#masked ones

[wendywhite13]

Roddacember Day 25: Chilling

Is it really the same person under the mask?

[dragon-doggo]

Did anyone else read Deltora Quest? Does anyone else remember the part with the masks that traumatized me as a child? Was anyone else traumatized?

[mask131]

Deltora Quest review: Shadowgate (series 3-2)

The book of the Masked Ones. I adore them. I like the idea of nomadic shows, mix of circus and freakshows, as much as I love the idea of living masks possessing their wearer – so mixing the two is, of course, a complete win for me.

You know, the dragons are starting to grow on me. Their little quirks, traits, differences, make them quite enjoyable. It’s also nice to see a confirmation that the dragons embody the values of their stones/people/territories – and the fact that the Lapis-Lazuli dragon identifies a Mere as “one of my own” is also extremely interesting.

I am amazed at how powerful the Shadow Lord still is in Deltora – or rather, at how many servants he still has hidden everywhere. Hidden, secret, forgotten servants indeed, but still. Rolf, Kirsten, Laughing Jack… But at the same time, it’s normal to have an increasing in evilness because we get close to the frontier of the Shadowland.

Once more the dragons are explained to be part of the land’s ecosystem, with how the Lapis-Lazuli dragon eats the Sand Beasts. And the description of Purley really makes the ready realize how terrible the famine and pestilence of Deltora are, how deadly the Sisters can be (even though Laughing Jack may have helped a lot in the emptying of the town). Yes, because I forgot to mention but – this is the introductory book of Laughing Jack, one of the darkest servants of the Shadow Lord!

Shadowgate (the town) leaves me with a huge question. Why is this town even existing? I mean, they say it is located in the mountains at the frontier of the Shadowlands, in a place difficult to access, isolated from the rest of the Emerald territory by “things” and “creatures” that seem quite dreadful… Who in their right mind would build a town here? A town surrounded by dangers and threat? I don’t think said threats came after they built the town, it must have been before… Honestly I’m confused at this location. And they also say that the Shadowgate place existed before the town, and that the town was named after it… so it isn’t Kirsten’s castle? Given that it was apparently linked to Kirsten herself, who became quite recently a servant of the Shadow Lord.

Again, the villain is not who it seems to be. It’s always the victim that turns out to be the monster. Note how all the Guardians have turned into the opposite of what they are, or into the things they hated. Rolf had the Capricon hate of all dragons – and the Shadow Lord offered him the ability to turn into a monstrous dragon. Kirsten had her life ruined by the Masked Ones – and the Shadow Lord offered her to conjure/turn into a masked ghost, even wearing the same name. And the next guardian push even further this idea…

Talking of Kirsten, her being “protected” and having some sort of “armor” on her body reminds me a lot of Thaegan and her own protection. And both women were associated with the color green. Should we deduce that Thaegan’s body armor was given by the Shadow Lord? And Rodda really has something against snakes, huh?

The way the Deltorans turned so quickly on the Masked One seems to indicate that the Deltorans really distrust the magician practitioners, to the point of pure hate. Could there be witch hunts in Deltora? Probably… I have to admit that it was a really creepy scene, and a dreadful foreshadowing for the fourth book.  (And of course there is another foreshadowing in the book – the birds in their cages in the coded message, foreshadowing Bede situation).

  Now, for the analysis…

First pattern: the dragons. On one side, the Lapis-Lazuli dragon, representing luck and fortune. Not only is there incredible coincidences in this book (like the Lapis Lazuli dragon sleeping right where the Belt was supposed to be thrown), but it is also the book introducing the character of Laughing Jack, whose only purpose is to twist and soil the notions of “luck” and “fortune”, to use them for evil and greed. On the other side, we have the Emerald dragon, the beast of honor, and my guess is that we see the idea of honor twisted with the Masked Ones. They are a proud tribe, sticking to their own code of honor – but it went to such extremes that it became pure xenophobia and disdain. And, despite thinking of themselves as just people persecuted by a tyrant, and thus a symbol of honor and heroism, they are still dubious characters, tricking people out of their money, stealing and ready to kill innocents. We also travel through the territory of the Plains – the original land of Laughing Jack and a place filled with “weird people”, just as weird as the Masked Ones themselves.

 Second pattern: the Four Sisters. According to the tale, the Sister of the North is “Viva”.

In English, it can be used to signify cheers or applauses, especially when people are shouting “Long Live!”. Reminding us of both the Masked Ones being cheered wherever they go, and the deadly song of the North Sister, the opposite of any kind of “Long Live!”. But Viva is mostly known as a form of the Latin “vivus”, meaning “alive” or “living”. And there are numerous references and parodies of life. The Sisters themselves are at the same time poisonous tools of death that only know how to spread death, and monstrous parodies of life, pseudo-beings living fake existences. And the Sister of the North, especially, defies the idea of living, twice. First for being like a snake, a poisonous being, or a worm, the thing that eat from corpses. Second, by living despite having no eyes, no teeth, no tongue, no limbs and being stuck at the bottom of a well. The Sister represent the lowest, more dreadful possibility of “living” – living without being able to sense or do anything. A life worse than death.

The Sister’s Guardian also created a thing that is “not quite living”, a shadow that can steal people’s lives with just one touch, and later she controlled and changed the castle in such way that the stones and the walls suddenly seemed alive. And let’s remember how she trapped Mariette into the inanimate object that is the necklace, preventing her from “living” anymore.

And to that we can also add how Laughing Jack takes the life of his clients merely to erase a debt, or how the Masked Ones use “living masks”, inanimate objects that are then filled with life by some twisted and horrid magic.

Here again, we can also find the traits of the other Sisters in the book. Terra, because of the omnipresence of rock and stones at the Shadowgate, with a stone castle at the center of the mountains. Aqua because of the Funnel, a gigantic waterfall that swallows everything forever, nearly killed people, was a threat to the Belt and was hiding the Lapis-Lazuli dragon. And finally, Flora – for the rebirth of the East, opposed to the famine and desolation of the North, or for the weird root-plants the Masked Ones use for their mask, or even for the fake flowers that turns out to be deadly butterflies.

Edit: I just realized now that the magic that built Kirsten's castle must have been the same that built the Guardian's palace in the Valley of the Lost!

[dabily]

Inktober Day 31: MASK

[sxuttlebutt]

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:)

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[sxuttlebutt]

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[sxuttlebutt]

Are you aware of how adorable you are?

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[sxuttlebutt]

if you have a pound of bricks and a pound of feathers, which one is heavier

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