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bonyarishitafuan · 3 years

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I just recently reread the Dreaming Books series and got a new theory of what truly happened in LoDB.

There may be some similar theory somewhere, but I didn’t manage to find it, so I’m just gonna let it out here for my own amusement (and most of all, to sooth my obsessive troubled soul):

All three of the mysterious figures in LoDB, first the Biblionaut from whom Inazia has discovered the letter that jolted Hilde out of his mental lethargy and onto his first return to Bookholm after two hundred and so years of fearful distance, second the Biblionaut with the fencer mask whom Hilde met in the Blood Theater, and at last Corodiak the “king” of the new artist community--were the Shadow King, our “secret protagonist”, as stated by Hilde during his first visit to the Puppetocircus Maximus, in disguise.

Let’s start with the Biblinoaut “Belphegor Bogaras”.

I have no idea if the name may be quite different in the original German edition, but apparently, “Belphegor” is a demon who rises from hell to seduce people with ideas of ingenious inventions, in other words, to help people make discoveries, which could be nothing, of course. Nonetheless, it’s clear that his “chance meeting” with Inazia is staged--A figure that put Inazia in mind of the “Darkman”, had a particularly way of speaking (“I was struck by his rather hesitant, effortful way of speaking, which I attributed to his injuries.” - Inazia), and he just so happened to stumble upon Inazia on a rainy night with the one book she couldn’t refuse possessing, with the letter hidden inside the book that began the story.

As noted by Inazia, Belphegor’s a courteous, charming fellow, same as the other Biblionaut with the fencer mask who strongly reminded Hilde of “someone”. I believe that like the fencer-masked Biblionaut , he’s a sort of mechanical puppet (Zamonia’s version of android), like the incredibly lifelike monkeys portrayed in Puppetocircus Maximus, where Hilder is not only shown how realistic a skillfully made puppet could be in the hand of a master puppeteer and at once enthralled and inspired by the art form of puppetry, but is also learned the ingenious concept of “Invisible Theatre”.

It doesn’t matter what the Invisible Theatre shows onstage,’ she whispered. ‘What matters far more is what it does inside your head.’ She put a finger to her lips and pointed to the stage.

The Shadow King in the puppet show was not displayed in concrete form, but he’s present; why couldn’t this concept be applied to the actual book as well?

I could remember when I read LoDB the first time, I kept expecting Corodiak would turn out to be the other mysterious Biblionaut, the one with the fencer mask, who I’ve always believed to be the Shadow King in disguise, because of the indicative artistry of the show in the Puppetocircus Maximus, which could only be composed by a genius artist such as Homuncolossus.

Unless the last book finally comes out and proves me wrong, I’ll never stop believing that Hilde had a conversation with the Shadow King at the Blood Theatre while the latter was using the body of a mechanical puppet to mask his identity.

The supposedly collective Biblionauts’ vision of bringing light and thereby lives into the Catacombs illustrated by the fencer-masked Biblionaut certainly accords with what Homuncolossus had previously said about the same subject in the first book, and despite Hilde’s immense fear and skepticism of the new generation of Bookhunters, he couldn’t help but “melt” and be absolutely captivated--in ways that he didn’t seem to be by other characters’ talks of what he regarded as interesting subjects throughout the book--when he listened to this masked stranger whom he kept having the feeling of knowing personally, whose narrative, like nothing else in LoDB, actually made him feel nostalgic for the Catacombs of which he was otherwise too terrified to come near again.

Even before becoming so conceited and spoilt with his fame that he would even trip and stamp on a dwarf simply for being rude and calling him fat, Hilde’s showed to be quite capable of acting like a little shit to people who annoys him (his making a mess out of Inazia’s place and terrorizing her at their first encounter, for example). Although Hilde might not have the nerves to get rude with a Biblionaut, he’d hitherto loathed the bunch for their resemblance to the Bookhunters and could certainly show his contempt by behaving unpleasantly towards the fencer-masked Biblionaut before running off as he initially intended to, but instead he’s not only compelled to stay sitting with the masked Biblionaut even after the show was finished, he’s in one of his best behaviors in LoDB during their entire interaction.

It’s clear that Hilde was quite humbled by the intelligent, fascinating presence of the masked stranger. And also, I just found it particularly funny that Hilde, being the greatest writer of Zamonia for the past two hundred years and was inured to copious compliments from admirers to the point of blasé, should instantly “melt like butter on a hotplate” when the masked Biblionaut expressed adoration to his first masterpiece CoDB (but never actually mentioned if he admires Hilde the author as would other Mythenmetz fans who thinks he’s the greatest writer ever):

‘It always sounds a bit blinkered when someone says they have a favourite book, but in this case I simply can’t deny it: I know of no better book about Bookholm, period, and there it is. I’ve read it again and again! Get hold of a copy, you won’t regret it.’

