the sword was also able to slice through an intangible kitty, the celestial powered clones of sinister, knocking out nightcrawler (unless his is a magical creature) empath, magneto, cap and legion arnt magical creatures. if it harm legion can it harm someone like shaman x-man in his energy form? It took out warlocks virus etc... It has certainly harmed a lot non magical beings in the past.

Kitty Pryde's an exception because she shares a spiritual link to Illyana. Regarding having an effect towards non magical beings, I think it may have been retcon a little probably because Illyana needed something to defend herself. She did used it against the Sinister clones but no blood and physical injuries were present from it so I may conclude that she uses it to stun enemies. Karma was knocked out unconscious after Magik drove her soulsword through Karma's chest as seen from Zeb Wells' New Mutants #20. The soulsword has been affective against astral beings in the past so by slaying a couple of Legion's personalities, I think the same would apply.

@244 said:

Kitty Pryde's an exception because she shares a spiritual link to Illyana. Regarding having an effect towards non magical beings, I think it may have been retcon a little probably because Illyana needed something to defend herself. She did used it against the Sinister clones but no blood and physical injuries were present from it so I may conclude that she uses it to stun enemies. Karma was knocked out unconscious after Magik drove her soulsword through Karma's chest as seen from Zeb Wells' New Mutants #20. The soulsword has been affective against astral beings in the past so by slaying a couple of Legion's personalities, I think the same would apply.

You think the soul sword can slice through x-man's energy form? a couple of my friends were debating on that. Some thought that feat w/ legion's personalities was enough proof for that. what other energy signatures has the sword sliced through?

@chiq said:

@244 said:

Kitty Pryde's an exception because she shares a spiritual link to Illyana. Regarding having an effect towards non magical beings, I think it may have been retcon a little probably because Illyana needed something to defend herself. She did used it against the Sinister clones but no blood and physical injuries were present from it so I may conclude that she uses it to stun enemies. Karma was knocked out unconscious after Magik drove her soulsword through Karma's chest as seen from Zeb Wells' New Mutants #20. The soulsword has been affective against astral beings in the past so by slaying a couple of Legion's personalities, I think the same would apply.

You think the soul sword can slice through x-man's energy form? a couple of my friends were debating on that. Some thought that feat w/ legion's personalities was enough proof for that. what other energy signatures has the sword sliced through?

I'm not familiar with X-man so I have no answer for that. Sorry.

@chiq said:

@244 said:

Kitty Pryde's an exception because she shares a spiritual link to Illyana. Regarding having an effect towards non magical beings, I think it may have been retcon a little probably because Illyana needed something to defend herself. She did used it against the Sinister clones but no blood and physical injuries were present from it so I may conclude that she uses it to stun enemies. Karma was knocked out unconscious after Magik drove her soulsword through Karma's chest as seen from Zeb Wells' New Mutants #20. The soulsword has been affective against astral beings in the past so by slaying a couple of Legion's personalities, I think the same would apply.

You think the soul sword can slice through x-man's energy form? a couple of my friends were debating on that. Some thought that feat w/ legion's personalities was enough proof for that. what other energy signatures has the sword sliced through?

No. I've heard X-Man referred to as a Shaman, but he isn't magical. His powers are still his mutant powers.

Magik didn't perform some sort of amazing feat against Legion's personalities who were walking around the real world. She entered his mind. They were not living breathing physical beings. That said, it was just bad writing that she used the Soulsword like that (it was just a plot device to allow Karma to use it to execute a personality later).

Well yeah shaman x-man is made of pure psionic energy. The sword has cut through astral beings before. It's really confusing since we see it cut through or knock out more and more non magical beings. Don't know if the creatures she is slicing on the cover of uncanny x-men 10 are magical creatures or aliens. Empath isn't magical too...but it seemed to happen in Limbo, where she can do almost anything. Pixie also stabbed empath w/ the sould dagger and wiped out his power and made him blind. It's a weapon that has very vague parameters.

@chiq said:

Well yeah shaman x-man is made of pure psionic energy. The sword has cut through astral beings before. It's really confusing since we see it cut through or knock out more and more non magical beings. Don't know if the creatures she is slicing on the cover of uncanny x-men 10 are magical creatures or aliens. Empath isn't magical too...but it seemed to happen in Limbo, where she can do almost anything.

The sword has cut through possessed beings. As I stated, the logic in the early New Mutants issues was warped to suit the writer's needs. As for Empath, I'm not sure what you're trying to say... They've used the sword to scare Empath in the past, as he didn't know it wouldn't hurt him (in much the same way they used it to reveal the Shadow King hiding in Cypher as the Shadow King didn't know it wouldn't hurt him or Cypher).

