| abstract
| - There are lockets and then there are Lockets. The one of interest to us here is the gadget that was [ bestowed] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] upon Agatha Heterodyne by her uncle Barry when she was a child. It was imbued with the power to suppress her Spark by inducing painful migraines whenever she attempted to enter the madness place, breaking her concentration and forcing her to behave "normally". While it is an issue that is made more explicitly clear in the novelizations of the strip, it also had the effect of damping down all of Agatha's emotions, both positive and negative. This may seem like a nasty thing to do for one's beloved niece, but there was method to Uncle Barry's madness. Many Sparks die young as a result of building their first creation -- a process known as "breaking through" -- before they have the wisdom to control that which they create. As a result, either their clanks kill them, or the enemies they turn the clank against do. Presumably, Barry didn't want Agatha to start acting "Sparky" until she was old enough to deal with whatever she made the first time out. (It's also been commented that female Sparks in Europa have a nasty habit of simply disappearing...) Lo and behold, this crazy idea worked. Agatha survived and kept the Spark-suppressing locket on until she was [ mugged] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]]in an alley in Beetlesburg by the von Zinzer boys at age eighteen, at which time it was stolen from her, [ subsequently broken] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]], and her Spark almost immediately started to make itself known. Her first clank followed shortly, with no significant ill effects, and an awesomely powerful Spark was born. Agatha would regain her locket much later, as a result of a complicated chain of events (Some details of which, like how it got from Moloch von Zinzer's [ hands] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] and into [ Wulfenbach's] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] or how it was repaired have yet to be revealed). And just in time too, as when she put it back on, it [ negated her possession] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] by The Other. Even better, now her mind has developed to where she can do Sparky things [ even while wearing the locket] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]], so she kinda gets the best of both worlds. Woe be to us all, however, whenever the locket gets removed.. Zeetha, who knows Agatha well by way of Kolee-dok-Zumil, [ stops] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]]Agatha the first time she starts to remove it, but it later gets [ taken off] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] [ twice] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] while Agatha is in Castle Heterodyne. Fortunately, Lucrezia is (mentally) chased off by Von Pinn and Agatha herself, though not before a copy of her gets put inside Zola. We have some idea what the innards of this particular locket look like, including pictures of Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne and Bill Heterodyne. It was in the cover of Issue 10 of the Comic Book, and also currently appears as part of studiofoglio.com's Free Stuff. It can also be seen being [ held by the Baron] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]], the cause of [ That Naughty Flashback Scene] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]]. In The Future, the Locket appears to have "grown" wings, but as to what causes that... well... only the Foglios can tell..
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