And real spoilers for ISSOLA. On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 04:11:33PM -0400, Alexx S Kay wrote: > Spoiler space, so I can stop talking around possible future spoiles. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Morrolan has a big Morganti weapon he refers to as his "black wand" > (note the lack of capitalization), and which none of the better-informed > people in his retinue have yet referred to as a Great Weapon. > > Remember, in _Issola_, how a powerful Morganti blade only became a GW > when combined with a human soul? I believe that we'll be seeing a > similar scene at some point in _Sethra Lavode_. If I'm reading Alexx correctly, he's saying that the 'black wand' will become a Great Weapon and will bond with Morrolan only when consuming a human soul, possibly combined with some other qualifying event. If so, I must disagree. In ISSOLA we saw an apparently disassebled GW re-assembled. A part of that re-assembly required the use of a human (Dragaeran) soul. I say 'apparently' because some on this list have argued that Godslayer had not existed as a Great Weapon prior to this, but whether it is assembly or re-assembly is not relevant to my point. As a part of that process, a soul was consumed by the Morganti weapon which shortly after became Godslayer. That process also seemed to result in the bonding of Godslayer to Vlad. However, we have seen another case where a GW meets a bonded owner without a soul being sacrificed. When Aliera obtains Pathfinder, no such sacrifice, assembly, or reassembly occurs. Aliera picks up Pathfinder and the bonding seems to be there immediately. To me, this argues both that the capture of a soul is *not* part of the bonding process, but *may* be part of the assembly or re-assembly process. While mulling this over, I did wonder if a GW always moves to the same soul, ie, that one of Alieras earlier incarnations assembled or reassembled Pathfinder. I don't think this is the case, because the person who was holding onto the disguised Pathfinder (there, is that sufficiently obscure so as not to be a spoiler? :-)) was clearly attempting to get his hands on a GW. If the bonding is to the same soul over repeated incarnations, this would have been noticed over time. Thus the seeker would have known from the start that the attempt would have been futile. Steve the Other -- "I don't like being quoted." -- anonymous