That was that, dear friends! Instantly disarmed, I melted like butter on a hotplate. He could have told me that he kept severed heads stacked in his wardrobe or quaffed Booklings’ blood in the catacombs, and I’d still have found him likeable. I loved this masked stranger – I yearned to fling my arms round his neck! He had read a book of mine. Several times, what was more, and he thought it wonderful! Could there be any greater proof of his intelligence and discrimination? Hardly! He had earned himself carte blanche from me – freedom to do anything! As far as I was concerned, he was welcome to pursue a sideline as a serial murderer or an executioner; it wouldn’t have diminished my liking for him.

If this passage and the rest of the scene between Hilde and the masked stranger seems gay, that’s probably becasue it’s gay, like every former intereations between Hilde and his paper giant friend whom he hadn’t failed to think about every day for the last two hundred years.

Apart from the talk about the Catacombs and how it could be conquered and one day become a place teeming of lives despite its still remaining dangers if people could just overcome their irrational fear for darkness, there’s something else the masked Biblionaut said that I found particularly suggestive:

To cite one last analogy with seafaring: when two Biblionauts encounter each other in the catacombs, they resemble two ships on a foggy night. We take care not to collide and drift past each other without really meeting. We only sense the other’s presence. We may hear breathing or a rustling sound in the darkness – and then we’re alone once more. That’s why I tend to bubble over with sociability when I spend time on the surface. Don’t hold it against a lonely Biblionaut if he’s subjected you to more verbiage than Yarnspinner does in his novels.

I’ll admit that this part with the masked Biblionaut is my favorite part of the entire second book, because it seemed to me that my ship are finally reunited (even if they didn’t really “meet” with each other face to face) and that just made my little shipper heart tremble with joy.

Anyway, in the end of their encounter, the masked Biblionaut gave Hilde a card with the hidden message about the Invisible Theatre and on we went to the mysterious Corodiac.

The first time I read LoDB I was rather disappointed to find out that Corodiak is actually a Shark Grub who claims to be Hagob Salbandian’s twin brother, and not, as I’d previously hoped, the masked Biblionaut.

I’ve seen there’s a theory about Corodiak being Pfistomel Smyke who had returned to Bookholm under the false identity of his uncle’s twin after surviving at the end of CoDB and tried to take revenge on Hilde by exiling him again into the Catacombs to die, and I suppose that at the time of my first reading, I’d ended up with a similar conclusion that Corodiak is the next Pfistomel Smyke, the villain of the story (though I’m not sure if I ever thought of him as Pfistomel himself in disguise).

However, after rereading the book, I feel that there might not be any villain in LoDB at all, and Corodiak is just another (possibly the first) “puppet” used by the Shadow King to operate in the upper world.

As far as I know, the Shark Grubs are a race of ingeniously cunning entrepreneurs, but not of an especially strong physique. Their minds are hard but their bodies are soft. So I just can’t imagine that Pfistomel would have the physical capacity to not just escape the Shadow King but also manage to make his way back from the burning Catacombs without some powerful aid. And even if Pfistomel did manage to survive and decide to reclaim his power over Bookholm instead of simply starting over in a different place where there’s far less risk of him getting arrested by the authorities, it seems rather unreasonable to me that he should assume the identity of not just any random Shark Grub but the twin brother of his dead uncle, whom he didn’t look exactly alike given that Hilde could instantly identify Hagob in both the first and the second books.

In order to assume the identity of Hagob’s brother, Pfistomel would have to make himself look specifically like Hagob, which would definitely not be easy with all of his previous resources lost to the Great Fire and the conjoint exposure of his crimes. It’s unnecessary, if not utterly silly, he’d only be more unsuspicious if he just kept his face hidden or returned as a disfigured Shark Grub that doesn’t bear the name of Smyke.

Originally, I’d thought that Corodiak might indeed be Hagob’s brother. In view of the family reputation, it’d not be impossible that Corodiak has some evil plan of his own and that involves luring Hilde into the Catacombs, but surely there couldn’t be anything to gain by luring a famous writer who hadn’t set foot on Bookholm for over two hundred years to his death?

The end of the book reveals that Corodiak doubtlessly knows about the letter, which was almost certainly written, at least the parodic prose, by the Shadow King, whom I’d at first accounted that Corodiak might’ve captured and gotten the letter from before my recent reread of the story.

