The Last Unicorn

Schmendrick the Magician is one of the unicorn’s allies along the road. He has green eyes and a “face frighteningly young for a grown man—untraveled by time, unvisited by grief or wisdom” (27). Schmendrick’s primary conflict stems from his struggle to control his magic. During his introduction, Schmendrick works as an entertainer for Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival. However, his tricks are small and often have unintended results. Schmendrick can work true magic, but his competence is lacking. This is best displayed when he tries to free the unicorn from her cage. On his first try, he creates only an illusion, and on his third try, he shrinks the cage. However, his second try allows a glimpse at the depth of his abilities. Schmendrick manages to summon “Something gray and grinning, something like a bear, but bigger than a bear, something […] eager to crack the cage like a nut and pick out bits of the unicorn’s flesh with its claws” (45). When Schmendrick cannot banish this unseen horror, he admits to having summoned it before but “couldn’t handle him then either” (45). This display hints at the depth of Schmendrick’s skill and the danger his mediocrity at magic poses to himself and others. Schmendrick continues to grapple with his magic abilities throughout the story, making multiple mistakes along the way that earn him trouble. After being captured by Jack Jingly, Schmendrick laments that “The magic knows what it wants to do, […] But I never know what it knows. Not at the right time, anyway” (72). After rescuing the unicorn by changing her into a human, Schmendrick reveals his curse. Schmendrick’s mentor Nikos believed Schmendrick’s “ineptitude is so vast, [his] incompetence so profound” that Nikos is “certain [Schmendrick is] inhabited by a greater power than [Nikos has] ever known” (149). Certain that only time can give Schmendrick a grasp of his power, Nikos curses Schmendrick to “not age from this day forth” (150) until he masters his abilities.

When Schmendrick transforms the unicorn into a human, he is ecstatic. Though Molly and the unicorn are horrified by this magic, Schmendrick realizes for the first time how capable he is and how powerful his magic is. Though Schmendrick spends several chapters working for King Haggard and performing his carnival tricks, it becomes evident that he has grown his understanding of magic. In the final chapters, Schmendrick manages to light a dark hall, enchant a skull to speak, and finally return the unicorn to her true form, all without blunder. The successful transformation of the Lady Amalthea back into her human form sets Schmendrick free from his curse and restores his mortality, allowing him to proceed into the world as a wise wizard.

Molly Grue is a woman in her late thirties, who has lived a hard outlaw life among Captain Cully and his men. She is adept at cooking, weaving, and proofreading. Molly’s story arc follows her freedom from her old life and her renewed spirit upon meeting the unicorn. She also acts as a foil to Schmendrick since she is aged beyond her years while Schmendrick is stuck in his youthful body.

At her introduction, Molly is described as “suspicious, pinched, dour, prematurely old, even a touch tyrannical” (76-77). She’s a “thin thorn of a woman” with “a pale, bony face with fierce, tawny eyes and hair the color of dead grass” (75). Molly is responsible for cooking for Cully’s entire band of outlaws. However, Molly’s life changes when she encounters the unicorn for the first time. Upon first glimpse of the unicorn, Molly “neither moved not spoke, but her tawny eyes were suddenly big with tears” (95). While Molly is reverent of the unicorn’s majesty, she is heartbroken that the unicorn did not visit her sooner. She asks, “what good is it to me that you’re here now? Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?” (96). Molly feels she has missed out on something important by not seeing a unicorn while she was young and full of innocence. Her hard life has made her disillusioned to the point where she mourns what her younger self could have become if only a unicorn had shown up. However, she must still retain some level of innocence since she is one of few people who recognized her as a unicorn—aside from Schmendrick and Mommy Fortuna, Molly is the only human to recognize the unicorn.

After joining Schmendrick and the unicorn along their journey, Molly “was becoming a softer country, full of pools and caves, where old flowers came burning out of the ground” (104). Her spirit seems to have been renewed, and she visibly changes in the unicorn’s presence. “Her rough hair bloomed, her skin quickened, and her voice was nearly as gentle to all things as it was when she spoke to the unicorn” (104). Molly sings and walks along barefooted, showing how the unicorn has brought wonder and innocence back to her life. For the rest of the story, Molly takes the role of a support character for Schmendrick and Prince Lír. She encourages Schmendrick to seek the magic within himself and advises Lír on how to communicate with Lady Amalthea. Even when she is bound to the scullery of King Haggard’s castle, she still sings and nurtures any who seek her guidance. As the story wraps up, Molly continues to travel with Schmendrick. Their destination is unclear, but their experiences with the unicorn have bonded them together in an unlikely friendship.

Prince Lír is the adopted son of King Haggard, and he is destined to fulfil the witch’s curse and bring the fall of Haggard’s castle. Before Lír’s introduction, the questing party learns of him through Captain Cully and through the people of Hagsgate. Cully and Jack Jingly, who think negatively of King Haggard, accuse Schmendrick of being Prince Lír. Jack says Lír “plays the gormless innocent, but he’s the devil for deception” (89). Later, the people of Hagsgate explain that Lír had a heroic birth, being discovered in the snow, kept warm by cats who “purred prophecy” (121). Because the witch’s curse requires that someone from Hagsgate bring the fall of Haggard’s castle, the people of Hagsgate knew that Lír was the one, causing Drinn to “[chase] the cats away” and leave Lír to die in the snow (122). However, King Haggard found Lír and claimed him as his own son, leaving the people of Hagsgate warily awaiting the day Haggard’s castle falls.

