Possible Shade Error?

[Windrunner]

So, here's something I noticed when reading. I wasn't sure if it was an error or if we simply don't understand enough. But Theopolis was killed by a shade. So, shouldn't he have turned into a shade? Or are there specific conditions that must be met? Did Silence's grandmother somehow intentionally or not fully kill him before he could be a shade? What do you guys think?

[bartbug]

(shrugs)

I don't know. I read it as he did turn into a shade, but Silence closed the door, (or whatever. I read it fast ).

[Argent]

It seemed like there are two ways the shades can kill. They can infect / affect you thoroughly (as was the case with William Ann), or they can do just enough damage to make your body die from semi-natural cause (e.g. your heart turning into dust). Or maybe treating a severely infected person with just a little silver is enough to prevent shadehood without stopping the withering. I am leaving towards the first hypothesis, as I think Silence might have mentioned / thought about doing just that to William Ann. Our maybe only older shades can turn, while young ones just kill - Grandmother seemed pretty fresh, for one reason or another.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Argent

[Windrunner]

Well, she's only been dead for what, ten years? There have been people on the continent for over a century.

[Oudeis]

I got the impression that it's not like "Shade-in-the-box," you don't die and immediately pop up as a Shade. I figure it takes a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if off-screen, Silence stabbed him through the heart with a silver crossbow bolt, preventing him from rising as a Shade, or maybe slew his Shade as it rose from him, or heck, maybe she really did just leave the body outside to let his Shade loose. I mean hey, what's one more Shade?

[Kurkistan]

Well we do know that she "found" his body in the cave, so it didn't shadify: It was my impression that the body turned into a shade, not that that a shade "rose" from it. I could be wrong, though.

 

Also, "shade" is not capitalized in the book, so I think we oughtn't to capitalize it here (says one of the Worst Offenders for OverCapitalization).

Edited December 4, 2013 by Ookla the Inveterate

[Arook]

maybe she didn't need a body only something to identified it as him that was dead and I mean he did go missing and had been turning in he bounty's for years. so the story would have been passable.

[CastleWall]

Does the body wither away completely to turn into a shade or does the shade come from the body which can decompose naturally?

[Oudeis]

Does the body wither away completely to turn into a shade or does the shade come from the body which can decompose naturally?

 

I don't think they're clear. By "wither away completely" do you mean "crumble down to literal dust," or "not even dust, just stops being physical matter"?

 

Since all I can do is guess, I'll say that the corpse just looks really old real fast, but then slows down while it's still a full corpse, and decomposes naturally from there, based on the fact that the daughter's hand withers but not away to nothing; granted, it's possible that the process is different when you survive.

[Zizoz]

Red's body ended up as just bones. Also, Silence thinks this about Chesterton's body:

The shades would have had at that body; the skin would be dust, the skull blackened and ruined. She had no way to prove that she'd taken Chesterton.

Theopolis was apparently identifiable, but perhaps Silence just claimed to have identified him from his clothing.

[Oudeis]

Having just re-read the book, looking out for things relating to this:

 

There is a body; it doesn't wither. She didn't find Theopolis in his cave, she just told people she did. He was killed in her kitchen, and she moved his body to the "cold cellar" until she claimed to have found it in his hidey-hole.

 

So either he never turned into a shade, for some reason, or he turned into a shade and she left him to wander the woods, or he turned into a shade and she killed him. Either way, a body was left, just like a body was left for Red.