Bone

“Hmmf. I’m always getting’ him outta trouble! Well, cousin or not… when we get back to Boneville, Phoney’s gonna have to face the music by himself! I’ve had it! From now on, he can outrun angry mobs, an’ fall off cliffs without my help! What kind of pasty does he take me for?! Urnf! It’s always: “Fone Bone, you gotta save me!” Or: “Fone Bone, you gotta help me!” Why I oughta—HEY! How’d I get so close to the mountains?! Where is everybody? Where’s th’ locusts?! NO WAY! I climbed up the wrong side! PHONEY! HELP!! YOU GOTTA SAVE ME!!”

This monologue implies some of the dimensions of Fone and Phoney’s relationship early on. Fone serves as a responsible foil to Phoney, who often gets into trouble and relies on his cousin’s assistance. Although this pattern aggravates Fone, his call for help suggests that they mutually rely on one another.

“QUICHE?! What kind of food is that for a monster to eat!?”

This quote distinguishes the two Stupid Rat Creatures from each other. While one of the pair enjoys stereotypical monster food (stew and raw meat), the other likes comparatively effete cuisine, a contrast that sets them up as a bickering comic duo. It also draws our attention to food as a key symbol in the text.

“Those rat creatures would have to be pretty stupid to follow me onto this frail, little branch! STUPID, STUPID RAT CREATURES!!”

This is the beginning of a running gag in which the Stupid Rat Creatures are chided as “stupid, stupid rat creatures” by someone they’ve attacked, usually before all three plunge from a high place. It is the moment that identifies the Stupid Rat Creatures with a shared title, allowing the reader to differentiate them from other rat creatures throughout the story.

“That’s when a gust of wind came off th’ river and pulled th’ balloon loose!... All of a sudden, this giant, inflatable Phoney Bone started moving toward the crowd!”

This is a significant example of Smith’s use of setup and payoff in Bone. While this moment is initially passed off as part of a running gag—the outlandish stories of the schemes that got Phoney banished from Boneville—it serves the more critical purpose of introducing the campaign balloon. In Part 6, when it is revealed that the balloon is the “omen” that propelled Briar’s search for the one who bears the star, the irony is heightened by its comically exaggerated origins.

“It doesn’t make any difference to me! But then… not much does!”

Smiley says this while agreeing to participate in one of Phoney’s scams. At the beginning of Bone, Smiley unquestioningly goes along with whatever Phoney suggests. This line is effectively the beginning of Smiley’s character arc: By the end of the story, we will see that many things make a difference to him, and he resists commands from Phoney and others when his loved ones are under threat.

“LUCIUS: ‘You tellin’ me everything, Rose?’ GRANDMA: ‘Everything I can, sweetie.’”

This moment foreshadows Grandma Ben’s secretiveness, but it also implies trustworthiness. Lucius—a man who knows her well—knows he needs to ask her if she’s telling him the whole truth, but he also accepts that she has good reason to withhold information. This interaction also implies that she keeps these secrets because she has to, not because she wants to.

“Dreams are windows to the spirit world… that’s what our ancestors believed. A world from which everyone comes… and to which everyone must one day return.”

Spirituality and religion are major motifs in Bone; this is one of the earliest explicit mentions of the Valley-dwellers’ belief system. It is the beginning of a subtle but major arc in Thorn’s character: By the end of the story, these ancient beliefs will be confirmed as reflective of reality, and Thorn will become a spiritual leader. However, in this scene, she qualifies belief in the spirit world as an ancient superstition and expresses skepticism.

“You think th’ dragon’ll be there whenever you need him… …well, he won’t be. He wasn’t always there for me.”

Until this point in the narrative, Grandma’s distrust of the Red Dragon is not given any elaboration. Fone, Thorn, and the reader are all aware that they have some sort of history, but until this line, her distrust of the dragon—who has been nothing but helpful to the core cast—seems nonsensical. Here, Grandma’s resentment is given substance with very little explicit detail.

