"Bone" Reflection: Part 2

Smith, Jeff, "Bone" Book 4, p. 60.

I led off the previous post with the word “tears." There’s just so much I identify with here. Thorn and the Bone cousins are orphans. Thorn and Fone Bone are called to great heights, great destinies. Rose and Lucius exemplify bravery and courage every minute of the saga, through repeated near-death experiences. They all, even Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone, overcome so many obstacles that both the powers that be, and other persons, continually throw at them.

On the one hand, Fone Bone overcomes such obstacles by standing tall, speaking truth, and challenging anyone that dares to pervert the truth or dares to hurt anyone that he cares about. I want to be that man.

On the other hand, Phoney Bone, someone I don’t want to be like, angers so many people that he has at least five separate incidents where he is very nearly strangled to death or strung up, saved only because someone powerful enough intervenes, like Thorn, or Rose, or Lucius. Or even Wendell, on one occasion.

Is it dumb luck that Phoney survives? Perhaps. Then again, a few of the times that Fone survives (and even Smiley survives) is because someone or something intervenes. To me, if this kind of storyline happens in real life, I would say that that’s God’s grace.

I identify with so much here: bravery; standing tall; overcoming obstacles; experiencing life throwing obstacles repeatedly, that, if not overcome, leads to death; God’s grace; people sticking together; friendship; loyalty…

I’ve skipped one storyline here. I don’t even know how to describe it, but here goes: unrequited love but tenderness reciprocated nonetheless. Halfway through, Fone completely resigns himself to the fact that Thorn won't return to him the feelings he has he for her.

Yet it doesn’t deter him from committing to the cause of peace in all the land. It also doesn’t deter him from sharing so many tangible experiences with her: numerous near-escapes from large numbers of rat creatures hunting them down; stepping in and out of ghost circles; facing Kingdok, a giant rat creature who commands all the rat creature armies and reports to the Hooded One; facing Roque Ja (a much-oversized mountain lion who only looks after himself); facing the Hooded One; pursuing the Crown of Horns.

Fone willingly faces this disappointing fact with Thorn. He not only supports her in her mission, but he also challenges her when he thinks she isn’t right in the head or in danger of making a bad decision, and he encourages her when things seem hopeless or she doesn’t know what to do. And for all the evidence that I certainly see in the first half of this long saga, from Phoney repeating it to Fone, to me reading about it in the plot lines on Wikipedia, I think that in the end, Thorn comes around.

[As a side note: when I bought each individual book at a time early on in the saga, I would go on to Wikipedia and read ahead where the storyline was going to go. I didn’t mind the spoilers.]

Thorn wants Fone to stay and help her rule the newly-reestablished kingdom. (Thorn becomes crowned queen when all the battles have finally been won.) Only at this time does the opportunity finally come for the Bone cousins to be able to go back home to Boneville. And she instead wants Fone to stay with her. She wants him to rule with her.

And Fone chooses to return to Boneville instead.