The Last Unicorn

“Sometimes she thought, If men no longer know what they are looking at, there may well be unicorns in the world yet, unknown and glad of it. But she knew beyond both hope and vanity that men had changed, and the world with them, because the unicorns were gone.”

This quote demonstrates the link between unicorns and the themes of innocence and disillusionment. The idea that humans cannot see unicorns anymore because the world has moved away from being a place of wonder is explored in this moment as the unicorn contemplates her place in the world.

“Belief makes all the difference in magic like Mommy Fortuna’s.”

Schmendrick explains how Mommy Fortuna’s magic can make ordinary creatures appear to be magical creatures. If people want to see a manticore, Fortuna’s magic can show them one. This also affects the spider in the carnival, who believes she is Arachne. Because she believes she has created the great webs of Fortuna’s spell, the spell is stronger and more real.

“By the sorrow and loss and sweetness in their faces she knew that they recognized her, and she accepted their hunger as her homage. She thought of the hunter’s great-grandmother, and wondered what it must be like to grow old, and to cry.”

This quote shows the unicorn’s curiosity about mortal life. She can see the impact that her presence has on people who long to see a unicorn, and she wants to know what it must feel like to be them, forever bound by time and impending death.

“But no hero can stand before her, no god can wrestle her down, no magic can keep her out—or in, for she’s no prisoner of ours. Even while we exhibit her here, she is walking among you, touching and taking. For Elli is Old Age.”

Rukh’s description of Elli, a figure from Norse Mythology who represents the concept of old age, shows the terrifying way humans view their inevitable death. Aging and dying are hard truths for mortals to accept, and the fear the crowd at the Midnight Carnival exhibits upon seeing Elli shows the tragic way mortals view their own limited time.

“‘It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is,’ he said. ‘There is much misjudgment in the world. Now I knew you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes. We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.”

Schmendrick explains to the unicorn that misjudgment comes in many forms, and that her perception of him as a fool will forever color her judgment of him. At this time, Schmendrick has not yet revealed that he is cursed with immortality because of his magic, but he wants the unicorn to know he is more than he seems.

“When they stood in front of her cage, gazing silently in at her, the unicorn thought bitterly, Their eyes are so sad. How much sadder would they be, I wonder, if the spell that disguises me dissolved and they were left staring at a common white mare? The witch is right—not one would know me.”

The unicorn is beginning to become disillusioned like the rest of the world. She is realizing that the people of the world no longer recognize her and begins to think negatively about her role in modern times.

“‘You deserve the services of a great wizard,’ he said to the unicorn, ‘but I’m afraid you’ll have to be glad of the aid of a second-rate pickpocket. Unicorns know nought of need, or shame, or doubt, or debt—but mortals, as you may have noticed, take what they can get.’”

Here, Schmendrick laments his unfit skills after failing to use magic to free the unicorn, contributing to the theme of the Fear of Mediocrity. Schmendrick knows his services to the unicorn are subpar, and he compares his mediocrity and insecurity to the unicorn’s lack thereof.

“I have heard too many tales and each argues with anther. The Bull is real, the Bull is a ghost, the Bull is Haggard himself when the sun goes down. The Bull was in the land before Haggard, or it came with him, or it came to him. It protects him from raids and revolutions, and saves him the expense of arming his men. It keeps him a prisoner in his own castle. It is the devil, to whom Haggard has sold his soul. It is the thing he sold his soul to possess. The Bull belongs to Haggard. Haggard belongs to the Bull.”

When the unicorn asks Schmendrick what he knows of the Red Bull, Schmendrick rattles off a variety of stories and tales, emphasizing how mysterious the Red Bull’s origins are and how much power King Haggard and the Red Bull have.

“How terrible it would be if all my people had been turned human by well-meaning wizards—exiled, trapped in burning houses. I would sooner find that the Red Bull had killed them all.”

Upon learning the story of how Nikos turned a unicorn into a human, the unicorn responds negatively. She believes being changed into a human is a worse fate than death by the Red Bull. This moment displays how disturbing the thought of mortality is to the unicorn, contributing the theme of the Tragic Inevitability of Aging.

“The magic knows what it wants to do, he thought, bouncing as the horse dashed across a creek. But I never know what it knows. Not at the right time, anyway. I’d write a letter if I knew where it lived.”

After failing to control his magic in the presence of the mayor and the outlaws, Schmendrick contemplates his relationship with magic. He struggles to understand his magic and doesn’t know how to communicate with the magic well enough to learn about it. This contributes to the theme of mediocrity.

“One always hopes, of course, even now—to be collected, to be verified, annotated, to have variant versions, even to have one’s authenticity doubted…well, well, never mind.”

Captain Cully expresses his desire for the folksongs about him to be collected and spread far and wide. He worries about not making a name for himself and hopes that his folktales, full of falsehoods about him and his band of men, will one day be as famous as tales of Robin Hood. Cully’s need for fame ties into the themes of the Fear of Mediocrity and the Tragic Inevitability of Aging. Cully wishes to live on forever in the collected words of his songs.

“‘And what good is it to me that you’re here now? Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?’ With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart. ‘I wish you had never come, why do you come now?’ The tears began to slide down the sides of her nose.”

Molly Grue’s emotional reaction to seeing the unicorn captures the idea that unicorns represent innocence. Molly believes seeing a unicorn before she has been aged by her hard life might have changed her path and allowed her to reach a potential that has been stifled by her time with Captain Cully and his men.

“The sky spins and drags everything along with it, princesses and magicians and poor Cully and all, but you stand still. You never see anything just once. I wish you could be a princess for a little while, or a flower, or a duck. Something that can’t wait.”

