The Last Unicorn (novel): Difference between revisions

One of the overriding themes is the power of memory. The King remembers feeling happy once and tries to recapture it by kidnapping unicorns, the skull remembers wine, Amalthea is in danger of forgetting herself, Molly Grue remembers her lost youth, and the unicorn will forever remember being in love.

 

 

Beginning in April 2010, IDW published a six-issue comic book adaptation.

 

The short story "Two Hearts", published in 2005, is set after ''The Last Unicorn'' and features some of the characters from the novel.

 

* [[The Ageless]]: Unicorns. They do not age, but they can be killed.

* [[Childless Dystopia]]: Hagsgate, due to a prophecy that a child from the town would bring down the king.

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: The butterfly sings songs, recites poetry, quotes a warning from a matchbox at one point, and ''occasionally'' says something useful. It's at least implied, if not stated outright, that verbatim parroting what he's heard others say before is actually the only way ''any butterfly'' can talk at all. He seems to ''understand'' what the unicorn is after well enough, though.

** Schmendrick's magic only works on occasion, and when it does, something usually goes wrong with it. {{spoiler|But by the end of the book, he is able to return the unicorn to her true form - a feat his teacher, Nikos, the greatest of magicians, couldn't perform. Years later, Schmendrick's name would become even greater than that of his master's.}}

** Lír starts off as a lazy schmuck, but eventually {{spoiler|fights the Red Bull, [[Heroic Sacrifice|lays down his life to save the unicorn,]] and becomes King.}} In the sequel, {{spoiler|he eventually gives his life to save a small girl from a griffin.}}

* [[Green Eyes]]: Schmendrick's green eyes are especially mentioned.

* [[Harping On About Harpies]]

* [[Hannibal Lecture]]. King Haggard.

{{quote| '''Haggard:''' "I ''know'' you! I almost knew you as soon as I saw you on the road coming to my door. Since then, there is no movement of yours that has not betrayed you! A pace, a glance, a turn of the head, the flash of your throat as you breathe... even your way of standing perfectly still--they were all my spies!"}}

* [[Herald]]

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|That would be Lír.}}

* [[Humanity Ensues]]:

** The unicorn is transformed by Schmendrick into a human woman, against her will.

* [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]]: Unicorns, Molly, and Lír.

* [[It Must Be Mine]]: Haggard and "his" unicorns.

* [[Jumped At the Call]]: Both Schmendrick and Molly are willing to travel with the unicorn within hours of meeting her.

* [[Just Like Robin Hood]]: Captain Cully and his outlaw gang certainly aspire to be, but instead are quite the opposite. They rob the poor because they can't fight back, and pay off the rich to turn a blind eye.

* [[Last of Her Kind]]: {{spoiler|But not exactly. It turns out that there ''are'' more unicorns--but they have all been imprisoned in the sea by King Haggard, with the help of the Red Bull.}}

* [[Love Martyr]]: ''Oh, Lír.''

* [[Meaningful Echo]]:

** Molly sings parts of Mommy Fortuna's song, and Amalthea sings a verse of a song she heard as a unicorn... but by then she's forgotten what it means and where she heard it.

* [[What Measure Is a Non Unique]]

* [[Wild Wilderness]]

** A major theme in the story is that immortal beings cannot appreciate mortality.

{{quote| '''Schmendrick:''' I was born mortal, and I have been immortal for a long, foolish time, and one day I will be mortal again--so I know something that a unicorn cannot know. Whatever can die is ''beautiful'', more beautiful than the unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world.}}