Thwarting
the Powers of Darkness:
a
thematic
study of J.R.R. Tolkien's The
Lord of the Rings,
Susan
Cooper's Dark
is Rising
sequence,
Robin Gordon's
New Zephyria
and
J.K. Rowling's Harry
Potter.
By
Malcolm
Potter Brown
- Auksford, 2007
-
Introduction. --
The
World. -- The
Powers of Darkness.
-- The
Mythology.
The unlikely,
unheroic hero. --
The
Companions and advisers.
The Quest.
--
The
role of Pity.
-- The
labyrinth. --
The monster
in the labyrinth.
Onomastics: the creation and significance of names.
-- Language.
Conclusion. -- Notes.
-- Bibliography.
-- Links.
Introduction
The
stories studied in this essay are The
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.
Tolkien, The
Dark is Rising sequence
by Susan Cooper, New
Zephyria, by Robin Gordon,
and the Harry
Potter
novels by J.K. Rowling. In all of these the world is
threatened
by the rise of a dark and destructive power, the eventual defeat of
which depends not so much on the heroic deeds of great men as on the
determination of unlikely heroes.
The
World
All four of our authors create worlds
which are
threatened by the rise of the powers of darkness and find their
defenders in unlikely heroes. The two male authors, Tolkien
and
Gordon, both set their stories in alternative worlds, while the female
writers, Cooper and Rowling, prefer parallel worlds that run alongside
the real world, unsuspected by its inhabitants.
Tolkien's
Middle Earth takes its name from the Middle Earth of Germanic
mythology. The Germanic peoples, including the Vikings,
believed
in a threatened world, Middle Earth, poised between the realm of the
gods above and the infernal regions below, and between the lifeless
eternal frosts of the north and the all-consuming fires of Muspell to
the far south. It was a world they knew would come to a
violent
end, in which the mighty wolf, Fenrir, would devour the sun; in which
the Midgard serpent, coiled around the seas surrounding Middle Earth
would rise up and destroy the world; in which the Frost Giants would
slay the Gods, even Odin, the all-wise father of all, and the mighty
Thor; and in which the fires of Muspell would consume the heavens.
Eventually, out of the chaos of destruction, there would
arise a
new world, but, in the Middle Earth they knew, a man must struggle, do
his duty, keep his honour and hope to die a hero's death.
Tolkien's
Middle Earth, like the old Germanic world, is poised between
preservation and destruction, between the evil realm of Mordor and the
distant, perfect world to which the Elves will one day depart.
It
is dependent on the vigilance and heroism of the free peoples to save
it from the powers of evil. It feels like a primeval memory
from
the distant past of our own world, and is inhabited not only by the
human race, but also by the peoples of the old Germanic legends, the
Elves and Dwarves, and the Trolls and Goblins.
Gordon's
world is an alternative creation of a different kind. It too
refers back to the Germanic fairytales and posits a different dimension
which is feebly and inaccurately reflected here in the fairytales of
the Brothers Grimm, while our own world finds its equally imprecise
reflection there in the stories of the Brothers Jolly. While
Middle
Earth seems to be centred on a long forgotten dark-age Europe, Gordon's
concept geographically inverts the world, placing the
Kingdom of New Zephyria more or less where New Zealand is in our earth,
but giving it a fairy-tale monarchy with a thousand-year history. Both
Tolkien's Shire
and Gordon's New
Zephyria are happy, innocent
communities, ignorant of the
catastrophe about to fall upon them.
Susan
Cooper's setting for the Dark
is Rising
sequence
is Britain. The first story, Over
sea, under stone,
which deals with the discovery of the Grail, is set in Cornwall, as is
the third, Greenwitch,
in which the Grail is stolen by the Dark, but the light obtains the
code by which its inscriptions can be understood. The Dark is Rising,
which introduces the hero, Will Stanton, is set in the Thames Valley,
particularly around Huntercombe, while The Grey King
is
set in Wales around Cader Idris.
It is
Will who explains the realities of the world, where, when
the
Dark comes rising, ordinary people are caught up in the storm and
cannot understand what is happening
"This, where we live, is a world of men, ordinary men, and
although in it there is the Old Magic of the Earth, and the Wild Magic
of living things, it is men who control what the world shall be like [
... ] But beyond the world is the universe, bound by the law of the
High Magic, as every universe must be. And beneath the High
Magic
are two ... poles ... that we call the Dark and the Light. No
other power orders them. They merely exist. The
Dark seeks
by its dark nature to influence men so that in the end, through them,
it
may control the earth. The Light has the task of stopping
that
from happening. From time to time the Dark has come rising
and
has been driven back, but now very soon it will rise for the last and
most terrible time."
J.K.
Rowling's world is also parallel to our own and its existence
unsuspected by ordinary, non-magical folk, whom the wizards call
Muggles, though a few seem to be let into the secret by reason of their
high office: for example, Cornelius Fudge visits the Prime Minister of
the United
Kingdom to warn him of the dangers to come, and the P.M. is surprised
to learn that his faithful and utterly dependable private secretary,
Kingsley Shacklebolt, is a Wizard put there to look after him.
The
world of Wizardry is almost another dimension that can be entered
through numerous portals, the most famous being the station pillar that
leads to platform 9¾ from which the Hogwarts express departs
every term. The Leaky Cauldron is another, a wizarding inn
that
passes unnoticed by Muggles and contains the secret entrance to Diagon
Alley, where Wizards and Witches openly go about their business in the
centre of London. In London too is the Ministry of Magic, a
colossal building that the rest of us simply don't notice, while the
wizarding school, Hogwarts, appears to be somewhere in Scotland.
At
the same time Wizards and Witches walk among us, looking, more or less,
like Muggles. They intermarry with Muggles. Some,
the
Squibs, though born to wizarding families, lack magical powers, while
some Muggle families, rather to their own bewilderment, give birth to
Wizards or Witches. It is this intermingling of the Muggle
and
Magical worlds that means that the return of Voldemort would spell doom
not only for Wizards but for us as well.
The
Powers of Darkness
In The
Hobbit
there is
a brief mention of the
Necromancer,
in whose
dungeons Gandalf had found Thorin Oakenshield's father. By
the time The
Lord of the Rings
was
written this evil power has both a name and a history, and he has
become much greater and more dangerous than a mere necromancer.
He is now the Lord Sauron, successor of that Morgoth who had
challenged the Creator himself. Sauron had been defeated by a
great alliance of Elves, Dwarves and Men at the end of the second age
of Middle Earth, and his Ring of Power cut from his finger by Isildur,
son of the fallen King of Gondor. The Ring, however, was not
the
great trophy Isildur had imagined. True, without it Sauron's
power was diminished, but no-one else could make use of it without his
intentions being turned to its own evil purpose. Isildur
himself
fell, and the Ring, now known as Isildur's Bane, was lost until a
certain Smeagol, a Hobbit-like creature, took it by force from his
brother Deagol, who had found it in the Great River. Smeagol
began his ownership of the Ring with fratricide, then took it and hid
beneath the mountains, using its power of making its wearer invisible
to prey on Goblins (Orcs), until the Ring was taken from him by Bilbo
Baggins. Bilbo began his ownership by pitying Gollum, as
Smeagol
was now known, and, perhaps because of this, he took less harm from it
than other ring-bearers.
