39,327
edits
The Indian in the Cupboard: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 3:
[[Indian in The Cupboard]] is [
It contains some surprisingly mature themes, including a great deal of death and responsibility.
Line 20:
* [[The Blank]]: In ''The Key to the Indian'', Omri's father is accidentally sent back in time to inhabit a faceless Iroquois Indian corn doll. He becomes a miniature of his human self, with a flesh-and-bone face, but no features. Doubles as [[And I Must Scream]].
* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: Also averted. Aside from the arrow wound Boone receives in the first book, and the musket wound Little Bear has in the second, the massacre of the Indian braves is depicted in, if not graphic detail, at least more than enough realism to make the horror of war hit home, for Omri and Patrick and for the reader.
* [[Bratty Half
* [[Butterfly of Doom]]: When Omri considers keeping Jessica Charlotte from stealing the earrings, Patrick makes him realize that changing the past could have unforeseen consequences--in this case, that Lottie not being accused of stealing them and running into the street, and her father not dying, could make it so that Lottie never met his grandfather and Omri wouldn't be born. To Omri's horror, he realizes that having Bert return the jewel box could have the same effect. Luckily for him, Bert being a conniving little bastard who only keeps true to the [[Exact Words]] of his promise, turns all of this into a [[Necessary Fail]]. Or perhaps it is a [[Stable Time Loop]]; Omri later reflects that he recalls his mother told him the jewel box was returned empty when she first gave him the key, which means either [[Status Quo Is God]] and nothing he did could change it, or [[Because Destiny Says So]] his intervention [[You Already Changed the Past|ended up fulfilling what originally happened anyway]].
* [[Can't Hold His Liquor]]: Boone.
Line 26:
* [[Comes Great Responsibility]]: What Omri realizes fairly quickly in the first book, once he comes to understand that the cupboard isn't bringing toys to life but actually bringing real people to him through time. It is a lesson [[Aesop Amnesia|he has to learn again]] in book two after his attempts to help Little Bear protect his people blow up in his face. Patrick, however, never seems to learn it--or even when he does, his [[Idiot Ball]] moments still manage to get the little people in trouble anyway. A related moment occurs when Jessica Charlotte offers to pour the lead for him, but he refuses to learn what his future may hold, a decision she commends as very wise indeed.
* [[Deconstruction]]: A child discovers his 'secret cupboard' can [[Living Toys|magically bring his toys to life]]. Sounds like a huge amount of wish fulfillment and fun, [[Schmuck Bait|right]]? [[Comes Great Responsibility|Not]] [[Nightmare Fuel|so]] [[The Masquerade|much]].
* [[Deus Ex Machina]]: Just when it seems [[Secret
* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]: Corporal, later Sergeant, Fickits is at first portrayed this way, but it turns out he's more of a [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold]].
* [[Embarrassing Nickname]]: "Boo-hoo" Boone.
Line 58:
* [[Reality Subtext]]: Happens a number of times, most memorably and effectively when in book two Omri tries to bring Tommy back to heal Little Bear, only to find he'd been killed in [[World War One]], and again in book four when awakening the figures belonging to Jessica Charlotte reveals Sergeant Ellis died at Trafalgar. The last book, dealing with the [[Real Life]] fate of the Iroquois versus the American colonists, is even more about this.
* [[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
* [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]: Omri tries to do this with the theft of his grandmother's jewel box. It doesn't go well.
* [[Shown Their Work]]: Impressive study and research of various subjects, from the Iroquois and Algonquin to the times of Napoleon, Victorian England, World War One, and [[The Edwardian Era]]. There's even side issues such as roof-thatching, the competition between metal and plastic toys that drove the former out of business, or the prevailing attitudes toward stage performers in the 1800's that are accurately depicted. Even [[The Wild West]] bits, for all their hewing to the standard view of Hollywood, have proper realism in the place not being the exciting heroic era it's usually shown as, with lack of hygiene or gunfights and plenty of prejudice and suspicion but not an Indian in sight.
Line 73:
[[Category:Childrens Literature]]
[[Category:Indian In The Cupboard]]
| |||