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Symbols
The silver chains that appear throughout the novel to bind various characters symbolize the idea that ownership and entrapment don’t always look ugly on their face—they can, to an unsuspecting or untrained eye, look beautiful and thus acceptable. This is best represented by the chain that the little hairy man gives to Tristran to capture the star, Yvaine. Tristran initially doesn’t question the morality of his quest, and he doesn’t question if it’s appropriate to magically entrap a fellow living being. It’s only after he’s spent some time with Yvaine, and gotten to know her as a person, that he becomes uncomfortable asserting his ownership over her, and he soon decides to free her. He ultimately comes to realize that, as fine as the chain was, the chain’s beauty doesn’t make using it to trap Yvaine good or right.
At the end of the novel, when Lady Una assures Tristran that there’s “no silver chain that will be holding [him] to the throne of Stormhold,” Yvaine is privately suspicious of the lady’s assertion. This is because she’s learned “that silver chains come in all shapes and sizes”—or put differently, that entrapment can look like lots of different things, and can even look desirable and like power at times. The Power of Stormhold, for instance, is a topaz stone on a silver chain, and the chain magically joins around each Lord of Stormhold’s neck, giving him essentially the divine right to rule Stormhold. Still, even as the Power of Stormhold gives Tristran power over an entire region in Faerie, Yvaine nevertheless recognizes that the responsibility to be in Stormhold and assume his duties does, in some sense, trap Tristran, even if he’s technically free to leave. Chains don’t have to trap someone in literal enslavement, as Madame Semele’s chain enslaves Lady Una for much of the novel. Chains, rather, can be real or metaphorical, symbolic jewelry or merely a person’s sense of responsibility to a person or a cause—but in all cases, no matter how positive or cruel it might look on the surface, there’s the potential to curtail a person’s freedom.
Silver Chains/the Power of Stormhold Quotes in Stardust
The Stardust quotes below all refer to the symbol of Silver Chains/the Power of Stormhold. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
Privately, the eighty-first lord had hoped that by the time his end came upon him, six of the seven young lords at Stormhold would be dead, and but one still alive. That one would be the eighty-second Lord of Stormhold and Master of the High Crags; it was, after all, how he had attained his own title several hundred years before.
But the youth of today were a pasty lot, with none of the get-up-and-go, none of the vigor and vim that he remembered from the days when he was young...
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Chapter 5
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“And this wise, sweet creature sent you here to torture me?” she said.
“Well, not exactly. You see, she promised me anything I desired—be it her hand in marriage or her lips to kiss—were I to bring her the star that we saw fall the night before last. I had thought,” he confessed, “that a fallen star would probably look like a diamond or a rock. I certainly wasn’t expecting a lady.”
“So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?”
“Love,” he explained.
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Inside, he felt numbed and foolish, stung by a pang of guilt and shame and regret. He should not have loosed her chain, he should have tied it to a tree; he should have forced the star to go with him into the village. This went through his head as he walked; but another voice spoke to him also, pointing out that if he had not unchained her then, he would have done it sometime soon, and she would have run from him then.
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Chapter 6
Quotes
“But you were telling me that Pan owned the forest...”
“Of course he does,” said the voice. “It’s not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it’s yours and then be willing to let it go. Pan owns this forest, like that.”
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Chapter 8
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“Not without the Power of Stormhold about your neck you’re not, my brother,” said Quintus, tartly.
“And then there’s the matter of revenge,” said Secundus, in the voice of the wind howling through the pass. “You must take revenge upon your brother’s killer before anything else, now. It’s blood-law.”
As if he had heard them, Septimus shook his head. “Why could you not have waited just a few more days, brother Primus?” [...] “And now I must revenge your sad carcass, and all for the honor of our blood and the Stormhold.
“So Septimus will be the eighty-second Lord of Stormhold,” said Tertius.
“There is a proverbial saying chiefly concerned with warning against too closely calculating the numerical value of unhatched chicks,” pointed out Quintus.
[...]
“May you choke on [the rune stones] if you do not take revenge on the bitch who slit my gullet,” said Primus [...]
