ashenendymion To be more specific or clear, unless the power of the shard is not absorbed, and instead the shard is taken but NOT absorbed, and therefore slowly changed by the holders soul, then the one who absorbed the soul would have THEIR soul influenced, resulting in an inevitable change in personality. As Simon is not absorbing the soul, and instead taking them in and using magic to specifically seal them in him without absorbing, and his soul is slowly influencing the shard instead, then yes Simons main concern would indeed be the "power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely" argument. So Mestan might also be slightly influenced by that argument, if he cared enough about other things of the world, as well, but that is not really the "no change demonstrated" concern I had. He showed no real change, save, POSSIBLY, demonstrating more emotion near the end (which in theory might be an effect of the shard, increasing more emotions into the more emotionless individuals, resulting in more emotional displays maybe), but given the main characteristics of the dark shards, I believe it was primarily "dominance" according to the god of the dwarven, being a "tad more emotional" is not a consequence or influence of those particular shards. That is not their nature. As Mestan therefore demonstrated no real influence at all of the taking of a shard, there are only a few possibilities, and I would like to know what the answer s, and for it to be clarified officially, not just fanbase agreement: He was essentially a construct, created by Lilith for posession, and either was hollow, soulless, and therefore would be 100% souled from the shard, and go fuck all that walks, or has his own soul, and would be affected by the shard. Or his nature, as he would be build by essentially a balancing function of the tower, made of material of the tower, he might be resistant to the shard, but the shards themselves both dark and light are essentially a balancing mechanic of the tower as well, though that has not realy been fully clarified to my knowledge, so if both are of the tower, would he have any resistance or strength against them? Again, we dont know. Or he took the shard but did not absorb it at all, and would therefore not be affected at all, but he himself admitted to taking the shard for more power to resist Lilith, so taking the shard but not absorbing it? That would give him nothing during the time of urgency where he is literally being HUNTED by a being of chaos that wants to possess/eat him. So that is unlikely. or there could be another reason all together as to why he appears completely unaffected. In the end it doesn't really matter, he is dead and gone by now. It was quite a moment. But this one thing, his apparent immunity to the affects of the shard, fly in the face of so much that has been either fully clarified or at the very least alluded to, is leaving a gap, a plot whole, open to interpretation. That is why I posted on here, figured I might have missed something important that CLEARLY defines this oddity, or it might have been mentioned or touched upon by the makers of the game in another forum, something like that. Everything else about the game, the characters, their motivations, how things affect them, all of it has been a MASTERPIECE of writing and execution over the years, which is why I just really really wonder about this one instance.