It was
only later that Gandalf,
the wisest of the Wizards, came to suspect that the ring Bilbo had
found was not just any old magic ring of invisibility, but the Great
Ring that Sauron had forged to enable him to control Elves, Dwarves and
Men through the Rings of Power worn by their rulers.
Gandalf's
suspicion was confirmed when he threw the Ring into Bilbo's fire and
found that on its previously plain surface there appeared words in an
Elvish script but in the language of Mordor: One Ring to rule them
all, one
Ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind
them.
Sauron
was
aware that the one Ring was still in existence, for if it had been
destroyed, he too would
have perished. Moving at last from Mirkwood, where he had
long
lurked as the Necromancer, he regained his old kingdom of Mordor,
sought out allies, and sent out to search for the Ring nine of the
greatest of his servants, the Ringwraiths or Nazgul, who came to the
Shire as Black Riders to seek out Baggins. Some have accused
Tolkien of racism in making these servants of evil Black
Riders, but
anyone who believes in that calumny has no feeling for medievalism and
has obviously not troubled to read the book. The Black Riders
are
so called because, like many a medieval Black Knight, they are dressed
in black. In addition Frodo makes it clear when he at last
sees
he face of their leader, that it is white, for he refers to him as the
Pale King.
Other
servants too Sauron had:
the wicked Orcs or Goblins, originally made by Morgoth in the First Age
of Middle Earth by perverting free people, probably elves, to his own
purposes, and by the time of the Third Age, spread throughout the
world. Many evil men also served him, and
others were, like Denethor,
Steward of Gondor, sapped of their will to resist and convinced that
defeat was inevitable. His greatest coup, however was the
suborning of Saruman, the Chief of the Wizards, with promises that he
should share power when Middle Earth was conquered. Saruman
set
to work to breed a superior form of Orc, the Uruk Hai, and, through the
agency of Grima Wormtongue, sapped the will of Theoden, King of Rohan
until Gandalf awoke him to his duty and knowledge of his power.
Saruman was a consummate hypocrite, able to enchant his
hearers
by the sound of his voice and to convince them that black was white.
We find a
similar hypocrite in a position of power in Robin Gordon's New Zephyria, where
Nigel Crimper, Prime Minister of New Zephyria, plots to overthrow the
monarchy and make Nanny Scungebucket president, believing that she is
so old that he will soon be able to succeed her and take supreme power
for himself. Unfortunately for him Nanny Scungebucket is not
just
the elderly chief executive of Scungebucket enterprises, which by then
owns virtually everything worth owning in New Zephyria, but an avatar
of Ruahine-nui Makutu, goddess of death and destruction:
Crimper
finds that, far from his being able to make use of her for his
own
ends, he himself has been manipulated by a vastly stronger being and
ultimately meets a nasty but very appropriate fate.
While
Tolkien creates a whole new
mythology, Gordon anchors his personification of the powers of darkness
in a variety of existing mythologies, referring (sometimes in the same
sentence) to ancient Greek, Germanic and Maori myths. The innocent
world of New Zephyria is happily celebrating the christening of a new
baby princess, when the Powers of Darkness strike, with the appearance
of Auld Hinny McIldhu. She informs the
King, who alone can see and hear her, that she will give him a present
with neither a past nor a future, which she does by stealing first the
baby (New Zephyria's future) then the memory of the King's omniscient
secretary and eventually that of the whole people. Auld Hinny
McIldhu is another manifestation of Ruahine-nui Makutu, and her gift
leaves the people drifting and at
the mercy of the blandishments of Nanny Scungebucket. These
blandishments consist largely of junk food (delicious at first until
Scungebucket Enterprises have driven their competitors into bankruptcy
and gained a monopoly), junk music and junk media. Nanny's
goal
is the abolition of the monarchy and her own elevation to the
presidency, after which her real identity will be revealed.
Like
Sauron, Ruahine-nui Makutu
has returned after a long exile. A thousand years previously
she
had had a free hand to terrorise the innocent inhabitants of the
islands, until Theowulf, a Zephyrian prince, arrived, drove off an
attacking Taniwha, then descended to the underworld to kill the chief
of the Taniwah, a monstrous subterranean bull. After this
exploit, which ended the reign of terror, Theowulf married the Sea
King's daughter and founded the new Kingdom of New Zephyria.
Voldemort
is also making a
comeback after being defeated and almost destroyed by the
rebounding of his own spell from baby Harry Potter, who was protected
by
the love of his mother. That was eleven years before the
opening
of the Harry Potter series with Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Here there is no supernatural being with immense powers of destruction,
but an ordinary wizard, formerly known as Tom Riddle, who had developed
his magical abilities for his own evil purposes. Voldemort too has
allies, among them the
Malfoy family, and he has the ability to turn others to his own ends.
Is there a hypocrite? There is certainly Snape, who
has
always wanted, and, in the penultimate book, Harry Potter and the Half
Blood
prince, eventually
achieves, the position of Professor of Defence Against the Dark
Arts. In that same book it seems that his hypocrisy is
eventually
revealed as he kills Dumbledore, Voldemort's principal opponent, but
until the final volume comes out no-one can actually be sure what side
Snape is on.
A more obvious hypocrite is Peter Pettigrew, credited for
many
years
with helping to save Harry, and living in disguise as Ron's rat,
Scabbers -- until Sirius Black reveals the truth: that it was Pettigrew
who betrayed James and Lily Potter to Voldemort.
In the Dark is Rising
sequence, there is no one figure in whom evil is concentrated.
Both the Dark and the Light are forces represented by human
beings often indistinguishable from ordinary people. The
Lords
of the Dark may be sinister, over-friendly, apparently innocent and
unimportant (e.g. the farm girl Maggie Barnes) or gentle and kindly,
(like Blodwen, the wife of John Rowlands, a man who, though not of the
Light, was aware of, and helpful to, its cause). Ordinary
men, too,
could be bent to its will, for example the ill-tempered Caradog
Pritchard, whom the Dark used to oppress Bran, the concealed son of
Arthur and therefore the new Pendragon.
Through
the ages the Dark has
come rising, hoping to conquer and control the world of men.
This, says Susan Cooper, is its final attempt, and its
overthrow
will free the world forever. Given the present situation this
seems facile optimism.
The
Mythology
Tolkien's
great interest lay in the creation of a new mythology to replace the
lost myths of the Germanic peoples of northern Europe. The Lord of the Rings
is embedded in that mythology, which was worked out in great detail in
Tolkien's unpublished writings, many of them issued by his son after
his death. The
Silmarillion,
for example contains a whole set of creation myths and explains the
background to the forging of the Rings of Power and of the One Ring to
rule them all. This gives to The
Lord of the Rings
a rich mythological background, which is drawn on at various times,
either, for example, to give a back history to the Elves, or to
heighten
the sense of impending doom (as with the tale of Gil-Galad, sung by Sam
as the Black Riders approach) or to give an added dimension (as with
the tale of Beren and Luthien, which is analagous to that of Aragorn
and Arwen).
