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Chapter 6
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
Going back in time, the star reaches the mountain pass, worried about the hungry, overworked unicorn. The star used to think the world looked nice—now, she hates it. Finally, she sees an inn ahead and hears the rain telling her to be careful. The unicorn refuses to approach, but a kind voice (Morwanneg) invites the star inside. Frightened, the unicorn follows Morwanneg into the stable, where Billy helps the star down and carries her into the inn. Morwanneg helps the star out of her wet clothes and draws her a hot bath. Surprisingly, the bath is pleasant. Morwanneg returns and asks how the star’s heart feels. Though the question is odd, the star answers truthfully that she’s happier now. Morwanneg touches the star’s chest and remarks on her “good strong heart.”
The star, even more so than Tristran, embodies youth and innocence. Readers know she’s headed into a trap, but she’s taken in by Morwanneg’s feigned kindness and doesn’t listen to either the rain or the unicorn’s clear body language that entering the inn is dangerous. This dangerous innocence is something the novel conflates with her youth, again raising the question of whether all aspects of youth are actually worth striving for—or whether perhaps Morwanneg is mostly after youthful looks.
Themes
The star is thrilled: people here are good. A while later, Morwanneg helps the star out of her bath, noting the topaz stone set in silver around the star’s waist. She helps the star to the table, which is set with a cleaver and a knife at the head. Just then, someone outside shouts for service. Morwanneg observes that the star isn’t going to leave any time soon with her broken leg. The star just thanks her for her hospitality.
The star continues to demonstrate her youthful naivety by totally missing the signs that she’s in danger. Morwanneg is a little too concerned with whether the star will stay to really pull off the act that she’s an inn keeper’s wife—but because the star is so naive and has no experience in the world, she misses these warning signs.
Themes
Tristran is elated to see the inn. He unhitches the horses and settles them in the stables, where a white horse sleeps in the far stall. He can tell the star is nearby, and comforted by that thought, he offers to groom the horses. A girl brings him some wine a while later and sets it down on a box. The white horse begins to kick its stall, and Tristran says calming things to it as he decides what to say to the star. Just then, the white horse—the unicorn—breaks out of the stall and sticks its horn into the wine. The wine bubbles, and Tristran remembers how, in fairy tales, unicorns can identify poison. Panicked, Tristran pulls out the tree’s leaf and listens closely.
Like the star, Tristran is taken in by the comforts the inn has to offer. Unlike her, though, he’s willing and able to listen to the unicorn. Once again, he realizes that fairy tales aren’t just entertainment: in Faerie, they contain genuinely useful information that, in this case, suggest to him that the owner of the inn isn’t actually interested in serving him and Primus. And of course, Morwanneg isn’t. The inn is merely a ruse to get the star’s heart, while Tristran and Primus are merely annoying complications.
Themes
Inside, Morwanneg offers Primus wine, which he refuses. He asks her to send wine to the stable for Tristran and asks about accommodations. Then, he turns to the star and hears a commotion in the stables. He stares at the star and then says that she has the Power of Stormhold, the topaz stone. She tells him to ask for it so she can get rid of it, but Morwanneg scolds him. As Primus notices the knives and recognizes what they are, Tristran bursts in and says they tried to poison him. Morwanneg slits Primus’s throat. Morwanneg sends Billy and the maid to tackle Tristran, but the unicorn bursts into the inn and kills them both. Tristran crawls toward the fire, shaping the remainder of his candle in his hand.
Notably, the handoff of the Power of Stormhold is set up to be fully consensual (and not deadly for anyone, under ideal circumstances). The star is currently trapped by the stone, but Primus can free her—and take power for himself—by simply asking for the stone. However, things immediately go sideways once it becomes clear to everyone that Morwanneg is evil. As Tristran shapes the candle, it suggests that he’s again drawing on nursery rhymes to get himself and the star out of this situation.
Themes
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The star crawls to join Tristran as the unicorn stabs Morwanneg in the shoulder. But before it can throw her down and stomp on her, Morwanneg stabs it in the eye, killing it. Morwanneg notices Tristran and the star by the fire and staggers toward them, muttering that the scared star’s heart will work fine. Tristran and the star stand, Tristran tells the star to walk, and he puts his hand in the fire. The candle lights and they walk forward, underground, through a desert, and finally onto a cloud.
Stardust might be a fairy tale, but it’s in no way a children’s fairy tale: the unicorn is killed trying to defend Tristran and the star. Morwanneg remains so obsessed with possessing the star’s youth that she’s perfectly happy to get any heart, even if a “scared” heart won’t work as well to restore her own youth. This again speaks to the futility of Morwanneg’s goal.
Themes
