: I cant say what Soulblighter saw over his shoulder at the
: great devoid. Maybe he saw the surviving warriors
: coming at him, and not wishing to be held in a death
: trap buy fighting them, he runs.
I have two extremely banal theories: a) he turned his head as he heard (or magically sensed) that Balor's head was about to explode, same way we all turn our heads around when we're trying to locate a sound, or b) he turned around because his crows always fly forward and if he wants to flee the Devoid he has to face away from it, at least his upper body does. They aren't particularly interesting suggestions, but they're short (much like me, in fact).
IF this happed to Balors head it may have
: released the leaveler's spirit from the head and the
: explosion was that incredibly powerful, destructive
: force exiting the world until it is time to posses
: Alric or who ever will be the next leveler. Wow that
: is a long sentence.
: Well that's my theory, kick it around, abuse it, bring it
: down and build it up again, have fun:)
I doubt we can bring your theory down any more than anyone else's, we all have our pet unprovables. The only real bit of evidence I can bring to bear against your theory is that we should have a big ol' explosion every two thousand years when the Leveler's body is killed and its spirit escapes, and we don't seem to have any historical note of it. Of course, maybe Alric did and that's why he stayed home.
Instead of further attacking your theory, which would require thought, I'll just ignore it now and post mine instead. Much easier. In fact, I think I'll do it in all caps so it's much more memorable than yours. I FEEL THAT ALRIC AND BALOR...nah.
I think we can get an insight into the cause of the explosion, and why the head was thrown down the void. from the unimplemented and semi-implemented features. We know from the cutscene (and I think from other sources) that Alric was supposed to be at the Devoid when it blew up, and that he was supposed to be killed. We can also guess that Balor's head isn't entirely dead ("don't listen to anything it says to you"), although whatever it was supposed to say never got implemented, probably because the designers figured out it would be more funny than menacing. So I think that Alric tossed the head into the Devoid in the hope that it would fall for eternity and never really die, so that the Leveler's spirit wouldn't be able to escape, come back and possess another hero and start another Dark Age. However, Balor anticipated his potential defeat (he must have learned enough about history to know about the Light/Dark cycle) and built a magical "time bomb" into himself to a) take revenge on whoever defeated him, and b) let the Leveler's spirit escape. (Either that or The Head rigged it, hoping that Alric and Soulblighter would both be killed in the explosion and there wouldn't be any powerful individuals left. But everyone knows my feelings on The Head by now.) Alric suspected a trap and stayed behind. Really, if he didn't suspect a trap, he wouldn't have entrusted the disposal of the most powerful magical artifact in the world to a couple of Legionnares. Soulblighter showed up and wanted Balor's head either to revive it, to draw on its magical powers, or to destroy it and let the Leveler reincarnate. He was mucho pissed off when he thought the head was lost in the Devoid, but then he hears a "tick, tick, tick" far underground, realizes the head's about to explode, turns, and flies away.
Basically, I just think the head's explosion was rigged. If Leveler heads always blew up, we'd hear about it; if things falling into the Devoid always blew up, we'd hear about it. (By the way, you think the Devoid is getting bigger all the time? I mean, the sides seem to be rock and dirt, so they must erode and all that material probably just falls in and is lost to the world. If I were Alric, I'd be trying to figure out whether that thing's gonna consume the whole continent one day.) Of course, maybe it requires both elements--the head and the Devoid--for the explosion, but please don't suggest that or it'll make your theory look better compared to mine, and we wouldn't want that, would we? ;)
--SiliconDream
