Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic Versions of Reality Quotes

Is it a trick of the light, or is Hahp hallucinating due to hunger, or are the wizards messing with their heads? Maybe it's some combination of all three. Hahp never does learn whether the wizards are spying on the boys throughout their lessons, so we don't either. Still it's disturbing to know that on top of studying magic, the boys are being made to doubt their own eyes.

In addition to not knowing how much time is actually passing (apparently the wizards haven't invented a magical way of keeping time, or they don't like sharing it), the boys aren't being allowed to sleep for regular intervals. Guess what—sleep deprivation is actually a form of psychological torture, used to cause mental breakdowns in prisoners who are being interrogated. It makes us wonder why the wizards are subjecting the boys to it.

Sadima can't even conceive of the fact that Franklin was sold to Somiss at a young age, that he was a possession rather than a person. Let's upgrade that to pet, actually—Franklin was a living creature, to be cared for, but his ultimate purpose was entertainment and companionship. And he's accepted that fully, while Sadima has trouble wrapping her head around it.

Maybe learning magic isn't all about starvation, sleep deprivation, and psychological torture after all. Hahp manages to have some feel-good moments, though they're not really based on happy feelings (he imagines confronting his father, sometimes hurting him as a result). But if practicing magic can put you in a more positive headspace, maybe it's not all bad.

Hahp starts hearing things, which is never a good sign. He thinks maybe one of the wizards laughed at him… or made him hallucinate hearing the laughter… or maybe he's just going crazy. It's a tough call. Questioning your sanity is never fun.

Even though the history book Hahp reads presents it as fact, we know better. We get to see the events as they unfold in Franklin, Somiss, and Sadima's storyline, so we know that it was Franklin who actually saved the Gypsy woman's child. It seems unlikely that the Gypsy woman fell in love with Somiss, though she had, out of gratitude, provided him with a book that she'd copied herself from her father's library. We wonder why Somiss created a slightly altered version of reality in his telling of these events—and why Franklin never corrected it.

Hahp finally realizes that since he's been treated like a rat in a cage, he's learned to think like a rat in a cage. The tunnels can't be an entirely self-enclosed system, so there's got to be a way out. And yet it didn't occur to Hahp until now to look for one. This shows how strongly the wizards have conditioned the boys to accept the way their lives are now (generally crummy, with no hope of escape).

In Sadima's view, Somiss isn't an evil genius. He's not even a genius. And yet Franklin continues to treat him as one, carrying out his every request (or order, depending on how you look at it). It just goes to show that depending on your view, the world can look really different.

Paging Dr. Freud. Hahp's dreams have gotten pretty trippy by the time he's actually learning and using magic in the book. We're gonna go out on a limb and guess that in this dream, the hummingbirds represent the boys at the academy, and the wizard with icy eyes is Somiss. But is he actually killing them, or just draining the life out of them by crushing their wills? Dreams are weird like that sometimes.

Hahp realizes that the wizards have created a reality for him where there is no human contact, no trust. That's a crummy reality to inhabit, since humans are social creatures and we ultimately crave contact (whether physical, social, or emotional) with one another. This realization helps Hahp decide to trust Gerrard, giving them the first glimpse of hope since they set foot in that freaky academy.