Fablehaven

Fablehaven is rife with examples of subjective perception and experience. Mull explores this idea through Lena’s experiences as a naiad, Grandma’s experience as a chicken, and the literal change in perception that occurs when Seth and Kendra drink the milk.

As Grandpa tells Seth and Kendra, the naiads who live in the lake hidden in the park in the forest are dangerous precisely because their perception of reality is so different than that of humans. He explains that they drown humans for fun, and when Kendra protests the cruelty of the action, he tells her that it “depends on your perspective [...] to them, your life is so ridiculously short that to kill you is seen as absurd and funny. No more tragic than squashing a moth,” (77). While she doesn’t discuss the humans she undoubtedly drowned during her time as a naiad, Lena later corroborates the fact that naiads see things differently than humans. When Kendra asks her what it was like to be a magical creature, Lena replies that it is “hard to say [...] it wasn’t just my body that became mortal; my mind transformed as well [...] mortality is a totally different state of being [...] I was absolutely content as a naiad. I lived in an unchanging state [...] never thinking of the future or the past, always looking for amusement, always finding it,” (91). The way that she describes her perception of the world as a naiad is unquestionably different than the way she views the world as a human, though Mull makes it clear that neither viewpoint is superior to the other.

Grandma Sorenson shares a similar experience when she tells Kendra and Sethwhat it was like to be a chicken. She tells the children that she “lapsed into a twilight consciousness, incapable of rational thought, unable to interpret [her]surroundings as a human would” (239). She recalls the difficulty of communicating via the message she spelled out in chicken feed, telling Kendra and Seth that “my mind wanted to slip away, to relax. I wanted to eat the delicious kernels, not arrange them into bizarre patterns” (240). The way Grandma Sorenson viewed the world as a chicken is again unquestionably different from the way that she views the world as a human.LikeLena, though, she does not place judgment upon the way that a chicken thinks about the world; she simply tells Kendra and Seth how different it was.

Finally, Kendra and Seth’s literal perception of the world is changed astronomically when they drink the milk and find themselves able to see the magical creatures that inhabit the preserve. After seeing the fairies for the first time, Kendra marvels to herself that “there was no way she was really seeing this, right? [...] but [...] how could she deny what was before her eyes?” (73). Later, Lena tells Kendra and Seth that being able to see the evil creatures clearly on Midsummer’s Eve will help them stay safe, informing them that “some of the most insidious tricks [...] will involve artifice and illusion. Without the milk you could beeven more susceptible. It would only broaden their ability to mask their true appearance” (158). Though being able to see these creatures clearly can help them stay safe in some ways, it can also open them up to danger. GrandpaSorenson tells them that when they were unable to see the magical creatures, they were unable to interact with them, and therefore the children were safe from any retributive magic.

Throughout the novel, Mull explores several different types of consciousness and several different ways of seeing the world. By weighting them all equally, he makes it clear that no one perspective is the “right” one. This is an especially pertinent lesson for the young adults at whom the novel is aimed; they are just beginning to go out into the world and must learn to be tolerant and curious about other viewpoints, rather than judgmental or dismissive.