The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

New WOJ Collection of Interviews

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Some of these are redundant, but I've tried to include as many interviews, transcripts, woj's as possible.

Shout out to: https://www.reddit.com/user/TheCuriousFan/

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DragonCon 2023 An Hour with Iim Butcher

What is Mac?

he's a bartender! A fair brewer. I mean, stay tuned... sputtering I'm not just going to answer something like that!!

We know you don't mind killing people, is there anyone you regret letting live?

no because as long as they're alive you can always kill them! That's always an option! And it's not that I like killing ones you love, it's that I enjoy torturing you, and you can't do that physically, so...

Anyone you regret killing off?

I try not to look back, I just step over the bodies. I have a few I regret in CA - I kinda regret killing Cirai but I'd have had to do it worse later if I hadn't.

Friend Jim Butcher Author on LoL if you want to play with him

If Harry had a D&D character post BG, what would he be now?

wizard with 18 Con 16 int, I rolled him when I was making the character. 18 Con made me know he would be beaten up a lot when I saw that. New D&D/Baldurs Gate he has the bar fighting technique

Have Wizards ever controlled a nation?

Lots of Egypt, huge control in Rome (fell largely due to wizard duels), Camelot time they tried and OG Merlin formed White Council to try to pull wizards out of it, with middling success. Now they're more like a corporation, almost wizard black rock

How does Mouse cheat? -Constantly. He's a white chess piece, but he's grown up with a guy who swims in gray so as a result he's not quite as pure as he should be. Monks dealing with him nowadays would be horrified. He's more results driven now, he doesn't mind breaking the rules if it makes Maggie happy

What was Mab like before Mab? -I'm not talking about that. I'll tell you this much - she was angry

Have you work shopped a story in D&D? Specifically Sue?

no but Cinder Spires was Warhammer.

Gming RPGs has made him a better writer, unknown if the reverse is true

Is it possible for a mortal to be cured of nfection like Lea was?

Maybe? I have to think about that one. "(Audience) Butters could do it!" Laughter

Hardest plot decision in DF?

which path to take in Changes. If he went Darkhallow it would have been awesome because a bunch of people would have died and he would have kept them on as revenants. Didn't know what was going to happen until he was in it. Decided on Mab because it tortured Molly the most. When in doubt, rely on your inner sadist. You don't have to be a sadist to be a writer, but it really helps!

Any historical people been part of the senior council secretly?

no, they have to stand apart from the world and guide the white council away from that sort of thing. That said, going back in history there's been a lot of different people thru history that have been involved in things - Washington was the Knight of Hope, that's what got people through Valley Forge. Lots of things like that.

(AI tangent that was interesting but I'm not transcribing it all)

Was having a cat as a second in cinder spires accomplishing what Harry wanted when he said he wanted Mister as his second? -Nope, just trying to make cat people on the Internet happy... Then I got a cat and he's a jerk but I love him.

Did you get emotional/cry writing what you did to us last book?

did I get emotional? evil laugh I mean technically... I could hear the screams of the fans echoing from the future when they read it! But I mean yeah, they're quasi-real to me because I'm so involved with them, so yeah... God, yeah. Thank god I've had some bad things happen to me because otherwise how could I do these things to Harry?

Was it Ace that blew up Murphy's car in White Knight?

Lemme think. It's a detail, I'm trying to remember... Damn, sorry. Problem is every version of the book has about eleven different versions for me. (list of slightly different versions) So the events are kinda this cloud of parallel reality and it's hard to keep track. I'm sure I'll get caught up when Harry breaks the laws of traveling time. I really just planned the time travel book so I could fix things I assumed I would mess up. (something about Mirror Mirror I didn't catch)

What topics do Uriel and Odin discuss in their yearly lunch?

Uriel exists across the entire spectrum of possibility in the multiverse. They're all the same everywhere, he's just as exasperated in all of them. Vadderung is also across a large spectrum, but he's a different individual in each. Uriel finds the consistency comforting. Vadderung is one of few beings with the right perspective. Also, they talk about the eternal light/dark war.

Examples of Uriel/Ferrovax exerting their whole power?

Well, last book for a dragon. We're definitely doing a dragon vs wizard fight (cheers) you're not getting out of a fantasy series there. Dragons are on the same scale as titans. If titans were the construction crew, dragons were their bulldozers. If a dragon got really upset, he could tear about the universe he existed in which would admittedly be counter intuitive unless he's really nihilistic. Uriel is constrained by the above, dragons are constrained because they need somewhere to stand.

Valkyrie code name was foreshadowing in BG, is Booster Gold also doing the same for Dresden swimming against time?

Wow, first off props for recognizing Booster Gold. What I can/will say is Murphy's story isn't over. It is and it isn't. Yeah, she'd be a really cute Valkyrie

Has king Arthur made an unannounced appearance in Dresden?

