: Please respond, cuz if you dont, I will be forced to
: believe that I am right :)
Well, God knows we wouldn't want that. You cause enough trouble around here already; who knows what destruction you might wreak, wielding the power of self-confidence? ;)
Personally, I don't think the magical power of Avatara has anything to do with their retaining their intelligence as Shades. I think they're permitted to keep their minds because otherwise they wouldn't be able to use magic, and they wouldn't be any more valuable than an ordinary thrall. It's the same with the Myrmidons; their "immortality" (living mind in a dead body) gives them much greater drive and skill in battle than any of the mindless undead like thrall and Soulless.
I also think The Deceiver would be able to convert a Shade, although The Watcher might not. Remember that the more self-aware a being is, the better The Deceiver is at controlling it; that's why he can't use his Binding Dream
on most undead. They don't have any minds to control. The Watcher, on the other hand, probably uses his magic to work the bodies of his undead children like puppets, so the presence of a conscious mind in one of his slaves would tend to interfere. He probably has to simply persuade Shades to work with him.
Anyway, I don't think The Deceiver and Phelot had anything to do with each other before "A Murder of Crows." The whole point of that bit about The Deceiver "grievously wounding" Phelot was that it hinted at Phelot's conversion. Myrdred popped him one and then, while Phelot was dazed, charmed him. Phelot's injury probably seemed to the narrator to be worse than it was, since he didn't realize that part of Phelot's odd behavior was due to the brainwashing and not to the actual physical injury. Why would The Deceiver have to wound Phelot if they were already allies?
Now I'll rant about The Deceiver for a while. Stop reading if you don't like tangents.
In my opinion, the most interesting thing about The Deceiver is how unsuited he is to the Dark. He may not be a good guy, but he's completely a product of civilization; he's an orator, a poet and in some sense a scientist (at least, he's making poisons right and left). He's a favorite of the highly civilized Trow. He obviously enjoys interacting with other sentient beings, although usually he's trying to brainwash them or trick them into destroying themselves. In a word, he needs people around. This puts him completely at odds with the other Fallen Lords, who always target the most civilized areas first and who want the world to contain only the "unthinking dead." This is probably a big part of his problem with The Watcher, who is perhaps the most dedicated of the Fallen, if not the most able. The Watcher can't stand the presence of thinking beings. That's why he worked so hard to recover the Dream of Unlife, and why he surrounds himself with thrall; he wants his army to be essentially a mindless extension of his own body. The Deceiver, on the other hand, gets his kicks from tricking or forcing other intelligent beings to do his bidding. So you wouldn't expect the two of them to get along anymore than your average chess grandmaster gets along with your average monster truck enthusiast (please, nobody write in saying they know a chess grandmaster who loves monster truck rallies.)
So why would The Deceiver join the Dark? We know that it was at least partly forcible; Balor "bent him to his will." But I think initially The Deceiver served him voluntarily. Remember how Shiver taunts him with "Will you bow to anyone who claims the throne of the Cath Bruig?" This suggests to me that Myrdred considers any social order better than none, that he's willing to fight for anyone if he thinks they can unify a large portion of the world, no matter whether their regime is benign or malign. This makes him very similar to the Trow, who, like the Romans they're modeled on, consider a powerful and authoritarian state to be virtuous by definition. The Trow don't switch sides simply out of practical motives of self-preservation; they do whatever they can to further law and order. They served Balor because they knew he'd destroy all extant states, and they hoped to at least create an empire of their own; then they refused Soulblighter and were persuaded to ally with Alric because they saw in him a champion of civilization who had a chance of winning. The "game" they devised to test the humans in "With Friends Like These" was one of strategy, after all, not simply strength and courage in battle. They were testing whether ordinary humans (not just avatara) were civilized enough to be able to think abstractly instead of just attacking anything that moved. That's why they get so peeved if you just start attacking them at the beginning of the level; you obviously don't have the slightest ability to construct a complex plan of attack. Anyway...
When Balor first attacked the empire and Myrdred realized that he was certain to triumph, he offered his loyalty, hoping to hasten the transfer of power and help Balor unify the entire world under his own reign. By the time he realized that Balor sought "not to conquer but to destroy," and that serving him was only hastening the collapse of civilization, it was too late and Balor was able to forcibly ensure his servitude. Myrdred's fascination with mind control was, I think, a function of his (mostly unconscious) rebellion against Balor's control. He hoped that if he could become skillful enough at manipulating minds, he could use his powers on himself to break his conditioning.
Here's a couple of tidbits from the manual that have nothing to do with what I've been talking aboul, but I just noticed them and I think they're interesting. #1: Maeldun, it says, was only "severely wounded" at Bagrada near the end of the Great War. So apparently he did survive the war, although presumably he died of his wounds shortly thereafter. Alric wasn't the only surving Avatara. #2: The Kildaer family was supposed to have been destroyed by the Fallen during the Great War; 60 years later someone comes back claiming to be the new Baron. Does this mean one or more of the Kildaer children were kept alive and raised by the Fallen Lords? If so, was Shiver the wet nurse? How much would you pay me not to ever bring up that image in your minds again? I don't know if anyone thinks these are worth discussing, but hey, I hijacked this discussion so I deserve to get snubbed.
--SiliconDream