Molly Grue’s musing here demonstrates the differences between mortals and unicorns, emphasizing the limited time mortals have on earth. This quote also foreshadows the unicorn’s transformation into a girl, who goes on to live like a princess and fall in love with a prince.

“How can we delight in our good fortune when we know that it must end, and that one of us will end it? Every day makes us richer, and brings us one day nearer to our doom.”

Drinn explains how the curse on King Haggard’s castle also affects Hagsgate and how one of Hagsgate's own will bring about the fall of both. His reasoning here has a deeper meaning that can be applied to the concept of mortality. While some may choose to make the most of their time, the people of Hagsgate represent a different reaction to impending death, in which none enjoy a moment of their fortune because they understand it will not last forever.

“The unicorn had never been afraid of anything. She was immortal, but she could be killed: by a harpy, by a dragon or a chimera, by a stray arrow loosed at a squirrel. But dragons could only kill her—they could never make her forget what she was, or themselves forget that even dead she would still be more beautiful than they. The Red Bull did not know her, and yet she could feel that it was herself he sought, and no white mare. Fear blew her dark then, and she ran away, while the Bull’s raging ignorance filled the sky and spilled over into the valley.”

The unicorn’s deep, intense fear of the Red Bull comes from a primal place within her. Death by another creature would still allow her to leave a legacy of beauty, but she knows the Red Bull cannot hold her beauty immortal like the other creatures. Though the bull knows what she is, he does not understand her significance, and that scares the unicorn more than anything.

“The white girl said, ‘I am myself still. This body is dying. I can feel it rotting all around me. How can anything that is going to die be real? How can it be truly beautiful?’ Molly Grue put the magician’s cloak around her shoulders again, not for modesty or seemliness, but out of a strange pity, as though to keep her from seeing herself.”

The unicorn, knowing herself to be the most beautiful creature, mourns the loss of her true form and expresses disgust at her mortal body. She reveals her negative feelings about mortality and aging, contributing to the theme of the Tragic Inevitability of Aging.

“My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by a greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to be working backward at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don’t thank me. I tremble at your doom.”

These words, spoken by Nikos, are the explanation for Schmendrick’s curse of immortality. Because Schmendrick has the potential for great power, he also struggles with great incompetence. Therefore, Nikos has made it so Schmendrick must master his abilities if he wishes to rejoin the world of mortals and age as they do. This spell embodies the idea that mediocrity is something to fear.

“‘Haggard, I would not be you for all the world,’ he declared. ‘You have let your doom in by the front door, though it will not depart that way.’”

Mabruk, upon being fired by King Haggard, delivers this final warning to Haggard about the nature of his new guests. Mabruk is a master wizard and can tell that Lady Amalthea is a unicorn come to free her people. This warning foreshadows the success of the adventuring party.

“She is here, they are all here, and whether they mean my doom or not, I will look at them for a while. A pleasant air of disaster attends them. Perhaps that is what I want.”

This comment, spoken by King Haggard, has a double meaning. At the moment, it refers to Lady Amalthea, Molly Grue, and Schmendrick, but it also reveals that King Haggard suspects Amalthea’s true nature. By commenting that “they are all here,” he is also referring to the unicorns, which he watches in the sea.

“Now I am two—myself, and this other that you call ‘my lady.’ For she is here as truly as I am now, though once she was only a veil over me. She walks in the castle, she sleeps, she dresses herself, she takes her meals, and she thinks her own thoughts. If she has no power to heal, or to quiet, still she has another magic.”

The unicorn, in her human body, recognizes the personhood of Lady Amalthea. She understands that she was once a unicorn, but she also feels the humanity of her mortal form becoming more real and independent from her unicorn self. This foreshadows how the Lady Amalthea takes over the unicorn, leading her to fear returning to her unicorn form in Chapter 13.

“‘How wise she is!’ the oldest man-at-arms declared. ‘She understands that not even her beauty can do battle with time. It is a rare, sad wisdom for one so young.’”

When King Haggard’s man-at-arms vows to turn young again for the Lady Amalthea, she responds that he and the others will never be young again. The man-at-arms recognizes the wisdom Amalthea possesses, both acknowledging that she is wise beyond her years and putting words to the emotions the unicorn is feeling while trapped inside a mortal’s body. The unicorn cannot use her beauty to change what is inevitable for all mortals, at least not while she is mortal herself. In the final chapter, the men-at-arms become young again, showing that the unicorn did not forget their promise to her once she regained her powers.

“Now I must be old—at least I have picked many more things up than I had then, and put them all down again. But I always knew that nothing was worth the investment of my heart, because nothing lasts, and I was right, and so I was always old. Yet each time I see my unicorns, it is like that morning in the woods, and I am truly young in spite of myself, and anything can happen in a world that holds such beauty.”

King Haggard explains his experiences with unicorns and why he has taken them captive. Nothing brings him joy like the sight of a unicorn, and he has made it his duty to keep them all for himself in the sea. Haggard understands that he is limited in his mortality, and he chooses only to invest his heart in the most beautiful immortal creature there is.

“No, we are not strong enough. He will change me, and whatever happens after that, you and I will lose each other. I will not love you when I am a unicorn, and you will love me only because you cannot help it. I will be more beautiful than anything in the world, and live forever.”

Lady Amalthea explains her fears of becoming a unicorn again to Prince Lír. She understands that returning to her true form will mean the death of all that is Amalthea, and she will no longer be the woman he loves but instead a unicorn that cannot love him back.