Strange the Dreamer

The prologue establishes the fantasy setting and foreshadows key events and motifs in the novel. Despite its appearance as a prologue, the scene here actually depicts an event that occurs at the end of the novel, when Sarai topples from the citadel during the explosion and is impaled on a wrought-iron fence below. Laini Taylor leaves the girl unnamed in the prologue, however, creating the impression that this is a past event, not a future one.

Because this scene is framed as a prologue, Taylor implies that it precedes the main sequence of events in the narrative, an effect that is strengthened by the next scenes in Chapter 1, wherein Lazlo experiences the sudden erasure of Weep. If a traditional chronological interpretation is employed here, the prologue seems to describe the climactic scene of that very destruction. Similarly, when Part 2 reveals Sarai’s resemblance to her mother, Isagol, the prologue can be interpreted as perhaps depicting Isagol’s death. However, further clues—the presence of Sarai’s moths in the prologue, or the fact that Isagol was killed directly by Eril-Fane—foreshadow this initial scene as depicting Sarai’s future death, not a flashback to the Carnage.

The prose style is lyrical, lending the atmosphere a distinct sense of whimsy and likening it to a fairy tale. However, this lyrical mood clashes with the more catastrophic scenes and establishes a discordant, aching tone that complements the calamity it depicts. This bittersweet horror mixed with grief perfectly replicates the feelings that Lazlo experiences during the moment at the end of the novel when the narrative comes full circle to the moment of the prologue again. The purpose of the prologue is not so much to depict action as it is to establish setting and mood and to foreshadow important motifs and events in the novel. The girl in the prologue is described in a manner that evokes both beauty and terror, a recurring juxtaposition later in the narrative, as demonstrated by the following quotation: “They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground” (1). The framing of this event as a rumored story also establishes the omniscience of the narrator and immediately frames the the novel as a fairy tale. It also implicitly introduces the idea that multiple perspectives create the understanding of a story, a literary device Taylor uses throughout the narrative to suggest that memory is determined by perspective.

The prologue also foreshadows important symbols and motifs in the narrative. Major motifs such as the blue color of the girl’s skin and the moths are present. Because they are given specific attention in the description of the girl’s death, these motifs are lent an implied significance. The recurring line in the narrative about the blue shade of the godspawn’s skin is first used here: “Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky” (2). The reader also learns that the blue color of the girl’s skin evokes a particular horror for the people of Weep, foreshadowing the conflict between godspawn and humans in the mythical city. The prologue ends with the unnamed blue girl’s ghost drifting into the sky as a great metal beast awakens. (This foreshadows the climax at the end of the novel, when Sarai meets her death and Lazlo saves the city of Weep by discovering his heritage as one of the godspawn and using his special ability to manipulate mesarthium metal to save the humans from destruction.)