Susan
Cooper draws on the Celtic
and Anglo-Saxon mythology of the British Isles. The first
story
is of the discovery of the Grail, long enshrined as a quest in
Arthurian mythology, and Arthur himself later appears as a Lord of the
Light, while his son Bran is given the task of recovering the mystic
sword from the kingdom swallowed by the sea. It is perhaps
strange that the myths of the Saxon invaders should appear too, for
example Wayland Smith, but Cooper explains this as each fresh wave of
invaders, sent by the Dark to overthrow the civilisation of Britain, is
conquered by the land they have settled and thereby become part of the
peaceful forces of the Light.
Robin
Gordon's mythology draws on
Greek, Germanic and Polynesian sources. The exploits of the
First
prince of New Zephyria, for example, reflect those of both Beowulf and
Theseus as he kills an invading monster, then descends to the
Underworld to conquer the King of the Taniwha, assisted by a ball of
twine given to him by Moana, his future bride, with the help of which
he finds his way back. Ruahine-nui Makutu inhabits an
underworld
where Hades and other Greek deities hold sway, as well as Whiro, the
Maori god of death and destruction, and where the spirits of the dead
either make their way confidently to the Rainbow Bridge the Vikings
believed led to Valhalla, or are driven to destruction by evil spirits.
For J.K.
Rowling the
background is not so much mythological as folkloristic, drawing on the
European legends of witches flying on broomsticks and the whole
hocus-pocus of magic, with, in the philosopher's stone and the elixir
of life, a reference to medieval alchemy.
The
unlikely,
unheroic hero
Once
again there is a difference between the male and female authors: both
Cooper and Rowling choose boys as their heroes, while Tolkien and
Gordon prefer a more indirect link with childhood, the first creating a
half-sized human-like people who are so insignificant that they are
left out of all the old lists of the races inhabiting Middle Earth, and
the second a prince stuck in retarded adolescence.
Frodo
Baggins, nephew of Bilbo,
is 33 years old and has just come of age. Hobbits are not
adventurous fellows, preferring a life of comfort, good food, good ale
and good pipeweed. Frodo's uncle, Bilbo, whose mother had
been the
famous Belladonna Took, a member of one of the comparatively bolder
clans, had, it is true, taken part in a great adventure,
assisted the Dwarves to regain their kingdom under the Lonely Mountain
from the dragon Smaug, and returned, so it was rumoured, fabulously
rich, but Frodo himself had no wish to go travelling, and would have
been
horrified if he had suspected the dangers he would encounter.
Nonetheless he it was who became the Ring-Bearer, with the
task of taking
the Great Ring to Mount Doom where it could be destroyed. It
was
hoped that by entrusting this greatest of all treasures to so
insignificant a bearer it might pass under the eye of Sauron unnoticed.
If Frodo
is an unlikely hero
because he comes from an unadventurous race, perhaps Prince Egbert of
New Zephyria, descendant of the famous prince Theowulf, might have been
expected to have something heroic about him. Unfortunately he
proves to be an immature prankster who passes his time playing tricks
and messing around. Even on the night of the Royal Ball,
devised
by his father to help him find a wife and settle down to the serious
business of life, he ignores the possible brides and spends the evening
making fun of the ugly sisters, then going off with his cronies to hunt
down, harry and harass the town boys, and to debag them and hang their
trousers on the pinnacles of Parliament. The popular press
enjoyed it all, but not the King.
Still,
Bertie does eventually find
himself a wife and begets a beautiful baby daughter, whose kidnapping
by
Auld Hinny McIldhu sets him off on the path that will lead to
adventure, heroism and eventual triumph.
The boys
chosen by Cooper and
Rowling are both eleven when their adventures begin, and they both
discover that they are not, as they had thought, ordinary British boys,
but people marked out for special roles.
Will
Stanton is a much loved
member of a large and cheerful family living in the country in the
Thames Valley. He is the seventh child of a seventh child,
which, it seems to be suggested, is why he was chosen to be an Old One
(or representative of the Light). On the eve of his eleventh
birthday things seem strange: previously friendly animals retreat from
him as if afraid. It is the dawning of his power as an Old
One,
as is explained to him by Merriman. He is, in fact, the last
of
the Old Ones, the youngest who completes the circle and whose special
task it is to collect the symbols of power so that the Light can at
last banish the Dark from the world.
Harry
Potter, on the other hand,
is a lonely orphan, living with, and detested by, his uncle Vernon and
Aunt Petunia, and forced to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs,
until wizardry forces his horrible relatives to give him his pampered
cousin Dudley's second bedroom. Aunt Petunia, née
Evans,
is Harry's mother's sister, and appears to have been jealous of Lily
from childhood. She has picked up some knowledge of the world
of
wizards, and she and her husband are determined to squash any magic out
of Harry. Nonetheless, when he is eleven there comes for him
a
summons to attend Hogwarts, and, when Uncle Vernon destroys all the
letters, he is eventually fetched by Hagrid and told of his
significance: he is the baby Wizard who reflected back onto the evil
Lord Voldemort the spell that was intended to kill him, and the scar on
his forehead, far from being the result of a car accident that killed
his parents (as his aunt and uncle have led him to believe), was caused
by Voldemort's attack and marks him out as
Voldemort's nemesis.
Rowling
at one point raises the
intriguing possibility that Voldemort might in the end be thwarted not
by Harry but by Neville Longbottom, a bumbling, incompetent pupil,
whose parents had their minds destroyed by Voldemort's Death Eaters and
now live in an enclosed asylum. Neville was born one day
before
Harry "as the seventh month dies", and to parents, who, like the
Potters, had thrice defied Voldemort. Dumbledore, however,
dismisses this possibility, and Rowling has indicated that Voldemort
virtually chose his own nemesis by attempting to kill Harry, unaware
that in doing so he would confer on Harry enough of his own powers to
enable the boy to thwart him. Neville is merely a
might-have-been, which does not, she says prevent him having a
significant part to play in the final confrontation.Note
1
There
are, nevertheless a couple
of oddities about Harry. In the first story, at the end of
which
he saves the philosopher's stone from falling into the hands of
Voldemort, it is clear that there would have been no danger of that
happening if Harry had not interfered. The stone was
protected by
a spell that prevented anyone who wanted to use it for his own ends
from gaining access. It was Harry's purity of intention that
cut through that
spell. Secondly, although several times he reproaches himself
when things go wrong that are not his fault, after Sirius has gone
through the portal from which no-one has ever returned, largely because
he had tried to rescue Harry who had travelled via the floo network
rather than using the communicator that Sirius had given him, Harry,
far from feeling guilty on finding the forgotten device, merely shrugs
and throws it away.
The
Companions and Advisers
None of our heroes is left entirely
alone to face the powers of darkness.
