A closer look at Het Eiland in de Mist

I realized that it might be somewhat odd to have a whole blog dedicated (mostly) to the writing of this book, but not introducing it properly. So here I present a painfully long overview of my Big Masterpiece. Or something.

General storyline

Nimue and Arthur live in a small, coastal village with only their grandmother to take care of them. When a tidal wave destroys the village and kills their grandmother, they are left with nothing but the clothes they are wearing and an old necklace, a token that had belonged to the mother who has left them. While they spend their first days in a refugee camp, they decide to make a run for it when they learn they are to be split up and placed in two different foster homes. When they find themselves chased and nearly captured by strange men in uniforms, they first assume that it is because of their disobedient flight, but something seems off – why are the men armed with guns, and why do they have a small headquarters in the wilderness, a place that most sane people fear and avoid? After a shocking incident, they get the chance to search one of the men’s wallet, and find an identity card belonging to the mysterious Asklepios Congregation, department Investigation & Tracking. In their attempt to evade their pursuers, Nimue and Arthur both discover a frightening power; Nimue keeps hearing voices that seem to come from nowhere, voices that say her name or roar and whisper in a language she doesn’t understand. Arthur, in the meanwhile, grows very upset when he has to shoot a man who later disappears, as though he was never dead. When the two find Will and his group, they learn a lot about the Asklepios Congregation (sometimes called The Snake or simply the Institution) and witness what terrible things they do. They also hear the mythological story of the White Prophet, and when Will accidentally catches Arthur showing Nimue some of his eerie powers, he is determined to make him into the White Prophet and the figurehead of their group, the name that will make the Institution shudder with fear. While Nimue falls for Will head over heels, Arthur distances himself more and more, never forgetting that their real goal is to find their mother, if she is still alive – and if she is, she might be on that mysterious Island in the Mist, the island that their grandmother used to tell them about in story and song.  

World

The world of Het Eiland in de Mist is set in the near-ish future. Society has been brought back to a more Industrial age while trying to recover from a severe bio-war. The most important place in Nimue and Arthur’s world is Central Europe, ruled from the distant capitol of Rome. Most of the European continent has been divided into four categories: 

The core of the human habitat, where mankind has reclaimed most of their control, though remnants of the bio-war’s illnesses seem to be rearing once more.

The provincial areas

The periphery, a girdle used mainly as a buffer zone between the safe areas and the wilderness. They are thinly populated and generally poor. Gwennec, the town closest to Arthur and Nimue’s home village, is in the periphery, and is located in what used to be Brittany.

A rough map, mostly to aid myself in writing.

The wilderness, which covers most of Scandinavia (now called Lapland), and the entirety of Russia and Mongolia, though it is assumed that small places are still inhabited.

While most domestic technology has disappeared, there is still some advanced machinery, usually issued by the government: refrigerators in a grocery store seem to be a thing of mild wonder for Arthur and Nimue, there are great machines for pumping oil, a few cars and tarmac roads, and there are trains connecting the towns even from Gwennec, although the periphery most commonly uses carts pulled by donkeys. The more densely populated areas, specifically Rome, are more advanced and the Asklepios Congregation has an elaborate laboratory.

Characters

Nimue, the main character, as the story is told from a first person perspective. At the beginning of the first book, she’s around sixteen years old. After their grandmother’s dead, she feels responsible to take care of Arthur. She has a survivalist instinct, which comes in handy, but knows next to nothing about the skills necessary to actually survive. In the first book, she stubbornly tries to keep up being a vegetarian, but finds this is hard when you’ve nothing but birds and rabbits to shoot. Between Arthur and herself, she is the one angriest about her mother leaving them, and when Will draws her into his group, she is ready to fight the Institution with whatever means, despite Arthur’s reservations.

Nimue appears to have a very deep, almost shamanistic connection with the land. Especially in the wilderness, she hears voices and sees things move.  This initially terrifies her beyond words, though she slowly learns that the voices might sometimes be useful to her.

Arthur is just about thirteen years old when the story starts. While it is mostly Nimue who is in charge, he sometimes is the one to make radical decisions. He is less hesitant to use a gun, and has more faith in the story that their mother is actually somewhere out there, possibly on the real Island in the Mist. His close bond with Nimue gradually begins to fall apart as they arrive at Will’s camp and Nimue gets caught up in the revolt. When Will discovers that Arthur has a very dangerous and potent sort of power, he wants to use him as a figurehead, the White Prophet, and start a real war against the Asklepios Congregation.

