56 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingFairy Tale
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 23-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary: “Tempus est Umbra in Mente. Hazy History. Cla. A Note. Seedings.”
Charlie continues to learn about Empis’s history from Hamey and Eye, who by now has warmed to him. Empis was once a monarchy ruled by royals who had godlike powers. King Jan and Queen Cova Gallien were fair and kind rulers. They had seven children, including Leah. Their eldest son, Robert, was to take the throne after Jan’s death, while the youngest, Elden, was sidelined by his family because he had several birth defects. During the Gallien rule, monarch butterflies covered the city and were considered good luck omens. After Elden took revenge on his family and cast them out of the city, he walked through the streets with upturned palms. Each time he raised his hand, dead butterflies rained from the skies, earning him the name Flight Killer. The prisoners are shocked to hear that Charlie saw live monarchs near the city.
Soon afterward, the night soldiers bring in another whole person, a hulking, brutal man named Cla. Cla is the 32nd whole person in the dungeon, meaning that the Fair One can now begin. The winner of the tournament must go up against Red Molly. If they survive that fight, they will face Hana and certain death. The night before the Fair One, Pursey slips Charlie a note explaining that there is a way out of the palace through the officials’ room.
A few days after Cla’s arrival, the prisoners are roused and led to the playing field for the Fair One. Looking at the posted match listings, Charlie sees that he is to go up against Cla in the final round.
Chapter 24 Summary: “First Round. The Last Set. My Prince. What Do You Think?”
The first few rounds of the Fair One play out. Jaya is forced to fight against Hamey, and she regretfully kills him.
Eye advises Charlie that his opponent Cla has one weakness: bad peripheral vision. When Cla and Charlie are called to the field, Charlie sees Flight Killer for the first time. He “isn’t a man at all” (478) but a grotesque being with distended, pulsating flesh.
The fight begins, and Cla utilizes brute force against Charlie. Charlie leverages Cla’s weakness and catches him off guard long enough to kill him with one of the provided weapons. Though he’d like to say that he feels regret, he concedes that he doesn’t. Charlie muses that “there is a dark well in everyone” (483).
Charlie’s victory is rewarded by a promise from Flight Killer: Next time, he will be paired with one of his friends.
Chapter 25 Summary: “A Banquet. I Receive a Visitor. Inspiration Doesn’t Knock. ‘Who Wants to Live Forever?’”
Pursey brings the surviving prisoners a rich feast of chicken stew. In his bowl, Charlie finds a pencil stub and a piece of paper. Later that night, he wakes to find that the cricket he saved from Peterkin found its way into his cell, carrying a note from Claudia. She reassures him that Radar is safe with her and asks if Charlie needs help. Charlie sends the cricket back with a response asking Claudia to rally the other gray people and come to Lilimar the next time the monarchs fly.
The following day, Pursey slips Charlie another note. This one advises him to move the tall cabinet in the officials’ room to uncover the door to freedom. With the other prisoners, Charlie begins to formulate a plan to deal with the night soldiers.
The second round of the Fair One commences, and Charlie puts his plan into action. In the locker room, the prisoners fill buckets with water. When the night soldiers come to escort them onto the field, they throw the water over the soldiers, causing them to explode into shards of bone. Charlie hustles the surviving prisoners into the officials’ room and leads them through the opening behind the cabinet, which leads into a dimly-lit corridor.
Chapter 26 Summary: “The Tunnel and the Station. Scratching. The Trolley House. Red Molly. The Welcoming Party. A Mother’s Grief.”
The corridor opens into a tunnel, through which Charlie leads the former prisoners, including Eye, Eris, and Jaya. They emerge into a deserted trolley house. When they push through the doors, they are met by Red Molly driving a motorcar toward them. From her high vantage point, she doesn’t notice the group until Peterkin tries to point out Charlie. Red Molly casually swats him away, severing his body at the torso.
When Red Molly turns on Charlie, he fires Christopher Polley’s .22 at her. Though the bullets do only minor damage, he manages to shatter her teeth with several shots to the mouth. Red Molly chokes on the fragments and falls to the ground, dead.
Realizing that they are outnumbered by night soldiers, Charlie urges his friends to run through the gates. He turns to the night soldiers, intending to sacrifice himself. Before they can kill him, however, a cloud of monarch butterflies appears over the city wall and descends on the night soldiers, suffocating them. Kellin escapes the cloud and runs back to the palace. As Charlie runs for the gate, Radar bursts through it, with Claudia, Woody, and Leah close behind. Charlie is overjoyed to reunite with his dog. He joins the Galliens outside of the gate and closes it just as Hana emerges and weeps over her daughter’s body, swearing revenge.
Chapter 27 Summary: “A Conference. The Snab. No Disney Prince. Prince and Princess. The Pact.”
Claudia, Woody, and Leah convene to discuss their next move. Woody believes Elden Flight Killer must be slain, and that Charlie should rule over Empis as king.
Throughout the conference, Leah is cold to Charlie, refusing to even make eye contact. After they discuss Flight Killer, Leah storms out in the direction of Lilimar.