Frodo,
the Ring-Bearer, is a
member the Fellowship of the Ring, the nine companions chosen by Elrond
to stand against the nine Black Riders: four Hobbits, two Men, an Elf,
a Dwarf and the Wizard, Gandalf. It was Gandalf who had
identified the ring that Bilbo had found as being no mere invisibility
charm but the Great Ring forged by Sauron to control the Kings of
Elves, Men and Dwarves. It was Gandalf who advised Frodo to
take
the Ring to Rivendell, and Gandalf who counselled its destruction in
the Cracks of Doom. Gandalf led the company, till he was
forced
back from the Redhorn Gate on Caradhras and compelled to take the route
of ill-omen throught the Mines of Moria, once the great Dwarwish
citadel of Khazad-dûm, now home to ancient and terrible evil.
There he fell, plunging into a chasm in his desperate
struggle
with the Balrog, an evil spirit, summoned from Hell by Morgoth in the
First Age, and lurking since then at the roots of the Misty Mountains.
After the
fall of Gandalf,
leadership was assumed by Aragorn, known as Strider, one of the rangers
of the north, and, (unknown to the company), rightful King of Gondor.
The company was broken by the action of the other man,
Boromir,
son of Denethor, Steward of Gondor, who, heedless of Gandalf's warning,
sought to take the Ring from Frodo and bear it to Gondor, where, he
thought, it could be used against Sauron. Boromir came to his
senses too late. He rushed to defend the other Hobbits, Merry
and
Pippin, from attacking Orcs and was killed. Frodo then
decided
to cross the river alone to find his way to Mordor, but the faithful
Sam followed, travelled with him, rescued him from the fearsome giant
spider, Shelob, and was with him right to the end, to the edge of the
Cracks of Doom. Aragorn meanwhile, guessing Frodo's
intention,
decided to follow the Orcs and rescue Merry and Pippin, which led him
into many adventures and battles of his own.
One other
companion Frodo
had, not one of his own choosing, but one who was unwittingly
to
ensure the success of the mission: Gollum, who had followed the
companions and now tracked Frodo and Sam, till he was captured and
persuaded to join them. He it was who led Frodo to Shelob's
lair,
hoping that the spider would eat the Hobbit and leave the Ring for
Gollum to pick up and take again into his ownership. At the
end,
however, when Frodo faltered
at last and was mastered by the Ring, refusing to throw it into the
Cracks of Doom but putting it instead on his own finger, thus revealing
himself to Sauron and dooming his mission to failure, it was Gollum's
overweening desire for the Precious that led him to hurl himself at
Frodo and bite the Ring from his hand, only to plunge to his doom in
the fires of the volcano and destroy the Ring.
Will
Stanton, puzzled at first by
what has happened to him, soon meets Merriman Lyon, the first of the
Old Ones, who explains his new status and guides him through the
learning process and some of the ordeals his adventures bring.
Merriman, whom Barney Drew recognises as Merlin, is the
Gandalf-figure: the wise counsellor, the most powerful opponent of the
Dark, and perhaps the only one who fully understands the situation.
In Greenwitch,
set in Cornwall, Will meets Simon, Jane and Barney Drew, the children
who found the Grail in Over
sea, under stone,
the first story of the sequence. They are at first rather
jealous
and suspicious of him, feeling that he has a closer relationship with
the man they know as Uncle Merry than they do. Once this
initial
phase is past they become loyal friends; as too does the
mysterious Welsh boy, Bran Davies, who is eventually revealed as the
son of Arthur and the
new Pendragon. However these are not the only friends and
allies
Will has. The circle of the Old Ones, of which he is the
youngest
and one of the most important members, is made up of thousands of men
and women from all over the world, and there is also the Lady, in whom
much of the power of the Light resides, possibly an equivalent of the
Lady Galadriel.
Harry
Potter too has loyal
friends: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and also the half giant
Hagrid. Through Ron he becomes friends with the whole of the
Weasley family (except Percy), and he is surrounded by friends and
admirers at Hogwarts. Here the Gandalf-figure is Albus
Dumbledore, the Headmaster and the only Wizard powerful enough to be
feared by Voldemort.
In New Zephyria
Queen Elizabeth instructs King Arthur to have a round table made for
Prince Egbert's companions on his quest: young men of the noblest
families who will share the adventure and its dangers with him.
Unfortunately no-one answers the summons. Bertie's
own
friends are idle wasters, and everyone else has been turned against the
Royal Family by Scungebucket propaganda. He sets off on his
quest
alone, apart from his cousin Prince Bruce. When, however, he
goes
beyond the Black Stump and takes the road of the dead to the
underworld, he goes alone, and Bruce who returns with the news of his
disappearance is accused of his murder. Although he is
accompanied for part of his journey by one of the Unicorn, whom the Sea
People believe accompany the Great and the Good on their journey, and
although he meets his late father, Prince Egbert is alone for the worst
of his ordeals, and alone when he returns to the world of men to try to
trace the book in which the answer will be found. Only right
at
the end does he find friends again: his wife, his mother, and the
landlord of the Three Goats.
The
Quest
In European literature
the theme of the
Quest is long established. A quest story involves the hero or
heroes in a long, difficult and dangerous journey to achieve an object,
usually the winning of a valuable or sacred article. Examples
are
the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to win the Golden Fleece in
classical Greek literature, and the quests of Arthur's knights in
medieval literature, of which the quest par excellence
is
the Quest for
the Holy Grail. The Grail probably originated in
pre-Christian
Celtic mythology and may have been a magical cauldron of some sort.
By the later middle ages it was regarded as the cup blessed
by
Christ at the Last Supper, which was said by some to have been used by
Joseph of Arimathea to catch Our Lord's blood when His side was pierced
by the Roman soldier's spear. It is therefore the most sacred
object possible, and the phrase "the holy grail" is now used
metaphorically for something of immeasurable value which must be sought
through immense difficulties, e.g. the "theory of everything", which
will unite Relativity and Quantum Theory, is the
holy grail of physics.
In The
Hobbit
Bilbo
and the Dwarves set off on a quest to find the treasure of the Dwarves
and take it back from Smaug. In The
Lord of the Rings the
quest is inverted: the Fellowship of the Ring are already in possession
of the One Ring and their quest is to smuggle it into Sauron's
territory
without his knowledge so that it can be destroyed. Even
before
Frodo and his Hobbit friends leave the Shire the Black Riders are on
their track. The Hobbits fail to find Gandalf, their one hope
of
safety
on their quest, and take up with Strider, who decides to make for
Weathertop, hoping that Gandalf, finding them gone from Bree, will meet
them there. Instead they are besieged by the Nazgul and Frodo
receives a mortal wound from a Morgul blade. Pursued by the
Nazgul, he rides into Rivendell, the Riders are swept away, and he is
cured, for the time being at least, by Elrond. This however
is
only the beginning of the Quest. Gandalf explains to the
Council
of Elrond that the only hope of preventing Sauron from obtaining the
One Ring and re-establishing his power over Middle Earth is to destroy
the Ring, and that that can only be done by casting it into the fires
of Mount Doom, where it was forged. The Fellowship of four
Hobbits, a Wizard, two Men, an Elf and a Dwarf is set up to smuggle the
Ring past Sauron's spies. Unable to cross the Misty Mountains
by
the Redhorn Gate they are driven to take the perilous path through the
mines of Moria. After an interlude at Lothlorien, one of
the surviving realms of the Elves, they continue down the Great River,
Anduin, till the fellowship is broken by Boromir's ill-judged attempt
to take the Ring from Frodo and deliver it to his father, the
Steward of Gondor. Frodo and Sam continue the Quest, while Aragorn,
Legolas and Gimli pursue the Orcs who have captured Merry and Pippin.