In person, Lír is immediately captivated by Lady Amalthea. When he removes his helmet and introduces himself to Molly, Schmendrick, and Lady Amalthea, “His smile wriggled at their feet like a hopeful puppy” (160). Lír’s eagerness to please stems from his fixation on Amalthea. To impress Amalthea, Lír accomplishes many great feats. He climbs mountains, slays dragons, vanquishes demons, and faces many great and dangerous tasks. He declares, “For [Amalthea’s] sake, I have become a hero—I, sleepy Lír, my father’s sport and shame—but I might just as well have remained the dull fool I was” (177). This is another aspect of the unicorn’s magic despite her being in human form—her proximity has made a previously mediocre man into a hero, thus breaking the spell of the Fear of Mediocrity and setting in motion the climax of the story. When his heroism fails to win Amalthea’s attention, he begins to write anonymous poetry to her. Finally, he fatefully encounters Amalthea fresh from a nightmare and consoles her, sparking their love affair.

Though Lír is kind-hearted and heroic, he wants nothing to do with the fall of King Haggard. He states that he’s “the enemy of any who plot against [Haggard], and it would take more than a crone’s gibberish to make me work for his downfall” (243-44). Despite Lír’s feelings about his adoptive father, his sense of heroic duty leads him to sacrifice himself to save the unicorn, unwittingly setting in motion the events that would cause the fall of Haggard’s castle. Lír dies at the hooves of the Red Bull, but he is reborn in the final chapter at the touch of the unicorn’s horn. As King Lír, he wishes to follow the unicorn, “never seeing her, perhaps, but content” (274). However, Schmendrick and Molly convince Lír to stay in his country and rule, righting the wrongs of his father.

King Haggard is “an old man, stingy as late November, who rules over a barren country by the sea” (56). Tales of Haggard tell of how “the land was green and soft once, before Haggard came, but he touched it and it withered” (56). Haggard is joyless and lives a life of minimalism in his castle, keeping “nothing near [him] that does not make [him] happy” (161). He keeps a bare minimum of staff on hand, consisting of only four elderly men-at-arms. King Haggard is so stingy that he refused to pay the witch who built his castle. As a result, his castle is doomed to eventually crumble into the sea.

The one thing that brings King Haggard joy is unicorns. As a boy, he saw a pair of unicorns by a stream, and “thought [he] was going to die” (219). Haggard ordered the Red Bull to round up every unicorn on earth for Haggard’s own joy. The Red Bull imprisoned the unicorns in the sea, where Haggard can watch them come in and out on the tides, never daring to escape.

When Schmendrick, Molly, and Amalthea come to his castle, Haggard, against the guidance of his former magician Mabruk, allows them to stay and work in his castle. Though Haggard is disturbed by the reflectionless nature of Lady Amalthea’s eyes, he permits her to remain in his presence, showing how early his suspicions about her true nature began. In Chapter 12, King Haggard reveals that he knows the Lady Amalthea is the last unicorn and grows angry that she does not remember that part of herself. Shortly after, Schmendrick, Molly, and Amalthea discover the secret of the clock, allowing them to pass through to the Red Bull’s tunnel. Out of fear and desperation, knowing they intend to defeat the bull and free his unicorns, Haggard destroys the clock. In the final moments of Chapter 13, Haggard “fell down through the wreckage of his disenchanted castle like a knife dropped through clouds. Molly heard him laugh once, as though he had expected it. Very little ever surprised King Haggard” (267). Haggard, unable to do anything to stop it, goes down with his castle, fulfilling the witch’s prophetic curse. His selfishness and stinginess ultimately led to his fall.

The Red Bull is a huge, hulking bull-like creature. He is smoldering red, blind, and obeys King Haggard’s wishes. As Haggard describes, “[The Red Bull] can only tell the difference between what I want and what I do not want” (219). In Chapter 11, one of Haggard’s men-at-arms confesses that they stay with Haggard because Haggard wishes them to stay, “and what King Haggard wishes or does not wish is the only concern of the Red Bull. We are Haggard’s minions, but we are the Red Bull’s prisoners” (191). The Red Bull is feared by not only Haggard’s men but also by the men of Hagsgate and the unicorn, who has never been afraid of anything in her life. The origins of the Red Bull are unknown, but he is very old, older than the unicorn. There are “too many tales and each argues with one another” (56) about the Red Bull’s nature and relationship with Haggard.

The Red Bull is destructive, wrecking everything in his path, including Prince Lír. Because the Red Bull’s only goal is to herd the unicorn into the sea, he struggles to know what to do when the unicorn fights back. Ultimately, the unicorn’s fury drives him into the sea, where, upon submerging himself, thousands of unicorns emerge and reclaim their freedom.