On the Threshold

The use of an idea

Liminality. It comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. And those poised on the threshold may find it like limbo.

And it's really useful in fantasy.

Usually the hero transitions through liminality in some way. First the character is removed from his normal condition, then he is transformed, then he settles down into a new condition. This can be your full blown character arc.

Beyond that -- going on a journey is a liminal state, one of transition. Getting married. Having a child. Growing up -- this is one reason why the adolescent/young adult¹ is so popular as a character. Becoming the king -- from a farmboy, of course, but also from a Crown Prince.

Folklore has always found liminal stages in life to be dangerous, open to the peril of malefic magic. A useful trope.

Then there are permanently liminal things -- places, beings, whatever. Crossroads, gates, ports, shores -- mountains (between the land and air). Borders between countries, localities, farms even.

Times, of course, are always shifting to a new time. Dawn, sunset, midnight, sometimes noon; New Year's Day; solstices, equinoxes and quarter days. Which can be convenient to schedule significant events -- though cliche is always a danger -- especially for midnight.

The inverse is also true. Many significant events are liminal. The times when the lands of the living and the dead draw near to each other are liminal -- even if not New Year's or some other additionally liminal day -- and so suitable for propitiating dead.

At the other extreme, such days can be carnivals where everything is turned upside down. People wear costumes -- and those who can not afford new costumes wear each other's clothes, thus blurring the distinction between them. People revel and dance together without respect to their stations. Perhaps even a Lord of Misrule of low status is appointed to order about everyone at a royal court.

For quotidian uses, liminal characters extend their state over times and can appear in all sorts of situations. Hybrids of species. The werewolf, both beast and man. The vampire, both alive and dead. They may both be cliche, but they are both definitely liminal in nature. Centaurs, fauns, winged humans, and other creatures who are part one creature and part another. The stereotypical blind seer or other handicapped person with powers is both less and more than ordinary humans in ability. A speaking tree is both intelligent and a plant; a talking dragon is both intelligent and a beast. Encounters with them can be numinous, transformative -- though all too often it's just part of the local color, not played for every penny it's worth.

It takes real rhetorical skill to play up the liminal aspects, particularly with familiar creatures. Introduce a faun, and people will think, oh, a faun. You need to harp on the human form and the goat legs, playing up the contrast.

And then there's its plot device use.

Playing up the rhetoric for all its worth really helps here. There is nothing like going to the shore by moonlight or starlight and standing where the waves lap your feet but withdraw back to the ocean to underscore that uncanny things are going to happen.

At that, they can be useful in dealing with magical problems. The great rule of magical predictions, protections, and curses is that they always use the word in its most limited sense. Consequently, a curse that "On no day will you ever seen your beloved again" means that you need only wait until nightfall, and all is clear.

Once that becomes clear, the sagacious villain starts to be exhaustive. Neither night nor day -- and then you have to time it carefully to hit the exact moment between.

Well, more or less between. Your magical world might strive mightily to measure time² precisely because precision is magically significant³. On the other hand, it might be more loose. Any moment from when the sun starts to descend below the horizon to full night, past astronomical twilight, when the stars of slightest magnitude become visible.

On the other hand, the wider gap raises more issues for the other thing about liminal times: the danger. States of transformation are dangerous. Those in them are vulnerable. (And yet if the transformation is rushed to escape, there may be danger.)

I played with the ideas once because I had an idea that was only part of a story. I knew exactly how two characters would get into trouble, and how they would get out again, but I didn't know what would flow from that. Or even the setting beyond that they were still attending school.

So I threw ideas about. The setting was the opening days of a boarding school as students arrived, the liminal time between school being open and school being closed. The teachers in residence talked of its liminal aspect and how useful they were in magic, and it was a traditional time for hi-jinks and tricks.

It allowed me to do several useful things while setting up the trouble. And after.

I particularly had fun in that the hero and the three other main character are studying magic that does not turn on liminality. This produces some interesting effects. And other magical elements that did not turn on liminality, to flesh it all out.

You can read the results in Spells In Secret. At Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Smashwords, and many other fine online venues!

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