I love the fact that Shadia is being given a ton of symbolism for being the one to officially "reforge" the Pariah Blades by turning their purpose from combat blade to theater prop. It's beautiful symbolism, that by turning the blade from weapon to prop, it's as if she is turning the legacy of the orcs themselves from warriors into artists. Amazing.
But I want to take a moment to point out that the reason Shadia has the blades at all is because of Bolaire.
It was Bolaire's idea to steal them from the museum when they did. It's a move that likely would have happened at some point in the campaign, but Bolaire pushed to do it now. To take advantage of the chaos sown in the museum and move the blades before House Cormoray got their claws in too deep. When Brennan sicced Lady Cormoray on him and Hal, it felt like a signal from the GM to the players that it was too soon for them to be making this move, but then he deus ex machina'd them out of danger, and the story went on.
I now think that getting the Pariah Blades out of the museum was a necessary step that would've been happening now, during the Convergence, had Bolaire not thought to do it first.
Because now, we know that these rituals involving the afterlives need an anchor of some sort, forged from an artifact that has changed its purpose. The letter the Soldiers brought back all but spells out that the blood for the ritual needed the Pariah Blades to be there as well as an anchor. Without that specific anchor, the ritual at the Round might've been destined to fail, just like whatever disastrous thing happened with Thjazi and Mara on Reaper's Day all those years ago.
It's not likely to get addressed by the narrative, because the symbolism of Shadia is so very powerful here, but I think there's important symbolism to Bolaire being the one to rescue the blades, too.
He's a historian who fought to keep the history of the orcish people in the hands of the orcs themselves, instead of the greedy human houses trying to twist that history. He's fighting to keep the Truth in the hands of those who will keep telling it, the Storytellers, like Hal. And, given what Bolaire is, there is a high likelihood that Bolaire himself would never have existed had the orcs not chosen to take up arms against Azgra and forge the Blades in the first place. Bolaire is himself an equivalent to a Pariah Blade working to keep his "cousins" out of the hands of the very tyrants he and they were created to oppose.
The Panto Mask, made to kill a god, now working as a historian. The artifact that changed its own purpose, now helping other artifacts to change theirs.
Bolaire couldn't have known that the Blades themselves would end up as part of the play, but now that they have, he may have just provided a key component to yet another powerful ritual taking place in a sacred theater. And there is symbolism in that too, in the theater mask providing a component to the upcoming theater magic, even if Bolaire himself will not be present at the play.
If the Pariah Blades being at the theater end up being key to whatever ritual takes place, then both Shadia and Bolaire will have been necessary to that success.
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