Woody explains that Leah is in denial over her brother’s fate, choosing to believe that Charlie is lying about Flight Killer’s identity. When she and Elden were children, they were ostracized by their other siblings and forged a close bond. They spent hours exploring the nooks and crannies of the palace together. On one such expedition, Elden discovered “the Deep Well” (531), where he met the eldritch creature who turned him into Flight Killer.
Claudia tells Charlie that the red cricket who delivered her message to Deep Maleen is called “the Snab.” He is “the king of the small world,” (532) and can speak to humans as well as other animals. He helped rescue Charlie because Charlie saved him from Peterkin.
Eye then informs Charlie that Empis’s two sisters, or moons, are “chasing” one another across the sky and will soon cross paths. On the night they pass one another, they will appear to kiss. On this night, Flight Killer will gain the ability to open the Deep Well and wake Gogmagog.
A plan takes shape. The following day, Charlie, the Galliens, and the surviving prisoners will infiltrate the palace and find the Deep Well before Flight Killer can open it. Charlie will slay Flight Killer, and Leah will reclaim the throne. As Charlie contemplates killing yet another being, he feels a “coldness” come over him that reminds him of his exploits with Bertie Bird and hurting Christopher Polley. He thinks that he isn’t a perfect prince, but maybe a perfect prince isn’t what Empis needs. Eye tells Charlie that his eyes turned entirely blue.
Charlie, Radar, and the remaining prisoners covertly follow Leah through Lilimar’s gate. Charlie commands Leah to talk with him. She resists initially but concedes when she sees that his eyes have turned entirely blue. Speaking through the Snab, she asserts that Flight Killer couldn’t possibly be Elden. She suspects that the real Elden is dead but holds out hope that he may be alive, imprisoned in Deep Maleen. Still, she agrees to lead Charlie and the rebels to the Deep Well, on the condition that he leave Flight Killer’s fate in her hands. He accepts the deal.
Chapters 23-27 Analysis
King continues to play with classic fairy tale tropes. Moral Desert is a major theme in these chapters, with both good deeds receiving rewards and bad deeds receiving punishment. Charlie’s decision to save the red cricket in Chapter 15 is rewarded by moral desert; the Snab returns to the dungeon to help Charlie escape, a moment that also highlights that the lives of all animals hold value. King extends this concept beyond domesticated animals like dogs to creatures like insects and rodents, encouraging readers to question the way humans treat certain animals as disposable. While Charlie is rewarded for his compassion, Peterkin is punished for his brutality. As he attempts to sic Red Molly onto Charlie, she swats him and casually severs him into two; just as he tried to kill red cricket, he is squashed like a bug.
The concept of moral violence is another trope King explores in these chapters. In fairy tales and myths, it’s often the case that an antagonist must die for the protagonist to prevail. These antagonists are often rendered so monstrous and cruel that they evoke no sympathy from the reader. Therefore, killing them is not a moral failing by the protagonist in the way that killing an innocent being would be. Charlie’s killings of Cla and Red Molly both evoke and slightly subvert this trope. Both killings are done in self-defense, and Charlie does not feel remorseful afterward. Red Molly, the giantess, is depicted as particularly terrifying and vile, but after Charlie kills her, her mother Hana weeps over her body, humanizing her death. A mother’s grief is regarded as a particularly potent human emotion. King’s choice to depict this fallout from Red Molly’s death subverts the idea that any kind of killing is truly heroic and free of consequences.
After killing Cla, Charlie gains new insight into the nature of good and evil, specifically The Universal Capacity for Evil. He recognizes the darker side of his personality, the part that can kill without remorse, as a part of what makes him human rather than something that needs exorcising. With this new knowledge, he begins to make peace with the existence of the “dark well,” inside of him, which symbolizes his capacity for cruelty. Charlie extrapolates this acceptance to others: the dark well is part of everyone, even his father and Mr. Bowditch, whose respective misdeeds resulted from their human fallibility. The dark well’s existence alone doesn’t make the bearer a bad person–corruption only occurs when one drinks too often from the well’s poisoned waters.
Elden Flight Killer is someone who never learned to control the darkness inside of him. He was mistreated by his family and had no coping mechanisms for his trauma. Instead of rising above, he bent to his darkest impulses and became evil to reclaim a feeling of power. Flight Killer is Charlie’s foil and represents a version of who Charlie could have become if he allowed his past tragedies to turn him inward toward the dark well, rather than outward toward his relationships with others.
In this section of the novel, Charlie is fully integrated into Empis’s fairy tale. He embraces his role as the promised prince and leads the prisoners’ revolt. His physical appearance changes to match his protagonist role in the story. He even attempts to sacrifice himself, a classic heroic trope that further showcases his character growth. Additionally, Charlie’s status as a hero is cemented when he is saved several times by deus ex machina, be it the guns he brought to a world of swords and daggers or the cloud of butterflies that conveniently takes down the night soldiers. By setting up multiple unlikely escapes in quick succession, King teases the possibility that Charlie is immortal in Empis, at least until his purpose in the story is complete.
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