I hope Forrest doesn't try to become any sort of lawyer- he has trouble gauging probative value, and he apparently jumps to conclusions without facts in evidence to support them (observation based on this issue). Because of this, I believe a grievous error has been made in Myth III, GURPS, and the third-party story at large.
Background: I deny every supposed "fact" from every non-Bungie source (including such things Eidos Interactive's pre-release TFL pages and Zartman's confused reckoning of who even Balor was), leaving only Myth TFL, Myth II and the Myth Comic Book. (Making me a fundamentalist- just because something is published and profited from doesn't make it gospel. Derived works, such as GURPS and Myth III, may very well be fundamentally flawed because their creators did not correctly ascertain the full scope of the actual gospel stories.)
That being said, I deny the assertion that Bahl'al's true identity is that of The Watcher.
First point:
The flawed Myth III nonwithstanding, the very premise of the argument that The Watcher is Bahl'al is based only on a European port pre-release website and the slightest inference within flavor texts concerning battles waged at a town. This point concerns that battle:
"...Bahl'al spurred his army onward with a blistering wind. Three full days before his army arrived... the citizens of Tyr knew their doom lumbered nearer with each passing hour..."
-Thrall Flavor Text, Myth II
"...The Watcher had been the second or third most powerful sorcerer in living memory... these two had it out after the battle for Tyr... The Watcher barely survived."
-Deceiver Flavor Text, Myth II
Two mentions of a battle at a single city do not a correlation make; there are two mentions of a battle at Tyr- that's all, and that doesn't make them the same events. The fact is that Bahl'al's action may have taken place in a previous era, from any time after he first raised the Thrall.
Furthermore, because Mazzarin was killed by Thrall and the Watcher, it is necessary that Bahl'al's seeking of the dream of unlife come far before Mazzarin's death. Because this event occurred before even Connacht was born (some time in the Wind Age), there is no way Balor could have ordered Bahl'al to seek the Dream of Unlife, a prerequisite for the implementation of Thrall. This makes it possible and probable that the fall of Tyr (due to Bahl'al) occurred in some other era entirely, not in the sword age, as is listed in the Encyclopedia. Reasonable doubt is plentiful here.
Second point:
Nowhere else do the games refer to the other evil characters in such a duplicitous manner as the supposed Watcher/Bahl'al, that is, the game never refers to Soulblighter as Damas in the contemporary era, nor does it call the Deciever Myrdred or Shiver Ravanna; only the characters in game speech refer to one another in that manner, and only the alternate unit descriptions use them, and then only rarely. To reiterate: while Damas and Connacht are named multiple times in flavor texts, they are spoken only as heroes, before they turned. Bahl'al was doing evil things (raising the dead) from the very start, and thus had nothing to be turned from (ie- no reason to become The Watcher).
What is most likely is that The Watcher is not Bahl'al, but that the Watcher and Bahl'al are separate, secondary-importance characters, much like The Summoner, who also has no name. The only difference among them is that Bahl'al, according to this hypothesis, has never been seen before.
Furthermore, nowhere is it said that Avon's Grove is where Thrall were created; the game states only that it was there Phelot selected the living people who would become Thrall, and the people who would become ghôl fodder.
Third point:
The fact is that the conjecture that Bahl'al is the Watcher came from one source alone, that being the old Eidos TFL European pre-release webpage describing the Six Evils, three of which were ancient.
First, the page in question was not first-party information (as an intermediary between the consumers and Bungie, they are considered second-party) and is therefore irrelevant.
Second, this 'fact' is on the same level as the Zartman blunder (naming Balor as Bahl'al)- unoffical, hearsay, and in all likelihood, given under considerable mental and temporal stress (the website must go up, after all).
Let's have a look at 6 bits of Fallen Lord info for a second (this was from the Eidos pre-release site):
• Soulblighter
• The Voiceless One
• Bahl'al
• The Deceiver
• Bonesplitter
• The Faceless Man
The idea is that the first three were 'Ancient Evils' and the second three were 'the turned ones.'
Lets break this down:
1. firstly, half of the names on the list are never even used in the *Betas* of the game, let alone the game themselves (voiceless one, bonesplitter, faceless man).
2. Soulblighter is a faceless man; I've seen nothing to indicate that anyone else would fit that description. Perhaps SB was supposed to be someone else, and Damas was to be The Faceless Man, but that was an awful idea for the name of a secondary villain.
3. The Deceiver is FAR more likely to be instigating the turning than being turned himself.
4. Soulblighter (Damas) was alive and a hero right beside Connacht himself- he could hardly be called 'ancient' by the standards of this game; ancient is like the Leveler or the Trow race, not the latest johnny-come-lately leveler lieutenant.
5. The Deceiver is older than Damas simply by virtue that he had it out with the Watcher in the Wind Age, after a battle for Tyr, which was not necessarily the one where Bahl'al had his army invade (it was before or maybe even after; while it is certain that Bahl'al attacked Tyr, it's uncertain as to when or even in what era. it's even possible that Bahl'al was just occupying Tyr after the Watcher and the Deceiver destroyed all of the city's defenses.)
6. The Voiceless One is said to be Shiver, due to some weird relation to some really obscure novel. Again, she's about the same age as Damas, and again, that name is never actually used in either game and, along with the other three absent names, invalidates the page on that point alone, the others regardless.
How this pile of refuse ever made it into the body of evidence, I'll never know; it's completely worthless in any probative sense, though interesting as a curio object. As an archaeologist, it fascinates me.
Random points:
The fact that the player fights Thrall by the thousand in Myth II means something as well- most likely that Bahl'al was still cranking out Thrall like some undead defense contractor after the death of the Watcher, and that the Watcher was just a big customer of his, like Soulblighter or Shiver. One war and 60 years equals a whole lot of corpses, after all.
The Watcher was surrounded by lots of thrall, yes, but so was Shiver, twice, in two different games. So were all the Fallen Lords.
Thrall are a cost-efficient and readily available method to slow down, distract and annoy an enemy, and while they're not all that effective in direct battle, they can easily invade and conquer an unarmed city, they can be stored and hidden underwater, they can cross rivers without the aid of bridges, they aren't effected by cold or heat, they need no food or rest, they come already armed, and they're derived from a readily available and inexhaustible resource: corpses. Any army that has the option to use them would be foolish not to, as they're free if you're a member of 'club evil.' (this is just a response to the detractors of their usefulness.)
Si'anwon, where the dream of unlife came from, was said to be 'rusting' and 'flooded.' Obviously, it being a Trow city, was constructed far before the Trow Empire was finished with their war with the Oghres because of the presence of iron, which was abandoned BEFORE Connacht came, conquering them, entombing them below Rhi'anon. (myth comic book, Antero's bestiary)
And, if the Watcher WAS Bahl'al, I think ol' Tuncer would've added that little fact into the game, don't you?
CONCLUSION:
My best guess is that Bahl'al is some variety of undead defense contractor, much like the Summoner was with the Myrkridia. When his army occupied Tyr, it's likely that he wasn't even personally there, just guiding them from afar, maybe with it under the command of another general.
I believe that Bahl'al was alive during Myth II, and still remains to be after the death of Soulblighter, still robbing graves and producing Thrall in his armory, arming them with axes, codpieces, shoulderguards and little else.
Obviously, the implications of this hypothesis are vast, but I think you'll see that this stands up against scrutiny.
