>More generally, M apparently has some fate - he's not in fact easily >replaceable. I don't see how Sethra or Verra can allow him to go around >just putting his body wherever it seemed like a good idea. V at least >should be a jealous god in this respect. Considering that Verra is also Barlan's lover and has been Adron's as well, I'd say she probably has fairly loose standards regarding fidelity, especially as concerns mortals. *heh* If Morollan has a destiny of some sort (I'd be interested where this idea came from) then you're presented with the time travel paradox - Is acting on that foreknowledge going to insure that he fulfills his destiny or will it instead interfere with his destiny? Without knowing exactly what his destiny might be or how he gets there, preventing him from doing anything, no matter how foolhardy, may in fact be the exact wrong thing to do. In any case, owners of Great Weapons have a tendency to get into situations that would defeat any normal person and come out of them victorious. That's one of the marks of a Great Weapon, and one of the things that made Morollan and Aliera suspicious that Barritt had been the owner of one. Even if Morollan does have some sort of destiny to fulfill, I'd imagine that Sethra would throw her hands up in the end and just hope that Blackwand could pull him through. The Great Weapons are a piece of heavy artillery on the greater divine battlefield, but they are capricious in that they're wielded by individuals with their own agendas. The loyalty of the Great Weapons is to their owners. Blackwand could give a hang about protecting the world from the Jenoine. The only reason it does so is because Morollan occasionally becomes involved in anti-Jenoine activity. As for Morollan, Blackwand is his Significant Other - his familiar, his sword, his mystically bonded soul-mate. He doesn't spend all of his time thinking "I need to protect this sword so that the world is defended against invasion." Blackwand is not a "resource in the divine battle". The sword is a part of himself and therefore an extension of himself. He bothers about Jenoine only as often as Sethra or Verra make him aware of a need. If he was a bit more selfish or a bit more ill-informed about the nature of the world, he wouldn't be helping to protect the world at all. In other words, the Great Weapons are only as good a tool as the person who wields them. Verra's true talent is not in locating the Great Weapons but in shaping mortals into acceptable tools capable of bearing them in her honor. The weapons themselves would actually be of secondary consequence to that.