Yes. Dun -dun-dun-duh. In Dresden Files, Arthur will return to Britain in its darkest hour. (Gasps) RIGHT?!?

Have you considered writing/releasing the other versions of Changes?

Maybe, but that sounds great for fan fiction. Not that I know anything about fan fiction existing, so I don't have to defend my copyright.

Have you considered Alternate Universe theory for Dresden?

There's going to be. In mirror mirror. One choice different. evil giggles it's awful. Sorta inspired by next to last episode of Stargate Season 1 if anyone's seen it.

Did the White Council have anything to do with the missing legion in Codex Alera?

Oh! WELL THEY DO NOW!!

Has there been a book/show that's canon to Dresden Files?

Not directly. Supernatural could be kinda sideways on it, through season 5. supernatural tangent on later seasons Dresden and Dean would get along great. Sam would be bitter about being in the back seat. Buffy could be Dresden adjacent. Scooby Doo, easily. Some harried warden in the background figuring out how to get the kids out of trouble. Monster Hunter universe from Correa.

Was it a choice to use a different reader for Ghost Story or was Marsters not available? -Availability, tight deadlines, etc.

Have you ever looked into Dresden fan fiction and if so what is your favorite?

Fan fiction? What's that? My niece did make me water MLP to understand the crossover though.

Is The White God the literal creator of the universe?

Yep. That being isn't super involved because free will is important, but occasionally he finds someone to work through and then they get a cool sword.

What's been the death with the biggest reader outrage?

sarcastic Let me think... Oh my god, some of the looks I got, especially from my blonde readers!

Will we ever learn more about Jade Court?

uhh... Yes and no. They pretty much stick to and run things in the Yangtze River Valley. They occasionally send out agents, there are some in the story, I'm not gonna tell you who... I better look for who they are. Have I mentioned I'm an unreliable narrator? Grain of salt, people.

Are there any plans to introduce more diversity? LGBTQ characters

Several are in there already, but their romantic life is irrelevant to the story. But we'll get into that a little more in the next 2-3 books

Will there be a council for time travelers like time lords?

evil chuckle there's an anti-time travel council! Like any time he goes in to with a white council! I don't want to say time travel is wibbly wobbly but it's more about choices than minutes passed. We'll explain more when we get there.

What happened to Mister? -He's fine. Hanging out in the castle. Murphy took him when Harry was 'gone' and Harry collected him back

Is there a link between Murphy and Persephone? -No

Would you write a Scooby Doo side story with a warden?

oh man... I like to write for money. I might at some point, but yeah I have a house to pay off.

How bad is the Blackstaff for the user? -Ummm... You know... Not much worse than an active radiation core would be. Expose yourself quickly enough at sufficiently spaced intervals of time and it merely makes you miserable. But it's directly connected to void and the end of all things so you know not great for you, but we'll see more of that later.

Are you playing Fuck Marry Kill with the vampire courts?

The evidence speaks for itself.

Can a vampire become a knight of a holy sword? -which court? (White) wow that would be thorny. A narrow path to walk. Probably not Amorrachius but maybe Esperrachius.

Any plans to kill off in Twelve Months? -I'm gonna un-kill someone (gasps) not who you think.

raidem:
Same interview as above but from another transcriber...
DragonCon 2023 An Hour with Iim Butcher
Ok, we are loaded. What we saw worked the best the last few years was to edit the original post as he talks. Starts in 10 minutes. And I’ll pass around what he says.

I know Priscilla is no longer working with him. Building on Fire said they would not be here. JJ is at the Con, but he is mostly on different panels.

Let’s see:

And I spelled his name wrong, awesome

SAG Strike questions:

What style of music would your life be? Thrash metal.

What mundane task would you use magic for for the rest of your life? Taking the trash out. Detritus Expeditus. (Colorado has beats)

No, I’m not kidding.

What is Max? A bartender. Stay tuned. I can’t answer that. “I’m not gonna tell you”

Tips on how to create great secondary characters? Especially for first time writers, exaggerate them. Plan out their entrances as that will be their introduction.

Is there anyone you regret letting live? No, I can always kill them.

Anyone you regret liking off? I try not to lol back, just step over the bodies and keep going. Sirai in the Code , though it would have been worse later.

What question do you wish people would ask? “Will you play League of Legends with me?”

Something about Harry’s character in Battleground? Mentioned his D&D character sheet, 18 Con, 16 Int, the Bar Fighting feat?

Did wizard ever run a country. Egypt. Lots of influence on Rome, which fell due to duels. Tried again at the time of Camelot, which went badly. And the original Merlin made the White Council to get Wizards out of politics. The White Council is basically a corporation now.

