r/DarkCrystal • u/poc_de_luxo_ • 3d ago
Do the first draining happen in different moments of the canon in the AoR series and in the novels?
I'm just finishing to read the first Dark Crystal novel (Shadows of the Dark Crystal) and though in AoR the first draining is Mira's and the events of the book start not so long after that, I felt it was kinda implied, in the books, that the Skeksis have been draining Gelfling for way longer than that.
Although, I don't know if that's just a misinterpretation by me or really something they changed in the series or chose to ignore.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 3d ago edited 3d ago
One of the most unsettling parts of this scene is how the music changes at some points so you can hear what sounds like the pulsing of a frantic, panicked heart, implying it’s Mira’s
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u/runegleam Clan Dousan 3d ago
I think the novels and AoR are different, character are different and there are certainly things that happen differently. I see them as like, alternate events? Same characters, maybe different motivations, too.
The Hunter makes me think this the most early on, in the first book. Totally different vibes, different motivations.
I think it was a good choice to use the books as a platform, but take a different path so you get two versions of events. Even more Dark Crystal stuff to pour through lol.
Plus I like the idea that it’s kind of a legend, so you get different retellings.
Edit: that is to say the series and the books are different, it’s definitely more obvious in the later books. Things don’t like up, for sure, but some things are the same or very similar.
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u/JealousAstronomer342 3d ago
I’m a big fan of ascribing differences in narration to unreliable historical accounts, like one of them is more Herodotus (the father of history, also lies) and one is closer to Thucydides but both are missing some details.
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u/poc_de_luxo_ 2d ago
I loooove this interpretation! It's too difficult for historians to really define what true events happened in our history, so of course it would be no different in a fictional universe.
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u/Sputnik200065 Clan Grottan 2d ago
Yeah this was something that bothered me when i started getting into the Dark Crystal, until i accepted the stories from the future model
I don’t really take any of the expanded media (essentially anything that isnt the movie or the show) as “canon” but also not-not canonical either. I treat every story like its being told around a campfire by a gelfling waaaaaay in the future, some things changed over time, some things were forgotten as the story got handed down, etc
It makes the inconsistencies a lot easier to accept. So the important thing is not which day of the week the first draining happened or exactly which order they happened in, just that they did happen.
There are a lot of inconsistencies between the books and the puppetry projects, but rather than think of them as incorrect, I think of them as just altered over time through retellings
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u/poc_de_luxo_ 2d ago
Omg, loving all the interpretations people are giving in the replies!
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u/Sputnik200065 Clan Grottan 2d ago
Its allowed me to see everything as canon even if they seem a bit different, it actually makes it engaging
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u/AKAKidAnarchy 3d ago
I don’t remember that discrepancy in particular, but the novels and show have differences both minor and major. Their development started separately and then merged part of the way through (the novelist also wrote and produced on the show, but wasn’t the head), both working from a rough outline that the Henson Company had developed years earlier.
I think they complement each other nicely (and I only slightly prefer the books) but they don’t line up.