Will is the charismatic leader of a group of lost boys and girls, most of them victims of the Institution whom he managed to rescue. He is described as “smoking a cigarette and wearing no coat”. He is close with the hard core of the group, especially Mirna, Merdred and Corentin. When Nimue and Arthur arrive, he has a flirt with Nimue and later gets involved with her. His primary goal is to destroy the Institution completely and without mercy, and he’s done his research. While appearing to be a generally nice, optimistic sort of guy, he has a dark side indeed – one that Arthur and Nimue suspect all along, though Nimue chooses not to see it for a long while.

Mirna is the girl closest to Will before Nimue comes along. Her history with the Asklepios Congregation is traumatic, and she has the scars to remind her of this. When Nimue steals Will away, she becomes very hostile though she does agree to help her and Arthur get into the Institution, where she is caught for a second time and injected with the pathogens that the Institution is experimenting with.

Merdred is Mirna’s brother. He’s a bit of a background guy, but he is always in the vicinity. He has a dangerous quality, that fully shows when Mirna falls fatally ill.

Corentin is Will’s right-hand man and best friend. He also really clicks with Arthur. He is clever, but not quite as sharp as Will is, and generally a good-natured, can-do kind of guy. When he dies in a disastrous accident, it shocks the whole community, but it affects Will most of all triggers a full-blown, dangerous attack at one of the Institution’s headquarters.

 Broc, one of the children in the group. He’s still a young child, but heavily traumatized. He has got only one leg, having lost the other while he was captured by the Institution.

Katell is a young girl with “hair like the fluff of a dandelion”. Nimue and Arthur meet her once, at the refugee’s camp in Gwennec, just after the tidal wave. She appears very ill and is taken away by the doctors after Nimue warns them of her condition. They come across her a second time when they learn that she’s briefly been part of Will’s group, but is gone now. Nimue begins to suspect that Katell has in fact fallen prey to Will’s darker schemes, trading her to the Institution.

Mythology

The world of Het Eiland in de Mist has some mythology that is significant to the storylines and characters. This isn’t about mythology that I used as inspiration for the whole book; see Arthurian References below for a bit on that subject.

The Island in the Mist: a mysterious island that is supposedly to be reached from a place called Camlann. Arthur and Nimue know about it from their grandmother, although it’s unclear whether she made it up herself or that she is referring to older, existing stories. It is believed that there once was a woman who left her home from a place called Camlann, and travelled in a boat until the mists disappeared and she had reached the island. Though she was allowed to stay and live there, she could only do so when she vowed to never return home. While this grieved her, the woman eventually forgot about the place she had left, and remained on the island forever.

Nimue tells this story in greater detail when she is with the people of Will’s group, but she and Arthur originally know it as a nursery rhyme:

Ga je, ga je met haar mee,

Over de golven, over de zee

Kom van Camlann, stap in je boot

Laat niets je scheiden, geen leven of dood

Stuur langs de klippen en stuur langs de mist

Vaar naar het eiland waar niemand je mist.

(Are you, are you going with her

Across the waves, across the sea

Come from Camlann, step into your boat

Let nothing part you, no life or death

Steer past the cliffs and steer past the mist

Sail to the island where no one will miss you)

Ga je, ga je met haar mee

Over de golven, over de zee

Ze gaat naar de mensen die schrijven in stenen

Ze gaat naar de plekken die zijn verdwenen

Stuur langs de klippen en stuur langs de mist

Dan vind je het eiland waar niemand van wist

(Are you, are you going with her

Across the waves, across the sea

She comes to the people writing in stones

She comes to the places that have been forgotten

Steer past the cliffs and steer past the mist

Then you’ll find the island that no one knew of)

Ga je,  ga je met haar mee

Over de golven, over de zee

De wind staat west en draait niet meer

De boot is gebroken en vaart niet meer

Stuur langs de klippen en stuur langs de mist

Ze blijft op het eiland tot ze niemand meer mist.