The puppet show adaptation of CoDB indicated that Corodiak had an intimate knowledge about not just the Catacombs but even the Shadowhall Castle, which was one of the main reasons why I’d been so certain of the show being directed by the Shadow King himself. Knowledges like that, as I now realised, were unlikely to be acquired by Corodiak through personal experience, because, again, a Shark Grub is just not the sort of creature that could survive a journey into the depth of the Catacombs, to which not even Pfistomel had ever dared to venture, by themselves. He could be the ones who built the Biblionauts force and travel into the Labyrinth under the protection of this army of mechanical puppets, but that would mean the fencer-masked Biblionaut was under his control and not the Shadow King himself, and that I refuse to believe.

Or, the Shadow King might somehow gain control of that one Biblionaut; but the masked Biblionaut has never shown any sign of hostility towards Corodiak or in any way warned Hilde about him during their encounter, in fact he complimented Corodiak’s play (and again not said anything directly complimentary about the “author” of the play, which could be the manifestation of a mixture of megalomania and modesty).

Or, Corodiak could actually be another white sheep of the Smyke family who has somehow become friends and co-managing the Maximus with the Shadow King, and the adaptation of CoDB, if not all of the plays, were written anonymously by the latter. Though I rather doubt that it could be true, because if so, then Corodiak would surely imply that he owns the creativity of at least the Maximus plays to someone else or feel uncomfortable laying claim to it during Hilde’s “audience” with him, which he didn’t; and more importantly, Hagob had been described as the only white sheep in his notorious family and never at any point, either in Hagob’s will or by Pfistomel, that Hagob’s twin brother was mentioned in the first book, which Hilde might’ve noticed if he had taken the masked Biblionaut’s advice and read his own book.

Corodiak had initially (perhaps intentionally) perturbed Hilde and thereby the readers with his terrible likeness to the dead and mummified Hagob and his creepy cobwebbed office. By contrast to Pfistomel who was first introduced as a harmless, trustworthy figure and turned out to be the devil, Corodiak actually managed to make a pretty good impression to Hilde as an admirable artist, one “imprisoned” by his physical blindness but still able to see all and find a beauty in darkness that he wishes to share, whose genius Hilde didn’t envy for the price it’d cost him, despite how frightened Hilde had been of him in the beginning.

“This is where the story begins” doesn’t seem as much of a sinister sentence as it seemed to me in my first reading, nor does the Invisible Theatre trip seem so much like a malicious trap.

“If you want to see the Invisible Theatre, you must use your intelligence as well as your eyes” is the inscription on the card from the masked Biblionaut, and it appears to me that it isn’t just a tip for Hilde to uncover the secret but also a tip for the readers as well.

No doubt the Shadow King had survived after his descent with Symke into the Catacombs, for the story couldn’t possibly exist with its secret protagonist being all dead and uninfluential.

Naturally, his appearance would have to become quite different from before. The Homuncolossus created by Pfistomel was destroyed in the fire, but not the Shadow King. He may now look like a figure of complete darkness with whatever rune paper on his skin that hadn’t been incinerated burnt to all black, like the legendary Darkman he’s been heavily associated with, or his entire body had been burnt down and now he’s a spirit with the power to possess lifeless objects.

Sentient incorporeal lifeforms have certainly existed in Zamonia, and personally I prefer the idea that the Shadow King is now a spirit, since that would better explain why he would need a body like the mechanical puppets to operate and how he would be able to control them.

But the mechanical puppets needs to be built, and he couldn’t build one being a spirit, so first he took the mummified body of Hagob, who was so lifelike that it could scare people to death.

The desiccation of Hagob’s body could be remedied by the chemical the giant scientist had used to preserve the dead bodies of his race in the cellar of the Shadowhall Castle.

Homuncolossus’ eyes have never been seen until the end of the first book, and none of the eyes of Corodiak, the Biblinoaut “Belphegor Bogaras” and the fencer-masked Biblinoaut was ever shown in LoDB. While Corodiak unmistakably has no eyes, Belphegor claimed to be blind with his eyes covered in eye patches, and Hilde has never mentioned having seen the eyes of the masked Biblinoaut.

It could be an insinuation that the Shadow King himself had gone blind in the fire and that’s how he came to understand true darkness, in which he experienced what Hilde experienced in the end of LoDB and finally learnt that one doesn’t need to have vision to find the Orm.

Nonetheless, if Corodiak truly is the corpse of Hagob, then it would only be natural that his eyes need to be removed, for even with his skin remoisturised and assumed a lifelike texture, he still had the eyes of a corpse.

