Dresden Files Podcast is currently live streaming with The Man Himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gmu76ritoQ

 

I came in about ten or fifteen minutes in, so probably a bit of stuff prior to this.

Rudolf is just a scared dummy, not being manipulated by any sort of outside force, mundane or mystical.

Chandler (IIRC the guy with the bowler hat in Turn Coat?) works more on Divination and time-related magic than anything else. He's always close to HQ because they're keeping an eye on him, because he's always skirting the edges of the Laws (I think kinda with permission, but still). The cane is his focus.

He wouldn't confirm whether Cinder Spires takes place on an alternate version of Earth or a different planet entirely (which kinda makes me assume that that's going to be an important plot point at some point).

Someone asked when we'd find out what Margaret Dresden paid Lea for all her help, and he said that it would be whenever he wanted Harry and Lea to beat each other up, maybe in the Apocalyptic Trilogy. So presumably it's bad.

Could Bonnie have tracked the Shroud, given her parentage? Maybe, but she's still too young and lacking in focus to do something like that.

Wouldn't say how Lord Raith got his connection to the Outsiders, but claimed this was more because it's the sort of detail that ought to be revealed in the books rather than because there's any special significance to it. He did say that Thomas and Lara don't know their fathers first name, that he's a couple of thousand years old and has a similar weight of paranoia, and that he's slowly losing his use as a figurehead. Someone asked him about the importance of Lord Raith's library (apparently Margaret was trying to get into it?) but he didn't even remember mentioning it at first, and once reminded said that we'd find out, but it wasn't anything special.

He wouldn't really be drawn on fan theories - saying he doesn't really listen to them if he can help it - but did say that the idea that Harry is Merlin is laughably wrong.

He couldn't remember what McCoy did in Madrid, but something connected to the Spanish Civil War, or a bombing. Confirmed that he took up the Blackstaff in the 1880's.

Least favourite book is whichever he's currently writing. Favourites are Dead Beat, because he felt it represented a big shift in quality and success, Changes because it had a lot of stuff he'd been looking forward to writing, and Cold Days for essentially the same reasons. Favourite characters tend to be the little ones on the side, but he really enjoys writing Mab. He also liked writing Hades.Denarians are a fun way of exorcising all the bad things he's got in his head. Likes writing Nicodemus, and cited the stuff with Deirdre in Skin Game as being particularly interesting to write. If he ever wrote a Dresden spin-off, Goodman Grey would totally appear. He'd like Binder to appear again, and said that he sees Mark Sheppard playing him.

Clarified the position of the Hunger in Thomas and Justine's baby, as apparently it's feeding off Justine despite it previously being shown that the Hunger is dormant until the right circumstances have been met (Inari, in Blood Rites, and I've not read the Peace Talks chapter that's been released), but essentially the Hunger feeds while in the womb in the same way the baby does, to get strong enough to support itself while dormant until the host succumbs to it.

 

I managed to Tune in exactly as they were ending. Still though, I just want to know when book 16 is coming.

 

Shinysavage good transcription. We'll have to get this all added to the WoJ thread at some point, I guess.

I've been listening to these guys for a little while now, they've got about two dozen episodes. Cool bunch, and they'll let just about anyone on as a guest. In fact, I was the guest in ep 24. If anybody else is interested in a good discussion about the books, characters, theories, etc, they're a good bunch. Just shoot'em an email.

 

What kind of magic does Chandler specialize in?
Chandler does a lot of divination and a lot of stuff that is involved with time, which puts him in a very thin spot, a very high profile spot on the Council. One reason why he’s a warden is so they can keep an eye on him, because that’s where his specialty is. He can actually do things to screw with the flow of time to look back in time to find things out. And occasionally to look forward in time and see things, but that’s very unreliable because of the whole free will nonsense. He’s an information gatherer for the most part. He can accomplish a lot of things that a lot of other wizards can’t. He’s not as much of a punch you in the face wizard as a lot of wardens are, but he’s a really useful one. It’s why he’s got a lot of status among the young wardens. He’s got access to what the old wizards really think is powerful which is information.
He’s like a warden spook?
He’s more of a detective, more of a fact-finder. When they want to know where to apply the muscle, he’s the go-to guy among the young crowd. When we need to know more about the situation, how do we punch this guy in the nose the best, he will be “Let me see what I can find out about it.”
So it makes sense why they’ve got him on watch. It’s a combination of his specialty but also keeping him close so they can keep an eye on him.
Exactly. That’s why he’s at headquarters. He’s always close to breaking one of the Laws whenever he starts messing with time. If he does start trying to build himself a Tardis, they’re going to have someone there to take him down.
It must really suck to be like Chandler like Molly, being born with an inclination towards a certain aspect of magic that has been forbidden by the White Council.
It’s true. Yeah it’s awful for those people. Just awful. *evil smirk*
It seems like Chandler is always walking around with his cane. Is that his focus like how everyone else uses a staff, does he just use his cane or does he have something else?
He likes the cane plus he watched a lot of Avengers. It’s not his fault, he’s got the bowler; he’s got the cane. Off he goes. (Note: British Avengers, not Marvel Avengers)