The Fellowship is divided, but its members follow their
individual quests until the powers of darkness are at last overthrown,
not in the great battle of the men of Gondor and their allies against
the forces of Mordor but through the success of the insignificant Frodo
and Sam as they struggle at last to the top of Mount Doom, and the
intervention at the last moment of Gollum. As Gandalf had
predicted, the pity of Bilbo, who once spared the life of the miserable
Smeagol, governed the fate of the world. Rightly has The Lord of the Rings
been acclaimed as the greatest example of quest-literature of the
modern age.
Susan Cooper begins The Dark is Rising
sequence with a quest for the Grail. Having discovered an
ancient
map, the Drew children, pursued by the Dark, find the Grail in a cave
that can only be entered at certain very low tides in Over sea, under stone.
They succeed in passing the Grail to Great Uncle Merry, but
the
cylinder containing the key to its inscriptions falls into the sea and
is lost. Great Uncle Merry has the Grail placed in the
British
Museum, where it is safe, until, in Greenwitch,
the Dark steals it.
The theft is timed to coincide with the
festival of the
Greenwitch, an idol made by the village women and thrown into the sea
by the
men to ensure good fishing.
Jane
is allowed
to be present at the making of the idol, and, while the women make
light-hearted wishes, she, struck by the creatures power and misery,
wishes it
could be happy.
Later
both the Light and
the Dark try to make the Greenwitch give up the treasure they know she
possesses, the lead cylinder containing the spells that are the key to
the
power of the Grail.
She
refuses: she
belongs to Tethys and the Wild magic and cannot be commanded, but the
pity of
Jane Drew has touched her, and she freely gives Jane the cylinder. The
light easily recover
the Grail from its
thief, who has tried to cheat his masters and been abandoned by them,
and so
the quest begun in Over
Sea, Under Stone is completed.
Meanwhile, in The
Dark is rising,
Will Stanton, the main hero, has been told he is the last of the Old
Ones and given his Quest: to collect the symbols of power that will
allow the Light to overthrow the rising Dark. When he
succeeds in
this quest, Wayland Smith joins the signs on a chain. The
Lady, the most holy
and mysterious of the Old Ones, hangs it round Will's neck and tells
him there are four great things of power: the Grail, the Signs, the
Sword and the Harp. Two are found and two are still to seek.
So the Quest continues as Will is joined, in The Grey King,
by Bran the albino Welsh boy who turns out to be the Pendragon, the son
of Arthur. Together they find the Harp, and, in the final
part, Silver
on the
Tree, the sword.
Harry Potter's first adventure is a
quest for the
Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, not for his own use but to
prevent their falling into the hands of him who must not be named,
Voldemort.
In his favourite sport, quidditch, his role is that of Seeker, for in
this wonderful game, which succeeds in being both the most exciting
sport in literature and at the same time a devastating satire of the
attitude of sports teachers, whoever catches the golden snitch
automatically wins the match for his team no matter how long and in
what foul weather his team-mates have striven to beat the bludgers and
score goals. Every game of quidditch is therefore for Harry a
quest.
Each subsequent adventure is in some
respects a quest: to
find and destroy the mysterious monster that is paralysing victims all
over the school, to track down Sirius Black, to find and destroy
Voldemort's horcruxes, etc., but all are
preparations for the final confrontation with Voldemort in
Harry's over-archinq quest, to banish forever the wizard who killed his
parents and aims to return to power and dominate the world.
Robin Gordon
introduces what seems to
be a standard knightly quest for Prince Egbert, then throws it away.
No companions come forward to assist Bertie except his
cousin,
Bruce. Nevertheless they set out in due form, as instructed
by
the Queen, on a Quest that is to last for a year and a day.
In
the next paragraph they are back, reporting, in a couple of sentences
that, though they travelled from one end of the kingdom to the other,
they failed to find any sign of the kidnapped princess, the missing
memory, or the true name of the sorceress which alone would allow them
to overcome her spells. At this point they are called on by
King
Arthur to sally forth and save the last heard of unicorn on earth from
being rounded up for slaughter by Scungebucket Enterprises, and, in the
subsequent confusion, Prince Egbert disappears and Prince Bruce is
accused of his murder. Bertie isn't dead, however, he has
descended to the Underworld while still alive, and found himself,
rather to his surprise, engaged in the real quest, which will carry him
to the castle of Ruahine-nui Makutu and then back to the capital city
of New Zephyria and to the final confrontation with the goddess of
death.
The
role of Pity
The pity of Bilbo ruled the fate of many, as we have seen, for Gollum,
whose life he spared when he made his escape taking with him the One
Ring, became the unwitting instrument of its destruction and of the
overthrow of Sauron.
The pity of Jane Drew for the unhappy being incarnated in the
Greenwitch made by the women and cast into the sea by the men gained
for her the Greenwitch’s treasure, the cylinder containing
the
key to the symbols engraved on the Grail and thus allowed the Light to
complete its first great quest.
It was pity that brought Prince Egbert’s quest to its
conclusion
in New Zephyria. Searching desperately for the Chronicle of
New
Zephyria in one of the volumes of which he knows he will find the
identity of the sorceress who holds his country in thrall, he has
disguised himself in the uniform of a Scungebucket Stormtrooper, only
to be conscripted into a troop rounding up young mothers and taking
their babies from them. Taking pity on a young woman from
among
the People of the Sea, the earliest inhabitants of the islands that had
become New Zephyria, he helps her to escape, but is then beaten up by
the stormtroopers, stripped of his uniform, and dumped in a country
road. He realises he is close to the former home of his wife, makes his
way there, and is allowed to pass because the stormtroopers guarding it
think it would be a good joke to admit a trouserless tramp to the house
where the Queen and princess are held under arrest. The pity
that
brought Prince Egbert to his lowest ebb is now revealed as the first
step on the road that will lead to his overthrowing the powers of
darkness.
Harry Potter’s act of mercy is to spare the life of Peter
Pettigrew alias Scabbers the rat, when Sirius Black and Remus Lupin,
having proved that Pettigrew was the traitor who led Voldemort to
Harry’s parents and brought about their deaths, are about to
kill
him. It is not exactly an act of pity, for Harry has no
desire to
free Pettigrew: he just does not want his father’s best
friends
to have blood-guilt on their hands. Instead of death he will
send
Pettigrew to life imprisonment in Azkaban. This commutation
of
the sentence, however, gives Pettigrew his chance to escape, and there
is little doubt that, for good or for ill, his presence will have some
bearing on the final confrontation between good and evil.
