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rainbowswirlything · 3 months ago

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Sleeper, Protector, Friend and Foe – The Darkest Faerie and Jerdana

(Or: In This Essay, I Will Overanalyze A Couple of Neopets Characters)

The eleven heroes who Altador chose to help found and lead his city drew his attention in numerous ways. Siyana discovered and thwarted a plot to raid a village, Florin cured a plant blight, Marak mediated peace between his underwater village and land-dwellers they’d come into conflict with, Gordos rooted out corruption in his town…

...but two of the Protectors of Altador were chosen because they saved the life of King Altador: the Sleeper—aka the Betrayer, aka the Darkest Faerie—and Jerdana, the Protector. As it turns out, there are a few interesting parallels/contrasts between these two characters.

Recruitment Order

The way the Book of Ages is written suggests that the order in which the 12 founders are presented is the reverse of the order in which they were recruited.

For one thing, Altador’s chapter (The Hunter) is the last out of the founders, and he obviously was the first to get onboard with the city-founding plan—it was his plan to start with.

For another, in Jerdana’s chapter, which immediately precedes Altador’s, it doesn’t sound like Altador has recruited anyone else at that point—he’s alone when Jerdana first encounters him, and after she saves his life, he says "With your powers of protection, my just leadership, and the help of other strong hearts, we could make a city of legends." To me, that makes it sound like Altador didn’t yet know who the “other strong hearts” might be.

In addition, in Siyana’s chapter, which immediately precedes Florin’s, after Siyana saves Florin’s village from bandits, Florin “told her that there was a noble Lupe she should perhaps meet,” which suggests that Florin had already been recruited at this point.

If we assume that the recruitment order is indeed the reverse of the chapter order, then Jerdana and the Sleeper were the first and last recruits to Altador’s council, respectively—a pair of matching bookends.

Chance Meetings in the Wilderness

Most of the Twelve were recruited when Altador heard of some heroic deed they’d performed and deliberately sought them out.

Siyana might be one exception—in her case, Florin was the one to suggest she might be a good fit for the council, and she may have even been the one to seek Altador out at Florin's suggestion.

As for Jerdana and the Sleeper--Altador's first encounter with both was out in the wilderness, entirely by chance, and he was a direct witness to their heroic acts (for the obvious reason that said acts involved saving Altador himself).

Jerdana is stated in the Book of Ages to have been a wanderer who helped people she met in her travels but never stuck around in one place too long; however, it’s not clear exactly what the Sleeper was doing out near a monster’s lair. The Sleeper isn’t really given any backstory or any rationale for why she happened to be in Altador’s path; in fact, unlike all the other chapters, we never see the Sleeper outside of Altador’s perspective. After the introductory paragraph, the Sleeper’s chapter starts with Altador going off to hunt a monster, and the Sleeper only appears when she enters Altador’s life by killing a second monster that threatened him.

It's certainly possible that the Sleeper, too, was a wanderer--but one who found it less easy to lean on the hospitality of others. Jerdana, as a Neopet with a talent for protective magic, would have doubtless found it easier to find a warm welcome in Neopet settlements than a dark faerie.

We don't know much of Jerdana's past beyond the fact that she didn't seem to have a place she called home... until Altador found her, and created the city that became that home.

And perhaps it was the same for the Sleeper. Perhaps she, too, felt she had no greater purpose--and no true home--until Altador gave her one. (And later, of course, she attempted to make it hers in a different way--not just her home, but her conquest, her possession, her dominion, hers and hers alone.)

Regardless of where they came from or why they were in the right place at the right time—that’s indeed where they were. If not for their meeting with Altador—especially in the Sleeper’s case, since one could argue that the Werelupes only got the drop on Altador in Jerdana’s chapter because he was distracted talking to Jerdana—the Lupe who dreamed of founding a city may have met an untimely end, and the city of Altador may never have come to be at all.

Protector vs. Destroyer

Of course, the way in which Jerdana and the Sleeper save Altador’s life differs.

Jerdana saves Altador’s life by raising a magical shield to protect him from a threat—specifically, a pack of Werelupes who had snuck up on them. She holds the shield in place until the Werelupes lose interest and run off. Her actions are purely defensive—Altador draws his weapon, but she raises a magical shield.

The Sleeper, on the other hand, saves Altador’s life by using her magic to destroy the threat.

Of all the twelve Protectors, the Sleeper is the only one whose “heroic act” that got her recruited involves a clearly-depicted killing. (She and Altador are the only two of the Twelve explicitly shown killing another creature within the Book of Ages, both in the Sleeper’s chapter—even if that creature was a monster.)

Even Torakor, the champion gladiator, isn’t directly depicted as killing anyone in his chapter. We could just as easily imagine that Torakor’s single combats all ended in non-lethal takedowns and that the general he ousted was permitted to flee; the narrative doesn’t tell us otherwise. Even if we assume that, as a member of a military force, he’s probably killed people off-screen… well, that’s off-screen. The point isn’t just about who’s shed blood—it’s about who’s shown shedding blood.

It's possible that, from the Sleeper's first meeting with Altador, she felt that she had something in common between herself and Altador in that they were both ready, willing, and able to spill blood, if need be--though not quite to the same degree, in the end.