I think 16 is Peace Talks. Seventeen is Mirror Mirror.
Oh 16 is Peace Talks, 17 is Mirror Mirror, and 18 is …
No I don’t have a title for it yet. I’m still working on that one. Eighteen is going to be the professional wrestling episode.

What did Ferrovax receive at Bianca’s party and will we ever find out what Ferrovax received at Bianca’s party?
He got gold and gems. Not like a ton of gold and gems; it was several million dollars worth.
Was it infected?
Well I’m not gonna tell you that.


When are we going to see Mavra again?
…19? Oh no, we will definitely see her in Mirror Mirror. She’s a fast ally of Dresden’s in Mirror Mirror.
She’s a Black Court vampire; time does not really factor to them. We’re seeing years have gone by because we’re just humans. To her, it’s like it’s been an afternoon. Maybe she should go mess with Dresden again, maybe she shouldn’t.


Will we see Tera West again?
Yes, but probably not until the big trilogy at the end though.

Will we see Chauncy again?
I don’t know; I haven’t thought about him in a good long time. He’s actually working in Hell. Yeah I don’t see how we can avoid seeing him in the second book of the big trilogy at the end. That’s the one that’s entitled Hell’s Bells.

When will we ever find the details of the deal that Margaret made with Lea? What did she pay Lea for all that Lea has done?
Let me think about it. Oh right, eventually maybe… whenever I want to have Harry and Lea slug it out oh my gosh. That would be awful.
And which book would that be?
That’s a big one. That will have to be late in the series. It’ll have to probably be in the trilogy.
Empty Night?
I’m not sure exactly where I’d put it in the trilogy. I haven’t gotten all the events for each book laid out in the order that they will go. I’ve kinda got a big batch of things I know are going to happen, but I don’t know exactly which part of the story they’re going to happen in yet.
I thought maybe the title might have been a hint.
No that’s more of a reflection that there’s a reason that they’re swear words. That all these things that they’ve been using in the entire series are curse words. Stars and Stones, Hell’s Bells, and Empty Night; there’s a reason that those are what they are.


We know that there are two shrouds, the one from book 5 and the “real” Shroud from Skin Game. How much magic can faith create in an object? Like just because people believe in it, how much power can be invested in it?
Enormous amounts of power can be invested in objects just from people believing in it, as long as the belief is sincere belief. For example, at the end of this series I’m going to have to give Dresden a hat before it’s all said and done. I hear that they’ve got this fedora in the Smithsonian. That will have significant power in the Dresden Files universe. It’s Indiana Jones’s fedora, come on. You are a daring hero for wearing that thing.

How old is Papa/Lord Raith?
He’s a couple of thousand. He’s got two thousand years worth of paranoia built up. Plus he’s absolutely bonkers the past thirty years or so. He’s hardly functional as a vampire. He’s getting to where he’s no longer even functional as a figurehead, so that’s going to be a problem for Lara to deal with. We’ll get to that in the future as well.
When will we find out what he has in his personal library?
**skip 42:34-43:14 reminding Jim of context of Raith’s library**
There’s a long game going on in the Dresden Files. Papa Raith has been involved in it in the last couple of cycles it’s gone on. He meant to be a player in it this time around, but he got involved with Maggie Dresden the elder, and it screwed him over. You’ll get to find out about it. It’s not all that dramatic as it applies to Raith himself, but it’s a bedrock story for the end part of the series that will come out at that time. Basically Lara has his library now. She knows everything he knows which explains a lot of her actions. What she’s learned there explains why she’s doing what she’s been doing which is expanding her power base enormously.


