: In response to Sili, I don't see SB's inability to turn
: into a crow suggestive of Myrdred's being alive or
: dead. Presumably, Myrdred could have buried the crow,
: died, and SB still would have had trouble turning into
: a flock of crows.
Well, the journal writer does say "With The Deceiver in possession of part of his being," not "With part of his being so distant/buried/fried by lightning bolts." Admittedly the narrator isn't a 1337 mage and could very well be wrong, but he does seem to think it's important that Myrdred still has it.
More importantly, this being in the present tense implies that the narrator believes Myrdred's still alive when he's writing the journal entry. Now you know my arguments for believing that this journal entry is actually from two days later than its given date (http://carnage.bungie.org/myth/asylum/asylum.forum.pl?read=10060)--and even if you don't buy that, the narrator still believes Soublighter can't escape in the entry for "The Forge," which is definitely two days after the "Shiver" entry. Which was plenty of time for the Champions to get back to the main force and let them know about The Deceiver's fate.
: If anything, in order to show Myrdred survived that
: encounter with Shiver, you've got to show *how* that
: crow is involved, I think.
Well, personally, I think it's easier to do that if Myrdred's possession was required. I don't really see how just stealing one of Soulblighter's crows and taking it far away or burying it or something would keep him from escaping again. Wouldn't it work the other way, if it did anything--make it harder for him *not* to be in crow-form? I mean, he's now permanently at least 2% crow, and if he turns back into his humanoid form without that one bird he'll probably be missing a chunk of his pancreas or something.
If the issue is that *Myrdred* has one of the crows, though, then it becomes good ol' sympathetic magic voodoo stuff, just like making a doll with a lock of someone's hair, or using The Watcher's arm against him. The Deceiver has a piece of Soulblighter, and he can use this as a conduit to work nasty magics against him. Or sense when Soulblighter's about to turn into crow form, and simply reach through and cause the spell to fizzle before it completes. Which we see in the last cutscene--Damas keeps trying to project crows, but they sputter out before they can become fully formed and escape. I'd interpret this as the Deceiver clamping down on him and going "Oh no you don't! Burn, you bastard! Fire! Fire!" while giggling and losing bladder control.
(Forrest has suggested that these were soul-crows Soulblighter was using to successfully flee from his body, but he was paid to suggest that by the Mafia and, um, Idi Amin.)
--SiliconDream
