Six Crimson Cranes

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-17

Chapters 18-26

Chapters 27-32

Chapters 33-40

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Animals

As per traditional fairy tales and folktales, Lim incorporates animals in Six Crimson Cranes to indirectly characterize humans. As indicated by its title, the novel’s most prominent animal is the red-crowned crane. In Chinese and Japanese folklore, cranes symbolize loyalty and nobility—characteristics that Shiori’s brothers embody in their duty to their sister and empire. Furthermore, Kiki, Shiori’s enchanted paper crane, proves her most loyal companion.

In Chinese folklore in particular, dragons are powerful, regal creatures. Lim showcases their power when Shiori and her brothers narrowly escape the Dragon King when crossing the Taijin Sea, and even Seryu has to remind Shiori that he cannot always defend her against his grandfather. As a young dragon, Seryu exhibits many characteristics of a human teenager: He is earnest, playful, and tries to navigate his jealousy as he witnesses Shiori’s feelings for Takkan change. By characterizing Seryu in this way, Lim makes him relatable to Shiori, further proving to her that magic and non-humans do not always need to be feared.

Snakes appear in fairy tales, folklore, and mythology all over the world and are often characterized as cunning. Their stealthy, subtle movements juxtapose with their ability to strike quickly, which Shiori witnesses in Raikama. Raikama’s quiet demeanor makes it difficult for Shiori and her brothers to believe that she is a powerful sorceress, until she suddenly strikes with a devastating curse. However, Raikama proves a sacrificial figure, making her and the novel’s snake-related symbolism less malicious and more so secretive, a necessary evil to protect the royal children from the true antagonists.

Similarly, wolves are often portrayed as cunning, feared predators. Though not explicitly drawing upon the fairy tale of “Little Red Riding Hood,” Six Crimson Cranes does utilize the archetype of the “Big Bad Wolf”—a menacing character who can disguise itself to better manipulate others. As a shape-shifting enchanter, the Wolf (Bandur) manipulates everyone around him, all for the sake of ruling the Holy Mountains’ demons.

Clothes

The clothes worn by characters symbolize their status. At the beginning of the novel, Shiori’s betrothal ceremony outfit is made of “a god’s ransom of silk” (2), and the physical burden of the heavy robes mirror the emotional burden she feels at having to grow up and marry. When Shiori is cast away to Tianyi by Raikama’s curse, she is dressed in a walnut bowl and rags, with no possessions to indicate her identity. Her lost slipper, which Takkan finds on the beach, is an element that Lim borrows from “Cinderella”—a fairy tale in which a prince searches for a princess with nothing but her glass slipper, not imagining that an impoverished girl could be the woman he seeks. After months of hardships, Shiori dressing up for Iro’s Winter Festival suggests that she is close to reclaiming her true identity.

The sentinels’ armor signals to everyone, even the remote villagers of Tianyi, of their respectable status. While Lim primarily uses clothes as a marker of identity, in some instances, she uses them to conceal. In addition to Shiori’s walnut bowl, which conceals her face, sentinels Takkan and Hasege impersonate each other while searching for the royal children. This creates initial tension between Shiori and the Bushians, as Hasege (under the guise of Takkan) is cruel to her, before she learns the truth—that her kind sentinel is Takkan (initially under the guise of his “cousin” Hasege). Clothing is an effective way for characters to hide the truth in plain sight, as Guiya does with her poisoned golden thread and various guises.

Shiori’s Childhood Songs

Elizabeth Lim utilizes Shiori and Raikama’s songs about Channari as a motif to connect them. With so few memories of her birth mother, Shiori feels especially close to her when she sings these songs to herself. She sings these songs in times of hardship, as they distract her from arduous tasks, like cooking at the Sparrow Inn and stitching Takkan’s wound. Lim also utilizes the songs as a tool of foreshadowing, a subtle hint that Channari is actually Raikama: Channari “was a girl who lived by the sea,” and is “waiting for her sister” (303). Without realizing it, Shiori has long found strength and comfort in memories of her stepmother rather than her birth mother (as her memories were enchanted), the only mother she’s known, and has always known Raikama’s true name—Channari. Channari, which Raikama explains means “moon-faced girl,” also evokes the folklore of Imurinya, an immortal who lives on the moon, whose story parallels Raikama’s.