The
Labyrinth
Each of the four
quests takes its hero
into a labyrinth, usually underground.
The original
labyrinth was
the subterranean maze beneath the palace of King Minos of Crete, who
demanded of the Greek cities under his influence, an annual tribute of
youths and maidens to be thrown into the labyrinth as sacrifices to the
monster who dwelt there, the Minotaur, said to be a man with the head
of a bull and an insatiable appetite for young human flesh.
The subterranean
labyrinth plays a significant role in Tolkien. In The Hobbit
Bilbo is lost in the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the mountains when he
picks up and pockets a ring. He is then discovered by Gollum,
who, being at that moment more curious than hungry, agrees to show him
the way out if he can win a game of riddles. Bilbo wins, not entirely
fairly, but Gollum has no intention of keeping his promise: he returns
to his den to fetch "something", which Bilbo soon realises is the ring
he has found, which has the power of making its wearer invisible.
Wearing it he is able to follow Gollum to the exit and leap
out
past both Gollum and the Goblin guards. This ring, found by
chance in the labyrinthine passages below the misty mountains, is later
discovered by Gandalf to be the One Ring through which Sauron exercised
control over the Kings of Elves, Dwarves and Men, the one Ring that
would restore Sauron's power, the one Ring the need for whose
destruction was the mainspring of the quest in The Lord of the Rings.
The subterranean
labyrinth in The Lord
of the Rings
is Moria, a place of ill-omen which Gandalf wished to avoid if at all
possible. The great city of the Dwarrowdelf, called in
Dwarvish
Khazad-dûm, had once been filled with light and splendour,
but
was long abandoned and called now by the Elvish name Moria,
the Black Chasm. There the companions found the diary of the
last of the Dwarves in Moria, a party led by Balin, one of the
companions of Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield on their expedition
to overthrow Smaug and retake the Lonely Mountain. All of
Balin's people had been
slaughtered by Orcs, and, as they read this, the Fellowship of the Ring
hear the drums in the depth as the orcs mass to attack. In
the
darkness of the labyrinth, fitfully lit by Gandalf's staff,
they fight and flee, desperate to find the way to the far side of the
mountains, and, as they cross the Bridge over the great chasm,
Gandalf is lost in a struggle with the Balrog, and the little group
must continue without his aid. A labyrinth brought the Ring
into
the possession of the forces of light, and, in a labyrinth, the forces
of darkness rob them of their most powerful champion and their greatest
hope.
Beside this Susan
Cooper's labyrinth
pales almost into mere allegory. Will and Bran have moved
easily
ino the lost land beneath the sea and Gwion has taken them to an empty
palace abandoned by King Gwyddion. They find themselves in a
mirror-lined corridor. On coming to a crossroads Will tosses
a
coin to choose a way, but the way they choose leads them back to the
crossroads where Will finds his coin. Bran guesses that they
are
in a spiral maze and must always turn right to ascend to the next
level. This brings them eventually to a dead end, but, when Will
recites the appropriate words, the mirrors shatter and the maze
disappears. They have proved themselves and can go on to the
Castle and continue their quest for the Sword. Silver on the tree,
the penultimate volume of the Dark
is Rising
sequence, was published in 1977, when the concept of a spiral maze, in
which the aim is to ascend from one level to the next, would have been,
if not original at least uncommon. Subsequent generation have
become familiar with it through computer games.
Harry
Potter faces an underground labyrinth in his first adventure, Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone,
unfortunately and inappropriately
renamed ...
the
sorcerer's stone
by its American publishers, who presumably thought that a sorcerer
sounded more dangerous than a philosopher and that American readers
would be unfamiliar with the concept of the philosopher's stone, the
holy grail of medieval alchemy, the catalyst that would turn base
metals into gold. To save the Stone from being snaffled by
Voldemort, Harry, Ron and Hermione enter the forbidden room, ensure
that Fluffy, Hagrid's three-headed dog stays asleep by playing a flute
to
him, drop through a trapdoor, get caught by a plant called Devil's
Snare, capture a flying key (rather like catching the golden
snitch), and play a deadly game of human chess in which captured pieces
are smashed to smithereens, and cross fiery flames. It was
perhaps less of a
labyrinthine maze than a series of puzzles and tests, but to some
extent the whole of Hogwarts School is one vast labyrinth, with
staircases that move and lead to unexpected parts of the castle.
Another labyrinth
opened for Harry in Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Something has been paralysing pupils and staff (and also Mrs
Norris), something that, they realise, travels around Hogwarts via
water
pipes. The entrance is therefore in a bathroom, and, since
the
only bathroom never used by anyone is that haunted by the ghost of
Moaning Myrtle, that must be the one. Harry and Ron enter the
labyrinth via
the wastepipe of a sink, taking with them Professor Gilderoy Lockhart,
and find themselves in an underground passage leading to a huge
chamber. And it is there that Harry faces the creature that
has
claimed so many victims: a Basilisk, one glance from whose eyes brings
death. Luckily the victims it had claimed had only seen its
reflection, in mirrors, windows or puddles, but that in itself was
enough to bring paralysis.
In Robin Gordon's New Zephyria Prince
Egbert disappears in the confusion as the panicking unicorn
stampede and is believed dead. The next person to see him is
his
father, King Arthur, who has died and descended to the Underworld. The
King is greatly distressed to see so many of his subjects going astray
after their death, failing to follow the path to the Rainbow Bridge and
being driven towards the abyss by Nightmares and Hellcats.
His
efforts to help are unavailing, for those who cannot see the way cannot
recognise him and know only the terror of their infernal persecutors.
Then Arthur sees Bertie going in the wrong direction.
Bertie
does recognise him but claims to be still alive, which the King thinks
is nonsense till the prince tells his story. In the confusion
of
the round-up he had been invited to mount by a unicorn, taken to the
Black Stump, a volcano that marks the New Zephyrian entrance to the
Underworld. Wandering there he had seen the lost souls being driven
demented by the Nightmares, pretended to be afraid and allowed them to
drive him towards the castle of goddess of death. There they
had
hustled him into the labyrinth protecting it, just like schoolboys
hustling new bugs into the labyrinth of cellars under the
hall at
the school the Prince had attended. Here we see one major
difference
between Gordon and the other authors, all of whom would have made a
long, suspenseful chapter out of the ordeal in the labyrinth.
Gordon allows Prince Egbert to tell it in his
own slightly
rueful, self-deprecatingly understated manner: at one and the same time
Bertie downplays his adventure while the author leaves us in no doubt
as to its unpleasantness, for the labyrinth had the peculiar quality
that it lurched and yawed whenever anyone in it moved, so that its
prisoner suffered extreme dizziness and nausea. Berite was
only
able to advance very slowly and cautiously, but advance he did and
eventually came to the centre, where he found a partial answer to his
quest, or at least a clue that he could take back to New Zephyria for
the second half of it.
