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Chapter 5
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Stardust, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Aging, and Maturity
Love and Ownership
Home and Belonging
Rules
The Value of Literature
Summary
Analysis
Tristran dreams—first of watching Victoria undress, and then that the moon is asking him to protect “[her] child.” He wakes up when a spider crawls across his face. He hears a woman’s voice coming from above, observing that Tristran was dreaming. The voice tells Tristran about the dream she had last night, in which Pan came to this forest, which he owns. She notes that owning things is easy: “You just have to know that it’s yours and then be willing to let it go.” The voice says she also dreamed of Tristran “leading a sad girl by the chain,” and Pan asked her to help Tristran. Tristran realizes that the voice is coming from a beech tree itself. She says that she used to be a nymph. She turned herself into a tree to escape a prince with no respect for boundaries.
Pan is the Greek god of nature, among other things. As such, it makes sense that he “owns” the forest—but the tree, and Pan, define ownership very differently from how Tristran has thus far. He asserted his ownership over the star by chaining her up and dragging her toward Victoria, and he’s since learned how unfulfilling—to say nothing about it being dehumanizing—that was for the star and for him. The tree then continues to lay out evidence showing that trying to own or possess another being is universally bad. She was forced to turn herself into a tree because the prince wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Themes
After complimenting the tree’s beauty, Tristran asks how she can help—she is a tree, after all. She asks Tristran to tell her his story, and he does so, beginning with his love for Victoria and his promise to bring her back a fallen star. When he’s done, the tree says in a “fierce” voice that she’ll help Tristran only because he unchained the star. She’ll tell him “three true things,” though he’ll get the last thing later, when he needs it. The first thing is that the star is in danger, and Tristran must protect her. Second, Tristran must hurry and catch a carriage coming down the nearby path. To give Tristran the third thing, the tree causes a copper leaf to fall into his hand, telling him to listen to it when he needs to.
The tree clearly values freedom and autonomy. She helps Tristran see the value in those things—and the error of his ways—by helping him only because he chose to free the star rather than possess her forever. Now, the tree insists that Tristran rethink his relationship to the star and take on the role of her protector. Readers know that Morwanneg is set on trying to cut the star’s heart out so she and the Lilim can regain her youth—and Tristran cannot, in good conscience, allow that to happen now that he’s coming to respect the star and see her as a fellow human being.
Themes
Tristran races for the carriage and emerges on the road just in time, but it passes him anyway, the horses galloping. He follows the carriage and finds it a few minutes later, stopped because an oak tree fell across the road. Tristran helps the coachman (Primus) move the oak tree, silently thanking the beech tree. Then, he asks to go along with Primus. Primus asks Tristran to pick three tiles from a pile in his hands. After studying the tiles Tristran chose, he announces that Tristran can come, as there will be more danger. As he climbs up to the driver’s seat, Tristran thinks he sees five gray men in the carriage.
Neither Tristran nor Primus knows it, but they’re both after the star: Tristran for the star herself, and Primus for the Power of Stormhold around her waist. Primus’s tiles are another form of divination. Given how correct divination methods seem to be in the novel’s fantastical world, Primus’s announcement that there’s more danger to come doesn’t bode well for him, Tristran, or the star.
Themes
Some say that the huge mountain range in Faerie used to be a giant who lay down to sleep. The biggest mountains are called Mount Head, Mount Shoulder, Mount Belly, and Mount Knees, whether the story is true or not. Morwanneg waits at the pass to the south of Mount Belly, sharpening two knives—one to cut through a ribcage, the other to cut out the star’s heart. When she’s finished, she turns her goats into an old man and a young woman. Then, she whispers to the chariot. Nothing happens, though in her youth, she could transform inanimate objects easily. Sighing, she conjures blue flame and touches the chariot. Gray streaks appear in her hair, she has bags under her eyes, and the chariot is now an inn. Morwanneg tells the man he’s Billy, her husband; the girl will be Brevis the pot-maid.
The novel continues to explore the value of stories through the legend detailing the mountain range’s origins. The truth of the story isn’t important—but it's still had a lasting impact on the mountains’ names, and thus it has something to teach. Morwanneg looks increasingly deadly with her sharp knives, and increasingly selfish and cruel as she transforms the goat and Brevis into humans to help her carry out her ruse. But significantly, working these transformations comes at a cost: she ages quickly and dramatically. Her magically-induced youth is something she spends, like currency, to be as powerful as she is.
Themes
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Tristran is relieved that the coachman (Primus) drives in the direction of the star. After Primus stops once to cast his runes, Tristran asks what he’s after. Primus says he’s after his destiny and asks the same of Tristran. Tristran is after a lady he offended—he wants to apologize. Primus invites Tristran to visit him on Mount Huon in the future, but while Tristran appreciates the sentiment, he explains he’s had enough adventure and just wants to be a sheep farmer. He lists several of the fantastical things he’s seen, such as a unicorn. Primus shares that “unicorns are the moon’s creatures.” When they stop to sleep that night, Tristran suddenly realizes that Primus is terrified of something.
Tristran’s answer to Primus’s question is telling. He no doubt doesn’t want to share the whole truth with Primus, in following the little hairy man’s instructions earlier to be vague. But he’s still telling the truth: he now sees the star as a human being worthy of respect, and he knows he offended her by capturing her. Interestingly, he also suggests that he still believes that his future is in Wall, despite how comfortable he otherwise is in Faerie. Finally, the fact that “unicorns are the moon’s creatures” adds meaning to Tristran’s dream at the beginning of this chapter. It suggests the moon—a living being, in this world—sent the unicorn to care for the star.
Themes
It’s pouring the next morning, and Tristran declines Primus’s offer to let Tristran sit in the carriage. Touched, Primus introduces himself officially, and Tristran does the same. As the horses plod through the storm, Primus shouts over it that if Tristran encounters Septimus, to run away from him—he’s dangerous, but his target is Primus. A minute later, Primus observes that there’s something “[u]nnatural” about the storm. Tristran thinks about the star and how cold, wet, and sore she must be. He laments that he’s miserable, but Primus simply says that every young man in love is “the most miserable young man who ever lived.” They spot an inn ahead as night begins to fall.
Primus and Tristran’s relationship grows warmer as they finally offer their names. Primus clearly cares for Tristran’s wellbeing and isn’t willing to throw his new friend under the bus to beat Septimus. In response to Tristran’s whining, Primus suggests that being young and in love is a naturally miserable state of being—and that it’s a specifically youthful state of being. Young love may commonly be idealized, but as Primus notes, it’s not always comfortable or fulfilling.
Themes