When Hilde expressed suspicion of the Murkholmer from the Maximus being a lifelike puppet like other puppets in the show, Inazia said that she could tell the difference, and she might not necessarily mean that she could tell because of her Ugglian mystic power, but because no matter how lifelike a puppet was, it still can’t imitate the eyes of a actual living creature. Though Inazia noted that, as did Hilde in his encounter with the masked Biblinoaut, the Biblinoaut Belphegor had a peculiar way of speaking, she couldn’t notice if he’d been emitting strange mechanical noises from inside his body like the masked Biblinoaut obviously was, because of the rain occuring in their meeting, nor could she tell whether she’s talking with a living creature or an advanced puppet by looking into his eyes.

I’m not sure if Corodiak had arrived before or after the group of Biblinoauts, but I think before will be more likely.

After fixing Hagob’s body, the Shadow King returned to the overworld, discovered puppetry and become infatuated with it just as Corodiak said, then with the combined knowledge of puppet making, the Rusty Gnomes’ mechanical engineering and maybe even some Bookemism, he was able to create mechanical puppets that could imitate living creatures almost perfectly. Such puppets was used for the Maximus’ performance at first, but seeing that, as explained by Ovidios, the new Bookholm couldn’t retain its prosperity without the unique attraction of something like the Bookhunters and the treasure that only such species could retrieve from the Catacombs, the Shadow King therefore created the Biblinoauts of Regenschein’s vision mixing with his own romanticism.

If the character was only created after the Shadow King had been back in Bookholm, then Corodiak wouldn’t necessarily be lying when he said he had never gone to the Catacombs, whose environment required a vessel stronger than the nimble-fingered but feeble body of a Shark Grub, such as the mechanical Biblinoaut, which is the form the Shadow king takes whenever he goes back to the netherworld.

It is possible that, during the last two hundred years while he’s multitasking between his creative work as Corodiak and sailing through the Labyrinth in the form of Biblinoauts, he was too busy to keep close tabs on Hilde and thus didn’t notice sooner that Hilde lost access to the Orm in his self-indulgence, or maybe he did notice quite early but just couldn’t find the time to take care of that.

Anyway, as Corodiak he had for sure been in contact with Kibitzer, and after learning that Kibitzer was dying, he decided to finally lure Hilde back before Kibitzer’s death so as to give Hilde and Kibitzer a chance to reconcile in person.

But of course the Shadow King couldn’t just come out and tell Hilde to hurl his fat spoilt ass back to Bookholm.

Once again a mysterious trail was left, only this time there’s no scraps of paper, only one single letter with five little words that drew Hilde right out of his cozy Lindworm cave into the city from which he had been resolutely keeping away for the last two hundred years, then further down into the Labyrinth, to get some new creativity lessons.

Like the letter, a map of the Labyrinth was given to Kibitzer to pass forwards to Hilde. Kibitzer definitely suspected that Hilde was going to be lured into the Catacombs which has become even more dangerous since the Great Fire, only he didn’t believe that it was a trap made by someone with ill-intention, or no doubt he would’ve told Hilde to forget about the letter and get the hell out of Bookholm at once.

Hilde was in no way forced into taking the trip to the Invisible Theatre. He had received an invitation and couldn’t resist the allure, and although he entered the Catacombs rather perforce, he nonetheless surrendered himself to the darkness and was therefore rewarded: he rediscovered the Orm.

While Hilde was left alone in the dark with assumedly no means to get back to the surface (and out of the Toxin Zone) unaided, he was provided with a map which he was made to keep with him at all time, a map marked the location of unknown treasure, which couldn’t be given out easily, no--He had to be tested first, he had to suffer, he had to beg for it, and quite possibly he also had to be punished for being a pompous prick and wasting away his creative talent for the past two hundred years.

This is it, this is the big secret, or at least that’s what it is to me before the conclusion finally comes out for goddamned real in hopefully 2024.

On a side note, while rereading the first book again (almost right after rereading the second book because that’s just how obsessed I was), I found that Harpstick had also treated Homuncolossus with a bee-bread, as he had done Hilde, back at his initial arrival in Bookholm, and I like to think that’s why the incident with the bee-bread was omitted in the puppet show in the Maximus.

It was one of the few passages from Hilde’s book that didn’t seem to be omitted on the show for any knowable reason.

The Shadow King might have also experienced the sting from the bee-bread in the past and didn’t want to put that scene on because he’s embarrassed of it. And he might leave out the scene of Regenschein’s death for sentimental reason, and the scene with the giant in the cellar of Shadowhall Castle because of the disgusting memory of remodifying Hagob’s body in that place.

#the city of dreaming books #the labyrinth of dreaming books #hildecolossus #hildegunst von mythenmetz #the shadow king #homuncolossus #my theories #zamonia #walter moers

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