Raunip, or: Attempting Redemption Through One Act of Kindness

Let's talk about Raunip. For those of you not in the know, Raunip is a character from Jim Henson's Dark Crystal franchise, and he was the main subject of the Creation Myths trilogy of graphic novels. He is the son of Aughra, the Mother of Thra, the planet in which Dark Crystal takes place and he is... not a good person. (Granted, he's not a person at all- he's rocks and twigs that Aughra gifted life to- but, I digress.) There will be spoilers for Raunip's story arc throughout this blog post or essay or whatever the hell this is, so be wary. I do highly recommend reading the Creation Myths comics, they're very good and the collected edition is dirt cheap- usually going for 10-20 USD. I'll also be using some terminology that may be a bit confusing if you haven't seen the Dark Crystal film or TV show, or haven't read any of the novels. There will also be discussions of racism, and if that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to click off or continue scrolling- sorry, I don't actually know how the blog post function works on this site. Anyways, enough preamble, let's dig into this.

Imagine for a moment that you are a traveler. You arrive in a foreign land after being cast out from the society you once inhabited, and are greeted by the locals with awe and curiosity. All of the locals... except one. He others you and your fellow travelers, making hateful comments about you and your comrades, and attempts to bring those around him to his point of view- that you don't belong because you're different. Because you aren't originally from there. Your skin is different from his, and that terrifies him. You are a communal group that thinks of the greater good, and that strikes fear into his individualist heart. He rallies everyone he can against you and your people. Some remain respectful and appreciate your existence, but the rest of the world hates you because of the fear mongering of one man. One terrified, pathetic man.

This, essentially, is the story of the 18 urSkek, who were banished from their world and sent to Thra for 1,000 trine. If it wasn't obvious, Raunip is the terrified man. He ostracizes the urSkek, simply because they are not from Thra, making them feel unwelcome on a planet in which they sought safety and sanctuary. 

To put it bluntly, Raunip is racist. He believes that where someone comes from and what their species is, is a fundamental determination of- in this case, Thraling traits- and capacities, and the fact that he is from Thra and the urSkek are not makes him and all other residents of Thra inherently superior to them. But, crucially, Raunip also isn’t wholly of Thra. Parts of him, like the dirt and twigs that were used to create him, are of Thra origin, but he was also formed from a space rock that Aughra witnessed crashing into the soil. His racism is irrational because he is also technically an outsider. The very thing he had grown to despise.

Before I can begin to talk about the effects Raunip’s rejection of the urSkek has, I’d like to take a detour to talk about The Great Division, how it came to be, and Raunip’s part in it. It begins with a Gelfling. The Gelfling, Gyr, was a famous musician- a song teller- who traveled all over Thra in search of new stories and songs to spread around to his fellow Gelfling. One day, he set out across the sea in search of a song he'd only heard in his dreams- a song not of Thra. After weeks of searching, he hears it. The song he'd been waiting for…

He sails in the direction the sound is coming from. He finds an urSkek, hovering above the water and singing the tune. Gyr is mesmerized by the song. Entranced, yet horrified. It was so beautiful, and yet so otherworldly, that it chilled him to his core. He returned to port a changed man. He stopped playing the songs he had loved to share for many trine, opting to become a dock worker. He keeps his bone flute tied around his neck as a reminder of the Gelfling he used to be. 

Later, a Gelfling named Kel travels with Raunip to the port where Gyr lives and asks him to go with them to meet the urSkek and record their meeting in a song so it may be passed down for generations to come. He's eventually convinced to come along, only because they have an extra landstrider with them and they won't make it in time if they have to corral it behind them. They make a stop for the night in a Podling village.The chieftain, Hakmeena, asks Raunip to take her son, Kotha, to meet the urSkek, for she believes it will be instrumental in his development as a leader, since he will be taking over as chieftain as soon as she passes away. 

They head out the next morning and meet some Gelfling loyal to the urSkek. They jeer Raunip, who responds with disgust. After a brief meeting with the urSkek, they're left to explore the castle built around the Crystal before The Great Conjunction- the event in which the three suns that orbit Thra line up and great power surges into the Crystal. The very event that brought the urSkek to Thra.

