The Indian in the Cupboard: Difference between revisions

[[File:The_Indian_in_the_Cupboard_7429.jpg|frame|Adventure Awaits With the Turn of a Key]]

 

 

It contains some surprisingly mature themes, including a great deal of death and responsibility.

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Adults Are Useless]]: Eventually subverted. Omri starts out keeping the cupboard a secret from his parents and everyone else, for all the usual reasons, but later on in the series, his father finds out accidentally. {{spoiler|Not only is he capable of dealing with it, he becomes Omri's best ally in the last book, and Omri is glad to have an adult's help with some of the problems that come with managing the magic. And at the end, Omri's mother reveals that she's known about the magic pretty much all along -- which makes sense, as the psychic powers came from her side of the family.}}

* [[All Just a Dream]]: How the boys first keep Matron from passing out and willing to help them with the injured Little Bear and his men. Eventually subverted as she reveals to them she isn't stupid, and the reality of the wounds and the dead are something she cannot deny as fact. When they confess the truth, although skeptical at first she handles it surprisingly well.

* [[Narrative Profanity Filter]]: Occurs quite a lot, but a notable example would be in the fourth book when, while climbing up into the barn's hayloft to reach Kitsa and her kittens, Patrick falls through the weak boards and lands on top of his friend, breaking his ankle in the process. When he does, the friend cries out "Oh shoot!" Omri then notes, via the narrative, "except he didn't say 'shoot'."

* [[Not a Game]]

* [[The Noun and the Noun]]: All the book titles contain either "Indian" or "Cupboard" combined with another noun (or each other).

* [[A Nuclear Error]]: In ''The Secret of the Indian'', Patrick tells Ruby Lou, Boone's nineteenth-century love interest, about nuclear bombs that could blow up the world. Justified as Patrick is a child, and this was a popular misconception of what nuclear bombs do.

* [[Plot Magnet]]: The key becomes this several times, most notably in the first book/movie when it is lost under the floorboards and again in ''Secret of the Indian'' after {{spoiler|the cyclone is brought to the present}}

* [[Portal to the Past]]: The cupboard is an unusual variation of this, as is the sea chest. Time runs the same on both sides of the portal, and much drama comes from this when Patrick being kept from getting Omri out of the chest results in him {{spoiler|almost getting burned to death along with the teepee}} and again later when Omri bringing Patrick back to deal with the mess with Mr. Johnson {{spoiler|results in [[It Got Worse|the cyclone coming back with him]]}}.

* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: Write the story of true events involving your secret magic cupboard and the [[Living Toys]] it creates through [[Time Travel]]. Win a contest with it [[Cassandra Truth|because no one believes it could possibly be anything]] but an incredibly creative piece of fiction. (And since Omri's story is essentially Banks's, there's a meta bit of self-praise there--but an acceptable one since her story is undeniably an incredibly creative one.)

* [[Secret-Chaser]]: The principal, Mr. Johnson, [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|once Omri's story makes him recall the moment]] Patrick showed him Little Bear and Boone, and he realizes [[Broken Masquerade|it was all true]].

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Children's Literature]]

[[Category:The Indian in the Cupboard]]