: Something's been bugging me about the Myth II plot for a
: while, related to the Deceiver. When I had a look at
: the Encyclopedia at myth.bungie.org, I remembered why:
: The Deceiver: "One of the Fallen Lords who served
: Balor during the
: Great War. His rivalry with the other Fallen Lords led to
: his downfall. He disappeared after the Watcher
: decimated his
: army at Seven Gates."
: -Deceiver Description, Glossary, Myth II Manual
: What?! He didn't disappear! He crossed the Stair of Grief
: and started ravaging the western lands! Even the
: Narrator finds that out in Myth I, in the 18th year of
: the war, before the Sons of Myrgard level: Sunday May
: 23, Near Myrgard
: ...Messengers reached us today saying that Maeldun has
: lost Bagrada and that The Deceiver crossed the
: mountains at the Stair of Grief.
: So how did he end up buried in some glacier? And how
: could people possibly have thought that he disappeared
: when back in May of the 18th year of the war he was
: known to have _crossed_ the Cloudspine at the Stair of
: Grief and was about to start ravaging the West? And if
: his rivalry with the other Fallen led to his downfall,
: which Fallen Lord was that? It must have been one of
: the two you don't meet, because Shiver's already dead
: and the Watcher and Soulblighter are out east, the
: Watcher dies shortly thereafter and Soulblighter
: disappears to intercept the Legion when they reach the
: Great Devoid. Since Maeldun loses Bagrada at the same
: time as the Deceiver crosses at the Stair (in the same
: journal entry), at least one of the two 'missing'
: Fallen Lords must have been there, since it doesn't
: seem that the Fallen split up their armies to
: undertake large-scale operations.
: Another extremely thin plot device which links Myth I and
: II is that somehow Alric and the remaining Western
: armies "hunted down and killed" the
: remaining Fallen Lords. What armies? The Legion was
: down to fewer than _thirty_ men for The Great Devoid.
: Most of those perished in the explosion, though given
: the end cutscene, there must have been maimed and
: crippled people left and the odd healthy one (the
: berserk--don't ask me why he wasn't with the good guys
: during the mission), but I don't see how Alric could
: hunt down and kill two Fallen Lords with an army of
: walking wounded. What about men from the West, one
: might ask? Given that the West was soundly getting its
: butt kicked during the final days of the
: war--Madrigal, which had been the last bastion
: (despite the fact that Tyr still survived, that's
: where Maeldun's 'southern garrison' came from at the
: beginning of the war [which is another topic]) falls
: very near the end of the game--it doesn't seem as
: though the West had much of an army to fight with. And
: given that the Fallen Lords survived Balor's death, I
: don't see why their minions didn't either. The armies
: sacking the West would be just as large, and their
: defenders, just as overwhelmed. How is it that Alric
: is suddenly able to hunt down and kill the remaining
: Fallen Lords?
: I also don't see why the Myrmidons disappeared. Nobody
: has satisfactorily explained why they would just
: disappear. They were turned to Balor's side through
: their vanity, but that doesn't mean that they would
: all cease to exist after he died...
: Anyway, finally, if one can accept that Alric hunted down
: the Fallen Lords and killed them, how is it that The
: Deceiver was somehow missed? And how the heck did he
: end up stuck in a frozen river? And why isn't he in a
: river when you find him?
: Someone please end my confusion...
The Deceiver disappeared after Seven Gates. Then he reappeared (he probably ran off and grabbed another army somewhere), broke through the Cloudspine and headed for Madrigal, which was in the middle of a civil war regarding the Head. Madrigal fell as Balor was killed.
Somehow, out of all that mess, the Head disappeared, the civil war ended, some armies of the Light survived (perhaps they fled to Tandem when Madrigal's fall was immenant?), and the Fallen were severly weakened by Balor's death. Alric returned to the west and hunted down the remaining Fallen with the surviving armies.
The Deceiver was chased into the Stair of Grief and, in Thyrmir's Gorge, plunged into the then-liquid (usually frozen) Dramus river and presumed dead. His scepter sank to the bottom, but he was washed downstream. He wound up as part of the Angurvadal glacier, and was probably dug up by his Warlocks (explaining why he's not encased in ice), though they were unable to revive him without his scepter.
