Sparkle Valley Philosophy: Abigail

2. Mai

2 Min. Lesezeit

Aktualisiert: 5. Okt.

Abigail animates the story. She’s Emily’s spark that refuses to go out.

More than a doll

If you think back to when you were a little, you probably remember a favorite toy or doll. You would take that doll with you everywhere, play with it, take naps with it, tuck it in at night. You loved that doll. What if that doll loved you back? That's Abigail.

She's Emily’s doll. But she's also a lot more than that. She's Emily’s spark, her muse, her Blue Flower. And she’s a hero.

Abigail approaching a waterfall in the Wrong Way River into Sparkle Valley in a pink umbrella boat — Abigail on the Wrongly River into Sparkle Valley

Abigail’s not perfect. She gets angry, even at Emily. But she's loyal. She's there for Emily, always. And when she falls, and she does quite often, she always gets up.

Love is the source

So where does all this energy and courage come from? She’s just a doll after all, right? The answer is simple. Love. She's Emily's love and courage, come to life.

Duty and the Leap

Thinking philosophically, you might see some Kant in Abigail in terms of what you do matters when no one is watching. Abigail does have a sense of duty and you can’t question her loyalty, but it’s a mistake to define Abigail by abstract logic or philosophy. She’s conviction—feeling. Full stop.

We see this in Book 1 when the Queen of Mean takes Abigail‘s locket and throws it in the chasm. Abigail leaps after it right away and philosophically you might see echoes of Kierkegaard and his “leap of faith.” Abigail leaps into the abyss and literally is saying that she believes. Not in a God or anything like that (and this is important). She’s believes in feeling itself. She believes in Emily. She’s declaring her faith in feeling. And not only that, she’s willing to risk her life for it. It’s an exquisite moment.

And this is something she does across the whole series. She carries that burden of belief, her fight to believe, to feel. It all comes from her, and it’s literally the emotional architecture of the story.

She does this in Book 1 when she fights it to hold Emily’s world together by defeating the Queen of Mean. Then in Book 2, she joins the Resistance to fight against a world that is becoming mechanical and lost. Finally, in Book 3, she faces the ultimate choice and this is where she becomes something more profound than just Emily‘s protector. She becomes her sacrifice.

Her refusal to take the Powder of Life in Book 3 is the definitive act in the series. She is choosing meaning over being (a radical inversion of Kant). And only love does that. Abigail is the part of Emily that would rather lose everything than let that love die.