Deltora Quest: The Pirran Pipe analysis
I already did a post analyzing the first series based on the notions each of the stone of the Belt represented (link here). Of course, reading the second series for maybe the third or fourth time, I had to also do an analysis of it. Now, I could have made an analysis of the series again based on the notions of each/stone territory. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but here is what it would do: In the first book, Cavern of the Fear, we go by the Topaze underground sea and the Ruby underground sea. So we could talk about faithfulness and happiness. For the faithfulness, that’s what lacks in the team at this time: there is a lack of trust and faith in each other, especially between Jasmine and Lief. The fact the people of Del also keep trying to kill Lief shows a deep lack of faithfulness in his relationship with the people. As for the happiness, well that’s what Lief is desperately trying to give back to the Deltorans by releasing the prisoners of the Shadowlands, and it is also what our heroes offer to the Plumes by fighting and killing a monster rightly called “The Fear”. And everyone knows fear is the enemy of happiness. In the second book, “The Isle of Illusion”, we are in the sea under the Opal territory. As a result the main theme here could be Hope – a hope exposed in a very bad light, either lost because of Jinks lying to everyone and making them believe the king is dead, either turned into the self-delusion of the island-Aurons, a hope that made them drown themselves in lies and mirages. And of course, the boat-Aurons had all their hopes in our heroes in their project to break the dome and release the magic, a hope they kept losing and regaining during the whole book. Finally, in the third book we briefly go through the Emerald underground sea, and in the Keras territory the question of honor was present, between the Keras honoring their ancestry and inheritance, them welcoming any “cousin” bearing gifts no matter how ugly they are, and the Piper trying to trick the heroes only to be trapped by her own words. But that’s really just a small part of the book, completely eclipsed by the darkness of the Shadowlands. As I said, an analysis based on the stone is really a thin and short one, because for me the main theme we should go with here is the Pirran Pipe, with its different parts and its different Pipers. “The Cavern of the Fear” is about the tribe of Plume the Brave, whose music was said to be so inspiring it made any audience cheer. The French translation rather says that the music is “stirring/rousing”, making the audience “rejoice/delight”, but the notions are still the same. This book deals with bravery and courage, the kind of bravery that inspire people and make them move forward, the courage that brings happiness and joy. Lief is accused of being a coward doing nothing for his people, Jasmine decides to be brave by going on her own quest to save her sister, Jinks is revealed to be a true coward at heart, and the main character of the book is obviously Glock, a proud warrior that only things of bravery and honor. The Pirrans were also reduced in a constant state of fear, humiliation and submission because of a monster rightly called “The Fear”, that the hero will have to defeat to bring back peace and happiness: they will have to be courageous to kill the fear that took over the tribe. I don’t think you can get more obvious than that. As for the idea of being “inspired” or “moved”, we can also dig something from it. Lief is inspired by the old tales on how to save his people – and later is driven by the Pipe’s music to go on his quest. There are a lot of travels: Lief between Del and Tora, Jasmine leaving the palace and going from Del to the Os Mine Hills followed by Lief and Barda, then the whole travel on the underground sea that is just the beginning of a new quest and adventure that will end up in the foregn Shadowlands – even in the fairytale of the girl with golden hair, they kept fleeing, running and travelling. Everybody is moving, advancing, active, contrary to the country of Deltora that is represented as stuck, without any form of amelioration or deterioration, in a forced stasis our heroes will try to break. “The Isle of Illusion” talks of the tribe of Auron the Fair, that made a music so exquisite it made people weep. In French, the music if “magnificent” and “the Fair” is rather translated as “the Just”. In general, “fair” is a word hard to translate in French because of the many meanings it has. Fair can be used in the sense of justice and equality. Fair can also be used for beauty and superb. Fair can speak of clarity, or of honesty. Fair can finally be used for blond hair or white skin. As a result, fair is a word with many translations. One of the main theme of the book is beauty, appearance and magnificence: that’s the point of the illusion that surrounds the Auron island. Proud, arrogant, vain people unable to accept the good of their simple situation or to adapt to something less beautiful than what they were used to, that try desperately to get back their lost beauty and former glory to the point of being disillusioned, surrounding themselves with ugliness and decay. On the other side, the boat-living Aurons think of humans as disgraceful, ugly, stinking beings, but they have the wisdom and knowledge that allows them to understand that appearance isn’t everything, and that what is important is being good-hearted and pure. The other main theme is linked to “fairness” as in honesty, clarity. It is the theme of truth and lies. For the boat-Aurons, lying is the worst sin you can commit and their entire society is based on truth, while the island-Aurons rather preach and live by the lie and the illusion. There is also how the Auron piper has to manipulate the heroes through lying by omission, which is merely saying bits of the truth, how Jinks by his lies put the entire kingdom’s fate in peril, and finally the game of treachery, spies and assassins that is going on at the Del castle. Everywhere, truth and lies mingle as one, just like the golden giant said back in the Lake of Tears. I could stretch the analysis a bit with how the music make the Aurons weep and cry. Because it seems that weeping is what the Aurons are doomed to do. They cry because they were casted out and banished by their own, they weep because their only hope is revealed to be inefficient and wasted, they weep because they are forced to betray their own ideals and principles, they weep their lost glory and what is no more to the point of surrounding themselves with illusions to forget reality, and finally they weep when said illusion is shattered and they are offered to the darkness and the filth and the Arachs. Finally, the third book, “The Shadowlands”. The book of Keras the Unknown, whose music was so mysterious that it spellbound his audience. (In the French version they rather go with a “lancinante” music that put the Pirrans into a pure “ecstasy”. “lancinant” is a French word that can mean either “throbbing/thrumping” or “obsessive”). Keras magic and music seemed to have been all about mysteries, secrets and the unknown – which fits perfectly with this book, that introduces us to the inside of the mysterious and obscure Shadowlands. Here, all the secrets are revealed, even those we didn’t know anything about. We discover the plans of the Shadow Lord, the origins of his creatures and monsters, the truth of what happened to the prisoners, the secret of Faith the fake sister. And yet, the book still manages to keep secrets and mysteries – we are only hinted at the other underground seas under Deltora, that we will never hear about. We leave forever the Pirrans tribe, that will never appear again. We won’t know how good they will actually go along, just like we are still left in the dark about where the Pipe comes from. And in this book, the reader was spellbound. Not only by all the twists and reveals that left the reader panting, stressed, ready for more – not only by all the horror that petrified our minds and hearts – but also by the magic in the book. Because “The Shadowlands” is a huge magical fight. It is how the magic of the Shadow Lord and Shadowlands crush our heroes under a cloak of despair, how the Lord brainwashes people into becoming spell-bound slaves; and it also is about how the Pipe wounds, attacks and destroys the Lord and his magic, and how the Pirran magic saves everyone while erasing their memory, again “bounding” them through spells. Now that the second series is done, onward to the third one! Which may be a bit more complicated than the first…