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Chapter 9
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For he could no longer reconcile his old idea of giving the star to Victoria Forester with his current notion that the star was not a thing to be passed from hand to hand, but a true person in all respects and no kind of a thing at all.
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Chapter 10
Quotes
“What have you done?” Spittle flecked the old woman’s lips.
“I have done nothing; nothing I did not do eighteen years ago. I was bound to you to be your slave until the day that the moon lost her daughter, if it occurred in a week when two Mondays came together. And my time with you is almost done.”
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“And if it does not suit you, you may leave, you know. There is no silver chain that will be holding you to the throne of Stormhold.”
And Tristran found this quite reassuring. Yvaine was less impressed, for she knew that silver chains come in all shapes and sizes; but she also knew that it would not be wise to begin her life with Tristran by arguing with his mother.
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Get the entire Stardust LitChart as a printable PDF.
Silver Chains/the Power of Stormhold Symbol Timeline in Stardust
The timeline below shows where the symbol Silver Chains/the Power of Stormhold appears in Stardust. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...that the woman is bound to the caravan behind the stall by a thin silver chain—and that she’s extremely attractive. She explains that the witch who owns the stall kidnapped and...
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...and discuss the stars. She explains that she wants her freedom, and that her silver chain is made of “cat’s breath and fish-scales and moonlight mixed in with the silver.” She...
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Chapter 3
...to the window, and the old man pulls off his topaz pendant on its silver chain. This pendant is the Power of Stormhold—and the Lord of Stormhold hurls it out the...
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Chapter 4
The little hairy man then hands Tristran a thin silver chain made of “Cat’s breath and fish-scales and moonlight on a mill-pond.” He’ll need it to...
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...her leg when she fell. Tristran realizes that she is the star. He fastens the chain around her wrist and the other end around his own, announcing that he’s bringing her...
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Chapter 5
...she imperiously shows him the thing that hit her. It’s a yellow stone on a chain, and now she has to carry it with her. She can’t, or won’t, say why.
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...Tristran and the star wait with the unicorn all night, Tristran playing with the silver chain that binds the star to him until he falls asleep.
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...stay with the unicorn while he goes to the village. But he can’t get the chain to release him until he says “please.” Handing her his end of the chain, he...
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...roast hedgehog and cheese. Then, he casts his runes, looking for insight as to the Power of Stormhold ’s whereabouts. He casts them three times, and then he remarks that it’s moving fast....
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Chapter 6
...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...
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...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,...
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Chapter 7
...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...
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...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...
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Chapter 8
...now be the 82nd Lord of the Stormhold, though Quintus notes he still needs the Power of Stormhold , and Secundus notes that he must avenge Primus’s death first. Septimus, speaking like he...
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...bird in the undergrowth. It’s clearly terrified, and Tristran approaches slowly and unwinds the silver chain attached to the bird’s foot, which is stuck on a root. When it’s free, Tristran...
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The bird appears from the caravan, and Yvaine asks why Madame Semele keeps it chained. Ignoring Yvaine, Madame Semele offers to take Tristran to Wall and to neither harm him...
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Chapter 9
...only a bit older than Tristran. Something about her seems familiar. Yvaine points to the chain binding the young woman to the caravan, and while Tristran agrees it’s terrible, he doesn’t...
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Chapter 10
...goes through the wall, she’ll become “a cold, dead thing, sky-fallen.” Yvaine asks about the chain, and the woman says she’s used to it—and then says that you never really get...
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Yvaine explains that Tristran caught her with a chain once, but he freed her. Now, they’re bound together by an “obligation,” which creates a...
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...be her last market. She holds up her wrist, and Madame Semele can see the chain is thin and almost translucent. Madame Semele accuses the young woman of betraying her, but...
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The young woman’s chain finally disappears, and Madame Semele insults her former servant. The young woman says that Madame...
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...ask Yvaine for the topaz: she’s Tristran’s mother. Yvaine gives Tristran the stone on the chain, and Lady Una explains that it was Tristran’s grandfather’s. He’s the last living male Stormhold,...
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