Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

“‘Very well, little blind boy—’”

“‘Peter,’ he corrected. ‘Peter Nimble.’”

When Peter first meets Sir Tode, the knight, adhering to the code of chivalry, feels it is his “sworn duty to protect the meek” (47). He defines Peter by his disability. Peter, however, is quick to correct his new friend. He has a name that defines him more accurately than little and blind. Having spent his life proving himself just as adept as a sighted person, Peter wants Sir Tode to understand immediately that he is not helpless.

“‘The word “test” makes me think of school.’ The professor shuddered slightly.”

Peter asks Professor Cake if finding the magical eyes was a test. The professor responds that, while Peter passed, he doesn’t like the word “test.” The professor’s aversion to this school word is ironic, given his academic title. Auxier suggests something subversive about education here: the most important tests don’t happen in school, but rather in life. Peter has never seen the inside of a classroom, but he knows more about the world than many adults with advanced educations.

“Being wise, Professor Cake knew that any relationship not beginning with a punch or two would most assuredly fade over time: it is a well-known fact that brawling begets friendship.”

Peter and Sir Tode’s friendship has a rocky start. Professor Cake observes their spat with amusement; it confirms his suspicion that they are indeed appropriate traveling companions. Again, Auxier subverts the notion of friendship as free of animosity. Peter and Sir Tode learn from the very first the value of mutual respect that can only be forged in the heat of mutual disagreement.

“‘He was born back when your shores were riddled with possibilities—dragons, hags, whatnot. That was before reason took hold.’ His voice became sadder. ‘Now Sir Tode is all that remains. A relic of a bygone age.’”

Peter is surprised to find out that Sir Tode is from the non-magical world. Professor Cake bemoans the encroachment of reason on wonder and magic. Auxier underscores a recurring theme: a romantic past receding before the advent of science. Cake yearns for a time before the Age of Reason.

“‘Do not confuse simple with simpleminded,’ the professor said. ‘A boy your age should know better than to consider anything impossible.’”

Professor Cake’s assumption that the Vanished Kingdom has disappeared confounds Peter, who is accustomed to the more conventional logic. The roles are reversed here: Cake makes childlike arguments that magic is involved, while Peter makes the more adult point that sailors looking for it simply got lost. Cake is right; and Auxier asks his readers to trust their inner children and find within themselves a sense of wonder.

“‘It is,’ the professor answered. ‘Only made smaller in every way. Maps have a way of doing that.’”

Peter and Professor Cake study a map of the world and Peter finds his port town on it. Confirming the location, Cake laments the nature of maps. They not only reduce the known world to the size of a parchment, but they reduce it in people’s imaginations as well. The borders of a map become the borders of the world, leaving no room for exploration and adventure. Cake is far more intrigued by what lies beyond the borders, by what has not yet been mapped.

“How many well-behaved boys would have made it this far?”

When Peter wavers at Cake’s offer to save the Vanished Kingdom, his hesitation is a result of shame. He is no hero, he proclaims, only a criminal. Professor Cake makes a case for all unruly, misbehaving children, arguing that overly good children do not possess the raw material to survive adventure. Only those children willing to defy authority with gusto have what it takes.

“It was a choice between comfortable misery and terrifying uncertainty.”

Peter faces a stark choice: go back to his port town, to a life of picking pockets, sneaking into locked homes, living in a dank basement, and trying to please an abusive caretaker; or take a leap into the unknown. Cake has warned Peter that his adventure will be dangerous, maybe even deadly, but, by implication, immensely rewarding. The choice is between the devil you know and the one you don’t. How many people, Auxier wonders, settle for the former, living a life of “comfortable misery” because the alternative is too frightening? Peter almost succumbs to this fear until he realizes that Cake has given him a gift: a choice, something he’s never had. With the zeal of a true adventurer, Peter takes the leap and reaps the rewards.

“And last, Peter Nimble, I have called you forth not because of what you may become, but because of what you already are.”

As Peter prepares to set sail on his quest, Professor Cake reassures him that everything he needs to succeed is already inside him. Cake’s advice serves Peter well, especially in his final battle with Incarnadine, when the professor’s words—“remember your nature above all things” (70)—will inspire him to defeat the king. The moral is simple: Be your most authentic self no matter what the outside world wants you to be. When Peter’s life is on the line, being himself—a thief—turns the tide and wins the battle.

“The start of any journey—whether pilgrimage or promenade—is one of life’s true joys. Every moment is charged with an excitement about things to come.”

Quests are at first thrilling: The danger is not yet tangible, so courage and bravado are easy to come by. The early stages of Peter and Sir Tode’s journey is filled with camaraderie, food, and enjoying the calm drift of the sea.

“When I was younger, you couldn’t kick a stump without turning up a spot of magic. But those days are long past. Hags have all disappeared…along with everything else worth the telling.”

Sir Tode articulates one of Auxier’s main themes: the loss of magic in the world. Magic is one of children’s literature’s tried and true appeals. The Age of Reason has robbed the world of compelling stories, suggests the knight.

“Old Scabbs had been murdered in cold blood. Peter could not say how, exactly, but he knew that this event had profoundly changed both him and his journey.”

