“Love is the only thing that makes watching the world bearable.”

It seems the stars watch us, just as we watch the stars. Yvaine has been watching the world for centuries. She has seen all the wars and cruelty, but she has also seen the love. Now she has fallen to earth, and many people want to find her. If she had landed in our part of the world, she’d have been a meteorite, but because she landed in a magical part of the world, she is in human form. This is the stuff fairy tales are made of.

Stardust is a delightful fairy tale, as long as you remember it’s a bit of fluff and don’t try to delve too deep. It is filled with witches and nasty princes and pirates in a flying ship, and of course, a simple man on a quest. Tristan Thorn wants to find the fallen star to prove his love and worthiness to the girl of his dreams (who has no time for him.) But he’s not the only one after the star. A witch wants to cut out the star’s heart and use it for eternal life and beauty. A set of ruthless princes each wants the stone that Yvaine is wearing so that one of them might become king. The quests all converge on Yvaine, but only one is really worthy of what she has to offer.

It can be fun to visit fantasy worlds like we find in Stardust. We, like Tristan, are strangers to the different ways and physical realities that make up such a world. It allows us to marvel at all the ways the world is different when it is imbued with a bit of magic. We may wish that we could experience some of that magic.

But we also see all the ways that such a magical world is very like our own. There is still lusting and striving after power or after a beauty that is only skin deep or for life that may be eternal, but not worth living. We recognize that these darker qualities are part of our world just as much as the fantasy world. It gives us a chance to reflect on our own penchant for these darker qualities. We may even discover that much of our own daily quests are after such dubious rewards. We may think we identify with Tristan, but often we model ourselves after Prince Septimus or Lamia the witch.

Like Yvaine, we have seen violence and cruelty. We have even done our share of inflicting pain. We may not want to see it anymore, but we keep watching our own world because love makes it bearable. Indeed, it is not power or the external trappings that make life itself worth living, but love.

As with most quest stories, this one isn’t so much about getting what one is seeking as it is about the discoveries along the way. No one ever comes back from a quest as the same person who started it. Just by taking part in the quest, one changes and grows. Along the way we may find not only what we seek, but even more.

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