- "It was evident there was a fight in her lab... all of her notes were burnt." ✣ (In the flashback, one of Lucrezia's staff is shown with a sword sticking up from her back.)
Lucrezia's lab wasn't destroyed by The Other - it was destroyed by the Geisterdamen traitor(s) after their first trip to the 'Shadow World'. The gateway was in Lucrezia's lab.
There's something significant here that I feel like I'm just barely missing.
- When the Geisterdamen and Lucrezia/Agatha were ready to debark from Strumhalten, there was to be a fire there as well. It is possible that fire is a modus operandi for some of the Geistersdamen.
- The other problem with the otherwise compelling connection is the timing. The geisterdamen didn't get exiled until after the holy child was born and lost. So the connection of the two events would require time travel of the most meddlesome kind. Ugh. So I lean to the "this is a pattern" with Lucrezia's notes. Rather than the "direct connection".
- The other thought is that the Professors are just recycling some language to take care of a plot detail. I.E. This is what happened and we are not allowed to know any more. Rej Maddog 02:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
- I also noticed the similarity to which Corgi (the OP here) refers, and I've gone over it in my mind... and came to the conclusion that, as Rej says, the timing cannot be reconciled. But that's a good point Rej makes that the Geisterdamen like to leave the building in flames, though. Anyway, I have my own theory that Lucrezia had been the Geisterdamen goddess (as the official cast page has always (IIRC) implied) from well before her engagement to Bill, and ... so forth. ⚙Zarchne 21:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
- The two events sound similar, but I don't think they are, in fact, the same. ⚙Zarchne 13:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I have a feeling that the explosion at Castle Heterodyne coincided with Lucrezia's... "infection" by the Other. I suspect the murder of her assistants, burning of her notes, and the explosion were some of Lucrezia's last lucid acts, to prevent anyone else from duplicating whatever she was doing at the time. If so, this is different from the device that downloaded her into Agatha -- that overwrote Agatha, while Lucrezia/Other apparently retained Lucrezia's memories, personality, and style, but amplified her Spark and suborned her will. It wouldn't be hard to be the Geisterdamen's "eternal lady" with the time-window machine, so I would posit that Lucrezia was in "high distress" because she was being taken over by the Other, and that the Other who "returned" to send the Geisterdamen into the Shadow World is a very different person from the Lucrezia they knew before. Vrin implies that she was no longer in the "lovely aspect" she mentioned before, so possibly it was Lucrezia they worshipped, but The Other that sent them out as warriors. That change of personality could be what shook Loremistress Milvistle's faith. Aubri 23:35, December 22, 2009 (UTC)
To establish the chronology, the first thing we really need to do is go back to Vrin's story ✣ as recounted to Agatha. Lucrezia visited the Geisterdamen, pregnant with Agatha, prior to their banishment to the "shadow world".
So first the Geisterdamen attempted to obtain the infant Agatha, but they were defeated. Agatha was rescued by the Heterodynes and hidden away.
Then the Geisterdamen "rebuilt [their] temple, and waited".
So, after a significant lapse of time between the ending of the Other War, the rescue of Agatha, and the disappearance of Lucrezia, they were banished.
Note the words "when you first sent us here". Not necessarily when they were banished to the "shadow world", but perhaps when they first visited it. So, at first glance, the theory is plausible, provided the Geisterdamen were first sent to Earth to attack Castle Heterodyne.
The sequence of events is:
- Forces of the Other, which might be assumed to be the Geisterdamen, are sent to Earth.
- They attack Castle Heterodyne, and Lucrezia disappears to join them. This is when her notes and experiments are destroyed.
- The Heterodyne Boys return, and the Other War rages. At some time during this, Agatha is rescued and hidden.
- The Heterodyne Boys disappear. The remnants of the Geisterdamen rebuild their temple.
- The Other returns. The Geisterdamen are exiled to Earth.
So when the Other grabs Vrin by the neck, that isn't happening on Earth, but in the home realm of the Geisterdamen, and it's happening a significant time after Castle Heterodyne was destroyed.
But the Geisterdamen "can beg your forgiveness" because they finally rebuilt the Summoning Engine, and with it placed the Other's consciousness in Agatha. So the treason of the Loremistress Milvistle, which happened outside the Other's knowledge, must have happened after the Other lost communication with the Geisterdamen. This would be during their exile, not prior to that exile. So it happened while Agatha was growing up with Punch and Judy, not on the night Castle Heterodyne was attacked. And so "when you first sent us here" does refer to their banishment after all, which is plausible even if Geisterdamen were included in the forces attacking Castle Heterodyne, since it could mean "when you first sent [all of] us here" instead of some of us. --Quadibloc 08:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- For some reason, it doesn't all jibe, though. I don't know if we're barely missing it as Corgi suggests or totally missing it.
- One possibility we should consider is that, if the Geister realm is an alternate “dimension”, it may have a different time flow, à la Narnia. Events that take place in that realm may even occur in reverse sequence to Yarth.
- ⚙Zarchne 13:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)