book, there is Faith Aster, and Faith Aster will return. But when?
And who is she gonna be in the story?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:49:09)
Yeah, Jim has said that the child, Faith, in that story will rejoin. Now, I think she's about seven or eight, somewhere in that,
Brian (1:49:19)
I mean, either way, Adam, it's been 15 years since. Faith is gonna be an adult, yeah.
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:49:24)
yeah, so she's in her 20s at least. Yeah.
So that's what we're asking. Jim has said she'll come back, but what is she going to be when she comes back? Now some people have pointed out that you have Faith and then you have Hope, Michael's daughter. And then the question is, is there somebody else out there with the name Love and are they going to be wielding the three swords at the end? Possibly.
Brian (1:49:46)
Is this a Charlie's Angels spinoff?
Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:49:51)
Possibly. I mean, that would be a little too perfect and symmetrical for a Jim Butcher book, I think. But that's one of the possibilities out there. Just to spark your imagination. Faith is coming back. What role is it gonna be? And how is she coming back? When is she coming back? Let us know your thoughts, your theories, your favorite speculations. Until then, friends, we are done. It's a long episode. We hope you enjoyed it.