Every heroic quest reaches an inflection point, a moment in which the danger becomes real rather than abstract. That moment comes when the ravens kill Old Scabbs, a thief, yes, but a man reduced to pathetic groveling by fear and imprisonment; not to mention, Peter and Sir Tode’s only guide. Further, his death is terrifyingly tangible. Peter and Sir Tode must remain hidden while they listen to Scabbs’s screams as the ravens attack. This death brings the true nature of the adventure into sharp relief.

“This is what he wanted, wasn’t it? The ravens were evil, and he was supposed to stop them. No matter how much boy repeated this to himself, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just let something terrible happen.”

Auxier’s world is not one of clear alliances and motivations. Things are not always what they seem. During the battle for the raven’s Nest, Peter witnesses a disturbing turnabout: Thieves he thought were allies turn against him, and the ravens he thought were enemies fight bravely and get slaughtered defending him. Like so much of the Vanished Kingdom—the food, the civil society, the kind and noble king—appearances are deceiving.

“This entire palace seemed as though it had been plucked straight from his own dreams…only, not quite.”

When Peter wakes up in the Perfect Palace, everything seems a little too good to be true: the soft bed, Mrs. Molasses’s sweet demeanor, the delicious food. Peter’s blindness proves an asset. While a sighted person might fall for the visual appeal of the kingdom—its lush gardens and pristine cleanliness—Peter’s senses reveal the lie under the façade.

“King Incarnadine recognized at once the threat that you and your kind posed to his plans. While adults can be intimidated and deceived, a child’s constitution is made from far stronger stuff.”

In middle grade and young adult literature, children are smart, capable heroes, while adults are frequently background players, dim and clueless. In the Vanished Kingdom, children not only have superior survival skills, but they can see right through the king’s charade. They know a fraud when they see one, and that ability to see that the emperor has no clothes is what terrifies the king the most.

“‘Perhaps these devices are simple to someone from your land,’ the raven said. ‘But here, they are mysteries unlike anything we have seen.’”

Peter is stymied by Peg’s insistence that the king’s clockwork mechanism is magic. She doesn’t know better, but to him, it is just a superior technology. While Peter grows frustrated that the citizens of the kingdom can’t understand clockwork the way he can, Incarnadine isn’t only trading in science—he has taught apes to speak, surely something more akin to magic than a basic mechanical device.

“He remembered what Professor Cake had said about distant seas being ruled by laws other than reason. He hadn’t before considered how that might limit the people living there.”

To Peter, the idea of a magic kingdom at first seems like a dream. Peter’s experience with enchanted deserts and talking beasts, however, casts this dream in a more nuanced light. Living in a world where everything is magical can have profound consequences. Unless that magic can be tamed and conquered, there is no hope of winning.

“He didn’t know the first thing about courtly manners, or fancy clothes, or politics—he was a hardened criminal!”

As Peter learns his true identity as the rightful heir to the throne of the Vanished Kingdom, his self-doubt rears its ugly head. He naturally defaults to his self-image as a worthless, petty thief—his comfort zone. Peg and Sir Tode force him to see himself for what he really is. Peter is hesitant to make assumptions about himself, a defense mechanism after years of hardship, disappointment, and negative reinforcement from the adults around him.

“There are times when Justice demands from us more than we would give.”

Simon recounts the story of his personal shame: He hid from the apes for years before finally mustering the courage to free Princess Peg from her shackles. In the novel, a true hero is someone who acts despite the fear of failure, of death, and of not being strong enough. A flawed and vulnerable hero is far more compelling that a perfect one, for vulnerabilities render characters in three-dimensional flesh-and-blood reality.

“You may never have to peer into a looking glass, Peter, but I will. And I don’t want to see a coward staring back at me. I’m fighting, and if that means death, so be it. I’d rather die a martyr than live a milksop.”

Peter Nimble is about finding courage. Simon finds it, Peter finds it, and Sir Tode, ashamed of his own false history, eventually rises to the occasion and finds it. Here, Sir Tode helps Peter in the dark moment when he considers surrender.

“She desperately scanned the faces of her shivering subjects—what a fool she had been to think that these children could topple a kingdom.”

Just as Peter must overcome hopelessness, so must Peg. As the battle turns against her and she awaits execution at the hands of her uncle, she is overcome with despair. Fortunately, the cavalry arrives at the last moment. The children will emerge victorious despite, or because of, their underdog status.

“‘I command you not to listen to him!’ he blurted. ‘His voice will turn the whole lot of you into stone!’”

When confronted by the second true heir to the throne, Hazelgood’s son, Incarnadine hesitates, sensing the tide may be turning against him. He resorts to a despot’s common tactic: fear. It’s a desperate move, but it works against a drugged and deluded citizenry. Once Incarnadine’s lies are revealed, his entire reign collapses. The best strategy to bring down a tyrant is not superior numbers or greater arms, but the truth.

“Before me, no man in this kingdom had ever guessed at the clockwork wonders that lie beyond our seas. I alone sailed out to learn these dark magics…only to discover that they were not magic at all. They were figments, little nothings—a mere string of letters and numerals.”

As the king prepares to kill Peter and declare a final victory, he cannot help but gloat, congratulating himself on his ingenuity. He also admits that his “magic” is simple machinery. The villain’s fatal flaw, the fault that dooms him on the cusp of victory, is hubris. Incarnadine’s vicious taunts trigger in Peter the sage advice of Professor Cake—to remember his true nature—and while the king revels in a premature victory, he doesn’t see the hero awakening in the kingdom’s true heir.