The Secret of Kells/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


At first, when Aisling helped Brendan fight Crom Crauch, I assumed she looked at the Book off-screen. The Fridge Brilliance section mentions that she can't go into religious buildings, so she couldn't have seen the Book. Was she letting him risk his life just because he claimed the Book was important?

  • There's a scene where he's drawing some foliage in the woods and she takes the tablet from him and looks it over, so she had some idea of what was in there... but not that much. This bugged me, too. Maybe she helped mostly because she knew how important it was to Brendan?
    • She's a Fae, they do what they please, and helping this human kid struck her fancy.
      • So she helped him die?
    • That part wasn't drawn with the help of the eye. I find it hard to believe that she looked at a mortal drawing and thought "This is totally worth dying for".
    • She repeats the line "Turn darkness into light." She believed that there was some hope that Crom Cruach could be defeated by the book and/or Brendan himself.
  • According to the opening narration she has seen the book alright, so the question is when. The most probable answer is that Brendan has sneaked it out of the scriptorium to show Aisling, though now the question is why was it off-screen.
  • She could have seen its assorted pages while her wolf pack shredded the Vikings.

Why is it assumed that Aisling lost her human form? She seemed to change to it just fine in the ending. I always assumed that she simply took any form that fit her, as we don't see her human form until she notices Aidan. So when she was running with her pack against the vikings, a wolf form was more useful than the human one.

  • Some people didn't see her at the end. Also, Brendan's voice turns young again -- that could have been seen as Brendan flashing back to his younger days.
  • Though very subtle, this troper noticed that, when there is a close up of her eyes both in the beginning and near the end, the shape starts out one way, and then changes. For example, at the end, they start off round and oval-shaped (Human form eyes), and then begin to lengthen (Wolf form eyes). YMMV though.

Why was there a secret passage anyway? Someone must have made or noticed it, and Cellach seems obsessive enough to check for that sort of thing.

  • It's possible that others were allowed to go to the forest, for lumber or food or other such things, and so they kept a direct passage to the woods for as long as they could.
    • Then why didn't anyone other than Brendan and Aidan use it? You'd think that a few people would be shown heading towards it, at least...

== Why didn't Brendan tell anyone that there's a pagan god of darkness lurking in the forest? == That seems a little more important than bringing Aidan the berries.

  • ...because the Abbot told him that things like that aren't real? You don't exactly worry about things you're told are imaginary.
    • But he was attacked by it, along with Aisling. That doesn't seem very imaginary.
      • The Abbot didn't see the attack occur. He would have assumed it was the work of the overactive imagination of a young boy and told Brendan off - or worse, believed his already wayward nephew was being possessed by Satan himself and exorcized him. And the Dagda forbid he learn Brendan was consorting with a pagan demigod.

If Aisling can turn living beings to ghosts and back, why didn't she do it to Brendan and allow him to escape instantly?

  • The WMG page suggests the cat is also a fairy so maybe her magic works on her but not on humans? Or maybe the magic doesn't work on Christians? Or she can't cast a spell on someone inside a religious building?


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