The
Monster in the Labyrinth
At the
heart of the Labyrinth in
Knossos there lurked the Minotaur, waiting to hunt down and devour the
sacrifices sent to him by King Minos. Three of the
narratives we are examining also have monsters associated with their
labyrinths, but, as we have already noted, Susan Cooper's labyrinth
simply disappears.
The ominous portal
of Moria lies on the
edge of a black lake, and it is there that the first of the monsters
lurks, for, while Gandalf is wrestling with the riddle that will allow
him to open the gates, one of the young Hobbits idly throws a stone
into the water and awakes a many-tentacled beast that rises up and
seizes Frodo. When the company has rescued him and retreated
into
the mine, the creature slams the gate shut on them so that there is no
escape. Moria is, of course, swarming with orcs, but it is
the
Balrog that is the monster at its heart.
This ancient
fire-demon,
one of the servants of Morgoth, which had taken refuge under the Misty
Mountains after the great battles of the First Age, had been awakened
by the delving of the Dwarves. It is perhaps the one foe that
Gandalf cannot match, especially in his exhausted state after the
battles with the Orcs, and he and the Balrog fall together into the
chasm -- but Gandalf is not gone forever, as the company will find much
later.
In Harry
Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone
the entrance to the labyrinth is guarded by a fierce three-headed dog,
based on the Cerberus of Greek mythology, and, like Cerberus, it can be
lulled to sleep with music. Hagrid, with his liking for all
sorts
of fearsome magical creatures, called this canine pet "Fluffy".
In
Harry
Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets
the monster lurks at the heart of the labyrinth and is a basilisk.
This is again taken from Greek mythology, where the Basilisk
was
reputed to be the king of all serpents and to have the power of killing
with a single glance.
At the centre of
Robin Gordon's
labyrinth Prince Egbert finds not a monster but an Oliphaunt.
At
first he is afraid, but the elephant proves to be the hiding place of
Oliver Simpkin's memory and so recognises the Prince and gives him the
clue he needs. Only after Bertie has come out of the inner
labyrinth and encountered his father in the featureless underworld,
does the real monster come on the scene: a Taniwha. The
concept
is taken from Maori mythology in which the taniwha (pronounced
approximately as tanifa,
with
even stress on all syllables or a slight stress on the first) are
underwater monsters, often bringers of luck, but also responsible for
earthquakes and other seismic phenomena. In New Zephyriathey
are the greatest of the servants of Ruahine-nui Makutu. Bertie
successfully slays the monster using both the sword of his ancestor,
Prince Theowulf and a greenstone club, and, at this reversal of their
fortunes, the other denizens of the underworld flee. The
gateway
to the Underworld is guarded, not by a monster, but by the Unicorn. On
of their functions is to guide the souls of those who have earned their
help through the dreary featureless plains to the Rainbow Bridge. The
other is to guard the world of men from the Nightmares and Hellcats
that infest the infernal regions, and this is the main reason for Nanny
Scungebucket's desire to turn them into dog-food.
Omomastics:
the creation and
significance of names
Tolkien's names
have resonance
originating in his creation not only of a background mythology but of
languages for his various races, from the elegant beauty of Elvish
names (Luthien Tinuviel, Galadriel) through the earthy Dwarvish names
(Thorin, Balin, Dwalin), the Germanic-sounding names of the Rohirrim
(Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn), to the harsh Orcish of the Uruk-Hai.
Hobbit names, however, hesitate between the original cosiness
of The
Hobbit
(Bilbo Baggins, Merry, Pippin, Sam), and forms expressive of their
nobler destiny (Meriadoc, Pergrine, Samwise).
In New
Zephyria
the
names can be tokens of a sort of idealised Britishness (King Arthur
and Queen Elizabeth), while Prince Egbert's pet name of Bertie is a
reminder of his Wodehousian, Woosterish character: he would be a very
suitable member of the Drones Club. His ancestor, Theowulf, (presumably
the Wolf of God) combines elements from the names of the Greek hero
Theseus and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. The evil sorceress at the
heart of the darkness has three names: Nanny Scungebucket, Auld Hinnie
McIldhu and Ruahine-nui Makutu. Each of the three is
expressive
of the personality of that particular face of the evil goddess.
As Nanny Scungebucket she takes care of New Zephyria (Nanny),
bringing the people a cornucopia (bucket-load) of goodies of dubious
and eventually obviously negative value (scunge). As Auld Hinnie
McIldhu she is the ancient (auld), sterile (hinny = offspring of horse
and donkey, infertile like a mule) child (Mc) of the hosts of darkness
(Ildhu,
approximately "the many black ones"). The name Ruahine-nui Makutu is
derived from Maori: ruahine = old woman, hine = maiden, hine-nui =
goddess, makutu = black magic).
The undisputed
queen of name-creation
is, however, J.K. Rowling, whose neo-Dickensian creativity is
unsurpassed by any of the other writers here discussed. First
there is the simplicity of her hero's name: Harry Potter, an
ordinary-sounding boy. Then comes the clunking,
self-satisfied
fatness of his uncle and cousin: Vernon Dursley, Dudley Dursley, heavy
blobs both in name and appearance. Aunt Petunia Dursley, oh,
the
pretension of that Petunia alongside the Dursley. The
greatest
fun is to be found in the names of the wizards, from Albus Dumbledore
(White, therefore good, Bumblebee), through Minerva McGonagall (whose
name unites that of the Roman goddess of wisdom with that of a Scottish
poet of such massive incompetence that his work is admired for its
awfulness), Severus Snape, (whose first name expresses his intolerant
severity and may hint at the cruel emperor Septimius Severus, and
contrasts with Snape, the name of a Suffolk village), and Cornelius
Fudge, the Minister of Magic, (whose first name expresses Roman majesty
and hints at Gaius Cornelius, a Quaestor of Pompey, who
attempted
various reforms but achieved little, while his last name indicates why
this minister will never amount to much: he fudges), to Argus Filch,
the school caretaker, again combining
classical grandeur with down-to-earth Anglo-Saxon bathos: Argus was the
hundred-eyed giant who was watchman to the goddess Hera, and filch
means to
steal in a sneaky manner, so the caretaker is constantly sneaking round
watching and may not be honest.
Language
We are
here dealing not with the
language and style of the four narratives but with language as subject
matter in each of them.
We have noted J.K.
Rowling's penchant
for creating names with grand classical beginnings followed by bathetic
endings. She studied French and Classics and makes use of a
magical language based on Latin for spells, e.g. lumos
(from lumen
= "light", nox
(nox, noctis =
"night") used to make a wand give light and switch off; expelliarmus
(from expellere
= "thrust
away" + arma
= "weapons", not, presumably armus
= "shoulder-blade") used to disarm an enemy; ridiculus
(ridiculus
=
"ridiculous") used to reduce a frightening attacker to absurdity; and
many more.