But writers change the rules of items like the Soulsword all the time. It's usually because they don't know anything about it, or they just ignore continuity to suit their own needs.

@chiq said:

Well yeah shaman x-man is made of pure psionic energy. The sword has cut through astral beings before. It's really confusing since we see it cut through or knock out more and more non magical beings. Don't know if the creatures she is slicing on the cover of uncanny x-men 10 are magical creatures or aliens. Empath isn't magical too...but it seemed to happen in Limbo, where she can do almost anything.

The sword has cut through possessed beings. As I stated, the logic in the early New Mutants issues was warped to suit the writer's needs. As for Empath, I'm not sure what you're trying to say... They've used the sword to scare Empath in the past, as he didn't know it wouldn't hurt him (in much the same way they used it to reveal the Shadow King hiding in Cypher as the Shadow King didn't know it wouldn't hurt him or Cypher).

But writers change the rules of items like the Soulsword all the time. It's usually because they don't know anything about it, or they just ignore continuity to suit their own needs.

@chiq said:

the sword was also able to slice through an intangible kitty, the celestial powered clones of sinister, knocking out nightcrawler (unless his is a magical creature) empath, magneto, cap and legion arnt magical creatures. if it harm legion can it harm someone like shaman x-man in his energy form? It took out warlocks virus etc... It has certainly harmed a lot non magical beings in the past.

I think the sword just got more powerful, it was the ultimate manifestation of her magical power. The soul sword originally could only harm magical beings, because that's all she needed it to do when she created it to fight a magical being. It was later shown slicing a mechanical alien in half and transforming it into a demon. She was thinking at the moment about the sword and it's magical restriction but also that the sword might dent the creature and to her surprise it did more than that . It was revealed during Inferno that in order for to tap her full power she had to fully claim the sword; it's part of her soul and probably subject to her desires more than being naturally limited. She said that the power of Limbo was growing and ready to burst out and destroy everything in it's path, the sword is connected to her and she to Limbo, it makes sense that the sword just did what she really needed, and would just appear without her calling it whether the situation was magical or not. The taint of Limbo then makes half the alien machine into some kind of hungry demon to match what was going on in Limbo with many demons now being techno-organic and hungry for power and influence in Limbo. This was, IMO, just another hint that the swords abilities (like the armor made from the same materiel, her soul) changed according to her. She wanted to hurt that alien and it got hurt, she was tainted and so was the sword and she was always going on about the price for using dark magic, so she unconsciously changed that monster into a demon via the sword, as it was shown that having access to her full power she can bring her subconscious thoughts to life when she created Baba Yaga, and as I said before her full power was in the sword at this point. The sword is not just a weapon, it is a magical artifact and has many other properties. It can focus spells, control stepping discs and make one ruler of Limbo. It can also manipulate and interact with souls. In marvel souls and astral bodies are pretty much the same thing as evidenced by telepaths astral projecting and interacting with departed loved ones (notably Xavier and Moira).

So this is how I see it, Nates energy state is psionic energy, psionic energy is what the astral plane is made of, which means astral bodies/souls are psionic in nature. Theoretically she should be able to touch him with the sword, like she did to psychic projections in Legions mind. The one with Magneto I always saw as her just channeling darkling energy through the sword and that was what would have done the damage, look how she used the same energy to blast everybody away without swinging the sword. With Empath I would think she was just trying to scare him because she was, but she was also in Limbo where her will is law, so there is still a chance she could have made him subject to harm from the sword while there. There is also the swords curious ability to kill not just magical creatures, but magic users as well, even if they are human, which means they are not inherently magical. Humans can tap magic, probably via the soul/astral body since they can perform the same magic in the real world on the astral plane. Maybe that's why some magical dimension rulers (hell lords and death gods) want souls to use them to tap more and more magic for their uses, and worship may have the same effect.

But anyway that's my 200 cents.

@LordOfAllHumans: Very interesting. makes sense. Really curious to see how the sword goes up against black widow.

@chiq said:

@LordOfAllHumans: Very interesting. makes sense. Really curious to see how the sword goes up against black widow.

really no telling how that will work out, Marvel has a very different approach now when writing things, they seem to think it's better to forget anything in the past, because even they don't seem to be able to keep up with their own continuity.

If the soulsword is anything like Pixie's soul-dagger, it can indeed harm non-magical beings. Pixie used hers on a regular human a few times, and stabbed Nightcrawler in the x-infernus storyarch. According to Beast, it can cause pain, and temporary incapacitation/paralysis, but leaves no physical wound (like Psylocke's knife, I guess).