“I’m th’ one telling ‘em the truth! You’re th’ one tryin’ to hide it! That’s why they keep comin’ to my end of th’ bar----* SAY! That’s what’s really botherin’ you, isn’t it! That I’m winning th’ bet! …Okay, pal. I’m callin’ your bluff! If you wanna call off the bet, all you gotta do is walk out there and tell everybody th’ truth! Go ahead! Tell ‘em dragons are real! No, huh? I didn’t think so. I don’t see much difference between your honesty and mine!”

Although Phoney’s preoccupation with honesty in this monologue is disingenuous, the point he raises is still valid. The secrecy that authority figures like Grandma and Lucius impose does more harm than good over the course of the story. Their dishonesty is motivated by a desire to protect others, while Phoney’s dishonesty is motivated by greed; however, the result is the same: Dishonesty creates ignorance and confusion.

“FONE: ‘You guys kill me! Don’t you have the slightest qualms about profiting off of other people’s fears and paranoia?’ PHONEY: ‘No, we don’t have any qualms. We’re just givin’ ‘em what they want! If they wanna be victims, let ‘em!... People like to be victims! There’s a certain unassailable moral superiority about it…’”

Throughout Bone, characters on both sides of the war use feelings of persecution to justify deceit and violence. This line is presented as throwaway and comedic, but Phoney’s observation bears out again and again. Wendell, Euclid, Briar, Kingdok, the rat creatures, and even Phoney himself all use this reasoning to justify everything from acts of war to petty theft.

“Far too long have we been forced to live on the barren slopes of the high places… Men of Pawa, who come from the sturdy hills of the South… no longer will your families toil in the dust and rocks of your faraway land… Hairy men of the mountain tribes! Your weary years of oppression and humiliation are near their end… Our day has come.”

This speech is a highly consequential example of Quote #11’s thematic significance. It is also comically mirrored by Phoney’s “dragonslayer high council” speech in Part 4 (554-58), which motivates the villagers to mob the Red Dragon. Not only can feelings of persecution be used to justify one’s own actions; they can also be manipulated and exploited by bad-faith actors.

“We’re always taught that dragons don’t exist—it’s the only way we can discover them for ourselves. Unfortunately, not everyone does…”

This cultural practice further explains Lucius and Grandma’s secrecy. It also characterizes the Valley’s local belief system as a sort of inaccessible mysticism rather than a well-established institution.

“…you needn’t worry about where my sympathies lie… …you should worry about your own position, Mr. Bone. It will be much easier for you in the end if you just choose a side.”

Roque Ja’s preoccupation with the choosing of sides is seemingly at odds with his professed belief in moral and ethical nihilism. However, it validates his belief in natural hierarchies by allowing all creatures to be organized into strict, distinct categories. Fone and Smiley’s rejection of “choosing sides” soundly refutes Roque Ja’s philosophy for the reader and attends to Bone’s exploration of moral grayness.

“Now, with the coming of the locusts, it is difficult to tell what is good. Or what is real.”

The sequence in which the Stupid Rat Creatures describe the political upheaval in their culture is among their most sympathetic moments in Bone. Here, their moral and ethical confusion is characterized as a state of delirium, making the actions of all the rat creatures—even Kingdok—more sympathetic to the reader.

“There is no good or evil… only nature. And in nature, the only thing that matters is power!”

Roque Ja’s main function in the plot is as a minor antagonist, and he is characterized as a strawman nihilist. His explicit philosophical statements explain the choices he makes throughout the story. They also prepare the reader to consider the other characters’ actions in terms of how they compare with Roque Ja’s statements. For example, his beliefs about power serve as a counterpoint to Fone’s consistent selflessness, and his rejection of the good/evil paradigm will be echoed by Phoney in Part 7.

“EUCLID: ‘He tricked us into chasin’ dragons! We were away from our homes when we shoulda been here defending the village!’ THORN: ‘Nobody forced you to follow him! You were a mob looking for scapegoats!’”

