#but with voting we gotta wait until there's someone worth voting for rather than choosing the one that won't KILL us??

[thebibliomancer]

Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 27

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because satire is defeated. Now the only form of humor will be clever wordplay.

Last times on book: Kylan, Naia, Tavra (who is stuck in a spider), and new party member Amri are on a quest to save the Grottan Clan from millions of angry spiders who want their caves back and from the Skeksis Satirist skekLi. They also want to find a bell-bird bone to make a special magical flute with to warn all Gelfling about the danger the Skeksis pose. Both of these objectives dovetailed nicely when Kylan tooted on the bone to ward off the spiders and with the help of a pair of convenient urRu trapped skekLi.

That’s why you need a bard in your party.

Chapter 27

How do you solve a problem like skekLi?

urVa and urLii stop chanting but the effects continue, keeping skekLi from moving. He handles it with mature resignation.

“This is not...,” skekLi began. He shot a look at Naia and Kylan, then back at his Mystic brothers. “This is not nice - not fair!”

This is why we need to set out rules ahead of time.

The Skeksis could propose the rule ‘urRu can’t be used to paralyze Skeksis’ and then the Gelfling could propose ‘you’re not allowed to drink us.’

urVa, ever the most proactive urRu, tells skekLi to let the Gelfling go.

“Or what? You’ll raise that bow and run me through? And what happens to our other, eh?”

urVa stood watch while urLii began the winding descent down the corrie wall. He made the climb look easy with all four hands and his long-toed, bare feet, almost as dextrous as a spider himself. He paused on a ledge, half-hanging from the rock face, and tapped his chin. He was close enough now that his thoughtful murmur was audible.

“Hmm... That would be an interesting turn of events...”

urLii pls

That’s a heck of a train of thought! But please ponder non-existence on your own time!

Naia tells Kylan that they should really just amscray on their own. Kylan fearlessly steps in skekLi range to grab Tavra who is still plopped on the floor from the power of the bell-bird bone.

skekLi was spiny with anger, all the quills and feathers along his neck and the back of his head raised. His bloodshot eyes burned with hatred and vengeful excitement.

Body language! Pissed off vulture crocodile dinosaur body language!

Since he’s frozen in place, skekLi’s last remaining weapon is his wicked tongue wielded witheringly.

He warns the Gelfling that if they thought his spider servants were bad, wait until they see what his pal skekUng is making.

“Big servants. Mindless, heartless servants. Flawless servants, with claws that could snap Gelfling in two. See what Gelfling do then, eh... if any are left.”

Oh snap, thats what we call foreshadowing! And maybe dramatic irony?

This is another time in the book where Kylan has no idea how to respond to something so just doesn’t. I think that might have been three times?

I’ve been wondering how Kylan, Naia, and Tavra were going to get down with all the bridges broke but the freed Grottan just come flying in and scoop up the two Gelfling as skekLi can do nothing but glare.

Huh. So it makes sense that the Drenchen Gelfling have adapted to their environment by having wings that are more like fins. But why do the cave dwelling Grottan still have fully flight functional wings.

Although, if the story about the founding of the Grottan Clan are accurate, they’d be the youngest clan so maybe they just haven’t had time yet.

Also, interesting detail. It takes only one Grottan girl to carry Naia away but it takes two to carry Kylan. Dunno if Kylan is just heavier or whether Naia is using her own wings to lighten the load.

So now that they have a Skeksis trapped on a mushroom, the party has the grand ‘so what the heck do we do with skekLi we have trapped on a mushroom?’

Tavra cautions that skekLi won’t be trapped for long. Probably eventually the other Skeksis will come rescue and/or laugh at him. And then he’ll tell them everything that transpired. Then they’ll probably laugh harder. But even if he already told the others what the main characters are up to, they shouldn’t take that chance.

“What are you saying, that we should kill him?” Naia asked. “And urLii with him? That’s not right. urLii didn’t do anything wrong!”

“No one’s done anything wrong,” urLii corrected. He met them and the Grottan, dusting his hands of rocks and sand from his climb. “We are all doing what it is we do, what is our nature and our character. Right and wrong... are a terribly complex song.”

“But that doesn’t help us,” said Naia.

Pfffft.

Characters keep getting frustrated by urLii’s philosophizing.

Kylan tries asking urLii what they should do about skekLi but his answer is “I suppose that depends on your character” which isn’t very helpful.

Kylan realizes that he’s gotta be the tie-breaker between Naia and Tavra. Amri is also here but he’s not voting.

Huh! Funny how this book had a pattern of Kylan being the tie-breaker between Naia and Tavra but it hasn’t actually been Tavra for most of it. And now that it is the real Tavra, the pattern is repeating anyway.

So Kylan considers how awful the Skeksis are. What the Hunter has done in general and to Kylan specifically. How Tavra is a spider now because of skekLi. And how he tried to kill Naia, showing that he isn’t even loyal to his own kind (weird that that’s a minus in the column but whatever).

urLii proposed that there was no right or wrong, but that in itself did not seem right. It wasn’t wrong, either. The paradox gave him a headache.

