RSS
Important relics are never easy to destroy. Think the One Ring. You can't just hit it with an axe. You have to carry it to the fires of Mount Doom where it was forged.
The venerable old Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide had a suggested list of methods for destroying artefacts and relics. It included such entries as:
- Melt it down in the fiery furnace, pit, mountain, forge, crucible, or kiln in which it was created. [i.e. the One Ring method]
- Drop it into or bury it beneath (1) the Well of Time, (2) the Abyss, (3) the Earth Wound, (4) Adonais' Deep, (5) the Spring of Eternity, (6) Marion's Trench [sic], (7) the Living Stone, (8) [the] Mountain of Thunder, (9) 100 adult red dragon skulls, (10) the Tree of the Universe.
- Cause it to be broken against/by or be crushed by (1) Talos, a triple iron golen, (2) the Gates of Hell, (3) the Cornerstone of the World, (4) Artur's Dolmen, (5) the Juggernaut of the Endless Labyrinth, (6) the heel of a god, (7) the Clashing Rocks, (8) the foot of a humble ant.
- [others which I won't reproduce in full, but which are fascinating reading]
The last one there really fired my imagination. How do you crush a magical relic under the foot of an ant? Obviously all of these tasks are epic quests that require extensive planning and adventure. But that one may also require some sort of lateral thinking or trickery, along the lines of "can be killed by no man". This is the sort of mind-boggling, creativity-inducing quest statement that really goes well as a part of any epic fantasy game.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Hehehe, you've really messed up now, Luke! And I think Yoda already knows that Rey made off with the books too; this dialogue is just oozing in pleasant sarcasm. That is an amazing grab for Yoda's last panel as well. He looks so pleased with himself.
Though wait a minute. Does this mean that the X-wing is going to be used again? There's no other use for the apparatus I can think of, and it's definitely a comic-only item at this point. Resisting vacuum is a lot different structurally than resisting an underwater environment. Better hope the seals against vacuum are still good!
Transcript
Yoda: A good thing the Jedi texts here so long you kept.
Luke: Yeah... Why, again?
Yoda: The paper-making process the midi-chlorians corrupts, remember?
Luke: Right, of course.
Yoda: Imagine if into the hands of the Sith it fell.
Luke: Uh...
Yoda: That mess someone sure would need to go clean up.
Luke: Like you?
Yoda: Of course not, since just burnt the books I did! So fortunate.
Yoda: Did anything Rey leave you?
Luke: My old underwater oxygen extraction apparatus. And...
Yoda: Mmm.
{beat; they watch the tree burning}
Luke: I can’t tell if you’re being cryptic or not.
Yoda: Success!!