dash wrote:What is the relationship between the God and his shadow?
Since Val was dead, we didn't see much of the relationship between the two. However, the shadow did manage to become a mini Power after it got the firestaff, and was able to use it. So there must have been some "god-ness/Val" in it.
Also because of it's name "Shadow" I presume it is linked to the original.
I wonder if Tarrin has the ability to command it, and see through its eyes, and teach it things
I also wonder what happened to Stragos Bane(sp?), Val's shadow. Did it evolve when it had enough power? Or was a part of its function - to appear human while stalking prey? Will Tarrins shadow evolve?
The Shadow was an Avatar. Unlike Miranda, who was destined to be born and was just touched by Kikali to become an Avatar, the Shadow was created by Val's magic as a last ditch effort to preserve something of himself.
As a creation of that type cannot live without it's creator's magic source to give it all it's powers, Val made it able to steal power from the souls of others. This way, Val dropped it into a group of wizards where the Shadow was able to immediately kill them and gain a small powersource of it's own since Val died.
The Shadow was most likely imbued with a copy of all the powers that Val had, but it could not pull enough energy together to actually use them.
When it got ahold of the Firestaff, it was able to link into the power the Firestaff uses to create the gods and was able to charge itself indefinately while it had it. That is what allowed it to take on it's true form and use Val's godly powers, as it had the original powersource in it's hands.
When Tarrin summoned it away from him, he was no longer able to draw power, but still had the reserve drawn from the Firestaff to begin with. Once it used up all the energy fighting Tarrin, it went the way of the original Val, since there was nothing to power it anymore.
Tarrin most likely does not have the ability to command his shadow as he is nowhere on the plane of Pyrosia. Even if he was, he may have made the Shadow a fire-and-forget weapon with two commands: kill demons and protect Dolanna. Minus reabsorbing the shadow into himself and destroying it there may be no one who can control it. That's the way I would have set it up anyways, so that there was no triggers that could be stumbled upon to kill it. Remember, Tarrin didn't think he'd be back to Pyrosia, so he wanted to make damned sure that there wasn't going to be any demons left.
Bane was the human form of Val's shadow, used when it didn't have the energy to manifest as a true Avatar. Think of it as an energy saving form. Had Tarrin summoned the Firestaff back and the shadow ran away, it could most likely have switched back to the Bane form so that it wouldn't destroy itself.
Tarrin's shadow most likely won't "evolve" as it wasn't made as an Avatar, as far as I can tell. If it was made as an Avatar, it will be looking for the pieces of Tarrin's sword as well, so that it may take on all the powers.
If it comes to that though, we may end up seeing an epic battle between an Avatar shadow and it's creator who is no longer a God.