How does Mouse cheat? He’s a “white chess piece” cosmically, but he grew up with a grey wizard, so he’s maybe not as pure as I’d raised by monks. He’s more results driven.

What was Mab like before she was Mab? Angry, and otherwise I’m Not Gonna Tell You.

Have you ever workshopped a game in a D&D campaign? Cinder Spires started as Warhammer Roleplaying game. Green men will show up later, inspired by JJ’s halfling. He generally runs a campaign before starting a new series.

Gloria the beta reader is here.

Can a mortal be cured of Nfection? Maybe, he’ll have to think about it.

What’s the hardest plot decision you’ve made in DF. Mentions the normal three paths choice in Changes. He didn’t decide until Changes, and he made that decision to torture Molly the most.

At least one person is taping, so who knows if they’ll post it.

What does he order at BK? 4 burgers, large fries and a coke?

Any historical people been Senior Council? No. Their job is to keep the Wizards from people.

Washington was The Knight of Hope at Valley Forge, other historical people were also supes.

Question about AI. He says he’s like to use it for continuity tracking. Says eventually there will be a mixed “cyborg” writing system, but AIs won’t be able to write the whole story. Thinks they can be useful for research and otherwise as a tool. Also making potential outlines, but the author will have to make it work. Word Processors and typewriters also changes things, it’ll be a tool in his opinion.

If you could change AI, what would you do? Change it to “Free Guy” so it’s better than humans rather than being a predictable creator. Wants it to be good hearted like your dog.

Was Rowl a second in CS because Harry wished he could make Mister his second? No, he saw how many people were cat people, and he wanted to tap into that power. He likes Fenris and how he makes him feel better, even though cats are little jerks. Fenris will be in the next book and won’t get along with Rowl.

Did you get emotional in writing the last book? Is cackling with glee an emotion? Yes, these characters are all quasi-real to him, he can see them and feel what Harry does. Says the bad things in his life helped prepare him?

Did Ace blow up Murphy’s cat in White Knight? He says he has to think about it. Mentions the whole issue with remembering the differences in the various drafts he knows of each book, so the events are sometimes hard to tell. The Time Travel book will get to it if there are dropped threads, as that was the point of the time travel book.

How many of your readers are men vs women? No idea, about 50/50 here, but more vocal women online.

What do Odin and Uriel chat about at their yearly lunch? Uriel is singular across everywhere, he is the only one. Odin is one per universe, but he’s consistent across universes. They talk about the “Great War” between light and darkness, life and the void. And Odin is one of the few who almost gets Uriel’s pov.

Uriel and Ferrovax were limited in what they can do, are there conditions where they can use their full strength? If Titans were construction crews on the universe. Dragons were their bulldozers. A dragon could tear apart their universe. The Dragon can’t use his full power because he’s lose him home. Uriel can’t because he was told not to.

Complex question. Jim gets flabbergasted at a question about Booster Gold, Valkyrie and foreshadowing. Murphy’s story is not quite over, also it is and it isn’t.

Has King Arthur made an unannounced appearance already. Yes. Dunn Dunn Dunn. What I will say is: He will return to Britain at its darkest hour. (Possibly freer here because of the earlier question this week about the scabbard?)

How to get started with larping. Depends on where you are. Look for local, crappy websites. He’s energetic and excited about it. He suggests to volunteer to NPC at first. One game the plot went badly, so the LARP runner told JJ to play his own character but evil and kill everyone as cleverly as he could, and the only survivor was a guy who dug a hole and hid in it for days. He’s so proud.

Any chance of releasing the noncanon versions of Changes? He certainly won’t let fanfic do it, because he has to defend his trademark.

AU theories for Dresden? Question was confused, but he mentioned Mirror Mirror. Like I’m penultimate episode of SG-1 season 1.

Question about the Codex and Dresden, I missed it, but he was thrilled and encouraged. He likes the idea of all his series being linked, something about the missing legion. If someone else was there, please clarify.

Any other book/show which could be canon to Dresden? Early Supernatural (first 5) could be adjacent, the rest was great but wouldn’t mesh. Buffy would be good adjacent. Scooby Doo.

Are there different types of warrior born across spires? The warrior born are suspiciously similar. The spires have very different customs, even between habbles in a spire. Because there’s so little travel. All the ones we’ve seen so far are similar like time period Europe. We’ll see the next spire if much more “yankee trader” and he’ll move further and further out as books continue.

Edit: there’s a follow up quote below with more, and another Redditor did a great job transcribjng too. I couldn’t update this again with as much as I tried, I assume there’s a size limit. So see below.

raidem:
Butcher at DragonCon 2021
Spoilers Allspoiler
He’s here, and his hair ain’t blue no more. More to come, his solo panel is starting shortly.

Edit: Monster LLC follow up series reference.

