Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-27713488-20180615004848/@comment-35924450-20180723130837

The Scoutman wrote: Honestly all this talk about the Lustlord just reminds me of a thing Mestan said back in Eustrin in chapter 3 "A grunt that's given a lot of power is still just a very powerful grunt" or something among those lines.

The Lustlord seems to be just that, a regular guy who by fortune happened to acquire a lot of power and then never had to learn the lessons he would learn by struggling to actually earn his power. His strategies are sound but elementary because he never needed to go beyond that, he is nowhere as incompetent or reckless as the Incubus Emperor or the Fucklord and I don't think he ever was, but that's more of a statement to how ridiculous those two are than anything else. Thinking of it like this, it would explain the apparent disdain the Lustlord had for the Skullsmasher, seeing someone being the newbie suck up of the group probably reminded him of himself back in the day a bit too much.

Wildly theorizing here, but what is interesting to me is that Mestan said something must have changed fundamentally about Simon when he received his power, so to avoid being just a "very powerful grunt", maybe Simon was just undervaluing himself and how much he had grown by being a war veteran and having had a great partner like Wendis, but what if there is more to it? We know shards can transfer characteristics of their previous owner to the next and, thinking about it, we don't really see much of Simon before he is infused with a shard, just the prologue and the occasional dream sequence. What if some of Simon's ambitions and talents were inherited from the shard's previous owner? Who would that previous owner be?

Maybe the change just came from the godlike nature of the power of the shards and Simon was just feeling naturally motivated from having so many possibilities made available for him, but it is interesting to think about the possibility when people like Wynn comment on how much Simon changed since they last saw each other.  About the Lustlord: Yes, he behaves like an accountant, estate agent or minor noble that was promoted to the top position and is now narrowly minded running the business (realm) – no fool, but lacking a greater vision and in his thinking somehow restricted to economics and representation.

 He seems to be another example of Sierra Lee’s repeating theme of somebody not able/willing to think out of his box or cover his own flaws through advisers…

 About Simon: I’m not sure if Sierra is hinting on an internal change (like an personality development) or an external influence (like a divine being blessing him) – but I’m quite sure it isn’t just another shard effect. It’s more. Something big happened to him and it is having an impact on the story – maybe it was Simon’s “destiny” to get the shard…