by Bryjnar » Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:53 pm
A theory:
Things go like the man in red says, with the Illuminati being found (except for one) and taken against the Lord of the Pits. He is scarred by them, and so he responds with the "shockwave". Now what if this "shockwave" was actually Venge? "Scar upon the father's brow" could be metaphorical; that was what caused him to be created. Even his name sounds like vengeance, suggesting that he was "born" just at that moment, as a method of revenge against those who had scarred him. The fact that he's referred to as the "son" may just reference the fact that he was created by the Lord of the Pits. This Venge would be essentially just a big aura-void. It's effect would be much like a "shockwave", at first, when the, ah, concentration gradient was at it's strongest, every aura in the area would have been sucked into it. Possibly even some form of aura from the landscape (everything has an aura), which might have led to the sort of destruction which we saw in Estrana (see Side Theory 1). So Venge's first acquisitions are a city full of fairly normal human beings... and the bearers of the Illuminati (possibly he even absobs something of the swords' own auras). The Illuminati are at any rate corrupted, possibly by losing their own auras to Venge, possibly by just being somehow affected by his "evil", and so become the Shadow Swords. Venge, however, is now full of the, presumably powerful, auras of the Illuminati bearers and possibly their swords. This would be the core of his need for justice, and it makes him anathema to his "father", who casts him out into the middle Way. Venge wanders around, possibly at first absorbing auras just by being near them (think concentration gradients), and eventually being drawn to the last Illuminatus (singular of Illuminati?), Arcturus. He takes it up, and the massive conflict in his "soul" with which the sword attempts to bind drives the sword insane, essentially as Venge is, with the dichotomy between the hunger for souls and death and the need for justice (and opposition to Shadow Swords).
Venge goes off, protected from the usual fate of Shadow Sword wielders by the fact that he's already insane, and because of his demonic nature is practically designed to absob souls, and kills Kura at some point (I guess we just don't see him in DE, although he could be one of the random people) and takes his role in the story, killing Kava and the rest of the Guided (he may or may not switch to being Kava, to fit the story of it being Kava come back fromthe dead). Kura seems to be an archetypal figure, and very influential in Rhue's character (he is told to act just like himself on a bad day (or something)), so I think that influence lasts for a while. He may well be the "Mimic", although that could be a different Shadow Sword wielder. It doesn't make much difference. Eventually he kills Midian (who must have done something bad at some point) and so goes after Jeruh, who has a Shadow Sword, which he took from its previous owner, who I think had finally gone insane and killed his companion (again, it doesn't really matter). Venge as Midian meets Gaius, who sees only his surface personality (he needs touch to do a full sense, doesn't he?). Venge kills Jeruh, whose Shadow Sword flies off (they can fly, and Venge's sword hates Shadow Swords, as we've seen), before absorbing his psychotic aura, which was itself fragmented, with it's main personality (Rhue) being a fabrication of Jeruh. Things get generally mixed up and the bits of Venge's personality end up dominated by a conglomerate loosely running as Rhue. Cue Episode 1.
Side Thory 1: The three "levels" of the Way are in fact related to their aura "density", i.e. the further "up" you go, the more aura there is in, well, everything, until you reach the point where it becomes infinite. Bang, there's your Purpose. And vice versa, the "lower" you go down into the Reaches the scarcer aura is, until at the very bottom there no aura at all: the Lord of the Pits (don't ask me how it can be conscious). The Lord of the Pits embodies Chaos and abscence, and so continually hungers for auras to fill the abscence (I'd guess that souls which perish under torment are easier prey or something, hence the "evil" aspect of it). Venge as I see him would therefore be a part of the Lord of the Pits released into the world. As a side note, this can be linked with the Illuminati and the Shadow Swords. The Shadow Swords "hunger" for auras, because they are a reflection of the hunger of the demons. The Illuminati, which are the Sacred Swords of Justice, not necessarily good, are the Purpose's force for the consciouness ordering system of auras and order in general. The middle Way is the battlefield, a plane where aura and abscence coexist. Aura would therefore be integral to the stability of the plane, so the appearance of Venge causes massive destruction around Janwen. If the Lord of the Pits were to triumph, the whole middle way would be destroyed. I'm not sure whether the Purpose could win, or whether Chaos enters the idea of balance, but if it did then the middle Way would become an aura-filled area; a type of heaven?