While exploring, Gyr comes across a room with mirror-like crystals that reflect everything around him. An urSkek approaches him and begins asking him about the bone flute and why he retired from being a song teller. Gyr explains that he heard an unworldly song that shook his very being, a song sung by an urSkek. The urSkek begs him to play the song, and Gyr obliges after some convincing. The Gelfling flair put on the song the urSkek knew from his home world upsets him, causing a visible darkness to form around his heart. Raunip witnesses this, and begins to insult the urSkek as he emerges, causing the darkness to grow and corrupt him. Raunip gives the urSkek the nickname Dark Heart, and continues to taunt him as The Great Conjunction occurs. The Crystal rejects all of the urSkek because of the darkness in the soul of The Dark Heart, and the recoil that the Crystal sends back causes the urSkek to split into two new creatures- the Skeksis and urRu.

The Skeksis become a ruthless fascist regime, demanding respect from the inhabitants of Thra, lying to them about the urSkek sending them to be new protectors of the crystal, and ruling with an iron claw. The urRu, or The Mystics as they would later be known, are a kind and nomadic race, mostly keeping to themselves, isolated from the Gelfling. In the confusion after The Great Division, a Skeksis attacks the Crystal, causing a shard to break off, which rocks Thra to its core.Raunip and Aughra spend the next several trine searching for the Crystal shard beneath the Skeksis palace, with no luck.

During the rule of the Skeksis, what is known as the Makrak Crisis occurs. The Crystal breaking causes the sweltering area beneath Thra’s crust, where the giant bug-like creatures known as Makra live, to be destroyed, forcing them onto the surface. However, Thra’s air was poisonous to them, causing them to go mad and attack Gelfling and Podling settlements. Raunip emerges to find the land in disarray. Kotha’s village is destroyed and he is nowhere to be found.

With the help of a Gelfling named Thall, daughter of Elder Gelfling Carn, and an urRu named urGoh, he finds Kotha, living amongst the urRu. They had rescued him when his village was under attack, and had been nursing him back to health. After reuniting, Raunip has a conversation with the urRu leader, urSu, begging for help to fix the mess he caused. urSu refuses, stating plainly that the urRu do not and should not have a say in the fate of Thra.

The next day, the Makrak attack, but Kotha soothes them with his ability to speak to wild animals. He explains their predicament, and after a brief encounter with the Skeksis, urGoh reveals that he knows a place where the Makrak will be safe- but the one who takes them will not survive. Raunip volunteers, and is given a staff and robe by Thall. She calls him a hero, and he sets off, but not without stopping to see his mother first. She rejects him and says nothing until he leaves, at which point she sheds a tear.

It would be disingenuous of me to not state that in-universe, Raunip is the one telling the stories in the Creation Myths comic, revealing the terrible things he did of his own volition. He starts the story as a young man, with hatred in his heart, yearning for the urSkek to abandon Thra and return to the way it was. By the end he is grizzled, scarred, and changed. He reflects on his life and the way he acted. He does not wish to undo the things he did, but rather have his awfulness passed down from storyteller to storyteller, Gelfling to Gelfling, until all of Thra may uphold him as the villain he was. He ends the story walking towards the sunset, with mere minutes left to live. Regret soaking every word he mutters, as he shambles on to his death.

Raunip himself believed his actions to be abhorrent. He realizes what he’s done and how many children of Thra he has harmed. And he doesn't want his legacy to be that he saved the Makraks and was thus a hero. He wants to be remembered,but not as the hero that Thall and her Gelfling friends undoubtedly see him as, but rather as he was- the one who caused the Skeksis to rule. The one who was prejudiced against the urSkek. The one who plunged Thra into 1,000 trine of darkness. But this isn’t the narrative you see in discussions revolving around him. The Creation Myths book itself seems to imply that because he recognizes that he was awful, he deserves redemption and is worthy of the title of “hero,” which is just baffling to me. Raunip is not a hero. Raunip is many things, and he is deeply flawed. But he is not a hero.