Dragaera

Concerning Great Weapons & Vlad

David Silberstein davids at kithrup.com
Sat Mar 8 17:35:02 PST 2003

[Huge Issola spoilers, minor Dragon spoilers]

On Sat, 8 Mar 2003 Gaertk at aol.com wrote:

>Teddywolf <foodgod at pobox.com> writes:
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>> David Silberstein wrote:
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>>>> Spoiler Warning: these questions assume fairly complete 
>>>> knowlege of most of the Vlad books.
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>>> >Keep going,
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>>
>[Vlad]
>

>> Verra seemed to have an idea about Spellbreaker's true 
>> nature only when it coiled itself up in Issola, and at no 
>> time prior to that did she know
>
>Which is odd, since she watched it wave around and heal 
>Vlad's hand in _Phoenix_.

I have a notion, based on stuff I noticed while re-reading
DRAGON, and then ISSOLA:

In _Dragon_, the Serioli hints that Godslayer will return sometime
after Pathfinder is found again, and that there is some sort of
connection between these two weapons. 

In _Issola_, Spellbreaker acts more aggressive towards Verra - but
note that this is after Vald used Spellbreaker to link to Blackwand
(in order to find Morrolan & Aliera).  Could Spellbreaker have
absorbed some of Blackwand's nature?  Then note that Verra tells Vlad
to link Spellbreaker to Pathfinder - and it is only after this linkage
that Spellbreaker becomes Godslayer (and could it be said that Vlad
set out to "find" Teldra's soul?  Hmm.)

Now, this is very much guesswork and shaky logic, but the Serioli's
statements, combined with the linkages that occured, hint that those
linkages were what changed Spellbreaker, in effect "reminding" that
chain how to be a Great Weapon (again) (or, as the Serioli might put
it, allowing Spellbreaker to find the path to being a Great Weapon).

Of course, at this point in time, nobody seems to have a clue that
that was what happened, except maybe the Serioli.

Now, assuming the above is even vaguely correct, why did Verra suggest
that Vlad link to Pathfinder (rather than to Blackwand again) if
linking to Pathfinder would lead to Godslayer coming into existence
again?  The most likely possibility is that she just doesn't know how
Great Weapons work, and Pathfinder was more familiar to her since her
daughter bears it.  But perhaps she was *did* know, and just decided
to move things along since, after all, Godslayer, while being able to
kill *her*, could also kill a Jenoine at the height of its power.

Just some speculation...