One other language
is mentioned,
Parseltongue, the language of snakes, spoken by, among others Salazar
Slytherin and Lord Voldemort. It is therefore generally
regarded
as an accomplishment of evil wizards, though Dumbledore may be able to
understand it and Harry Potter himself has the gift, believed to have
been conferred on him by Voldemort's attempt to kill him as a baby.
Susan Cooper
mentions that the Old Ones
have their own language and that it automatically comes to them when
they come into their power, and that this is the language with which
they communicate with each other and with the Dark, but apart from that
language plays no great role in her work.
Tolkien, in
contrast, as a philologist
finds language fascinating and has even created the languages used by
the various races in his book. Of these the most developed is
Elvish, both the High Elvish tongue, Quenya, and the Elvish of Middle
Earth, Sindarin. There are also examples of Dwarvish and even the
tongue of Mordor, in which is written, though in Elvish script, the
inscription of the One Ring:
Ash
nazg
darbatalûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrabatalûk, agh
burzum-ishi krimpatul.
There is, of
course, a Common Speech,
Westron, in which the various races can communicate, but even that is
known to have different dialects. Westron was originally the
language of Men, but it had also been adopted by Hobbits, probably a
thousand years before the time at which the tale is
set. Tolkien
himself goes into some detail about these languages, and about
the names he used, in Appendix F to The
Lord of the Rings.
Language plays a particular
role in Robin Gordon's New
Zephyria
where the disintegration of language parallels the
destruction of
society. First come minor faults: while the Royal Family
still
speak of "herds of unicorn" the new Prime Minister talks of "unicorns".
His speech is media-talk with strong accents on unimportant
words
to lend an air of importance to platitudes, and his grammar is shaky
(e.g. It gives
my wife and I ... instead
of It
gives my wife and me ...).
The new President, Nanny Scungebucket, mangles the Zephyrian
language and introduces unnecessary expletives: How d'yer gobbin' well
fink it
feels, dearie? Gobbin' marvellous, at's wot!
and her people imitate her. Prince Egbert encounters the
formerly
dignified Royal Butler, now trying deperately to keep his manner of
speech down to the common level: I
could have ... could
a' been
killed by those ...
them gobbin' louts ...
Finally, at the inauguaration of President Scungebucket
language breaks down altogether among the people: The
crowd screamed and groaned and shouted, though the only words the Queen
could actually hear were "Gob!", "Gobber!" and "Gob off you gobbin'
gobber!"
Conclusion
The common subject
matter of the four
narratives
here studied is the threat posed to the world by dark powers and the
thwarting of those powers by unlikely heroes who, at first sight, would
appear to have nothing heroic about them. Within this
major
area we have attempted to identify a number of themes and
sketch
briefly how they are treated. We noted that Tolkien and Gordon create
alternative worlds while Cooper and Rowling prefer parallel worlds
existing alongside everyday reality but unsuspected by ordinary people.
Tolkien's creation is unmatched in scale and epic scope.
In
the creation of the powers of darkness Tolkien again exceeds the others
with the unseen but all-pervasive presence of the Lord Sauron, but in
Ruahine-nui Makutu and her two other persons Gordon provides a
fascinating villainess.
Tolkien's mythological
creation far outweighs
anything any other author has attempted.
Of the heroes,
Frodo achieves epic
status, but readers are probably most able to sympathise and identify
with the downtrodden orphan boy, Harry Potter, while both Gandalf and
Dumbledore fill the roles of wise counsellor and principal supporter, a
part played also by Cooper's Merriman Lyon. No quest could
equal
that of Frodo and his companions, and no labyrinth compete with Moria,
though Gordon introduces an unusual apect in that his labyrinth
subjects its invader to disorientating dizziness -- is this perhaps
some punning reference to labyrinthitis, whose vicims suffer similar,
extremely unpleasant symptoms?
When it comes to
language, Professor
Tolkien is unequalled in his knowledge and creativity. Gordon
again provides a slightly unusual take in his portrayal of the
disintegration of language as a parallel to the disintegration of
society, while Rowling reveals a Dickensian genius in the creation of
names.
The four narratives
have considerable
differences in tone. Tolkien moves from the cosiness of the
shire
into an epic breadth with heroic grandeur. Cooper anchors her
story in the Thames valley but tends towards symbolism and allegory.
Gordon's work is much shorter and often has a gently humorous tone, but
it grows in force as the full power and wickedness of the goddess of
death and destruction is revealed.
Rowling combines magic and the world of school to create her own
particular blend. Despite these differences the four
narratives
share both a common theme and a common outlook: the fragility of the
world, the threat posed by the powers of darkness, and salvation coming
from an unexpected and in many ways despised quarter.
Notes
Note
1
An
example of the central character proving not to be the hero who thwarts
the powers of darkness can be found in Robin Gordon’s
Brian’s Saga.
The protagonist is a fourteen-year-old
schoolboy afflicted with both masturbation-guilt and priggish
religiosity, who comes to believe (correctly) that evil lurks in
Baldersdale and, quite erroneously, that he has a mission to overcome
it. His efforts merely sabotage those of the thwarters of the
powers of darkness and almost bring about the triumph of the forces of
destruction, which is only averted at great cost. Back
to text
Bibliography
Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings was
first published by George Allen & Unwin in three
voumes: The
Fellowship
of the Ring (1954), The
Two Towers (1954) and The
Return of the King
(1955). It is now available in three-volume and single-volume
editions, both hard and paperback. The American edition is by
Houghton Mifflin.
In
1981 the BBC broadcast a radio version directed by Brian
Sibley in
26 episodes, which is available on CD.
The film version, directed by Peter
Jaclson was issued in three parts, 2001-2003, and is available on DVD.
Cooper
The
Dark is Rising Sequence was
first published as five
separate volumes: Over
sea, under stone (Jonathan
Cape, 1965), The Dark
is rising
The Bodley Head, 1973), Greenwitch
(Chatto & Windus, 1974), The
Grey King (Chatto and Windus,
1975), and Silver
on the tree
Chatto and Windus, 1977). Subsequent hardback editions were
published by the Bodley Head, and paperback editions by Penguin Books
in their Puffin Books series. A one-volume paperback edition
is
also available in Puffin Books.
A version for the cinema is in
preparation: filming
is due to start in 2007 and the expected release date is 2008.
Gordon
Robin Gordon's works are available on
the Internet. See Index
to Robin
Gordon's Works; and
New
Zephyria
Rowling
The Harry
Potter sequence
will be completed in July 2007 with the publication of the seventh
volume. Each volume chronicles one year in Harry's life as he
goes through his wizarding education at Hogwarts. The series consists
of: Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
(1997), Harry
Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets (1998), Harry
Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(1999), Harry
Potter and the Goblet of
Fire (2000), Harry
Potter and the order of the Phoenix (2003), Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince (2005), and
Harry
Potter and the Deathly
Hallows (2007).
So far the first four books have been
filmed.
J.K. Rowlings own website, which
contains information and answers to readers' questions, can be found at
http://www.jkrowling.com/
Links
Malcolm
Potter-Brown's homepage
Auksford
homepage
Send
an e-mail to
Malcolm Potter Brown
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