Is the Blackstaff an office appointed by the Senior Council or does the Blackstaff get to choose his successor?
The Blackstaff chooses his successor.

Can you tell us who your favorite characters are?
It’s usually like the little characters on the sides, characters that don’t necessarily have a huge role. I love writing Dresden and Murphy and all the core characters, but of the big characters probably Mab is the one I enjoy the most. She has such an alien mindset, and I love writing in it. She usually means two or three things in every line of dialogue except when she gets exasperated by Dresden, then she means one thing. Otherwise she couches her words in ways they can be taken with multiple meanings. So that’s fun.
I like writing Hades. That was a fun character to write. I can kinda write this guy who is basically the reasonable guy in an insane family. If he had his own sitcom, he’d be the star. The normal guy just trying to get through life with all this madness around him happening constantly, and not really wanting to be involved in their drama. But okay she was “kidnapped”.
Like Arrested Development Greek gods version?
Yeah exactly. The one normal guy just struggling to live a normal happy life. Be responsible, do his job, take care of the things that need to be taken care of, but his family keeps screwing everything up because they’re all neurotic weirdos.
I can see Hades looking down at the brown paper bag saying “I don’t know what I expected.”
Oh, that’s how Dresden is going to get involved. Hades is gonna be like, “Why don’t you get him? He seems like a reasonable guy.” “Well you know if Hades thinks so, yeah okay.”
You never want to get involved in a dispute between the Greek gods. It never winds up well for the mortal, and generally horrible things follow.


In the spoiler chapter for Peace Talks, there’s talk about how the baby is draining life from Justine and that’s why a lot of White Court mothers don’t survive.
Technically the baby isn’t, it’s the Hunger that’s attaching itself to the baby, but go ahead.
How I understood it before with Thomas’s little sister is that the Hunger is in there, but it’s completely dormant until the teen years when it begins to feed and wake up. How is it feeding as a baby?
It’s doing the same thing the baby is. It’s draining the resources of the mother in order to create enough essence to sustain itself on its own until later. It’s not doing much until the teenage years.

What was the inspiration for the White Court?
They were more the Anne Rice touchy-feely vampires. The ones that were the tragic lonely vampires. There are three types of vampires in folklore: the horrible corpse, the sexy seducer, and the bloodsucking fiend. Vampires fall into one of those categories. There’s one other one which is kind of where the Jade Court came from, but I’ll let you research on your own which type of vampire that is. Then you’ll know more about the Jade Court and what they feed on.


Source

 

Taking bets on the name of book 18. Probably going to be something like 'Fixed Match.'

 

Clearly Book 18 is going to be called JOHN CENA.

 

Well, we wouldn't see that coming.

 

The piece about his sister and he writing a YA story featuring Maggie and Mouse came entirely out of left field for me. Had anyone heard anything about that before? Was I just missing that one somehow or were others surprised as well? He could be a busy writer for years to come with trying to balance all this and his new series as well.

 

As far as the Jade court goes the Indonesians have something called a "Jenglot" which are tiny doll like child vampires. Suitably creepy.

More likely though is some sort of spirit inhabitation a corpse. From Western India to Eastern China there are myths about these spirits who take over a recently deceased corpse and use it to run around draining the life force of others.

I think something along those lines is probably a solid bet.

 

Damn it all, ya beat me to it! Some really sweet stuff revealed. Blackstaff!Dresden. Make it so!

 

Well, the common theory is that the Dresden Files themselves are Harry's Blackstaff journals.

 

The only problem I have is that for Dresden to become Blackstaff, it pretty much guarentees McCoy's death. And I like Blackstaff McCoy.

 

Well, the death of the master is a traditional part of the hero's journey, and Jim has incorporated elements of that into the series.

 

I really Enjoyed that Podcast. It was nice to hear Jim talk about the next few books coming up, giving us a few words about each of them. Peace talks - everything will be fine! Mirror Mirror - Mavra finally shows herself again (which is funny, because vamps and mirrors don't mix). If that isn't mind blowing enough in the next book we get to see the gods throw down in a wrestling match.

This place is really cool. You all really help Dresden obsessed individuals like myself feel at home.