(Are you, are you going with her

Across the waves, across the sea

The wind is west and will turn no more

The boat has broken and will sail no more

Steer past the cliffs and steer past the mist

She stays on the island until no one she’ll miss)

The White Prophet: a mysterious figure that seems to inspire Will’s children most of all. It is explained that he is not real, but at the same time he is everyone who wants to be him. Mirna also mentions that the White Prophet has no stories of his own, but rather “slips into other stories, when you least expect him. He is like a shadow.” Nevertheless, there is one story that deals with the becoming of the very first White Prophet. This happens in the first days of the world “when man was made from fire and clay.” Man and woman initially lived on their mounting in contentment, provided by the land. Their firstborn son was named Wind, but he died early and his parents grieved. Their second child, a daughter they named Blossom, grew up healthy, but was one day snatched by a wild bear and killed. Broken, it took a long while for the people to have new children, but eventually the woman gave birth to a twin, both boys. One was strong and healthy – they named him Flame for his red hair. But the other one was pale and sickly, though his eyes were like pools of starlight. Having grown bitter from her losses, the woman decided that it is better for the ill child to be left on his own somewhere in the wild, thinking he will surely not make it.

But the boy is found by a white wolf and survives; he grows up in the valley below, while his human family builds stone houses and walls to cut themselves off from the land. Half a wild beast and half a man, he finds himself alienated from his parents and brother when he tries to stop them from destroying the forest. Three times he pleads with them, and three times they send him away. Then the nameless boy touches the walls around the mountain, and where he touches them, vines and flowers begin to grow, crumbling the stones. Eventually the mountain splits into two halves. On one side, the boy with his mother wolf remain to live in the forest, on the other side his human family build houses, towns and factories.

The children of Will’s group agree that the White Prophet wants to destroy the safe human habitat in favour of the dangerous wild, and that he identifies himself carrying a white stone, the bone of the earth. It is debated whether he is a villain or the good guy.

The Wild: though not a specific person, the wilderness of the uninhabited areas is often perceived as an antagonistic place, full of vengeful spirits. Accordingly, the earth is bent on reclaiming her territory after humans have long abused and nearly destroyed her. Even those not believing in the animation of nature stay clear of the tangled woods and old, abandoned sites for fear of wild animals and infected places.

Arthurian references

While Het Eiland in de Mist is in no way a retelling of the Arthurian legends, there are some obvious references.  

Clearly, the island itself. I think most people will realize that there is a definite link to Avalon here. The island in itself isn’t meant to be Avalon though, and the whole story has absolutely nothing to do with the popular The Mists of Avalon. The indigenous people of the island are called the Danu, however. Danu was an old Irish mother goddess, and it is said that she brought forth the Tuatha Dé Danann (“The Peoples of Danu”), who in turn were great heroes, kings and gods before human kind came and forced them to retreat under the hills, where gradually they turned into the Irish fairies.

Arthur and Nimue. Their names aren’t picked at random, though they are not destined to follow into the mythological footsteps of their namesakes entirely.  

Originally, Nimue was the Lady of the Lake, the one who held up Excalibur from the water and thusly allowed Arthur to rise as king. Some stories tell that she was an apprentice of Merlin, whom she later seduced and imprisoned in a tree. Or maybe it was Merlin who fell in love with the young girl, and she, out of fear, locked him up. Either way, their relationship was a bit shady and has nothing to do with Het Eiland in de Mist. In the story, we first meet Nimue when a tidal wave hits her house and she has to struggle to survive. While momentarily pushed under water, she hears voices calling her name. Later, Will sometimes refers to her as “Nimue of the sea”. Most importantly, though, Nimue is the one who enables Arthur to become the White Prophet, even though he eventually refuses this role. She acts as the catalyst to her brother becoming a figurehead of Will’s revolt against the Institution. There are no swords here, but she does give Arthur a gun.

Arthur is, of course, named after the legendary Once and Future King. My Arthur has no kingship, but people around him try to push him into being the White Prophet, something he refuses. From the beginning, he and his sister journey to a place called Camlann – a place from where the nursery rhyme tells that a boat to the Island in de Mist can be taken. It is in Camlann that King Arthur fought his last battle against his son Mordred, and just like him, my Arthur will not make it from the place alive. And, just as the mythology tells that Morgan LeFay came and took the wounded king in a boat to carry him over the waters to Avalon, Nimue will row her brother to the Island in the Mist.