This. Right here. Very valid point.sotanaht wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 1:28 am It would actually be a good idea to design a mind control device to fail if following an order required extreme actions outside of the direct order. Imagine you order a slave to go outside, but the guards stop her, so that the slave believes the only immediate way to get through that door is to kill the guards. That would be something of a design flaw that might end up doing more harm than good, with simply orders leading to unforeseen consequences. So build in a failsafe so the slave doesn't have to do anything too extreme unless specifically ordered. More commonly that "failsafe" simply comes in the form of the slave being able to break control if an order goes too strongly against their morality, but it leads to the same end.
However, I'll add in that this is Clovis' shackle we're talking about, and I doubt he cares about anything other than getting his property, so harming anyone in the way of that may very well be one of it's features, rather than a design flaw. Who knows? Maybe he had all his men, or at least his closest henchmen, wear (or have enchanted on them) some kind of charm or identifier that prevents harm from whoever is wearing that shackle, but that's picking nits. To be fair, though, he did supposedly engineer the soul link between Nat and Zen, so it wouldn't be that far-fetched...
Now that I think about it... Back when Raine broke the collar, her mindset at the time was rather specific, and very strong and directed. I.. am.. IN CONTROL! Now I'm not saying that "control" is absolutely the only mindset that can overpower an enchanted shackle, but it's certainly powerful. And, if we assume that it was Eric calling to her, her love for him is pretty darn strong. Couple that with the suddenness of her reaction, and an innate desire to not leave him, and you'd get a ton of focus and a lot of willpower and emotion compressed into a timeframe short enough that it would spike pretty high. A 'moment of truth', as it were. And for somebody with intense emotions and a lot of willpower, I doubt she'd have trouble overcoming that shackle if only for a moment. And if she can overcome it, it may just burn itself out and fail.
Just maybe.