In this exchange, Thorn explicitly outlines the power of mob mentality. Much as the Hooded One and her armies are willing to blame the Valley-dwellers for their strife, the Valley people’s ire bounces from Phoney to the Red Dragon, to Lucius, and back to Phoney again. This is also the second time Wendell and Euclid have had to be reminded that, despite being tricked by an interloper, they are still responsible for their own actions.

“THORN: ‘You don’t know what it’s like to never know your mother and father.’ SMILEY: ‘Yes we do… We’re orphans too. Me, and Fone Bone, and Phoney. We’re all the family we got.’ FONE: ‘Until we came here, that is. You and Gran’ma Ben took care of us—even when it meant your own lives would be in danger.’”

Orphanhood is a major motif in Bone. The entirety of the story is predicated on the death of Thorn’s parents and the fall of Atheia, making orphanhood highly relevant to the plot. Here, parental death also becomes an emotional core for the entire main cast; their kinship in this shared experience strengthens another motif in Bone: the “found family” trope, wherein unrelated characters come to view each other as family.

“It was not I who killed your parents… but they who killed me… But if I had, could you blame me? Your entire family treated me like an old nursemaid. No one knew I was a Ven-Yan-Cari, like you… Yes, I led them to the rats. But when your mother realized I was kidnapping you for the ritual… your father cut me in half with an old abandoned farm tool. Only later did I learn that your parents were eaten alive…”

While Briar’s story is never explicitly confirmed in the text, the fact that it is presented in a chapter titled “Darker Truths” implies its veracity. Until this point, Briar’s motivations stemmed from a desire for power and an emotional attachment to the Lord of the Locusts. Here, however, we note that she is also motivated by vengeance, which rounds her character and allows her to justify her actions to herself.

“BRIAR: ‘The Pawa Army is mine to command until we sack the city. In return… your warriors can plunder Atheia for all her treasure.’ GENERAL: ‘We didn’t know you would destroy the Valley.’ BRIAR: ‘Oh, you didn’t? And now you think the treasure won’t be enough to compensate you?’”

Bone has a running motif of self-sabotaging materialism. In Part 1, we learn that Phoney was ejected from Boneville for his hairbrained mayoral campaign—a comical and nonthreatening example of power mongering and avarice, committed by a character who is written to be endearing. In this scene, however, that spirit of materialism is taken to a grim extreme: The Pawan general realizes that he has sold out all of existence for treasure, an asset that would be rendered useless by the end of the world.

“TED: ‘Your mother was kind an’ beautiful. She loved ever’one an’ ever’thing. She believed in buildin’ things like libraries an’ parks. Why, almos’ all the art an’ public gardens in Atheia was put up by her. THORN: ‘That’s wonderful! What about you, Gran’ma? When you were queen, did you build anything?’ GRANDMA: ‘Walls. I built the walls that surround the city.’”

This quotation places Lunaria in conversation with her mother and daughter in terms of personal values. Lunaria was a peacetime queen who was invested in public works, whereas her mother was more militant and austere. Ted’s description of her character also serves as a counterpoint to Briar’s less favorable descriptions of the Harvestar family.

“In life, tests come upon one unannounced and without warning. But you know that… You are the Awakened One.”

This statement reflects Thorn and Fone’s experiences throughout Bone and lends a universality to their conflicts. Both characters fell into a series of increasingly severe challenges brought on by sudden anagnorises and epiphanies. This is true to life: Everyone is “tested” by circumstances outside of their control at one point or another.

“I can’t leave without my cousins.”

This line is the culmination of Phoney’s internal conflict. Throughout Bone, Phoney has been caught between his desire to return to Boneville and his sense of responsibility for his cousins’ safety. When given the opportunity to flee without them, he remains in an active warzone, confirming that his family is his first priority.

“Look at me… I was once a mighty king—now, I am a slave—a puppet with no will of my own… Either you kill me or I kill you!”

Kingdok’s character arc is a downward slope that culminates in a fight to the death. His desire to kill or be killed is a final bid for relief: If he kills, he is able to assert a shadow of the dominance he once had as a king; if he dies, he is put out of his misery. In an echo of Roque Ja’s philosophy, he values his ability to exert power more highly than the fate of the world.