11-17-2021, 12:13 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-18-2021, 11:58 AM by FaceInTheCrowd.)
Combining the principle that the simplest explanation is usually the best with my distaste for the last couple of seasons of the series, I favor Kelly's original explanation, which was the version handed down through generations of grimms. The seven knights discovered something when they sacked Constantinople that they decided was too dangerous to allow their royal sponsors to possess, so they hid it, securing it with seven keys (presumably, to prevent themselves from being tempted to possess it, either).
What we saw the stick actually do before the prophecy was suggested was more than enough to justify the knights' concerns. If you possess the stick you can heal the wounds of your allies and followers; if someone tries to take it from you by force it will repel them; and if someone manages to kill you while you're carrying it, it will bring you back to life. In an age when powerful people were obsessed with conquest, it would be the ultimate tool for marshalling forces that would serve you loyally and insurance against those who would not. Bringing it home would almost certainly have resulted in the seven families going to war against one another to possess it and the winner using it to expand his power across the known world.
As for Z and the other place being the devil and hell, I will once again point to the principle that myth can grow from fact. Start with a powerful being with a magical staff who dominates another dimension and wants to reach out to our world, and by the time someone finally writes it down after a few hundred verbal history retellings (not to mention the narrative being coopted by a hierarchical church or two) the story becomes the devil wielding a pitchfork ruling an underworld of damned souls who wants to take the souls of the living as well.
What we saw the stick actually do before the prophecy was suggested was more than enough to justify the knights' concerns. If you possess the stick you can heal the wounds of your allies and followers; if someone tries to take it from you by force it will repel them; and if someone manages to kill you while you're carrying it, it will bring you back to life. In an age when powerful people were obsessed with conquest, it would be the ultimate tool for marshalling forces that would serve you loyally and insurance against those who would not. Bringing it home would almost certainly have resulted in the seven families going to war against one another to possess it and the winner using it to expand his power across the known world.
As for Z and the other place being the devil and hell, I will once again point to the principle that myth can grow from fact. Start with a powerful being with a magical staff who dominates another dimension and wants to reach out to our world, and by the time someone finally writes it down after a few hundred verbal history retellings (not to mention the narrative being coopted by a hierarchical church or two) the story becomes the devil wielding a pitchfork ruling an underworld of damned souls who wants to take the souls of the living as well.