“I don’t think we should kill him,” Kylan said in the end. “The Gelfling are a peaceful people. Even when we fight among ourselves. If we’re to be the heroes of this song, we must show mercy, even when we’re not shown mercy ourselves. The Skeksis have done terrible things to us... but I would rather believe that we can unite for the good of our people, not for revenge.”

Its a nice sentiment, Kylan. Its a good principle.

I know that I’ve had similar thoughts in the past. I’m torn because I know where this is all going. And I wonder if the near complete wiping out of the Gelfling clans could have been prevented if the Gelfling fought dirty. Maybe not. And the Gelfling become dicks in the future, even with the example of Jen and Kira as the foundation of their society so who could say what they’d become if they became cynical pragmatists to defeat the Skeksis.

I don’t have an answer.

It’s hard to fight the Skeksis because they have in-built hostages.

Tavra is disappointed that she thinks Kylan is advocating for just letting skekLi go but he clarifies that they DEFINITELY should keep him imprisoned here but someone will need to watch him and keep other Skeksis from finding him.

ENTER MAUDRA ARGOT.

Still picking bits of spiderweb from her cloak, Maudra Argot stepped forward from the small group of Grottan. Of the thirty-seven Grottan Gelfling, even fewer remained, bedraggled and afraid, some elders but mostly younglings Amri’s age. They had lost the Caves of Grot as well - all in exchange for the bone-flute. Kylan’s heart broke for them all, and he hoped that it was worth the sacrifice.

Oof. They were already so few and now they’re so fewer.

But anyway, Maudra Argot says the Grottan will take up the task. They’ll move into the Sanctuary and guard skekLi as they have guarded other secrets.

In fairness, they can’t return to Domrak. The spiders have claimed it. And even if Kylan helped evict them with the bone-flute, they’d just return. Caves are theirs again.

urLii also offers to help keep skekLi here.

“Between the Shadowlings and myself, I believe skekLi’s song has come to an end.”

That’s a fun way of saying that he’s not going to do anything important ever again and that he’s going to rot away on his mushroom prison.

Maudra Argot also tells Amri that he’s to stay with the group and go with them to Ha’rar. Wait, does she think they’ll actually make it there ever?

But she says she won’t be happy until the Vapra have to acknowledge the Grottan and also that Amri needs to grow as a person. Going on quests can help with that!

Kylan says they should get going. He needs to make the bone into a firca and he’s never made one so he doesn’t know how long it’ll take. And he can’t mess it up because THERE’S ONLY ONE BONE LEFT out of the entire extinct species!

He suddenly realizes the weight of the task after fighting so hard to get the bone. He wanted a purpose and he got one and a purpose does not sit light.

Kylan also really hopes that they don’t have to go through the Tide Pass again but he’d rather that three hundred times than stick around skekLi any more.

“I would give my life to stop him from escaping,” [urLii] remarked. “He is me, after all. But I do not believe it will be necessary. Even if it were, it would certainly be a dramatic moment, eh?”

You’re a weird guy, urLii.

Maybe you’re the one guy on Thra who thinks more in terms of stories than Kylan does.

“We spoke with Mother Aughra, before we came to Domrak,” Kylan said. “She had no words for us. She said only time would tell. That understanding the heavens would find us in our place, I think is what she meant. If we could understand the grand song, we would be able to find our way. But... the Gelfling don’t have time for that. We have to cut our own paths. We have to make the choice between being the weaver or the woven. The teller and the told. The singer and the song... But I choose to be both.”

urLii scratched his chin with his slender fingers and tilted his head.

“Hmmm! Weaver and the woven, eh? Where did you hear such fine advice?”

Kylan smiled and sighed.

“Goodbye, urLii. I hope to meet again someday.”

“We probably will not. But I will hear the song of the bell-bird again, yes... When light and shadows collide, under the triple suns.”

Aww.

Of course, Kylan has no idea what it all means. He’s getting some vague grasping of the bigger picture of the Great Conjunction but its still unclear.

On their way out, Kylan stops to look back at skekLi’s baleful gaze and starts worrying about his spiteful declaration about what skekUng has in store.

He wants to think its a lie but skekLi included too many specific details for it be something he pulled out of his ass. Like, who even is skekUng? The name drop means nothing to Kylan!

Tavra tells him to look away and for a moment, Kylan imagines that he can see her as she was, bipedal and not an inch tall.

“Forget him for now, or you will not be able to look ahead.”

He did as she suggested, turning his back on the Skeksis’s piercing gaze and hurrying after his friends.

Tavra here with the good advice.

I like that she’s not just here to be the one with bad opinions all the time. And that she’s protective of Kylan.

And since she’s now a tiny spider, she’s just emotionally protective of him.

She tried to protect Naia in Shadows so I just think that’s who Tavra is.

Anyway... OH NO only two chapters left??