I was thinking emma stone as molly and the guy who plays oliver queen in arrow as harry. hes not quite tall enough but if you could get him to crack a joke he has the right look.

I was actually thinking about Stephen Amell for Thomas, based entirely on the fact that he is so pretty. Colton Haynes works well, too. (And, in a trippy meta-feedback loop, Paul Blackthorne as Malcolm!)

Also, while we're mining Arrow, John Barrowman as Lord Raith, Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Gard, Carlos Valdes as Ramirez.

If Raphael and his Grace are tied up in Demonreach and MacAnally's, how'd he ever get around to giving anyone a sword?

Maybe the Wardenship of Demonreach is the fourth Archangel's gift.

That's what I outlined above as an option to how such a blade could be powered without the usage of a Nail.

*Looks at title of thread*

... oh. Fourth Holy Sword. Not fourth 'Sword of the Cross.' Carry on.

If that's the case, then it's still only three swords, because Cortana and Joyeuse are the same, leaving one still missing.

A quick wiki search shows that Ogiers the Dane wielded Cortana while Charlemagne wielded Joyeuse and Roland Durandal. Three swords made of the same metal.

I wouldn't be surprised if Durandal was a holy sword, and that there's bunches more out there, but another Sword of the Cross?  Without a nail, but with a link to two other swords but not three?  I doubt it.

"Excalibur, Durendal, and Kusanagi, yes, yes," Sir Stuart said, his tone a little impatient. "Of course I know the Swords of the Cross. And the little blonde woman has two of them?"

The real question is the rest of it. It's just possible that Excalibur became Joyeuse with minimal reworking, but Cortana as Fidellachius requires more important work among Charlemagne and his Paladins than among King Arthur, whose court only had one Sword.

As for pre-Christian Sword use, Durandal is, by legend, the sword of Hector (much like Fidelacchius pre-dates the Crucifixion by being, supposedly, the sword of Susano-o).

Note to self and other curators:

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,43724.msg2113241.html#msg2113241

Lez see if archival of some of these is prudent.

We are coming up on the theory buildup before and after the Skin Game release and need to make sure some of the topics of that time that aren't archived get archived.

Hm. I believe there's:

Jotunheim is Arctis Tor / The jotun guarded the Outer Gates before Winter. (reference)

Donar Vaderrung is actually Thor wielding the Alfather mantle (Donar=Thor, Vaderrung=Youngfather). (reference)

Summer's hidden purpose is to maintain the World Tree. (reference)

Cowl=Cristos.

Harry will mentally time travel ("is unstuck in time") to the events of Proven Guilty.

Thomas is complicit in time travel shenanigans / has future knowledge in Proven Guilty.

Mirror Mirror's darkest timeline will complete a stable time loop that goes back to Grave Peril.

Those are the good, solid theories that I can pull from there now that I've checked out Elegast's index.

The Summer Court protects the Inner Gates.

This theory is, of course, baseless, but there's a certain sense to it.

The Winter Court protects reality from the cold oblivion of Outside at the Outer Gates.

The Summer Court protects humanity from the Winter Court.

That doesn't strike me as balance enough (and yeah, I'm the kind of sap who pretends Anakin brought balance by wiping out the Jedi and the Sith, not just by wiping out the Emperor, so precedent is against me, but...). I propose that, unbeknownst to most of Winter (much like Winter's duties aren't known to most of Summer), Summer has more purpose than we've been led to think. And no, I don't mean there's an Insider army that Summer defends reality from militarily.

Behind these hypothetical Inner Gates is the core of all reality. The fiery creative force, emotion, love, what have you, that beats. Summer, then, is the crew watching for meltdown and managing the core radiating into our middle realm. Aurora, then, would have been infected by the core, not Nemesis.

[EDIT: And I think that Core is the World Tree, Yggdrasil, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good And Evil.]

Summer protects humanity from the core melting down, and protects humanity from Winter.

Winter protects reality from the Outside, and protects reality from Summer.

Again, I know, no evidence for it, but I think it at least slots into the cosmic mechanism as we know it.

I'm all for no-evidence theories that clear up datapoints. But that's crazy.

(This from the man who has theorized that, 1, Vaderrung is Thor "Youngfather", who has ascended to Odin's position as Allfather, and 2, Harry Dresden is unstuck in time. So, you know. If I think something is farfetched...)

Perhaps by becoming human for a short while, the White God was able to add a certain quantity of free will to Himself, and that's how he turned to Love Thy Neighbor?

So here is a question, is there any Arab or Islamic mythology that would fit his role?

Not really. I always thought he got the Gatekeeper job after offing the Mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred.

(Also, I found several more crazy theories to add to my first post!)