Cinder Spires next book is 40% done. Should be done by his birthday. Dresden is next and should be done by January.

Maggie’s story is growing and not planned out, so we’ll see.

Lloyd Slate’s fate was partly a warning to Harry.

Based on someone’s question, Harry could make a shade of himself, which could be interesting (Jim seems interested).

What happened to Chandler? You won’t know until Mirror Mirror. Hint hint

Starborn is the endgame of the series.

He hasn’t indicated where the White Court came from, but Harry might find out over the dates.

We will find out who told Harry to Piss Off on Demonreach.

He’s writing an independent novella called “The Law” about Harry doing totally mundane PI work until the other side, the mob, breaks the “no powers” rule. He really likes the thug bad guy in it. Bob will be back In The saddle in the office for it.

More edits:

As someone said below, he was asked about Nephilim i.e. the children of angels. They do exist. We will see them. We have met at least one.

His son James Butcher (named for his dad) has his first book contract. It will be called “Dead Man’s Hand” I think. He was sitting two seats to my left.

There was a cosplay shout out. Special props to the Murphy with a costumed dog with fairie wings and a bottle cap helmet which Butcher called Cute Cute. The two Butchers took photos with them when done.

Ummmmm

He misses Harry being as lippy as he used to be. Part of the reason he isn’t as much is because he’s learned there’s such biggest monsters and he needs to show some respect to them. However, Jim wants him to be lippier again and needs to work on it.

Good question about the Merlin. “What was the Merlin’s plan to get rid of the Red Court Root and Branch.” Answer: he let Dresden loose on them. What the Merlin says and what he does are two different things. Harry doesn’t have a good grasp on what the Council actually does due to his biased POV. The Merlin is much more subtle than we’ve realized.

Not much in the repeats for then normal stories. He did reiterate the return to Alera via the next Cursor class. Either that or when the “Protoss” show up. Also Cane, especially warrior caste Cane, will be insanely deadly. And the Marat will be very irresponsible with their Furies. The Romans will get along fine as long as they don’t get genocidal.

Also, he’s sometimes amazed we like Harry so much since he’s actually committed genocide.

Thomas’s actions in Peace Talks were forced by Justine, and we should see some of that in the next book, as he can’t leave him down in Demonreach forever.

Souls grow and change slowly over time like a tree. You never know exactly what they’ll become, but if you knew them young you’ll still recognize them when they’re older.

If Harry survives the series, he’ll likely be frenemies with Goodman in the Monsters LLC series.

Currently he’s thinking the series will be 22+3.

People have circumvented the globe in Cinder Spires, but it’s been a long time and it’s mostly in legends. People generally don’t sail, if only for logistical reasons, where the etheric currents don’t go.

raidem:
Dispatch from DragonCon [2022]
Spoilers All
I'm just going to throw out my recollection of all the Butcher quotes from panels and questioning.

This is by no means a complete account, but instead what I remember and mostly paraphrased. I welcome others to add their bits or make their own posts. I'd love to have videos to pass around to friends as well, if anyone has any.

Cinder Spires is on pause as Jim misses his cats from the divorce and trying to write the talking cats tears him up emotionally,

He's broken ground on the next Dresden book, Twelve Months or Twelve Dates (I'm not sure how the latter fits the naming convention) and has written the first draft of the first chapter or 2.

In response to a question on 'what is the worst decision(mistake?) has your main character made?' Jim said 'we haven't seen the extended consequences play out quite yet, but' "rescuing a little girl".... I assume the vagueness is on purpose as it could mean Astor/Kumori, Maggie and that mess, or maybe saving Bradley's daughter leaving Harry alone with Murphy and Rudolf....

"When did Marcone take up the coin?" "I'm pretty sure Ride of the Valkyries was still playing..." 'I mean come on. I'm not saying Marcone is an opportunist exactly, but he takes advantage of giant opportunities thrown in his face.'

Lara told Shagnasty that she'd kill it, so will that be a date night? 'Oh god, that would be so sanity rending, just completely tearing all sanity to pieces.' (He didn't say no, but his tone very much was a no, lol.)

To a question about objects or ways to sidestep or break rules with the Blackstaff as an example. Jim made a distinction between the Laws of Magic of the White Council - which they'll break at the drop of a hat when convenient - and the laws of physics like rules of magic which are pretty much set in stone with maybe some minor wiggle room at the edges. And what The Blackstaff does for Ebenezer is that it lets him do black magic without corrupting him and twisting his brain into a complete lunatic "*for a time*". (Yeah, he just dropped an ominous time limit to the usefulness of The Blackstaff.)

Lots and lots of general talk about how the purpose of organizations are not their ostensible purposes, but instead the maintenance and collection of power. Rules are more like guidelines and only matter if you're caught.

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