Going back to Jerdana—there isn’t really any explanation why she chooses a purely defensive approach. Magic in the world of Neopia tends to be on the “softer” side of the spectrum—magic does what it does, as the narrative requires, without a lot of hard rules to define it, and the capabilities of independent magic users are often not well-defined either. It’s certainly possible that Jerdana simply isn’t capable of using the same sort of attack magic the Sleeper does, or that she can’t use offensive and defensive magic at the same time.

But it’s also possible that Jerdana is making a deliberate choice—that she does not want to inflict harm on others even if they wish to harm her.

If so, this is a philosophy she still holds after the Sleeper becomes the Betrayer.

Protector, Not Destroyer: Jerdana’s Orb

The Doylist explanation for why the Darkest Faerie is still alive despite being a massive threat to Altador is, of course, that it was kind of necessary for the plot. Also, this is Neopets, and they don’t tend to kill off characters--villains are more likely to be defeated in a way that leaves the possibility they may return in a future story. (Even Hubrid Nox, who was unambiguously killed during the Faeries’ Ruin plot, is still hanging out in Neopia as a ghost.)

However, if we switch to a more Watsonian framing…

The Sleeper is a threat to everything that Jerdana holds dear. She was once a friend—but now she’s a bitter foe who, if not stopped, will harm all of Jerdana’s other friends. There’s one sure way to end the threat the Betrayer poses and ensure she never threatens Altador again—and that’s by ending her.

But that’s not what Jerdana does.

She doesn’t seek to destroy the Betrayer, but to contain her. She creates a magical Orb to turn the Betrayer into a statue—and the spell is very much not permanent, as shown in The Darkest Faerie PS2 game as well as The Wraith Resurgence plot.

It's true, Jerdana may have been inclined towards mercy for the fact that she and the Sleeper had spent decades as allies--as friends. But still--in her chapter of the Book of Ages, she showed no less mercy to enemies who were total strangers.

The only point at which Jerdana’s Orb causes the Darkest Faerie bodily harm is after the Darkest Faerie tries to use its remnants to make a magic ring to strengthen her powers. It's the Darkest Faerie’s influence that turns Jerdana’s Orb—designed not to do physical harm—into something that can cause harm to others... and, it turns out, to herself as well.

(That said, it seems likely, given the Darkest Faerie’s quote on her TCG card—“Fyora stole one thousand years from me, and that was about what it took for me to plan my revenge”—that the Darkest Faerie was conscious to some degree during her imprisonment… which probably wasn’t great for her mental health. But hey, her physical health seemed more-or-less intact once the Orb was removed!)

Another interesting thing to consider—in some alternate history in which Jerdana was the one to betray the other members of the council, would the Sleeper have shown the same restraint, or would she, if Jerdana became a threat to all she herself held dear, have slain Jerdana--even if she felt sorrow in doing so?

Final Thoughts

The Sleeper and Jerdana are, in a way, foils for each other. The Sleeper is the final recruit, the one who won her place through killing a threat, and the one who uses her magic to try to conquer the city; the Protector was the first recruit, won her place through protecting without killing, and is the one whose magic saves the city.

There’s a lot of empty space in the story of Altador’s Golden Age—the time during which all Twelve Protectors sat on the city’s council, faithfully serving Altador’s citizens. We know, of course, that the Sleeper became the Darkest Faerie at some point—but the details are left fairly vague.

After the on-site Altador mini-plot is completed, Jerdana says that conquering Altador “was something [the Betrayer] had secretly desired since before the kingdom was even founded.”

However, Jerdana isn’t all-knowing—and she has good reason to see the Darkest Faerie in an incredibly negative light right now, so she's not exactly an unbiased source.

So, here we venture further into my own interpretation of the Sleeper's character.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that the Sleeper was, at the beginning, genuinely friends with the others--including Jerdana--and only years later turned against them and plotted to take over the city, which then raises the question--how and why did that change happen?

It's possible that, in her frustration at being unable to steer the city in the direction she desired, she may have become increasingly resentful--and that resentment may have been colored by the events surrounding her first encounter with Altador.

Whenever her ideas were rejected—when her visions for what the city of Altador might be were refused—perhaps there was a tiny voice in the corner of her mind that whispered “But you wouldn’t even have this city if it weren’t for me! I saved Altador's life! Surely that means something!”

Except Altador was only around to save because Jerdana saved him first.

Once resentment and ambition took greater root in the Sleeper’s heart—did it begin to sting for the Sleeper to know that she wasn’t the only one to whom Altador owed his life—and that, moreover, she wasn’t even the first?

The last recruited, whose vision was rejected by King Altador when she sought to increase the city’s influence through conquest—might she have developed a particular resentment for Jerdana, the first at Altador’s side, the one whose philosophy of defense-sans-offense had been accepted as policy? (Not only her philosophy, of course, but still.)

"I saved your life, too, but you listen to her, you value her input--you value everyone else's input--you won't let me do what I'm good at--you recruited me for my power, but you won't even let me use it... well, maybe I don't need your permission!"

Of course, whatever the Sleeper/Betrayer felt towards Jerdana personally before spending a thousand-and-change years as a statue, she surely resents Jerdana after having been bound by her magic.

And Jerdana, for her part, with all her happy memories from decades spent side-by-side with the Sleeper gone sour after the latter’s betrayal, seems to believe that the Sleeper was never truly her friend at all.

#neopets #the darkest faerie #jerdana #altador #rainbow swirly original posts

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