Bone

Spirituality is the underlying force that drives Bone. Beliefs that are initially presented as remote superstitions are slowly revealed to be basic laws of nature. They are also the basis for a significant portion of the Valley’s culture and practices and the catalyst for several main characters’ core arcs.

Fone is introduced as a nonbeliever and ends up as a spiritual figure. He is an outsider to Valley culture and is therefore unfamiliar with its religion. For the majority of the story, he remains polite and incredulous when regarding “the local belief system” (690). Even after foiling Briar’s ritual, he tends to rationalize his experiences with the Dreaming with scientific explanations: “Everybody just stay calm. This is just a hallucination! We’re probably breathing some underground gas or something” (865). By Part 9, however, not only is he convinced of the Dreaming’s existence and importance, but he also aids Thorn on what is essentially a spiritual mission and is rewarded with something akin to canonization: Taneal represents him in a carved prayer stone.

Briar and Phoney both employ pathos and quasi-religious language to motivate their audiences. While Phoney encourages the townsfolk to return to “the path of righteousness” by following him (567, 582, 591), Briar engages her army in a worshipful call-and-response—“So sayeth the Lord of the Locusts!” (538-39)—extoling her master’s will. This point offsets Bone’s core theme of spirituality. Though faith is taken as a driving force for good in the narrative, it can easily be tainted by deceitful, self-serving authority figures like Briar, Tarsil the Usurper, and, to a lesser extent, Phoney.

Decentralized spirituality is positioned in contrast to organized worship. Antagonistic figures like the Hooded One and Tarsil the Usurper are both presented as fanatical leaders crusading against dragons and dragon worshippers. Tarsil spearheads a restrictive, state-sponsored religion wherein heretics are “burnt at the stake until dead” (1076). Likewise, Briar worships a malicious entity and rallies others to violence on his behalf. Both are motivated by vengeance in some form or fashion, and both impose their beliefs on others. Conversely, Thorn develops and explores her personal relationship to the dragons and the Dreaming, which dictates the course of her faith. Her willingness to interact with these forces allows her to restore cosmic balance and take the throne.

While the spiritualities in Bone are developed to include their own unique imagery and practices, their traditions and symbols also bear a resemblance to real-world religions. Bone is littered with pagan, Judeo-Christian, and pre-Christian symbology. The recurring image of Mim encircling the world by holding her mouth in her tail is overtly similar to the ouroboros, a symbol of eternal cyclicality recorded in ancient Chinese, Egyptian, and Greek art. Mim bears a particular similarity to the Norse Jӧrmungandr and the Leviathan as described in the Zohar, both of which are serpents encircling the world with their tails grasped in their mouths. We can also see an Eden-like paradise in the world prior to the Locust’s invasion (1175), prominently depicting two nude humans, one male and one female. Perhaps the most recognizable real-world tradition represented in Bone is the pre-Christian-turned-Christmastime tradition of bringing a fir tree into one’s home to celebrate the winter solstice.