Mark MacKinnon wrote:

Bert Miller wrote:

He may have come here from beyond the Zero Limit."
    "Oh, my," Hild breathed, turning the full force
of her derisive amusement upon the girl.  "That's
the thread of hope you've chosen to cling to?  You
were there, my dear.  You saw space and time rent
asunder by forces beyond the control of even those
you served.  There are no longer any worlds beyond
this sphere's Zero Limit.  This is it, Peorth.
This is all that remains."

Interesting.  Similar to, but slightly different
from, the implications of Illianka's words from
chapter 18.  Illianka and Dragon believe that this
sphere is the only non-Dark place left; Hild believes,
or at least wants Peorth to think she believes, that
no other place exists at all.  Could Hild have
misinterpreted Illianka's breaking of the hyperlinks
as the total destruction of all else?

   Hild and Illianka believe pretty much the same thing, actually; 
that this world alone remains of all that once were.  Remember, 
Illianka gave her life in breaking the remaining hyperlinks, an act 
that she believed would protect this world from the disaster that was 
destroying all the others.  Hild believes that Illianka succeeded, as, 
in fact, she did.  What none of the survivors of that ancient battle 
seem to realise is that all the worlds outside were NOT destroyed.  
The question that remains is: why weren't they, if Illianka and all 
these gods were so sure they were already lost?

...because the breaking of the hyperlinks was itself the means by which 
the other spheres were preserved (is the logical conclusion).  Meaning 
that the disaster which seemed to be destroying all that is (or at least 
all spheres that were connected to the hyperlink network) was emanating 
from... (eep) ... here.

"...to where the Truth is hidden away" - Illianka

She wasn't kidding.

     Hild would soon learn not to trifle with her
betters.

Now this is certainly odd, that a vampire, no matter
how old, thinks herself the better of the top demoness,
who should be the equal of any of the gods.
This does not seem to be the thoughts of the Voice,
either, given the lack of caution evident here.
 

   Wynneth thinks she's better than everyone, of course.  But there is 
more to it, as you hint above.  She mentions how Hild has 
"unwittingly" served Wynneth's own purposes in the past, implying that 
she has managed to manipulate Hild without the demon queen's 
knowledge.  Could it have something to do with Shadow?  We know that 
Hild manipulated events to set Alieva against Dasma.  The defeat of 
Dasma and her most powerful priestesses meant the loss of the most 
powerful Shadow magicks, leaving Shadow Realm virtually inviolate from 
mortal incursion for over a century.  Could that also have served 
Wynneth's plans?  Hmmmm ...

If Wynneth manipulated Hild into manipulating Dasma and Alieva into 
fighting, that throws my theory about the identity of the Voice into a 
cocked hat.  It isn't yet clear that Wynneth needed Shadow Realm 
inviolate from mortal incursion for any reason, although it's certainly 
clear in this chapter that the loss of Shadow Magic in general use 
served Wynneth's purposes big time.  So why would Wynneth want no 
mortals to enter Shadow?  I don't think we know of a persuasive reason 
yet; just making succubi and incubi excessively hungry doesn't seem enough.

Wynneth's musings in this chapter certainly seem to push her age back 
quite a ways.  The senshi seemed to think a vampire who'd "seen the fall 
of the Genrous with its own eyes", perhaps 2000 years ago, was ancient 
and scarily powerful.  Wynneth seems to be several times that old at a 
minimum; indeed, you seem to be hinting that she saw the Silver 
Millenium with her own eyes.  If it was Wynneth herself, and not the 
Voice, who gave Dasma the ability to put the rose on the Black Rose's 
breast, then the Voice, significantly more powerful yet, must also be 
much older than I've been allowing for.  Hmm... someone sneakier (and 
older?) than any of the gods or demons, perhaps with a grudge against 
all of them... who could it be?

"His entire branch of the family died in that
incident in Haakan Province some years back

Heh.  Handy accident, that, if someone wanted to
assume the guise of someone else...
 

   Handy, yes.  But are you implying that it's so handy as to be 
suspiciously convenient?

No real necessity for Gar to have caused the accident.  He only need 
have been on the lookout for occasions to infiltrate the palace, heard 
of the accident, and seized his chance.  Or even possibly have 
impersonated a member of the dead family as a lark, on a momentary whim, 
for all we know, although he did say, in chapter 18, that he was 
following a prophecy.

Underlords existed in this world earlier than the gods,
and were driven out by the gods, and cannot be summoned
back if their names are forgotten.  Ranma knows this
name.  Peorth's references are to entities who existed
earlier than the gods, at least in this world, and were
superceded by Wardens, whom the gods served.
And it certainly looks as if one has been summoned back to
Gaea...
 

   The Underlords were not superceded by the Wardens, though, at least 
not in this world (unless you're referring to the takzvyrmishammir and 
the like in general). The Underlords may have been this world's 
version of gods, in much the same way as the Norse pantheon (Peorth 
and the others) were gods in their world.  At the very least they were 
powerful beings, although whether they were good, evil, or something 
in between and just how they used their power in conjunction with the 
peoples of Gaia is really a mystery, largely because of the efforts of 
the new gods.  Remember, Illianka was the last Warden, and she died in 
the event that stranded the gods in this sphere.  The gods were the 
ones who decided, for whatever reason, to drive the local pantheon 
out.  Were the gods somehow threatened by the mere existence of the 
Underlords?  Hmmmm ...

This isn't quite how I'd understood the sequence of events.  Illianka 
died in Godwar, at which time the Eye was also blinded, and the gods 
(and demons) stranded in this sphere; this much has all been pretty 
clear all along.  I'd understood, however, the gods to have arrived in 
this sphere significantly earlier yet, made Nemesis their home, and 
presumably driven the Underlords out when they first arrived.  Godwar 
arose, I'd understood, as a dispute between factions of the gods, or 
between gods and demons, primarily in this sphere.  Granted, my 
understanding was formed primarily in Chapter 9, as narrated by Rei and 
Ami, and the understanding of even the best-versed mortals might be 
quite distorted in this day and age.  I suppose I really ought to 
re-read everything again, paying closer attention to who is giving us 
each bit of information and how likely each POV character is to really 
know what went on.

Those terrible lances of power momentarily formed
a pattern within the maelstrom, something clearly
artificial

So Wynneth summoned not just the storm, but something
inside it.  Something like, say, Crimson Thorn, perhaps?
Something known to the Queen as "The Nameless", at
any rate.  And, now that I think about it, the natural
supposition about Galiraithe's origin, given the
Queen's thought, is that it came from Desidinder,
but she doesn't say so.  It might equally well
have come from Crimson Thorn.

   The Queen may not have been naming something particularly, though.  
Nameless might merely have been an appellation referring to the 
Underlords.  The Underlords have no names, remember.  And they have 
left behind a vengeful legacy, spoiled power, curlded and wildly 
destructive magicks.  As for Galiraithe, the sword's origin has not 
been specified, but Crimson Thorn is a good possibility (better when 
you consider that nobody seems able to approach Desidinder).

Oh, this Nameless is one of the "curdled magics", gotcha.  Now, I had a 
theory about these, too.  Were there, perhaps, five of these at one 
point?  With three now remaining?  If so, this is probably the Blue one, 
given what we know of where the storm came from ("a rogue spin-off...in 
the southern islands").




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