How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
There's no magic in the Valley. It's all been taken away, and used to keep us safe. No magic in people's minds, either—you heard 'em yesterday—they'd no idea what Alnor and me were talking about, in spite of everything that had happened to bring so many of 'em to the Gathering. (3.209)
The people of the Valley don't realize that what they dismiss as a silly myth is actually the reality that saved them once—and might save them again.
Quote #2
The Ortahlsons, up in the mountains, still sing to the snows year after year, and take much the same line, keeping their version of the story to themselves. For everyone else, yes, of course there is a strange sickness in the forest, affecting only men, but there is presumably a natural explanation for that. And yes, there is a glacier in the mountains, where there used to be a road, but all that shows is that winters were once milder than they now are. Is that anything to be surprised about? (2.104)
Fact turns to fiction over time... and people invent more logical explanations to replace the fantastical (and true) ones that created the landscape around them.
Quote #3
Go, then, adventurer on your vivid journey;
Though once again, of course, I cannot join you--
That is as certain as your happy ending.
The one-armed captain in the pirate harbor
Would know me in an instant for a Jonah [...]
No, I will stay at home and keep things going.
Conduct the altercation with the builders,
Hoe the allotment, fix the carburetor. (0.1-5, 13-15)
This poem at the beginning of the novel is dedicated to the author's wife, fantasy author Robin McKinley—but it also applies to Tilja's journey in the book. We, the readers, sit at home in our normal world while we watch the heroine venture out into a magical realm that we can only dream of. We may doubt magic, but the "reality" that comes across in Dickinson's fantasy story is, for the time that we are reading the book, reality—as it is for Tilja, the adventurer in the story.
Quote #4
"Like Asarta undoing her years in the story, you mean?" said Tahl. "After she'd given the ring to Reyel and Dirna?" (16.91)
Tahl cites the story of Asarta's reverse aging to discuss how Meena and Alnor are now younger. He cites what some see as a mythical tale so he can understand what's going on before his own eyes—he also mentions the ring, which Zara claims is also just a story. As it turns out though, both of these myths are real in Tilja's world and they carry great consequences for her friends, family, and the world around them.
Quote #5
The idiot story flooded back into her mind, the story that she had never believed, thinking it just a mechanism by which her mother could bind her for all her life to Woodbourne, as she herself had been bound, because Saranja had once made the mistake of admitting that she sometimes imagined she could hear the cedars talking. (Epilogue.8)
Saranja, a future Urlasdaughter, doesn't believe the story Anja has told her descendants. She doesn't think her family has any magical responsibility, and instead thinks that the story isn't true and is just something her mother used as a guilt trip to get her to stay home. But, as she'll find out, all of the elements come together to prove that this myth is a reality.
Quote #6
Tilja got a clear look at the man on the throne as it turned the corner. He was wearing a small crown with three golden feathers at the front. Beneath that his face was as pale as a mushroom, fleshy, with a snub nose and pale lips showing through a weedy little beard. [...]
So this was the Emperor. In all her life Tilja had never seen anyone looking so bored. He could have anything in the world he pleased, but nothing in the world could please him. Seeing him for that brief moment, she felt a shudder of horror both at him and for him. Then, as the throne vanished behind the next rank, she thought, And he wants to reconquer the Valley. No! (12.62-63)
Tilja is shocked by the appearance of the Emperor when she finally comes face-to-face with the man who has caused so much grief to her and others. He looks like a fat, spoiled little kid, someone who will never be satisfied with what he has. After all, how could anyone look so bored in the middle of a parade that shows that he has everything he could ever need? The realization of just who the Emperor is—and that such a man would be ruling over her home if she fails on her quest—causes Tilja to reaffirm her desire to find the Ropemaker.
Quote #7
"Nothing?" said Asarta. "You are asking a great work to be done for nothing?"
"I have half of a stale barley loaf I begged in the city," said Dirna.
"There is a little water left in my flask," said Reyel.
"Give them to me," said Asarta. (2.45-48)
Dirna and Reyel come to Asarta without anything to offer the magician. In legend, one has to give a person of power substantive payment in order to receive a service, but these people have nothing to give her except leftovers. But Asarta accepts them and turns them into the instruments of their Valley's safety. And here the legend matches up with the reality—such unprepossessing items actually do save the Valley.
Quote #8
[…] Then a burly man on the slope opposite Tilja said, "This is all very well, and something strange may be happening, if you want to believe in that sort of thing. For my self I don't, but supposing I did, what then? What are we supposed to do about it? [...]" (3.112)
At the Gathering, most residents of the Valley don't believe in the story of Faheel and Asarta. To them, this magic is all a relic of the past, a legend that doesn't govern their safety. Little do they know that what they dismiss as fiction is actually fact—and the only thing that can save their lives. Our heroes, thankfully, believe in the legend and decide to pursue Faheel anyway.
Quote #9
[...] But the Emperors never wanted it to get about that's how it is, because the only way they can run things is if everybody more or less believes the Emperor's all-powerful, whereas fact is he's only just about in control of it all. (10.84)
In Goloroth, Tilja and Tahl learn that the Emperor's absolute control—which borders on near-mythic proportions—is actually false. They discover that the Emperor spends a lot of time trying to keep his hold on all the magic in the Empire, but previously they thought he had it all on lock. This truth unmasks the frequent face beneath the mask of tyranny—half the tyrants' time is spent trying to propagate the image of absolute control, when that isn't the reality.
Quote #10
"Things were not always was you have seen them," she said. "We are taught that, long ago, before there were Emperors, there was a balance. Magic came into the world, and those who knew how could use it, and the rest flowed away south. But as the Emperors established their power they hired magicians to take control of the magic. No one foresaw that one result of their work would be that they gathered all the magic they could into themselves, so that now less of it flowed out than came in. The difference was only slight, but the balance was lost. Gradually, over the generations, the pressure has increased." (15.75)
As far as Tilja knows, the Empire has always been the way she knows it. Multiple times she muses on the seeming infinity of the generations and the interminability of the oppression. But as it turns out, the myth she has constructed for herself about the Empire she knows isn't entirely factual—at one point, the Watchers didn't exist and have a monopoly on magic, and life was likely much better for everyone. If this is true, what other notions about the Empire are false?