The Crystal Cave Themes

If you know anything about Merlin, you know he's pretty much a wizard. In the Arthurian legends, Merlin's got supernatural power, and he can use it to make things happen. Like, he can actually make...

From the beginning of The Crystal Cave, Merlin's surround by horrible people who want to kill him. (We're looking at you, Gramps and Camlach.) Given all that danger, you might expect Merlin to be a...

Is Merlin in The Crystal Cave a free agent or merely a tool of the gods? You've studied literature long enough to know that there's no simple answer here. Merlin's clearly an ambitious dude from th...

So, you may have noticed that Mary Stewart opens The Crystal Cave with a memory that doesn't actually belong to Merlin, the main character—it comes from Merlin's parents. That's a chancy move for...

Lots of people talking about gods and religion in The Crystal Cave, but what religion is the right one? Are we even asking the right question?For characters like Merlin and Ambrosius, it's all abou...

Power? Seek it wherever you can.At least that's what Merlin and Ambrosius think in The Crystal Cave.But what to do with it once you've found it? That's a different question altogether. Merlin learn...

Knowledge is power, folks—just ask Mary Stewart. In fact, her version of Merlin in The Crystal Cave relies more on his brains and his education than he ever does on magic. He doesn't play around....

Merlin's bond with Ambrosius in The Crystal Cave leads him to do some pretty amazing things. Seriously, because of his sense of duty to Dad, Merlinrisks his life to confront Vortigern;prophesies Am...

In a story full of kings and kingdoms at war, there's plenty of ambition to go around in The Crystal Cave. It's clear that characters like Uther and Vortigern desire power over men and a chance to...

Hey, in a world full of trippy visions and superstitious kings, it's not so far-fetched to have a narrator who can be in two places at once and use fire to tell the future. Britain in The Crystal C...